Relight my Fire

by Joanna Bolouri

  He smiled. ‘Yes, you seem like an unlikely friend for her. Regardless, I just thought, since you introduced us, you might like to know our situation.’

  An unlikely friend. How does he manage to make every word that comes out of his mouth seem insulting?

  ‘I didn’t introduce you! Well, not on purpose. Really, I honestly have no use for any of this information. Date whoever you want! I must be getting home.’

  Ugh, he’s so infuriating. I’m convinced there’s a tiny part of him that thinks I might be jealous or something.

  September

  Saturday September 2nd

  Molly had her little friend Adam over to play this afternoon. I don’t remember ever having boys over to play when I was her age, mainly because they were disgusting. They still kind of are. I was ironing in the kitchen when Oliver came in looking slightly concerned.

  ‘Do you know where the screwdrivers are?’

  ‘Hall cupboard, I think. Why?’

  ‘I had a listen at Molly’s door a second ago and I’m pretty sure I heard Molly say “Adam, just put your hand around it” so I’m going to take the door off the hinges.’

  I laughed a little louder than I meant to. ‘You’re going to be a fucking nightmare when she starts dating.’

  ‘Damn right, I am,’ he agreed. ‘If we had a porch, I’d be permanently posted there with my shotgun.’

  Since Oliver got back from his trip, things have been relatively normal. We even slept together last night. But I still can’t help wondering what exactly went on with him and Bethany. The less he tells me, the more I imagine, and it’s not a healthy place to be. Sometimes I feel like he believes if he just soldiers on as normal, then I’ll forget what happened. But it’s having the opposite effect.

  Monday September 4th

  We have a session booked with Pam on Wednesday. From the way Oliver’s behaving, I think he feels that everything is fine now – and it is to a certain extent – but the hurt still takes me by surprise every now and then. I want to be able to say, ‘That happened. It felt shitty but life goes on,’ but there’s still a part of me that wonders what the fuck she had that was special enough to turn his head, even just for a moment. I’m aware that the answer might be as simple as ‘a great body’ or ‘big stupid doe eyes’ but what if it was more? What if she made him wonder why the hell he was with me?

  Tuesday September 5th

  ‘He’s taking me for dinner tonight!’ I heard a disembodied voice yell as I waved goodbye to Molly at the school gates. I spun around to see Sarah Ward-Wilson hanging out the driver’s side of her car, which was spread over two parking spaces in case someone accidentally breathed near her beloved 4x4.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I called back, walking slowly back towards my own car. ‘Hope it goes well!’

  ‘We’re going to that new place on Royal Exchange Square,’ she continued. ‘At those prices, I expect it to be fabulous!’

  I sniggered internally. Frank knows the owner. There’s no way he’s paying for anything other than the tip. Frank rarely pays for anything if he can throw a free advert their way.

  I didn’t want to keep this conversation going. I was late for work but more importantly, I didn’t care. I gave her a thumbs up and disappeared into the front seat of my car, just as she began arguing with a guy who noticed her shitty parking. God speed, foolish man.

  Wednesday September 6th

  ‘Honestly? Yes, I’ve had fleeting thoughts about Oliver’s kiss . . . and a dream . . . and it throws me. Not because I’m scared he’ll be tempted to do it again, but because the kick in the chest I feel when it hits me hasn’t seemed to lessen any.’

  Oliver began to rub his forehead as Pam listened. A lot was coming out in our session today, the first one we’d had since before our holiday.

  ‘And did you talk to Oliver about this?’ she asked.

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ he responded on my behalf. I couldn’t tell if he looked pissed off or hurt.

  ‘I didn’t see the point,’ I replied. ‘It was a dream. How can I ask Oliver to defend a dream?! That’s not fair.’

  ‘How did it make you feel?’ she asked.

  ‘Sore,’ I replied. ‘My heart felt sore.’

  Oliver sighed. ‘I will never not feel shitty about this. I don’t know what else to say. But you should have talked to me. I need to know when you’re not OK.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Pam agreed. ‘You’re not trying to punish him. You’re trying to process what happened, both individually and as a couple. Including him in the process can stop any resentment before it begins.’

