Gravity's Chain Part 5

'Will you be embarra.s.sed?' We looked at each other and then kissed as though it was the most natural thing. Her skin was cold, her nipples hard against my chest. I held her so tight I never wanted to let go. After our kiss we went to the dying fire and there in the orange glow, under the moon and with the sound of the sea as our music, we made love. It was the first time for both of us and when I came I felt as though the brightest and purest light imaginable had pierced my soul. I thought s.e.x would always be that way.

The diary of Mary Roberts

June 21st

SIX months today!!! Jack sent me a sixmonth anniversary card-how sweet. It arrived today, on the actual anniversary day. What great timing. He bought a Happy 60th birthday card, crossed out the nought and wrote 'months'-totally romantic. On the inside he wrote that he still thinks of the night on the beach. I bet he does!! Mind you, so do I, it is something special for us both to treasure. Stop. I'm rambling and I'll only start crying AND I promised no more smudges. But s.h.i.+t, I really miss him. I miss him so much and he's such a long way away. He says Cambridge is cold and wet. I wish I were there to warm him up. We seem to have spent so little time together, just a few weeks and he was gone. I'd hoped he would be back before the end of the year, but it seems unlikely now. I hope he really feels the same way about us as when he went and he isn't just saying these things to keep me happy. I know I'll always feel the same about him. I'll never stop loving him. There, now I've done it, crying again. Bye for now.

July 9th

The date is set for Polly's wedding-Jan 2nd next year. She wants all three of us to be her bridesmaids. Caroline said no way and walked out in that foot scuffling, shoulder drooped way of hers when she wants to draw particular attention to the fact that she's leaving. Mum was pleased though. She said she couldn't wait to see all four of her little girls dressed up. It will be wonderful for her. The first daughter to marry!! Just hope Caroline doesn't spoil it for Mum or Polly. I expect she will come around when everyone has made a big enough fuss and made her feel really important. Polly will talk her round, she always does. It's me she never listens to.

August 1st

Got drunk with Caroline and Polly last night. It was real fun. We all let go and got on! (Wonders will never cease.) Caroline has agreed to the bridesmaid thing-I knew she would, although she is p.r.o.ne to changing her mind so we're bound to have a few tantrums before Polly gets down the aisle with us all behind in our finery. We talked about Jack, which was a first, it's certainly the first time Caroline has been interested in him, mind you, when was the last time she was interested in me full stop? Anyway, it's nice to see her thinking about someone other than herself for a change. She was really intrigued to know what it was like to go out with a genius. It was funny to hear someone talk about Jack like that. None of his friends think of him that way, I mean, sure he's a freak, but he never wants to be treated differently. I love him for that, even with all those gifts he just wants to be a normal guy, just one of the gang. Caroline said it wouldn't always be that way. She reckons that one day he will claim what's his, he'll realise he's special and will want everyone to acknowledge that. She kept saying how I should never, ever forget just how gifted he must be. She said although I wasn't stupid, he was on another planet. I know what she's thinking-I'm not smart enough for him. I know she didn't say it, but she didn't have to...'You're not stupid Mary, but...' It's c.r.a.p I know, but it did make me think. But Jack just isn't like that. I mean, it's not as though he asks me questions and makes a note if I get the answer wrong. He just wants a good time like the rest of us. He likes a drink, some dak, blobbing out and the movies. When I told Caroline that she just looked at me with that way of hers and said it sounded as though I was trying to convince myself rather than her. I kept my calm and changed the subject, but she kept coming back to him. It was strange. She seemed a bit obsessed. She definitely doesn't think I'm good enough for him and that he'll get bored with me. Little does she know! We'll show her.

August 29th

Love the colour Polly has chosen for the bridesmaid dresses, it's dull chartreuse green. The dress design is very simple-it will look great I think. Jack rang today. I wasn't sure if I wanted to share this with you. He sounded tired. Said he had been grappling with some of the stranger consequences of the field equations in general relativity. He kept laughing when he was telling me and seemed surprised when I didn't share the joke. Then he apologised and said it was silly of him to think I'd understand what he was talking about and why it was funny. Before I could say anything else he was on about some strange guy in his cla.s.s. I thought he might have taken some drugs but he said he'd just had a few drinks. I couldn't help but think about Caroline and what she said a couple of weeks ago. Was she onto something? Was she trying to warn me-in her own way-not very subtle I admit. Perhaps she was just trying to let me down gently and prepare for the inevitable. Surely not. I love him too much for that to happen. He loves me too much. Doesn't he? G.o.d I hate him being away. Why can't he be here so I can just talk to him and hold him? Everything would be fine then.

