Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction Read online

  It’s just a complication.

  I know that. It says that. Why don’t you ever want to talk about work?

  I don’t not want to talk about work.

  Well, now’s your chance.

  Okay. During anaesthetic paralysis, the patient receives what we call intermittent positive pressure ventilation, or IPPV. If sufficient anaesthesia isn’t maintained at that stage, it’s possible for him or her to be completely conscious, in terrible pain, and totally incapable of movement or speech. It’s a nightmare situation, worthy of Poe, but in the tradition of medical understatement we simply call it ‘awareness’.

  Could be the dream cure this mad woman’s been looking for.

  That’s why I don’t talk about the hospital.

  You don’t like it when I refer to my condition.

  I don’t like it when you talk nonsense.

  That’s what mad people do.

  You’re not ‘mad’.

  Could you maybe mention it to Dr Burns tomorrow before he throws the switch?

  It’s not electrocution we’re talking about, and you know his name isn’t Dr Burns.

  I bet you love it when I shake.

  You haven’t yet, Gloria. That’s the problem.

  The weather was on. My back was to you, and I was crying. You dried your hands, got hold of the control and turned up the volume. You said I should calm down, make it an early night, have a glass of wine from the bottle of red we’d opened at dinner. You gave me a glass from the drainer, still hot to the touch. The Powergen woman had appeared atop her storm cloud of black umbrellas. I remember her strange smile and the syncopated sound of falling rain, like an erratic pulse on an ECG. You straightened up from pouring the wine, wondered fleetingly where you’d left the cork, passed me the glass, then returned to a corner of the kitchen and picked up the control again. When you turned to me, your face was a question mark with no mask to hide it, for the glass in my hand was flying through the air, tangential as a hailstone.

  Shards of claret rained down. I was seeing red, and red was gushing from your temple.

  For Christ’s sake, Gloria!

  Mad yet? I shouted. Because I certainly am! Tell Dr Burns to wire up the cowstunner!

  Gloria! Calm down!

  I was at your bedroom window and shouting on to the street: Do you hear that, you residential respectables? You bunch of human speed bumps! Well, restrain me, Doctor, why don’t you! Go on. Then fuck me! Fuck me like you’ve been doing from the start!

  I did for you what you couldn’t do for yourself, slowly and by degree that night. I let you let go of your uneasy effort at life. I opened your desk drawer and tossed your horde of checklists out of the window into the street beyond. I reached into your bedroom cupboard for your shoe box of newspaper cuttings, old photos and souvenirs, and I pitched it on to the rubbish skip where that fox had once lingered. I filled your quiet, ordinary street with a maniac’s protests and laughter. That night, for the first time, you felt too much. Insufficient anaesthesia. Awareness.

  Later, in bed, I pulled you out of your sleep, exhausted, and on to me – a dead weight on my thumping heart.

  Then they were wheeling me out of the prep room, past the long ward that smelled of the sweet rot of old flowers, down a ramp, past the mortuary with the insect-stunners on the ceiling, through the pain clinic, and into the treatment room for the final time. I saw the back of you at the anaesthesia machine. On my other side, a nurse I hadn’t seen before was bent over a tray, untangling the delicate filaments of the electrodes. They reminded me of the Crazy String I’d once sprayed over Brutus and all the trees in our garden.

  The doctor is here, the nurse said automatically, so not to worry.

  Call me delusional, I said, but I can’t see him.

  That’s because he’s instructing a group of students, behind the two-way mirror over there.

  All seeing, I quipped.

  Hmmm?

  Like God. It was just a joke.

  If I’m not mistaken, she bristled, there’s a two-way mirror at the back of the Our Price shop on the high street.

  I turned my head to where you stood. You were confirming the colour coordinates on the anaesthesia tubing with a second nurse. Halo-thane, here I come, I said.

  You turned around and it wasn’t you. It wasn’t you.

  Somebody wheeled in an IV drip. I was speaking to the likeness of you, a man in green surgical gear and a mask, and suddenly I couldn’t remember the colour of your eyes. I never have the intravenous, I tried to explain. I always go under with the mask. (Your hand at my face. The two of us counting backwards. The sweet, sultry breeze in my head.)

  The drip is easier, he was telling me. You’re less likely to get excited.

  Excited? Excited how?

  It’s just what we call it. As you lose consciousness, your body might well resist. You might cough or vomit. Your feet might kick the air. Some patients hold their breath, like children trying to turn themselves blue. It rarely happens with the IV induction. It’s easier on you.

  I always go under with the mask. Ask your colleague, Doctor… Doctor… Your surname was gone from my mind. Is he back there, behind the glass?

  A door opened in the mirror and Dr Burns appeared: No, I’m afraid he’s unable to assist today. However, if you prefer the inhalational induction, Gloria, I’m sure –

  Something’s happened to him. Otherwise he’d be here.

  I saw the nurse with the electrodes and the second nurse exchange a look. Dr Burns asked if I’d been given a pre-med.

  She doesn’t usually need one, someone answered.

  I have to go to the mortuary, I said.

