Our Kind of Cruelty

by Araminta Hall

  We dressed quickly, V looking all the more seductive for her bed-tousled hair and hastily applied red lipstick. We both probably stank of the sex we’d just had, but neither of us even applied deodorant.

  The bars were like ones you see in films, dark and sordid, with loud rock music and pool tables. People stopped talking and looked at us when we came in and lots of them looked as if the beer had soaked right through their skin. The room smelt of farmyard and sweat and broken dreams. We drank neat whiskey for courage and its warmth spread through our veins.

  We found what we were looking for at the third bar, sitting on her own at the edge of the room, on a high stool next to a high table which wrapped around a long wooden pole. She had frosted hair and smudged eye make-up. Her skin was pale and her teeth were yellow. Her skirt was short and her legs were dimpled and mottled and she wore what looked like a kid’s T-shirt bearing the emblem ‘Little Miss Trouble’. She said she was up for anything if we bought her a bottle of vodka.

  She swayed on her walk back to the motel, and kept tripping over her feet, which both seemed to point inwards. She looked younger in the darkness, out of the lights of the bar, and she smoked with a defiance I had never seen before. V linked their arms and whispered something in her ear which made her giggle and I wondered if I would regret what we were about to do.

  She stripped as soon as we got inside, before I’d even had a chance to shut the curtains, standing in front of us in cheap, grubby, once-white bra and pants. I sat in a chair, my head groggy and fuzzed, unsure of my role in the whole charade. I desperately didn’t want to have sex with the girl and my dick felt useless.

  V walked towards her, removing her T-shirt as she moved. The girl spat her chewing gum on to the floor and then they were kissing. They fell on to the bed and I found I couldn’t stop looking at them, at how they fitted together, at how their bodies mirrored each other. Even when V arched her back and screamed, the girl’s head buried between her legs, still I looked, still I didn’t feel the need to rip them apart and beat my fist into the girl’s face. And of course I was so hard by then I stood up and my movement attracted V’s attention, so she beckoned for me and I went to her, moving straight for her mouth, kissing her fast. The girl sat backwards on to the floor and I heard the click of a lighter and smelt the enveloping smoke. But I didn’t care by then and neither did V, who was tearing at my jeans, rushing to get me inside her.

  I had forgotten there were speeches at weddings.

  Angus stood to loud applause. He wasn’t holding any notes and V was looking up at him, as were all the faces in the room.

  ‘Thank you all so much for coming.’ His voice was clear and confident. ‘It means so much to Verity and me to have you all here to share this special day with us and I know some of you have travelled pretty far to be here. We’re very touched.’ He droned on about how amazing Suzi had been with the organisation and how welcome she and Colin had made him feel. He said some sentimental crap about his own parents and his brother and his mother dabbed away a tear. He complimented the bridesmaids who just looked like generic little girls in white dresses to me.

  ‘But now, to the most important person,’ he said, turning to V. ‘My beautiful, amazing, clever, talented wife, Verity.’ He gazed down on her, but she had looked away and I saw her nervous blush begin to extend from her breastbone upwards. ‘I don’t need to tell you all how ravishing she looks today because you all have eyes. I don’t need to tell you how kind and clever she is because you all know her. What I do need to tell you all is how much she means to me.’ His voice broke slightly and he reached for his champagne, taking a sip.

  ‘I really cannot believe that we’ve only known each other for a year. In fact, we realised just the other day that we first met each other exactly a year ago last Saturday, which feels rather fitting. Not of course that we got together immediately because it took me a bit of time to build up my courage first to speak to Verity, then to ask her out, then to actually take seriously the fact that she might like me.’ Light laughter rang out and I wanted to stand on my chair and shout at everyone to shut the fuck up, so I didn’t miss a word. ‘So, it has amazingly only been ten months between our first date and this moment. Some might say that’s not long enough to know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, but I knew after ten minutes. Verity is quite simply the best thing that has ever happened to me.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Can I ask you all to raise a toast to my wife, the most wonderful woman on the planet?’

