Carol

by Claire Morgan

She felt if she wept enough, it would all go out of her, the tiredness and the loneliness and the disappointment, as though it were in the tears themselves.

A world was born around her, like a bright forest with a million shimmering leaves.

Happiness was a little like flying, she thought, like being a kite. It depended on how much one let the string out –

At any rate, Therese thought, she was happier than she had ever been before. And why worry about defining everything?

Carol gave her a wink as she went down the stairs. ‘Be a good girl,’ Carol said.

I think there’s a definite reason for every friendship just as there’s a reason why certain atoms unite and others don’t

I think friendships are the result of certain needs that can be completely hidden from both people, sometimes hidden forever.’

Was life, were human relations like this always, Therese wondered. Never solid ground underfoot. Always like gravel, a little yielding, noisy so the whole world could hear, so one always listened, too, for the loud, harsh step of the intruder’s foot.

‘Why did you wait so long?’ Therese asked. ‘Because – I thought there wouldn’t be a second time, that I wouldn’t want it. But that’s not true.’

What was it to love someone, what was love exactly, and why did it end or not end? Those were the real questions, and who could answer them?

‘Is it anything to be ashamed of?’ ‘Yes. You know that, don’t you?’ Carol asked in her even, distinct voice. ‘In the eyes of the world it’s an abomination.’ The way she said it, Therese could not quite smile. ‘You don’t believe that.’

How was it possible to be afraid and in love,

that the rapport between two men or two women can be absolute and perfect, as it can never be between man and woman, and perhaps some people want just this, as others want that more shifting and uncertain thing that happens between men and women.

The music lived, but the world was dead. And the song would die one day, she thought, but how would the world come back to life? How would its salt come back?

It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell.