by Jan Carson
We were just as frugal with our affections.
‘I find you almost as attractive as my wife,’ he said on our second date.
‘You have slightly better legs than her,’ on our third.
Words were cheap. We rarely touched.
After dinner we walked the aisles of the supermarket, colliding surreptitiously on every other corner. It was a joy and a horror of sorts to round the vegetable aisle and find him lingering by the closed-cap mushrooms, daring me to drive my trolley hard into his ankles.
‘Sorry,’ we said, and neither party was sorry, only thrilled and slightly frustrated by the anoraks, the cardigans and the weekday underwear which conspired against us and could not be removed in a supermarket setting. There were other ways to collide, of course. We bought the same kind of marmalade and the same kind of bread and agreed to think lustful thoughts over our individual slices of breakfast toast. (I could not bring myself to tell him that marmalade was ugly to me and the only thing I could bear on toast was margarine. I ate my toast dry for a week and felt like an unfaithful lover.) The situation escalated. Marmalade was not enough to keep us together.
‘I want to do things to you,’ I whispered over the magazine racks one evening.
‘Me too,’ he replied, ‘but I’ve also got to get the shopping done.’
We came to a very practical compromise, an austere kind of give and take which was much better than marmalade, but far from best.
I placed individual items in his trolley. He placed different items in mine. Little bits of each other breaching the sanctity of personal space like the stray socks and hair slides which slip down the side of a lover’s bed. We left it longer and longer before removing these items, often stacking them on the side of the checkout, too shit-scared to risk the questions which would come from carrying home an uncharacteristic pineapple or hair-care product.
‘It seems odd that we never touch,’ I finally admitted, and he pointed out that this was my first supermarket love affair and perhaps I was confusing it with a more pedestrian kind of arrangement. I had to agree that he was right, though my fingers and my knees and the small of my back throbbed in protest.
‘It’s not that we can’t touch,’ he explained, ‘it’s just that there are different rules in supermarkets.’
And so we allowed our hands to brush and linger in the dairy aisle. It was easiest in the dairy aisle, for everyone buys milk and butter and at least one kind of cheese. Reaching through the early evening crush for a strawberry yogurt or half pint of cream, even the most intimate gesture could pass as accidental. We fell into each other when the aisles were quiet and, on all other occasions, feigned clumsiness. He could hesitate between one brand of butter and another for almost a minute, fingers darting backwards and forwards across the shelf so that our elbows clashed and separated and met again like the fickle undulations of an evening tide. I rolled my sleeves to the elbow and always went for the milk at the back of the shelf. And, if my reward was a two-second rush of forearm freckling against chilled forearm, I paid for it in next-day use-bys and wasted milk.
We never forgot, even for one heady second, that the shopping came first. It would have been ludicrous to return home without the hand soap or the mandarin oranges we’d set out for. Questions would have been asked. We brought shopping lists to guard against distraction; his was slightly longer than mine, so I suspected children, at least two, possibly three. On the best Tuesdays – when he wore the red pullover and I chanced heels – the lists were the only things which kept us anchored to the supermarket floor.
Towards the end of May, when our love affair was approaching its seventh shy month, he said, ‘Let’s go crazy tonight. It’s too hot for good sense.’
I thought he might kiss me. I had yet to see the inside of his mouth.
Instead, he ordered salad in the café and soft drinks in lieu of our usual coffees. After dinner, he tidied our trays away, careful to recycle the recyclable elements. He reminded me of my father, or perhaps my father’s father, and this was a nervous shrug of a feeling, not so far removed from a common cold. He wasn’t even wearing the red sweater. In light of this and other dull decisions, I felt inclined to draw a line under the whole love affair.
‘Things need to change,’ I said, as we collected our trolleys, ‘this isn’t working for me.’
‘Things can change,’ he said. When we arrived in the frozen-desserts aisle he took leave of himself and grabbed me by the wrists, forcefully. He left marks: four red lines and a dot, circling each arm like a bracelet. I studied my wrists for a week, watching as the red bruised into blue and finally brown. It was the only thing he’d ever given me and, for days after, I prodded the marks with a blunt pencil, hoping to get another week out of the bruises. It was a giddy thing to be grabbed by him in full view of the Arctic rolls. I forgot that we were a modern couple and that my arms were my own to fold and withdraw. I forgot about the groceries and the shopping list and the carefully clipped vouchers tucked inside my purse. My wrists said, ‘Boy, oh boy it’s really happening now,’ for he’d never grabbed at any part of me before. My ankles were keen to get in on the action. I leant backwards and forwards, anticipating any amount of craziness.
‘Watch this,’ he said, and opening the freezer door, selected a box of milk chocolate Magnum ice creams. ‘Let’s be spontaneous. We’ll eat them right here in the aisle.’
‘But they’re not even on the shopping list,’ I gasped, thrilled by the way he was ripping the cardboard wrapper off.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘and we haven’t paid for them yet.’
‘But we will, won’t we?’
‘Of course we will. We may be crazy, but we’re not degenerates. I’ll keep the box.’
