by Nick Laird
‘You might still tap-dance but your piano-playing days are over,’ Glover said when Tom came back, kitchen roll wrapping his hand. He was trying to lighten the mood, but Tom was not cheered. A bully, he was incapable of being the target for wit. He aimed for David.
‘Don’t know what you’re so fucking excited about.’ Heartened, Tom turned back to Glover. ‘Here, if I’d known you were going to ask this prick to be best man, I’d have said yes after all.’
David turned to James. ‘What?’
‘Don’t like speaking in public, mate.’
Glover looked at David and gave a shrug of relaxed defiance. ‘He is my cousin.’
‘I reckon even with the dyslexia, though, I’d have done a better job than you.’
‘Shut up, Tom,’ Glover said equably.
After they’d gone, David followed Glover into the kitchen, where Glover started rinsing glasses at the sink, keen, it seemed, to erase any last remaining traces of his presence in the flat. David felt strangely calm; he was actually glad that Glover was leaving, and removing the splinter of resentment he’d been feeling these several months. By going, Glover was writing him the blank cheque of a new life, and he could decide how it was filled in—or filled out. They were almost at the end. Tomorrow it would be over and Glover and Ruth would be gone.
And he wouldn’t miss having mouth-breathers like Tom hanging around, though it was intensely annoying that he’d been second choice for best man. It turned out he was not even Glover’s understudy; he was Tom’s. Heavily, he sat down at the table, scraping it close to rest his elbows on.
‘Nice evening,’ Glover said. Was he being sarcastic? David didn’t know. He watched his shoulder blades trowelling under his shirt. David’s Sunday-school teacher, in a bare dusty hall in Kennington, had once told his class that their shoulder blades were the stubs left over from angel wings, which they’d lost when they fell from grace. The very memory angered him. All that venality and self-importance and superstition. God has chosen to make…you. You are the millionth visitor, the goal of evolution and the absolute reason for the existence of the cosmos, and the BIG CASH PRIZE of heaven awaits. Just click here.
‘I’m sorry. Again. But you didn’t have to mention the photograph—make me look like a freak.’
James set an upended mug on the draining board, then stopped the tap with three sharp twists and turned round.
‘You are a freak. And Ruth was freaked about you carrying a photo of her around. Pretend all you want, but it can’t mean nothing. It means something.’
David felt quite tranquil. Disegno. He had material and subject. He had freedom and restraint. He had invention and respect for the tradition. It was possible to solve the problem properly. Stet Fortuna Domus. Let luck attend his house. Say it.
‘You should look in her fucking wallet, then.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not in there. Jess is, though. What d’you think that means?’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I’ve fucking seen it. At her exhibition. She gave me her wallet to pay for drinks and there was a photo of Jess in it. For all I know, she might have one of each of her husbands too. Everyone she’s fucked.’
David watched with interest as Glover tried to re-enter the current of his emotions at another, safer spot. He blinked.
‘You lie, David. We know that now. You lie and lie.’
David held an artful silence for a few seconds. In it, he hoped that Glover found his answer. David once thought he was a painter; then a novelist; then a poet. Right man, wrong mediums. His gift was for silences.
‘Look, I don’t know anything. I don’t even know if it was Jess that Ruth left Bridget’s father for. And you don’t know either, clearly.’
David did know, of course. What was she called? Gloria. Something gothic happened to her. Bridget had mentioned an asylum.
‘Why are you trying to fuck things up, David? Why are you trying so hard?’
Glover slammed the kitchen door behind him. David sat and listened to the stoic refrigerator humming, then heard Glover, speaking softly in the hallway. Ruth, it’s me. Can you ring me, please? I know it’s late but I need to talk…I just really need to talk to you. Where are you? Are you with Jess? Call me.
