She’s jolted by this. Oddly enough, the book makes it more real than anything that has happened so far; the word procedure has been so abstract, such a euphemism.
She’s about to step out of her world and into a landscape planted with cluster bombs. A single mistake and she’ll be blown to bits. She needs to be vigilant in this new territory of lies and deception.
Already she’s lied to Mr Wang Lei, the possible father of her child. She’s brunette, not a natural blonde; she’s been dyeing her hair since she was a teenager.
One of Angie’s turtles has died. She stands in the yard, shaking with sobs, as her father digs a hole. When he lowers the little box she buries her face in her hands and screams.
Lorrie puts her arms around her daughter but she jerks away. Truth to tell, there’s a whiff of the theatrical about Angie’s reaction. It reminds Lorrie of those professional mourners at Middle Eastern funerals, she’s seen them on the TV beating their breasts.
This is unfair. Angelina is genuinely heartbroken. It’s the husband turtle who has died. They have painted his name, Boris, on a small wooden cross. Now his wife will be alone in the tank, half-submerged, feebly pawing at the glass in her futile quest for freedom. The two of them used to do this together most of the day.
Dean is indoors, sulking. He and his father have had a fight. Their son is becoming increasingly disruptive. This very morning he emptied his cereal bowl over his bereaved sister’s head and nowadays he’s refusing to sleep in the lower bunk, like a baby; when forced to do so he punches the upper mattress with his fist, jolting Angie awake as she slumbers in her nest of dolls. He’s starting to kick up at school, too. Yesterday his teacher, Miss Conniff, asked Lorrie if everything was OK at home.
Nothing, and yet everything, has changed. Are the children aware of this? They are still primitive creatures with animal instincts, like dogs whining when their masters have had an accident hundreds of miles away. This drama, however, is happening closer to home: deep in their mother’s womb.
It’s been three weeks since the syringe was pushed there, impertinently cold and metallic. Lorrie has no idea if another life has begun but she has been feeling strange ever since. Not herself. Heart fluttering, she wanders around in a daze. Her body has become a time bomb; she feels like one of the insurgents her husband had to deal with, tick-tock beneath the burqa. Whether or not she’s pregnant, she feels a fraud.
She’s told Todd she has an infection and he has to wear a condom. He grumbles it’s like scratching his foot in a goddam hiking sock but complies with her wishes. They don’t have much sex nowadays anyway, it’s not like the early years. In bed his nightmares have resurfaced. He thrashes around, moaning, then subsides into hiccupping gulps as if he’s short of oxygen. Is it caused by her treacherous body, naked next to his? It’s hard to believe that these three human beings, more beloved by her than anybody on earth, have no idea there’s a stranger in their midst.
Dear Lord, she thinks, what have I done?
Her period still hasn’t arrived but that could be due to coming off the Pill – a fact, needless to say, she has kept from her husband. The day after the turtle’s death, however, she wakes up feeling nauseous.
Lorrie makes breakfast, feeling as if she’s an actress in a TV commercial. Sunlight streams through the window. None of her family, sitting around the table, seems convincing; indeed, this morning they’re behaving with unusual politeness, as if learnt from a script. Dean even unscrews the lid of the peanut butter for his sister.
When they’ve gone Lorrie sinks into the settee and remains there, motionless. From next door comes the whine of a power drill. A new couple has moved in and are fixing up the house. According to Kelda, across the street, the husband went to jail but found God there and now has a job in the municipal abattoir. Lorrie is sad to see Tyler go; his labyrinthine monologues had enlivened her lonely days. He’s given her a couple of spliffs as a parting gift.
I’m pregnant. If she doesn’t move she can control the fear. It requires strength and concentration, like holding down a tarpaulin over a struggling beast. She’s had panic attacks in the past but they were usually for no good reason. There’s plenty of reason for this one.
She concentrates on the streets of her childhood. She walks herself to the quarry, hand in hand with her brother. It’s their favourite place. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, her hand is safe in his. She concentrates on every step of the way … the mailboxes, the dusty verge … the weed-choked empty lot where she once saw a snake … the row of shrubs outside the trailer park where her friend Nomi lives.
