by Marian Keyes
“Fuckit!” I hissed, almost in tears I was so angry. I kicked the trash can. “Fuckit, fuckit, fuckit!”
I could have died.
Caroline had witnessed the whole thing, so the entire building would know in five minutes. It was only a few days since I had last been a laughingstock in my workplace and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it to happen again. And worse than that, Gus had seen me without my makeup.
I had known Gus was a little bit eccentric and I had liked it, but I wasn’t at all happy about the scene I had just witnessed. My faith in Gus was shaken and it felt horrible. Could I be wrong about Gus? Was this relationship going to be another disaster? Was Gus more trouble than he was worth? Should I just get out now?
But I didn’t want to feel that way about Gus.
Please God, don’t let me become disillusioned with him. I couldn’t bear it. I liked him so much and I had so much hope for us.
But a little voice whispered to me that I could leave him sitting at the front door and exit out the back way. And the notion momentarily filled me with huge relief until I realized that he’d probably wait all night and then come back again the next morning and wait for all eternity until I eventually showed up.
What should I do? I wondered.
I decided to tough things out. I would go up to the front door and be nice to him and act like he had done nothing wrong.
By the time I applied my fourth and final coat of mascara I had calmed down considerably. There is obviously something very soothing about putting on lipstick and foundation and eyeliner.
I reminded myself of Saturday night and the joy I had felt at meeting him. I reminded myself of the lovely day we had had on Sunday, how we had so much in common, how he was everything I had ever wanted, how he made me laugh, how he seemed to understand me.
How could I possibly have considered abandoning him? I wondered.
Especially when—against all the odds—he had managed to arrive at the right time (roughly), on the right day in the right place? I started to feel compassionate and forgiving. Poor Gus, I thought. It wasn’t his fault. He was like a child in his innocence—how was he to know about the rules and regulations of Wholesale Metals and Plastics?
The whole thing had probably been awful for him too. He must have had a terrible shock. Harry and Winston were big, burly men. Gus was probably terrified.
When I finally collected Gus, not only was I a lot calmer, but a change seemed to have come over him also. He seemed much more normal, more sensible, more grown-up, more in control.
He stood up as he saw me approaching.
I was aware of the shortness of my skirt and the interested glances I got from the other employees. Gus’s eyes briefly flickered appreciatively over me before he assumed a funereal expression, white, grim, anxious.
“Lucy,” he said quietly, gently. “So you came back? I was afraid that you might escape out the back door.”
“It did occur to me,” I admitted.
“I can’t say I blame you,” he said, looking tense and miserable.
Then he cleared his throat and launched into a speech of apology, which he had obviously rehearsed while I was in the ladies room.
“Lucy, I can only apologize from the bottom of my heart,” he said rapidly. “I had no intention of doing anything wrong and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me and…
On and on he went, saying that even if I forgave him, that he wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself etc., etc.
I waited for him to stop, for his apology to run its course. His self-denigration became more and more outrageous, his demeanour more and more abject, his expression
just slightly too sheepish and humble. Suddenly the entire episode struck me as hilarious.
What the hell did it matter? I wondered, unable to stop a smile spreading across my face as I realized how silly the whole thing was.
“Here!” said Gus, suddenly pausing in his overblown prostration. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” I laughed. “Just, you, you know, and the look on your face, like you were going off to be executed and Harry and Winston and the way they were acting like you were some sort of dangerous criminal and…”
“Well, it wasn’t very funny for me, Lucy,” said Gus huffily. “It was like Midnight Express. I thought I’d be thrown in the slammer and I feared for my bodily integrity.”
“But Harry and Winston wouldn’t hurt a fly,” I reassured him.
“What Harry and Winston do with insects is no concern of mine,” said Gus, all indignation. “Their private lives are their own affair, but, Lucy, I was sure they were going to kill me.”
“But they didn’t kill you, did they?” I asked nicely.
“No, I suppose not…”
He suddenly relaxed.
“You’re right.” He grinned. “Jesus, I thought you were never going to speak to me again. I’m so embarrassed…”
“You’re embarrassed…” I snorted.
Then I laughed and he laughed and I realized that this would be one of those little incidents that we would tell to our grandchildren. (“Granddad, Granddad, tell us about the day you got thrown out of Grandma’s office…”) This was history in the making.
“I hope I haven’t gotten you into trouble,” said Gus anxiously. “There’s no danger that you’ll lose your job?”
“No,” I said. “No danger.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m certain.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because nothing good ever happens to me.”
We both laughed a bit at that.
“Come on.” He smiled and put his arm around my waist and steered me down the steps. “Let me take you somewhere nice and spend lots of money on you.”
Chapter 34
It was a wonderful evening.
First he took me to a pub and bought me a drink. He even paid for it.
Then, when he was back from the bar and sitting next to me, he fished around in his bag and presented me with a small bunch of squashed flowers. But, squashed and all as they were, they looked as if they’d been bought in a shop and not stolen from someone’s garden, so I was delighted.
