There were those feverish moments at the beginning when I dropped J off on a Saturday morning. Eliza would set him up with maths exercises at her dining table, then she’d dash to the kitchen where I would be waiting. We’d be released to each other for two minutes, with the blinds pulled down, the noises contained inside of us. That was all it took, to be honest, two minutes. Often less than that. I couldn’t stay any longer with J in the flat. We’ll never return to those reckless days.
After the supermarket, we’ll drive the long way home. The quick route takes us past St Christopher’s, where J was a day pupil for a time. That didn’t last. They didn’t know how to accommodate the stammering. There was a rash of bullying, then two girls in the upper school became pregnant, one by a teacher. That was enough excitement for me. We pulled him out at the end of the Christmas term and sent him to Eastbourne. V wasn’t happy for him to go, but I was adamant. Eliza thought it was a good idea, though. V believes a child belongs at home, but what is the use if the school environment turns him into a delinquent? That was my reasoning and it didn’t take long to erode V’s resistance. This way we can argue to our hearts’ content during the week and not worry about the boy overhearing. Also, she’s progressing in her job in the City; she couldn’t have managed all those late nights looking after J as well. Everyone wins eventually.
‘What happened to the maple syrup?’ V asks before she has finished unpacking the bags.
I realise we have forgotten it, but I say, ‘Probably at the bottom,’ in order to buy a millisecond of peace.
‘It wasn’t on the le … le … le … list, Mum,’ J attempts.
‘Yes, I know that, but I specifically asked you both before you left,’ she says. ‘It was only a couple of hours ago. Just one little thing to remember. And what’s all this pineapple for?’
‘Why don’t I run to the shop down the road?’ I say. ‘I’m sure they’ll have some.’
‘No, don’t. Don’t bother. There’s still a bit left.’ V sighs. ‘We’ll finish it off and I’ll buy the usual next week. They won’t have it in the corner shop.’
I don’t say anything and V doesn’t get herself worked up for a change. J wanders off to his room, to his computer.
V rarely asks me where I go during J’s class, and if she does I’ll say the library or the shops or I went for a drive. More often than not, I’m on the road. It would make more sense for me to buy the groceries while J’s at Eliza’s, but we have developed a routine of shopping together – he enjoys it, we enjoy it – so I always wait.
I’ve driven all over London during that hour, and out of the city, as far as time will allow. I’ll think of sales and marketing strategies, or ideas I suggested at work that did not come to fruition, or words I should have spoken but failed to because I thought of them too late or was embarrassed to utter. Mrs Carmichael, one of our longest-serving secretaries, lost her older brother to a stomach cancer that spread so fast he was gone within a month of the diagnosis. He was buried last week. She was in the middle of telling me that Brian Ferguson, who works in our Stockholm branch, would be joining us for the quarterly sales meeting. There was a moment when her words trailed off and she fell silent. I assumed she had lost her train of thought. I glanced up – she had that look on her face; she wasn’t quite in the room – and I guessed what she was thinking. I asked her what the matter was, regardless, but she only shrugged. Then the tears began to swell and spill. All I could do was stand and make noises – nonsense words – and lead her back to the grip of her desk. I could have told her to take the day off or taken her to a coffee shop or simply talked to her. Anything, rather than send her back to work. But it’s too late now.
Sometimes I’ll think about J and Eliza in her living room, with the dining table and chairs squashed into the corner and her spinster’s attempt to fashion a homely environment for one when what she wants most of all is a husband and four children. I’ll wonder what I’m doing with her, and should I break things off, and what happens to J if I do? How would I explain it to V? Should I stay with V? It goes on like this and becomes muddled and irksome.
*
V and I met on holiday in the Bahamas. I went alone for a week hoping to meet some carefree types in the bars and nightclubs. I was twenty-six. I had booked a package deal, but the designated island was sedate, the hotel quiet as a library. I went to the beach every day and cycled round the island and sat by the pool devouring paperbacks. That’s where I read East of Eden.