  I lifted my glass automatically, downing what was left in it. Ten months. A year. Ten months. A year. The words were like a steam train rattling through my brain. Verity and I had broken up at Christmas; it was now the middle of September. I counted down on my fingers even though I knew very well what the result would be. Nine months. I looked at Verity but she had stood up and was kissing Angus. My vision thinned to a small, white pin.

  I endured Colin and the best man’s turgid speeches, only because I would have drawn too much attention to myself by leaving. I had to listen to how much everyone loved Angus and how Verity had had to overcome some difficulties, which was news to me, but was so happy now. I even had to hear Angus described as ‘the most eligible man in London’, a plainly absurd moniker for someone like him.

  They finished in the end, as everything does, and the music began, so I was able to slip out into the now darkened night. Someone had lit a million candles and the garden seemed to sway with them. I stood by the side of the marquee and breathed deeply, letting the air expand my chest until I couldn’t hold any more, concentrating on the movement alone. The night was clear and the stars were sparkling, dotted across the sky like a message.

  A woman was walking towards me, her steps small and her gait unsteady. Only when she got closer did I see it was Louise. She had a cigarette in her mouth, which she took out and waved at me. ‘You don’t have a light, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t smoke.’

  She laughed. ‘Of course you don’t. You couldn’t possibly have the strength to grow those muscles if you had a disgusting habit like this.’ She had stopped but her body was still rocking and her speech was slurred. ‘They’re about to have their first dance. You should go and watch.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Do you still love her?’

  I looked over but it was dark where we were and I couldn’t make out all her features. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because you always loved her too much.’

  ‘How can you love someone too much?’

  She laughed. ‘In the same way you can love someone too little. It’s like the three bears’ beds, it’s very rare you get it just right.’

  I felt lost in the conversation. I didn’t know if she was trying to tell me something, maybe even something V had asked her to tell me.

  ‘You shouldn’t waste your time,’ Louise said. ‘Verity and Angus have got it just right and the rest of us can only marvel at their brilliance.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘What is it about Verity? Why do all the boys go potty over her?’

  ‘Because she’s perfect.’ I couldn’t believe anyone needed to ask that question.

  Louise stepped a little closer to me. ‘You know, I always fancied the pants off you, Mike. Not that you’d have ever noticed. You were like a puppy around Verity, only ever had eyes for her.’ She closed the gap between us and put her hand against my dick, on the outside of my trousers. ‘I hate James,’ she said. ‘He fucks like a rabbit.’

  ‘This is Verity’s wedding.’

  ‘So?’ she said, her hand still on my limp dick.

  I pulled back, raising my hands as I did so to remove hers from my body, but she was so drunk she lost her balance and toppled backwards, her high heels skidding from under her. She fell in an undignified heap, landing by the side of the marquee.

  She looked up at me. ‘What the fuck.’

  I knew I should help her up and apologise, but something abo
ut her crumpled figure on the grass disgusted me. The flickering of the candles was adding to my headache and I found all I could do was turn and walk away across the grass.

  ‘You pushed me, you fucking maniac,’ she shouted ridiculously after me.

  I walked back down into the village but the last train had long gone, so I went into the pub and ordered another pint and asked if they knew of a taxi which would drive me back to London. My headache was so bad by then my vision had become jarred and jagged. I couldn’t answer the barman when he asked if it had been a good wedding and he shrugged and moved on to the next customer. I feigned sleep in the back of the cab to avoid talking, but something about the movement must have lulled me because I woke up as we were pulling up outside my house. I paid the £250 requested and let myself in, where I went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of red which I didn’t even really want.

  There was just so much I didn’t understand. People said things they didn’t mean the whole time. Or maybe they didn’t know what they meant? Or, most terrifying of all, maybe nothing in the world made sense? What would have happened, for example, if I had fucked Louise behind the marquee? What would she have said to James? Did she really hate him? How do rabbits fuck?

