Both of You

by Adele Parks

  On Tuesday we are expecting six guests. A female MP and her obliging, smiley, balding husband, and two clients of Daan’s who are both still with their first wives, conveniently. It will make for an easy group, which is good management, rather than good luck. Daan thinks about such things. No obvious faux pas on the horizon. I can guess the way they all voted at the last election. The clients’ wives will no doubt discover they have people in common, something to do with their children’s prep schools, most likely. I find I am looking forward to it. Possibly there will be an awkward moment when one of the women inevitably asks how old our children are. And I will explain that we don’t have any. Sometimes I add ‘yet’, to ease the burden of embarrassment that might occur when people hear we are childless. Childfree. Depending on their viewpoint. Some plough on and ask why not? Assuming a desire and ability. Others politely mumble, ‘Well, you are still young, there’s time yet.’ Again, assuming a desire and an ability.

  The more polite guests just turn the conversation; they ask how we met, because everyone has a meet-cute story, even if they don’t have offspring. It’s safe territory. Was it technology or chemistry? Swipe right or eyes across a crowded room? We still make such a big deal about the distinction. As though either method is any less random.

  We are often called an adorable couple. We look good together. We’re frequently laughing. We do a lot of sport. We habitually urge the other one to finish a story.

  ‘You tell it better!’

  ‘No, you tell it!’

  The story of how we met is always mine to tell, though, no debating. The beginning is always the sweetest bit. The forever, never-to-be-taken-back bit. The story that is subsequently shared with friends and family, that gleams and glistens despite the constant retelling. Perhaps it sparkles even brighter as though each time it is told it is being polished – which I suppose it is in a way.

  Even ours. Despite everything.

  ‘I miss us too,’ I tell Daan.

  10

  Kai

  Four years ago

  The sun is shining. I mean, really unapologetically shining and it is only March, so we have no right or expectation of this. Normally the sun shining is an unequivocal joy to me, today it seems like a taunt. Shouldn’t it be raining? Shouldn’t it be grey and desolate? I can’t stay in the office, eating a sandwich, hunched over my desk as usual. I might as well make the most of the fine weather, allow the sun to soothe me, I need comfort. Work is punishing. Everything is punishing.

  I have just heard my father is dead. I mean literally just heard, this morning. I can’t process it. I can’t imagine that he’s no longer on the planet. No longer anywhere. Freddie, the oldest of my three half-brothers, called my work landline. I don’t know how he got my number. I can’t remember giving it to him. I do remember writing it down for my dad, along with my mobile and my home number, years ago. Opportunities to reach out, scribbled on a notepad near the telephone that sits in his hallway. Stiff, restrained. Like everything about my father. Was it possible that the notebook had remained in the same position for all these years and Freddie found it? Or had Dad transcribed the numbers into his address book? I don’t know and I find myself thinking about this gossamer-thin strand of longing, or hope, or something, stretching between us.

  His death is unexpected. At least to me. I hadn’t known he was ill because we are going through one of our phases of estrangement which happen periodically throughout my life. Were going through. Happened. Past tense. Funny formal word, estranged. We throw ourselves into formality, don’t we? When we are ashamed, or sad or simply defeated. I don’t know when else that word is used except when families splinter: husbands and wives, parents and their children. People who should be closest become as strangers. My father and I have not seen one another for over a year. We spoke on his birthday, it went badly, as it often did between us since years of tension and resentment simmer under the surface of our relationship, always threatening to erupt. Until now, I suppose. No chance of an eruption now. Or a reconciliation. Or anything.

  My father always liked to give the impression that he was trying, that I was difficult, resistant. The implication was that the disappointing thing about our relationship was that we hadn’t found a way to click, when in fact the disappointing thing about our relationship is that we don’t have a relationship. Didn’t. And now can’t. My father liked to give the illusion that he was a good father to me, fair, that I stand equal with his three sons. That he worked just as hard to please me as he did them – harder, in fact. That also hurt. Because the truth is, he never had to work hard with them, with them it was effortless.