  The mortuary?

  I have to go.

  We’ll take you back to the prep room, Gloria, give you a sedative, and see how you feel after that.

  I can’t go anywhere until I’ve been to the mortuary.

  I sat up on the table, swung my sock-feet over the side, and slipped as they hit the polished floor. Then someone was at either elbow and the nurse with the electrodes was saying poor thing, and I knew I’d never be ecstatic again.

  He’s dead, I said quietly. Dr Numb is dead.

  Listen to me, Gloria. We’re taking you back to the prep room. We’ll talk things over there.

  I remember a hushing of voices like white noise in my ear, and a yellow tablet on my tongue.

  When I came to, you were at the edge of my bed, ashen-faced. The gash on your forehead had drawn all the colour from your cheeks. I said, I tried to go to you in the mortuary. They wouldn’t let me go.

  I know, you said.

  The cut…

  I can’t feel it any more.

  How did it all happen?

  I’m not sure.

  I mortified you, didn’t I?

  Never mind now.

  Have there been complaints?

  Some. A couple of notes through my door.

  And here, in the hospital?

  There might be disciplinary procedures. It doesn’t matter.

  Because you can’t feel anything. Because I mortified you.

  I have to go now, Gloria.

  I sat up, circled your waist with my arms, and pressed my streaming face into your chest. Your back was rigid. Your hand, when it finally touched my head, was cold.

  They’re going to try me on the lithium again, I said.

  It won’t be too bad.

  No Saint Gloria.

  No.

  I inhaled the familiar smell of your shirt. What will I do now that you’re gone?

  You’ll be okay.

  Will I? And what about you?

  I’ll live.

  I smiled. It was your first breezy joke.

  I love you, Dr Numb.

  I love you too, Gloria.

  I could feel you leaving me. Suddenly, everything was urgent, and I was speaking through your shirt, into your chest, into the cold, frightened heart of you: I can’t bring you back. Do you understand? I can’t bring you back,
but I can’t be your grave either.

  Through the narrow window in the prep-room door, I watched two porters pass at speed with a stretcher between them. The air is so heavy, I said. Do you find the air heavy?

  Sleep now, you said.

  E-Love: Heloise & Abelard

  Extant Instant Messages

  Heloise: Further intercourse?!

  Abelard: Write anything, even a couple of words if u can. A gift for letters is so rare in women! xxx

  Heloise: If that is an invitation to disputation, it has missed its mark.

  Abelard:;-)) Have mercy on your beloved, wasting away.

  Heloise: How you talk! You are stronger than steel. Although it may be in the future, I already see the mountaintops bowing down before you.

  Abelard: What else does the prophet foretell?;–))

  Heloise: I would write more but few words instruct a wise man.

  Abelard: Indeed your words are few but I have made them many by rereading them. And I am never far from the knowledge of you: how fertile with delight is your breast, how you shine with pure beauty. Body so full of moisture – that indescribable scent of yours… Even if I could write to you continuously so that I did nothing else, your merits are so many that I could not count them all.

  Heloise: And you, you are sweeter from day to day, and loved now as much as possible and always loved more than anything.

  Abelard: Ask what I did after I wrote last time.

  Heloise: ???

  Abelard: I threw myself on to the bed out of impatience.;-))

  Heloise: And me, unjustly deprived!

  Abelard: You are inside my breast for ever. You are with me until I fall asleep. You never leave me, and when I wake I see you before even the light of day.

  Heloise: Know indeed that the midday sun has risen for you. And look too how, now that this slight snow has melted, all things flourish again.

  Abelard: My brightest star (whose rays I have recently enjoyed!), may I gaze endlessly at you alone, ignoring the light of day.

  Heloise: Such talk. Yet no phrase has yet been found that speaks clearly about how intent on you is my spirit. For God is my witness that I love you, Peter Abelard, with a sublime and exceptional love. And so there is not nor ever will be any event or circumstance, except only death, that will separate me from your love.

  Abelard: I could not bear it, truly. Physicists say often that the moon does not shine without the sun, and that when deprived of this light, it is robbed of all benefit of heat and brightness and presents to humans a dark ashen sphere…

  Heloise: Then I give you the most precious thing I have – myself, firm in faith and love, steady in desire, never changeable. There is no one in this world breathing life-giving air whom I desire to love more than you. Indeed, what need is there even for words?

  Abelard: None. Now that our love has grown so strong that it shines forth by itself, there is little need of words because we are overflowing with what is real. Farewell then – from the friend who has always been, he who sends you the same constancy of love.

  Heloise: Farewell? Already? Friend?!!!

  Abelard: Problem?

  …

  Abelard: Ellie?:–((

  Heloise: What say your other friends when you kiss their breasts?

  Abelard: ?**!

  Heloise: From now on, may all our writing cease.

  Abelard: I do not know what so great sin of mine preceded that in such a short space you could wish to throw away completely all feelings of compassion and intimacy for me!

  Heloise: And you famed for your logic!

  …

  Abelard: Ellie?

