by Tamar Cohen
“I’m feeling very compromised,” she told me reproachfully, sounding like a union rep at ACAS. “The secret of your affair has become a burden that I don’t think I can keep shouldering.” (I know you’ll think I’m making that up and no one talks like that, but she really did. I’m not lying. It was like she was reading from a script—a really bad one.)
“When I first facilitated (That word again. Has Sian been taking more of those motivational workshops, I wonder?) your affair, I thought it would be a positive thing for you, Sal. I could see that you hadn’t been happy with Daniel for a while and hoped the thing with Clive would give you a boost.”
A boost? She made you sound like a vaccination!
Sian went on to say that she could shoot herself now for not having tried to talk me out of it, or at least made it clear that she didn’t want anything to do with it. She told me she felt she’d been greatly misled by you, but that now we both had to put it behind us. She sounded so genuinely sorrowful I wondered if she might have been having an affair with you herself!
According to Sian, I’ve been “wallowing” in my misery for too long.
“You need to put your head up above the parapet for a minute and take a good, hard look around you,” she told me.
Well, when she said that, I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was that “head above the parapet.” It made me think of that scene in Alien when the thing’s head bursts out of John Hurt’s stomach and peers around. But my laughter just made Sian’s bottom-heavy frown even more pronounced.
“Your kids are suffering, Sal. And when was the last time you did any proper work?”
Well, she had a point about the work, but you know even while I was docilely nodding, inside I was thinking about something completely different. I was thinking about how you looked at me when we were in the hotel room last week and whether you knew even then that you were going to dump me again as soon as you got home. And I was thinking about you and Susan in your tasteful house, and how you’d be making it up to her, the presents you’d be buying her, the trips you’d be planning. I was the alien that bursts bleeding and slimy and screaming out of a ruptured intestine, and meanwhile you were poring over brochures for beach bungalows in Mauritius or villas in Corsica.
It didn’t seem right. It isn’t right.
It is wrong.
It’s 3 A.M. and here I am again. I find myself curiously attached to the cubbyhole these days. I fear I have become institutionalized.
I am staring at my reflection in a magnifying mirror I found in the back of the filing cabinet drawer. I am fascinated by the changes I see drawn large on my face. There are hairs sprouting from my chin like Jack’s giant beanstalk. Were they there before and I just didn’t notice? Or have grief and tears fertilized their growth? The shadows under my eyes have become great pools of black big enough for a person to drown in. I let the muscles around my mouth go slack and notice how the skin droops down like melted wax. I have a spot on the side of my nose, where no spot has stood since adolescence. I pick at it with vicious pleasure, watching the skin break and enjoying the sudden squirt of pain.
I am becoming grotesque.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to start going on about Alien again. I do apologize for that, incidentally. I blame the lack of sleep. Daniel thinks I might be getting menopausal. Not that I think he has much of a clue what menopausal might be. Sometimes I think he imagines going through the menopause as something akin to passing through the railway junction at Crewe—not very pleasant while it’s happening but a relief once it’s over. I have a sneaking suspicion he imagines I could be “cured” of the menopause by that nice blonde doctor and it’s sheer stubbornness that stops me presenting myself in her consulting rooms for tests.
He doesn’t have the first notion what’s really wrong with me. Nobody knows that but us. It’s yet another bond we share.
I haven’t told you yet, but I met Liam again today. Isn’t that a coincidence?
I was strolling through the West End, I forget exactly why, when suddenly it occurred to me it might be fun to pop into the Royal Gallery. Well, I’d enjoyed it so much the last time, it really seemed silly not to take advantage of being in the area. I wandered around the new exhibition, which seemed to feature lots of big things in primary colors and a room of what looked like concrete excrement. There was a great big cannon there shooting out massive globs of red wax against the white wall. It seemed unnecessarily violent to me, although all the other crowds of visitors seemed terribly pleased every time it happened. To be quite honest, I didn’t really like it but the funny thing is I couldn’t stop watching it. It only happened every twenty minutes, but each time it was over, I stood and waited for the next one, and the next. There was something in the way that wax splatted hard and red against the wall that made me think of you and me.
After a couple of hours I’d had enough. I looked at another exhibit that was like an enormous vulva and one that was a pregnant stomach looming obscenely out of a blank wall (remember the pregnancy that wasn’t real?). Then I decided to go and have some tea.
Of course I remembered Liam worked nearby, but it wasn’t as if I went in just to see him. Why, he could just as easily have had a day off, or been working a different shift, or been recruited to cover in the kitchens. I had no idea if he would be there, nor was it a major concern. I just want you to know that, in case you start thinking things.
But I can’t say I wasn’t pleased to see him. It was nice to see a familiar face after all that angry red wax. I’m sure you can understand that.
Now, I don’t know if I’m being fanciful here, but I could have sworn Liam recognized me. Does that seem farfetched? I’m sure you’re right, and yet there seemed to be a real warmth in his eyes. The eyes that were almost your eyes.
“I came in a few weeks ago,” I told him, when he came up to stand by my table, taking the pen out from behind his ear.
