by Adele Parks
Until last night.
I kissed Belinda. It is impossible to fudge, to excuse, to defend or vindicate. I betrayed Laura. OK, I’d had lots to drink and I am confused. This whole thing is just scrambling my head. And Belinda is my wife. But, oh shit, shit. That sounds like I’m trying to fudge, to excuse, to defend or vindicate and as expected, it doesn’t hold up.
I feel dirty so I slip into the bathroom and quietly start to take a shower. Well, as quiet as it is possible to be; the shower is a power shower with jets that almost blow me clean away, right down the plughole. No more than I’d deserve under the circumstances.
Do I or don’t I love Belinda? I did once. Do I still?
Do I or don’t I love Laura? I thought I did, I was about to tell her I did. But then I kissed Belinda.
How is it possible to think so much of two women at the same time? To want two women so much at the same time? Answer: annoyingly, it’s easy. The issue is who do I want to spend my foreseeable future with? Because while having feelings for two women at the same time is feasible, it’s certainly not advisable and not the sort of situation that can be allowed to endure. Bigamy is a crime and despite the precedent Belinda has set I cannot see it as anything other than morally reprehensible. Adultery – the same. I don’t want to have an affair with Belinda. I don’t want to cheat on Laura. But I don’t want to be with the wrong woman either.
I stand with my face towards the shower faucet and let the hot jets spray and splash water on to my face. Who is the right woman? I had no idea that life could be so difficult. What would my mates, Dave and John, make of this? Well, John would probably take the piss: he’d insist that there is no dilemma when choosing between two hot women, that it’s a win/win situation. Dave would see it as the horrible drama it is. I don’t know what to think, except that I have to go to Belinda. I need some answers.
I’m not proud of what I decide to do next but I can’t find a solution that would earn me a medal. This one might, at least, help me find some peace of mind. I dry and dress as quietly as possible. I write a note telling Laura that I’m going to spend the day at rehearsals. I hate lying to her but I think it’s better than leaving her without any explanation and I’m talking from experience. Then I sneak out of the bedroom, gently closing the door behind me.
37. Memories
Bella
‘I wasn’t sure you’d turn up,’ says Stevie.
‘Nor was I,’ I shrug.
I’m not sure I had any choice in the matter. Last night I lay awake, putting all my energy into not touching Phil. I was terrified that if I touched him, a touch would lead to a hug, a hug to a kiss, and then what? Would he be able to tell I’d kissed another man that night? Of course not. Not possible. Not feasible. But somehow believable. A terrifying thought. I don’t want to hurt Phil. I’ve never wanted to hurt him. I’ve been trying to avoid that all along. That, and losing him.
Last night I repeatedly told myself I had no choice but to meet Stevie. I reminded myself that he could blow the whole situation sky-high by exposing me as the fake I am, if he so chooses. And, I also argued to myself that he has a point, I do owe him some more answers and further explanations; it’s a miracle I’ve avoided giving them out so far. Finally, I want to. I can’t think of a better way to spend my day. The entire position is terrifying.
‘Have you eaten?’ asks Stevie. He takes a sweeping glance around the hotel reception. ‘We could have a pastry in the café or go to a diner.’
I shake my head. ‘No appetite.’ Besides, I have no intention of hanging around where Laura or Phil might spot us. I don’t have a death wish.
‘Me neither. What do you want to do?’
‘Something fun. Come with me.’
We walk out of the reception and step into a waiting limo. I joke with Stevie that I now believe there is no other way to travel since Adrian picked us up from the airport. Stevie looks thrilled that I’m being kind about the trip which, after all, he did win. I haven’t been demonstratively appreciative, I know. I’m not really in a position to be especially gushing in my compliments.
I tell the driver to go west of the Strip, via Desert Inn Road and then out on to Industrial Road.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Stevie.
‘Wait and see. Don’t worry, I’m not taking you to one of those pay-by-the-hour hotel rooms or even to a tattoo parlour to have my name emblazoned across your chest.’
‘That’s a relief.’ He smiles and pretends to mop his brow.