  Oliver turned to face me. ‘You know it’ll never happen again, right? You must believe that.’

  ‘I do. I don’t even think the dream was about that. It was about me. It made me feel unimportant . . . second best. It’s a horrible place to be.’

  He bowed his head a little.

  ‘I’m not trying to shame you; I’m just telling you how I felt. Perhaps I don’t feel as secure as I used to.’

  I left Pam’s office feeling both relieved and guilty. I don’t want to keep rehashing this because I have no doubt that Oliver feels like a giant arsehole already – I want to move past this. But being able to get it off my chest helped tremendously.

  Thursday September 7th

  I’m feeling less negative today. I hate that I do this to myself. After my shitty, disastrous relationship with my ex Alex, you’d think I’d have learned not to be so hard on myself. Why do I expect the perfect happy ending? We’re all just idiots, frantically rubbing our bits against other idiots in the hope that we’ll spark enough to start a fire. But I never feel like that’s enough. I find myself yearning for the big grand gesture to show me that out of all women, I am the best one. It’s fucking ridiculous. We should all just be grateful that another human being finds us tolerable enough to not kill us on sight.

  Friday September 8th

  The soles of Molly’s school shoes have already started talking so I took her into town to act outraged in the shoe shop until they issued replacements. On the way back I noticed the new Mexican restaurant Lucy had been talking about at work.

  ‘Shall we go and meet your dad after work and take him for fajitas?’ I asked Molly, who quickly agreed as long as she didn’t have to eat the spicy ones. ‘It’s a lovely night, we could sit outside.’

  We strolled towards his office, stopping to look in bookshops and to watch some terrible dancing buskers in silver trousers, who looked like they were doing it for a bet. When we reached Oliver’s work, I stopped at the main door to call him and let him know we were downstairs intending to surprise him, but forgot that security wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t work there.

  As I held the phone to my ear, I ushered Molly away from the smokers who had grouped together outside. ‘Hey, handsome. There are two women out front who want to take you for dinner. Yes, you are incredibly lucky. OK, see you in five.’

  I put the phone back in my bag and sat on a nearby wall with Molly, who was getting hungrier by the second.

  As I casually looked around, I noticed a younger woman on my right, mid-twenties with fabulous hair, smoking and texting with her thumbs. I still can’t fucking do that. I need to tap away with my middle finger because I’m old as fuck.

  Soon Oliver appeared from the side door. I watched him walk towards us from the left, smiling and waving at Molly. And then he caught sight of something behind me that made his smile fade and his pace quicken. I turned to see the thumb-texter staring at Oliver and then at me, before quickly stubbing out her cigarette.

  I didn’t register what was going on until a random stranger stuck his head round the main door and put everything into place.

  ‘Bethany, I know you’re on your break but you’re needed in the conference room.’

  Bethany . . . BETHANY? Oh, you have got to be shitting me.

  Sunday September 10th

  It’s fair to say things have been a little strained over the past couple
of days.

  After finding out that Oliver had lied about his little kissing partner not working there anymore, I lost the plot. Not in front of Molly, of course, we still went and ate Mexican food like a normal, happily family – just one where Mummy sent texts to Daddy throughout dinner telling him she was going to punch his fucking face off.

  When we got home and Molly went to bed, we had the whisper fight to end all whisper fights.

  ‘You had the cheek to have a go at me for still working with Frank when she was still working with you!’

  ‘Because I knew you’d fucking overreact. Like you’re doing now!’

  ‘The look on her face! She knew who we were. I felt so fucking stupid. Standing there, waiting patiently for the man who probably finger-banged her in the office.’

  ‘What? I didn’t finger anything, it was—’

  ‘Of course you did, I’m not stupid. You’d have been grabbing her tits and up her skirt like a shot. You think I don’t know how you operate? It’s your trademark move.’

  ‘Like I don’t fucking cringe knowing that you’ve had your boss’s cock in your mouth? I’m fully aware of your moves, too. It makes me want to vomit.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off.’