He smiled in a way that could have been acknowledgment that he too had made the connection or, I suppose, could just have been wary politeness.
The smile made me feel bolder.
“I think I might know your parents,” I told him.
Well, that was fair enough, wasn’t it? That’s the kind of thing anyone would say. Nothing sinister about it. Liam smiled again and for a moment that dent in his cheek that’s so exactly like yours made me forget what I was going to say next, but I think I recovered myself without giving anything away. I told him how I’d met you and Susan all those years ago and how much we’d enjoyed visiting the Suffolk house. I was aiming for a mix of casual but friendly. I hope I pulled it off.
He seemed very interested when I told him how helpful you’d always been (don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about the cash from the fridge pressed into my hand in a beige hotel room). He said he thought he’d heard you talking about me, but I think he might have been being kind.
We had a lovely little chat after that. He really has got a sense of humor, hasn’t he? Don’t know who he takes after in that respect. I told him how much I was looking forward to the renewal of the vows party and he made a kind of face as if it was going to be a bit of a chore, whereas actually you could see he didn’t really mean that at all. He’s such a sweetie. I can quite see now why you had such major pre–York Way Friday wobbles about what a divorce might do to the children. You were quite right to be worried.
Liam said he thought you’d been having pre-remarriage nerves, which I thought was quite a jolly way of putting it. He said that he’d been staying in more than normal lately enjoying a bit of “mum-comfort” (as he called it) after splitting up from his most recent girlfriend and you’d seemed a bit out of sorts.
“Usually Dad’s the life and soul but he has been very subdued—for him.”
The good news was that he could report signs of a big improvement over the last few days. “He’s seemed a lot happier and more relaxed. I think he’s actually starting to enjoy the whole thing now.”
That’s
wonderful, Clive. It really is. It’s so important to enjoy these occasions, I always think, these rites of passage. Come to think of it, my own life has been rather short on them, having spectacularly failed to either get religion or get married, two main prerequisites of a good rite of passage. I do envy you and your family all these life-affirming events—the baby shower, the vow renewing. And how much better that you can go through them all free of that nasty cumbersome “burden of guilt” you revealed you’d been carting around in our York Way Friday meeting. No wonder you’re feeling relaxed!
Liam was quite surprised to hear I’d been at Emily’s baby shower. He said he had no idea I was such a good friend of the family. That’s an interesting description, wouldn’t you say?
I ordered a glass of wine. Now I’m not on the happy pills I find wine tastes so much better and I seem to be able to drink vast quantities without even feeling it. Almost makes up for the withdrawal headaches that still take me unaware, pressing down on my skull like a drying bandage, and the queasiness that comes out of nowhere, sending me running, hand over mouth, to the nearest loo.
“I can’t face the patchouli tea,” I told him, and he looked at me as if he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Which of course he didn’t. I expect he’s never even heard of patchouli.
That first glass of wine went down so well I ordered another. There’s something so civilized about sitting in one of the most upmarket addresses in the world drinking Pinot Grigio in the middle of the afternoon (even if it wasn’t the best).
“I expect you enjoy working here,” I said to Liam when he bought the second glass. A bit lame, I know. I just couldn’t think of what else to say. He’s such an open, friendly chap, isn’t he, and yet—and please don’t take this the wrong way—there’s not a lot really to engage with, is there, once you scratch the surface?
Even so, I felt he could have made just the teeniest bit more effort when I was so patently trying to make conversation with him, instead of just smiling sheepishly and trying to look as if he wasn’t glancing around.
“It’s all right, yeah,” he said, but his smile had turned down just a notch. “I’m really sorry that I don’t have time to chat, I’m just a bit busy.”
It was true that there were quite a few customers there but I felt ever so slightly (ridiculously, I know) rejected.
I toyed with the idea of having a third glass, but to tell you the truth I was feeling a bit put out. There was a woman at the next table who kept looking at me in a rather pointed way. She was on her own, just like me, but she was dressed up with studied effortlessness, as if she’d spent hours getting ready for a drinks party where the dress code was “smart casual.” Gauzy patterned top, lots of makeup, statement jewelry and, when she stood up, black leather jeans and high black boots. At her pointy-toed feet was a collection of those carrier bags that designer shops give out with bold writing on the side and thick brocade handles. At first I’d thought she was in her early thirties but when I looked closer it was obvious she was my age, if not more.
She had her iPhone out and was pretending to be engrossed in something. Apps, I believe they’re called, or at least that’s what Jamie tells me. Bet you still don’t really know what those are, despite being one of the iPhone pioneers. You probably make a joke of it at dinner parties. “Oh I just use it for making calls and telling the time,” is the kind of thing you say, cleverly proving not only that you’re someone who can laugh at himself but also that you’re the kind of man who thinks life is too short to read an instruction manual, neither of which bears much approximation to the truth.
Anyway, I could tell she wasn’t really remotely interested in whatever was on her iPhone screen. She kept glancing over at me the whole time I was talking to Liam, and then it finally occurred to me that she thought I must be chatting him up. What is it the media call people like us these days? Cougars. She thought I was a cougar? Isn’t that priceless?
