The Codes of Love

by Hannah Persaud

  ‘Ada?’ Inside she has pulled on tracksuit bottoms and stands facing him with her arms crossed, wearing an expression he hasn’t seen before.

  ‘How old is he again?’ she says.

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘And has he never gone AWOL before?’

  ‘Not without … no.’

  ‘Not without what? Yes or no?’

  ‘Stop interrogating me, Emily’s frantic. It’s my son we’re talking about here.’

  ‘Really? Or is it Emily who needs you? Christ, Ryan. Is this how it’s to be? She clicks her fingers and you go running?’

  ‘That’s not fair; he’s never done this before. It’s been hard on him.’

  ‘What has? Pretty rich kid, posh private school, lives in a glass palace – must be really hard on him.’ There’s a bitter whine to her voice.

  ‘I mean this, us – maybe he knows something’s up between me and Emily. All these trips …’ He sweeps his hand at the room pointlessly.

  ‘So now it’s my fault he’s gone missing?’ she says.

  ‘Of course not, but he’s just a kid with his own issues and the bottom line is, if I don’t go back I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened. Surely you can understand that?’

  ‘When I was a teenager I ran away from home all the time. It’s a teenage right to be truant and absent – and you deal with it by pandering to him? Next time he wants a bit of attention he’ll do it again.’

  Ryan sits down heavily. She’s sapped all the power in the room. She sits beside him and puts a hand on his knee.

  ‘Look, I know you’re worried, but what can you do there that you can’t do here? It’s not as if you’re going to scour London street by street. And Emily’s there if he goes home anyway. It might not even be safe for you to drive back in the state you’re in.’ She leans closer and rubs his shoulder and he can smell sweat and sun on her skin. No, he wants to say, my loyalty is there, to him. He coaxes the words to his tongue but they won’t come. He is afraid of losing her. He despises himself for his weakness. She reaches for a tumbler and opens the bottle of brandy she has brought, his favourite. He watches the copper fire splash into the glass, the way it glows against her fingers. She passes the glass to him and then, as he is about to take it she pauses, holding the liquid gold against the light.

  ‘If you really have to do it, then you should go,’ she says. ‘I just don’t want to see you rush off without thinking it through.’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, you’re probably right – what could I do there anyway, really, I mean …’ Perhaps if he says the words enough he will believe them.

  ‘Maybe you should go,’ she says, sipping from the glass herself, her top lip glistening, ‘I don’t want to be responsible for your guilt if you don’t. I’ve been selfish. This is your son; you choose.’ She flings her legs over the arm of her chair and nestles into the backrest, her breasts half exposed. ‘You go, I’ll stay. If he comes back soon then maybe we can salvage a day or two.’

  Ryan stumbles up to the ridge to phone Emily with the help of a walking stick, though the pain in his ankle has gone, numbed by the brandy. She is furious, accusing him of being a lousy father, a penis-led prick. Tom’s not back, she informs him, but he shouldn’t waste his time worrying, she wouldn’t want his real life to taint his pathetic fantasy.

  Back inside the cottage he downs another drink to prevent the hangover from crawling into his head. While Ada showers he sits at the table and stares at the dark knots of wood. She emerges wrapped in a towel, her hair damp and tousled.

  ‘On a mission to finish it?’ She nods at the bottle.

  He stares at her and thinks he doesn’t know her, this woman who would put herself above a child. He thinks uncomfortably of Emily, doing the best that she could for the boys even though it wasn’t intuitive. All the sacrifices he thought a duty, not a choice. He was wrong; his assumptions of obligation arrogant. There is always a choice, and Ada chooses Ada.