  …

  Abelard: Ellie… U there?

  Heloise: Do not dissemble. I think you are not unaware that ashes placed on a sleeping fire never put it out.

  Abelard: Forgive me my ashen ways. Instruct me.

  Heloise: You desire it?

  Abelard: Truly.

  Heloise: My case is this.

  Abelard: And I will not dispute it.

  Abelard: Go gently though.

  Abelard: That is to say, have mercy.

  Heloise: Surely in you I have discovered the greatest and most outstanding good of all.

  Abelard: You make a poor case. I am guilty, I who compelled you to sin.

  Heloise: Desist!

  Abelard: Apologia.

  Heloise: I repeat: Surely in you I have discovered the greatest and most outstanding good of all. And, since it is established that your goodness is eternal, it is for me the proof beyond doubt that you will remain in my love for eternity.

  *

  Heloise: What are u saying?! Intent – that is to say, true feeling – is all we have. Virtue is a whore beside it. She cares for appearances only. Did you not teach me as much?

  Abelard: I say only that it is not unreasonable if sometimes – now, for example – we alternate between visiting each other and writing when we cannot.

  Heloise: U tire of me.

  Abelard: I do not tire of u. I say only that it is not unreasonable.

  Heloise: Reason best serves truth. Why do you now apprentice it to falsehood? Tell me what I have done. Forgive me it.

  Abelard: I would forgive you readily, most beloved, even if you had committed some serious act against me, because too hard would he be whom your speech so tender and amiable could not soften. But truly you have no need of forgiveness, because you have not wronged me in any way.

  Heloise: Then it is as I feared. U tire of me.

  Abelard: No.

  Heloise: Yet you are not direct. You are not yourself.

  Abelard: U worry 2 much

  Heloise: And if u are not urself, if ur heart no longer speaks to mine, everything is lost.

  Abelard: I say only that the written word serves us better than most.

  Heloise: That is not all you say. How u dissemble. How u change.

  Abelard: And how u milk my words.

  Heloise: It is the words u don’t write. In them, I read what I already feared: if your love is lost, all that is left us is suffering as great as our love has been.

  Abelard: No more prophesying, I beg you.

  Heloise: The present is challenge enough. Of course I know that where there is passion and love there is always struggle and turmoil. Yet I know too that now I am tired. I can no longer reply to you because you are taking sweet things as burdensome and, in doing so, you sadden my spirit.

  Abelard: There is no burden. It is as I say. I have spoken to my sister in Brittany. She will care for the child.

  …

  Abelard: Ellie?

  *

  Heloise: itcannotbe

  Abelard: your uncle’s kinsman

  Heloise: say it wasnot

  Abelard: my servant must have drugged me b4 sleep

  Heloise: not possible

  Abelard: a cord wound tightly around my scrotum

  Heloise: wake me

  Abelard: 2 quick incisions

  Heloise: mygod

  Abelard: to prevent the wrong animal from breeding, they said

  Heloise: THEY are the animals!

  Abelard: i felt practically nothing.

  Heloise: It is they who are not fit to be called human!

  Abelard: the 2 who could be caught were blinded, and mutilated as I was

  Heloise: It is not enough. Sweet Jesus, it is not enough!

  Abelard: the agony now is not for the mutilation of my body

  Heloise: who tends you? you must not be alone.

  Abelard: but rather the shame and humiliation

  Heloise: The shame is not yours!

  Abelard: All of Paris talks of it. Of us. How can I show my face in public, to be pointed at by every finger, derided by every tongue?

  Heloise: I love you, Peter.

  Abelard: My old, embittered teacher, Roscelin, has already written me. He starts by refusing to call me Peter, as it is a masculine name ‘no longer appropriate’. And he warns of the other appendages I could yet
lose: my ‘tail of impunity’ and my ‘stinging tongue’.

  Heloise: Listen to me. I love you. I have never loved you more.

  Abelard: He spouted scripture. ‘No man whose testicles have been crushed or whose organ has been severed shall become a member of the assembly of the Lord.’

  Heloise: Stop this!

  Abelard: Whereas Fulk writes to tell me to take comfort– notwithstanding ‘the small’ loss I have suffered – for I may now apparently walk ‘safe and sinless’ among virgins and no husband will fear me. And the worst of it, of course, is he’s right!

  Heloise: u r not urself.

  Abelard: I cannot bear the thought that another will have you.

  Heloise: Then cease thinking it now.

  Abelard: I want you to understand. There is no other course for us.

  Heloise: What are you talking about?

  Abelard: I have thought it all through.

  Heloise: All what through?

  Abelard: You must take the veil.

  Heloise: ???

  Abelard: Understand me.

  …

  Heloise: For disguise…

  Abelard: It is for the best.

  Heloise: En route to Brittany. Of course. We go to your brother’s? I can be ready in a matter of hours. After all, does my uncle imagine I will return to his house?!

  Abelard: There will be no disguise. No escape to Brittany this time. You will give yourself to Christ.

  …

  Abelard: I too will take up orders.

  Heloise: Stop this!