by James Meek
‘It’s too soon to worry. It hasn’t even been a year.’
‘You mustn’t tell Alex this, but I saw his ex, Maria. She’s pregnant. The old-fashioned way.’
Karin said something quiet, but Bec didn’t take it in as fully as she took in the tilt of Karin’s face and the sorrowful, slightly pitying compression of the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
‘Why wouldn’t you tell him?’ said Karin. ‘If the two of you want to have children he needs to know he’s probably the one with the problem.’
Bec smiled, feeling less close to Karin than a minute earlier. ‘It’s not a scientific standard of proof. I don’t know what he would do if I told him. He might leave me.’
Karin rolled her head and lifted her eyes upwards. ‘Then what kind of a lover is he? What kind of a man? You make him sound like a terrible mix of martyr and coward, and vain with it.’
‘What if it was you? If you wanted to have a child, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with you, and the one who breaks it to you that it’s your problem is the person you say you love the most, the one you’ve been trying to have a child with?’
‘He needs to know. He needs to be brave and face up to it. There are other ways. What does he need to populate the world with a whole lot of mini-Alexes for?’
‘Why does anyone need their own children?’ said Bec. ‘He’s proud.’ She was looking down at the surface of the table. ‘Maria said I should sleep with someone else to get pregnant and not tell Alex.’
Karin put her hands down flat on the table and leaned sharply forward into Bec’s face. ‘What? Would you do that?’ Her grin was wide and her eyes shone. Bec felt she had never held another woman’s attention so completely. She went red.
‘I told her I couldn’t.’
‘I’m sure it happens,’ said Karin.
‘Do you know anyone who …’
‘No, but I’m sure it happens.’ Karin laughed in wonder and shook her head, staring at Bec as if she’d thought for years that she was dealing with an entirely different person, and only now saw the actual her. Bec watched her sister-in-law’s beautiful famous face and felt the warmth of her affection. Wonder from an artist, wonder from a beautiful woman and a mother who had seen, no doubt, so many sexually transgressive wonders in and around the playgrounds of the great, seemed like approval.
Ridiculous, she thought, and wondered what was ridiculous, Maria’s suggestion or assuming that it was impossible. She wanted a child with Alex, and she wanted Alex to be happy, and there was ridiculousness in the obstacle that stood in the way of such a good outcome. This is not the old world, she thought. Sex can’t ruin us now. Not in London, not in our time.
61
Bec avoided Dougie. Perhaps, she thought, he was avoiding her. How else could two people alone in a house not cross paths more often? Their hours were different. They seldom ate in. They kept to their rooms. Bec would hear the boards creak as Dougie passed her door, keys in locks when he went in and out and his whistling from the bathroom. When they did see each other they nodded and said hello. He was like a lodger, except that he would try to hold Bec’s eyes and she avoided his. At these moments he seemed to her to become very large and still and she felt herself to be a scurrying creature scampering for cover from a storm-laden sky.
Once she went into the living room with her laptop and sat down on the sofa not realising until she’d began pecking at the keys that Dougie was already there, cross-legged in a dim corner, reading. Bec’s heart galloped and she blushed.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ she said.
Dougie stood up.
‘I like to be by myself when I’m working,’ she said.
Dougie went out of the room and Bec sat still with her face on fire.
Late on Friday evening, a week before Alex’s return, Dougie came to Bec in the living room. She was watching a film. Dougie stood on the threshold and apologised for bothering her. He wanted to let her know that he was leaving the next day.
‘Going fishing?’ said Bec. She stopped the film.
‘I’m heading back up north. For good.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. Any particular reason?’ She was cold and polite. She sounded what foreigners would call English.
Dougie looked at her without speaking for a moment and said: ‘I came to let you know. I’ll try and take as much as I can. I’ll come back for the rest later.’
Bec stood up and hooked the loop of her top over her shoulder where it had slipped down. ‘I’m sorry I was a bitch yesterday. I don’t know why I lost my temper.’
‘I know why.’
‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘You just don’t like us, Bec, it’s normal. I’m not the kind of guy you want to have around the place.’
‘I thought you said you weren’t going fishing?’
‘See that’s funny, Bec, that’s the old Bec, and if me leaving’s what it takes to bring her back, I’m better just getting the hell out of Dodge, eh.’
He turned to go and Bec called him back and asked if he wanted a drink. Dougie said that it was all right, he wouldn’t, and Bec asked if he’d sit with her for a while. Dougie came and sat down at the far end of the sofa. He sat on the edge, leading forward, looking down at his hands.
‘What were you thinking when you tried to kiss me?’ said Bec.
‘I told you, I wasn’t thinking.’
‘I can’t hear you very well.’
‘That’s you and Alex’s way, working everything out in advance,’ said Dougie. He hunched his shoulders and made a mime with his fingers of a mean, sneaky animal.
‘And if I said that there was nothing wrong with thinking ahead, you’d say, “Oh, I know, I just haven’t got the brains for it.”’
‘You can’t do my accent.’
‘I can do you, can’t I?’
‘Go on, then.’
Bec met his eyes and swallowed. ‘You thought, “I want her, and maybe if I kiss her, she’ll like it, like me and like being wanted by me, and like my boldness in taking what I want, and I’ll fuck her, and maybe she’ll like that.”’
Dougie tilted his head and blinked, like a horse bothered by a fly.
‘“And maybe she’ll fall in love with me.”’ Bec waited for Dougie to speak. He stared at her. She went on. ‘“And if not at least I’ll have got a fuck out of it.”’ She paused. Still silence. ‘“I’ve got nothing to lose.”’
‘When you say “I’ve got nothing to lose”, is that you or me?’
‘You. I’ve got plenty to lose. But maybe I have something to gain.’ Bec was beginning to tremble.
‘Something to gain,’ repeated Dougie. Bec searched his face for a sign of mockery, greed or triumph, but she could see none.
‘For me and Alex,’ she said.
‘Is that really what you want?’
‘Of course not. I mean yes, maybe. A way.’
‘What about me?’
‘You get what you want.’
She thought he might disagree, but he only said: ‘I am in debt to Alex.’
Bec heard ‘indebted’. She meant to say ‘There are terms’, but her mouth was so dry that the only word that came out was ‘terms’.
‘Terms?’ said Dougie.
‘Yes.’
‘OK.’
‘No light. No light at all.’ Dougie nodded. ‘No kissing. No touching.’
‘No touching?’
‘You know what I mean. And no words. You mustn’t say a single word.’
Dougie nodded.
‘Once.’ Bec held up an index finger. ‘Once. And then you get up and leave and we don’t see you again for a long time.’
‘Once?’ Dougie looked away. ‘Are you …’
‘I counted days.’
‘Aye, but once! I’m a gambler, but that’s staking a lot on one roll, and the odds aren’t good.’
‘I’m going upstairs to my room,’ said Bec. Her voice was cracked and shaking.
‘I’ll be in bed. I’ll be on the bed. Remember what I said.’
She went upstairs and into her room, leaving the door open and the lights off. She was trembling so much that it was hard to take off her clothes. She stripped and by touch in one of her drawers she found a thick old hoodie. She put it on, pulled the quilt off the bed and lay down on the cold sheet on her back. She lay still. All she could hear was the sound of her heart and a roaring of blood in her ears. Her eyes were open but it was dark and she felt as if she were alone in the universe, floating through grainy space. Her mouth was dry. She got up and went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water, avoiding looking at herself in the mirror. She took off the hoodie and showered and dried herself quickly and took out her contacts and put the hoodie back on and lay on the bed. What if he doesn’t come? she thought. What if he didn’t understand? Would it be better?
She heard Dougie pass her door and go to his room and invocations rose in her for him to come and not to come. Why do I trust him to do what I ask? she wondered.
