by Natasha Bell
With a warped sense of logic, Marc wondered, if he’d been beside me for this woman’s death, whether I’d still be with him now. It’s what we marry for, isn’t it? Sickness and health, good and bad. Maybe he should have offered to go with me more, been more insistent. He had, of course, when she was first diagnosed, but I’d told him no, that one of us had to stay with the girls. He’d said we could take the girls with us, that he wanted to be there for me. I’d smiled and told him he was lovely, but creased my forehead and said it was my responsibility, I didn’t want our daughters involved in my mum’s mess. He’d swallowed my reasoning. He’d wanted to support me, but I’d said I didn’t need him in this. Why hadn’t he tried harder?
He slipped the photograph back into the file and pulled out the card. It was hand-painted. A simple flower on the front, the strokes delicate, the colors chosen to complement. The message inside was short: Good luck at university, darling. Love always, Mama. He wondered what I’d felt when it had arrived. She didn’t write, I’d told him. She made no effort to contact me after packing her things and driving away. So this card must have arrived out of the blue and sunk its claws into me just as I was about to start a new life. Why had I kept it? My mother was not the woman in the photograph, the lady who had kissed me better when I grazed my knee and cooked me soup when I caught a cold. She wasn’t the loving “Mama” that wished her child well as she left home to study. My mother was a troubled woman at the other end of the country, struggling through illness and old age, who only sometimes remembered her daughter.
But even that wasn’t true, was it? She had been, but not since 2007. She hadn’t been anyone since then. And I hadn’t even bothered to tell him. Where on earth had I been going for all those years? Why had I lied? What else had I been keeping from him?
Marc dropped the card and reached back into the box for the folder with his name on it. He climbed to his feet and carried it down the stairs and through the kitchen, stopping to take a box of matches from the drawer by the fridge. He let himself out of the back door and picked his way to the bottom of the garden. It took six matches to light the thick cardboard. He watched the flame flicker and lick, eating through the folder’s flap before beginning on its contents. He should have been wondering about Caitlin, why some strange carer would go to the effort to lie. He should have been questioning so much more than he did. Instead, my husband stood in our garden, tears rolling down his cheeks as he watched his own words twist and distort. The dawn chorus struck up around him, but he stood until every note and Post-it, every scrap of paper and Christmas card, every word of love was gone.
* * *
I dreamt about him again. I’ve always wondered if other people have the same debauched imaginations. At school I thought I must be some kind of freak. Our gross, lecherous PE teacher would give assemblies wearing these tiny little shorts and scratching his arse and I wouldn’t hear a word he said because I’d be trying to picture the thing beneath the fabric, the thick member that must be there, just like it must be in the trousers of all the boys sitting cross-legged around me, just like it must be between the legs of my tutor, my doctor, my piano teacher, my father even. And then I’d realize I was thinking about my own dad’s dick and I’d feel so gross, so embarrassed. I’d look around, my cheeks burning, wondering if anyone could read my thoughts. Did the other girls in those assemblies have similar things going through their heads? I couldn’t imagine they did. It was inconceivable. But did that make me a freak?
I wondered the same when Marc and I first moved in together. Our sex was great, don’t get me wrong, but I would have wasted whole days, weeks even, in our sheets, while Marc insisted we had to get up, had to behave like adults. I began having dreams about our friends, my colleagues, anyone I’d met in the day and thought about pressing myself to. I felt so guilty waking up next to Marc with these thoughts. I knew I didn’t want to do any of those things in real life, but I couldn’t help my imagination. Giving up drinking helped a bit, but the urges were still there.
In my dream last night we were in the university library. Odd that’s where my subconscious took us. I was naked, sat on a chair by one of the windows while he peered at me and asked what I was thinking. Then he came over to me and unzipped his fly, asked what I felt, what I thought I deserved.
I guess it’s understandable. He’s the only man in my life these days. But also there’s this part of my brain I’ve never truly had control of, a part that’s always popped up at the most inappropriate moments to shove an image of my boss’s erect member or Lizzie’s teacher’s splayed thighs before my eyes. Are other people the same? Perhaps it’s a British thing. We’re so repressed about sex, so insistent that it must be kept separate from the rest of life, that it thrusts its way into all parts of it.
I never thought I’d get married. Or, if I did, I had an inkling I’d be the kind to cheat. I didn’t want to; I’d seen what my mum’s infidelity did to my dad, but I couldn’t help feeling I had this instinct inside me. I had a friend at Cambridge who once told me that sex was all right, but she’d rather have a nice cup of tea. I thought her mad. Sex was everything to me then: it was woven into the literature I loved, present in every performance I saw, every work of art I admired. Sex wasn’t a separate thing, but part of all elements of life. The ever-present Eros. I was watching a lot of Italian cinema, wandering my college pretending I was Monica Vitti. I devoured the Marquis de Sade.
