"Everything is beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."
Homer, The Iliad.
Thursday rolls around very late and it makes Anita extremely impatient. She limped across the house making her sister-in-law Usha very frustrated with her as she caused things to fall over and then would limp on; unable to pick them up.
"You should sit down, Anita. Don't over-exert your legs." She says, eyeing the precious crystal cat mantelpiece that Anita was precariously close to knocking over.
"I don't feel like sitting down. I feel so impatient." Anita sighs.
"Do you think it's a good idea? To go for a picnic? Don't get me wrong, Anita. I'm just very worried about your legs and whether climbing the steep slopes might be such a good idea for you." Usha says, frowning.
"Don't be so dramatic. It's a hill, not a cliffside for God's sake. And the fresh air will do me better than sitting around in the house all day has." Anita says, brusquely.
"Well, if you insist that's a good idea. What time will you be back by anyway?" Usha asks.
"For the thousandth time, probably late in the evening and it's just Tuesday today. Can you stop asking me that?" Anita says, exasperated.
"I cannot help it! Your mother has given me so many directions to look after you that I half think she considers you to be a newborn." Usha huffs.
"Well, in case you were lacking in vision, I am evidently not a newborn," Anita says, sarcastically and silently cursing her mother.
"Yes. But you are very impulsive like children who dive headfirst into ponds without thinking twice." Usha replies.
"I am not!" Anita tries to defend herself but Usha raises an eyebrow making her laugh and she says, "Well, you might be right about that one."
"You know I am. Just promise that you will not be doing anything like that." Usha says seriously causing Anita to roll her eyes at her over-protectiveness.
"I mean it," Usha says when Anita refuses to respond. "Just stay around that friend of yours; she seems like a nice girl. And promise me you will not be drinking anything."
"It's a children's picnic, for God's sake!" Anita bursts out. "You are absolutely maddening! I can see what psychologists mean when they say that children marry their parents. My brother has married his mother, stepmother rather. You are more like my mother than I could ever dream of being."
With the outburst, Anita heads towards her room and shuts the door as she grumbles about the lack of peace in the household. Grabbing Tolstoy, she tries to read but not even Tolstoy is enough to keep her thoughts from wandering. When she thinks about Becky, she gets this indescribable feeling which makes her rather troubled. This isn't right, she's been telling herself multiple times; especially since the last meeting. But her mind goes back to when Becky called her beautiful, replaying the scene over and over in her head making her desperate to see Becky. She wanted to know what Becky meant by that; did she simply mean it as women do when they call each other beautiful? As a shallow comment, a nod of appreciation at the new hairstyle being flaunted?
Or did Becky mean it as something deeper, something more sincere and heartfelt? More than just admiration and approval. Could you even call somebody beautiful and mean more than what the word meant? She didn't know but she desperately found herself hoping that Becky had meant more. Whatever the more could be, Anita refused to think about it for now.
She needed to see Becky.
When Thursday eventually rolled around, Anita found herself slowing down on purpose. The excitement she had felt, fading to give way to nervousness that made her feel unlike herself. Dressed in a pretty violet wrap dress that went all the way to her knees with only the bare hint of lipstick on an otherwise clean face, her hair pulled back; she was ready to go.
St. Anne's wasn't very far from where both Becky and Anita lived though they both took different routes to make it shorter. When she showed up at the school, she found Becky waiting for her at the gate. She smiled as Anita neared her looking very pretty in her blue cotton sundress. Her freckles looked more prominent than ever and her hair, like Anita's, had been pulled back into a severe ponytail.
"I was beginning to think that you wouldn't show up," Becky said.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world." Anita finds herself saying. And meaning it.
They walk to where a group of highly impatient fourteen-year-old girls is waiting, all of them dressed sharply in their school uniform. Anita recognizes the History mistress she had met earlier named Lizzie and the slightly older English teacher Mr. Smith standing along with a few other teachers. "Miss Walters is here! Can we begin?" One of the girls cries out.
"Yes, Blair. We can start walking now." Becky replies and the girls begin talking even louder if that were possible. "Let me just introduce you to my friend."
This makes Anita a bit self-conscious and as Becky introduces her as 'Miss Sinha the journalist' she tucks a few wayward strands behind her ear, feeling flustered.
"Alright! Quiet for a minute, ladies. Let me just give out a few instructions." Mr. Smith says, clapping his hands in an attempt to make the girls listen to him.
"You are not to leave the group and venture out alone. All of you will avoid taking the path that leads to the cliff unless you want to meet your death. The winds are very strong during this time and you will be blown off the cliff. That's all that I have to say. You will follow me and Miss Lizzie while Madam Parker and the rest will be at the back. Miss Walters, take it easy with your friend. Remember girls, no straying away!" He says and the girls begin forming a little line with groups to follow their teachers.
As the girls begin walking, Anita and Becky follow the, often slowing down because the path was a bit too difficult at times and Anita had trouble with her crutches.
"Do you want to sit down for a bit?" Becky asks her and Anita nods but adds hurriedly, "What about the girls? What if they stray away?"
"We've already crossed the path that leads to the cliff. Besides, we're not very far off." Becky says. The two of them hadn't been talking very much as if being thrust into a public surrounding made them very self-conscious. They had only exchanged a few words, the casualness of their friendship having disappeared completely, leaving them to feel a bit awkward. It made Anita and Becky uncomfortable but they each didn't want to be the first to break from the limbo.
