The Glove
And it was only then I noticed the glove on her left hand.
It was the colour first. A light grey; gun-metal perhaps, reminiscent of a battleship or a cruiser. But it was soft. I could tell from the way it was moulded to her hand that it was soft, flexible. And did I say hand? I should have said arm, because it was a long glove, almost to the elbow. The stitching was fine, I could see that. Not fine in the sense of it being delicate, but fine in the sense of the quality, the thoroughness of it. Double stitched; triple stitched. Almost as if the glove’s job was protection on a completely different level to the norm. To protect her, or to protect us somehow?
So clearly not a fashion statement. And even if she had been wearing the other half of the pair on her right hand and arm, ‘fashion’ would still have been a stretch too far. The grey; the stitching; somehow the material too.
If she noticed me looking - staring - at her left arm she gave no hint of it. She continued to talk in her measured, even way without breaking stride as it were. I had already noted that when her speech demanded animation, she resisted; when it needed passion, she refrained. Control appeared to be everything to her; somehow she epitomised and embodied it. Even the glove was an extension of that control. The protection - if that’s what it was - was entirely managed and thought through.
She paused to take a sip of her wine and I was suddenly conscious that she had left a question in the air. What had we been talking about? Holidays? Travel? I recalled a fragment. She had been talking about rail travel.
"Have you ever tried one of those double decker trains you get in Europe?" I hoped that responding with a question of my own would be enough to cover up my misplaced attention.
She displayed no sign of irritation.
"In Switzerland, for example?"
I nodded. It seemed safe to do so.
"I’ve no idea how they manage without having hugely tall tunnels."
For other people it was a remark which would have prompted a laugh; meant as a joke, it was designed to elicit a particular response. In her case, even with the slight smile she offered me, it was clear she only intended to convey that she too had no idea how such twin-level trains fitted onto a conventional railway line - especially in a country where tunnels were so plentiful.
"On some services I think they reserve the upper deck for first class passengers," she continued. "Once I took a train from Basel and wanted to go upstairs but couldn’t. Had I known, I might have paid the extra."
When was that? When did she take a train from Basel? And how old had she been then? Indeed, how old was she now?
We had met just fifteen minutes ago. Although there had been the usual pleasantries as we ordered drinks, there had been none of the embarrassed difficulty such new meetings often engender. She had been perfectly balanced from the start. Wine, no crisps or nibbles ("maybe later"), a seat by the window would be fine. My complimenting the colour of her jacket - a standard ploy, but it was a shade of peach which really suited her - had been taken at face value; she had smiled at my first joke. If slightly unusual, it had not been a difficult beginning. And then what?
That was it. She had leaned forward to remove the peach jacket, and that was when I first noticed the glove.
"Aren’t trains cheap in Switzerland? Somehow I have always imagined that they would be."
She smiled at my naïvety.
"Not in Switzerland, no."
The bar was filling up. It had been a safe place to meet. Her suggestion. Attached to a gallery of modern art in the rejuvenated docks area, it was popular and slightly trendy without being too much of a place to pose. Having said that, many people who drank there had probably never set foot in the gallery itself, and even though I had done so only two or three times myself, I felt certain I could identify those who would only ever focus on the bar.
I glanced towards the table to my left. The couple there were clearly looked like art lovers, so they were a ‘yes’. And the table beyond them? A definite ‘no’. Then more: no, yes, yes, maybe.
Toni was finishing her short story about Swiss rail travel. Would she be an art lover? Possibly - but in an antiseptic, calculating way.
Did I tell you her name was Toni? Sorry. Short for Antonia, obviously. I knew that before I met her, of course. The brief phone call to test the water; to see if there was any kind of vibe. And then, on the basis of, what, just a few minutes’ chat, the question as to whether to meet or not. It had felt an easy decision from my perspective. No, that’s not quite right. A comfortable decision. Or maybe a safe one.
I had made some bad calls in the past, but this time it felt just fine. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t deluding myself. I had enough experience - had seen too many false dawns! - not to expect anything significant. These days I was happy to settle for a pleasant evening and a quiet chat. Perhaps that wasn’t very ambitious, I don’t know.
