by Les Zig
I almost crumple to one knee and choke back a sob as a new reality impacts me—the separation of everything we own. The house would be sold. We’d keep our respective cars. Savings would be split—or I think they would, although Jane’s made more than me over the years. What about Wallace? Where would he go? He’d be confused alternating between two households. I’d keep Luke as a friend, but what about Stephen and Renée? Stephen is my friend, Renée is Jane’s; they met at our wedding. Who keeps them? Do they go one way or another? I don’t know how this works.
‘Are you all right, sir?’
It’s a salesgirl, her face round with adolescent fat. Her concern doesn’t seem to be directed to my wellbeing, but to what protocols she’d have to follow should I collapse in the store. She probably doesn’t even know. I should collapse to find out.
‘I’d like one of these.’ I tap the playpen.
She points to an adjacent shelf where the playpen sits unassembled in long rectangular flat packs. I grab one, hoist it out, mumble my gratitude, and head off.
I’m shaking when I get to the cashier, and a chill crawls across my skin that isn’t the air-conditioning. I want to drop the playpen, bolt to my car, race home, and lock myself in the house, although even the house—with its new tenant, THE GREAT EMPTINESS—is foreboding in itself. I plant my feet until I can feel the tension in my ankles cramping into my calves.
I buy the playpen, leave Baby Mart, and march from the complex, shoving the playpen in my back seat. I check the time on my phone: 9.34. Still almost three hours before I have to pick up Wallace.
Three hours.
I climb inside my car, which has baked in the sun. I roll down the window, but sweat’s already pouring off me and I’m going to need to get moving, if only to get out of the sun.
Home’s not an option. When I pick up Wallace, at least he can accompany me back. I won’t be alone. He’ll keep me occupied. His presence will chase away THE GREAT EMPTINESS just as he tried to chase away Roger.
I start the car and pull out of the parking lot.
48
I walk into The Andion, stride up to the bar, and take a stool. It feels good in here with the air-conditioning, the ferment of beer, and the chatter of the patrons who’ve either come for breakfast or to gamble on the horses. It’s alive and filling.
‘What’ll it be?’ the bartender asks.
‘Beer.’
The bartender nods and pours a beer while I pull a ten from my wallet and lay it on the bar. I shouldn’t be drinking, I really shouldn’t. How many times have I made this vow since this began? But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to fall back on Beth or Luke. There’s nothing left to thrash out with them. It’s only what’s left inside my head.
‘Here you go.’ The bartender puts my beer down in front of me and takes the ten.
‘Keep the change,’ I say.
He murmurs his thanks, moves on, and I pick up the glass. It’s cold in my hand, refreshing after being cooked in my car. I’m reminded of the days and nights that Stephen, Luke, and I would drink ourselves to oblivion. I can’t take it that far. There’s still Wallace to consider. And I’m driving, even if I did drink-drive yesterday. But yesterday was the exception. And stupid. I can’t make stupidity the rule.
Somebody calls for a Scotch, a voice that sounds familiar. I lean forward to peer around the other patrons seated at the bar and see, at the very end, Roger. He’s dressed in a suit and shirt, but the top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and his tie dangles from his pocket. He’s unshaven, although his stubble is splotchy. Every part of his image that has been so carefully cultivated has unravelled, as if to reveal a tangled ball of wool.
I pull back—not out of alarm, but surprise that Roger and I are in some form of synchronicity, both deserted by our loves, albeit for different reasons. I take another peek in time to see the bartender deliver the Scotch to Roger. He has a pile of money on the bar, which the bartender draws from unbidden. Roger swirls his Scotch, takes a sip. He’s probably been at it a while, if not here then elsewhere.
I pause in the act of lifting the beer to my lips, holding it there like it’s a microphone, and I’m about to make a speech.
This is the cliché, sitting in a bar, nursing one’s wounds, although it’s a good cliché, a proven cliché, one that’s born from fact—drinking mightn’t help but it does medicate temporarily. Like it’s doing for Roger. Like it did for me yesterday. Like it did for Dad.
