EX Files

by Jane Moore

  As the doors closed, she pressed her head against the cool brass panel in front of her.

  What had been supposed to be a quiet, civilized dinner for the main guests to get to know each other had turned into a hell that she was glad had ended.

  Trouble was, it had only ended for the few hours while they slept. There was still tomorrow, and something told her that things might well get a lot worse.

  Saturday, June 29

  9 a.m.

  Tony unfolded the copy of the Wall Street Journal he’d brought from England and spread it out on the table in front of him with a contented sigh. He was alone in the breakfast room, and was keen to eat and leave before he could be cornered.

  Tony wasn’t a people person. He could turn it on when he had to, at business functions or dinner parties, but away from work he liked his own space and ways of doing things. His morning routine was a cup of tea, followed swiftly by an espresso coffee, two pieces of white toast and marmalade, and a couple of slices of melon to freshen his palate. Anything less and he became jittery.

  On his world travels, he’d discovered that several countries had never heard of marmalade so he always took his own. Anything but break the routine. He could happily accommodate another person in his life, but they had to understand that some boundaries were not to be overstepped. Consequently he had once curtailed a burgeoning relationship with a perfectly nice woman because she insisted on taking bites out of his toast.

  “Don’t,” he had said firmly one morning, as they had breakfast at New York’s trendy Mercer Hotel. “If you want some I’ll order you a portion, but please don’t eat mine.”

  She had carried on doing it, on other occasions too, presumably thinking it was a coquettish love game. To Tony it was irritating, and once he became irritated by someone, it was as though a cancer was spreading through the relationship and, ultimately, destroying it. So he had finished it.

  “Why?” she had sobbed.

  “Because you keep eating my toast” seemed a little facile, so Tony had sugared the pill and waffled on American-style about not being “in the right place” for a serious relationship.

  All his friends teased him that he had a mild form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. His New York flat was pristine, all the surfaces bare and polished to reflection perfection by his daily cleaner. As he was there so little, she cleaned surfaces you could already have eaten off, but Tony didn’t care. All his CDs were alphabetized, and although his kitchen cupboards weren’t used much because he ate out all the time, each harbored rows of jars and tins with all their labels facing forward.

  In his two bathrooms, the pure-white towels were folded in regimented lines that made Patrick Bergin, in Sleeping with the Enemy, look positively sloppy. His suits, shirts, and ties were all color-coded. “It saves time looking for things,” he’d snapped, when his mother had dared to mention it during her one and only visit.

  So the thought of a wedding guest pitching up and spoiling his early-morning peace and quiet was too much for him to bear.

  “Cooooeeee! Mind if I join you?” It was Alice.

  Tony’s heart sank without trace as, without waiting for an answer, she sat down in the chair opposite. The weather, he thought. She’ll mention the bloody weather.

  “It looks like they’re going to be lucky with the weather, doesn’t it?” said Alice breezily, helping herself to a piece of toast from the little chrome rack at Tony’s side.

  He folded his newspaper, “Yes, it’s very sunny. But, then, it is summer and this is the south of France,” he said wearily.

  “I know, but you can never take anything for granted these days, not with that globular warming.”

  “Global.”

  “Sorry?” Alice looked puzzled.

  “It’s global warming.”

  “Oh. Well, whatever it is, I’m glad it’s decided to give them a lovely day for it.”

  With Adam’s words ringing in his ears, Tony was sure it was only a matter of time before she talked him through her journey, so he decided to steer her away from the subject and use this unscheduled breakfast to his fact-gathering advantage. He knew what he thought about the forthcoming marriage, but he was curious to find out if there were any misgivings on the part of someone close to the bride.

  “So what do you make of Mark and Faye as a couple?” he asked chattily.

  Alice stopped chewing her stolen piece of toast and looked thoughtful. “Well, when I first met him, I was quite surprised.”

  “Really?” Tony kept his voice noncommittal and poured her some tea. “Why’s that?”

  He sat back and listened as Alice explained that when Faye had called to say she was bringing a boyfriend home, her mind had gone into overdrive. Faye had never brought anyone home before. “I’d always assumed she was ashamed of me,” said Alice, without a trace of self-pity. She said she had spent three days rearranging her ornaments and dusting surfaces that already sparkled from too much attention. “And when I opened the door, I was astonished,” she said, scraping a large blob of butter from her toast. “Mark looked so young, not at all what I’d expected.”

  “Youthful good looks run in our family,” joked Tony. “Out of interest, what were you expecting?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Someone older, I suppose,” she mused. “Definitely a powerful businessman type, someone who loved her but was dominant and looked after her. She’d hate me for saying so, but Faye needs to be looked after.”

  “Oh?” Tony was surprised, his mind flashing back to the feisty, independent woman he’d experienced so far.

  “She gives a good impression of independence, but she’s terribly insecure. I did my best bringing her up, but she needed a father figure. She could be very willful.”

  “She still can be.” He made a mental note to ask more about Faye’s father later. “How was your first meeting with Mark?”

