The Venus Trap

by Voss, Louise

  This isn’t entirely true, although it sort of is. I did see Sean last week, but not outside the gym—that was the time before. I’m not going to tell Claudio about it. It’s too humiliating.

  Instead I give Claudio an edited version of an encounter I had with Sean about a month ago.

  ‘We bumped into each other. I asked him if he was seeing anyone else. He said “Sort of,” and then changed it to yes, he was. That was it. I spoke to him for about two minutes. I don’t know why he’d have texted me afterwards, but he always was a bit contrary. It was probably only because he feels guilty.’

  I was an idiot to ask him. It would have been better not to know for sure. I mean, of course Sean would have got himself another girlfriend, almost six months after we broke up. He probably got together with someone within six days. He’s the type who can’t survive without adoration on tap.

  I just hadn’t been able to help myself.

  He was running down the steps of the gym cramming a whole chocolate biscuit into his mouth when I saw him, which was good—he was embarrassed. Sean was a dreadful stuffer of food, a fister of cutlery. He would focus on a huge slice of pizza with the intensity of a cat about to pounce on a blackbird and then, instead of merely biting into it or—heaven forbid—cutting it with a knife and fork, he’d semi-fold it and slot it into his mouth sideways, actually turning his shoulders as if that would help to accommodate it. Then he’d have to sit, cheeks bulging, speechlessly trying to masticate, until it was reduced to a more manageable size.

  ‘Uh-oh ’o,’ he mumbled, not looking me in the eye, and covering his mouth with his hand as he tried to get the biscuit under control enough to articulate actual words.

  ‘Hello, Sean.’

  ‘You all right?’ he managed eventually, poised with what was probably dread to see whether I was planning to walk straight on or stop to chat.

  I braced myself for the wash of irritation I always used to feel when he stated those words, because it wasn’t a genuine enquiry as to my state of mind but a token pleasantry, and it was as if he didn’t want to hear the answer, unless it was in the affirmative.

  Annoyingly, the irritation didn’t come. I found that I was so overwhelmingly relieved to be in such close proximity to him that he could have come out with all the little Seanisms that used to bug me so much—‘You all right?’ ‘up London’, ‘innit’, ‘eh?’ . . . and so on and so forth—and I would still have wanted to grab him and wrap my arms and legs around him like a monkey clinging to a pole.

  ‘I’m OK. How are you?’

  ‘Yeah. All right.’

  Then I asked, just blurted it out. ‘So. Are you seeing anybody else?’

  There was a long, long pause and then Sean said, to a nearby lamp post, ‘Not exactly.’

  Everything in my body seemed to stop—blood stopped flowing, heart stopped pumping, pupils didn’t dilate, muscles didn’t contract. I felt as if I’d turned to stone.

  ‘That means yes, then,’ I eventually said, knowing full well that it did. All ‘Not exactly’ meant was ‘Yes, but I don’t want to tell you.’

  ‘Well. Sort of. But we haven’t done anything,’ he said in a hurry, in an almost plaintive voice, as if he was a teenager and I was his mother, catching him and the mystery girl rolling around semi-clad in his bedroom. ‘I can’t,’ he added, sheepishly.

  Can’t? I thought. What does that mean? Can’t physically get it up? Doesn’t want to? (Unlikely.) Is still so much in love with me that he can’t give himself to anybody else? In which case, why the hell did he dump me?

  ‘Oh. I see,’ I said, wondering if I was actually going to throw up then and there. I was shaking so much that I had to grip the strap of my handbag till my knuckles turned white. ‘Gotta go. Bye.’

  I shot away, almost running into the office and slamming the door behind me. Thankfully, Stephanie wasn’t in, and the room was silent and empty.

  It’s so weird that I can miss Richard so much and yet not be upset that he’s got a new girlfriend—Wendy, who, according to Megan, stays for ‘sleepovers in Daddy’s bed’. But the mere thought of Sean with another woman still makes me want to just die with pain.

