Playing Away

by Adele Parks

  "Tickets to fly somewhere exotic is my guess," I whisper back.

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  "Bitch."

  Sam is a great friend.

  The room is tight with tension. The women are delighted by such a romantic gesture and the men are mortified. If Simon is going to set a precedent with such open shows of affection, there is a serious danger that they'll have to return their perfunctory perfume gift packs and electric egg whisks and buy something that their women actually want.

  "In fact," says Santa, "you are unbelievably good. I never thought that I'd meet anyone quite so good, special and amazing." His voice thickens with emotion. "So I would be honored, ecstatic, if you'd accept my gift." He pulls from his sack a small box, a ring-shaped box, and the room holds its breath.

  "Will you make me a very happy man? In fact," he giggles self-consciously as he uses the cliche, "the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife?"

  "Aghhhhhhh, yes, yes, yes," screams Daisy, shoving the huge diamond on her finger before he gets a chance to change his mind. The room burst into cheers and applause. Someone starts singing, "For they are jolly good fellows." Daisy is kissing Simon, and then Rose. Then Rose is kissing Simon (not in the same way as Daisy did, understandably), Simon is shaking Luke's hand and Peter's hand. Daisy is kissing me and Sam. Sam is crying, so is Becky's mum, Arabella's mum and Eloise's mum, although none of them had even met Daisy before today. Champagne corks are popping. It is Daisy's brilliant, shiny moment.

  I urgently push through the crowds and run to the bathroom. I feel the champagne in my mouth for the second time, my chest is tight. Suddenly hot and dizzy. I heave and then splash water on my face and then lean heavily on the bathroom door.

  "You OK?" Sam is banging on the door. "Are you feeling ill?"

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  I open the door and let her in.

  "Very."

  "Booze, pregnant, jealous or guilty?"

  I glare at her.

  "Was I ever that besotted?" I ask as I sit on the loo seat and put my head in my hands.

  She softens. "More so. Don't you remember?"

  "No, I can't remember Luke ever creating that stomach-churning excitement, I can't remember him being all-consuming."

  Stone again, "You are a passion junkie."

  "I am not."

  "You are. It was exactly like that with Luke, except better because he stroked your tummy when you had period cramps. Don't you remember you wanted him so much you used to pull out all the stops? You took up golf. You baby-sat for his sister every Friday night for six months. You once sent flowers to yourself to make him jealous."

  I smiled at the memory. "It worked."

  "Too damn right it did, our office was like a florist for a month. Don't you remember how you used to both speak, fall silent for hours and then start the conversation somewhere else but a place you'd both arrived at? You think the same way. Don't you remember finishing each other's sentences? Remember how excited you were when you found out that he adored Arthur Miller and he could quote it to you. Your favorite playwright. Con, I wasn't even there for most of this and I remember it, because you told me. You told me that from the moment you saw him, you knew you'd marry him. You wanted to marry him. You said he completed you."

  I remember some of it. I remember speaking of it. But I can't remember feeling it. I sit up and face Sam, repeatedly running my hands through my hair. "Every time I think of John my stomach lurches."

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  "Stomach?"

  "Fair point. The feeling is lower than that. But I am a woman. I am not supposed to be led by base instincts, that's a male domain. He is so good-looking, stunning, wanton, sexy. Thinking of him is enough to make me come. I am attracted to the shape of his neck. To the sudden, jerky movements that he makes when he walks. To the smell of his skin. The touch of his hand." Sam sits on the corner of the bath and takes hold of my hands. My voice is tight and my explanation ekes out like a plea. "He scalds my conscious and unconscious mind leaving a messy sore." Sam can't understand me. I have what she wants. Now I have it twice. But she's my friend. One of the best friends I have, and so she wants to help. She whispers, "Although possibly the sore would soothe and heal, if you just stopped picking at the scab."

  "Possibly," I admit. Part of me is tired of the deception and silences and mistrust and agonizing. Witnessing Daisy's uncomplicated rapture made me long for that easy innocence I've chucked away. Tentatively I ask Sam, "But can I ever piece back together what Luke and I had?"

  Happy Birthday to You, my mobile whistles from my handbag. Crazed, I shake the contents onto the tiled floor: lipstick, pens, keys, tampons, purse, receipts scatter in every direction. I ferret manically until I pounce on the phone. I ignore Sam's mystified and disappointed face.

