Divorcing Jack

by Colin Bateman

  Finally I pushed her away. I turned to follow my wife.

  'That was nice,' Margaret said. I looked back. I have never seen a more attractive brightness in a girl's eyes.

  I turned away again. 'I'm in trouble,' I said. ‘I have to go-'

  3

  Patricia's twenty-four-hour expulsion threat evaporated in the time it took for her to consume a triple vodka. It was replaced by a physical assault that Lizzie Borden would have been proud of. I tried the appeasement route and it worked as well for me as it had for Chamberlain.

  My left eye was beginning to close and there was a thin trickle of blood running from my nose. It looked like brilliant sap leaking from a skeletal tree. That's how Margaret described it as she led me through the Holy Land; she had a good turn of phrase, for a drunk. I was in mumble mode, little of it favourable to Patricia. She had done more damage to my nose in three years of marriage than twenty years of amateur football. My nose had always been big, but it had not bent perceptibly to the left before I started going out with her. Besides that, she had a singing voice that could pickle eggs.

  'As I believe the song says, the best part of breaking up is when you're having your nose broken,' Margaret sang, putting a consoling arm round my shoulders as we crossed onto Botanic Avenue. 'I think maybe I've gotten you in a wee bit of trouble.'

  'You could say that.'

  'I thought she didn't mind you bringing people home?'

  'She doesn't. I've just never snogged with them before.'

  'Or just never got caught?'

  'I'm telling you. I don't mess around.'

  'Nah, you go straight for it.'

  Margaret waved down a cab outside the York Hotel. I climbed into the back. She joined me. The driver turned to look at me. He was chubby-cheeked and had bushy eyebrows. He said: 'Don't bleed on the seats, mate.'

  'Nah, I'm dryin' up,' I said; it was a rare taxi to get at that time of night, so I held off on the abuse.

  'Whereto?'

  'Antrim Road.'

  'Which part?'

  'Up past Fortwilliam Golf Course. Ben Madigan.'

  'That's okay.' He put the car into gear and moved off. 'We're not allowed to stop lower down. Too risky. One of our boys got topped up there last month. They always seem to pick on fuckin' taxi drivers. All we're trying to do is earn a fuckin' livin', y'know?'

  He was the type could talk himself into getting shot. We didn't try to feed his fire by continuing the conversation. I don't quite know when it was decided I was going to Margaret's.

  Traffic was sparse. The lights were on in the city centre, but there was nobody in. A metaphor perhaps for our times. We crossed Carlisle Circus and were at the top of the Antrim Road in maybe ten minutes. We turned into Lancaster Drive. All the streets round about were named after different types of bomber - RAF as opposed to IRA. Margaret paid off the driver then led me to an electric-bill-red front door. I stumbled against it as she fumbled for a key.

  'Coffee for you, I think,' she said.

  'It's been proved that coffee does nothing to sober you up.'

  'What would you suggest then?'

  'Another beer, maybe.'

  'I thought you might be thinking that. Just as well I'm all out.'

  Just as well too, I thought. You could only take bravado so far. She led me into the lounge. It was small, uncluttered.

  One wall dominated by a large portrait of herself, the hair jet black, her face more pinched than in real life, but her eyes had the same deep-pool brilliance that had first captured me.

  'A self-portrait?'

  'How'd you guess?'

  I shrugged. You didn't often get the chance to compare self-portraits with the self; but I knew most painted themselves thinner. There was a shuffling, sniffling sound from the kitchen. Margaret went and opened the door slightly and an elderly Jack Russell pressed his face through the gap. I could see a stump of a tail, maybe an inch erect above his hindquarters. He was snarling at me. He reminded me of Patricia.

  'That's Patch. I won't let him in. He'd kill you.'

  'Don't worry, I like dogs. Dogs like me.'

  'He's not a dog, he's a fucking monster. At least that's how the police described him.'

  'He's not wanted, is he?'

  'He's not wanted by anyone. That's the trouble. Nah, he got out a couple of weeks ago and bit a couple of kids. But of course the cops trail me down to the station. Three hours I was in there arguing with them.'

  ‘I know the form. First the good guy, then the bad, then the good, then the bad guy comes in and gives you a severe beating with a large orange spacehopper. It's common practice.'

