Psalms 85:7
Monday 29th October: Vickie Walters had been upset. At first she thought she had done something wrong, offended him in some indeterminate way. He had totally changed his behavior. After chasing her from pillar to post, he'd won her heart. Then silence. She wondered whether he might be in some sort of trouble. But no, she must be the problem. It was something she had done.
And now she realised he was trying to teach her a lesson. He'd done it in such a mean way, just cutting off contact like that. And it hurt even now it was over. He was the most important thing in her life. Now she'd lost him. Still it hurt.
But for a little while at least, she had him back. He was here, with her. She could feel her heart melt just looking at him, this older man. He'd skipped work. It was late afternoon and he was on his third martini and already slurring his words.
"I'm going to give you some advice, Vickie." He smiled, "This one last time."
"Last time?" She heard the words and let them sink in. She felt short of breath, like a schoolgirl with a crush. She knew it was an ending. Sealing the loss. She'd been in denial, as she had always been.
He nodded. "First thing: friends, shrinks, boyfriends, that's all bullshit," he said. "You are the only thing that matters and you have to learn how to be alone."
He was waving at the barman using his glass like a boyscout with a semaphore flag. She watched him order another and shook her head in the negative in response to his raised eyebrow. She didn't need another drink. She tried to laugh at herself. Earlier she had said she wanted to be alone. Now she was.
"You can be alone and be happy with that," he was saying. He was smiling with his eyes, still waving his glass at the bartender whilst talking to her, impatient for the new drink he had ordered. His eyes were sober, clear; whilst his mouth, his demeanor, was that of a drunk.
"In order to be with other people, you have to learn to be with yourself." He reached out, resting his hand on hers. "When you can be yourself, that's the time you're gonna be ready to be around other people." He sort of leered at her then. "That's the time when people will go after you."
He let go her hand as the bartender passed him a new martini. The way he saw it, he was keeping it simple. He wanted his words to be meaningful to her. In his way he had loved her. But even he recognized that at 54, he was a sight too old for a girl like this. His mother had taught him the Victorian code which meant that a man should never go out with a woman younger than half his age plus seven. Not that he was going to tell Vicky Walters that. He was more than twice her age. Still, it had been fun. The love she'd felt for him was freshening. It blew through him like the wind. Lifted him. But now it was time for it to end. Sometimes things have to end because there's no room for them to go forward. Making time, treading water, was just not an option with this girl. He wasn't that cruel.
He picked up the chilled glass and sipped his drink. "It's very obvious what's going to happen. You are twenty-two. You are intelligent. You have more culture than people twice your age, but you are still twenty-two."
He watched her eyes fill with tears. He found that strangely arousing. He reached for her hand again. "For the things you didn't experience before," he was saying, "It's gonna feel like the first time while the other won't." He watched her. She wasn't saying anything. He wondered whether he was being coherent. "You will disagree because you see things different," he said.
She shook her head again. "No," she said, "I don't disagree," her words barely above a whisper.
"You are twenty-two," he said again. "You can't deny or change that. You are gonna behave like a twenty-two year old person until you're not any more. You can try behaving like you're thirty but it's not the same. It takes a lot of pain and those years to get there. You'll only understand when you see for yourself, when you live it." He set his glass down then. "And that's the last thing I'm gonna say about it."
Vicky Walters sighed and bit back the tears. So this was the end, she thought. Baxter Merill was dumping her. Falling for this married man had cost her dear.
And Vicky garnered the last fragments of her self respect, and finally summoned the strength of character to get up and walk away from the table without looking back. As she left the bar, the man she had loved stared blankly in her direction for a moment, before turning his attention to his drink.
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