  "Hello, hello," I peal urgently.

  "Hey, Sex. How are you? Can you talk?"

  I sink back against the bath, awash with delight. My face is nearly splitting. Sam sighs and lets the bathroom door bang behind her.

  The others may not have been seeing much of Lucy but I am, so that I can indulge in eternal chatter about John. Lucy isn't exactly patient ("Connie, what did you used to talk about?"),

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  or even understanding ("I mean, when you were interesting.*'). In fact, she is often downright pessimistic ("If this one doesn't work out, you can get yourself another."). Still at least she doesn't moralize. She has always approved of indulgent, hedonistic, behavior ("You have to be kind to yourself."). Her philosophy on self-preservation used to offend me, now I recognize it as a sophisticated take on life, a reality. Who am I hurting? I am very careful that my alibis are watertight, I never meet John if Luke is free and I am the soul of discretion when I am with John. I never, ever talk about Luke. Really, I am being as fair as I can possibly be. Under the circumstances. Lucy approves of the way I am handling the situation ("I think you have the ability to get quite good at adultery. Providing you drop your romantic expectations.").

  It is convenient to shop with Lucy because even Christmas crowds part like the Red Sea. We trail around Harvey Nics, I'm behind her, trying to keep pace with her determined step. The lift stops on the fifth floor, which houses the food goodies. Teas, coffees, puddings, pickles and cheeses, every shape, size and variety imaginable. The choice is overwhelming. Delicious products packaged with astounding flair, astonishingly expensive. We agree on about twenty-five "necessary luxuries." I finger an exotic hamper, crammed full of indulgence.

  "What do you think for Rose?" Before she answers I resume my original conversation about John. "He told me that he feels uncomfortable with the chasm between who he is and who people expect him to be. What he feels and what people expect him to feel. When he tries to explain himself it's so clear to me but most people don't get it. He is so misunderstood. He is so much more than what people can see."

  Lucy looks at me as though I am from another planet. She sighs impatiently and then pronounces her verdict. "Sounds like a pretentious wanker. Con, he is an emotional cripple;

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  worse, he is a self-obsessed emotional cripple. Rose would prefer navy towels."

  I walk away from the hampers and check the store directory for bathroom accessories. Actually he hadn't quite said it the way I'd recounted it to Lucy. He'd said something more like, "I'm just like how I am. And I like me this way, I don't want to change into something someone else expects me to be. I can't explain it. Dunno why I can't explain it, Con, but you get it. Don't you? You are just like me and this thing we are doing is just for attention. We are being indulgent. We don't like not getting what we want." He was standing naked, except for his socks. He held his arms to the air and then let them flop as he pounced on me, bored with the conversation about expectation and self-realization.

  "He's not an emotional cripple. Well, no more than most men. He's got the potential to be very deep. He'd be fine if he read Marie Claire."

  Lucy stares at me bemused.
r />   "Don't," she says with some authority, "don't romanticize him. He's the kind of bloke that thinks every hole's a goal."

  I nod. I think I'd heard him use this phrase.

  "He certainly doesn't follow the script for a devoted and hot lover. He never takes you anywhere."

  "I don't mind."

  "Well, you should."

  "He always has the intention. We often meet up agreeing to go to supper, after a quick one."

  "Except you mean a drink. He's not big on the romantic gesture either, is he?"

  I feel tired.

  "Does he ever send you cute notes by e-mail? Has he sent flowers anonymously, or even openly?"

  "He bought me a book once and he'd written in the cover, a romantic note about us acting out the contents."

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  "Which book?"

  "American Psycho."

  "Hardly Cathy and Heathcliff?"

  "I was a bit apprehensive about calling him for a few days, after all those decapitations." We laugh.

  "He goes for just one with the blokes, every night. Somehow that 'just one' always turns into several hours' drinking." She puts a packet of truffle risotto into her basket. "He tries to pull the waitress, the girls on the next table, all of them. If that doesn't work he goes to the cashpoint machine to withdraw some more money and he tries to pull the women in the queue." She adds some squid ink pasta. "But by this time he can barely stand, so any boyish charm he did possess has washed away. He then goes to some tacky nightclub. He wears his tie around his head and he can't even pull the sixteen-year-olds that are visiting from Essex. Even girls who are desperate for a part of the big city are offended by his indiscriminate, indiscreet, cretinous behavior." With each sentence she angrily flings a delicacy into her basket. She stops selecting and turns to me. "Then as he struggles home, he calls you. And you think that is love?"

