I realize suddenly that she’s waiting for my response. What else can I do? I say, “I’d love you to, please say yes.” My soul is frozen with horror—what have I done?—but the words still pour out, flowing naturally, with that flirtatious tone in my voice that seems to curse me whenever Amber is near and I’m trying to be good.
“Yes, I’ll come.” She’s smiling, she’s happy, she’s jumping to the wrong conclusions.
“Good.” I take a bite of my sundae. It’s done now, I can’t take it back. I’ll have to guard my tongue more cautiously in the future, but I’ll be careful, I’ll make it work. We’ll just go as friends; it’s not like this is a date, it’s not like we’ve been on a proper date, we’re just flatmates, that’s what it is. Amber can help protect me from my mother; she can shield me from all those questions and disappointed glances my mother will want to direct my way over my split with Sarah. All those demands to know exactly what happened and what I did wrong to make Sarah feel neglected and have an affair. “Sarah’s a slut, everyone, she’s a nymphomaniac,” that’s what I’d have to say and my mother wouldn’t like that, not at all. But with Amber there, none of that will happen, my family won’t quiz me in front of her.
I nearly blurt this out to Amber, nearly tell her she can protect me, but I glance into her shining eyes and I regain control of my senses in time. I can’t tell a girl that she’ll come in handy so I won’t have to answer questions about my ex-girlfriend: that’s not something you say to a woman, particularly not to someone as fetching as Amber. That would be unkind and I will not be unkind to Amber.
I watch Amber take another mouthful of ice cream and I snap out of it, for tonight is a night for joy and celebration. What am I worrying about? It’ll be fun. I’ll have fun. She’ll have fun. And that’s all there’ll be to it.
moving in, moving on, moving up
The office is officially mine today. I know that Camilla wanted to be present for the grand opening, but it was something I wanted to do on my own. And so here I am, keys in my hand, unlocking the door to my office at eight A.M.
It’s empty. There are no desks, no computers, no telephones, nothing. But it’s mine.
Less than two weeks ago Jed thought he’d permanently stymied my career and now this. Wilmington-Wilkes won’t know what’s hit them. Have they realized they’ve lost clients yet? Even if they have it doesn’t matter, they won’t have strung it all together, not yet, and on Saturday, at the gracious home of Charles St. John, good old Kenneth will discover the awful truth that I’m in competition with him. It may not mean much to him on the night, but it will when he realizes that I’m the one who’s stolen his clients. Then he’ll be afraid. He’ll be very afraid.
I spend an hour walking from room to room, visualizing how it will look when it’s full of equipment and staff. My staff. Working for me.
On the way to the day’s meeting I stop at Boots and leave my precious Oi Man film at their one-hour processing. I leave a false name and number, and order double prints.
lunch with jed’s woman
A few hours later, with a new client and a packet of photos (so clear and deliciously incriminating) in my pocket, I catch a cab to Sarah’s office.
The stupid woman is waiting on the pavement, looking guilty and shifty as she tries to keep out of view of the office windows.
She doesn’t want anyone to see her with me. Has she kept our appointment secret? Has she hidden it from Jed?
Does anyone at work know her sordid tale? Has she confided in her girlfriends? Would they think less of her, knowing she’s chosen Jed but is still meeting me?
Does Sarah feel guilty? Does she feel like she’s cheating on Jed?
Is this how it all begins? With an innocent luncheon?
I’d like to ask how her affair with Jed started—I’m curious, I’d really like to know—but I can’t. It would make me seem jealous and upset and that’s the last impression I want to give.
But when did it move from an attraction to a kiss then a cuddle and then finally a full-blown affair? They’d met a number of times at my Wilmington-Wilkes office outings, but at which one did they reveal their interest in one another? At the Christmas party? That spring boat trip on the Thames? Jed had my home number—did he phone Sarah one night when he knew I was working late? And was it a matter of weeks or days from the first illicit meeting to the nudity?
