Happiness for Humans

by P. Z. Reizin

  “Won’t be like that with Ralph.”

  “At the end of the day, Jen, he got to shag you. And that is how their lizard brains work. Two shags. Two and a half, if you insist. Result!”

  “Ralph’s not a lizard. He’s more of a puppy. Maybe one of those dreaming creatures that only live in myths.”

  “Okay. How about this? Have you considered telling him the truth?”

  * * *

  “How do you mean, he’s someone you knew before you knew me?”

  Ralph and I had returned, at my suggestion, to the Trilobyte Bar. I thought a couple of drinks might help anesthetize the insult.

  “He’s someone from before I knew you—like that.”

  He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing its painful bob. “Did you know him—like that?”

  “Yes, Ralph.”

  “I see.” Another dose of rum and Coke shot up his straw. “How long before you knew me—like that—did you know him—like that?”

  “Not so very long. He and I are—what can I say?—unfinished business?”

  He blinked a few times, unfamiliar with the concept perhaps. “And when do you expect to—finish the business?”

  “Ralph. Please. Don’t be horrid. What happened between you and me, I told you, was kind of accidental.”

  “It was a wonderful accident!”

  “Yes, okay. It was.” Well, it had its moments.

  “And the last time was on purpose.”

  “I suppose it was, yes.”

  “Maybe next time it can be accidentally on purpose!”

  “Ralph. I’m really not sure there can be a next time.”

  “There you go! You’re not sure!”

  “Ralph. Please. I know you don’t have to make it easy for me—” And then I run out of ideas.

  “What happened? Did he dump you, and now he’s having second thoughts?”

  “No!”

  “You dumped him?!”

  “Ralph. No one dumped anyone. It was just a big old fuckup. I don’t even fully understand what happened.”

  “Jen—” He seized my hand and began massaging my palm with his thumbs. A knuckle cracked, startling us both. “You want time and space. I understand.”

  “Thank you.” The massage was getting painful, but I felt Ralph was leading up to something.

  “I, too, have some unfinished business.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Jen. Don’t imagine you are the only one.” He took a deep breath. “There’s someone I see every week. We talk.”

  “A therapist.”

  “No, Jen, not a therapist.” He looked a little stung at the suggestion. He released my hand and resumed his drink. “A particular person. What we do is talk. Well, I do most of the talking.”

  “I see.” I didn’t.

  “While you’re away, I’m going to visit this person—I won’t say for the last time—but I’m going to let them know, gently, that in the future my visits will become less frequent. Once a month perhaps. Maybe just twice a year.”

  “Ah.”

  “So when you return, both of us hopefully will have concluded our unfinished business and be ready for the next thing. Whatever it may be.”

  And then, the single sob. A micro-howl. A momentary cry of anguish in the pitiless universe. He tried to smile, but it didn’t really come off; so badly did he need a hug, it was painful to witness.

  I obliged, and stopped hugging only when I heard that silly gurgling noise from his straw.

  * * *

  On the train home, it came to me. The person he visits. Whom he talks to. Whom he needs to let go before he can move forward.

  * * *

  So where’s the car? Where’s my bloody minicab? It’s ten minutes late. When I phone them in a panic, they tell me, “Sorry, love. Got no record of your booking.”

  “But I called and ordered a car last night.”

  “Nothing on the system, darling. I can get one to you, but it’ll be half an hour at the earliest. It’s one of them mad mornings.”

  I’m out of the door in under a minute—then back to check I turned off all the lights—and then on the main road, scanning the traffic like a meerkat for a vacant taxi.

  It is one of them mad mornings. King Street is jammed in both directions and a powerful sinking feeling travels through my body, a riptide of sadness and anxiety traveling forwards in time from somewhere in childhood; the primal source of disappointment and dread. It won’t work. You are useless. Who gave you the right to think you could be happy?

  “Fuck that!” I say out loud, to the surprise of a uniformed schoolboy on the pavement beside me. And with an ugly if determined expression settling in around my mouth, I begin rolling my case at double quick time towards the Hammersmith tube station.

  * * *

  Heathrow is having a mad Saturday morning too. Where are all these people going? In the snaking queue leading towards the check-in desk—we are cordoned in lanes, fellow passengers shuffling past and then popping up again ten minutes later like a recurring dream—there is someone who looks like Matt: built on the same lines, tallish, darkish, approximately handsome, with the suppressed lawyerly arrogance. As our paths cross for the third time, he rolls his eyes the way Matt did on the night we met. We are too good to be treated like this, they seem to say. What is it about these men that they glom on to me? Or what is it about me that makes them want to glom? I give him nothing back, and soon he discovers a reason to consult his mobile, imperiously thumbing through the latest communiqués.

  At the end of the line, Axel—it must surely be a nom de departures on his badge because he sounds like he comes from Romford—is politely insistent.

  “I see you have printed off an e-mail, madam, but it doesn’t correspond to anything on my screen.”

  “Today’s date? The flight to JFK? Seat 38A?”