She heard him come back and approach the bed. She closed her eyes. She sensed him standing at the side of the bed. Could she hear him breathing? Could she smell him? She felt threatened and excited. I should tell him I’ve changed my mind, she thought, and opened her legs a little. Her skin moving across the sheet sounded loud to her. She opened her eyes just as he moved onto the bed, resting one knee on the edge and swinging over to straddle her left leg, barely touching it. He was naked. She closed her eyes. She felt Dougie shift and the mattress creaked slightly as he lifted his knee over. He was kneeling between her legs. She parted her thighs a little more widely. She felt the back of Dougie’s hand, the little hairs on the back of his hand and the knuckles, stroke her inner thigh as he held his cock, then she felt it butt softy against her as Dougie sought the entry. He’ll hurt me, she thought, and How can he be hard when I’ve been unkind to him? It did hurt for a moment when Dougie pushed in, and then he slid into her easily, and Bec felt ashamed that it slid in easily.
It was quick and Dougie did his best to do as she’d asked him, keeping his body supported on his arms and just his belly moving against hers. She didn’t come close to coming; a moment of distraction was the nearest thing to pleasure and she half-spoke a word involuntarily, she didn’t know what, before she remembered what she was doing. When just before the end Dougie put one hand over the base of her spine and pulled her more fiercely onto him she didn’t resist.
Dougie gasped and croaked in finishing and pulled out of her. He rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed. Bec opened her eyes and saw his dark form there. She lay still for what seemed a long time, wondering if she should try to stop it leaking out.
‘Why are you still here?’ she asked Dougie.
He didn’t answer and she asked again. She rolled over and pushed him in the back. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Get out.’
‘No,’ said Dougie.
‘You promised.’
‘Did I?’
‘I’d like you to leave.’
‘Too bad,’ said Dougie. He turned round and laid his hand on her calf. She snatched it away. ‘I think you enjoyed it.’
‘You’re wrong. I didn’t.’
‘You were wet.’
‘You don’t know anything about women.’
‘It’s no a science, Dr Bec, is it?’ said Dougie. His voice was strange. He made a hop and he sat astride her, holding down her wrists. He was very heavy.
‘I’m going to stay,’ said Dougie.
‘No you aren’t. Get off me.’
‘I’m going to fuck you again.’
‘That would be rape.’
Dougie’s hands tightened on Bec’s wrists and his body tensed and Bec got ready to fight.
Dougie shuddered and she flinched as a warm drop fell on her chest. Another one fell. They were tears. Dougie’s shoulders shook and he began to sob. He rolled off her and fell off the edge of the bed with a thud and lay on the floor, heaving up sounds from his chest. Bec got up and switched on the light and looked down at the great pale slab of man shaking at her feet, his face scarlet, his mouth open as if in pain, his eyes screwed shut and heart-tearing sounds coming from him, like a newborn. Bec put her hand on his shoulder and he pulled it away as if her palm burned him. She kneeled down and tried to pull him up, telling him it was all right, and got him up with his back against the bed, still weeping.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
‘It’s all right.’ Bec sat next to him with her arms round his shoulders.
‘You shouldn’t touch me.’
‘It’s all right. Everything’s all right.’
‘Nothing’s right.’ Dougie’s voice came high and thin through sobs. ‘You know I love you, and you tried to let me show you by letting me do one simple wee thing for you and Alex, just one nice, simple, wee thing, just one wee fuck in the dark, and I can’t bear it, Bec, it just makes me want. It just makes me want. It just makes me want so much.’ He bent his head and was overcome by crying.
‘It’s all right,’ said Bec.
‘No,’ whimpered Dougie.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No.’
‘I’ve treated you badly.’
‘It’s fine.’ Dougie got up and went to his room. Bec followed him and saw him start to get dressed, sniffing, avoiding her eyes.
‘Don’t go,’ said Bec. ‘There’s no need to go. I thought you’d like it. I thought it was what you wanted.’
Dougie was dressed. He gave her a single look and put some things into a rucksack. At eleven o’clock that night he left the house.