I’ll never know the truth.
And that saddens me.
It would hurt Alex, but I feel that he needs to know, that I need to know, that it would make that little bit inside me that occasionally responds with Alex’s conscience a little harder and more steady. That it would make Alex more like me, that all of me would think as Alexander.
But give it time. I’m getting better at being Alexander with every day that passes.
We make small talk as we walk to a little café around the corner and as we’re eating our sandwiches I realize that she’s wearing the blue silk blouse I gave her for Christmas.
Is she trying to remind me of how much I cared for her? Does she think I’ll go easy on her if I recall how much I loved her?
It won’t work, Sarah. Alex would have fallen for your ploy. But I’m not Alex. And I will never be him again.
I think she’s surprised at how good I look, that she’s a bit shocked that I’m so happy and positive, so put together and confident. Poor Sarah. Have I hurt her feelings? Did she expect me to commit suicide over the loss of her love? Is that what she wanted? Would she have felt flattered then? Would she have had a tale to tell at parties for the rest of her life? Would it have given her comfort in her old age to know how much she once was loved?
I smile at her across the table and I know that she’s going to be mine again. Mine to do with what I will. And I’ll have her, but it won’t be for long. It’s not like she’d fit into my new life and I hardly want to reward her for what she did to me. But I can be civil, I can keep up the front, I will be a gentleman. For now. I plan to do this properly. And it won’t be with vicious words. Those wounds can heal too easily.
As we chat about this and that, Sarah flirts with me. I was with her for two years. I know the signals. The coy laugh, the smiles, the blushes, the rapt attention to my words.
What’s the matter, Sarah? Are you missing having two men to fuck you? Is skinny Jed not enough to satisfy your baser urges?
“So where are you working now?” asks Sarah, fluttering her eyelashes.
I’m spending every second of every day working toward the moment when I crush Kenneth and Jed beneath the heel of my boot. And then I’ll see Jed cast out into the street in rags. Will you love him then?
“Sorry,” I say, thinking, That’s a good touch, it’ll throw her off the scent, Alex used to say sorry all the time, “it’s a secret.” I smile to take the sting out of my words. “I had to sign a contract saying I wouldn’t talk about it.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire. Alex was never a liar. The worst lie of my life as Alex was telling my father that the hairpiece he bought for himself when he reached sixty looked completely natural. (He was just so happy and pleased with himself, he thought it made him look dashing and young, and it put a spring back into his step, so who was I to tell him it wouldn’t even fool a seven-year-old?)
“Come on,” she says, batting her eyelashes, her lips soft and curving into a smile, “you can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
Not even Jed. She doesn’t say the words but we both think them. They hover in the air like a bad smell in a closed room.
The wench. As if I’d believe anything she has to say. Has she been trying to lull me into a false sense of security so that I’ll tell her? Has this all been a ploy? Has she been flirting merely to ferret out my secret? Does it drive her crazy that I’m suddenly doing well for myself? That she no longer has any say over the smallest details of my life?
“Sorry,” I say, “I can’t.”
She rolls her eyes. “You work in advertising, Alex. It’s not top se
cret. You’re hardly an undercover agent in MI6.”
I almost order her to call me Alexander, but I stop myself in time. Let her think I’m still the same old me, that I’m merely trying to change. Let her think I’ve finally discovered that backbone she was always nagging me about. Let her think I’m trying to change so that I can win her back.
Oh, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, how much should you be punished?
The scales of justice will have to be weighed.
Should Sarah suffer equal to what I suffered? Or do the laws of vengeance demand that my revenge is twofold, threefold, or even higher?
What punishment is enough for what she did to me?
women and men and retirement
Suckers. That’s all I can say about those poor working stiffs out there. I should know: I used to be one of them. Now that my generation is expected to support this vast bubble of the population that will soon reach retirement age they tell us that we need to look out for ourselves, that by the time we want to retire there won’t be any state money left.
