So far as Phil could see, it came down to money. They lived in a detached house in a middle class suburb of Middleton - open plan front gardens and textured brick individuality. Their combined income was lower-middle class, but if Sally were to say stuff it and become a full time mother, they'd be relegated to a working class income, and a flimsy semi or a manky terraced, with wall to wall neighbours, roaming packs of feral teens, and not a hope in hell of an en-suite bathroom.
Somewhere in all of that, in the nonsense of their lives, they had forgotten they'd once seen the purpose of their lives in simply being together. Now they had what they wanted, but didn't seem to care for it very much, while at the same time were apparently reluctant to let any of it go. And in the process they had forgotten how to be with each other. Sally was no longer his wife, but sometimes his nagging mother, sometimes his companionable sister and occasional staunch ally against the combined psychological warfare perpetrated by their offspring. And what troubled Phil was how she seemed to have accepted the loss of her self, the loss of her desire for life and for him. And Phil wanted a lover - wanted Sally to be that lover. It was just that she seemed happier being his mother,… or his sister.
Sally: "What time are you coming to bed?"
Phil: "I'll come now if we can have sex."
Sally: "I'm tired. I just want to sleep."
Phil: "But I'm desperate Sal!"
Sally: "And I'm desperately tired. Are you coming?"
"No, I'll stay down here, find some porn on the Internet and have a wank instead."
"All right, perhaps that's best, dear."
They never said these things of course, except subliminally. He reckoned Sally understood how things lay in that department, and though she might not exactly approve, the alternative for her was far less attractive. But Internet pornography is a desperately poor substitute for a loving relationship and except for the occasional visit to the seedier side of the web, Phil quickly grew bored and neglected this part of himself until an acupuncture session with Dr. Lin grew dangerously out of hand one night, and he ejaculated copiously all over her lovely clean white coat.
All right - she was massaging his penis at the time, and it was only a dream but, as he changed his pyjamas in the small hours, he was still shaken by the experience. He'd not had a wet dream since puberty. My god! What was he going to do? Take a mistress? No,… too demanding and ridiculously unlikely at his time of life. Employ a prostitute then? No,… too dangerous and expensive! And he wouldn't know where to ask. Get divorced then and find another woman? Don't be stupid: He loved Sally, and he loved his children too much! No, he wanted to fix this relationship, not start a fresh one!
What then?
What the hell was a man supposed to do?
"Sexual relations all right, Mr Markham?"
Phil had just put away his tongue and was trying not to think of the dream as Dr. Lin checked his pulse, her fingers lightly pressed against both his wrists. He could feel himself swaying under the beat of his heart and he was sure she could tell something was wrong.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Lin. I lied to you before. My sex life is a mess - well, non existent to be honest."
"Ah,… I'm sorry to hear that Mr Markham, but at least I know ringing ear is not caused by sexual excess."
"Excess?" He laughed "No, no,… I doubt that very much."
"Your wife has emotional problem?"
"No more than anyone else. She expects too much of herself and the world probably expects too much of her as well."
"And what do you expect?"
"Me? Oh, it seems unfair of me to expect anything. The last thing she wants is me nagging her as well as the kids and her father."
"Father?"
"Yes. I don't think he's ever been happy with anything she's done. Wanted her to be a doctor, but she wasn't up to it - became a librarian instead. Wanted her to marry the son of a property tycoon - even had one lined up and everything, but he was arrested for fraud, so she married me instead, possibly on the rebound. She seems to spend all her life trying to make it up to him, as if he cared. It makes no difference what she does, you see? It'll never be enough. How can anyone be so self centred they think the world and everyone in it has to dance to their tune?"
He sighed. Doctor Lin had gone into silent mode, her eyes soft and sympathetic, listening, though he knew by now she'd not understood half of what he'd said. She surmised that he'd finished, got it off his chest, then patted his arm. "Acupuncture is good for you. This is my understanding."
