Amantine's Song

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 4

I was trying to delete that strange meeting from my mind getting off at Edgware Road stop. But my steps in the direction of Geoff’s apartment were getting heavier.

The truth was that part of me yearned for freedom, both personal and mental. Do nothing. Think nothing. At least for a while. Perhaps for that reason I had stopped to talk to those two layabouts. They led a lifestyle that I secretly felt like experiencing. I would never confess it, not even to myself. But it was undeniably true.

With Geoff and the others, I had to always talk about something clever, express meaningful concepts. After all, they were right, because I was like that too. I had built a world in which the reason controlled the instinct, even if we were talking about literature, poetry, art. I couldn’t change it now, it was too late. Everything was managed in a serious and professional way. By insiders, not by beauty contemplators.

About one thing, the old man, through Keats’s words, was right. I didn’t know what it meant to love. I didn’t love Geoffrey Carter. Admitting it or trying to establish it was out of the question. I didn’t even ask myself. I didn’t care. He belonged to my world, that was enough for me. He was a handsome boy, with blond hair and a sweet smile. More than enough. He didn’t bother me, he gave me my space. This made him the ideal man in my eyes. He understood me and I had known him for so long that I was not obliged to explain myself or try to make myself interesting in his eyes. In my own way, however, I loved him. But it seemed silly to me to say it, it seemed useless, superfluous. He knew I wasn’t an overly warm or loving type of person and that was fine with him. He wouldn’t have asked for more. Perhaps it was for this reason I had chosen him.

I returned his kiss without passion as soon as I entered the house. I mostly wanted to take off my coat and shoes and get comfortable on the sofa, hugging my knees. In a few minutes, I would have to regain my consciousness and start talking about something clever, interesting. About my research, about Frey. I rubbed my temples with my fingertips as if to put my thoughts in order, all lined up in their place.

‘Have the others arrived already?’ There was nobody in the living room except me and Geoff, who sat beside me. I was hoping there was someone in the kitchen or the bathroom. I didn’t want to be alone with him.

‘No...’ He drew me to him and I leaned my head on his shoulder. I pulled back as he leaned down to pull my hair aside and kiss my neck. ‘They’ll come later, we have time.’

I kissed him quickly on his lips and moved away, leaning with my elbow on the back of the sofa. ‘I’m not in the mood, I’m sorry.’ I frowned, looking for a believable excuse. ‘Problems at the department.’

‘The usual guerrilla wars to win Frey over?’ Geoff stroked my cheek with a sympathetic expression. By now he knew everything about me. All that he needed to know.

‘He seems unreachable. Whatever I do is never enough, he goes further and further, always wanting more.’

It was true. The competition to become Hermann Frey’s assistant was probably beyond my abilities and possibilities. But I didn’t want to give up, not yet. My pride kept me in that sort of madhouse, up for anything, that was the department of English literature. My pride demanded that I begin my academic career with one of the greatest intellectuals in the country, maybe even the world.

‘I could mention that to my father, you know he was...’

‘Absolutely not!’ I didn’t allow him to finish the sentence. Of course I knew it. Frey and Geoff’s father had been college mates and good friends. But what was the point of getting something thanks to his intervention? I would rather have given up, left the challenge. What credit would I have otherwise? I crossed my arms, annoyed, tearing myself definitively away from Geoff. The very thought offended me.

‘Not that you need it, Amy. You’re still very good. But you could accept a little help, like everyone else does.’

Geoff had always been restrained in pronouncing my whole name. As if in itself it contained something forbidden. Forbidden in the sense of too sensual, lustful, provocative, which embarrassed him. I knew it and I was delighted by this power that only my name had on him.

I remained silent in the face of his suggestion, absorbed in my not so chaste thoughts. I remembered punchable face, in fact. I didn’t understand how, nor why. Indeed, yes, actually. Because to the word provocative I had connected him, his expression, his almost irreverent way of staring at me.

‘You should move in with me instead of babysitting for those friends of yours. Here you would be more peaceful...’ Geoff took the opportunity to continue with his indecent proposals. Every now and then he returned to the attack with the idea of making me move to his apartment.

I stroked his blond hair and coaxed him towards me with the precise purpose of distracting him from his intent. Moving in with him was absolutely not part of my plans. It would mean a real commitment and for me it was too much. How long had I been with Geoffrey Carter? I had lost track. It had never been a serious and profound relationship. Much less passionate or romantic. It wasn’t down to him. It was me and I had never done anything to hide it. Love, the real one, was not part of my life. I only lived the love of paper, poetry, literature, words. And those had the priority over any human being. But Geoff was fine with it, anyway. Other guys might not have accepted it, maybe. For that reason, Geoff, and no one else, had been with me for so many years.