  He should bite his tongue, but alcohol has loosened his temper and before he thinks it through he is accusing her of manipulating him, seeking control. It’s a pointless conversation as he’ll be going nowhere, stuck incapacitated in the middle of the Welsh mountains, and, as she says, it was his choice to be here and not there, the decision being left to him. Nor, she points out, did she force him to drink; in fact she’d prefer he hadn’t polished off the best part of a bottle of expensive brandy that deserved to be savoured rather than scoffed. He retorts that it wasn’t a choice at all when she made her feelings so blatantly clear, and she casts him a derisory look and asks him if he is really so used to being under the thumb that he can no longer think for himself. He doesn’t have an answer, limping around the room, which feels small and claustrophobic.

  Fear burrows into him. He’s been up to the ridge several times to check his phone and Emily hasn’t called. Tom could be lying at the bottom of a canal or stranded. He could be mugged or kidnapped or worse, dismembered. These thoughts gather substance and escape his lips and now Ada is accusing him of melodrama and saying that she didn’t sign up for this, it wasn’t part of the deal and it isn’t what she wants. After that there is silence. He feels that he might choke on all the things they’ve said, and pushes his way outside to where the sky stretches like a blackout blind, punctured by stars.

  ‘They’re all dead’, he tells Ada when he turns and finds her standing beside him in the field.

  ‘Everything dies eventually,’ she replies. He sees that she is crying and jubilation runs briefly through him. Then she is kissing him and, caught off guard, he kisses her back. He wants her to need him. She drops the towel that she is still wearing and unbuttons his trousers. On the ground she waits, her back bare against rough grass. Crouching down into the dry earth, his ankle shoots pain up his leg. He lowers himself onto his side and slides a hand up the inside of her thighs. She opens them to him. The tips of his fingers brush against her and her thighs tense against his fingers. He will not give her what she wants, not yet. He’s given her too much already. He shuffles down until he is by her feet and, ignoring the throbbing in his ankle, he shifts his weight to his knees. He wants her to tell him that she needs him. He needs to hear it. He lowers himself down to her body, running his tongue along the soft skin of her inner thighs and feels her stiffen as his tongue finds what she wants. He pushes his palms against her thighs and she swells against him. He knows her body, at least. Her noises are small and foreign beneath the vast sky. Close, closer.

  He stops, pulling away. She reaches for his shoulders to bring him back but he is faster and now standing, winning at something at least. He walks back towards the cottage, barely limping for the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

  In the cottage it is bright and he snaps off the lights, leaving only the candle lit.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ She comes in, face flushed and eyes shiny bright.

  ‘Not in the mood after all,’ he says, pouring himself the last inches of the brandy, washing the taste of her from his tongue.

  ‘And that’s it?’ she says, slamming her hand down on the table and knocking the empty bottle onto its side.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, throwing logs onto the fire.

  ‘You don’t get to do that,’ she says, walking over and taking his glass from him, pouring the contents down her throat.

  ‘I think I do,’ he says. She reaches out and slaps him hard. His cheek stings and his left eye waters. He puts a hand to his face.

  ‘Two can play at your game,’ she says. ‘You don’t get to make all the decisions.’ She slaps the other cheek and he’s not quick enough to stop her. He suspected this was inside her, waiting to come out. Six months ago their meetings were liberating. They savoured only the moment. Impermanence was exciting. But since they bought the cottage something has changed and he’s struggling to name what it is. He wonders if the act of committing to the cottage has cost them their lightness. Ada is volatile and her frustrations thinly veiled. He worries abou
t which word to place after another.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she says, standing inches from him. Her face is pale save a patch of colour on each cheekbone. At this moment he hates her. Emily would never taunt him in this way. She knows how he was abused by his father. How easy it would be for him to slip into his shadow. Ada lifts his left hand with her right one and presses her fingers against his palm, opening his hand out. She slips her hand to his wrist. ‘You know you want to. Hit me.’ He shakes his head. A lifetime of resistance. She’s misjudged him. She says it again. He is turning away when she catches his shoulder with her arm and he is reminded again of the sheer strength of her. A dull ache travels through his upper back.

  ‘Jesus, Ada, that’s enough.’ And now she’s got to him and her triumph rises like a flag. Before he can walk away she’s in front of him and blocking him and the only option is to push her aside or stand still. He drops his hands to his thighs and clenches his fists, feeling his nails biting into his skin. She pushes him against the table.

