STEPS

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX Within and without

"Did you fuck my husband? Have an affair with him? Did he cheat?"

Back to guileless accusations fired at me because the truth, the real, would be much more gut-wrenching. I didn't fuck her husband. But I beheld the best of him. She'd asked the wrong question. A better one to ask would have been why I persisted in his life if there was no fucking? This one may have brought her closer to the truth.

I harbour no resentment toward this woman who shared his life and bore him children. I do hate her for sticking him in the ground though. This I cannot forgive. Never mind her petulant antagonism. Her refusal to carry out this final wish - hell - the woman had no right! He feared those bloody dark holes, wanted his remains cast on the water, forever free.

This sharing the depths was a pact between us, our ashes settling together over time. How could I find him now, I often wonder. Would I ever find him and sit alongside, resuming our conversation - the last one on my balcony - when I should have said something and chose not to, trusting in the next time?

I do question the validity of a love able to disregard this last request. Did she love him? She didn't delve, never venturing into the far-off edges of a mind so breathtakingly otherworldly. Only ever skimmed the immediate surface, content with the physical man, the manifestation he presented as a husband, a father. The rest was consequently reserved for me. He granting only me access. This a kind of love too...

"So why couldn't he talk to me then?" she'd asked, her tears tinged with petulance. "Why did he need you?"

How to explain. How to get past her supposition that she should have been enough,that his vows to her entitled outright ownership?

"I was there before you..." The words uttered unsupported, only a statement, a truth. Suspecting no amount of explanation could relieve her of the feeling of being cheated on, compromised.

"Yes but he married me!"

"He loved you." He did. Only... to try deciphering my continued presence was futile. Her mind black and white, the nuances lost amid the expectations she fostered - love translating into exclusivity, a sacred right sworn to exclude all others in her mind. Insecurity persisting beyond his death; she still clinging to the physical, the assurances her 'position' afforded.

Staring at me with ill-disguised resentment... Aware of not having been enough, as though one was supposed to be enough - all-encompassing - representative of everything.

"He was my friend." The word misunderstood, as if friendship between a man and a woman was improbable at best. I left her knowing she'd ever harbour doubt. The few times I have seen her since; she has either avoided my eyes or stared at me with an expression secreting hatred, her brief glance a physical slap; my appearance a constant reminder that she had been 'insufficient' in his living, in the marriage they had founded.

What causes this need to introduce or maintain 'thirds' in relationships? I have deliberated on this over time. How easy it had been to slot in, or in Nikk's case to continue within another relationship. Marriages built on the sacredness of exclusivity yet there was room for me in each one. There was need for me.This need transcending the physical, the emotional, the legal - all the assumed 'boundaries' within which couples existed and functioned...

Comparable to William's situation, sure, only I was unable those years to appreciate the true nature of his gesture. I thought it about me, William setting me on a path of exploration, or rather reinforcing its rightness, because I believed I was already treading it. William opening up my mind, testing my knowledge and revealing gaps, throwing esoteric questions at me, sitting in airport lounges or bland hotel rooms. And I always struggling, grasping or trying to at least.

"There's more, there is always more," he'd said one day.

"More? I look at you and seeeverything."

"No, listen! Look beyond sex, loving, living - look at untested concepts!"

This conversation retained, because we'd been talking of a possible after-life, the unknown beyond where all mystery was founded.

Oh to have possessed this mind back then! This mind now understanding the true nature of his conversations. His taking back too; his needing my words in turn: The hours spent waiting for the overnight train to depart - this after a strike had grounded all air travel. My suggesting he catch a train, some new experience was how I'd sold it to him. Twelve hours in a cabin with a bench seat and an overhead bed. I'd sent him on that journey never entertaining the thought of joining him, extending those together hours, exploring further the reason I was there - waiting for the whistle to blow, the train to depart, counting down the minutes, then the seconds... His obvious reluctance to leave me, to end the flow of words.

The pragmatism at odds in my remembering, for I now wonder how he lived, playing out daily life carrying this covert vulnerability. As a disciple I sucked. As a philosopher, the first I encountered in flesh and blood, he confused me. Everything within me focussed on identifying, labelling, back then. Men as mere devices - means to be used, exploited, pulled apart, put back together only after comprehension had taken place. Only I couldn't. Not with William. There was no identifiable meaning to him, no construct. No matter the thousands of scribbled inscriptions defining, there was no capturing him on paper. To this day, he eludes me.

Perhaps it's why I've carried him along, craving this acquisition, my inability inflating his importance, keeping him ever-present in my every present. Others discarded, or passed over. Only he persisting in this one-way conversation I maintain on paper.

I never told him - not nearly enough - never explained my fucked-up childhood, showing him only the end product. Some moments I came close, wanting to blurt it out. Seek solace in his understanding, his acceptance of this damaged self, ever hiding behind the brash, at times nonsensical exterior. What had held me back then? From William?

His feeling sorry for me? Pity again? In understanding my fracturing, recognising furthermore my imperfectness? It would have explained those recurring tendencies to him though! God, if anyone possessed the ability to straighten me out, it was surely he. So much he could have introduced to steer me away from each subsequent precipice I tumbled over. The direction, hell the content of what was later written much more satisfying, less troubling...

What? I had to push on through it? Some fucking initiation in order to arrive here, this pause and the label I've attached finally? Was it the only way? And who determined an initiation was a requisite anyway? Who insisted steps had to be taken, despicable, disgusting steps? Each step towards, also a step away from everyone and everything important to me...

This pause now revealing a discomfort and un-ease - despite gaining understanding, despite too, achieving a certain level of self-ownership. Some niggling - pesky I might call it - some thing on the periphery, emerging for a second or two, only to disappear again, leaving behind the thought of it being important somehow. No pattern, no specific circumstance causing each brief occurrence. It comes at me. It leaves. Taking something from me each time and leaving this un-ease behind.

William? Improbable? Would there be such hide and seek? Surely, the thing would pounce, else explode in my mind. It would be specific, measurable, and able to be held down with testimony given time. Still, a part of me cannot discount the possibility. Whenever this thievery takes place - for that's what it is - my attention turns to him. And as with all things, I remain impatient to identify. Time only, and this back and forth continuum building the puzzle.