by Sarah Tucker
How everything takes on a new dimension when you’re with someone you love.
How I hate electric guitars and never knew it.
How I must never speak after ten o’clock when I’m in bed with a very tired man who has been working hard all day and needs his rest, unless he’s feeling randy, in which case I’ll have my mouth full anyway.
How I have a cute arse.
How Paul thinks I have a cute arse.
How other people probably think I have a cute arse but Paul won’t tell me.
How although Paul likes my chest he would like it to be bigger.
How although I like my chest—I would like it to be bigger.
How I can watch TV, play records and have a meaningful conversation at the same time.
How I have a meaningful relationship with little black dresses.
How having fun and being loyal are not incompatible.
How I love you…
I would be grateful if you would consider my application in your loyal and gentle care, and hope this temporary position will one day evolve into a permanent one.
Yours sincerely…
See. Sounds naff. But at the time, writing it, it was funny and wonderful and just right. I would keep the letters and cards in a little red box and occasionally look through it on quiet Sunday afternoons if Paul was out with friends. Reading it back, somehow it made me feel just sad and very lonely.
The letters and poems and cards grew less frequent as the months progressed, until the only cards sent were for birthday and Christmas. And, on the fifth year, he sent a Valentine.
Five years in, the romance had faded. We’d forgotten to respect each other and do what agony aunts enthusiastically call ‘working at it’. There was almost a laziness in his attitude towards me. We both, perhaps arrogantly, thought that relationships if they were meant to be didn’t need to be worked at. The agony pages were for other couples who had problems. We didn’t. We were intelligent and sensitive and in tune with our emotions and other people’s.
Well, we did have some problems. I had been through an abortion after going out for nine months, to which he had agreed and paid for. We had planned a long weekend in Suffolk at the Angel Hotel. I had forgotten to take the Pill. Well, I had taken it, but I’d been ill and it hadn’t worked. Obviously, because two months later I’d discovered I was pregnant. I didn’t know if I should tell him. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, don’t you think? In hindsight I wouldn’t have told him. In hindsight I wouldn’t have told him a lot of things. But I didn’t have the benefit of that, so I told him.
‘Paul. I’m pregnant.’
‘Is it mine?’
‘Of course it’s yours.’
I didn’t expect that question.
He came over to me and hugged me. I think he wanted to be hugged more than hug. I think he was dazed.
Then, ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t think we should have the child. We love each other but we’ve only been going out for nine months. It’s too soon. We want to do so much. Achieve so much. I think if I had the child you would resent me and it and I would resent you and it. That’s not fair on either of us or the child. Will you tell your parents?’
Paul—‘No, of course not. They’re Catholics. They don’t even know you’re living with me, or we’re having sex. This would break their hearts. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t get it. Couldn’t comprehend it. So it’s not worth going there, Sarah. Will you tell your parents?’
I was bemused by the fact he thought his parents were naïve enough not to realise we were sleeping with each other, but, hey, like so many things Paul increasingly said, let it pass for now.
Sarah—‘No. Likewise. They’re not interested. They have their life to lead. They are busy and my mother doesn’t want to know what will or could hurt her. So I tell her nothing. My dad’s not well. He thinks of me as his little girl. I don’t want to spoil the illusion. My mum wouldn’t forgive me if I did.’
Paul—‘So we tell no one?’
Sarah—‘We tell no one.’
One week later. Local clinic. Paul drove. Seven a.m. No traffic on the M25. Leafy lanes. Pre-warned there might be demonstrators outside. Anti-abortion. There weren’t. It would take a morning. I could work the next day. They were very kind. Efficient. At twenty-five I was the oldest in a ward of ten women. It was quick. Physically and emotionally numbing. Offered Rich Tea biscuits and sweet tea when I woke from the deepest sleep. Feeling relieved and relief. The other women in the ward were still sleeping. One was awake. She was crying. She’d had a local anaesthetic and she told me she’d seen the baby.