September 10th

Caroline and Greg are 'on' again-according to Caroline. Not sure about Greg, but then who is sure about Greg? Is Greg sure about Greg? He probably has no idea of what's going on. I still don't like him. I mean what DOES Caroline see in him? He's ancient (well at least in his forties anyway), bald and he's not exactly G.o.d's gift on the looks front. Caroline says he is wise and he has got experience and she finds his emotional commitment to his art a wonder. Actually I think his art is c.r.a.p. Caroline says he might not be good technically but he is raw and exciting and cuts to the nervous pulse of our times. Really? It's still c.r.a.p if you ask me. I think Caroline has got her people radar seriously askew with Greg. But-she's happy. Well as happy as Caroline can get. She's talking of moving again, by the end of the year she says. I think she will. It is time. Oh YES it's time for her to go.

September 19th

NEWSFLASH-BREAKING NEWS-HOLD THE FRONT PAGE. Jack is home on the 14th December. Yes, he's booked and it's official-he's coming home and we'll have at least a month together. It sounds like he is doing some amazing things at Cambridge-of course I'm not sure what, after all I'm too stupid to understand (ha ha). Oh G.o.d, it's great to think that he is coming home and it's so soon, less than three months. I feel as though we've come through the test. All these months apart and still committed to each other and THAT'S THE b.l.o.o.d.y TRUTH. Yes, I still love him and he loves me-hallelujah, clap your hands and praise the Lord. We've spent so little time together, but here we are. There are times when I've felt a bit wobbly about things, but we made it through. Saw Helen yesterday, her and Mike are still OK. It's great to think that from our holiday at the bach two relations.h.i.+ps are still going strong. Duncan is still in Oz, as for Jo, well, who cares-I don't! Never did like her, so there's a fat chance of me starting to think about her now.

October 14th

Caroline moves out tomorrow. She's got this place in t.i.tirangi. Mum and Dad thought she might be moving in with Greg, but she isn't. She wants her s.p.a.ce, which is why she is on the move from here.

P.S Two months, 7 hours, 40 minutes-wait...39 minutes before Jack comes home. Not that I'm counting. Who me? Love him.

November 18th

Had a fitting today for the bridesmaid dress. Looks good, but I think I need to lose a few kilos, my a.r.s.e looked huge, and I mean HUGE. Don't want Jack seeing that, he'll think I've gone to seed. I saw Caroline for the first time since she moved out. My G.o.d, she looked stunning in the dress. Her art is going really well, but it seems as though things are dodgy again with Greg Van Gogh. Seems he's been a naughty boy with some old tart. (How does he do it? I mean he really is b.l.o.o.d.y ugly, but he sure gets the girls.) Caroline said she doesn't care about the s.e.x, she just thinks it questions his commitment. I think it just proves he's an a.r.s.ehole. If it was me I'd have had his d.i.c.k off and buried in the back garden. G.o.d help Jack if he starts any of that nonsense. I did suggest to Caroline that perhaps she should dump him, but she just rolled her eyes in that superior way of hers and told me I didn't understand the artistic temperament. Do you know what she said then? I might not understand, but Jack would. b.l.o.o.d.y cheek!! The artistic impulse-oh pleeease. What rubbish. This seems to be my year of not understanding. Perhaps I should give up uni, give up wanting to be a teacher and go off and have five kids.

December 12th

Jack has left England. He's on his way back home. There's nothing else to say...oh go on then, I'll force myself. I've never felt so excited. When I see him I'm going to hug him for so long I might never let go. What a Christmas it is going to be. Jack home, Polly's wedding, that should be wonderful, what with the reception on the beach-how romantic. Hey, what is it with beaches and me? You know, I feel really happy. Life just couldn't be better. I feel like I have everything.

I can't help but wonder how my life might have unfolded if I'd taken Jo instead of Mary all those summers ago. Choosing her at the bach would have extinguished any opportunity of being with Mary. Perhaps I might have enjoyed a simpler, less demanding life. Who knows? When I awoke with Jo in the Hilton there was a moment when I felt as though the alternative path had been followed. There was just this second of peace as I watched the gentle rise of her sleeping shoulder. But as quickly as it came, it was gone. My room was not a place of happiness and order; it was disorganised and dirty, full of insatiable desires. Hastily yanked clothing, the remnants of drugs and half-full gla.s.ses were everywhere. This was my life.

