The Codes of Love

by Hannah Persaud

  The lights are on in his house.

  ‘Emily?’ he calls as he lets himself in.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, coming out of the kitchen, cheeks flushed and a glass of wine in one hand. She looks great, positively glowing. He leans in to kiss her on her cheek and as he does so he catches a whiff of the sea on her skin. He recalls what Leo said earlier about her being away.

  He accepts the glass of wine that she offers him. It’s been months since he’s seen her like this and he’s reminded of the young woman he first fell in love with.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he says, ‘I’m a bit of a mess. Have you heard from Sam?’ Emily sips from her glass.

  ‘Yes, he’s having a blast. He’s talking about trying to get a placement in Monaco during his second year of university.’

  ‘On an English degree?’

  ‘He’s optimistic – you know Sam. There’s pasta ready, unless you already ate?’

  ‘Sounds perfect,’ Ryan says. She pushes a bowl across the table and he sits in front of it. Under the lights her eyes are bright.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘How are you? You look good.’

  ‘Didn’t you have something you wanted to tell me?’ Emily asks. Ryan clears his throat.

  ‘Leo visited earlier …’ The colour drains from Emily’s face and she puts her fork down on her plate.

  ‘Look,’ Ryan says. ‘You should know that he’s been following you. He wanted to tell me where you were.’

  ‘And did he?’ Emily says.

  ‘I’m not your keeper,’ Ryan says. Emily sighs loudly.

  ‘He’s been a problem for a while. He won’t leave me alone. It’s why we’re staying at Sarah’s.’

  ‘Do we need to report him to the police?’ Ryan says. Emily shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t think he’s dangerous, but …’

  ‘He’s in love with you,’ Ryan says. Emily nods. ‘And you with him?’

  ‘No,’ she replies.

  ‘If there’s anything I can do …’ Ryan pours himself another glass of wine from the carafe that she’s set upon the table.

  ‘Did you call me here just to ask about Leo?’ Emily says.

  ‘My affair is over. Done.’ Emily takes slow, deliberate sips from her glass.

  ‘What happened?’ she asks.

  ‘I ended it,’ he says.

  ‘Huh.’ Emily doesn’t move. She doesn’t blink. He forces himself to continue.

  ‘So I’m going to be around a bit more.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘And if you’d like to give us another go, I’d be up for it.’

  ‘Did you seriously expect to walk back in here to open arms?’

  ‘Of course not. I just wanted to tell you.’

  ‘Well, you know what? I met someone too.’ It’s too warm in the kitchen and Ryan stands and opens the doors on to the garden. He wishes he could walk to the ridge. Ada’s gone. Emily’s going. The boys started checking out years ago.

  ‘Look, Emily. When I told you that I’d met someone, you said I could carry on discreetly, that it didn’t have to mean the end of our marriage.’ She is still sitting at the table. She doesn’t move a muscle.

  ‘I’m happy to wait for you,’ Ryan says.

  ‘That’s generous,’ Emily says.

  ‘It’s just – two decades of marriage: it might be worth fighting for,’ Ryan says, struggling to hide the desperation in his voice. ‘I’m just asking you not to shut the door.’ She laughs then and it is a cruel serrated sound that clatters.

  ‘Which bit of it do you think is worth saving?’ she says. ‘I’ve spent a lifetime trying to be everything. Mother, best friend, lover. I’ve curled and crisped and crumbled beneath the pressure. And now I’ve found someone who makes me feel alive, you want me to come back?’

  ‘I’m just asking you to leave us options,’ he says.

  ‘Options are the curse of the modern human,’ Emily says. ‘All the options we had. We drowned in them. I was naïve to think we could break the mould and survive it.’

  ‘You’re breaking the rules,’ Ryan says.

  ‘I am. I AM?’ she is shouting.

  ‘You wanted them, remember? I was never enough for you.’ he says. Emily stares at him.

  ‘You really think that’s why?’ she says angrily, ‘Really?’