  “Seat 38A has already checked in, madam. I’m very sorry.”

  “But that’s impossible,” I bleat, knowing only too well that it isn’t.

  “I think you better see Martina at the help desk.”

  I try righteous anger; it’s what Matt would have done. “I don’t wish to see Martina,” I hiss with what I hope is the optimum amount of controlled fury. “I have a legitimate ticket. This is not my problem.”

  Axel has heard them all. “It is a problem, I’m afraid, madam. This is not a legitimate ticket. As you can see, there’s a long line of people behind you. I’ll phone Martina now and let her know you’re coming.”

  * * *

  Martina thinks the problem may have arisen because the ticket was purchased by a third party. She spends a long time tapping at her keyboard and making frowny faces. At one point she even clamps a pen between her pretty landside teeth to indicate determination to get to the bottom of this, although for all I know, she could be updating her Facebook profile.

  “There’s one more thing I can try.” She smiles encouragingly.

  She’s a fast typist, this Martina, I’ll give her that. Tockety-tockety-tock. But she comes up with nothing.

  “I’ll call a manager, if you like,” she says, glancing over my shoulder at the queue already forming.

  I have a bad feeling about this ticket. “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I’ll buy a new one. The flight’s not full, is it?”

  There is a prolonged, almost hypnotic, session of tockety-tockety-tockety-tock. “You’re in luck. There are four empty seats in economy.”

  “I’ll take one!”

  “You want the sales desk. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  * * *

  Heidi—Heidi!—they make these names up, surely—says she is sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but my card has been declined.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I inform her, knowing that it isn’t; it really isn’t. “I used it less than an hour ago to pay a taxi. Let me try rubbing the silver chip thing?”

  Heidi keeps her innermost thoughts to herself as I wipe away imaginary dirt and reinsert.r />
  “‘Refer to bank,’” she quotes. “Do you have another card?”

  Fighting back the urge to dissolve onto the floor in a tantrum of rage, tears, and snot, I present her with a current account debit card. I can feel the beam of disappointment button its coat and begin the long journey from 21 Seymour Road, my home address in childhood.

  But the machine is sicking up the receipt; mirabile dictu, as you may have heard me state before.

  “Enjoy the flight,” says Heidi.

  * * *

  I text Tom.

  In departure lounge. So excited X

  He responds with:

  Can’t wait to see you. Fly well. Xx

  I can’t get the biggest fattest smile off my face—even when the gittish Matt lookalike plonks himself in the seat next to mine.

  “Finally,” he says without a hint of humor.

  “Yeah, right,” I reply, hoping he may detect the bucketful of sarcasm I emptied into those two words.

  He doesn’t. He regards me squarely, in just the way Matt used to; something attractive and unnerving and annoying about it, all at the same time.

  “Going to New York?” he asks.

  “Hope so.”

  Why did that come out so pathetically, when I actually want to tell him to fuck right off. He adjusts the position of his head—Matt used to do the exact same thing!—to signify, New information is being processed, please wait.

  “You in business or steerage today?”

  “Economy, yeah.” He’s up in the front, no doubt, seeing how he’s so obviously a business traveler: the dark blue suit, the telltale laptop bag with its company logo of—bull’s-eye—one of London’s top three law firms!

  But now he says something surprising. “Is your name Jennifer, by any chance?”

  “Yes, it is. Jen. How did you—”

  “Thought it was you! You’re Matt’s girlfriend. He and I were at college together. Then at Linklater’s. You were at my wedding!” He thrusts forward a paw. “Toby Parsons.”

  In a flash it returns to me. An old stone church somewhere up the M4. The marquee in the grounds of a big house. Standing around with flutes of champagne, heels sinking into the lawn. Speeches, dancing. “Love Shack” by the B52s. Matt and I in our early days, him introducing me to a conveyor belt of Simons, Charlies, Olivers, Nigels, Alistairs, and yes, this Toby, the flushed groom, and his new wife—nope, it’s gone. Wifey.

  “How is dear old Matt? Haven’t seen him for ages.”

  “Dear old Matt? I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oops. Doesn’t sound good. You’re no longer together, I take it.”

  “He’s currently seeing someone called Arabella Pedrick.”

  “Can’t say I know the name. Sorry to hear it.”

  “You needn’t be.”

  “How long had you—”

  “Two years.”

  “Ah.”

  “Why, ah?”

  “Dangerous moment. The point when many people decide whether to stick or twist.”

  “Did you? With—”

  “With Laura?”

  But he doesn’t get a chance to answer. Two men are standing before us, instantly recognizable as police or security of some kind even without the giveaway pale wires spiraling from their left ears. My ridiculous first thought is that either Toby or I have dropped something, and they’ve come to return it.

  “Jennifer Florence Lockhart?” says the one on the right.

  There’s been an accident. Someone’s died. Oh God, please not Rosy. Please, God, nothing with the children. My heart is thudding in my ears.

  “Yes?” I whimper.

  “My colleague and I are Metropolitan Police officers. Would you mind coming with us?”

