The Colour of Silence

It took several hours before we managed to speak to each other again with some degree of normalcy. The weather outside worsened again, and we got really worried about William. The area he must had reached by now was full of treacherous steep ramps, where you have to be alert and cautious under normal conditions already, but now, with the snow covering each small boulder and loose rock it would take much more than that.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, go on."

Julie seemed to have trouble formulating it.

"Why did you come up here on your own? You must have been aware of the danger."

"I didn't listen to the weather report. I have made this ascent several times. We used to live some sixty miles away from here."

"I read about the accident. I am very sorry about what happened. It must have been awful losing your family like that."

I refrained from commenting on that.

"How long ago was it though? Five, six years?"

"Four ."

"I see."

It was obvious that she was traipsing around the issue, trying very hard to avoid offending me, or making an inappropriate comment.

"You are wondering why I didn't want to sleep with you."

She nodded, looked like she wanted to retort something, but then deciding otherwise.

"I don't know how to explain this. My life ended that day, everything that was good and decent was taken away from me ... The tapestry of my life was unravelled ... It might be four years now, but for me it is like yesterday, for everything that happened since is meaningless, pointless ... "

"I see."

"Sorry, I can't explain it any better. I hope you understand that this has nothing to do with you. You are a kind, compassionate woman and very attractive besides ... I ... I just can't be intimate with someone I don't even know, you know, like ... I have been with her, know what I mean?"

"I think so."

I wanted to elaborate, but couldn't. I decided to change the subject slightly.

"You still have me at a disadvantage. You seem to know quite a bit about my life and I know next to nothing about you ... How come you are still alone?"

"Oh, I was married also. It didn't work out. And now ... I have my job, which gives me a lot of satisfaction and joy ... and my family, although I don't see much of them, mostly William, as he lives closest to my place. He is a great guy, a little self-absorbed at times, but still ... And I am sorry for what happened last night, it was my doing really ... it seemed like you needed it ... like we both needed it ... I don't usually do things like that to strangers ..."

"You don't need to apologise for being kind to me ... I am sorry, this is all so strange ... I feel like a ghost sometimes ... I am caught up in things, but they don't really get through to me, leaving me isolated from myself and others, indifferent ... maybe not indifferent, more like unable to connect ... I don't know how to explain this."

"I understand, I think. But is this how you want to spend the rest of your life? Roaming the Earth like a ghost, mourning the life you lost? I am sorry, those are totally inappropriate questions, I suppose."

"No, not at all. Of course these are valid questions, questions I am asking myself repeatedly. It is just ... it is not a matter of not wanting, more like not being able to ..."

We talked until lunch time. She asked me about the band, when I didn't volunteer any more information about my current life and eventually talked a bit more about herself. The leg started hurting more and more, but I didn't let on in order not to unsettle her. But she noticed that my body temperature had risen when she looked after the dressing again.

"Oh no, I think you are running a fever."

"Don't worry, it's all right."

"I don't know what to do."

Her voice sounded distraught.

"I've never taken a first aid course or something. I just hope ..." she glanced at her watch, "... that William has descended by now. Maybe they will send a helicopter."

"I don't think they have one there. These aren't the Alps, you know. Besides, I don't think they would fly in this weather."

Neither of us had looked out the window during our animated conversation. But now we both did. It had got even worse. This was a full-blown blizzard. The tall trees were shaking violently in the storm. I just hoped that William was all right and not caught outside in the midst of it.

"They didn't say it would be this bad in the weather report. Else we would have never ascended. Well ... good thing we did though."

I still wasn't sure whether I could agree. I longed for silence. And sleep. She noticed the latter part.

"Rest, you need to rest, try to sleep. We still have some of the Scotch, in case the pain gets too bad ... Do you want it now?"

"No, thanks ... keep it for later."

---

Your picture was in my mind's eye when I eventually fell asleep. I had a vivid dream about you, but I don't remember what it was about, just that you said, "You must live."

When I woke up again, it was dark already. Julie sat on the bunk William had slept in the previous night, huddled in a corner, her arms clasping her legs. Her eyes were closed, so she probably had fallen asleep also. The fire was dying down. I wanted to get up quietly and put a log onto it, but the pain was unbearable. Then I passed out again.

