by Vesna Main
–You might call it that. It helps Anna. They enact it for three or four weeks.
–?
–The rules are that he texts her, as if he were a punter. They make arrangements and then she turns up at his home.
–At their home, you mean.
–Yes, but they pretend it’s his. A few times they go to a hotel.
–Do you mean they engage in role-playing?
–Yes. And he pays her; don’t worry, it’s always the same envelope with the same money.
–Don’t they get bored with the game?
–They vary it. Anna has acquired wigs, incredibly high fuck-me shoes that she can’t imagine ever using for anything else, and a selection of sexy underwear.
–How does Richard feel about it?
–He plays along.
–He has no choice.
–That’s what he thinks.
–But that’s right.
–Probably.
–Is he enjoying it?
–He has orgasms.
–Daily?
–Yes.
–Quite something at his age.
–He’s only mid-fifties.
–Exactly.
–One day, fifteen minutes into the session, after they’ve shared a glass of wine and gone upstairs, she whips off her wig. I can’t do it any more, she says. We sound so false. Nothing I, or you say, excites me anymore. Everything sounds absurd. Shallow.
–That’s after how many sessions?
–Twenty odd, or so, three or four weeks, almost every day.
–They seem to have a lot of time on their hands.
–They’re trying to repair their marriage. It takes time.
–What does Richard say?
–He apologizes. He thought Anna liked the game. I did until today, she says. She thinks they should fuck without playing the roles but doesn’t say it. She isn’t sure whether she’s ready for that.
–What a mess.
–She tells him that she can go on for his sake. Oh, no, I don’t need to, I was only doing it for you, he says. She stares at him; she doesn’t like what she’s heard. Does it mean he didn’t desire her but was only complying with her wishes? She feels rejected again.
–But what else could he have done? She can’t have it both ways. Force him to have sex with her and then complain when he says that he was doing it because he was asked to.
–She realises that herself. But Richard could have been more sensitive; he could have said he was enjoying it. He could at least pretend that he desired her.
–She wants to control his mind, not just his body.
–That’s too harsh. You’re as insensitive as Richard.
–He’s being honest. Points for that.
–No points for insensitive honesty. Sometimes a little lie is helpful.
–I disagree. Besides, he may have desired her but that desire gets overruled by her imposing the game.
–He should make an effort to make her feel better, feel wanted.
–Perhaps he does want her but he might be bad at expressing it.
–The same thing.
–He can’t win.
–It’s not about winning. If you put yourself in Anna’s shoes, you would see she feels cheated. She thought they had good sex and now it all seems pretence.
–But it was a game.
–Only the roles. Not the sex. That was meant to have been real.
–If they both enjoyed it, let alone if they had orgasms, then it was real. I don’t see why she complains.
–She doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything but she’s disappointed. Well, okay, the game did turn her on and helped her have sex with Richard, overcome her disgust with touching his flesh, but she also went through the whole thing because she had imagined it would bring them back together. Kick start their sex life.
–Doesn’t it?
–Not sure. Have to think about it.
* * *
–Good day?
–No.
–No? Why not?
–Looked over what I’ve done. What’s the point of anyone reading about two people dealing with difficulties in their marriage?
–We’ve talked about this before. People learn how to behave from stories.
–Maybe, but I don’t want to be writing those sort of stories. Didactic, instructive.
–They don’t have to be. You wouldn’t call Madame Bovary didactic or instructive.
–I’m not writing a nineteenth-century novel.
–No, but the reader still gets pleasure from knowing what happens. The reader enjoys seeing people overcome adversity.
–I don’t find it pleasurable.
–Why are you writing this story then?
–The topic interests me but I wish I could do something else with it.
–Like what?
–Not sure what but not a conventional story of adversity overcome.
–You mean they aren’t going to get through it?
–I don’t know. What happens at the end doesn’t interest me in the least.
–That’s why everyone reads. You must be the only one who doesn’t care what happens in the end.
–I do, but only in terms of structure, not in terms of what happens to the characters.
–What else could you do with this story?
–Perhaps I should write a play. I had this image of an old couple, both in their eighties sitting in chairs, side by side, upstage centre, talking about their lives. In a fairly stylized, repetitive fashion. They never look at each other, simply stare ahead. Each time they start with one of them asking the other whether he or she wanted a cup of tea and then the other would say, remember when you did this and so on, the person would retell an event, all associated with the man visiting prostitutes some forty years earlier, and with the woman coping with the knowledge. At the end of each short scene, the question about the tea would be repeated and the person offering to make it would say: I’ll go and put the kettle on. Neither would move. Lights would stay on throughout but there would be a minute of silence between the short scenes.
–Beckett.
–Possibly.
–I prefer your novel.
–What interests me is the idea of obsession. In their old age, the two have lost everything else but their obsession. What happened has taken over their lives and that’s the only thing they remember, the only thing they can talk about.
–Desperately sad. I hope that doesn’t happen to Richard and Anna.