‘I saw the baby. It looked like a proper little baby. I didn’t think it would look like a baby, but you could tell. You could tell it was a baby when it came out. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect something like that. I expected a little cell and I don’t think I would have had a local if I’d known. I don’t think I would. I don’t think I could go through that again. That will haunt me, that will. That will haunt me. Wish I hadn’t seen it. Wish I hadn’t.’
I hadn’t seen the baby. I hadn’t seen what had come out of me at twelve weeks. I had been asleep. And I closed my mind to it and just thought it was a joint decision and something that both of us, Paul and I, had decided together and agreed upon. And that it was a dreadful decision to make, but it was the most practical decision, and it would have been unfair on Paul who was just starting out on his career and me who was trying to start one. And there would be plenty of time to have children and we loved each other so it wasn’t a case of that. And we loved each other. And we loved each other. I kept saying that over and over in my head because it made me feel better. Not good. Just better. Reassured.
And I cried, just a little bit.
We drove home in silence. Two hours of it. He cried and went to Confession. Alone, I stayed in the two-up and two-down in Chelmsford and made tea. My mother phoned on the mobile to ask how I was, but really to tell me what she had been doing with Dad that weekend. She asked me if I was OK. I said fine and that I was… She didn’t wait for me to finish and said she had so much to do and had to look after my dad and there was a dinner party they had to go to and she had to get ready and get my dad ready. And she did. I didn’t tell my mother. She was not the sort to listen or offer calming advice. She was the sort to scream and consider every bad thing that happened to me an affront to her ability as a mother, and every good thing something she could either credit to her own influence or, in some cases, feel jealous that she hadn’t done herself. In her youth. Even the good things that happened in my life I think potentially hurt her. I would often think, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her and she can’t hurt me by reacting to things the way she does. Pity. I would have liked a mum. I spent my life in search of surrogate mums.
Paul returned from Confession an hour later, having confessed nothing.
Paul—‘I couldn’t tell the priest anything. I felt ashamed.’
Sarah—‘Isn’t that what the confessional is for? To relieve the guilt? To relieve the sin?’
Paul—‘You’re not Catholic. You don’t understand. Don’t even try to understand what I’m going through. Don’t talk about it any more. Don’t mention it. Ever.’
Paul didn’t tell anyone. I told my friend Helen and my friend Steve. Helen, an old schoolfriend, had had an abortion herself and was wise beyond her years. Steve was matter-of-fact, straight and honest, and I wanted and needed a man’s perspective. Paul didn’t want to talk about his perspective. So we didn’t talk about it again. The abortion was never mentioned. The baby was never mentioned. The weekend in Suffolk was never mentioned. It was a black hole of time we lost. And into it went our innocence.
I locked it away. We weren’t as intimate. We got up at ten a.m. on Sunday mornings and always met friends and had lunch out. Paul stopped going to church.
As an Irish Catholic, he had felt an impact on him greater than he or I could have imagined. The relationship st
rained under the weight of guilt and reprehension.
Paul—‘You should have told me you weren’t on the Pill.’
Sarah—‘I was on the Pill. I was just unwell and it obviously didn’t work.’
Paul—‘The Pill always works. Now I’ve got to live with it as well.’
Sarah—‘Are you honestly telling me you wouldn’t have had sex with me that weekend if I’d told you there was a chance the Pill might not work? It was a lovely weekend and I didn’t want to spoil it.’
Paul—‘Well, you did, didn’t you?’
Sarah—‘It was a shared responsibility.’
Paul—‘You didn’t give me the option to share it.’
Sarah—‘I didn’t think there was danger.’
Paul—‘You knew there might be.’
Sarah—‘You’ve slept with girls who weren’t on the Pill before.’
Paul—‘That was different.’
Sarah—‘How different?’
Paul—‘I knew about the risk and I took it. I was given no option here.’
