It turned out that Erin was an excellent cook too. She had invited Joy into her closest enclave. Her best friends, Alison, Tammy and Dana, were joining them for the evening and she fed them a full three-course dinner.
At first things were fine. In fact Joy was almost relaxing. The women asked Erin about her beauty salon and if there were any new treatments to make their skin stay wrinkle free. Joy tried to take note of all of this for Heather’s sake, but as soon as the other women hit their third bottle of Chardonnay the tone of the conversation changed.
They were sitting out on Erin’s patio by the pool, surrounded by a hotchpotch of cacti and half-dead plants. It surprised Joy that a woman who put so much care into her own appearance could be so blind to the sorry state of her garden. Joy was itching to get up and tend to Erin’s abandoned flora yet she was forced to stay put and listen to stories of Erin’s friends and their husbands’ infidelities. It seemed that not one of them was in a normal committed relationship.
The intimate nature of the conversation was embarrassing her. She tried to shrink into her chair, sipping on her wine spritzer, and merge into her leafy surrounds, but it was no good. Eventually all their attention turned to her.
‘So what about you?’ Erin asked, hooking her with her beacon stare.
Despite her great body and outward beauty, Joy found Erin’s eyes chilling. They were pale blue and watery, big and round, devoid of any kind of emotion no matter what was coming out of her mouth. Darrell had the same feature. Joy often wondered what her daughter found attractive about him. Something about his eyes made her spine crawl.
‘Have you ever, you know, slipped up?’ Erin pushed, her eyes still expressionless.
All four women stared at her, as if waiting with the bated breath of one.
‘Oh no – no,’ she said, blushing.
‘Surely you have?’ Erin continued. ‘I mean, you’ve been married to Eddie for years – since you were kids –’
‘How old were you when you got married?’ Dana, a plump blonde woman interrupted Erin.
‘Seventeen.’ Joy’s voice dropped to an embarrassed whisper.
‘Gee! That must have been a shotgun wedding,’ Tammy commented.
‘Well, yes, I was pregnant with Ray at the time, but we were in love, you know. We still are.’
Erin raised her eyebrows, although those big fish eyes remained blank.
‘Oh please!’ Tammy groaned, grabbing the wine bottle and refilling her glass.
Joy felt her blush deepening.
‘I think you’re lying,’ declared the brunette, Alison, the only other divorcee there besides Erin. ‘I mean, you’ve gone as red as one of them Barrel Cactus red blooms. Come on, Joy – spill the beans. Surely you’ve slipped up once?’
‘No, I haven’t . . . I believe in my wedding vows,’ she said defiantly.
‘Christ how boring,’ Tammy said, knocking back her wine. Joy tried not to be offended – the woman was obviously drunk.
‘We don’t believe you,’ Alison said, grinning at her. ‘No one is perfect. I mean, how long have you guys been married?’
‘Twenty-one years,’ she said stiffly. She felt like she was under interrogation. She wished she had the courage to get up and walk out, but she needed to get on with Erin. Her daughter would kill her if she fell out with her new mother-in-law, and employer.
‘My, you deserve a medal,’ Erin said, but her voice was laced with cynicism.
‘And are you really telling us that you haven’t cheated in all these years?’ Alison asked again, disbelief plastered on her face.
‘That’s right,’ Joy said tightly. ‘I’ve never wanted any other man.’
‘Oh that is so, so sweet, isn’t it, girls?’ Tammy declared, but Joy had the feeling she was being as sarcastic as the others.
‘You’re so lucky. Does your husband still have sex with you?’ Dana asked. The impertinence of her question was softened by the genuine curiosity on her face.
‘Are you and Eddie still getting it on, Joy?’ Tammy drawled, giggling.
Joy took a slug of her spritzer, trying to quell her anger at this stupid woman. She hated this kind of chat, but she knew if she refused to answer they would all think the worst, and then she would become part of their gossip. She wanted to show them that she wasn’t some sad little housewife. Her husband still wanted her.
