Birthday story

Twin Olive Groves
Short story 996 words
Rewritten: July 6, 2015

 (Several years ago. South-east London. Party to celebrate long-standing journalist friend's sixtieth.
RR: I cannot get my mind round the Christian concept of heaven.
Devout RC friend, father of five (six?) children: We cannot know the mind of God.)

TWIN OLIVE GROVES
A SWANSDOWN pillow now supported his head just as his mother’s blue-veined breast had once cushioned his baby mouth. Two known sensations; he could switch from one to the other and back again, rearranging time and space to suit his moods and needs. Once it had seemed remarkable, now merely useful.

Through the window, clouds, roof tiles, pathways and olive branches combined as an orchestra to bring forth the rolling allegro of an unknown Bruckner symphony. Music of infinite length, rich in texture, clotted with intellect, slowly fervent - bidding him now to pray.

“My grateful thanks, Oh Lord”

Rising, showering, he put on his worn dressing gown and stepped out into the light. A raised patio, with marble table, overlooked an olive grove stretching down to the sea with scents live in the air: coffee from Yucatan, sharp yet earthy toast. Leaning over the carved wall he glimpsed Suky’s auburn head, in and out of the olive leaves, her camera catching the light as it moved in for close-ups.

Olive groves behind her, Suky stood at the shore, her bare feet flickering among the wavelets, looking out to sea, the sun catching the back of her auburn head, her thoughts absorbed with his thoughts as his were with hers. A universe of two, the prayer issuing forth unbidden:

“All praise to beauty taking flight as intelligence.”

SUKY sat across the table, eyes huge yet fond. “The movie was sensualist, about earthly pleasure. Also a hymn of gratitude for the physical qualities we’d both been given. He moving gracefully, running, catching and striking the ball – innocent dynamic delights; I his womanly counterpart without whom he was incomplete.” She smiled. “Sheesh I looked good. Forget feminism. Imagine us as figures on a Greek vase.”

“And in your most famous movie. Affection turned into something else, perhaps forbidden.”

Suky laughed aloud. “Everyone admitted G was beautiful. Hopeless sinners the pair of us. Yes, I felt for G but we remained cinematically chaste.  Besides which I had my own views.”

 He raised an eyebrow and she said quietly, “My thoughts were elsewhere.”

When her finger touched his lips the prayer had no words, only an unshaped grace.

The warmth from what she’d said was tangible and he revelled in it. Did this for a full hour, compressed into ten seconds for her sake. To retain her company.

“Today I’ve decided; I will do the journey,” he said. “But for the right reasons.”

Her smile faded. “You know I can’t help. Can’t even comment. I’m here because you want me here. Not as I am in reality but in this compatible form. Stripped of all the things that would clash with what you want.”

“Does that horrify you?”

“Never in this world. The price I pay for your impartial and distant affection. A very fair price.”

AT THE end of the journey the room was a replica of his own but repellent. A bare lamp-bulb, a full pot-de-chambre beneath the bed. The swansdown pillow sodden with sweat from a tortured night. A mother, their mother, having promised one or the other a good-night kiss had never appeared. The child, now adult, sat on the edge of the bed guessing at what the pot-de-chambre could still take.

The adult, now older, moved like a threat: swaying belly, bald head, varicose calves and a yellow-headed boil above the collar. Tormented by orchestral Bruckner and yearning for Motorcycle Emptiness, sung – the curse of knowing everything – by Manic Street Preachers.

Older still, victim of a raging thirst and a stomach aching with artificial hunger from drinking hard liquor too far into the night.

For here was the problem. One made the journey – a hard journey – out of duty and obligation. Perhaps out of guilt. In order to understand oneself and to lay down sympathy. But suppose neither understanding nor sympathy occurred. Suppose the object of the journey was simply too wretched, too sickening. A failed journey? With no visible solution?

Save prayer. Slogging, repetitive, humdrum devotions with not a shred of poetry. Starting with. “Lord help me…”

AN AUBURN-headed woman resembling Suky walked impatiently up through the grove towards the patio.  Nearer and her face shrank into bitterness. “The camera no longer works.” His head drooped, then rested on the marble table.

“Lord!” he cried. “Lord!”

When he looked up the suffering self - belly, calves and boil - lay across the table, asleep.

“Thank you, Lord.” He had never felt more grateful.

In the aisle of trees that led to the shore Suky – his Suky – waited.

He said, “There was a later movie, not very good. Someone helps you die. A plastic bag… Watching earlier, when I’d made the journey, I felt that same desolation. Yet I’m beyond desolation. Am I not?”

Her wonderful intelligent face sorrowed. “I’m not allowed even to guess.”

He looked back. At this distance the racked body, supported by the table, looked almost tranquil. Even though he knew this to be a meaningless pause, engineered for temporary comfort.

“I could pray for you,” he said.

Suky smiled wanly. “You could.”

“Could I pray for the impossible?”

“It’s not against the rules.”

“Don’t die.”

Her smile had a touch of the mischief that was her acting trade-mark. The single most identifiable detail of her face. “I’ll try not to,” she said with all the sympathy he had earlier failed to generate. “But elsewhere I’m older than what you see here. Closer to death.”

“I had a friend who said all this - ” He gestured at the olive grove and the distant sea. “ – would turn into oblivion.”

She nodded. “That’s been my expectation.”

“It should be your hope. Our hope.”

“An end to suffering. A beneficial void.”

The Bruckner embarked on a slow infinite diminuendo.