I apologise, I have written another short story, Rainier. I don't know what has come over me. No short stories for decades and now two in the space of a month? And this one is quite odd. I feel as though my twenty year old self wrote it through me. And he appears to have been drunk on Rhys, Camus, Simenon and Sartre. I suppose there are worse poisons.
Rainier
by John Purcell (5000 words. A 15-30min read)
There was at that time a man who many people knew by sight, but few knew by name. That year he was a frequent visitor to the bars and cafés we found ourselves in after the cinemas had closed. We’d see him once or twice a week. He was almost always accompanied by a woman. Sometimes the same woman for weeks at a time. One woman was on his arm for some months. She was known to us. A lecturer at the university. Some of us were students and made up stories about her. She was very attractive. Dark hair and skin. Lean. But more than that. Fiercely intelligent. She frightened many of us. But it did not stop us making up stories about her and telling them to each other as if they were true. We were young and penniless and too slow to keep the attention of a woman like that. So, we told stories to make her more like us. But she too went the way of so many other women who accompanied this man.
Rainier. I overheard a woman calling him Rainier, so that’s what I called him.
I never saw him alone.
Before what happened.
Which is what I am beginning to tell you. Before what happened, Rainier was only to be seen with a woman on his arm. Not always as beautiful or as desirable to us as the lecturer, we did not make up stories about them, but they all held him the same way. And they talked together with an intensity that drew our eyes to the couple often throughout the night. They would leave abruptly, most often an hour or so before the town revived itself under a breaking dawn. We stayed on. We were young and had no reason to leave before the workmen arrived for their morning coffee. But it was always dark when Rainier left, arm in arm with a woman.
By some chance one night I found myself on the street heading home earlier than was my custom and fell in behind Rainier and his companion. I was walking fast and caught them up. Then I lingered behind, catching their conversation in pieces and trying to fit the parts to make sense of it. This is what I heard.
‘But you don’t need to be like that,’ she said.
‘What does it matter in the end?’ said he.
Laughter and mumbling. They were walking wrapped in each other’s arms. Stumbling. Pressed against one another. She kissed his cheek.
‘It was a circus.’
‘It always is. But he had no right to take it.’
A couple walking in the opposite direction along the narrow pavement disturbed them. We all stepped out of the way.
‘Was that couple us?’
I didn’t hear her reply.
But he said, ‘You read that in a book.’
She laughed. They slowed their steps so they could kiss. I slowed, too.
‘You’re a monster.’
‘Probably. I have no control over myself. Who keeps my heart beating, not I.’
They crossed the street. I was going that way, too.
‘That boy is following us.’
I passed by quickly, reaching the curb opposite before them and went on. But it was true. I was following them. I waited at the end of the street, in the shadows and watched them pass. She was not beautiful. But I knew why he held onto her so tightly. I would have done the same. I followed them across the river and all the way to a four storey building. They both entered. I did not know if it was her address or his. I waited across the street and looked up at the windows. No lights went on. I waited. There was movement on the second floor. Shadow within shadow. I left my hiding spot to get a better look and stared into the darkness. Then a flash of light. He was at the window lighting her cigarette as they both stared directly at me. I jumped and scampered away like the rat that I was.
When next I saw Rainier, he glanced briefly in my direction. Enough to mark me out among my friends. Enough to warn me. The woman on his arm only had eyes for him. She was the same woman. They sat side by side in a booth with their backs to me. Much later I realised that he could see me in the reflection of the brass casement of the coffee machine. He would catch my reflected eye from time to time, as if to remind me of the threat.
But I was young and had never had any real experience. Not of the ways of men. I felt brave with my friends. We students would fling out our fists in a rage over some small matter. We would knock each other about, grow fierce in our minds, and butt heads. But it was the stuff of puppies and lion cubs.
I stared back angrily.
That’s how these things start. From nothing. There were seven of us and one of him. He wasn’t particularly big. He wasn’t particularly threatening. But he was a man, and we were boys really. So, there was that between us. A barrier and a challenge.
From that day on, everything he did nettled me. There was no getting around this growing antipathy in me towards him. He seemed to be haunting me in those days, too. We never organised our nights out. The cafés and bars we frequented varied. Though we preferred those open all night. And yet he kept crossing our path. Three times a week, sometimes more. It was unusual, unlikely, impossible.
I started to ask around about him. I wanted to know who he was, what he did, where he was from. No one knew anything. I followed him, but he had a habit of disappearing. Like it was a game. Like he knew more about me than I knew about him, and he was teasing me.
In these unsettling weeks, he was never with the same woman more than a couple of nights. But the same intensity was there between them. They clung to one another like lovers. Like they were the only ones capable of such love, such desire. I didn’t understand it. There was nothing special about Rainier. Not that I could see. Yet he was dating two or more women a week. That lecturer. Doctor of philosophy. She had adored him. You could see. She was magnificent. In all ways. But he was just some guy. Not well dressed. Not rich. Not memorable in any way other than the way the women were with him.
Then one night something strange happened. He abandoned his date at the table and left the café. She was an attractive woman and well-dressed. Professional. Probably in her late thirties. Similar age to Rainier. She was drinking white wine. Her face was untroubled. She glanced around the room as though seeing it for the first time. But that was how it was with Rainier and his partners, intense, narrow, focussed. They saw nothing but themselves. A couple alone in the world.
She caught me staring at her and looked away. I saw a cloud on her brow for the first time that evening. And it was this cloud that lifted me from my seat and had me crossing the distance between us.
I was seated opposite her before I knew what had happened. That self-possession returned to her.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
‘Tell me about the man you are with.’
‘You’re the man I am with,’ she said smiling. She raised the glass to her lips and drank more than a sip.
‘Who is he? What does he do? Where does he come from?’
She was smiling and was suddenly beautiful. Her eyebrow lifted, questioning, and she laughed again.
‘You tell me, Rainier.’
‘What!?’
She leaned forward and placed her hand over mine. It was cold and pale with nails painted a red a few shades from black. She was wearing a gold wedding ring and an engagement ring with a large diamond.
‘I want to know. Everyone wants to know. Who are you Rainier?’
