The Executor

by Blake Morrison

  ‘The terms aren’t bad. A month’s salary for every year worked, plus two more.’

  ‘I like working here.’

  ‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’

  ‘But you still think I should apply?’

  ‘You need to be aware of the rumblings. Other papers have more or less dropped their books sections. It’s not gone unnoticed upstairs. If ours are going to survive, we need to be more dynamic. More news-sensitive. More visited online. Your fuck-up wasn’t mentioned at conference. But someone said how dull the pages were.’

  ‘As in lifeless?’

  She smiled.

  ‘Let’s be honest, since you started taking Fridays off, you’ve been coasting. You even passed on that Elena Ferrante idea – OK, it wasn’t your kind of piece, but you could have made something of it. If you’re not committed to the paper, it’s hard for me to fight your corner.’

  ‘I am committed. If you’d like me to give up my Rob Pope work, I will.’

  ‘Just put him on the back-burner for a while.’

  ‘No problem. I’ve nearly finished anyway. What about my holiday – should I cancel it?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. No one’s going to sack you while you’re away.’

  ‘That’s how it usually happens.’

  ‘Not on my watch. Before you go, we’ll sit down and plan some big features for the autumn. Then when you’re back and things settle down, you can finish your executor business.’

  ‘Sure. I appreciate all the days off you’ve given me.’

  She punched me on the arm, to indicate we were friends again.

  ‘How’s it going? You’ve obviously been having an exciting time.’

  ‘Leonie’s right,’ Marie said. ‘It’s not just your job you nearly lost, it’s –’

  ‘Not that again.’

  ‘If I’d been in charge it wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘It almost did.’

  It wasn’t as close as she implied. The previous Saturday I’d taken the kids out to the park. On the way back the boys were clamouring to visit the newsagent’s, to buy sweets, which meant crossing the road. A single-decker bus had halted fifty yards off. It pulled out as we set off, so we stopped at the bollard halfway. Or rather three of us did – Noah, who’d been holding Jack’s hand, let go and made a dash for the far side. The bus was still some way off. But the driver parped his horn and – while pausing at the bollard to let us cross – opened his window and shouted, ‘What the fuck you doing, mate?’ I shouted in turn when we were safely on the pavement, not at him but at the boys – Jack for not holding tighter and Noah for ignoring the road safety rules we’d been teaching him since the age of two. I refused to buy them sweets. Both were in tears all the way home – Mabel, too, in solidarity. I downplayed the episode to Marie, omitting the shout from the bus driver. It was Jack who gave the game away later, after she heard him muttering whatthefuckyadoingmate, whatthefuckyadoingmate in the back garden. Now I was guilty of nearly getting my kids run over and of exposing them to profanities. I’d taken my eye off the ball. As with work, so at home.

  ‘Even when you’re here, you’re somewhere else,’ Marie said. ‘Do you know whose name you muttered in your sleep last night? Rob’s. You’re obsessed with him. Jealous, even.’

  ‘The poor man’s dead. How can I be jealous?’

  ‘Jealous of the freedom he had when alive. The freedom to write about his affairs. The freedom to have affairs.’

  Sticking to her principle that Jill should read them first, Marie hadn’t seen the poems. But I’d told her what was in the second batch. She wasn’t surprised, she said. She’d never trusted Rob. He wasn’t an obvious womaniser, but there’d always been something …

  ‘Predatory?’

  ‘All men are predators. No, worse than that, something pervy – an old man perving over a younger woman –’

  ‘The poems aren’t like that. And Rob wasn’t old.’

  ‘– while making out he’s some tremendous stud. And in the meantime treating Jill like dirt.’

  ‘OK, I hear you. You never liked Rob.’

  ‘My dislike for him in life is nothing compared to what I feel about him now. To you he’s a literary giant, Robert Pope, superhero. To me he’s a piece of shit.’

  We’d always bickered. Lately the squabbles had escalated to noisy rows. On one occasion Marie threw a Lego brick at me, hardly a lethal weapon, but it caught the tip of my nose and I made quite a show of the pain. We’d been arguing about tidiness. I hated seeing mess when I got home and resented being the one to tidy up. I do everything else round the house, Marie said, stop being so OCD. The issue wasn’t untidiness. It wasn’t even Rob. It was what his poems were doing to me. The internal mess. The unravelling. I’d become a stranger to everyone – my wife, my kids, my boss. And to myself.

