I decide to go one step further: I don’t have the patience for a long courtship.
“I love you,” I say.
An instant response. “Oh, Alexander, I love you, too.”
“See you tomorrow,” I say.
“I can’t wait.” Her voice is low, sexy, throbbing, promising a great deal.
It takes me a few minutes to end the call, but when I do I’m feeling calmer, more in control. Everything’s going to come together exactly as I want it. Success and revenge, revenge and success, life is awfully fine.
shrine to a younger me
To me it’s always been just my bedroom. My room with my things. Exactly the way I left everything when I moved away from home at eighteen. My things, my stuff, all of it ready and waiting for my return visits. There to make me feel comfortable and cozy and immediately at home. I may not have slept in this house for more than ten nights a year since I finished university, but it’s still the place I think of as home, or my permanent home even if I no longer live there and have no intention of ever living there again.
But Amber gazes around my room and, with a touch of awe in her voice, says, “It’s a shrine to you, their eldest son and heir. My parents boxed up all my belongings and turned my room into a guest room the month after I left.”
She turns slowly in a circle and stares at my things: my athletics medals (fun runs I entered by the dozen when I was a teenager where every contender gets a medal, hence my seeming prowess when in fact I never finished in the top third of any race), posters of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Metallica, shells collected on family holidays from beaches around the world and, worst of all, a poster of Princess Leia I’d put up at the foot of my bed when I was twelve and never got round to taking down.
But Amber doesn’t laugh, rather she seems to take everything in, as if it will allow her to understand me better.
A shiver sweeps up my back, starting at the lowest point of my spine and traveling upward faster than a thought, and I just have to get her out of there. I feel as if she’s staring into my soul and it’s scary. She’s not supposed to know me, not the real me, she’s only supposed to see what I want her to see. I don’t mind her learning embarrassing tales from my childhood, but this is different. I thought I didn’t mind her knowing things about me, but now that she’s here, now that she’s in my bedroom, now that she’s inside this room filled with my likes, my dreams, my past, myself, I’m uncomfortable.
I should have known this would happen, I should have had an excuse prepared, I should have refused my mother when she practically ordered me to give Amber a guided tour of the house when we arrived a few minutes early and she hadn’t finished laying the table and wouldn’t let us help. To distract Amber before she can think about the true significance of Princess Leia being in the position she’s in, I draw Amber into my arms and kiss her. I kiss her until her eyes close, until her senses are befuddled, until thoughts of me as a teenager are driven away.
women and men and misunderstandings
The meal goes well. My mother has clearly taken a shine to Amber and all her disappointed grandmotherly genes have found a new focus. Despair over the loss of Sarah and the delay that that will cause in my fathering children has been forgotten now that she has a new target on which to concentrate. My father likes Amber, too, helped by her laughter at his jokes. He always likes a fresh audience. My brother and his wife are practically oozing welcome-to-the-family slogans out of every pore. It’s downright embarrassing and from their smirking looks and smug comments about my “friendship” with Amber you’d think this was the first time I’d brought a woman home to meet my family. If they keep acting like this it might very well be the last.
There’s not a single mention of Sarah and I’m doubly grateful for Amber’s presence; I didn’t want to have to relive the whole sorry affair—I have no need to open up and share my feelings to make myself feel better. The revenge is doing that quite well on its own.
Dessert is over and we’re all having coffee and being quite civilized when my mother starts her offensive. She bides her time carefully, waiting until I’m in a conversation with my brother, telling him about my latest client.
“And what do you think is the best age to start having children?” my mother asks Amber.
Everyone is suddenly very busy drinking coffee, pretending not to listen, hiding their smiles behind their cups. We’ve been through this before. Many times. This is one of my mother’s favorite topics—almost a crusade, you might say. And not, she’s insisted in the past, a deliberate attempt to embarrass us.
She carries on before I can stop her: “Too many of you young women, these days, want to wait until you’re in your thirties, but you need all the energy of your twenties. Toddlers are hard work. And how old are you, Amber?”
“Mum,” I say sternly, “Amber is my guest.”
“Yes, dear,” says my mother, smiling sweetly, pretending to be innocent when we all know she has ulterior motives, “I’m aware of that. But I don’t get to meet enough young women and I’m interested in her opinion on this matter. You know how important it is to me.”
What is my mother doing? I don’t want Amber thinking about babies. I don’t want Amber thinking about babies and me together. It’s not a context with which I’m comfortable. Most women don’t need encouragement to start thinking of marriage and children, and I certainly don’t want my mother to be giving Amber dreams of a future together that’s not going to happen. It can’t happen, I can’t let it happen. I won’t let it happen. We’re not serious, this is just a bit of fun, that’s all.
Amber laughs. “I think you’d better concede defeat,” she tells me, then turns to my mother. “I’m still in my twenties, you needn’t write me off as a lost cause yet.”
My mother smiles. “You really should promise yourself that you’ll have your first child by the time you’re thirty. I’ll just have a word with my son and see what I can do.”
There’s a pause and we’re all staring at one another, we can’t quite believe our ears, and I find I can’t look at Amber. Then my mother bursts out laughing and we all join in.