  ‘I didn’t want an open marriage. I told you that.’

  ‘It was to preserve us,’ she says, ‘and you didn’t object.’

  ‘PRESERVE us? What planet are you on?’

  ‘Rules to protect us, Ryan. Parameters of safety.’

  ‘Protect us?’ Ryan says. ‘Really? Last time I checked marriage was a monogamous commitment. It’s the whole bloody point of it.’

  ‘You’re lecturing me on commitment when you’ve bought a cottage with someone else? And what, now that she’s dumped you, you’re ready to re-commit?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have been with someone else if it wasn’t for your behaviour,’ Ryan says. ‘All the times you – every time – imagine knowing that you’re not enough for the person that you love. Every argument we had, every time I went away, I knew. How do you think it felt knowing that you were out screwing another man, punishing me?’

  ‘That’s not how it was,’ Emily says, ‘and you know it. It was just sex. It wasn’t ever about love.’

  ‘Why couldn’t we have tried to make marriage work the way it’s supposed to?’ he says. ‘At least given it a shot. I’d prefer it if you’d had affairs behind my back than parade your exploits in front of me. It would have been nice to see you trying to commit.’

  ‘I didn’t parade anything. It was just an outlet.’

  ‘Is it supposed to make me feel better that they meant nothing to you?’

  ‘You know sex wasn’t as important to you as it was to me,’ Emily says. ‘We knew that from the start. It would have become a problem …’

  ‘You think it would have become a problem.’

  ‘It’s biology. You can’t just shut it out.’

  ‘Can’t you? Isn’t that what people do when they get married, adapt?’

  ‘If you were so miserable, why didn’t you say?’ she asks.

  ‘I did say: remember the time I threatened to leave? But you wouldn’t listen and you gave me no choice. I couldn’t leave Sam and Tom. I couldn’t leave you.’

  ‘You never tried to leave me,’ Emily says. ‘I’d remember that.’ She presses her forehead against the glass of the doors to the garden.

  ‘You thought you could control everything and you were wrong. You thought you could control love,’ Ryan says. He looks at Emily. ‘Okay, you win.’

  ‘Really? This is about winning or losing?’ she says.

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he says.

  ‘I’m moving out for good and I want a divorce,’ she says, walking outside.

  Rules of an open marriage #24:

  Remember that love is not possession

  When the boys were five and six he decided to leave. He packed a bag. Emily had stayed out the night before and when she’d kissed his forehead he could smell the other person on her skin. She’d gone straight to the shower and he’d paced the bedroom, counting how many people she had been with other than him. Sixty or seventy, at least. He was moderate in everything. They made love once or twice a month, and for him, it was enough. He wished it were enough for her. It was bothering him more and more, their arrangement. He couldn’t stop thinking about who was last inside her. He wondered who she became with other people. He didn’t believe that it meant nothing. Bodies are sandstone, etched permanently by touch. When the hum of the shower went silent he was waiting. She’d wrapped her arms around him as if she knew.

  ‘I can’t do it any more,’ he’d told her.

  ‘Why is Mummy crying?’ Sam had asked, running in, followed by Tom. Then they were crying too, and Ryan was between them, holding them together like glue. Emily had leaned against him.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do if you
left me,’ Emily said. ‘You’re my rock. I wish I found this commitment thing easier.’

  ‘Me too,’ he’d replied, and his resolve to leave had weakened.

  Rules of an open marriage #25:

  Above all, love one another

  Dorset, Tuesday 18 October 2016

  Adeline is woken by the gulls early. Emily will be back later. The day stretches ahead. Pulling on her trainers and running gear, she locks the door behind her. The beach is deserted at this time of year. She runs hard and fast, completing the route before the tide cuts off the cove completely. She’s heading back to the cabin when she sees him. She’d recognise him anywhere. She considers turning around and running back up the beach, but there’s not enough time, the water’s too high. Anyway, he’s already seen her.

  ‘Ada?’ She pulls out her earphones.

