After Everything

by Suellen Dainty

  Sandy persisted. ‘I’m not asking you to pay up, you shit. It’s a pure and simple thing of friendship. You couldn’t even be bothered to tell me to my face.’

  ‘Pure and simple,’ snorted Jeremy. ‘There is no such thing.’

  ‘So I see,’ said Sandy and walked out, not bothering to close the door behind him. The little hardware shop was still on the corner, just before Lots Road with its collection of smart auction houses and interior design shops. As his feet hit the pavement in a clipped rhythm, he felt a sense of demarcation between him and the rest of the world, as if the air between him and it had formed an invisible force field. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he dunked his Rooibos teabag into that lumpy mug Emily had made him as a child. He’d been all set for a day of go-with-the-flow harmony. Now every nerve was abraded, manned-up for combat.

  Sandy made his purchase and strode back towards the river. No one was on the jetty. He wouldn’t have cared anyway. He stepped onto the deck of the Jezebel. There was no sound from inside. Jeremy must have already left. Sandy ran his hand along the varnished teak decking with its solid brass nails and narrow hand-cut boards. The Jezebel was an object of exquisite craftsmanship, cosseted like a favourite mistress. Eight coats of varnish. Proper cotton caulking between the headboards. Hull scraped down every year. Sandy looked through the bevelled glass door into the cabin, the morning sun dancing off the Ruscha. He shook the can for longer than the recommended sixty seconds and took off the lid. He rolled up his sleeves and bent down. Sandy was careful. He made sure the entire deck was covered. When he’d finished, he stood up to admire his handiwork. FUCK YOU, it said, each letter two metres high and half a metre across. He added some exclamation marks for good measure, then some swirls on the cabin windows. The scarlet fluorescent paint was even more garish than he’d imagined.

  mattman5@hotmail.com

  To: emily.ellison@gmail.com

  I feel like Holden Caulfield, right at the beginning, when he’s about to leave that school and he wants a goodbye to mean something. Remember that bit? I practically knew it off by heart. I really wanted to say goodbye to Sandy properly, and to write a proper letter to Mum, even though it wouldn’t be a paper letter, just an email. But Sandy was so weird when I saw him, almost crying into his diet coke, really lame. All ‘Remember this’ and ‘Remember that’. He was never there anyway. So what would he remember? And Mum’s cracked up because her precious doll’s house is now kindling after that breakin. She keeps saying how violated she feels. Like she’s Tess of the d’Urber-whoevers. See, my education wasn’t a complete waste? LOL. So no proper goodbye to anyone, on the first overseas trip of my life. Goddamn phonies. Fuck the lot of them. Next week, Em. Next week, you and me, together again. Can’t wait. See you at the bus stop.

  Chapter 25

  Tim could have healed the rift between Sandy and Jeremy, if only he’d had a chance. He would have sat them down, made them talk it through, shifted their viewpoints.

  He’d done that with Dan the quant – worked through the rage and the tears and the fear of not finding another job. He’d asked Dan if he could imagine his boss not as a monster, but as a sick and fragile person imprisoned by his own weakness.

  ‘Think about it another way,’ Tim had said. It was the fourth or fifth session. Dan had stopped crying. Tim had cleaned the boot marks off the carpet. There was a kiss of sunshine in the morning air and Tim opened the windows.

  ‘You’re free now, you’re out of that culture, which you say you hated. That man doesn’t have any power over you anymore. It seems to me he doesn’t even have any power over himself. Perhaps he’s the one who should be pitied.’

  Dan was disgruntled. He’d become accustomed to the anger that had sustained him since he’d been fired and didn’t want to let it go. Tim wanted to tell him that anger wasted time and energy; that it was depressing and corrosive. But to do that, he would have to reveal the part of himself that had smouldered for too long over deals backfiring, people he shouldn’t have trusted and, more often than he liked to admit, his own lack of judgement. He couldn’t do that, because therapists didn’t talk about themselves. This was a protocol that suited Tim. He cared about his clients, but he didn’t want to confide in them.

