The Sense of an Ending

We finished our tea. I wrapped up the two remaining slices of cake and put them in a tin. Veronica kissed me nearer the corner of my lips than the centre, and then left. In my mind, this was the beginning of the end of our relationship. Or have I just remembered it this way to make it seem so, and to apportion blame? If asked in a court of law what happened and what was said, I could only attest to the words ‘heading’, ‘stagnating’ and ‘peaceable’. I’d never thought of myself as peaceable — or its opposite — until then. I would also swear to the truth of the biscuit tin; it was burgundy red, with the Queen’s smiling profile on it.

I don’t want to give the impression that all I did at Bristol was work and see Veronica. But few other memories come back to me. One that does — one single, distinct event — was the night I witnessed the Severn Bore. The local paper used to print a timetable, indicating where best to catch it and when. But the first occasion I tried, the water didn’t seem to be obeying its instructions. Then, one evening at Minsterworth, a group of us waited on the river bank until after midnight and were eventually rewarded. For an hour or two we observed the river flowing gently down to the sea as all good rivers do. The moon’s intermittent lighting was assisted by the occasional explorations of a few powerful torches. Then there was a whisper, and a craning of necks, and all thoughts of damp and cold vanished as the river simply seemed to change its mind, and a wave, two or three feet high, was heading towards us, the water breaking across its whole width, from bank to bank. This heaving swell came level with us, surged past, and curved off into the distance; some of my mates gave chase, shouting and cursing and falling over as it outpaced them; I stayed on the bank by myself. I don’t think I can properly convey the effect that moment had on me. It wasn’t like a tornado or an earthquake (not that I’d witnessed either) — nature being violent and destructive, putting us in our place. It was more unsettling because it looked and felt quietly wrong, as if some small lever of the universe had been pressed, and here, just for these minutes, nature was reversed, and time with it. And to see this phenomenon after dark made it the more mysterious, the more other-worldly.

After we broke up, she slept with me.

Yes, I know. I expect you’re thinking: The poor sap, how did he not see that coming? But I didn’t. I thought we were over, and I thought there was another girl (a normal-sized girl who wore high heels to parties) I was interested in. I didn’t see it coming at any point: when Veronica and I bumped into each other at the pub (she didn’t like pubs), when she asked me to walk her home, when she stopped halfway there and we kissed, when we got to her room and I turned the light on and she turned it off again, when she took her knickers off and passed me a pack of Durex Fetherlite, or even when she took one from my fumbling hand and put it on me, or during the rest of the swift business.

Yes, you can say it again: You poor sap. And did you still think her a virgin when she was rolling a condom on to your cock? In a strange way, you know, I did. I thought it might be one of those intuitive female skills I inevitably lacked. Well, perhaps it was.

‘You’ve got to hold on to it as you pull out,’ she whispered (did she think I was a virgin, perhaps?). Then I got up and walked to the bathroom, the filled condom occasionally slapping against the inside of my thighs. As I disposed of it I came to a decision and a conclusion: No, it went, no.

‘You selfish bastard,’ she said, the next time we met.

‘Yes, well, there it is.’

‘That practically makes it rape.’

‘I don’t think anything at all makes it that.’

‘Well, you might have had the decency to tell me beforehand.’

‘I didn’t know beforehand.’

‘Oh, so it was that bad?’

‘No, it was good. It’s just…’

‘Just what?’

‘You were always asking me to think about our relationship and so now perhaps I have. I did.’

‘Bravo. It must have been hard.’

I thought: And I haven’t even seen her breasts, in all this time. Felt them, but not seen them. Also, she’s completely wrong about Dvořák and Tchaikovsky. What’s more, I’ll be able to play my LP of Un Homme et Une Femme as often as I like. Openly.

‘Sorry?’

‘Jesus, Tony, you can’t even concentrate now. My brother was right about you.’

I knew I was meant to ask what Brother Jack had said, but I didn’t want to give her the pleasure. As I remained silent, she went on,

‘And don’t say that thing.’

Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.

‘What thing?’

‘About us still being able to be friends.’

‘Is that what I’m meant to say?’

‘You’re meant to say what you think, what you feel, for Christ’s sake, what you mean.’

‘All right. In that case I won’t say it — what I’m meant to say. Because I don’t think we can still be friends.’

‘Well done,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Well done.’