Straight Talking

by Jane Green

  My heart sinks but I continue pushing, I need to hear that I’m different, that he’s not just doing it for a game.

  “But what does he do when he really fancies someone? How is he different?” I’m trying to sound as if I’m not really interested, but it obviously doesn’t work.

  A smile spreads on Adam’s face. “Why, are you interested?”

  “God no. You’ve got to be joking. He’s so in love with himself he’d never have time for anyone else. Nah, not my type at all.” Adam almost looks relieved, I suppose he wouldn’t want me to get hurt again, not after Simon.

  “But he’s a nice guy,” I say, wanting to keep talking about Andrew. “I’m surprised, I didn’t think he was this nice.”

  “Yeah, he is a nice guy, what did you expect from a friend of mine?” He’s smiling.

  “What about Simon, then?” Adam still sees Simon, not as often as he used to, admittedly, although I don’t think that’s anything to do with me. I think time has just come between them, and their friendship is not what it was. That’s just a guess though, Adam never discusses him with me because Simon has nothing to do with my life anymore, and nothing to do with my relationship with Adam.

  “Yeah, well, Simon. I know he was a shit to you, but we go back so long, he’s been a good friend to me.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” I didn’t mean to bring Simon into the conversation, I try and forget about Simon, and most of the time I do fine, just fine. But that phone call threw me, it really did.

  You gradually get over the pain. It doesn’t go away, not for a long time, but it becomes easier to live with. One morning you wake up and he’s not the first thing on your mind. And then a few months down the line you realize you’ve made it through half the day without thinking of him.

  Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years, but eventually you reach a point when you only think about them occasionally. You manage to do this because you don’t see them, you don’t hear about them, you try not to think about them.

  And then you bump into them walking down the street, or someone unexpected mentions their name, or the fuckers call in to your television program, and the memories come flooding back. But memories also become less painful in time, and I can talk about Simon now without really feeling anything. But I’d rather not. If you know what I mean.

  The restaurant suddenly seems to get cold. I shiver, and Andrew looks at me with concern. “Are you cold, Tash?”

  “Freezing,” I say, rubbing my arms to try and warm myself up. Andrew puts his big strong arm around me and rubs my shoulders and my back, and I lean into him, savoring the feeling, wanting to stay there forever.

  “You’re very sexy,” he again whispers into my ear. “I bet you’re great in bed.” Shit, this is ridiculous. I’m in a restaurant with all my friends being chatted up by a bloke who is probably just after a quick fling, and I’m not playing hard to get, I’m playing his game, except I’m not playing it very well because I know what will happen.

  You want to know what will happen? OK, I’ll tell you, and I know because this won’t be the first time this has happened, it’s just that I’m not sure whether I want it to happen again. I’m not sure whether I can cope.

  One night Andrew will phone me up and he’ll say something like, “What are you doing? Do you want to come over?” And because he lives in Clapham and because I have legs to shave and toenails to paint and I haven’t got time and every second is vital, I’ll say something like, “Why don’t you come over here instead?”

  And he’ll say something like, “Oh? Do you trust me in your flat?” And I’ll laugh throatily and sexily and say, “See you in an hour.”

  And then I’ll scrabble around the bathroom looking for a razor, and I’ll run back down to the bedroom with bits of toilet paper hanging off my legs where I’ve cut myself, and I’ll slap my makeup on and pull on my sexiest underwear.

  And in-between I’ll be frantically tidying up the living room, lighting the fire, lighting the candles, but not too many, don’t want to make it that obvious, even though we both know why he’s coming.

  And when he walks in he’ll see me, looking gorgeous and seductive in my faded 501s, a big white shirt and bare feet, and we’ll sit on the same sofa, sipping red wine, talking about rubbish.

