Beat the Rain

by Nigel Jay Cooper

  They’d all become so close with Jarvis, the whole family. He’d even come on a family picnic with them to Beachy Head and they’d had such a wonderful, carefree day. Jarvis had got on so well with Matthew and Maria, it had made Louise think… It could work, the two of them. Once the kids got over the shock of their parents divorcing, they’d learn to accept him. That day, Jarvis had snapped a picture of the family while they were there. She wished he’d been in the shot instead of Adam, but even though he wasn’t, the knowledge that he took the photo made her love it even more and she’d had it blown up on a canvas for the living-room wall. They all looked so happy. Because they were happy, that’s the thing. Jarvis was fixing them, making everything okay.

  So why had she wanted to break it? She and Adam hadn’t been unhappy back then, not like now. Christ, she hadn’t even known what an unhappy marriage was back then. It was nothing in comparison to now. So why had she been craving Jarvis the way she was, fantasising and imagining with every breathing moment? It was like he’d become a constant itch she needed to scratch – sometimes, when it got too much, she’d nip to the toilets in the café to get herself off in the middle of the day because she was finding it so hard to concentrate. If she got it out of her system she could focus on something else, even if it was for a short while.

  And so it came to that night, the night she decided to move things forward. To tell him how she felt. If only she could go back and stop herself. She hadn’t been prepared for it. She could never have guessed the truth, not in a million years. He should have been honest with her from the start, then none of it would have happened. She still hates him so much she can hardly breathe. Sometimes, she catches herself thinking about him and she realises she’s holding her breath. Part of her still wants to carry on holding it, never letting it out, waiting for the darkness to overtake her, to make the memories stop.

  She hadn’t gone straight to his flat, despite her excitement, she hadn’t been brave enough. She’d walked into town first, bought a bottle of wine in the Tesco near the Jubilee Library. Eventually, she’d headed back up the hill to her cafe, crossing the road to stand on Jarvis’s doorstep. She’d hovered there for what seemed like hours, staring at the scratch marks around his keyhole, lifting her arm up to press the doorbell, then dropping back down to her side again. How does one broach a love story between a straight woman and a gay man? It was unchartered territory for both of them, she’d known. There was no rule book…but how would she start the conversation? He might not want to admit his feelings, it was a life-changing realisation for him. She knew it was not going to be easy, but she also knew they were meant for each other. Reaching out and taking a deep, deep breath, she’d pressed the doorbell. No going back.

  “Louise,” he’d said through the intercom, sounding surprised, shocked even. Her heart had been fluttering in her chest, she was fingering the ring of bone between her neck and breast, rubbing the skin there, making it slightly rashy.

  “Hi, Jarvis,” she’d said. “I think we need to talk, don’t you?”

  “What?” he asked, his voice panicky.

  “Can I come up?” she’d said, using her best seductress voice.

  “Oh fuck,” he’d said. “I’m sorry…look, it’s not a good time.”

  Even then, the alarm bells hadn’t rung loudly enough. She’d been slightly confused, he was acting weird, but she still hadn’t guessed, how could she?

  “Just buzz me in will you, it’s freezing out here, it’s been snowing.”

  “Just a second, then,” he’d said. He’d sounded flustered and she’d assumed his heart was pounding for the same reason hers was. This was taboo. And somehow, that made it even more exciting, she knew he was feeling it too.

  Should she ever tell him she’d watched him from the store-room window as he got dressed, as he wandered around his flat in his boxer shorts? Probably not, well not unless he brought it up, not unless he told her he knew she’d been watching him all along. God, it was all so sexy. It felt like minutes standing on that doorstep, waiting for him to buzz her up. Should she tell him she’d seen him wanking that time? Sitting on his sofa, with his curtains not fully closed, late at night?

