‘One morning,’ I say, turning to look at her, ‘out of the blue, so it seemed to me, the Weasel woke up, sipped his coffee, and told me that he’d been unhappy for years.’
I pause; I can’t speak. I still find it shocking. How can one be oblivious to one’s partner’s unhappiness?
‘Go on,’ she says. She’s really listening to me. Forensically, you might say.
‘I mean, I didn’t expect him to be skipping about with jollity after fifteen years. But he had never struck me as unhappy.’
She waits. ‘And how did you respond?’
I pause. I think hard, remembering how we had sat side by side in bed, driver and passenger in the marital vehicle. ‘I had to admire him for his honesty. But once those words are spoken, once those doubts are voiced, there is no going back. That is the beginning of the end of something …’
‘But it could also be the beginning of something …’
I wait for her to expand on this.
She adjusts her hair. ‘You think honesty stands no chance?’
‘Honesty brings chaos.’
‘But relationships change, they are evolving things.’
‘Did you settle for Si Hubby?’
‘Did you settle for Karl?’ Oh, she’s rising to my bait.
‘I think a relationship stands more of a chance if you at least once had passionate feelings for each other. But our generation, who met our partners round about thirty … a lot of us have settled. Unlike our parents, we’d already known passion, and therefore we also knew when it wasn’t there. And if you’ve never felt it with this person, I think you’re pretty doomed. Did you and Si Hubby ever have passion?’
‘So you are an advocate of faking it? Carrying on when you know you’re not happy?’
I laugh. I look about the room as if surely my circumstances speak for themselves. She stares at me. In that moment, her eyes are rather beautiful, so alive and blue and full of empathy. But I’m wary; I’ve seen the steel in her, I know she can hurl daggers out of them.
‘I’m just warning you,’ I say quietly. ‘Be prepared. Dib dob.’
‘We’re talking about you and Karl,’ she says. ‘Why do you think he was unhappy?’
I sigh. ‘Why’s anyone unhappy after all those years? Familiarity had bred contempt. He didn’t feel loved any more, emotionally, physically. He needed to be desired. He irritated me. I nagged. Apparently I had emasculated him … funny there’s no word for de-feminization … Our very language is misogynistic.’
‘Sounds like you took all the blame?’
I smile. ‘I didn’t have all the facts.’
‘Do you think we ever have all the facts?’
I laugh. That’s the first really good question she has asked me. I wouldn’t mind sharing my leaf with her. I look out. We sit in silence for a good minute – marvellous for her if she’s paid by the hour.
‘I think he’s selling the house,’ I tell her. I’m feeling low again. ‘Will you talk to him? Ask him just to wait a while.’
‘To wait for what?’
‘To-wit to-woo.’ I do an owl impression, just because I can – nothing to lose and all that. But it’s not quite as satisfying with Dr Robinson as it is with the Squeak. Anyway, she ignores it.
‘I don’t know about that …’
She’s such a jobsworth.
‘Do you know why you’re here, Connie?’ she says again. She sounds genuinely curious. Not tricksy.
‘I do,’ I say.
‘Tell me.’
‘They found me naked by the river …’ This is not the answer she is waiting for, I can tell by the way she purses her lips. I continue, ‘There was an explanation for that, by the way.’
She shakes her head. She’s not interested in my explanations. ‘Do you know why you are here, Connie?’
We have a little eyeball-off. I shrug.
‘A week ago you drove your car into the river.’
I stare at her. ‘I think I would remember that.’
She has that wrong. She’s got it all wrong. She gives a measured sigh that is difficult to read. Then she crosses those thick, strong legs of hers. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Let’s get back to Ness.’
‘Sure,’ I say. She needs to get this right. Besides, I don’t want her to leave. She’s the only person I get to really talk to. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘What do you want to tell me?’
‘I want to tell you the truth,’ I say, like a very good girl. She likes me a bit more then; I see it in her eyes.