‘Of course,’ she said boldly. ‘We’ve always had a good sex life. We just met each other young, that’s all. We’re meant to be together.’
‘You really believe that?’ Dana asked her. ‘When I was a kid I thought it was true, you know, that there’s a “one” – your very own Prince Charming – but now I think that’s just some stupid fairy tale they tell girls.’
‘Yes, I do think it’s true,’ Joy declared. ‘For everyone there is someone, and some of us just find that special person early on in life. It’s not something you can be logical about . . .’
‘Oh please!’ Tammy hooted. ‘That’s just crap. You might not have cheated but believe me I bet your husband has. Men like variety.’
‘Shut up, Tammy,’ Erin said. ‘I think it sounds very romantic. You’re a lucky girl, Joy.’
Again Joy had the feeling Erin was making fun of her.
‘You sure are. For most the passion wears off after a few years,’ Dana said glumly. ‘And then they start cheating.’ She sighed, gazing into her glass of wine. ‘And I guess once your husband starts playing around, why the hell can’t you do the same back?’
‘But wouldn’t it be easier just to break up?’ Joy suggested. ‘Wouldn’t that be more honest?’
‘Oh listen to her! Yeah honesty is all great and good, but you got to think of the kids, and then money . . . Most wives would be up shit creek if their husbands dumped them,’ Tammy said hotly.
‘No more afternoons at your salon,’ Dana said, patting Erin on the knee.
‘I think Joy is right,’ Erin said, looking at her again with those dead eyes. ‘I feel so much stronger since I broke up with Clive. It’s hard, of course, but now I’ve my own house, my own business and . . .’ She paused, smiling slyly. ‘My own lover.’
‘Go, girl!’ Tammy raised her glass.
‘I’m with Erin,’ Alison said, her voice cracking. ‘I might not have met anyone else yet, but I don’t care if I’m on my own forever. I’m never going to let another man have control over my life.’
‘Alison’s husband was emotionally abusive,’ Dana whispered to Joy.
‘He fucked with my head,’ Alison said, overhearing.
‘Marriage is for fools,’ Erin declared, refilling their glasses.
‘But your son is getting married to Joy’s daughter,’ Tammy pointed out.
‘I know, but don’t you think they’re too young, Joy?’ Erin said, sticking the cork back into the bottle.
Erin’s attitude annoyed her. Her presumption that she was an idiot to still be married, her sneering tone of voice. Erin had it all worked out with her freedom, her business, and she still got to have a man in her life. Her condescension was irritating the hell out of Joy, and even though she actually did agree that their children were too young to get married, she found herself responding differently.
‘No, I don’t think they’re too young. If it’s love then it’s love. Just like me and Eddie. And we’re still together.’
‘Forever, do you think, Joy?’ Erin asked. All the women looked at her.
‘Yes,’ Joy said, under a spotlight again.
The evening had unsettled her. It felt as if Erin and her girlfriends were in on some big secret she didn’t know about. She was the dumb one who’d married at seventeen and had only known one man her whole life. But so what? If she still wanted Eddie, and he still wanted her, then they were good, right?
Joy drove home, trying to silence their words inside her head. What bothered her most was what Tammy had said.
‘You might not have cheated but believe me I bet your husband has. Men like variety.’
> Could it be true? Was she completely naive to believe that her husband was faithful?
That night she went down on Eddie and gave him the best blow job he’d had in years. She listened to his sighs of satisfaction, drank in his pleasure. It made her feel good to have him stroking her hair and saying, ‘Oh, baby, don’t stop. Oh yes.’
Afterwards he held her in his arms, and it felt so good to be cradled by him.
‘Joy, baby,’ he said. ‘That was amazing. Why don’t you do that more often?’
She didn’t reply, just kissed him gently on the cheek.