  Dan shook his head. ‘I don’t pity him one bit. He’s the one with the money. I still don’t have a job. It’s so much harder now, in the recession. I still buy my suits off the peg. I always wanted to get a suit made by a proper tailor in Savile Row.’

  ‘A tailor-made suit won’t make you a different person.’ Tim wanted to say Dan was clinging onto his victim status, but that would be too aggressive.

  ‘Your choices are wider than you think. You’re a mathematician. You’re clever. Up to now, you’ve been making mathematical models that have catered to people’s greed. You could make other models that actually produced something that people needed. Or you could teach. Not so much money, but you might find it more satisfying.’

  Dan was doubtful, but Tim could see there was a shift. Dan would finish his course of therapy a more calm and aware person. It made Tim feel better, more useful. No, that was the wrong word. It made him feel more powerful.

  He imagined renegotiating the friendship between Sandy and Jeremy. Jeremy had always been the success story, the most powerful one in the group. Now Tim could be the one to help him and Sandy. Not as a therapist, of course, but as a friend. Tim could talk to them about Sandy’s meltdown and Jeremy’s business problems, help them to understand each other.

  But the divorce between Jeremy and Sandy, it seemed, was absolute. Tim didn’t like the way their little group had disintegrated. He missed the lunches and dinners together. He didn’t realise how much sustenance he got from their meandering blokey conversation, how they balanced the enervating intimacy Angie demanded from him.

  He loved Angie and didn’t want to live without her, but she wanted his soul. It might not have been so intense if they had sex. Her intensity might channel itself into that, and then they could roll apart, content to be separate people. But he couldn’t, hadn’t been able to for years, hadn’t wanted to. Not with her, not with anyone, even himself.

  His once rock-hard erections had grown flabby and half-hearted during the years when his business imploded. He went from wanting sex all the time, to faltering halfway through the act, feeling himself shrivel and slide out onto the sheet, a small sad worm.

  Viagra induced an erection so vertical it hurt, but also blinding headaches, so that was out. He read up on oral sex, tried gentle tongue flicking, finger fucking. Nothing happened. Angie remained rigidly, almost aggressively, orgasm free. He suggested a vibrator.

  ‘A what?’ came a hiss from her side of the bed, accompanied by a fierce rustle of the duvet. ‘I do not want to have an orgasm courtesy of a battery. How can you think of such a thing?’ Tim waited for the duvet to settle. ‘I’ve told you before it doesn’t really matter. I’m sorry for being cross.’ She reached across the pillow and patted his shoulder, which made him feel like a dopey family Labrador, and then made him think she must never have enjoyed sex with him if she was so willing, almost eager, to give the whole thing away.

  All those fragrant before bed baths, the wardrobe of Victorian nightgowns, the subsequent moans and delicate shudders of what he thought was satisfaction, might have been nothing more than a convincing act. Women like Angie, who saw marriage as an eminent profession, probably regarded sex as part of the job, like meeting targets or networking.

  This made him feel even worse. Even when he was able to have sex, he probably wasn’t able to satisfy his wife. Her effusive not-minding didn’t help. ‘It doesn’t matter, we have each other in all the important ways. We could have sex with anyone. What we have together is unique.’ His heart sank when she said this and she said it often as they lay like spoons, insulated from each other’s nakedness by sensible nightwear.

  He wanted mindless and frequent copulation with his wife. He wanted to wake in the morning and slip into
her half-sleeping form from behind, to fuck her forcefully at night. It would have made him feel a whole man. A primitive thing to think, but he thought it nonetheless. These days he felt like a soul sister with a flabby dick.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a buzzing from his mobile. It was a text from his afternoon client, cancelling his appointment, leaving an empty six hours until his evening client arrived. A warm breeze fluttered the papers on his desk. On the street below him, café owners were setting tables on the pavement, luring passers-by to sit a while in the sun.

  He called Peter. ‘Let’s have lunch. I’ll come up your way.’

  ‘I’m busy,’ Peter said.

  ‘Busy doing what?’ asked Tim, knowing Peter didn’t have any work lined up.

  ‘Building a cupboard.’

  ‘Isn’t that what Ikea is for? Come on, just for an hour. Your screwdriver won’t gather rust in sixty minutes.’