‘That’s what I want too,’ she says quietly. I’ve given her control again; everything is how it is meant to be. ‘So you met her in the playground, you got chatting, the kids are playing, you find out a few things about each other, she compliments you …’
‘That’s right. This is important … so the next time I saw her, it was a few weeks later. I was posting a letter at the corner of our street or something, I can’t remember exactly – this is all years ago. Anyway, Ness was trying to get Polly out of her car seat. I didn’t recognize her at first. I was just thinking what a funky car it was – retro and a nice blue. Then when she stood up straight, I recognized her and the funny thing was she’d had her hair cut – just like mine! With the fringe and everything!’
Dr Robinson leans in and slowly recrosses one leg over the other, smoothing out her dress.
‘I commented on it. I expected her to refer to the fact that she’d copied my hairstyle, after our previous conversation, or … some reference to it at least. But she didn’t.’
‘And what did you think about that?’
‘I just thought it was a bit odd. I thought that perhaps she wasn’t very self-aware. Or that she’d forgotten that it was me that she’d copied.’
‘Fringes are very common. People are always getting fringes.’
‘Yes. That’s what I said to myself. And so I helped her unclip the strap of the car seat. And there was something else about her that bothered me, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Anyway, that same week there was a Christmas Fair at school. Ness and Leah were quite a hit, this new ‘celebrity’ family. It was because of Leah. Leah Worthington, the newsreader. You know the one: glasses, cool, serious, clever, always looks a bit miserable …’
‘I know who she is.’
Fame is such a head-fuck. Leah’s just a normal woman; it’s everyone else who acts differently. Or maybe fame had changed her, I don’t know. She did have that aura of success, a kind of affected nonchalance. Being with her was so odd. Once you’d forgotten who she was, you’d see how people changed when they recognized her: shop assistants, waiters, postmen, bank clerks, teachers, the headmaster – everyone would get a bit giggly around her, a bit flirty. People behaved bizarrely once sprinkled with the fairy dust of fame. Evie and Polly have got used to having special dispensations and privileges they take for granted: straight to the front of queues, friendly faces. Ness is warier of people, doesn’t trust them easily; they’re suddenly much nicer to her when Leah turns up.
‘They were an “unconventional” family, the Joneses. I’d heard people talking about them; everybody was falling over themselves to befriend them. They were glamorous, you see. They were an attraction.’
Dr Robinson hasn’t moved a muscle, but her eyes are all lit up; I can tell that even she wants to ask me what Leah’s like and all that bullshit. I mean, she’s pretending to be cool about it but underneath that B-is-for-Boden dress, she wants to flash those B for bazookas.
‘At first, I was definitely the exception. I stayed away from them once I realized Leah was famous.’
‘And Karl? Was he impressed?’ she asks.
‘That’s not the point. The Weasel does the impressing. And after much perseverance he succeeded with Leah. She thought he was hilarious. He can make anyone like him; he kind of hijacks them until they relent to the charm onslaught. That’s why he’s so good at his job, after all: getting everyone on side. It’s odd, he even wants strangers to lik
e him – he used to lift the kids up on to his shoulders with loud whoop-di-doos in public spaces, just to be sure everyone noticed what a cracking father he was … It’s extremely important to him that everybody thinks he’s fantastic. I expect you already do.’
‘I haven’t met him.’
‘Oh, you will. And you’ll think he’s fantastic, he’ll make sure of that. The irony is he is fantastic; he just doesn’t need to try so hard.’
She cocks her head, her eyes not leaving mine. ‘And why do you think he does that?’
I shrug. ‘You tell me, Shrink.’
Dr Robinson nods to signify that the subject is now finished with and she will retain this information for a later discussion.
‘Back to the Christmas Fair. Did you and Ness speak?’