  In the past I’d always left work in time to put the kids to bed. But now I lingered over copy that could have waited till morning. And when I got home I drank too much and fell asleep in front of the television. Once in bed, I struggled to get off again. I was used to sleepless nights, but not to me, rather than the kids, being the cause. As for sex, it only seemed to happen when Marie took the lead – another source of friction between us.

  ‘You know there’s no one but you, Marie,’ I told her. But even that wasn’t quite true. The one-off trip to the pub with Emma had turned into a weekly routine. It was innocent enough – no holding hands or smooching – until the evening I talked about Rob and the poems I’d discovered, and read a couple out loud to her. Are you serenading me? she laughed. Just seeking your opinion, I said. The thrill of the illicit, she said, I like the alliteration but not what he’s saying – surely if you love someone, you want to be open about it, not sneak around. He was married, I said. Maybe he shouldn’t have been, she said, he obviously found it a constraint; I know I would too, unless it was open. Do open marriages ever work? I said. They could, she said, we’re all polyamorous, aren’t we? Are we? I said. There’s nothing wrong with having more than one lover, she said, as long as everyone’s cool with it. Maybe that works when you’re young and single, I said, it’s more difficult once you have kids. I wouldn’t know, she said. And people are possessive, even without kids, I said. That’s stupid, she said, it’s dog-in-the-manger, no one owns anyone, the important thing is to be happy and have fun. I looked at her hand lying on the table: purple nail polish, soft blue veins, no rings. For a moment I was tempted to take it. Then the hand moved to her glass. God, she said, knocking her wine back, I hope you didn’t think I … God no, I said, equally embarrassed, I hope you didn’t think I … Look at the time, she said. You’re right, I said, better be off.

  We were colleagues. Just talking, nothing more. But there’d been that moment. And there was another at the Tube, a hug that went on longer than etiquette required. I felt euphoric. The walk home might have sobered me, but it didn’t. The night was silky blue beyond the streetlamps. A yellow moon rested on the skyline. I had a new person in my life and the universe seemed to expand a little.

  The lights were off downstairs. Marie must be asleep: good. I poured myself a glass of water.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ she said, as I crept into the bedroom.

  ‘Having a drink after work.’

  She turned the bedside light on and stared at me from the pillow. ‘It’s gone midnight. You didn’t say you were going to be late. Didn’t you get my texts?’

  ‘Sorry, my phone’s flat. Why, what’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s what’s happening to you. Pissed again and out late again. While I’m stuck here on my own. Don’t tell me everyone else was there till closing time. I bet the ones with kids and partners went home hours ago. Who were you with?’

  ‘No one you know.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘There’s this new person on Arts –’

  ‘Person?’

  ‘Girl. Woman. Emma. She wanted my advi
ce.’

  ‘And it took you till midnight to give it?’

  ‘It’s why we went for a drink the first time.’

  ‘You mean it’s been several times?’ I nodded. ‘I see. Is she single?’ I nodded again. ‘And young, no doubt. A married man in his forties out with a young single woman – how’s it look to your colleagues?’

  ‘No one has seen us.’

  ‘Ah, you go somewhere discreet. This gets worse and worse.’

  ‘Nothing’s happened. I’ve not even kissed her.’

  ‘If it’s so innocent, why didn’t you tell me about her before?’

  ‘Normally I would have but –’

  ‘You’ve been under stress, you’re having a midlife crisis, it’s the pressure of working on Rob’s poems – bullshit, you’re not a child, Matt, take responsibility for once.’

  She was sitting bolt upright by now, eyes blazing, more animated than I’d seen her in ages. I began to unbutton my shirt.

  ‘Don’t think you’re joining me in bed,’ she said. ‘You can sleep downstairs on the sofa. There’s a duvet and two pillows in the airing cupboard.’

  ‘Come on, Marie, there’s no need for this.’

