Delicate Indecencies

by Sandy Mccutcheon

  Gwenda was upstairs packing. On the dining room table, propped up against a vase so he couldn’t avoid seeing it, was a letter from General Insurance International. Gwenda had, of course, opened it. The letter was brief and straight to the point. The company had over-extended itself in the re-insurance market and due to an over-abundance of natural disasters they were closing down several divisions. International Investigations was the first to go. Thank you for your eighteen years of service. Please accept the enclosed severance pay, entitlements and generous redundancy package. No right of reply. For a moment his mind went blank. Gwenda had, as usual, closed the curtains as if preparing for an air-raid blackout. It contributed to the claustrophobic feeling he always experienced in the house and, in his own act of rebellion, he crossed over to the window and pulled them apart.

  For a long time he stood, numbly staring at his own reflection. It was not a sight that pleased him. The synchronicity of his features didn’t seem to be any compensation for a face which someone in the office had once described as ‘giving new depth to the word bland’. And the body? Gangly like a poplar in winter. The cold winds that stripped the leaves had taken a fair amount of his hair as well. He ran his fingers through the remnant vegetation and told himself lamely that looks weren’t everything. He was fit. But his subconscious wasn’t about to accept this false optimism and shot him down with ‘fit for what?’. Teschmaker, well used to standing back from the internal bickering, shrugged at his reflection. Outside it was pitch black. There was nothing there so he pulled the curtains closed again.

  By the time he had returned to the table and read the letter a second time, Gwenda was waiting in line to have her say. She delivered her situation report with military brevity. Incompatible. Still had her life ahead of her. Martin’s prospects didn’t look promising. He could have the house and the BMW. He could have his name back. Yes, she would be just fine, not, as she noted acerbically, that he had cared to enquire. Oh, and by the way, she was going to keep the beach house and her Audi. Yes, there was another man. Someone who was not always away on business. Yes, she had been sleeping with him for the last two years. No, she corrected herself, not sleeping; staying awake, she added cruelly. And the rest was none of his business. She would file for divorce. Her bags were packed. She would close the door herself, thank you.

  An over-abundance of natural disasters. Teschmaker thought the phrase was ill-chosen, odd. Surely that’s what insurance was for? Another man? That came as no surprise as, right from the beginning of the marriage, they had both practised serial infidelity. Gwenda would file for divorce? His wife had always filed things. A bureaucratic high-flyer, she had latched on to Martin during his ascendancy. He supposed he must have been a good catch from her perspective. The right school, the right university, good social connections and lots of money. She had taken his name and filed it next to hers. She had shelved any notion of offspring as an unworkable intrusion into her own career path and invested instead in a wardrobe and accessories that consumed far more than any children would have. She had, Teschmaker reflected as he wandered around the house, marvelling at the efficiency with which she had cleaned out her cupboards, a well-filed mind. He paused, raised the blind and stared out the window. But there was no solace there. Even the garden — Gwenda’s garden — was neat rows of lettuces filed alphabetically next to leeks. Cabbage next to carrots. The zucchinis alone in a row of their own.

  ‘We don’t belong in Gower,’ she never tired of reminding him. She had grown up in the old-money enclave of Milton and aspired to Charlottewood. ‘Even Drayfield would be better than Gower. Who lives in Gower?’

  ‘We do,’ had been his stock reply, uttered with increasing weariness over the years.

  ‘That may be fine for you, but I don’t belong here.’

  And where did he belong? Nowhere, really. Redundant. Another odd word. A euphemism. I’ve just become garbage; he thought, no, not quite accurate. I have just been labelled garbage. I have been filed under junk, refuse, detritus.

  Teschmaker felt light-headed, amused by the absurdity of the situation. He had just completed another successful case, come home to his successful marriage and someone had tossed a rat flambé into his life. For a while he sat, nursing a glass of scotch, wondering if he should torch his own home and whether the insurance was in his name or Gwenda’s. But then, in a sudden energising surge of anger, he realised that it had never been his home. It was Gwenda’s and he had simply been filed in whatever department Gwenda required him for at any particular moment. He was listed most often under finance and least often under sex. He was there to provide the additions to the jewellery and costume department and, when she had physical cravings, he was to satisfy them on demand and with the least attendant fuss, romanticism or stickiness.

