Theft

by Luke Brown

  ‘Did you hear about the job?’ I asked, when we sat down in a far corner of the waiting room.

  ‘Yeah, they gave it me back, on probation.’

  ‘Hooray!’

  ‘Hooray.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘They’re such caring people, they couldn’t bear to think that they weren’t caring people. I went to the doctor and got a note to say I’m suffering from depression and am seeing a psychologist for resulting anger-management issues. I think that clinched it.’

  ‘And they believed you?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Because I am actually doing that.’

  ‘Are you? You’re depressed?’

  ‘Yeah, I mean, yeah. I need the job.’

  ‘Is it helpful? The therapy?’

  ‘I’ve only just started it. She says I show the classic behaviour of a rageaholic.’

  ‘Rageaholic? Does that make sense etymologically? It’s like saying people are gamblingaholics, heroinaholics, wankaholics.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘I like the woman I speak to.’

  ‘Are you really depressed? I didn’t know you were depressed.’

  ‘I’m sad, Paul. Really sad. Aren’t you?’

  We were speaking quietly now, not wanting our bad vibes to carry over to the other pregnant women.

  ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

  ‘I think you have.’

  ‘About Mum, well of course. And yeah, I’m worried about what’s become of my life, how I’ve wasted so much time and don’t know what the hell I’m going to do next. I still miss Monica. I still wince when I imagine the life I could have had if I’d been more careful. But I’m not depressed. I’m appropriately sad. I distract myself. There’s still a good chance I can fix my problems.’

  ‘How do you stay so optimistic all the time? Do you really feel like that?’

  ‘We have to believe that. Life isn’t all sad.’

  ‘But aren’t you lonely now? Like a hundred times more lonely?’

  ‘I don’t know. If I’m lonely I go out and look for someone.’

  ‘Someone? To do what?’

  ‘Connect. Talk.’

  ‘Yeah, talk. I don’t think that’s what you mean. And that just makes me more lonely.’

  ‘What about your friends?’

  ‘It’s not the same, is it? They’re busy. They’re having babies. I see them occasionally, then I come home and I’m still lonely.’

  ‘That’s just… circumstantial.’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s circumstantial or integral. It’s how I feel.’

  A woman walked quickly from the consulting rooms holding a hand over her eyes. A man came out a few seconds later, looking around for her.

  ‘You know you can rely on me completely when the baby’s born,’ I said. ‘And before. I could even move in if you want.’

  She smiled with her mouth shut, and we looked around the room at all the hushed couples, the men studying their phones, the women more alert, looking up whenever a name was called. These hopeful alliances we formed to continue the species.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s good of you to come here, but let’s be real. I want to get a housemate. Maybe you’re right about friends being the answer. Hannah might move in with her one-year-old. We need new structures. Why can’t two single mothers live together and help each other out?’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I might meet a man who isn’t a dickhead if I’m not in such a rush.’

  ‘It takes time to find men of sensibility.’

  ‘And you and me living together? With a baby? We’d kill each other.’

  ‘Maybe. So what’s the therapist like? Do you talk about me with her?’

  ‘She thinks you should probably see someone.’

  ‘She does? Right. Nah. I’m fine.’

  ‘I don’t think you are.’

  ‘Honestly, I am. Leave it alone.’

  ‘You don’t get angry?’

  ‘Of course I get angry. There are infuriating dickheads everywhere I go. They should make me angry.’

  ‘Are they definitely as infuriating as you find them?’

  ‘Yes, they are. They’re really fucking infuriating.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do, thanks. What else do you talk about with this woman?’

  ‘Mum. Dad. Tactics for not getting pissed off with people. That’s the bit I like least. It’s sort of linguistic reprogramming. I’m not allowed to say “People always do this” or “You all do this”.’

  ‘I’ve been saying that to you for ages.’

  ‘But when you say it you’re usually denying my right to be angry about the behaviour of certain men because you think I’m attacking you.’

  ‘That’s what you think I’m doing, but what I’m trying to do is say I agree with you that these men are awful but don’t lose hope in all men. Because if you lose hope there’s no hope.’

  ‘Well, it comes across as you telling me there’s something wrong with me that makes men treat me like that. Because I’m not sufficiently upbeat for them.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. You should know that.’

  ‘Should. You’re not supposed to say people “should” do things either.’

  ‘This woman sounds a bit basic to me.’

  ‘Don’t belittle her. She’s a reason to be optimistic. You should think about why you want to belittle her.’

  ‘Because she’s a woman and I’m a man?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. What a stupid thing to say. Have you noticed how you’re getting angry now?’

  ‘I’m not getting angry.’

  ‘Then why’s your voice getting louder?’

  I looked up and realised the couple nearest to us were looking at us.

  ‘Because,’ I said, in a hushed voice, ‘you’re talking in that soft way like a meditation instructor and it’s fucking provoking.’

  ‘You should go to something like meditation.’

  ‘I’d rather relax doing something intelligent, thank you.’

  ‘Fuck you, thank you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re full of rage.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘So what are you going to do with it?’

  ‘No offence, Amy, but you’ve been to two sessions with a psychologist and now you’re Melanie Klein? Give me a break.’

