Of wee sweetie mice and men

by Colin Bateman

'Bobby, any reaction to the death threat issued by the Sons of Muhammad?'

  'Doesn't worry me in the slightest.'

  Clay pulled the microphone round to him. 'Ruth, you were at the press conference the other day, you know there was no racism in anything Bobby McMaster said. I believe this threat can be traced back to a third party running scared at the possible outcome of this fight.'

  'Would you care to explain that, Mr Clay?' another reporter said, thrusting his microphone forward. 'No.'

  'Are you suggesting that the Tyson camp might be behind this death threat?'

  Clay smiled benignly. 'Of course not.'

  The third reporter muscled in. 'Will you be providing any extra security for the contender, Mr Clay?'

  'We will be providing some extra security, yes, but mostly to keep all of you reporters away from Bobby - he needs to prepare for this fight in peace and tranquillity - he doesn't need all this extra pressure.'

  'Is the pressure getting to you, Bobby?'

  'No, the pressure isn't getting to me.'

  'Do you regret making any comments at the press conference?'

  'No.'

  'Do you wish to clarify any of your comments?'

  'Only insofar as to say that if anyone was able to take anything of a racist nature from what I said, then, well, they've got wee sweetie mice in their heads.'

  And that shut them up.

  14

  Dear Patricia

  Where to start, eh? Immediately you will realize this is a bit unorthodox for me, in fact I'll be pleasantly surprised if you even recognize the handwriting. Perhaps you have already flicked to the end to see who it's from?

  Well, hello! There we go, starting with a misplaced sense of joviality when I feel like my heart has been ripped out and pumped full of lead and then replaced; like my ribs are being whacked continuously with a toffee hammer and someone has lodged a three-month-old Brussels sprout in amongst my taste buds. Is this what being lovesick does for you? I should remember. Who am I lovesick for? As if you didn't know. You, of course. I only pray to God that you will find it in your heart somewhere to forgive me and take me back and love me again, because I've been a silly bugger for too long and it is time to take my life in hand, our life in hand and start again.

  So, how are you? Silly question. Of course. The sort of question I should reserve for a phone call. But phone calls were never my strong point, something I have come to realize during the long hours of lonely contemplation I have undertaken since we parted. Hotel rooms are good for contemplation. There are distractions, of course, particularly in a city like New York, but I have been largely immune to them, save for one bout with alcohol which resulted in a somewhat vague phone call to you, which ended up with your dad. I'm sorry. If he hasn't told you about it, well, don't ask, but I'm mentioning it to you anyway because it is part of my new philosophy - complete honesty, trust, abstinence from alcohol, faithfulness. Quite a list, you'll agree, and I know you'll be thinking, God, here we go again, I've heard this all before. Of course you have. But I mean it this time. And I've said that before as well. I don't blame you if you don't believe me, but if all our years together mean anything at all to you, please give me this chance.

  In the past I have made promises to you and I have broken those promises, not deliberately, not unconsciously exactly, but through my own weak character, always believing that you would forgive me, take me back, because you loved me. It is only since we truly separated and you refused to take me back that I have come to realize the depth of my feelings for you, the depth of my love, and ponder upon how I threw it all away.

  Usually marriages fall apart through an over-familiarity which breeds boredom or lack of togetherness which leads to the establishment of new relationships and ultimately unfaithfulness. With us, I suppose, it was both - from the debacle of my job attempting to be an information officer for the Government, for which I was patently unsuited, and our mutual affairs caused by the disenchantment of that period, to our ultimate separation caused by my continued affair with alcohol, which ushered in your affair with Tony.

  You may be cringing at all this. You may be hopelessly in love with Tony. Any feelings you had for me may have long gone. Certainly you are carrying his child. But I think in the end that although I have been a complete bastard to you, you will realize how much I love you, and that you, too, love me back.

  We can be great again!