I stood up. Her smile vanished.
‘Rainier?’ I asked.
‘Who owns your heart if not yourself?’
I turned, and feeling lightheaded, nearly fell, but managed to stumble back to my chair where my friends were laughing at me for being a drunken fool.
At that moment, Rainier entered the café and took his seat across from the woman, his back to me.
I was being slapped on the back by my best friend for my bravery - he thought I had propositioned the woman - when Rainier and his date burst out laughing.
My heart thumped heavily in my chest as I left the café, their mocking laughter in my ears, and stumbled back to my room. I could do nothing to slow my heart. I spent the night in a sweaty fever dream wishing I was dead.
The university year was over, and my family expected me home for the summer.
But I lingered on in the city as one by one my friends retreated to the provinces or abroad and I was left to haunt the cinemas and cafés alone.
But I was not alone. Rainier was still in the city. And his laughter rang in my ears.
I was very conspicuous on my own in the cafés and bars. But my growing anger made me bold. Sometimes I would catch Rainier spotting me through a window and he and his partner would pass on to the next café. I would curse him for a coward.
Other times he would walk right in, heading directly at me and take a table just behind me or beside me and I would hear nothing but whispers and murmurs which my addled mind eagerly translated into slights.
One long night I had sat alone and in silence drinking. When I stood to leave the world swayed. I pushed through the doors and onto the street and found myself tripping on the legs of someone sitting in the warm night air at a table on the pavement. I only just managed to keep myself upright.
When I turned to apologise, I saw it was him. The woman I did not recognise, but she clutched his arm like all the rest.
‘You tripped me on purpose,’ I said.
‘He did, I saw him,’ said the woman.
‘A damned lie,’ he said, and kissed her. Not a peck on the cheek or on the lips but a full bodied kiss with an open mouth, her palm against his face and I was instantly forgotten.
She too wore a wedding ring. He was a scoundrel.
I kicked out at him, the toe of my boot connecting with his shin.
He cried out and stood up. I stepped forward, my fist raised. I was not afraid of him.
He slapped me.
I staggered back. There were tears in my eyes. When I straightened and stepped forward, he slapped me again. The first stung, the second was heavier and my head throbbed. I could not prevent or hide my tears.
I stared at him.
‘Go back to your people. You’re not ready,’ he said, dismissively before sitting back down.
I was dazed and slow. My heart was racing again. I backed onto the street, wiping my face. I couldn’t make sense of what happened.
The couple had turned back to themselves and were quickly forgetting me.
I returned to my room. Packed my things and reached the station an hour before the first train home.
My father wouldn’t speak to me on my arrival. My mother told me he had gone to a great deal of trouble to secure me a summer job. But because I had not returned the job had gone to someone else. I was glad, I had no intention of wasting my summer working as a clerk for some solicitor. If I had to work, it would be outside, picking fruit or labouring on a building site. I had enough of words and books and ink and ideas.
My uncle had the contract for fixing the surface of the town’s high street. All the cobblestones had to be taken up, cleaned, shaped and re-laid. My mother arranged for me to start at once.
It was hard work, and I was a poor specimen of a man. The seasoned workmen showed me no respect, which was only right. I kept to myself and worked as hard as my body would allow. I was exhausted every evening and in bed by nine, sleeping through like the dead.
As the summer warmed up, I grew accustomed to the work and shirt off like the other men, browned in the sun. No longer exhausted every evening, I took my free meal waiting for me at home and joined the younger workmen in the town’s bars until they closed at midnight.
Weeks passed and I could feel myself changing. My body was no longer that of a boy, my mind was growing restless with the monotony of my working days so in the bars and cafés I sought out the town’s artists and thinkers, such as they were.
In that poor company a student of philosophy from the capital could show off if he were that way inclined. They soon nicknamed me Sartre which I accepted as my due. And it was around that time a local actress, long resigned to playing matronly roles, took me in hand and made me a man.
Of course, it wasn’t long before all of this went to my head. As a result, I spoke disrespectfully one too many times to one of the seasoned workmen and on the high street, at the busiest hour, in front of a crowd of onlookers, I was deservedly beaten. Chastened, humiliated and bleeding I returned home for my meal only to be given a further beating by my father while my mother beseeched me to change my ways.
Needless to say, I was not seen in the cafés and bars after this. Instead, I did my labouring work conscientiously, eventually winning a good word from my uncle, then returned home to my parents and did my reading for the next semester.
Summer over, I was back in the capital and there I continued to keep time to my parent’s wishes. I no longer wasted my evenings in bars and cafés with my friends but remained behind with my books and studied. I proudly sent home my results and was rewarded with a larger allowance.
My summer of hard labour had changed my appearance, I was bulkier, squarer in the face and shoulders and before I left my mother had seen that my new attire suited the man who had taken the place of her son.
Without really knowing how, that semester saw me thrown more and more into the company of women. It began in the library, where I went to study in peace, but I got no peace, the library was overrun by women all intent on bothering me. I welcomed the attention, but I did not seek it. Then one of my lecturers asked me to take over one of his first year tutorials. It was an honour which only served to mark me out among my peers. To bolster my allowance, I took on private tutoring work also at this time.
Again, by no effort of my own, I was soon dating a fellow tutor, Susan, who was doing her doctorate, and three years older than me. It just seemed to happen. Not long after this, encouraged by Susan, I began to write short fiction as a pastime. It was she who found a magazine willing to publish one of them. I was barely twenty when I first saw myself in print. Soon after this Susan’s father died, and she left university to help her mother run the family business. She broke off the relationship by letter, urging me to keep writing.
A different kind of woman took hold of me then. Alex. She was a writer, an actor, and a singer. She was never my girlfriend, or lover, she was nearly thirty, but she had me dancing to every one of her tunes. She took me to plays, readings, concerts. We spent hours together in cafés deep in discussion. I would escort her home, to dinner parties, to gatherings. She treated my apartment as her own. But our relationship was strictly platonic. I finished my degree in thrall of her, blind to the attentions of any other woman.
