All the negatives in our relationship came from me at first. After I broke up with Lisa, I kept imagining her walking through Cardiff. Every girl changed into her, had her eyes, the same gait, the way their hair fell. When I was tired I’d often start thinking crazy shit. An active imagination and looking deeply into everything has benefited my career, but it caused havoc in those early stages. Every girl walking around town with her boyfriend turned into Lauren. Lauren cheating on me. Holding hands with someone else. Kissing another boy. Being fucked by a mysterious rival. I drove myself crazy, but realized these issues had the power to tear us apart. Jealousy and paranoia leads to violence and hatred. Hatred is, as Martin Luther King put it, an ‘unchecked cancer’ that ‘corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true’. I didn’t want my issues to turn our relationship, which was something so beautiful, into ugliness. Fear is intrinsically linked to anger and hate, as the noble philosopher Yoda tells us in Star Wars.
It also drove me mad when Lauren went out with her friends. One night she got so wasted she spewed in a club (the same one Michael had his nose broken in, funnily enough) on St Mary Street. Her friends rang me telling me she could barely walk or talk. I hated that. Anything could have happened. Any guy could have taken advantage of her. That’s a con in a relationship: caring so much about someone that you worry yourself sick about them sometimes. But I held her close the next morning, even though she’d turned into a white, hungover ghost in a stinking mood, and pretended everything was fine. It wasn’t long after that mishap that we came across our first major obstacle as a couple.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Mouth of Truth
Lauren and I had a conversation just before we became an official couple about our relationship experiences. She mentioned a guy she’d been seeing in Salisbury before she started at Cardiff. He’d claimed he didn’t want a relationship because, inevitably, he’d end up hurting her. He was also seeing someone else at the same time. The guy sounded like a prick, and it annoys me that I’m even granting him a mention here. But his relationship with Lauren, even though it happened long before I met her, impinged on us. I could tell from that early conversation she’d been affected by her time with this guy. Fred, his name was. She had a fear that I would screw her over, or she would screw me over. Being hurt had become synonymous with relationships in her eyes, all because of past experiences. She’d gotten upset during that talk, even cried. Said she was just tired and feeling emotional. I’d wiped the petals from her rosy cheeks and assured her there would be no more pricks in her life. But I couldn’t forget the moment she looked at me, all teary-eyed, and said, ‘I’ll be the one who ends up screwing you over.’ We dismissed everything that was said that night in bed together. But it ate away at me, burrowed into my mind. I knew one day she’d turn to me and say, ‘I said I’d screw you over.’ Just knew it. She’d told me on our first date that nobody had ever broken her heart, but I’d doubted that.
Her friends from Salisbury had organized a night out there. As he was part of that group, the ‘Salisbury Crew’, they’d end up getting drunk together. I really wasn’t happy with this. Hinted that I wasn’t happy a lot, then just came out and told her.
‘Nothing’s going to happen in Salisbury,’ she assured me. ‘I wouldn’t compromise what we have for a meaningless shag with him, Daniel!’
She must have assured me at least a dozen times as her trip home approached. I felt like a dick, so paranoid and jealous. She made me feel that way. Like I was being totally irrational. At the time I was doing King Lear with Act One. My enthusiasm for the society had begun to wane. They’d cast me in a minor role, yet again. This time it was the role of King of France, albeit combined with the Gentleman of Cambridge, who has some lovely lines about Cordelia, Lear’s daughter. Not to sound like a diva, but I’d considered telling the directors I didn’t want the role. So frustrating! Would I ever get an opportunity to show the society how good I could be, how I’d been constantly overlooked?
The play frustrated me most when we had constant run-throughs, which meant the whole cast was called and I’d be sitting around doing nothing for most of the rehearsals. Lauren came to see me on the second night of performance week. She got bored with me being occupied each night, and that was the main reason why she was going back to Salisbury for the weekend. But the final night of King Lear was on Saturday, and it frustrated me that she’d be hanging out with an ex on the last night of a play I couldn’t wait to finish.