‘Not at first. But she seemed very different to how she was in the park. At first, I’d got the impression that she was a bit square – her clothes were pretty sensible, she seemed stilted. But here at the fair, she looked completely different. She was glamorous, more confident – perhaps because she was with Leah, or maybe it was the alcohol, I don’t know. She wasn’t nervy and twitchy at all. Anyway, later on, Leah had taken the kids home and some of us were in the playground, a bit pissed, and Ness came back from the loo with a piece of toilet paper hanging off her skirt and neither she nor I could get it off. We were laughing and mucking about; I smeared some chocolate soldier on it, just being stupid. That was when we connected, I’d say. She was really beautiful. I could see it now, this beauty everyone was talking about. It was quite extraordinary. How on earth could I have missed it? Anyway, she was laughing so much, leaning on me to try and pull it off. She was very close. And then, wham! My God! I got it! That scent! She was wearing the same Jo Malone perfume!’
‘Your perfume? The same perfume she had commented on in the park?’ Dr Robinson asks, reassuringly affronted. (That’s all you really want from a psychologist: agreement.)
‘Yes.’
‘Did you say anything?’
‘I did! I said, Oh! You bought the Jo Malone? But she looked nonplussed, as if she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.’
‘How peculiar.’
‘Very. I thought it most strange that she made no mention of our previous conversation in the playground. It struck me again that she wasn’t very self-aware.’
‘And how did it make you feel, the fact that she was wearing your perfume?’
‘I suppose I felt flattered …’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I felt a bit robbed. Like she was stealing from me by not acknowledging that she’d copied me.’
She nods. She’s taking it in, frowning. ‘Which scent was it, out of curiosity?’
I smile. ‘Don’t worry, it’s not the same one you’re wearing.’ We’re not allowed scent in here, so you can smell the outsiders a mile off. She looks caught out.
‘Mine’s bath oil,’ she says, leaving us both with the intriguing image of her standing naked by a bath pouring grapefruit oil underneath a hot running tap.
‘Did you feel jealous?’ she asks.
‘Of whom?’
‘Of Ness and Leah, of their life together?’
I’d never been a particularly jealous person; I had always been innately confident in myself. But I’m trying to be honest with my feelings. I was intrigued by them. And I thought I did see passion there, between Ness and Leah, and I was envious of passion. ‘Perhaps,’ I say.
‘And were you jealous of Ness’s beauty?’
I smile and shake my head. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m a great fan of beauty.’
She glances at my scars as we both let that comment hang in the air, its repercussions wafting around the room with the grapefruit.
Chapter 5
I don’t know precisely when I realized that I was developing a crush on Ness. These things happen so slowly. Looking back, it was probably the time we went for that long hike outside Bath somewhere. Do you know the Bath countryside, Dr Robinson? You should go. I was struck by how fearless, how in control Ness was, with the Ordnance Survey map on her phone, her sensible boots and her blue cagoule. I found myself quite content to follow those slender striding legs into the unknown and was enjoying this strange new feeling of being second in command. A strange thought kept occurring to me: If I was a man this is exactly the sort of woman I would fall in love with.
The trip was unplanned. Now that the kids were a bit older Ness had got a job managing a gallery on the South Bank – she was doing really well and had been sent out to visit an artist in Bristol to discuss an upcoming exhibition. The night before the trip she’d sprained her wrist playing netball. Leah had work commitments, so she’d asked if I was free to drive her there and back. I was free (I was procrastinating doing research for my book). Besides, it was just for the day and I know she would have done the same for me.
Initially, as we left London in the old RAV4, it had felt a little peculiar; Ness and I had always passed our time together in the comfortable context of our families and here we were: individuals again, in the big wide world, just two women in a car going on a journey. Within the familial context, we’d all grown closer, thanks to the kids dashing in and out of our houses without the reserve of adults. They’d broken all the barriers for us, resulting in many impromptu evenings spent together. Karl was unusual like that – he was perfectly happy in the company of women (as long as he was the centre of attention); he had lots of women friends; he genuinely liked women. And Leah and Ness were unusual in that they had quite a few straight male friends. And you know what? I’d even seen Ness being quite flirty with them – I suppose being in a lesbian relationship allowed her that safety.