To be honest, Jo enjoyed the greater satisfaction: for her a great wrong was righted and years of longing gratified. For me it was a routine evening of s.e.x and fairly average, given some of the delights I'd experienced this last year. But knowing how important this was for her, I should have stayed away. I should have ignored her and waited to see what Bebe had rustled up from Auckland's underbelly. But I know I'm a sucker-'no' and me just don't seem to go together. At least, I hope that's the reason. Please don't let there be something deeply Freudian going on.

The one night should have been the end of the Jo thing, the Jo fling. The situation demanded a fond farewell, promises of future contact with absolutely no likelihood of compliance and a firm shut of the door. Why, then, did I not follow such simple rules? Before I could stop myself, before I seemed to have a proper grip on the day, I invited her to the party after that evening's show. She was delighted. She positively glowed and sank into my arms like the woman in the films who has finally welcomed the return of her long-lost lover. And, of course, she had.

SIX.

Some say that first love is the finest love. Casting a weary, nostalgic eye and forgetting that great corrupter of memory, hindsight, there are times I might agree with that sentiment. There is no doubt that first love is always the purest. It alone has that moment of total intoxication when you first grasp the spirit of love and sense its permanence. First love feels as though it will last for ever, it feels invincible and incorruptible. Nothing and no one will ever prise it away. However, when first love is lost and you love again there's always a part of you that won't surrender. There's always a voice to remind you how your love was stolen and how it hurt.

When I returned to New Zealand from Cambridge I was warm with the glow of a man immersed in first love. I'd been faithful to Mary and I knew she'd been faithful to me. I was loyal to our love and I ached with antic.i.p.ation at seeing and holding her again. Thinking of Mary and replaying over and over in my mind the moment of our reunion sustained me through the hard and lonely times of our separation.

It was deep winter when I left Cambridge. The temperature had remained below zero for a week, and the coat-piercing wind off the Fens made it considerably colder. Even without snow the city resembled an idyllic Christmas Day picture, with frost so thick and heavy it rimmed windows and transformed tree branches into silver limbs. I owned an old purple Mark I Escort and when the cold weather came I played roulette with the starter motor. One day it started first time, the next not at all, the third a start and a stop with no chance of further resuscitation. There was no pattern; it was chaos theory exemplified. Ali Naidu and I lived in Great Chesterford, a small village just south of Cambridge in a house owned by Mrs Grey.

Never was a woman more aptly named. She'd housed university students for twenty years and the house, and its contents, were unchanged since the first lodger took up residence. Every sc.r.a.p of colour and every vestige of fun were long drained from the place, just like her pale, tasteless vegetables, which had been boiled to b.u.g.g.e.ry. Mrs Grey, everyone called her Mrs Grey, not only had an aversion to vegetables that might offer the merest resistance to a strong set of teeth, she also had something against heat. The front room, small and overpopulated with heavy threadbare chairs, had a wonderful fireplace, but fire never adorned its splendour. Occasionally when it was a 'bit chilly', which for Mrs Grey meant either snow or frost so thick it had to be chipped from the front path with a shovel, she put an electric bar heater on for half an hour. The heater had two bars, but one was broken and the one that worked only got an orange glow along three-quarters of its length. Ali and I learnt to live in four layers of clothing. We became well practised in the art of manoeuvring and eating with arms hardly able to bend. Some nights the sound of Ali's teeth chattering kept me awake. Poor Ali, how must he have felt coming from Cairo to Great Chesterford? I had enough trouble even if she was slightly more recognisable to me from my visits to Grandmother's farm.

Ali was on the same physics course as I was, though we hadn't spoken in the two weeks before we moved in with Mrs Grey. We became friends quickly. This was the first time I'd met anyone of equal intellect. I know that sounds elitist, but that's how it was for me and how I found Cambridge. I met people every day who understood relativity and quantum theory the way others might understand multiplication or division. I was no longer a freak, always fighting to be accepted as normal; suddenly I was among equals and I could begin exploring the boundaries of my intellect. It was a wonderfully liberating experience and I grew like a limp lilo with a new foot pump: fast and in every direction. Cambridge may have been frosty and cold but already it was my intellectual home. The only thing the place lacked was Mary.

I flew into a New Zealand summer. Even early in the morning, heat was beginning to subdue Auckland. I saw Mary first, not surprising since I was looking out for her the moment I rounded customs control. We gripped each other, Mary shaking with a sob. Dad shuffled on the periphery, embarra.s.sed at our affection. Finally, after Mary released me, I went to him and we shook hands. He stared over my shoulder at some distant point on the back wall, unable or unwilling to look me in the eye. We walked to his car, loaded up and I said goodbye to Mary, just minutes after greeting her, though we would meet later that day.