*
She rang me two days later, exactly as she had promised. When we’d left the bar I had the impression that she was being cautious, non-committal; almost as if she were tying a bow in the end of a piece of string to make it look nice… though I’ve no idea why I should think that given how she’d been that evening. Honest. No, honest was the wrong word. She had been accurate, precise. She said she would ring because she was going to ring. When I heard her voice I felt guilty that I had doubted her.
"I want you to meet someone", she said without any build-up or lead-in.
This was a new one on me. For an instant I panicked slightly. Our encounter had been unspectacular. I’d left with my modest ambitions for a pleasant evening completely fulfilled - but now she wanted me to meet someone… I remembered her speaking fondly of her mother. Surely we had not got our wires crossed? Toni seemed like the last individual in the world who would be capable of such a thing - or of allowing it to happen in the first place.
"My sister."
"Your sister?"
From her slight pause I could tell she had instantly registered the surprise in my voice. Or was it relief?
"My sister, yes. Fran."
Not knowing what to say, I said nothing.
"I enjoyed our evening. I hope you did too. At least I thought you did..."
"I did," I said, perhaps interrupting too quickly - but not quickly enough to knock her out of that even flow of hers.
"So I would like to meet you again. And I want to bring my sister along too. Is that all right?" She paused. It was clearly my turn.
"To see you again, or to meet you sister?"
"Both."
*
It wasn’t until later I realised this embryonic relationship wasn’t about Toni at all. It was to all be about Fran. Toni was there in the picture, and our first meeting proved to be more of a fact finding mission for her, to sound me out, to validate if I was somehow 'suitable'. Make no mistake though, it never felt as if I was being tested. Not surprisingly I had assumed my meeting Fran was in order to gain her approval of me on Toni’s behalf, as if a 'second opinion' were needed. But that assumption wasn’t to last long.
There was also something in that follow-up phone call which made me realise any attraction I had felt - or indeed manufactured - for Toni at the gallery bar was based more on intrigue than chemistry. Not that she was an unattractive woman. However, I soon arrived at the notion that primarily she was interesting in a quirky, off-the-wall kind of way, rather than a sexual one; this second introduction - the prospect of meeting her sister - only served to enhance that hypothesis. I moved quickly from the all-too-familiar state of naive anticipation to the kind of excitement an anthropologist or archaeologist might feel when they are on the verge of making a new discovery.
I found myself creating advance mental pictures of Fran. Because I had nothing else to go on, inevitably these sketches were based on using Toni as a template, and every variation I came up with looked and felt like her with various minor adjustments. Toni was slightly shorter than average and, if one were being harsh, far from physically outstanding. That was not the same as saying her plainness was unattractive. Beneath that peach jacket she had worn a relatively short skirt; one short enough, at least, to promote legs that were well-toned if not that long. These, allied to her slimness, gave the impression of someone who looked after themselves physically, but not obsessively so. I couldn’t see her in the gym; there was no way her demeanour could possibly countenance such frivolity. And there was the unanswered question about the glove. So I concocted a picture of a girl who had probably been good at hockey at school and now rode horses regularly. Was this accurate? If I intended to find out, I never really got the chance.
Perhaps inevitably, my expectations for Fran were upbeat. Isn’t the way that men are generally made? Hence, slightly taller, slightly longer legs; her dark hair would be longer than Toni’s - certainly below shoulder length. Whatever identikit image I created, I was sure there would be no long grey glove.
*
And there wasn’t. But neither was there dark hair of any length. Fran was without doubt strawberry blonde and indisputably natural. As it happened she was taller than Toni, but given she looked nothing at all like her sister, that ended up being the only one of my predictions that came anywhere close.
We met in the same gallery bar. As usual I had been a little early and, having furnished myself with a drink, managed to secure the same table Toni and I had used the previous week. I sat facing the door so immediately noticed Toni when she walked in behind another woman. I looked beyond them, expecting to see Fran following Toni in, but there was no-one else there. Then I noticed Toni tap the arm of the woman who had entered in front of her and point in my direction. The penny had just about dropped by the time Fran reached the table, Toni diverting to the bar to get their drinks.
"Adrian, hi," said Fran, extending an un-gloved hand.
With what was, I was certain, astonishing clumsiness, I had managed to stand up just in time to greet her, my mind trying to assess this suddenly revised scenario and failing miserably.
"Fran," I stumbled, managing quite unsuccessfully to take the question out of my phrasing.
