Under the Influence

by Jacqueline Lunn

  ‘Great, you big femo. Pay some bills. Let’s go to a movie to celebrate our first night.’ Richard gave her a kiss on the neck as he walked past. ‘Just let me change.’

  Eve busied herself in the kitchen and finished off the dregs in the two glasses of wine. She didn’t know if she felt a bit free or a bit tipsy. This was a new beginning. She heard the plumbing squeak and groan and water running between the walls and knew that Richard had decided to take a shower in the main bathroom upstairs. It had a bigger shower than the en suite, and Richard liked the space, said he could move around and not knock his elbows. She then heard his footsteps creak the floorboards beneath the carpet and go into the bedroom. If they kept moving, they could catch a 9.30 session.

  ‘Eve. Eve?’ Richard called down the stairs. It sounded urgent; time was getting away. She bounded up the stairs, her long limbs carrying her like a puppy to where Richard stood at the top. ‘Come here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s “pardon”, Eve, not “what”. It’s time you learnt that. Come here.’ He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the bedroom.

  Eve couldn’t work out what was happening.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Eve said, scanning the room, trying to figure out exactly what Richard was talking about. ‘I mean what?’

  ‘That.’ He pointed inside the en suite.

  ‘I don’t understand. What’s going on?’

  ‘Look at the vanity.’

  Eve was looking at him, at the vanity, back at Richard, back at the vanity.

  He then spoke at half-speed. ‘Look where your hairbands are.’

  Eve laughed. He must be joking. There were two black hairbands sitting on top of the vanity.

  ‘Eve, don’t do this. Don’t disappoint me.’

  Eve didn’t need to turn to see Richard’s face; she could see it floating in the mirror, over her right shoulder.

  ‘Pick them up. Pick the fucking things up.’

  Eve did as she was told and held the two black hairbands tight in her hand. She was so stunned that her mouth was hanging open, and when she caught her reflection she closed it, remembering those rows of clowns in sideshow alley at The Royal Easter Show.

  ‘What I don’t get, Eve, is why you wouldn’t bother to just put hairbands away. In the drawer. They have hair coming out of them. It’s all over the vanity.’ His voice was so tight and low that it slithered across the room and slipped under doors. He grabbed some toilet paper off the reel and wiped the vanity down.

  Eve still didn’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s about having standards, Eve. Some of us have standards. Are basic standards too much to ask?’

  Eve turned away from the mirror to face the real Richard and stumbled over her own feet. She grabbed the towel rack to stay upright. She felt cold on the tiles. He wasn’t doing this. ‘Richard. Listen to yourself. It’s a couple of hairbands. Hairbands. It’s not a gun or Rogaine.’

  Richard stood perfectly straight in the doorway. He tilted his chin up before he spoke so that Eve could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, up and down – a moving monument to his control.

  ‘That’s right, Eve, make a clumsy joke. Do you think it’s funny, Eve, to live like a pig?’ He gripped both sides of the doorframe with either hand and leant his body slowly towards her, snorting twice like a pig in her face. Then he leant in so close his lips were almost touching her nose, and he snorted twice again.

  Something wet hit her lips. She stepped away from him and hit her thigh on the vanity. She threw the hairbands into the sink, the dark hair attached to them making squiggles on the white porcelain, and tried to push past Richard, who was standing firm in the doorway. ‘Let me through.’

  Richard kept his body tensed and his arms up. ‘Where do you want to go, Miss Piggy? You have to say “please”. Find some manners from somewhere.’

  ‘Richard. Stop.’

  ‘Say “please”, Miss Piggy.’

  Eve tried to duck under but he was too quick. She tried to push but he was too strong. She wasn’t going to play this game. She inhaled and said ‘please’ to the floor.

  Richard moved away from the door a little, and Eve had to press her body against his to pass.

  ‘I can’t believe we are having this conversation.’

  ‘Neither can I.’ And then Richard turned away from his reflection. ‘We’re going to be late for the movies.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with someone who calls me a pig.’ She stood watching him, thinking about hairbands, wishing she hadn’t finished the dregs of the wine so she could think straight.

