Lessons in Duck Hunting

by Jayne Buxton

  Eventually I can’t stand it anymore. “Would you consider it really rude of me if I went out for an hour or so? There’s something I have to do.”

  My father looks bewildered, but Mum doesn’t hesitate. “Of course not, darling. You go. We have all weekend together.”

  And this is how I end up running along the three streets that separate my house from his. I don’t think about what I’m wearing, or whether my hair is a mess. I just run. When I reach his door I can see that the lights are still on. But Grace will be asleep, so I knock rather than ring the doorbell. When he opens the door he gives me that slow, oozing smile. The one that starts with a trickle but ends up everywhere.

  “Well, look who’s here. The intrepid explorer.”

  “I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Oh, I think I can just about live with it. Come here.” He pulls me inside and wraps his arms around me, then kisses me very gently.

  “I wanted to come and tell you something.”

  “Okay. Let me get you a drink and you can tell me,” he says, not looking the least bit worried about what I’m going to say. He picks me up just like the other night and carries me through to the kitchen, where he sits me on the counter and stands against it with his hands on my thighs.

  “You know on the phone, when you told me all those lovely things? It sort of took me by surprise and I didn’t have a chance to tell you anything.”

  “Yeah. It didn’t go unnoticed,” he says lightly.

  “Well I’m going to tell you now. All the things I love. First, there’s this,” I say, tracing his smile line with my finger.

  The line deepens as his smile widens.

  “Another thing I love is that you know to take a supply of digestive biscuits for Grace when you go to Waitrose.”

  “You’re gonna have to explain that one to me sometime,” he says, standing back and giving me a quizzical look.

  “And there’s the way you threw that rugby ball with Jack, and the fact that you could say something bold and scary like ‘I think we have a connection’ in the middle of a coffee shop in broad daylight when we’d only just met. I love that.”

  Then he kisses me and I say, “And of course, there’s the fact that you’re a great kisser. A really great kisser.” Then I remember what really prompted me to run over here in the first place. “And you send flowers. Thank you. They are lovely.”

  Tom leans back again with a puzzled look on his face. “Flowers?”

  “The lillies and snowdrops you had sent to the house.” A chill runs down my insides as it occurs to me that I might have made a mistake.

  “Ally, I’d love to take credit for the flowers, but I’m afraid I can’t. They must be from your other lover.”

  I know that in response to this statement I’m supposed to say don’t be silly, there is no other lover, they must be from the neighbor who’s cat I looked after, or from the fellow at work who’s become somewhat obsessed with me, or from my boss Anna Wyatt, to congratulate me for my brilliance of late. But instead I sit in front of him with my mouth slightly agape. I never was very good at lying under extreme pressure.

  Tom’s face darkens a little. “Ally, am I in competition with someone?”

  The thing is, I bet when he was younger, the prospect of being in competition with another bloke for some girl’s affections wouldn’t have bothered him at all. I bet he won most of his competitions in any case. But now, after all he’s been through, losing Jenny, being on his own, being afraid of not finding someone else, then even more afraid when it seems he might have found them, a competition is probably not the scenario he’s hoped for.

  “No. Not exactly. Things are just, uhm, complicated.”

  “How complicated?” He removes his hands from my thighs. He’s not gone cold, exactly. He’s not even really angry yet. He’s just creating some distance, which I can’t blame him for. But it scares me a little.

  “It’s my ex-husband David. Let’s just say he’s been showing more interest in me lately. I think he might have been the one who sent the flowers.”

  Of course he was the one who sent the flowers. Only wishful thinking could have convinced me it was Tom. David has always been a flower kind of guy. Romantic gestures to make up for bad behavior and all that.

  “I thought you’d been divorced over two years! I thought you said he’d been with so many other women you couldn’t count them. Why is he suddenly showing interest?”

  I don’t really know the right answer to this question, but I have my suspicions. I bury my head in my hands trying to decide what to tell Tom.

  “Tom I’m not really sure why. He says he regrets what happened and misses the life we had. I think it might also have frightened him to see me finally moving on with my life. When I decided to get out and find someone else I guess that was something of a shock to him. It doesn’t mean his feelings are genuine. And it doesn’t mean that I necessarily want him back.”

  Necessarily was a mistake. But Tom doesn’t pick up on it. He’s too focused on the previous sentence. The one about my deciding to go out and find someone.

  “Whoa. What do you mean you decided to go out and find someone? How, exactly do you do that? Am I the result of some sort of project or something?”

  Did I set out to find someone? It’s only been six weeks since Mel asked me to help her with her article, but somehow, in that time, everything has become confused in my mind. One minute I’m having to be dragged kicking and screaming to a seminar full of single women at the Savoy, the next I’m burying baggage and engineering dates, and signing up for dating websites. And chasing handsome strangers to the park. What has happened to me? How did I end up here?

  And is it such a bad place to be really?

  “Don’t make it sound so alarming. It’s not what you think.”

  Might it be worse?

  “I just meant that in the past two years I haven’t really been open to a relationship. In fact, I’ve probably subconsciously rejected the idea of one. Then something changed and I decided it was time. It just happens that I met you soon after that, and then David started making all these weird overtures.”