  Do you remember how we met? Neither do I. Even I, an acknowledged authority on the many states of drunkenness, failed to match you in drinking capacity on that fateful night. I do remember the next night though, when the hangover from hell stopped me going out. I remember sitting in the front room feeling sorry for myself and wishing you were there, but we'd parted sick, without the capacity even to exchange numbers. I was watching TV - no, it was on, but I was staring out the window, and the next thing I saw was you bouncing up the road on a space hopper you'd stolen from someone's front garden and I knew immediately I was in love.

  And then talking to you, enjoying your sharpness. Do you know, right from the start, I kept a notebook of all the things you said to me, all the bright, witty, loving things you said to me, things that I've thus far been scared to use in any of my own writing in case you thought I wasn't a literary genius in my own right.

  Knowing you, you won't believe me - you always did undervalue your own talents, thinking because I was a journalist I could write, but that because you were 'only' a tax inspector you couldn't. What shite. The only thing being a tax inspector stops you from being is a normal human being. (joke.)

  I don't have the notebook with me, but in the months since we split up I have looked at it from time to time and it has always brought a smile to my face, not just at the lines themselves, but the memories that go with them.

  I think it was the second night together, when I was lying in your arms, you said, 'I feel like I've known you for a maternity,' and I, being me, even in such a romantic moment sought to correct you with 'Eternity', and you said, 'No, maternity, about nine months.'

  Or the first time (I think, I hope!) you had an orgasm (with me) you said: 'I like going to bed with Liverpool fans, they're so used to coming second.'

  Remember? Those early days when we didn't argue, at all. How could we do that, having so many different interests; what you liked I hated, what you hated I liked.

  Remember when you were on another of those bloody silly diets you used to get so serious about, and you phoned me up in tears and it took me ages to get you to speak properly and when you did you said you'd been arrested by the diet police for unlawful caramel knowledge.

  And it's not all funny either. I've made notes about you angry as well, not just with me - there's plenty of them - but with others, out in public. Remember that restaurant in London with log all the airs and graces where you bawled out that waiter with the stutter for messing up our order and then trying to say it was our fault for ordering incorrectly and you saying we weren't the ones with the embarrassing stutter. And after he'd gone you sat there with tears in your eyes and the whole restaurant looking at you and you just said quietly, but with that wee way you have of making yourself heard, 'I don't mind people with stutters, I have all the time in the world for people with stutters, but if they turn out to be sleekit fuckers as well I'll take the pish out of them as I see fit.' And I just wanted to get up and throw my arms round you and tell you I loved you, but couldn't because I'd had too much drink and my legs wouldn't work. Did I ever tell you I was proud of you then? Because you know how I am, they could serve me a fried dictionary in a restaurant and I'd feel bad about complaining.

  During my contemplations I've thought about that restaurant quite a lot, and my own reactions to it. I had always thought I didn't complain myself because, well, because I was such a laidback person it didn't matter much, that any problem would just wash over me. I've gone through life like that, thinking of myself as laid-back, thinking I was the archetypal tranquil port in the midst of a
stormy ocean. It is only since I've been here that I've come to realize that I'm not like that at all, that in reality I am just one big ball of emotions that I've been afraid to unleash, not even to you. It has been a revelation, this self-examination. Not quite on a par with Saul on the road to Damascus, perhaps, but pretty damn important to me, and, hopefully, to you. Because I never treated you the way you deserved. Of course I told you that I loved you, but it was a flippant kind of love, I might as well have been saying good morning or good night. Instead of lavishing love upon you, I took you for granted; I realize now that having achieved the state of marriage, I thought I had done everything expected of me, that I could go about concentrating on myself and my career; one half of me with my head stuck in the clouds dreaming of literary greatness, the other half with my journalism and my drinking, which is one and the same really; and as you log know, there are no third halves in life, which meant that you were excluded. I'm sorry. I was wrong.

