by Louise Kean
‘The kind, Sunny, I am sorry to say, who has to go and get somebody else’s man because she can’t get her own.’ She finishes with a smirk, that demands, ‘Deny it, whore!’
‘Oh, grow up, Anna. It’s not like that at all and you know it. We aren’t eighteen any more. This is real life – nobody belongs to anybody. You do what you want to do.’
‘Well, that’s a nice attitude!’ she says, rounding the sentence off with a short high false laugh.
‘It’s not an attitude,’ I say wearily, rubbing my eyes.
Lisa stares at her salad, occasionally forking in a mouthful of greenery and chicken, with quiet stealth, hoping neither of us will notice we don’t have her undivided attention.
‘Look, Sunny, I could have understood this a year ago, but things have changed now. You’ve changed. You should try and get somebody of your own. You don’t have to just take some guy who only wants to have his cake and eat it too.’
I grab my napkin from my lap and throw it down on the table, sitting forwards to address Anna. ‘I don’t believe you mean the things that you say, or at least I don’t believe you mean them to sound the way that they do.’
‘What if it was me?’ she says to me, with squinted eyes, smiling deliciously, predicting a win. ‘What if it was Martin cheating? How would you feel, doing that to me? Taking away my husband?’
‘And he has no mind or will of his own, right? It wouldn’t be his decision as well?’
‘Answer me, Sunny, what if it were Martin? Would you be so flippant about it then?’
‘“Answer me”? Who are you, my mother? And I am not being flippant!’ I raise my voice, and the women on the table behind us, still slathered in Anna’s disapproving stares, turn around to see what all the fuss is about. Anna beams at them wickedly.
‘Look, Anna, he would be the one who would be cheating, not me.’
‘Well alright, Sunny, if you are going to be pedantic. How would you feel, putting him in that position?’
I stare at her cold, hard, locked jaw, and her eyes, with great big holdalls underneath them, which she has tried desperately to hide with concealer, but which has just made them more prominent. She looks tired, drained, and weak from not eating. But I won’t make excuses for her any more. She may only be saying these things because she has just had a baby, but today I don’t feel like caving, just to keep the peace.
‘Well, if he was cheating, I’m sure he’d have his reasons,’ I say, and raise my eyebrows in defiance.
Anna clicks her teeth together quickly ten times. It is a habit, something that she does when she is angry, and trying to compose herself. I’ve chinked her armour. My armour is shot to shit from years of her put-downs.
She shrugs. ‘Well, I just thought you’d got some self-respect back, Sunny. I mean, you don’t need to borrow affection any more, from some man who is probably just using you for sex anyway, all the dirty stuff that his wife won’t do. Some cheat.’ She hammers the final ‘t’ on to ‘cheat’, hitting me over the head with the word, trying to shame me.
‘You don’t know anything about it, or Adrian, or us … or me, for that matter.’ I fork up some tuna, and eat it as calmly as I can, trying to regain my composure in the face of volcano Anna.
‘Well …’ Anna stares at Lisa until Lisa looks up from her salad and glances back. ‘This is exactly why Lisa and I wanted to have lunch with you, Sunny. It’s positively perfect in illustrating our point.’
‘What point? What are you talking about?’ I stop eating, my fork suspended over my plate, flakes of tuna hurling themselves back into my salad.
Lisa throws me a guilty glance, but Anna just looks confident, smugly glowing, holding court.
‘We’re worried about you,’ she says, in the least concerned voice I have ever heard. Her words drip with confrontation.
‘Oh, really?’ I ask, nodding my head, squinting my eyes, making a point of not taking her seriously.
‘Yes, Sunny, we are,’ she says. ‘You know me, Sunny. I’m not going to bullshit you. At least you always know where you stand with me. If I’ve got something to say I say it to your face,’ she says, as if the restaurant should break into a spontaneous round of applause.
It turns my stomach with embarrassment that she is so arrogant to think for a second that her beliefs carry any weight with me, or anybody other than her husband. And I wouldn’t be surprised if even he has stopped listening. I couldn’t give a damn about her ill-informed opinions, and yet she chooses to share them with me anyway.