She had encouraged me to work hard, and I finished near the top of my year. She wanted me to write, I wrote stories and plays and songs and poems for her, which she critiqued and kept, locking them away. Unlike Susan who rushed me into print, Alex always said I was not ready and too young to publish. But always told me that I had the makings of a great writer.
With Alex’s help I was given the editorship of a literary magazine. It brought me more prestige than money but introduced me to the writers of the city. Publishers were chasing me for work, but I declined on Alex’s advice. I wasn’t ready, she repeated. I felt ready. My writing had come a long way since that first story was published. Be patient, she said, assuring me that my time would come.
It was around this time while out with Alex that I first saw Rainier again. He was, as always, entwined with a woman. He looked no different from the man I once followed home. But this time I recognised the woman. And so did Alex. It was, Jeanette, the wife of a publisher friend of ours, Milo. I let Alex be the first to mention her. I didn’t want her to know of my obsession with the man she was with. That I had been watching them intently the whole evening.
I can’t describe the feeling of seeing him again after so long. I had barely given him a thought in the meantime, but on seeing him, my anger returned as though his slaps had happened the night before.
I felt wretched and drinking too much too quickly did something I had never done before, I made a clumsy pass at Alex and she slapped me and abandoned me there in the bar. Alex wasn’t a shrinking violet, she let me have it in word and action and I sat alone under the gaze of all deeply ashamed and increasingly angry.
Rainier was the only person in the bar who paid no attention to the scene or Alex’s exit. But Jeanette coloured when our eyes met, and she encouraged Rainier to leave and leave they did.
That night, alone in my room I started writing my first novel. At the top of the page, I wrote and underlined the word Rainier.
By day I worked at the offices of the literary magazine, by night I wrote my novel. Weeks went by in this way. I saw no one outside work. I lived on canned food and cheap wine and coffee. I was inspired as I had never been inspired before. The words flowed, the pages filled. Each day on my return from the office I would correct the previous day’s work then I would write until one or two, sometimes through the night, then wake at eight and be in the office by nine. I was elated, exhausted, delirious and unrecognisable to myself.
We were all in the pages of my novel. Rainier, of course, and Alex, my parents, the workmen, my student friends, and Rainier’s women. It was a novel of extremes, all life distorted, all emotion heightened. In it my true feelings for Alex were acknowledged and then exaggerated, my hatred of Rainier amplified. We were caught in some tragic love triangle. I loved Alex but Alex loved Rainer and Rainer, well Rainer loved nothing, not even himself.
I was so caught up in my creation that on writing the death of Rainier I wept and then relented letting him live, but later hardened again and killed him a second time. Ending the novel as it needed to be ended with only one of us left alive. I added THE END. It was over.
I left my apartment and looked for familiar faces in every bar I passed. I wanted to celebrate with friends. It was two in the morning and most decent people were asleep. My student days were behind me, but I managed to find faces I knew in a boisterous table of students. I had tutored some of them and joined their table and told them what I had done and they congratulated me and bought me drinks and slapped me on the back and one very beautiful young woman kissed me and sat close beside me, entwining her slender legs with mine under the table and clutching my arm in the very way women were always doing with poor departed Rainier.
I woke up in that woman’s bed and didn’t leave for three days. When I returned to my apartment, I found a note where I had left my manuscript.
You’re probably still not ready, it said.
Alex! I hadn’t seen or heard from her in weeks.
I called her number but there was no answer. I went to her apartment block and buzzed but there was no answer. I loitered by the street door until I could follow someone in then made my way up the stairs to the sixth floor. As I reached the top, I saw Alex inviting Rainier into her apartment. I was stunned. The door closed and I was left on the stairs not quite believing what I had just seen.
Alex had my manuscript and Rainier in her apartment, but I didn’t have the courage to knock and ask for my Rainier back.
I made my way back down the stairs. On my walk back to my apartment I happened to find myself passing the building I had once followed Rainier back to all that time ago. I crossed the street and read the names in the buzzers. There were two apartments on the second floor. One was R. Laurent. Rainier Laurent? I buzzed knowing he wouldn’t be home because I had just seen him enter Alex’s apartment. The street door opened. Curious, I climbed the stairs to the second floor and approached the door with R. Laurent on a brass plate and knocked.
A woman opened.
‘Yes?’
‘Does Rainier live here?’
‘Who?’
‘Rainier, at least I think that was his name. I once saw you both in a bar and followed you home. I apologise, I was… well, I have no excuse for my behaviour. I was not quite myself back then.’
She stared at me. It was clear she had no recollection of the event and thought I might be mad.
‘You said, I think that boy is following us.’
‘Was his real name Rainier? He was a big nothing. Not a man. A walking talking mirror. I only saw my reflection. I suspect all women do. It was a trick. We saw what we wanted to see. Which made him fascinating for a moment, until you realise your mistake.’
Here I interrupted her, predicting what she was about to say. We both said, ‘More dangerous for the narcissists who will stare and stare at themselves enthralled.’
She stopped speaking as I continued, ‘But it was nice to be seen.’
She finished off with, ‘Even if it was only to be seen by myself.’
She was quoting my manuscript word for word. In my story the young student had been braver and more inquisitive than I had been and returned to this apartment days after following them both home. In the story the woman answers and says, what she had just said now.
But it wasn’t possible.
‘I am sorry to have disturbed you.’
I ran down the stairs and onto the street. Back at my apartment I called Alex. She answered, heard my voice and hung up on me.
I called again.
‘I’m reading. Stop interrupting. I’ll come over when I’m finished.’
Click.
I called again.
‘But he’s there with you now. I saw him with you.’
‘Who is here?’
‘Rainier!’
‘Of course he is. What do you think I am talking about?’
The call ended and I left it at that. What else was there for me to do?
I went out to the bar where my young friends met and got outrageously drunk. Waking in the beautiful woman’s bed again the following morning, I cursed myself for a fool, then left, dragging my hungover body back to my apartment where I found another note.
This time the note was pinned on my front door. It was a question mark. I unlocked the door and went in. My manuscript was in a neat pile on the floor just inside the door. I picked it up and flicked through the pages. In the past Alex would leave notes in fine red pencil in the margins. There wasn’t a single note.
