Post by mimms on May 28, 2005 18:29:33 GMT -5
I just had to get this one out before I start my Karl / Susan long story. It would have played about in my head otherwise, and I don't allow that. 
I'm always grateful for feedback. It's like feeding me cookies.
TITLE: Before Hello
AUTHOR: Mimms
RATING: PG
DISTRIBUTION: Here
FEEDBACK: Would be greatly appreciated via PM or this thread
DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine but I'm grateful for them anyway
SUMMARY: Bitter-sweet vignette.
PAIRING: None
CHARACTERS: Susan, Karl
YEAR: 2005
SPOILERS: None
DATE: 26 May 2005
Such a beautiful day.
I’ve been trying to appreciate the beauty in these most simple things, lately; I wish I’d realised earlier how precious life is, and not to be wasted. Something else I learnt. I have a memory of lying on the ground, hearing Susan’s voice, and looking up at the clouds and thinking to myself: I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to Susan at the same time as looking at clouds before.
I remember exactly what they looked like that day, each cloud, each shape, each position.
They won’t ever look like that again.
***
I’ve prescribed myself regular walks in the park, in the local gardens, by the river – anywhere that allows me to get some gentle exercise and walk off the stresses building up in my body. I know better than to risk it again. It’s amazing how staring at a river can make you forget your worries – a few years ago I would have mocked that as new-ageist nonsense. A few months ago, in fact.
Now I’m just grateful to see it at all. The clouds will always be there. The river will always be running, and the plants will always grow. I try to remember that.
I take an hour’s break every day at lunch. And today I find myself at the quiet end of the park where I’m looking at the clouds. It’s not easy walking and looking up at the same time; it’s like looking up when it’s snowing…eventually you become disoriented. I have to stop.
I wonder where Susan is right now. Will she be at work? At home? Is she looking up at the clouds right now, seeing the same thing as me? Does she remember each shape, each position?
Do they mark her days like they mark mine?
***
I’ve only had twenty minutes of my lunch hour so far, and already I feel relaxed. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this years ago, instead of trying to cram in the paperwork and the patient notes and extra appointments.
I make my way off the footpath and onto the grass to find a shady spot – preferably one with a bench. I don’t want to have to explain trousers covered in grass or pollen to my new receptionist. He’s not the brightest guy in the world, and has quickly jumped to conclusions on more than one occasion.
I wander over to the trees where I’ll be able to escape the sun and heat. I enjoy the warm weather, but I don’t want to sit still in it for too long or I’ll burn. When we went on holiday, Susan would always tell me to put on factor twenty or higher, and I never listened, and I always ended up red and burned.
I’m thinking about the sun, and burning, and the trees when I see her. Sitting alone on the bench in the shade.
Always the sensible one.
My Susan.
***
I can hear someone moving on the grass and I glance up to take a look at the person passing by.
Karl.
I will him not to have seen me. If I close my eyes will he walk past? If I look away will he pretend he didn’t see me sitting here?
If I didn’t know him better I’d think that Karl picks his moments deliberately to coincide with when I want to see him least. I just wanted to be here with the trees, today. Alone with the trees and the bench, out of the sun. I bet he’s not wearing any sunscreen, either. Every holiday I would tell him, and every holiday he’d get burnt.
He never listened.
No-one ever listens.
***
She just looked away from me. I know what that means.
Sometimes thirty years of knowing someone isn’t an advantage; she wants me to ignore her, but that means there’s a reason for it. I want to go to her, but she doesn’t want me to.
I give up the argument – I already know what I’m going to do anyway.
She had me the moment I saw her.
She had me a long time ago.
***
Just get it over and done with, Karl. You know you’re going to come over.
Thirty years of knowing him isn’t always a good thing because I can predict him before he knows himself what he’s going to say and do. I could write out right now exactly what he’ll say when he comes over, and how he’ll say it, and how the conversation will go, and how he will leave.
He doesn’t surprise me any more. He’s more predictable than he ever was. He responds with textbook answers, ex-husband-who’s-still-feeling-guilty answers. Never takes the lead, never guides the conversation, only responds to my questions and my comments in that positive way that avoids confrontation and disagreement.