Well, I can tell you what will happen: everyone my age will work for the next thirty-five years, they’ll reach sixty-four and then the bloody retirement age will be moved. It’ll be upped to seventy-five. And then, get this, when we reach seventy-four, it’ll be moved to eighty or eighty-five.
Sure, sure, they tell us that we’ll be living longer. But will we be any healthier? Will a ninety-year-old fresh retiree have all the spry energy of the sixty-five-year-old who could have retired a few years before?
No. Of course not.
Too right I want to live as long as possible. But I want to have quality of life, not just quantity. (And having a long retirement is part of that quality.)
And I know what I’m about to say is going to offend 99 percent, maybe 98 percent if I’m lucky, of the female population, but it’s got to be said. Yes, I agree that women have a harder time succeeding at careers. Yes, they are paid less. Yes, they generally don’t get promoted as often. But so what? You’re the lucky ones. You should bless your lucky stars that you’re women. For you have a choice. You can give up your careers. You can stop working in your twenties or thirties and raise children. Yes, I know that’s hard work and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to do it myself, but you can escape the drudgery of spending three hours a day as a sardine on the Tube. And then when the babies become children and start going to school you can still stay at home.
You have a choice.
Most men don’t. It’s nine to five, or eight to seven—let’s be fair, those were my normal hours at Wilmington-Wilkes—five days a week for the rest of your bloody life.
That’s the sort of thinking that even the old Alex would have found depressing, would have decided it was best not to consider at all.
Thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty more years of work.
But I am Alexander. It won’t be like that for me. I won’t let it be like that for me.
revenge is in the air
(and i’ve a spring in my step)
I hum the tune to “Love is in the Air” singing, “Revenge is in the air,” to myself as I sort through Mrs. Oi Man’s photos. It’s rather a cheery melody and if I hadn’t already been happy it would have put me in a good mood.
I’ve changed into some of my old Alex clothes so that I won’t draw attention to myself and I’m wearing gloves (no fingerprints for me, no, sir). It won’t do me any harm to take precautions.
I flip through the photos, choosing the best three for home delivery. I didn’t get thirty-six good shots, but there are fifteen that I’m rather proud of. It’s a shame the Oi Man and his wife aren’t famous or I could have made a bob or two from the tabloids. I shrug. Que sera sera.
Fifteen pictures developed as double prints leaves me thirty photographs. It doesn’t matter that there are doubles, not for what I have in mind.
From my pile of boxes I dig out an old typewriter my mother gave me when I first went off to university and which I’ve been intending to dump at a charity shop ever since. I type the Oi Man’s address on the envelope, but I don’t know his real name and I can hardly type Mr. Oi Man, so I just label it “To the Male Head of Household.” I’m hoping that he’s a tyrant and that he insists on his wife putting all the post into a pile so that he can open it when he gets home.
But it doesn’t really matter if the envelope never reaches him: I’ve got other ways and means. My revenge against him will be as public as possible while keeping my identity a secret.
For a second I feel bad for Mrs. Oi Man. She’s going to be humiliated, too. It’s a shame she’ll be stuck in the crossfire, but really there’s nothing I can do. This is simply too good an opportunity to miss.
Once I’m finished with the typewriter I put it back among my boxes, slide the three best photos into the envelope and seal it shut with a moist sponge. No spittle and DNA for me. I attach the stamp in a similar manner, slide the envelope, photos, and a role of tape into the pockets of my jacket and I’m ready.
Revenge is in the air.
I stop whistling aloud as I leave the flat, I don’t want anyone to notice me, but I keep singing the words over and over in my head, having to fight an urge to skip and dance and run and laugh and leap into the air from sheer delight. Revenge is in the air.
Keeping my gloves on, I pop the envelope into a post-box near the pub where I spotted Mrs. Oi Man. Was it only yesterday?
Revenge is in the air.