  ‘Leo? What are you doing here?’

  ‘’I could ask the same of you,’ he says, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

  ‘Running,’ she says.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he says. ‘Staying with Emily.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you two were in touch,’ Ada says, a trickle of sweat running down her back.

  ‘Where did she go?’ Leo asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Yesterday. I’ve been watching you both.’ Ada thinks back to when she saw him from the ridge at the cottage in Wales.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Emily is incapable of looking after herself,’ Leo says. Ada shrugs.

  ‘I disagree.’

  ‘I have her best interests at heart,’ Leo says. ‘Is it love between you two or just sex?’ Ada doesn’t answer. ‘I suspect you don’t know the difference,’ he says. ‘People like you never do. Either way, when Emily finds out that you’ve been sleeping with her husband she’ll see everything in a different light.’ Ada kicks sand with her foot.

  ‘Was sleeping with her husband. How do you know I haven’t told her?’ Ada says.

  ‘I know Emily,’ he says. ‘One inkling of what’s occurred would have her running in the other direction. Straight towards me.’ He laughs.

  ‘I doubt that,’ Ada says.

  ‘Shall we test my theory?’ Leo says.

  ‘What do you want?’ Ada says.

  ‘I want you to leave her alone.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Ada says. Leo steps closer until Ada can see the pores in his skin.

  ‘You’re persistent,’ Leo says. He chuckles to himself. ‘We have that in common. So how’s this? If you don’t leave her I’ll tell her about you and Ryan and then she’ll hate you for not telling her yourself. If there’s one thing that Emily values, it’s truth.’

  ‘I’ll tell her eventually.’

  ‘Not good enough. I’m asking you to leave before I blow this whole fantasy into pieces. You seem to attract escapists Ada, have you noticed?’

  ‘I can’t leave before she gets back. She’ll be devastated.’

  ‘Don’t credit yourself too much. She’s tougher than you think.’

  Emily wakes up early at her sister’s. She rings Tom to see if he wants to meet before she heads back to Dorset and they agree on Café Rouge. She takes a table at the back, away from the window, and orders a latte. Minutes later she sees Tom searching for her among the crowded tables.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, pulling out the chair opposite her.

  ‘Hey yourself,’ she smiles, ‘Do you want something to eat?’ She nudges her thoughts away from the bed he left this morning with his girlfriend. He virtually lives there. Tom nods and orders a panini.

  ‘Are you staying at Aunty Sarah’s?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m heading back to the cabin until the weekend. I can’t wait for you to see it,’ she says.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Your dad and I are just figuring some stuff out,’ she says, lowering her voice as the woman at the next table turns. She reaches for his hand and he pulls his arm away. She taps her fingers against the table.

  ‘Why do you always pretend?’ he says. She is aware of their proximity to the neighbouring table.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she says quietly, tucking her hands back into her lap.

  ‘That’s it, right there.’ He stands, pushing his chair back quickly so that the woman next to them looks up. ‘So worried about what other people think. Always an act.’ Emily watches him weave his way through the restaurant, her cheeks burning. She picks at the remains of her croissant and settles their bill.

  She’s knackered by the time she gets back to the cabin. She’s too old to be driving up and down the country. She slings her bag over her shoulder and opens the door.

  ‘Adeline?’ There’s no answer. ‘Adeline?’ It takes all of one minute to check all the rooms. She’s not here and there’s no message. She’s probably gone for a run. Emily opens the back doors and goes outside to the crumbling terrace. Eventually she’ll build a deck out here. The views are spectacular, straight out to sea and to the beach below. The path down is obscured. Sailing boats potter against the horizon. God, how she hated sailing. All the people she has tried to be over the years come back to her. It feels good to finally accept herself. If Ryan hadn’t met someone then this never would have happened. He’d have carried on feeling hurt and she’d have carried on hurting him. What’s happening with Adeline feels delicate.

