The ABCs of Love

by Sarah Salway

It was just a hobby, though, because we could never really afford any of the homes we looked at. When we saw one we particularly liked, we would spend the week afterward talking together about which piece of furniture would go where. We’d have arguments trying to decide what color we would paint each room, which would be my bedroom, where my mother would sit and read in the evenings.

  Sometimes I’d watch my parents walk round someone else’s house hand in hand, and I’d know what it was like to feel secure.

  One house we saw was perfect. It started singing to us the minute we walked in. My mother and father opened cupboards in the large kitchen, sat on the window seat and watched where the sun fell, stood in silence looking at the view from the bedroom. I went downstairs to leave them in peace and found a room we hadn’t gone into before.

  It was extraordinary. Inside, every wall was covered in doors, all hung in identical white-painted doorframes. I opened one at random, and all that was behind it was the wallpaper. I opened another, and then another, but all I could find was nothingness. It took me a long time to find the right door, the door out, and by the time I did, I was crying.

  No one spoke in the car on the way home, and when I followed my father inside, I watched him kick our kitchen table when he thought no one was looking. My parents were upset that they couldn’t afford the house, but I was pleased. It took me a long time before I could open a door without a feeling of dread, but when I told my father about it, he wouldn’t believe me.

  See also Doors; Kitchen Equipment; Magazines; Property; True Romance; Yellow

  I

  ice cream

  When I was six, I was taken to see The Railway Children but had to leave halfway through because I put my ice cream down the neck of the woman sitting in front of me. The funny thing is that I still want to do the same every time I go to the movies. Just to see what will happen.

  I used to like to bite off the end of my cone and suck the ice cream out that way. It upsets me nowadays to see that even advertisements for ice-cream products are using sex to make them appealing. I once gave up sex for a whole year. It was amazing how much extra time I had. It wasn’t that I was doing it all the time. It was the side effects. If you’re not interested in sex, then there’s hardly a book, a film, a piece of music that you need to bother with. There are so many more hours in the day.

  See also Glitter; Sex; Victim; Zero

  illness

  I hate being ill.

  Other people at work have what they call “duvet days,” but I think they’re probably the ones who have never come across really sick people. Otherwise, they wouldn’t pretend.

  When my mother was in hospital, my father and I used to go and visit her every day. We would take a picnic for after our visit and have it in the little garden by the side of the car park. It became important that every day we’d have the same things to eat. Cheese and ham sandwiches, apples, and to wash it down, we’d share a bottle of sparkling water.

  My father would just sit there and cry silently. The tears would roll down his cheeks, and he’d not do anything to stop them. Sometimes people would look at us and then stare sympathetically at me, which confused me because Dad’s tears were something you stopped noticing after a while.

  I used to talk to Dad, not about emotions or anything. I stuck to facts. I’d tell him how many trees were in the garden. How much every separate item of our lunch had cost. I’d read out the football scores to him, right through to the third division. I’d go through the television guide, what was on each channel, even the digital ones that we didn’t have. He’d nod away at me so he’d seem to be listening, but then he’d turn and say something like: “Your mum was so beautiful. I never knew what she saw in me. Even now, every time she goes out of the door, I think she won’t bother to come back. She always seemed so precious. I was scared to touch her, you know. Scared I’d break her or something.”

  Then we’d go back up to the ward, and I’d look at Mum and try to see what he’d seen in her. We were never sure how much she took in, but the nurses said it was important to keep trying to stimulate her. I’d tell her some of the things I’d just told Dad, and he’d nod away again, as if I was right. As if he remembered. And then he’d touch her hand, and I saw that he still saw her as precious, was still worried he might lose her. She became whiter and whiter the longer she stayed in hospital, until she seemed to become part of the hospital bed. Her skin was as transparent and papery-dry as the sheet. Dad and I got browner, though, from all the picnic lunches we had in the sun. Then one day I looked at my parents’ hands together, and it seemed Mum had already died. Her hand looked like a marble effigy next to his.

  When Dad went into hospital not long afterward, it seemed like a cruel joke. Some of the nurses even remembered us. I sat in the garden on my own then, although Sally came with me a few times. She took me out for lunch once. We had chips, I remember, and my tears kept flowing. Just like Dad’s.

  Eventually, the waiter came over. “Is everything all right?” he asked. I guess he was worried I’d cause a scene or something.

  Sally was wonderful. She looked him up and down, and then she said: “No. Everything is not all right. These chips have upset my friend very much. Can’t you see how sad they have made her?”

  We laughed then. It was the first time I’d laughed for about a year and I had been afraid I’d forgotten how to, but when we got back to the hospital, they told us Dad had passed away while we were out. He’d just given up the fight, they said. But I knew he’d died of a broken heart.

  This is why I would never pretend to be ill to have a day off work.

  See also True Romance

  imposter syndrome

  There was another interesting speaker at work. She told us that we had to believe we were worthy of our positions in life, but that just made us laugh because she didn’t seem to understand that most of us secretaries think the opposite—that we’re actually much better than the position we’ve ended up in.