Marc was so different. So pure. For him, everything was compartmentalized. He got uncomfortable if I tried to flirt in inappropriate places. He didn’t enjoy being teased. If he was concentrating on work, then he was concentrating on work and there was no space for me, no room for my flesh. I suppose I just fell into line. I didn’t notice at first because I was happy, and then of course having children becomes your world, but eventually I realized I was missing something. I’d forgotten what it was like to walk down the street and feel the chill of air tingle across my skin, to allow a melody to melt into me, to feel laughter and sadness, affection and annoyance all drain to my crotch. When I remembered these things, I felt gauche and embarrassed, but also angry. Marc seemed so sorted, so mature. In comparison, I was some sex-mad creature. It took me a long time to realize I liked being that creature.
I can’t be the only one. What if we were all adults and admitted we had these thoughts? What if I told him I dreamt about him last night? What if he nodded and said, “Yes, I think about sticking my thick dick in your mouth and holding your head until you gag too. I want you bent over and pushed up against bookshelves, crying out for me to punish you harder, to teach you the error of your ways?” Or would my honesty spoil the illusion? Would it shatter his fantasies to find I’m not just the cowering woman he keeps in captivity?
2007
4/22/07
Al,
I cannot work today. I have two stolen hours, yet I sit here with no thoughts. I feel chained to this desk, to this room. All my worries and paranoias scratch at the insides of my temples. I could be happy, I think. I have the capacity. Yet, I swear no one in this city is as miserable as me right now.
Someone stopped me in the street earlier to ask if I’d seen the light. She was some nutcase talking about God, obviously, but her words followed me home. Have I? Have you? What if the light is the truth? What if spirituality is just figuring it all out? My light and your light might be totally different, but does that mean we can’t share it? I don’t really know what I’m saying. When I got home, I dumped my groceries and sat on the floor and cried. I’m worried I have no light. I’m worried I’ve made all the wrong decisions, that one day I will regret everything. What if all my work, all the things I pretend give me purpose, are big felt-tip pens scribbling over the light? What if all artists are selfish? What if we create light only by stealing it from others? Sometimes I wonder, if I died, would anyone care but you?
I wish you’d come out and spend some time here. I coul
d help, I know I could. We could process things together. There’s no one in your life who understands as much as I do. We know each other, Al, we can tell each other everything.
Am x
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2007
A hand touched my shoulder. “Al?”
“Huh?” I jumped and swiveled with an air of annoyance. Slowly, though, I registered Marc’s features and my own softened. “Sorry. Hi, darling.” I smiled weakly, shifted my bag so I could lean in for a kiss.
“You were miles away. I was practically shouting your name.”
I stared at him, registering that he was cross but unable to summon the necessary words to placate him. In fact, worse than that, I was cross too. Why was that? What had I been thinking before he interrupted? I raised my hand to rub my left eye, but my face stretched into a yawn and I diverted the hand to cover my mouth instead. What time was it? Christ, I was tired. If only I could curl up and deal with everything later. I might even remember what I’d been thinking. It had been important, maybe anyway. An idea, perhaps. Dammit, it was gone.
Marc watched as I stumbled through these thoughts, seeing only a series of unreadable emotions flickering behind my eyes. The platform emptied as the rest of the passengers from my train made their way toward the exits. Regretting his tone, he tried again. “Sorry, hi, you must be tired.” He leant to kiss me and I resisted the urge to withdraw from his prickly stubble, his familiar scent. “How was your trip? How’s your mum?”
I blinked and opened my mouth, struggling to find my voice. “I, uh, yeah, she’s um, she’s okay. She’s home. Not great, but okay.”
“She’s home?” he said. “That’s great, isn’t it? Have they arranged someone to come in then?”
“Um, yeah,” I said, trying hard to maintain his eye contact. I wanted to shower and change and brush my teeth and drink a large mug of tea and lie down for a few hours. Then maybe I’d be ready for this. Marc was looking at me, though, waiting for me to elaborate. “Yeah,” I said again. “Someone’s going by every day. She’s being looked after.”
Marc reached to fold me into his arms. “Oh Al, you poor thing. I wish you’d let me come with you.”
“It wouldn’t help,” I murmured into his jumper, breathing deeply as if his scent might ground me back here, back to us. Another train pulled into the platform and I leant away from his body but reached for his hand. “Come on, we’re in everyone’s way. Let’s go home. I want to see the girls.” Holding his fingers in mine I felt a surge of energy and clarity. “You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you all.”
August
Six Months Gone
The summer spun into a blur of children pacing through the house, rifling through the fridge and staring at dull television programs. Marc knew he should have made more of an effort to enroll the girls in classes or trips or all those things I usually took care of, but when he asked Lizzie and Charlotte what they wanted to do, they said they’d rather stay home. And Marc, for his part, was relieved by their answer. They tried to keep occupied. He and Lizzie planted flowers in the pots in the garden, while Charlotte followed them around fanning a deck of cards, insisting they pick again and again so she could practice her magic tricks. They took a trip to Bridlington for fish and chips, and drove out to Brimham Rocks so Marc could have a heart attack as Lizzie waved from the top of a deathly-looking structure of stones.