  Tom’s face has softened a little, the alarm gone from his eyes. “So you just sort of decided you were ready for a change and then, bingo, you met me. Just like that?”

  Yes, just like that, give or take a few details. Does he really need to know the details? Would he be more incensed to hear about the details now, or to find out about them later and know that I’d misled him? Assuming there is a later, that is.

  “Sort of,” I say. Then I plunge in, for better or worse. “My friend Mel asked me to attend a series of seminars for women who want to find husbands or partners or whatever. She’s a journalist and she needed someone to write about. So I agreed. Very reluctantly I have to tell you. And I went along to these seminars, and I followed my instructions, and that’s how I met you. And I suspect David saw all this happening and was intrigued.”

  The cloud descends upon Tom’s face again. It’s much darker this time.

  “So you go on a course and you follow some instructions and you meet me? What the fuck were the instructions, for Christ’s sake? Accidentally bump into vulnerable widower in children’s playground and make him fall for you?”

  Well, yes, if you want to put it like that. For all Marina’s smooth talking and charm and her elaborately alliterated marketing patter, that’s what it essentially boils down to. You manage your situation so that you have more chance of accidentally meeting someone who’s right for you. According to Marina you could hit the jackpot within the year, or, in my case, six weeks. Immersed as I’ve been in the whole thing, none of it looks so bad to me, but I can see why it looks bad to Tom. He’s not been where I’ve been for the past six weeks.

  “Well, yes and no. I mean I’d seen you before, and then we met just outside the house. Remember? Then one day I just decided to follow you when I saw you walking past the window. Then I wa
s hoping to bump into you again but I didn’t, until I tried shopping at Waitrose instead of Tesco where I normally shop, and there you were. Is that so awful? Really?”

  I can see that he thinks this is awful. Really awful. If I put myself in his shoes I might think it was awful too. There he was thinking serendipity has been watching over him, that somehow he’s been incredibly lucky to meet someone he feels connected to, and now I’m telling him that, no, actually, it was all part of some grand scheme. Someone else’s scheme.

  “And your ex? What’s his name again? David? Where does he fit into all this now? Did you have a plan for reeling him in too?”

  God he’s making me sound terrible. Like some sort of cold-hearted, manipulative freak. Like that woman from Fatal Attraction. Surely that’s not what I am?

  “You know, Ally, this is all a bit much for me right now. I don’t really understand it, but it doesn’t sound good to me. First you tell me you might be sort of involved with your ex, because that is what it sounds like to me, then you tell me you’ve had this whole thing planned from the beginning, like some sort of bizarre dating challenge. It’s just too weird for me. Not what I expected.”

  I look down at my feet dangling aimlessly below the counter, so I don’t see the expression on his face when he says, “I think you’d better leave.”

  So this is what it’s come down to. All of Marina’s advice. All the Ps and the camaraderie and well-intentioned enthusiasm at the Savoy. In the end, it all falls to pieces because the minute someone discovers you found them with the help of all these shenanigans, they drop you like a hot potato. Of course they drop you. Who in their right mind wants to be with a woman who’s been so intent on finding them that she was prepared to pay £500, sit through three seminars, and follow her instructions like some overzealous sixth grader?

  Tom has moved away from the counter now and is standing with his hands on his hips. His eyes, normally so soft and forgiving, are like steel. Somehow it doesn’t seem appropriate to plead with him, and I’m not sure what I would plead in any case. I ease myself down from the counter, and walk out of the kitchen toward the front door. When I reach it I’m hoping, though not expecting, that he will suddenly appear behind me and stop me from leaving. I wait about three seconds with my hand on the door latch for this to happen, but it doesn’t. Something makes me turn and shout out the last word through the stunned silence of the hallway.

  “You know, Tom, I’m sorry about the way I met you. But I’m not sorry we met. For a while there I thought I’d been amazingly lucky.”

  Then I open the door and walk the three blocks home, all the while praying that my parents are in bed so I don’t have to conjure up some sort of elation for their benefit. It would be so disappointing for them to see snowdrops and lillies followed so closely by such total and utter gloom.

  PART 4

  CHAPTER 41

  GOOD-BYE TO ALL THAT

  The weekend is a blur. Just something to be gotten through. I think that I’m managing to hold myself together for my parents’ sake, not to mention the children’s, but when my mum is hugging me good-bye she whispers, “Things will work out. You’ll see,” so I know she’s been aware of my dismal spirits all along.

  On Saturday I’m half expecting Tom to call or appear at my door. By Sunday I’m not expecting anymore, just hoping. By Monday I’m convinced it’s not going to happen. And it doesn’t. A whole week goes by and I don’t see him walking past my front door on the way to Grace’s nursery. He must have changed his route just to avoid seeing me.

  The more time that passes the more excruciating introspection I indulge in. Now it’s as clear as crystal to me why Tom would be so distressed by the idea of my having ensnared him as part of my homework.