  What was he doing? Why was he taking so long to buzz her in? Was he making sure he looked presentable for her? Making sure his breath was okay? Maybe that was it? Maybe he was brushing his teeth and smartening himself up for her. And then it buzzed, the front door gave way and she could mount the stairs to her destiny.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The past has always influenced their present, Adam realises. First it was Tom, then it was Jarvis. Always something. Someone. Somewhere along the way, they stopped being able to enjoy the moment, to enjoy each other like they used to. And now they’re falling apart. Really falling apart, once and for all.

  He’d tried to curb his drinking in the past year for Louise. Not for himself, for her, to shut her up, mainly.

  “You need to find yourself again,” she’d said cryptically, as if this even made sense. It’s not like she’d ever been a new-age woman. He’d been the one who’d dabbled with meditation and yoga, not her. She’d never been anything but functional and now here she was telling him to stop drinking and ‘find himself’. He could have spat his gin out laughing. But deep down, he knew he was using drink for all the wrong reasons – to de-stress, to forget, to remain unconscious of the hurt. He knew he was on the way to becoming some sort of alcoholic. So he stopped drinking for a while. And he had felt better for it. And Louise had been proud. She’d thought it had taken him a lot of mental courage to stop, apparently. She’d been ‘proud’ of him. Like a dog owner is proud when their puppy learns to sit for a treat.

  How much mental courage would it have taken for her to throw those pills down the sink and not down her throat? When she spoke to him of mental courage, the rage inside of him bubbled up so furiously he could hardly breathe. It was this, if nothing else that made him start drinking again. There he was, sitting, tongue out, begging for her approval. Begging for some feeling or emotion to reignite and then he realised, like a slap in the face, that it wasn’t there. He didn’t love her anymore. He didn’t want her. He didn’t care what she thought of him and he certainly didn’t care if she felt ‘proud’. As she sat sipping her glass of Pinot of an evening and told him of the immense pride she felt that he’d stopped drinking, Adam believed her. She was swollen with it. He felt that if he’d prodded her, her skin would have split and the pus of her pride would have seeped out to congratulate him.

  Why do people turn back to whatever their crutch is? Whether it’s drink or chocolate or weed or exercise or obsessive cleaning or sex? People always go back to thing that makes them forget themselves, for a moment. Because that’s all people want to do, escape their reality. It’s all Adam wants to do. But is he an alcoholic? He doesn’t think so. Look at Alice’s boyfriend John – he goes to dinner parties and calls complete strangers a cunt. Now there’s a man who should stop drinking.

  “I don’t like you when you’re drunk,” Louise said when he’d poured himself a glass of wine, ending his dry spell.

  “You don’t like me when I’m sober,” Adam replied, flopping back into his armchair and losing himself in some meaningless programme on the television.

  He wishes he hadn’t stayed. Every single day he wishes he’d left with Jarvis and grabbed a chance at happiness. But if he had, she’d have died that night. He’d have had that on his conscience forever and the bizarre thing was, it was nothing to do with him. Nothing was ever anything to do with him, it never had been. He’s always been an also-ran in his own life, a sideshow, something on the periphery of reality. He wasn’t Tom, he was a cheap facsimile of him. He wasn’t anything to do with his wife’s suicide attempt – her love for Jarvis was the reason. Nothing was ever anything to do with Adam, he was just there, lurking on the outside of life, hoping someone would notice him. Like Jarvis had, momentarily, at least.

  Louise seemed to bounce back from her su
icide attempt, silently withdrawing from him and getting on with her life as if nothing had happened, walking and talking, laughing and wearing a mask of normality. Smiling in the right places (most of the time).

  He sees her being supportive to other people all the time. Take Bella who works with her at the café, for example. She’s been having problems with her husband – “It’s like living with a stranger, Louise, I don’t feel anything anymore. And now I’m starting to wonder if he’s a bit abusive. I don’t mean physically, but mentally, you know? He puts me down all the time, makes me feel like I’m nothing…” – and Louise can sit and talk for hours with her about this, clasping her hand across the café table, earnestly nodding her head and offering advice and hugs. Louise seems to have boundless patience and energy to deal with other people’s problems. But for Adam? It’s like she can’t stand the sight of him anymore, let alone talk to him or support him.

