Bev certainly thinks so. He’s so funny I’m laughing all day. He’s my lover and my best friend doesn’t that make you puke? He also has a wonderful rapport with the local people and is even learning their language – good on you, Jem! According to Bev their life together is one long adventure, travelling round the world and living in various exotic climes. Being such vagabonds has brought us even closer.
There’s an etiquette to happiness. Shut up. It’s like haemorrhoids – you wouldn’t talk about them, would you? Those upon whom the gods smile bear a certain responsibility not to make the rest of us feel even more wretched, our hearts shrivelled to walnuts.
Now I accept that I’m not the easiest person to live with. My relationship with my children has been somewhat rocky – no doubt a factor in their present whereabouts. I’ve had periods of severe depression. I’ve been told by my therapist that I have both trust and abandonment issues – duh, as if normal people enjoy being dumped and betrayed.
But I’ve also made some disastrous choices. I married young – in those days people did. I used to take loads of drugs and in the early years my boyfriends tended to be sweet and spineless stoners. The turning-point came when I was twenty-one and had a boyfriend called Brendan. He used to wear a badge saying Wrong Place. Wrong Time. Be There. I remember seeing him struggling to open a can of lager. As I gazed at his thin shoulders I felt a rush of desire so intense it took away my breath. Then I realized that this was purely maternal. What I really wanted was a baby.
So I found myself a proper grown-up man with broad shoulders, got married and by the time I was twenty-five I had two children and we had bought the house in whose basement I had spent my carefree single life. When the marriage unravelled in a miasma of drink, recriminations and faithlessness I embarked on a series of disastrous relationships, blah blah, you don’t want to hear about them. It’s an old story.
Let’s just say that I was like a drone missile in my ability to seek out Mr Wrong. And them with me. But with my advancing years even these have petered out. Men want young women. That’s the brutal truth. They want to cheat death, don’t we all? They want a reflection of their younger selves, not a wrinkled face that mirrors back their own mortality. That rush of renewal must be intoxicating, the bastards.
Actually it’s a beautiful day today, summertime’s started. Outside, the trees are heavy with blossom. I live in a charming street of terraced houses now inhabited by bankers and adulterous politicians fiddling their expenses. This area has changed; the families whose children played with mine have long since departed. Opposite, the council flats have been sold to the young professionals whose faces I see illuminated by their laptops. The only person who remains is the obligatory mad-woman-with-cats who lives up the road and who, like all mad people, never seems to grow older. Ha! Maybe she’s thinking the same thing about me.
I can’t rattle around this house for ever. I know I should sell up and move somewhere smaller but the idea fills me with panic. Where would I go? It could be anywhere, that’s the problem. I keep thinking that something will happen to jolt me out of my inertia. It’ll happen when I least expect it, and it will change my life for ever.
I’m sitting at my laptop, scrolling through images of Prague. I’m researching illustrations for a biography of an actress called Fanny Janauschek (me neither). Ladybirds have arrived from nowhere and are crawling over the window-panes.
Maybe I should get that dog and move to the country. Something’s got to happen. I’m pondering this when suddenly, startlingly, the silence is broken. It’s the phone ringing.
White Springs, Texas
‘WHAT’S UP, HONEY?’
Lorrie jumped. Todd was standing behind her on the patio.
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘I was watching that bird.’
‘What bird?’
‘It’s flown into the bushes.’
There was a silence as they gazed at the battered grass of their backyard. It was littered with kids’ toys – a football, a doll’s stroller. Cans lay scattered from Dean’s target practice.
Todd squatted down behind her, his hands on her shoulders. Lorrie’s heart thumped. Her husband had been home for three days now. Whenever he appeared she froze, waiting for him to have discovered that their life savings had disappeared. I just been online, sweetheart. There seems to be some mistake.
Each morning she woke up and, just for a moment, thought it had all been a dream. Then the reality hit her. She had been living her days in a state of paralysis. It was terrible not to tell her husband but she hadn’t yet plucked up the courage. She simply couldn’t. One sentence and his life would be shattered.
