Us

by Nicholls, David

  Not my sister. In her mid-twenties Karen was promiscuous in her friendships and ran with what my parents referred to as ‘an arty crowd’: would-be actors, playwrights and poets, musicians, dancers, glamorous young people pursuing impractical careers, staying up late then meeting for long and emotional cups of tea during all hours of the working day. For my sister, life was one long group hug and it seemed to amuse her in some obscure way to parade me in front of her younger friends. She liked to say that I had skipped youth and leapt straight into middle age, that I had been forty-three in my mother’s womb, and it was true, I suppose, that I’d never got the hang of being young. In which case why was she so desperate for me to come along?

  ‘Because there’ll be girls there—’

  ‘Girls? Girls … Yes, I’ve heard talk of those.’

  ‘One girl in particular—’

  ‘I do know girls, Karen. I have met and spoken to girls.’

  ‘Not like this one. Trust me.’

  I sighed. For whatever reason, ‘fixing me up with a girlfriend’ had become something of an obsession for Karen, and she pursued it with a beguiling mixture of condescension and coercion.

  ‘Do you want to be alone forever? Do you? Hm? Do you?’

  ‘I have no intention of being alone forever.’

  ‘So where are you going to meet someone, D? In your wardrobe? Under the sofa? Are you going to grow them in the lab?’

  ‘I really don’t want to have this conversation any more.’

  ‘I’m only saying it because I love you!’ Love was Karen’s alibi for all kinds of aggravating behaviour. ‘I’m laying a place for you at the table so if you don’t come, the whole evening’s ruined!’ And with that, she hung up the phone.

  8. tuna pasta bake

  So that evening, in a tiny flat in Tooting, I was pushed by the shoulders into the tiny kitchen where sixteen people sat crammed around a flimsy trestle table designed for pasting wallpaper, one of my sister’s notorious pasta bakes smouldering in its centre like a meteorite, smelling of toasted cat food.

  ‘Everyone! This is my lovely brother, Douglas. Be nice to him, he’s shy!’ My sister liked nothing more than pointing at shy people and bellowing SHY! Hello, hi, hey there Douglas, said my competitors and I contorted myself onto a tiny folding chair between a handsome, hairy man in black tights and a striped vest, and an extremely attractive woman.

  ‘I’m Connie,’ she said.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Connie,’ I said, scalpel sharp, and that was how I met my wife.

  We sat in silence for a while. I contemplated asking if she’d pass the pasta but then I’d be obliged to eat it, so instead …

  ‘What do you do, Connie?’

  ‘Good question,’ she said, though it was not. ‘I suppose I’m an artist. That’s what I studied, anyway, but it always sounds a bit pretentious …’

  ‘Not at all,’ I replied, and thought, oh God, an artist. If she’d said ‘cellular biologist’ there’d have been no stopping me, but I rarely encountered such people and certainly never at my sister’s house. An artist. I didn’t hate art, not by any means, but I dislike knowing nothing about it.

  ‘So – watercolours or oils?’

  She laughed. ‘It’s a little more complicated than that.’

  ‘Hey, I’m a kind of artist too!’ said the handsome man to my left, shouldering his way in. ‘A trapeze artist!’

  I didn’t speak much after this. Jake, the fleecy man in vest and tights, was a circus performer who loved both his work and himself, and how could I possibly compete with a man who defied the laws of gravity for a living? Instead I sat quietly and watched her from the corner of my eye, making the following observations:

  9. seven things about her

  She had very good hair. Well cut, clean, shiny, an almost artificial black, points brushed forward over her ears (‘Points’ – is that right?) designed to frame her wonderful face. Describing hairstyles is not my forte, I lack the vocabulary, but there was something of the fifties film star to it, what my mother would call ‘a do’, yet it was modish and contemporary too. ‘Modish’ – listen to me! Anyway, I smelt the shampoo and her scent as I sat down, not because I snuffled around in the nape of her neck like a badger, I knew better than that, but because the table was really very small.