  It’s the little things Adam misses, like when he was waiting to hear from his agent about his second novel, Yesterday’s Croissant. He’d been so nervous all week that he’d made himself ill, a cold and a sore throat. He hadn’t slept well and Maria had snuck into bed with them in the night, kicking and fussing and snuggling up to Adam, then Matthew had followed. Louise had to open the café in the morning, but once upon a time, she’d have cuddled up to them as well, before getting out of bed. She’d have asked how he was feeling and she’d have reassured him things would be okay. She might even have brought him a Lemsip or a hot honey-and-lemon drink before she left or offered to help with the kids. But on this morning, she came in the bedroom and said, “You need to get up, I’ve taken the kids downstairs, they’re watching Sleeping Beauty. They’ve got breakfast. I’ll be back about six.” No kiss. No ‘Good luck today’. No comforting words. As it happened, his agent said the publishers hated his second novel and wanted rewrites that amounted to nearly a new novel entirely. Not that Louise even remembered to ask him about it, even when she got home.

  It’s unfair to blame Louise for everything, not after what he did. It’s not Louise’s fault he drinks too much. It’s unfair to blame her, but of course, Adam does. Not explicitly, not verbally, he’d never say anything to her face. But he knows their every interaction screams it nonetheless. He’s not his own agent anymore, he has no autonomy over his emotions or self-worth. Louise’s mood dictates his own, has done ever since she tried to take her own life. As for Louise, nowadays she looks right through him. When she doesn’t, every glance, every word, every gesture masks one pervasive thought, corrosive in its power: You never should have saved me.

  “I need you to talk to me,” he blurted out once, months after it happened. “I need you to tell me why you did it.”

  “Stop it, Adam,” Louise replied. “We are both tired, don’t put pressure on me. I’ve got enough on with the café and the kids hanging off me all the time…”

  “Hanging off you? You?” Adam said incredulously. “You’re never here, I’m surprised they still recognise you.”

  “Oh, here we go again, poor little Adam. Someone has to earn a wage, Adam. Your novel money didn’t last and do you think your little freelance jobs keep us afloat?”

  “I’m saying you can’t use them as an excuse…”

  “Me use them as an excuse? You’re the one who uses them as an excuse not to have a life. Then you blame me for it.”

  “You have no idea what being a parent is, Louise. Do you know who taught Matthew to use the toilet? Me. I sat day after day, letting him watch me piss and shit – he even used to try to wipe my arse for me. You think it all happens by magic. They don’t teach themselves things, Louise. I teach them things. You should try it, it’s called parenthood.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Adam? You chose to stay at home. Man up, will you, and stop whining all the time.”

  In these moments, feeling more alone than ever before, Adam has allowed himself to think about Tom more that he used to, letting himself descend into melancholy and depression. And as he and Louise drift further and further apart, he often thinks about the letter Tom sent him.

  Adam,

  Firstly, I’m sorry. But I know you understand. I didn’t want to talk about it. But I need to know you’ll find a way to carry on after me. I know how hard that’s going to be for you but I’ve got a plan: Louise.

  She loves you. I’ve been watching you both and the more I think about it, the more I think it’s the answer. You can help each other through this. You’re the two people I love most in the world – and I want you to love each other. Can you do that for me?

  Tom x

  At the time, Adam had taken Tom’s note as a green card and he’d rushed headlong into a relationship with Louise. But without Tom’s blessing…without Tom’s manipulation, would they ever have got together? Adam doesn’t think so, and that knowledge terrifies him. Maybe he and Louise were supposed to have entirely different lives, maybe somewhere in some other time stream, he’s married to someone else, she’s married to someone else. Maybe they are happier. Maybe two people with Tom’s ghost knitted to them should never have coupled up – it made his spectre more powerful, made them make choices they shouldn’t have. And so it’s come to this.

  “You never talked to me about it Louise,” Adam says, sitting down at their kitchen table and glancing over at the bottle of wine on the side.