  And was it possible that V had known Angus for a year? That they’d had their first date a month before I came home for Christmas? Did they really have it just right like Louise said or was he nothing more than a part in our Crave? If I hadn’t been such a massive idiot and fucked everything up by screwing Carly, perhaps V had planned to tell me all about Angus?

  I banged my fist against the marble of the counter top, the pain spreading comfortingly up my arm. ‘V,’ I shouted into the air, ‘I just want to understand. I just need to know what you want me to do.’ But the silence kept its counsel and all I could do was sit down at my long kitchen table and drink the bloody wine.

  II

  The week following the wedding wasn’t good.

  I had terrible trouble sleeping and I felt sick and woozy during the day. At work the chairman put me on to the new deal; we were taking over a large company called Spectre and it was pretty straightforward. Most of it had to be stripped away and lots of people were going to lose their jobs, but I have never felt the queasiness others talk about surrounding situations like this. The way I see it is if everyone in a company is good at their jobs, then the company survives and if, as a boss, you’re too stupid to get rid of any dead wood, then what do you expect?

  The chairman laughed when I said this to him as we sat in his sumptuous office. ‘Between you and me,’ he said, ‘that’s why women generally never rise to the top in business, they’re too damned sentimental.’ Which is obviously a load of horseshit, but I smiled and nodded my head as I knew I was supposed to. Except the simplicity of the operation didn’t seem to help matters. I took all the files and folders back to my desk and logged into the secure sites which held all the figures and found I couldn’t make anything stick. It felt like the numbers were dancing across the screen, disappearing behind algorithms and vanishing into graphs. I was able to conceive of a route, but then lose it halfway through, allowing predictions to tumble around me as if they had never actually existed.

  The problem was that my head felt occupied by V, as if she was a burrowing animal who had taken up residence in my skull. It seemed absurd to be attempting anything normal when at any given moment she could be experiencing things for the first time which I would never be able to share with her. I kicked myself for not asking her more specifics about their trip, so I could get a clearer handle on what she was doing at any given time. We had talked about going to South Africa ourselves and I felt sure she would be drawn to some of the places we’d discussed.

  I googled the country incessantly, refining and extending my searches around the words tourism, high-class, unusual, exotic. There was a dazzling array of things to do and most of them looked like the sort of things V would enjoy. And of course Angus had the money to make it spectacular, which he would be bound to be doing. I took virtual tours around the top hotels, booked helicopter flights in his name, arranged tastings in vineyards, looked into the best spas, read the menus of the best restaurants. But nothing ever felt like enough; I wanted to break the computer screens and jump in, I wanted to peel away all the PR, I wanted to install cameras everywhere. I wanted to know exactly what they were doing.

  I continued the process at home every evening with a bottle of wine and dinner eaten out of cartons next to my laptop. V would never stand for such sloppiness, but as the week stumbled on I became more and more angry with her. What she was doing began to feel out of all proportion to my crime. I knew I had massively fucked up sleeping with Carly, but I regretted it and I had apologised and prostrated myself. She must have known that it meant nothing, she must have known she was always and forever the only one for me.

  What I don’t understand is how some men get away with the things they do, whilst others, like me, are made to crawl over hot coals for moments of madness which we would take back in a heartbeat.

  I can still hear the thwack of connecting flesh which accompanied so much of my childhood. V has never known what it feels like to be lying in your bedroom and to hear your mother’s body slump against a piece of furniture. To crawl on your hands and knees into the hall and to watch from the door as a man hauls her up by her hair and slams her face into the wall. To feel the desire to move and yet the overpowering fear which turns your knees to jelly. I always crawled back to my sheetless mattress and pulled my threadbare duvet over my head, hoping for sleep which never came immediately, instead ambushing me at some time in the night so I would wake in the morning with a shot of dread, convinced I would find my mother dead in a pool of blood.