Did he respond that way with Isabelle? Did he really hear her, really talk with her? Or did he respond with textbook answers, boyfriend-who-wants-to-please answers?
You were never going to assuage your guilt over me by trying to please Isabelle, Karl.
***
I walk across the grass to where she sits alone.
“Hi.”
I take a seat next to her.
“Hello.” Her responses don’t get much shorter than that.
“You’re not at school today?”
“I took a day off.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine.”
I struggle for something to say; she’s not leaving any room for discussion.
“Libby called me last night.”
I don’t know why I said that. It’s not strictly true, she called last week, but Susan doesn’t need to know that. She opens up when we talk about the kids.
“Did she?” Her eyes look interested.
“Yeah, she told me about the job offer she’s had at that school…”
“The one with the…”
“Yeah, yeah. Looks like she’s going to take it, as well.”
“So she should. She’s a bright girl.”
“Takes after you.”
I pushed it too far. Did I? She doesn’t reprimand me for the comment but I felt her annoyance, her anger.
Anger? No, it’s not that. What is it?
She still hasn’t reprimanded me and I’m waiting. Not anger.
Susan?
***
Don’t think I don’t know, Karl. Don’t think for one second that I don’t know that you always use the kids to make me talk to you. You know that’s my weakness and I know you exploit it.
I let you.
“Takes after you.”
Libby takes after me. My beautiful daughter. Impulsive, volatile and defensive…not me, Karl. Always picking up the pieces of other people’s messy lives with little regard for her own…maybe.
Everyone else’s lives are messy. Mine’s neat and easily packaged. Before The Split and After The Divorce. The bit in the middle I try not to name; I never unpack that part.
I wonder if Karl does that. Am I packaged up in Before The Split, and Isabelle in After I Left? Or does she feature in both, Karl? Maybe his packages are simply Susan, Isabelle.
Maybe they’re Frumpy Wife and Beautiful Lover.
Do his packages mark his days as much as they mark mine?
***
I’m not really one for silence, especially where Susan’s concerned now we’re not together. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me think that she’s thinking about me, about us, about what I did…
“Are you doing anything this weekend?”
“I’ve got some marking for the year eleven kids.”
“Going out, at all?”
“No.”
I nod.
“I was thinking about going to that new restaurant in Preston Place – apparently their Thai food is really good.”
“Lovely.”
“Maybe you should go at some point and we could…”
I don’t think I should end that sentence.
“Isabelle’s coming to collect the last of her things tomorrow.”
Silence.
“I told her to come after ten o’clock but I have a feeling that she’ll…”
I never get to tell her what I think Izzy will do because:
“What do you want, Karl?”
Her coldness takes me aback.
“What do I want?”
“You’re making idle conversation when you don’t really have anything to say, and you know you’re doing it, and you know I didn’t want you to come over and talk to me…so what do you want?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
She looks up at the trees with a half-smile on her face.
“No.”
She sounds so tired. She’s not going to talk to me. There’s little point me staying.
“Well. I’ll leave you alone, then.”
***
I could have written all this down prior to his sitting next to me. Predictable, boring and a waste of ten minutes of my life. Another item to add to After The Divorce.
And now he’ll stand up and walk away, and I’ll go home and wake up tomorrow hoping for something better.
I wait for him to walk away before I let the tears fall.
***
I stand up and walk away from her. For each day I’m no longer with Izzy, Susan and I move further and further apart.
That seems so silly. So ridiculous that we were closer when I was in a relationship with Izzy than we are now, after I nearly died.
I look back at her.
And it occurs to me how silly this really is. How awful it is. That my wife of thirty years sits alone on a bench on a Friday lunchtime, and I walk away from her because she doesn’t want to talk. And I acquiesce to her every time because I feel so guilty about what I’ve done, and so we become further apart every day.
I don’t want to be any further apart from Susan than I already am.
So I turn back.