I flipped the manuscript over. There, in the tiniest handwriting, she wrote - I doubt you’ll ever be ready.
Alex was casting me out. She had sided with Rainier. It was as though Rainier had slapped me again. I felt humiliated.
I went to my small kitchen and drank two glasses of water. My hands were shaking. My head was throbbing. My heart, again, was beating at a rate that frightened me. My strength was draining away.
I made my way to my bedroom. I had to have more sleep. I would call Alex when I woke up. I would face Rainier. I would have it out with them both. But I needed rest.
As I passed the main room, I noticed a strange shadow running across the wooden floor. I pushed open the door further and entered. Alex was hanging by the neck between me and the windows. I carefully lifted her down, but there was no life left in her. It was just as I had written it. I lay her on the sofa. In my novel she had left a note. Rainier had broken her heart, it explained, and she had no further reason to live. I searched the apartment but could find no note. Her keys were in her bag, however, and Rainier was at her apartment. Or had been. And might still be.
I took one last long look at Alex then covered her with a blanket. I was in tears when I did this in my novel, but in life my eyes were dry. I went back to the kitchen, pulled a bottle of vodka from my freezer and drank. My body reacted badly to this, and I was violently ill in the kitchen sink. But I felt a lot better. I drank a bit more. Nothing happened. I cleaned my face up then dragged myself to Alex’s apartment.
I used her key on the street door. I climbed to the sixth floor in stages as though it was Everest. My hands were shaking again when I reached the top. I felt bloodless, cold and slow.
I let myself in and stood by the door and listened.
‘Is that you?’
He was there.
I entered the apartment knowing what he would say, knowing what I would do. It had been written.
‘Where have you been?’
‘She’s dead.’
Rainier emerged from the bedroom. He had obviously just showered and gotten dressed. The only things missing were his shoes and his jacket.
‘What did you say?’
‘She’s dead.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘You can come and see for yourself.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the writer.’
‘Ahh you’re the writer. She spent all night reading that thing. I fell asleep waiting for her to come to bed.’
‘You killed her.’
‘What are you talking about? She’s not dead. Come in and sit down, she’ll be back in a moment. She’s probably just gone down for pastries or bread or something.’
‘You’ve done this before. Alex wasn’t the first. You were always seeking out lonely women. It didn’t matter to you if they were married of single. These were vulnerable woman. You had no right.’
‘Listen kid, I don’t know what Alex told you, but I barely know the girl.’
I pushed him. But my strength having left me, he barely moved.
‘You didn’t deserve her love.’
‘You don’t know me. Whatever is going on in your head, it isn’t real.’
‘I know you.’
‘How?’
‘We’ve spoken before.’
‘I think I’d remember you.’
I stepped up to him and kicked him as hard as I could in the shin. He screamed in pain, and when he bent over to rub his leg, I pushed him.
He almost fell over but didn’t. He straightened and looked me in the eye.
‘You’re that psycho kid.’
I slapped him.
He grinned.
I slapped him again.
‘Are you happy now?’
‘What did you say?’
‘Are you happy? Slap for a slap, and eye for an eye and all that?’
He wasn’t reacting the way I expected him to react. It was as though he were writing his own lines.
‘Who keeps my heart beating, not I,’ he said. ‘You remember that? You had me say that. Absolved me of guilt by removing my agency. But I got thinking...’
‘Stop!’ I said. He was ruining everything.
Rainier stood rubbing the cheek I had slapped. He was still grinning, but the mischief had gone out of his eyes.
‘You came here to kill me. It’s what you wrote. We were laughing about it last night.’
‘Stop it!’ I screamed.
‘You never knew me. I am not yours to direct. You are not God. People are far more complicated than you make out.’
I reached out to grab him. He was not doing anything right. He needed to be silenced.
He shrugged off my attempts and stepped to the side as I lunged at him.
‘This is not what you imagined.’
It definitely wasn’t what I imagined. I felt lightheaded. He was grabbing me. Pulling me to him.
Where had all my strength gone? I was not a boy anymore. I was bigger and stronger than him. Where was my fight?
‘You’re not ready, kid.’
‘I am ready!’
His arm wrapped around my neck. He was squeezing me.
I could not speak. I could not move. I could not escape.
His grip tightened. My breath was stopped. My eyes still sought the light. I reached out for something. For what? Then it was black.
I had to begin again.
I was startled awake by a noise. Keys rattling and shoes on a hardwood floor. Then a heavy door shutting. I was stretched out on a bed fully clothed. I must have been dozing.
The room was not mine. I got off the bed. There were photos of Alex with different people on the dresser. I was in Alex’s room.
I looked around for my shoes. There was a mirror on the wardrobe. Rainier was looking back at me.
The sound of shoes being kicked off reached me.
‘Is that you?’ I called out, as he had done.
I went out to the hall.
‘Where have you been?’
‘You’re still here. That’s a nice surprise,’ said Alex, her eyes bright and very much alive.
‘You didn’t think I would wait for you to return?’ I asked.
‘I hoped you would. But last night you were talking about being a monster and that your heart is not yours to control. And the tighter I held you, the more you pulled away.’
‘Is that why you thought I wouldn’t be here?’
‘Yes, and because you’re a writer and all writers are like teenagers, always seeking out something new.’
‘Believe me, that part of me is dead.’
She eyed me suspiciously and I felt ashamed.
‘But,’ she said, ‘you’ve showered and dressed. Are you sure you weren’t about to leave?’
‘I like to look respectable. You were gone so long I even dozed off waiting for you.’
She smiled but her eyes betrayed her doubts.
‘You still don’t think I’m ready?’
‘I didn’t say you weren’t ready. That was you.’
She looked lovely as she carried her shopping through to the kitchen.
‘I bought you some pastries and got milk so we can have coffee and talk about your brilliant novel. I finished reading last night after you fell asleep.’
‘Who cares about that. Do you really want me to stay?
‘Of course.’
I kissed her.
‘Unless you think you’re still not ready.’
I kissed her again.
‘I am ready.’
