Jonathan Carroll

The contemporary writer Jonathan Carroll is the author of seven relatively unknown novels. He lives in Vienna and has published a collection of short stories in German entitled Die panische Hand. This story appeared in English in a collection of short stories published in 1993 in London by Time Out a leisure-time magazine with which the author has long been associated.

Waiting to Wave

The weather was not fair¹. For days since it happened, since the terrible phone call when she told him in a dead voice she had decided to stay where she was and wasn't coming back, the weather had not been fair. For almost two weeks the days were a mirror reflection of the frightening state of his mind. The mornings started out too sunny, or else too stormy, then changed in an hour to the other, then swung back and forth² all day between rain and shine, so one never knew what would be next. Which meant there was one less place to hide.

Part of him thought the best thing to do was keep busy. Take walks, go to the movies, put the dog in the car and drive places they hadn't gone before. But outside or busy, there was this damned weather or his damned thoughts in between that showed there's no safe place. Everything will haunt³ you, all the storms will find you, everything will remind you she's gone.

He went to a cowboy movie but ten minutes after it started, began to weep⁴. Luckily there were few people in the theatre so he only put a hand over his eyes and let the tears fall. What was she doing while he cried? Was she falling in love in her red and white summer dress that was his favourite? Summer had just begun down there. Was she working in the garden she had so proudly described in an earlier letter?

This was a ghastly¹ part of the torture he meted² out to himself: in his mind he took bits and pieces of what she had said or written before and slid them together into vivid³, awful collages⁴ of pain and loss: he pictured her in that dress, barefoot, digging in this new garden at twilight⁵. Then from behind, being greeted by the new someone she had so carefully and vaguely alluded to⁶ in their last conversation. 'Is it only that, or have you met someone new?'

She hesitated and then said half-coyly⁷, 'There's someone I like to talk to, but you have to understand, it's completely different.' He imagined straightening up slowly because she had hurt her back as a teenager. She the most prominent⁸ backbone he had ever seen.

Turning and smiling that wonderful broad smile at this new man, she drop the tool she was using and brush off her hands. She had been waiting for him. He had come for her all dressed up. She didn't know whether she liked his cologne: She was very picky⁹ about colognes but if they stayed together, after a while she would tell him she didn't care for it. It was time to change and go out for dinner, perhaps to a party. She said she was constantly going to parties now, doing things she had never done in her life. That was the heart of it – everything was so different there and new and she laughed all the time. He had owned that smile for years but no longer did.

The last time they spoke she had said: 'I love you dearly, but...' Dearly. Sue an ugly little word, a word that diminished¹⁰ him and their years together down to nothing. Grandmothers, ministers, greetings cards all used 'dearly'. Now she did too when she thought about him.

The dog was always happy to go out, which was good. But dogs are like Wake them in the middle of the night and say it's time for an hour walk or a big dinner and they're ready. But even the dog ... From the moment it saw her for the first time, it loved her more than anything on earth. Much more than him. It would have jumped off a cliff, then somehow sprouted¹ wings and flown back if she had told it to. When she was gone, it dashed up to any woman on the street who looked even vaguely like tier and howled its delight. And when it actually was her, the dog went mad. Thank God he didn't have to tell it she wouldn't be around any more. Hank God it still ran up to women on the street with the highest hopes but-'never seemed fazed² for long when it wasn't her because next time, next time it would have to be.

He was not a superstitious man but these days he made deals with the gods. He now carried a polished green stone in his pocket she bought for him years ago in the Burlington Arcade³ on a trip to London. If three things arrived at once that all reminded him of her, that meant he could hope. A white car hers passed, driven by a woman with lots of hair like hers. On the car, a bumper sticker said 'I love Canada.' She was Canadian. Three things all at once. Wasn't something trying to tell him something? Could he hope? On that trip to London, she had bought a cheap cable-knit⁴ cardigan at Marks & Spencer⁵ that she adored and wore around the apartment all year long. After that last deadly conversation, he rushed to the closet⁶ to see if she had left it on its hook and was thrilled to see it was still there.