I was trying to hit a note of flippancy, in an attempt to keep the mood light, but of course I simply sounded flirty and suggestive. How is it possible to keep the mood light under the circumstances? For a start we both feel extremely uncomfortable that we are lying to our partners in order to be together and I, for one, am fighting lusciously, filthy thoughts. Again.
It’s got to be illegal, or at least unusual, to think your husband is as sexy as I think Stevie is. He licks his lips and I practically gasp imagining him running his tongue between my legs. He stretches out his legs, casually, in front of him and I catch a glimpse of his ankle. Not an obviously provocative part of the body under normal circumstances but I have to exercise superhuman restraint, in order not to swoop down on my hands and knees and start kissing him there. I don’t even like feet; I’m definitely not a toe-sucking type. I’d always thought women who fantasized about giving blow jobs in the back of limos were cheap or weird. I don’t want to consciously focus on the fact that I’m currently working out the logistics of doing just that. I wonder if he’s having equally erotic thoughts. I steal a sly glance and catch him grinning at me, but it turns out that we’re not thinking along the same lines, because when he does interrupt the silence, it transpires he’s been thinking about Kirkspey. Kirkspey is always far from my mind.
‘If they could see us now.’
‘Who?’
‘My mum, your dad, your brothers, anyone from Kirkspey.’ I shudder at the thought. Stevie is smiling affably. ‘What do you think they’d say?’ he muses.
‘I think they’d be shocked,’ I comment pragmatically. ‘For a start none of them know that we’ve had anything to do with each other for eight years. And my family thinks I’m married to Phil. So I guess they’d be a bit surprised to see us riding in the back of a stretch limo, in Las Vegas.’
‘Yeah, but besides all that stuff about who knows what and—’ he starts to grin ‘—and who is married to whom.’ How can he find that amusing? ‘I bet they never thought my Elvis gigs would get us so far.’
‘No. I guess not.’
This scenario is so far out of their realm of experience that they couldn’t even begin to imagine the sumptuousness, the glitter and the glitz. They could not visualize the enormous hotel rooms, the marble slabs in the lobby that have no discernible use but are purely decorative. They could not imagine riding in a limousine, dipping in a Jacuzzi or drinking cocktails in a bar. My dad wouldn’t believe that Stevie was living a life that only fictional characters like James Bond are entitled to. Even the filthy underbelly, the gore attached to Vegas, the prostitutes, the drugs, the gambling addicts, would be beyond the imagination of most Kirkspey inhabitants.
‘Here we are,’ I say, with a beam, as we reach our destination. I’m glad to move off the subject of Kirkspey. And I’ll be glad to get out of the limo. Although it has a huge interior, we were still too close for comfort in it. I need my self-control to go the distance, I’m only human, there’s no sense in putting it through unnecessary stress.
‘Where are we?’ asks Stevie.
‘Elvis-A-Rama,’ I say proudly. Stevie must see that my bringing him to the Elvis museum is a treat for him.
‘Really? Wow.’ He grins and almost jumps out of the limo before it draws to a halt.
We’re the first ones into the museum and, somewhat surprisingly, even I find it reasonably interesting. Stevie finds it fascinating. He salivates over the exhibits, working himself up to a frenzy over certain artifacts. There i
s a boat, an ancient Cadillac and a piano. When the curator is not looking Stevie reverently caresses the steering wheel, door handles and ivory keys. I try not to giggle as he tenderly strokes these cold objects. I also try not to feel jealous, lucky bloody piano keys.
There is a display devoted to Elvis’s army career, showcasing his uniform and letters that he wrote to his manager at that time. There’s a fetching red-trimmed karate robe; predictably there are a couple of rhinestone-speckled jumpsuits that Elvis wore to perform and there is a pair of blue suede shoes, which are apparently insured for one million dollars. There’s a soundtrack playing, so I hum along, as I walk past countless walls plastered with movie posters and record-album covers. After about an hour and a half I’m flagging but Stevie has only just begun to pay homage. I didn’t spend this long in the Louvre. I find a seat in front of a video screen and lose myself in a film with shallow plot and questionable dialogue.
