All the way from America

Oh, I used to love him so.

The problem is that now, I can't remember why.

"I love you more than my soul," he says, and I think, "Yeah, but your soul's not worth much, really, is it? I wouldn't buy a soul like yours, not even if it was cheap."

Oh dear, is this what it's come to?

He came all the way from America, because he said I could save him - only me - and because in Australia, we don't have crack cocaine. I'd promised always to be there, always, and so when he rang me long distance and said he'd bought tickets, I couldn't say no. But by that time, I wanted to.

As soon as he got off the plane I knew it was the wrong decision. He walked like an old man - he, who'd been so magnificently arrogant in his maleness, powerful as a black leopard. He lay down on my bed, and closed his eyes. I stroked him - he used to say i had healing hands - but he just coughed, and asked for vodka.

After a week, I've already had enough. Everything I say is wrong, everything he says changes as soon as I try to pin it down.

"Do you want to go out?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want to stay in?"

"I don't know."

"Do you want to get off your butt and maybe go look for a job?"

"I can't."

In Australia, apparently, we can't do anything right. Our shopping trolleys veer in the wrong direction. Our cars drive on the wrong side. We don't have enough guns. We don't know how to handle a barbecue.

What wouldn't I give to have back those thrilling three weeks in America, when he drove me around in his fast car, and told me stories of his wicked youth, and played soft guitar in his apartment at night.

What wouldn't I give not to have seen him that last night, before I left to go home to Australia - when I opened the door of his room and he turned to me, hunched over a crack cigarette - don't press me for details, I don't know anything about crack, really - and gave me the most...the most ruined look I've ever seen on a man. "It's not what you think," he said, then, and I said, "How do you know what I think?"

We made it up, somehow. He said he needed a woman to lean on, someone who'd sequester his money so he couldn't buy the stuff, and love him so he wouldn't need it. I kissed him, feeling torn, of course. On the one hand, I wanted to slap his face. The other part of me was thinking - even though I'm not religious - what would Jesus do? What's the right thing to do?

The right thing to do was to leave, and that's what I did.

But now he's back again.

He's on the internet constantly, while my kids pretend he's not there at all. He says,

"You know the lion kills the old lion's cubs, when he gets with the lioness." I'm not afraid for them: he's so weak from drug abuse that he couldn't hurt a fly: he'd run out of puff lifting the whisk. My son beats him on the X-Box racing games. He makes my son hold his hand behind his back, and play one-handed: still he beats him. He's only five.

He says, "I had a terrible childhood," as if it makes up for it all. I used to like the idea of taming a man from 'the hood' - but now it bores me. He asks, "Can I have some more money?"  I think, how can I get rid of this man? I've invited a vampire into my house and now he won't leave, he just stays, draining me of blood and cash and all respect.

He starts drinking, and I start hiding. One night he comes in late and finds me in a darkened room.

"Why don't you love me like you used to?", he says, but I can't - it's not a matter of effort. I just can't love him, and I just can't respect him - can't be done. I do pity him. He's sick, and frail, and he still loves me, through all the fighting, but I just can't summon any real interest. I want him out so much it almost drives me crazy, like he used to, a year ago.

He takes to looming. He's a tall, broad man - that's partly what attracted me in the first place - but that makes it all the worse now. He comes close to me and puts his hands on my neck. I'm not really afraid - I'm cold and very, very angry.

"Take your hands off me," I say, quietly, "or I'll call the police."

He looks frightened. he steps back straight away, backs away as if I've turned into an evil witch, and begs, "Don't do that, please. Please don't."

Well, I don't. But we both know when it's over, it's over. He leaves the next day, on a plane for America, and I'm so relieved that I go out and try to get drunk, on glass after glass of rum and coke.

But I find I can't get drunk, I just can't do it. Something in me is so sad, I can't lift it. That something so strong, and lovely, and passionate, should come to this: a lover leaving in the early morning, not even stopping to say goodbye.

Years later I get a phone call.

"Remember me?"

At once, I do, but I pretend I don't, anyway.

"No, who's this?"

"It's Robert, don't you remember? From America?"

"Ok," I say cautiously, without feeling. Well, maybe a little flutter in the pit of my stomach, a nervous, angry tension. "How are you?"

We talk a little, jerkily.

"You're the only woman I ever really loved," he says.

Only now, after all this time, I recognise it for what it is, and was. A lie.