“And you thought I couldn’t tell a joke,” says my mother.
“That wasn’t a joke,” I say, finally able to meet Amber’s eyes and finding her smiling and laughing along with the rest of us, “that was cruelty.”
After that things are easier and there’s no more talk of babies. Everyone assumes that Amber and I are an item. Well, we’re here together, that is true, but we’re not, you know, an item. Not really.
At last the grandfather clock chimes eleven and I’m given a reprieve from the delighted look in my mother’s eye. We say good-bye and we’re able to make our escape.
My parents watch with fond smiles as I help Amber into the car and slide behind the wheel. They wave us off, looking like a busybody sitcom couple as I pull out of the drive in my Jag.
I don’t want to think about dinner, I don’t want to talk about what happened, I don’t want to reassure Amber that my family love her (they do), I just want it to be like it was.
So I chat about this and that, I’m lively, I’m amusing, I’m entertaining as I drive us home, but we don’t talk, not about anything real. We’re happy and excited and everything’s back to normal as I park and we go inside and straight to Amber’s bed. Afterward I wrap strands of her hair around my fingers. She keeps glancing at me and then away. Poor baby has something to say.
“What is it?” I ask gently, tucking the duvet around her shoulders so she won’t get cold.
“It’s about us.”
Oh dear, here it comes.
“What about us?” I ask.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be awkward.”
I kiss her on the cheek. What a darling. She’s such a little angel. “You’re not being awkward,” I say. “Ask away.”
“Are we a couple now?”
“A couple?” I stop fiddling with her hair and look into her eyes. After tonight I sho
uld have expected this. My mother’s comments were hardly conducive to continuing our casual arrangement without discussion.
“Are we seeing only each other?”
What can I say? I can hardly tell her the truth. I don’t want to be cruel to Amber. I didn’t want to lie to her, I was hoping to avoid the issue altogether, but it’s too late for that now. I’ll have to tell her what she wants to hear. What she needs to hear.
She rushes on before I can speak: “It’s just that, well, I’d feel awkward if you wanted to sleep around. I don’t think I could do it. I don’t want to sleep with anyone else.”
And so you shouldn’t.
“But I don’t want you to sleep with anyone else either,” she says, “not if you’re sleeping with me. I want to be in a relationship or out of one. I can’t handle the limbo world of anything in between. It would destroy me.”
It would destroy me.
Those four little words freeze the lie on my lips. I’m silent. I stare into her eyes, stricken.
It would destroy me.
“Say something,” she says.
It would destroy me.
I can’t lie to her. But I can’t tell her the truth. She’d hate me. And I don’t want her to hate me.
“Say something, Alex.”
I’m not Alex. That sniveling coward would never be in this situation. He would never have had the balls to sleep with Amber in the first place—it would have taken him six months to ask her out to dinner.
“Please,” she says, “say something. You’re scaring me.”
I can’t speak. I say nothing.
It would destroy me.
I’m going to marry Camilla, or a woman just like her. I need to marry a woman like Camilla. I have to marry a woman like Camilla.
It would destroy me.
I say nothing.
“You’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?” asks Amber, tears pooling in her eyes. She scoots away from me, holding the duvet above her breasts, shielding herself from view.
I stare at her. It’s like I’m mute. I cannot speak.
It would destroy me. It would destroy me. It would destroy me.
A few words, one or two little lies, and all would be well. She’d believe me, I could make her believe me, but I can’t.
You pathetic worm, I scream at myself, you want her, you want to keep her, you like her. What the hell are you doing? You’re pushing her away.
It would destroy me.
I can’t be the one to destroy her.
You fool, you’re not nice, you don’t have to be nice. You’ll destroy her anyway. Can’t you hear her crying?
It’d be worse when I marry Camilla. Or Camilla’s clone.
I should never have slept with her. I should never have given in to the temptation. I’m supposed to be strong and look out for her kind. I’m supposed to be a defender of the meek and mild, the protector of the nice. What was I thinking? I don’t want the innocent to suffer. Especially not this innocent.
It would destroy me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
What have I done? What have I done?
I flee the room to the sounds of heartrending sobs.
aftershocks
I lock myself in my room and try and count the daisy petals, but my eyes won’t focus. Why won’t they focus?
I can hear Amber’s sobs.
Some time later, it might have been ten minutes, it might have been two hours, Noreen pounds on my door and shouts at me. I know she’s there; I can vaguely hear her voice with one small part of my brain, but the only thing that matters is Amber’s tears.
I never wanted her to cry.
I wish I could comfort her. But I can’t.
I leap from my bed and begin to pace, feeling like a caged lion on his first day in the zoo.
Eventually Noreen goes away and I know this is my chance to escape; so I grab a change of clothes for tomorrow and I sneak out of the flat like a thief.
I drive as if the minions of hell are pursuing me and I head to Camilla’s. She’s asleep when I arrive but she’s happy to see me.
I’m frenzied for sex. I let her think it’s because I missed her, because I haven’t seen her since I declared my love for her. But I need the stimulation, I need the relief. I need it to regain my control.