  Richard tucked in his shirt, bent over to tie up his shoelaces and let out a sigh. He was neat and ready. ‘C’mon, Eve. It’s called a disagreement. I’m not into mess. Okay? It’s good to understand each other. Understand each other’s expectations.’

  ‘Richard, you called me a pig. You swore at me over two hairbands. You snorted in my face and now you’re completely fine. I’m not going.’

  ‘I thought you were a grown-up, Eve. I was teasing you to make a point. You seem to have no trouble making a joke at my expense – the Rogaine wasn’t a nice thing to say, Eve – and I don’t overreact.’

  Eve walked up the hallway as though she was going somewhere. She had to get out. She had always felt so safe with Richard, so looked after.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Richard turned the other way and took the steps downstairs with even strides. He picked his keys, wallet and phone from the sideboard, mimicking his last actions before he left for work in the mornings.

  Eve came down the stairs after she heard the front door shut and wandered around the living room, unable to sit still. She spun around three times near the kitchen island, taking in the heavy sofa, the industrial cooktop, the plantation shutters, and replayed the conversation, trying to work out whether she’d got what just happened wrong. She stopped spinning and went back up the stairs into their room to pack a bag. She was going to Elise’s. She kept swallowing hard, but she didn’t know what she was swallowing. She grabbed some pyjamas, a toothbrush and was looking through her newly claimed drawers for her jeans when, downstairs, her phone beeped. She took two steps at a time to reach it quickly, her legs unsteady. Pulling it out of her jacket pocket, she read the text on the screen from Richard.

  I’m outside. On the street waiting. You are an angel and I am a fool.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  What time did you say this starts?’ Richard’s voice dived down the stairs and into the lounge room, where Eve was stacking glossy magazines in a pile on the coffee table.

  ‘Seven-thirty.’

  ‘We’re being fed, aren’t we?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You think so? It’s a seven-thirty start – there should be food. That’s what you do if you host a party and put seven-thirty on the invite. You feed people.’

  Eve double-checked she knew where her mobile and wallet were, tapping on both to make sure they weren’t apparitions, as the voice continued to sweep through.

  ‘I don’t want to go to a party if there isn’t anything more than alcohol and a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps on a coffee table somewhere. Aren’t we getting too old to go to parties like that?’

  Tired of yelling, Eve walked up the stairs and watched Richard in his towel, putting on his deodorant. She didn’t tell him there wasn’t a formal invitation, as such. It was a text, from Elise, less than a week ago.

  Come round next Saturday for my birthday. Don’t say no again, please. Bring dancing shoes and a bottle of your unfinest. 7.30 pm. Can’t wait to see you. XX

  ‘I haven’t seen Elise for ages – it will be fun. I’m sure there will be food there.’

  ‘But what type? Soggy crisps and some cold sausage rolls? We’re not at university any more.’

  This was the trouble with high standards. It took all the fun out of low standards. ‘We can always eat something quick before we go,’ Eve said. ‘G
rab some Japanese, have a cocktail somewhere nice. We don’t have to be on time.’

  ‘But I don’t want to eat something quick. I want to enjoy someone else’s hospitality. When we invite people over, we go to trouble, because we are entertaining them. We think about the right menu, the wines to match. We clean the apartment, put fresh hand towels out in the bathroom. It’s not rocket science. I know what will happen tonight. I will go to the bathroom and five people will bust their way in and say sorry and giggle like four-year-olds. It’s banal.’ With Richard’s full vowels, the short word ‘banal’ went on for a disproportionate amount of time.

  ‘Richard, you spend half your life making sure you’re on top of the latest trends, buying the right trainers, talking to your staff as though you’re twenty-two, but you’re forty-one and sounding it.’

  Eve immediately went to the bed and rearranged the mass of pillows like there was a magic formula to getting the six of them in a line-up worthy of a home-magazine picture and it all needed to be done right now else the roof would fly off. It was a low blow to mention his age. He hated being reminded he was eight years older than Eve. A coathanger struck the back of the walk-in wardrobe as Richard snatched a shirt down from his line of casual options. Eve couldn’t see him, but she could feel him.

