M

y Very Dearest Deborah,

I’ve made a table for you. Your table is in your bedroom. Before you enter I would like you to pause, take several slow breaths, put down the hammer, and allow me to explain.

No doubt you are wondering, Why another table when I already have three? A spice rack or extra stool would have made more sense. These would be practical. These would meet a lack.

But this is a table we need. I didn’t like the way we left things when you went to the airport. I didn’t like being called ‘spineless’. I didn’t like that I kept silent. After you slammed the door I stayed here, even though I know you hate me being at your place without you. I was waiting for the impossible, hoping you’d decide I was more important than a bunch of Brueghels. I confess I stayed the night, but only on the couch. Next morning, when you still hadn’t called, let alone returned, I understood that our problems could not be remedied by talking. I realised that only something tangible could bridge the gap between us. Ideally, I’d have gone to the hardware store for nails and wood—and also picked up some groceries—but because you’ve never given me a key, I have had to stay here for the last five days. I have had to improvise.

The first thing you’ll notice about your table is that it has seven legs, because I wanted it to be lucky, and I wanted it to be steady. I admit I have wobbled. When you lose your temper, I run. Instead of accepting the force of the storm, the hurled glasses and plates, I seek shelter in a library, a bar, the number 37 bus whose route is a rough circle. For this I am sorry. In the future I will be as loyal as furniture. My two legs shall be as still and steady as those lucky seven. If there was time, and more wood in your flat, I would have added more. Ten, eleven, fifteen legs would really make my point. But as you often remind me, I have limitations. I am neither tall nor handsome. I dress for comfort. I cannot create wood from nothing. I had to borrow the legs of your bed, the curtain rails from the lounge and bedroom, the base of the lamp in the hall. You never used that hockey stick. Bookcases are cheap.

Pascal was of the opinion that there was once, in man, a true happiness, of which all that now remains is an infinite abyss that can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object. Pascal really liked God. In our relationship there is a similar void (though obviously far smaller than the absence of the deity). I love you and I am certain you love me even though you’ve never said so. You will not say, ‘Moi aussi.’ You cannot even say ‘Likewise.’ Yet I don’t doubt that you feel something stronger than tolerance. We see each other twice a week; it’s been almost a year. Never mind where our relationship is going; think of where it has been.

I spent a lot of time trying to decide the form of the table. The L-shape was a late inspiration that arrived at the end of the second day. As I sat on the lounge carpet, eating spaghetti with hot dog mustard, I flipped through my memories of our dinners, hoping to find an image of you smiling as you spooned my raspberry panna cotta, my crème brûlée, my white chocolate roulade. Once I’d finished crying (I couldn’t find a single instance) I realised that the attempt betrayed my real motives for making those elaborate desserts. Instead of being satisfied with the knowledge that I had made a lovely pudding, and that you like lovely puddings, I stared at your face like a dog desperate for scraps. I have to learn to accept that your love for me is not an infinite and immutable object. I have to let you eat. And so when you return we shall sit at right angles from each other. Having you in my periphery needs to be enough.

Of course you are wondering about the holes. The biggest hole represents Jeremy, the middle-sized one is Tristan, the smallest hole is for something else. I can no longer pretend those two princes did not exist. I thought the benevolent smoke of my love could act as a curtain that would shroud your past, help you forget, but when you shouted, ‘You fucking snake’ at me you were addressing one of those villains. Tristan, who flew you to Florence and Paris and was knowledgeable about wine, antiques, how shoes were made, where to moor a yacht. Tristan who was a coward without self-control. I’m sure he thought his infidelities trivial, a waitress here, a cultural attaché there, little accidents that could not divert the straight course of your love. And it is entirely understandable that you said nothing for months. You were not sure. They were only suspicions. Otherwise you were happy. Yes, you were checking his phone, his pockets, his browser history, but as far as you knew you were looking for clues to a mystery that didn’t exist.

