Thanksgiving

by Michael Dibdin

  ‘All that lasted about eight minutes, according to the recording. Eight minutes is a long time. Ever tried counting out eight minutes? Ever tried counting out one minute? It’s a long time. Anyway, finally the plane spins out of control, descending twenty thousand feet in a few more seconds, levels out for a moment, then corkscrews down into the ocean.

  ‘Hopefully the impact either killed most of them, or at least stunned them long enough for them to drown unconscious, after which they end up on the bed of the Pacific Ocean with the bottom feeders closing in. They’ve got crabs the size of a door down there and squid the size of a truck. It wouldn’t have taken them long to clean up. All that stuff you read about not being sure whether to try and raise the bodies? Yeah, right. Fact is, there wasn’t nothing there for them to raise. Time those Coast Guard vessels got out to the scene, those bodies had been recycled. Course, they wouldn’t want to pass on those details to the grieving families.’

  ‘I hear you’re wanted for murder in Nevada, son.’

  I turned. The speaker was the man who had been sitting in the row behind me, the benign and affable Midwesterner. ‘You’d think they could have enough washrooms on a plane this size,’ he went on.

  ‘Listen, where’s the woman who was sitting next to you? The one who passed me that photograph I dropped.’

  ‘They still use the chair down there. None of this wimpy strap-them-to-a-gurney-and-give-them-a-painless-injection stuff. No sir, down in Nevada they just haul in the witnesses, turn on the juice, then rock ‘n’ roll while your blood boils and your eyeballs pop out.’

  His bass baritone voice was in exactly the same acoustical range as the dull roar from the plane’s engines. I noted his slim, white, feminine fingers.

  ‘It’s my first trip to Europe,’ he went on. ‘A retirement present from the kids.’

  Back in my seat row, I clambered over Madame Dupont and strapped myself in more tightly than usual.

  Window or aisle? I was not a window person any more, I realized. I was now a nervous flier. Not because of what had happened to Lucy. When we fly, we’re not afraid of the crash we know is so much more improbable than totalling the car on the way to the airport. It’s because flying reminds us that we’re between. We don’t care about the view. We want comfort, prompt service and easy access to the facilities. That’s all that lasts, in the end.

  I put on my Walkman and pressed the play button. The music on the tape was a surprise, a medley of cuts, some familiar, some not. I switched it off and opened up the machine. It was the cassette that Darryl Bob Allen had presented me with when I’d left him.

  Oh, well. He’d had good taste in music, as he had in women. I listened to the compilation he’d prepared, ending with the early Van Morrison track he’d danced to when I arrived. The tape ran out, stalled briefly, then reversed to play the other side.

  HERE COMES THE NIGHT

  Mmm. Ah. Oh, that’s interesting. Yes. Oh God. Oh my fucking God. Don’t stop, don’t stop. Lord Jesus Christ almighty. All right. Hmm. Whew. You’re awfully good, you know that?

  Good? How?

  With your hands.

  Do you want some wine?

  Wait, I’m still coming down.

  Is there any red left?

  I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Is that all right?

  There’s only white. Careful, it’s really full.

  Ah. I feel like I’m floating.

  You are. There’s at least an inch between your lovely spine and the mattress.

  Really?

  I’ve got a problem.

  What?

  I just want to fuck you all the time.

  That’s a problem? Why?

  Two reasons. First, my turn-around time isn’t what it used to be. When I was twenty, I could come five times a night.

  I can still come twenty times a night.

  It’s all very well for you bloody women.

  God, you Brits are such whiners.

  Where were you when I was twenty?

  At college in San Francisco.

  Where you met Mr Right.

  Mr Wrong.

  I wish we’d met then.

  You’re whining again.

  You never say that.

  Say what?

  You never say you wish we’d met back then.

  Sorry, I’m not a whiner.

  There’s more to it than that. You don’t even think it. I think about nothing else, but it doesn’t even bother you.

  I can’t allow myself to think about it.

  Why not?

  Isn’t it obvious?

  Not to me, no.

  Because if we’d hooked up back then, Claire and Frank wouldn’t have been born.

  We could have had children.

  Yes, but they would have been different. Claire and Frank wouldn’t be here. Are you really such an egoist that you expect me to wish that my children had never been born?

  What about my children?

  You don’t have any children.

  Exactly.

  You look sad.

  No, no. It’s just . . . I saw this girl today. Well, this woman. On 65th, outside the pharmacy.

  What about her?

  She looked just like Claire.

  It can’t have been Claire. She’s off camping with those friends of hers.

  No, you don’t understand. I knew it wasn’t Claire, but it could have been. Like in an alternative future, you know? She looked quite similar, but that wasn’t really it. The thing was . . . Oh, tell me to shut up. I’m being a boring anxious mother.

  Go on, I want to know.

  This girl, woman, whatever, she was just on the cusp. Know what I mean?

  Jeune fille en fleur?

  No, no. Just the opposite. She’d just about come to the end of that period. But she still looked sort of young and hopeful. Only I could tell she was fucked.

  Nothing wrong with that.