I went indoors for a nap in the air-conditioned room one afternoon. The heat was making me nauseous. When I returned a woman in a lime-green bikini said she would like a bottle of diet Coke and a full glass of ice with a slice of lemon.
‘Don’t forget the lemon!’ she called.
I was wearing khaki shorts and a faded yellow Shalamar T-shirt. Somehow she had failed to notice the absence of the hotel livery. Even if she had she might have asked all the same. I might have pursued her if we had not met in those circumstances; she had a figure she wasn’t ashamed to parade about, and when she eased out of the pool the dampness of the bikini against her skin left nothing to the imagination. I walked on without acknowledging her. I could hear her feeble apology trailing behind me, getting caught in the humid breeze, drifting away.
I returned to the spot which I had reserved with the paperback splayed open on the deck chair. Adam Trask is trying to persuade the mother of his twins not to abandon the family, but instead she tells him to throw the babies down the well. I was riveted by her callousness. I changed position in order to catch the shade of the parasol and to get a clearer view of lime-green. I’d ordered a club sandwich at the bar since I had eaten lunch as early as noon, and I couldn’t manage until dinner without something else. A waiter brought over the food and an icy St Clemence and, when he left, the companion of the woman in the lime-green bikini was standing in front of me.
‘I’m really sorry about Sascha. She’s such a berk,’ she said. ‘She hardly knows her left from her right.’ The friend was more modest in an ochre one-piece swimsuit and an olive sarong spotted with multicoloured starfish. She had wrapped her hair in a bunch, but strands of it had come loose around her neck. Her face looked naked without sunglasses. She held up a hand to keep out the glare of the sun. ‘She’s so, so sorry,’ she continued. ‘She’d come herself, but she’s absolutely mortified.’ We glanced over at Sascha who seemed, to me, to be asleep.
V had taken the trouble to walk around the pool. I was afraid she was going to repeat the apology. A boy jumped into the water wearing a rubber ring and slipped straight through it, leaving the ring to float on its own for a while. When he surfaced he hooked his feet inside the buoy and waved his arms to propel himself towards the shallow end.
In the silence that followed I thought V was about to leave. I had been on my own for days and could hardly speak. But she only glanced at the cover of my book and said, ‘Oh, Steinbeck. I’ve read something or other by him.’ Even now she utters the phrase at least once a day. ‘It’s in the papers,’ she’ll say. ‘Someone said something or other about it. I can’t remember.’ And she will wave a hand dismissively.
I found my tongue and helped her recall the title of the novel she’d read – The Red Pony – from the list at the front of the book. We discovered we both lived in south London and were both bored with the island. The next day, along with Sascha, who wasn’t such a berk after all – at least she was entertaining – we toured the neighbouring islands where there were shops and clubs and a wider variety of water sports, and people in abundance. By the end of the week it was difficult for me to leave; the two friends were on a fort-night’s holiday. But a week and a half later, after returning to London, I phoned V and we simply carried on.
I climb the stairs to ask J to turn off the computer, but then I stop; I can’t think how to keep him otherwise occupied. I read the paper instead. We have moved a few times since J was born, and once since he started school in Eastbourne. It’s not easy for him to
get to know people here. His old friends come up from Lewisham, where we used to live, or V will drive him down for the day, but it’s increasingly difficult for them to connect. They lead different lives now and see so little of each other. V says that after we move to a better area, we should send him to a good local school. But we are both worried all this movement is disruptive and perhaps he should remain on the south coast now that he’s settled. She blames me for sending him away to begin with.
Sometimes the first I’ll hear of something about my family is when I’m with Eliza. We’ll be lying on her queen-size orthopaedic bed which occupies most of the room. I’ll have a hand cupped around her breast, squeezing gently, releasing. Eliza will reach for her glasses; she can’t see a thing without them. She’ll say, ‘So, what’s this about moving to Edgware? I thought you were staying here.’ The squeezing will stop.