And then you found his second phone. He cried. He begged. I’m sure his remorse was convincing. And you definitely did not make it easy for him. For the three weeks you travelled with him you slept in separate rooms. Every time a pretty stewardess or waitress deployed some professional charm you reminded Tristan of what he’d done. I am sure that his apologies, in furniture terms, were an entire dining set. And he was not stupid. He knew what arranging a private viewing of Tintoretto’s Diana and Endymion would mean to you. You told me you spent most of your time with that picture trying to fathom its glazes. You wanted to know how many layers of varnish had been required. You suspected Tintoretto had used a badger brush to make the colours lie. The green was thus not really green. The green was ‘Yellow Lake’ varnish spread over a patch of ‘Cobalt Blue’. But you could not be sure without an X-ray, and the owners would not allow that. You took this personally. Two years later, when you told me this story, you broke a wine glass. You said people had a right to know.

But you also said those six hours alone with the painting were still like looking through a window that showed myth. You marvelled at its luminosity. For a brief time there was no sense of separation between you and the painting. You saw the image from within the painting. And so you took him back.

You say you were happy for the next six months. You say you did not check his phone or question his frequent absences. This was not stupid. You were not blind. You thought you deserved to be happy, and if this included flying business class to walk on white sand with only turtles for company, there was nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t be ashamed of your optimism. Giving him a second chance was an act of faith few are capable of. What I ask now, what this table intends, is that you should allow us that reprieve.

(By the way—you’ll need bigger plates. Your current ones fall through the holes.)

As for Jeremy, that was not your fault. You were just unlucky. In no way should his superficial similarity to Tristan have been a warning sign. They were different chairs. Tristan had blonde hair; Jeremy had brown. Tristan had no ear for music; Jeremy could play Saint-Saen’s Rondo Capriccioso. And Tristan, for all his failings, was not a monster. I’m sure that if he heard a story in which some other man did what he’d done to you he’d be appalled. Only a monster would view that story of suffering and near-insanity as an opportunity. Though I am not a violent man, I confess I would like to use these rudimentary carpentry tools on Jeremy. Though it was awful for him to have an affair with your Teaching Assistant, his response to being accused was as different from Tristan’s as a four-poster bed is to a cot. For him to suggest that your suspicions about his unexplained absences were the result of your chronic inability to trust was like pushing you off a cliff. And so the affair went on. The gaslighting continued. He even dared to suggest that your issues had forced Tristan to sleep with the waitresses. Those mind games would have messed anyone up. No wonder you started drinking. Your colleagues are just as much to blame for not correcting you when, during your lectures, you kept saying ‘Vermin’ instead of ‘Vermeer’.

And I am to blame for being naive enough to believe that by gifting you a small parcel of affection every day for the last ten months—bringing it like the cup of Darjeeling with which you start every morning—I might eventually convince you that I can be trusted. Once again, I am sorry. Those holes that represent Jeremy and Tristan will stop me from underestimating the scale of the challenge you face every day. I’m glad I slashed my arm while cutting them out. The scar will remind me that what those men did will follow you as doggedly as that mahogany escritoire you bought in Hong Kong, shipped to Berlin, then New York, then here. I hesitated for such a long time before using its drawers. I hope I wasn’t wrong to use their hardwood in the service of our future.

In the cold light of this cold morning—your heating system baffles me—when you will be home in two hours, I must confess that the table’s third hole is probably a mistake. At four a.m. it made perfect sense. Now I’ve no idea what I was thinking. Something about wholeness and the implicate order; something about Saint Ignatius. The best I can say is that the hole is a nod to incompleteness. I am just an odd-shaped man. No table can fix you. This is simply love as furniture and love is not always enough.

So maybe you will raise the hammer I wrapped this note around. In only four or five blows you can reduce your table to shards. It is not a strong construction; the more I worked on your table, the flimsier it became. But let me offer this warning: the varnish will certainly be wet. The first two coats, being thinner, dried quickly, but this last, thicker treatment, will require more time. And it’s better to smash a dry table than a sticky one. Better to wait a little. Then at least you’ll see the true colour of your table. The grenadine I added to the first two layers made a rich, bright red. But the last layer, which has nothing added, will be completely transparent. Once dry, it will act as a lens that focuses the morning sun onto the table’s surface. I hope that saturated red will seem to pulse and beat.