I set the beer back down, wondering if Dad thought this, whether he thought he had it under control, or whether at some point he surrendered and accepted he was going to drink until he knew no more, or possibly until he himself was no more. Maybe it wasn’t even a surrender but a conscious choice, a course he dedicated himself to.
A strong hand lands on my back as somebody sits next to me—Jean Jacket. He grins with that easygoing familiarity. I feel nothing now—not after everything that’s happened since we last spoke. This might’ve been a game for him, but I know now it’s not one I keep needing to play.
‘Hey, buddy,’ he says. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘I’ve been better, Bruce—you know?’
‘Yeah, I know, I know. Noticed you were edgy. Sad to see it. Really. So, what do you say?’ Jean Jacket tugs at the baggy in his pocket until I can see the corner of it. ‘And you wanted to forget, right? That was your thing.’ He shakes the corner of the baggy a couple of times. ‘Right?’
Maybe this is what it was for Dad—all it was for Dad, regardless of how or why he got there: a way to forget. But did he ever? He forgot I existed. But what about Luke’s story of seeing Dad crying in a toilet cubicle at my wedding? No. I guess some things you don’t—you can’t—forget. Some things you need to deal with because, otherwise, they’re what get you in the end.
‘I don’t want to forget, Bruce.’ I get up off my stool and clap him on his shoulder. ‘But thanks, huh?’
Jean Jacket’s face is blank, maybe surprised by my temerity. But then he nods, and points his finger at me. ‘You’re okay,’ he says.
‘Maybe try the guy at the end of the bar.’
Jean Jacket looks over to Roger, and nods. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem.’
I leave the bar.
49
I drive, run a hand across my bleary eyes, then flick the radio’s volume until it’s so loud it pounds at me and I can’t hear my own thoughts. I think I’m driving aimlessly, but eventually find myself arriving at Finchley Photography, which isn’t far from Web Myriad.
I park the car on the street and sit there, unsure why I’m here. Usually, the routine would be our anniversary dinner on Saturday night, a night at the Sheraton, then in the morning the photo to tie up the anniversary. Jane would have the photo up before the week was out—I’d clumsily bang in a nail, then hand her the picture, which she’d hang with a smile. I’d stand a couple of steps beneath her on the stairs, hands around her waist to hold her steady.
Maybe I’m here because I want to challenge the observance of this ritual, which has operated unfailingly the last six years, despite whatever events have preceded it. It was a cornerstone of our relationship, one that I imagined would accompany us into our old age—if we could find room to hang all those pictures. Now where do I stand? Where do Jane and I stand? I rub the left shoulder of my T-shirt across my forehead.
I pull the key from the ignition and get out of the car.
The door buzzes when I open it. The lobby is large and red carpeted, with low-hanging lights that sway in the breeze that slips in as I do. Pictures are everywhere. I think that’s one of the reasons why the lobby’s so spacious—to accommodate them all. One wall’s dedicated to family portraits, another to couples, one to kids, and the one behind the ornate, arched marble counter has pictures of celebrities. A narrow hallway—and even this contains pictures—leads to the bathrooms.
I take a seat on the bench and hear clicking coming from the studio, light flashing through
the seams of the door—Oscar Finchley busy at work. I check my phone: 10.14am. I lean over, plant my elbows on my knees, and examine the way the red carpet is pixelated with flecks of black.
I smell her approach—her strawberry fragrance a touch too rich, which usually has my sinuses almost gagging in protest, but now smells familiar and secure. Since the door didn’t buzz, she must’ve come from the bathrooms. She sits down close enough to me that I can feel her warmth. Or perhaps it’s her shame. I don’t look at her.
Silence.
Perhaps she’s expecting recriminations or accusations or condemnations. My mind is awash with all of them, angry things I want to say, hurtful things, final things, but there’s no composure to articulate them, strength to voice them, or conviction that that’s the direction I want to take.