  In the few moments that the anger gave him before the jetlag cut back in, Teschmaker strode around the house opening and shutting cupboards and doors. ‘Not mine!’ he shouted. ‘Not my house!’ He didn’t recognise any of it.

  Teschmaker’s mid-life crisis came upon him like a cyclone, unannounced. There were no warning signs, no gradual approach. Weatherproof, he had sailed on calm seas or flown high above storm clouds. For him there had been no gradual erosion of his self-confidence, no depression, no self-doubt, no impotence. Like a tropical depression the crisis had formed quickly off the coast of his life and swung inland, hitting hard and catching him unawares. And, like an unprotected building, the structures of his life were torn away in a single instant. The tsunami that followed the initial onslaught swamped him, then tossed him like so much flotsam, depositing him in very unfamiliar territory. Howling like a mad animal he lurched from room to room, barely comprehending the significance of the empty drawers and cupboards. Gwenda’s decamping had obviously been well planned and executed over a number of days. But all Teschmaker saw was emptiness. Finally, lurching into the eye of the storm, he shattered the empty scotch bottle against a wall and stumbled towards the laughably labelled master bedroom — but the bed had the smell of Gwenda. No, he corrected the description, it had the smell of whatever expensive French perfume she had last purchased. Eventually he slept on the couch.

  It was late the following afternoon when Teschmaker awoke. He fixed himself a cup of coffee and wandered from room to room until coming to a stop before the mirrored door of the wardrobe in his bedroom. He sat on the bed and stared. The man looking back was drawn and tired, somehow absent. The sandy-coloured hair, receding from his forehead, seemed to reveal even more of his scalp than it had the night before. The blue eyes were ringed — racoon eyes, lined in unhappy purple. And the brow too, wrinkled. He was looking old and worn out. ‘I’m becoming my father,’ he snarled at his reflection. It surprised him because his self-image . . . He stopped the train of thought, realising that he didn’t really have a self-image. All of his life, professionally and personally, he had spent being curious about others — never about himself. Then it occurred to him that he was buried beneath all the possessions. He looked around. Everything in the room had been chosen by Gwenda. What had he bought? What belonged to him? Even more than that, what did he really need or want?

  With a sudden cold logic and determination he walked around the house again, hunting for his things. Things? Is that how I define myself, he thought, and it occurred to him that he had a chance in that instant to do something extraordinary. At this moment in his life he had no calls on him, no need to work, and he could use the time exactly how he wanted. It was at that precise instant that he decided on the strategy to change his life completely. He would clear away all the junk, all that was extraneous, and then maybe what remained would truly be his.

  In a prolonged bout of inspired madness Teschmaker stripped the house to the bare essentials. With the fanaticism of an ascetic he pared away at his life, ridding himself of anything that he did not recognise as part of himself. Slowly he became aware of a pattern emerging from the chaos. He was removing colour. The single bowl and plate he retained we
re white. All that remained of the cutlery was a silver knife, fork and spoon. The blue and green ceramic-handled sets were consigned to the growing pile of discards. Out went the paintings, the television, stereo, CDs, radios, excess sheets and linen, lamps, books, clothes, shoes, rugs, sofas and two of the coffee tables.

  ‘Did someone die?’ The van driver from the Catholic charity office had never seen such a donation. When he first arrived, he thought someone was playing a joke on him. Outside the house, covering the driveway and spilling over onto the lawn, was what looked like the home’s entire contents. He was based in South Pendle, where they stacked the working classes in neat concrete boxes and furniture was bought from sales catalogues or second-hand warehouses. It took him a couple of minutes to realise that the welded conglomeration of old engine components he was looking at was in fact a functioning lamp stand. In South Pendle they would have stripped it down for the parts. He had walked around the side of the house to find the owner digging up what looked like a particularly neat vegetable garden. ‘Did someone die?’ he repeated when he finally got the man’s attention.