"You were expecting someone else?" She laughed easily. It was another divergence from her sister, as if they occupied opposite sides of a negative image, one black, one white. She slipped effortlessly into the seat opposite me. "If Toni hadn’t just pointed you out I would still have recognised you."
"Really? How so?"
"Her description. It was very accurate."
"That doesn’t surprise me," I said, trying hard not to redden. Fran’s laugh made that even harder. "I hope it was complimentary, at least."
She laughed again.
"Toni doesn’t do complimentary - not in the sense you mean, anyway. But you can relax; you’ve nothing to worry about!"
I wanted to decipher that, but Toni’s arrival with two glasses of wine prevented it. She placed the glasses on the table then leant forward and kissed me on the cheek.
If I had been unbalanced before, I was now completely knocked sideways. As little as I knew her, that brief kiss - no more than the brush of skin - seemed the most out-of-character thing she could have done. Convinced that I was, by now, the colour of beetroot, I glanced at Fran who was smiling as if nothing at all unnatural had happened. I felt I had been treated to a display of some sort, though for whose benefit I had no idea.
"How are you?" she asked. It was a marginally softer tone than she had adopted in our previous meeting, and one I could not fail to notice.
"I am," I hesitated, acutely conscious of how flummoxed I must have appeared at that precise moment, "pretty much as you left me. I’m sure you’ll make your own deductions…"
It wasn’t intended as a joke, but Fran clearly thought it hilarious.
Toni put her gloved hand on my arm briefly.
"Poor Adrian," she said, glancing at Fran.
One way or another, it proved the perfect start to the evening. Within moments we were all suitably relaxed and Toni demonstrated herself to be the perfect conduit between Fran and I. After less than an hour I felt as if I had known both of them for years. It was a degree of comfort, misplaced or not, which allowed me to pose the question whose answer would resolve at least one thing that had been bothering me since I had been introduced to Fran.
"You don’t look like sisters," I ventured, pausing fractionally in case there was any immediate interjection. None came. "I mean, to be honest you don’t really look alike. At all. And you’re both…"
"Very different?" suggested Toni, taking advantage of my hesitation. I nodded.
"We get that a lot," Fran confirmed, seemingly completely unfazed by my articulating what was, after all, quite an obvious observation. "Blonde, dark. Taller, less so."
"Out-going, less so," Toni suggested with a wry smile.
It felt like a well-rehearsed routine; but at least I hadn’t offended them.
"Sorry to be so predictable," I said.
"It depends," Toni said, her face returning to the considered seriousness of our first meeting, "on your definition of ‘sisters’ really. Are we from exactly the same genetic gene pool? Obviously not. But is there a relationship? A close, familial relationship - blood-tied or not?"
She let the question hang for a second.
"There is," Fran answered. "And it is partly genetic - just in case you think we’re weird hippies or something. But it’s complicated."
"Complicated?" I echoed.
"Very," Toni confirmed. "Maybe we’ll explain it to you one day - but not now. Is that OK? Just humour us. Just assume that we are sisters, because that’s how we’ll behave; regular sisters. And in any event, that’s not the most important thing right now is it?"
They both looked at me. It was clear that they expected confirmation. The conversation had taken a turn I had been unable to foresee.
"If you say so. I mean, I guess not."
"Really?" checked Fran, concerned my unanswered question would get in the way. "Does it make a difference to you?"
"To me? How?"
"If Toni and I weren’t sisters - or were sisters. Does that matter in any material way to you?"
I could have taken time to consider my answer, but it was there on the tip of my tongue before I could check it.
"Not in the slightest."
I felt the pressure in the room ease a little and they both raised their glasses in perfect synchronisation.
Of course the follow-on question now begged was that if their being sisters did not make any material difference, then no ‘material difference’ to what exactly? And more specifically, in relation to me? Although we carried on making small-talk as if nothing had interrupted that initial, innocent flow, we knew it had been interrupted. It was a sensation, a wispy cloud, that could almost have been seen hanging over our table as we sat there.
And it was a cloud which succeeded in making me increasingly less comfortable. I found myself forcing responses, forcing laughs in order to keep the flow going. Toni and Fran seemed unchanged, carrying on as if I had never even asked that original question - or perhaps as if they had never answered it - but I could tell, from Toni at least, that she sensed the disturbance in my equilibrium.