“Thank you, Gus,” I said. “They’re beautiful.” Because they were, in a kind of dishevelled way. “But you shouldn’t have,” I protested. “There was no need.”
“Of course I should have, Lucy,” he insisted. “What else could I do? A wonderful woman like you?”
He smiled at me and he looked so handsome that my heart flipped over. Happiness rushed through me and everything suddenly seemed right. I was so glad that I hadn’t given him the slip and escaped out the back way.
“And that’s not all,” continued Gus, putting his hand back into his bag and, like Santa Claus, pulling out a parcel wrapped in paper that had pictures of babies and storks on it.
“Oh God, sorry about the paper, Lucy,” he said, looking at it in disappointment. “I didn’t notice in the store that it was wedding paper.”
“Er…well, don’t worry,” I reassured him, tearing off the offending paper.
It was a box of chocolates.
“Thank you,” I said, delighted, thrilled that he had gone to such trouble for me.
“And there’s more,” he announced, starting the fishing process again, his arm in his bag up to his shoulder. If it’s the small vacuum cleaner thing for the couch, I’ll die laughing, I decided, absolutely charmed by Gus’s thoughtful parade of presents, which he had based on our conversation in the pizza place on Sunday night.
He must like me, I thought. He must really like me to go to so much trouble. I was soaring with happiness.
Eventually he pulled out a small package, also wrapped in the stork paper. It was about the size of a box of matches so it couldn’t have been the vacuum cleaner.
“I couldn’t afford the entire coat,” he said, as if that was some kind of explanation. “So instead I’m buying it in instalments for you.”
> “Open it.” He laughed, when I stared at him in confusion.
So I opened it and it was a little fur key ring.
How sweet! Gus had remembered about the fur coat.
“May the furs be with you,” he said. “I think it’s mint.”
“Or maybe you mean mink,” I said nicely.
“Oh, maybe I do,” he said. “Or it could be stable. But, Lucy, you’re not to worry, I know how some people get upset about fur and the killing of animals and all that—I don’t myself because I’m a country boy, but I know that others do—but no animals died to make this little key ring for you.”
“I see.”
That would mean that it wasn’t mink. Or mint. Or even stable. But it didn’t matter. At least I would be safe from the animal rights activists and their buckets of red paint.
“Thank you very much, Gus,” I said, slightly overwhelmed. “Thank you for all the nice things you’ve given me.”
“You’re welcome, Lucy,” he said.
Then he gave me a knowing wink. “And that mightn’t be all you’re getting—you mustn’t forget that the night is still young,” he grinned.
“Er, yes,” I muttered, blushing.
Perhaps tonight would be the night, I thought, nervous excitement fluttering about in the pit of my stomach.
“And, tell me,” I giggled, eager to change the subject, “what on earth were you doing sitting in Mr. Balfour’s chair?”
“Sitting in it, like the man said,” said Gus. “Not desecrating a sacred shrine.”
“But Mr. Balfour is our managing director,” I tried to explain.
“But so what?” said Gus. “It was only a chair, and Mr. Balfour—whoever he is—is only a man. I really can’t see what all the fuss was about.”
Gus was absolutely right, I thought. What a really great attitude he had.
“Send those two security guards to Bosnia for a couple of weeks and we’ll see how concerned they’ll be about Mr. Balfour’s chair when they get back,” he added. “And send Mr. Balfour too while you’re at it. Now, drink up your drink there, Lucy, so I can take you somewhere and feed you.”
“Oh, Gus, I can’t let you spend all your unemployment check on me,” I wailed. “I couldn’t. The guilt would kill me.”
“Lucy, hush yourself, you’re going to eat your dinner and I’m going to pay for it and let that be the end of it.”
“No, Gus, I can’t, really I can’t. You’ve bought me all these presents and a drink, let me pay for the dinner, please.”
“No, Lucy, I won’t hear of it.”
“I insist, Gus, I absolutely insist.”
“Insist away, Lucy,” said Gus. “But it won’t do you any good.”
“Shut up, Gus,” I said. “I’m paying and that’s that.”
“But Lucy…”
“No,” I said. “I won’t hear another word about it.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” he said reluctantly.
“I’m sure,” I said, firmly. “Where would you like to go?”
“Anywhere, really, Lucy. I’m easy to please. So long as it’s food, I’m happy to eat it…”
“Good,” I said, delighted, my head racing with the possibilities available to us. There was this terrific Malaysian place down by…
“…especially pizzas, Lucy,” continued Gus. “I’m fond of pizzas.”
“Oh,” I said, reeling my imagination back from Southeast Asia. (“Come back, come back, there’s been a change of plan.”)
“Okay, Gus, then a pizza it is.”
It was one of those perfect nights. We fell over ourselves in our attempts to talk to each other, we had so much to tell each other about ourselves. Neither of us could get our words out quickly enough to keep pace with our enthusiasm and excitement.
Every second sentence was one of us saying, “Exactly, that’s exactly what I think,” and “I don’t believe it—do you feel like that about it, too?” and “I couldn’t agree more with you, I really couldn’t.”