Disconnected sounds ... voices ... someone putting a needle in my arm. Two men lifting me from the bunk, carrying me outside. Julie's voice.

"Is he going to be all right?"

"Don't worry luv. It's not as bad as it looks."

I wanted to speak, but darkness engulfed me once more.

Only flashes of consciousness thereafter. Lying on a stretcher or sleigh, staring up in the sky. It had stopped snowing. Daylight again. The sound of panting men. Then nothingness.

---

Pure white. Was this ... the afterlife? No, a ceiling, a bed, I was in a bed. I managed to turn my head slowly. The interior was unmistakable, I was in a hospital. Sleeping in a chair next to me was Julie. I had enough experience with drugs to guess that the numbness and slowness of impressions was due to some sort of medication. My leg wasn't hurting, but it was heavily bandaged and I could not move it. Maybe they operated and I was still under some kind of anaesthetic. I tried to reach a plastic cup with water on the side-table next to bed on the left, but my movements were too uncoordinated and it fell down. Julie was startled out of her sleep.

"Oh, Neil, you are awake! Thank God. You had us worried there for a while. Let me get that for you."

She picked up the cup and refilled it, placing it at my lips. A bit of the liquid went down the wrong pipe and I had a coughing fit.

"Take it slowly please. I am going to get the nurse."

I wanted to respond, but I couldn't. My vocal cords refused to function. All I managed to produce was a weird mumble and I noticed that the right sight of my face felt numb as well. In an instant, I was alarmed. This could not have been due to anaesthesia. There was Julie again, and a nurse. They both tried to calm me down.

"Don't try to speak. You had a stroke when we transported you down. Don't worry, the doctors say in most cases one regains the powers of speech very quickly again."

Stroke? Now I realised that I had hardly any feeling on my right side, and not just in the leg. My right arm also felt limp. Fuck. And what if it didn't get better? Would I be a cripple for life?

The nurse had also alerted the doctor on call, a massive man with wild white hair. He asked me to nod when I felt something and started poking me with his fingers and a sharp metal thing. He seemed chuffed about the results and assured me that everything would be fine again in a few weeks. Then he made some rather inappropriate jokes, which made the nurse and Julie blush, but reassured me almost more than his earlier speech. And he explained that a clot from a damaged vein deep inside the wound had travelled up to my brain, without the rescue team noticing it, as I had been unconscious throughout the descent. He quipped that the resident haemal plumber had sealed that little bugger perfectly. I was still in a state of shock though.

Julie. She had spent two days at my bedside already, as you would have done for me. It was Christmas morning. But instead of spending it with her family, she had opted for being there for me. She refused to leave even now that I had regained consciousness. Why?

My inability to communicate made me mad. I couldn't even express my puzzlement; nor my gratitude. She arranged my cushions to make me more comfortable. She talked and talked to make me feel safe. She stroked my hair and held my good hand. In the evening, the funny doctor threw her out, ordering her to sleep in a real bed and leave the night care to the professionals. In the morning, when I awoke, she was back again.

The first days were hell and she was the only light at the end of the tunnel. Despite all the assurances, the lack of feeling in my right side didn't return quickly. I was feeling stronger again, and the wound on the leg was healing fast, but the partial paralysis was persistent. The first definite improvements I felt a day before New Year's Eve. When I awoke from a kiss on the brow, I felt a tingling in my left arm and I managed to lift it slightly. Julie seemed almost more excited about this than me. But I was excited about it too. I cared. Suddenly I cared. I wanted to get better. Wanted to be myself again.

Three days later I could take the first steps out of bed, still wobbly and insecure, only with the aid of Julie and a nurse, but that was a major relief. It took another week, before I regained my ability to speak; by then I was already back in my flat in London.

Julie had had to leave earlier, as school had started again, but she had promised to look me up during the following weekend. We had managed to communicate, after I regained my ability to write. When I uttered my first words again, I resisted the urge to call her, rather decided to surprise her during her upcoming visit.

The night before her arrival, I dreamt of you again. You were smiling, but when I tried to touch you, you shook your head and said:

"You must live."

Then your face turned into Julie's. Was this your blessing?