A minute or two passed and David continued to sit, very still, in the kitchen. It was late. The dark glass of the window reflected the bulb hanging over the table and it seemed as if one could cross over and enter that reflected world of liquid shadows and black depths, of antimatter and all its possibilities. He heard Glover scrabbling around for taxi cards in the drawer by the phone, then listened to him talking again, asking for a cab. You’ve got nothing, nothing at all?
David stood up and lowered the blind in the kitchen, banishing his murky twin. Glover was sitting on the floor of the hallway, the Yellow Pages open on his crossed legs.
‘It’s three in the morning. Do you not think—’
‘I’m going to Ruth’s. I’ll get a cab from somewhere.’
‘Look, I can drive you if you really want, but will this stuff not wait until tomorrow—’
‘Let’s go, then. Or just give me the keys. I can drive there myself.’
‘You’re drunk. I’m not giving you the car.’
‘I’m no drunker than you are.’
‘That’s as may be, but you’re not insured.’
David lifted a half-bottle of whiskey from the booze cupboard above the kettle.
‘We’ll need this.’
The street was desolate and freezing, and all the houses appeared to be in darkness, though a hip-hop beat was just audible from somewhere. The Polo wouldn’t start but Glover, even in his present state, insisted that if David kept gunning the ignition he’d flood the engine.
As they waited between failing, scraping attempts, Glover asked, ‘Are you trying to protect me? Do you know something?’
It was so touching. He sounded so small and forlorn. It was such a generous interpretation of his actions that David was genuinely moved.
‘I know they loved each other once. I saw that photo. I know what you know. I want you to be happy, mate.’ He tried the key and the engine kicked in. ‘Here, take a swig. I really shouldn’t drink any more.’
Variegated bruise
As they drove across Blackfriars Bridge the night was about to break. A grey sky was dully emerging. With difficulty a young woman walked in high heels beside the bridge railing, a man’s suit jacket unevenly draped round her shoulders, though there was no man to be seen. Glover was silent, staring out of the window, travelling through his psychic geography. What was it they’d said? Despair 8 miles, Contentment 26? David had left Despair far behind and was heading for Contentment; Glover was making the opposite journey. David judged the next words carefully.
‘Look, what does it matter if Ruth carries a photo of Jess? Ex is ex.’
Glover tipped the Jameson back and took a nip, then gasped. ‘It doesn’t. I just—I don’t want to lose her.’
‘You know what it is? It’s this thing when it’s the first person you’ve really loved. It can all seem enormously important.’
‘I’ve had other girlfriends.’
‘Sure, sure, but Ruth told me you were a virgin.’
‘Did she?’
‘She was surprised I think but…anyway.’
Glover sat in silence as the Polo came off the bridge and coasted into a roundabout, as smooth as if it ran on tracks.
David stopped on Whitecross Street, by the metal shutters of the Peking Express where Ruth and he had eaten all those months before, the night she told David about her feelings for Glover. David started to say that he’d wait and Glover cut him off, telling him to go on home, then abruptly he jumped out. David watched him jog down the white broken line in the middle of the road.
Then he got out of the car and followed, hiding behind a van in the courtyard of the block when Glover waited in the lit lobby for the lift to come. After the steel doors had closed their maw
, David buzzed the porter, and then waved his wallet at the pensionable, shaved head squinting at him from above the counter.
‘My friend, who’s just come in, left this in the car.’ He walked past without waiting for an answer. He would say that he was worried, he would say he was just making sure that everything turned out okay.
He heard Glover as soon as the lift slid open on Ruth’s floor. The front door of the flat was ajar, and he was shouting. Ruth’s boxes were stacked in the hallway and David crept round them and down to the kitchen. The voices came from round the corner, from the living room. Glover was demanding to know where her handbag was. Ruth didn’t understand.
‘James, please keep your voice down…I think it’s hanging on the hooks by the door. What the hell is wrong with you? You’re drunk. You stink of drink.’
‘You have a good evening?’
Ruth replied, ‘No, as it hap—’ but Glover had already stamped down the corridor and grabbed the bag. David heard him drop it on the carpet, and he edged his head round the dividing wall.
