Not Playing the Game

by Jennifer Chapman

  She’d had more to drink than she realized and when the time came to go home had to leave her car at the club.

  David appeared remarkably sober and drove them back to his house with quiet fortitude.

  ‘You were having a big chat with Josephine,’ she said, aware that her speech was slurred yet unable to control it.

  ‘You should have rescued me,’ David said as he parked the car.

  ‘I didn’t know you wanted to be.’

  ‘You seemed to be having a good time,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, I see, so you were enjoying not being rescued.’ Mickey got out of the car and stumbled a little over the kerb.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ David said, locking the driver’s door.

  Mickey turned and placed her elbows on the car roof.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, flatly.

  ‘You are, and you’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘What if I have.’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Well you should,’ she said, still leaning on the car.

  ‘Are you coming in or staying there?’ David called as he went up to the house.

  Mickey waited a moment where she was. She knew she was being silly, that she’d had too much to drink, but she was quite overcome by an inexplicable need to feel peeved.

  She moved off the car and made her way into the house, into the dingy as yet to be decorated hallway with its dark brown anaglypta wallpaper and resonant floor tiles upon which David now stood, suddenly seeming Victorian, stern and disapproving, though perhaps this was only wishful thinking.

  ‘Come on, I’d better put you to bed,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t patronize me,’ she said. ‘And don’t try and change the subject. Admit you were chatting up Josephine.’

  ‘Alright, I admit it.’

  ‘Have you ever slept with her?’

  ‘Mickey!’ he said, elongating her name, beginning to sound slightly impatient.

  ‘Have you?’ she demanded, finding it as impossible to control what she said as she did the slurring. It was as if she wanted to find a cause for jealousy, wanted the added dimension of that particular pain in order to feel the more what she already felt for David.

  She knew she was being impossible, almost like a child testing parental tolerance, but she’d been sensible and reasonable all her life and surely everybody had to have someone, ultimately, with whom they could be awful and get away with it.

  It was a little frightening, this new experience, because she didn’t yet know how far she could go: maybe beyond the point where part of her was still standing back, observing her own behaviour; maybe beyond David’s tolerance.

  ‘Why won’t you tell me?’ she persisted when he failed to answer her question.

  ‘Because you’re being ridiculous and you’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘Oh, you’re so cruel!’ she yelled at him.

  Slowly he was getting her up the stairs. It crossed her mind that he might be finding the whole thing faintly amusing but in this she was mistaken. More than anything he seemed tired.

  In the bedroom he sat her on the edge of the bed and patiently began removing her clothes.

  ‘You must tell me. I have to know,’ she said, with all the insistence she could muster.

  There was a moment’s pause, the issue she had created suddenly hanging thick and intense between them. David stopped what he was doing and looked her in the face.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.

  A sort of panic went through her.

  ‘The truth of course.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t,’ he said, resuming the removal of her clothing.

  She was aware of a slight feeling of disappointment.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she muttered.

  ‘Mickey, that’s enough,’ he said, firmly.

  Lying in bed, she watched him undress himself and ached for him to join her under the sheets. When he did she moved towards him in the darkness, touching his shoulder, which was turned from her. But he showed no sign of interest, no movement in her direction.

  ‘David,’ she murmured.

  Still he did not respond.

  ‘Have I put you off?’ she said, quite soberly, attempting to keep any sound of pleading from her voice.

  ‘No,’ he said drowsily.

  ‘What is it then?’ she said, quite loudly.

  He turned on his back and sighed.

  ‘Mickey, it’s an important game tomorrow,’ he said, reaching for her hand under the covers.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ she said, failing to comprehend the connection.

  ‘It’s better not to make love the night before.’

  There was, of course, absolutely nothing she could say to that. Mickey felt defeated, and a little incredulous. She closed her eyes and everything spun round, whirling into a nauseous pit.

  In the morning her head ached and her mouth felt as if she’d been chewing a lump of iron. When she woke, David had already left the bed and a few minutes later came into the room with a glass of fruit juice. He bent and kissed her, then handed her the glass.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, solicitously.

  ‘Horrible.’ She stared at him. ‘Was I truly dreadful last night?’

  ‘Truly,’ he said, kissing her again.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, feeling unattractive. ‘Now you’ve seen me at my worst – I’ve seen myself at my worst.’

  He smiled, armed now with this new insight. Perhaps he read the doubt, the fear in her faintly green face, smudged mascara creating a lugubrious parody.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, but it does,’ she moaned. ‘It does terribly. I’m not what you thought. I’m not even what I thought.’

  ‘Mickey, it doesn’t make any difference.’

  He could see that she didn’t believe him, although it was a matter of pride that he should love her in spite of the way she’d behaved. He thought for a moment then said: ‘Would it have made any difference to you if I’d been the “worse for wear” last night?’ He pronounced the euphemism in inverted commas, as if she needed to be treated gently but also as if he would offend himself by using the word ‘drunk’. This morning he was strong on sensibility.