  There’s movement on the beach below. A lone walker stops and looks up at the sky. Following their line of sight, Emily sees the arc of a contrail falling. There’s something familiar about the walker, the motion of their stroll. Of his stroll. As he looks up towards her she sees his sand-coloured hair and the line of his jaw. Leo. She holds his gaze and he waves his hand in response. Suddenly it doesn’t feel idyllic at all in this cabin on the edge of a cliff. Hidden from the road and tucked out of sight from the path, it’s a trap that she’s walked straight into. He must have followed her here. Where is Adeline? A thought solidifies.

  Adeline’s mobile goes straight to voicemail. Pulling on her Converse and coat, Emily walks through the cabin and out of the front door, leaving it open. She’s at the gate when she reconsiders and heads back inside, emptying her bag upon the floor, trying to find the keys. By the time that she’s found them the cabin is a mess, bags emptied and contents strewn upon the ground. Outside the gate she looks left down the path that leads to the beach, and right up the path to the road where the car is. She needs to make a decision.

  Ryan gets off the train at North Dulwich after another unproductive day in the office. He thought they’d grow old in Dulwich Village, with peonies at their gate and grandchildren tugging them to the park. He stops at the Fox for a beer and inhales the deep musty smell of the place. Love ruptures more easily than he’d realised. He hasn’t slept since Emily left yesterday. Ada is fading, a shadow glimpsed, then gone.

  He stands and heads for home, suit jacket slung across his back, tie loose and twisted. Inside the front door he dumps his jacket on the floor and takes off his shoes. The landline rings and he picks up.

  ‘Leo? What?’

  ‘Emily.’ She looks up and sees Leo.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘What way is that to greet an old friend?’ He wraps his arms around her. He could crush her if he wanted. ‘Nice place you’ve got here. Does Ryan know?’

  ‘No,’ she says. She instantly regrets it. ‘Where’s Adeline?’

  ‘She has a habit of leaving. You’ve got terrible taste in women. And men.’ He winks.

  ‘What have you done to her?’

  ‘Do you really think I’m that kind of person? I don’t think you would have slept with me if you did. Or perhaps it was the fear that turned you on? Because let’s face it, Schopenhauer was no match for you,’ he grins. ‘You were insatiable.’ Bile rises in Emily’s throat and she throws up into a bush.

  ‘Anyway, don’t worry, Ada’s fine. I just came to give you this.’ He pulls out a package from his inside pocket and passes it
to her.

  ‘What is it – a finger, a tongue? Leo, this has got to stop.’

  ‘It’s a proof of my novel. I thought you’d like to read it,’ he says, and his smile turns her stomach. ‘I modelled my protagonist on you; there’s a lot of similarities. You even share the same name!’

  ‘You’ve gone too far,’ Emily says, thrusting the package back at him. He puts his hands behind his back.

  ‘Read it: it might force you to face some truths.’ She drops the package on the ground. ‘I can’t wait for your loving family to read it. Uh oh, hit a nerve, have I?’

  ‘Why do you hate me so much?’ Emily asks.

  ‘It’s the opposite of hate,’ Leo replies, ‘but the lines are fine.’

  ‘I’ll tell everyone that it’s pure fiction.’ Emily says.

  ‘Isn’t that the problem? Your word against mine. We all know how flexible your truth is. It’s a nice place your husband has in Wales, by the way, you should go there sometime. See what you’ve been missing out on.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ she asks. Leo taps his nose.

  ‘Just keeping an eye on things. I like to have the whole picture.’

  ‘What will it take for you to realise that we were a mistake?’ She speaks slowly and calmly, as if to a child. ‘Twice Leo, that’s all, barely memorable.’ It’s a low blow and she hears his slow intake of breath.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he says.

  ‘I know it meant more to you than it did to me and I’m sorry but—’

  ‘What do you mean, twice?’ he repeats.

  ‘Do I need to remind you?’ she says. ‘The hotel, of course, and the time before, in the park.’ He stares at her as if she has lost her senses.