“I’ll be right down.”
While André is coming down the stairs tucking his shirt into his trousers (which incidentally isn't the shirt I told him to wear, but a horrible stripy thing my mother-in-law gave him as a present), I open the door and see Maria. She’s so slim... And her shoes are lovely... Cow. Anyway her dress is so hideous it might as well have polyester written all over it.
“Maria! Darling, it’s been such a long time,” I exclaim, drawing her into a long embrace.
“Thank you, Joana, I’ve missed you too.”
“You look lovely! Elegant. And I just love that dress.”
“You like it? I bought it in Zara.”
Didn’t I say? This eye of mine is infallible. That’s why I find it hilarious how these cheap tarts go around in imitations and second-rate fabrics thinking they’re fooling people. I’ve never got that idea. Either you have money to buy something or you don't. And if you really want something, you save up to buy it one day. But if you’re wearing shoddy imitations, then you’re going around pretending to be someone you’re not. Strutting around with a handbag that looks like it cost a thousand euros, and then you bring a packed lunch to work, very credible.
As Maria and André are hugging – too long for my liking – I go to the kitchen to get the hors d’oeuvre. When I get back they’re already on the sofa deep in conversation, broad smiles on their faces. I can’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. Not that they could ever have an affair. It’s more jealousy of their way of being friends. It’s a physical thing. When they’re together like that, it’s like no one else exists. Their knees touch, she puts her hand on his leg, he brushes an eyelash off her cheek, but it’s all so natural they look like brother and sister. I don't think I’ve ever felt like that with anyone, let alone a friend of the opposite sex. They’re not the type of friends to share confidences, however. They’re not best friends, in other words. But they’ve got that chemistry. If it was sexual chemistry, I think they’d be one of those couples that stay together forever.
“So, Maria, how’s your new job going?” I ask, placing the trays with the hors d’oeuvre on the side table.
“It’s great. Completely different from what I was doing in the consultant’s, but much more rewarding.”
“It’s some kind of voluntary work, isn't it?”
“Yes, but they pay me, if that’s what you want to know. And no, they don’t pay me very much, but what I get from working every day with those people, those children, is priceless,” she answers, quite the little Mother Teresa.
“Yes of course, that’s all very well when you have your own home and zero household expenditure.”
“Or when the things you find fulfillment in aren’t material things.”
“Ouch,” exclaims André, the self-appointed guardian of slighted virgins.
“That’s rich, coming from someone with a pair of Pradas on their feet, Maria.”
“Joana, don’t start. I’ve come on a mission of peace. But for your information, I bought these Pradas in an outlet store and they only cost a hundred euros.”
“To designer shoes!” I say, raising my glass of iced tea.
“At a discount!” exclaims André, ruining the moment.
I roll my eyes and tell him to put some mood music on while I go and switch off the oven. It’s always risky, giving him this task. For André, mood music may just as well be heavy metal, when what I have in mind is more like bossa nova, something like that. Maria comes with me into the kitchen. She’s tense. She’s almost finished her gin and tonic and now she lights a cigarette.
“Ah, so that’s what your diet is,” I say, joking.
“What?”
“Drinking and smoking. You haven’t touched so much as a canapé.”
“I can’t… I have a knot in my stomach,” she sighs.
“You can always leave by the back door.”
“Will you let me?”
“Oh darling… Everything will be all right. And it will be even better if you’re sober. If I remember correctly, you and alcohol don't exactly agree with each other,” I say, snatching the glass from her hand.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil your party.”
“It’s not the party I’m worried about. I just don't want you to make a fool of yourself in front of everyone, especially not them. Open your mouth.”
I stick a shrimp vol-au-vent in her mouth. I bet she hasn’t eaten anything all day.
“Mmm... that’s delicious. Really. Where did you buy them?”
“Buy them? You must be joking. I made them, from scratch. Even the puff pastry.”
“Really? You could sell these. Give me another one,” she asks, her hand reaching to the tray that’s just come out of the oven.
“And these are just the starters,” I smile proudly.
“They’re fantastic...”
Well, it seems I can do something properly. I’m not just a kept woman that lives off her husband, as people like to say. It’s as if a woman who doesn't work is some kind of criminal or something; it’s all condemnation, disapproving comments, supercilious sighs. In fact it probably all comes from envy and lack of courage, especially from people who can’t or won’t admit they’d like to do the same thing. Nowadays women are not only forced to work but to be as good as men in the same job, or better. And they’re still expected to cook, keep the house spick and span and always be in a good mood. Any woman who doesn't conform to this standard is dismissed as useless. The feminists stand up and say this isn't what they struggled for all those decades. Well I, sorry to say, am more in favour of the traditional role of the woman. The kind that stays at home to look after the family, and who looks after herself at the same time of course, with an interesting social life and pastimes that stimulate the mind, whether that’s cooking, learning Italian or playing a musical instrument. I bet there wouldn’t be so many divorces or juvenile delinquency if mothers and women spent more time at home.