  ‘No it wouldn’t,’ she answered.

  He seemed satisfied and perhaps a little remaining doubt was healthy for both of them.

  ‘I must leave soon,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you won’t come and watch?’

  ‘Not today. I’ve got some work to go through,’ she told him.

  They embraced, long and hard, until he extricated himself. After he’d gone she got up and ran a bath. She soaked in it all through The Archers omnibus edition on the radio and thought how at one time she had lived more in Ambridge than in her own life, agonizing with Shula Archer over Mark, but identifying more with Caroline Bone, liked but somehow always on the outside of everyone else’s lives – a character destined to be alone.

  This morning she only half-listened, David so large in her thoughts. She wished they could’ve been together for the day but accepted, with only a small question mark, that he had to play. In the month she had known him, she’d been to a fair number of rugby matches. She’d stood on the touchlines feeling cold and mildly embarrassed, this latter because she didn’t know when to applaud or how she was expected to react. There were usually a few others watching but to take her cue from them seemed rather sycophantic. The trouble was she did not come from a sporting family and therefore knew nothing of the rules of the game.

  Another aspect of these matches she found disconcerting was the seriousness with which they were played. They growled and grunted at one another as they tore about the field and pulled at each other’s clothing in the close physical contact of the scrum. It seemed as if their main purpose was to touch one another in a sort of sham of ferocity. She’d heard about sport being an outlet, a means of spending masculine aggression, but she wasn’t convinced of the necessity.
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  Still, she would have gone again and watched today if it hadn’t been for the backlog of work built up since the advent of David.

  ‘Dee, dedee, dedee, deder,’ The Archers went into suspension for another week. The bath water had gone cold.

  She dressed and left the house, hoping Laura and Lawrence would not be at the flat, looking sinful and pleased with themselves. It might have been better if Lawrence had been a sportsman.

  Chapter Four

  After six months, Shula Archer and Mark were still failing to communicate, but Mickey was married to David, the cricket season had come and gone, the summer game as incomprehensible as the winter one.

  It was a week after the wedding and the first home game for David’s rugby team.

  The newly weds had had a week to themselves (all bar the Wednesday evening team selection meeting) in which they’d stayed in the house most of the time, intermittently lifting paint brushes but otherwise making love. They tried all sorts of weird and wonderful contortions illustrated in a book entitled Endless Ingenuity given to them as a wedding present by David’s best man, Simon.

  Mickey felt she knew what it was to be completely happy in that week: to love and be loved equally in return. She had good feelings about everything and when they talked about how they would do the kitchen she even considered an Aga. She offered to make the teas for after the match on Saturday. She hardly recognized herself, there was unreality in so intense a happiness and desire to please. She reasoned it was illogical to feel different just because she was married to David when she’d already been living with him for some time, but this didn’t alter the sense of elation or the unfounded expectation that life from now on would, in some undefined way, be different.

  She went with David to the club, registered, for the hundredth time, that exquisite delight created by the back of his neck as he walked off to the changing room, then made her way in the opposite direction, to the kitchen, where Emily, short and square and horrifically energetic, was buttering slices of bread.

  Emily had a territorial air about her when in the club kitchen. Once or twice during the summer Mickey had ventured in there, offering assistance for something to do, to break up the monotony of incomprehension as runs were scored and wickets fell (she would have liked to have read a novel but thought such inattention might be frowned upon; or done some work, but felt it might appear ostentatious). Emily accepted her help although it was a painful business. She would allow Mickey to wash lettuces she had grown in a window box, specially for club teas, then surreptitiously rinse the leaves again when she thought Mickey wasn’t looking. Mickey knew that one day Emily would have an Aga. When she wasn’t making teas, she was making Arran sweaters for Simon, and when the games were over she would set about the washing-up with a sort of martyred jollity. Emily enjoyed being capable but at the same time cultivated, along with the lettuces, an image of being the reluctant ‘brick’. She was taken for granted by everyone, including Simon, but that was just what she expected and would probably have been confused by anything else, let down by lack of disappointment.

  Mickey did not like Emily. She thought of her in the same way she did her mother’s friends, and similarly, she felt sorry for her. Emily’s mind dwelt in shallow pools that reflected superficial considerations. She felt sorry for Josephine as well, but in a different way. Josephine was her own victim whereas Emily was everyone else’s.

  In this circle of likes and dislikes, drawn into which Mickey felt uncomfortably demeaned on occasions of less intense bliss, Josephine liked Mickey and Mickey liked Josephine, neither of them liked Emily, but Emily admired and envied Mickey and loathed Josephine, the link being poor Emily’s jealousy of the point of contact found between the other two. Mickey knew it was impossible to remain alone with Emily more than five minutes without some comment being made that would bring Josephine into the conversation, adversely but inevitably. Josephine, whether liked or not, was a ‘special’ person and inexhaustible topic of conversation.

  ‘Would you like to put up the trestles,’ Emily said.

