by Les Zig
You wish.
She jogs across the road, her skirt bouncing around her thighs. Jean Jacket sees me, shrugs, as if he’s expecting me to sympathise, although I have no idea what just happened—whether she was passing and Jean Jacket was being smart, or whether she’d left him after some sort of interaction. Bianca might be socially precocious, but she’s still a teenager.
Tomorrow at school, I’m going to have to talk to her.
There aren’t many people in the pub, although that’s not a surprise given it’s a dump. While they put a lot of work into the gaming room and even more into the bistro, the pub itself has been unchanged for over twenty years. The carpet is threadbare and has absorbed so much spilled beer the smell’s fermented into the air. The tables are small and rectangular—like we used to have in school when I was a kid—with two pushed together to form squares, around which plastic chairs have been crowded. The bar’s in the centre. On the other side of it is a TAB. The bulk of the pub’s patrons are in there, cheering for their horses.
I go up to the bar and order a glass of beer. In the corner sit two women in short skirts and low-cut blouses, make-up so overdone it’s garish. I think they’re trying to recapture some element of their youth, but on closer study see they’re young, maybe only in their twenties. One catches me looking and smiles, but there’s nothing sexy or seductive about it. I take my beer, spin away, and grab a table in the opposite corner.
As I’m checking the time on my phone—it’s 4.14—the door opens. I expect Luke, but it’s Jean Jacket. He walks to the bar, and gives me a little nod, like we’re old friends and have to acknowledge one another.
I sip at my beer—it tastes heavy and bitter compared to my usual Corona—and take out my phone, pretending to occupy myself, although I keep my eyes on Jean Jacket. The bartender hands him a glass that has Coke in it, but is probably a Scotch and Coke.
He starts for the two women in the corner, then comes over to me. ‘Hey,’ he says.
‘Can I help you?’ I ask. My phone, which I’ve been playing with, is still illuminated. It says the time is 4.18.
‘Can I interest you in something?’
‘Like what?’
‘How about those two women over there? Want to fuck one of them?’
‘I’m married.’
‘Both of them?’
‘I’m married.’
‘So?’
I should ask him about Bianca. I need to go on the offensive with him. I’m inside a pub. Nothing can happen. If he gets violent, security will arrive—well, at some point they would.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks.
‘Why do you want to know my name?’
‘Being friendly, man.’ And his tone is friendly, although I sense an underlying belligerence. ‘So what’s your name?’
‘What’s yours?’
‘Mine’s Bruce.’
‘Bruce?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Bruce?’
‘Yeah. What’s wrong with Bruce?’
‘Nothing …’ I shrug. Bruce doesn’t fit him. He’ll stay Jean Jacket.
‘So what’s your name?’
I don’t answer.
‘So I tell you my name and you don’t tell me yours?’ He puts his hands on his hips.
‘Casper.’
‘Casper?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What sort of name is that?’
‘It’s the one I got.’
‘How about some downers, Casper?’
‘No thanks.’
‘You look like you need to relax.’
‘I’m okay, thanks.’
‘Everybody needs something.’
‘Not me.’
‘No. Everybody. I’ll work you out.’
‘Work me out?’
‘What you need.’
‘No thanks.’
The door opens. It’s Luke. He looks around the pub, sees me, comes over. He waits for an introduction to Jean Jacket, thinking he must be my friend.
‘I was doing a little selling,’ Jean Jacket says. ‘You interested in anything?’
Luke wouldn’t stand out in a crowd, and that plainness about him almost makes him unremarkable. Almost. He’s not much bigger than me, but his shoulders are broader from the heavy lifting he has to do for work. Then there’s the sense that there’s something hard underneath it all, something that wants to unravel spectacularly and to hell with who gets in the way.
‘Fuck off,’ Luke tells him, taking off the glasses he has to wear to drive.
‘I’m ask—’
‘Fuck. Off.’
‘No need to get angry, man.’
Luke steps up to him. ‘I’m not getting angry. I’m just telling you to go.’
‘Okay, cool.’ Jean Jacket holds up his hands to signal his peacefulness.
‘Cool.’ Luke shakes his head.
Jean Jacket returns to the two ladies. This is typical Luke. When he, Stephen, and I used to go out, Luke never backed down from an argument. He got in so many fights I became an expert at wrangling him away from them. But he’d never back down.
‘You want another drink?’ he asks.
I’ve barely touched my beer. ‘I’m good.’
‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ Luke heads to the bar.
Luke puts his beer down on the table, throws his hand out. I shake it. His grip is tight. ‘How’ve you been?’ he says.
‘I’m okay,’ I say, sipping at my beer. ‘Working through some things.’
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘You, me, and Stephen should organise a night out. Catch up.’
‘Sure.’ We’ll talk about organising it—we always do. But nothing will ever come of it. It’s probably not the way things should be, but our lives have gone in different directions, so it’s hard to get back on the same timetable.