  ‘I’m saying I’m worried about you. Stop being so angry. Try to calm down. Focus on the present.’

  ‘Fuck living in the present. I want to take revenge for what’s been done to us.’

  ‘And you want to come and live with me and help me raise a happy baby?’

  I looked away. ‘If you wanted me to.’

  ‘You tell yourself that. Now try breathing out slowly. That’s what I do now. You take more in-breaths when you’re angry than when you’re relaxed.’

  I tried breathing out slowly, thinking all the time that if I could just get this breathing over with, I could get on with something important. ‘Do you think there are therapists to treat people who don’t get angry enough? Telling them they need to breathe in more and not out.’

  ‘If there are such people, I don’t think therapists bother with them. I think those are the people who make society work.’

  ‘In that wonderful way it does. Do you really want to become one of them?’

  ‘Breathe out. And pause. Now breathe in deeply, then out slowly.’

  ‘I can’t. We need joss sticks. The ambience is wrong.’

  ‘And pause. Now breathe in deeply.’

  ‘What if being angry is the only thing that keeps me going?’

  ‘Breathe out slowly. Then you’d better find something else to keep you going.’

  *

  ‘Wright?’ called a Spanish voice. ‘Amy Wright?’

  We followed the nurse through to meet the sonographer, a kind, reassuring woman with technical expertise and an Italian accent. It took
some doing to cast her as the enemy.

  I looked away and towards the screen as she squirted lubricant over Amy’s belly and went to work with her machine.

  And there it was. A blur at first, an untuned TV, and there was its head, the length of its body.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There’s definitely a baby there.’

  The baby was moving. Jiggling around.

  ‘You’ve got a busy one,’ the sonographer said.

  Amy and I looked at each other. It took the sonographer a while to get the head measurement she needed.

  ‘You’ve wound the baby up,’ said Amy. ‘I’m coming with someone else next time.’

  The sonographer switched something and suddenly the room was filled with noise – a hard, squelching beating, like something they’d play downstairs at Berghain.

  ‘Jesus,’ I said.

  ‘I think that’s unlikely,’ said the sonographer. ‘Unless you’re a virgin?’ she said, looking at Amy. ‘What that is is a healthy heartbeat. Congratulations.’

  Amy was shaking her head at me and smiling. We listened to its heartbeat, furious already: one of us.

  ‌

  ‌Part Two

  ‌

  ‌Twelve

  Your office is a white room in a house, with two low armchairs and a small coffee table between us, and a box of tissues ready for when you make me break down. Good luck with that. There is a fireplace to my right with a tasteful arrangement of dried flowers in it. The room is neutrally prepped, the way a real-estate developer might deck out a show flat. Ikea art on the walls. Nothing as messy as a book in here. A clock is angled towards me so I won’t be surprised when you ask me to leave.

  ‘Why do you think you’re here?’ you say in an American accent, after we’ve said hello and sat down.

  Because I can’t afford a psychoanalyst, I’m tempted to say.

  But, disgraced as I am, I still pretend to have some manners, and would be happy to be proved wrong about the futility of this process, and so I say what I have tried to rehearse myself into believing on my way over.

  ‘I’d like some help to learn how to confront my difficulties rather than repress them through anger and desire.’

  ‘OK,’ you say and begin to write something down. ‘And you said on the phone that there was a particular incident after which you recog—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In which you behaved in a way that shocked yourself?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  ‘And going back to your words, was this an act of anger or desire?’

  ‘Anger. Desire. Angry desire.’

  You write something down and look at me like you’re assessing me, and so I assess you too. You’re about my age, straight hair with highlights, and I think you might be trying not to let a little bit of boredom or disappointment creep into your expression. It’s that word, desire, isn’t it? I know men’s desire is boring. Disappointing. People are disappointing. But bear with me. We’re not all disappointing in the simple ways. It’s not all lust. There are other reasons to decide to love someone.

  *

  One Sunday in June, I spent an unprecedented twelve pounds on a bottle of wine from a Tesco Metro, walked down to Dalston Central and made my way west on the Overground for lunch with Emily, Andrew and Sophie.

  I had enjoyed Sophie’s recent opinion piece: I WAS CAUGHT SHOPLIFTING AND LEARNED THE DISGUSTING TRUTH OF MIDDLE-CLASS PRIVILEGE. In it she explained how she had been apprehended leaving Selfridges with a £500 dress in a foil-lined handbag, before being handed over to the police, who, eventually, ‘shamefully’ believed her story that she was researching a novel and let her off with a warning – ‘though how did they know to trust me? Would they have believed me if I’d been a person of colour or spoke with a strong South London accent?’

  I hadn’t had the opportunity yet to ask Emily what Andrew thought of that.

