by Marian Keyes
‘Why do we need solicitors? If we flew to Vegas for a quickie wedding, can’t we fly to Reno for a quickie divorce?’
‘Not that simple, babes. Think about it, we own a property together.’
‘Yeah, but we each know how much we contributed to… OK, I’ll get a solicitor.’ She couldn’t take another second of this, so she rearranged herself in her chair and asked with brittle gaiety, ‘How’s work been?’
‘Loco. Just got back from France and before that I was in Bali.’
Lucky bastard.
‘After here, I’ve got a quietish time until the shows.’ He nodded at Lisa’s tailored two-piece. ‘I haven’t seen that suit before.’
She inspected herself. ‘Nicole Farhi.’ Lifted from a shoot the previous January, she’d attempted to hang the blame on Kate Moss.
‘I don’t like it.’ Oliver said.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ She’d always valued his opinion on her clothes and hair.
‘Nothing. I mean I don’t like that I’ve not seen it before.’
She knew what he meant. She felt an aching affront that his hair was longer, that his watch was new, that since she’d last seen him he’d travelled halfway around the world and she’d known absolutely nothing about it.
‘You look different,’ he said.
‘Do I?’
‘No.’ He shook his head and laughed with an odd breath-lessness. ‘I don’t fucking know.’
She knew exactly what he meant. Extreme familiarity and empty distance hung together in strange coexistence. Both were present equally, so it felt that two different realities had been sliced and put back together incorrectly.
‘Excuse me!’ He interrupted himself to pick up her wrist and, with his other hand, turn her fingers to him. There was something he wanted to see. He was rough and the angle was painful. ‘You don’t wear your wedding ring any more?’ he accused, his brown eyes contemptuous.
She tugged her hand away and glared. Rubbing her sore wrist she accused, ‘You hurt me!’
‘You hurt me’
‘What’s the big deal with the ring?’ Her face was flushed and angry. ‘You’re the one talking divorce.’
‘You were the one who brought it up in the first place!’
‘Only because you were leaving me.’
‘Only because you gave me no choice.’
They glared at each other, breathing hard as emotion over-spilled.
‘Do you want,’ he demanded, his expression like thunder, his eyes never leaving her face, ‘to come up to my room?’
‘Come on.’ Already she was on her feet.
The first kiss was a frantic, teeth-clashing grind. Trying to do too much at once he pulled at her hair, tugged at her jacket, kissed her too hard, then tore off his shirt.
‘Wait, wait, wait.’ Looking exhausted, he laid his naked back against the door.
‘What?’ she mumbled, numbed by the sight of his hard polished chest.
‘Let’s start this again.’ He reached and pulled her to him with delicate tenderness. She buried her face in his chest. The special Oliver smell. Forgotten, but remembered with such stupefying, sense-filling impact. Peppery, sweet-spicy, and something unique and indescribable that didn’t come from soap or a bottle or from his clothes. A smell that was just him.
His familiarity brought tears to her eyes.
With unbearable fragility he placed a fluttery kiss on the corner of her mouth. As if it was the first time. Then another butterfly kiss. And another. Moving inwards slowly, creating pleasure that was almost indistinguishable from pain.
Not moving, barely breathing, she let him administer kisses.
Sex with Oliver was the one time in her life when Lisa played passive. When she wasn’t controlling or rapacious or proactive or voracious. She always let him be in charge and he loved it.
‘I look into your eyes and you’re not even there,’ he often used to remark. ‘You’re just this whimpery, helpless little girl.’
She knew he was turned on by the contrast between her usual bolshiness and such bedroom passivity, but that wasn’t why she did it. With Oliver there was no need to be in charge. He knew exactly what to do. Nobody did it better.
The kisses moved from her mouth to her neck, her hairline. Her eyes closed, she groaned with pleasure. She could die now, she really could. She heard him whisper, his breath hot on her ear, ‘You’re gone, babes.’