Glover was on his knees, shaking out the contents of her bag. Ruth, in a copper-coloured hooded sweat-top and black silk pyjamas, sat in the armchair with her head in her hands, blonde tufts poking out through her fingers. She was appearing in a different play. David thought she was expecting Glover to notice her pose and join her onstage. She didn’t realize what was happening, what mood Glover was in; then she glanced up. She fired herself out of her seat, shouting, ‘What are you doing? Those are my things.’
‘Have you got a photo of Jess in your purse?’
‘What? No. Why?’
They both made a snatch at her wallet and then James grabbed the hood of her top, and yanked her away. The zip caught at her neck and she banged her hip off the arm of the sofa. She screamed briefly, a shocking animal sound. He was emptying the wallet out onto the carpet and then he lifted something and straightened up. Ruth had collapsed to a sitting position, Buddha-like, with her back to the side of the sofa, and was clutching her throat. She was silent, terrified, and looked up with incomprehension as Glover waved the photo of Jess in her face.
‘What are you doing? What is that?’
‘It’s fucking Jess. Everywhere, always. Why are you lying to me?’
He tossed it at her and it bounced off her shoulder, spinning under the sofa.
‘I had no idea that was in there. But what does it matter anyway? Why does it matter in the least—’
‘Ruth, why are you here?’
‘What do you mean? James, you’re drunk and—’
‘Why fuck me? Why not fuck Jess? Or anyone else?’
She opened her mouth, closed it again, then said, ‘Oh my God. Not this. Again. Not now.’ She pitched her head back, displaying the dark bags under her eyes, then she let out a sigh and slid her jaw to one side with contempt. ‘I’ve probably fucked her enough already.’
Glover stooped slightly, as if he might help her get up, but instead David saw his arm lash out, saw him hit her with the back of his hand in her face. He heard the sound, fleshy and dull and definite.
He was there. He was watching. He pulled Glover off her, though by then he was trying to hug her, and pushed him against the wall. Glover’s shoulder hit a picture, a Miró print, one of Walter’s, and it fell to the carpet without breaking. They were in shock. Glover stood there dumbly and Ruth just stared at the carpet and held the lower half of her face. David was between them, saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ knowing it wasn’t even close to the truth. Glover started sobbing, great gusty, whooping sobs, and his face was all twisted. David knelt and took Ruth in his arms.
Jess appeared then in the living-room doorway, an apparition in a white sweatshirt with San Diego written on it, and grey jogging pants. She dangled a box of tissues, a finger hooked into the hole on the top.
When he saw her, Glover stopped crying and said, with a halfhearted flare of defiance, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck is she—’
Jess’s face was swollen and blank. ‘My Ginny almost died.’
She glided across the room, not seeing the contents of the bag or the fact Ruth was holding her jaw with two hands or that David was even here. Then Ruth repeated it suddenly, screaming at Glover, ‘Ginny almost died! You stupid boy! You child!’
There it was: ‘child’. It hung in the room like a beautiful painting, so undeniable and true that no one could look away, that everything near it lost lustre and interest. The apartment had started to grow light. Outside London was coming to, waking up. The long night was over. David told Glover to get out and he edged towards the door, but didn’t go through it. He was still wearing his black anorak and held both elbows to stop himself shaking. Then he began rubbing a palm vacantly up and down the door frame.
Ruth, sitting at the foot of the armchair, pulled a tissue from Jess’s box and held it to her mouth, where it bloomed with an acid red. Jess had sat back on the sofa, waiting for something, and now stared impassively at Glover. Ruth said, ‘Please go. David, thank God you’re here. Get him to leave.’
Her voice was hoarse, digitized by the tissue pressed against her lip.