  *

  I had been meeting Emily regularly for lunch now it was summer. She was getting up then at first light to write, and would have worked for five or six hours before she took a walk into town through the park to the shop. She never arranged things in advance. I would get a text in the morning to ask if I was working, and if I wasn’t I’d ride over to meet her anyway. We would buy sandwiches and sit in Bloomsbury Square, with the students and tourists and yoga extroverts. The pollen made her sneezy and interrupted her sentences. I learned how she had met Andrew, twelve years ago at a literary festival when she was promoting her first novel, and how they might not even have thought of getting together then, if it hadn’t been for a woman who insisted on inviting herself to lunch with them and who had warned Emily, when he went to the toilet, that he wasn’t only attracted to her talent. ‘I should hope not,’ said Emily. ‘I don’t think he was thinking of me like that at the time but I was quite pretty then.’

  I always took the opportunities she gave me to compliment her. She would leave little spaces for me to contradict her self-criticism, then wince when I did.

  I was discovering that there were limits to her renunciation. She dressed differently every time I saw her, in styles that were from different eras, with the feminine clearly demarcated – there was rarely any androgyny, or even jeans, nearly always a dress or skirt, shoes and tights, her face made up. I rarely saw her in the same outfit twice but when I did I felt I had gained a notch of intimacy with her. I didn’t flatter myself that she was dressing up for me. It was in keeping with her correctness, her old manners, a formality that suited the way she handled her emotions – when, for example, I asked her about her parents, she exhaled sharply, and changed the subject. The way she presented herself was also simply the outward signs of someone who appreciated style in and outside of the sentence, who knew her body and how to make an effect with it. Her decision to avoid being assessed by her photograph may have been taken with mixed feelings. Sitting on a park bench with her, I imprinted my memory with the shape of her calves, the angle of her nose; and I learned how to make her laugh. I came to know her frustrations too. She lived off meagre advances and grants and Andrew’s charity. She had to think hard if she wanted to buy a new frock. ‘It should be me out shoplifting, not his pretty little daughter.’

  ‘She is pretty, isn’t she?’

  ‘I thought you’d think so. Yes, she is. You can see her dad in her.’

  ‘That wasn’t the thing I appreciated most about her.’

  ‘From the photos I’ve seen, the mother’s not bad either.’

  ‘You’ve never met her?’

  ‘No.’

  Jean had been Andrew’s teenage sweetheart; they both went to Oxford at the same time from the same town; he became an academic, she became a head teacher.

  ‘The brightest kids from their grammar schools. The shining hope of an egalitarian future. Who rose through their talent from industrial Nottingham. Their union betrayed by lechery.’

  ‘You have to cut Sophie a bit of slack. Why would she like the woman who took her dad from her mum?’

  ‘But that wasn’t me! Is that what you thought?’

  She corrected me. Andrew had left his first wife for his literary agent. They had lived together for four years before she was diagnosed with cancer. They had married the summer before she received the diagnosis. And the next summer his new wife had died.

  ‘It’s their flat we’re living in. I’ve suggested he might be happier somewhere else, but he won’t hear of it. Her books everywhere. I wonder if he’d sacrifice me for her in the blink of an eye.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said.

  ‘Best to be real about these things. If he could redeem all that suffering and grief for the price of one small life like mine? No one would miss me but him. I’ve disconnected myself sufficiently to be disposable. My carbon footprint is tiny.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. About having disconnected yourself. Who was that man at the launch?’ I said. ‘The giant. You were very pleased to see him.’

  ‘Oh. Richard. He’s got a wif
e now, and children. We were together in our twenties. It wasn’t serious – even if it felt so then.’

  London summers felt like they got hotter and longer every year. Even at the centre of the square, covered by trees, we were never unaware of the hum of traffic, the grit and petrol in the air.

  ‘I need to get out of here,’ she said. ‘Go somewhere to work that’s quiet, with clean air. Fields and hills, or the sea breeze—’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘I’ve no money to.’

  ‘Stay at my mum’s place,’ I said. ‘The air’s clean. It’s quiet. It’s free. It’s extremely breezy. We’ll sell it soon, I hope, but it would be great if it could be useful to someone before we do.’

  I had thought about moving back there myself until it sold, if it ever sold. I wondered sometimes whether the boredom would be so crushing there that I would have to create something of my own.

  ‘I mean it seriously,’ I said. ‘It might be perfect. There’s nothing else to do there.’

  ‘Maybe a couple of weeks?’ she said.

  ‘I’d love that. I’ll ask my sister. Andrew wouldn’t mind you going?’

  ‘He’ll be fine. He won’t have to feel guilty leaving me at home to accept dinner invitations from his ex-girlfriends.’

  ‘Does he have that many?’

  ‘I’m exaggerating. One or two before me.’

  ‘Why do you think Sophie dislikes you?’ I asked. ‘Are you sure she does dislike you?’

  ‘Perhaps she hoped her mum and him might get back together.’

  A woman a few metres in front of us leaned back from a kneeling position and stretched herself into a perfect O.

  Emily and I blinked at each other, and she spoke. ‘But then who ever needed a good reason to hate someone else?’

  *

  Andrew answered the door in his Sunday wear: jeans and casual shirt with just the top button undone, a pair of sandals. We squeezed each other’s hands as hard as we could and he gestured for me to walk up the stairs.

  ‘Are you drunk, Paul?’ he asked cheerfully.

  ‘What kind of question is that? Are you?’