I offered to buy another round of drinks.
"I don’t think so, do you?" she said, as if she were correcting an errant child. Almost as if it were a prompt, Fran stood up. I didn’t know what to do. Toni put her hand on my arm again. "One of us will call you. Is that OK?"
The confusion that had opened my evening returned in spades.
"Sure," I said. "I mean, I guess so."
"We like you, Adrian. Really. We would like to see you again if that’s OK with you. If you could put up with us."
Fran leant forward and kissed my cheek. The opposite one to that Toni had christened a couple of hours ago. There they were again, different sides of the same coin.
"Please?" she said.
I smiled and waved my arms to take in the general scene.
"You know where to find me!"
*
Afterwards, as we lay there in the pregnant silence, slowly restoring equilibrium - which in my case had been shifted to God knows where! - I was determined not to be the first to fall asleep; determined not to conform to the stereotypical male reaction to love-making, even though it was my natural response, even though I was overcome with a need for slumber.
I turned my head to check the clock on my bedside table. The last hour or so had flown by, with time seeming to travel at wildly variable velocities rather than remain constant. At least that was how it had felt.
She had, I confess, taken me by surprise. Not her turning up unannounced, though that did come somewhat out of the blue, but by the way she initiated and then accelerated through the preliminaries, leaving me metaphorically hanging onto her coat tails as we sped physically through the rooms of my flat and mentally across the groundwork of our relationship. It was as if she had no time for convention, for niceties, for subtlety.
Our initial coupling had been animalistic, rough - violent almost. I had taken my lead from her, there was no other option. She seemed to have arrived already aroused, her mind made up. That first time it was as if I could have been anyone, just the other party in some kind of contract; as if the obligation I were fulfilling was based on mercantile rather than emotional foundations. It had taken, it seemed, almost no time at all. As we lay there, panting hard, my mind racing, trying to catch up with the reality of this bizarre, wonderful, confusing, extraordinary situation in which I found myself, the slowing of her breath seemed to correspond with a release. I felt tension leave her, as if our love-making had freed her from some terrible obligation. It was as if she had achieved something, succeeded in overcoming a challenge she had set herself, untied a knot.
I had been unsure what would happen next. My inability to foresee what might be about to transpire when she walked through the door was now compounded many times over. My role thus far had been more functional than anything else. Although we lay holding hands, I had no idea what my next move was supposed to be, or indeed if I was supposed to do anything at all. Nor could I predict what she might do. I had a sudden image of Glenn Close, and hoped I wasn’t trapped in ‘Fatal Attraction’. I hadn’t seen her arrive with a large knife sticking out of her handbag, so that was something at least.
I must have tensed a little with the thought because she squeezed my hand and turned a little towards me. Her gaze was slightly strange, as if she was examining me for the first time; as if I were a stranger. And in a way I suppose I was, given how little we had seen of each other. Yet here we were, lying naked together, hands clasped, the rise-and-fall of our chests still betraying the traces of frantic activity.
It seems strange to say it, but she looked different too. How much my perspective had been changed by our physical proximity - or by the gloss the sudden shift in our relationship had overlaid upon it - I was unable to say. It was almost like meeting her again, as if the initial encounter in the Gallery bar had been with another person or had happened to someone else other than me.
"Are you ok?" she asked.
It was a simple enough question but with no immediate or adequate answer available. What could I say?
"Yes, no, and maybe," I ventured, "all at once."
She laughed and turned a little further towards me, allowing her free hand to rest on my chest.
"I hope more ‘yes’ than the other two."
I tried a smile that was meant to convey that how could it be otherwise? A smile designed to lay bare my underlying confusion; a plea, wordlessly, for some clarification.
She moved her right leg a little, allowing her foot to rest against my own, gently rubbing my calf as she did so. My physical reaction to this subtle gesture was immediate and involuntary - and all too evident. She glanced down toward my thighs, to where my penis was stiffening visibly.
"Something tells me that the ‘yes’ is getting a little stronger."
I moved my head towards hers, turning a little myself, and cupping the back of her head in my left hand. She was ready for my kiss; a slow, delicate and intimate affair this time, still full of passion but devoid of our earlier roughness. I eased my head away a little, trying to concentrate on her eyes; watching them as my fingers as they played through her blond hair. I let my hand travel to her shoulder and then down to her right breast and the perfect nipple that was also beginning to harden.
