| Current mood: |  anxious |
| Current music: | Down Hearted Blues (Bessie Smith) |
Troubled
Dear Pamela,
Sorry to have been so long in writing.
I've been working very hard, partly, I suppose, in an effort to appease Travers. I have finished the all-but-final draft of the "Feeding Habits" chapter, which took quite a lot of work, because it involved synthesizing all available information on the feeding habits of vampires, which was initially going to be my entire thesis, if you remember, until Rudi talked me out of it because it would be too much work. So now I've had to do it all anyway, and condense it to a single chapter. So I've been staying up late and getting up early and not eating and doing all those things that one isn't supposed to do, but it's how I've always worked and it seems to produce decent results. I gave that to Travers at the beginning of the month, and he seems very pleased with it - called it a "genuinely useful contribution", which is high praise from him.
I was supposed to go directly from that chapter into work on William the Bloody in specific's preferred victims, but I'm more and more convinced that before I go any farther, I need to think over what I really believe a vampire is. It seems to me that the theory on which the Council operates - that a vampire is a demon inhabiting a dead body, with no continuity of identity from victim to vampire - is lacking, because it does not seem to fit all of the data I have gathered so far. I have read more current theories of vampirism as a virus, and a few others, and none seem to quite describe what I have observed so far. So I have backtracked and am doing more theoretical reading on the nature of vampirism, and intend to produce a chapter on the various theories governing the syndrome, and if necessary develop my own.
Yes, I know that this in itself would be a good subject for post-Diploma research! But I do need to have some idea where I stand on this particular question before I go any farther. I'm trying to write just a brief schematic overview of the different theories, before continuing with the specific work on William the Bloody.
I suppose I could tell you that I've just been working so hard I haven't had time to write.
Certainly pressure of work was, for Rudi at least, the reason he couldn't come up earlier this month for the New Moon ritual, to see if he could restore father to human condition. He was called to the north of England, near Birmingham, just before the new moon, as I told you, to consult on apparent demonic attacks on the Birmingham coven. It turned out to be a disaffected former member of the coven, who has been suppressed and is being re-educated, as the covens tend to do in favour of, well, more drastic measures. I sometimes shudder to think how many enormously powerful, dangerously unstable, and potentially homicidal wiccas are 'rehabilitated' by covens who seem to have total faith in their ability to restore to whatever passes for normalcy wiccas who has so far shown no sign of normal behaviour.
In any event, it took him over a week to disentangle the various 'demonic' manifestations and see them for what they were, and identify the perpetrator. The next new moon the weather did not co-operate (the night needs to be clear). But he has promised to come up as soon as the weather and lunar cycle are right - and the next new moon, on All Hallow's Eve, will be especially auspicious for the ritual, apparently. So barring bad weather, you may expect him then.
But I'm not sure you should expect me to be with him. And this is why you haven't heard from me.
I have spent over a month now trying to tell myself that there's nothing wrong, that it's perfectly normal for a couple to become less, I don't know, warm, need less of each other's company, live less in each other's pockets, as the relationship moves past its initial honeymoon stage and into the phase of stable quasi-domesticity and -
I"m lying to myself. I've been lying for over a month and I know it. Things haven't been right since I got back from Prague.
I thought the three days of marathon makeup sex and the engagement and the amount of time we spent together after and - well, everything - I thought it meant that things were all right. Now I see that they aren't; they were an attempt to make things right, and they didn't work.
Things aren't all right at all.
We continued seeing each other pretty much every day, more or less, for the two or three weeks until he was called up to Birmingham in mid-September. But I could still tell that there was something, I don't know. There was an anxiety that wasn't there before, in the way he treated me, in the way I spoke to him. Looking back, I can see that even then I was feeling somewhat nervous around him, careful about how I phrased things, trying not to put my foot wrong. It was nothing I could have put my finger on but I see that I could tell that something was off.
