by Marian Keyes
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad. Everything will work out, you’ll see.”
“Oh no, I won’t,” I thought.
“James was threatened [self-conscious usage of relationship jargon from George] by your vitality. Instead of realizing that your liveliness complemented [more self-consciousness] his calmness,” said George, who sounded like he was quoting from a psychology textbook.
“But you can grow from this crisis and”—slightly embarrassed pause—”
redefine the parameters of your relationship.”
“Wow, George,” I said, desperate to get him off the phone. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could sustain this conversation. “You certainly have got in touch with your emotions.”
“Yes,” he said shyly. “I’m even exploring my feminine side.”
This would be hilarious if I wasn’t feeling so confused and frightened.
“George,” I said, “it’s a pleasure to talk to such a sensitive man. You have a great understanding of the dynamics of James and me. It’s not every man who would be so in touch.”
“Thank you, Claire,” he said proudly. I could almost hear him beaming.
“I feel as though I’ve learned an awful lot. And I’m no longer afraid to cry.”
“Good, good,” I said heartily, terrified that he might offer to give me a demonstration there and then.
How could I get him off the phone without sounding as if I wasn’t interested in his emotional growth? I thought desperately.
I found myself asking him another question.
“And do you care for and nurture your inner child?” I asked in a gentle voice.
“Er, what?” he asked, confused.
I had lost him. Aisling hadn’t given him the sequel yet. “I haven’t any children, Claire. You know that.”
“I know,” I said kindly. No point in pushing him too far and undoing all the good work that Aisling had done.
“George…” I interrupted, abruptly cutting short his lyrical descriptions of how it had all worked out for James because James had followed his advice and how happy James and I were going to be and—
“George,” I repeated a bit louder. I managed to get his attention.
“So, George, let me see if I’ve got this right,” I said to him. “James loves me. James always loved me. James felt insecure and afraid that he might be too boring for me. Have I got that right?”
“But you know all this,” said George, sounding confused.
“Just checking,” I said lightly.
George was still prattling on. Maybe I was imagining things, but could he have been talking about something called the male period?
But I could barely listen to him. I had far more important things to worry about.
Namely, why had James told George that he loved me frantically and was afraid of losing me and why had he told me that I was damn near impossible to live with but he would take me back as almost an act of charity?
Even a blind man could see that there was a slight discrepancy between the two stories.
He was either lying to George or lying to me.
And some little tickle of instinct somewhere told me that he had been lying to me.
I had to talk to him. I had to find out.
“George,” I said, interrupting him again. “I need to speak to James. Will you ask him to call me? It’s important.”
“Yes,” he said, “will do. He should be back in about half an hour.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Bye now.”
And I hung up.
I sat trying to make sense of what George had inadvertently told me. So James had always loved me. And James felt threatened by my being, well… me, I suppose, for want of a better description.
Is that why he needed to have an affair with another woman? And why did he have to tell me that it was all my fault? And why did he have to tell me that I’d have to change totally if our marriage was to have a future?
I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. But I did know one thing.
Something was.
thirty-three
Just to make sure, I called Judy.
“Claire!” she answered, sounding delighted. “Are you back?”
“No, Judy, not yet,” I said miserably.
Before she could say anything I went on talking.
“Look, Judy,” I blurted out, “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Talk away,” she said. “Are you okay? You sound a bit agitated.”
“I am, Judy,” I said. “I’m agitated and confused and I don’t know what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?” she asked gently.
“Well, you know that James and I have made up,” I started.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, did you know that it was my fault that James had the affair?”
“What on earth are you talking about?” she said, sounding horrified.
“He told me that it was all my fault. That I was immature and selfish and demanding and inconsiderate and that he’d only take me back if I changed radically.”
“He’s talking about him taking you back?” said Judy in disbelief. “Claire, Claire, slow down a minute. There’s something very wrong here.”
Well, if Judy thought there was something wrong then I wasn’t imagining it.
But I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not.
“Now, Claire, can we start again please?” she asked. “James said that he was forced to have an affair because you were so difficult to live with. Have I got that right?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling distressed. I admit that it sounded very spurious the way that Judy said it. James made it sound a lot more reasonable, somehow.
“And now he’s saying that he’ll take you back if you change?” she continued. “What way does he want you to change?”
“Oh, you know,” I mumbled. “He wants me to be less of a party-giver.
And less of a party-goer. Quieter. More considerate.”
“Oh, I see,” she said hotly. “He wants you to be a boring fucker like him, is that right? Or else he wants you where he can keep his killjoy little eye on you. What a shit!”
She paused. And then another thought struck her.
“And what kind of idiot are you? You mean to tell me that you believed this crap! Can’t you see that it’s the oldest trick in the book?”