‘Words are the only things I have,’ Jane says finally, her voice low, ‘and they’re not going to be enough. But please take them for what I want to convey, and know that I can never fully relay the depths of how genuinely I mean this: I’m sorry.’
Of course. What else would she say?
‘It’s not that anything’s lacking between us,’ Jane says. ‘It’s not that I’ve lost any feelings for you. You haven’t done anything wrong.’ She sniffles, and I hear rustling—perhaps she’s running a hand across her eyes. ‘Nothing’s missing.’
‘And yet,’ my voice is a croak, ‘Kai.’
‘Kai and I have been friends since we first started working together. Lately, it … went too far. I think it was something that happened because it had none of the pressures of our lives, it had none of the concerns of trying to have a baby or making a home together. It was a thoughtless escape, free and oblivious and stu—’
‘How long?’
‘What?’
‘How? Long?’
‘A month.’ The words barely spill from her lips.
‘So … what? You did it every day? Like before he brought you home? When he picked you up—’
‘Casper, no—’
‘A month full of lies every day, every hour?’
‘Is this—?’
‘Tell me! How often—?’
‘Five times!’ Jane struggles to contain her sobs. ‘Okay? Five times.’
I cup my hand over my mouth, squeeze my lips until they hurt to create a block against the tears. I don’t know why the logistics are so important—it’s not like if it were X number of times it would be unacceptable, but Y number of times is okay. Maybe knowing is a way of trying to sift a truth out of all this mess.
‘From the very first time, I broke it off,’ Jane says, ‘I knew I’d fucked up and … I don’t know, Casper, I don’t know—I promise. Every time I hated myself more and more. Every time I told him that was it. And … I don’t want to make excuses. I don’t know why I let it happen repeatedly. Finally, I told him that was it—I mean, really it. I finally reconciled what I was doing, and what he was doing—that he had no respect for me, or what I had at stake.’
Her hand begins to come down on my shoulder. I recoil, sit back on the bench, and run my forearm across my misting eyes. Still, I don’t look at her. I can’t. I don’t know what I’ll see.
‘When?’ I say.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘When did you tell him it was finally it?’
‘Casper, why—?’
‘Because I saw you. On Friday. I came to work. To your work. I needed to talk to you. And I saw you,’ I clench my hands—they’re shaking—and wedge them into my lap, ‘and him.’
‘I was leaving early … because I wanted to talk to you.’ Jane’s breathing deepens. ‘He chased me to that second floor. I can’t explain everything. I lost myself telling him it was over. Maybe I had a temporary breakdown, like a blackout—I’m not trying to rationalise what I did. You and I have been trying so hard to build our lives, I think sometimes we forget just to be us. We get lost in the everyday minutiae of who we are and what we want, that we forget to be free. That’s what I was with Kai—or I thought I was … until Friday. On Friday, I surrendered out of self-loathing more than anything. To find out there was nothing there.’
I don’t know what to say. Luke suggested she’d shift blame, that somehow it would become my fault, but she hasn’t done that, so that’s something. Still, everything’s so neat. Rehearsed. Qualified. Methodical—other than for the times I’ve pushed her for details, when I’ve forced her from her script … although I can’t blame her for having one. It’s what I would’ve done, and she hasn’t lacked sincerity. But it’s only been two days.
‘So just like that?’ I say.
‘Just like … what?’
‘I still don’t understand how you go from friends to crossing the line—not just once, but again and again. And again. And again. I …’
I think of Beth looking at me, the way she touched me, and the way I thought our friendship was better in some ways than the friendship at the heart of my marriage. I don’t have to accept what Jane’s telling me, I don’t even have to understand how it works, but I can accept it happens.
‘What, Casper?’ Now Jane does squeeze my hands.
I shake my head. I don’t know what to say. When it becomes obvious to Jane that’s the way it’s going to stay, she resumes.
‘I quit. I rang Henry and told him I had to leave, effective immediately.’
‘And Kai?’
‘What about him?’
‘What contact have you had with him since Friday?’