Like a sleepwalker, she was led to the bed. Obediently she stretched out her arms for her jacket to be removed, lifted her hips for her skirt to come off. The smooth, cool sheets poured across the bare skin of her back. Her whole body was quivering, but she lay without moving. When he grazed her nipple with his mouth, she jerked as if she’d had an electric shock. How could she have forgotten how sensational this was?
The kisses moved downwards, ever downwards. He placed a tiny kiss on her stomach, so gentle it barely lifted the downy little hairs, but it flooded her with swollen sensation.
‘Oliver, I think I’m going to…’
‘Wait!’
The condom was the bum note, the one thing that reminded her that things weren’t the way they used to be. But she refused to let herself think about it. So he was probably having sex with others? Well, so was she.
When he entered her, a great peace settled. She exhaled long and clean, all tension fleeing. For a second she savoured her absence of agitation until he began to drive himself into her with long, slow thrusts. She intended to enjoy this. She knew she would.
Afterwards she wept.
‘Why are you crying, baby?’ He cradled her to him.
‘It’s just a physical thing,’ she said, already regaining control of who she really was. Enough of that passive stuff. ‘People often cry when they’ve come.’
Their earlier anger and discomfort had been burnt off by passion. Instead they lay in bed, talking idly, wrapped around each other in affection that was bizarrely comfortable. It was as if they’d never been apart, never fought acrimoniously, never thought with bitterness of each other. Not that either of them was naïve enough to think that the sex indicated that a reunion was on the cards. Even when their fighting had been at its ugliest, they’d had sex. Amazing sex. It had seemed to provide an outlet for all that excess of emotion.
Absently she swept her hands along the undulation of his biceps. ‘Still working out, I see. What can you bench-press now?’
‘One hundred and thirty.’
‘I’m impressed!’
After midnight, conversation wound down further and further until eventually he yawned. ‘Let’s go to sleep, babes.’
‘’K,’ she said drowsily. There was no question that she leave, they both knew that. ‘I’ll just go to the bathroom.’
After she’d washed her face, she used his toothbrush. She did it without thinking and it was only after she’d finished that she noticed.
When she returned from the bathroom she put her chilly feet between his thighs to warm them, the way she’d always done. Then they slept, as they had slept almost every night for four years, spooned together. She curled into a ‘C’, with him curled into a bigger ‘C’ around her, hugging her length, his palm warm on her stomach.
‘Night night.’
‘Night.’
Silence.
Into the darkness, Oliver remarked, ‘This is really weird.’ She could hear his pain and confusion. ‘I’m having an affair with my wife.’
She closed her eyes and pressed her spine into his stomach. The rigid tension that kept her back teeth permanently clamped together loosened, lessened and dissolved. She slept better than she had in a long, long time.
In the morning they slipped with almost alarming ease into their old routine. The pattern of domesticity that they’d shared every morning for four years. Oliver got up first and organized coffee. Then Lisa hogged the bathroom while he seethed outside trying to chivvy her along. When he pounded the door and yelled, ‘C’ mon babes, I’ll be late!’ the déjà vu
was so intense she had a long, dizzy moment when she couldn’t remember where she was. She knew it wasn’t home but…
When she emerged swaddled in towels, she grinned, ‘Sorry.’
‘You’d better have left me some dry towels,’ he warned.
‘’Course I have.’ She scooted across to gulp some coffee. And waited.
She heard the rush of the shower being turned on, then a while later the sudden cessation of its pounding. Any minute now…
‘Aw, Lisa.’ Oliver’s echoey complaint issued, as expected. ‘Babes! You’ve only left me a naffing face-cloth! You always do this.’
‘It’s not a face-cloth,’ Crouching with laughter, Lisa came into the bathroom. ‘It’s much bigger.’
Oliver scorned the hand-towel that Lisa demonstrated. ‘That’s not even going to dry my knob!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she teased tenderly, and unwound one of her own towels. ‘See, I’m going to give you the shirt off my back.’
‘You’re a trollop,’ he grumbled.
‘I know,’ she nodded.
‘You really are un-fucking-believable.’
‘Oh, I know,’ she agreed, with extreme sincerity.