Gus told me about his music, about all the instruments he could play, about the type of things he liked to write.
It was all wonderful. I know that we had talked a lot on Saturday night and we had spent all day Sunday together, but this was different. This was our first date.
We stayed in the restaurant for hours and hours and talked and held hands across the garlic bread.
We talked about ourselves as children, we talked about ourselves now, and I felt that no matter what I said to Gus, no matter what I told him about myself, that he would understand. Understand like no one else ever had, or could.
I allowed myself to daydream a little about what it would be like to be married to Gus. It wouldn’t be the most conventional of marriages, but so what? The days of the little woman staying at home and doing the housework in a little cottage with roses around the door, while the man went out and toiled from dawn to dusk, were long gone.
Gus and I would be each other’s best friends. I would encourage him in his music and I would work and support both of us and then, when he was discovered and was famous, he’d tell Oprah that he couldn’t have done it without me and that he owed all his success to me.
Our house would be full of music and laughter and
great conversation and everyone would envy us and say what a wonderful marriage we had. And, even when we were really rich, we would still take pleasure in the simple things in life and would each be the other’s favourite person. Lots of interesting and talented people would drop by without being invited and I’d be able to throw together wonderful dinners for them, out of leftovers, while discussing the early films of Jim Jarmusch in a thought-provoking and incisive way.
Gus would be totally supportive of me and I wouldn’t feel so…so lacking when I was married to him. I would feel whole and normal, as if I belonged just like everyone else.
Gus would never be tempted by the glamorous groupies that he might meet on tour because none of them would give him the same feeling of total love and security and belonging that he’d get from me.
After the dinner Gus said, “Are you in a hurry to get home, Lucy, or would you like to go somewhere else?”
“I’m in no hurry,” I said. I wasn’t. I was, by then, certain that our relationship would be consummated later on that evening and, while I was delighted, I was also petrified. I wanted it, yet I was afraid of it.
Any delay of the moment of truth was something I rejected, yet welcomed.
“Okay,” said Gus, “I’d like to take you someplace.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Great.”
“We’ll have to get a bus, Lucy, do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
We got the number 24 and Gus paid my fare. The gesture delighted me. It was such a sweet, teenagery thing to do.
When the bus reached the delights of Camden Town, Gus and I got off.
Gus held my hand and led me through the carpet of empty Special Brew cans and past the people, lying on cardboard, asleep in doorways, the young men and women sitting on the filthy street asking for any spare change. I was appalled—because I worked in central London, I knew about the homelessness problem in the city, but there were so many homeless people here that I felt as if I had stumbled into another world, a medieval world where people were forced to live in dirt and die from hunger.
Some of the people were drunk, but lots more of them weren’t. Not that that was a yardstick.
“Stop, Gus!” I said, as I got my purse out of my bag.
The awful dilemma—should I give all my change to one person so that he could do something decent with it, like get something to eat or drink, or should I try and share it among as many people as possible so that lots of people got a few pennies? But what can you do with pennies? I anguished. It wouldn’t even buy a bar of chocolate.
I stood on the street, people passing and bumping into me, as I tried to make up my mind.
“What do you th
ink I should do, Gus?” I beseeched.
“Actually, I think you should toughen up, Lucy,” he said. “Learn to close your eyes to it. Even if you gave away every penny you have, it wouldn’t make any difference.”
He was right—every penny I had didn’t exactly amount to very much, but that didn’t matter.
“I can’t close my eyes to it,” I said. “At least let me give away my loose change.”
“Well, give it all to one person then,” said Gus.
“Do you think that’s the right thing to do?”
“If you try to visit every down-and-out in Camden, sharing your money among them, the pub I’m taking you to will be closed by the time you finish, so, yes, I think that giving it all to one person is the right thing to do,” he said good-humouredly.
“Gus! How can you be so heartless?” I exclaimed.
“Because I have to be, Lucy, we all have to be,” he said.
“Okay, who should I give it to, then?”
“Anyone you like.”
“Anyone?”
“Well maybe not just anyone, it might be better if you gave it to someone who is actually poor and homeless—don’t go accosting people in the wine bars or the restaurants, trying to get them to take your money.”
“But I want to give it to the person who deserves it the most,” I explained. “How will I know who that is?”
“You won’t, Lucy.”
“Oh.”
“You’re meant to be committing a selfless act of charity, Lucy. Not making a moral judgment.”
“But, I’m not…”
“Aye, you are. You want to feel that you’re getting value for your money by giving it to the person whom you think deserves it the most,” he said. “Would you feel bad if your money went to a drunken, thieving, wife beater?”
“Well, yes…”
“Then you’ve got it all wrong, Lucy,” said Gus. “The giving should be the important bit, not the receiving, or rather the receivee.”
“Oh,” I said faintly. Maybe he was right. I was humbled.
“Right,” I said, making up my mind. “I’ll give it to that guy sitting down over there.”
“Oh no, don’t, Lucy,” said Gus, pulling me back by my arm. “Not him. He’s a bastard.”