‘He messaged me on Saturday night to say you came over—well, he messaged after he tried to call repeatedly.’ Jane gulps, chokes on the words. ‘I didn’t answer. I … thought of you, going there … driving you to that sort of anger … I don’t know what I’ve done …’ The last is almost indecipherable, lost in a wail that she bites on, until her breath is a rasp trying to stifle the cries.
I finally turn to her, unsure what she expects from me. Her hair is frazzled but tied back, make-up not entirely disguising the redness of her eyes. Her crying is making her mascara run. She wears a denim skirt and a white blouse that are too big for her, and a pair of sandals. I don’t think the clothes are hers, and she hasn’t had an opportunity to go home and get changed. They must be Sarah’s.
‘The pregnancy test?’ I ask.
Jane blanches. She’s going to tell me it’s Kai’s. Restlessness pulses down my legs; I feel it in my hamstrings, like the muscles have become too tight and need me to get up to relax them.
‘I took a test at Sarah’s. I had an appointment with a doctor yesterday morning. I’m pregnant. Six weeks.’
Six weeks—a pointed time reference, given she told me she’s only been with Kai over the last month. How convenient.
‘I’ll do whatever you want to prove that,’ Jane says quickly, reading my doubts. ‘It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours, I know, it is. I’ll take a blood test. Whatever you want. But it is.’
I say nothing. What is there to say? I want to believe her. Need to believe her. That’s the only way there’s any chance for us. But it’s more than that. This is about trust—what I’ve lost.
‘I wanted to call you,’ Jane says. ‘I wanted to call you on Friday night. Then on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon. I was so afraid you wouldn’t take the call, or that you’d hang up on me, or tell me any number of things you have every right to say to me and not give me the chance to apologise. In the end I stayed in our hotel room last night, hoping you’d show. I sat there, and counted down the minutes. I stayed up until 4.00am. I knew it was next to impossible you’d come that late, but I stayed up all the same, thinking about you, thinking about you all alone in the house, thinking about what I’d done to you. Then I came here, thinking the same thing.’
I want to be numerous things simultaneously—relieved, angry, incredulous, comforted, comforting, condemning. I wait for something to take prominence and determine my response. But they’re all equal.
‘Why did you come here?’ Jane asks.
‘
I don’t know. I could say something, tell you something, but I don’t know if it’s the truth or the way I’ve rationalised things. I want to hug you, tell you I love you, and that I forgive you.’
Jane’s face softens and her eyes brighten. She begins to lean forward.
‘But I also want to shout at you, swear, and tell you you’re a fucking bitch for doing this.’
Jane freezes. Teary eyes blink frantically.
‘I want to take solace in your words, what you’ve told me, but I also want to tear them apart, throw them in your face. I don’t know where I go from here, where you go, where we go, what’s meant to happen, what could happen, or how things unfold. I don’t have answers. You know me. I’m not … a strong man.’
‘Casper, no, you—’
‘No, Jane, I’m just me. Just me. And—and as much as it sums up my life—I don’t know where to go. I think somebody’s always been leading me—my parents, Stephen and Luke, then you. I don’t know what to do.’
The door to the studio opens. Oscar Finchley emerges first. Everything about him is thin—his slicked back sandy hair; his moustache, which almost seems pencilled on; and even his anaemic smile. A smartly dressed family of four follows, although only the mother wears it well, her curled hair unmoving, her make-up—particularly the blush and lipstick—overdone. Her son is perhaps eleven, and already pulling his shirt from his pants while whining for ice-cream. Her daughter, probably in her early teens, the swell of femininity budding, demands over the top of her brother that she’s meant to be dropped off at her friend’s. The father, middle-aged, belly hanging over his belt, sweat glistening on his temples, agrees unthinkingly to both of them, although he probably wants to go home and unwind with a beer in front of the TV.
The mother exchanges formalities with Finchley: readiness of their portraits, how it went, whether her daughter had smiled enough (Finchley assures them she was fine while the daughter looks on and scowls)—the typical babble of families. I see it all the time on parent-teacher nights or at school functions.