  She told him that during the course of the afternoon she had warmed to him. There was little doubt that he was smitten with Faye, but she felt that her daughter was the one in control, acting as if she didn’t have to try because she knew he was eating out of the palm of her hand. “In a way, they reminded me of her and me.” She sighed. “I always bent over backwards to please Faye and she ran rings round me. It seemed they were just repeating the pattern.”

  “Do you still feel that?”

  “Not so much, no—although, to be honest, I’ve not spent much time with them. “She stared out of the window for a moment. “When they left that afternoon, I made a fuss over Mark because I thought it would be the last time I’d see him.”

  “And here we are at their wedding,” said Tony with false brightness.

  “Yes, funny, isn’t it?” she said, without a trace of humor. “When Faye called to say she was getting married, I was confused enough to ask who the lucky man was!”

  Tony couldn’t believe how honest she was. It was clear that no one bothered to ask Alice much, so when they did she sang like a canary.

  “Faye got very cross with me and said, ‘It’s Mark, of course!,’ and I must have sounded surprised because she asked me why. So I said that he just didn’t seem her type.” She sipped her tea.

  “And what did she say to that?”

  “Not much, really.”

  “Have you broached the subject with her since? A lot of the time, a mum’s perspective is the right one you know,” said Tony who rarely listened to a word his mother said.

  “Try telling that to Faye. She does exactly what she wants, always has. And let’s face it, I’m not one to talk when it comes to picking the right men.”

  He was dying to ask her what she meant, but felt it was a step too far to probe her. He was just about to return to the subject of Faye when she said, “To be honest, I always thought she’d end up with someone like you.”

  “Me?” He slapped the front of his sky-blue Lacoste shirt and his heart rate increased. Irrationally he wondered if she knew about his and Faye’s previous encounter. “Why
?” he asked.

  “As I said, someone a bit older, who’s quite successful and not intimidated by her. She needs handling, if you know what I mean.”

  “I understand completely,” said Tony. “Sadly, I’m not sure Mark’s the man to do it.”

  Alice took another bite of toast. “Bit late now,” she mumbled. A large crumb fell from her mouth.

  Tony didn’t think so, but said nothing. Instead, he topped off her teacup then looked at his watch. “Time is on our side.” He smiled. “So tell me more about my sister-in-law-to-be.”

  Tony had eventually made his excuses when he sensed his conversation with Alice was in danger of veering towards a description of her journey, and headed for his room, opting for the stairs instead of the lift.

  He pondered what had been said. Alice might look and sound a bit vague, he thought, but she was as sharp as a tack. She was also entirely genuine, a woman who adored her daughter yet was concerned enough about the suitability of the match to voice her reservations to a virtual stranger. Her first impression of Faye and Mark’s relationship seemed to be the right one but, unlike Tony, she was prepared to let them make a mistake.

  He looked at his watch. Just five hours to go before the curtain went up on the marital theatrics.

  Outside the door marked “18,” he paused for a moment, then knocked. He could hear the distant sound of a television, but no one answered. He knocked again, this time with more force.

  “Hang on,” said a faint voice.

  About thirty seconds later, a bleary-eyed Mark opened the door wearing a hotel dressing gown loosely tied at the front. His hair was sticking up in all directions and his eyes resembled poached eggs in blood.

  “Oh dear,” said Tony, barely disguising a smirk. “Bad night, was it?”

  “I feel like shit,” said Mark, and gestured for his brother to follow him into the room. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to get a hangover for my wedding day.”

  “As most blokes end up on Aberdeen railway station with their body in a plaster cast, I’d say you got off lightly.” Tony picked up Mark’s shirt from the one and only chair and sat down. “I reckon you need a walk.”

  Mark let out a hollow laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m not. Some fresh air will do you good, young man.”

  “Christ, you sound like Mum.” He groaned, and kneaded his temples. “I’ll tell you exactly what will do me good—a massive fry-up to soak up the alcohol and a couple more hours of sleep.” He lay back on the bed and stared at the ocher-colored ceiling.

  “Nonsense.” Tony got up and walked to the door. “I’ve had a lot more hangovers than you and, believe me, fresh air is the business. I’ll be back for you in fifteen minutes. Be ready.”

  Alice bent down to tie the lace of her walking shoe. She was already several hundred yards away from the hotel, having set out at a brisk pace just after her breakfast with Tony. Their conversation had been troubling her. She had suffered slight misgivings that Faye was marrying the wrong man, but she put it down to a mother’s overprotectiveness. Now that she had heard what she assumed to be an objective third party voicing the same fears, she wondered if her instinct had been right. If so, it presented another dilemma: was she going to do anything about it?

  The truth was, Faye intimidated her and had done since she was a child. Alice was timid, her daughter was confident; Alice was serene, her daughter temperamental; Alice was almost invisible, her daughter was demanding.

  Alice had tried hard to fulfill the role of two parents, providing the much-needed love, stability, and routine in her child’s life. But she had forgotten that children also need discipline. She had felt too guilty ever to administer it and, if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she was even capable of it.

  “You let that child run rings round you,” Alice’s older sister Clara had chided her one Christmas, when Faye was about four. “Send her to stay with me for a few weeks and I’ll give her some discipline. You need to show her who’s boss.”