About the author
John Purcell is the author of five published works of fiction. The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Penguin Random House and The Lessons and The Girl on the Page published by 4th Estate.
by John Purcell (5000 words. A 15-30min read)
There was at that time a man who many people knew by sight, but few knew by name. That year he was a frequent visitor to the bars and cafés we found ourselves in after the cinemas had closed. We’d see him once or twice a week. He was almost always accompanied by a woman. Sometimes the same woman for weeks at a time. One woman was on his arm for some months. She was known to us. A lecturer at the university. Some of us were students and made up stories about her. She was very attractive. Dark hair and skin. Lean. But more than that. Fiercely intelligent. She frightened many of us. But it did not stop us making up stories about her and telling them to each other as if they were true. We were young and penniless and too slow to keep the attention of a woman like that. So, we told stories to make her more like us. But she too went the way of so many other women who accompanied this man.
Rainier. I overheard a woman calling him Rainier, so that’s what I called him.
I never saw him alone.
Before what happened.
Which is what I am beginning to tell you. Before what happened, Rainier was only to be seen with a woman on his arm. Not always as beautiful or as desirable to us as the lecturer, we did not make up stories about them, but they all held him the same way. And they talked together with an intensity that drew our eyes to the couple often throughout the night. They would leave abruptly, most often an hour or so before the town revived itself under a breaking dawn. We stayed on. We were young and had no reason to leave before the workmen arrived for their morning coffee. But it was always dark when Rainier left, arm in arm with a woman.
By some chance one night I found myself on the street heading home earlier than was my custom and fell in behind Rainier and his companion. I was walking fast and caught them up. Then I lingered behind, catching their conversation in pieces and trying to fit the parts to make sense of it. This is what I heard.
‘But you don’t need to be like that,’ she said.
‘What does it matter in the end?’ said he.
Laughter and mumbling. They were walking wrapped in each other’s arms. Stumbling. Pressed against one another. She kissed his cheek.
‘It was a circus.’
‘It always is. But he had no right to take it.’
A couple walking in the opposite direction along the narrow pavement disturbed them. We all stepped out of the way.
‘Was that couple us?’
I didn’t hear her reply.
But he said, ‘You read that in a book.’
She laughed. They slowed their steps so they could kiss. I slowed, too.
‘You’re a monster.’
‘Probably. I have no control over myself. Who keeps my heart beating, not I.’
They crossed the street. I was going that way, too.
‘That boy is following us.’
I passed by quickly, reaching the curb opposite before them and went on. But it was true. I was following them. I waited at the end of the street, in the shadows and watched them pass. She was not beautiful. But I knew why he held onto her so tightly. I would have done the same. I followed them across the river and all the way to a four storey building. They both entered. I did not know if it was her address or his. I waited across the street and looked up at the windows. No lights went on. I waited. There was movement on the second floor. Shadow within shadow. I left my hiding spot to get a better look and stared into the darkness. Then a flash of light. He was at the window lighting her cigarette as they both stared directly at me. I jumped and scampered away like the rat that I was.
When next I saw Rainier, he glanced briefly in my direction. Enough to mark me out among my friends. Enough to warn me. The woman on his arm only had eyes for him. She was the same woman. They sat side by side in a booth with their backs to me. Much later I realised that he could see me in the reflection of the brass casement of the coffee machine. He would catch my reflected eye from time to time, as if to remind me of the threat.
But I was young and had never had any real experience. Not of the ways of men. I felt brave with my friends. We students would fling out our fists in a rage over some small matter. We would knock each other about, grow fierce in our minds, and butt heads. But it was the stuff of puppies and lion cubs.
I stared back angrily.
That’s how these things start. From nothing. There were seven of us and one of him. He wasn’t particularly big. He wasn’t particularly threatening. But he was a man, and we were boys really. So, there was that between us. A barrier and a challenge.
From that day on, everything he did nettled me. There was no getting around this growing antipathy in me towards him. He seemed to be haunting me in those days, too. We never organised our nights out. The cafés and bars we frequented varied. Though we preferred those open all night. And yet he kept crossing our path. Three times a week, sometimes more. It was unusual, unlikely, impossible.
I started to ask around about him. I wanted to know who he was, what he did, where he was from. No one knew anything. I followed him, but he had a habit of disappearing. Like it was a game. Like he knew more about me than I knew about him, and he was teasing me.
In these unsettling weeks, he was never with the same woman more than a couple of nights. But the same intensity was there between them. They clung to one another like lovers. Like they were the only ones capable of such love, such desire. I didn’t understand it. There was nothing special about Rainier. Not that I could see. Yet he was dating two or more women a week. That lecturer. Doctor of philosophy. She had adored him. You could see. She was magnificent. In all ways. But he was just some guy. Not well dressed. Not rich. Not memorable in any way other than the way the women were with him.
Then one night something strange happened. He abandoned his date at the table and left the café. She was an attractive woman and well-dressed. Professional. Probably in her late thirties. Similar age to Rainier. She was drinking white wine. Her face was untroubled. She glanced around the room as though seeing it for the first time. But that was how it was with Rainier and his partners, intense, narrow, focussed. They saw nothing but themselves. A couple alone in the world.
She caught me staring at her and looked away. I saw a cloud on her brow for the first time that evening. And it was this cloud that lifted me from my seat and had me crossing the distance between us.
I was seated opposite her before I knew what had happened. That self-possession returned to her.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
‘Tell me about the man you are with.’
‘You’re the man I am with,’ she said smiling. She raised the glass to her lips and drank more than a sip.
‘Who is he? What does he do? Where does he come from?’
She was smiling and was suddenly beautiful. Her eyebrow lifted, questioning, and she laughed again.
‘You tell me, Rainier.’
‘What!?’
She leaned forward and placed her hand over mine. It was cold and pale with nails painted a red a few shades from black. She was wearing a gold wedding ring and an engagement ring with a large diamond.
‘I want to know. Everyone wants to know. Who are you Rainier?’
I stood up. Her smile vanished.
‘Rainier?’ I asked.
‘Who owns your heart if not yourself?’