He had bought a new car. It was so sleek⁷ and full of high-tech gadgets⁸ that he nicknamed it Terminator⁹. When he got in and pressed a button, the steering wheel and driver's seat automatically adjusted to his body. There were buttons for person One and Two. He had chosen person Two but now there was no person One. Months ago when ordering it, he had had real pleasure imagining her chauffeuring the two of them around. More and more she had been doing the driving and he liked that. Now it was only the dog in the passenger's seat silent and all white. 'Would you like to drive?'

On hearing his voice it turned to him, then turned back to look out the window.

Of course the town was haunted. There was virtually nowhere to go or look or be without being reminded of her and their days together. Driving down the street he tried to love the feel of his magnificent new automobile, but there was the store where she bought her lingerie¹, the restaurant where they'd had that awful meal, and worst of all the cafe where they'd actually met the first time. That was too painful and he had to look away. He looked away from it every day driving to work. Every day since her call he had to pass that place where it had all begun with such hope and excitement. Why couldn't buildings disappear when relationships did? Everything go away all at once so there was no trace of anything, no tangible² proof that anything ever existed. That would be so much easier and better.

There they had walked, there he'd driven her on the bicycle, there she cajoled³ him into buying her French fries⁴ on a cold winter night. Memories like a paper cut⁵, so deep, quick and unexpected that there was no way to guard against them.

He had lost twenty pounds. That was something. For several years he'd about losing some weight, so here he was with droopy⁶ pants and his taken in two notches⁷. That was something, wasn't it? A little perk⁸ in this time?

What had she lost? What went through her mind these days? Very little, he feared: that tore him. 'rears together, but then he had heard absolutely nothing from her since that last dead talk. Was this the same woman he had known so long? Or had distance and new circumstances changed her so quickly and hugely that even if she were to come back, she would be unrecognizable? Was he praying for the return of the same woman? He knew nothing. No, that's not true: he knew he was dying, but she seemed to have effortlessly disconnected herself from and waved bye-bye with what appeared to be the blithest¹, quickest gesture in world.

He drove to the river. They had their spot out there too, and the dog was always in heaven when it could be with them and run around at the same time. But this time when he opened the door and clapped at the animal to hop² out, it came slowly.

The sky was dark again. The dog seemed to know rain was near. Despite all enthusiasm, it hated bad weather. She told a funny story about walking one evening in the rain for hours while the dog tried to hide in every doorway they passed."

So there they are, the thinner man with his white dog and the wind blowing and the clouds the purple of children's lollipops. They walk and walk. The wind is gusting³, the dog runs full speed towards nothing but happiness, the man wears the blue baseball cap she gave him and stuffs his hands deep in his pockets.

He stops when he sees on the other side of an inlet⁴ a lone⁵ fisherman who'll braved⁶ the elements today to come out here and try his luck. No one else is around. On one side the man with the dog, on the other the man with the lines. The man with the dog thinks if the other looks up, I will wave at him. There will be luck if he waves back. Somehow that will mean everything. If I can get him to wave back, then my life will change and she will come back and we will face this thing the way it should be faced.

So he waits while the other tends⁷ his fishing pole. The dog is jumping around in grass so vividly green in the lowering¹ skies. 'Look up, will you!' He says it out loud, but the fisherman stays at his work. 'Come on, come on. Just look up once. I'll wave as hard as I can. You'll have to wave back. I'll make you.'

The fisherman turns away and bends down to his tackle² box. He stays like that a long time, his back to the other. The dog is calm now, sitting on the grass and looking at the water. The wind's begun to gust hard, the clouds are thicker and have stopped moving. His hands are cold so he puts them up under his armpits³, but ready if he needs them. He's waiting for the fisherman to turn around, even though he knows this whole thing is ridiculous and pathetic. To think something as small as a wave could change the line of his life back to what he has been praying for. But he stands there nevertheless, waiting to wave. What else is there to do?