Camilla’s very accommodating tonight. Is it because she’s enjoying herself? Or am I being rewarded for saying those three little words?
Camilla sleeps and I stare at the ceiling, hearing Amber’s sobs inside my head.
It would destroy me.
so long, sarah
I must have slept, for I wake up with the sun shining on my face. The weather matches my mood. Bright and crisp and ruthlessly cold.
I can no longer recall why I was feeling guilty about Amber. I did the girl a favor. She should thank me. She should never have hung around Alexander if she couldn’t handle it. Good thing I cut her loose before she got really burned.
Camilla barely wakes as I shag her, but I don’t mind: I’m in a hurry and I want to head right into the office and get to work.
Midmorning Sarah rings me on my mobile. “Alex, can we meet?”
My name, you whore, is Alexander.
Sarah’s hesitant, she’s uncertain, she obviously knows about Jed. “I’d like to talk.”
Of course we have to meet. It’s not finished yet. There’s still some revenge to be had.
“Lunch?” I say. “Sandwiches in the rose garden in Regent’s Park?” When we were first dating we used to spend lazy Sundays sunbathing in Regent’s Park and Sarah always insisted on smelling at least seven varieties of rose before we were allowed to leave.
“I’d like that.” Her voice is husky now.
Poor dear. Has she misinterpreted my remark? Does she take this invitation as the seeking of a renewed commitment? Well, we shall see. She’ll learn the truth soon enough.
“I’ll get the sandwiches,” I say. It’s the least I can do.
At one o’clock I enter the rose garden, Prét á Manger bag in hand.
Sarah’s already there, waiting, sitting on a blanket in the shade. Did she pop home and retrieve the blanket? Did she have to lie to Jed? Is he sitting at home moping? Is he feeling a little low?
“Alex,” she says, as I sink down on to the blanket beside her.
I don’t kiss her cheek. I feel like grinning. I never have to touch her again. I could burst into song it makes me so happy.
“Hi, Sarah,” I say. I open the bag and hand her a sandwich and a bottle of water. It’s fizzy water, which I know she doesn’t like.
“Thanks.” Sarah takes one bite, chews methodically, then sets the food aside. “Is it true?”
I unwrap my sandwich and start to eat, savoring the taste of the Brie. I do so love the taste of cheese. I chew and swallow. “Is what true?”
“Jed.”
I shrug. “Is it true that he was sacked? Yes.”
She waits, and when I don’t say anything else, she sighs. “He says that you got him sacked. That it was your fault.”
“Not true,” I say. “It’s his fault. All this is his fault. He’s the one who started it.”
“I knew he was lying. I knew he was.” She slides across the blanket, throws her arms around me. She tries to kiss me on the lips, but I shift so she kisses my neck instead.
Ugh. Get away. You’re touching me.
Sarah pulls away, smiling now, her posture no longer tense. “I stood up for you when Jed was saying all those horrible things. He was awful, Alex. He was swearing and vowing revenge. That wasn’t the Jed I know. I knew. I kicked him out.”
“Did you tell Jed about us?”
“Yes, I told him.”
“You ditched Jed? You dumped him?”
“Yes. He was awful.”
What a bitch. She has absolutely no sense of loyalty. Not to anyone but herself.
I stay silent.
“Say something,” she says.
It’s too reminiscent
of Amber.
This time I speak. I want to speak, I want Sarah to be wounded. “What do you want me to say?”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“Of course I’m happy.” And I am. My goal has been to shag her and then get her to dump Jed. It’s worked. I’ve succeeded.
“And you’ll move back in?” she asks.
“Sorry?”
“Us. You and me. We’re getting back together, aren’t we? There’s nothing to stop us now that Jed’s gone. I’m so sorry, Alex. I don’t know how you can forgive me. I was awful. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to leave you for Jed. I got carried away. I’m sorry.”
You never meant to leave Alex for Jed? But you didn’t mind having an affair with Jed, is that what you’re saying?
“I don’t know, Sarah. I don’t know if I want to live with you.” That’s a lie. I do know and the answer is no. “I thought we were just spending time together for old times’ sake.”
“You thought I fucked you out of habit?”
“Not habit, Sarah. You wanted me. It was a simple interaction between consenting adults. We both knew you had no problem having sex with a man other than your boyfriend. I didn’t think you’d have any qualms. I thought you’d enjoyed it.”
“You bastard. How dare you?”
“Jed’s right, Sarah. I did get him fired. It was all me. But it’s justice, you see, for that’s what he did to me. He lied and got me sacked. I merely told the truth to get him sacked.”
Her face drains of color. “All this, you and me, this was all about Jed?”
“No, no,” I say. “It was about you. I loved you, Sarah. More fool me. Look how my love was repaid.”
“We were good together. We were.” She’s crying now. “Why are you doing this? What’s happened to you, Alex? You’ve changed. I don’t know you anymore.”
“But I have you to thank. You helped cause me to change. Don’t you like the new me?”
Sarah stands, still crying. “So this is it? You don’t love me? We’re over?”
Being Alexander Page 24