62
Bec woke up at seven the next morning and remembered what she’d done. She didn’t understand how she’d slept so long and deeply and with such gentle dreams. It was as if another self worked inside her at night to smother her conscience. Daylight made it merciless. She put on a coat and walked out into the bright grey morning. Every sound was angry – the thunder of an aircraft, the cry of a braking bus, the snarl of a scooter – or seemed to reproach her behind her back: the ticking of bicycle wheels, the breathless laughter of girls, the tapping of heels. And this was only the rustle of the world, a world incorporated against her. It watched severely, the severity an authority waits in when it has asked a question you cannot avoid answering yet cannot answer without lying or incriminating yourself.
Bec walked down Upper Street, down City Road and east towards Shoreditch. There was a rupture between the Bec of this day and the Bec of other days preceding. She saw bars and clubs she’d been in and it didn’t seem to her that she could go into them as Bec again. She forgot she’d acted for Alex’s sake. All she could think of was that she’d lived without betraying anyone, and now she lived a traitor’s life.
Once all a woman had to do to pick up a poisonous secret was to have sex without being married. There were girls in London who still lived that life. Muslim girls. Rose, perhaps. For Bec’s caste, the liberals, all the post-religious girls, sexual freedom was old. Bec’s mother had boyfriends before her father. Her grandmother had lost her virginity to a soldier when the Germans were bombing London. Sexual freedom took the poison of infidelity, the lies and the secrets, the cruelty of abandonment, and distilled it into a single drop, sufficient for two or three doses. Before it was a matter for the world: now the world didn’t care. Only Alex would care, and Bec and Dougie, and it was still poison. Sexual freedom was old and it wasn’t really freedom. It was just the domestication of disgrace.
It was as if there were two separate worlds for which hypocrisy was too simple a term: the world of names and the world of deeds, and life was less a matter of concealment than of keeping deeds and their names from touching. An unnamed deed was harmless, and a name was just a name. Put together they were toxic. And if you named your deed to yourself? Then you were carrying a poisonous secret.
The first betrayal, before Alex, had been of herself. She’d put up with Dougie’s kiss but avoided naming it. And the name was Al
ex’s brother is in love with me. The night before, she’d done it again. I deceived Alex.
If she didn’t name her deed to Alex, the secret would poison her and spread to him. Her friends would advise her not to tell. They’re wrong, she thought. They think what’s done is done and can’t be undone and you have to live with it but they’re wrong, they’re wrong, the confessed deed is a different action to the secret deed. You can pull out the thorn and it will hurt terribly and it may kill you but the thorn won’t be inside you any more, it will be out.
She leaned over the wall of London Bridge and whispered ‘I cheated on Alex’ to the choppy black Thames.
A middle-aged man with a kind face and silver-rimmed glasses passed her on the pavement and Bec said to him: ‘I slept with my boyfriend’s brother.’ The man hurried on, frightened.
For many minutes Bec stared at her phone, thinking that she should call Ritchie and ask him what he thought she should do. Her finger hovered over the button so close that she might have called him by accident, but she didn’t call him.
63
When the aircraft carrying Alex to California pirouetted over Los Angeles and he looked out at the squares of the city stretching to the horizon in every directon, as if it covered the entire planet, Alex felt like a conqueror. He forgot London for a while. He was busy, learning the arts of the popular science documentary.
His first disappointment was the amount of transparent fakery in the documentary. He was filmed moving through San Francisco in a tram, as if he were on his way somewhere, when they actually got around in taxis and rental cars. He’d knock on a scientist’s door and the scientist would get up and say ‘Hello’ and they had to pretend they were meeting for the first time when really they’d been talking for two hours, working out what they were going to say, and the scientist had been prepped by a production assistant in half a dozen phone calls over three months. The documentary would be fifty minutes long; how much substance would be left, Alex wondered, once the sham shots of him gazing at the sunset or walking along the beach were included, along with panoramas of snowy mountain ranges, horses in the desert haze and helicopter shots of the Golden Gate Bridge? The crew and the producer were friendly, but there was a level of warmth beyond which they wouldn’t go. Once he overheard them refer to him sarcastically as the talent.