Lorrie urges herself on. She tries to picture the quarry with its rope swing and burnt-out car, a place where she has known such joy, but it doesn’t do the trick. The fear floods back.
Dope might help. It might help with the nausea too, so she fetches one of Tyler’s joints and lights up.
She takes a drag and her head swims. If only she could talk to somebody. She looks at moth-eaten Warrior, hanging on the wall. He returns her gaze with his dead glass eyes. A piece of tinsel from Christmas is still draped over his mane; it gives him a jaunty air. Mr Wang Lei works in Africa; apparently a lot of Chinese men do business there, Todd says they’re taking over the continent. She wonders if her oriental impregnator has ever seen a lion. Todd says the Chinese grind up lion penises to make themselves virile; she knows it’s tigers but doesn’t like to contradict her husband – there’s his virility to consider.
It irks her, that she has to tiptoe around her husband to protect his pride. Her previous tenderness has evaporated. In fact she feels positively hostile. She knows this stems from guilt, that she’s punishing him for her treachery. Knowing this, however, doesn’t stop her. The resentment flares up, heating her face.
At dinner she drinks three cans of beer. Todd doesn’t notice anything unusual in this; he’s got his head down, shovelling in his food. It irritates her, the way he chops up his spaghetti instead of twirling it around his fork; the guy’s such a hick. He’s travelled the world and yet he’s learnt nothing; that’s the army for you. Even Mr Wang Lei is more of a sophisticate – her Chinese conspirator, her husband’s rival in her womb.
The kids are asleep. Lorrie and her husband are alone and she knows she’s going to blurt out something stupid. Swaying slightly, she dumps the plates into the sink. Until recently she thought she was leaving this shabby, cramped kitchen for good. She would move into a brand-new home with a dishwasher and a view of the lake. Obscurely, she now seems to be blaming her husband for the failure of this dream. What’s happening to her?
She turns round. Todd sits at the table, checking his cellphone for messages.
‘Have you ever paid for sex?’
Todd’s head rears up. He stares at her. ‘What’s that, honey?’
‘I asked if you’d ever been with a prostitute. In a brothel.’ She leans against the sink. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. You’re away a long time and a guy has needs.’
Todd gets up abruptly and leaves the room. She follows him into the lounge.
‘What’s gotten into you?’ he mutters.
She barks with laughter. You’d be surprised. ‘Nothing.’
‘You find this funny?’
‘Sorry, honey. I just want to know.’
‘You want to know?’ His face reddens. ‘Let me tell you, it’s none of your goddam business!’ His voice rises. ‘I go out there and I’m prepared to die for my country. You do that? Hmm? Know what it’s like to see your pal sent home in a body bag, what’s left of him? That it might be you next time? That you’d never see your kids again? You have any fucking idea?’
‘I’m just asking.’
‘Don’t give me that shit. You want to know so you can beat me up about it.’
‘No I don’t—’
‘Well I’m not fucking telling you. What happens is my business so shut the fuck up.’
So it’s true. Todd slumps onto the settee, trembling with anger. Lorrie feels a surge o
f relief. She sits beside him and takes his hand. ‘Sweetheart, I don’t care. That’s the truth.’
He looks at her, puzzled. ‘So why ask me then?’
She shrugs. ‘Cos we used to tell each other everything, I guess.’
There’s a silence. He gazes at her, his thick eyebrows raised. ‘What’s up, honey-bear? You’ve been acting kind of weird lately. Where’s my old girl gone?’
‘I’m here.’ She strokes his fingers, one by one. ‘I apologise. See, I got high this afternoon and I got drunk tonight.’
‘You got high?’
She gets up and fetches the vase they bought together in Santa Fe. Rummaging inside, she takes out the other spliff.
‘Tyler gave it to me,’ she says. ‘Shall we have a puff now, like the old days?’