  Some of it was your fault, of course. Neither of us are perfect. But even though we are chalk and cheese, and always will be, I believe with all my heart that we are perfect for each other. Look back to our good days, then when next you laugh with Tony, presuming that you do, is it the same, or is there something missing, and is that something me?

  I know you always wanted children. Although we did all the practical work, nothing ever arrived. We took the precautions, mostly, but you always had that little hope that from those nights when we forgot or you were off the pill for whatever reason you might get pregnant; I could always tell, even if you never said it. I don't know why it never happened. Perhaps my sperm were crap swimmers. If you had had a baby sure it probably would have been born wearing armbands.

  Whatever my deficiencies were, or are, Tony clearly does not share them, at least in that department. Perhaps in others, but that's just my jealousy coming through. I know nothing about him, besides the fact that he can throw a decent punch. I don't know what your feelings for him really are because I have been too scared to delve too deeply; because I love you, any protestations of love for another man bring me one step closer to ... I don't know ... I should cross that bit out, but I'm just writing this as it comes so that it's completely honest ... okay, I don't know what I'll do if you love him.

  But what if he doesn't love you? What if he wants nothing to do with the baby? You must be tearing yourself apart worrying about it. You probably don't need your long-departed husband bending your ear on lost love while you try to figure out what to do with your baby.

  Perhaps you've thought about getting rid of it. Don't. No matter what your thoughts on Tony, or his decision, it/he/she is your baby. It's a little you. It may be a little bit him as well, but sure you can beat that out of him/her/it.

  Let me make you an offer. Come back to me and have the baby.

  Be mine and he/she/it will be mine as well. I won't even say it'll be as if it's my child, it will be my child; I will never think of it in any other way; even in the depths of our worst argument I will not cast it up, for there is nothing to cast up.

  Come to me here in New York.

  Do you remember we always hated those Hollywood love stories? Hated the idea of people's lives being ruined all over the world because they were pursuing a mythical idea of true love they had fallen for in the cinema. And then we went to see When Harry Met Sally and cried our eyes out and it turned out we were old Hollywood romantics after all, that we thought in those tough cynical times we needed the Hollywood idea of love to hope for in the midst of the grim realities of life. Remember we went through our hopelessly romantic phase after that - we bought the little puppy, and for months neither of us had the guts to say that we didn't like it for fear of hurting each other and it just absolutely ruled our lives. Jesus, remember the day we found ourselves hiding upstairs so that we wouldn't have to play with it? It wasn't the pup's fault; we were suffering from first love laziness and wanted to recline in each other's arms in front of the box and maybe occasionally pet a laconic puppy, not to have to sit with our feet up on the couch so that it wouldn't eat our toes or spend every night wiping slabbers off the glass table. There was such a relief when your dad finally took it away. He said he had a good home for it, but I've always had a sneaking suspicion that the Mr Watters he talked about had more to do with a plastic bin bag, a couple of bricks and the River Lagan than a home for unwanted puppies.

  Still, it was the thought that counted, and we thought a good PUPPY.

  Remember the Magic Settee? How long since we made love on that? Is it my imagination, or did something go out of our marriage once we stored it away? Why did we store it away? Was it covered in dog hairs?

  Jesus, I could go on like this for ever - happy memories. You could too, of course - but maybe they aren't happy memories for you. Maybe the things that make me glow in the dark make you shiver; perhaps you were never happy. Oh, I know it's just me being doomy-gloomy, but you can't expect much more; after all, my wife's having another man's child.

  Yes, come to New York. Remember that woman's other film - Sleepless in Seattle? We're hardly the same as those characters, but perhaps we could end up the same - meeting at midnight at the top of the Empire State Building and proclaiming true love for each other. Maybe not the Empire State, you know the way my nose bleeds at great heights, but somewhere just as romantic - what about a horse and trap round Central Park? I'm told it's absolutely beautiful if you can avoid the crackheads, the beggars and the film makers making documentaries about the crackheads and the beggars. I'm told half the crackheads have agents now. I wouldn't know, of course, as the closest I've ever come to an agent is an estate agent. Ho-ho. Humour, once again, masking a broken heart.