So she said nothing. A canyon had opened up between them and only she was aware of it. In his innocence Todd had become unreachable and she felt sick with loneliness. Her own husband, her best friend and confidant. How could she possibly tell him what she had done?
The website had disappeared overnight. She had looked up internet fraud and found it was a common scam, called phishing. How could she have been so stupid? Ever since then she had moved around like an elderly person, frail and sick. The kids noticed nothing, but they never did. And nor, it seems, did Todd.
‘Hey, baby.’ Todd was squatting on his haunches behind her. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’
She froze. ‘What’s that?’
‘I’m thinking the kids won’t be back for an hour.’ His hands kneaded her breasts. ‘How about we go upstairs and have ourselves a little horizontal workout?’
She paused. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘Hey, hon.’ He pressed against her, speaking into her hair. ‘Like the old days, remember? When the kids were having their nap.’ He chuckled. ‘Remember Dean walking in with his diaper round his ankles?’
His voice echoed from miles away, across the gulf. Lorrie felt desolate. Not for their early marriage, but for the lost era that stretched right up to Tuesday, when she had sat at her computer and with a click of the keyboard divided then from now.
‘Or still got your period?’ he asked.
She had used this excuse on the first night, when he had tried to make love to her. Shaking her head, she said: ‘It’s OK now.’ She thought: I’ll have to act natural or he’ll suspect something’s wrong.
Todd took her hand and led her upstairs. Lorrie had always been faithful to her husband but now, as she closed the door, she felt like an adulteress. Todd grinned at her and sat down on the bed. He hunched his shoulders, pulled off his T-shirt with one hand and threw it at the chair. It was such a familiar gesture and the normality of it pierced her heart.
Lorrie sat beside her husband and lifted her arms. He pulled off her sweatshirt and flung it across the room. He was a wiry, hairy man and she had once joked, It’s like you’re a monkey crawling all over me. They were naked now and lying side by side. Today, however, she kept her eyes closed. As she stroked his skin with her guilty fingers she thought, This is how women fake it, and was filled with misery.
He slid his hand between her legs. She stiffened. He murmured: ‘Oh huggy-bear, I do love you.’
He moved on top of her. Treacherously she let him enter her and now she felt like a whore, moaning and urging him on, willing him to finish. But this only excited him further. Afterwards he flung himself back on the pillow, panting. ‘Wow, baby. Where did that come from?’
She kissed him on the forehead and sat up. But he gently pulled her back.
‘Lorelei, I got something to ask you.’
Her mouth went dry. He never called her Lorelei unless it was serious. ‘Yes?’ she whispered.
‘What do you say we have another baby?’
He looked at her, eyebrows raised. There was a silence.
‘We always talked about it, right? When we first got together. And now Angie’s in first grade … And we both love kids …” He was propped up on one elbow, searching her face. ‘What do you say, honey-bun? We’ll have a new home soon.’
Still she didn’t r
eply.
He said: ‘It’s what we always wanted, right?’
The two of them were buying a turtle for Angelina’s birthday. Their daughter was too young for a pet but she had set her little heart on one. Todd was keen for her to have a creature to care for and turtles, he’d heard, were no trouble. Lorrie had her doubts but she was agreeing with everything her husband said these days. Her secret, still undiscovered, had made her desperate to avoid any friction or upset him in any way. How compliant she had become in her guilt! During these weeks she treated Todd with tenderness, as if he were an invalid.
They hadn’t spoken again about the baby; she said she was thinking about it and Todd respected that. Sometimes she caught him looking at her, his thick eyebrows raised, but he said nothing. Had he noticed anything different in her behaviour? She watched him inspecting the tanks in Gary’s Pet Center, her fit, wiry little husband with his brutal army haircut.