For all their activities, though, Marc still felt the days melt into one another. He remembered the feeling from his own childhood. He didn’t have computers and PlayStations back then, but despite the technology, Lizzie and Char still looked just as bored as he did kicking through his sleepy Welsh town all summer. And this year he joined them. They lounged around, waiting for me to come home and give them something to do, to tell them their purpose in life. Marc had some work to be getting on with and Nicola came around occasionally to ask the same questions and update him on the stagnating case, but generally he padded after the girls, trying to learn their complicated video games or insisting they return to the last century to play a round of Monopoly. Or they baked cakes and ate the whole batch sprawled in front of the television, channel-hopping blindly through cartoons and soaps, absorbed by nothing. When they retired to bed, Marc paced and lounged some more, zoned out in front of an uninteresting film, then crawled upstairs to escape to Amelia’s letters. Time didn’t feel like time. He didn’t read a paper or speak to another adult except the checkout lady for a whole week. They lived in a bubble. And, in a way, my husband liked it.
* * *
When he finally emerged from his cocoon, drove across town to drop the girls off at friends’ houses and sat sipping tea in Patrick and Susan’s living room, he discovered a whole world had continued to spin while he lounged in stasis. As Susan tidied a pile of Pip’s sketchbooks from the coffee table and Patrick peeled the film from a packet of Bourbons, he learned how utterly self-absorbed he’d been.
“They didn’t want to worry you,” Susan said. “I think it’s been on the cards for a while, but it’s still not simple.”
“Why did no one tell me?”
“You’ve had so much to deal with,” Patrick said. “And we were hoping they’d sort it out.”
“How long ago?” Marc said, thinking about Charlotte’s birthday.
“Fran moved out a few weeks after we went to the Lakes,” Susan said. “Maybe it always seems that way from the outside, but it felt pretty sudden.”
“How’s Ollie doing?” Marc said, feeling rather sick.
“As expected, I suppose.” Patrick sat back on the couch. “Emma’s living with him and he and Fran are talking, but we’ve had a couple of beers and once he relaxes his guard he starts lamenting the loss of his soul mate. He’s broken, really.”
Marc tried to arrange his thoughts as they drove back around the ring road. He understood he hadn’t been the most approachable chum lately, but it hurt that his friends had kept this from him. He wondered if it was more than just respect for his grief, if Fran had told anyone about the kiss. He shook the thought away. He’d done nothing wrong.
He welled with compassion for Ollie, suddenly facing life alone, but something else bubbled beneath his empathy. Rationally he could accept marriages broke down, couples grew apart, but for two of our friends to allow their union to crumble in the same year ours had been brutally ripped apart felt like a personal betrayal. They should have tried harder, he thought. For Emma, for Alex, for me. And now Ollie was sobbing into his pints about soul mates. What gave him the right to do that while he still had a chance to fix his relationship, while Fran resided only a ten-minute walk away and I was God knows where?
* * *
He visited Ollie later in the week, not to berate him with his selfish accusations or absolve his niggling guilt, but to be the friend he’d failed to be since February.
“How are you doing? Do you need to talk? Can I help?” These were the questions he asked, the same useless words people had directed at him for months. But what else was there? Ollie gave non-committal answers, then laughed self-consciously at himself and batted the questions back to Marc.
Finally, after a few beers, they spoke properly. Ollie rubbed between his eyes and yawned.
“I keep thinking this has to be temporary,” he said, gesturing around the room.
Marc nodded, realizing how helpless everyone must have felt talking to him over the past few months. “Are you sure it’s not? Can’t you work it out?”
Ollie shook his head. “I think it’s pretty permanent.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Ollie said. “I thought we were fine, happy, you know, in our way. And then Fran just started griping, pointing things out, complaining that I didn’t understand her.”
Marc sipped his beer. Should he have come to Ollie after the kiss, told him what Fran had said? Would it have helped?
�
�I told her I wanted to understand her, to give me a chance. But she just brushed me off, said it was a woman’s dilemma, having to choose between family and career. I got angry then. I mean, I’ve sacrificed everything for her career. I’m the fucking embodiment of the feminist male and then she turns around and says I can’t possibly know how she’s feeling—” Ollie cut himself off, his anger giving way to sadness.
They sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.
Marc spoke first. “Did she mention anything about Alex?”
Ollie looked up at him. “Why do you ask that?”
Something about his tone made Marc nervous. He almost shrugged and said never mind, it didn’t matter. “Just curious,” he said. “Fran said some of those things to me a while ago too.”
“She did?” Ollie said, his voice laced with surprise or suspicion, Marc couldn’t tell.
“Just in passing,” Marc said, his eyes falling to his drink.
“She said they’d talked about it,” Ollie said. “About the guilt of wanting something more but also being happy with what they had. Fran had this theory.”
Marc looked up, but Ollie had stopped talking. “What theory?”
“It’s nothing, I shouldn’t have said anything.” Ollie stood up. “Do you want another beer? Anything to eat?”
Marc tried to catch his eye, but Ollie looked away. “What theory?”
Ollie sat back down and buried his head in his hands. “Jesus, it’s not important now, is it?”
Marc exhaled. “Tell me.”
“We argued about it. It wasn’t the only thing, but it contributed. It made me see a side of Fran I didn’t like. And she was furious that I didn’t believe her.”