  Still, she also said a lot of things that made sense. She said that many women have this arrow hanging over them. They think that at any minute, someone is going to walk over to them, whatever it is they’re doing—even if (especially if) they’re in the middle of something important— and tell them that they’ve been found out. That they’re not good enough to continue. Please, could they leave the room and let someone better carry on in their place.

  My body felt electric. I couldn’t believe other people have this arrow too. It follows you around, pointing at you in a crowd and telling you exactly what you are doing wrong. Sooner or later, someone else is going to spot it and realize exactly how useless you are. Probably when your mouth is full of cheese sandwich and you can’t defend yourself.

  It was reassuring to learn that this is a common syndrome. I could tell the others felt relieved too. We were more cheerful that afternoon than when we were writing our obituaries, although I have noticed that these personal development sessions have encouraged us to talk about our feelings more. I am not sure this is altogether a good thing. What happens when it all goes wrong and there’s nowhere to hide?

  See also Codes; Happiness; Teaching; Why?

  indecent exposure

  It is a fact of life: in any town, even one as small as this, men often expose themselves to you. I feel rather like a nurse must feel about this. You see this little thing curled up like a shrimp and the expectant male face above it, waiting for you to react, and most of the time, it’s not remotely sexy or even frightening. Just a bit boring.

  Sally has a number of set phrases designed to wither a man at fifty paces, but that seems rather unnecessary. We’re all just trying our hardest to survive—admittedly, some more than others.

  See also Boxing; Weight

  influences

  My mother was a great one for lists. She even spoke in bullet points.

  “And another thing,” she’d say. Even when she was in full flow of one of her furies, she could tick off on her fingers all the
points that made her angry.

  The list she particularly loved was all the bad influences on me. My problem was that I was easily led by so many people and things:

  Every English teacher I’d ever had. Especially Mr. Shepherd in year ten, who wanted to take me and Marian Riley on a camping holiday in his two-man tent after we’d been reading Thomas Hardy in class. We were going to go to Dorset and explore Hardy country, but my mother wouldn’t let me go.

  Suzanne Gibson. I never really understood this one. Suzanne lived in a hotel because her house had been repossessed when her father couldn’t pay the bills anymore. I always lived in fear that my mother would publicly accuse Suzanne of being a bad influence on me, for then Suzanne might think I’d been telling people we were friends when in fact she had never even bothered to look at me. She was far too glamorous.

  The “Cathy and Claire” column in Jackie magazine. Mum had read it once and been shocked by the sex advice offered. She never knew I’d written to them, explaining how I’d fallen in love with a girl in the Lower Sixth. I got a letter back from them saying that it was just a crush and that I should join more sporting clubs to broaden my interests and make me a more rounded person.

  Mr. and Mrs. Goodman, Sally’s parents. They were always too jolly and family-oriented for my mother. Apparently, it was a sign of how vulgar they were. I hadn’t realized until then that only common people are happy. It is posher as well as more interesting to be haunted by internal ghosts who make you miserable. Strangely, my mother liked Sally. She thought she’d come to a bad end and was therefore a good example for me of what not to do.

  See also Danger; Telephone Boxes; Underwear; Zzzz

  J

  jacuzzi

  I have always liked the idea of meeting someone in a Jacuzzi. Of falling in love surrounded by shiny bubbles. Plus, when you’ve just swum yourself into a trance, you leave the rest of the world behind you. Relaxing after this is when I think you’d be able to talk about anything.

  At our local swimming pool, they turn the overhead lights off after nine o’clock at night and start playing country music through the loudspeakers. All the kids have gone home and there’re only adults left, plowing up and down the lengths, listening to words of love all around them and lit up from below the water so they look like gods.

  See also Imposter Syndrome; Mistaken Identity

  jealousy

  Why does Sally have to be given so much in life?

  It doesn’t really help her. She takes so much for granted. She complains about things as if she really doesn’t care about them. She says she wants to live on her own and doesn’t want to be beholden to anyone. She wants no possessions, no ties, no responsibilities. She says this is her ambition. But you can really leave things behind only if you have them in the first place—a family, a relationship, opinions. Otherwise, you’re not even running away. You’re merely existing somewhere, anywhere, else.

  Still, the good thing is that I am not at all jealous of Sally. We each bring our own attributes to the relationship that are mutually beneficial. I am completely happy with my own life. I wish Sally well in hers.

  Sally and I are friends. No, no, no. I am not jealous of Sally. I am especially not jealous of Sally’s relationship with Colin.

  See also Zzzz

  john

  I can’t wait to tell Sally.

  The most amazing thing has happened.

  I have fallen in love. I feel glowing. I feel fantastic. I have just walked down the street, and everybody smiled at me. Men whistled at me. I feel like a goddess. I look down at my arms, and my skin looks as if it has been sprinkled with diamond dust.

  Everybody is so much nicer, funnier, prettier. And so am I.

  His name is John.

  K

  kate

  John has a wife. Sally told me first. Well, she didn’t know exactly, but what she said was: “If he e-mails you from work, he is married. If it is always him who has to call you, he has children. If he doesn’t have any hobbies, it is because he has a family life, not no life.”