She was playing for time. In a few months Todd would be returning to the Middle East for a long tour of duty. He had no head for paperwork; though he was the boss he largely left the finances to her – after all, she was the one who kept the household ticking over in his absence. And their savings had been in a separate account. So far he had felt no need to check up on it and each day brought his departure nearer. She would hang on until he was gone and then her head would be clear.
Clear to do what?
‘This little fella’s called a diamondback.’ The guy lifted up a turtle. ‘Look at his shell and you can see why. He’ll grow to six inches.’
He placed it in Todd’s palm. Its head re-emerged, warily. She watched Todd’s finger stroking its snout. He was always gentle with those frailer than himself, it was one of the things she loved about him. She remembered how tender he was with their babies, crooning to them as he changed their diapers with his clumsy, unaccustomed hands.
And yet he could erupt in a rage over something trivial, like a lost remote or Dean using his bath towel. He needed, with a fury, to have his own things safe and sound; he needed order in his life. Home sweet home. After his first tour in Iraq he had bought a gun to blow out the brains of anyone who threatened his family. Recently, in her nightmares, Lorrie had pictured him turning the gun on herself.
Lorrie stood there in the pitiless strip light. Beside her stood a wall of tanks. In one, a lizard pawed at the glass with his tiny fingers and fell back.
The guy, maybe Gary himself, was talking about reptiles. ‘Some of these species are, like, a million years old.’ A dreamy look came into his eyes. ‘It’s like, we’re walking with dinosaurs. Crazy or what?’
As he spoke Lorrie felt weightless, as if her life had disconnected. Dinosaurs came and went and so did they, snuffed out like candles. Six years earlier she had found a lump in her breast. For a while she was facing death and felt this same sensation of spinning away from the rest of the human race, separate and utterly alone. Now she saw herself and Todd as mere specks, adrift in the universe. Just for a moment, nothing really mattered.
She wished she could tell Todd this but he didn’t like such talk. He liked to talk about things – the game, the kids, plans for their new house. Their new house, which had been snuffed out too.
Of course he wouldn’t shoot her. He would be devastated and very, very angry. Why didn’t you go to the police? What, and look a fool? The website had vanished; there was nothing the cops could do. At night, when Todd was asleep, she went online and read about similar cases – bitter outpourings from people like herself. She had become increasingly addicted to them. Nobody had gotten their money back.
‘Honey, let’s buy a pair,’ she said. ‘He’ll be lonesome on his ownsome.’
So they bought a pair, and a tank, and a pump and filtration system, and a UVB fluorescent lamp for the basking platform. Todd grumbled at the cost but she was still feeling spaced-out. What the hell. There was an English expression – in for a penny, in for a pound.
She thought: I just have to find $48,000 before my husband discovers the truth. Easy! I could become a prostitute! Some men like the larger woman. I could deal drugs! Tyler next door could help me with that. I could win the Powerball jackpot!
‘What’s so funny?’ asked Todd.
‘I’m just thinking of Angie’s little face,’ she said.
The sunshine hit them as they walked out the door. Cars shimmered in the heat of the little shopping mall. As her husband opened the trunk, Lorrie crossed over to the Hallmark store to get Angie a card. She felt dizzy with a mad sort of exhilaration. Later, she wondered if that was why she had the crazy idea.
For there, browsing through the cards, was her friend Kelda. She was another army wife who lived across the street from them, a vast, cheerful woman who habitually dressed in a pink sweatsuit. Todd called her The Marshmallow.
‘Look at these darling cards.’ She was holding two. ‘Which should I choose? They’re for my sister in St Louis, who’s having a baby.’
One card showed a painting of a pregnant woman: Expecting a Miracle. The other was printed with big gold letters: I’m Only the Oven.
‘Oven?’ said Lorrie.
‘Don’t you remember, you goof? She’s a surrogate mom.’
Pimlico, London
IT WAS JEREMY on the phone – Jeremy, Bev’s husband. He said he’d just flown in from West Africa and was here for a week on business.