  Peter agreed reluctantly and half an hour later they were sitting in Carluccio’s in Covent Garden, drinking house white and swapping idle comments on passing girls.

  ‘There was a time when all these girls would be looking at us,’ said Peter. ‘Well, some of them anyway.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ replied Tim. A waiter hovered. They ordered minestrone and a salad. ‘So, any word from the squabbling pair?’ he asked.

  ‘Not to each other,’ said Peter. ‘Sandy’s last words on the subject were, and I quote, “I’ll never speak to that double-crossing cunt again.” So I guess they’re not going to kiss and make up any time soon.

  ‘Jeremy said he’d saved Sandy’s neck too many times, that he was going through a tough time and all Sandy cared about was himself and his pathetic investment. He said he’s been bankrolling him for years and he’d had enough. It’s beyond dialogue.’

  Tim slopped soup on his jacket and dabbed it with a napkin. ‘I wish I’d known. I might have been able to get them together, talk it through.’

  Peter raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s not marriage counselling. It’s over. Just you and me now. We can talk to them, they can talk to us, but they’re not going to talk to each other. Long live the grammar school boys. How is Angie anyway?’

  ‘Good. She’d got some idea about opening a vintage clothes shop in Ludlow, but I doubt it will come to anything. She gets this rush of blood to the head every now and then, but then she forgets about it. I think she likes being at home, being in control of the place.’

  Peter took off his sunglasses. ‘What about you? The other half of the perfect married couple. What do you like?’

  ‘Hard to say. Probably I like things the way they are.’ It was a lie. ‘How’s Frieda?’

  Peter rubbed his eyes. Tim thought it was unfair that Peter was still so good-looking, so ridiculously youthful even when he was squinting against the sun. Last weekend at the barber’s shop, the owner had given Tim a pensioner discount and patted him on the back as he left.

  ‘Frieda is Frieda,’ Peter said, smiling to himself. ‘When I think of all the others …’

  ‘There were quite a few. We were envious, all those blondes weak at the knees.’

  Peter laughed. ‘Frieda has my number, as they say. I don’t know why or how, because no one has ever got to me the way she has. I just love being with her. I think about her all the time. I want to …’ He paused. Tim waited for him to finish his sentence. ‘Sorry,’ said Peter. ‘I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.’

  Tim had never heard Peter speak like this before. Even at school, he was flip and sardonic. ‘The problem with you, Peter Epstein,’ their history teacher was fond of saying, ‘is that you are quite often in error, but never in doubt.’ Peter had smirked and got a month of detention. He didn’t care. He used the time to study and top the class.

  ‘Maybe she’ll grow closer to you,’ said Tim. ‘Long-term relationships aren’t always easy. Sometimes you’re gagging for time on your own.’

  What would Peter think if he knew he and Angie hadn’t slept together for over a decade, that the only fire in his belly these days was anger at his own impotence? Could he tell him? He hadn’t told anybody, not even his supervising therapist. Surely he could trust his oldest friend. Angie, however, wouldn’t like it. It would be a chink in the marital armour. But she needn’t know. There was no rule against talking to an old friend. Maybe they could have another coffee, talk some more.

  Peter glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better fly. I want to get the doors on and the mess cleaned up before Frieda gets back.’ He rolled his shoulders back. ‘I always hated woodwork at school, thought it was for the dimwits. I like it a lot now. Better than worrying if the crew can get through the day without messing something up. Good to see you. Let’s do it again soon. Maybe I’ll drag Frieda up to Ludlow one weekend.’

  ‘That would be great,’ said Tim. He sat alone for a bit. Actually, it wouldn’t be great. Angie thought Frieda was fat and arrogant. Angie didn’t like the way Peter talked to Tim and ignored her. Frieda didn’t like walking or sifting though junk shops. She also suffered from hay fever that intensified with each mile away from London.