  ‘Go. I don’t want you here.’

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, sure. I’ve just discovered that my husband and the father of my kids has been sneaking around with another woman. If you were me, would you find that fun? Just fuck off downstairs. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. I’ll take the day off work. You can do the same.’

  ‘Leonie needs me there …’

  ‘You’ll phone her first thing and say you’re ill. I’m the priority here, Matt. Not your job, not Leonie, not your girlfriend.’

  ‘She’s not my –’

  ‘Just go.’

  Downstairs, on the sofa, my earlier euphoria was slow to wear off. I get defensive when criticised. And half pissed, as I was, Marie’s criticisms seemed petty to me. I thought of Emma: ‘We’re all polyamorous, aren’t we?’ And I thought of Rob: ‘Why can’t a man love two women at once?’ If I wasn’t unfaithful to her – not physically – surely Marie couldn’t begrudge me the odd evening out. It wasn’t as if I planned to leave her. I still felt hard done by, even after hearing sobs from upstairs; I’d never known Marie to cry, but it didn’t sound like one of the children. At some point I must have dropped off. By dawn, with my back hurting and a hangover kicking in, my self-righteousness had receded. I barely knew Emma; if I’d reached for her hand in the pub or tried to kiss her outside the Tube, she’d probably have batted me away. I felt foolish – all the more so when Jack appeared.

  ‘Why are you sleeping on the sofa, Daddy?’

  ‘I got home late and didn’t want to wake Mummy.’

  Did he believe me? Maybe. In front of the children, Marie pretended nothing had happened. But once the boys were at school, and Mabel with the childminder, she resumed her attack. ‘That’s your word for it,’ she said. ‘What I’m actually doing is finding out if we’ve a future.’

  I’d like to claim that we resolved things there and then. I did apologise, repeatedly. But I was slow to see the damage I’d done. The fear that Marie might not love me any more – as she withdrew, went cold, turned her back on me in bed – was terrifying. If we broke up, she’d be fine without me. Whereas I’d be lost. ‘You fucking fool,’ I mouthed to myself in the bathroom mirror one night. I scowled at what I saw: a pale, panicky, craven, ugly, prematurely balding, middle-aged nonentity. ‘What kind of idiot risks losing his wife in pursuit of a young woman (be honest, you did pursue her) who has no real interest in you anyway? You deserve everything you get.’

  What I got was a blow to the face. Or rather, what my reflection got was a blow to the face and what I got, as the mirror shattered, was four bruised knuckles and a bleeding hand. I didn’t need stitches. And the mirror was easy to replace. But the violence was a turning point of sorts. Not that Marie was impressed by what she called my amateur dramatics. But she could see my guilt and distress were genuine. And as I regaled her with promises to get back on track – to concentrate on her, the children, the job that paid the bills – she softened a little. We’ll see how things go on holiday, she said.

  As for Rob, I resolved to be more pragmatic: to wrap up my duties in the autumn, sell the archive and be free of any further hassle. No more obsessing about the poems: that was my promise to myself. And when an email came from Aaron Fortune I passed the test. He was planning to come over to Britain next year, he said: would the papers be in order for him to look at by then? A month before I’d have been obstructive: No way, man, keep your nose out and stop badgering me, the poems are my property not yours. Now I simply ignored him. The reply remained in the drafts file in my head – UNSENT.

  People are snooty about Lanzarote – the middle classes, that is. But with its hundred-odd volcanoes, and post-apocalyptic landscape of whorly black lava fields, it’s a place worth seeing – even if that summer, with three small children, I saw little beyond our hotel. The package was half-board, which left a gap around lunchtime, one we filled with fruit, cheese and bread rolls (smuggled out at breakfast), crisps and lemonade (bought at the nearby supermarket) and ice creams (from the snack bar on the beach). Slim bodies lay toasting by the pool. I’d have lain there too, but to bag a sunbed you had to be up at dawn. I spent my time teaching Jack to swim. He was happy floating on his back, but would panic – and make a drama of the panic – when his head went under. For a week he stuck to his aids (armbands, float, noodle). You’re doing great, I said, let’s see if you can manage without them. But he lost his nerve when he tried – swallowed a mouthful, wailed, screamed, accused me of trying to drown him, climbed out and sulked under a blue towel. You’re being over-protective, Marie told me, your anxiety is feeding his. Go on then, I said, you try, and she did. With me beside him, he’d foundered. With her at a tactful distance, he swam to the far side of the pool.