One good thing about the production of King Lear was that the directors asked Michael to fill in for a tiny role as a servant. Rehearsing with him just before show-week made it all bearable. He was given one line in a scene where Lear bids him to do something or other: ‘I’ll do it, my lord.’ But Michael was never one to embrace minor roles. He shocked everyone on the opening night with his interpretation of the line, which he had rewritten in prose to suit the way he saw the character:
Aye, incontrovertibly, and with such dexterity, in such a punctilious
and diligent manner that alacrity personified will seem a false usurer, a poor, skilless soldier's flask to the faithful, anthropomorphic hound to authority that I shall transmogrify into,
I, indeed, will do it, my lord.
Of course this delivery threatened to ruin the play and have the cast in fits of giggles, so he got told off and had to stick with the original line for the rest of the run. He got his own back by appearing naked for the bows on the last night.
I couldn’t enjoy myself at the party afterwards, even though Michael was there, because I kept thinking about Lauren in Salisbury with her ex. Found myself texting her constantly. It ruined my night. She text back telling me she was in a taxi and then later that she was snuggled up in bed at her friend’s house - so I relaxed. Carried on drinking and then went back to Michael’s.
‘It’s ruined my night, all this worrying,’ I told him, as I threw a pillow and blanket on his sofa and prepared to snuggle up myself.
‘Lauren loves you. She wouldn’t cheat. Monogamy is biologically ambiguous, polyamorous affairs have been going on since Greek and Roman times…’
‘What’s your point, Mike?’
‘I dunno. What was I saying?’
‘You’re too drunk to give me advice.’
‘She’s a good girl, dude. That’s all I’m saying. Stop worrying so much. And if you can’t stop worrying then take her to Bocca della Verita in Rome. It’s an ancient lie detector. If she puts her hand in the stone mouth in the wall and is a cheat then it’ll bite her hand off!’
‘Yeah I’ve seen it in Roman Holiday.’ I yawned.
‘But just stop worrying. She’s assured you nothing will happen with her and her ex. And if it did then you’ll just have to see how you deal with it.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I said.
Michael flicked off the living room light and staggered to his bedroom. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness and wondered and wondered. Until I fell asleep and dreamt about an adulterous woman tricking an ancient society by having her secret lover act like a madman, rush up from a judging crowd and kiss her. She then told her suspicious husband that apart from him she had only kissed that madman. The mouth stayed open. Her hand soft, white and intact.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tiny Fragments
I woke up to find a text from Lauren saying she was still drunk. So much for a promise she had made to me that she wouldn’t get too wasted around her ex. But I relaxed. Missed her. It had been a long weekend with her away. I couldn’t wait to hold her again. Felt like she’d passed a test, that we were solid as a couple. Insecurities, for a transient moment, dissipated. I didn’t hear much from her as the day passed by. The hangover kicked in and she grew tired in a pub in Salisbury, just wanted to get home. Her tex
ts were concise, to say the least. She limited herself to four kisses. Little things I thought I was being irrational in observing. Picked her up from the bus stop on Greyfriars Road when she came back that night, drove to hers. She was moody and tired. Snapped at me a couple of times over nothing. I fell asleep, holding her close, inhaling her honey-sandalwood perfume, her hair occasionally tickling my nose. In the morning she complained about not sleeping at all and said her stomach hurt, she felt ill. Maybe it was a persistent hangover. I rubbed her back as she leant over the bed and heaved, but no vomit came out. She ran to the bathroom. I closed my ears to the guttural sounds issuing from her. She came back and got into bed with me again. I held her hand and closed my eyes, hoping to fall asleep again.
‘Daniel, I’ve gotta tell you something,’ she said.
‘Yeah?’ I asked, still sleepy but an odd skip in my heart rate.
‘I kissed my ex in Salisbury.’
‘Did you?’ I asked. A strange, perfunctory response I still wonder about. Maybe I’d expected it. I remember I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed.
‘Yeah.’