  I’m not joking. She was parking this real beater, a white Toyota Corolla from way back, dented all over and with the trunk lid tied down with rope to the bumper.

  Tell me about the girl.

  I am telling you about the girl. The car was the girl, don’t you get it? It looked defeated, and so did she. She looked puffy and exhausted and totally defeated. And she was still pretty. Once she must have been really pretty. But it was slipping away, and she knew it, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do. She’d made bad choices and she would go on making them. Only difference was, there’d be fewer chips on the table next time out.

  What’s this got to do with Claire?

  I don’t know. I just worry, that’s all.

  I don’t see you as a worrier. God, you should have met some of my exes.

  Where my kids are concerned, I’m a worrier. That’s natural.

  So what are you worried about?

  It’s just, I won’t be here for ever to look after them. And once I’m gone, you won’t care.

  Yes I will.

  No. Why should you? All you want to do is fuck me.

  I plead guilty as charged.

  So they’ll be on their own. Frank I’m not so concerned about. He may not be the world’s greatest intellectual, but he’ll do all right. But Claire’s so volatile.

  I don’t see her as volatile. I think she’s tough as nails, just like you.

  I hope so. I just don’t want anything to happen to her when I’m not here to take care of things. I couldn’t stand that.

  Oh, sweetie. Don’t cry. It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.

  What’s the matter?

  Nothing.

  You’ve gone all moody. First me, now you. God, what a pair we are.

  I was just thinking about Mr Wrong.

  He’s history, you know that.

  No, about me. Mr Wrong Place, Wrong Time.

  Cole Porter. So what was the second reason?

  What?

  You said there were two problems, one is that you’re no longer young, dumb and
full of come. What’s the second?

  Oh, nothing.

  Go on.

  No, I just . . . I don’t know, sometimes I just get scared.

  Scared of what?

  I don’t know. It’s just so intense, you know? I mean when I look at you lying there. I know this sounds corny, but I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.

  So what was it like before?

  It felt normal. Like wanting breakfast or something.

  Mmm. Boiled eggs. Slices of buttery toast. I’m sort of hungry, actually.

  Or like shaving, you know?

  I’ve never shaved my legs. Well I used to when I was seventeen. But never since.

  You don’t need to. You’re not hairy, you’re downy. There’s a big difference.

  But I used to shave my armpits always. Until you asked me to stop. You sort of have to here.

  Is it in the Constitution?

  Don’t be snippy.

  You guys are so uptight, I can’t believe it.

  We can’t help it.

  What did you mean, it was like shaving?

  Time to service the little woman. English is the only language that makes shaving sound exciting. ‘A close shave.’ In every other language, it’s synonymous with boredom. C’est vraiment rasant, ça.

  Is it?

  Of course not. Not now.

  You mean sex used to be boring until you met me? That’s the nicest compliment anyone’s ever paid me.

  Don’t get too conceited. The actual sex was okay. Well, some of it. It’s just that I didn’t necessarily feel like doing it all the time.

  Like Tristram Shandy’s father winding his clock.

  I didn’t know you’d read that.

  There’s lots you don’t know about me.

  True.

  Don’t get moody again.

  I’m not.

  So let me try and get this clear. Sex used to be a duty, now it’s a pleasure. If this is your biggest problem . . .

  It’s too much of a pleasure, that’s all. When I’m with you, I lose track of everything else. It’s like a drug or something.

  You mean a sort of folie à deux?

  Exactly.

  I’ve felt the same thing. And it does worry me sometimes. I just can’t seem to get enough of you. But you know what? I don’t care, plus there isn’t a fucking thing we can do about it.

  There’s one fucking thing we can do.

  Look, you can leave any time you want. I’ve told you that. Is it all too much? Do you want to leave?

  No.

  Then stop whining. Ah. Jesus.

  I’m sorry. If anything good ever happens to me, something in me feels a need to destroy it.

  That’s all right. Just keep doing that and I’ll forgive you anything. Oh, do you think you could touch my nipples, too? Oh. Oh, yes. There’s a kind of . . . Oh God, yes, do that some more. Now the other one. Oh. Ah. There’s some kind of hot line that goes straight from there to my clitoris. If someone touches my breasts, I just have to fuck them.

  Do you want some more wine?

  Not really. You?

  I think I’ve whined enough. Is there anything else I can do for you?

  Actually, I sort of want you to put your tongue down there. Do you think there’s any way you could do that?

  Yes. Yes. Oh Christ. God in heaven. Ah. Stop, stop. No more. I can’t, not now.

  I’m so glad you don’t have a beard. Did you ever?

  I don’t remember. I don’t think so. Maybe I did.

  I hate beards.

  So how come you married one?

  What do you mean?

  What do you mean, what do I mean? It’s in every family photograph. Unlike you. Little Claire and the Beard. Little Frank and the Beard. The family Volvo and the Beard. The Beard and the Beard.

  Oh, that.

  I bet it felt kind of interesting, though.

  I don’t remember. I think I hated it.

  Even ‘down there’?

  Stop it.

  Sorry. Prohibited zone. Intruders will be shot on sight.