  We’ve only exchanged a handful of texts since that birthday call. This morning, when Freddie awkwardly passed on the news, my first thought naturally was, I should have rung more often, because that is what people think in times like this. Regret is kneejerk. Apparently, the cancer was diagnosed eight months ago. Why didn’t Freddie contact me before now? Now is too late. But I don’t blame my blond-haired, blue-eyed brother. I never blamed any of them for coming after me, expanding into my space, inadvertently pushing me out of it. To blame takes a level of confidence and entitlement. I never had either thing when it came to my father.

  What would I have said anyhow? Those never-happened calls would have been punctuated with long silences, awkward pauses, miscommunications. Recriminations. We have never found it easy to speak to one another, even at the best of times. Whenever they may have been.

  I’m not much of a sharer. I don’t want to tell anyone at work my news. I know they will make a fuss. Kindness will lead to them insisting I go home but I don’t want to do that. Nor do I want to receive their sympathy when I’m unsure whether I’m entitled to it. I have often said that I hate my father – to his face, to my mother, to boyfriends when lying in bed, sheets soiled with fucking that couldn’t quite exorcise out the complexes. I did not hate my dad and I have never been more aware of that fact than in the moment that I know I can never tell him.

  All morning I carry on at work as though nothing has changed. I’ve always had a great poker face and a developed ability to compartmentalise. I chair a meeting, send emails, make calls. Then someone cancels my first afternoon meeting, opening up a rare three-hour break in my diary. The gap scares me. I want to keep busy, not to think. I have a mountain of emails to get through and a strategic mid-term project that needs some thinking time but I doubt my ability to concentrate on either, so I tell my PA that I am going to work offsite. My plan is to find a café with internet, surround myself with distracting strangers who I can watch and perhaps swap an unattached word or two with.

  I wander along Piccadilly, trying to stay in the moment, trying not to give in to the grief that I can feel ballooning in my chest, making it hard to breathe steadily. I have cried a lot of tears over my father long before he died. Enough tears. Far too many. I don’t want to waste any more. I am glad of the sunshine; it has enticed people out of their offices and apartments and so the streets are heaving. I concentrate on weaving in between the hurrying pedestrians. Everyone else seems purposeful, determined. By contrast, I feel as though I am floating, directionless. I glance in coffee-shop windows but my original plan of setting up camp in one has lost its appeal. I drift onwards but my shoes are a little tight, and too high for walking in London streets. Suddenly, the heat is uncomfortable; there is a tidal wave of humanity on the pavements and I am a fish swimming in the wrong direction. I feel sick, a little faint. So I dip into the cool and calmer courtyard of the Royal Academy.

  I plonk myself down on the steps outside the gallery and scramble in my bag for my water bottle. I sip at it and then lose some minutes. Find some stillness. I am wearing dark blue trousers, so my shins quickly become hot. I take off my jacket and the skin of my arms soon tingles as the sun scorches. Sweat pools on my back. The shock of the news of my father’s death is spreading through me, paralysing me. If it was raining, I would have probably still been rooted to the steps, drenched,
so the sun is a gift.

  There are a large number of people sat in the forecourt and I am glad of it. I want humanity buzzing about me. Vibrant, alive. Blocking out what I obviously need to think about, process. Everyone is notably more buoyant than usual because of the unseasonably brilliant weather. I try to decide how much I want to commit to being involved. Striking up a conversation with a stranger would at least pass the time.

  Waste time.

  The thought makes me more nauseous. I don’t want to think about how much time I have already wasted. Time I’ll never get back. You only get one life. My father’s is over. His death has left us both exposed.

  The Royal Academy attracts an eclectic bunch. Mostly, earnest grey-haired types. There are worse things to be. Some people are cheats, or liars. Some people dodge their responsibilities. Some people are stuck in the past and waste the now. There are women wearing brightly coloured skirts and scarves, gossiping with their friends about their grandchildren and daughters-in-law. I spot an elderly gent with a yellow tie and hat from a different era, a girl with a leopard-print skirt, a young man with a purple Mohican. Every detail of this kaleidoscope of humanity becomes tattooed on my brain.

