My Lover's Lover

by Maggie O'Farrell

  ‘You’re really jet-lagged, are you? You’re just going to go to bed?’ Marcus said, turning his face back to Aidan. ‘So give me a call tomorrow at the office, OK?’ Aidan was silent. ‘All right,’ Marcus said, ignoring the fact that he’d had no reply. ‘I’ll speak to you then.’

  Aidan watched as his friend walked off, flanked by the two women, down Broadway. He went to rub one hand against the other and discovered that he was holding a plastic bag containing the Advil and the water, and remembered his headache. He felt as if he was peering out of a mask of pain, his head throbbing, his eyes smarting in his skull.

  Aidan had spent the day arguing over the anthropomorphisation of a penguin. Corners of his brain still twitched with images of the video footage they’d been watching on a big conference screen: penguins sliding down glaciers, penguins sleek-swimming in barely liquid Arctic waters, penguins shuffling over their eggs.

  Walking back to his hotel, he scrolled through his mobile messages. He’d diverted five calls from Marcus, telling himself he was too busy, that it was rude to answer his phone when in a meeting, that he’d call him back later.

  As he was walking across his hotel lobby – a monstrosity of curtain-glass walls, plastic ivy plants and explosions of fairy lights – towards the lifts, he saw him, sprawled across a seat in the bar, one leg hooked over the side of the chair, reading a folded-up paper. Aidan hesitated, looked at the lift doors, the illuminated descending arrows, then back at his friend. He walked over to him. ‘Hello,’ he said, when he got within two feet of him.

  Marcus leaped up, standing to attention as if Aidan were a teacher and Marcus a pupil wishing to ingratiate himself: ‘Hi!’

  Aidan readjusted his bag, where the strap was cutting into his shoulder. He felt as if the weight of it was driving him into the deep pile of the carpet, that if he stayed standing there any longer he might never move again.

  ‘So,’ Marcus said, rolling the paper into a funnel in his hands, ‘how are you?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Have you finished for the day?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you want to go and get something to eat?’

  Aidan shifted his feet. Static from the carpet sparked under his shoe soles. ‘OK.’

  The taxi driver had a radio pumping out heavy gangsta rap so, as they sped past Central Park, they were able to sit without their silence becoming embarrassing. Even when they got out of the taxi, slamming their separate doors and fussing over who was paying, they didn’t talk much. The sidewalks were so crowded that all the sidestepping and weaving made conversation difficult. Then they were queuing in a line for a Chinese restaurant, which was huge, on three floors. The waiters wore headphones and could radio each other. ‘Sending two up to you now,’ the tall, ponytailed waiter muttered into his mouthpiece, gesticulating to Aidan and Marcus as they reached the front of the queue, ‘a couple of guys.’

  The stairs were polished, smoked glass, edged with steel. When Aidan sat down at their small, white-clothed table, it felt like hours since they’d set out. A man behind them was arguing with his wife about crackers, and Marcus was saying something about king prawns and soup. They fiddled with the different menus, folding them and unfolding them, gave their order to a woman with dark lipstick, unsheathed chopsticks, upturned their bowls, poured tea into their tiny china cups, said that, yes, this place was good, very nice, and how long had it been open. Aidan noticed that every time he turned his head there was a rushing sound, like someone crumpling paper.

  ‘Well,’ Marcus said, and Aidan suddenly saw that he was nervous, one hand plucking at his shirt cuff, the other picking at its nails. There was a pause. Aidan filled his mouth with beer, let it effervesce on his tongue, then swallowed.

  ‘It’s…it’s good to see you,’ Marcus tried again.

  Aidan nodded.

  ‘The other day,’ Marcus began, forcing a lightness of tone into his voice, ‘someone told me that the funny thing about being a Brit in New York is that you never know—–’

  ‘Marcus. Cut the crap.’ Aidan needlessly readjusted his beer bottle to the other side of his plate. ‘Just tell me what’s going on.’

