The Post-Birthday World

by Lionel Shriver

  “It stands to reason,” Irina said over the starter, “that if winning the Grand Prix would mean something, then coming second in the Grand Prix means something, too.”

  Ramsey mashed a scallop vengefully with his fork. “It means I lost.”

  Irina rolled her eyes. “Inability to take satisfaction in anything short of total victory is a formula for a miserable life. When do you ever achieve total victory?”

  “When you win the World at the Crucible,” said Ramsey promptly.

  “I think we should talk about something else besides snooker.”

  “What else is there?”

  She examined his face. He wasn’t joking.

  During his winning streak, dinnertime conversation had ranged their lives like a great heath, stopping to examine every little copse and pool: Ramsey’s growing concern that to break the standoff with his parents someone would have to die first; Irina’s reasons for demurring from fine art; her sister’s gushy manner as overcompensation for resentment (“Killing with kindness,” she’d noted, “is still murder”); her ambition to finally visit Russia, and her odd regret that now she’d never experience the grisly Soviet Union proper; the comical lengths to which certain female fans had gone—sometimes dogging him from town to town for whole seasons—to get Ramsey into bed. Although there was one gloomy grove that Irina was prone to avoid—her anguish over how Lawrence was managing her desertion—in the main these rhetorical ambles had been bracing and far-flung. Now that Dominic Dale had, it was said, “played above himself” (a curious concept, in Irina’s view—that you could ever play better than you knew how), Ramsey had fallen in a hole.

  “We could talk about the fact that, while this is a very nice hotel, I’m looking forward to going home.”

  Ramsey looked up sharply. “To Lawrence?”

  “No, silly. To Victoria Park Road. Remember that quaint establishment? It’s called your house.”

  “And when do you figure that would be?”

  “Tomorrow, I assume.”

  “The Benson and Hedges Championship starts in Malvern tomorrow.”

  Irina’s fork drooped. “Malvern. Where the hell is Malvern.”

  “Don’t you worry about where Malvern is. Jack’s made all the arrangements.”

  “How long does that last?” she asked limply.

  “Twelve days.”

  “Oh,” she said. The saffron sauce didn’t seem as lively tonight; maybe she was getting tired of it. “What’s after—Malvern?”

  “The Liverpool Victoria UK Championship in Preston, of course.”

  “Of course,” she said faintly. “And how much time is there between this Malvern thing and the Liverpool what’s-it?”

  “Mmm,” he said, massacring his last scallop. “Between the B&H final and the first round in Preston? Three, four days. Have to check the schedule. Ask Jack.”

  “When do you take some time off?”

  “Let’s see,” he reflected. “There’s a week between the Liverpool Victoria and the German Open in Bingen am Rhein. Good fortnight at Christmas. And we haven’t decided whether to enter the China Open this year.”

  “Tell me that the China Open is played in Leicester Square.”

  “Shanghai,” he said breezily. “If we give it a miss, there’s a handful of days to put our feet up at the end of February. But if we do go for Shanghai, it’d be daft not to do the Thailand Masters in Bangkok straight after.”

  “Maybe I’m missing something, but when is all this time off?”

  “In May. After the World.”

  “May,” she said heavily. “It’s now October.”

  “There’s the exhibition circuit after the tour’s done, but that’s up to me.”

  “Ramsey. I can’t go with you to all these tournaments. I have work to do.” Though he professed to adore her illustrations, Ramsey never seemed to take her occupation seriously as an activity as well as a product. Yet despite herself, she remembered with relief that she’d left her passport carelessly in her handbag ever since the last trip to Brighton Beach.

  “Oi, but you got to!” he cried. “I’ll not play for shite without you there!”

  “You played for shite for thirty years without me there.”

  “If you must do, take the work along, then. We’ve loads of down-time.”

  Which they had thus far spent fucking, talking, drinking, and—well, fucking. Little wonder that Irina was skeptical of making time for long hours of drawing in hotel rooms. “Maybe,” she said dubiously. “Do you always play this hard?”