  And then after a while the conversation will move to sex, as it always does when you both know what’s on the menu, and eventually he’ll put his glass down and say, “I’d better not drink anymore, I have to drive home.” And he’ll be looking into my eyes as he says this and I’ll look into my wineglass for a few seconds, then look back at him and I’ll say softly, “You don’t have to go. You could stay.”

  And he’ll put his wineglass on the table, sit back, and take my hands. We’ll both look down at his big strong hands stroking mine, and every sense I have will be heightened, and then he’ll lift one hand and stroke my cheek, and while the butterflies are fluttering so hard in my stomach I feel almost nauseous, he’ll kiss me.

  And the kiss will be long and passionate, and then I’ll lead him into the bedroom thinking, don’t get involved, Tasha. This is just a fuck. Don’t believe it will be anything more.

  And we’ll tear each other’s clothes off and he’ll be an incredible lover. He’ll be, as he is, self-assured, confident, he’ll know exactly what he’s doing.

  And he will stay, because he’s not that much of a bastard, and in the morning, once I’ve made him a coffee and walked him to the front door, he’ll be friendly, but he won’t touch me. The kisses and cuddles he gave me the night before were only for the night before. When he leaves he might give me a kiss on the lips, but he won’t open my mouth with his tongue, or lick the inside of my lips whispering, “I want to make love to you.”

  He’ll say something like, “I’ll give you a call,” and he may or may not add “sometime.” I’ll get up and go to work, and I’ll be too busy to think about him, but when I get home, later that night when I’m cleaning up his debris from the night before, I will think about him.

  And I’ll think about the way he kissed me, the way he held me, the way he murmured my name as he entered me, and the more I think about it the more I’ll want to see him again.

  And my telephone will turn into a silent black monster, sitting menacingly in the corner of my living room, accusing me of not being good enough, not being pretty enough, not being thin enough, because he doesn’t call.

  If I’m very lucky he might phone again in a couple of weeks, when he’s bored, or horny, and if we do make love again it won’t be making love, it will be fucking, and I’ll want him more. And more. And more. I’ll savor every sign of encouragement the bastard unwittingly gives me, and eventually, when he stops phoning and he’s found someone else, someone who he wants to be with, to take out for dinner, to spend days with, I’ll cry for a few hours, or maybe a couple of days, and then I’ll be fine.

  This is why I don’t want to respond to Andrew. Because I deserve better than a cheap fuck. Because I deserve to be the one they want to take out for breakfast. But I can’t bloody help myself, can I? Could you?

  8

  Jesus, do you know how long it’s been since I last had a fuck?

  9

  Sometimes you can tell when people have had happy childhoods, people like Andrew, and sometimes you get it completely wrong. I know for a fact people assume I have always been successful, popular, one of those people born with a silver spoon in their mouths.

  But let me tell you how wrong they are. How wrong you might be. This painted veneer hides a hell of a lot of pain. You think it will get better as you grow older. You think you’ll be able to sweep it under your Habitat rugs, but every time you have a relationship, those problems come back, and screw you up all over again.

  “When we’re adults we spend our lives trying to re-create our childhood homes, hmm? For some that means happiness, security, warmth. For others, like you, it means unhappiness, infidelity, insecurity, hmm?” I was
lying back in what I’ve come to call my shrink’s couch, although it’s not a couch, it’s a chair, and if you push the arms forward the back shoots backward and this shelf thing appears under your legs.

  This was sometime last year, and Louise was looking at me very intently as she said this, as she tried to explain why I attracted men who couldn’t commit, or weren’t faithful, or didn’t want me enough.

  “There was no consistency in your childhood,” she said, “and no trust.”

  “You’re right,” I nodded. “I don’t actually think I know how to trust,” I said slowly, thinking about each word as it came out of my mouth. “I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life.” Louise was nodding as I said this, gently encouraging me to dig a bit deeper and find the answers myself.

  I never thought of myself as being unhappy as a child, you see. I remember there being a lot of love at home, with few arguments. I remember telling Louise that and her seeming surprised. I think she expected there to be alcoholism, arguments, at the very least a few broken plates.

