Tell me a story...

Tell me a story, she said. About what? I asked. About anything. About stuff. About you. Just keep my mind busy so I don't have to think anymore.

And that was how she learnt about my time in Lebanon, my father's imprisonment, my near death experience, my ghost-written bestseller, my two ridiculous marriages, my brink-of-bankruptcy moment and my rise from the ashes like the proverbial phoenix, flapping my wings like fury and sending a maelstrom of dust, debris, anger, wonder and surprise swirling beneath me like scraps of litter blown around by the subway vent on 5th and Broadway.

At first, it seemed strange, recounting these episodes into the semi-dark, as she lay on the floor beside me, her head on my thigh. Part confessional, part therapy, part just remembering things, some of which I hadn't thought about for years. As I spoke, I gently stroked her dark hair, soft as chinchilla, from her white-skinned forehead, rhythmically, steadily. At one point I halted and her voice, soft, quiet, said Don’t stop. I sipped the glass of San Pellegrino that stood on the floor beside me and reached for the bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon. I carefully poured two small measures of the coppery liquid into the tumblers that stood next to the water, squat sentries to the taller highball glass, their shadows in the half-light raising them high as soldiers. I raised her head with my hand and held the whisky to her lips and she drank just enough to let it wet her mouth, before letting her own weight pull her down to my thigh once more.

Outside the open French windows, a warm breeze blew in from the sea, bringing its salt and secrets to the room. The siren screech of gulls could be heard distant and high overhead; otherwise the night was still, quiet, the day-trippers and tourists having vanished into restaurants and bars and train carriages, family saloons and garishly carpeted guest houses.

I sipped my drink and felt its warmth course through me, together comforting and enlivening. Replacing the glass on the floor, I recommenced the monologue, my fingers once more caressing fine strands of hair, trying to sooth her with my words and actions. As I spoke I began to realise that I wanted her to know these things; others knew of individual episodes, yet no one knew the collective narrative and for some reason I wanted her to be the first, the one to join the dots, to translate these episodes into a cohesive whole. My mind seemed to separate as I spoke, part dredging these tales of twenty years into the open, part realising that my brain was swimming with her, with her scent, and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to be able to climb inside her gossamer, pale skin and inhabit the same air that she softly breathed.

As I started each new chapter and sidetracked into the supporting cast of lawyers, of grabbing agents and hypocrites, of cars and moneymen, of foreign lands and gamblers and politicians, her expression, at first blank and passive, changed subtly, a small smile, a furrowed brow, a slight parting of her lips as if to gasp or call out which then subsided.

Gradually, her breathing lengthened, and as the shadows grew she slipped from me into peaceful sleep. Once, she stirred, a movement sudden and startled, half sitting and pushing her face against my chest. They’re coming, she breathed. They know and they’ll find me. Shh, baby, I urged, it’s okay, it’s all okay. No one’s going to find you. No one’s going to hurt you. I promise. And once more her breathing slowed and her weight subsided across my lap, my fingers stroking her back to slumber and rest. As we sat there together I watched a bright yellow moon rise above the bay, climbing higher as if pulled by an army of stars on an invisible rope, until it hung suspended above us, shining its cool, benevolent light into the room and blanketing us both in its lazy, 40-watt glow. As she slept I was grateful, knowing that she needed this time for renewal, wondering how long this would last, whether we’d speak of this time in knowledgeable, reflective old age or whether I’d have to let her go, like a fish returned to a placid loch to swim away in its own silvery light. And yet a thought persisted, nagging like a boss with an impossible deadline. It wasn’t her they were coming for. It was me.