  ‘Something like that,’ Teschmaker replied vaguely. He was exhausted. It had taken him several days but once this load was gone he was done.

  ‘I’ll shoot back and get the big truck and a couple of guys to give me a hand,’ the van driver said.

  ‘And help yourself to the vegetables.’ Teschmaker indicated the pile of produce he had strewn over the backyard. But the driver was gone.

  It was dusk by the time they were finished. Teschmaker, rejoicing in the absence of the blackout curtains, stood in the centre of the empty lounge room and watched the truck’s tail-lights disappear out the gate. Upstairs, in his study, he opened the wardrobe door and grinned at the sight of the five shirts, one jacket and one raincoat. All neat, all tidy. All his. The old master bedroom was now empty and the remains of his world resided in a couple of packing cases. To one side of the study he had put what had been the spare bed. The only other furnishings were his desk with his computer, a phone and an easy chair. Beside the computer was a bottle of scotch.

  Over the next few weeks he left the room only for food or to replenish the scotch. It was, he convinced himself, the hub of his universe. In moments of clarity he recognised that he was down, but he also knew that he was not out. He had no notion of where his life would now lead him but was convinced that if he stayed put long enough something would occur to point him in the right direction. It was only a matter of time, he told himself. A matter of riding out the storm.

  But the storm had a long way to run.

  The phone had rung only a couple of times. The first time it was Max, his counterpart in Britain. Lost his job as well. Damn bad form, he whined, given the years of service. Beyond the call and all that. Given their all. Any sniff of an opening in your neck of the woods? Just thought I’d ask. No, nothing around. Plenty of time on our hands to look though, eh? There was more like that, then a rambling monologue about his son’s dismal school results.

  Teschmaker listened for a while, contributing the odd grunt to reassure Max that he understood what a rough time he was having.

  Gwenda? Left you? Damn it all, just when you need them, eh?

  Not at all, Teschmaker replied.

  Oh well, I suppose you’re enjoying replacement therapy?

  What?

  Replacement therapy. You know, out with the old, in with the new. Haa Haa.

  No, not looking. It was true. He hadn’t thought of Gwenda, thankfully. Hadn’t thought of a replacement.

  And he didn’t think about it until the next time the phone rang.

  Sally was one of Gwenda’s circle. Married to James with a regulation set of children and an annoyingly affectionate spaniel named — for some convoluted reason Teschmaker had never cared enough to fully understand — Mozart. Sally, bored with her lot in life, had made a habit of flirting with Teschmaker at dinner parties. A couple of times, in her cups, she had suggested she would rather enjoy a fling with him. I am a woman of elastic virtue. Name the hotel. Name the day and I’m yours, daaarling. Teschmaker had always executed a gracious retreat.

  ‘I was just thinking of giving you a call,’ he lied. ‘I thought I might take you up on that offer.’

  ‘Really,’ Sally purred. ‘And just when I had decided you were a very cold fish. What brought about this sudden rush of blood to the loins — Gwenda away on holidays?’

  ‘Actually, more than holidays. She’s done a bunk.’

  ‘Done a bunk?’ The purr vanished abruptly.

  ‘De-camped, abandoned ship, done a runner, flown the coop.’

  ‘Gwenda has left you?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But I need the two of you to make up a table . . .’

  ‘Sorry. Bad timing, huh?’

  ‘What on earth did you do to her?’

  ‘Not enough, if I remember right.’

  ‘I take it there is another man?’ This, gentler, digging.

  ‘Oh, several. Heaps of them.’

  Silence.

  ‘How could you? I mean, really, how could you?’

  ‘How could I what?’

  ‘Suggest that you and I might . . . I shudder to imagine what you had in mind.’