He turned the box upside down and emptied the contents into his hands. There were three ice creams in total. It was like first communion. He passed one to me, took one for himself and seemed unsure what to do with the third.
‘I didn’t think there would be three,’ he said.
‘There’s always three Magnums in a pack,’ I replied. ‘We usually have one each and put one in the icebox for later.’
It was entirely the wrong thing to say. ‘We’ was not the once-a-week-on-Tuesdays exception but rather the rule, my pronoun of habit and ten years next spring. He looked at the extra Magnum, still white with freezer fur, and he thought about his own icebox and his wife, and his two or possibly three children. I could see these thoughts as they folded into his forehead, forming train tracks and telephone wires from one sad conclusion to the next. All the craziness drained out of him. Under the strip lights, with a handful of thawing ice creams, he was no longer dangerous or remarkable. He was a civil servant in a BHS pullover, getting the groceries in. He was somebody’s husband, much like my own, but thinner.
‘I need to pick up some washing powder,’ he said, and we both knew that the washing-powder aisle was on the other side of the building, as far removed as the supermarket would allow. It was the last thing he ever said to me. The following Tuesday I made my excuses and began buying our groceries at Asda. (Things were cheaper in Asda, and there was little chance of seeing him, but the vegetables never lasted as long.)
After he’d left, I lingered in the frozen-desserts aisle. It seemed appropriate. I ate my Magnum slowly, peeling the chocolate off with the edge of a fingernail. I took small pleasure in the fact that the box was in his trolley. As he approached the checkout and paid for his washing powder and medium cheddar, he’d find himself – for the first and last time – buying me dinner: the only concrete sin in an otherwise sinless love affair.
13.
Alternative Units
‘Hey Liz,’ you say, ‘did you see the house is up for sale again?’
You have purposefully waited till my mouth is full of sandwich to say this.
‘Hrmmm,’ I say through bacon, lettuce, tomato and artisan rye. Bread is not a quick chew, like rice or pasta. You have at least ninety seconds of my silence in which
to present your argument. It is an argument I have heard many times before. In the past I’ve always said, ‘No,’ and, ‘Definitely not,’ and other stronger sentiments, usually with swearing.
I will not be swearing today. Freddy is with us. He is here beneath the tablecloth, twisting himself round the legs of the restaurant chairs. I can feel the heat of his small body sweating against my shins as he winds his way from one end of the table to the other. The brush of him, barely there and then gone, makes me think of little fish flitting beneath boats and ocean swimmers. On the other side of the table, an untouched toastie marks the place where he should be sitting. Melted cheese drips from the bread like tears turning solid as they cool. You say I need to stop ordering food for Freddy in restaurants. It is a waste of money. We do not have money to waste. I can see the waitresses thinking this with their eyes when they come to lift the plates and Freddy’s is untouched.
‘Finished with this?’ they’ll ask. I’ll say, ‘Uh huh, he’s not that hungry today,’ and you’ll catch the waitress knowingly by the eye, and maybe, if you think I’m not looking, chance a shoulder shrug.
I find this very offensive, John. It is like you are making a team with the waitress and I am not on this team even though I should be. We are still married. Despite everything, we are still Freddy’s parents. I have told you more times than I can remember that we need to operate as a unit. You cannot be making other, alternative units with waitresses or sisters or, for that matter, therapists. I have used various metaphors to explain this to you: for example, singing from the same hymn sheet, presenting a united front and being in it together for the long run (which is actually two separate sayings pressed together for effect).
You always tell me that this is different. That this is not about working together or not working together. This is just about being sensible.
‘Sensible!’ I fire back at you, my voice coming dangerously close to shattering. ‘You want to talk about sensible? Tell me, John, is it sensible to make your family move out of the house they love, all the way across town, to a rickety old house you haven’t lived in since you were ten?’
‘I was happy in that house,’ you say. ‘I think we could be happy in that house again.’
I ignore you every time you talk about happiness. Your idea of happiness is like the outline of a circle. My idea of happiness is all the parts huddled together in the middle. We used to complement each other perfectly. Since Freddy, we don’t.
‘It’s only you that wants to move,’ I say. ‘I’m quite happy where I am and I’m certain Freddy doesn’t want to move either. He might not even come with us if we left our house. It’s not sensible, John. It’s just plain selfish.’ This will be the final word in the argument about houses, until the next time you bring it up.
Last Friday the house went up for sale again.
Straightaway I knew this had happened. It was all in with the way you walked into the kitchen after work. Your voice was going, ‘Things are looking up,’ and, ‘It’s getting better all the time,’ but your mouth wasn’t buying any of its bullshit.
You are not subtle when you want something, John. If you don’t ask outright you make it clear with your feet. Once, you stumped round the house so loudly I phoned the Internet company and paid for superfast broadband before you even had the chance to ask for it. Another time I let you get me pregnant though I did not want another baby in the house. Freddy is enough for me. But your hands, and the way they touched me – like tiny cattle prods, pushing, pushing, pushing – made it quite clear he was not enough for you.
Oh, you are definitely not subtle when you want something.