  He decided to walk back to the park and get the bus back to Putney. His legs were jumping and he needed to walk, as if the physical process of putting one foot in front of the other would provide a solace that his lunch hadn’t given him, some escape from being himself.

  emily.ellison@gmail.com

  To: mattman5@hotmail.com

  Time you left the old folk behind. Really. Way behind. Forgot to say. Things you should bring. Torch, batteries for torch, one of those plug adaptor things so you can recharge your phone, that germ killing hand gel stuff, a door wedge – don’t laugh, it’s good security if your room doesn’t have a proper lock – a money belt. Don’t forget to write your passport and debit card numbers on a piece of paper and keep it separate from your stuff. A small padlock too. It gets cold at night, so something warm, and proper walking shoes, not just Converse or Toms. A waterproof jacket. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but this is a start. Hey, freedom days ahead.

  Chapter 26

  Jeremy only called Penny to warn her about Sandy; to tell her he was obviously not coping, the proof of this being the damage done by the scarlet spray paint.

  ‘I’ve tried everything I can think of to help him,’ Jeremy said. From his newly sanded and varnished deck, he gazed across the river. The reflection of clouds flushed gold from the last of the early summer light danced on the water. On the opposite bank, the tips of the plane trees in Battersea Park were tinged pink. The sight of such rare calm beauty should have soothed him. Instead, he found it disquieting.

  Messages left on Penny’s answering machine had not been returned and it had taken some time to get hold of her. ‘It’s plain Sandy is bent on self-destructing. Obviously I’m not going to press charges, but the damage done to the deck was considerable, way into the thousands.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Penny’s voice was pinched. ‘Is this an attempt to persuade me to take your side? I’m not doing that. Sandy trusted you and you let him down. As if I care about your precious deck. I’m sure it was all covered by insurance anyway, every last nail.’

  Jeremy had never heard Penny speak in anything other than a sweet girlish voice. Now he had to move the telephone away from his ear as she thundered without pause.

  ‘Sandy and I may not be married anymore, but I won’t stand by and see him, or anyone else for that matter, be treated so shabbily.’

  Jeremy turned his back on the plane trees, concentrating instead on his beloved Ruscha, attempting to stay calm. Her anger, unexpected and, in his opinion, unjustified, surely had to break soon. She would start to stutter and weep. Then he could comfort her, apologise for the upset and ask about his godson, Matthew. But she might have been reading his mind.

  ‘I won’t be hosed down on this one. You knew his situation. You might have taken a bit more care. After everything.’

  The last of the sun bounced off a g
lass decanter, making him blink. Somewhere behind his eyes a dull thump started, then a small kick in his stomach. He regretted calling her. She knows nothing, Jeremy kept thinking to himself. Nothing. All the same, it was time for a counterattack.

  ‘Yes, exactly. After everything I’ve done for him. I couldn’t save him this time. I’ve taken a complete body blow here. I’ve had to get rid of most of my staff, sublet half the office to pay the rent. It’ll be years before I claw my way back.’

  Jeremy shifted the telephone to his other ear and moved from the deck to the saloon. He paced up and down, noting with annoyance some smears on the windows. A seagull landed on the deck and began pecking at the putty on the frames. He banged the glass. The bird cawed loudly and flew away.

  ‘It’s not about you this time, Jeremy.’ Her voice was loud and precise. She might have been standing next to him, breathing into his face.

  He coughed, something caught in his throat. He felt an unexpected swell of tiredness, but he had to continue. He needed to win this conversation.

  ‘You sound just like him, bleating on about …’ Jeremy stopped. He was about to say Penny was bleating on about something that had happened in another lifetime. He would not fall into the trap of acknowledgement. She didn’t know anything. A fly buzzed above his head. He waved it away.

  ‘… bleating on about friendship and loyalty.’

  ‘You can’t treat people like they’re nothing,’ said Penny.

  ‘Look who’s talking. I’m not the one who left a kid with a drug problem on his own in London and pissed off to France to start a new life. You did that, Penny. You did that all by yourself.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she said.

  ‘It looked pretty damn true from where I was standing. He’s my godson, after all. He couldn’t go to Sandy for money, or any kind of support. He couldn’t go to you, because you were too busy with your bum in the air growing muddy vegetables. Who do you think he turned to? Father fucking Christmas?’