Whatever Makes You Happy

by William Sutcliffe

  Gillian swam back to the shore, ran out of the water, dried herself on a T-shirt, dressed as fast as she could, and got back in the car. Then she drove home, her skin tingling, warming her like sunburn. Something had led her here. She had not known where she was going until she found it. Here, at the end of the last road, at the limit of the furthest island, the answer she was looking for had come to her. This place – these two beaches, one exposed, one sheltered – had told her what to do. She had made her choice.

  After driving through the night, she arrived home shortly before dawn. Slipping into bed, she accidentally woke Ian, who asked where she had been, what she had done, and what she had decided.

  ‘I’ve come home,’ she said. ‘Now I have to sleep.’ She would not tell him any more.

  Ian soon gave up asking. She had come back. That was enough. Anything that had to be said, she would say in her own time.

  She never did talk to Ian about where she had driven. She wasn’t warm or loving to him on her return, nor did she go out of her way to be overtly hostile. They simply got on with their lives, and eventually, when enough time had elapsed, things returned to normal. Something crucial at the centre of the relationship seemed to have died, but slowly, over the ensuing months, like a bulb pushing up through the soil, their love was miraculously reborn.

  Though Gillian explained this marital resurrection to Daniel as a miracle, the truth was in fact perfectly logical and comprehensible, if a little hard to explain, particularly to one’s son. Gillian’s anger may not have been discussed, but it wasn’t ignored, nor did it just disappear with the passage of time. The issue was simply tackled physically rather than verbally.

  For several months, Gillian didn’t touch Ian. She had not intended to do this, nor had she known in advance that it would happen, but she didn’t want to, and he didn’t force himself on her. He tried to seduce her once or twice, but he soon realised that she was making him wait. Only as he understood it did Gillian grasp what she was doing. It was rather neat. A year would be good, she thought.

  Without a word being spoken, it somehow became clear that this withholding of sex was his punishment. He understood, and he waited. He allowed her to be absolutely in charge of the bed. His physical reticence in response to hers became a form or repentance.

  Verbally, they pretended his violation of their marriage had never happened. It was physically that they negotiated it, that he paid his penance, and that she allowed him to know when he was forgiven.

  Occasionally, after she had fallen asleep, she found herself woken by the odd strange shudder in the bed frame, but she always pretended she hadn’t noticed. She began even to feel a little sorry for him.

  Slowly, long before the intended year was up, she began to touch him. At first, she just lay a little closer to him. Then she began to curl herself round him. The rules, however, remained the same. Everything was to advance at her pace. Gently, half-jokingly, she refused to let him touch her, even as she began to touch him more affectionately and more intimately. She gave herself to him bit by bit. It became a test, a punishment and a joke, all at once.

  This was the most erotic phase of their marriage. The slightest touch made him hard, and his hardness aroused her, too, but still she made him wait, bringing him to the brink, then stopping, telling him he was still being punished. By then, the truth had ebbed out of the joke and it had become simply an erotic game. When she finally ended his torment, they had a night more passionate than any other in their life.

  To this day, they had more sex and (from what she could glean) far better sex than her friends. She knew it was due to this interruption of their sexual routine twelve years into the marriage. It had made them think about sex again, just when it was becoming easy to treat it as another household chore. Their sexual fast and feast had reminded them how much the other one needed it and enjoyed it. This reminder had stoked up their mutual desire, and kept it burning for longer than they ever could have hoped.

  Though Gillian wanted to tell Daniel this part of the story, she couldn’t say it. Now she had got to the end, she began to feel this was perhaps the most important part, was the essence of what she was trying to tell him. But no one wants to hear this kind of thing about their parents. Instead, she told him, with as much authority and conviction as she could summon into her voice, that trust is not made of glass. It is not an object that irreparably shatters. It is a muscle. It can be wounded. It can stop functioning for a while, but it can heal, if you take things slowly enough. If you keep tearing at the same wound, stretching it before it is ready, the muscle will never recover. But if you are careful, if you allow it to, it will heal.

  Returning to Ian, Gillian told Daniel, was the bravest thing she ever did, and she felt she had been rewarded for it ever since. As she was driving back towards London, trying to justify to herself the decision she had made, Gillian had found one word echoing round her head. It wasn’t even a real word. Pragmantic. It was a word the language needed; it was a word for what every marriage depended upon. A man and a woman cannot last a lifetime together just by being pragmatic, nor by only being romantic. Anger, moral outrage and revenge were all very tempting, but they would not help. They would not make her any happier, or her marriage any stronger, or contribute to the welfare of her children. The only way to be, the only path to follow, was the pragmantic one.

  Helen reacted differently. She didn’t stop to think. She raged and spat, she threw Larry out, she took him back, she forgave too easily while at the same time not really forgiving at all, and it was only a matter of time before the marriage ended. Maybe that was the right thing for her. Larry probably never had it in him to be a good and loyal husband. Perhaps, however Helen had behaved, he would never have been capable of repentance or fidelity. But the difference between the two marriages, between the two men, had not stopped Helen judging Gillian for her choice, and resenting it. Helen always acted as if Gillian had betrayed her, let down the sisterhood, by allowing her marriage to be saved. Their friendship had never quite recovered.