‘Thank God he’s here? What the fuck is he here for? Why don’t you look at his blog? Check out The Damp Review if you want to see what he thinks—’
He was stopped by David pushing him through the doorway. For a second he tried to resist but then the anguish went out of his face and he turned, walked meekly out. They heard the door of the flat close. David’s breath came quick and shallow. At the sink he unreeled some kitchen roll and wet it under the tap, then sat beside Ruth on the carpet. Gently, he inclined her compliant head towards the pear lights and dabbed at the cut on her lip. She started to cry again. He helped her up onto the sofa and he and Jess sat on either side of her and hugged her. Then he made tea.
They had been in the taxi when the news came that Ginny had suffered a series of small strokes, but Jess had begged Ruth not to tell anyone at the party, not to spoil their evening too. When they arrived at the hospital Ginny’s niece Miriam had hugged Jess for fifteen minutes straight. Miriam said she’d stopped talking, mid-sentence, and was then put on a respirator. They’d stayed at the hospital for three hours, by which time Ginny was well enough to insist that they leave. She said Ruth needed Jess at her wedding, and besides, she’d still be here tomorrow evening. ‘You will be,’ Jess said, as she finally agreed to go.
They’d arrived back in London around 2 a.m. and the shock of it had started to hit Jess. She never handled things like this well and Ruth had given her two Temazepam, and heaped blankets on her. She was still a drug-zombie and now Ruth and David walked her down the corridor and watched her climb awkwardly into the mound of bedclothes.
Ruth perched on the edge of the sofa; knees pressed tightly together, elbows propped on them, head shored up by her fists. She was withdrawing herself from the world and spoke softly, her gaze stalled in mid-air. She’d never seen a man behave in such a way, had never in her life been shouted at like that. And never, never, never had someone actually hit her.
David, lying back in an armchair, sat up and unbuttoned his shirt, and displayed to Ruth the variegated bruise on his chest—his medal—that Glover had given him. He told her how Glover had punched him there only last night when he was trying to have a bath. He was out of control. He’d been angry about some tiny thing that David had said, and he’d then grabbed his computer and thrown it against the wall. The screen had been smashed. David didn’t know what was wrong with him. Ruth shook her head repeatedly, clearing the scales from her eyes. It was the depth of her error that astonished her.
She needed some air. He helped her climb into her yellow coat, then followed her out onto the balcony. There was a cold wind this high above London. Out east, over the finance district’s glass and steel, the curry houses of Brick Lane and Aldgate, Hackney’s estates and undredged canals, the sun released an anaemic downy light. No heat, not yet.
Ruth shivered and David
placed an arm around her. Twisting away from him suddenly, she snapped her hand into the air and lobbed her mobile phone over the hammered concrete wall. They listened for a couple of seconds, expecting somehow to hear it land, but they were too far up, and there was only silence. David laughed a little nervously and Ruth said, without emotion, ‘I’m too old to take that kind of shit.’
Our culture is too old for love, David thought. You must rescue yourself and you know it. The impulse inwards has overcome the impulse out. Who wants to relinquish autonomy, be whisked up by someone else, be enthralled and helpless? We are busy. We are surfing for porn. We are watching TV. We are waiting at the counter for our turn to describe the size of the slice of Brie we want, or Gorgonzola. Glover and Ruth would thank him, if they knew enough to know how he had saved them. He had given them back reality. He had demythologized them.
How foolish they were to think they could become purposeful and whole through another human being. The process of existing, of growing a soul, is allegorical to making art, not love. The answer might not be One, true, but we know it’s not Two.
Expectations are different. Our plays do not end with a marriage now, or if they do, we expect that that marriage too, one day, will end. We have absorbed various crystalline truths, and one of them is this: people love each other all the time, and leave.
David assured her he’d take care of everything, that she should spend her time with Jess and Ginny, and Ruth turned on her computer to print out the guest list with phone numbers. She was almost too tired to be emotional now, and did everything woodenly. David was watching as she called up the files. She exhaled with a slight hum.
‘I didn’t know you were one of these bloggers everyone talks about.’
