Men I've Loved Before

by Adele Parks

  ‘You are so lovely, Jen. You have choices,’ Nat gently reminded her friend.

  ‘Well, of course. I know that. There’s always a choice. But I don’t want any other man. Karl’s the one for me.’ Nat wondered whether Jen was simply terrified about starting over once again. She often talked about how she’d invested years in Christopher to no avail (by which she meant he hadn’t offered up an engagement ring) and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. ‘You know when you know,’ she said with blind determination.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. Like you knew with Neil.’

  ‘Right.’

  Jen froze and stared at Natalie. ‘And you did know, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nat wasn’t sure how this conversation was helping. She should try to get back to the point. The tipsy floozy calling Karl’s home was the point. Of course Nat knew Neil was her One.

  ‘How? How did you know?’ pursued Jen, who seemed to think this was the point.

  ‘He was kind and decent.’ And of course there’s his fantastic, never-before-heard-the-like laugh, thought Nat but she didn’t say so; that was private, hers alone to enjoy.

  ‘What else?’ demanded Jen.

  ‘And . . . well . . . it’s difficult to explain.’ Nat wondered how she could articulate falling in love with Neil. Loving Neil. Where to start? It was so intense and certain and yet so easy and ephemeral. She took a deep breath and gave it a go. ‘I was attracted to the things about him that were so different from me. You know, his careless, fearless approach to life but, at the same time, I was reassured by the fact that when it came to the big things, like loyalty and values and our goals, we had so much in common.’

  ‘Had?’

  ‘Have,’ Natalie said firmly, although she felt a little woolly on this point, right now. No doubt because she’d drunk too much red wine and was fed up with the incessant baby talk, but at this exact moment in time she was aware that their goals were no longer in line. Neil wanted a baby.

  ‘For me it was timing,’ said Alison. She spoke quietly, glancing across to the kitchen door because she didn’t want Tim to hear her. ‘I love Tim, I really do, but I believe you can be happy with a number of people. One just happens to come along when you’re in the settling-down frame of mind, and if they’re in the settling-down frame of mind too then it happens. All the other near misses and lost opportunities aren’t great tragedies, they’re simply about poor timing.’

  Jen and Natalie stared at Ali, dumbfounded. Nat was unable to process whether she was shocked by her friend’s cool, calm and collected revelation, or impressed. She had never considered her relationship with Neil in this composed and detached way that Ali was suggesting. She had always been passionately certain that she was with Neil because he was her One. They matched. They fitted. They were in love. But what if Ali was right? Was it possible that she could have ended up with any number of men, providing she’d had enough in common with them to convince her they fitted in some sort of mystical, important way? Oh God. A more traumatic thought punched Nat with such force that she was sure she was actually spinning; she gripped the arm of the chair as though she might steady herself. What if Neil could have ended up with someone else? What if he should have? Should Neil be living in another postal address, with a pretty brunette and a dozen bouncy babies? Was she Neil’s One? Was he hers? The question was so overwhelming that Nat fought a physical reaction. Her nose felt scratchy with threatened tears, the hairs on the back of her neck bristled in protest and her stomach defied gravity and leapt into her mouth. Luckily, Jen started to sob again and Nat was grateful to be yanked out of her stunned and appalled state. She pushed the devastating thought to the very back of her mind, a trick that she specialised in, and forced herself to once again listen to the conversation.

  ‘Why doesn’t he love me? Aren’t I lovable? What’s wrong with me?’ Jen’s entire body heaved so Nat pulled her into a hug. Jen’s desperation was pitiful and Nat wished she could come up with a plausible explanation for the phone call. Jen was not a girl who wanted to hear the truth tonight; that much was clear.

  ‘Did this woman actually say his name?’ asked Alison.

  Jen stopped howling for a moment and considered. ‘No,’ she replied cautiously.

  ‘There you go! It might be a wrong number!’ said Ali enthusiastically.

  Nat thought Ali was a genius. Nat was saved from the nightmare of gently but firmly suggesting to Jen that she needed to see Karl for the worthless, two-timing git he really was and that she needed to see the blood on the wall and move on, but now the issue was averted. At least for tonight. Natalie and Alison were relieved. Jen was delighted.

  ‘I never considered that!’

  Why would you? wondered Natalie wearily. Still, it was late. Every one was feeling emotionally battered, she wasn’t making much sense to herself about her own relationship, how could she possibly comment on anyone else’s? This wasn’t the moment to point out that the reason Jen hadn’t thought of that excuse was because it was clearly spurious, bordering on stupid. Of course this mystery woman hadn’t called a wrong number. Of course she wasn’t a university friend. Of course Karl wasn’t meeting ‘a big gang of people’. Right this moment he was probably being sucked off in an alleyway or something equally grubby.

  ‘Is it safe to come back in?’ asked Neil, as he popped his head around the doorway. ‘We have chocolate.’

  ‘In that case, yes,’ replied the women.