  Alice had recoiled from subjecting Faye to the treatment she had received all her life at the hands of her bullying, overpowering sister. Instead, she had sacrificed her own wants and needs at the altar of Faye, who became the center of her universe.

  Alice had always been a plain, mousy woman, but she had given birth to a beautiful child who drew endless compliments from shop assistants and passers-by about her blond curls and huge blue eyes. Often, these exchanges were the only adult conversation Alice had for days on end. She lived on benefits and took in sewing jobs for cash, which meant she spent much of her time sitting at home while a preschool Faye either slept or played with toys. It was an insular life, but Alice didn’t mind as she found social situations difficult anyway. Faye became her social lubricant, her main point of contact with an outside world that, hitherto, had ignored her as insignificant.

  Alice was one of life’s worriers, and if she didn’t have anything to worry about she worried about that too. Anxiety was the glue that held together her daily existence. By the age of seven, Faye had her mother wrapped round her little finger. She made endless demands for attention, sulked when she didn’t get what she wanted, and generally ruled the roost.

  In retrospect, Alice knew this hadn’t been an ideal situation for a child. She had bred a daughter who went through life doing what she wanted, when she wanted, with little regard for others. But she loved her daughter so much, and felt so guilty about her lack of a father that she capitulated on virtually everything and created a mini monster.

  By the age of eleven, Faye had learned how to press all her mother’s guilt buttons, an added weapon in her get-what-you-want armory. “When I have a child, I’m going to treat them so much better than you treat me,” she’d said once, after her mother had refused to buy her some roller skates. Alice wasn’t trying to teach her demanding offspring a much-needed lesson, she couldn’t afford them: she was a single parent, money was tight, and she simply couldn’t afford them. Faye’s remark had cut her to the core, particularly because Alice blamed herself that her daughter had never even met her father. It was her fault, she thought, for having allowed herself to get pregnant by such a feckless man.

  From the moment David Wood had walked in to the ladies’-wear department of Mason’s, the department store where Alice had worked since leaving school, she had been transfixed. Tall, blond, and handsome, he stood out a mile among the drab, unremarkable types Alice had grown used to seeing in the area. She couldn’t take her eyes off him as she helped him choose a cashmere sweater as a birthday present for his mother. After he’d left, she had spent much of the afternoon daydreaming about him. But when she got home she gave herself a stern talking-to.

  “Who are you kidding?” she said to the mirror. “No man has ever shown an interest in you, let alone someone as charming and good looking as him.” This was mainly because Alice had lost none of her ability to blend into life’s wallpaper.

  Three weeks later, he came in again.

  “Hello, did your mother like the sweater?” said Alice, kicking herself inwardly for making it obvious that she remembered him.

  “She loved it, thanks.”

  “Can I help you with anything else?”

  He glanced around the shop, presumably to check whether anyone was in earshot. “Actually, yes,” he said. “You can come to the cinema with me.”

  And that was it. He’d taken her to the new Mario Lanza film, then walked her home to her bed-sit. She didn’t invite him in, and he didn’t ask. He simply gave her a lingering kiss on the lips and asked if he could see her again at the weekend.

  Alice had floated into the house, her mind spinning with the heady romance of the evening. As she’d never been out on a date before, the fact that he’d paid for the tickets then walked her home really meant something. Radiating unbridled delight, she practiced saying “Mrs. Alice Wood,” to the mirror.

  Date two was a little faster in every sense. They met in her local
pub and, after one drink, he suggested they go back to her place. He didn’t say what for, and she didn’t like to ask in case he changed his mind. She was desperate for him to fall in love with her, and naively thought her complicity would make it happen.

  As they sat together on her threadbare little sofa, he’d stroked her hair and told her how beautiful she was. Alice had been shown little affection in her life and it felt exquisite. Closing her eyes and leaning against his chest, inhaling his smell and feeling her skin tingle from the gentle caresses that were so alien to her.

  After a couple of minutes, his gentleness had accelerated to feverish kissing and fumbling. Alice let him take the lead and went along with what he wanted. It didn’t cross her mind to say no: she was desperate not to disappoint him in any way. Now that this handsome, vibrant man had stirred such feelings in her, she didn’t want to do anything that might threaten their burgeoning relationship.

  After the visits to the cinema and the pub, he never took her out again: their relationship was conducted behind closed doors. David turned up at her bed-sit whenever he felt like it, usually late at night on his way home from the pub, and they would have sex or, as Alice saw it, make love.

  She was infatuated with him and spent far too much of her hard-earned money on buying him little treats, on the off-chance that he might pop in to see her. Cigars, cotton handkerchiefs onto which she’d stitched his initials, poetry books, whatever she thought might please him.

  When he did turn up, he would mutter, “Thanks,” for whatever gift she offered, then instigate sex and leave. Because Alice didn’t know any better, this behavior didn’t bother her unduly. As far as she was concerned, sexual affection was better than none at all.

  She didn’t see him for the whole of July, but told herself he must be more busy than usual at his job in the local foundry. She, too, was working hard, and put down her tiredness and nausea to this. When she had to sneak regularly into the store toilets to be sick, she knew she had to see the doctor and get rid of whatever bug she had.