***
I can’t see him but I know he’s behind me, and he’s turned around and he’s staring at me. This wasn’t in the plan, Karl. Just leave, just go, just…
“Susan?”
Oh, please, Karl…
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want to fight with you.”
I’m not fighting you, Karl. I just don’t have the energy.
“Surely we can just sit and chat, as friends? Without an agenda? Because I really don’t have one, Susan. I didn’t come over because I wanted something from you, I just wanted to see how you are.”
How I am?
I turn round to look at him.
***
I don’t know which part of what I said meant something to her, but it meant enough for her to turn around. Tears on her cheeks.
Oh, my darling Susan.
I go to sit with her, then, and take her hand.
“How are you?”
She shrugs, shakes her head and quickly wipes her eyes. I don’t know if I should say anything else or just wait for her to speak. I think I’ll wait for her to speak.
I’ll just listen.
“I’m being silly.”
“You’ve never been silly.”
“I am. I’m overreacting.”
“To what?”
“Just…things. Silly things.”
Susan doesn’t cry over silly things. She cries over things that really matter to her. I can’t tuck her hair behind her ear anymore, but I run a couple of fingers through it anyway.
“You can talk to me, love.”
She looks up at me, then.
***
What do I say to him? Will you think I’m being selfish, Karl? Bitter? Self-indulgent?
He’d never think those things of me, I know. He still loves me; I know that, too.
“I’m just feeling sorry for myself, that’s all.”
“Why?”
I don’t know what to say. He’s using his kind voice that he reserves for serious conversations.
“Come on, Susan. You know you can talk to me.”
His gentleness brings tears to my eyes and my stomach crumples and all I want to do is lean into him.
“Susan?”
He strokes my hair again and I give in.
***
“I’ve just felt so…alone, lately, you know?”
“Alone?”
She nods at me, and my heart breaks a little. I stroke her hand and she has tears in her eyes again. Oh Susan. How long have you felt like this? Have you told anyone? Have you been feeling this on your own?
“I know it sounds silly.”
“No. No, it doesn’t.”
I know what she’s saying. I understand her.
“I mean, I’m happy to help. I’m happy to help Lil and Lyn, and the kids…Janelle needs all the support she can get with Dylan, especially, and Sindi’s been through so much with Stuart recently…”
Silence.
“I mean – everyone has problems, don’t they? And a good friend should always be there to listen and help.”
“I don’t doubt that you’re a really good friend to all of them, Susan.”
Should I risk it?
“You’ve been my best friend for more years than I can remember. You’ve never let me down. Despite everything.”
She smiles. Oh, my love. I can’t help but stroke her hair again; she looks so sad.
“Who do you talk to, Susan?”
She looks up at me, surprised. Yes, sweetheart, I understand. She doesn’t answer the question. Instead:
“I am happy to help, Karl. I’m happy to do what I can for my friends, I always am.”
“I know.”
“I don’t begrudge them that.”
“I know.”
“It just sometimes feels like…”
Her voice breaks and she covers her face with her hand. I pull her to me and she hides her face in my neck, clutching at my shirt.
I hold her close to me.
I’ll never be able to allay the guilt that I feel in not looking after her any more.
***
“What time do you have to be back at the surgery?”
“About twenty minutes.”
She nods.
“I’m sorry, Karl.”
“You don’t have to apologise to me.”
She drops her eyes to the ground.
“Yeah.”
I’ll risk it.
“Tonight – what are you doing?”
“Like I said, year eleven to mark.”
“Can you take a couple of hours out?”
“Why?”
“Come with me to the Thai place tonight.”
She doesn’t look sure.
“Yeah, look, Karl…”
“Come on. As friends.”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me…let me be here for you, Susan.”
She meets my eyes with hers; grateful eyes. She nods.
“Alright then.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
We both stand.
“Walk me back to the surgery?”
“Sure.”
We walk back in silence, through the park, past the roses, past the tennis courts, the lawns.
“Karl…?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming over.”
I smile.
“You know there’s no way I wouldn’t have.”
She smiles.
“Yeah, I know. I had you at hello.”
