Amantine's Song

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 9

There are moments in life when it seems that the whole world is turning against us. That moment had arrived for me. I had felt it for a while now. I felt targeted everywhere. Geoff’s requests about our relationship were becoming pressing, little Jinny was inexplicably more spoiled every day, and that filthy slimy Gregor Jackman shifted all the responsibilities to me. When things went well it was thanks to him. When something went wrong, it was obviously my fault.

The thing that went completely wrong that day was the arrival of an American professor, a great friend and colleague of Hermann Frey, whom we had both forgotten at the airport. I remembered perfectly Gregor said in front of Frey, looking like an arrogant cockerel, that he would take care of it. But then magically it turned into my task. I’d had enough. Of him, of the department, and also of the man of my life, my platonic love Hermann Frey who never took my side!

‘You can all go to hell...’ I grumbled to myself, obviously not in front of Frey who had left me and Gregor to amiably slaughter each other. I was collecting my notes and my folders in a bag, looking like someone leaving for a long journey.

‘Where do you think you’re going now?’ Gregor was standing in front of me with the expression of a pissed off ferret and that didn’t impress me either.

‘I’ll leave you alone with Frey and our guest, aren’t you happy?’ No, of course he wasn’t. Because, without me, he should also serve as a handyman errand boy and not just as a professional licker. ‘I don’t feel well, I’m done for today.’

I didn’t rise to any of his further provocations. I left the office and then the university without wasting another breath. Maybe it was really the end. Or just the beginning of the end.

Where could I go? It wasn’t my shift to take care of Jinny that afternoon and besides, I didn’t want to have too many people around. Maybe I could go and lie down in the park, or... No, I should go home instead! I needed to sleep, an almost desperate need to sleep and not think about anything for hours. A long and wonderful sleep would regenerate my body and my mind.

Calling Geoff and lashing out my frustration on him wasn’t convenient. He was no longer an external and disinterested confidant. He had become part of the problem.

To get into my room, once inside, I had to walk through the living room. There I found Doris, blissfully sitting on the couch, enjoying a cup of tea. I envied her lately. She always had little to do, to conquer, to fight for. A placid and peaceful life, a wealthy husband, a bit tasteless but unpretentious, a cute little girl to keep in pretty dresses, little ribbons and hairpins. By now everything was accomplished for her, she could resign for the days to come or tell her friends how pleased she was with her situation.

‘Do you want some tea? I’ve made a lot.’ Doris smiled at me, brushing her brown hair away from her forehead. ‘Keep me company, Jinny just fell asleep.’

‘All right.’ Well, talking a little about everything and nothing could help me. I diverted towards the kitchen to get the tea. ‘Do you want some more?’

‘Yes, please,’ Doris sighed in a bored voice. Returning to the living room with the teacups I noticed she was rhythmically changing channels on the television. Even having nothing to do was frustrating. Perhaps even more than having too many commitments.

I sat next to her. I didn’t know what to say, what to talk about. I didn’t even know Doris Parker’s real interests besides her daughter, her husband and the dinners she organized with his colleagues and friends. Maybe she really was a woman without a life of her own. But if she was okay with that who was I to criticize her?

I sipped my tea as she explained her Christmas holiday plans in detail. They would leave, go to visit her parents in Leeds and then she and Rupert would take a second honeymoon in Hawaii, leaving the little girl with her grandparents. Great plan! I, on the contrary, didn’t even know my fate for the next few hours.

Between the two of us I was the poor frustrated one, I had to admit. I didn’t want to tell her about my academic misadventures, so I reluctantly admitted that everything was fine, as usual. I stared at the television screen, to be able to lie better.

No, it couldn’t be! I was going crazy. I hallucinated. Perhaps it was the tiredness, or the constant pissed off state I was in. The guy who was fidgeting in front of a microphone in a television studio looked in a freaky way like punchable face. I couldn’t hear because Doris had turned the volume down to talk to me. I stared, waiting for something to tell me it was really him, or rather, something that convinced me it wasn’t him at all.

‘Do you like Darkest Storm?’ Doris, probably noticing my cathartic state, turned up the volume. The voice of the guy who looked like punchable face mingled with the others and also with Doris who was asking me the question.

‘No, I mean…’ Darkest Storm? Yes, I knew them, I heard about them. Well, I was aware of their existence on the face of the earth, but they had never been of any interest to me. ‘One of those there...’ I pointed. ‘Here, that one... looks like a homeless guy I met in Notting Hill.’

‘But that’s exactly where Peter Wiles lives!’ Doris widened her blue, disbelieving eyes on me and put the cup down on the glass table in front of us, with such a blow that if it didn’t fall into pieces, it was only by chance. Was she crazy?

I tried to stay calm, at least. It seemed impossible, even if the resemblance was very pronounced. Same eyes, same expression. I waited for them to finish strumming. Then I waited patiently until they framed just him as the talk-show host interviewed them.

Those green eyes, that grin a little disdainful, the sneer when he wrinkled his nose. Yes, it was him. Definitely him. If it wasn’t, he had a twin brother or a perfectly equal double. ‘What did you say his name is?’

‘Peter Wiles!’ Doris twisted her hands, still too excited. ‘You mean you really met Peter Wiles?’

‘No... now I look at him well, I would say no. He was just someone who looked vaguely like him.’ By the enthusiasm she showed, I was afraid Doris would follow me on Sunday morning just to see the one who seemed to be some sort of pop star. Maybe she would finally shake up her life of perfect housewife, wife and mother, but I didn’t want to be the one to drag her to the path of perdition. I tried to change the subject and looked for a practical moment to withdraw to my room. ‘I’m going to rest for a while, I have a bad headache today.’

I finally managed to lie down on my bed. I had his face in my mind. No, not Peter Wiles’s face. I couldn’t connect that name and that man who appeared on television to the one I identified as punchable face. Although it was indisputably him. But how could it be? Then the old man’s words came back to me. The fact he didn’t want to go and get him coffee.

No, that wasn’t fair for me. I didn’t want it to be him. It made him less authentic. I could no longer frame him in the character in which I had delimited him. And, I had to confess it to myself, I couldn’t long for him as I wanted anymore.

I tried to remove him from my thoughts, striving to sleep. But my mind went on its own in inappropriate directions. Even hiding my head under the pillow, I couldn’t stop the thoughts that I wasn’t inclined to indulge.

‘Amy... your father is on the phone...’ Doris’s voice, across the room’s door, called me back to reality. Too bad, just a few minutes more and with a little luck I would have sunk into sleep. Or maybe into nightmares.

I went to the living room to take the call. I would say that everything was fine, even to him. No problem, then.

‘Amantine, I’ve talked to Geoffrey’s father.’ My father’s baritone voice didn’t permit replies this time. From the start, it was bad. I already expected I wouldn’t agree on anything. ‘He could easily help you at the department.’

‘The real problem, Dad, is I don’t want anyone’s help. And if Geoffrey, his father or anyone else asked you to call me and convince me he made a big mistake.’

Geoff, it couldn’t have been anyone other than him. He knew I didn’t agree to that. I had been clear about it and more than once. He shouldn’t have done this, put his father, and mine too, into a matter that concerned just me. I wouldn’t forgive him. Maybe our relationship had come to an end. Or maybe, but I dared not to admit it, not even to myself, I was desperately looking for an excuse to leave him, to put an end to our relationship and this time I had found it.