Hope

The old man, at long long last, died. He opened his eyes and perceived a shadowy figure that hadn’t been there a moment before and knew who it was.

“You’re late!“ He snapped. The figure shrugged.

“ I can never be late. Or early, for that matter.”

“ I called for you 40 years ago. Did you hear me call?”

“ I heard.“

“So you ignored?”

“I cannot be summoned...” A pause. “…by a call.”

The old man became defensive, and agitated.

“I thought about it!”

“Many think about it. Only some do.”

The man sagged.

“I…” he began, “…I was too afraid. And I had hope.” He laughed, bitterly. “They say it’s the hope that kills you. It was hope that kept me alive. And for what?” He gazed around the room, taking in the clutter of rolled and unrolled canvases, easels, paint and assorted paraphernalia. “I waited for her. 40 years I waited. But you know all this, I suppose?”

“Yes. But you want to tell me anyway.”

The old man sighed, and his eyes focused on a point in the distant past. When he spoke, his voice cracked, then strengthened as his narrative unfolded.

“She was my first love. We were 14. Children. But even then, there was something… mature. It felt bigger than us, bigger than the school, like…”

“Love?”

“Ha! Yes. Exactly. Of course, much later I told myself all the usual lies, too young, no experience, nothing to compare it to… in time I believed my own lies.”

“Everyone has to. How else could you carry on?”

“Hmmm, yes. Anyway, we faced down the barriers that tried to keep us apart, and were as happy as two can be, for two years.” The old man’s face darkened. “And then…the last time she was truly, unquestionably mine, I gave her up. I gave her up!” He lapsed into anguished silence, then gathered himself and continued. “I was sixteen, and thought there was more in the world for me. All my life I believed I made the right choice to leave her… Now? I don’t know…would we, could we have stayed together and happy our whole lives?”

His visitor shrugged.

“When you make a choice, the choices you did not make are forever cloaked in darkness. No one can say what would have been.”

“As you say. From here though…”

“Yes. You can see all of the pathways that choice lead to. But not the others. Some were better. Some were worse.”

“Worse! My God.” The old man fell once again to contemplation, staring past the figure sat on the end of his death bed. When he continued, his voice was firmer, as if detached from the events he detailed. “As I grew older, as the years between us passed with no contact, as I met and loved others, I still wondered where she was, what she was doing, if she was happy, if she ever thought of me. Yet still I lied: ‘Your first love is different.’ ‘Nothing can compare to your first love.’ ‘Rose tinted glasses.’ ‘You’re being a fool.’ So I dismissed the wistfulness, and got on with my life, did the usual thing, married, had children, settled down, and it was fine, until it wasn’t. And then it was a struggle.”

“I had been unhappy for a time, but I reasoned that my experience was not unique. Many relationships are maintained without a spark, without joy, without love, for many reasons: comfort, security, children. Why should my life, my marriage be any different? In the middle of my life, I was struggling to let go of the idealism that had been my vision of marriage and family life, the vision that I had formed through my parents and through…” here he swallowed hard, before continuing, “…her. But this was the bed I had made. No good would come of me casting it aside, only ill for others, so I resolved to continue and accept my lot.” The old man paused, seeming to gather himself. “It came as a bolt from the blue. She followed me on social media. She had a different surname, married. Without even thinking about it, I sent her a message, and we began communicating. At first, it was what you would expect: catching up, exchanging details of our respective families, jobs, lives. This conversation petered out, and I realised that I was desperate to maintain the communication, so I found a pretext to keep it going, found that she seemed agreeable and so it flourished. Within a months we had shared intimate details, and were each other’s confidants. If anything, she was even unhappier in her marriage than I in mine. Although we had made tentative plans to meet face-to-face, it never quite materialised, but there was such a bond, such a connection built on our shared past and our similar presents. I was already biding my time until my children were old enough to accept the separation from my wife, now with her back in my life I was newly incentivised. She had entertained thoughts consistently of leaving her wretch of a husband for years, and my heart went out to her: although some of her experiences were unique, there was much that I recognised, but I also saw a glimmer of hope, for us both. Two unhappy people with a special connection, each trapped in unhappy marriages… maybe one day? For the time being, the contact I had with her made my home life more bearable - when things were especially bad, I could talk to her about it, and she offered advice and support which made me feel that I was not as worthless as my wife thought I was.

“Gradually, I realised that I was in love with her, all over again. I struggled. It was ridiculous. We hadn’t even spoken, let alone met, hadn’t seen each other in nearly 30 years. How could I be in love with her? And yet all the signs were there. I thought about her constantly. Whenever I did anything, whenever anything happened to me, I couldn’t wait to tell her about it, Couldn’t wait to hear what she had been doing. By now, she was my best friend, but a secret to all. I began to flirt in our messages, and to see if I could see signs that she was doing the same. I had no idea if she would countenance the idea of being with me in any capacity, but I already knew that that was what I wanted.”