  ‘You fuck off.’

  *

  That was at 10 p.m. on Saturday night. Neither of us has spoken a word to each other unless Molly’s been there.

  Fuck.

  Monday September 11th

  ‘You guys really need to shag this out,’ Lucy advised over lunch.

  I put down my water and glared at her. ‘Did you hear anything I just said? She still works there.’

  ‘Oh, I heard and if you’ll stop giving me evil looks, I’ll explain what I mean.’

  I retracted my eyeballs.

  ‘Look, I understand why he didn’t tell you she still worked there. I would have done the same thing. Knowing that wouldn’t have made a bad situation any easier. And the fact that this seems to all be coming down to sex makes me think that you need to be having some of the angry kind.’

  My retracted eyeballs started to roll.

  ‘He’s already mentioned he thinks about you fucking Frank, you obviously think that he’s been finger-banging the twenty-something, and it’s like you both have something to prove. I say punish the fuck out of each other and let me eat my tuna baguette in peace.’

  Tuesday September 12th

  By 8 p.m. tonight, I’d had enough. I waited until he’d read Molly a story and pulled him by the shirt into the bedroom.

  ‘I’m so fucking angry with you. You haven’t spoken to me in days, like this shit is my fault.’

  He removed my hand from his shirt. ‘Because you’re being irrational. I want to talk about this, you want to accuse me of doing shit I didn’t do. You fucked the man you work with and I’m supposed to be OK with that?’

  ‘You’re fucking jealous of a fling I had before we even got together! Are you that fucking insecure?’ I was grabbing his shirt again. I didn’t even realise it until he firmly removed my hand once more.

  ‘You’re the insecure one,’ he replied. ‘And stop fucking grabbing me! You’re nuts.’

  ‘I’m nuts? I’m not the one running around kissing women who – who . . . text with their THUMBS!’

  ‘What?’

  We stood there, inches apart, seething, neither of us backing down. Until I grabbed his shirt again, pulling it out of his trousers and moving quickly on to his belt. He pushed my hands away and hesitated for a moment before whispering, ‘Fuck you’. He spun me around to face the wall, his hands frantically lifting up my skirt before tugging my underwear down so forcefully I felt it graze my skin. With his hand over my mouth, we had sex over my dressing table, hoping that Molly wouldn’t wake up and force us to snap out of this, whatever this was. I watched him behind me in the mirror, almost hunched over me, every thrust deep and deliberate; he didn’t take his eyes off me the entire time.

  When we got to bed, I didn’t kiss him goodnight or even cuddle him. I may have worked out some frustration but my anger was still raw. Still, there’s no way he’ll forget this. No office twit will ever shag him the way I can.

  Thursday September 14th

  ‘This can’t be normal,’ I said, panting as I lay on the floor. ‘We’ve angry-fucked four times this week already. I have carpet burns.’

  Oliver stood up and stretched. ‘I feel like I’ve gone fifteen rounds with Connor McGregor. Even my arse cheeks hurt. You’re going to put me in the hospital.’

  ‘Here’s hoping.’

  ‘As much as I’m on board with this conflict resolution, are you really still that pissed with me?!’

  I sat up and wiped my brow on the t-shirt he’d ripped off me earlier. ‘Yes! You lied to me! She still fucking works there and—’

  ‘I’m not going over this again,’ he said, getting up. ‘I feel like I’m banging my head off a brick wall. If we need to go back to therapy, fine, but for now, I’m done talking about it.’

  ‘Good, because I’m fucking fed up hearing your lame excuses for being a lying prick.’

  I pulled on my dressing gown and walked to the kitchen, cursing him under my breath.

  When I returned to the bedroom, he’d left to sleep on the couch.

  Friday September 15th

  Today I had to stealthily avoid being stalked and confronted by serial bore Sarah Ward-Wilson in the car park. You can totally tell that there will come in a point in her life where she’ll round up her offspring and utter the words ‘Kill for mommy’.

  I also stepped on my iPod and now it’s broken. I’m raging. I hate using my phone for music; it drains the battery too much. Goddammit. I’ll just drop hints until someone buys me a new one.