‘You are obviously much healthier than you used to be,’ she says begrudgingly.
‘And?’ I ask.
‘And we think you’ve got shallow.’ She announces it, loudly, to the entire restaurant. ‘Very shallow, in fact. That’s just the way it is.’ She sits back, defensive yet ready for the fight she hopes she has just provoked, but somehow still indignant.
‘Why is that exactly?’ I ask, smiling.
‘Well,’ she says, as if she is about to reveal the world’s best-kept secrets, ‘you haven’t offered to baby-sit for me even once in the last couple of months.’ She widens her eyes, as if to say, ‘Just you think about that, Sunny, and you’ll realise I’m right, and isn’t that just awful!’
‘Right, well, that’s up there with genocide. What else?’ I ask, cupping my chin in my hand to mimic interest.
She glares at me, but continues, ‘And you never ask about us any more, you just talk about yourself. Basically, you think that now you can fit in to some size twelve trousers, and you’ve had a bit of male attention, you are better than we are.’
But she can’t hold my stare, and she looks at Lisa for support, who isn’t saying very much at all. I don’t doubt that they have had this conversation, and that Lisa has agreed with Anna, even if she had to be persuaded. But it’s as if a light bulb goes on in my head. They haven’t always been like this. Anna’s life, certainly her romantic life, has always been more interesting than mine, and maybe I have been overinterested in the past, sucking up all the juicy details, filling up the empty space in my emotional cupboard, where my own romantic details should have been. Maybe she doesn’t feel idolised any more.
‘I think, Anna, that the truth might be the other way around. You think that I am better than you now. Which probably means that you thought you were better than me before.’
‘No …’ she says, shaking her head, but no more words tumble out of her big old mouth with its perfect cupid’s bow.
So I go on, ‘The only person I really judge on how they look is myself. I’m not sitting here judging your shoes, or your hair, or the fat that hangs over your jeans. I couldn’t care less about that – you’re my friend. Why do you have to beat me up for this? Why can’t you just be happy for me? I get to taste the good life for a little while – don’t I deserve it?’
But Anna isn’t listening to anything other than the words that allow her to make another point, slap me hard with another personalised attack.
‘You said it right then: you couldn’t care less! You only care about yourself now.’
‘I meant that I don’t care how you look, with regard to us being friends. I don’t need to measure myself up against you, and decide that I win, to feel better. And I don’t want a friend who only wants me around for that …’
The table falls silent, and suddenly I notice that there are other people in the room, and they all seem to be laughing, and enjoying themselves, with people who like them, and support them. They are all having a good time. I push myself to my feet, and grab my jacket and bag from the back of my chair.
‘I’ve lost my appetite, and that isn’t a lie.’ I push my chair out and walk calmly to the door.
‘I’m sorry, that’s just what I think,’ I hear Anna say as I slam the door behind me. I stride twenty paces down the road, then stop, standing perfectly still in the street, trying not to cry. I want to scream, but I don’t. It isn’t about other people. I didn’t do this for anybody else. It’s about m
e.
I sift through some invoices and check the site for flaws, trying to work through my anger. I need to focus on today’s orders and the pile of paperwork in my in-tray that is over a week old. I have never let things slip like this before; I have never been so distracted. My life doesn’t run as smoothly with all of these romantic rumblings and fractious friendships. I want to go to the gym, and run everything out of my head: my confusion over Adrian, my need to pick up the phone and just scream at Anna … I am scared that, however impure her motives, some of what she said may have been right.
My doorbell rings, and I shuffle through to the hallway in bed socks and press the buzzer. ‘Who is it?’ I trill down the intercom.
‘Are you even talking to me?’ Adrian asks pathetically.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Can I come up then? I need to talk to you.’ He sounds serious.
‘Not more revelations!’ I say, and press the buzzer, not really believing he can have any, unless he has a child with him that asks, ‘Daddy, who is that lady?’ when they get to the top of the stairs.
But either he doesn’t answer, or he doesn’t hear.
