Dan Taylor Is Giving Up on Women

by Neal Doran

  ‘What’s the racket? Everything all right in there?’

  I stormed out into the living room, still brandishing my teaspoon, fired up for a confrontation with the scoundrel lounging on the sofa. He was slouching there, gently rubbing the frame of a photo of their wedding day with a faraway look in his eyes.

  ‘D’you want sugar?’ I demanded.

  ‘I’d promised her I’d cut down,’ he said mournfully. ‘Just three, please.’

  Back in the kitchen I spooned in some sugar, and berated myself for chickening out of saying what it was I wanted to say. But I still didn’t know how I was going to say it. It was the guilt getting in the way, I realised. It was the only thing I could think of when I saw him mooning about looking glum. His jittery, nervy tension from earlier had collapsed amid his tears, leaving him looking frail and vulnerable. I guessed I just wasn’t angry enough, and I needed to focus more on what he’d done, not on what I had, and not on how it was affecting him.

  I tried to fire myself up. He’d spent God knew how long — years, probably — manipulating her feelings to get what he wanted, regardless of what she thought. But what was it I was doing last night when I invited her, already half drunk and emotionally vulnerable, to a party?

  OK, but he’s been cheating, I reminded myself. He’d taken any excuse to go off humping somebody he really shouldn’t be. But then how exactly would you describe what I’d been doing when Hannah had said, ‘Ow, you’re on my hair!’ just a few short hours ago?

  I was in turmoil, my mind in a whirl. I was trying to think straight, but tying myself in knots trying to find the way to express the truth about how I felt. I was unable to overcome the white noise that came with considering the consequences of saying what I really wanted.

  ‘Any biscuits in there, sport?’

  That did it.

  ‘Look, it’s no bloody wonder she left you if this is the way you treated her all the time!’

  I stormed out of the kitchen into the living room, pointedly slamming the mug of coffee on the side table next to him, without even looking for one of the Wonder Woman coasters. ‘She’s not some sort of slave, y’know, and neither am I.’

  ‘Hey! Calm down, Spartacus. I’m knackered. I just need an energy burst.’

  ‘Oh, really? Well, if you hadn’t spent so much time last night bonking some strumpet maybe you wouldn’t be so tired.’

  He looked at me, startled, and on the edge of furious.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about? And why do you sound like The Sun from the 1980s? Bonking?’

  ‘Whatever the kids are calling it these days — adultery. Where were you last night?’

  ‘I was at work. There was a crisis.’

  I stared at him incredulously. He looked back, then stared at the floor, then the ceiling, then back at me, then settled his gaze on a large yucca plant to my right.

  ‘Nothing’s happened with her. Nothing really, we’re just hanging out. She’s fun, reminds me a lot of Hannah, funnily enough.’

  ‘Nothing’s happened?’

  ‘Bit of a snog at the Christmas party, but that’s it. We were working on some big accounts together towards the end of the year and spent a lot of time together. We kept spending time together when we didn’t really have the excuse any more. You’d like her. I was going to introduce the two of you actually.’

  ‘You wanted to introduce me to your mistress?’

  ‘On this fuckwitted dating thing of yours, sport. I thought you might hit it off.’

  ‘Jesus, as some kind of beard? You figured you could cheat on me the same time you cheat on your wife?’

  Thin ice, I realised…

  ‘I told you nothing’s happened with her. Much. Nothing much has happened. The occasional…y’know… Nothing really.’

  For the seventeenth time that day, I began to feel like I was going to be sick.

  ‘Well, what have you been doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Dinner. Afternoon movies. Walks around town. I haven’t even been back to her place yet.’

  ‘But you’re working up to it.’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘You want to?’

  He looked at me as if that was the stupidest question anyone had ever asked him.

  ‘I don’t know how you could do that to Hannah.’

  That set him off. He sprang to his feet and began agitatedly pacing the room, slapping bookshelves and kicking the base of the sofa as he went back and forth.

  ‘Christ, the two of you are pissing me off with your pain-in-the-arse pompous moralising these days. Her looking down on me every time I mention kids because I actually want to move this relationship forward and telling me she’s always been honest and not changed since uni. Well, I can tell you she’s fucking delusional if she thinks she’s the girl I married.’

  ‘You want to bring a child into this?’ I said, pompously gesturing around the room, as if a flat with a complete collection of Paul Newman DVDs and an Elvis bust would be an inhumane environment in which to bring a child.

  ‘And you with all your whining about doing the right thing, because you haven’t got the balls to carry things through. Acting like a marriage-counselling vicar about things you know nothing about. And since the two of you have been hanging out together? Insufferable! And with Laura, the odd night out and occasional blow job isn’t something I’d give up a marriage for. I mean, I’m not stupid. I want Hannah to come back.’

  No balls? Whining? This would be the time to let him have it. Give him the truth — tell him that if he wanted to know if I had balls he should ask his wife, and if anyone had been doing any whining it was her last night. But I figured no, firstly that would be too mean, and secondly, as an attempt at macho dialogue it didn’t really make any sense, particularly the whining bit.

  ‘Do you think she’s found out about the girl from the gym too?’ Rob asked suddenly. The anger had faded again and the vulnerable abandoned husband was back.

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘From the gym. But that was just mucking about, and just the once.’