She grins at her own joke. Oh my darling Susan. You had me before hello.
You had me a long time ago.
END
I'm always grateful for feedback. It's like feeding me cookies.
TITLE: Before Hello
AUTHOR: Mimms
RATING: PG
DISTRIBUTION: Here
FEEDBACK: Would be greatly appreciated via PM or this thread
DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine but I'm grateful for them anyway
SUMMARY: Bitter-sweet vignette.
PAIRING: None
CHARACTERS: Susan, Karl
YEAR: 2005
SPOILERS: None
DATE: 26 May 2005
Such a beautiful day.
I’ve been trying to appreciate the beauty in these most simple things, lately; I wish I’d realised earlier how precious life is, and not to be wasted. Something else I learnt. I have a memory of lying on the ground, hearing Susan’s voice, and looking up at the clouds and thinking to myself: I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to Susan at the same time as looking at clouds before.
I remember exactly what they looked like that day, each cloud, each shape, each position.
They won’t ever look like that again.
***
I’ve prescribed myself regular walks in the park, in the local gardens, by the river – anywhere that allows me to get some gentle exercise and walk off the stresses building up in my body. I know better than to risk it again. It’s amazing how staring at a river can make you forget your worries – a few years ago I would have mocked that as new-ageist nonsense. A few months ago, in fact.
Now I’m just grateful to see it at all. The clouds will always be there. The river will always be running, and the plants will always grow. I try to remember that.
I take an hour’s break every day at lunch. And today I find myself at the quiet end of the park where I’m looking at the clouds. It’s not easy walking and looking up at the same time; it’s like looking up when it’s snowing…eventually you become disoriented. I have to stop.
I wonder where Susan is right now. Will she be at work? At home? Is she looking up at the clouds right now, seeing the same thing as me? Does she remember each shape, each position?
Do they mark her days like they mark mine?
***
I’ve only had twenty minutes of my lunch hour so far, and already I feel relaxed. I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this years ago, instead of trying to cram in the paperwork and the patient notes and extra appointments.
I make my way off the footpath and onto the grass to find a shady spot – preferably one with a bench. I don’t want to have to explain trousers covered in grass or pollen to my new receptionist. He’s not the brightest guy in the world, and has quickly jumped to conclusions on more than one occasion.
I wander over to the trees where I’ll be able to escape the sun and heat. I enjoy the warm weather, but I don’t want to sit still in it for too long or I’ll burn. When we went on holiday, Susan would always tell me to put on factor twenty or higher, and I never listened, and I always ended up red and burned.
I’m thinking about the sun, and burning, and the trees when I see her. Sitting alone on the bench in the shade.
Always the sensible one.
My Susan.
***
I can hear someone moving on the grass and I glance up to take a look at the person passing by.
Karl.
I will him not to have seen me. If I close my eyes will he walk past? If I look away will he pretend he didn’t see me sitting here?
If I didn’t know him better I’d think that Karl picks his moments deliberately to coincide with when I want to see him least. I just wanted to be here with the trees, today. Alone with the trees and the bench, out of the sun. I bet he’s not wearing any sunscreen, either. Every holiday I would tell him, and every holiday he’d get burnt.
He never listened.
No-one ever listens.
***
She just looked away from me. I know what that means.
Sometimes thirty years of knowing someone isn’t an advantage; she wants me to ignore her, but that means there’s a reason for it. I want to go to her, but she doesn’t want me to.
I give up the argument – I already know what I’m going to do anyway.
She had me the moment I saw her.
She had me a long time ago.
***
Just get it over and done with, Karl. You know you’re going to come over.
Thirty years of knowing him isn’t always a good thing because I can predict him before he knows himself what he’s going to say and do. I could write out right now exactly what he’ll say when he comes over, and how he’ll say it, and how the conversation will go, and how he will leave.
He doesn’t surprise me any more. He’s more predictable than he ever was. He responds with textbook answers, ex-husband-who’s-still-feeling-guilty answers. Never takes the lead, never guides the conversation, only responds to my questions and my comments in that positive way that avoids confrontation and disagreement.
