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"Between the Lines", by Nikki Jane Keating
Copyright © 2000, Age 27
We sat close that day, huddled into the seat, his sweet kisses peppering my face. Warm and sensuous, his scent enveloped me in a time I never wanted to forget. Only two stations to go, we rattled along not daring to say the inevitable goodbyes. The time was coming.
In the beginning I had met him in a city centre bar. I kept his letters hidden reading them when I needed him. At this time he was still untouchable, my hungry imagination filling in the blanks. What was I thinking? The lines between his scripts spoke more than the words themselves, but was I foolish reading more into the unwritten word?
I moved to the bar wading through the steamy raincoats into the warm lights. Muffled voices filled the gaps my pounding heart left behind. I do not remember the drink I ordered, flustered, the time was slipping into surreality. Warm and firm, a hand slipped around my waist. I felt the flush in my cheeks begin to redden while my mind tried in vain to calculate all the possibilities. I knew it was he before I turned, the scent from the letters was now warm and real mingling with the cold brought in from the November night.
It was unmistakable; the blanks between our words were just like his letters. Racing and fumbling to keep track of the verbal conversation I could feel him, smell him but dared not touch him. Only the heat from our legs exchanged tangible glances. He was so calm, sitting there drinking the pint like he had all the time in the world. My urgency did not appear to affect him, as I tripped over words trying to find myself amid the nervous butterflies that kept my cheeks pink and my eyes shy. This was not the confident young woman I had always relied upon. The one subject that had been explored in many of our letters was avoided like the spaces between the lines. Territory explored in ink seemed in navigable. In fact we never really spoke about it, ever.
Time had taken on a new speed devouring the hours since we met. It was always like that.
If that winter was bitter, I never noticed. From that time in the bar my world had changed, and my mind was always filled with him. I always knew what we were doing would lead to heartache. Finally we had found each other, soul mates, that's what we were.
He caressed my body in the late winter sun, the room overlooking the sea. Lazy winter days spent cocooned in his arms, our words avoided the truth of the situation. I felt a million miles away from the humdrum that prompted me to pen that first letter to him. His artwork had stirred me, I had chanced upon the exhibition as I walked the streets avoiding going home.
Blurred hours went by, weaving night into day, never ending or beginning. From our bed to the battered sea shore his arms never let me go. We painted our memory canvas with blues from mussel shells, greens from sea glass and the patterns our bodies left on the bed linen. His touch branded into my soul. Our lovemaking united our bodies reflecting the reality our souls already knew.
Our world consisted of each other. My world still consists of him, even now. I remember climbing from the train on the journey to our hometown. I was shaking from the cold, or was it the tide of grief making its way to the shore? His arms wrapped around me as echoes hung on the stations porticos. My tears as sharp on my face as the flakes of snow that entwined our legs in a binding waltz. He placed his lips to mine that one last time, his nose cold and eyes closed. He walked away never once looking back.
That was the last time I saw him. I found out about him three weeks later walking past a news stand, walking the streets avoiding going home to my empty room. It was a simple headline really 'Celebrated Artist loses fight'. I did not buy the paper I knew all the details.
He did not want me to be with him when he died, just to remember him and the canvas we painted. I have played the tapes he made me over and over again, the songs haunting my heart, his letters are curled, tatty and his scent finally gone.
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