  12

  Neil undressed and carefully put his clothes in the wash basket. He wanted sex tonight and he thought that being tidy might increase his chances and so he was disappointed when he noticed that Natalie had left her clothes in a heap on the floor. This was not a good sign; she only ever did that if she was extremely tired. If she was extremely tired there was little chance of them having sex tonight, even if it was Saturday and he had cooked and washed up. Neil followed Nat through to the bathroom. She was wearing a pair of pyjamas. Definitely far too weary to have sex tonight then. That was the code. Pyjamas equalled ‘not a chance’.

  It was true Nat was quite drunk and her stomach full, which was not compatible with shagging, but also her head was full too which made things worse.

  ‘How did you know I was the one for you?’ Nat asked as she brushed her teeth.

  Neil found this question difficult to understand, not only because they both used noisy electric toothbrushes but also because Neil had no idea why she would ask this question or where it might be going, although he had a terrible feeling it was definitely ‘going’ somewhere.

  ‘You told me,’ he replied.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ she said without mirth. ‘Was it timing? Did I just come along at the right time when you were in the settling-down mood?’

  ‘No.’ Neil spat and rinsed then turned to his wife. ‘Totally honestly, when I first set eyes on you, settling down was the last thing on my mind.’ He’d been thinking about getting it up, actually.

  Neil went back into the bedroom and dived under the covers. Brrrr, it was cold. He lay flat on his back and spread out his limbs, he opened and closed his legs, moved his arms up and down, making the same action that created an angel print in fresh snow. He always warmed the bed for Nat if he could because she was one of those people who really felt the cold; her feet were usually like two massive ice blocks.

  ‘Alison thinks it’s all about timing. That you could love any number of partners and you just settle down with whoever comes along at the right moment,’ said Nat when she finally emerged from the bathroom.

  She always spent much longer in there than Neil did, as she had more lotions and potions to wade through. Neil wondered whether it was possible that Nat had discovered plastic bottles with the ability to procreate; every time he looked, they’d multiplied. He’d once had a sneaky count up of the number of bottles which had found a home on the bathroom window sill. He counted forty-seven including anti-age concentrates for the eyes, antioxidant serums for the bust,
antibacterial facial cleansers, a skin strengthening complex for the jaw and a skin tightening complex for the stomach. There was also an assortment of other pots that promised to rejuvenate, retexture and revitalise generally. He had three bottles in the bathroom cabinet: shampoo, shaving cream and deodorant. He found that covered his needs. Natalie seemed to be fighting a war with all her strengthening and recovering and complexes and anti-thingies. It was terrifying. Besides, Neil worried that Nat was so well moisturised that if he grabbed her too quickly or forcefully she’d slip through his fingers. Pop, straight up in the air she’d go, the way it sometimes happened when you were holding a bar of soap in the shower.

  ‘Ali’s not very romantic,’ muttered Neil as he buried his face into Nat’s neck. He loved the feel of her ear and cheek pushed against his nose and mouth (he never made the connection between that silky soft feeling and the numerous bottles in the bathroom, although Nat did).

  ‘True, but look at Jen, she’s uber romantic and things aren’t turning out that brilliantly for her, are they?’

  ‘Has she tumbled Karl?’

  Natalie stiffened and turned to her husband. ‘She has her suspicions. What do you know? Is he shagging someone else? Do you know that for definite? Does he confide in you?’

  ‘Oh, you know blokes,’ Neil said vaguely. He hoped that this answer would be interpreted as, ‘Oh, you know blokes, we don’t talk about stuff the way you girls do.’ In fact Neil meant, ‘Oh, you know blokes, they will get it where they can, at least Karl’s sort will.’

  Luckily for Neil, Nat was far too distracted with her own concerns to really want to pursue Jen’s issue with any tenacity.

  ‘I thought you were my One because we matched. We fitted. Right?’

  ‘Yup, that’s love,’ murmured Neil, without giving it too much thought. Why did women need to talk about this stuff? His love for Nat was a given. Her love for him was a given. What more was there to say?

  ‘But Ali’s point is that love alone isn’t what a marriage is about. We’ve all been in love more than once. What distinguishes the ones that didn’t work from the One that did?’ Nat began to feel panic swell in her stomach once again. She didn’t want to pursue this line of thought but couldn’t ignore it. Now the idea had been mooted, it crawled around her head like an insidious infection. ‘It has to be something extra. Like agreeing about shared goals and values, don’t you think?’ Nat asked anxiously.

  ‘Dunno,’ muttered Neil, as he gently resumed kissing Nat’s neck. She had a small mole just under her chin, not much bigger than a freckle really. He adored it.

  ‘Remember, we agreed on the small stuff to start with, like which movies to watch, how often we should go out, where we should go, and then we found we agreed on the big stuff too. Hey?’ Nat turned to Neil for reassurance. Neil was now repeatedly kissing her shoulder. He’d managed to edge the neck of her pyjamas to one side so her flesh was exposed.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he mumbled. He wasn’t listening. The kisses were soft and gentle and had his entire focus but they were beginning to irritate Nat as she wanted to talk.

  The problem was they no longer agreed on the biggest issue of all. What did that mean? Nat wanted to hear Neil say that they had other things that glued them together – enough other things – so she pushed on.

  ‘Do you think we have a lot in common?’ she demanded, pulling away from him and yanking her PJs back over her shoulder.