  No, thought Mickey, that was something she did not want to do.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  ‘They’re a bit awkward. Just give me a shout if you have any problems,’ Emily went on, making it clear that she spoke from great and long-suffering experience.

  Mickey got a splinter from the crudely cut wood as she erected the tables. She really didn’t like this teas business: she felt out of place and subordinate, not only to the men playing outside in the mud, but also to short Emily. Any moment she expected Emily to busy up to her and say she’d done something wrong. ‘Never volunteer for anything,’ the Walrus had once told her, ‘people always expect too much from volunteers.’

  ‘Oh, wrong way up!’ Emily said, coming from the kitchen to inspect progress. She emitted a small panting sound that was evidently supposed to be jocular. It reminded Mickey of someone else but she couldn’t place who.

  ‘Rough side up,’ Emily continued, grappling with the wide planks. ‘Stops the cloths from slipping.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mickey said, dispiritedly.

  ‘The boys used to spill their tea before I thought of it,’ Emily added.

  Mickey smiled and told herself it was unnecessary to find Emily’s use of the word ‘boys’ so extremely irritating.

  ‘Josephine was here last night,’ Emily said next.

  Mickey waited for her to go on but it seemed she wasn’t going to.

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mickey turned to look out of the window, trying to catch a glimpse of David on the field of play. Benny Hill, that was who she’d been trying to think of.

  ‘I think you’re very patient with her,’ Emily was saying.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, the way she kissed David at your wedding.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘She can’t bear not to be the centre of attraction, that’s her trouble.’

  ‘D’you think so?’

  ‘I know so!’

  ‘I think she’s lonely.’

  ‘That’s her fault.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Mickey was not enjoying the conversation. She knew Emily wanted her to say something unkind about Josephine, and although there were things that could be said Mickey was not inclined to say them; perhaps more because she didn’t want to allow Emily the satisfaction of hearing them than because of po-faced loyalty.

  ‘Come on, let’s spread the fish paste,’ she said, moving towards the kitchen.

  ‘Mackerel pâté,’ Emily corrected.

  *

  It was the end of the week of bliss this making teas, listening to Emily, and the activity outside that included David and excluded her. The home team won and drank to the win all evening. The tea had been eaten without comment, and the table cloths had not slipped.

  Verbalized replay featured large throughout the evening, David and Simon and all the Johns and Steves suddenly indistinguishable. Mickey glimpsed the basic puerility of it all, and understood why Emily’s use of the word ‘boys’ had irritated so.

  But it was no more than a glimpse, Mickey choosing not to allow its development, hoping she would lose sight of it altogether. She smiled and sipped her white wine and put her arm through David’s.

  *

  The following week, back at the office, Josephine rang.

  ‘Oh Mickey, I’m so depressed,’ she groaned. ‘And someone has said the most awful thing.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know that I should tell you. No, I won’t.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘They suggested there was something going on between David and me.’

  Mickey’s head buzzed.

  ‘It was only because of the way I kissed him at your wedding. You know there’s nothing, don’t you? I wanted to be sure you didn’t think badly of me – that you heard it from me first so you’d know it wasn’t true and wouldn’t be upset.’

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sp; Mickey didn’t know quite what to say. If she told Josephine that she would not have been upset, would not have believed such a tale, it was somehow rather insulting and unkind. On the other hand, if she said that she would have been upset this might indicate distrust and a level of vulnerability on her part.

  ‘Who said it?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, one of the narrow-minded little crew. I’d rather not say which one as it could have been any of them. They’re all the same to me, uniformly bitchy.’

  ‘Are you referring to the women or the men?’

  ‘Hell, Mickey, what’s marriage done to you! Listen, I’m having the most ghastly day, can I call in later? I promise I won’t stay long.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Yes come.’

  ‘I’ll see you later then.’

  She’d put the phone down. Mickey replaced the receiver and pondered on the call. David said Josephine never did anything without an ulterior motive and Mickey suspected he was right, yet she felt oddly gratified to have been called by her. Doubtless she would stay all evening if she turned up at all. She was unreliable. She was also exhausting company but somehow it was impossible to refuse her. It was attention-seeking, the sort of drama she had just delivered. It was also sad that Josephine, who was highly intelligent, resorted to such tactics, when just to be herself would have been enough. She always went too far, alienating most people though she was more hurt than they knew by their sighs and silences and glances of dislike.

  She arrived at the house that evening with a large bottle of wine and the impression of having already drunk a similar amount elsewhere. Mickey was alone, David having gone out to a training session.

  ‘So this is married bliss – all alone with the ironing,’ Josephine declared.

  Mickey smiled.

  ‘Oh, I wish I was as sanguine as you,’ Josephine sighed, throwing herself into an armchair. ‘God, this room’s depressing.’

  ‘We haven’t got round to decorating it yet,’ Mickey said, apologetically, glancing round at the unpleasant wallpaper which was not unlike the miserable shade and pattern of that in her old flat.