Soul

There were two narratives in Julia’s head: the ongoing dialogue with the woman she had loved, an imagined conversation in which she told Carla her latest news, asked her advice, provided the unconditional empathy women offered each other; and the second, a monologue so vitriolic that Julia could barely form words to fit her anger.

Hate is an interesting emotion. Because of its epic nature, the awkward, ugly shape it makes in these rational post-modern times, it is unfashionably polarised, terrifyingly illogical, Julia thought as she crouched in her car. But hate was what she felt. Carla’s betrayal was as unfathomable to her as her husband’s departure, and both obsessed her—like an equation she needed to solve.

People fall in love, Julia, and they have no control over their choices. Klaus’s words hung in her mind like a ghostly afterimage. Julia did not believe them. ‘Marriage is a negotiation of temptation,’ she said aloud, suddenly furious at finding herself reduced to a voyeur of a life she felt was, by rights, her own. ‘I could kill him for having reduced me to this,’ she added softly, her breath misting up the window.

The streetlights came on and clouds of gnats shifted direction like shoals of fish under the bluish glow. Julia continued watching, fascinated by the silhouettes passing across the house’s drawn blinds. The gleaming hull of Carla’s BMW in the driveway taunted her as she fought the impulse to get out and walk directly up to the front door.

Suddenly, it swung open and Carla and Klaus emerged.

Carla adjusted Klaus’s tie, then kissed him; his fingers slid down her back. Julia watched, horrified as Klaus caressed Carla’s face. The gesture was so familiar it resonated in Julia’s muscles, as if it were her face. She could feel the imprint of his fingers, smell the faint aroma of aftershave, soap and oil; the imagined heat of his skin infusing her own. The memory of touch—it will con us every time. It will deceive us until death steals all sensation. This is the nature of lovemaking, she decided, watching the scene play itself out like a film sequence. Lovemaking stamps us with ownership, infuses us with the illusion of permanency, and in the very same moment dispels mortality like a cheap theatrical trick.

‘You are still mine,’ she whispered into the drifting evening.

26

KLAUS ROLLED OFF CARLA, the cool sheets sticking across his sweaty back, his brain pleasantly emptied, his erection subsiding in slow enjoyable throbs.

‘We have been so brave, so brave,’ Carla whispered. The statement, laced with tentative poignancy, dragged Klaus straight back into the bedroom. Why do women always get philosophical after sex, he pondered, trying not to resent the interruption of what had promised to be a painless slide into sleep—something he desperately needed.

‘I guess so,’ he answered, cautiously. ‘But you’ll be surprised, it’ll only take six months before people start to forget I was married to Julia at all. Especially in this town—the most mercenary metropolis in the world.’

Carla peered through the darkness, trying to read Klaus’s profile. The new legitimacy of their relationship still filled her with astonishment—that he could sleep openly in her bed, sit at her table. The crushing guilt of deception she’d carried for over four months had finally lifted. She sat up and reached for a cigarette.

As the flame flared in the darkness, Klaus fought the urge to blow it out. ‘Honey, do you have to?’

‘Yes.’ She inhaled deeply then exhaled the smoke away from him.

‘I know it’s difficult for Julia, but she’ll survive,’ Klaus’s words hung in the dark. ‘You don’t get to where she is professionally without a certain ruthlessness. I think it all comes down to basic elements: ego, id, a kind of inherent ability to dominate. Julia fills her own life, and the lives of others, without even realising it.’

Irritated that, yet again, his ex-wife had crept into the bed of his new lover, he buried his face in the mattress. Reaching across, Carla tentatively laid a hand on his back.

‘I just think it’s important to get these things clear. And, for the record, I wouldn’t have got involved with you if I’d known you were trying for a baby.’

‘We weren’t trying! At least, not to my knowledge. Do you think this is easy for me? I lost a child too. Do you think I don’t feel guilty? Conflicted? You don’t just stop loving someone, but it changes.’ He turned to her. ‘Do you know how long I’ve wanted you? How long I fought the intuition that to be with you was right and to stay with her was increasingly wrong? My only regret is that I didn’t leave her sooner. Julia’s not a bad woman—’

‘Julia’s a great woman. She may be a better human being than you or me…’

‘It’s just that her psychology, the way she’s wired, is inherently oppressive. We had twelve years together, ten of which were great, but now I’m with you. So can we cut the psychobabble?’

‘You’re right, we have each other now and that’s extraordinary. I love you—at the cost of everything else.’

Distracted now, Klaus rolled onto his back, his eyelids snapping open. ‘We are two individuals. Sometimes with Julia, it was like I was nothing more than an appendage.’

For a moment Carla wondered why Klaus hadn’t been able to negotiate his own territory, but, frightened of appearing disloyal and of what she might discover, she stayed silent.

Klaus stared at the ceiling, the possibility of sleep now having fled entirely. ‘Okay, from now on I intend to communicate with her only by fax. That way we can track everything she says and does.’

‘Isn’t that a little extreme?’

‘I want it to be a clean break. I need that so we can come into this untainted. A brand new start—for all three of us.’ His hand trailed the curve of her hip.

Just then, headlights swung an arc through the darkened bedroom as, outside, a car made a U-turn. The vehicle pulled into the kerb, brakes squealing.

‘Christ, not again,’ Klaus said, sitting up.

Carla remained curled into a ball of refusal. Julia will not ruin this moment, she will not destroy our time, she thought as the white comet of the headlights streaked her closed eyelids.

Klaus leaped to his feet. Pulling the curtains aside, he peered out into the street. ‘I can’t believe it!’ Livid, he began pacing. ‘That’s it! I am going to slap a restraining order on her, I swear to God!’