  ‘I know what you mean. I’m getting sick of it too,’ Eve said. ‘We even have to bring our own bottle of wine. Maybe we should bring some takeaway too. In little boxes … and our own little chairs.’

  Eve received no reply, so she continued. ‘I don’t know what Elise is doing with Toby. Let’s go there, have a couple of drinks and we can leave early, get something to eat on the way home. How’s that sound?’

  Eve could hear a pair of shoes being removed from a shoebox. Laces were pulled tight and tied.

  ‘Is this party for anything?’ Richard asked.

  ‘It’s Elise’s birthday. That reminds me, can you sign the card? I’ll just go downstairs and grab it.’

  Eve ran downstairs and past the painting of the horse in flight, straining, its mouth wide open, being pushed on by its master. It was now October. She had been living with Richard for over a year, and for the first two months she’d sworn she was going to get rid of that painting. Now she didn’t even see it. She grabbed Elise’s present and card and stopped for a moment near that horse. She touched the contours of the dry paint, the horse’s leg, let her fingers move up to its straining neck. It couldn’t be so bad if she didn’t even notice it any more, she thought.

  ‘So we are going to a party for a thirty-four-year-old woman, taking our own alcohol, giving her a present and not getting fed,’ Richard said when she returned. ‘Am I correct?’ Before Eve could answer, he repeated, ‘Eve, am I correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesus. I can’t believe she’s not an Australian. What did you, what did we, get her?’

  ‘It’s a T-shirt.’

  ‘What sort of T-shirt?’

  ‘Just one to wear with jeans. You know, with an Andy Warhol face sketched on the front.’

  Beneath the gold foil and brown-string bow was a pale-blue V-neck cashmere jumper perfect for Elise’s pale colouring. It was overly generous but hopefully made up for Eve cancelling plans to meet up with her so much lately that Elise hardly called any more. Eve had run out of cash and used her credit card. Human beings are terrific at adapting without even knowing they are terrific at adapting. She had limited cash and unlimited credit, so she just spent money in a different way.

  Richard would give her a cash allowance each week, and everything else went on the credit card. It was a good system, usually. Most places took Visa. She looked down at the new pair of stiletto ankle boots she was about to put on. Running out of cash caused problems, but Eve would just have to find more places that took Visa and go to lunch with Richard’s friend Annie and her girlfriends on her credit card and let them give her cash for the meal, so she could put it in her wallet for later. A bit of lateral thinking could convert plastic money into real money.

  Richard appeared in the bedroom dressed. Eve slipped on her boots and put on gold chandelier earrings. She kept her jewellery on top of the tallboy in a black lacquered box. Her parents’ bracelet was in there somewhere. The pale-blue stone on a necklace reminded her: she must remember to air an old cashmere jumper from the bottom of the drawer when Richard was at work this week and then wear it, so that when he checked the credit-card statement there wouldn’t be a question mark next to it, and she wouldn’t have to account for it when she sat down with him to go through any unusual purchases or services at the dining table. She made another mental note to ask Elise not to open her present until they’d left. Eve cursed Elise for not giving her enough time to put money away each week so she could buy her something without Richard knowing about it. She shut her jewellery box and it made a tight, nervous sound.

  ‘God, you’re beautiful, Eve. I can never stay cross at you.’ Richard walked behind Eve, put both hands around her body and grabbed her breasts. He kissed the back of her neck. Eve’s shoulders dropped, and she turned to kiss him back.

  ‘I’m sorry about tonight, Richard. It’s low rent. I know it’s low rent.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, honey. These things happen. Next time, tell me earlier, and I will take us away for the weekend – then we’ll have the perfect excuse not to see these people.’

  Eve nuzzled into his neck and put one long hand up and around the back of his head and into his thick hair. Richard turned her around and pushed her against the tallboy. Eve’s body tightened, knowing now this would be quick. He undid the buttons on the back of her dress and slipped off the silk Japanese print, and it floated to the floor.