"This isn't very fun," Anita says after a long pause and this causes Becky to give a little snort of appreciation as if she greatly liked the girl's bluntness.
"Not very." Becky admits and sighing she adds, "I had been hoping it would be just as fun as the rest of the outings had been."
"We don't do very well in groups, it seems," Anita observes, poking at the ground with a little stick, suddenly unable to meet Becky's
eyes.
"Well, it's not the most congenial of groups. It's literally a school outing. It isn't supposed to be fun for the people in charge." Becky says and Anita nods her head. "Yes. That is a much better way to look at it."
"What would you have done if you were a student?" Becky asks as if an idea were occurring to her.
"Oh! I'd have sneaked off to the cliff with a few friends no doubt about that." Anita answers without skipping a beat.
"What do you say?" Becky asks, looking at her mischievously.
"No! Becky," Anita exclaims, positively shocked. "You would get into an awful lot of trouble."
"And who's going to punish me, you think? I'm the teacher, aren't I?" Becky asks trying to convince Anita.
"Well, if you put it that way," Anita says, mulling over it.
"I'll say that I had a hunch that some of the girls might have sneaked off to the cliff and thus we took a detour," Becky says, helping Anita up to her feet.
"Ah! Throwing the girls under the bus, are we? Becky, we really shouldn't." Anita says, dusting herself as she stands up, still not very convinced.
"Well, in that case maybe I should say you were keen to visit the cliff," Becky smirks as she looks forward to where the girls were still visible.
"Ah, throwing me under the bus. I like it; I have a penchant for accidents it seems." Anita grins, her eyes twinkling.
"Don't we all?" Becky whispers more to herself than to Anita, an undecipherable look coming over her face which made Anita feel two parts excited and one part anxious.
It was a bit difficult, walking with Anita on the rocky path that led to the cliff. But it felt much better than the crowded space earlier had. This felt freer, making both of them breathe deeper and helping them let go of the burden they hadn't even realized they were carrying. When they reached the top of the cliff, Anita gazed at the sight in wonder.
The cliff overlooking the Cornish sea, the treacherous waters below splashing away, and a small thrill running up her spine. Being so close to death has a way of making you feel more alive. Your body kicks in, its instincts rising and the are senses heightened. When in danger, you are ten times more alive than you normally are. Perhaps that is why we feel so drawn to such places, the desperation to kick away the dead-ness, that ironically enough, living gives to you.
The sloping cliff, leading to the cold blue waters below where the tides would wash you away into oblivion. The rocks below sitting still and looking benign, their sharp edges and unmerciful roughness being hidden by the white foam of the sea. The cliff was windy and as they stood there, hair falling out of the severe ponytails; the chill in the air making them red.
The tufts of grass on the cliff swayed in the wind and just as gentle as the wind, Becky whispered, "Do you like it?"
Anita looked at her, breathless and her eyes shining in wonder, "It's stunning."
Her hand snaking through Anita's waist, pulling the girl closer to herself, her other arm circling the front of Anita's waist, Becky whispers, "You're stunning."
Anita laughs, not unnerved by the proximity and Becky's whisper ringing in her ears in a pleasant way. They stand that way for a while, the silence too comforting and precious to let go of. There are some things that language simply fails to convey. For how do you put to words the erratic thumping of your heart which at the same time feels like peace? How do you convey beauty in words, the aesthetic appeal that love brings with it? How do you tell someone that if time were to stand still forever, that is the place you would choose to be?
That you have never hidden so much and felt so seen at the same time. The irrationality of it all escapes the careful grasps of language and thus, there is only so much of life that one can learn from words. You learn the rest from experience and we take it for granted. There is so much you learn from the upward curve of a smile on a person's face; if only you were to pause and take a greater look at it.
So, Becky sighs deeply, hoping that the wind around would understand the language of love and in the process understand her. She wasn't quite capable of understanding herself then; all she knew was that she hadn't ever felt this way before.
Anita is not uncomfortable and it surprises her. She isn't very affectionate. She never had been. When boyfriends made amorous advances in college, she had brushed it off with brusque laughs or in most cases ditching them to spend more time with her elder brother and his best friend. They were the only people she had ever felt comfortable around, only people she felt she could be as wild as she wanted to be. It had always seemed that people were around her only there because they wanted something from her.
Either that or they wanted her to mold herself into something she wasn't or they wanted something from her family. But on the cliff with Becky feels different, she feels happy and she wonders if this is happy what was it that she had felt all those days with her brother and his best friend? Hadn't that been happiness as well? But why did it feel so different?
She lets herself lean back into Becky's chest, as both of them gaze forward at the sea. The relentlessness of the tides and the consistency with which the waves crashed onto the shore giving them a bit of relief as their own minds felt so tangled. But even amidst the web, it felt right. It felt as natural as the ebb and flow of tides, as natural as the wind dancing around. It felt as though they were meant to be there, just at the exact time; a sense of wholeness encompassing them both.
Everything falls back and fades but you exist and she exists. And in the entirety of your existence, you have never seen anybody exist as gloriously as she does.
Is there an exact second when you fall in love? Or do you fall in love unknowingly and only realize it when it is already loud and your heart has set itself on another? Becky wonders about it and this makes her heart twist itself. For even when nothing has quite yet begun, she anticipates the eventual heartbreak.
The afternoon soon gains its rhythm and the women fall back into their easy friendship. The careless banter, the silly jokes, and sarcasm flung around but something has changed. They both know it but don't acknowledge it, at least not out loud.
Saying it out loud would change everything and change isn't always kind.