Did he respond that way with Isabelle? Did he really hear her, really talk with her? Or did he respond with textbook answers, boyfriend-who-wants-to-please answers?
You were never going to assuage your guilt over me by trying to please Isabelle, Karl.
***
I walk across the grass to where she sits alone.
“Hi.”
I take a seat next to her.
“Hello.” Her responses don’t get much shorter than that.
“You’re not at school today?”
“I took a day off.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Fine.”
I struggle for something to say; she’s not leaving any room for discussion.
“Libby called me last night.”
I don’t know why I said that. It’s not strictly true, she called last week, but Susan doesn’t need to know that. She opens up when we talk about the kids.
“Did she?” Her eyes look interested.
“Yeah, she told me about the job offer she’s had at that school…”
“The one with the…”
“Yeah, yeah. Looks like she’s going to take it, as well.”
“So she should. She’s a bright girl.”
“Takes after you.”
I pushed it too far. Did I? She doesn’t reprimand me for the comment but I felt her annoyance, her anger.
Anger? No, it’s not that. What is it?
She still hasn’t reprimanded me and I’m waiting. Not anger.
Susan?
***
Don’t think I don’t know, Karl. Don’t think for one second that I don’t know that you always use the kids to make me talk to you. You know that’s my weakness and I know you exploit it.
I let you.
“Takes after you.”
Libby takes after me. My beautiful daughter. Impulsive, volatile and defensive…not me, Karl. Always picking up the pieces of other people’s messy lives with little regard for her own…maybe.
Everyone else’s lives are messy. Mine’s neat and easily packaged. Before The Split and After The Divorce. The bit in the middle I try not to name; I never unpack that part.
I wonder if Karl does that. Am I packaged up in Before The Split, and Isabelle in After I Left? Or does she feature in both, Karl? Maybe his packages are simply Susan, Isabelle.
Maybe they’re Frumpy Wife and Beautiful Lover.
Do his packages mark his days as much as they mark mine?
***
I’m not really one for silence, especially where Susan’s concerned now we’re not together. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me think that she’s thinking about me, about us, about what I did…
“Are you doing anything this weekend?”
“I’ve got some marking for the year eleven kids.”
“Going out, at all?”
“No.”
I nod.
“I was thinking about going to that new restaurant in Preston Place – apparently their Thai food is really good.”
“Lovely.”
“Maybe you should go at some point and we could…”
I don’t think I should end that sentence.
“Isabelle’s coming to collect the last of her things tomorrow.”
Silence.
“I told her to come after ten o’clock but I have a feeling that she’ll…”
I never get to tell her what I think Izzy will do because:
“What do you want, Karl?”
Her coldness takes me aback.
“What do I want?”
“You’re making idle conversation when you don’t really have anything to say, and you know you’re doing it, and you know I didn’t want you to come over and talk to me…so what do you want?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
She looks up at the trees with a half-smile on her face.
“No.”
She sounds so tired. She’s not going to talk to me. There’s little point me staying.
“Well. I’ll leave you alone, then.”
***
I could have written all this down prior to his sitting next to me. Predictable, boring and a waste of ten minutes of my life. Another item to add to After The Divorce.
And now he’ll stand up and walk away, and I’ll go home and wake up tomorrow hoping for something better.
I wait for him to walk away before I let the tears fall.
***
I stand up and walk away from her. For each day I’m no longer with Izzy, Susan and I move further and further apart.
That seems so silly. So ridiculous that we were closer when I was in a relationship with Izzy than we are now, after I nearly died.
I look back at her.
And it occurs to me how silly this really is. How awful it is. That my wife of thirty years sits alone on a bench on a Friday lunchtime, and I walk away from her because she doesn’t want to talk. And I acquiesce to her every time because I feel so guilty about what I’ve done, and so we become further apart every day.
I don’t want to be any further apart from Susan than I already am.
So I turn back.
***
I can’t see him but I know he’s behind me, and he’s turned around and he’s staring at me. This wasn’t in the plan, Karl. Just leave, just go, just…
“Susan?”