  ‘I’ve always understood you, Daniel, without you having to say anything,’ Gillian said. ‘When you were a child, I knew when you were going to get angry before it happened. I could always tell when you said you were tired but were actually hungry, and when you said you were hungry but were actually tired. I always understood what made you tick in a way I never have with Rose. Dad used to laugh at both of us when you had tantrums. He always said the only person he’d ever come across as stubborn as his wife was his son. And when you came up here, just blindly heading north, I knew what had happened. I understood it, and I understood your reaction. But if you want to be happy, and if this is the only woman you love, and all the time you’ve been away from her doesn’t help you fall out of love, then you have to go back to her. If you really thought you could never trust her again, I don’t think you would have carried on loving her for so long.’

  Gillian stood, walked across the room, and kissed Daniel on the top of his head.

  ‘Life isn’t going to reward you for nursing your wounded pride,’ she said. ‘It’s humiliating to forgive someone who has hurt you, and that’s why it’s hard, and that’s why it’s brave, but I think you’re strong enough.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like her,’ said Daniel.

  ‘If she made you happy, I’d learn to like her. I’d learn to love her.’

  ‘What if she’s found someone else?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

  ‘She probably has.’

  ‘Even if she has, maybe she still loves you.’

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out.’

  ‘Stop saying that.’

  ‘Come with me, Daniel. I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘This is home.’

  ‘I don’t think it is. I really don’t think it is.’

  Daniel looked around his starkly furnished, bare-walled, curtainless lounge. He noticed for t
he first time that, with his white wallpaper and black furniture, the only colour in the room came from the spines on his bookshelves. She had a point. This was somewhere to live, but it wasn’t home.

  Helen and Paul

  not a woman he knew

  Paul left work early and travelled home with dread in his heart. This had been an appalling week, and every day his mother stayed on it somehow got worse. There was something to be said for the way the air had been cleared between them, and it was a relief to have unburdened himself of the various secrets he’d been keeping from her, but he’d only be able to appreciate this once she had left. While she was still there, he couldn’t relax for fear that some new horror, trauma or tantrum might leap out at him when he least expected it.

  Now, the most painful chore of the week awaited him. His mother would be waiting at his house, having been turned away by Rebecca. They would have said to Helen exactly what they’d said to him. She was bound to have argued and cajoled and wept, but nothing in Helen’s emotional arsenal would have made any difference. Rebecca and Andrea knew what they wanted, and it certainly wasn’t Helen. She didn’t figure in their plans, and she was powerless to divert them from their chosen path. Helen would be forced to relinquish her claim, and Paul would have to deal with the wreckage.

  Having a mother like Helen, he sometimes felt, was like having faulty plumbing. You could never quite relax. You never knew when and where you would next be mopping up.

  Paul was not a pub person. He found them oppressive and unfriendly. They didn’t feel like his territory, even when they were apparently empty and calm, since at any moment he knew they might suddenly fill with hordes of beer-swilling men in lurid polyester tops roaring at giant TV screens. But today, as he walked the familiar route from Old Street station to his home, he found himself wanting to go into every one, to hide for a while, gather his strength for the confrontation to come, and fortify his nerves against the inevitable onslaught.

  At the last pub before home, he succumbed. A double whisky didn’t last him long, but it did the job. It took the edge off his anxiety, and reminded him that it wouldn’t be long before Helen left and he got his life back again. It also gave him a little pat on the back for being a good son. He had been under no obligation to invite her into his home and allow her to stay as long as she wanted, but he had done the decent thing and given his ageing mother what she asked for. He felt proud of himself. However things turned out with Helen over the baby issue, he had done well. He had been a good, hospitable and generous son to his demanding, awkward and hysterical mother. In fact, he deserved a reward. He deserved another whisky.

  He nursed this one, instead of gulping it down with quick medicinal swigs, and by the time it was finished, he realised that his well-intentioned decision to leave work early for the sake of his mother had now been rather undermined by his choice to spend all the time he’d saved sitting in the pub. It had done strange things to him, having his mother in the house. He was beginning to behave like a heterosexual, perhaps even like his father.

  After the second whisky, he knew he could delay no longer. He dragged himself outside and walked slowly home.

  He found Helen in the kitchen, busily and at first glance contentedly slicing aubergines. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Good day?’ she said.

  ‘OK. You?’

  ‘Yes. Fine.’

  ‘Fine?’

  ‘Yes. Well, actually a lot more than fine. Wonderful, really. Miraculous, in fact. I met Ella, and she’s the most delightful, beautiful thing I’ve clapped eyes on for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘You liked her, then.’

  ‘Oh, Paul. She’s perfect. She’s so perfect.’

  ‘They let you see her?’