  ‘The things we have in common are not insubstantial,’ replied Neil carefully. ‘We both believe in global warming and are conscientious about recycling.’

  He wasn’t sure why this thought had popped into his head first. Probably because he’d just taken out the empty bottles and put them in the green bins at the end of the street. God, they’d knocked some back tonight. Ali hadn’t even been drinking and Karen only had one glass but they’d thrown out six empty wine bottles, and that wasn’t taking into account the vodkas they kicked off with and the whisky they finished off with. Tim had drunk like a condemned man. Neil glanced at Nat, who was staring at him, emitting anxious vibes. She was often tetchy and unpredictable after she’d drunk red wine, although it was more than his life was worth to say as much.

  Perhaps he’d have been better telling Nat that he thought they’d ended up married to one another because they loved one another a fucking huge amount. They were soul mates. He could have said that she was his right to his left, he sometimes ached he missed her so much when she went away on work trips, and that occasionally (and this one really was soft) he even thought that perhaps he’d known her before they’d met, in another life or something, maybe. Crap and ditsy as that sounded. It was just that she fitted. Absolutely one hundred per cent. Perhaps he should have said that he didn’t believe you could quantify exactly why you chose to be with someone for the rest of your life but that you knew when you knew and that was that. And maybe he should have said that he also thought that once you’d made that commitment you had to stand by it. Thick and thin, good and bad, sickness and health. That was the deal.

  Instead he said, ‘Mind you, it’s always me who goes to the recycle banks to place the cardboard, glass and plastics diligently in the proper place, while you’re the one that’s most likely to put on an extra jumper rather than turn up the heating. You’re a tight bugger.’

  ‘And that’s it for you, is it?’ asked Nat, exasperated. ‘That’s why we’re married because we more or less agree on environmental issues?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m just saying—’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What else do we have in common?’

  ‘We both still dream of being obscenely rich. We both doubt this will ever happen. We both adore smelly cheese. We both love watching reality TV, even if it does glamorise the scourge of society, and we both hate Marmite.’ Neil paused but Nat was still staring at him expectantly. ‘Neither of us has ever been to an opera. Neither of us wants to. Our favourite city is New York. We’d both like to visit Tokyo one day.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And sex. We both like sex, especially in the missionary position, if we’re honest.’

  ‘Neil, be serious.’

  ‘I am being.’ After a moment he added, ‘OK then.’ With a sigh, Neil sat up in bed and on his fingers he counted off the things that bound them together. ‘We like each other’s friends and families. We both vote the same way. We would never cheat on an insurance claim or avoid paying our taxes which, I think, makes us fundamentally honest people. We always honour the first invite we’ve accepted, even if something better comes along. We both hate litter, lateness and lying. We both want to grow old together. We love each other.’

  But people could fall out of love. People could stop loving each other. ‘And what about the stuff we don’t have in common?’ asked Nat, turning to Neil. She had a lump in her throat; it was the mass of inconvenient questions which she couldn’t swallow, as much as she might like to after that wonderful speech.

  ‘I don’t fancy James McAvoy and you do and I will never understand why you use so many cosmetics. You don’t need that crap. You’re beautiful,’ he added.

  Nat smiled at Neil. It was her best smile. The slow starting type that became wide and dazzling. Neil lay back down again and she tucked her head under his arm. He pulled her close to him.

  ‘You think that’s OK, do you? Enough for us?’ she asked. Nat wanted him to say yes it was OK, everything was OK. They could carry on just as they were, happy in their Marmite- and child-free existence.

  ‘For now,’ answered Neil truthfully. Had she forgotten? Neither of them liked lies.

  ‘For now?’

  There was a silence and then Neil said, ‘You’re nearly thirty-four, Nat.’

  ‘I know.’ It was a fact that recently Neil had repeatedly reminded her of. She wished that meant he was planning a big birthday bash but she didn’t think so. ‘So what?’

  ‘Have you any idea what that mean
s to a woman?’

  Natalie knew exactly what that meant to a woman. That’s why she had forty-seven bottles of hope on her bathroom window sill.

  ‘I’m going to get bat wings?’ she said jokily. Now, irrationally, she was trying to avoid the topic that she had pursued since they came to bed. She knew this was what they needed to talk about but she wished the issue had never raised its ugly head.

  ‘There’s a time limit on these things, Nat.’

  ‘No, you’re not up against a timeline,’ Natalie spat like fat in a pan. She scrambled around her mind for the facts she’d Googled just yesterday. ‘Rupert Murdoch became a father at seventy-two. Charlie Chaplin was seventy-three.’ Even as Nat relayed these statistics she knew this wasn’t the heart of the matter and she wasn’t surprised that Neil stared at her as though she was insane.

  ‘I get it, Natalie, and I’m dead chuffed for Daniel Quinn who sired a kid at eighty-one, was it? But frankly I’m not sure exactly how that relates to me because I want a baby with you and so there is a time limit on it – yours.’

  Nat sighed and sat up, pulling away from him. The sorrow and distress sat stalemate between them. Neil could feel it, taste it and hear it in the silence. It climbed into his head, mouth and ears.