Authors: Naomi Alderman

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The Lessons (37 page)

BOOK: The Lessons

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He was eager and excited. I brushed the hair out of his eyes and he blinked at me.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think so.’

He tipped his head to one side.

‘OK,’ he said. Then, as if a little aggrieved, ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I want to go away,’ I said. ‘Maybe travel, or maybe go back to England. I’m not sure yet. Not be here, anyway.’

He nodded. ‘We could go to England. Not … well, not … But I think we have a place in Kent? Or how about Cornwall?’

I looked at him and then around at the villa. Our villa. My home. Almost everything I could see belonged to us, from the grove of cypress trees on the hills in the north to the shy little river murmuring its way through a deep cut towards the town. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

‘Not we,’ I said, ‘me.’

He tipped his face up towards mine and observed me quietly, thoughtfully.

‘How long for?’ Then, before I had a chance to reply: ‘Not more than three months? Be back before the winter.’

As if we were beginning negotiations.

‘No,’ I said, ‘forever.’

Can it be true that I felt nothing then? It is true. I was steel and ice. He started against my body and I looked out at the watercolour hills of misty blue and green and brown and the clouds, huge and sunlit in glory, and I felt nothing at all.

He took several steps back from me.

‘What happened today?’ he said. ‘What happened while you were away? Did you meet someone? Who is it? What’s happened?’

I was surprised he had understood so quickly. I sat on the stone wall by the swimming pool, my bad leg stretched out stiffly before me.

‘Jess,’ I said. ‘It’s not important, though. It’s not about her. But yes, I happened to meet her the other day in town. With her new boyfriend, from the orchestra. They’re on holiday. I met Jess and we chatted, that’s all.’

I did not tell him about Nicola. He sat very still as I spoke and nodded, running his hand quickly through his hair.

‘So,’ he said when I had finished, ‘you’re going back to her.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you hear? She has a boyfriend.’

He shook his head, as if to clear the air of buzzing, swarming things.

‘It doesn’t signify,’ he said. ‘She’d take you back if you really wanted her. Do you want her?’

I thought about that. Did I want Jess? Did I want anything?

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want her.’

He leaned back in his chair, apparently satisfied.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me anything else?’

He put his feet up on the lounger and looked at me.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I know you’re not going to leave.’

I felt suddenly angry.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘I am leaving.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re not.’ He cocked his head to one side and smiled. ‘Or, well, you might leave for a while but you’ll come back.’

‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘I’m leaving, Mark. Forever. It’s over.’

He smiled, wolfish.

‘And what,’ he said, ‘do you think you’re going to do?’

‘I’m going back to England. Back to my parents. Start again. Teaching. Life.’

He shook his head, slowly.

‘But
James
. Who are you going to follow? Who’s going to tell you what to do? If you’re not going back to Jess, and you’re not staying with me, whose dog are you going to be?’

‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m not.’ And, to my horror, I felt tears pricking at the corners of my eyes and a pain rising in my throat.

I turned and walked as quickly as I could back to the house. His laughter followed me all the way.

I packed my belongings that night. Mark went out, to one of his usual haunts in the town, I supposed. I did not enquire. There were few enough items to pack but I took my time. I wanted to be perfectly sure that I took nothing of his. The only money I would take would be the carefully harvested earnings from my tutoring. I identified, among my clothes, a few T-shirts and jeans I’d had since living with Jess in London. Everything else I left hanging in the wardrobe.

As I packed, I thought of the conversations I’d wished we would have, the conversations I’d imagined in those nights at the hotel. He would tell me he loved me, he would beg me to stay. At least he would understand what he was losing. He would show by some sign that he understood what I had done for him, what I had sacrificed. He would flash from behind the curtain the man I knew must be within him. I would finally understand him and in that understanding all I had done would be justified. I think, even as I packed, I hadn’t fully accepted that none of these things would ever occur.

There is a kind of love which is selfless. It is a love which waits through all things, which is patient and hopeful, which does not need to be returned. It is a love which is confident in itself and burns on and on though no fuel is added to the fire. It is the love of the man nailed to the cross saying, here, look, this wound, and that I took for you. It is a perfect love; more perfect than the love between equals. I do not know if it is a love towards which it is proper for human beings to aspire. Perhaps it is the love reserved for angels, and for the Almighty.

For a long time, I thought I loved Mark with this love. But I was wrong.

When I left the house, before dawn, I scribbled a note and taped it to the refrigerator. I told him to contact Franny at Harvard for news of Nicola. I am a coward, I thought, but at least I am free.

That morning I boarded the train from San Ceterino to Rome. It pulled out of the station at 8 a.m. The journey would take most of the day but I was not dismayed by this prospect. I found an empty compartment and hoisted my suitcase on to the rack above the seats. I opened the window. The air was mild and fragrant. In the verge by the side of the track little blue flowers were growing among the grass. I sat facing the direction of travel as the train pulled out, and looked out of the window to see it curve ahead of me around the track. There was something comforting about the sight of the tidy line of carriages like a column of vertebrae bending this way and that. I leaned back and rested my head on the seat. I had purchased a novel and a newspaper but I did not examine them yet. The train was heading along the coast, so that for much of the way I would see the shining sea to my right hand. I looked out at the water curving off into the distance, the shoreline brightly white, flecks of light dancing on the waves. I heard the sound of Italian voices from the next carriage – boisterous, confident teenage voices arguing and laughing. This moment, like all moments, would be lost. I closed my eyes, inhaled. And when I breathed out I felt nothing at all.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With tremendous gratitude, as ever, to my agent, Veronique Baxter, and my editor, Kate Barker. Thanks also to Katherine Stroud and Mary Mount, and to Lesley Levene and Helen Campbell.

Thanks to the London Jewish Cultural Centre for giving me a place to write the first draft of this novel, and to Detective Inspector Andy Rose, Commander Shabir Hussain, Steve and Toni Hazell, Chris Philp and Adi Bloom for help with research. Special thanks to Jey Biddulph, web wizard, and Guy Parsons, rock god.

For support, pep talks and inspiration, thanks to my parents, Geoffrey and Marion Alderman, my brother, Eliot Alderman, Anna Balinsky, Deborah Cooper, Jeremy Cooper, Esther Donoff, Russell Donoff, Daniella, Benjy and Zara Donoff, Dr Benjamin Ellis, Diana Evans, Natalie Gold, Dena Grabinar, Bob Grahame, Yoz Grahame, Tilly Gregory, Peter Hobbs, O. M. G. Adrian Hon, Dan Hon, Victoria Hoyle, Rivka Isaacson, Rabbi Sammy Jackman, S. W. J., John Kemp, Ewan Kirkland, Rebecca Levene, Joel and Emma McIver, Margaret Maitland, Mariana Nolan, Helen Oyeyemi, Andrew Page, Andrea Phillips, Helena Pickup, Gabriela Pomeroy, Robin Ray, Poppy Sebag-Montefiore, Jennifer Seligman, Miki Shaw, Lord Smith of Clifton, A. C. Ben Todd, David Varela, Perry Wald, Adrienne West and Samuel West.

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