  ‘I didn’t just turn up. I thought that might backfire. I sat near the flat for a while, and when Andrea came out with Ella, I watched where they went and just struck up a conversation. Then I told her who I was and handed over some presents, and she was a bit suspicious at first, but actually I think it went very well.’

  ‘Rebecca wasn’t there?’

  ‘No. Andrea says it’s her who doesn’t want me.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to ask you,’ said Helen.

  ‘Well it’s out of my hands, now, isn’t it? If you’re in touch with them directly.’

  ‘I’m not talking about me. I’ll find a way to see Ella. Andrea seems like a reasonable person. I’m sure we can work something out.’

  ‘So what are you talking about?’

  Helen stopped slicing and placed her knife flat on the chopping board. She turned to face Paul. ‘You,’ she said.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘What you’re going to do.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About being a father.’

  ‘I’m not a father. We’ve been through this. That’s not the arrangement.’

  ‘Paul! I’m not an idiot. Please don’t talk to me about arrangements when I’m trying to be serious.’

  ‘The arrangement is the arrangement, and it is serious. That’s what we agreed, and that’s what’s going to happen. If I was the kind of man who wanted to be in there every day changing nappies, they wouldn’t have wanted me. They would have gone somewhere else.’

  ‘But they didn’t go somewhere else, they came to you, and they had your baby. Ella is your baby.’

  ‘She’s their baby.’

  ‘You’re her father, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘I do like it, but we’ve agreed what my role is, and it’s to keep my distance, so that’s how it’s going to be.’

  ‘Who’s agreed?’

  ‘Me and Andrea and Rebecca.’

  ‘What about Ella?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Has she agreed to this?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I’m not being stupid. I’m being deadly serious. Has Ella agreed to this?’

  ‘She’s a baby!’

  ‘Exactly, so no one’s asked her her opinion.’

  ‘Now you’re just being insane.’

  ‘I’m not saying you should ask her. What I’m saying is, you should try and imagine what it would be. What it will be. When she’s old enough to mind and to wonder where she came from, and who looked after her, and who cared for her, what’s she going to think then? What’s she going to want?’

  ‘Well, we’ll find out, won’t we? When the time comes.’

  ‘Then it will be too late.’

  ‘No, it won’t. If she wants to see me, she can see me.’

  ‘It will be too late, Paul. Because by the time she’s old enough to know that she wants a father, and to wonder if her father ever loved her, and if not why not, by that stage the question will already be answered, won’t it? And if in fifteen years’ time you want to say to her that you didn’t think it was your job to show an interest in her, and you were too busy and you couldn’t be bothered, then go ahead. Do what you’re doing now. But if you want to say to her that you cared what happened to her, and you did your best to give her what you thought she might want from you, then you have to start doing that right now.’

  ‘Mum, she’s got two parents. If I didn’t trust them and think they were loving and honest and stable and caring, then I wouldn’t have done it. Yes, in some way she’s my daughter, and I wouldn’t have let a child of mine be brought up in a nasty environment, but I don’t think I have.’

  ‘She could have ten mothers for all I care, and all the attention in the world, but she’s only ever going to have one father, and it’s you.’

  ‘Mum, this really isn’t any of your business.’

  ‘It is my business. It’s absolutely my business, because you and her are all that is left of my family, and I’m damn well going to do my best to make sure that you don’t neglect her.’

  ‘She’s not neglected, Mum. She’s ex
tremely well looked after.’

  ‘Stop passing the buck, Paul. This is about you. It’s about you and your daughter.’

  ‘But … that wasn’t the arrangement.’

  ‘Right. That’s it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m leaving. I don’t want to hear that word again. I’ve had enough of it. I’m going home.’ Helen roughly untied her apron and threw it on the floor.

  ‘Mum, don’t be like that,’ said Paul, but she was already walking up the stairs. He followed, heavy-footed and weary. ‘Mum, don’t make a scene.’

  ‘I’m not making a scene. I’m just going home. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  Without acknowledging that Paul was speaking to her, Helen strode into her bedroom and began to throw her clothes and shoes roughly into a suitcase.

  ‘You want me to beg you to stay?’ he said, from the doorway. ‘Is that why you’re behaving like this? You can’t feel important until I’ve begged you not to leave?’

  ‘You can beg all you like, I’m not staying.’

  ‘I’m not going to beg!’

  ‘Good, then that’ll save us some time.’

  ‘This is ridiculous. If you don’t want me to talk about the arrangement, I won’t talk about the arrangement.’

  ‘That’s twice more. I told you, I don’t want to hear that word.’

  Helen shouldered past him, banging her suitcase firmly into his knee, and stamped downstairs to the front door.

  ‘So go! Fine!’ he called after her.

  ‘I am going, and please don’t shout.’

  ‘YOU’RE THE ONE THAT’S SHOUTING!’

  ‘I’m not shouting, Paul. I think you’ll find that I have not raised my voice once in all the time I have stayed here, despite extreme provocation.’