  ‘You don’t get to start something and not finish it,’ she says, kneeling down and taking him in her hand, and even as she says it he knows that this is his greatest weakness, that he cannot walk away. Ada’s mouth is on him and he feels her hot breath and his anger and tension unfurl even though it’s not pleasure, even though she’s too rough and he already resents this betrayal of his body. He hardens against his will, submitting to the painful thrust of her mouth. The rush towards sweet relief is nearly over and then she moves away and grabs his hands. She pulls him to the floor with her. She kneels and he stumbles forward so that his ankle buckles and his knees bruise against the flagstones. She reaches back and puts him inside her, her hands pulling his up her body, cupping her breasts, pulling him closer. He tries to pull away but she pushes back against him and there is nothing tender: this is brutal and primal, this thing that he mistook for love. He feels the skin on his knees tearing. He despises his weakness. She slides forward a fraction, losing her grip on his hands. The movement is minimal and she grabs his hands harder, digging her nails into his, trying to pull him back with her. It’s all he needs and he softens, the momentum lost. She pushes back against him uselessly. He slips out of her and she turns, flushed. Still on his knees, he falls to his elbows and places his forehead against the floor where the chill of the evening seeps in.

  ‘Christ, you’re pathetic sometimes,’ she says, and when she stands he knows that she has given up. He hears her running the tap in the kitchen and pouring a glass of water. He rises shakily to his feet and tests his ankle. In the candlelight he can see that his knees are bleeding. He pulls up his trousers and sits at the table, facing the wall. He feels violated. Is this what Emily’s rules were to protect them from? He hears Ada go up to the crog loft and shortly after she comes back down, her shoes echoing against the wooden stairs. He feels the suck of the wind as she opens the front door and listens to the cottage sigh as it slams behind her.

  Rules of an open marriage #14:

  Never treat each other like second-class partners

  London, May 2016

  ‘Mum, can we go somewhere in the summer holidays?’ Sam says, shovelling mouthfuls of cereal into his mouth with his left hand while texting with his right.

  ‘I’m not sure, babe – it’s pretty last minute, everywhere will be booked …’

  ‘Our exams are finished by mid-June and then we’re free. Please? It can be an exam celebration.’ Emily considers it. It’ll be cheaper out of season and she hasn’t been paying the boys much attention lately.

  ‘I’ll look into it,’ Emily tells him. ‘No promises.’

  ‘I don’t mind where we go; anywhere is better than staying here,’ Sam says. Emily looks around the kitchen and out through the doors to the garden where their swimming pool is almost built in readiness for the summer.

  ‘You don’t have it so bad,’ she says, slapping him on the shoulder. On the other side of the table Tom groans.

  ‘It’s because Amelie dumped him,’ Tom says, with uncharacteristic concern. ‘That’s why he wants to go away.’ Sam blushes and rolls his eyes. Tom grabs his bag. ‘See you later.’ Emily watches Tom leave.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asks Sam. ‘I liked Amelie – what happened?’

  ‘That’s not why I want to go away,’ Sam says. ‘It feels like we never spend time together any more.’ Emily thinks uncomfortably of how preoccupied she’s been.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she tells Sam. ‘What’s with Tom leaving so early, anyway?’

  ‘He’s in love,’ Sam tells her, and rolls his eyes. ‘He walks partway to college with her in the mornings.’

  ‘Really?’ Emily says. She’s lost track of the number of girls that Tom has dated briefly and then abandoned over the past couple of years.

  ‘Yep.’ Sam stands up and swings his bag over his shoulder.

  ‘Gotta go, Mum. See you later.’

  ‘Cereal, bowl, sink,’ she calls out. He sighs and drops the empty bowl into the sink, where it cracks a glass.

  ‘I’ll talk to Dad about the holidays,’ she tells him.

  ‘Didn’t realise you two even talk these days!’ Sam says, opening the door. ‘See you later.’