  I remember the list I wrote after that little exchange. I sat in my office for a long time, until cramp prickled at my toes and my head throbbed with the effort of not crying. I hadn’t even bothered to unzip my laptop or get out my notebook—there was no chance of getting any work done that day. Eventually I took a sheet of paper off the printer and slowly wrote another list, in my neatest handwriting:

  – Is she older/younger/prettier/sexier/better than me?

  – Was he lying when he said he wasn’t sleeping with her?

  – Does she know that he hates his skinny calves?

  – Does he bring her Tea in Pants?

  – Does she know how much he loved my bottom?

  – Does she know that only six months ago he sent me a text saying ‘I really love you’ and then finished with me, a week later?

  Then I’d trudged home, locked the doors, run a bath, and lay in it for two hours crying like a teenager who’d just been chucked. Then I got dressed and went to collect Megan from school.

  ‘So, honestly, Claudio, there’s nothing going on between me and him any more.’ He just wrecked my marriage then fucked off, I refrain from adding.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ he says, standing up and fitting the key back in the lock. Then he comes back and leans even closer. ‘But if you ever lie to me again, Jo, you will be very, very sorry.’

  Then he hits me really hard around the side of my head. Boxes my ear, I suppose. Hard enough that I keel sideways and see stars, tiny white dots like fireflies. I’m too shocked to speak.

  He stands up. ‘Like I said, Jo. You’ll be very sorry.’

  I don’t even hear the door being locked and bolted again, over the ringing in my ear.

  Chapter Twenty

  Day 3

  What actually happened last week with Sean was that he left a note stuck behind the windscreen wiper of my car: ‘I REALLY REALLY MISS YOU.’ My heart leapt with joy—tempered with caution, of course, because he’d done this before. I still seemed to run into him with alarming regularity in Brockhurst—it’s another reason I’m glad Steph and I gave up the office, because it was right next to the gym—and he’d give me these long, longing looks and the little sad smile that said I don’t know what went wrong, I still love you . . . I could assume—as Donna obviously did, when I talked to her about it—that this was just wishful thinking on my part, were it not for the further evidence.

  The day after the note, I got a call from him. Last Monday, I think it was. Steph and I were in her flat having coffee. I’d been telling her about the first couple of dates with Claudio—wait, that’s a point! She knows about Claudio! Perhaps she’ll realise he might have something to do with it when she hasn’t heard from me for a few days?

  Anyway, when I saw the display on my phone screen, I froze.

  ‘It’s Sean,’ I hissed in hushed tones, as the phone pulsed in my hand.

  ‘Well, answer it!’ she said, half-impatient, half-resigned. She was clearly thinking, ‘Oh no, here we go again . . .’

  I answered it. ‘Hi, Sean.’

  ‘Hi, Jo, you all right? Just drove down Elm Road, saw your car and . . . well . . . I wondered what it was doing there. How come you’re not in your office?’

  He was checking up on me, because my car wasn’t where it should be? All those months after we split up, and when he’s got a new girlfriend? How odd.

  I wish he’d bloody well check up on me now. He could take Claudio out in a second.

  ‘We’ve given up the office. I’m just visiting . . . a friend,’ I replied then, not wanting him to know that it was only Steph, that I wasn’t visiting a boyfriend. I felt like saying, ‘What’s it to you?’ but my annoying heart w
as too busy singing, ‘He’s jealous, he’s jealous, he still wants you!’

  ‘So are you still there?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Wondered if we could have a chat. If I’m not interrupting anything, that is.’

  I didn’t know whether to dance around the room, or to tell him to sod off. This was really it this time—he wanted me back! He’d realised that there was no point going out with the Twelve-Year-Old (as I christened her, after I saw him outside Boots holding hands with her a couple of weeks ago. I bet she buys all her clothes from Gap Kids. No pub in the land would serve her without ID) and he wanted a real woman again.

  I went over to the window and peered out—sure enough, there he was, standing by the kerb, suspiciously eyeing up my car and scuffing the toe of his trainer on the pavement as he talked to me on the phone.