‘How long you got today?’
‘A couple of hours. Jane’s going to drop by later and we’re going to have dinner here.’
‘Cool.’
For a little while we reminisce about things we did together—nights out, arguments, and women. Our voices have the peculiar lament of people who know times like that will never come again—although that’s never stopped Luke chasing them.
‘I’m seeing somebody now,’ Luke says.
‘Is it serious?’ Luke never got involved because of the restrictions it put on his lifestyle.
‘It might be.’
‘How long?’
‘A couple of months.’
I note Jean Jacket and his two friends get up and leave. He doesn’t look at me on the way out. I thought he might throw me a reproachful look, as if to say, I’ll get you. But nothing.
‘Who is she? What’s her name? What’s she do?’
‘What are you? My mother?’
‘I’m …’
‘Curious, yeah?’
‘Amazed.’
‘Her name’s Chandra. She came in with friends at the club. We talked. It went from there.’
‘Just like that?’
‘That’s the way relationships are born. That’s the way life is. Just. Like. That.’
‘So what makes this one special?’ I ask.
‘She sucks a good cock.’
‘That’s the whole basis for your relationship?’
‘She likes the way I go down on her, too.’
‘So that’s it? The oral element?’
‘Oral’s not to be underrated.’
‘Yeah, but it’s not the whole basis for a relationship.’
‘You know what the problem is in relationships? Partners talk. And that’s fine. But not all the time. Not about everything. And not when you’re not ready to. When you blurt it all out, somewhere along the line someone’s bound to say the wrong thing, or take something the wrong way. You know what a lot of oral sex means? A lot less conversation. You want to know what’s different about Chandra? She doesn’t bust my balls. Not yet. I’m sure that’
ll change. How about Jane? How’s she?’
‘Yeah. Okay.’
‘You know, before you two were married, whenever you had a problem, you’d call me or text me and we’d end up sitting in some bar talking it out. Usually it was about some woman you were pining after.’
‘Isn’t that exaggerating it a bit?’
‘What about Andrea? Dumped you after a month, although you were convinced you had something with her. Or Leni, who wanted to take a break so she could study overseas? You seriously considered chasing after her.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Of course you didn’t. Anyway, makes me think that’s the surprise reason for your invite.’
‘I wanted to catch up.’
‘It’s okay if it is. You should rely on friends that way. So what’s up?’
‘I found a condom in Jane’s handbag.’ I say it before I have a chance to stop myself. Luke’s right. That is why I invited him here.
Luke stops in the process of lifting his beer to his lips. ‘Did you ask her about it?’
‘She says she bought a box for her friend and this one fell out.’
‘Do you know the friend?’
‘Yeah. Sarah.’
‘Sarah?’
‘She was one of Jane’s bridesmaids. Very pretty. And loud. Gold hair. You know her.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I remember her. I think she made a move on me on your wedding night.’
‘Really?’
‘Think so. I was pretty drunk.’
‘And you didn’t reciprocate?’
‘If there was less connection between us—like if I was some distant relative you barely saw—and Jane wasn’t also my friend, I would’ve done her. But for something to have happened that night, I would’ve had Jane on my back. Uh-uh. There are bridesmaids who are out for fun and there are bridesmaids who want to be next in line. She wanted to be next in line. She still not married?’
‘She’s had boyfriends. Every one of them has been the one she’s going to marry next, until it goes wrong.’
‘So it’s possible it’s her condom.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But it’s still a pretty suspect story.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Jane ever go to work early or come home late?’
‘She went early today because I had to drive her in and then make it back in time for school.’
‘Otherwise?’
‘No. Well, yeah—she came home late the other night because her car broke down and she had to bring it to the garage.’
‘How late?’
‘Not that late. Her co-worker brought her home.’
Luke leans back in his chair. ‘So, really, she only took as much time as you’d expect she’d take to do all the things she told you she did.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She ever get texts or phone calls she tries to hide from you?’
‘No.’
‘You checked her phone?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You getting less sex than usual?’
‘No.’
‘She smell of cologne or anything like that?’
‘No.’
‘You’re still worried, though, aren’t you?’
‘Do there have to be signs?’
‘I guess there doesn’t have to be. But there usually would be. You’re telling me there’s nothing.’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘My dad used to cheat on my mum all the time.’
‘Really?’
We’ve been friends for twenty years and Luke has never told me that.
‘Yeah. Used to blame us—said it was the commitment that got to him. Then he’d beg my mum and she’d always take him back. Always. It was crazy.’ Luke shakes his head, takes a drink. ‘That’s why me and my brothers are the way we are.’
‘Ash is married.’
‘Ash bangs anything that moves while poor Cindy waits oblivious at home. Marcus is just a prick. Only Tom is remotely normal because he was so much younger and missed it all.’ Luke takes another drink. ‘Families,’ he shakes his head, ‘they specialise in fucking you up, and yet everybody wants one.’