  "It's not like that," I insist. "I've never mentioned 'love.' Only 'destiny.'" I feel exposed. "My number is programmed into his phone," I defend.

  "He's a bastard, isn't he?" she asserts rather than inquires. Her wealth of experience makes her an authority.

  "Of course he is; I wouldn't be attracted otherwise."

  She nods at the truth of this.

  "What's wrong with you anyway? I hadn't realized you objected at all." I say "objected" in a rather haughty voice.

  Lucy sighs, "I'm not looking forward to Christmas." She turns back to the preserves and picks up a jar of Gentleman's Relish. She puts it down again disdainfully. "It's not a good time for mistresses."

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  I'd never known Lucy to care about Christmas before. She always, rather sensitively, refers to the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus as sentimental, superstitious crap.

  "Do you want to talk about it?" I ask sympathetically. Lucy hesitates. Obviously not, so I resume.

  "Would you be angry if I said John is misunderstood?" I leaf through a cookery book, wondering if this is the one Luke's parents are planning to buy me.

  "Furious."

  "Would you hit me?" I smile trying to lighten her mood.

  "Yes."

  "I'm in danger of being on the receiving end of physical violence." She doesn't smile, instead she holds her face in solid indifference. "This is serious, Lucy. Can you imagine if he is my destiny, if I've married the wrong man?"

  "Is there a right one?"

  "But I'm so happy, Lucy!" I argue.

  "No, you're not happy. I've never seen you more unhappy. You get no pleasure out of the things and people you used to delight in. You're desolate, depressed, frustrated, angry. You vacillate between a glorious rage and simple rage. You're furious. Furious at yourself, at Luke, at John. Kick it into touch, Connie. It doesn't suit you."

  "Of course it suits me. I've never been so thin. It can't be a bad thing if I'm losing weight."

  Lucy rolls her eyes. "Bollocks, Connie. You haven't been happy since you met him. Tortured—yes, angst-ridden—yes, skinny—yes. But not happy. Go to Weight Watchers, it's kinder." She pauses, serious again. "Let him go, Con."

  "That is definitely advice."

  "OK, all right. I'm advising you, shoot me. I'm trying to do a good thing here, Con. I'm not moralizing."

  "Well, you'd hardly be in a position to do so, would you?" I snap. I'm being mean, I know, but I don't care.

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  Lucy purses her lips. "Exactly. I know what I'm talking about. Connie, you don't want to become me. Try talking to Luke. Give John up. You don't want him for keeps. You're just playing at this because you're bored. Let it go before it all goes wrong."

  "Goes wrong?"

  "Before you get caught or dumped. Just tell me, how can this have a successful outcome for you? Just think about it."

  "Tra la la la la laaa. Le la la la laaa. The angels they are singing." Luke wakes me up with his singing. He carefully places a Christmas breakfast tray on the bed. Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, mince pies, fresh orange juice, coffee, his Christmas card and a sprig of spruce Christmas fare. He kisses me, a nice warm kiss. Fine. A fine kiss. I make a big show about how I have to get up now and we are going to arrive late at Rose and Peter's unless we hurry.

  "Don't panic, Con. I was just kissing you. I wasn't suggesting sex. I know that you are training to take holy orders."

  He leaves the room and I feel a twinge of guilt. I know I've spoilt the atmosphere. I'm running low on excuses to avoid sex. Headaches that last four months are generally regarded as pretty serious. Aghhh I can't think about this now. I rarely think about what I am doing. My schizophrenic existence doesn't leave me much time to. I daydream, fantasize, and occasionally, worry. But I do not think. My best fantasy is the one where my two separate, parallel lives do not painfully clash and mesh.

  In the life with Luke, I live in our large Clapham house. I'm a clever, bright, dutiful wife. A wife that is in love with her husband. Delighted, not just content. Focused and single-minded. Eating croissants, drinking reasonable amounts of fine wines, exercising thoroughly. The wife I was before. The wife I have been.