"Yes, yes. It seems to be doing,… well, something. Tell me,… is there something you can prescribe to,… well,… take away the, erm, fire?"
"Everything is helping to cool the fire, Mr. Markham. Herbs, acupuncture, massage. You do not sweat so much now,… have you noticed? Balance improving, also. Yes?"
"Yes, yes - all of that. But actually,.. I meant the fire,… down there."
"Down there? You mean sexual organ? Take away, desire? No, no, Mr Markham. Fire down there is natural. We don't want to complicate things."
But how much more complicated could they be?.
Chapter 10
Penny wasn't at the next Tai Chi class and Phil took heart from that, telling himself that she was Caroline after all. He felt a moment of regret she was not there, which confirmed his suspicions and gave strength to his efforts at dismissing her as an insignificant projection of his own increasingly desperate imagination. As for the Tai Chi, he'd been practising, sometimes in the garden when everyone else was in bed, which meant it was going dark and his neck was covered in midge-bites. But he'd begun to feel something in his hands now, a warm tingling when he was doing the exercises, the Silk Reeling and some of the Qigong movements Doctor Lin had introduced them to. He'd looked them up on the Internet, bought a DVD - all in spite of the continuing derision of his family.
After class that day, he pointed his car out of Middleton and headed up over the moors, parked in a layby that had been familiar to him in his youth, tied on his boots, shouldered a pack and set off over the moors. It was a bad day, cool and drizzling. He knew this corner of the Pennines though and even when the mist came down thick and clingy, he was able to find his way without much trouble, across a sodden plain of heather to the cross-shelter on Black Hill. It was a popular climb but on a day like that, he was assured of his solitude, except when he came around out of the wind, he found a booted, mud splattered and Lycra-clad Penny Barnes sipping tea with an expression he could only describe as thoughtful.
She turned, mystified by the intrusion, then twitched and almost spilled her tea: "Shit! Phil?"
Phil was astonished: she remembered his name?
"Penny? You,… walk?"
"Yes,.. anything wrong in that?"
"No,.. no,… it's just that I don't know many women who walk that's all,… in fact I don't know any."
"Well, now you do. Except I don't walk very often these days."
He sat beside her and shook the rain from his hat. "Me neither. Time seems to be the problem."
"Tell me about it."
He noticed her ring, though he was certain she'd not been wearing one at the class. One always looked for the ring, he thought. "You're married?"
She noticed him eyeing up her finger. "Hmn? Oh, yes. Sometimes I take the ring off to see what it feels like to be me again."
"Ah,… does that work?"
She smiled. "Not for very long."
But this was impossible, he thought! He'd been visiting the top of Black Hill all his life and this was the first time he'd ever met someone he knew up here - and after all these years, that someone just happened to be Penny Barnes, the woman he desperately needed to be Caroline, so he could dismiss her, but who would not oblige. No. It seemed this woman was not Caroline after all.
"You have children, Penny?"
"Two boys - fourteen and sixteen."
"Ouch!"
"Exactly. You?"
"My daughter's eight, my son's nearly thirteen."
>
"Let me guess: she's still cute and you don't want her to grow up. And he's just embarrassed by you all the time?"
"Close enough."
"Tea?"
"Please."
She took a sip, then handed him the cup. It was like he'd known her all his life, was as intimate with her as Sally, so he did not even pause to consider before drinking after her from the same cup. She was married! Well, that put a different spin on things for sure! Did it make it any more safe, he wondered? Was her husband a good man? Were they happy, or were they sleepwalking like him and Sal? Did she still make love to him? Or was she tired all the time, leaving him to fend for himself any way he could, like Phil?
"Did you go to Tai Chi this morning?" she asked.
"Yes. I came up here afterwards. I,.. I wasn't ready to go home straight away. I noticed you were missing."
"No you didn't. You never notice when I'm missing."
"What?"