I turned, and feeling lightheaded, nearly fell, but managed to stumble back to my chair where my friends were laughing at me for being a drunken fool.
At that moment, Rainier entered the café and took his seat across from the woman, his back to me.
I was being slapped on the back by my best friend for my bravery - he thought I had propositioned the woman - when Rainier and his date burst out laughing.
My heart thumped heavily in my chest as I left the café, their mocking laughter in my ears, and stumbled back to my room. I could do nothing to slow my heart. I spent the night in a sweaty fever dream wishing I was dead.
The university year was over, and my family expected me home for the summer.
But I lingered on in the city as one by one my friends retreated to the provinces or abroad and I was left to haunt the cinemas and cafés alone.
But I was not alone. Rainier was still in the city. And his laughter rang in my ears.
I was very conspicuous on my own in the cafés and bars. But my growing anger made me bold. Sometimes I would catch Rainier spotting me through a window and he and his partner would pass on to the next café. I would curse him for a coward.
Other times he would walk right in, heading directly at me and take a table just behind me or beside me and I would hear nothing but whispers and murmurs which my addled mind eagerly translated into slights.
One long night I had sat alone and in silence drinking. When I stood to leave the world swayed. I pushed through the doors and onto the street and found myself tripping on the legs of someone sitting in the warm night air at a table on the pavement. I only just managed to keep myself upright.
When I turned to apologise, I saw it was him. The woman I did not recognise, but she clutched his arm like all the rest.
‘You tripped me on purpose,’ I said.
‘He did, I saw him,’ said the woman.
‘A damned lie,’ he said, and kissed her. Not a peck on the cheek or on the lips but a full bodied kiss with an open mouth, her palm against his face and I was instantly forgotten.
She too wore a wedding ring. He was a scoundrel.
I kicked out at him, the toe of my boot connecting with his shin.
He cried out and stood up. I stepped forward, my fist raised. I was not afraid of him.
He slapped me.
I staggered back. There were tears in my eyes. When I straightened and stepped forward, he slapped me again. The first stung, the second was heavier and my head throbbed. I could not prevent or hide my tears.
I stared at him.
‘Go back to your people. You’re not ready,’ he said, dismissively before sitting back down.
I was dazed and slow. My heart was racing again. I backed onto the street, wiping my face. I couldn’t make sense of what happened.
The couple had turned back to themselves and were quickly forgetting me.
I returned to my room. Packed my things and reached the station an hour before the first train home.
My father wouldn’t speak to me on my arrival. My mother told me he had gone to a great deal of trouble to secure me a summer job. But because I had not returned the job had gone to someone else. I was glad, I had no intention of wasting my summer working as a clerk for some solicitor. If I had to work, it would be outside, picking fruit or labouring on a building site. I had enough of words and books and ink and ideas.
My uncle had the contract for fixing the surface of the town’s high street. All the cobblestones had to be taken up, cleaned, shaped and re-laid. My mother arranged for me to start at once.
It was hard work, and I was a poor specimen of a man. The seasoned workmen showed me no respect, which was only right. I kept to myself and worked as hard as my body would allow. I was exhausted every evening and in bed by nine, sleeping through like the dead.
As the summer warmed up, I grew accustomed to the work and shirt off like the other men, browned in the sun. No longer exhausted every evening, I took my free meal waiting for me at home and joined the younger workmen in the town’s bars until they closed at midnight.
Weeks passed and I could feel myself changing. My body was no longer that of a boy, my mind was growing restless with the monotony of my working days so in the bars and cafés I sought out the town’s artists and thinkers, such as they were.
In that poor company a student of philosophy from the capital could show off if he were that way inclined. They soon nicknamed me Sartre which I accepted as my due. And it was around that time a local actress, long resigned to playing matronly roles, took me in hand and made me a man.
Of course, it wasn’t long before all of this went to my head. As a result, I spoke disrespectfully one too many times to one of the seasoned workmen and on the high street, at the busiest hour, in front of a crowd of onlookers, I was deservedly beaten. Chastened, humiliated and bleeding I returned home for my meal only to be given a further beating by my father while my mother beseeched me to change my ways.
Needless to say, I was not seen in the cafés and bars after this. Instead, I did my labouring work conscientiously, eventually winning a good word from my uncle, then returned home to my parents and did my reading for the next semester.
Summer over, I was back in the capital and there I continued to keep time to my parent’s wishes. I no longer wasted my evenings in bars and cafés with my friends but remained behind with my books and studied. I proudly sent home my results and was rewarded with a larger allowance.
My summer of hard labour had changed my appearance, I was bulkier, squarer in the face and shoulders and before I left my mother had seen that my new attire suited the man who had taken the place of her son.
Without really knowing how, that semester saw me thrown more and more into the company of women. It began in the library, where I went to study in peace, but I got no peace, the library was overrun by women all intent on bothering me. I welcomed the attention, but I did not seek it. Then one of my lecturers asked me to take over one of his first year tutorials. It was an honour which only served to mark me out among my peers. To bolster my allowance, I took on private tutoring work also at this time.
Again, by no effort of my own, I was soon dating a fellow tutor, Susan, who was doing her doctorate, and three years older than me. It just seemed to happen. Not long after this, encouraged by Susan, I began to write short fiction as a pastime. It was she who found a magazine willing to publish one of them. I was barely twenty when I first saw myself in print. Soon after this Susan’s father died, and she left university to help her mother run the family business. She broke off the relationship by letter, urging me to keep writing.
A different kind of woman took hold of me then. Alex. She was a writer, an actor, and a singer. She was never my girlfriend, or lover, she was nearly thirty, but she had me dancing to every one of her tunes. She took me to plays, readings, concerts. We spent hours together in cafés deep in discussion. I would escort her home, to dinner parties, to gatherings. She treated my apartment as her own. But our relationship was strictly platonic. I finished my degree in thrall of her, blind to the attentions of any other woman.
She had encouraged me to work hard, and I finished near the top of my year. She wanted me to write, I wrote stories and plays and songs and poems for her, which she critiqued and kept, locking them away. Unlike Susan who rushed me into print, Alex always said I was not ready and too young to publish. But always told me that I had the makings of a great writer.