I check my hair quickly. I am still dressed for lunch with Anna and Lisa, I have only taken off my high-heeled boots and replaced them with comfy cashmere socks, so I know that I look OK. It’s not as if I have just rolled out of bed, hitting the floor in a flurry of crazy hair and pillow lines creased across my face. It’s not such a bad sign that I don’t really care.
Adrian loiters at the top of the stairs with his hands in his pockets. I open the door but immediately turn to walk into the lounge, so as not to share a doorstep kiss. I feel too much pressure, too much would ride on it. But he grabs my hand and spins me round and pushes me up against my hallway wall, narrowly avoiding a picture of my mum and dad in Austria last year, standing next to a ski lift, in summer. Adrian holds my face in his hands.
‘Don’t I even get a kiss now?’ he says sadly.
‘I don’t know, maybe …’ But it is easier to kiss him than not to kiss him. If I push him away it will be such a big deal, and we’ll have to talk about it, and I’ll have to explain. Besides, part of me really does want to kiss him, wants to feel his hands creep up and over my chest to my shoulders, feel his tongue at my neck, feel him so close, wanting me. But it’s just the physical side rushing in, the promise of another Fondler moment. It has very little to do with Adrian. It’s no more than right place right time for him. So I let him lean in, and he gently brushes his lips over mine, before pushing his tongue into my mouth. I want to cough and make choking noises, and pretend to pass out. But I just kiss him back, until he is ready to stop.
‘The thought of kissing you, Sunny, is the only thing that has got me through the day,’ he says, in his slightly pissed northern accent. I have to fight to believe it. I cannot imagine that kissing me could get anybody through an ad break, never mind an entire day. Simultaneously a vicious poison-filled thought bubble bursts in my head. Only remembered me today then? Because I haven’t seen you all week!
Instead I say, ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ moving into the kitchen, flicking on the kettle.
Adrian leans against the doorframe between my kitchen and lounge, crosses his arms and looks down at his feet. I realise I am staring and still waiting for an answer after fifteen seconds.
‘Adrian? Tea?’ I ask tersely
‘I’ve left Jane,’ he says, looking up with such a serious expression on his face it makes me want to laugh out loud.
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘I thought … it was the right thing to do.’ Saint Adrian, Patron Saint of Better Late Than Never Morality.
‘Is it the right thing to do?’ I ask, flinging a tea bag lazily into a mug for him.
‘I think so.’ He nods his head, and smiles at me slightly.
‘You seem OK about it,’ I say, staying on my side of the kitchen, not wanting to get any closer to him just yet.
‘I am OK. Of course I am sad, but … I can’t do what I’m doing … anyway, I don’t want to talk about it. I just wanted you to know.’
‘Oh, OK, thanks very much. I don’t know what you expect me to say …’
‘Can I come and stay on Saturday night?’
I pour out the boiling water, and splash some milk into his cup. ‘I guess so. Why Saturday, particularly? I mean, where are you living now?’
Adrian pauses for a moment, staring at me, concentrating. ‘With Mark in Brentford, on his sofa,’ he says, and sips his tea. He stares at me again and says something I don’t hear.
‘What?’ I ask, running a little cold water into my black coffee so it doesn’t burn me.
‘You look lovely today,’ he repeats.
I don’t agree or disagree or thank him or reprimand him. And he gives up waiting for me to walk his way, and moves slowly towards me. I let him take my hands in his, entwining our fingers as if we are about to play Mercy.
‘So this means we can see a bit more of each other,’ he says, leaning down, kissing my neck.
‘Yes, it does,’ I say, peculiarly numb. I feel as if things are being taken out of my hands, and that if I let it, everything will be decided for me.
‘I have a party to go to on Saturday night,’ I say, as he licks my left ear.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he says, running his fingers over my left breast. ‘I can’t promise to be completely around. I mean, I just need some thinking time, for a while, so I can decide what to do. But I’d like to see you on Saturday night as I said.’