Alternately mocking and soothing, Lisa dried his hard shiny body. It was an activity that she’d always loved, though some parts of his body got more attention than others.
‘Hey, Lees,’ Oliver eventually said.
‘Mmmm?’
‘I think my thighs might be dry now.’
‘Oh… yeah.’ They shared a wry look.
As they got dressed, across the room she suddenly noticed something almost as familiar as herself. Before she could stop herself, she’d exclaimed, ‘Oi, that’s my LV holdall!’
And it was. He’d used it to pack some of his stuff the day he’d left.
Instantly the room was dense with the ugly emotions of that day. Oliver furious–again. Lisa angrily defensive–again. Oliver objecting that theirs was no longer a proper marriage. Lisa sarcastically telling him to divorce her.
‘I’ll give it you back.’ Oliver proferred the holdall hopefully, but it was no good. The mood was sombre and, in silence, they finished getting ready for work.
When she couldn’t stall any further, Lisa said, ‘Well, bye.’
‘Bye,’ he replied. To her surprise she had tears in her eyes.
‘Aw, don’t cry.’ He bundled her in his arms. ‘C’ mon, Editor-Girl, you’ll smudge your make-up.’
She managed a wet giggle, but her throat ached as if a big round stone was stuck in it. ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us,’ she admitted, in a low tone.
‘Well,’ he shrugged. ‘Shit happens. Did you know that –’
‘– two in three marriages end in divorce,’ they said together.
With effort, they managed a laugh, then disengaged.
‘And at least it’s amicable now,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Like, we’re, you know, talking to each other.’
‘Exactly,’ he cheerfully agreed. She was distracted by the sheen of his lilac linen shirt against the silky chocolate of his throat. Jesus, that man knew how to dress!
As she pulled the door closed, he called, ‘Hey, babes, don’t forget.’
Her heart lifted and she opened the door again. Forget what? I love you?
‘Get a lawyer!’ He wagged his finger and grinned.
It was a beautiful sunny morning. She walked through the buttery sunshine to work. She felt like shit.
41
Lisa suddenly realized that no one had mentioned the shows. Or should she say, The Shows!!! She could never think of them without seeing them lit up in neon. They were the highlight of an editor’s job. Twice a year, jetting off to the buzzy hub of Milan or Paris. (She flew everywhere else but the shows were so glamorous that naturally one ‘jetted’ to them.) Staying at George V or Principe di Savoia, being treated like royalty, getting front-row seats at Versace, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel, receiving flowers and gifts simply for showing up. The four-day circus teeming with egomaniac designers, neurotic models, rock-stars, film-idols, sinister millionaires in gold, chunky jewellery, and, of course, magazine editors – eyeing each other with savage hatred, checking out how high their seat was in the pecking order. Party after party, in art galleries, nightclubs, warehouses, abbatoirs (some of the more cutting-edge designers just didn’t know where to draw the line). Where you simply couldn’t be more at the centre of the universe if you tried, dear.
Of course, it was written in stone that you bitched that the clothes were unwearable nonsense designed by misogynistic wankers, that the post-show presents weren’t as lavish as the previous year’s, that the best hotel room was always bagsed by Lily Head-ley-Smythe, and what a huge pain it was having to travel a mile outside the city-centre to see some young hotshot display his groundbreaking collection in a disused bean-canning plant, but it was still unthinkable not to go. And it hit her like an avalanche of Kurt Gieger loafers that there had been no talk of the shows at Colleen. Seeing Oliver must have triggered thoughts of them.
It was probably all in hand, she soothed herself. There was likely to be a budget provision for both herself and Mercedes to go. But what if there wasn’t? The freelance budget she’d been given couldn’t accommodate the costs. Not even close. It could barely have paid for a croissant at George V.
With rising panic Lisa knocked on Jack’s door and didn’t wait for him to answer before she marched on in. ‘The shows,’ she said with an involuntary wheeze.
In surprise, Jack looked up, frozen in a hunched pose over what looked like a ton of legal documents. ‘What shows?’
‘Fashion shows. Milan, Paris. September. I will be going?’ Her pounding heart was too big for her chest.