  V has no idea what the body looks like after it has been beaten. How it swells and protrudes, how it colours into sickly shades of crimson and black before fading to yellow and grey. She doesn’t know what it feels like to run your hand over that skin when the person’s body has gone limp from drink, how it feels hard and unnatural and how you can’t imagine it ever looking normal again. She doesn’t know how easy it is to leave scars, how sometimes just a tiny brown oval will remain, but whenever you look at it you know why it’s there.

  On the week anniversary of her wedding, I wrote V the following email:

  Verity,

  I don’t think this is fair. How many times do you want me to say sorry for what happened in America? It meant nothing. Less than nothing. If it were possible I would reverse time like Superman and never even speak to Carly. If it made you happy I would fly over there now and exterminate her, rid her from the world so she couldn’t infect us any more. But this is too much now. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. I should have stopped the marriage before it actually happened. Because it’s going to be so difficult to get out of now and I’m still not sure what you want me to do or how we’re going to achieve it. And the time you are having to spend with Angus is ridiculous. Every second you are with him is like a dagger in my heart. I get it, a hundredfold I get it. But you’ve even gone on our honeymoon with him and that is something we will never get back. It doesn’t feel like you are teaching me a lesson any more, more like you are actively being cruel.

  I love you, V. You know as well as I do the connection that exists between us. I would do anything for you. As ever, I crave you.

  Your Eagle.

  The next morning I went on a long run, across the common and down by the river where I pounded my feet along the towpath next to the scum-filled water. The sky was blue above my head and my breathing was even and regular and I felt as if I could have run forever. If V had asked me to, I could have probably enacted my promise to her. I could have probably beaten such a fast path around the world that I could have turned back time and made everything bad that had happened between us go away.

  When I got back home my head felt a bit clearer and I went to the shops to buy the sort of lunch V liked. Fresh vegetables and fish, fruit and cream.
I prepared it the way she preferred, simply, and poured us both a glass of cold Sancerre. We ate looking out over the garden and discussing our plans for it for next spring. Seeing it through her eyes made me realise it was a bit too clinical and it would be nice if it resembled Suzi’s garden a bit more. You shouldn’t ever see soil in flower beds, Suzi told me once, and looking out on my garden I realised there was lots of soil and gravel on show and that all the plants were spikey and architectural. They were in almost direct contrast to the beds at Steeple House, which were heavy with colour and flowers and soft, gentle foliage which undulates silver and green. You could stand by Susan’s beds and watch the wind stroke them; you could marvel at the shades and shapes before you. You could wonder at nature which produces the most beautiful, intricate versions of perfection for such short amounts of time. I was glad then that V wasn’t actually sitting beside me and that I had a bit of time to make things perfect for when she came home.

  On Monday I called a garden designer and the builder whom I had liked the best and arranged meetings for later on in the week. The Spectre deal was still sliding and the chairman asked for a meeting in which he made it clear he was surprised things weren’t progressing faster. I made up an ill-judged excuse and he asked me if it was perhaps too large a project and did I need some help. I was quite shocked because I hadn’t realised that anything had seemed amiss at work, although I also realised I didn’t care that much. Jobs were easy to come by and paled into insignificance next to making sure everything was perfect for V.

  I took a morning off to meet the garden designer, a woman called Anna who had a very posh accent and was as tall and thin as a sapling. She agreed with me that the garden currently was very harsh and naff, although they were her words, not mine. She asked me to describe what I was after and I told her about Suzi’s flower beds at Steeple House. I said my girlfriend was very keen to get that country-garden look and Anna said it was her favourite as well. We agreed that we might as well keep the hot tub and outdoor eating area, and Anna assured me they would be so softened by her planting they would almost become invisible. She thought maybe some mirrors at the back, perhaps even an old rusty gate in front of a mirror to give the illusion of another secret garden beyond. She told me I was lucky to have the tall brick wall at the end, which made this particular trick of the eye possible. I loved the idea. She said she would go away and do some drawings and send me a quote, although I think we both knew I was going to say yes whatever.