  ‘Take off your bra,’ he whispered.

  She did it.

  ‘Take off your pants.’

  She did it.

  ‘Leave your boots on.’

  He pushed her feet out to the sides, and she went over on one ankle. She had never managed to stop being uncoordinated. Weak ankles, her mother told her.

  ‘So clumsy,’ he told her, correcting her stance, pushing her legs further apart as though she was about to be frisked in a cop show.

  Eve gripped the tallboy and looked down at her black heels making indents in the carpet. The jewellery in her case on top of the tallboy bounced and made grating metallic high notes as he drove himself into her from behind. Her three bottles of perfume bounced with the rhythm. She resisted the urge to reach out and make sure they didn’t fall. She’d also resisted the urge to take a deep breath when he entered. He hated when she didn’t enjoy sex. He grabbed her hips and pushed harder. She realised he had come when it stung even more. He never made a sound, now, when he came. When he was on top, she would watch his face and see him catch his breath just once. That’s how she knew. A breath, and then he would stop. Her tallboy stopped swaying.

  ‘Shall we get going? Sooner we do this, sooner we can have something decent to eat.’

  ‘Sure.’ Eve slipped on her underpants and bra and scooped up her dress from the floor.

  ‘Happy birthday, Elise.’ Richard bent down and gave Elise a kiss on the cheek and a bottle of expensive wine. ‘Crowded already. You know how to throw a party.’

  ‘Richard, you’re gorgeous. Put your coats over there and come in and grab yourself a drink.’

  Eve followed Richard up the hallway and asked him, ‘Can you get me a drink?’ She then turned and found Elise.

  ‘Elise, happy birthday. Open it later.’ Eve’s eyes said ‘please’.

  ‘Thanks, Evie,’ Elise said, slightly frazzled, putting the present away in a kitchen cupboard next to cereal packets. She grabbed Eve’s hands and pulled her over near the fridge. ‘It’s been forever. I never see you any more, you hopeless, busy girl.’

  Another body swept into the tiny kitchen and foraged around for a bottle of alcohol. It grabbed Elise from behind and pulled her away from Eve, breaking their grip.

  ‘Gordon, hello,’ Elise swung herself ar
ound and said. ‘Eve, this is Gordon.’

  ‘Hi.’

  As they all moved as one out of the kitchen, Elise mouthed at Eve, ‘I want to talk to you later.’

  Eve mouthed back, ‘Okay,’ before landing in the hallway, where it smelt of thirty-year-old carpet and old curry, and a whirlwind of introductions began.

  Eve made decent small talk, not great small talk. She concentrated on the obvious: work, where they lived, how they knew Elise. It was boring. ‘See you in there,’ Eve said, slipping out of the hallway through the crowd towards the living room. For a tall woman, she was getting good at slipping through cracks. She saw the top of Richard’s head first; he was leaning into a couple, straining to hear.

  ‘Who knew the BBC would be so averse to unisex bathrooms?’ Richard replied as Eve swung in beside him and put her hand on the small of his back.

  There were introductions, some banter and a few more exchanges of information regarding how they knew Elise. Another couple joined the group. Someone – Kathy, Karen, an American with great teeth – asked Eve how she knew Elise.

  ‘We’ve worked together and we’ve lived together. Most importantly, Elise taught me everything I know about cider. Thankfully, I moved on to decent wine.’

  Eve put her wine glass up in the air to emphasise the point, and the semicircle emitted an appreciative laugh.

  ‘Cider, I still don’t get it,’ Malcolm, Elise’s cousin, said, more dumbfounded than seemed necessary. Eve didn’t consider drinking cider an intellectual pursuit worthy of ‘getting’.

  ‘Oh, I thought you may have gone to school with her,’ the American said. ‘I thought you were that friend of hers who she used to get up to all sorts of mischief with at school. You know, the pretend funeral they staged for their Saturday music teacher. Setting the chickens free. What was another one? That’s right. Convincing their Latin teacher to make mead as a class activity, and the teacher lost his job because the girls all got drunk.’