  Marcus hesitated. Aidan could see he was trying to decide whether or not to pretend that he didn’t know what Aidan meant. Aidan studied the features of this man he’d known since he was eleven, and it was as if he barely recognised him. Did he really know him? Did he really know him any better than he knew the man behind him? Or the waitress? Or the people he’d spent the day working with? He had the strange sensation that they’d only just met and that they should be talking about where they grew up, what music they liked, where they’d been travelling, what jobs they did, not some ridiculous personality crisis that Marcus seemed to be going through.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He’d decided to pretend. Aidan sighed and looked away. The waitress was swaying between the tables towards them with steaming plates. Aidan looked down as she placed a plate of thin, frazzled noodles in front of him. The image of a penguin fluttered, inappropriate and unbidden, in a corner of his mind. He picked up a strand between his chopsticks, and blew on it.

  ‘I mean last night,’ he said. ‘Those girls.’ He pushed the noodle into his mouth. It tasted of soy sauce and peanut oil, and coated his tongue with grease. ‘I mean your new game of hitting on random women in drugstores.’

  ‘What’s got into you?’ Marcus said, flushed. ‘Why are you being so judgemental? It’s not as if you’ve never…I mean, how come there’s one rule for me and another for you?’

  ‘I don’t have a long-term girlfriend, Marcus,’ Aidan pointed out calmly. ‘Slight but crucial difference.’

  ‘So that’s what this is about.’ Marcus rubbed his hand over his brow. ‘Look. All I’m doing is…getting out there. That’s all.’

  Aidan tapped the ends of his chopsticks against his incisors, as if considering this statement.

  ‘It’s a whole realm of human experience,’ Marcus continued when he saw that Aidan wasn’t going to speak, ‘that everybody should have. I’m in New York City, for God’s sake. Do you really think I should be staying at home every night?’

  Aidan was silent, didn’t move, didn’t blink, but held Marcus’s gaze.

  ‘And it’s not as if…I mean, I love Sinead,’ Marcus said, filling the silence. ‘She is the only one for me, I know that and I’ve always known that, right from the moment I first saw her. Without her, I’m nothing. Nothing. None of this has anything to do with her.’ He sat back in his chair, expecting Aidan’s comment.

  Aidan took a mouthful of beer, set down the bottle and surveyed his friend. He kept his face blank, impassive for a moment, then inflected his brow, indicating that Marcus should go on. Which he did.

  ‘I’ve never done this. Ever since I was nineteen, twenty, I’ve been from one big, monogamous relationship to another, pretty much back to back. Never had the chance to…It’s something I just wanted to get out of the way, I suppose. So the thought of it wouldn’t…distract me any more. Everybody should have done it at some time or another – you know, given in to their desires.’

  He stopped. Aidan felt him readjusting his feet under the table; the tablecloth tugged at the table comer; a toe of his shoe nudged Aidan’s shin.

  ‘And I really think you need to have a period of…of exploration before you…’ He scuffed his feet again, uncrossing and recrossing his ankles. ‘I mean, we’re going to get married, Aide. We talked about it before I left. And I know this isn’t perhaps the most…I don’t know…’ he appeared to search for the word in the air ‘…honourable way to go about things. But just for myself, I felt I needed to…you know…’

  ‘Shop around?’ Aidan suggested.

  ‘Exactly.’ Relief flooded Marcus’s face. His lips parted in a smile. ‘Shop around. That’s it. I knew you’d understand. That’s it exactly. And now I do know. I really do. All this is kind of good and nice and easy.’ He paused. ‘It’s amazingly easy. But she’s
what I want. I think I know that now.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I know. I think I know. I mean, I know I know. I’ve always known, really.’ He picked up his chopsticks and started pushing food into his mouth. He seemed happier now, relaxed, pouring tea, gulping down his beer. He looked back at Aidan. ‘Well, are you going to say something, or are you going to just sit there staring at me all night like a moron?’

  Aidan placed his chopsticks on the side of his plate. His food had cooled and coagulated while Marcus was talking; a tangled mess of cold, MSG-coated threads. ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  Marcus frowned, puzzled.

  ‘What do you want me to say? Congratulations? Well done? You’ve sown your wild oats. Bully for you.’

  There was a long silence. Marcus chewed, his jaw working, his eyes scanning Aidan’s face. A waitress hovered on the periphery of Aidan’s vision.

  ‘I get it.’ Marcus started nodding, smirking slightly.

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Marcus said again, grinning now.

  Aidan glared at him. ‘Marcus—–’

  ‘You’re jealous.’