  Connie listened. For my sister and her friends, ‘conversation’ really meant taking it in turns to speak, but Connie listened intently to our trapeze artist, her hand on her cheek, her little finger resting in the corner of her mouth. Self-contained, calm, she had a quality of quiet intelligence. The expression she wore was intent but not entirely uncritical or unamused, so that it was impossible to discern if she found something impressive or ridiculous, an attitude that she has maintained throughout the entire course of our marriage.

  Though I thought her lovely, she was not the most attractive woman at the table. It is traditional, I know, when describing these first encounters with loved ones to suggest that they emitted some special glow; ‘her face lit up the room’ or ‘I could not look away’. In truth, I could and did look away and would say that, in conventional terms at least, she was perhaps the third most beautiful woman in the room. My sister, with her much vaunted ‘big personality’, liked to surround herself with extremely ‘cool’ people, but coolness and kindness rarely go together and the fact that these people were often truly appalling, cruel, pretentious or idiotic was, to my sister, a small price to pay for their reflected glamour. So while there were many attractive people there that night, I was very happy to be sitting next to Connie, even if she did not at first sight effervesce, incandesce, luminesce, etc.

  She had a very appealing voice – low, dry, a little husky, with a noticeable London accent. She has lost this over the years, but in those days there was definitely a slight swallowing of the consonants. Usually this would be an indicator of social background, but not in my sister’s circle. One of her cock-er-ney friends spoke as if he ran a whelk stall despite his father being the Bishop of Bath and Wells. In Connie’s case, she asked sincere, intelligent questions, which nevertheless had an undertow of irony and amusement. ‘Are the clowns as funny in real life as they are on stage?’ – that kind of thing. Her voice had the instinctive cadence of a comedian and she had the gift of being funny without smiling, which I’ve always envied. On the rare occasions that I tell a joke in public, I grimace like a frightened chimpanzee, but Connie was, is, deadpan. ‘So,’ she asked, her face a mask, ‘when you’re flying through the air towards your partner, are you ever tempted, at the very, very last moment, to do this –’ and here she raised her thumb to her nose and wiggled her remaining fingers, and I thought this was just terrific.

  She drank a great deal, refilling her glass before it was empty as if worried the wine might run out. The drink had no discernible effect except perhaps a certain intensity in conversation, as if it required concentration. Connie’s drinking seemed quite light-hearted, with a kind of drink-you-under-the-table swagger to it. She seemed like fun.

  She was extremely stylish. Not expensively or ostentatiously dressed but there was something right about her. The fashion of the day placed great emphasis on ‘bagginess’, giving the impression that the guests around the table were toddlers wearing their parents’ T-shirts. Connie, in contrast, was neat and stylish in old clothes (which I have since learnt to call ‘vintage’) that were tailored and snug and emphasised her – I’m sorry, I apologise, but there really is no way around this – her ‘curves’. She was smart, original, both ahead of the crowd and as old-fashioned as a character in a black-and-white film. In contrast, the impression I set out to create, looking back, was no impression at all. My wardrobe at that time ran the gamut from taupe to grey, all the colours of the lichen world, and it’s a safe bet that chinos were involved. Anyway, the camouflage worked, because …

  This woman on my right had absolutely no interest in me whatsoever.

  10. the daring young man on the flying trapeze

&
nbsp; And why should she? Jake the trapeze artist was a man who stared death in the face, while most nights I stared television in the face. And this wasn’t just any circus, it was punk circus, part of the new wave of circus, where chainsaws were juggled and oil drums were set on fire then beaten incessantly. Circus was now sexy; dancing elephants had been replaced by nude contortionists, ultra-violence and, explained Jake, ‘a kind of anarchic, post-apocalyptic Mad Max aesthetic’.

  ‘You mean the clowns don’t drive those cars where the wheels fall off?’ asked Connie, her face a stone.

  ‘No! Fuck that, man! These cars explode! We’re on Clapham Common next week – I’ll get you both tickets, you can come along.’

  ‘Oh, we’re not together,’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘We’ve just met.’