  ‘See you in a minute, then,’ I told him and hung up, turning to Stephanie. ‘He wants to talk to me! He’s outside.’

  Steph joined me at the window. ‘Couldn’t you have played just a little bit harder to get? Make him wait for at least ten minutes.’ Then she added, ‘In fact, do you really think you ought to go at all? I mean, you’ve been here before, haven’t you? He’s going to tell you how screwed up he is over you, and how much he misses you, and you’ll get all excited—but then when you ask him to give you two another try, he’ll say no, and you’ll be gutted. Again. He’s a textbook sufferer of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I read all about it in Cosmopolitan. He can’t commit, but he just wants everyone to be in love with him. And besides, you’ve got another date with the Italian Stallion bloke next week, haven’t you, so why don’t you concentrate on that instead? He might be the man of your dreams.’

  I hesitated. She had a point—about Sean, that was, not Claudio. Despite fancying him, I was pretty sure even then that Claudio wouldn’t turn out to be the man of my dreams, but I’d agreed to go out with him anyway. Just in case.

  As for Sean, I already knew exactly what I was going to do.

  ‘Oh, you know what I think: there’s no point in trusting my instincts. It won’t make any difference in the long run. What will be will be.’

  Stephanie sighed despairingly. ‘Well, I think that’s very defeatist,’ she said, uncapping a tube of hand cream and rubbing a smear into her fingernails. The smell of almonds filled the air.

  ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with,’ I added feebly, checking my make-up in her mirror. ‘Well, see you later. Don’t watch from the window. You’ll embarrass me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I don’t think I could bear to watch,’ she said. ‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’

  ‘Went to Eastbourne last weekend,’ Sean said without preamble when I joined him on the kerb.

  It was exactly a year since he and I had gone to Eastbourne for the weekend. I wonder if he remembered that. We’d had the most amazing time: playing pool, dancing in a tacky pier nightclub, having totally outrageous sex in the hotel, on the beach, in the car . . .

  ‘With the Twel—your girlfriend?’

  ‘Michelle. Yeah.’

  My eyes instantly filled up. ‘Sean. I so don’t want to know that! It’s a year since we went. Why would you tell me that you’d gone again with someone else?’

  ‘No, but you don’t understand. All weekend, I could only think of you. I missed you so much. We went to all the same places that you and I went to. We even stayed in the same hotel! I couldn’t stop talking about you, not once.’

  ‘That must have been nice for Michelle,’ I said sardonically.

  Sean dismissed this with a wave of the hand. ‘Oh, she’s not the jealous type.’

  ‘Just as well, for her sake. Anyway, Sean, like I said, I really don’t want to know.’

  He reached out and touched my hand. ‘Shall we sit in your car for a bit?’

  I shrugged, glancing up to see if Stephanie was watching. Fortunately there was no sign of her.

  ‘OK.’

  We climbed in awkwardly and sat facing one another across the hand brake. He picked up my hand again and caressed it gently.

  ‘The reason I’m telling you is this: it wasn’t the same, going with Michelle. It was like going with a mate. We didn’t even kiss, let alone do anything else!’

  I shook my head, confused. It was clear that things had moved on between the two of them since last month, when he’d announced that he ‘couldn’t do anything’ at all with her. Now it seemed that he could, but hadn’t wanted to in Eastbourne. Perhaps he was waiting for her sixteenth birthday. Or for her to grow some breasts, or something.

  ‘Everyone thinks I’m so happy and sorted out,’ he continued, ‘but I’m not. I’m so screwed up, I just don’t know what to do. I keep thinking I should go away, on a retreat or something, or maybe go travelling round the world for a year.’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ I said grimly. ‘Do it!’

  Sean gazed deep into my eyes, still stroking my hand. It felt as though his touch brought back as many memories as there were nerve-endings on my palm.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve got . . . too many emotional ties here to think about leaving.’

  Now he was really rubbing it in. ‘With Michelle?’ I said, just to check.

  He smiled sadly. ‘No. With you, of course.’

  I was flabbergasted. ‘Then why don’t you want to give things a go with me, if that’s true?’