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  The other life is dirty, filthy, sexy. A life of shagging against walls and on tables. Smoking cigarettes, nursing hangovers, doing drugs to keep me thin. The life I'm leading. We exist in a crazy hedonistic, sparkly, nowness.

  I can't marry the two. And now I've lived for four months with a foot in each camp. It's giving me a cramp. This is extremely unsatisfactory.

  I don't want him to go away.

  Yet I can't see a future for us.

  Luke and I ostensibly celebrate Christmas like all our other Christmases. We buy a tree from the flower stall on the Common, drag it home and although there is rain falling, not snow, it is almost a perfect picture postcard scene. We dress the tree with large tartan bows, red and gold tinsel, baubles and lots of those little wooden ornaments. We eat mince pies, listen to two contrasting concerts by carol singers: beautiful, soul-piercing carol singers that perform in Westminster; and a performance by the local preteen thugs, who are not so much rosy, but have peculiar red spots high on their cheeks, a result of the cheap and lethal cocktail of cider and aspirins.

  Luke and I eventually buy presents, wrap them, buy, write and fail to post our cards. An entirely appropriate Christmas. The one difference is that I refuse to spend the actual day with either Luke's family or mine. My three sisters and their spouses and offspring are all visiting my mum and dad. They're prepared to travel a fair distance to avoid handling turkey giblets. Luke's brother and his fiancee are visiting Luke's parents; they can field the questions on fertility from aging aunts. My mother is too perceptive, I can't risk her seeing Luke and me together and besides, I would suffocate under the married-bliss vibes that both clans exude. Instead we spend the actual day with our adopted family. Rose, the hostess with the mostess, has thrown open her doors to half of London. It's unlikely I'll be made to feel uncomfortable with the resonance of married ecstasy there.

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  Rose's father, Mr. Kirk, answers the door.

  "Bloody marvelous to see you," he says as he energetically pumps Luke's hand. He leans in closely and warmly kisses me. A bit too close and a bit too warm in my opinion. Christmas is a great excuse for old hounds to gratuitously seize flesh that has been unavailable to them for decades.

  "How the devil are you?" he asks, smiling warmly. We stand on the step, freezing and longing for a drink, assuring him that we are quite well. We politely inquire if he is sound in body (the evidence for the condition of his mind is apparent).

  "Tip-top. Thanks for calling." He closes the door. Luke and I exchange giggles. I feel relaxed with him, for the first time in a long time. So relaxed, that I promise myself that I'll try to enjoy Christmas Day. To enjoy Luke. We ring the bell again.

  This time Mrs. Kirk answers the door. Mrs. Kirk is Rose, plus thirty years. Yet her limitless patience, naive optimism and outstanding good nature fit a woman in her sixties much more comfortably. Odd. She isn't frustrating, you don't want to shake her and say, "Wake up and smell the decaf." She is ethereal and charming.

  Rose runs through from the kitchen, flushed and cheerful with sherry and season. For once she isn't wearing leggings and a sloppy jumper. She has taken a risk by wearing a clingy red, velvet dress with red hair. The dress is surprisingly flattering despite the fact that "clingy" is a potential pitfall for every woman, except perhaps Cindy Crawford. But it works, and if only she could be persuaded to ditch her Alice band and wear a spot of makeup, then she'd look pretty good, pretty damn good. Daisy and Simon are both being desperately trendy in black polo-necks and trousers. Or at least I think that's what they are wearing; as they are a homogenous mesh it is difficult to be sure. Seeing their blatant longing for one another sends me scrambling for my mobile.

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  Is it switched on?

  It is.

  Fuck. So much for the promise I made myself. I will not think of him for the day, or at least until the Queen's speech. Tarn is impeccable in a Connolly ribbed sweater; "marl anthracite," he informs me. I have no idea whether he is talking about his jumper or an exotic holiday location. I must ask Lucy. John would look a complete horn in that sweater. Peter is looking smart-casual in a sophisticated, relaxed, spot-on sort of way. I wave to him as he plays in the garden with the twins. Lucy looks stunning. Rather unusually she is wearing a color. A baby pink, cashmere cap-sleeve jumper and cardigan with pearl buttons. It undoubtedly cost the equivalent of an average family's monthly income. Lucy proves the adage "You get what you pay for." She looks a million dollars. Immaculate, alluring, amazing, if not a bit sulky. Which is a shame because everyone else seems to be getting on so well.