  ‘Really, Sally? You were always saying you would like nothing better than a quick horizontal rumba.’ He could feel the ice forming at the other end of the line but hadn’t the sense to stop. ‘Don’t even need to waste money on a hotel now I have the place to myself.’

  ‘You are forgetting that I am Gwenda’s friend. I could never betray her like that. I feel sorry for you, Teschmaker.’ The line went dead.

  Well, screw you — or not, as seemed more likely. He poured a large scotch.

  Blundering idiot, he castigated himself, while at the same time wondering how he could repay Sally for her about-face. What had she been after anyway? Forbidden fruit, was that it? As long as he was married he was desirable, but now what? Was he a threat? Or simply an uncomfortable reminder of her own hypocrisy? Hadn’t wanted to go to bed with her anyway. Liar. Replacement therapy, huh! The last thing he needed.

  But the demon was on the loose. Out of the bottle. No, that was a genie, or was it a djinn? Letting the djinn out of the bottle. Djinn and tonic, Sally? Not gin, scotch . . . and he realised he had drunk a little too much on an empty stomach. Food, he told himself sternly. A man cannot live on bed alone. But instead of the kitchen, his feet were betraying him, leading him unerringly astray. The bloody little book was somewhere. He fossicked through the box of possessions that he had quarantined from his cleansing of Gwenda’s house. Not there. Then he remembered and retrieved it from where it was hiding guiltily at the back of his desk drawer.

  Picking the right woman was important. He flicked through the notebook, his hunger for food now running a very poor second place to an urge that he had suppressed for so long. Nothing wrong with a little companionship, he counselled himself. Some of the names in the notebook were so old he had trouble remembering the faces that went with them. Katherine? Arizona at Christmas. Bridget? No, that was a London number. What was it — four, five years ago? Too long. Too far. Pity. He remembered the very pleasant evening that had nearly ended up in her Swiss Cottage apartment. That was a pattern that ran through many of the names on the list: nearly. He seemed to be fine at the preliminaries. Hopeless at completion. But then, he had never been much of a hunter because of the lack of nerve when . . . going in for the kill — could he call it that? The stalking, the ritual dance; not a problem. But there was something in him that hesitated on the threshold.

  He ran his finger down the list. Margaret Ellis. No. Someone called Poppy. He searched but failed to retrieve anything. Jane. Teschmaker laughed. Jane someone. She was a hangover from his teenage years. How had her name made it into the book? Mandy . . . The name brought a smile to his lips and his hand reached for the phone. Smart lawyer. Resolutely single. They had run into each other in Buenos Aires while on a case; sh
e was defending and he was giving evidence for the prosecution. Despite their opposing positions and her subsequent loss in court, Amanda Duggan had taken him out to dinner at the exquisite Au Bec Fin in Recoleta. Ex-pats. Strangers in a strange land. The conversation and wine had flowed easily. Mostly he listened. Mostly she talked. As usual he had been a little reticent about taking things any further but Mandy had called the shots. They spent three days in the nearby and splendidly elegant Alvear Palace Hotel.

  The phone rang about three times before switching to the answering machine.

  ‘Hola! You’ve called Mandy and Rodolfo. Neither of us is available right now, but leave a message and we’ll get back to you.’

  Obviously Mandy was no longer resolutely single and, so it appeared, had been back to Argentina.

  He turned the page, but then turned back. Jane. What had happened to her? The memory of his childhood girlfriend was fuzzy. Part pleasure, part discomfort. Something nagged at him, some unpleasant association. Jane who? Damn it! Couldn’t even remember her surname.

  He sipped the scotch and was about to put the book down when he saw Irina’s name. Talk about replacement therapy writ large! He had met her a few years before in the Austrian Alps, while resting up after a gruelling three weeks at the trial of a man who had conspired with his wife to fake the theft of her diamond necklace. The couple had fallen out over the insurance payout and the woman had reported her husband to the authorities then skipped the country with half the insurance money and the diamonds, leaving her irate husband behind to face the music. Teschmaker had found the case depressing and so decided to perk himself up with a few days in the snow.