Sarah—‘That’s not fair, Paul. Give me a break.’
Paul—‘Why should I? You didn’t give me one.’
Tears. Both of us.
Within the next six months the sex died. I quietly mourned. In silent desperation I would get up and go to work and come back home and go for a workout and organise birthday parties and Christmas drinks and dinner parties and be the devoted girlfriend and feel very lonely. And I knew he felt lonely too but I couldn’t reach him any more and somehow he didn’t want to be told I loved him any more. I loved this man in a spiritual as well as emotional sense. Paul had only a single bed, and we would snuggle up, spoon-like, so close all night. Somehow we managed to sleep and it was fine. We would ring and text each other every day. E-mails were long awaited.
Paul—message received
Thanks for a lovely evening. I love spending time with you. I wish we could have spent more time together but there will be other times I know. xx
Sarah—sent
You are a wonderful human being. Think of me in lacy black knickers. Nothing else. That’s how I’ll be when you meet me at the door 6pm tonight. Maybe…xx
After dinners out or the cinema the last message would always read something like:
Paul—message received
Night beautiful. You are very special to me. Thanx for putting the sun into my summer. And I wish you were here with me in my bed. Lots of love. xx
After work lunches or meetings he would always remember and send:
Paul—message received
Hi gorgeous one. Hope lunch went well. Wish I’d been there. You are fabulous. Thinking of u. xxx
We’d go to weddings and listen to the vows. I never caught the bouquet, but friends would always ask in their subtle-as-a-brick sort of way ‘So, when are you two getting married?’ It was a naff cliché and we both ignored it, but as years progressed it started to bug. Breeding insecurity and resentment and cutting communication of how I felt, because I knew it might open the wounds of the abortion again. Which he never talked about. Even when others opened a conversation at one of the many dinner parties we went to and were talked at.
He had been my white knight in his Golf GTI. He had helped me to gain confidence about my body and sexuality. And then he had taken it away. He didn’t feel it was right any more and so we didn’t have sex any more. We hugged naked. We occasionally, in drunken stupors, made love or had sex, but he was always slightly irritable in the morning—as though I had made him to do it against his will. I had tempted him against his better self.
We started to organise dinner parties. To meet his friends and acquaintances. Some of whom initially talked about Gillian a lot, but who eventually realised that Sarah existed too and she was a person in her own right. Paul told me he loved me every day. He e-mailed and texted and called and wrote and every day I felt loved. But not physically loved. Not touched. Which doesn’t matter. Sex isn’t everything. But when you don’t have it at all, it gradually becomes everything. And he hugged me a lot. But it wasn’t like the first nine months. I’d got the chastity belt without even realising it was on.
So by September I was feeling a bit tired of a no sex, no going anywhere relationship—despite the fact I still deeply loved him. I was happy in my little world.
Meeting Paul for lunch today. Our favourite. The Punch Bowl. Posh country restaurant with fine wines. I remember Paul took me here first when we started going out. Arrived at twelve midday. Stayed until six p.m. in the evening. Romantic. Then we walked to the cricket ground and watched them play. Perfect. Fell in love with him.
Five years going out with each other. Perhaps he will propose. Perhaps he will go down on bended knee at the restaurant where we went on our return from that French trip. Perhaps it will be a birthday—his or mine—or perhaps a Christmas or perhaps a holiday overlooking a golden sunset or perhaps at dusk when music is playing in the background. Or perhaps at a concert while the music is live and throbbing. I’ve gradually forgotten to wonder any more. Forgotten to think that maybe this month he will ask me. I didn’t want to ask him. Not even in a Leap Year. Still thought that naff.
Anyway, I knew I would be with him for a very long time. Perhaps not a lifetime. But still for a long time. But not quite like this.
We arrived at twelve midday. We left at two p.m. Food was good. Fine wines still fine. Conversation still OK. Ish. But less room for gaps somehow.
