The Greenwich Story | Oct 19 2004- The Greenwich Story
By L. R. Liu (First published in #1 Transmission Magazine, 2004)
*
Stream of consciousness on Friday morning: they say people talk to themselves when they are alone
I came. I saw. I conquered. I am not Julius Caesar and I have a much lower standard. In my little world, I reckon, I’ve arrived. Here I am, living near Greenwich, a name that locked my decision on where to nest. A nice flat on the ground floor, overlooking the River Thames. Behind this is that I have a good job, and D.
It’s Friday morning and I’m on my way to work. It is raining; the drizzle waves along the wind, gently hitting the ground and trees. I sit on the DLR train, looking out of the window. Things become obscure and surreal; those passing buildings and quays are coming to me like old friends joining the stream of my daily reflections.
I like the elegant building of my workplace and I like my job. When I tell people the name of the bank I work for they look at me with respect. In the evening I come home, accompanied by the scattered light reflecting off the water. When D comes to stay we would wander about the park and the market, breathing the arty air of Greenwich. Life is good for me. I’m happy where I am and who I am…
If you are here, you will see a young woman in a dark suit; her eyes are flamed with confidence and an almost invisible trace of smile hung on her lips. It seems even the drizzle can not damp her good mood.
However, just at this moment, I hear a voice: Hang on… Really? Is it true? As if a mist crawls into my consciousness, all of sudden I’ve lost the track of my mind. For a second, I don’t recognise myself; I am confused like a soul wandering around the boundary of a dream: who am I, honestly?
One should be honest to oneself, shouldn’t one? But one can also deceive oneself, consciously or unconsciously. This is not good. What is reliable? Who can be more reliable than oneself? How do I know that what’s in my consciousness is an honest truth? I feel empty and start to panic. Yet the feeling is familiar – I know what it is - I’m under the attack of the philosophical terrorists again. They haven’t been at me for a long time. Now they are back. Why am I here, today? There are so many individuals in the world in the past, the present, and in the future so what’s the purpose of me being here? By pure chance? What have I done? What about D? A random event? Will all these disappear without a trace? I feel my head is getting tight as if being squeezed by a huge fist. Oh, don’t ask. Leave me alone. No one can answer. Better leave these ridiculous questions under the deep still water and try to stay on the surface. Take a deep breath and then you feel sin and sobriety and know what you are doing and why, and then everything makes sense. (Hooray, the terror is gone.)
Here we are. In your late twenties you embarked on a new journey and then re-launched your career here in London, leaving the husband and child behind in China. People stare at you when you tell them about that as if you are a strange animal. How could they understand that is the due you have to pay for your long overdue ambition of exploring the world, and you are thirsty for freedom after all these years of carrying various responsibilities around? A one stone two birds situation. You are eager to try and prove what you can achieve as much as to escape from your problems. You are unhappy with J after seven years of marriage. The typical crisis point in a marriage? Dissolution? Perhaps. Your energy for compromising had been consumed. You’ve got to have a new dimension in your life; otherwise you would be suffocated with despair. J supported your overseas study because he knew he owed it to you. You had supported him and his success meant his support for you was affordable. He is fair. A good man. Besides, he is always proud of your independence. Maybe he needed a break as well; we were too young when we started our life together.
Just like that, your life derailed from the old track. You’ve made it happen (Is that so?). And you don’t want to go back. Is this fate? Someone said in the past: your personality is your destination. Where is your destination? What was the force behind your drive and move and your personality? You didn’t know. A mystery, just like the universe having stretched imaginations of generations of mankind without giving an answer. Maybe no answer is the answer. You are only a small particle of this infinite universe, I tell myself: you don’t have to be responsible for what has happened, just as you don’t have to be responsible for the start of the universe. You can’t change the course against the cosmos. Nature rules. Let the questions drop into the deep still water and let Nature rule.
Friday evening train: history doesn’t tell you about the future
I am in good mood when I leave my office to catch my train. A few of my colleagues were invited to a printer’s lunch and the booze at lunch lightened my mind so I finished the work earlier than I expected. Now sitting on the train again, I let the stream of my thoughts take me anywhere at its will.
When I started my new journey it was like a dream and I was sailing in the ocean with too many navigation marks. Unable to decide my direction, I put my head down so as to survive the rough weather and tides and then tried to land in a port. I didn’t really care where the port was. Any port of success would do. I learned the sophisticated technique to power my CV, sent dozens of them to fish for opportunities. Then I parodied up-to-date interview skills to display myself as an ideal candidate for whatever the position on offer. Practice, failure, lessons learned, practice…I was riding around the circle relentlessly. Finally with some luck I landed in a port. A promising career, especially because it meant I couldn’t go back to my home country and reunite with my family. My life had already changed, symbolised by D, but I didn’t know it then. Like many things in life: you don’t realise its importance the moment when it happens and when you do it has already become history.
I have a necklace, antique effect sterling silver, with a pendant of a special design: a hand holding two chained hearts, one small and one big. I remember joking with my friends that I wanted to hold two hearts, one J’s and the other my child’s. But secretly I knew that the chain holding J’s heart had worn thin and I was longing for new love. It was not until later I realised that D would be the owner of the other heart.
D’s entry to my life was not purely an accident. He was the only man I was attracted to at the time, when I was in a place full of intelligent men and women. My marital status was a convenient armour to discourage those men who showed interest in me. But to D I must have seeded signals for he responded. The affair started causally then gradually both of us got caught by the love web. D was the lost key to the door of my passion cave that I didn’t know how deep it is. D was a part of my motive to stay and D becomes a part of my Greenwich story. But I didn’t know it then.
However, the web is not an easy bed to sleep on. Love is a puppet drawn between the passion and conscience. I am still on my journey of discovery. D is coming tonight.