“In what way?” I asked. Not wanting to hear.
“He has an affair. He realizes what a huge mistake he’s made. He wants you back because he really loves you—any fool can see that—but he’s afraid that you’ll tell him to take a hike. So he makes out that it was all your fault so you feel guilty and then you feel grateful because, even though you were an awful person, he still wants you.
“And anyway,” she said, drawing breath and launching into another furious speech, “I happen to know for a fact that he’s lying.”
“Oh?” I said. It was about all I could manage.
“Yes,” she said. “Michael told me.”
Michael being Judy’s boyfriend. Michael being James’s friend.
“About a month ago Michael went out with James for a couple of pints, well, more like a couple of dozen pints, but anyway…and James got plastered and wouldn’t stop talking about you. Michael says that James is bonkers about you. That he always was. And that he was always much more in love with you than you were with him. And always thought that he was going to lose you. And he couldn’t handle it. So with the pressure of the baby and all that he decided to throw in the towel. And took off with Denise, who, let’s face it, couldn’t believe her luck to land a catch like James.”
“I see,” I said evenly. “That’s interesting, because George told me something very similar today.”
“I can’t believe you needed to hear this from George or me. Didn’t you know that James was crazy about you? And totally insecure about you?”
Ju
dy was obviously disgusted with me.
“And he’s being so manipulative,” she fumed. “Taking advantage of the situation just so he can get you under his thumb. Telling you it’s your fault that he left you, and that if you’re not the way he wants you to be, he’ll leave you again. Typical!”
“Judy,” I said, “I need you to be calm for a moment. This is very important.”
“Oh, er, right,” she said, sounding slightly embarrassed. “Look, when I said that he was a boring fucker I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay, Judy,” I said kindly. “I know you did, but it doesn’t matter.”
“You know how it is,” she went on. “The heat of the moment and all that.”
“Judy,” I said. “For Christ’s sake! Forget it! I need to get this straight in my head.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she said. “Go ahead.”
“James had an affair, but he said it was my fault. Right?” I asked Judy.
“So you say,” she agreed.
“He should have apologized to me, but wouldn’t. Right?”
“Um, right,” said Judy.
“He has convinced everyone that he loves me. Except me. Right?”
“Right.”
“He has hurt me, humiliated me, confused me, compromised me, lied to me, undermined me, made me apologize for being me. Right?”
“Right.”
“And he won’t apologize to me or comfort me. Right?”
“Right.”
“I don’t need a man like that. Right?”
“Right! But…er…Claire, what are you going to do?”
“Kill the fucker.”
“No, Claire, go easy now,” stuttered Judy.
“Oh relax, Judy,” I sighed. “I’m not going to kill him. But I’m going to hurt him real bad.”
“That’s okay then,” she said with relief. “He’s not worth going to prison for.”
“Thanks for your plain-talking advice,” I said. “You’re right. He is a boring fucker, isn’t he?”
“Completely,” she said with passion.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” I said. “Good luck. Bye.”
So now what?
I supposed I’d better wait for James to call me.
But I was no longer confused. James had made me very, very angry. And I thought it was only fair that I should let him know. In person.
James called back a short time later. He seemed delighted that I had called him.
I could barely bring myself to be civil to him. My anger kept threatening to boil over.
“Claire, lovely to hear from you,” he said.
“What are you doing tonight, James?” I asked brusquely.
“Um, well nothing,” he said. I like to think that he was a little bit shocked by my abrupt tone.
“Good,” I said. “Be in around eight o’clock. I need to talk to you.”
“Er, what about?” he asked, sounding a little bit anxious.
“You’ll see,” I said smoothly.
“No, no, tell me now,” he said, sounding quite a bit anxious.
“No, James, wait until tonight,” I said pleasantly but very, very firmly.
He was silent.
“Eight o’clock tonight then, James,” I concluded pleasantly.
“Okay,” he muttered.
I hung up the phone.
Still thinking about what I had recently found out.
You know, I had known that I wasn’t as bad as James had made me out to be. And really, that wasn’t just because I didn’t want to believe that I was a bad person. Although I didn’t want to believe that I was a bad person, but…anyway, you know what I mean. I had had a feeling that James had been lying to me, or at least exaggerating greatly when he told me what a horrible, childish, selfish, inconsiderate bitch I had been throughout our marriage.
But I couldn’t see what reason he had to lie to me about it.
And I had a feeling that he had tried to cut me down to size—well, at least to a size that suited him—by telling me that I had been such a person.
He hadn’t liked my confidence. He had been frightened by it. So, in a nasty cynical way, he decided to completely undermine me so that I’d be dependent on him.
What a bastard.
You know, I think I’d hated him less when I found he had been having sex with Denise. This was a worse kind of betrayal.