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ I said, in bed that night.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You calling me over-protective. When all I’ve heard from you lately is that I’m not protective enough.’

  ‘Of the kids?’

  ‘And Jill.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ she said, once she twigged, ‘you’re meant to be having a break. Yes, I think you should care more about Jill’s feelings and less about Rob’s fucking poems. But we’re on holiday. Forget all that.’

  And I did try to forget. Swam in the pool umpteen times a day. Jogged each morning. Played table tennis and snakes and ladders with the boys. Made love to Marie (who, by the end of two weeks, seemed ready to forgive me). Still Rob kept intruding. One afternoon I sat with Mabel on a grassy area away from the pool, where if she fell (her walking was still unsteady) she wouldn’t scrape her hands and knees. I’d brought the latest Ed McKeane to read, hoping not to like it. Mabel wrested it from me, gnawing the cover and tearing the pages before tossing it away. I was heartened by her critical discrimination. Rob had always said that women were more sensitive readers than men (‘It’s from books they learn their empathy’) and Mabel proved the case.

  I thought of Rob again when Jack, up late one evening, turned poetic while sitting on the toilet. When I dream, he said, I’m not there, it’s not me, it’s not even my life.

  And then there was Noah, analysing films he’d seen (The Jungle Book, The Lion King) in terms of how mean or kind the characters were. Some baddies were capable of good, he decided. A child of four wrestling with ethics – as I would have to if and when it came to publishing the poems.

  My mother didn’t join us in Lanzarote. She thought it would be too hot. And though I knew it wouldn’t, compared to Majorca, I didn’t dissuade her. I needed a break. With her there, I wouldn’t have had one.

  Once home, restored, I was consumed with guilt and arranged to see her the following weekend. The five-hour round trip was boring for the kids, but we aimed to do it every couple of months. Marie’s
parents were harder to get to, and she usually visited them on her own, taking a flight from London City to Belfast. I think she missed them more than she liked to admit, which made her extra diligent in ensuring I saw plenty of Mum. It helped that the two of them liked each other. My mother’s grandfather had come from Ireland, which predisposed her to Marie, even though Marie had barely visited the Republic and had been steadily losing her Belfast accent.

  Conditions were perfect: bright skies, low sun behind us, an early start. Leaving the house, I showed the boys a beautiful spider’s web strung between our wheelie bins, like a lace doily hanging out to dry. Then, at the end of our street, Jack spotted a woman in a black plastic mac with white dots walking a Dalmatian, and shouted ‘Snap!’ and for different reasons we all laughed: Marie and I at the absurdity of people who dressed their dogs to look like them or vice versa; the boys to soften us up and put us in a good mood, so they could renew their campaign to have a new pet (dog, cat, gerbil, another hamster, any would do); Mabel, because the rest of us were laughing and, as she’d recently discovered, laughter was something you could share, unlike her brothers’ toys, which, despite our recriminations, they’d snatch from her if she touched them, because – they said – a girl couldn’t be trusted not to break them, a claim which Marie fiercely disputed while reminding them that they, too, had smashed up toys when they were her age and that gender had nothing to do with it. The boys had been bemused by the length and vigour of her lecture. But she was right, of course. She always is.

  From the A406 we took the M11, then the A14. Mabel was asleep by then, and the boys, with headphones on, were staring at their seat-back DVD screens, so for once Marie and I could talk. She was wondering about doing an extra day at the clinic, now Mabel was older, and talked about her plans for the autumn. Then she asked about mine and, though Rob was meant to be taboo, I couldn’t avoid him: Jill had been on the phone, wondering when I’d be visiting again, and Louis had been pushing to publish the poems I’d found, ideally on Leonie’s pages.

  ‘I hate the position Rob’s put you in,’ Marie said. ‘It shouldn’t be you having to decide whether to publish.’