It is strange how close the past is, even when you imagine it to be so far away. Strange how it can just jump out of a sentence and hit you. Strange how every object or word can house a ghost.
The past is not one separate place. It is many, many places, and they are always ready to rise into the present. One minute it is the 1590s, the next it is the 1920s. And it is all related. It is all the accumulation of time. It builds up and builds up and can catch you violently off guard at any moment. The past resides inside the present, repeating, hiccupping, reminding you of all thestuff that no longer is. It bleeds out from road signs and plaques on park benches and songs and surnames and faces and the covers of books. Sometimes just the sight of a tree or a sunset can smack you with the power of every tree or sunset you have ever seen and there is no way to protect yourself. There is no possible way of living in a world without books or trees or sunsets. There just isn’t.
‘Are you okay?’ Camille asks me, her hand resting on the cover of her book, so only the word ‘tender’ is visible.
‘Yes. I’m still getting these headaches, though.’
‘Have you been to the doctor?’
‘No. But I will.’ Going to the doctor, of course, is the last thing I am going to do.
I look at her. She has the kind of face that makes you want to speak, to tell things to. It is a dangerous face.
‘Maybe you need some more sleep,’ she says.
I wonder what she means, and she can see me wondering, because then she says: ‘I saw on Facebook that you liked my postat three in the morning. That’s an interesting time for you to be awake on a school night.’
‘Oh.’
There is a sliver of mischief in her smile. ‘Is it a habit of yours? Spying on women’s Facebook pages in the middle of the night?’
I feel ashamed.
‘It . . . wh . . . came up on my feed.’
‘I’m only joking with you, Tom. You need to lighten up a little bit.’
If only she could understand the weight of things. The gravity of time. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘for the heaviness.’
‘It’s all right. Life is like that sometimes.’
Maybe shedoesunderstand. ‘I’m just a bit awkward around people.’
‘I get it. L’enfer, c’est les autres.’
‘Sartre?’
‘Oui. Dix points. Sartre. Mr Comedy himself.’
I force a smile and don’t say anything because the only thing I have in my head is that the sight of her face comforts me and scares me all at once. So instead I ask her something. It is a question I have often asked over the years. The question is: ‘Do you know anyone called Marion?’
She frowns. I really confuse her.
‘A French Marion or an English one?’
‘English,’ I say. ‘Or either.’
She thinks. ‘I went to school with a Marion. Marion Rey. She told me about periods. My parents were prudes. They never told me. And it is quite a thing not to be told about, you know, this blood coming out of you.’
She says this at a normal volume. There are still other people in the room. Stephanie is still frowning at us, holding the stone of her plum between her fingers. Isham is on his mobile phone, two seats away. I like her lack of shame.
I know I should engage in chit-chat. I know all the signs that chit-chat is required are there. But I ignore the signs.
‘Any other Marions?’
‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right. I’m sorry. That is all I really wanted to say.’