“Mum,” I called down the stairs.
“What?” she shouted from the kitchen.
“I need you.”
“What for?”
“I need you to watch Kate tonight. And I need you to drive me to the airport.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m going to London. I need you to watch Kate,” I said reasonably.
“Is it Tuesday already?” she asked in confusion.
“No, Mum, today is Friday. But I’m still going to London.”
“And will you be going again on Tuesday?” she asked, looking a little bewildered.
“Maybe,” I said. I couldn’t answer her. I didn’t know myself whether I would or not.
“What’s this all about?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’ve got some things to work out with James,” I said.
“I thought you had worked things out with James,” she said, reasonably enough, I suppose.
“So did I,” I said sadly. “But other—what shall I call it— evidence has come to light in the last hour or so, so I have to go and see him.”
“When will you be back?” she asked.
“Soon,” I promised. “Please, Mum, this is important. I need your help.”
“Oh, all right then,” she said, sounding a bit nicer. “Take as long as you need.”
“It won’t be more than a day or so,” I said.
“Fine then.”
“I’ll need to borrow money.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Please?”
“How much do you need?”
“Not much. I’ll put the flight on the card. But I’ll need money for incidentals. You know, subway fares, brass knuckles, the usual.”
“So long as I get it back by next week, I can give you fifty.”
“Fifty is plenty,” I said.
Well, I hoped it would be. I had no idea where I would be sleeping tonight. But something told me it wouldn’t be in my double bed in London with James.
Never mind. I had an ex-boyfriend or two who had never really gotten over me. So I would at least have a roof over my head.
As well as an erection in my back.
I dressed to kill.
I thought it would be appropriate.
But not as you might have expected, in battle fatigues, a hard hat with a net with leaves in it and a couple of rounds of ammo slung across my chest. Oh no, I wore a sexy, short, black skirt with a black jacket and sheer stockings and high, high heels. I would have worn a little black pillbox hat with a veil if I’d had one. But luckily I didn’t.
I wanted to look like a killer bitch from Hell. But in retrospect I suppose the hat would have been overdoing it.
I would just have looked like one of those glamorous widows who look beautiful at graveside but whom the townspeople hate because they suspect her of killing her husband and inheriting the money that he had intended to leave to the town to build a new hospital.
Mum looked a little bit taken aback at my dramatic appearance as I came down the stairs but took a look at my determined, angry face and thought better of commenting on it.
“Are we ready?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Mum. “I’ve just got to find the car keys.”
I sighed. This could take days.
While Mum was running in and out of rooms and emptying handbags onto the kitchen table and feeling around in coat pockets and muttering to herself like the white rabbit (it was the white rabbit, wasn’t it?) in Alice in Wonderland, the front
door opened and Helen arrived with her usual pomp and ceremony.
“Guess what?” she yelled.
“What?” I answered. Surly. Uninterested.
“Adam has a girlfriend!”
The blood drained from my face and my heart nearly stopped beating.
What was she talking about? Had someone found out about me and Adam?
“And wait until you hear!” continued Helen, sounding delighted. “He has a baby!”
I stared at her. Was she serious?
“What kind of baby?” I managed to ask.
“A baby baby, a girl baby,” said Helen scornfully. “What did you expect?
A giraffe baby? God, sometimes I worry about you!”
My head was spinning. What did this mean? When had all this happened?
Why hadn’t Adam told me?
“But is it a new baby or what?” I asked. I didn’t even try to keep the desolation from my voice, but Helen, with her customary sensitivity, didn’t seem to notice.
“No,” said Helen. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t look like Kate. She has hair and she doesn’t look like an old man.”
“Kate doesn’t look like an old man!” I said hotly.
“Yes, she does.” Helen laughed. “She’s bald and fat and hasn’t any teeth.”
“Shut up!” I said viciously. “She’ll hear you. Babies can understand these things, you know. She’s beautiful.”
“Keep your panties on,” said Helen mildly. “I don’t know what you’re so touchy about.”
I said nothing.
This was all a terrible shock.
“It was hilarious,” continued Helen. “Adam brought the girl and the baby into college and half my class are talking about killing themselves.
And he can forget about passing any of Professor Staunton’s exams. The look she gave him! I swear to God, she hates him.”
“So, um, hadn’t you met this girl before now?” I asked, trying to make sense of this. Had he been going out with her while he was leading me on?
Well, he must have been. You don’t just go out and buy a baby with hair in a supermarket. These things take time.
“No, we hadn’t,” said Helen. “Apparently they had some big fight ages and ages ago and he hadn’t seen her or the baby for a long time. But now they’re all reunited.”
Helen began singing at the top of her voice. Some awful song about being reunited and it feeling so good. She waltzed up the stairs, still singing.