‘Bev’s sent you a present,’ he said. ‘Shall I swing by and drop it off?’
So I said sure thing and I’d give him some supper. What time would suit? Jeremy said how about tonight? He was totally free because he knew nobody in London nowadays, he’d lived abroad for too long, and besides it would be great to see me. So now here he is on the doorstep, a big fleshy man with that booming laugh I remember so well.
‘God you look gorgeous,’ he says. ‘Flushed and disordered, like an Irishwoman lost on the Tube.’
‘I’ve been cooking. I’m hot.’
He embraces me warmly. He’s always been a great hugger. I’ve even seen him hug the waitress when leaving a restaurant.
It’s been five years since I’ve seen Jeremy. He’s put on weight but he’s still an attractive man, weathered by laughter and sunshine and fizzing with energy. Big nose, big mouth, big appetites; I remember how he used to knock back the booze and he’s already sniffing dinner with relish. His hair is now almost white, masses of it, but it suits him. So, ridiculously, does his shirt. It’s printed with flamingoes, the sort of thing you’d wear on the beach. He looks like a dodgy arms dealer but there’s always been something dodgy about Jeremy. He’s one of those restless, flamboyant men who gets easily bored and who likes to entertain himself by shocking people. Why are lesbians always so fat and ugly? Some people would find him offensive but I don’t care. He makes me laugh and I’ve had precious little of that recently. How can he bear to be married to someone as boring as Bev?
‘She bought you this,’ he says, giving me a package. ‘She got it at the Baboon Sanctuary.’
We sit down at the kitchen table and I open the parcel. It’s tied with flimsy, third-world string. Inside are two wooden napkin rings painted with monkey faces.
‘You know how crazy she is about animals.’ He points to the monkeys. ‘These chaps are eaten as bushmeat, actually. Very tasty, apparently. A bit like grouse.’
‘Eat a lot of grouse, do they, in West Africa?’
He raises his eyebrows: ‘Only in season,’ and pulls a Champagne bottle out of a bag.
‘Anyway, it’s very kind of her,’ I say. ‘How is Bev?’
‘Busy busy busy. The energy of the woman! Feeding half the population of rabid dogs and haranguing people about their emaciated donkeys. You can imagine how well that goes down.’ He pops open the Champagne. ‘And then there’s her aromatherapy, she’s converted one of the bedrooms into a salon, it’s a roaring success with all the NGO staff, she’s raking it in. I expect she told you in her emails.’
Indeed she has, at length. Bev used to
be a nurse but she got into alternative therapies long after everyone else. Aromatherapy is hardly alternative nowadays, is it? In fact it’s pretty suburban. Like round-robins.
‘She’s always had a good head for business,’ says Jeremy. ‘Thank God somebody has.’
‘But you’re a lawyer—’
‘I’ve always been hopeless with money.’
‘—with that vast drug company—’
‘Not any more.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’ He fills our glasses. ‘First I want to hear about you. How have you been? What have you done to your hair? It looks all—’
‘Irish.’
‘It suits you.’ He clinks my glass. ‘Christ it’s good to be back, blossoms and greenery and yallery. I can’t tell you how much I miss the spring.’ He gives me a broad smile. ‘And it’s more than good to see you, darling Petra. You and your house, the mother ship. Never sell this place, will you? Promise?’
It’s full of memories for him, that’s why. Bev and I used to share the basement flat, years ago. That was when Jeremy met her and they fell in love. He and this house go back a long way and he holds it in some affection. He’s visited many times since then, of course, when he and Bev have been in London. They have even stayed a couple of times in my daughter’s old room.
But Jeremy’s never visited on his own. It doesn’t feel awkward, however. He’s not one of those constipated Brits who’re at an emotional loss without their wives. Quite the opposite. He’s chatty and curious and likes nothing better than talking about relationships, preferably whilst getting drunk. My kind of guy. Every woman’s kind of guy. Surely nobody likes the strong silent type except gay bodybuilders.
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