"Yes," I echoed, and then rolled over on top of her, my mouth finding hers once more as she freed her hands to put them behind my back and pull me closer, as if there might still be a gap between our bodies that needed to be filled.
That second time she had alternated between impatience and indifference. Although I strived for control - as if I needed to re-establish myself somehow - it was a goal I never quite managed to achieve. Thinking back now, I can only try to unpack her ability to achieve superiority, something I had never experienced before. It was as if, during the encore, she had been trying desperately not to complete our love-making - and this to as great a degree as she had been previously keen to get to it over and done with as quickly as possible. Eventually, when she had finally resolved to seal our second contract, she did so with an abandonment that was astonishing. It felt as if she were giving everything she had to me - rather than taking away everything I had.
As I lay there, I was struck by the extremes to which we had ventured; the opposing poles of action and emotion I had just experienced. It felt as if she had taken me, in a single evening, to every place I could ever expect to go with a woman; as if she had gifted me with the sexual bookends between which all my future experiences would be contained. And even though I was able to regard our love-making in the context of what she had given me, I could not dispel the notion that it had all been for her; none of it was for me, as if I happened to be a subsidiary or irrelevant partner, the accidental beneficiary.
Because of that, I had suddenly been certain that she would not start a third cycle for the simple reason that there was nothing else she could offer me - or nothing else she needed from me. And I was struck with a sense of sadness, of loss almost; a profound notion that we would never make love again; that all too quickly we had reached a point which represented an end rather than a beginning - though the end of exactly what I was unable to say.
*
We arranged to meet the following evening, but of course she failed to show. Desperately hoping to see Fran walk into the bar, I felt a crushing defeat when Toni entered. Yet I found myself unable to manifest any kind of surprise. There was an inevitability about it.
"Adrian," she said coming straight over to me.
"She’s not coming, is she?"
"May I?" Toni looked at the open bottle of wine in front of me and the spare glass on the table; the one I had intended for Fran.
"Help yourself; better than me having to drink it all."
"Are you ok?"
Pausing mid-pour, Toni must have noticed the way I reacted to her question, stunned by the echo from the previous evening, an echo hardened by the way she said it, the tone of her voice suddenly seeming so close to Fran’s.
"How can I be ‘ok’?" I asked, trying to remain as calm as possible. "How can I be ‘ok’ when I’ve no idea what’s going on? As if I’ve ever had any real idea what was going on…"
She finished pouring her wine, saying nothing.
"First you. Then you introduce me to Fran. There’s that whole, slightly weird sisters thing going on, which I couldn’t quite come to terms with - which you say is ‘complicated’. And then the other evening. Fran…"
"We’re not," she said, interrupting.
"Not what?"
"Not sisters, of course. At least not in the biological sense. I thought we’d covered that.”
"So friends then. And then, almost like a mercenary, you go around scouting for a man for your ‘friend’." I was conscious of a bitterness in my voice and refrained from trying to hide it. "Why’s that? To check them out? To test them, validate them somehow? As if Fran couldn’t do that for herself."
"Partly, yes."
"Which part?"
Toni took a sip of her wine, her eyes never leaving mine. I had to look away for a moment, to compose myself; her stare was unnerving.
"Most of it really. I am a kind of filter, yes. I provide some kind of protection for Fran, if you want to choose to see it that way. Could she find a man for herself? Logically she could, but she’s abysmal at it. She can’t recognise the good from the not so good…"
"Neither, apparently, can I…"
She ignored my barb.
"She’s been hurt - badly - more than once. Physically too. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to see that happen to her again."
"But it’s all right if I get hurt, is it? How I feel is of no importance?"
She took another sip of wine. I could tell this wasn’t easy for her in spite of the calm exterior she was trying to display: that no-nonsense, antiseptic honesty from our first meeting was beginning to come to the fore again.
"Fran and I are partners. Lovers. Choose whatever word suits you best. We like ‘sisters’ because it’s actually the least controversial description. If we were married, I guess you’d say that I was the ‘husband’ in the relationship - though it’s not a term I’d choose to use."
"I can see that."