–You want them to live happily ever after?
–I do. It’s warming when you see people stay together.
–A male reader and a romantic, that’s what you are.
* * *
–
–Tell me about Tanya.
–I can’t.
–Why not?
–Because I can’t see the point of the whole story.
–I want to know what happened to her.
–She’s in prison.
–Still?
–She got six years.
–You’re not writing Tristam Shandy. You can deal with six years in one line, or no line at all. I don’t expect lines that need six years of reading.
–No.
–Let’s see. She’s in for murder.
–Yes.
–Who did she kill? A punter or that boyfriend?
–Dave.
–Her boyfriend, the pimp?
–Yes.
–Well done.
–Don’t ask more. I don’t know anything else.
* * *
–Good day?
–I don’t know.
–?
–I wrote something.
–Tell me. What happened?
–I can�
��t. It can’t be summarised.
–Read it to me then.
–It’s not the writing for reading aloud.
–Let me read it then.
–No.
–Please.
–You won’t like it.
–Try me.
–Really unsure of what I’m doing.
–You know it helps to read it out.
–Okay. Actually, no. I need to look at it again before I can show you.
–Please.
–Oh, I don’t know.
–It might help to get my feedback.
–Okay. Tanya’s mind after she has been arrested.
–Thank you.
–It’s longish.
–I’ll make myself comfortable. On-y-va?
–It was her time now. She was safe. She could leave. No one would stop her. She would be safe. She would not have to see him again. She knew all of that. The voice kept repeating the same thing. But something else, not a voice, a force inside her wouldn’t let go. That force made her fetch a knife from a drawer in the kitchen. That force made her walk back to the room. That force made her push the blade into Dave, lying sprawled on the floor, snoring. As the steel went into his chest, he jumped, startled, uttered a cry, of shock or anger – she couldn’t tell. Fear ripped his eyes open. He lurched to one side, shaking, trying to grab her, mad with pain. But he was drunk with beer and sleep and she was quicker. In a second, she stabbed him again. Then she stabbed Marvin, mother’s old friend, and saw his kind, lined face grimace with pain. And again. And again she had it for Dave. Quick, sharp stabs. In out, faster and faster, like someone going mad chopping onions. Each time she shoved home the knife, his blood spurted its red warmth onto her face, onto her half-naked body, onto the walls around them. It dripped on the carpet; she could feel its drying stickiness on the skin between her toes. Her hand moved as if someone was directing it, pushing it with a long stick like she was a puppet. And the hand carried on working for a long time after he had stopped making any sound. All she heard was the swish as the knife passed through his chest. When she stopped, she was gasping for breath. The swish continued. His body lay next to her like a huge wet sponge. The hard work was over. She could relax. She fell back into an armchair, her legs stretched out. She had no energy left, her body was limp, a rag doll. If he rose now, she couldn’t fight back. She was certain of that. But he was more dead than the corpses she had seen on the telly. She closed her eyes. She was safe. It was her time now.
She must have dozed off. When she woke up, the blood on her skin had dried. There was daylight and the sun hurt her eyes. Her body shivered with cold. She screamed when she saw him: his eyes bulging like in a horror film. She rushed out of the room. Could he still be alive?
She should wash her hands, her body, the carpet, the walls. And him? If he were dead, she could take him somewhere, somewhere where she would never see him. Hide him. But she wouldn’t do any of that. She had killed him. She was going to jail. She grabbed her coat and ran onto the street.
And then she saw him, a big body stumbling towards her. His eyes were bleeding sockets, and he couldn’t see his way. But his face was kind, the face of Marvin, smiling, putting out his hand towards her, checking that her body was warm. But the hands were cold, his fingers cold and bony. She ran, her bare feet on the chill of the tarmac. He was coming after her. Slowly. She ran and ran. Then she couldn’t see him anymore. But she knew he would come and she was scared.
She banged on the door of a house. She banged and called until a window opened in a room upstairs. And another one in the neighbouring house. Then a door opened and she rushed in. The rest happened to someone else. She watched it from the side without feeling a thing. The people in the house, the police, the ride in the car, the station, the questions – she couldn’t tell what they had to do with her – but the questions, so many questions and the doctor who came to examine her for wounds, the samples of blood they took and the shower. She sat on the cracked tiled floor and let the water run over her head, over her hunched body. She saw herself jumping away from Dave as he pulled off her bra and threw it to Nige. She crossed her arms to cover her naked breasts. Nige sniffed her bra. The other man was laughing loudly and banging his fist on his knee. Come on, give us a bit of fun, Dave said, a bit more, the last bit. He tugged at her knickers. Nige had his hand in his trousers and the other man had unzipped himself and was rubbing his cock. Dave pushed her onto the sofa between the two men and then Nige pulled her on top of him. Gavin was next to him. She felt them pull her knickers off. She hit, and kicked, and scratched. It was this or nothing. She howled and bit whoever she could. Nige was swearing, mad with pain and anger: Fucking bitch, you’ll pay for this. She screamed as he hit her on her face and breasts and forced himself inside her. The other man was holding her legs apart. She went on screaming and scratching and eventually the two men left her alone. Can’t you shut the bitch up? Gavin shouted to Dave. You need to learn to control your missus, Nige said. The water turned cold but she sat there letting it run over her bare back until someone came and put a towel over her.
