swimming pools, it’s full of beautiful photographs of spectacular houses. One of them has a pool with the shorter side made of glass, overlooking a steep cliff, way down below is the sea, hissing waves breaking on black, jagged rocks. If that glass wall shattered you would die, I think. I think about Gabriel’s hand on the back of my neck in the car, the way he pulled me toward him just as he did with Stella a few moments ago, the same firm movement. What did I actually imagine? That he would stop liking her just because he had kissed me? Even though I can see how unreasonable that idea is, watching them cook together makes me feel ill, the fact that they obviously enjoy each other’s company. There is something between them that far outweighs a kiss, I think, there is a history, plans for the future, shared confidences, an entire existence. I’ve never had that kind of thing with anyone, and I definitelydon’t have it with Peter. With him it’s like a delayed teenage relationship, where nothing feels safe or secure for more than the moment, where everything is replaceable, open to renegotiation. A kiss doesn’t count for much against what Stella and Gabriel have; it was just a mistake, anyone can make a mistake.
I can feel my cheeks burning at the realization of how childish I am, mixed with disappointment, it feels as if my temperature has suddenly shot up. Somehow I had thought that things would be different, in some small way at least, but nothing is different, Gabriel has barely looked at me, not in anything but a perfectly correct way, friendly yet distant, as if I were no more than the visiting relative I am.
I have to get up from my place at the kitchen table and go and sit on the sofa on the patio, with the kitchen out of sight. I can hear Stella laughing, I close the door carefully behind me. I have brought my glass and the magazine with me, the water in the pool is a chilly turquoise, I stare at it and try to calm my thoughts. What is the matter with me? Can you do such a thing if there’s nothing the matter with you? Perhaps there’s something wrong in my brain, like with murderers, psychopaths, a basic lack of empathy. Although it isn’t empathy I lack, it’s more that I have the ability to close things off, push them away, block my brain from grasping the consequences of my actions, it’s always beenthat way. I have always thought of it as an extension of my lively imagination, but perhaps it’s something else, some kind of mental disorder, a fault. Something that ought to be treated: there are watertight bulkheads between the different parts of my brain, I think, where there should be no dividing walls at all.
Then I get angry, thinking that he ought to understand, he ought to realize he can’t do something like that and then pretend it hasn’t happened, but perhaps that’s the way he works. Perhaps it’s like a game to him. Nothing is a game to me, nothing ever has been. I take everything seriously, I always have. That’s how you end up not being kissed until you’re twenty, I think, not because that’s what you want but because you just can’t mobilize that final lack of control that is necessary, the ability to go with the flow and just let things happen. Stella and I are alike in that way, in our need for control. But she has a purposefulness and a self-confidence that I lack, and that more than compensate, so she gets what she wants anyway.
I take a big gulp of my wine and lean back on the sofa, trying to work out what I have instead, but I can’t come up with anything. I’m like Stella, I think. But not quite as good.
Both Stella and Gabriel are still in a cheerful mood at dinner. Stella seems slightly tipsy and tells us about aman at the council whom she doesn’t get along with, she and Gabriel analyze him together, laughing, I feel superfluous even though they both make polite attempts to draw me into the conversation.
Stella excuses herself after we’ve eaten, she’s
I can feel my cheeks burning at the realization of how childish I am, mixed with disappointment, it feels as if my temperature has suddenly shot up. Somehow I had thought that things would be different, in some small way at least, but nothing is different, Gabriel has barely looked at me, not in anything but a perfectly correct way, friendly yet distant, as if I were no more than the visiting relative I am.
I have to get up from my place at the kitchen table and go and sit on the sofa on the patio, with the kitchen out of sight. I can hear Stella laughing, I close the door carefully behind me. I have brought my glass and the magazine with me, the water in the pool is a chilly turquoise, I stare at it and try to calm my thoughts. What is the matter with me? Can you do such a thing if there’s nothing the matter with you? Perhaps there’s something wrong in my brain, like with murderers, psychopaths, a basic lack of empathy. Although it isn’t empathy I lack, it’s more that I have the ability to close things off, push them away, block my brain from grasping the consequences of my actions, it’s always beenthat way. I have always thought of it as an extension of my lively imagination, but perhaps it’s something else, some kind of mental disorder, a fault. Something that ought to be treated: there are watertight bulkheads between the different parts of my brain, I think, where there should be no dividing walls at all.
Then I get angry, thinking that he ought to understand, he ought to realize he can’t do something like that and then pretend it hasn’t happened, but perhaps that’s the way he works. Perhaps it’s like a game to him. Nothing is a game to me, nothing ever has been. I take everything seriously, I always have. That’s how you end up not being kissed until you’re twenty, I think, not because that’s what you want but because you just can’t mobilize that final lack of control that is necessary, the ability to go with the flow and just let things happen. Stella and I are alike in that way, in our need for control. But she has a purposefulness and a self-confidence that I lack, and that more than compensate, so she gets what she wants anyway.
I take a big gulp of my wine and lean back on the sofa, trying to work out what I have instead, but I can’t come up with anything. I’m like Stella, I think. But not quite as good.
Both Stella and Gabriel are still in a cheerful mood at dinner. Stella seems slightly tipsy and tells us about aman at the council whom she doesn’t get along with, she and Gabriel analyze him together, laughing, I feel superfluous even though they both make polite attempts to draw me into the conversation.
Stella excuses herself after we’ve eaten, she’s
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