With Alex’s help I was given the editorship of a literary magazine. It brought me more prestige than money but introduced me to the writers of the city. Publishers were chasing me for work, but I declined on Alex’s advice. I wasn’t ready, she repeated. I felt ready. My writing had come a long way since that first story was published. Be patient, she said, assuring me that my time would come.
It was around this time while out with Alex that I first saw Rainier again. He was, as always, entwined with a woman. He looked no different from the man I once followed home. But this time I recognised the woman. And so did Alex. It was, Jeanette, the wife of a publisher friend of ours, Milo. I let Alex be the first to mention her. I didn’t want her to know of my obsession with the man she was with. That I had been watching them intently the whole evening.
I can’t describe the feeling of seeing him again after so long. I had barely given him a thought in the meantime, but on seeing him, my anger returned as though his slaps had happened the night before.
I felt wretched and drinking too much too quickly did something I had never done before, I made a clumsy pass at Alex and she slapped me and abandoned me there in the bar. Alex wasn’t a shrinking violet, she let me have it in word and action and I sat alone under the gaze of all deeply ashamed and increasingly angry.
Rainier was the only person in the bar who paid no attention to the scene or Alex’s exit. But Jeanette coloured when our eyes met, and she encouraged Rainier to leave and leave they did.
That night, alone in my room I started writing my first novel. At the top of the page, I wrote and underlined the word Rainier.
By day I worked at the offices of the literary magazine, by night I wrote my novel. Weeks went by in this way. I saw no one outside work. I lived on canned food and cheap wine and coffee. I was inspired as I had never been inspired before. The words flowed, the pages filled. Each day on my return from the office I would correct the previous day’s work then I would write until one or two, sometimes through the night, then wake at eight and be in the office by nine. I was elated, exhausted, delirious and unrecognisable to myself.
We were all in the pages of my novel. Rainier, of course, and Alex, my parents, the workmen, my student friends, and Rainier’s women. It was a novel of extremes, all life distorted, all emotion heightened. In it my true feelings for Alex were acknowledged and then exaggerated, my hatred of Rainier amplified. We were caught in some tragic love triangle. I loved Alex but Alex loved Rainer and Rainer, well Rainer loved nothing, not even himself.
I was so caught up in my creation that on writing the death of Rainier I wept and then relented letting him live, but later hardened again and killed him a second time. Ending the novel as it needed to be ended with only one of us left alive. I added THE END. It was over.
I left my apartment and looked for familiar faces in every bar I passed. I wanted to celebrate with friends. It was two in the morning and most decent people were asleep. My student days were behind me, but I managed to find faces I knew in a boisterous table of students. I had tutored some of them and joined their table and told them what I had done and they congratulated me and bought me drinks and slapped me on the back and one very beautiful young woman kissed me and sat close beside me, entwining her slender legs with mine under the table and clutching my arm in the very way women were always doing with poor departed Rainier.
I woke up in that woman’s bed and didn’t leave for three days. When I returned to my apartment, I found a note where I had left my manuscript.
You’re probably still not ready, it said.
Alex! I hadn’t seen or heard from her in weeks.
I called her number but there was no answer. I went to her apartment block and buzzed but there was no answer. I loitered by the street door until I could follow someone in then made my way up the stairs to the sixth floor. As I reached the top, I saw Alex inviting Rainier into her apartment. I was stunned. The door closed and I was left on the stairs not quite believing what I had just seen.
Alex had my manuscript and Rainier in her apartment, but I didn’t have the courage to knock and ask for my Rainier back.
I made my way back down the stairs. On my walk back to my apartment I happened to find myself passing the building I had once followed Rainier back to all that time ago. I crossed the street and read the names in the buzzers. There were two apartments on the second floor. One was R. Laurent. Rainier Laurent? I buzzed knowing he wouldn’t be home because I had just seen him enter Alex’s apartment. The street door opened. Curious, I climbed the stairs to the second floor and approached the door with R. Laurent on a brass plate and knocked.
A woman opened.
‘Yes?’
‘Does Rainier live here?’
‘Who?’
‘Rainier, at least I think that was his name. I once saw you both in a bar and followed you home. I apologise, I was… well, I have no excuse for my behaviour. I was not quite myself back then.’
She stared at me. It was clear she had no recollection of the event and thought I might be mad.
‘You said, I think that boy is following us.’
‘Was his real name Rainier? He was a big nothing. Not a man. A walking talking mirror. I only saw my reflection. I suspect all women do. It was a trick. We saw what we wanted to see. Which made him fascinating for a moment, until you realise your mistake.’
Here I interrupted her, predicting what she was about to say. We both said, ‘More dangerous for the narcissists who will stare and stare at themselves enthralled.’
She stopped speaking as I continued, ‘But it was nice to be seen.’
She finished off with, ‘Even if it was only to be seen by myself.’
She was quoting my manuscript word for word. In my story the young student had been braver and more inquisitive than I had been and returned to this apartment days after following them both home. In the story the woman answers and says, what she had just said now.
But it wasn’t possible.
‘I am sorry to have disturbed you.’
I ran down the stairs and onto the street. Back at my apartment I called Alex. She answered, heard my voice and hung up on me.
I called again.
‘I’m reading. Stop interrupting. I’ll come over when I’m finished.’
Click.
I called again.
‘But he’s there with you now. I saw him with you.’
‘Who is here?’
‘Rainier!’
‘Of course he is. What do you think I am talking about?’
The call ended and I left it at that. What else was there for me to do?
I went out to the bar where my young friends met and got outrageously drunk. Waking in the beautiful woman’s bed again the following morning, I cursed myself for a fool, then left, dragging my hungover body back to my apartment where I found another note.
This time the note was pinned on my front door. It was a question mark. I unlocked the door and went in. My manuscript was in a neat pile on the floor just inside the door. I picked it up and flicked through the pages. In the past Alex would leave notes in fine red pencil in the margins. There wasn’t a single note.
I flipped the manuscript over. There, in the tiniest handwriting, she wrote - I doubt you’ll ever be ready.