  “You should know. You and me’s played powerful hard upstairs.” He reached across the table for her hands. “See, when I leave for Bournemouth I haven’t a baldy if I’ll ever see you again. I reckon on balance, what with Lawrence being a decent, clever chap what’s never raised a hand to you, why would you bolt for a ne’er-do-well snooker player? So I tell Jack to enter me in the whole calendar. I figure I’ll need something to take my mind off you something desperate.

  “Now I’m on the play lists. But that ain’t necessarily so terrible. I done this circuit all on my own since I were eleven years old. My parents thought a snooker player a bare notch above juvenile delinquent, and I’d to raise the entry fee for junior tournaments hustling middle-aged tossers at Rackers in Clapham. Got more than one hiding when they was none too pleased to lose a fiver to a cocky sprog as well. It’s been a lonely life, whatever you read in them snooker rags. I never had nobody. Jude got so she hated snooker, hated snooker players, not to mention me, and sure as fuck hated parking her bum at any snooker tournament. I can’t make you come with me, and I’ll understand if you don’t. But if there’s any fairness in this life, I must finally be owed a bird what will raise a glass with me after six hours on the bounce at the table.”

  “I have a life, too,” she said gently.

  “Sure you do, pet.” An offhand tone belied that he understood anything of the sort. “Take it one tournament at a time. But at least come with me to Malvern.”

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. “But only Malvern.”

  SPIRITED FROM THE ROYAL Bath in another limousine while she was a little hungover, Irina never did sort out where Malvern was—aside from being somewhere in Worcestershire, of which she saw little enough during their play-all-night, sleep-all-day schedule that in her mind it remained not a county but a steak sauce.

  Though she couldn’t recall agreeing to accompany him to the UK Championship per se, she next found herself manifested in Preston as if by Star Trek transporter room. Nightly after the matches were played, Irina reported for duty at Squares, the massive bar around the corner from the Guildhall; apparently three or four rounds with the lads were included in her job description. She liked to think she was getting a bit better at snooker shop talk, but still found it draining. So she retired from one such session toward the end of the first week with equal parts self-congratulation and relief.

  Yet on return to their hotel room, Ramsey began ominously, “You know, ducky. Speaking to the opposition, you got to watch your tongue. They may seem all very hail-fellow-well-met, but them’s the competition as well. Best you never forget that.”

  “What did I say,” said Irina guardedly, swallowing this time.

  “This palaver about the World.”

  “That you’ve lost six World Championship finals is a fact. It’s not a deep dark private secret, but a detail on which Clive Everton comments every time you play.”

  “Coming from you, it means something different.”

  “Since you were eavesdropping on my conversation, did you hear what I said?”

  “I weren’t eavesdropping. I overheard.”

  “I said it was common to interpret those six losses as clutching, as wanting it too much, or wanting it not enough, as collapsing under the ultimate pressure. In sum, as a character flaw. I said to the contrary you lost each of those matches for different reasons, and the impression of pattern is an illusion. I said sometimes you just don’t
make a shot because you don’t make a shot, period. It doesn’t mean that your mother didn’t love you or you hate yourself or you’re suffering from fear of success. Since what I said was distilled from listening to you go on at length over countless bottles of wine, I thought you’d appreciate my efforts.”

  “Nice try, ducky, but too sophisticated by half for this lot. All they hear is Ramsey Acton’s own bird thinks he’s washed up. It’s like you was running me down.”

  “I wasn’t running you down!” Irina wondered what happened when people who perceived imaginary slights on every corner were insulted for real. Nevertheless, hypersensitivity was ingenious as a tactic. An outraged reaction to the most harmless remark suggested that nothing short of apocalypse would ensue after a proper put-down, helping to ensure that before criticizing him sincerely she would think twice.