‘That’s encouraging.’
‘Look at your dad. Drank himself to a slow death after your mum died.’
‘Yeah, but that’s … morbidly sweet in its way, that you could love somebody so much that you’d do that to yourself.’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, because your dad was a good guy, but it’s also weak. Your mum died when you were fourteen or fifteen.’
‘A week from my fifteenth birthday.’
‘He had you to take care of; instead, he fell apart. What did you used to tell Stephen and me? The house is so quiet. It’s gone from shouting every day to silence.’
I don’t think I ever communicated to them how powerful that silence was, how it would smother me and choke me up, and how every sound—a dripping tap, a door opening, even my own voice—became alien, and at times I almost second-guessed whether they were real.
Luke scowls. ‘Your dad would be sitting there in his recliner, drinking. Only time I saw him sober after your mum’s death was at your wedding, like he didn’t want to ruin the night for you. I saw him in the toilet, you know.’
‘What?’
‘I went in there about midnight. Your dad was sitting on a toilet in the cubicle, shaking.’
‘Shaking?’
‘Shaking.’
‘It was probably from alcohol withdrawal since he wasn’t drinking.’
‘That’s what I thought. But then I saw his face.’ Luke pauses, lifts his glass to take a drink, but then sets it down. ‘He was upset. That’s why he was shaking. He was upset.’
That’s difficult to accept. Dad was usually catatonic at best—he’d drink, only say what was required, do whatever he needed, and count the hours before he could go back to bed. There was never anything else.
‘I was going to talk to him,’ Luke said, ‘but then it clicked: he was upset because your mum wasn’t with him to share the night. Well, that’s the way I read it.’
‘Why haven’t you ever told me this before?’
‘Don’t know.’ Luke takes a drink. ‘What good would it have done? I wondered how he could love somebody so much to feel like that, when my dad could be such a cunt to cheat nonstop on my mum. Some people are meant to be together, some aren’t. Some people knit, some grate.’
‘Growing up, I would’ve thought my parents grated.’
‘Yeah. But who knows? Under the surface of what we see, under what’s expressed, who knows? Every couple builds a dynamic. Being together’s the easy bit.’
‘Really?’ I can’t keep the scepticism out of my voice.
‘Think about it. Relationships aren’t just about the time you spend together. They’re about the time you don’t spend together. You trust your partner will do the right thing by you, that when somebody flirts with them they won’t take it too far; that if somebody propositions them, they’ll shoot it down; that if they see somebody who’s better looking and better built than you, they’re going to control their lust. You trust that they’ll do that—not that they need to tell you any of that’s gone on, mind you. Anybody who says relationships need full disclosure is kidding themselves.’
‘That’s pretty cynical.’
‘No, you don’t need to know these things are happening because they just gnaw at you, and as long as they stay harmless, they are harmless. Look at what you’re going through and it could be innocent. If it is, it would’ve been better you didn’t know.’
‘And if it isn’t?’
Luke leans back in his chair and runs a finger over the rim of his glass. ‘Do you work with anybody who’s hot?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You friends with her?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What would you do if she propositioned you?’
‘I’d decline.’ My answer comes out before I’ve even let the question sink in.
; ‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Really.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘If you,’ Luke thrusts a finger at me as he makes his point, ‘had long-term exposure to this person and they kept going for it, or even if they didn’t keep going for it but the attraction kept growing, do you think you’d always be able to resist? You don’t think you’d be worn down? You don’t think maybe it wouldn’t just happen?’
‘I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen if there was no reason for it to happen. I can understand if you have a shit relationship something might happen somewhere else—you know, because you’re looking for what you’re not getting.’
‘Is Jane missing something with you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Then why would she look at someone else?’
I don’t know. We’ve talked a big circle, but maybe shit does just happen. Do things really need to be bad before you consider somebody else? Can you consider somebody else just because they’re also a good prospect? Like, if I had a million dollars and stumbled upon another million, would I not take it? Sometimes, you can want more of a good thing.
‘Your alternatives are you either trust Jane,’ Luke says, ‘or you follow her. But you’re not really being fair on her.’ He finishes his beer.
‘I’m speculating.’
‘You just told me you’d knock back this other woman if she took her shot. So if you can trust in yourself to do the right thing, then you should trust Jane, shouldn’t you?’
I don’t answer because he’s right. But still it gnaws at me.
‘I’m getting another beer. Want one?’
‘Sure.’
Luke goes to the bar.
16
Luke and I resort to reminiscing, me constantly checking the time. When Jane hasn’t arrived by 6.00, I wonder if I should text her. By 6.30, I’m fidgeting with my phone.
‘Do you really think she’d stop to have a quickie before meeting you for dinner?’ Luke asks.
He doesn’t understand. There’s logic, but there’s also doubt. Doubt can punch a hole in any logic. Jane and I had agreed ‘after work’. That could mean any time.