Oh, please, Karl…
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t want to fight with you.”
I’m not fighting you, Karl. I just don’t have the energy.
“Surely we can just sit and chat, as friends? Without an agenda? Because I really don’t have one, Susan. I didn’t come over because I wanted something from you, I just wanted to see how you are.”
How I am?
I turn round to look at him.
***
I don’t know which part of what I said meant something to her, but it meant enough for her to turn around. Tears on her cheeks.
Oh, my darling Susan.
I go to sit with her, then, and take her hand.
“How are you?”
She shrugs, shakes her head and quickly wipes her eyes. I don’t know if I should say anything else or just wait for her to speak. I think I’ll wait for her to speak.
I’ll just listen.
“I’m being silly.”
“You’ve never been silly.”
“I am. I’m overreacting.”
“To what?”
“Just…things. Silly things.”
Susan doesn’t cry over silly things. She cries over things that really matter to her. I can’t tuck her hair behind her ear anymore, but I run a couple of fingers through it anyway.
“You can talk to me, love.”
She looks up at me, then.
***
What do I say to him? Will you think I’m being selfish, Karl? Bitter? Self-indulgent?
He’d never think those things of me, I know. He still loves me; I know that, too.
“I’m just feeling sorry for myself, that’s all.”
“Why?”
I don’t know what to say. He’s using his kind voice that he reserves for serious conversations.
“Come on, Susan. You know you can talk to me.”
His gentleness brings tears to my eyes and my stomach crumples and all I want to do is lean into him.
“Susan?”
He strokes my hair again and I give in.
***
“I’ve just felt so…alone, lately, you know?”
“Alone?”
She nods at me, and my heart breaks a little. I stroke her hand and she has tears in her eyes again. Oh Susan. How long have you felt like this? Have you told anyone? Have you been feeling this on your own?
“I know it sounds silly.”
“No. No, it doesn’t.”
I know what she’s saying. I understand her.
“I mean, I’m happy to help. I’m happy to help Lil and Lyn, and the kids…Janelle needs all the support she can get with Dylan, especially, and Sindi’s been through so much with Stuart recently…”
Silence.
“I mean – everyone has problems, don’t they? And a good friend should always be there to listen and help.”
“I don’t doubt that you’re a really good friend to all of them, Susan.”
Should I risk it?
“You’ve been my best friend for more years than I can remember. You’ve never let me down. Despite everything.”
She smiles. Oh, my love. I can’t help but stroke her hair again; she looks so sad.
“Who do you talk to, Susan?”
She looks up at me, surprised. Yes, sweetheart, I understand. She doesn’t answer the question. Instead:
“I am happy to help, Karl. I’m happy to do what I can for my friends, I always am.”
“I know.”
“I don’t begrudge them that.”
“I know.”
“It just sometimes feels like…”
Her voice breaks and she covers her face with her hand. I pull her to me and she hides her face in my neck, clutching at my shirt.
I hold her close to me.
I’ll never be able to allay the guilt that I feel in not looking after her any more.
***
“What time do you have to be back at the surgery?”
“About twenty minutes.”
She nods.
“I’m sorry, Karl.”
“You don’t have to apologise to me.”
She drops her eyes to the ground.
“Yeah.”
I’ll risk it.
“Tonight – what are you doing?”
“Like I said, year eleven to mark.”
“Can you take a couple of hours out?”
“Why?”
“Come with me to the Thai place tonight.”
She doesn’t look sure.
“Yeah, look, Karl…”
“Come on. As friends.”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me…let me be here for you, Susan.”
She meets my eyes with hers; grateful eyes. She nods.
“Alright then.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven.”
We both stand.
“Walk me back to the surgery?”
“Sure.”
We walk back in silence, through the park, past the roses, past the tennis courts, the lawns.
“Karl…?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming over.”
I smile.
“You know there’s no way I wouldn’t have.”
She smiles.
“Yeah, I know. I had you at hello.”
She grins at her own joke. Oh my darling Susan. You had me before hello.
You had me a long time ago.
END