  “The point is, you was focusing on the negative,” said Ramsey. “On what I’ve not won. I might add, the only tournament I’ve not won. You got to understand, this game is half mind-fuck. When them blokes come to the table, I don’t want them thinking, Oi, Ramsey Acton, that old-timer, this’ll be a cakewalk. I want them dropping their trousers in fear. I want them remembering, this geezer’s won near every ranking tournament known to man. If I’m intimidating that gives me the edge. They talk to the bird and she shovels out the excuses—like there’s something what needs excusing—I lose the edge. I know you didn’t mean to. But you done me a powerful lot of damage tonight.”

  “I was trying to be sociable,” she mumbled. “I don’t know these people. I don’t know much about snooker. I was trying to get on. I want you to be proud of me. I never intended to embarrass you.”

  “I didn’t say you embarrassed me. I said you damaged me.” This was classic. He would press an advantage one step further than seemed necessary or kind—thereby, as the Brits might say, over-egging the pudding. Of a habit anything but sweet, Americans would describe it more brutally as putting the boot in.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Though I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for.”

  “That’d be a right wick apology, then.”

  Ramsey continued to stand aloof, several feet from the bed. Already a trademark of their relationship, there was either not a fag paper between them, or they were light-years apart. There was no in-between. With Lawrence, there’d been nothing but in-between, and this new inch-as-good-as-a-mile was difficult to adapt to. She was reminded of the game of trust popular in the 60s, in which you extended both arms and fell dead-weight backwards, expressing blind faith that your partner would catch you. Either Ramsey was right there, not allowing her to drop a half-inch, or he turned heel and she slammed smack on the floor.

  “What am I supposed to say to these people?” she asked dismally. “I’ll say whatever you want.”

  “That my form’s coming on. That you never seen me play better.”

  “That sounds like something your friend Jack would put out in a press release.”

  “Fair enough. Then tell them I got a really, really big dick.”

  She looked up. He was smiling. His zip was down. He did have a big dick.

  One flying lunge from six feet, and the confrontation was over. Her release from his displeasure was like finally being allowed to go and play after sitting in the corner in a dunce cap. For much like the unwritten etiquette of the telephone, whereby it is the caller’s implicit prerogative to wrap it up, only Ramsey could end what Ramsey had started. Since Irina never started anything, that left Ramsey as the sole gatekeeper of their garden, from which she was cruelly exiled and into which she was graciously readmitted, at his whim.

  WHEN THE PROMISED FORTNIGHT break finally arrived around Christmas, after Bingen am Rhein, Ramsey wheedled her into a getaway holiday in Cornwall—though by this point what she really needed to get away from was more holiday.

  Their first afternoon on the rocky, desolate southwest coast, Ramsey led her to their rental car, and wouldn’t explain. He drove to Penzance—as in pirates of—to a poky municipal building. Although she did remember signing something preliminary during a giddy three a.m. tussle in November, only when she read the placard did she realize what he was up to. “But I look a dog’s dinner!” He said she looked beautiful, as always. “But I haven’t bought you a ring!” Ramsey frowned, patting his pockets, then spotted a bit of flotsam in the gutter. He pressed her palm with a round piece of discolored steel with two blunt prongs. “I reckon it’s a radiator hose-clip,” he explained.

  “Ramsey, I can’t marry you with some car-part off the street!”

  “Pet, you can marry me with a twist-tie, or a knackered rubber band. Look here”—he demonstrated—“fits just right. I’ll never take it off, promise.”

  The official inside was irritable, perhaps having hoped to make it a short day and do some Christmas shopping; to Ramsey’s obvious annoyance, the short, plump woman with bad teeth didn’t seem to recognize who’d walked in. They filled out some forms. It was over in ten minutes. Ramsey had bought a ring; he assured her it wasn’t at all expensive, and he was probably lying.

  Although Irina hadn’t dreamt of white tulle and three-tier cakes, this “wedding” had been no-frills by the most modest of standards. On the other hand, maybe it was the medium course that was squalid—having a cake but not an especially tasty one, springing for a dress but off the rack. She could see the merit in either blowing £20,000 on five hundred of your closest friends, or tying the knot on a rainy afternoon with a radiator hose-clip. Indeed, the latter approach had the benefit of focusing not on a single day, but on the rest of your life. Ramsey wasn’t keen on getting married, but he was keen on being married, ultimately the greater compliment.