"Never mind. To be honest I was embarrassed, about what I'd said to you last week. That's why I didn't come."
"I thought so. But there's no need. I've said worse things than that. I'm always putting my foot in my mouth."
She smiled, but said nothing.
"Will you go next week, do you think?" he went on.
"I'd like to, but it seems pointless. I feel self conscious whenever I try to practice at home. The boys think I'm,… I don't know what. They're being pretty stupid about it, and David, my husband, well he's very churchy, you know and he thinks I'm going to become a Buddhist, though he probably means Taoist, except he tends to lose his way outside the very narrow, fundamentalist faction of the church that he grew up in."
"I'd not thought of the spiritual angle. Sally thinks it's more hippy-dippy."
Penny laughed. "Hippy-dippy would suit me," she said. "David's got me down for a rescue chat with the vicar."
"Eh?"
She grinned, almost losing control over her angular features and settling into that girlish softness. Phil watched, mesmerised, willing her into letting go, into relaxing.
"Ridiculous isn't it?" she said. "So,… you too then?"
"Yes, me too. Though it's more that they're afraid I'm losing my mind than courting Buddhahood."
Her face fascinated him, the effort she seemed to put into keeping it fastened down like that, like a shop shutter on early closing, all graffiti sprayed and depressed. He wanted to make her laugh, catch her unawares so she'd forget herself and let go, let the shutter up then he could see her sunny side again - the sunny side that had made her laugh and liken Push Hands to sex in the company of a complete stranger..
"It's funny," he went on. "I seem to have spent my whole life being ignored by everyone. Then I decide to take an interest in something, and suddenly everyone seems to disapprove. Would they prefer me bland, do you think?"
"Less obtrusive perhaps," observed Penny. "I was doing nothing but watching soaps and eating crisps. Everyone seemed happy with me that way, but when I realised I knew all the cast lists by their proper names, I decided I'd better do something about brightening my life up. And yes, I think they would prefer me to be less obtrusive."
"Hmn, still. A rescue chat with the vicar sounds a bit much. I mean it's only a bit of exercise for pity's sake."
"Is it? Is that all it means to you?"
Phil looked aside, stared out into the formless mist, and felt the wind cooling him. "No. It's become more than that. I felt it when I was doing the Push Hands with Dr Lin. And then later when we,… when you and I,… "
"I know. What happened there Phil?"
"I've no idea. What you said, about making love,… I know you were only joking but even so - and I'm not religious, never even thought of myself as spiritual, but if two spirits ever came together and found themselves without the physical means of doing it, then I think that's how they'd make love."
It was a very intimate thing to have said, he thought, and he regretted it, because he did not want her to think ill of him. On the contrary though, for a moment at least, she seemed to warm to him and she brightened a little, allowing the shutters up for a second. "That must be because you have a dirty mind," she said with a little twinkle.
He laughed, but then she really caught him off guard: "My life is crap," she said.
He thought about that, took another sip of tea, then admitted his life was crap too. "But, I'm not looking for an affair," he said, though it puzzled him why he should have mentioned this to Penny.
"Me neither," she replied.
It seemed for a moment they had looked at one another and known everything there was to know about each other - an intuitive leap that had saved decades of misunderstanding. Here I am Phil, vulnerable to an encounter with the right man, and there you are vulnerable to an encounter with the right woman. You might be the man for me, as I might be your woman, but let's not bother finding out because we both know how stupid that would be.
"I mean,… I've never even thought about it," he went on.
"I know, me neither."
"Barely have the time."
"I know. And it's not like we've haven't got enough problems as it is, eh? So, we'll go back to our crap lives and try to fix them up as best we can - see our way through with honour and dignity."
"Honour and dignity? Good words, those. They ought to mean something, even these days."
She laughed. "Well,… we're a right pair of - what do they call them - those people you meet for the first time and within seconds they're telling you about their sex change operation?"
"Ah,… early revealers? Yes,… you need to avoid them for sure."