'Good flight?' They were the first words spoken by Dad, who still had that faraway gaze.

'Yeah,' I lied. I'd worried the entire journey and was sure the arm rests had the indentation of my fingertips on their underside.

I waited for further comment, but our conversation was done. Even though I hadn't seen Dad for almost a year, I might as well have just stepped off the bus after being away for the afternoon. Poor Dad, I don't think he got the Cambridge thing or, to be more precise, I think he chose not to understand. It was easier that way. This was how he dealt with life now. There was a time when he understood, but all that went when Mum left him. Life was much simpler and less worrisome if looked at in monochrome. There was no need for detail any more.

'I expect you'll go up to the bach sometime, will you?' he added some hours later as though the intervening time between our first words and these were forgotten.

'Thought I'd go up with Mary, Helen and Mike. Is that OK with you?'

'Should be.'

'Thanks.'

That was that. Holiday fixed. Well nearly: just before we left, Helen and Mike decided they wanted time by themselves, so they packed a tent and headed south. Mary and I travelled north for a week together before the Christmas and wedding onslaught. It was our first time back since the fateful holiday the year before and our golden moment on the beach. The bach was a mythical place for us now, our private Shangrila where dreams came true. The moment we arrived everything in our lives was how it should be. This was a perfect moment of first love. We sat and watched the sun set, casting an orange glow across the bay and sea. All was gentle, even the smallest flick of surf on the beach. It would be hard to think of a more sublime moment.

'This is amazing.' Mary propped her legs on the gla.s.s coffee table in the middle of the room and sipped a gla.s.s of wine. Her body nuzzled into my side and she felt as soft as the picture before us, just as I had dreamt of her as I sat in the cold of Mrs Grey's front room.

I merely nodded. Even speaking might doom the moment and break my happiness.

'Can I ask you something, Jack?'

I managed a grunt, but already I was aware of perfection slipping.

'Don't be angry.'

'I promise.' I was immediately on my guard. What dangers lurked in this simple request? I felt her body tense.

'Do you find me...boring?'

I almost laughed with relief. 'Of course I don't. What on earth makes you think like that?'

'I mean intellectually boring.' She moved away so she could turn to look at me. 'It's just that you are so, well, b.l.o.o.d.y clever and I'm so average. Do you find it difficult, I mean a strain, to be with me? Do you feel like you have to lower yourself to my standards, to my level?' She paused and noticed my smile. 'Jack, I'm serious. Caroline said something to me and it's kind of freaked me out.'

'What did she say?'

'Basically that you'd tire of me and when you did, you'd leave.'

'Mary, I promise, I don't find you the least bit boring.'

'How can I be sure of that, Jack?'

'I don't sit here thinking about questions I'd like to ask you or subjects to discuss and then say, "s.h.i.+t, this is Mary, so there's no point in asking." Come on, Mary, it doesn't work that way. I'm with you because I love you. I'm not looking for an intellectual equal, I'm looking for someone to love.'

'There, you said it, I'm not your equal-that's what you think.' She stood up and walked from the room. Moments later I watched her stride along the beach with the comical waddle of someone trying to walk through sand quickly. She looked like a cartoon character: all movement but no gain.

She returned an hour later and sat in the chair opposite, one leg lazily dropped across the arm. 'I think that was our first argument.'

'I think so.' I went to her. 'You know I don't think like that about you, Mary. Come on, would I be here if that was how I felt about you?' I smiled thinly at the top of her head as I kissed it. My words sounded cheap and hollow-and they were.

The holiday pa.s.sed without further comment on Mary's intelligence. That night we kissed and made love to heal the wound of our argument and the subject was closed. However, a shadow was cast and although we ignored the darkening when we were together I had no doubt Mary was as aware of it as I was. The near perfection of the return to the bach was broken and could never be mended.

Mary returned to the maelstrom of wedding arrangements and the plethora of small arguments turned large by stress. In contrast to the chaos of the Roberts' house, I returned to the maudlin silence of my home. I had lived in the red brick bungalow all my life. It was square and functional with a back lawn that sloped down to thick hedges. The garden was useless for playing with b.a.l.l.s, which always rolled down and lodged in the sharp lower branches of the bushes, but it was ideal for the re-enactment of siege warfare. As a child, under a fierce summer sun I would play the crusader knight attacking a desert fortress. With plastic sword I would slay Ottomans on the deck battlements and gain possession of the flowerpots by slicing off the head of the last defender.