---

I had texted her that I would pick her up at Victoria station. As usual, it was a pain to find a parking space. I noticed how much I was looking forward to seeing her; I hastened my step when it looked like I wasn't going to make it on time, although that was still very difficult, as I limped a little bit and used a cane I had found amongst the heirlooms from my grandfather. The train was already standing at the platform and throngs of people milled towards me, making my approach even more difficult. Then I saw Julie alighting at the very end of the train, looking a little lost and trying to find me. The advantage of disability was that most people respectfully got out of my way, when they saw the cane. I was so anxious however, that I would probably have used it to fight my way through the crowd.

"Hello."

She saw me just the very instant I was standing right in front of her.

"Oh you can speak! That is fantastic."

"It's still a tad difficult ... almost like learning it all over again."

In fact, my voice sounded a lot different and I had to focus to speak clearly.

"I am so glad for you."

She embraced me. I noticed how small she was, as her head rested on my chest, and hesitantly I closed my arms around her too, feeling slightly awkward and yet almost disappointed when we ended the embrace. I realised that speaking wasn't the only thing I would have to learn all over again.

We slowly walked to my car, while she talked about William, who had brought her to the train station before she left. He had left Scotland before I regained consciousness to spend Christmas with his family, so I would still have to thank him for his part in my rescue, which had been no mean feat. He had actually managed to do the descent in a little over five hours, despite the nasty weather and almost got lost when he missed the right path twice. I would have to think of something special to get him as a thank you.

Julie had suggested that she could stay at a cousin's place, but I insisted that she stayed with me, as I had the spare room ready and was really anxious to spend as much time with her as possible. It didn't take much to coax her into staying with me either. In the hospital, I had been mostly thinking about myself, had appreciated her kindness and presence and in a weird way almost taken it for granted. When I saw how happy she was to see me and my improvements I realised that you wouldn't just do something like someone you care more than just a little for.

Was she in love with me? And, perhaps more difficult to assay, what was I feeling for her besides gratitude and friendship? It was confusing. We had met under the most bizarre circumstances, thrown together into mayhem and such a high degree of intimacy, which I had not thought possible after all that had happened to me.

And yet I was mortally afraid that I would have to disappoint her again, that I could not leap over the shadow of the ruins of my life. I was startled out of my musings when I realised that we hadn't spoken throughout the car ride to my place, but she might have been grown too accustomed to my silence from the time in the hospital to notice, or she was caught up in her own hopes and misgivings.

"Here we are."

The flat looked still very much like when you were here; I hadn't had the strength to change anything. She must have noticed your touch, the little knick-knacks, the furniture, the velvet curtains. I could see that she was feeling your presence and growing a little tense. We had a cup of tea with the Italian cake you liked so much. Now that I realised I had bought it for the first time in four years I felt a little weird about it. This was not going to be easy. I was at a loss about what to say or do to make Julie feel more comfortable. And to understand what I was feeling, when I looked at her. Our initial chit-chat was not putting either of us at ease.

"You know, now that I can speak again ... I need to tell you ... how grateful I am for what you and William have done for me ..."

"Don't mention it. I am so happy that you have recovered so well."

"I don't think I would have ... how can I put this ... you know, even rallied the will to get better without you."

"But you have, and you did get better, and that is all that counts now. You must look into the future and not look back. I am glad I could be there for you."

I wasn't sure it was the right thing to confront her with my current confusion, but I sensed that she was as uncertain about what would become of us, now, as the crisis dissolved into unknown possibilities.

"The future ... that is the weird thing ... I can't imagine it without you."

"Oh ..."

"But I don't know if I can ... bugger, why is this so difficult? I don't want to disappoint you ... you know, I am still so confused ... and I don't really know, what it is I feel ... for you ..."

"You need time. Don't worry about me; I just ... I will be there for you, if you need me ... let's just take one step at a time and we'll see where it leads ..."

"You are amazing, you know? How can you be so ... strong?"

Julie looked at me for a long moment and then said, "I don't think I am. But ... you should know ... I am in love with you."

I placed my arm around her and tenderly pressed her against me. I was choking up, it was so wonderful to feel her and yet I couldn't help feeling scared and incapable of expressing what I felt. When we kissed, tears ran down my face, washing away a good deal of pain, and silence.