Todd takes a little persuading but finally they light up. They switch on the TV and sit there side by side in a cloud of smoke. When Angie comes downstairs, unable to sleep, they’re slumped against each other, giggling like teenagers.
Lorrie, in her fuddled state, thinks, why should I be alone in my guilt? Todd and me, we’ve done everything together for fifteen years. Now we’re kind of together on this.
The logic in this is not entirely clear but hey, what the hell. These are strange days.
Pimlico, London
THIS TIME, WHEN Jeremy returns to London, it’s utterly changed. We’re deeply, insanely, in love. During the six days he’s here we scarcely leave my house. My bedroom. My bed. One little room an everywhere and all that; I don’t actually quote Donne but he’s in my head these breathless August days.
I’m mad for Jeremy despite the fact that he has an unattractive heat-rash around his not inconsiderable girth, and that for the first couple of times he can barely get an erection. This is caused by guilt. For him, the aphrodisiac of adultery has the opposite effect and I like him the better for it. I like him. I love him.
I love him for making me laugh and making words come into my head, so many words I’m babbling all day and half the night. I love him for sharpening up my world so everything is vivid and fun. I love him for noticing my long, slim thighs. I love him for not being my ex-husband and all the men I’ve fooled myself into thinking were soulmates when they so evidently weren’t, and that he was there all the time, just waiting to step into my life and save me from the yawning chasm of loneliness. I never dreamed this could happen at my age, and with such obliterating joy. I love the way he tells me you’ve got one of the six most beautiful backs in Britain. I love the silliness of this; there hasn’t been enough silliness in my life and isn’t this the point of everything? Silliness and companionship, in the truest and deepest sense, with the person who makes you your best self and you his. The wonderment of this takes away my breath. And his too; we’re in this together.
It’s insane. When he’s left the bedroom I gaze at the depression in the pillow with such tenderness. His head has rested there – oh happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony.
And we find ourselves having those conversations when you go back over the past, luxuriously, the two of you lying in bed. He talks about the old days in the flat downstairs.
‘I remember when you came in from the bathroom,’ he says. ‘Your hair wet, rubbing it with a towel.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Fixing Bev’s inner tube.’
Bev and I had two ancient bikes. ‘I still bike everywhere,’ I say, ‘it’s the only way to get around London. I mean, I jump on it, a slip of a thing, and twenty minutes later I’m in Trafalgar Square.’
‘That’s nothing,’ he says. ‘I jump on you, a slip of a thing, and five minutes later I’m in paradise.’
I burst out laughing. ‘I do love you.’
‘I love you too.’ He puts his mug on the bedside table and leans back against the pillows, gazing at me. ‘I always have, you know.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Well, I fancied you rotten. But you were with that bloke with the earring who played the guitar so appallingly.’
‘I didn’t fancy you.’
‘Why not?’
‘You were such a rugger-bugger. Not my type at all.’
‘Not arty.’
‘Not arty. And you wore cavalry twill trousers.’
‘I never wore cavalry twill trousers.’
‘Well, you looked as if you might.’
I’m not entirely telling the truth. I can remember, as if it’s yesterday, my sickening envy when I heard his laughter through the wall. I didn’t love him but I envied Bev having him, if that makes sense.
‘Anyway, you married Beverley.’
He nods. ‘I married Beverley.’ He’s about to say something but stops. Pushing back the duvet, he gets to his feet. ‘Stay there and I’ll bring us breakfast.’
I lie there. The bed reeks of sex. Strangely enough, our early failures have made us more frank and vulnerable, more open with each other. He’s becoming a delicious lover as he gets to know my body. Gentlemen sleep on the damp patch. I remember a girl at school saying that, with a superior toss of her head. She hadn’t a clue of course, none of us did, we were all virgins. Since then a lifetime has passed. Jeremy and I would seem like old codgers to her and yet we’re as thrillingly new to each other as teenagers. New and yet profoundly familiar. It’s the most intoxicating sensation. I want us to stay locked in my house for ever.
