‘Do you love me?’ her voice quavered, as it always did if she had to ask it a second time. He continued to fiddle with some stuff on his table. ‘Do you love me?’ she asked again, and this time there was no ignoring the question—no question really, but a plea that was irritating in the extreme, because it always made him behave in a way that brought guilt afterwards. Didn’t she realize that if the question had to be asked at all, something had already gone wrong in the marriage?

‘Yes, of course I love you.‘ He was incapable of the falsehood. ‘No, I don’t love you anymore!’ Neither was he capable of the heartlessness.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘we have been married for fifteen years, we have two children, we have a good life…’ He was resorting to the old deflecting technique. It was famously used by the wife of a simple villager played by the actor Topol in that marvellous movie ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, when he asked her the same question. For answer, she listed the many wifely chores, performed dutifully over the years, that should have passed for love: ‘For twenty five years I’ve cooked your food, washed your clothes…’ He was not satisfied, and persisted in asking, ‘Do you love me?’ The scene ended with husband and wife smiling at each other with some amusement and clearly new understanding and affection.

But there could be none of these in his case. There was only exasperation of the worst kind. And it was rising dangerously. It did not help that her tears were now coming out fast, ruining her make-up. Why did she have to wear make-up at home, for God’s sake, and that ridiculous, transparent pink dress that only emphasized a figure allowed to grow fat and gross? He wanted to lash out, ‘For goodness’ sake, stop annoying me!’ but refrained, from habitual politeness. He said, ‘It’s late, I’m tired, I’m going to bed.’

The word was the cue for the pleading accusation: ‘You never sleep with me anymore!’ She looked with frowning forlornness at the sofa in the study, with its crumpled pillows, sheets and blanket. Then she went up to him, looked at him, made to touch his arm. That dreaded question was forming on her lips again.

Suddenly he saw, not the pathos of the gross body, the tear-stained face, the desperate pink dress and make-up, but a laughing young woman on a bicycle, the wind in her hair, captured in all the promise of youth and vitality by his camera, the framed photograph on their bedroom table now a travesty.

‘Is it so difficult for you to say to me “I love you?” This time her question took on the stridency of complaint. He said miserably, ‘I loved you,’ and she left the room, crushed by the brutal truth of the past tense, intending never to ask the question again.

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About Vignettes...

A continuing flow of little, readable pieces that will constitute what I feel is an important 'legacy of values' to leave behind. Read more about Vignettes...