Original Bliss by A. L. Kennedy

Author:A. L. Kennedy [Kennedy, A. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307427151
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

Helen put the card in her coat pocket and went out to walk. A fine summer was finally breaking and dusty rain fell out of an almost blue sky. It didn’t bother her. Inside her pocket, she ran her thumb across the gloss of the photograph and then the polite friction of the writing surface; a postcard in an envelope, because all of the writing was for her and she had a husband and Edward had perfectly understood, without being told, that Mr. Brindle did not know about him and that Edward should not help him to find out.

She tried to think of what to do and couldn’t. An uneasy tiredness dropped close in around her and she took another turn away from the house and then another again and there was no way she could write back to Edward and no way she could not.

Helen walked and discovered new details in herself. As far as she understood her God and His opinions, He would think it was bad for her to be tempted but worse for her to be disappointed that she hadn’t given in. Nevertheless, she was sad that she had no hope of escaping the straight and narrow way and now that she’d resisted temptation, what little of God had returned to her was receding. God no longer needed to keep her from urgent sin and, because He didn’t want her for Himself, He’d left her alone. He had abandoned her again and never explained Himself, never said why, that’s what hurt her most.

She was beginning to think that relationships were possibly not her strong point. She couldn’t manage one with God, or with her husband; she didn’t like her sister and her parents were both dead. That only left Edward and all of her books—including the Good one—would advise her against him. He was not well. He’d admitted that. He had tastes with which she could not agree and which didn’t even seem to please him, only to have power in his life. His not wanting to like what he liked made him a less than hopeless case but, nevertheless, Helen knew that damaged people often sought each other out and fell in love with their mutual diseases, to the detriment or destruction of their hopes and personalities. There were whole books about each part of that progression and the misfortunes of those trapped in repeating behaviours and bad relationships. Helen was attracted to a sick man; she was therefore sick. Edward was attracted to Helen; he was therefore sick. Helen was even sicker for knowing he was sick and still wanting him and yet, oddly, she felt very well for somebody so sick.

How was Edward attracted, that was what she didn’t know. It was none of her business, but she did want to know. He hadn’t said why he was writing, or hadn’t said clearly.

Without noticing, she had made her way back to her gate. Mr. and Mrs. Brindle’s garden gate that defended Mr. and Mrs.

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