  ‘Ah!’ nodded Jake, as if to say ‘that makes sense’. There was a momentary pause and to fill the gap, I asked:

  ‘Tell me, do you find, as a trapeze artist, that it’s hard to get decent car insurance?’

  The percentage varies, but some of the things I say make no sense to me at all. Perhaps I’d meant it as a joke. Perhaps I’d hoped to emulate Connie’s laconic tone through raised eyebrow and wry smile. If so, that hadn’t come across, because Connie was not laughing but pouring more wine.

  ‘No, because I don’t tell ’em,’ said Jake with a rebellious swagger, which was all very anarchic but good luck with any future claims, big guy. Having steered the conversation to insurance premiums, I now dolloped out the tuna pasta bake, scalding the back of Connie’s hands with fatty strands of molten Cheddar, hot as lava, and as she peeled them off Jake returned to his monologue, stretching across me for more booze. To the extent that I’d ever thought about trapeze artists, I’d always pictured slick, broad Burt Lancaster types, smooth and brilliantined and leotarded. Jake was a wild man, covered in luxuriant body hair the colour of a basketball but still undeniably handsome, strong-featured, a Celtic tattoo encircling his bicep, a tangle of wild red hair gathered into a bun with a greasy scrunchie. When he spoke – and he spoke a great deal – his eyes blazed at Connie, passing straight through me, and I was forced to accept that I was watching a blatant seduction. At a loss, I reached for the rudimentary salad. Doused liberally with malt vinegar and cooking oil, it was my sister’s rare culinary gift to make lettuce taste like a bag of chips.

  ‘That moment when you’re in mid-air,’ said Jake, stretching for the ceiling, ‘when you’re falling but almost flying, there’s nothing like that. You try to hold onto it, but it’s … transient. It’s like trying to hold on to an orgasm. Do you know that feeling?’

  ‘Know it?’ deadpanned Connie. ‘I’m doing it right now.’

  This made me bark with laughter, which in turn attracted a scowl from Jake, and quickly I offered the acrid salad bowl. ‘Iceberg lettuce, anyone? Iceberg lettuce?’

  11. chemicals

  The tuna pasta bake was forced down like so much hot clay and Jake’s monologue continued well into ‘afters’, an ironic sherry trifle topped with enough canned cream, Smarties and Jelly Tots to bring about the onset of type 2 diabetes. Connie and Jake were leaning across me now, pheromones misting the air between them, the erotic force field pushing my chair further and further away from the trestle table until I was practically in the hallway with the bicycles and the piles of Yellow Pages. At some point, Connie must have noticed this, because she turned to me and asked:

  ‘So, Daniel, what do you do?’

  Daniel seemed close enough. ‘Well, I’m a scientist.’

  ‘Yes, your sister told me. She says you have a PhD. What field?’

  ‘Biochemistry, but at the moment I’m studying Drosophila, the fruit fly.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘Tell me more,’ she said. ‘Unless it’s top secret.’

  ‘No, it’s just people don’t usually ask for more. Well, how can I … okay, we’re using chemical agents to induce genetic mutation …’

  Jake groaned audibly and I felt something brush my cheek as he reached for the wine. For some people, the word ‘scientist’ suggests either a wild-eyed lunatic or the white-coated lackey of some fanatical organisation, an extra in a Bond film. Clearly this was the way Jake felt.

  ‘Mutation?’ said Jake, indignantly. ‘Why would you mutate a fruit fly? Poor bastard, why not leave it be?’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing inherently unnatural about mutation. It’s just another word for evolu—’

  ‘I think it’s wrong to tamper with nature.’ He addressed the table now. ‘Pesticides, fungicides, I think they’re evil.’