I leapt out of the bed, stood up, my whole body shaking like a leaf that knows its time is up, clinging to a branch, fighting against a severe wind.
‘Where?’
‘In the taxi on the way back.’
‘You text me in the taxi…’
‘I know.’
‘Was anyone else in it?’
‘No. Just me and him.’
‘What the fuck were you doing in a taxi with just him? What the fuck were you thinking?’
Anger gripped me and yet I felt calm. Like I was playing a part in a play or a film. It wasn’t real and I was just an observer, letting the character of Daniel who’s been cheated on react according to the script. My only experience of a man’s reaction to cheating was watching Clive Owen’s character in Closer, who tells his lover to fuck off and die. A bit extreme really… I calmly extracted the information from her. She’d gotten wasted again. Hadn’t eaten before going out. It had felt like a regular night back home for her. Kissing him was just a regular thing, a natural response at the end of a night out in Salisbury. She’d also kissed him back at the house, but nothing sexual had happened. She’d slept on a sofa with a male friend (I knew nothing would have happened between her and this particular friend so it wasn’t an issue), but had told me she’d slept in a bed with her female friend because she was worried I’d be bothered. That last bit of information made me feel it was, in some fucked up way, my fault for being so apprehensive and controlling. I’d appeared weak, interrogating and warning her so much about the trip beforehand. And the weak get screwed. It’s a fact of life. It’s a response that emerges from somewhere deep in the subconscious to hurt those who are scared of being hurt. She had no feelings for Fred. It was a stupid mistake, she’d never do it again.
I sat on the edge of the bed. Naked. Cold. Goosebumps all over my body, the hairs on my arms curling upwards, seeking to escape from this pathetic skin. She tried holding my hand. I pushed it away.
‘Don’t touch me. Not yet anyway. I can’t even look at you,’ I spat. ‘I told you so many times. I was so worried. You made me feel like a dick, like a pathetic over-controlling wanker. And you fucking did what I was so scared of!’
‘I know.’ She gazed at the soft, white skin of her hand as I pushed it away again. ‘Oh God. I’ve just realized how big a deal this is…’
‘Yeah it’s a big fucking deal, Lauren. I hate cheating. It doesn’t matter whether you just kissed him or shagged him. You’ve screwed me over.’
‘I said I’d end up screwing you over…’
‘Don’t you dare! Don’t say it. I fucking knew you’d say that to me one day. Knew it. It doesn’t absolve you just because you gave me pre-warning.’
The day went on. I went outside for numerous cigarettes, watched the tentacles of smoke probe her sun-splintered garden. Sometimes we’d be okay. We’d cuddle again. Have sex. And then realization would hit me and I’d be cold, treat her like shit, want her to feel as hurt and betrayed as I did. Deep down I knew I’d forgive her. We were so close, so strong, and I’d regret it if I ended things over a drunken snog. In a strange way it relaxed me. It had happened. No point in worrying anymore. She cried. A lot. And it hurt like hell to see her cry. At one point I nestled my head into her jumper and cried as well.
‘If I forgive you, don’t think I’m weak,’ I told her. ‘I would never forgive you again.’
‘I know. I’m so sorry, Dan. You treat me like a princess and I’ve just been a dick.’
I’d threatened to finish with her on numerous occasions that day, and at times genuinely believed we couldn’t get over it. That was our first argument, but first arguments shouldn’t be of such magnitude as cheating. There were many long silences, many moments where I couldn’t bear to look at her, many cigarettes. I rang Michael. He said he felt bad for assuring me she wouldn’t cheat, but she was a good girl and he was certain she truly regretted it.
I left hers late that night. We’d relaxed. Everything would be okay. But after I’d slept for a little bit I awoke and grasped how biting reality had suddenly become. She tried kissing me good night as I motioned to leave.
‘Lauren, I was paranoid and insecure enough as it was. I know it was a snog and nothing else but I’m not sure I can get over this. I need time to think.’