He fell asleep with her arm underneath his back. She tried to settle, but eventually she was too stiff, and her arm was going dead. She pulled it out slowly from underneath him and slipped out of bed. There was no one else in the house. Heather was still out with Darrell. She might even stay over with him. Eddie hated her doing that, but she was an adult now, and soon she would be Darrell’s wife. Eddie could no longer lay down the law.
She put on one of Eddie’s sweaters, picked up her Walkman and went out onto their tiny porch. It was her favourite spot, sitting on her father’s old rocking chair. She put her headphones on and looked up at the stars, remembering the sight of those incredible Northern Lights, and pressed play. It was a new cassette that Ray had sent her, and she’d been playing it non-stop since it had arrived in the mail. At first she hadn’t been so sure she liked the music, but now she was hooked. It was a compilation tape of all of her son’s favourite bands. Sometimes when she listened to it she felt like all the songs were about her life. How could Ray know? She particularly loved a new band called The Stone Roses, and their track ‘Elephant Stone’. She had no idea what an elephant stone actually was, but the song itself seemed to be about broken dreams. She loved the images it created in her head of sunsets, fields of wheat, clouds and a home someplace else where she belonged.
The night air was mild. Already it was warming up for the summer months. She inhaled and smelled orange blossom from a neighbouring garden. The scent made her sad, reminding her of her own orange tree. She pushed the memory away and tried to relax into the music, yet she couldn’t. She felt restless, and, as she slowly began to realise, unsatisfied. It occurred to her that even though she and Eddie had sex regularly, she wasn’t actually making love with her husband out of desire but out of the fear she would lose him. She was entirely focused on his pleasure, for every time Eddie tried to do something for her, she told him to stop. ‘It’s okay,’ she’d say, shifting over to her side of the bed, wanting space.
Why did she not want her husband to satisfy her? She really was no different from Erin and her friends, for what they were saying was that if you didn’t sleep with your husband, whether you wanted sex or not, he would find someone else who would. Just tonight she had been spouting off how Eddie was ‘the one’. It had to be true because if not her whole life made no sense. Yet the truth was Eddie didn’t turn her on any more.
So what? Sex wasn’t the most important thing in a marriage.
Eddie and she were a partnership. But Joy knew that even that wasn’t true. Eddie was the leader in their relationship and in their family. She just fell in behind him and always did what he wanted.
Like her, their son Ray possessed wanderlust, and yet unlike her he had actually acted upon it. She guessed it was easier for boys to do that. The last time she’d seen Ray had been at her father’s funeral a year ago. It felt like an eternity ago to Joy. Ray had travelled all around Europe, sending her cards from everywhere. She had them all tacked up on a board in the kitchen: Paris, Rome, Berlin, Vienna and London. He had settled in the English capital now. His passion was music, a type she didn’t quite understand – alternative rock he called it. The names of the bands were all obscure and rather disturbing like Stiff Little Fingers, The Cult, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Stone Roses and Joy Division, Ray’s favourite. It pleased her that her son liked a band with her name in it.
Ray not only loved music, he made it. He sent her tapes. At first the sounds alarmed her. It was so different from her favoured country music, but gradually she found herself listening to it more and more. She began to understand why her son had needed to leave Scottsdale. Why he had worn only black clothes, had spiky hair and a pierced nose. She wasn’t afraid of how he looked any more. In fact she was inordinately proud of Ray’s need to stand out from the Scottsdale crowd, although she was careful not to say so in front of Eddie. Her husband had been appalled by Ray’s look and seemed almost relieved when their son hit the road.
Joy looked up at the night sky again and caught sight of a shooting star. She loved these Arizona night skies, full of so much activity. She wondered if the Northern Lights would be back tonight. The stars to her seemed like breathing entities in an endless celestial dance.
This morning she had been so sure that change was coming into her life. An image of the Englishman she’d met that day came into her head – Lewis. What a quaint name. The same name as the man who wrote those children’s books, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. She had loved those stories when she was a little girl. How you could walk through a mirror and have another life altogether. She used to dream about the idea of living in two worlds, and now it seemed that she did. There was the American side of her, the part she lived with every day, and then there was the Irish side to her, unknown – and undiscovered.