Sarah—‘How are you, Handsome?’
Paul—‘Very well, Pixie.’
He still called me Pixie. It was an endearing nickname.
I liked it. Felt perhaps when it was in my forties it might not be so appropriate.
‘I will always think of you as my little pixie, Sarah,’ he would say. ‘Even when you’re not little or pixie-like any more.’ Ahhh. Warm gooey feeling inside. Perhaps this was the real thing. Perhaps. Had got fingers burnt before with David, so did I want to do this again?
Paul—‘What would you like to eat? The usual? Melon with Dover sole and new potatoes—right?’
Sarah—‘OK, OK, I know I always have the same thing, but I like it.’
Paul—‘Why don’t you try something new?’
Sarah—‘I have and I don’t like anything else on the menu. We could always go to a different restaurant. And you would think in five years they would have changed the menu a little more than they have. But they tell me it works, so why change it?’
Paul—‘OK.’
Sarah—‘How is work?’
Paul—‘Fine—busy. Love working with Richard. He’s fun and he’s thinking of getting married to Caroline. But she’s a fickle girl; she likes someone else and keeps going back to him.’
Sarah—‘Perhaps it’s not meant to be.’
Paul—‘He’ll win her over, I know.’
Sarah—‘Do you still love me?’
Paul—‘Of course I do. We’ve been through a lot together and I still love you very much. I sometimes sit and think that we could so easily have split at the time of…well, you know…and we didn’t. I love you so much I ache sometimes. I hope you realise that.’
Tears in his eyes.
Sarah—‘I do.’
I didn’t. Tears in my eyes now.
Sarah—‘I love you so much, Paul, but we must try to be kinder to one another. I know that other couples take each other for granted over time and I never want to do that with you. You’re wonderful and I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’
Paul—‘I will always be here for you, Sarah. I will never leave you. I will always love you. You lift my heart to the highest point and yet let me down to the deepest despair sometimes. But I know you are always there for me. Loving me. This is the real thing, Sarah.’
Sarah—‘I know it is.’
He leant across the table and with his forefinger wrote on the palm of my hand I LOVE YOU. I reciprocated. It was something of a little tradition. Even when there had bee
n rows we would always touch hands and somehow everything would be all right. Admittedly we did it less, but it was a sort of innocence that we had managed to salvage through the abortion.
We both wanted to fill silence with something these days. Before it was enough to look at each other in stunned silence, in awe of how lucky we were to have met each other. Today we were more in awe of the fact we were still together.
4th September
A Sunday. Am excited as tomorrow will be seeing or speaking to John again. Have to ask question of him about customer focus. This has put me in a good mood about everything. Am very sweet to Paul. Paul reciprocates and is sweet to me. A master of Latin phrases, Mr O’Brian. Oral pleasure a house speciality.
5th September
I’ve phoned. His PA stops me from getting through. Her name is Medina. I keep wanting to call her Medusa. I visualise snarling snakes emerging from her dandruff-ridden crusty head. Turning people to stone who dare to ask her the time of day. She sounds as though she is in dire need of oral pleasure.
‘Who is this, please?’
‘Sarah Giles.’
‘Does Mr Wayne know what it’s about?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you tell me what it’s about?’
‘No. It’s a bit complicated.’
‘I’m afraid Mr Wayne is very busy and can’t speak to anyone.’
‘It won’t take long.’
‘Then you can tell me, can’t you, dear.’
(Don’t you ‘dear’ me, you sexually frustrated and probably bearded and moustached Medina-Medusa person.)
‘OK. I want to know what his views are on the customer focus issue raised in the management document issued by Central Office last year and if he could provide me with a quote as I am now writing a report and it needs to be in by two p.m. this afternoon. OK?’
‘I will see if he is free.’
Big sigh.
Muzak. Barry Manilow singing ‘Could it be Magic’.
‘He will speak to you.’
Click.
Silence.
‘Er, hello?’