---

We spent the remainder of the afternoon in comfortable silence, before heading out for a meal at the fabulous Italian restaurant near Baker Street you loved so much. I hadn't been there for ages, but it looked pretty much the same and the food was sublime as always, although they had a new cook now, as Antonio told me. Julie told me a bit more about her family, work and the little town she lived in. She invited me to come and visit.

As I was driving, I didn't drink anything there, but we shared a bottle of wine back in the flat. We talked and talked into the wee hours of the morning and although we had kissed and cuddled a lot, we went to sleep in separate rooms.

Julie had woken up hours ahead of me and eventually decided to wake me up at around noon, since she had promised her cousin to visit before returning home and her train was leaving in the late afternoon. After a hearty breakfast I drove her there. We kissed for almost ten minutes and I promised to drive up to her place the following weekend. How empty the flat was without her upon my return, how cold without her warmth, how gloomy without her smile.

I spent the week taking long walks in the park, as my leg was improving constantly; so was my speech. I brought you flowers, but you must have noticed that I didn't stay as long as usual and it was not because of the rain. I even sat down at the piano a couple of times, trying to recall the exercises from the lessons four years ago, as I had never continued. To my surprise they were still present in my memory.

In the evenings I rang Julie and we exchanged stories about our day. She told me that we were invited to William's for dinner on Saturday, so I had to come up with some sort of gift I could take along. In the end I opted for a crate of fine Malt Whisky, although it felt like not nearly enough.

Friday came much too slow, greeting me with blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures. I drove too fast and consequently arrived much too early, almost an hour before we had planned. Julie was still at her school, so I took the time to explore her town. It was quite possible that I had been there before during the early days with my band, but I had no conscious memory of it.

Seeing the kids storming out of the school was a little painful, as it reminded me of the times I had picked up Steven, how happy he had always been to see me, as those were but rare occasions due to my busy life. Julie didn't expect me there, as we had planned to meet at her place and I had to smile when I realised that she was not much taller than most of the older kids, blending in nicely with them. Her rather stern expression dissolved into a radiant smile when she noticed me. I wasn't sure whether it would be appropriate to kiss her in front of the kids, so I just opened the door for her and we drove off.

She lived in a small semi-detached house that reflected the warmth and playfulness of her personality. There was a massive garden behind the house, her pride and joy, as she told me, twice as large as all the others, as she had bought her neighbour's plot, who was apparently also a musician with no interest in gardening. Even in those bleak winter days it looked lush and pretty through the large French doors of her living-room. Alone at last we kissed, first tenderly, but then with ever growing passion. A call of nature separated us, and we had tea with homemade cookies thereafter.

She had planned a big dinner that would require a lot of preparation, but during and after tea we had started kissing again, and just couldn't tear ourselves apart. We even missed darkness falling and the room was only lit by her mock gas fireplace, when the passion was calling for more. There was no thinking on my part any more, no holding back, no fear, no pain, just the overwhelming desire to express the love I now felt so clearly with the entirety of my being.

Slowly, tenderly and yet breathlessly we caressed each other, took off one piece of clothing at a time, continued until we were in the buff, spellbound by a paradoxical feeling of relaxed tension, relieved that our longing finally obliterated all reticence and doubt. In perfect silence we explored each other, lying side by side on her sofa, tracing the outlines of each other's faces and bodies, gingerly proceeding to touch the epicentres of our growing passion. The sofa was too small and uncomfortable for any further advances, so I picked her up and carried her to the lush Oriental rug in front of her fireplace, where she opened her legs for me, heaving and trembling in anticipation. She moaned loudly when I entered her, halting to revel in the sensation of being finally connected, sharing the most intimate union of bodies and souls. It felt so right, so good, so perfectly natural and overwhelming that we were both close to tears, until our movements began and transmuted the feeling into exquisite concupiscence. I am not ashamed to say that this first was but a brief struggle, too long had I denied myself this ultimate affirmation of life; too long had there been silence and emptiness that gushed out in a glorious dissolution of self. However, I did not retreat, wanted to stay inside her as long as I possibly could, whilst smothering her with kisses.