And, what’s more, for me kept women is a totally different breed. They’re bounty hunters that have that moved on to phase two. Bounty hunters are women who haven’t got a penny to their name, but thanks to a pretty face and a certain shall we say agility manage to spear themselves some rich guy who pays them to be luxury dolls he can show off at his business dinners. When the wrinkles begin to show and the skin begins to sag, that’s when they become kept women. They no longer have the looks, but they try to keep them at all costs with surgical enhancements and visits to the spa. They’re still a bit thick, but now that they have a certain experience of dining out with intelligent people, they can string two or three comments together and pass themselves off as interesting. They still can’t fry an egg, but whatever! That’s why I get annoyed when they call me a kept woman. I consider myself a housewife. And I’m very proud to be one.
The doorbell rings again. Maria freezes. She takes a deep breath and begins furiously slicing the bread that’s on the worktop, a completely unnecessary task seeing as I have obviously sliced all the bread I needed before my guests arrived. I’m scared she’ll lose a finger; with all the fury she’s transmitting to the knife.
“Calm down... It may not even be them. Why suffer before you have to?” I say, trying to placate her.
She doesn't answer. She must be reciting mantras or whatever it is she does to calm down at yoga. I go to the door but André, for the first time this evening, has beaten me to it. Maria’s apprehension was well founded. It’s Nuno and his boyfriend. Nuno has changed. He looks lighter. He’s lost that furrow he had on his forehead and that constantly tired appearance. I like to see him like this. His boyfriend is very cute. He’s wearing jeans, a grey sports jacket and a fabulous silk neck scarf. It looks like a Hermès. His teeth are very white and his hair is light grey, slightly dishevelled. It annoys me how the handsomest men, the ones with the best taste, are always gay. But there you go.
“Joana, André, this is Eduardo,” announces Nuno, blushing slightly.
“H
ello Eduardo. Pleased to meet you, come in, come in,” I say, showing them into the living room.
While André asks what they want to drink, Nuno looks at me, asking me the question I’ve been expecting. I whisper “She’s in the kitchen” and act the good hostess to Eduardo, who is about to spend a good deal of time stuck between two people he’s just met, unless Maria’s mantras don’t work and she emerges from the kitchen shrieking and brandishing a meat cleaver. I hope not.
Maria
It’s Nuno. Even here in the kitchen I can make out his voice. I’m shaking. My eyes fill with tears. Don’t you cry, Maria. For God’s sake! I bite my lip and open my eyes wide to stop the tears. I learned this in a book I read when I was a child and it really works. ‘Om namah shivaya, om namah shivaya, om namah shivaya’ Three years of yoga and I still can’t control my emotions. Come on. Deep breathes. Breathe in, fill your lungs from bottom to top, breathe out, from top to bottom, gently. Inhale... Exhale... Inhale...
“Maria, are you there?”
It’s him! He’s coming into the kitchen! What do I do now? I can always run out of the back door. I’ll go to the car and come back in a minute. I’ll pretend I’ve gone to make a phone call. Now I think about it, I don't have to come back. I’ll call Joana and tell her my grandmother fell in the bathtub and I have to go and see her in the hospital. Or... Or nothing.
“Come in, come in,” I say breezily, as if I was in full control of the situation.
I grip the edge of the worktop in case my knees fail me and I see him come in with his eyes fixed on the floor. He looks up slowly until his eyes meet mine. Contrary to my expectations, my heart remains intact. I don't feel a thing! There’s no feeling of suffocation, nor butterflies in my stomach, nor an urge to hit him and take off crying. All I feel is peace and a great desire to hug him. We look at each other for a few seconds. He’s afraid; I can sense his fear, the fear that children experience when they’ve just broken their mother’s favourite vase and know they’re about to catch hell for it. Then he sees the smile in my eyes and realizes it’s all right, I’m not going to shout or run away. It’s just me, Maria. The smile in my eyes spreads to my lips and he runs to me, hugs me and lifts me into the air.
“Sorry, he sighs in my ear.”
“Don't say a word. You don’t need to say a word.”
We hug each other tightly, one of those embraces that dispels all the pain, all the longing, all the hurt, a whole year’s worth. If I’d known our meeting again was going to be this easy, I’d have done it sooner. But maybe it wouldn't have been the same. Maybe my heart really needed all this time to heal and all the tears too. Images flutter through my mind, like petals shed by my memory and thrown to the wind. First, the evening he got home with a despondent look on his face and all he managed to say was, “It’s no use.” Then, my attack of hysteria, calling everyone on the phone, laughing like a maniac as I told them we were cancelling everything. The journey without destination. The mobile phone I threw out of a taxi window. The months I went into hiding in Germany. Why Germany? Because it’s the only country whose language I speak but which has no emotional associations for me. There’s no music, poetry, precious moment of my life in German.
I chose the ugliest city I could find. One of those cities you only go to if it’s to visit a mechanic, a factory that sells stuff at cost price or something like that, where you need the GPS to get you through the last few kilometres. Above all, a city I’d never have to return to again, not even on the way to somewhere else. I didn’t want to associate everything I was going through with a pretty place. The house with the black roof tiles and pink walls, the sky that was never totally blue even on a good day, the return home, changing the furniture, cutting my hair, starting again and going out with people who meant nothing to me, just so I didn’t have to stay at home, alone.