Alex was casting me out. She had sided with Rainier. It was as though Rainier had slapped me again. I felt humiliated.
I went to my small kitchen and drank two glasses of water. My hands were shaking. My head was throbbing. My heart, again, was beating at a rate that frightened me. My strength was draining away.
I made my way to my bedroom. I had to have more sleep. I would call Alex when I woke up. I would face Rainier. I would have it out with them both. But I needed rest.
As I passed the main room, I noticed a strange shadow running across the wooden floor. I pushed open the door further and entered. Alex was hanging by the neck between me and the windows. I carefully lifted her down, but there was no life left in her. It was just as I had written it. I lay her on the sofa. In my novel she had left a note. Rainier had broken her heart, it explained, and she had no further reason to live. I searched the apartment but could find no note. Her keys were in her bag, however, and Rainier was at her apartment. Or had been. And might still be.
I took one last long look at Alex then covered her with a blanket. I was in tears when I did this in my novel, but in life my eyes were dry. I went back to the kitchen, pulled a bottle of vodka from my freezer and drank. My body reacted badly to this, and I was violently ill in the kitchen sink. But I felt a lot better. I drank a bit more. Nothing happened. I cleaned my face up then dragged myself to Alex’s apartment.
I used her key on the street door. I climbed to the sixth floor in stages as though it was Everest. My hands were shaking again when I reached the top. I felt bloodless, cold and slow.
I let myself in and stood by the door and listened.
‘Is that you?’
He was there.
I entered the apartment knowing what he would say, knowing what I would do. It had been written.
‘Where have you been?’
‘She’s dead.’
Rainier emerged from the bedroom. He had obviously just showered and gotten dressed. The only things missing were his shoes and his jacket.
‘What did you say?’
‘She’s dead.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘You can come and see for yourself.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the writer.’
‘Ahh you’re the writer. She spent all night reading that thing. I fell asleep waiting for her to come to bed.’
‘You killed her.’
‘What are you talking about? She’s not dead. Come in and sit down, she’ll be back in a moment. She’s probably just gone down for pastries or bread or something.’
‘You’ve done this before. Alex wasn’t the first. You were always seeking out lonely women. It didn’t matter to you if they were married of single. These were vulnerable woman. You had no right.’
‘Listen kid, I don’t know what Alex told you, but I barely know the girl.’
I pushed him. But my strength having left me, he barely moved.
‘You didn’t deserve her love.’
‘You don’t know me. Whatever is going on in your head, it isn’t real.’
‘I know you.’
‘How?’
‘We’ve spoken before.’
‘I think I’d remember you.’
I stepped up to him and kicked him as hard as I could in the shin. He screamed in pain, and when he bent over to rub his leg, I pushed him.
He almost fell over but didn’t. He straightened and looked me in the eye.
‘You’re that psycho kid.’
I slapped him.
He grinned.
I slapped him again.
‘Are you happy now?’
‘What did you say?’
‘Are you happy? Slap for a slap, and eye for an eye and all that?’
He wasn’t reacting the way I expected him to react. It was as though he were writing his own lines.
‘Who keeps my heart beating, not I,’ he said. ‘You remember that? You had me say that. Absolved me of guilt by removing my agency. But I got thinking...’
‘Stop!’ I said. He was ruining everything.
Rainier stood rubbing the cheek I had slapped. He was still grinning, but the mischief had gone out of his eyes.
‘You came here to kill me. It’s what you wrote. We were laughing about it last night.’
‘Stop it!’ I screamed.
‘You never knew me. I am not yours to direct. You are not God. People are far more complicated than you make out.’
I reached out to grab him. He was not doing anything right. He needed to be silenced.
He shrugged off my attempts and stepped to the side as I lunged at him.
‘This is not what you imagined.’
It definitely wasn’t what I imagined. I felt lightheaded. He was grabbing me. Pulling me to him.
Where had all my strength gone? I was not a boy anymore. I was bigger and stronger than him. Where was my fight?
‘You’re not ready, kid.’
‘I am ready!’
His arm wrapped around my neck. He was squeezing me.
I could not speak. I could not move. I could not escape.
His grip tightened. My breath was stopped. My eyes still sought the light. I reached out for something. For what? Then it was black.
I had to begin again.
I was startled awake by a noise. Keys rattling and shoes on a hardwood floor. Then a heavy door shutting. I was stretched out on a bed fully clothed. I must have been dozing.
The room was not mine. I got off the bed. There were photos of Alex with different people on the dresser. I was in Alex’s room.
I looked around for my shoes. There was a mirror on the wardrobe. Rainier was looking back at me.
The sound of shoes being kicked off reached me.
‘Is that you?’ I called out, as he had done.
I went out to the hall.
‘Where have you been?’
‘You’re still here. That’s a nice surprise,’ said Alex, her eyes bright and very much alive.
‘You didn’t think I would wait for you to return?’ I asked.
‘I hoped you would. But last night you were talking about being a monster and that your heart is not yours to control. And the tighter I held you, the more you pulled away.’
‘Is that why you thought I wouldn’t be here?’
‘Yes, and because you’re a writer and all writers are like teenagers, always seeking out something new.’
‘Believe me, that part of me is dead.’
She eyed me suspiciously and I felt ashamed.
‘But,’ she said, ‘you’ve showered and dressed. Are you sure you weren’t about to leave?’
‘I like to look respectable. You were gone so long I even dozed off waiting for you.’
She smiled but her eyes betrayed her doubts.
‘You still don’t think I’m ready?’
‘I didn’t say you weren’t ready. That was you.’
She looked lovely as she carried her shopping through to the kitchen.
‘I bought you some pastries and got milk so we can have coffee and talk about your brilliant novel. I finished reading last night after you fell asleep.’
‘Who cares about that. Do you really want me to stay?
‘Of course.’
I kissed her.
‘Unless you think you’re still not ready.’
I kissed her again.
‘I am ready.’
About the author
John Purcell is the author of five published works of fiction. The Secret Lives of Emma trilogy published by Penguin Random House and The Lessons and The Girl on the Page published by 4th Estate.