She looked at him warmly. She liked his gentle sense of humour, liked that look of sympathetic understanding. Oh, there was such a lot she could have revealed to him! "Where are you parked?" she asked.
"The layby on Moor Road. You?"
"Winnat's Fold."
Phil normally swung his route round to include the little hamlet of Winnat's Fold, which meant he and Penny would most likely be walking back that way together, except he decided it was safer for him just to go back the way he'd come. He couldn't risk being in this woman's company any longer, or next thing he'd be asking her to share a coffee with him somewhere, offering her his mobile number should she ever want to "talk" to someone. And what she'd said about honour and dignity had really touched a chord in him. It had made him wonder if they were kindred spirits - and that was a really dangerous thing for him to be thinking!
He'd never seriously considered having an affair,… that is until now, that moment in the mist with Penny. He'd never understood why apparently sane men with long marriages could suddenly throw it all away on a reckless liaison - I mean, if only they'd stopped to think! But Phil could understand it now. It was easy to deny that you needed something when you never came across it. But when you did he saw how easy it would be to ruin yourself - even for a kiss.
"Ah well," he said. "Thanks for the tea. And the chat. I'll head back to the car now." He forced a laugh. "Sally will be thinking I'm not coming home."
"Does Sally worry?"
"No,… but she might start changing the locks."
She laughed. "You poor old married man."
"And you poor old married woman." He stood and began to shoulder his pack, reluctant to part from her, on the verge of saying he'd walk back to Winnat's Fold with her. Don’t be stupid Phil. Let her go. Honour and dignity, remember? Knowing this woman cannot take you anywhere but down.
"I hope the chat with the vicar goes all right," he said. "My advice is to get a Buddha garden ornament, but then I'm in a provocative frame of mind these days. They've got some really nice ones in McCannels at the moment - not the jokey, jolly kind, but really serene looking, you know? Honour and dignity sometimes requires that we do not go down without a fight, Penny."
"You know, I think that's a good idea," she chuckled. "If you hang on a minute, Phil, I'll walk with you. I usually swing by Moor Road anyway."
"Erm,… okay." He t
urned away as she bent over to fix up her rucksack but it was too late to avoid the image of her peachy bottom. It was stupendous, he thought and at once, he pictured her on top of him, pounding up and down, and then him ramming her from behind, those fleshy buttocks slap slap slapping into his pubic bone. Oh,… Stop it, Phil! For pity's sake! You're driving yourself insane!
Who was she? Why was she tormenting him like this? At least with a Caroline you'd no trouble avoiding her. With this woman even the most impossibly contrived meeting could apparently fall into place of its own accord.
She was a powerful walker, powerful legs - not a big woman but she had a robustness and a tremendous energy, he thought, and as he fell in beside her he realised their natural pace was well matched - like during the "Push Hands", they seemed to "fit" together, but he felt awkward now; conversation came so easily with her, he feared he was in danger of being too intimate, of saying something he really shouldn't, of saying things he should only think of saying to Sally - except there were some things he could not say to Sally for fear of disturbing the illusion of their lives. It was not that it was a bad illusion or that they had no substance without it - it was just the way they had come to see each other, and it was easier to go on with the illusion than to risk seeing each other as they really were, in case they found they no longer liked one another,… and the worst fear was that they were only holding together for the sake of the children. So yes, it was easier with Penny, because there was nothing between them,… no illusion, no tried and tested way of being.
The silence grated on him though and eventually he told Penny about Lara's orchard, told her the combination of the gate. "I mean, she said we were all welcome,.. the whole class."
"That's lovely. Have you been yet?"
"No. As usual, it's finding the time."
"I'll probably not be able to make it either, but it sounds perfect,… private. And you're sure she doesn't mind?"
"On the contrary. In fact, I think she'd appreciate the company. Her husband passed away recently I think."
"You seem to get on well with her."
Push Hands Page 6