‘What do you mean?’ I’ll ask. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your wife says you’re planning on moving soon. You never told me about Edgware. That’s miles away. It’s not even London.’
Of course this is the first I have heard of it. I’m sure it’s only V thinking out loud. We have discussed areas before and Edgware has never been on the list, but Eliza doesn’t know that. She won’t be reassured. After this she will deny me her body. She’ll turn away, curl up and fall silent, or she’ll reach down and stroke Dante the dachshund, the other man in her life.
Last Thursday afternoon Eliza and I met in Chinatown for a late dim sum. She was more garrulous, chirpier than usual. She wasn’t aware she was doing most of the talking. Afterwards we walked to a local supermarket so she could buy more jars of stir-fry sauce. That’s what she lives on: sweet and sour, hoisin, black bean sauce. She filled up two carrier bags and handed them to me to carry. I sighed because, really, I hadn’t bargained on the shopping. It was biting cold outside. I couldn’t quite work out why I was with Eliza then, how this affair had developed and why it was still continuing, becoming complex. She must have noticed my distraction because she looked across at me sharply.
She said, ‘You know, J’s terribly unhappy at that school you’ve sent him to. He wants to come back to London. Even if it means returning to St Christopher’s.’
Was there a correlation between my sigh and her bad news? I didn’t think it wise to remind her of her own initial enthusiasm. I began to wonder, were things I said reported back to V? Were we all using Eliza as some sort of conduit to channel our desires and dissatisfactions?
On the drive back I thought about J and how long he might have been feeling this way. Was it was serious or simply something he had said, then forgotten?
‘I’m busy Monday,’ Eliza said. ‘Can we make it next Tuesday instead?’
I turned up the fan heater and nodded, but I didn’t say anything. I was regretting the whole afternoon. When she invited me in for ‘coffee and a cuddle’ I shook my head. I felt hurt J hadn’t confided in me. He tells his mother everything – I’m used to that – but he only sees Eliza one hour a week. I wondered what else they talked about, J and Eliza, what he felt he could say to her and not to me.
On Sunday we might drive to town for lunch, then visit a museum or watch a film, or stay at home. Usually it’s J or V who decides what to do as I am quite good at choosing the unsuitable. Sometimes we’ll watch a film I have already seen with Eliza, and I’ll laugh or glaze over or nap for a second time. Now and then I’ll see the pair of them giggling at something I don’t understand, or I do, but fail to find funny. It’s as if the air is pure inside the space they inhabit, while outside I can even taste the pollution. It’s difficult to explain. J and I were close until he was five or six, then things changed imperceptibly. It’s as if he is drifting away.
V and I are thinking of having another child, but not until we move to a bigger place, a better neighbourhood. That’s a contradiction in London, but we’re looking. We are doing well enough in our jobs, and depending on which way house prices travel, we will either be in Crouch End next July or Arnos Grove. We keep moving north on the map and at this rate, in five years’ time, we will no longer be Londoners.
When J was four V threatened me with divorce if I didn’t stop seeing a woman I’d met at a sales conference in Leeds. How she found out I will never know, but she confronted me with it and I did not lie. It wasn’t serious; it was only three weeks old, but V snuffed it out before it had a chance to develop. I think she is unaware of my involvement with Eliza because Eliza is a part of all our lives and she doesn’t seem capable of arousing another woman’s suspicions: that plain look, the cheap spectacles, the lank styleless hair. I often imagine ways of ending it, but the deeper you are involved in something the more difficult it is to extricate yourself.
It’s true, I don’t come out of this very well, but when I look back I can’t see myself doing things differently. The important part is to recognise that everyone is all right. It isn’t realistic to expect to be ecstatic in life, for things to be perfect, for the sun to shine every day. J will get used to Eastbourne, I will eventually leave Eliza, V and I will have another child. It just goes on and what seems like a crisis at one time will retreat to a dusty corner of the mind.