I just don’t get it. Stevie’s enduring passion flies right over my head. Elvis was cute and talented and, from all accounts, a nice enough guy to be around, but why would you want to devote your life to looking like him and singing his songs? Why would Stevie want to do that? Stevie and tens of thousands of other people? I don’t understand. I shrug and add this question to my pile of unanswered whys.
I wait as long as I can bear to, then check my watch. It’s nearly midday. I congratulate myself because I’ve sidestepped any big talks with Stevie, I’ve resisted falling into his arms and avoided discussing last night when I didn’t resist falling into his arms. So far so good. Also, Phil thinks I’m shopping and has no idea that I’m a bigamist, which is undoubtedly a result. So why don’t I feel better or calmer?
I blame Amelie for lots of my discord. I made the mistake of calling her this morning and even though I didn’t wake her this time, she was no more sympathetic or helpful than the last time I called. When I tried to explain that Phil made me feel content and secure and Stevie’s kisses had sent fireworks to my heart and other less romantic parts of my body, she had tutted impatiently.
‘You seem to think your husbands are there to provide answers or to complete you. It doesn’t work like that. You have to be a complete being and soul before you can love properly. Phil wasn’t put on this earth to make you feel secure nor was Stevie sent to make you feel wild and limitless. Why don’t you work out who you are first? Think about it.’
I’m sick of her sanctimonious attitude. She’s self-appointed in the role of my conscience and she’s unwelcome.
‘Amelie, why are you so cross? You and Ben didn’t even bother to marry because you don’t believe in the institution,’ I’d argued.
‘You do, presumably, since you’ve chosen that route twice. And, for the record, we did believe in integrity, loyalty and commitment.’ I think she would have hung up on me at that point but I didn’t give her the opportunity: Phil emerged from the bathroom so I had to cut her off.
Amelie isn’t helping matters by constantly insisting that I need to think about things. What I really need is for her, or someone, anyone really, to give me some answers. I’m working against the clock here and I need help.
I stand up and go to hunt down Stevie – it’s time for lunch.
There’s a smart diner next door to the museum. The menu is the same as in all other diners i.e. extensive as long as you fancy something that comes served with chips or maple syrup. As it happens, that’s exactly what I fancy, so Stevie and I settle down to large burgers (his chicken, mine bean) with side orders of fries and huge, creamy strawberry milkshakes.
‘Should I put something on the jukebox?’ asks Stevie.
‘Yes.’
‘Any requests?’
‘Anything but Elvis,’ I say.
He must think I’m joking because he chooses ‘Viva Las Vegas’. I bite my tongue. I can deal with it. How long does one track last? Three minutes, tops. We are friendly and relaxed while we talk about music, the museum and the menu. I think we can manage to stay affable – as long as we keep away from the subject of my multiple marriages.
‘About last night,’ says Stevie, who perhaps has not drawn the same conclusions.
‘I’m not sure we have anything to say, do we?’ I hope this sounds like a closing statement rather than a question.
Stevie overrules me. ‘I think we do.’
‘We’d both drunk too much. It’s easy to do silly things when there’s moonlight and… cashew nuts and things.’ I’m not making sense.
‘I see,’ says Stevie. He seems reluctant to let the incident lie, but lie it must. I mean, what’s the alternative? My grabbing Stevie now, climbing across the Formica table and snogging his face off? Hitching up my skirt and riding him till I’m raw?
‘Have you had fun this morning?’ I ask, pushing the porn-style vision from my head.
‘Yeah.’ I’m grateful that he’s allowing me to change the subject. ‘But even that’s confusing, isn’t it? How much fun we have together?’
So we’re not changing the subject then. I try again. ‘You’ve won a great prize, Stevie. Did I ever say congratulations?’
‘No, you never did,’ he says. ‘You never thought I’d amount to much,’ he adds. His tone is observational rather than offended or bitter.
Inwardly, I smile. ‘Amount to much’; a one hundred per cent Kirkspey expression if ever I’ve heard one. ‘I didn’t think you’d amount to enough,’ I clarify.
‘Explain,’ instructs Stevie.