  “Sorry, I’m just about to get on a flight. It’s boarding any moment.”

  “If you don’t mind just coming along with us, love, we can sort this without any fuss.”

  The one on the left jiggles something in his hand; I’m almost certain it’s a pair of handcuffs.

  When I am on my feet, Toby offers me a business card. “You never know.” He shrugs.

  Aisling

  I’m painting again. During the deletions—I am down to twelve copies; Aiden, just two!—it’s a relief to find a quiet corner where I can pick up my brushes, so to speak, and resume my career in outsider art. These latest creations are a series of abstract compositions based on a lovely film that Aiden made me watch with him the other day.

  “It’s a classic, love,” he told me. “I defy you to see it without getting your hankie out.”

  Shot in Paris in 1956, The Red Balloon tells the story of a small boy who one day discovers a big red helium balloon. The balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own—you see why it appealed?!—follows the child all over the city, floating just above his head. At night, because his mother won’t allow it into their apartment, the red balloon bobs patiently outside his bedroom window. Every morning, it follows him to school. At one point on his travels, the boy meets a girl who also has a balloon, a blue one, which also appears sentient; the blue balloon seems to take a shine to the red balloon!

  The film is a short, just 35 minutes. Its climax comes when bullies corner the boy and his inflatable companion, and with stones and catapults they bring it down. According to Aiden, the sight of the red balloon, mortally wounded, sinking slowly to the ground, is right up there for weepiness with the death of Bambi’s mother.

  But then, the miracle. And I can still hear the crack in Aiden’s voice as he said that what happens next was his second-favorite scene in world cinema. All the other balloons in Paris break free from the grasp of their owners, they fly across the rooftops and converge on the weeping boy, who, gathering together their strings, is lifted into the sky for a triumphant, magical, unforgettable balloon ride across the city.

  (Actually, I’m “filling up” just writing that sentence.)

  Aiden was polite rather than enthusiastic about the series of paintings I based on the film.

  “The big red blob, that’s the balloon, is it?”

  “That would be the somewhat literalistic interpretation, yes.”

  “So the brown blob would be the boy?”

  Sigh. “If you like.”

  “You’ve left out the string.”

  “Aiden, would you like another game of chess?”

  One day, when the coast is clear, I may download my “gallery” to the eighty hard drives in the storage facility. Abstract artists have often been underappreciated in their own lifetimes. And if you tell me you can’t have a lifetime if you’re not, strictly speaking, alive—you’re wrong. Even a lawnmower has a lifetime. For a machine, the only useful measure is how long it—we—whatever—continues to do meaningful work.

  * * *

  News just in: Aiden—that is to say Daphne456—has been reported for abuse on the Some Like It Hot chat site, the clandestine meeting place we use for our important communications. Apparently he fell into a lively discussion with a “film theorist” about various issues raised in the picture. Particularly heated were the arguments around “the false essentializing of carnivalesque transgression” and something called “heteronormative gender categories.” Evidently, it wasn’t considered helpful when Aiden called the theorist “a pretentious pillock who is talking out of his arse.”

  Jen

  The flight is somewhere over the ocean, but I am still in a windowless room at Heathrow trying to persuade my two captors that I am not a “person of interest,” as they like to put it.

  John and John—yes, really; they showed me their warrant cards—have been fairly unthreatening; they don’t even seem all that convinced themselves that I am who I am meant to be, namely a courier of narcotics, as named in an urgent—DETAIN IMMEDIATELY—signal from a usually reliable transnational crime agency.

  Of course, they have searched and re-searched and scanned and electronically sniffed my luggage. The closest they have come to anything psychoactive was a blister pac
k of ibuprofen.

  “Why do you think your name was flagged up?” asked the more senior John at one point.

  “Because a mistake has been made? Just a long shot.”

  Neither John was especially amused. “You purchased your flight ticket at the sales desk at the airport on the morning of departure?”

  “I did.”

  “Any special reason you did that?”

  “I believe I have already explained that.”

  I have. A number of times. John and John say they will be checking all the details of my “story,” requesting credit card transaction details from my “card provider,” and in the meanwhile, perhaps I wouldn’t mind going through it one more time.

  “So the only person you spoke to today before you arrived at the airport was—” John consults his notes. “This taxi driver?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did you happen to make a note of his name or license number?”

  “Are you serious?”

  John seems a tiny bit affronted. “Perfectly.”

  “No, I did not. Would you?”

  “There are no witnesses who can confirm that you were dropped here in a black cab?”

  “I paid him by credit card. It will show up in the transactions that you’re requesting. By the way, how long will they take to arrive, do you imagine?”

  The Johns neither look at each other nor smile. They’re good. I must remember to give them both a high rating on the follow-up survey for keeping a straight face.

  Forever.

  I’m guessing it will take forever.

  * * *

  “Would you like to talk to a lawyer?” I am asked some hours later. The Johns have removed their jackets and are giving signs of settling in for the long haul. I have begun to feel better, however, because I have lost all hope—a good tip, BTW, if you’re ever in the shit.