‘Sit down,’ Jack gently invited, and instantly she knew those words were bad news.
‘I always went when I was editor of Femme. It’s important for the profile of the magazine that we have a presence there. Advertising, all that,’ came out in a garbled rush. ‘We’ll never be taken seriously if we’re not seen…’
Jack watched her, waiting for her to finish. The sympathy in his eyes told her she was wasting her time, but never say die.
A deep breath steadied her, ‘I am going?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jack crooned, his voice like Savlon. ‘We don’t have the budget. Not this year, anyway. Maybe when the magazine is more on its feet, when the advertising has increased.’
‘But surely I–?’
Sadly he shook his head. ‘We haven’t the money.’
It was the pity in his look as much as his words that finally hammered the truth home. The full awful reality slammed into her. Everyone else would be there. Everyone in the whole world. And they’d notice she wasn’t, she’d be a laughing stock. Then an even more awful thought filled her head. Maybe they wouldn’t notice.
Jack was pouring oil on troubled waters like no one’s business, promising to buy syndicated pictures from any number of sources, how Colleen could still do a fantastic spread, how the readers would never know that their editor hadn’t actually been…
It was then that Lisa realized she was crying. Not angry, tantrummy tears, but pure, sweet grief that she was powerless to control. Infinite sadness heaved out of her with each sob.
It’s only a few silly fashion shows, said her head.
But she couldn’t stop crying and from nowhere came a memory, completely unrelated to anything. Of when she was about fifteen, smoking and mooching around Hemel town centre with two other girls, complaining about how shit it all was.
‘Full of spastics,’ Carol’s slick mouth had twisted with bored disgust as she surveyed the high street.
‘And pricks with shit clothes and shit lives,’ Lisa had agreed nastily.
‘Look, that’s your mum, isn’t it?’ Andrea’s blue-mascaraed eyes were catty and amused as, with a nod of her backcombed head, she’d indicated a woman across the road.
With an unpleasant lurch Lisa saw her mother, dowdy and ridi
culous in her ‘best’ coat. ‘Her?’ Lisa had scorned, exhaling a long plume of smoke. ‘That’s not my mum.’
Back in Jack’s office she was saying something. Over and over, her voice muffled. ‘I’ve worked so hard,’ she insisted, into her hands. ‘I’ve worked so hard.’
She was barely aware of Jack, as he pawed around in his pockets. There was the rustle of cardboard, the click of a lighter, the acrid whiff of nicotine.
‘Can I have one?’ She lifted her tear-mottled face briefly.
‘It’s for you.’ He passed her the lit cigarette which she accepted meekly and sucked on as if it was saving her life. She smoked it in six hungry pulls.
Jack continued pawing. Passively, uninterestedly, she watched him pull a scratchcard from one pocket, a receipt from another. Finally, in his desk drawer, he found what he was looking for. A wodge of paper napkins bearing the SuperMac logo, which he pressed into her hand.
‘I wish I was the kind of man who carries a big, clean white hanky for this sort of eventuality,’ he said softly.
‘’s all right.’ She rubbed the shiny paper over her salt-tender cheeks. With each hit of nicotine, her weeping lessened, until the only sound she was making was a sporadic tearful gasp.
‘Sorry,’ she eventually said. Everything had slowed down; her heart rate, her reactions, her thoughts. She could go on sitting in this office for ever, too stupefied to be embarrassed, too sleepy to question what was happening to her.
‘Another one?’ Jack enquired as she stubbed out her cigarette. She nodded.
‘You know that they only picked you for this job because you’re the best,’ Jack said, passing her a lit cigarette, then lighting one for himself. ‘No one else could set up a magazine from scratch.’
‘Funny way to reward me,’ she said, another wheezy gasp jumping from her.
‘You are amazing,’ Jack said earnestly. ‘Your energy, your vision, your ability to motivate staff. You don’t miss a trick. I wish you could see how much we value you. You’ll get to the shows. Maybe not this year, but soon.’
‘It’s not just the job or the shows.’ The words spilled from her mouth.