  Margaret pushed Patch back into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. I heard her rifling. She opened the door again and flashed a garish box at me. 'Pizza okay? In the microwave?'

  I nodded. Probably do me good. It was one of those genuine Italian pizzas from the supermarket, the ones with chef's own hair included.

  I sat down by a mauve armchair and began sorting through her record collection. She had maybe fifty albums. A lot of Van Morrison, some Bob Dylan. A worrying series of Status Quo records. There was a Chris Rea album which was also a bit of a minus. I preferred diarrhoea; it wasn't very enjoyable either, but it didn't last as long and you could read a good book at the same time. At the back of the pile there was a pair of Loyalist flute band records. The Pride of Whitehill and the Wellington Young Defenders. Bandsmen in silly uniforms with embarrassing plumes on their caps sat in rows on the cover like psychedelic soldiers.

  Margaret came back into the lounge, carefully closing the door behind her. I held up the flute band records. 'Lapse in taste here, I think.'

  'Oh, for God's sake. I forgot they were there. Not mine. They're my da's, I brought them with me by mistake when I moved in here.'

  'Well, what's he doin' with them? Is he mad?'

  'Where we used to live, they came round the doors with them. You more or less had to buy them or you'd get a brick through the window. They were raising money for new band uniforms.'

  'Quieter ones, I hope.'

  'Guns for the boys, I presume.'

  'I dare say.'

  Margaret knelt beside me. She selected a Cocteau Twins record and slipped it onto the turntable. I'd seen them once in concert, a lot of years before. All syrupy guitar and high-pitched vocals. The sort of music you should buy on CD, then smash. Still, I was in no mood to argue, with throbbing nose and closing eye, and besides, as she sat back she collapsed into my arms and she kissed me long and soft. I tried moving my hands, but she pinned them behind my back. I didn't struggle.

  We came apart with the pinging of the microwave. She jumped up and ran into the kitchen. I heard a low groan and a minute later she appeared at the door with the pizza neatly cut onto two plates. She said: 'I think I may have had it in for too long.'

  She was right. It was like eating a discus.

  We made love on the floor. It was nice. We had a bit of an argument about the lack of a condom. I volunteered to use my sock. She thought that idea was: a) disgusting; b) stupid. Socks weren't watertight, or whatever. She said, 'You wear a sock, not only will I have a baby, but it'll come out wearing a bloody jumper.' We compromised on my withdrawal. I didn't. We British don't withdraw from Ireland.

  Later, in bed, she said, 'What are you going to do about the wife?'

  I shook my head. I didn't know. There was a knot in my stomach; I didn't know whether it was guilt or satisfaction. We both drifted off to sleep.

  I woke in the morning with a frightening headache, the sort of throbbing that demands that you wash your hair in Lemsip. My first thought was: oh shit. My second: get me out of here.

  Margaret was still sleeping. We'd neglected to close the curtains and the sun was streaming in through the window. She'd thrown her half of the continental quilt off her some time during the night and her pale body gleamed like a baby's. I reached out to touch her, but pulled back. It was madness.

  She began to stir. Her e
yes opened, fluttered, closed, opened. 'Hello,' she said. Her voice croaked.

  'I'll get you some water,' I said. My voice croaked worse. I got out of bed and pulled my suit trousers on. They were a crumpled mess and they smelt of smoke and beer and there was a gravel scrape down one leg. I went into the bathroom, used the toilet, opened the window and looked at myself in a small round mirror that was attached with some Blu-Tack to the window frame. It was at the wrong height for me. I bent into the sink and washed my face in cold water. Still half bent, I examined my face again in the mirror. One eye was black and mostly closed. There was a hint of dried blood round my right nostril that the water had failed to dislodge and a slight bruise on the bridge of my nose. My hair was dank and tangled, but I didn't much mind that as long as I still had some.

  There was a box cabinet on the wall to my left. It was mostly filled with make-up, but I found some paracetamol and swallowed four and a mouthful of water from the tap. I straightened up slowly, trying to close my throat to make sure they didn't come up again. They didn't.

  I went downstairs and into the kitchen. Snarling greeted my entry. Patch sat in a brown wicker basket in the far corner in front of an elderly twin-tub washing machine, his ears erect, grey muzzle pointed at me, eyes keen. I crossed to the back door, unlocked and opened it. Patch was up and out into the back in a flash. I didn't much mind who he bit, as long as it wasn't me.