  But that isn’t my memory, honestly, although after I’d been seeing Louise for a while, I started to realize that the insignificant things were the things that mattered. It’s a bit like receiving compliments as an adult. If you’re anything like me, you can receive ten compliments and one insult. You immediately forget the compliments, while the insult plays on your mind for hours, days, sometimes years.

  “Let’s go back to what happened when you were eleven, hmm?” prodded Louise, gently but firmly. “When you first became aware of your father having affairs.”

  “I think the first time I became aware that there was something wrong was in the summer. I remember it being hot and sticky. I remember playing with my friends in the park down the road from the house.”

  “What were you playing?”

  “Rounders? I don’t know, something like that.”

  “Were you a good team player?”

  “I loved playing games even though I was never particularly sporty. I used to look at the girls and boys in my class and wish I could be like them. I was always good at art, occasionally English but I was always the last to be picked for any team. But I was quite good at rounders. I had good, what do you call it, hand-eye coordination, so even though I couldn’t run very fast, I was quite good at hitting the ball.

  “I came home and went to get something to eat, as I usually did. I used to walk in and pray my mother was upstairs, or out, so I could go to the fridge and make huge sandwiches, pre-dinner snacks, although I didn’t have a name for them then.

  “I always seemed to be hungry as a child, hence my rather rotund stomach and little chubby thighs. I didn’t understand emotional hunger then of course, I just thought I must have been a pig. My parents obviously thought so too, because even then, even at ten years old my mother was putting me on diets.

  “‘Well done,’ she’d say, if I managed to lose a few pounds off my chubby little frame. ‘That’s better.’ And I’d feel so proud, that I’d been able to do it, to please my mother. But of course it wouldn’t last. I’d go to school with a lunchbox filled with Ryvita, cottage cheese, fruit and a yogurt as a special treat.

  “And I’d sit in the playground at lunchtime surrounded by schoolfriends whose mothers had packed white bread sandwiches filled with processed cheese and thinly-sliced ham. They had Coca-Cola, Wagon Wheels, Club biscuits. I’d sit there and wait for them to finish, because they never did finish, and I’d be ready and waiting with little open mouth to hoover up the leftovers.”

  “Do you know what emotion you were trying to suppress with food?”

  “I suppose I never felt good enough. My parents had it all, or so it must have seemed to anybody peering through the windows of our comfortable, mock-Tudor, middle-class home.

  “My father, Robert, was a successful lawyer. Tall, handsome, and the apple of my eye. I was a complete Daddy’s girl and in turn he adored me. Whenever I fell, hurt myself, needed a cuddle I’d go running to Daddy, who would scoop me up in his arms and smother me with love.

  “My mother, Elaine, was a housewife. Tiny, petite, immaculately dressed all the time in designer clothes. The first woman in the street to try every new fashion, and the only woman to really look good in it. I loved my mother, at least I tried, but there was always a barrier. I could see her, even at the age of eleven, look me up and down disapprovingly.

  “‘Why can’t you be more like Helen?’ she’d say. ‘Look at her lovely slim ankles, why haven’t you got ankles like that?’ And she’d grab my ankles before laughing, while I took the insult, couched in affection, and carried it with me for the rest of my life.

  “‘You’d be so pretty if you lost a bit of weight,’ she’d say, dishing out biscuits to my friends and withholding the jar from me. She never actually said, ‘You’re not good enough. You’re not the daughter I wanted,’ but I could see it in her eyes, in those silent glances she used to give me, those looks that said I wish I’d had a different daughter. I wish I’d had a daughter like Helen.

  “Helen was my best friend. She was slim, pretty, well-spoken. She had shiny blond hair hanging in a perfect veil down her back. Every morning her mother used to plait her hair with different colored ribbons. She was so popular, and I was so grateful she was my best friend.