‘OK,’ I say, allowing myself to be kissed again. Manhandled. I don’t feel any nervous kicks. Now I don’t feel any deep-rooted desire to climb on top of him, or check if he is excited. But his hand moves down to his crotch and flicks open his button-fly jeans.
I ignore it.
‘You’re so hot,’ he mumbles.
I ignore it.
‘I’ve had such a hard day,’ he says, with a childish smile.
‘Haven’t we all,’ I say, and let go of his hands.
‘All I’ve thought about is you sucking me off …’
‘Nice,’ I say, and take a step back. ‘I mean, that sounds just magical, Adrian, for me.’
‘Sunny … I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I love the way that it feels …’
‘I know what you meant. You are feeling sorry for yourself, so you want me to make you feel better. Well, you can’t just show up here and demand a blow job, Adrian. I’m not a whore.’
‘Oi! Nobody called you that,’ he shouts at me, annoyed.
I turn to walk away, and he grabs me again, and spins me round. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I know, I know. I’m sorry, I’m just in a funny mood. I had an argument with Lisa and Anna at lunchtime. I’m all worked up and lashing out at you. I’m sorry.’ I stroke his face quickly and smile.
‘Don’t apologise’ he says, looking guilty for a second, and then, ‘Let’s go to bed.’
I don’t think I should. It will only confuse things. I check my watch – it is 1.30. I shouldn’t go to bed, with a man, at 1.30 in the afternoon.
‘Late for a bus?’ he asks, and pulls me towards him.
And I think, now isn’t a time for laughs. Just say something, something serious, something that makes me feel something for you. Something real, and not a joke about how you don’t care. Something, anything, that has everything to do with emotion, and nothing to do with sex.
But instead Adrian says, ‘Come on, Sun, let’s go to bed.’
I follow him into the bedroom, when I know I shouldn’t. It’s not that I feel I can’t say no. I just don’t. I think I might just like the idea of sex in the afternoon. I’ve never done that before either. It is sex for sex’s sake, not just because it’s night-time, or we are in bed. It’s a product of passion, while the rest of the world works and shops and taps away at keyboards, I am indulging in pure adult pleasure. It makes me feel like a grown-up, but simultaneously the child in me feels naughty, an
d that only fuels my fire.
It is good, and bad.
It is good because as Adrian holds my hips and pulls me on to him, as we sit up, with my legs wrapped around him, I hold him tight and bury my head in his neck, and I have a slight hurried orgasm, but an orgasm none the less. It is bad because I am thinking of somebody else.
Adrian and I lie on separate sides of my bed afterwards. I look over at him, lying in a wilderness of duvet and cushions and my pyjamas, and my underwear, that all somehow got jumbled up into a white elephant fête stall on my bed. It is fair to say that I don’t have that much experience with men, but even I know it is a bad sign to be thinking about somebody else three weeks into a relationship. If that’s what this is. Shit. Adrian has left his girlfriend! I shake my head, to wake myself from a dream, and grasp on to reality, have it pull me back from the brink, where I stand, dangling a rope off a cliff that is tied to a bucket, that swings precariously over rocks, filled casually with all our lives. It is only my indecision that need let it fall.
‘So, if you come on Saturday, it could be like, our first proper date?’ I say, and turn my head to look at him, pulling the sheet up around my chest.
‘What do you mean? We’ve had dates.’ His eyes are closed but I see his brow dent with confusion.
‘They weren’t real, Adrian. Now we’ll really be able to see …’
But the sound of one of Adrian’s wet snores rings viciously in my ears.
By 2.10 p.m. Adrian is waving goodbye to me from the street, as I hold back the curtain at my window. I turn around to face my bedroom, and the mess that he has left behind. I marvel at the speed at which things can flip around in my head, and ideas that seemed inspired and brutally perfect only moments ago now seem like utter stupidity.
I spin around on the spot three times, and run my fingers through my hair, but they get caught around my crown, which has just been shoved up and down against my sheets by a thrusting Adrian. I claw my way through it, and sigh. I fight tears, and I fight laughter, and eventually end up with a whimpered, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I’m doing …’