  A tiny muscle under Aidan’s eye started up an invisible, convulsive twitching, as if connected to a distant electrical current. ‘Jealous?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Of you and Sinead? That’s—–’

  ‘No,’ Marcus cut across him, shaking his head. ‘No, no. Of this. Of what I’ve been up to. The time I’ve been having.’

  Aidan gave a bark of laughter. ‘You think I’m jealous of you? You think—–’ He gulped with incredulity. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I am jealous. I’d love to have sex with teenagers I find on the street. It must be great. Really fantastic. And I’m sure Sinead will agree.’

  ‘Will you stop banging on about Sinead?’ Marcus snapped, aggressive, his chin jutted out, his fists curled. ‘This has nothing to do with her – I told you.’ He stared at Aidan for longer than was comfortable. ‘What is all this sudden concern for my girlfriend, anyway?’ he said, in a new, steely voice.

  ‘Concern? Well, how do you think she’s going to react?’ Aidan retorted, pushing back his chair. ‘What do you think she’s going to say? Have you thought about that?’

  Marcus threw down his chopstick, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. ‘Jesus Christ, she’s not going to say anything, of course.’

  Aidan stared at his friend across the table. This time Marcus held his gaze, exasperation and impatience creasing his features. Aidan suddenly remembered a day when they were teenagers, when they were walking through the park in the town where they’d grown up: it was early summer and they were too young for that to mean exams. Marcus was wearing his school tie around his head like a sweatband, both of them had their shirts untucked, and they were flinging a frisbee between them as they walked, fifteen metres apart, still carrying on a conversation. It was one of those rare, isolated moments in adolescence when everything is pure and keen, when you glimpse an adulthood ahead of you that seems unfettered and gifted and worth the wait. The disc of the frisbee spun between them, fast and flawless as an electron.

  ‘You don’t think she’ll work it out?’ he said eventually.

  ‘How would she?’ Marcus shrugged.

  ‘She’s not stupid.’

  ‘No. But,’ and he smiled, ‘we haven’t seen each other for so long that she’s not exactly going to stop to sniff my underwear, is she?’

  ‘Shut up.’ Aidan spat out. ‘Just shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear any more of this shit. You’re – you’re —’ articulacy deserted him, ‘— you’re…What the fuck has happened to you?’

  ‘Liberation.’ Marcus smiled, folding his napkin on the table with a flourish. ‘Liberation is what’s happened to me, my friend. The truth of the matter is that everyone would do this. If they could. Very, very few people would hesitate, given the right circumstances. Nobody could resist. And here, in New York, it’s completely foolproof. I’m thousands of miles away. The whole Atlantic Ocean lies between us. No one I’ve slept with knows her. She’ll never find out. There’s no one to tell her. No one she knows knows.’

  ‘The perfect murder.’

  Marcus frowned. ‘Hardly.’

  There was another pause. Marcus stabbed at a spring roll, mashing it into a pool of soy sauce.

  ‘There is one person,’ Aidan said.

  Marcus looked at him sharply. ‘Who?’

  ‘Have you had some kind of lobotomy?’

  ‘Who?’ he demanded.

  ‘Me. Remember? I live with her. In your flat. You remember your flat? Nice place? Big? Architect-designed?’

  The anxiety evaporated from Marcus’s eyes. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said, looking around as if for the waitress. Then, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, his head twisted back to Aidan and their eyes locked. And it was as if Aidan could feel their friendship slipping and skidding out from underneath them like feet on black ice.

  He stood, letting his napkin drop from his hands on to the table. He suddenly felt incredibly tired, felt the weighted pull of jet lag on his limbs. Marcus stood too. Aidan flung down a couple of notes and lifted his chair to push it back under the table.

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Marcus came fast around the side of the table, almost squaring up to him, shoving his face into his. ‘I can’t believe this. You’re supposed to be my best mate.’

  Aidan looked him full in the face. Again, that sensation of unfamiliarity, of disparity, that they were strangers.

  ‘You’re not going to tell her, are you?’ Fear bubbled beneath Marcus’s clenched-fist aggression. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Do you realise the position you’re putting me in?’ Aidan said.

