Distance

I cruise slowly along the curve of the empty road, squinting into the darkness for any signs of a figure with an outstretched arm. It is 3 a.m. and the air puffing in through the open window is fragrant with pre-dawn summer smells. When eventually I see the lone figure on my side of the road, I am unsure whether to stop or not. He looks rough, and in this part of the city suburbs I don’t want to take any risks. As I draw nearer however, I see by his age that he is unlikely to be a threat. His face looks slightly weatherbeaten, the mouth lined, the eyes dark hollows, but with a paradoxical mop of curly black hair on the top of the head.
I slow to confirm my reading of the situation, then indicate and pull over beside him.
He pulls open the front passenger door and seats himself, not as most do by putting in one leg, then falling into the seat before pulling in the other leg afterwards. Instead he sits on the seat first and then swings both legs in easily, pulling the door closed after him. He turns to me, pauses as though to emphasise his request, or perhaps to gather within himself the conviction that he is doing making the right choice, then says in a Dutch accent which surprises me:
-Could you take me please to the airport?
-The airport, I repeat in confirmation that I have heard, and put the car into gear, heading for the M50. It is a long way from where we are in the southwest of the city to the airport, and there are no flights out for another three hours or thereabouts. He carries no baggage, so I think that maybe he is a shiftworker, yet there is something about his manner which contradicts this.
-Starting work early? I ask in a standard conversation gambit.
-No, no, he says, in perfect English, -I am going to take a flight. I know it’s early but I am going to take the first flight to Holland which I can.
-You’ll have to wait a while, I say. -There won’t be much moving before six.
-It doesn’t matter, I’ll wait. I just cannot stay in that marriage one moment longer.
He turns to look at me and I can see it now; the way he sits in the car, slightly slumped, his pause before he spoke, yet the determination in his voice after that pause, the eyes which in spite of their tiredness have a light in them, resolution and resignation wrapped inside one who has sinned, suffered and at last found absolution.
I am taken aback, but control my reaction and think how to respond. I bounce it back to him.
-It sounds like you have had a rough time of it, I say, keeping my tone neutral.
-You could say that, my friend. I have lived with this woman for six years, and I love her very much, but I have to put some distance between me and the situation in which I find myself.
-Does she know you are leaving? I ask, sensing that he wants to talk, to share the burden of this as yet closetted betrayal.
-I left her a note on the table. She will find it when she wakes up. She won’t be happy about it, but she has known for some time that it was coming.
-You’ve spoken about it before now?
-Oh yes, many times. It is not just about us. It is about her daughters, you see. We got married four years ago after being introduced by my son from my first marriage who was living with her eldest daughter. They had met in Holland. We met at a party they had in Amsterdam and we started to see each other. It was very happy time, our children in love and we in love also. I went out with her for 2 years and then we decided to marry and come and live in Ireland. She is Irish, and missed her family here. It was all fine until her daughter and my son split up in Holland, and her daughter returned here to live, but she had no job and no place, so she came to live with us. But she doesn’t do anything! She just hangs around the house, she doesn’t look for work so she can get her own place. She has thrown herself into our lives, and the ripples have been spreading now for a year and a half so that now her younger sister also has come to live with us, and they both together make my life twice as miserable. The elder doesn’t like me because she doesn’t like my son anymore and I remind her of my son, and the younger daughter and I just don’t get on. I have said to my wife, I married you because I love you, but I am not in love with your daughters and I didn’t marry your daughters, but she is their mother and she has this strong connection with them, stronger than her connection with me, and she cannot break this connection, she says. The situation is impossible for me, and so I decided, that’s it, it is time to move on, life is too short to waste trying to save something from this situation. She can come to Holland to live with me but without her daughters, and I will be very happy if she does that, but I can no longer continue in this situation.
As he spills out his story I am riveted by the tragic beauty of one romance cleft by the failure of another. When we arrive at the airport he hands me some notes, thanks me for listening and tells me to keep the change. Impulsively I offer him my hand which he takes without hesitation.
-Good luck, I say as we shake. -I am sure this is for the best.
-It is, he says. -I am sure also, and he lets go my hand, pauses briefly, then gets out and closing the door he heads into the departures lounge. I watch him go, and in my mind’s eye see one asleep, her head on a pillow, around her, perhaps, Truth, Justice, such figures, while in another room, somewhere beneath, the note she will shortly read rests mutely waiting.