  There are schoolgirls picnicking on the steps too, chatty, giggling, breathless. My eyes graze, my ears cherry-pick their conversations about sandwich fillings, boys and homework. They are given a two-minute warning that they need to leave. Their noise level rises as they begin to stand up, look for bins to deposit their waste. They need to find the loos, visit the gift shop, take one last look at … As they file past me – untidy gaggles, some still chewing, hungrily, others patting their flat bellies and yet worrying that they’d eaten too much – I am struck by the length of their legs and the smell of them. They look like teens but smell like children: sweat, crayons, paper, chocolate, excitement, a bundle of all that. Something in my heart swells, pinches, then relaxes. Groups of children always leave me with that sense of treasure found and lost. Their skirts are wound up at the waistband, apparently that doesn’t get old.

  The schoolgirls vanish under the cool arches, leaving the sanctuary of the gallery and spilling back onto the London streets; the packed tube, the chaotic queues, London proper.

  I close my eyes and lean back against the low wall near the steps. I think I must drift off to sleep. My body and mind closing down, shutting out. I’ve always been good at that. Switching off is a survival technique. I don’t know if it’s moments, minutes, hours later when I wake up, disconcerted. I can smell marijuana. The earthy, herby, somewhat sweet scent always slightly embarrasses me as I’ve never tried any drugs in my entire life. I know, extraordinary – and so smelling hash is basically a signal that someone infinitely more daring than I am is in the vicinity. Yet, I am also aware that hash is considered the gateway drug, soft – teens sometimes don’t class it as a drug at all – so I also judge marijuana smokers as faintly loser-ish. I open my eyes, expecting to see an unkempt, beanie-wearing, bloated guy with a chubby roach indiscreetly hanging out his mouth. Instead I am met with the embodiment of sophistication, beauty, confidence.

  Love’s first imprint is precise. This is the when. This is the where. I will never understand the why.

  He is wearing a crisp white shirt, and a dark blue tailored suit, he is lean, tanned. His blond hair is just long enough to suggest rogue, rebel, but not too long so as to alienate his wealthy clients or powerful peers. I think this man most likely does have both wealthy clients and powerful peers, my guess is lawyer or merchant banker. I wonder what he was doing so far from the city at – I check my watch – at 4.15 p.m. The lateness surprised me. I should be back at the office. How have I let time slip away from me? But I don’t rise to go. Something about the sunshine, the sweet scent, the sexy smile stops me.

  He does have a sexy smile. He is a coiled man, ready to spring.

  He holds the roach out towards me, as though we are old friends. He raises his eyebrows questioning, daring. I shrug, all insouciance and take it from him, draw on it. First time ever. The smoke hits the back of my throat, leaving me feeling excited and scared. And I know, just know that this is our pattern carved out right in this moment. Everything that happens from now on will be a repeat of this simple action. This is who I am when I am with him. This is who he makes me be. Who he allows me to be. A woman who tries things, who takes up dares. A woman who smokes a joint, who takes pills, who talks to strangers, who drops to her knees to deliver a blow job in a public loo.

  I don’t know how I know that the rules have all been thrown out of the window, but they have.

  The smoke passes down my throat, wraps itself around my lungs. It is as though I am taking my first breath ever. As I breathe out, I feel the tension pour from me. I look to the ground, expecting a steaming pile of fear or regret. I am surprised to see nothing other than a paving stone, a small insect scurrying, popping up from one crack hiding down in another. I take another drag. The air is warm. A huge cocoon. After an afternoon in the sun the skin on my face is tight, slightly seared.

  ‘Do you want to go for a drink?’ he asks. I nod. ‘I’m Daan,’ he says.

  ‘You have an accent,’ I comment clumsily. It could have been worse. I could have blurted that I like accents.

  ‘I’m Dutch.’ He nods at the roach, as though his nationality explains everything. He doesn’t really believe he is breaking the rules by smoking this in public, although of course he is because the law is different in the UK. His shrug suggests the rules are beneath him, provincial.

  ‘I’m Kai.’

  ‘Cool name.’

  He stands up and I note his powerful build, he is way above average height. Six feet four, maybe five. He stretches his hand down to me and pulls me to my feet. He doesn’t let go of my hand but threads his fingers through mine and I let him. It should be odd, but it isn’t, it’s the most natural thing in the world. He leads the way. Mentally I accept that is pattern two set in stone. He leads, I will follow.