“It’s good to see you,” I tell him as we end our embrace. “You look great.”
“So do you. I really like your new look. You’re slimmer too.”
“Yes, I’ve taken up yoga and I’m almost vegetarian” I confess.
“You a vegetarian? You’ll never be able to do without a nice big veal chop, not to mention arroz de pato, farinheira...”
“You think so? Maybe you’re right. But I can be a vegetarian just during the week, can’t I? Or is that cheating?” I ask, winking.
“Of course you can. And I won’t tell anybody,” he smiles.
“Anyway, what about you? I heard you opened your own design firm. Is it going well?”
“Yes, it’s going beautifully. You have to drop by. You’ll love the location. Just to give you an idea; it’s a loft with a view over the river.”
“Wow! Congratulations. And what about… what’s his name? Your boyfriend.”
“Eduardo.”
“Eduardo? Lovely. Am I going to meet him tonight?”
“Yes, he’s in the lounge with Joana and André, in a total panic.”
“Poor thing, I’d be in a total panic too if I was left alone with Joana and André without knowing them at all. On first impressions, they don’t exactly exude positive vibrations.”
“No…”
We spend five minutes exchanging pleasantries – how are your parents, where are you living now, did you buy that motorbike you wanted – and then he suddenly changes the subject.
“I know this isn't the right place for us to talk like this and maybe you don't want to, but I’d like you to know that Eduardo didn’t seduce me or sway my decision or anything like that. In fact he even refused to talk to me until I’d decided what I wanted to do with my life and broke up with...”
“With me.”
“Yes...”
“I don’t want to talk about it. There’s nothing to say. You said it all that day, I say,” turning my back on him.
“But you didn't...”
“No. I didn’t.”
“And will you ever say it?” he asks, taking my face in his hands.
“One day,’ I answer, looking down. ‘I still can't put it all into words. But I want you to know that I understand you, that I know you never wanted to hurt me, and above all I’m sorry I lost my head and wasn't by your side when you needed me most. I’m very fond of you, you know? You’re one of the nicest people I know and I still consider you my best friend.”
“Maria, you don't know what it means to me, hearing you say that.’ And he hugs me tightly. ‘You’re my best friend too and I’ll always love you. Always!”
I feel his face draw close and his lips meeting mine. It’s a tender, sweet kiss that puts the seal on our love affair as a thing of the past and marks the start of an eternal friendship, a magical, liberating kiss.
Filipe
We’ve finally arrived for dinner. An hour late, but we’re here. It wasn’t my fault. I was at Pedro’s door at half past seven. His Excellency was still in the bathroom, however, so I had to go up and make small talk with Lu, his new girlfriend. The good thing is, not only is she good-looking, she’s got a great personality and seems to like football. When I arrived she was watching a game, quite absorbed in it. Can you believe that? At first I thought Pedro must have been watching it before he went to take a shower, but it occurred to me that Pedro doesn't follow football that much. She opened the door to me without taking her eyes off the screen. She put a beer into my hand and said, “Let me just watch this free kick and I’ll be right with you.” What’s not to like?
While we’re waiting for Pedro I learn she used to be a model and is now working in public relations for a well-known nightclub, one of those places where folk will happily queue for an hour to get in, if they get in at all. I’ve never understood folk like that. Going out at night should be simple. Four walls, good music and drinks at a reasonable price. I like to see people all dressed up and smart, but I also like to go out in trainers and have a bit of conversation with whoever’s around me. Lu’s like that too. She sees it as a job like any other, not a place she’d go to with her friends.
Another thing that surprised me about Lu was the fact she’s quite a bit older than the girls Pedro usually goes out with. He always goes around with daft little beach babes, normally aged about twenty, every one of them convinced she’s the last Coca-Cola in the desert. The one before Lu was nineteen. I usually make fun of him and tell him one day he’ll be arrested for statutory rape, but he always says he only goes with girls with cars. He normally gets tired of them after a few months, in that phase when they begin to complain they’re always at home (meaning, in bed) and want him to socialize with her group of friends. It’s one thing to go around with a twenty-year-old girl, but going around with ten of them is another. Lu must be past thirty already – that’s almost a generation leap. For him, it’s great – a chance to grow up a little. Sometimes I get sick of the superficiality with which Pedro lives his life. Maybe it will do him good to have a real woman, for as long as she can handle his childish ways, at least.
We dash out of the car, full of trepidation, in the middle of trying to explain to Lu what Joana’s ‘Look Number Three’ is – that deadly glance she shoots at anyone arriving an hour late to one of her functions. That look that says, “If it wasn't for André you’d never set foot in this house again you ill-mannered louts.” I let Pedro lead the way and hide behind Lu. I see two figures through the kitchen window and decide to take a peep, expecting to see Joana nagging André. And what do I see but Maria and Nuno, kissing.
Thirty Something (Nothing's How We Dreamed It Would Be) Page 4