  I asked John about it but he was going to tell me anyway. Right after we talked about it, he asked me to tell him a joke, so I believe him when he says being married isn’t a problem.

  “Two parrots were on a perch,” I said. “One said to the other ‘Can you smell fish?’ ”

  Sally told me this joke. It makes everyone laugh, but I don’t really understand it. I think it might be surrealist. When I asked John if this was so, he told me that I was funny and that he loved me. He couldn’t tell me why that should surprise him so.

  John’s wife’s name is Kate. I don’t like the way they’re next to each other in the alphabet. My name is Verity, so I’m right at the end, out of the way.

  He doesn’t love her. He never has. They are together just for the sake of the children.

  See also Women’s Laughter

  kindness

  I want to go round the world carrying out random acts of kindness. I want to buy extravagant foods and leave them on pensioners’ doorsteps. I want to get up on a snowy day and wipe the windshields of every car in the street. I want to entertain small children so their mothers can sleep. I want to take every homeless person to the Ritz for a night. I want to hire the Bolshoi Ballet and put on performances in Trafalgar Square so commuters can be inspired on their way to work. I want to stand on street corners and wait for blind men to come along so I can lead them across the street. I want to tape the wings of injured birds with lollipops and Band-Aids. I want to distribute food to orphans, take guns off soldiers, rid the world of nuclear threats.

  I want everyone to feel as happy as I do. I am so fucking happy, I think I’m going to explode.

  See also Grief; Imposter Syndrome; Nostrils

  kisses

  I’ve taught John to do that twiddly thing with his tongue that the Australian did. He should be in one of those kissing booths at village fetes. I am sure there are many, many people who would pay to be kissed like that.

  The funny thing is, I sold my first kisses for money. My mother would slip me cash for kissing my grandmother whenever we went to visit her. I would have done it for free, but I pretended I didn’t like touching her prickly, hairy, old-lady cheeks because it seemed to give my mother pleasure. In fact, I wanted to rub my skin against my grandmother’s forever. She smelled of lavender and dried rosebuds and those thin tubes of Parma Violet sweets. Very different from my mother, who had a tinny, chemical smell that stung you when you got too close.

  When my grandmother was small, she won a book for good attendance at her Sunday school. She kept it very carefully on a small pine shelf with the few books she had, and I was never allowed to look at any of them. For some reason, this shelf was in her bathroom.

  One day when I was staying with her, I crept up to the bathroom and read it. It was called Freddy’s Little Sister and was all about a boy who was forced to beg on the streets because his parents had died. He needed food to look after his little sister, who was all he had in the world, but no one gave him any money and everyone was horrible. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Freddy’s little sister died. Then the book ended. I cried and cried and cried, and I wouldn’t talk to my grandmother all evening. Eventually, she hit me because she realized I had read her special book.

  If I had a brother like Freddy, my grandmother wouldn’t have done that. I told John about it, and he held me so close.

  See also Baked Beans; Breasts; Endings; Zest

  kitchen equipment

  John and I met through work. This is just one of the reasons we have to keep things quiet. In one of our newsletters, we ran a competition to find the top chambermaid for our client, who supplied cleaning materials to hotel chains. Third prize was a full range of nonstick saucepans. Because it wasn’t very important, Brian let me organize the photograph of the girl receiving her prize, and John came along to hand the pans over as a representative of the kitchen equipment company.

  It
was a bit embarrassing because Maureen wasn’t as pleased with her prize as I thought she should be. She even complained about how she was going to get all the pans back home on the train with her to Leicester, which I have to admit was something we hadn’t thought of. Eventually, I got her a taxi to the station, and when we found she’d left the nine-inch frying pan behind, John said I could keep it, which was nicer than he should have been given the circumstances. I think it was his kindness I fell in love with first.

  When John rang me up at work the next week, he sounded nervous, as if I wouldn’t remember who he was. But I did. We arranged to go out for a drink that evening, and he said that if I’d forgotten what he looked like, I wasn’t to worry because he always went everywhere with a full set of saucepans and this was a fairly good distinguishing mark. I was a bit puzzled until I realized this was his sense of humor. What John didn’t know was that I’d asked the photographer to print out an extra copy of the pan presentation photograph and pinned it above my desk. Brian still thinks it’s because it’s the first job I’ve done by myself. He tells me he finds my enthusiasm refreshing.

  See also John; Liqueur Chocolates; Objects; Vacuuming

  L

  lesbians

  Poor John. He has to put up with so much. He told me in strict secrecy that he thinks his wife might be a lesbian.

  Apparently, she and her women friends touch a lot, even in front of John. They call one another things like “doll” and “poppet” and “petal,” and they are always sending secret e-mails. When John comes in, Kate hides what she’s writing, so he knows it is probably about him. He has to pretend not to mind; otherwise, she’ll tease him.

  He said the worst thing is how these women are always laughing when they are together. John told me he hardly laughs anymore. It’s all work and duty as far as he’s concerned. That’s why he loves being with me. He can feel appreciated.

  He said Kate and her friends seem to care only about having fun. He honestly thinks that if it came down to it, she would choose her friends over him.