When we first met I could not get enough of this. The way you looked at me as if I was something to be eaten or unpeeled. Now I am tired and wish to be held like a hardboiled egg still in its shell. You do not want me like this. You do not even want to eat me or unpeel me any more. You only want me to be sensible like the wives of your colleagues and brothers.
‘Why can’t you be sensible about this, Liz?’ you ask. ‘It’s been four years now.’ You are meaning everything from the house to the way I wear my hair and all my grandmother’s jewellery at once. You are mostly meaning how I am with Freddy.
You think the house will help with Freddy. You think it will be a new start for the two of us and the baby which you put inside me. These are the out-loud reasons you give me for moving. Inside, I know you are hoping we can leave Freddy behind. You are hoping that the new baby will be Freddy without any of the unfortunate parts. You are not a bad man. You may not even realise that you are thinking these terrible thoughts. But I know you are.
I have seen the Property News circled on your desk and the brochure from the estate agent that you have left by the downstairs toilet, waiting for me to find it there, smirking. Now, we are in a lunch place about to have the house argument again, and I am using my ninety seconds of chewing to remind myself not to cause a scene, or swear in front of Freddy. It is important not to upset him. He is always with me but even now, after four years, I still worry that he will tire of me and leave. I am his mother. We should be like magnets, joined at the hip, peas in a pod, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. When he was very little we were inseparable. I wore him bandaged against my chest and when he cried, felt the sob of it in my lungs, like a kind of premonition. I cannot be sure how close we are now. Do magnets lose their pull with time? This is a serious question I am asking you, John. You have always been more scientific than me.
Freddy is not listening to us this afternoon. He is under the table making small mountains of other people’s crumbs. He likes to do this in restaurants. I should stop him. It’s unhygienic. But he tells me it is just like building sandcastles and, as we do not have a beach in this town, or even a sandpit at the park, I say, ‘what the hell, let the child play with other people’s crumbs. There are worse things he could be doing.’
While I am chewing, I peek under the table and smile at him. He is using the corner of his hand as a shovel, scraping pizza crusts, breadcrumbs and tiny slivers of grated cheese into a pile. He smiles back at me and gives me a thumbs up. Freddy no longer speaks but I understand what he means. I do telepathy on him with my mind. Do you want to go and live in Gran Gran’s old house? I ask him and he replies, No way, Jose. I like our house just fine. I am glad that we can talk to each other without words. It is perfect for situations like this, when my mouth is full.
You do not talk to Freddy any more. At first you did. You were better at the talking than I was. You called him, ‘Wee mate,’ and ‘Bud.’ You told him he was breaking your heart and also breaking my heart – both our hearts really, because back then our hearts could not be separated out. You were usually crying when you talked to Freddy. The therapist said crying was good and extremely healthy. She also said writing things down was good. Then, after a year, she said that it would be good to start thinking about the future. ‘No thank you,’ I said, but you stopped crying and you stopped writing things down. Then you stopped talking to Freddy altogether. You asked the hairdresser to cut your hair differently. This was how normal people showed the world they were making a new start. I had not seen any of this coming. It was like a car accident.
‘What’s the point in talking to him?’ you asked. ‘It’s not like he hears me. It’s not like he ever replies.’
You wouldn’t even say his name out loud.
It wasn’t just Freddy you stopped speaking to. You barely had anything to say to me: only bills and if we were running low on milk or bread. We kept acting the part of two people who were leaning against each other. This was easier than telling our friends we were over. We fell asleep side by side in the same bed. When I woke up you were always on the sofa and I’d wonder how long you’d waited before leaving me. You went back to work and I didn’t. You started jogging, stopped drinking, looked up package holidays on the Internet. I didn’t. I hated you for thinking about the future. I couldn’t say this without leaving you. Leaving you was not an option. There was
Freddy to consider and I had no money of my own. You were the one with the proper job.
I swallow the chewed-up sandwich. It sticks in my throat and I take a mouthful of water to shift it.
‘Freddy’s under the table building crummy castles,’ I say.
‘Crummy castles’ is a phrase we came up with years ago, when Freddy was just a toddler and already making piles out of other people’s food. It used to make you smile. Sometimes you even laughed. You are not laughing now.
‘Don’t be cross,’ I say. ‘I know it’s unhygienic. I’ll make him wash his hands before we leave.’
‘Freddy doesn’t want to move house,’ I say.
It’s as if you have been waiting for me to say the third of these sentences. It is like we are reading from a kind of script. Now it is your turn to respond.
‘Freddy’s not under the table,’ you say.
‘He is. I can feel him leaning against my ankles.’
‘Freddy’s dead, Liz,’ you say. You used to say this kindly. Now you say it like a hammer. You are loud. You are very, very loud and people at other tables are turning to look at us.
‘Shhh,’ I whisper, ‘I know that Freddy’s dead. We’ve been over this a hundred times. He’s still here though. Look under the table, John. See for yourself.’
You refuse to look. You refuse to admit that our son is still here, building sandcastles and running through the sprinkler in the backyard, watching cartoons on the living-room sofa and crawling into bed between us when he cannot sleep. It is easier for you to say he is dead than lift the tablecloth and look at him down there, grinning.