They told her he was dead and she neither believed nor disbelieved them. It didn’t matter. But she was sure she had died. Because everything was different and she was different. She had to be dead. When she was alive, she would feel that force taking over her and then there were things she loved and things she hated, but now it was all the same. She couldn’t feel a thing. The next day she was in the holding cell when a man came to see her and said he was her lawyer. He was there to help her and he talked and talked. And that same question that the police had asked.
When she had returned from the refuge Dave had been nice, had bought stuff from Iceland and they had tea like a proper couple. And he didn’t mind when she wanted to see EastEnders. He made fun of the story and laughed as he talked about the fucking-hell-of-a-cleavage of one of the women but that was all right. And then one evening, as she had taken stuff from under the grill, there was a knock on the door and it was Gavin. He had broken down not far from their place and he wanted Dave to help him. She had offered to go with them – she was happy to miss EastEnders – but Dave said she should stay and watch the telly. So she did. He said he wouldn’t be long. But he was. She was already asleep when he returned. She remembered him drunk, lying on top of her, pushing himself into her.
Sorry, I hadn’t realised I’d gone on so much. Difficult to know where to stop. So, what do you think?
–Hang on! That’s not your writing.
–Err . . . How can you tell?
–Gosh, it’s obvious. Not your style.
–I know but I wish it were mine. I just need something like that here.
–Maybe but . . . anyway, where’s it from?
–A short story I came across.
–Really? Why by?
–Oh, I don’t know. Some foreign woman. Some V Main.
–Never heard of her.
–Me neither.
–But listen, I think it works.
–I know.
–Please carry on.
–Are you sure?
–Absolutely.
–But why didn’t you leave? He didn’t listen. Did he want her to repeat it? The evenings after that followed the same pattern: Dave went out, usually with Gavin and came back drunk. Sometimes, when he was on an afternoon shift, Gavin came over with cans of beer and they would drink before lunch. After Dave had turned up for work drunk for the second time, they sacked him. Of course they did; he was a driver for an off-licence. They were strict about such things. Then he started complaining about her not working. She had tried hard, in shops and bars, but there was nothing or else the money was shit – it was better to be on the dole – and every day they argued and he hit her. He said she should go back on the street but she didn’t want to do that again. Once they quarrelled and the neighbours called the police b
ut all they did was to tell them to quieten down. That same evening he beat her up so badly that she lost consciousness.
–
The lawyer interrupted again with that same question: Why didn’t you leave him?
She thought for a long time but couldn’t think what to say. He was her man, it was proper, it wasn’t like Marvin giving money to her mother, it was real, they had dated for real. She wanted to stick with Dave. She could see it wasn’t easy for him with no money and no job. She had to help him out. That’s what couples did. And he was sorry when he hit her. Sometimes he said so.
Tits, give us the tits, come on; that was Nige’s voice. And then Gavin echoing him: Tits, tits. She saw herself moving towards the door. But as she turned around, Dave was standing next to her. He took her in his arms and started to dance. It was nice. The men laughed and clapped. Then Dave kissed her and, for a moment, she thought he was thanking her and she would be free to go. She relaxed and let him turn her around, but he surprised her by unclasping her bra. Nige and the other man shouted: Yes, tits, get her here.
But you could have walked out? You chose not to, the lawyer said.
It was early afternoon when he came home with Gavin and Nige, carrying six packs. Dave pushed her into the bedroom and closed the door: Look, help me out. Nige has promised me a job. He spoke quietly, as if not wanting the others to hear. A proper job, quite a few things actually. She didn’t believe him. He said: Nige’s brother-in-law is opening a bar and needs a bouncer and someone to fix things, be around. He’s doing me a favour, so I want to keep him sweet. She asked what he wanted her to do. A slow dance, and strip a bit . . . put them in good mood . . . that’s all. She stared at him. Three men drinking together and her stripping. That won’t be all. She didn’t do that anymore.
Look, Tan, you don’t want to work.
I do. I’ll get something. They promised me, she said.
Oh, they promised you, he mocked. And you believed them? He turned away from her, lit a cigarette. Have you forgotten Lilla? he shouted. If I had a job, you could look after her; she could be here. I’m doing it for both of us. He sat on the bed, smoking. She looked out of the window. The back yard was paved; that’s where they kept the bins and Dave’s broken motorbike. She remembered the day he tried to repair it and couldn’t and made it worse. That was the time when she was cheated and taken to that house. She had agreed to do a job in the car and then there were three men and they had raped her. And they didn’t even pay and then Dave had hit her when she got home and had no money to give him. But it was the motorbike he was really angry about. She forgave him for that.