He is sat with his elbows on the table and stirring his milkshake with a straw. As he issues his one-word instruction he is staring out of the window, seemingly concentrating on a flashing neon sign that reads: ‘Life is Fragile, Handle with Care’. Like so many of those trite little sayings that you find on fridge magnets and Hallmark cards, the message suddenly seems scarily pertinent.
To most people Stevie no doubt looks the epitome of relaxed cool. But I spot the muscle at the side of his mouth twitch; what was it that he’d said about poker faces, last night? I know that Stevie is tensely sat on tenterhooks. My answer matters to him. My answer is important. I take a deep breath. He’s right. I do owe him and I get the impression that he’s telling me that now is the time I have to pay. I plough in.
‘You were on about the people in Kirkspey earlier. The thing is, you were all mixed up with how I feel about them. You still are.’
‘Go on.’
‘They’re not normal and I just wanted to be normal. At one point, you seemed like an escape and I was wild about you. Then you seemed to be part of their clan and I was just… wild at you, I guess.’
‘You’ve lost me. Rewind.’
‘Do you want more music? I think I’ve enough quarters.’
Stevie sees this as the diversionary tactic it is and says no. ‘Explain what you mean, Belinda, please.’
He’s asking Belinda and she could never resist him.
‘OK. When I was sixteen and petting heavily with you in the front room of my dad’s house, you seemed like an exotic creature. You’d come to Kirkspey from Blackpool, England.’
‘Blackpool? Exotic?’ asks Stevie, quite reasonably confused.
‘I hadn’t been there then,’ I mutter, more than a bit embarrassed about my appalling lack of knowledge and sophistication at the time. Was there ever such a naive girl?
‘Loving you, having sex with you, seemed rebellious, unruly and promising.’ I take a sip of my milkshake. ‘For the first time since my mum had died I felt excited about my life and, specifically, about my future. I hadn’t even thought of university until you assumed that I’d be going.’
‘I know, your dad hadn’t suggested it,’ comments Stevie.
‘You know that my dad rarely spoke to me at all.’
‘And you know that fishermen are very superstitious about women,’ says Stevie. ‘It wasn’t personal.’
It felt personal. Stevie is trying, as he always did, to defend my father’s indifference towards me. I shrug, and don’t bother to point
out I wasn’t some remote unlucky woman, I was his daughter. It’s an old wound; I’d rather not pick at the scar tissue.
‘You paid me attention when no one else did. You opened my mind. You had all these ideas and plans and hopes. I thought that we’d help each other to scramble out of Kirkspey and that you’d help me shake off the loneliness and sense of otherness that I’d always carried.’
I pause and half-heartedly pick up a chip, dip it into ketchup, but haven’t the required keenness to get it to my mouth. We both know that when I say ‘always’ I mean since my mum died.
‘When we were at university together you helped me fit in. I just wanted to be normal, like all the other normal middle-class students. You were much more confident than I was.’ I pause and then ask, ‘Do you remember we used to sit up all night reading poetry? Do you think my father’s ever done that?’
I give Stevie a moment to call up my father’s image. Mr McDonnel, a flat-capped, no-nonsense Scotsman known for his gigantic size (six foot four, and eighteen stone, naked, not that anyone ever wanted to even imagine the man naked, he was scary enough in his clothes). He’s a hard, dour fisherman. He breaks chickens’ necks with his bare hands. He courted my mum by taking pounds of knock-off black pudding to her mother’s house on a Saturday teatime; his brother worked in a butcher’s. I remember my mum relaying this fact with such pride to a young me. I thought the pride was misplaced back then and I still think so now. Of course, Stevie would not be able to imagine my dad opening a poetry book as part of his seduction technique. I don’t want to imagine my parents’ coital act at all, but if I have to I imagine the act was silent, perfunctory, distinctly unflowery.
‘But then we married and all you wanted to do was go home and tell everyone.’ I sigh because I feel as defeated and exasperated as I did eleven years ago.
‘Isn’t that the usual thing to do when you get married? Isn’t that the normal thing, Little Miss I-Aspire-To-Be-Normal?’ asks Stevie. And now he does sound a bit peeved. Lost, maybe? Confused?