  He looked shifty. ‘Well. It’s a bit awkward, see. Michelle’s stepmother is the bar manager at the gym.’

  Unbelievable. I couldn’t help being sarcastic: ‘Oh well, in that case, you’ll have to marry her, won’t you?’ I wanted to slap him around his big stupid head.

  ‘Do you want a hug?’ he said, ignoring my snarky comment.

  Say no, say no, say no, my instincts begged me from somewhere deep inside. As usual I ignored their distant trumpeting, and nodded.

  ‘Let’s get out so we can have a proper hug.’ Sean opened the door and leapt expectantly into the gutter, his arms open. It was so surreal. He always liked me to be up a step from him when we hugged, so our heights were better matched. I couldn’t help thinking that the Twelve-Year-Old probably had to stand on a stepladder.

  Still, I fell into his arms, and I had to admit it was like coming home. He enveloped me in a huge bear hug, my head fitting perfectly into the space between his neck and shoulder. We stayed there for a long time. I inhaled the warm smell of him and felt his body pressing closely against mine. Motorists and passing pedestrians gave us odd looks, this couple half on the pavement and half in the road. Meanly, I wished that the Twelve-Year-Old would drive past and see us (although, of course, she’s probably not old enough to drive, is she? Perhaps she could cycle past instead. I imagined her pedalling along behind her dad, on a tug-along attached to the back of the big bike, like Richard used to do with Megan. Ha . . .).

  ‘We had such an amazing relationship. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. We had an incredible time, didn’t we? Nobody could ever compete with you, Jo. I mean it. You and I were something else together, weren’t we? But it’s too late now . . .’

  Sean was murmuring into my ear over the sound of the passing traffic, caressing me, holding me tighter and tighter, and I wanted it to last forever. I caught a glimpse of Stephanie at her living room window making hideous faces at me, but I pretended not to see her and closed my eyes. I kissed the side of Sean’s neck and moved my mouth towards his—but he turned away at the last minute.

  Suddenly I knew exactly what he was thinking: he was thinking, ‘I’m not being unfaithful to Michelle if we don’t kiss. It’s just a hug . . .’

  I broke away from him and stared at him. Time to stop pussy-footing around. ‘So why are you telling me this? Why did you want to see me? Do you want us to get back together? I mean, I’m not saying I would, definitely’—this was my attem
pt to play hard to get—‘but I might consider it. It might not be too late.’

  He blushed slightly and stepped back onto the pavement so that he was taller than me again.

  ‘But it is too late, Jo . . . I’m with Michelle now.’

  Frustration, rage, and sorrow built up in me until I felt like jumping up and down with fury. He’d got me again, reeled me in like a fat stupid carp. I wanted to scream insults at him, punch him, kick him in the balls. This was the man who was wild with jealousy as I was going through the long, painful process of extricating myself from my marriage, which I thought I had to do because surely nobody could ever love me more than Sean did. This was the man who sobbed with abandon when I told him I was struggling with my decision to get divorced and thinking that the right thing to do was surely to at least try to give things a go with Richard. This was the man who begged me not to. This was the man who told me gleefully that he knew exactly how he was going to propose to me, just as soon as my divorce came through. This was the man who, right after that last wonderful weekend in Eastbourne, said he couldn’t bear it any more and that he knew the right thing to do would be to leave me alone until I got the divorce sorted out and finalized, that he didn’t feel comfortable going out with a woman who was not yet divorced, even if she had been separated for some months. This was the man who said he’d wait ‘as long as it took’ until I could be his, because I was worth waiting for.

  This, then, was the man for whom I hurried through my divorce, quashing the nagging little voice in my head saying ‘You haven’t given you and Richard a fair chance to work things out.’

  This was the man who, when I finally rang him up to tell him that my decree absolute had arrived, announced that I’d always be the love of his life, but that ‘he couldn’t handle it’, and left me.

  What I wanted to say to him that day was, ‘You are a narcissistic, selfish arsehole, and I wouldn’t go out with you anyway. I’ve met someone else, as it happens.’