Early Sunday evening I drive J back to school. It’s always awkward because he has arrived at that difficult age where he tries to hide his emotions. It rarely works. He’s subdued and he hugs his mother and then drags his feet to the car. We’ll listen to the Top Forty or to the rest of an audio cassette or sometimes we’ll get into a discussion, but that’s rare. It’s as if I am taking him back to his jailer and he’s punishing me for it. Towards the end of the journey he’ll say something like, ‘Hey, Dad, whe … whe … when we move can I come back to sch … sch … school in London?’ as if he is simply asking me to shut the window in his room when I return. I know it takes a lot for him to ask this, to make it sound effortless, as if it doesn’t mean a thing. It’s at times like this I almost relent and decide it’s all been a mistake.
‘We’ll see, J. Why don’t we concentrate on doing the best we can? Maybe next year. Remember how miserable you were at St Christopher’s?’
This elicits a noise – not assent or otherwise – and then a period of silence. I’ll change the subject and get no response for a minute or two and then he gives up and talks as if he never asked.
We’ll pull up at the school; usually there are several other cars with the motors running, and a clutch of boys straggling towards the main doors. He’ll turn and hug me hard and then run to the building as if he’s afraid of being locked out. Sometimes I’ll sit and watch, even after the doors close, and then I’ll sit some more. If it’s summer, I’ll drive to the beach and stare out at the sea for a time, just thinking, and after that I’ll drive back home.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER
WHEN THEY LANDED at the airport in Lagos, Marcia had finally fallen asleep. Femi did not bother to wake her. He gazed out of the window at the landscape and sighed. His thoughts were still in London. He had not been home in twenty years.
‘We’re here.’ He nudged his sleeping wife. Passengers had begun to alight from the aircraft.
Marcia stretched and yawned and looked out of the window. ‘You didn’t wake me up? Damn! Honey, you know I wanted to be awake for the landing. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’
Femi shrugged. The temperature inside the aeroplane was cool. He wanted to remain a while longer, but Marcia was up, hauling their bags from the overhead locker, her face a sack of groggy irritation.
‘There was nothing to see, really,’ Femi said. ‘Only dry land.’ He tried to recall. ‘Trees. Just trees.’
Marcia let his holdall drop to the floor.
As they shuffled behind the remaining passengers, she peered out of the cabin windows for her first view of Africa. There was a large glass-covered concrete building, winking in the sunshine. Not at all what she had expected. It could have been Logan or O’Hare or anywhere. She sighed. They shuffled some more. Whe
n she emerged into the sunshine, she momentarily lost her bearings; the atmosphere blew her back a fraction against her husband.
‘Oh my!’ she breathed and put down her bags.
Femi stared into the heat and felt already drained. He glanced at his wife. She looked like a woman who was heavily pregnant; a hand against her brow, the other supporting her back. She was a slim woman, but she had struck this pose.
‘Oh my!’ she said again.
‘Well, here we are,’ Femi said. He kissed his wife but did not smile.
The first hotel they tried had an intermittent water supply. The next had no generator and the area was in the grip of a power failure. The third had constant running water and a powerful generator, but no air-conditioning. They roamed the city in a battered black and ochre taxi. The windows did not wind up and the shout and frenzy of the streets poured in to greet them.
‘I no get petrol wey for las lon time,’ the driver droned. ‘Mek you mek choice, quick, quick. Produce more naira.’
‘What’s he saying?’ Marcia asked.
Femi shrugged, pretended he could not understand.
In the end they returned to the third hotel, the place with running water and standing fans. The room was thread-bare, the walls smudged and faded, like worn blue jeans. But it was clean and quiet, away from the road. They ate a light supper of rice and goat stew in the hotel restaurant and retired to bed early, exhausted and a little disheartened.
By noon the next day, they realised the city, if not the whole country, was in the grip of a petrol crisis. Vehicles stretched for miles at petrol stations while soldiers strutted in front of crowds, attempting to keep order.
‘I don’t get it,’ Marcia said. ‘I thought there was a lot of oil here?’
‘I thought so too,’ Femi replied.
A Life Elsewhere Page 14