  “Adam, you’ve got to get help,” Louise says, noticing his glance. “Your drinking is out of hand, I can’t help you anymore.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” he continues, determined that if they’re going to split up, if they’re going to end it after all these years, he’s at least going to get the truth out of her, the truth that unbeknown to her, he already knows.

  “I’m trying to help, Adam,” Louise is saying earnestly. “You’ve got to find help, you can’t carry on like this.”

  “Like what, Louise?” Adam finds himself raising his voice, irritated. “How would you like me to carry on? Like you? Lying and trundling along like everything is fine when you wish you were dead?”

  “Adam, that’s not fair, it’s not like that. I don’t wish I was dead.”

  “But you did, Louise.” Adam slams his fist down on the table. “But you never once talked to me about it. Months and months, living with you, waiting. Thinking, one day. One day she’ll feel ready. She’ll open up. But that day’s never going to come is it? And you wonder why we can’t move on? Why we don’t love each other anymore?”

  There. He’d said the unsaid. The unsayable. The unthinkable. And now it is out in the open he feels…what? Relieved? Something like that, but something else, something approaching loss as well. They’ve been part of each other’s lives for so long, how could he not mourn their passing? But that’s no reason to stay with someone.

  “Don’t you love me anymore?” Louise says quietly, pulling up a chair opposite him at the kitchen table.

  “I don’t know,” Adam sighs. “Do you love me? I mean really, in your heart of hearts.”

  Louise shakes her head. “I don’t know either, I suppose.” They sit in silence, a strange calm descending over the room. The kitchen clock keeps time with and eventually, Louise says,

  “Maybe we should have split up years ago.”

  Adam’s head is still woozy from the alcohol and the head injury and he’s not in the mood for this conversation any more. He wants everything over.

  “Maybe,” he mutters, his eyes flicking over to the red wine sitting on the kitchen side again. He has to have a glass. Fuck it, why not? Damage is done now anyway.

  “Poor me a glass then,” Louise says as he stands up and walks over to the counter. “Might as well cheers the end of our marriage.”

  Adam pours them both a glass of wine and hands one to Louise silently.

  “You might have a concussion and you’re already half-pissed. Do you think wine is a good idea.”

  “Oh, fuck off,” he replies, or doesn’t reply. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. Fo
r a brief moment he thought she was softening, that she was going to actually relax and have a conversation.

  “You can’t carry on like this,” she perseveres, taking a sip of her own wine.

  “I can carry on however I like, Louise. Like you.”

  “Oh here we go again, poor little Adam, isn’t life hard,” Louise sneers. “Better have another drink to make it all better. Throw a little tantrum, maybe. Give it a rest, you’re a grown man, I’ve heard it all before. Stop needing something you’re never going to get.”

  “And what’s that, Louise?”

  “Someone to pick up the pieces. You’re just you, Adam, not half of something or someone else. You’re responsible for you, always have been. You can’t rely on other people the way you do.”

  “Why not, Louise? Isn’t that the point of a marriage?”

  Louise doesn’t answer him, she descends back into silence. He doesn’t know if she’s thinking about what he’s said or not. The atmosphere in the kitchen slowly strangles them, as the anger in both Adam and Louise gives way to another, much deadlier emotion. Resignation. Lines get crossed with them all the time, but today seems different. Today seems like it’s the end. For months now, the boundaries of what is acceptable in their marriage have been adjusted and altered, new lines have been crossed and redrawn endlessly. But today the lines they stepped over were glaring, obvious, neon lines with spikes on. They would never be redrawn, crossing them had been too painful.

  This has been their reality for months, the life they built together after Jarvis. Infinitely worse than before. The kids know something is wrong, he supposes, but they are too little to truly understand it. But Adam does and he can’t let go of it, can’t get over the feeling of betrayal. What does that say about him that he can’t feel sympathy or understanding, only bitterness? It doesn’t matter, he supposes. He’s not sure what does matter anymore. When Jarvis was still in their lives, they’d felt alive with hope and excitement, like anything and everything was possible. And then he’d ripped it away from them again when his lies were exposed, when Louise had fallen to pieces.