Once I’d worked it out, I realized she probably fancied him herself. Now don’t get all huffy. He might still be a child to you, but Liam is an attractive young man. Please don’t be offended if I say he has a definition around his jaw that you lack. It gives him an illusion of strength, despite his youth and blandness (I mean that in the best possible way, I hasten to add—a blank canvas kind of way). There was definitely something about the way the pointy-booted woman was stirring the teaspoon in her latte (I’m guessing skimmed milk, aren’t you?) while her eyes followed him around the room that made me sense a bit of pheromonal activity.
When I asked Liam that question about whether he enjoyed working there, I could sense her listening in, and when he gave me the brush-off about being too busy, she leaned back and I could swear she was smiling slightly. Sipping the dregs of my wine, I felt a sudden flush of shame as I saw myself through her eyes—a dowdy middle-aged woman in yesterday’s jeans and home-dyed hair, trying to engage the attention of a man young enough to be her son, who clearly had other places he’d rather be. I wanted to lean across and say, “It’s okay. I had an affair with his father.” Actually that’s not all. I wanted to smear the ghost smile all over her over-made-up face. I wanted to make her re-evaluate and reframe me. I wanted her to know men thought of me as a sexual thing. I wanted her to see that I wasn’t like her. I wasn’t the kind of lonely, brittle woman who sits in soulless cafeterias on weekday afternoons with shopping bags at her feet, looking at boys born twenty years too late.
She was wrong about me.
Liam was wrong about me.
I am not that woman.
* * *
I’m back in the cubbyhole where I belong, looking at the computer screen. Sometimes I think I spend so long here that I’m going to organically grow into the furniture. Half woman, half chair. Hey, if all else fails on the financial front (which, let’s face it, looks ever more likely), I could make some money in a traveling freak show. Do they have traveling freak shows anymore? If not, that could be a new niche market, don’t you think?
Up on the screen is the email from you that dropped into my inbox a couple of hours ago. I wouldn’t like you to think I spent my entire life checking my inbox, mind. I do take time out to go to the loo! I’m trying to make a joke here, to keep my lips sealed together in a smile so that it stops my stomach coming up through my mouth. It’s not really working.
I’ve been waiting to hear from you for six days. Ever since you sent that touching “I despise myself” message. Six days of writing to our secret email account (nothing), ringing your phone (voice mail). I even texted you, a cleverly worded message about needing to talk to you about Douggie, your newspaper mate (zilch).
Six days of staring at the (0 unread) message at the top of my email account, willing it to change and trying to stop my throbbing head from exploding like a nail bomb, spraying the walls with rust-sharpened shards of me.
“Why are you always in here?” Tilly asked me yesterday, actively seeking me out, despite missing valuable Friends time, something almost unheard of.
“I’m sorry, darling, I’ve got so much work on at the moment.”
“Then how come you never have anything up on the screen apart from your emails?”
She had a point, but it didn’t stop me feeling a bit invaded, do you know what I mean? I told her that I was waiting on an important work email, but then she pointed out (don’t you always forget how much better kids’ eyesight is than our own?) that the last email in my inbox was dated from forty-eight hours ago, and even then it was a message from Tesco telling me about their special offer on wines.
“You haven’t forgotten it’s my parents’ evening next week.” Tilly has this amazing knack of making a question sound like a statement of fact.
I had forgotten, of course, but I didn’t tell her that.
So anyway, that’s how intently I’ve been waiting for a reply from you, firing off messages into the abyss, listening to the dull silence of a phone switched to off.
So you can imagine my shock when
I suddenly noted a (1 unread) at the top of my emails. It was you, of course, the jumble of random initials and numbers that announced you were sending this from your “secret” account.
You’re going to think me excessive, I know, but my heart really did start battering against my rib cage, a trapped dog hurling itself at the door.
I didn’t even dare click the message open. I wanted to savor the unsullied promise of it, those bold letters that could lead to anything.
Finally I did double-click. I couldn’t keep staring at it forever, could I? Then I did a really interesting thing, I think Helen would have found it very “telling” (that’s another one of her key words). I leaned back so that with my computer-ruined eyes, I couldn’t actually read what you’d written and the letters blurred across the screen. I was trying to get a sense of the overall shape of the message, you see—round and jolly? Thin and spiky?—as if that might give me some indication of what it contained. Isn’t that mad?
When I really couldn’t put it off anymore, I leaned forward and skimmed the last line to get a flavor of the tone of your message.
You MUST put this behind you now, for your own sake.
It didn’t sound good. Sure enough the rest wasn’t any better. Of course I’d half-expected that part about seeing Liam, although to be quite frank you’re reading far too much into it. Your son works in the middle of the West End. You can’t be surprised if your friends bump into him from time to time. I must admit though I was surprised when you put that bit about me having sent 436 email messages in the past six days. I’m sure you’re exaggerating. It can’t possibly be that many. Anyway, most of them were just a few lines long. Some were just a few words. So they don’t count, do they? And I don’t believe that’s an accurate tally of how many times I called your phone before you switched it off, either. You probably just rounded it up to make it sound more sinister.