  “I was never hers you understand, she used to split her time between various people, and she used to tell me I was lucky she was my friend, because I wasn’t that pretty, but she liked me anyway, she liked my craziness when the adults weren’t watching.

  “I think even at eleven I was mature, aware that I was slightly different, the cat that walks by herself. I wasn’t happy, but there was no real reason for it, until that summer’s day when I knew something was wrong.

  “Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I had been playing rounders, and I came into the kitchen to find my father sitting at the table with my mother standing at the other end of the room, glaring at him. I don’t think they heard me, I don’t think they knew I was there, and I crept back on tiptoes, thinking that my father looked guilty, although I’m not even sure I knew what it was then. I just knew he looked the way I looked when my mother was accusing me of eating a cake, and I had done it, but I was telling her I hadn’t.

  “I crept back and stood just beside the door frame, just out of sight, and I stood and listened to their conversation while my heart was pounding because I knew this was a grown-ups conversation, this wasn’t meant for my ears.

  “‘How could you?’ my mother was shouting, a rhetorical question, but of course I didn’t understand the meaning of the word then. ‘What about me, what about Tasha? Didn’t you think about us?’

  “My father didn’t reply, so I peeked around the door frame and saw that his elbows were on the table and his head was in his hands. I suddenly became very frightened, when didn’t he think of me, what was he doing?

  “‘You really want to throw away your marriage for a lousy affair with some cheap tart? This isn’t real. You selfish bastard. I don’t even want to talk to you, I want you to leave. I want you out of here tonight.’

  “I ran upstairs with my hands covering my ears. I didn’t want to hear any more. I’d heard too much already. I threw myself on my bed and instantly started crying, big baby heaving sobs. My parents were going to divorce. Friends at school had divorced parents. It meant they got extra presents on their birthdays and at Christmas. It meant that when they saw their fathers on the weekends they did extra special things like go to the zoo, or amusement parks, or picnics in the park.

  “But I didn’t want that. I loved my father and I wanted my parents to stay together. My parents getting divorced was the worst thing that could ever happen to me, and they must be getting divorced. Why else would my mother tell my father to leave?

  “He didn’t leave that night. I came downstairs a bit later on, terrified at what I would find, which turned out to be a frosty silence, an atmosphere you could have cut with the smooth round ankle of my Barb
ie doll.

  “My father couldn’t look at me, and my mother tried to pretend that everything was normal, but I, of course, knew that it wasn’t. Knew that perhaps things would never be normal again.

  “I cried again later that night, and this time my mother happened to be passing my bedroom door. She came in and sat on the bed, putting her arms around me and stroking my hair. I think she started crying too, but after a while she said, ‘Did you hear Daddy and me having a fight?’

  “I nodded sadly while hiccuping, and looked up at her with tear-stained cheeks. ‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

  “‘But you told him to leave.’ She looked shocked, she didn’t think I’d heard that bit.

  “‘He’s not going to leave, darling. It’s nothing important, just a little fight. Grown-ups sometimes argue about things but they get better, it will all be fine. Sometimes you get angry with Helen, don’t you?’

  “I nodded. ‘And sometimes you have a little argument with Helen, and you don’t talk to each other for a little while and then it’s fine and you forget all about it and you’re friends again. That’s what it’s like for me and Daddy too. It’s just a little argument; I’m not very happy with Daddy at the moment.”

  “‘But you’re going to get divorced.’ The hiccups became sobs again, as I considered the prospect of a fatherless family.

  “‘No we’re not, darling. I promise you, we’re not going to get divorced.’

  “But I told Helen they were going to get divorced. I didn’t tell her because I was proud, I told her because there wasn’t anyone else to tell.

  “‘An affair means he doesn’t love your mum anymore, he loves somebody else,’ she stated firmly. ‘And then they’ll divorce and you won’t see your father except every other weekend, and when you do he’ll be with his new girlfriend.’ ”

  “How did Helen know about affairs and divorce?” asks Louise.