  Irina walked out in a daze. She and Ramsey were married. They’d been together for less than two months.

  After following her “husband”—it would take time to ease into the word—to the Regal Welsh Open in Newport, the B&H Masters at Wembley, and the Regal Scottish Open in Aberdeen, she would have been judicious to have resisted Ramsey’s imprecations to keep tagging along and to have knuckled down to her own work. But he begged her so winningly. She was touched by his fervid gratitude to at last have company in a life that she could now appreciate had been grueling and lonely. Colleagues were also rivals, and you could never be wholehearted friends with your structural foe. The connection between the two of them was so total, but also so fragile—on or off like a switch—that she feared inserting whole fortnights of insulating separation into their idyll. Besides. She had never been to China.

  Outwardly, Irina appeared a hopeless girlie pushover, standing by her man; in truth she was driven by the selfish, insatiable greed of an irretrievable junkie. She was shooting up with Ramsey Acton twice a day, and the prospect of going cold turkey for the length of an entire tournament was too desolate to contemplate.

  Yet as many an addict must, she found that a floating, disconnected vagueness began to fog her head, especially on the rare afternoons that Ramsey tore himself away to hone his game. Alone, she no longer understood what to do with herself or quite who she was. Thus over Ramsey’s protests she demurred from taking his surname, not from feminist zeal but because she could not afford it; the appellation Irina Acton would make official the very vanishing act at which she was already getting too much practice. She flapped magazines instead of reading books, sometimes poured a wine miniature from the minibar rather earlier than she should have, and awaited Ramsey’s return with a jittery impatience peculiar for a freelance artist accustomed to working long hours on her own. Growing ever more adept at snooker banter—and at keeping her remarks sufficiently anodyne that she did not get it in the neck later in the hotel—should have been gratifying; it was actually disquieting. Her new expertise was grafted on, artificial. She was learning to talk energetically and at length when addressing a subject about which she cared little. Or she cared about snooker only because she cared about Ramsey, and the transitive relationship was weak. He’d been generous to
include her so utterly in his world, but inclusion could slyly morph to occlusion. Some days this warm envelopment into the snooker fold seemed a guise under which she was being steadily colonized, consumed, co-opted. Irina Mc-Gavin, famed new consort of snooker legend Ramsey Acton, was coming along great guns. Irina McGovern, illustrator of gentle enough success never to have made it into a gossip column spelled correctly, was in mortal danger.

  11

  AFTER RETURNING WITH LAWRENCE from the Grand Prix in Bournemouth, Irina was haunted by a question that she’d wanted to ask for ages, but not having done so for so long made it harder to put. On the first night back home, when the two snuggled into bed, she couldn’t enjoy their goose-down burrow, much less the subsequent sex—because the whole time she was working herself up to asking what she wanted to ask, failing to ask it, then berating herself for being such a coward now that it was time to sleep. It wasn’t obvious why Bournemouth should have occasioned such a flaming recrudescence of an old curiosity, or why this line of inquiry seemed so frightening.

  At length the embarrassment of her timidity exceeded the embarrassment of the question itself. Early the fourth evening she vowed that by lights-out she would put this perfectly harmless question to her partner, rehearsing the solemn covenant so fiercely through the preparation of dinner that she burned the garlic for the eggplant. She paid no attention to the Grand Prix’s third round into which Lawrence predictably tuned after they ate. Anyway, Ramsey wasn’t in it.

  Locks. Thermostat. Floss—like a countdown. Lawrence plopped into bed and reached for his book. Irina slid next to him, exasperated with herself because her pulse was pounding and this was ridiculous.

  “Lawrence,” she said, too gravely; she had wanted to impart an air of idle musing. “I was wondering—what do you think about when we make love?”

  Wrong! They never said “make love,” which Lawrence considered sappy.

  He turned his head with a slight jolt, taking longer than need be to mark his place. “Well, obviously about fucking you, what do you think?”