  Mel says, “For God’s sake, Ally. Stop beating yourself up. Why is what you did so much worse than going to one of those speed dating things?” But it is worse, because it’s not consensual. When two people meet on a speed date, objectionable as the whole thing might appear to outsiders, at least there is something honest about it. Both parties have gone into it with their eyes open. No one’s being duped. But with Marina’s methods it’s different. All this Duck Decoy business, and place planning and branding—it’s so one-sided. What would Alan say if he knew I’d only gone out with him just because I knew he wasn’t my type? I’m sure he’d hate me now. Just like Tom.

  EVERY NIGHT BEFORE I go to bed I go in to kiss the tops of Jack’s and Millie’s heads. Millie sleeps like a little princess waiting for someone to kiss her awake; ramrod straight on her back, her golden hair spread about on the pillow like Rapunzel’s. I usually find Jack with the duvet thrown off, sprawled on his side with his favorite rabbit under his arm, his dark hair wet with perspiration.

  Tonight, as I wipe away a bead of sweat from the bridge of Jack’s nose, I catch a glimpse of David in the pout of his lips and the tilt of his cheeks. Those invisible threads that link my heart to David’s pull tighter. I suppose I’d better get used to that. I’m always going to see David in Jack and Millie.

  But as hard as I try, and I really have tried, I can’t see David with me anymore. It’s as if, by coming back and giving me another look he’s made me see everything I didn’t see clearly enough the first time.

  David is beautiful and passionate and intriguing, and he has a playful, reckless boyishness about him that I used to adore. Now, I can appreciate it from afar. But I don’t want to be married to it.

  I don’t think he can make me happy anymore. Maybe we’ve just used up all the love we were supposed to feel for each other. Or maybe all the love we’re supposed to feel is in Jack and Millie now.

  DAVID HAS BEEN away on a shoot so he doesn’t call me until midweek. He wants to see me Friday. Says we need to talk. I know we do. I just don’t know exactly how to say the things I think I need to say. I’m hoping Clara’s lucid thinking will help sort me out.

  She is actually there with me when David calls. We are sipping wine on my sofa after the kids have gone to bed. It’s late, and she’s paid a mercy visit on her way home from a business trip to Madrid. It’s a long detour from Heathrow to Notting Hill via South London, so I’m incredibly grateful.

  “Was that David?” she asks when I hang up and come back into the room.

  “Yup. How’d you guess?”

  “Could tell by your tone of voice. You have a special voice just for him.” Then a pause. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Part of me thinks I should give in, go along with him and see where it takes us. But . . .”

  “But what? You know it would be wrong? Or you don’t want to?”

  I think hard for a minute, giving myself the opportunity to retract the thoughts I’d had the night before.

  “I think—and this is hard for me to believe—that I don’t want to. Not enough, anyway. You know that thing he said the other night? About getting all that nonsense out of his system? Well, I think I might have gotten him out of my system. I probably still love him, but I don’t think I’m obsessed with the idea of loving him. For the first time I can see that maybe he wasn’t my mate for life. Not really. Not like I thought. I think sleeping with him again was the best thing I could have done.”

  Clara raises her eyebrows questioningly, but there’s only kindness in her eyes and her lips are poised in a half smile.

  “Really, I mean it,” I say. “Not that I didn’t enjoy it, because I did. But it sort of broke the spell.”

  Clara says again, “So, what are you going to do?”

  I twist my wineglass around in my fingers, staring into its depths as if some kind of answer will be found there.

  “I think I’m going to tell him we can’t see each other anymore. Not like that anyway.”

  A flutter of panic suddenly rises up in me. God, I hope that’s the right thing to do. When I had Tom, or the promise of Tom to be more precise, I felt stronger. Now I don’t have it and it feels like I’m flinging myself into an abyss. At th
e bottom of it is that woman from the Observer, looking as despondent as ever.

  Clara looks at me with her piercing blue eyes. As if she too has seen the Observer woman, staring bleakly up at us, she says, “You will find the right person someday, Ally. I just know it. I’ve been watching you. It’s amazed me how you took this whole thing on, this challenge of Mel’s, and actually made things happen. Okay, so Tom may not be the man in the end—and I’m not saying he isn’t, by the way. But if he isn’t, someone else will be. At least you got out there instead of sitting here getting fat and moping. And at least you’re not sinking back into the comfort of something you know isn’t right just because it’s available.” She takes a loud gulp of her wine.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to do just what you did.”

  I look up in horror. “But, Jonathon . . .”

  “No no. I don’t mean that. I mean I’m going to take things into my own hands and stop being a victim. I want a baby. I’m going to change my life so I have the best chance of having one. Jonathon was right. We don’t stand much chance of getting pregnant when I’m away three nights a week and exhausted the rest of the time. I’m going to ask for a sabbatical. Six months. Maybe longer. I’ll offer to do some part-time industry research or something. If they don’t like it, fuck ’em! If someone steals my clients, fuck them too. Some things are more important.”

  Clara is nearly bubbling over with exhilaration. “Clara, I’m so proud of you. I think you’re doing the right thing.”

  “Yeah, so do I. I have no idea what will await me when I go back, or how on earth we’ll manage on less than half our income. But I figure you can’t always look for a safe landing. Sometimes, maybe you have to take a risk, and give up something that feels wrong even if you might never get the thing that’s right. Don’t you think?”