I’m left with twenty-seven photographs and I work my way around the area, visiting twenty-seven pubs, having drinks in the less crowded places where I can’t avoid them, keeping to myself, using the lavatory at each establishment and leaving behind a nice little shot of Mrs. Oi Man and her lover taped to the wall above the urinals (I wear gloves, of course).
Revenge is in the air.
As the hours pass and I trudge between pubs, I think back over my lunch with Sarah. Only once, when she mentioned the play she’d seen last night, the play I’d told her I wanted to see only the day before I came home early and found my big surprise, was I tempted to throw the contents of my glass in her face and reveal her for the trollop she is. But I kept control, and when we said good-bye I drew her into my arms and I kissed her. I really kissed her, with tongues and everything, and I could taste the spices of the chicken tikka she’d had in her sandwich. And as we were kissing I let one hand stray to her breast and I felt the nipple harden beneath her silk blouse.
Then I released her and merely said good-bye.
I left the ball in her court. I wanted to make her ask me out. I didn’t want to make it too easy for her.
And the whore didn’t let me down.
We’re meeting for lunch on Friday.
Will she spend the next two days in heated anticipation or in frenzied guilt?
Revenge is in the air.
Finally my pub crawl is over and I head home and collapse on my bed. Despite my best intentions I’ve had too much to drink and I need a nap before I can go out for the evening. I set my alarm for an hour and fall into a deep sleep.
I thrash in bed, fighting off images of a forked-tongued demon loading me down with chains and I wake shouting, “No.” The bedclothes are tangled about my legs and I’m drenched in sweat.
I take a shaky breath.
I’ve been dreaming about the levels of Dante’s Inferno. Hell is not a pretty place.
I sit up and rub my eyes. Is this supposed to be some kind of prophetic dream? A warning that I’d better change my ways before it’s too late?
I snort. I know that it’s a message from myself, from the part of me that is still Alex, that he’s stronger while my consciousness sleeps.
The Oi Man deserves everything he gets. And Mrs. Oi Man, well, the whole street saw her. It’s not like she was trying to hide anything. It’s not my fault she conducts her affairs at her front door for anyone to see. The Oi Man was bound to find out sooner or later. I’m only helping things along. And making certain everyone knows he’s
a cuckold.
I try whistling my little song. Revenge is in the air.
It seems a little flat so I stop in midflow.
camilla keeps me on my toes
I feel like a trendy and out-of-season snowman as I set off on foot for Camilla’s wearing my trusty gloves from the pub crawl. I’m in my Alexander garb now (showered and clean, the smell of pub cigarettes washed away) and the gloves are definitely Alex-wear, but I’m not overly concerned. I’m still better dressed than anyone else on the street.
As I walk I sporadically throw away tiny pieces of chopped-up, snipped apart Oi Man negatives and unused photos, spreading minute portions of superfluous revenge into the bins across London. I’ve left no traces at home.
I keep walking, calling it a trudge because I like the word but not considering it a chore. Ten minutes after my pockets are emptied—I turned them both inside out to make certain—I slip off my gloves and at the seventh bin I toss them in. And when the gloves are gone I feel lighter, happier, and I start to hum my little tune. Revenge is in the air. It’s a jolly little song, but I sing it only briefly. My vendetta against the Oi Man is over. Whatever happens, I’ve done my bit. I am free of him. My only regret is that I cannot be a fly on the wall and see his face the first time he spots one of the photos and realizes it’s his wife. Maybe he’ll go to the pub tonight and he’ll be pissing side by side with one of his mates into the urinals and they’ll see one of the photographs, perhaps the one with the lover’s hand inside Mrs. Oi Man’s dressing gown, and they’ll recognize her at the same instant.
Revenge is in the air. I hum it one last time and then I stop. That part of my day is over. I’m nearing Camilla now and she’s done me no wrong. She didn’t contribute to Alex’s downfall.
I’m an hour late when I ring Camilla’s bell.
Being Alexander Page 18