“She had been reluctant to meet. I later found out that her feelings ran along similar lines as my own, and she feared if we met, I would be disappointed in her, or she in me, or conversely she would not be able to contain her feelings for me, which had lain dormant for all the intervening time. After a couple of false starts, we arranged to meet for coffee, but her nerve failed her at the last minute. She was fulsome in her apologies, which I accepted gracefully, But something I said in my acceptance angered her, and we had an argument, still conducted exclusively in messages. She implied that what I had said made it easier for her in some way, and I felt the chill of losing her. Instinctively, I felt that I should not tell her that I loved her - if even I thought it was ridiculous, how could she possibly not? So I patiently tried to undo the damage I had done, but to no avail - her anger continued unabated. Finally, because I could see no other way, and thought the communication may end and I would never have the chance again, I confessed my love. I felt I had never been so far out on a limb in my life: married, and telling another woman I loved her having had no contact with her for thirty years! The plain facts seemed insane, but in my mind they made sense, as I probed and questioned my feelings.”

“She was shocked, understandably. But she didn’t shoot me down, and she didn’t break off contact. A few days later, we met. In the light of my admission, it was awkward, but I was thrilled nonetheless. It was as if until that moment I hadn’t truly believed it was really her, but behind the beautiful, competent adult woman who I had fallen in love with over a thousand texts, and behind all her self deprecating remarks about her age was the girl I had fallen in love with all those years ago.” The old man shook his head and smiled, lost in a memory. When he next spoke, it was almost to himself. “She had no idea how beautiful she was to me.”

His visitor remained still, but showed by a slight indication of his head that although time was no longer a factor for either of them, the narrative should continue. The old man came out of his reverie and smiled again, but this time ruefully. “Ah, forgive an old man his reminiscence. I can still see her as she was then, a moment frozen in time.”

“Along with all the other moments, now.”

“I suppose you’re right. Do you suppose she did the same? Pictured me? Kept a store of perfectly preserved memories?”

The visitor spread his hands in an expressive but economical gesture.

“If I knew, I could not tell you. The thoughts of others are not my preserve to share.”

“A pity. It would be a great comfort to know that she did. Even knowing that she didn’t and that I had wasted my life would be some kind of closure.”

“In my experience, life is not neat. Lives are not neat. They are not like stories.”

“Then I’ll never know?”

“I cannot say.”

“Can’t? Won’t? Or don’t know?”

“I cannot say.”

The old man studied his visitor’s face intently, then abruptly laughed.

“Thank my stars I never faced you at poker!”

His companion allowed a smile to play briefly across his face.

“Yes. Though I was always rather more fond of chess.” The smile vanished and he was serious again. “The time grows near…”

The old man nodded, and continued.

“We saw each other behind our spouses backs a few times. Neither of us had ever done anything like it before, but she was troubled by it far more than I. When we were together, it was magical. It reminded me of all that had disappeared from my marriage, the compassion, the kindness, the interest. I was happy, for the first time in years. I felt like a new man. When we parted and went back to our separate lives, I was content, though counting the hours till the next time I could see her, or speak to her, but she was horribly conflicted. She felt like she was lying to her daughters, and her friends, and she feared that her husband, a possessive and vindictive man, would take her daughters from her if we were discovered. I was for carrying on; she brought me so much, I couldn’t countenance the thought of being without her in some way. Together, we were experiencing the love and the passion that each of us had missed for for so long. She loved me, I knew. I thought that would be enough…” A sob caught in his throat. “…It wasn’t. The end came as suddenly as the beginning. She messaged me to say that she couldn’t live two lives simultaneously, and couldn’t choose any path that would damage her relationship with her daughters, so she had to say goodbye. She left the thread open for 24 hours to give me a right of reply, then disappeared. For months afterwards I tortured myself about what I had replied. I had tried to be noble, accepting, mature. Had I made it too easy for her to cut me out of her life? Should I have begged? Pleaded? Argued the case for us? Was there one perfect phrase I could have found that would have had her in my arms again? My only hope was that I had included the line: ‘if anything changes, ever, you know how to find me,’ and that I had promised to wait for her for as long as it took, but she was gone. As the days passed without any contact I was miserable. I went through every cliche of the spurned. It was the unhappiest time of an unhappy life. But neither misery or joy of that magnitude can endure. The soul tires. Eventually, as I realised she was truly gone, I forced myself to adapt to my changed prospects.”

“I couldn’t have the life I wanted. So I built myself a new one. Forced myself to meet new people. Learned to paint. Travelled. Volunteered. Eventually, I left my wife. But wherever I was, whatever I was doing, not a day went past that I didn’t hope she’d call. I never knew where she was, or what she was doing. I could have found out easily enough, but why add to my torment? Sometimes I would recall the things she said to me, and know, know that she thought of me still. Other days, I would despair and think that she had forgotten me, or worst still, thought of me but lacked faith in my promise, so did not call. Did she ever have her phone in her hand, my number on the screen, steeling herself to press call? But she never did. Did she change her mind? Or was she too scared that I had?”

The old man lapsed into silence, spent. His visitor, who had heard an uncountable number of stories, said, not unsympathetically:

“It’s time to go.”

“Go where?”

“That isn’t up to me. I just have to see you get there.”

The two figures were becoming insubstantial, like steam from a hot drink dissipating as it escaped the confines of the cup. “I always imagine it must be some comfort after having walked your path alone to have a companion for the last leg.”

The old man frowned, then smiled. “It is.” As the figures faded into nothing, the phone began to ring.