  As a hypothesis, this seemed unlikely. ‘I’m not sure a chemical compound can be evil in itself. It can be used irresponsibly or foolishly, and sadly that has sometimes been the—’

  ‘My mate, she’s got an allotment in Stoke Newington; it’s totally organic and her food is beautiful, absolutely beautiful …’

  ‘I’m sure. But I don’t think they have plagues of locusts in Stoke Newington, or annual drought, or a lack of soil nutrients—’

  ‘Carrots should taste of carrots,’ he shouted, a mystifying non sequitur.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite—’

  ‘Chemicals. It’s all these chemicals!’

  Another non sequitur. ‘But … everything’s a chemical. The carrot itself is made of chemicals, this salad is chemical. This one in particular. You, Jake, you’re made up of chemicals.’

  Jake looked affronted. ‘No I’m not!’ he said, and Connie laughed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but you are. You’re six major elements, 65 per cent oxygen, 18 per cent carbon, 10 per cent—’

  ‘It’s because people try to grow strawberries in the desert. If we all ate local produce, naturally grown without all these chemicals—’

  ‘That sounds wonderful, but if your soil lacks essential nutrients, if your family’s starving because of aphids or fungus, then you might be grateful for some of those evil chemicals.’ I’m not sure what else I said. I was passionate about my work, felt that it was beneficial and worthwhile, and as well as idealism, jealousy might also have played a part. I’d drunk a little too much and after a long evening of being alternately patronised and ignored, I had not warmed to my rival, who was of the school that thought the solution to disease and hunger lay in longer and better rock concerts.

  ‘There’s easily enough food to feed the world, it’s just all in the wrong hands.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not the fault of science! That’s politics, economics! Science isn’t responsible for drought or famine or disease, but those things are happening and that’s where scientific research comes in. It’s our responsibility to—’

  ‘To give us more DDT? More Thalidomide?’ This last blow seemed to please Jake hugely, and he broadcast a handsome grin to his audience, delighted that the misfortunes of others had provided him with a valuable debating point. Those were terrible tragedies, but I didn’t remember them being specifically my fault, or my colleagues’ – all of them responsible, humane, decent people, all ethically and socially aware. Besides, those instances were anomalies compared to all the extraordinary developments science had given us, and I had a very clear mental image of myself high, high in the shadows of the big top, sawing madly at a rope with a penknife.

  ‘What would happen,’ I wondered aloud, ‘if you fell from your trapeze, God forbid, and broke your legs and a massive infection set in? Because what I’d love to do, in those circumstances, Jake, what I’d love to do is stand by your bedside with the antibiotics and analgesics just out of reach and say, I know you’re in agony but I can’t give you these, I’m afraid, because, you know, these are chemicals, created by scientists and I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to amputate both your legs. Without anaesthetic!’

  12. silence

  I wondered if perhaps I had overplayed my hand. In hoping to sound impassioned I had come across as unhinged. There had been malice in what I’d s
aid, and no one likes malice at a dinner party, not open malice, and certainly not my sister, who was glaring at me with custard dripping from her serving spoon.

  ‘Well, Douglas, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ she said weakly. ‘More trifle?’

  More distressingly, I was not acquitting myself well in front of Connie. Even though we’d spoken only briefly, I liked this woman very much and wanted to create a good impression. With some trepidation, I glanced to my right, where she remained with her chin in the palm of her hand, her face entirely impassive and unreadable and, to my mind, even lovelier than before as she took her hand from her face, placed it on my arm and smiled.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Douglas, I think I called you Daniel earlier.’

  And that – well, that was like a light coming on.

  13. apocalypse

  I think our marriage has run its course, she said. I think I want to leave you.

  But I’m aware of having gone off on a tangent and wallowing in happier times. Perhaps I’m casting too rosy a glow. I’m aware that couples tend to embellish ‘how we met’ folklore with all kinds of detail and significance. We shape and sentimentalise these first encounters into creation myths to reassure ourselves and our offspring that it was somehow ‘meant to be’, and with that in mind perhaps it’s best to pause there for the moment, and return to where we came in – specifically the night, a quarter-century later, when the same intelligent, amusing, attractive woman woke me to say that she thought she might be happier, that her future might be fuller, richer, that all things considered she might feel more ‘alive’ if she were no longer near me.