  Okay, it's time to wind this up. There's so much else I could write, but I know it's stupid trying to bludgeon you back into love with me with something the size of War and Peace. Suffice to say, I can be a better person than I have been, I can kick the booze, I can treat you like the lady you are, I can accept you and love you as you are, with or without child.

  You know when I'm coming back, but it would be so much nicer to have you here, to start our relationship again away from it all. And we did love New York together, didn't we?

  Of course I have some work to do, but if you want I can take some time after he's lost the fight and spend it entirely with you. I can't anticipate Cameron being in a desperate rush for the book - studies in failure need time to mature, and besides, a look at McMaster in his sad twilight years (not that he had much time in the limelight) will be a fitting end to a book which I think will expose what a crazy charade this whole boxing business is, rather than the sports biography Cameron thinks he's getting.

  So call me or write to me. I'll lay off using the phone for a while. The address and phone number are at the top of the first page - I hope you like the headed paper. The hotel also has some girlie pink paper, but I thought that was pushing things a bit.

  I'll send you a ticket. I'll give you my love.

  Love

  Dan

  15

  I had a drink to celebrate my new-found sobriety.

  I knew it was pretty stupid, but I was happy in myself and in my capacity to withstand it; I was happyish with the letter, but drained by the work I'd put into it. I needed a lift, just a little one. I felt lonely. It was dark outside and there were flecks of snow drifting slowly past the window.

  I sipped at a beer and re-read the letter. I wasn't so sure about it when I got to the end. Half of me loved it, the other half thought it might cause her to run a million miles, or at least as far as an unfaithful woman who's an indeterminate number of months pregnant can run.

  I needed a second opinion. I have always thrived on second opinions, on disagreeing with them, thus reassuring myself. I needed an editor, and it had to be a woman, a woman's reaction. I thought of letting Mary McMaster read it. She seemed the sensitive but sensible type. But I decided it would be a mistake to let someone I was meant to be examining closely for a book
get such an inside line on me. I didn't want her telling the world what a sad wreck her husband's biographer was if they didn't approve of the book. And I doubted that they would. There was no one else in the McMaster camp I could turn to.

  Actually, I knew exactly who I wanted to advise me on it, and the thought worried me. But worries have a habit of dissipating with a couple of drinks and gradually it didn't seem like such a bad idea. It certainly couldn't do any harm; besides I had her clothes to return.

  I called Paula's apartment block in Greenwich Village. An elderly-sounding woman answered the phone in the foyer and was kind enough to buzz her room, but there was no reply. She was probably at work with the sad people. If I was serious about getting her opinion it meant a return to 42nd Street. I weighed it up in my mind while I had another couple of drinks and decided to chance it; it was worth the embarrassment if anyone saw me; I was trying to save my marriage. I found a plastic bag and gathered up the clothes she had lent me for my ridiculous walk up Broadway.

  The walk, the bite of the wind as it swirled up Broadway and the snow assaulting my face had a fairly sobering effect. By the time I reached the sex club I was having second thoughts. Maybe it would be better to wait until she got back to her apartment than to hassle her at work, but then I considered the letter and its importance and decided to press ahead.

  I walked through a neon-lit archway. There were only a couple of customers. They didn't look up as I entered. It wasn't the sort of place you struck up idle conversation. I skirted a table piled high with magazines and approached the stairs at the back of the club. I nodded at the Indian in the tux.

  'Is Paula in tonight?'

  He shook his head. 'No Paula.'

  'Night off ?'

  'No Paula.'

  I turned, then turned back. 'Lauren?'

  'Lauren upstairs.'

  They don't call me Sherlock Holmes ... at all, but still. I started for the next floor. The Indian put his hand out. I began to protest and then thought better of it and purchased a token. Then he stopped me again.