Leah’s brother and Karl had met and got on like a house on fire; they supported the same football team, knew a few characters in common. (What is it with men and characters? Why are they so eager to lay claim to them? Is it that they think a little of this character will rub off on them?) We knew Ness and Leah’s story by now: the kids’ biological father was a gay friend of theirs who now lived in France and Ness was the biological mother. Their past interested me: Leah had always been gay but Ness had only been in heterosexual relationships until they met; she’d been with her ex-boyfriend for five years. I assumed she must have always had a sexual interest in women, but she waved away my comments: I just fell in love and it happened to be with a woman.
I became quite fascinated by how they functioned as a couple, eager to pin them down and define them in some way, wanting them to take on traditional gender roles, which they did to a degree. In some respects Leah was the more masculine partner: she wasn’t vain, she never wore make-up when she wasn’t on television, she never wore skirts, she was sporty and practical, she got drunk like a man, loud and leery. And Ness looked after Leah, shielding her from the public interest, buoying her up, batting away the depression that never seemed far from Leah’s surface. Ness was somehow more sensible than Leah, more responsible. Apart from being gay, she was surprisingly straight. And yet every now and then she would take me by surprise: she was partial to a spliff, she could stay up all night, she had no qualms about breaking wind (a gentle inoffensive gust, but nevertheless she was unabashed); there was a subversiveness in there somewhere.
The journey flew by as we gossiped. Ness had plugged in her phone and was playing a Rufus Wainwright track; she’d unwound the window and was leaning out to feel the wind in her face. ‘Going to a Town’ – do you know it, Dr R? If not, Spotify it right now and think of us in the car, windows down, London behind us, singing along lustily to Rufus. It was one of those moments of happiness that seem to belong to a different lifetime now. I am smiling to recall it. I may not have been blessed with a melodious voice, but I’d been top of the queue when they were handing out gusto. Ness, however, had a sweet voice (I know, I know, what doesn’t she have?). It transpired that she’d actually met Mr Wainwright at some celebrity do with Leah. As I said, she was cool in her straight way, Dr
R, or are you impervious to such things? I think not.
I don’t want to bang on about Ness’s beauty because I despise this whole beauty obsession, but I have to say, after initially having been oblivious to it, I was now continually left-fielded by it: we’d be chatting away about human motivation or medieval doctors or the extraordinary Caravaggio (her favourite), and I would get distracted by the gorgeous tone of her skin, or those large dark eyes, or those unnaturally red lips – the sort that Shakespeare would eulogize about (where did that extra blood come from?), or her perfect teeth, or the petiteness of her, those high cheekbones, those full breasts. Nature had been a little unfair on the donating front; I felt crudely crafted next to her. Don’t get me wrong: she wasn’t perfect but it would be mean to point out that perhaps her hair was a little too frizzy, or her fingers on the stumpy side, or her skin a little moley – all that was lost in the glory of the whole. There was something undeniably feminine about her and yet she had a solidity, a capability, an appetite, an athleticism which was quite masculine.
At this stage I wasn’t consciously smitten with her; I was still representing myself quite well. I had yet to be skinned, deboned and filleted. And I don’t want to give you the wrong impression – I was smart and cool and pretty impressive in my own way (there is no room for false modesty in these records, wouldn’t you agree?). No, I’d never doubted my own attractiveness; it had never been an issue for me, but she was in a different league.
It’s surprising how much dancing can be done in a car. The Temptations were bemoaning frustrated love. Lyrics don’t come much better than theirs. It turned out, to our mutual delight, that we were both pedants on the lyric front, agreeing that a bad lyric could ruin a musician’s whole oeuvre; personally, I had never forgiven Prince for slipping the word restaurant into an otherwise faultless song. It’s kind of inexcusable; the word had no business in a lyric at all. I’m digressing. My point is – it’s an intimate act, sharing music, not dissimilar to Polly and Annie sharing diary dates. There is an element of risk in exposing your tastes but Ness and I appeared to be of one mind. If we quibbled about a song it wasn’t a problem: we’d persuade or dissuade, pause the track, debate a lyric, look for consistency, laugh or change our minds; we were in harmony.
Too Close Page 5