"See what, exactly?"
"That you’d be the ‘husband’. It fits you better."
She nodded, apparently taking my comment at face value.
"And Fran is, of course, much more feminine."
"As I have discovered to my cost."
"We have wanted, for some time now, to have a family. To have a baby. Which, thanks to illness and the unforeseen side-effects of some powerful medication, actually turns out to be an option for just one of us. Fran, of course. Please." She raised her hand slightly to prevent my interrupting. "We discussed how we should try and achieve our goal. Not unnaturally, I was in favour of artificial methods; the anonymous, more antiseptic approach. But Fran was adamant that she wanted the conception of our baby to be as ‘natural’ as possible."
"Natural?!" Toni was unable to stop me getting that one out, but raised her hand again.
"Although I wasn’t happy about it, she started seeing men. One-night-stands. At first she did so behind my back - until she came home one day badly beaten… I tried to persuade her to take the safer route, but she refused. Totally. She defined a line that I simply couldn’t risk crossing. So we made a deal, a pact. We hatched a plan. Cold-hearted, manipulative - use all the derogatory words you like. I arrange the first date. I filter out the risky ones - ‘test’ and ‘validate’, to use your words. If I like them - and I do like you Adrian - then Fran meets them. If she likes them… Well…"
From somewhere I felt things begin to fall into place, those random jigsaw pieces I had picked up were beginning to form into a picture. Toni’s narrative explained a number of the sensations garnered from my evening with Fran, primarily the feelings I’d had about her. I could see the reason behind her drive, that initial impatience, the mechanistic nature of it. And I understood the sense of an ending that had been manifested all too soon.
If I had wanted to, I could have taken comfort that I’d made it through the trials to ‘qualify’ - but that minor satisfaction would have to wait.
"But that’s still not right," I offered. It was a hollow, meaningless and weak phrase I regretted immediately.
"What’s ‘right’, Adrian, these days?" I had given Toni the opportunity to make the conversation philosophical, to try and take me out of it in a way.
"And it’s risky."
"The physical abuse, you mean? We’ve not had any problems since I got involved.”
I couldn’t miss the fact that Toni assigned the physical pain to both of them.
"No, not that. I mean it’s risky for you personally, isn’t it?"
"How so?"
"Emotionally." My observation was, I sensed, ultimately petty; a cheap shot in a fight I had already comprehensively lost. But I felt the need to leave a mark, a bruise of my own, however minor. And on Toni too. I guessed that was the area where she was most vulnerable. "What happens if there’s a man Fran falls for? What happens then?"
"It hasn’t happened yet," Toni looked momentarily defensive.
"What if it had been me? Things got pretty intense there for a while." It was my turn to play my best card, even if Toni held all the aces. "Different, I would imagine, between a man and a woman. How it should be, perhaps." I rushed on, sensing Toni was about to object. "What if Fran had suddenly felt that I was the one, that it was my child and me she wanted? What if she was so determined that a pre-planned one-night-stand wasn’t enough? What if she wanted the guarantee that the child - assuming we could make one - would be mine too? What if she came back again and again? What if that - changed things?"
I let the implication rest there in full view. I could tell it was something Toni had considered; and I could also tell that perhaps - just perhaps - I may have come closer to turning that possibility that anyone else before me. Even if that was only my ego talking, it was worth hanging on to.
When Toni replied, her voice was a shade quieter, less confident, the tone almost vulnerable. Almost.
"You’re right. Of course. There is a risk - to me. I run the risk of losing her. Don’t you think I don’t recognise that? It’s what makes the whole thing so painful - painful in more ways that you can imagine. How do you think I felt when I knew she was coming to see you, knowing what was about to happen? That’s why my job is so important. It’s important to Fran, but it’s important to me too. Important personally. I have to trust you, not just for Fran but for me too."
She stood up and placed her glass back on the table. It was only then, as she retrieved her handbag with her other hand, that I noticed the glove on her left hand. It was like the one I had seen her wear before, but this time it was jet black.
"And you might be right, Adrian. Maybe you did get closer to her than some others have done. She never says; I have to guess, to judge based on how she is, how she seems. It’s no consolation - for either of us I suspect - but I know she liked you. Very much."
Then she simply turned and walked away.
I never did uncover the reason for her wearing that glove.