  He knows a place. I like that. It’s refreshing to meet a man who has ideas about what we should do and where we should go. I find myself in a rooftop bar, the view offers flashes of buildings in the throes of regeneration and gentrification. I feel dizzy thinking about how exciting it is to be up above. Looking down. Money allows that, I suppose. By 5.30 p.m. we have already drunk a couple of gin and tonics each. The music thumps around me. I feel it in my head, chest, knees and between my legs. Or is that him I feel inside me? Not literally, of course. Not yet. But I think that is where this is going. Where we are going. There is an immediate and intense sexual attraction, the sort that is rare and coveted. It feels as though he has climbed inside me. That I’ve accepted him.

  Everyone is younger than I am on this rooftop, in their twenties and early thirties. Daan tells me that he is thirty-five, I throw caution to the wind and tell him my age, he seems delighted. ‘Ah, an older woman,’ he smiles wolfishly and buys me another drink. We move on to tequila shots. We lick salt off one another’s hands. Who am I? I don’t know. Not myself. No one.

  The rooftop quickly fills up, dating couples mostly. Glamorous women with hair and nail extensions, full make-up and scanty dresses; men with groomed beards, obvious intentions, business expense accounts. These people smudge up against each other.

  ‘I love meeting new people,’ I tell him, giddy, drunk, high.

  ‘I have such respect for people who do,’ he replies. He moves closer to me, bends to close the gap between us, so I can hear him clearly. I feel his breath on my cheek, and it blows my sense away. There is nothing but sex all around us. New and perfect. Old and established. Burnt-out, burning bright, angry, pitiful, grateful, unclassifiable.

  ‘There are so many people. I feel the ache of being only one of them and want to be more,’ I tell Daan. It is a dramatic thing to say. Something to do with my father’s death, or maybe the hash. Both. A combination. Chicken and egg.

  ‘What do you mean?’ He looks interested. I am interesting for the first time
in a long time. Maybe ever.

  ‘Well, the problem with being only one person is you can disappear. You can be snuffed out.’

  ‘That’s a sad thought.’ I shrug but decide not to tell him about my father. How I am entitled to have sad thoughts, this day above all days. I am thinking about mortality, about the meaning of it all. Why are we here? ‘Do you fancy another drink?’ he asks.

  I do, and I feel entitled to another drink. Several. Too many. We talk, he has a lot of interesting stories. He comes from money, made through fibre optics and oil. He doesn’t impart this information in a crass way, simply through dribs and drabs, asides to the main tale he is telling and yet I know he is trying to impress me. I’m flattered he’s bothering.

  ‘We had to take a helicopter or else I would have missed my mother’s birthday bash. She would never have forgiven me, but I was in such a hurry I left her gift on the helipad, so I am a bad son anyway!’

  ‘The Heinekens are old family friends. They are very down-to-earth, really, like everyone else, but their parties never run dry.’

  He sparkles. We laugh. At some point, he puts his hands on my throat, tips my head up to his, bends down. I kiss him. A man that I’ve only just met. Who I know nothing about. I’m not usually a fan of public displays of affection. I expect it to feel strange, wrong. It doesn’t. It feels absolutely safe. Correct.

  We have sex in the disabled loo in the basement of the bar. It sounds seedy. Awful. I suppose it is, but it doesn’t feel awful. It is the right sort of bad. His hands are clumsy, unwieldy, ill-fitting. I like the strangeness. I like the fact he doesn’t know how to please me, and we’ll have to learn, or I’ll leave unsatisfied and maybe that will be for the best. I’d be lying if I said it was great sex from the get-go. To begin with it is good sex, made interesting because it is so wrong, so dangerous. But then something slips or jumps, and it becomes great. The orgasm he pulls from me heats my belly and then rolls through my limbs, chasing the alcohol that has already seeped into every part of my body. The desire will ultimately settle in my mind, the most dangerous place of all. He leaves me feeling light, rather than weighed down, which is good. But I also feel flimsy, rather than substantial. If that is a red flag, I ignore it.