I know I should feel guilty. I’m betraying my oldest friend. Bev emailed me recently. I forgot to thank you for looking after Jem. He feels a fish out of water nowadays when he goes to London, so it was great that you took time out of your busy life to entertain him. And I like those shirts! He never approves of what I buy him but I’m sure with YOU he was on his best behaviour! He said you had a good old natter about the old days in The Dungeon. Wish I’d been there but he probably enjoyed being let off the leash!
Jeremy comes back, carrying a tray. He knows his way around my house now; we’ve become a couple, it’s as if we’ve lived here all our lives. This feels utterly natural although I know it’s both wicked and untrue.
We sit in bed, buttering our toast. He pauses, knife in hand. ‘To be perfectly honest, she said she was pregnant.’
‘Ah.’
‘I shouldn’t have told you this but … well.’
‘I never knew.’ I can picture the scene, Bev sobbing into her teddy bears and raising her sharp little eyes to gauge his reaction. The tyranny of the weak.
Jeremy says: ‘Don’t get me wrong. I did love her, she was bubbly and fun and up for anything. And I didn’t want to be a cad. And remember I’d been to public school, I was such an innocent when it came to girls. Thank you, Oundle.’
I can twist him round my little finger. That’s what Bev said and it was true. He was a big hearty innocent, with his cravat and his roaring sports car. Men were so juvenal in those days, compared to us wily females.
Were they happy?
He’s read my thoughts. ‘We were happy. We are happy.’ He hasn’t eaten his toast. ‘She’s a great girl, she’s a sport, she’s got a terrific sense of humour and my God she’s needed it …’ His words peter out. ‘I mean, we’ve been through some tough times. Away from her family and friends, stuck with me in some malaria-infested backwater in some benighted country where she doesn’t know the language, trying to make a home of it, trying to make a go of it, being a company wife in a company house, coping with servants – worse still, coping with expats, you wouldn’t believe the conversations if you can call them that, coping with loneliness when I’m away on business …’
Good God, he’s falling in love with her all over again. ‘Eat your toast.’
There’s a silence.
‘She was always jealous of you,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘I mean, she hugely admires you, but she’s always felt inadequate.’
‘Bev?’
‘You’re so clever and talented and beautiful. You’ve had all sorts of advantages she hasn’t.’
He touches my nose. ‘You’ve got class, my dear.’
‘But she’s so confident.’
‘Not underneath.’ He pauses, then takes a breath. ‘She made me burn my photos.’
‘What photos?’
‘Of Sally, the girlfriend I had before I met her.’
‘God, that’s pathetic.’
Actually I rather admire it. There’s something heroic about such a naked scream of insecurity. If I had the courage I would do the same thing myself. Little does Jeremy know how much Bev and I have in common. We don’t just share a man; we share a fierce capacity for jealousy. I’m more cunning than Beverley, however, and keep it quiet.
When they were living in KL, he says, he fell in love with a young Malaysian woman. She was a lab technician at Zonac. ‘Bev found out, and for a while things were pretty rocky … And then, one day, I discovered Alyssa had been sacked.’
‘Bev was responsible for that?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stops. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, you are her best friend, after all.’
‘Yes, and I’m so behaving like one.’
Neither of us laugh. We eat our breakfast in silence. What are we going to do? We can’t go AWOL for ever. Jeremy’s told Bev he’s moving around and to ring him on his mobile, rather than a hotel. He’s only staying for three more days and then he’ll be gone. We’ll only have emails.
Already I’m feeling the pain of his departure. For he’s the love of my life, I know this now. I suspect I’m his but he hasn’t put it into words, his situation is so much more complicated than mine.
Of course I feel guilty, horribly guilty. But sometimes I harden my heart and think: she’s had thirty-five years of him. Surely it’s somebody else’s turn? Like mine. She’s had his youth but I’ve got the weathered, more interesting Jeremy, his Triumph Stag days long gone. He’s seen the world, he’s matured in the cask. There’s been a sea-change over the years; his buffoonery has become wit, his clumsiness has become something tender and endearing, even his clothes have become touchingly eccentric. He’s become my sort of person.
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