  It’s not that. There’s just nothing to talk about, that’s all. He was a weak person, but he was kind to me.

  You married him because he was weak?

  I felt sorry for him.

  I wish someone had felt that sorry for me.

  Look, I was twenty at the time, all right?

  How come you felt sorry for him?

  He was a dreamer. It took me another fifteen years to work out that he was also a schemer and a complete fuck-up. At the time I just saw the charm. He needed to be looked after. And he could make me laugh. I love to laugh.

  How did you meet?

  He came to fix the washing machine in the house where I was living.

  You had a whole house?

  Not just me. There were a bunch of people living there. One of them knew this guy who was good at fixing things, so she got him to come round and take a look at our Electrolux.

  Instead of which he took one look at you, and . . .

  It wasn’t that quick. Nothing like you and me. Do you remember what happened with us?

  Of course I do.

  On that plane. You tried to kiss me, just before we landed.

  That’s right. We kissed, and then we exchanged phone numbers, and I called you the next day and suggested a date, and you said, ‘Let’s have dinner and then see if the sex thing works.’

  It does, doesn’t it?

  It does for me.

  But that’s not what I said.

  Said where?

  On the plane.

  What did you say?

  You tried to kiss me, and I really wanted you to, but I saw the other people watching us.

  Like voyeurs?

  Yeah, kind of like voyeurs. Mind you, we’d had all that caviar and Scotch and talked about them like voyeurs. Anyway. Is there any water? And then I said, ‘I think it’s very hard for you not to touch me. It’s hard for me not to touch you too.’

  And I tried to kiss you.

  And I said, ‘Not here.’

  So what about Darryl Bob?

  Who? Oh, well, we dated for a while, and then he asked if he could move in with me, because the landlord was kicking everyone out of the place he was living.

  And you said yes. Yes you said yes I will yes.

  Actually, I said he could have my room over the summer while I was up in Canada with my parents. They were living there then.

  Was he at college too?

  He’d already graduated.

  In what?

  Philosophy. Not a big job market.

  So he was just hanging out?

  He was dealing drugs, basically. But that was kind of normal at the time. And he got some money from his parents.

  So you went to Canada. What happened then?

  He wrote me there several times, and when I got back he still didn’t have anywhere to go, and, well, like I said, I felt sorry for the guy. Why are we even talking about this? It’s absurd.

  Say that again.

  Say what again?

  ‘Abzurd.’

  Fuck you.

  Well, if you insist.

  Would you like me to suck you?

  I wouldn’t say no.

  You have a gorgeous cock, do you know that?

  I bet that’s what you tell all the guys.

  I do not. Anyway, what guys?

  Right, Lucy, we believe you.

  It’s true. Oh, come here. Yours was the first uncut cock I ever sucked, you know that? Plus I love this vein at the back that looks like a road map.

  Route Sexty-Sex. What’s the matter? Don’t stop now.

  No more jokes.

  You got a deal.

  Oh please. Oh please stick it in me. Stick it in me right now. Do me do me do me do me do me. Nail me.

  God I love to fuck. Is that bad of me?

  Did you always?

  Yeah.

  When did you start?

  Late.

&nbs
p; How late?

  I was seventeen.

  That’s not late.

  It was at the time. But I’ve always been a late developer. I was flat-chested until I was fifteen. Why are you laughing?

  I just remembered this old joke.

  Tell me.

  No, it’s too awful. And too corny.

  I love corny jokes.

  Well, this girl gets taken by her mother to see the doctor because she’s been coughing a lot, right? So the doctor gets out his stethoscope and tells her to take her top off. ‘Big breath,’ he says. And the girl says, ‘Yeth, and I’m only thickthteen.’

  What did you do with the cigarettes?

  Uh, I thought they were . . .

  I left them right there, on the bedside table.

  Oh, so it’s my fault?

  I don’t care whose fault it is, I just want a smoke.

  Here they are.

  Thanks.

  That story?

  Yeah?

  Something similar happened to me. When I lived in San Francisco, I went once to the Free Clinic. It was just around the corner from where I was living. I had some sort of chest infection, and that was all I could afford. And there was this young doctor, straight out of medical school some place on the East Coast, and he told me to take my top off so he could examine me? So I did, and he started trembling. And I felt so embarrassed for him, but also kind of awkward, you know?

  So you were a late developer when it came to sex?

  I guess so. At first I had to learn how to come, you know?

  I bet you learned fast.

  Mmm.

  Who was your tutor? Or was there more than one?

  Not really. It was this guy, my first real boyfriend, the only person who ever broke my heart. It’s funny, he called up a couple of months ago. I hadn’t heard from him in twenty years. Apparently he’s in some sort of counselling because he can’t commit to relationships, quote unquote. The counsellor told him that in order to dock with his personal angel he’s got to contact all the women he’s screwed over and work through the pain with them.

  So what did you say?

  Forget it. Well, I was a little nicer than that. But there’s no way I’m going to start rummaging through my past in order to make him feel better about himself. Who do these people think they are? If you can lay claim to victim status these days, everyone’s supposed to drop everything they’re doing and come help you to resolve your issues. The hell with it. I hate the past.