The cold air crept through her open front door and her warmth wasn’t enough. A shiver played along my spine like a yarn mallet on the rosewood bars of a xylophone.
I thought a lot the next day and knew I had to give her a chance. Obstacles are thrown in the way of relationships. You encounter so many moments where you can stick with the person you love or give up. I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
‘She’s a good girl.’ Michael’s reassurance stuck with me. I’d only told him and my mother about the situation. She’d told me not to do anything rash. Lauren’s honesty was a good sign.
I sent Fred a message online, to which I got a bullshit response about how he had no recollection of the night but hoped I’d accept his apology anyway. My message was to the point - curt but not threatening. He wasn’t worth the dust that the rude wind blew in his face.
I wondered how things would progress with Lauren after this debacle. The truth is, in a bizarre way, it made us stronger. She seemed to twig how much I really meant to her after coming so close to losing me. And I appreciated her honesty. Sometimes, when I thought about it, a dark cloud would envelop me and I’d feel scared I’d made the wrong decision, set myself up for a fall.
‘Don’t let me regret this decision,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want to ever feel this way again. You’ve made me feel so pathetic.’
We rarely mentioned what happened in Salisbury after that. Tried to suppress the thought of it. Grew closer. Fell heavier and deeper in love. Dependent on each other’s cuddles, the touch of a finger on the back of a hand, the playful nudge of a sleeve.
One day, filled with hungover insecurity, four months after that night when Lauren had gone to Salisbury, I asked about the details. Turns out Fred had lunged at her in the taxi. She’d tried to push him off but kissed back the second time, and the time in the house. But there was no passion. Just drunkenness. Fred had cheated on her when they were together. He’d also got other girls to cheat on their boyfriends. She was angry at him when I told her about the message he’d sent back to me. Seemed sarcastic. He didn’t really give a shit. That talk helped a lot. I learned Fred was scum and Lauren would never have been able to forgive herself if our relationship had ended over him. He’d hurt her in the past and we’d both had to pick up the pieces. Of course, I had to respect that they were once an item, and it’s wrong of me to be so harsh about a guy I’ve never met, but that relationship was in the past - I didn’t want it to impact on our present. I know Lauren was upset by how cold I’d acted towards her. She’d been punished, while Fred would never know how much pain he’d caused us,
how those insecurities lasted for months afterwards.
I’d miss the little things too much if we’d broken up at the first hurdle. The tiny fragments of the girl I loved to hold, whole and warm. A silly face, top lip raised in a false snarl. A look of sheer sweaty determination when we wrestled and I tried to pin her down and get her to submit. An inflection in her voice. Even her annoying clicking of knuckles. Time had released those chemicals. Testosterone, the excitation sparked by the sight of her running fingers through her hair. Adrenaline, mingled with serotonin and dopamine. Blood filled with cortisol. The oxytocin stage, cuddling in a damp patch, lost in her garden, no longer fearing serpents. And the onset of vasopressin to consolidate how we felt about each other. We moved on from that first hiccup. We were ready for the other inevitable obstacles. They would come, but we’d be strong, having learned so much since we’d talked chemistry on that first date.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I Love You Yeah Yeah Yeah
Two weeks had passed since Salisburygate. Lauren and I were cuddling in her bed. On a few occasions she’d said the words, ‘I love you’ jokingly. But I didn’t probe. Wanted the moment to be real. And we’d come so close to breaking up recently that I wasn’t ready to say it. We gazed at each other, her breath warm against my skin. I’d never get used to how amazing her eyes were. I wanted to say those words. Silence. So much needed to be spoken. Acknowledgement. We were closer than ever before. But the moment passed. I didn’t say it. My creative writing tutor at university had often warned me that using the abstract noun should be avoided if possible in poetry. Maybe that’s why I struggled to use it.
‘I love you yeah yeah yeah…’ Lauren paraphrased The Beatles’ song.
‘That’s a funny way of telling me.’ I grinned and locked my fingers in hers.
‘But I do love you,’ she said.
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