*
D, do you remember? An episode before Greenwich
You are on holiday, staying in your parents’ house in a suburb of London. You asked me to come to visit you and meet your parents. So I come, with some uneasiness. You come to meet me in the train station, kissing me openly for here we are not afraid to be seen. You look fresh and excited.
We spend some time in the house then we go out to see the town. The antique shops are scattered in the quiet high street, rich with old paintings and maps. You know I like maps so we go into one of them. The old shopkeeper with a silk scarf on his neck is pleased by your query. He shows us around and talks far too long about maps of all sorts, until our legs can not support us any longer. We resign politely, thanking him for his insight and advice. With tired legs we find a restaurant nearby. We sit in the garden, drinking lemonade, with the scent of roses spread by the breeze and thickened by the sunshine. You look hungry and excited.
After lunch we wander to the park. There are elegantly shaped trees, feminine and subtle, shivering as if a little drunk. White soft clouds hang above us, floating slowly against clear blue sky. Not a soul in sight and the glittering green grass is so inviting. We lay down and you come close to me and kiss me. You ask me to stay, so do your eyes, your limbs.
I can’t, I say. I see the disappointment in your eyes. Taking my glasses off, I shake my head tenderly and turn my eyes away.
I know. I know. D. I am sorry but I can’t stay in your parents’ house. No. I like their house and they are very pleasant to me. You say that they’ve asked you if we are in love and I see the approving air on their faces. I like their garden and the greenhouse of cacti they’ve kept for you for years – all these years when you are away from home. The nice pale bluish theme in the living room and dining room, with lovely violet and pink flourish curtains and matching lining on snow white walls. Classic English style: cosy, neat and charming, matched with their friendly smiles. But no, I can’t stay here with you. I would have felt depressingly embarrassed and guilty if I did, as I am a married woman. I can’t face them, a role model of married couples, if I sleep with you under their roof. You understand? Just as I wouldn’t do it in front of my parents. Nothing offensive. Sorry. But not here.
You give up. To distract our troubled minds, we talk about other things, your career move and my house hunting. You look tired and your excitement starts to wear out.
In the evening, we say goodbye to your parents and I am embarrassed as you decide to come with me. Summer is the most popular season of London. We spend two hours hotel hunting and finally we stay in an executive suite with an enormous bed in the Mayfair Intercontinental, probably the only nice place left in town. It cost us a fortune, a silly amount for the passion and the conscience. After the massage bath, you look happy and content.
The following day we decide to have the flat near Greenwich.
*
The light, the shadow and the torn role model
I am supposed to be the ideal person, the role model of contemporary Chinese women. It is also the image I post to the world: a good citizen, a good wife, good mum, good daughter, good friend to have around, with a sympathetic ear and helpful hand, and a good colleague, able, helpful, and professional. But it is more than an image, it’s who I believe I am, it’s a part of my upbringing, a built-in mechanism in my system. This is an automatic me, challenged and disturbed by the rebellion force underneath, quite often these days. I didn’t expect the frictions would consume so much energy: trying to be an ideal person is so tiring and so upsetting.
Ying is a sweet girl with a tomboy look. We joined the same bank at the same time and quickly became good friends. She lives nearby, thanks to my influence. We do a lot of things together: lunch at work, shopping, buy furniture from IKEA and help each other to assemble the pieces, and dine and go to cinemas at weekends (that is, when D is not with me here or I don’t go to see D). We are each other’s immediate shelters in this foreign land. She is a bright shade of light in Greenwich for me. But I can’t tell her about D and often find myself making excuses why I am not available for her.
“Sorry Ying, I’m afraid I can’t come to join you for the shopping and movies this weekend as I have to go so and so place to see a friend.”
“ Sorry, too much work. Got to go to office this weekend.”
……
When I pretend before her trusting eyes, I feel chilled inside as if I stand in a shadow of a cold building.
And when D is around we are as alert as secret agents, afraid of being caught by Ying at any place we go, the park, the market, bookstores or restaurants.
Once it came close. D and I were still in bed when we heard some knocking the door. We kept silent, hoping she would leave. The persistent knock became louder after a while and Ying was shouting, “hi, I know you are here, your TV is on and the window is open.”
I had to answer the door.
In a few seconds time, D covered himself under the duvet. I closed the bedroom door and stood in the doorway. Ying was surprised to see me with a sullen look.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m OK, sorry I was in the loo. What are you doing here? I don’t feel very sociable at the moment. Please call me next time before you come.” I must sound harsh but I was determined not to let her in. Ying didn’t say much, her eyes lowered when she left. She never called in with such liberty again. I felt sorry for her and for myself. Sometimes the closeness is also dangerous. Hurting a friend is a price I’ve paid for keeping a secret.
When I returned, D was still fully covered by the duvet, an unforgettable scene which broke my heart. My tears ran down my face when I took the duvet off D. I put my arms around him and buried my face on his chest when the blade of sword cutting through inside me. How could I put D in humiliation like this? But what else can I do? I felt myself falling apart…who am I? To whom do I owe my loyalty? The reality is, while the new life with D is growing my nerves and blood vessels are still tied with my past. I wish I could be split into two bodies so nobody got hurt…
“It’s all right. Don’t be upset. I’m here with you.” D said softly.
He was my light, driving the shadow away. All the same, the tears ran more vigorously; the consequences are inescapable even if I could pretend I am not responsible.
The next day I bought Ying a hand-made teddy bear in the market to add to her collection. She liked it. How sweet she is.
It would be nice if things could be settled as easily as buying a present, I think. Is there any real solution in this universe? I came, I saw, I conquered. And I am torn down.
(Copyright L.R. Liu 2004)
我读完了，想再读一遍。