Everyone would talk like Lewis if she ever visited Ray in London. She had to admit she found his accent attractive. And had he flirted with her just a little? He’d said she was too young to have grown-up kids, but then everyone said that. It had been odd the way they had stood next to each other watching the Northern Lights, only to meet again less than twenty-four hours later. She found herself wondering what it would be like to have Lewis touch her rather than Eddie.
She squeezed her hands tight, pinching the flesh between her fingers. She needed to get real. She was a married woman. She couldn’t even start with these straying thoughts. She and Eddie were part of each other. How could she even think of being with another man? Besides, Lewis hadn’t been flirting with her for real. He had merely been friendly because of the coincidence of their meeting again.
Scottsdale, 15 March 1989
No postcard today. Lewis didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Yet even if he never heard from Marnie again, the damage was done.
The two other postcards plagued him, scratching at his subconscious all day long. As soon as Samantha went out after dinner, off he went into the garage to open up his toolbox and retrieve the two cards. They were all he had of Marnie.
He had left London with nothing from their time together. Not one picture or memento of their relationship.
Lewis sat on a stool in the dusty garage, under the buzzing bare bulb, and tried to remember what Marnie looked like. He could not conjure her. Instead, to his consternation, he saw an image of the hummingbird woman from yesterday. Her raven hair, her bluer-than-blue eyes and that northern skin. It was one thing to dream about Marnie, an echo of beauty from the past, but it was another thing altogether to have thoughts about a married woman here in Scottsdale. He felt guilty, as if he had betrayed Samantha already.
Lewis’s heart was heavy with regret. After suppressing his memories for so many years, now they were rushing back. Those heady days at Studio M. His self belief, his ambition and his vanity. He had presumed too much.
London, 14 April 1967, 9.08 a.m.
George Miller was scattering pigeons as he charged through Bloomsbury Gardens, hand in hand with his wife, Eva. Lewis looked down at them from the second-floor window of Studio M. His boss looked like any other middle-aged businessman. Yet despite his uniform of long dark mackintosh, black bowler hat, black umbrella with cane handle and black lace-up shoes, George was far from ordinary. It was Eva who gave him away. Ten years younger than her husband, yet ten years older than Lewis, Eva Miller was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Dressed in a flamboyant Zandra Rhodes full-le
ngth coat, with her geometric Mary Quant bob and swinging a Biba bag, his boss’s wife was the epitome of all that George Miller stood for. STYLE in capital letters.
George was a small man with a big talent. Eva towered over him, and yet still appeared graceful. Lewis stared down at them both. They had stopped walking and were standing outside the office building. George took out his wallet and handed Eva some money, which she slipped into her handbag. She kissed her husband on the cheek, and he almost swatted her away before charging into the Studio M building. What an odd couple they made. Eva seemed like such a modern woman, yet George’s chauvinism was blatant. How did she tolerate him? What did she even see in him? His boss’s powers of graphic observation were outstanding. He saw every tiny visual detail in the world around him, yet the subtext of the unseen was lost on him.
Lewis watched Eva for a moment longer. He had never really thought about her before. She was just the boss’s wife, and he had considered her life enviable. After all, she had a full-time housekeeper, and her boys were now away at school, so she could spend all her time swanning around London, meeting girlfriends for lunch and spending George’s money on the newest fashions.
But as he watched her, standing outside the Studio M building, staring at the door as it closed behind her husband, he realised that she was sad. It was as if now that George had walked inside she could stop pretending. Lewis had never seen Eva look like that before. She was always so upbeat and chatty, smoothing out her husband’s rough edges, but today she looked lonely as she walked away down the street. No matter how hard he tried, Lewis could never imagine Marnie accepting that sort of life. If he did marry his Irish girlfriend, she would not want to stay at home and look after the children while his career took off. She would want to shine just as bright as him.
The Gravity of Love Page 6