  Saturday September 16th

  ‘We’re going out tonight.’

  ‘Lucy, it’s half past eight in the morning. I’m still in bed. This is why we have text messaging.’

  ‘You’d take too long to reply and then come up with an excuse to stay home and be dull.’

  It’s a valid point. ‘And where exactly are we going?’

  ‘I have no idea but I know that it will involve dancing. We’re going dancing.’

  I switched the phone to my other hand and sat up in bed. ‘Lucy, I’m nearly forty. I am not going dancing!’

  ‘Well, THAT’S the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘But . . . that thing happens when you have kids,’ I insisted. ‘That mum dance disease. It happened to Hazel – she used to be down the Arches every weekend and now she dances side to side, clapping out of time.’

  I could hear her laughing. ‘We’ll go somewhere age-appropriate – I have no desire to inadvertently get into a dance-off with a twenty-year-old. But I need this. YOU need this.’

  I started to flashback to the many, many nights of clubbing Lucy and I had been involved in. The sheer fucking joy of it all – well, minus the idiot men we’d inevitably pull. But we had fun. So. much. fun.

  ‘I do need this,’ I conceded. ‘Oliver and I are still fighting. I need a break. Fine – find somewhere that won’t require arse implants for entry.’

  ‘I fancy that new eighties bar. I’ll meet you in town at eight tonight.’

  ‘Make it nine,’ I replied. ‘I’m going to need time to iron my face.’

  Sunday September 17th

  When I was in my twenties, seeing anyone over my age in a club was pitiful. These oldies, clinging to their youth, unable to grow old gracefully – it was sad to watch. But last night, I was that older person and I finally got to tell that twenty-something in me to fuck right off. When you’re twenty you don’t realise that you will feel exactly the same about fun when you’re forty. Or sixty, I’d imagine. Sure, different responsibilities mean you may have less time for it, but the need to go out with your mates and get lost in a song never leaves you.

  By the time we got to the eighties bar, the crowd was a mixture of ages, ranging from all the single ladies to all the Tena ladies and the
men hoping to pull them. It wasn’t perhaps as hip as we’d like but regardless we drank, we danced, and I still remembered all the words to ‘Whip It’ by Devo. Oh, and it turns out I still dance like a fucking legend. Result.

  Wednesday September 20th

  This morning, I took Molly to school and then went to see a morning showing of IT at the cinema. It was just me alone in the cinema with a cup of shitty coffee and the occasional jump scare for company. I loved it, even though I spent the whole time thinking that if Bill Skarsgård was inviting me down into the sewer, I wouldn’t need much convincing. I’d be halfway into the drain before he could change his mind. I’m such a weirdo.

  It felt weird not having Oliver with me. We’d both been excited about the film coming out but we’re not even on speaking terms at the moment, except around Molly. God, I feel so sad even writing that.

  Thursday September 21st

  It’s the autumn school holiday, which means no class for Molly until Tuesday and no work for me until next Thursday. I’m glad my birthday falls on a Sunday this year; it’s bad enough that I have to age, without doing it in front of my work colleagues. Oliver reminded me that we’d booked an overnight in Aviemore tomorrow, some voucher deal he’d found online ages ago. Rather than cancel and Molly miss out, we’ve decided to go. They have an outdoor adventure playground, a pool, a spa and a room that I won’t be in charge of tidying. Who knows, maybe a weekend away will ease some of the tension.

  Saturday September 23rd

  We arrived back from Aviemore about an hour ago and it went reasonably well – lots of outdoor walks and we took turns taking Molly swimming so the other could have some time to use the rest of the facilities. I got three new spots on my face from the sauna and Oliver pulled his hamstring on the treadmill because he hasn’t been on a treadmill ever. We’ve gone from not speaking to being civilised, which is a relief but it’s still strained.

  Predictably, we got stuck in traffic on the way back. Had three polo mint races with Molly, played two games of eye-spy and sang the entire soundtrack from The Little Mermaid. Oliver does an excellent Ursula. He’s such a dark horse.