Well, he went up to Birmingham for 10 days, and in all that time he phoned me only once, left a message on my machine when I think he knew I would probably be at the library, to tell me he'd be there longer than he'd originally thought. And I don't want to be unfair - I know he was working flat-out trying to resolve the situation there, and he sounded exhausted on the tape. And when he was in north Italy I didn't expect to hear from him. But that was different - he was out in the countryside, there were no phones, I was going to be in Munich anyway, there was no real way to get in touch. But there are pay phones all over Birmingham, and he knew where I was.
He just didn't want to talk to me.
And he wasn't as affectionate before he left, this time, either. Which I tried to write off to, you know, fatigue, time constraints, new phase in the relationship.
But no. He just wasn't feeling as affectionate this time.
And then when he got back from Birmingham he didn't call me. He said it was because he got back very late and didn't want to wake me up, but he could have phoned me the next morning or - anyway, I found out he was back when I ran into him in a corridor at the Academy that afternoon. I was quite shocked; I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach when I saw him standing there in the hallway, talking to Travers, and he hadn't called to tell me he was back.
Fortunately I saw him first, and ducked back around a corner to compose myself before I came out to greet him, and could simply walk up with a smile and say, Rudi! I didn't realise you were back already - that got a look from Travers - but Rudi gave me his smile and a big hug and said he was just coming to look for me, and for a second it felt as if I was just imagining things, and everything was all right.
But that was a month ago, and things still aren't right. It's not as if he's suddenly dropped me or anything like that. But instead of seeing each other every day or every other day, it's more like every three days, and there's a careful formality to our meetings now. We will meet for dinner, or to go to a movie, or some planned event, and he'll drop me off at my door at the end of the evening and I've stopped asking him if he'd like to come in because he always says no, that he wants me to get my sleep in order to be fresh for my work, or some equally specious excuse (actually that's always the excuse). And when he kisses me it always feels exactly like the first time, and my doubts vanish, but then he leaves.
On weekends I still stay over at his place one night, and he will make dinner and we will chat about our work, and go to bed together and it's, well, it's still wonderful. But the first time we went back to bed after he got back from Birmingham I was so relieved - I honestly thought he'd just decided he didnt' care for me anymore - and I said, afterwards, since I felt reassured, that I was relieved, and told him some of my fears.
And he said in his low, comforting voice, "you need never doubt me, Lydia", and for a second the icy knob in my stomach melted.
But then he said that some things had been troubling him, but I must not worry about it, he would deal with it. But when I wanted to know what he said we both needed the sleep, and wouldn't say anymore.
And since then, the best way I can put it is that the ease in our relationship has vanished. I am afraid to ask him what's wrong, and perhaps I'm inventing it. I walk on eggshells avoiding talking about things I am afraid will make my anxiety clear.
I haven't even asked him why we don't see as much of each other and why we don't make love as often anymore - it's not as if we've been together five years, it's only been a few months after all. And it hasn't been gradual; it's quite sudden.
The worst thing is that I'm so insecure around him, now, that I am afraid even to tell him what I want. Which is, to see more of him. See him relax around me again, which I realise just now I haven't seen in - well, since I got back from Prague, really. I want to relax around him again. I want to know what's wrong. And I'm afraid to say any of this.
I don't know what to do.
I've wondered, if I offered him his ring back, would that fix things, or at least initiate a discussion. Perhaps he's just afraid of getting married - some men are - and that was too precipitate, and we should un-engage ourselves and go at this more slowly. Especially since he's pulling back in any case.
But offering him his ring back is obviously a childish thing to do. I mean as a first move.
But I don't know what else to do. I can't think. You know I'm not good with people, and I don't know how to fix things when they go wrong, and I don't know what to do.
So what I've been doing instead is what I did when Desmond died, and when father was enchanted, and - I see now - when I could tell that things were going wrong with Cyril. Which is, flinging myself into my work, in order to avoid thinking about the amount of pain I'd be in if I let myself feel it.
Well, I couldn't do anything about Desmond, or father. And I didn't really want to do anything about Cyril; we didn't suit each other, and I wasn't happy about it but I was willing to let him go.
But I'm not willing to let Rudi go, without a fight. Only I don't know how to fight. And I'm afraid there's nothing I can do this time, either. I can feel him sliding away.
What do I do? Please, tell me what to do.
love, Lydia
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watchergrrl) wrote,