  Back upstairs, with two pints of cold water. Margaret was sitting up in bed, the quilt pulled up to her shoulders. Her hair was tousled and her eyes half-closed still, but she looked better than she had a right to. I handed her one glass and drew the quilt back so I could get in beside her. She moved her hands shyly to cover her breasts as I manoeuvred my way into the bed without spilling a drop. I was an old hand.

  She said: 'You're staying?'

  I said: 'You don't want me to?'

  She smiled. 'It's not that. Most men after a night like that - and all married men - want to make an early break for it.'

  'I'm not entirely sure I'm a married man.'

  'It'll be okay.'

  'What, you'll go round and patch things up for me?'

  'The last man was here said he had to leave because he had to see the Cup Final. It was eight o'clock in the morning. He said he wanted to see the teams leaving for Wembley. Can you imagine doing that to someone?'

  'Depends who was playing.' I leant over and kissed her lightly on the lips. 'Besides,' I added, 'I've nowhere to go.'

  The bedroom was small, warm. The floral wallpaper looked like it had been pasted in the sixties; maybe even the fifties. It was a single bed but it fitted us well; neither of us were fatties, yet. At the end of the bed there was a simple wooden dresser with a round mirror. There were a couple of cheap-looking jewellery boxes and some fluffy toys on the left. In a gold-effect frame on the right there was a colour photograph of a red-headed woman in upper middle age; resting against it was a much smaller colour snap, beginning to curl at the edges, of a young man, probably in his twenties. They didn't look dissimilar.

  'Mother and brother, right?'

  'Mother and friend.'

  'Her friend?'

  'My friend.'

  'Boyfriend?'

  'Ex.'

  'But still has a place in your heart.'

  She shrugged.

  'What happened to him?'

  'It's a long story.'

  'Shorten it.'

  'You don't give up, do you?'

  'I'm a journalist.'

  'Is this off the record then?'

  'No.' I lifted the quilt and snatched a look at her body. 'And I feel a column coming on.'

  'You're a dirty bastard' she said, poking me in the ribs, but it was a good-natured poke and she fell to kissing me next and in a minute we were making love again and it was every bit as good as the first time. When she was finished, and I most certainly was, she said: 'You don't let your troubles interfere with your lovemaking, do you?'

  'A trouble shared is a trouble halved.' I had no idea what I meant, but it sounded quite appropriate.

  We nestled back into the bed. It was a little after eleven. It was a Saturday morning and I'd no work until the evening. Patricia would maybe be wondering where I was, and maybe she wouldn't. I cared deeply, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything about it. I would phone her later, let her stew for a bit, let her realize she'd jumped to conclusions a little too quickly. It was only a kiss. A wee kiss. She didn't need to know about the rest. I could bluff it through. I was in bed with a woman who wasn't my wife. The first time. Ever.

  'Tell me about the guy in the photo.'

  Her chin rested in the crook between my arm and chest, her thin hand on my stomach. 'I had an abortion. I had to go to England for it. He didn't want me to have it. We split up.'

  'Okay,' I said.

  'I'm not looking for approval. I didn't want the baby.'

  'I didn't say a word. Your life.'

  'Yeah.'

  She said it with what might have been a melancholy sigh or a stifled yawn, or both. It was the first hint of bubbleless-ness she'd displayed, if it was the former, and about time if it was the latter.

  'You still see him?'

  'No. He's in prison. The Maze. He's a bad boy. Or he became one.'

  'Because of you?'

  'I don't think so. He was going that way anyway. You've maybe heard of him. Pat Coogan?'

  'Cow Pat Coogan?'

  'Cow Pat Coogan. Yeah. The Paper Cowboy.'

  'I haven't heard that one. Paper Cowboy.'

  'You know the old joke. He was done for rustlin'.' She turned her head up towards me, held me with her eyes.

  'Jesus,' I said. 'I kissed the mouth that kissed the mouth of Cow Pat Coogan. Mother would have me shot, were she still alive.'