  ‘I’ll be home after you, remember?’ she calls out, ‘I’ve got my sportive today.’

  In the bedroom she rummages through her drawer for her cycling clothes. She gets dressed quickly; Adeline will be here soon. She pulls on the padded shorts that make her waddle, and a long-sleeved top. Downstairs she runs through her checklist, helmet, yes, cleats, yes, hydration. She’s glad to be busy. Empty hours have a way of leading her thoughts back to Ryan and she’s doing her best to stop unravelling.

  Last night he came home later than usual and went straight to the shower. She was in the kitchen preparing dinner when he came down.

  ‘How was your day?’ she’d asked him, focusing hard on the onion that kept slipping from her grasp. She tilted the tip of the knife and pressed down hard into the flesh, eyes watering.

  ‘Busy – the usual, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ she’d said, running the tap to take the sting out of the onion. Her eyes still water regardless, but she does it every time just in case it will eventually work.

  ‘Where were you this evening?’ she asked him. He was sitting on the sofa with a newspaper on his lap. He opened it noisily and didn’t look up as he answered her.

  ‘With some of the lads from the office. You know, the bonding thing. Had a couple of pints in that pub on the corner.’ He hates work politics.

  ‘Who?’ she said, chopping peppers.

  ‘What is this, the third degree?’ At this she’d stopped chopping and pressed her hands against the counter.

  ‘I have a right to ask you who you were with. You are still my husband …’ She hadn’t smelled beer on his breath when he came in. He doesn’t even like beer.

  ‘Let’s not do this now – I’m tired,’ he’d said, striding to the door. She’d looked at the knife right there in front of her, sharpened just hours ago.

  ‘Inconvenient is it, to talk about the elephant in the room?’ she’d said. He’d paused then.

  ‘What is it you want to know?’ he’d asked, closing the kitchen door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Who is what?’ he answered.

  ‘Don’t play games,’ she said. He walked to the fridge and poured a glass of wine, then stood at the doors to the garden drinking it. She’d wanted then to tell him not to say it. To put her fingers in her ears.

  ‘There is someone,’ he said finally. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. Emily, look at me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re breaking the rules. No repeat performance, remember?’ It’s all her bloody fault, if she hadn’t insisted on their freedom perhaps they wouldn’t be here now, like this.

  ‘Pardon me for forgetting about our regulations.’

  ‘Why don’t you end it?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t want to.’ She waited for him
to continue. The silence stretched out like string.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ he answered. ‘Is that it?’

  She could have driven a spear into his heart. Torn his eyeballs out with salty hands. He walked towards the door. Her eyes flicked to the knife on the counter.

  ‘You don’t get to walk away,’ she said.

  ‘I think I do,’ he replied.

  ‘End it,’ she told him.

  ‘Are you going to make me?’ he asked. She shook her head, willing herself not to cry. ‘I’ve waited for you so many times,’ he said. ‘You can wait now.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to,’ she said.

  ‘Says the hypocrite.’

  ‘It’s different,’ she said, ‘and you know it. Are you willing to do this to the boys?’

  ‘They don’t need to know,’ he replied.

  ‘It’s pretty fucking obvious. They’re not idiots,’ she said. He stared at the floor.

  ‘No. But hopefully we can minimise any disruption to them.’

  ‘Where were you last week?’ she asked.

  ‘Work, I told you.’

  ‘I know it wasn’t work, stop playing me for a fool. You came back wind-burned and glowing. Work doesn’t do that to you.’ Ryan pulled a chair out from the table and sat heavily.

  ‘We went to Wales.’

  ‘Where did you stay?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ he asked. Yes, she longed to say, it does matter. I want to picture the room you fucked her in and the position of the bed. I want to know what you see when you opened your eyes in the morning and whether you think of me when you slip your fingers inside her. I want to know whether for a single tiny moment you feel regret. I want to know if she thinks it’s funny, how much you eat after sex. How you breathe out between your teeth after you come.