Our friends mean well. They call with advice, with sympathy and drop by for cups of tea, or with food. Don't bring their children, even though I'd like to see them. Get the feeling I'm being handled carefully, know that they call each other about me. Check who has visited, what to bring, whether I've completely shut down yet. They want to do the right thing, to find the magic combination of words that will make me laugh in spite of everything. That's the trouble. Those magic words "in spite of everything" seem to follow everything I do that isn't simply breaking down and sobbing. It doesn't help that most of them are couples, I can't pinpoint when that happened, when my friends stopped being Frank the Twat and started being Frank, Ethel and Junior. It's the natural evolution of things. And now I'm an aberration in the group. Well, "now" - we were different before but acceptably different. People don't tend to understand when you flit off to the other side of the world and send long, rambling emails describing your fantastic new home. They tend to reply with sensible things like - "I thought you had no water?" Yes, and things are still great! "No power?" Well, no. You should come and stay! "Perhaps...perhaps you two could visit us in London? Next year?" But those are things you choose to do, friends don't understand and definitely don't want to join you, but they get used to seeing you once a year, vastly different and with mad stories which couldn't possibly happen in Europe.
This is different. This is tragic and sudden and heartbreaking and I always had the feeling we had friends because of her. Because she broke the ice, because she answered the phone, because she was cheerful and charming and open, the exact opposite of me. And now I find myself in a group or on the phone and I'm grasping for conversation, for actual words because suddenly listening and being goaded into telling stories or providing the punch line isn't enough. They expected me to change, of course, impossible not to change. But this isn't part of that, it's just how I always was except now there's no one to translate for me; no quiet hand on my thigh under the table when too many people and too much inane chatter drives me quietly mad. No one telling me categorically that we are going out and that we are getting dressed and that we will make conversation and that if I'm not ready to go in half an hour I'm never getting laid again. No one timing me from by the front door with my own watch, snapping the case shut as I fumble with keys, cellphone, cane and with my wallet in my teeth, she removes the wallet, tucks the watch into my pocket; I'm one minute late. She'll grant a reprieve, smiling against my lips.
Now I don't go. I don't even answer the phone. I went twice, two meals. Awful, dire. Ducked out to smoke twenty times, to answer imaginary phone calls and finally just left early. It's almost worse that they mean well and still don't know what to do. I stick to the same handful of friends who have known me for years, single and married, can fall back on inside jokes and one word sentences. Easy friends, comfortable friends. Actual friends. I feel as though I should see her friends, they want to talk about her, want to feel near her. But I can't give them that. Not yet. I feel like I should just make the effort, give them what they want. It'll hurt, give me a miserable few days before and after but surely I can do that, for her friends? Apparently not. Bastard.
This is different. This is tragic and sudden and heartbreaking and I always had the feeling we had friends because of her. Because she broke the ice, because she answered the phone, because she was cheerful and charming and open, the exact opposite of me. And now I find myself in a group or on the phone and I'm grasping for conversation, for actual words because suddenly listening and being goaded into telling stories or providing the punch line isn't enough. They expected me to change, of course, impossible not to change. But this isn't part of that, it's just how I always was except now there's no one to translate for me; no quiet hand on my thigh under the table when too many people and too much inane chatter drives me quietly mad. No one telling me categorically that we are going out and that we are getting dressed and that we will make conversation and that if I'm not ready to go in half an hour I'm never getting laid again. No one timing me from by the front door with my own watch, snapping the case shut as I fumble with keys, cellphone, cane and with my wallet in my teeth, she removes the wallet, tucks the watch into my pocket; I'm one minute late. She'll grant a reprieve, smiling against my lips.
Now I don't go. I don't even answer the phone. I went twice, two meals. Awful, dire. Ducked out to smoke twenty times, to answer imaginary phone calls and finally just left early. It's almost worse that they mean well and still don't know what to do. I stick to the same handful of friends who have known me for years, single and married, can fall back on inside jokes and one word sentences. Easy friends, comfortable friends. Actual friends. I feel as though I should see her friends, they want to talk about her, want to feel near her. But I can't give them that. Not yet. I feel like I should just make the effort, give them what they want. It'll hurt, give me a miserable few days before and after but surely I can do that, for her friends? Apparently not. Bastard.
No comments:
Post a Comment