  ‘Position?’ Marcus said quickly. ‘What do you mean? You don’t have a position. There is no position.’

  ‘I live with her,’ Aidan said. ‘In the same flat. I’ll be going back and seeing her every morning and every evening in…in three days’ time. She’ll be asking me how you are, what we did, what you’re up to, how you’re looking. Don’t you see?’

  ‘What? See what?’

  ‘You’re making me lie to her. Collude. You’re forcing me to be your accomplice.’

  ‘And that’s beneath you, is it, Mr Morality?’

  Aidan turned, yanking his arm away from Marcus’s grip and walked across the yards and yards of dimly lit carpet and down the stairs and out into the pollution-heavy night. Outside the restaurant he passed a man carrying an albino child in a hooded blue anorak on his shoulders, his hands gripped around her socked ankles. The child’s skin gleamed like pearls in the streetlights. She had fine white hair that hung out of her hood and a knowing, searching, oddly prescient gaze. She stared at Aidan from the fringes of her colourless eyelashes until he felt ashamed and looked away.

  For the next four days, Aidan worked. He watched more videos of arctic wastelands, of creaking blue ice floes, of the small black birds skimming down through the surface of the petrifying waters. Small simulacrum penguins began to emerge in the margins of his notes, at first static, two-dimensional sketches, then proper creatures with depth, dimension and perspective. These were scanned into his laptop. They disappeared from his screen for a day to the software designers, and his creations returned to him, duplicated twelve times, each clone in a different pose. By the end of the last day, a penguin was mouthing something at him silently from the other side of his screen.

  At night he ate alone, slept, worked some more, then walked the streets, past illuminated bars, past stilled fountains, through streets overhung with skyscrapers, and past the bright windows of late-night nail bars, where Korean girls bent over the hands of vacant-faced women, filing, clipping, cleaning and painting nails in luscious, glittering colours.

  It was only when he got to the airport that, searching in the pockets of his bag for his passport or his ticket or maybe some chewing-gum, his fingers came into co
ntact with the crackle of paper. Gripping it between index and middle finger, he drew out Sinead’s letter to Marcus: sealed; a cream envelope with a raised grain; his name on the front with a firm, deft underline. The recognition gave him a shock like the contact of his skin with cold water. He turned it over in his hands and, to his shame, held it up to the light. The double folds of paper created unreadable palimpsests of slanted writing. It struck him as strange that a letter could be creased and worn yet unopened.

  Sinead has left. Rory is driving her to the tube station. She kissed them all lightly, one by one. ‘I’m sorry about the histrionics,’ she said, hovering in the doorway, half in and half out of the light.

  ‘Yeah, we’re really angry,’ Jodie said.

  Sinead had smiled, raised her hand in a small wave, then was gone.

  The table is littered with after-dinner debris: wine corks, ruined candles, bits of food, ash, circle-stains of wine and balls of wax sculpted with fingerprints. Jodie puts a cigarette between her lips and presses down on the Zippo lighter Aidan bought her in the States.

  ‘So,’ she says.

  Aidan is moving plates around futilely, from table to draining-board to sink. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you going to tell her?’

  He half turns. ‘Tell who what?’

  Jodie draws on her filter tip, the smoke making a slight kissing sound as it explodes into her mouth, and fixes him with an assessing stare. ‘Tell Sinead you’re in love with her.’

  He turns his face back to the blue tiles in front of him, rests the heels of his palms on the Formica. The tiling distorts his features like a hall of mirrors – lengthening his nose and upper lip and making his eyes disappear into small raisin-sized hollows under a huge dome of forehead. He looks down, sees his thumb picking at the side of his finger’s cuticle. He leafs through possibilities: pretend, laugh it off, lie. But this is Jodie. It would never work. Desperation and denial grapple within him. He doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to vocalise it because until he does he can convince himself that it’s all an illusion, a trick his heart is playing on him, that it will pass, that it’s not something he or anyone else need take seriously. He can keep it sealed up inside himself and no one need ever know. He doesn’t want to besmirch this secret by opening it to oxygen, to sunlight, to scrutiny. He wants to keep it folded up somewhere deep and dark so that no one need ever know. But this thing – whatever it is – has taken root without him really noticing, and is spreading its lithe, choking branches to every corner of his being.