HOME IS AN EMPTY HOUSE

I never even saw him leave. He had been told to go and I never knew why. Not for certain anyway. It left a vacuum in the house and in my life. But no one asked me, a mere child, what I thought then of the expulsion.

Albert Spear was big in a way my father was not. He stayed in a small room, sharing its landing with the cupboard of death. Occasionally as children we would dare to clamber into its confines, in amongst the broken picnic table and mildewed tent and wait for the counting to stop. Otherwise it was just a landing, a necessary staging post on ones journey from the second to third floor where our attic bedrooms were.

Childhood games, stories read by my grandmother and adult tension, in a house without Television or Radio: These were the things of my childhood as a young boy in the 1960’s. And then one day there was Albert, bearded, that great stomach under those shapeless jumpers and the powerful Jewish drawl, foreign as Israel. I had no idea where he came from. At six years old I only knew he was from a different place where people were big and gentle, somehow blown in by the wind, a Mary Poppins from the world of giants.

It was only years later that I realised the incongruity of the name. But then I suppose he was born before the horror. My family was pockmarked and lame and from time to time folks would come to live in the gaps and craters of our home: In amongst the conflict, witnesses who never spoke of it. Not to me at least.

One day, early on, Albert caught me on the stair. He beckoned to me. Though he was huge, with the growl of a bear, I wasn’t frightened of him. And me, so timid. I was making my way downstairs and he stopped me on the landing.

“Come in.” He said conspiratorially. “Let me show you something.” He took a small disk from a paper sleeve and fiddled it over the awkward spindle of his gramophone. Penny Lane was in my heart and in my ears for the first time. And from that point on I would go to his room whenever I could and enter another world. His world. The world out there, separate from the family.

What had seemed so strange at first: this man, his gramophone; slowly started its journey to normality in my heart and somewhere on that path it met my home life, with its disjointed elders, coming the other way. I found myself looking at my father, my mother, my grandmother and wondering who they were, if perhaps Albert was my real father. Maybe he was the emotional normality that all children crave without knowing it.

One day I announced to the dinner table repeating something I had heard.

“I hate Jews.” And Albert in his big, soft, gravely voice said.

“I am a Jew.” And I was mortified. And I said.

“But I love you Albert.” Which I had never even said to my father. And he had said.

“And I love you.” And after that I never saw him again. The vacuum he had filled, he left behind him. And that September I was sent away to school.

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A MARRIED MAN

I’m Lucy Turnblatt, 43, and I’ve been dating a married man of 30.

It’s not as easy to fill the empty spaces in a mature orchard as one may suppose. Places where trees have fallen. You plant a sapling and it struggles, poor thing. It battles against the lack of light, it fights for nutrition and water, hungrily taken by the deeper roots of the other, older trees. Leave it too long and the canopy starts to close over. Not fully of course, but enough to turn yellow her poor drooping leaves.

Well. My much beloved apple orchard is a metaphor. And when Martin went out of my life, after more years than I care to remember. Well… I won’t talk about that. Except to say that its time to start plugging that gap before life fills out around the empty space, squeezing it: making it impossible to fill with a significant other.

I met Gabriel before Christmas. It was a children’s party. I was there with mine, and he was there with his. I promised him over for a dinner party in the New Year while we meddled with our mobiles.

And so there we are, sitting on my sofa having the first drink of the evening and I’ve already commented on his flattering t-shirt. It struck me that flirting with a married man could do no harm. I have to keep my hand in. Imagining myself attractive. Roll it around a bit. Strike up a “vibe” (is that what they call it?), with someone a barely know. It’s important. So. I chastise him for dressing quite so sexy and he doesn’t react. But that was earlier in the kitchen while I struggled with my potato gratin, him giving good advice from the side of the ring.

So there we are on the sofa and I mention his wife. I can’t for the life of me recall what I said exactly: how long have you been living with one another or it’s great to see a couple that can keep it together. Well, anyway. He sort of jumps back in his seat, so to speak and says:

“We don’t live together. We’re getting a divorce.” And you know what? Literally there his a flood of blood to my groin. Who could have thought the word “divorce” could be such an aphrodisiac? That’s never happened before and no mistake. Lord! The evening fairly picked up after that I must say.

Anyway, that was months ago and since then we’ve been in this most agreeable sort of limbo. Until last night when we are lounging on my day bed again with the obligatory glass of red wine staining the communal lips when he says all out of the blue.

“I’ve some bad news.” And I think immediately that he’s decided to go back to Puerto Rico.

“Yes?” I say.

“I’ve fallen in love.” He says and I think to myself: Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. But I suppose I hide it quite well. And I say.

“Don’t think I’m not sorry. Maybe it had to happen sometime. I just hope I can still see you.” And he says.

“Of course.” And I say.

“Who is she?” and he says.

“You.”

Well my first reaction is to… I just think that he’s playing with me. But then all at once:

“I know you’re not looking for a relationship at the moment Lucy. I know it’s not what you want. Martin is still so much a part of your life. But I can’t help myself. I’ve been falling for you ever since we first met.”

I look at him, trying to keep my gaze steady and all I can think is: “Fuck Martin. Who gives a fuck about him.” But I figure this could come across as a bit whorish. But it’s how I feel.

“I can’t think of a better person for you to have fallen for.” I say measuring my words. “You know I’m in love with you Gabriel, surely you do?” And he just looks at me and I swear that all at once he starts to cry. I lean over and hold him, wondering what exactly is going on and praying that the sex, which we haven’t actually had yet, will be as good as the courtship.

And then I think to myself, “why are you crying?”
Martin never would have cracked up like that. And that’s when it came to me, along with tears of my own. It’s not that the break in the trees is too small to allow new life. No. It’s too big to be filled with a mere sapling like this.

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