  Coogan wasn't quite a legend - most all of them were dead - but he was a name, a character, in a largely characterless war. Reckless or stupid, he'd added a bit of life to the papers a couple of years back with a series of daring armed robberies round the country, north and south of the border. He'd briefly been the most wanted man in the Province, not so much for the viciousness of his crimes as for the extent of them. He was branded a Republican, but he always seemed more interested in money than freeing Ireland. When he was finally arrested he faced thirty-nine charges - thirty-eight for armed robbery on the word of a supergrass and one of stealing cattle. He was only convicted for the cattle.

  'So how long were you going with him?'

  'Not long. Six months maybe. Long enough to get pregnant anyway.'

  'Still hear from him?'

  'No. And don't worry. He doesn't keep tabs on me.'

  'Who's worried?'

  'It's quite hard to think of him being in prison. I keep thinking of sitting in the back row of the flicks with him., holding hands, sneaking a kiss. I think I was quite smitten. Then we split up. You know how it is. You think you're over someone then you hear he's taking a girl out for dinner and you feel all right about it, but then you hear he's meeting her again and you're in tears for seventy-two hours. Miserable. I hated him for doing that to me. He's a good-lookin' fella. There were a lot of broken hearts along the Falls when he went inside, and it wasn't for the love of Ireland.'

  'You'd not go out with him again then?'

  'I don't know. I suppose in a way I still love him. But things would have to be different.' Margaret ran her fingers through her hair, then through mine. 'You're nice, y'know? A lot of men wouldn't like to hear a woman they've just slept with talking about old boyfriends.'

  'As long as they don't come through that door with a shotgun I don't mind who we talk about,' I said. And I didn't. I had enough problems of my own without worrying about anyone else's, but I could listen all day. 'Well, I take it you're from at the very least a fairly Loyalist family - I've seen those records, and they aren't a pretty sight - what did they make of Cow Pat Coogan? It must have been like bringing the Pope home for dinner.'

  'We may be Protestants, but we're
not bigots. Mum got on with him all right, I suppose. Dad never met him. He's not home much.'

  'What's he do?'

  'Don't ask.'

  It was a don't ask that was a do ask, but I took her at her word and left it. It was getting late and my head had cleared and my stomach was rumbling.

  A high-pitched whine, gradually growing in annoyance, enveloped us as we lay in sunny silence.

  I said: 'I let the dog out a while back. I gather he wants in.'

  'If there's blood dripping from his mouth, you're in big trouble.' Margaret jumped from the bed, her small bottom a marvel of tightness. She pulled on a T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front and hurried down the stairs. I heard the back door open and a scampering of paws.

  When I went downstairs about ten minutes later Margaret was making a fry-up. Sausage, bacon, egg, fried bread, soda bread, potato bread, mushrooms, pancake, tomato; I liked the way she took it for granted that what I most needed after a night on the tear was a fry. She made me wait in the living room and we ate in there on the settee with the plates on our laps.

  When we'd finished she went to wash up and I ordered a taxi. We sat awkwardly in the lounge for ten minutes until it arrived. What, after all, do you say? A pump of a horn from outside, and I stood up and slipped my jacket on. She stood up with me and followed me to the door in silence. She opened it and then stood back, looking up at me.

  'Well,' I said.

  'Well,' she said.

  'This is it then.'

  'Yeah. Uh, thanks, I'd a really good night.'

  'Yeah, so'd I. With certain exceptions.' I touched my eye. Margaret reached up and patted the side of my head lightly, then, on her tiptoes, kissed me on the lips.

  'Y'know,' she said, 'apart from the bruising, you look like James Stewart when he was black and white.'

  I smiled and left.

  4

  The knot in my stomach was still there. Guilt. Satisfaction. The pizza. The fry. A mixture of all four. I felt uncomfortable. As the hangover receded, the worry set in. I have an inability to lie well. My face reddens and I talk nonsense. My wife is aware of this.

  I had a faint hope that she might remember nothing. Awaken from her drunken stupor just wondering where I'd gotten to. I'd breeze in like nothing was wrong: I'd continued partying elsewhere. It had happened before. But then she'd look at her hands, feel them sore and bruised from striking me. And then she would remember. But a furtive kiss never hurt anyone, did it, Patricia? It was an aberration of alcohol. A whispering in the mouth of a fleeting acquaintance. She would have a vague memory of us fighting and an even vaguer memory of me upstairs with Margaret. A furtive kiss never hurt anyone. She'd been guilty of the same every Christmas as long as I could remember.