  ‘The gym?’

  ‘We’d been flirting for months. You’d have noticed it if you ever showed up. It was one time, one of those broom-cupboard moments and totally unexpected.’

  A hint of winking pride slipped into his tone, slightly edging out the guilty penitence.

  ‘We’d barely ever spoken but every time there was just this chemistry. Like you get with someone in a club, y’know? Well…you can probably imagine anyway. But everything we said was just loaded with innuendo. Then one day I kinda dared her to, y’know, and twenty minutes later I’m back home in the shower saying the hot water at the gym had gone off again.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re showing off about this.’

  ‘I’d have expected Hannah to do the same in the situation,’ he said defensively, the anger coming back into his voice. ‘I even bet she has. It was just one of those moments you never think happens but when it does you don’t turn it down, for Christ’s sake. It’s got nothing to do with my marriage.’

  ‘But of course it doesn’t! I can’t even imagine why we’re talking about the two things at the same time.’

  This bickering was getting nowhere, but it had confirmed to me what I’d wanted to hear: that Rob was a philandering and controlling swine. Now I should tell him what had happened last night. I just needed to come out and say it.

  ‘Urgh, Christ, that’s disgusting. What did you do? Is that salt in there?’

  Pausing from his prowling around the room, Rob had taken a huge swig of the coffee I’d made him, swallowing half and spitting the other half back in the vicinity of his mug.

  ‘Ah. It may be, yes.’

  Three large spoonfuls. By accident. They really shouldn’t keep the salt in a jar next to the tea bags.

  ‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you, you bastard? Trying to poison me, like you do anyone who gets in your way.’

  ‘One time, that happened!’

&
nbsp; ‘It’d be bloody typical of your way of doing things. Snide remarks and lecturing and judging when I’ve turned to you for help.’

  We stood there in silence staring at each other, then my phone loudly chirruped that a text message had come in. I desperately wanted to check it in case it was Hannah, but didn’t want to back down from this face off. Then Rob’s phone vibrated and slid slightly across the table as he received a message too. The stand-off ended quickly as we both moved to check messages at the same time.

  ‘It’s Hannah,’ we said simultaneously.

  ‘What does yours say?’ Rob asked edgily.

  I tried to focus on reading the message, while my mind was giddy that she’d text me first. But the message was far from good news.

  Last night was a mistake. Sorry. I’m all right, but going away for a few days. Hx

  ‘Just that, um, just that she’s going away for a while,’ I said distractedly. A mistake? Did she really think it was a mistake? Then why had she texted me first? That had to mean something, didn’t it?

  ‘Yeah, mine says that too,’ said Rob, more talking to himself than me. ‘She needs a break is what it means, the stuff about it being over…just how she feels now.’

  He looked at me, a puzzled expression on his face. As his eyes flicked from me, to my phone, and then back to his, I found it a little tricky to swallow.

  ‘I didn’t get a message first because of a network thing — your coverage is just better around here. She wouldn’t have time to have written mine in the space between yours arriving and mine. And anyway, quiet a minute.’

  Rob started playing with his phone, shifting through applications as he carried on muttering to himself.

  ‘She never did figure out how to work the setting on all these social networks she’s signed up for… Here you go, Facebook Places — “Hannah is at Costa at Euston Station” posted five minutes ago.’

  I cut into his reverie.

  ‘You’re stalking your wife now?’

  ‘It’s automated. Goes off whenever she uses Wi-Fi. She turned it on and doesn’t know how to turn it off. And I’m not the one going through the contents of somebody’s mobile whenever they leave it sitting around for two minutes.’

  ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, caught her one time sneaking it back into my coat, and she came out with some bollocks about needing to check something on YouTube when she had the laptop right next to her. Sound like the innocent non-paranoid perfect wife to you still?’

  Rob grabbed his coat and his car keys and headed towards the door.

  ‘You can let yourself out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to get my wife.’

  ‘I’ll come too.’

  ‘What, so you can moralise at me some more on the way? Make sure I prostrate myself before her to your satisfaction? You’ve helped enough.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ I said firmly as we thundered down the steps.

  ‘Train station’s that way.’ Rob pointed as he unlocked the driver’s door and slid into their car.

  ‘But…’

  He got in and shut the door, leaving me standing on the pavement. Rather than standing there looking desolate like a beggar at a traffic junction, I pointedly ignored his directions to the station and headed off the other way, towards the parade of shops where there was a minicab office.

  I hurried into the entirely wood-clad taxi office, which was empty except for one guy standing in front of me talking loudly at the apparently empty serving hatch.

  ‘It’s ‘er lifts into open positions that are letting ‘er down. And by now she should have the hang of the killian. Figure-skating basics, and being on a soap opera is no excuse,’ he bellowed.

  A radio squeaked and hissed from behind the partition with a garbled message breaking in between the pops and cracks. Suddenly a booming male voice from out of nowhere replied that Mrs Layton was waiting for her Sunday morning pick-up and drop-off, and after that to come back to base. Realising there was somebody behind the counter, I edged forward, checking that the burly bloke into figure skating wasn’t waiting for a ride.

  ‘Hi, how soon for a cab to Euston station?’ I asked the controller, who didn’t look up from his paperwork. There was a pause verging on the point where I wasn’t sure he’d heard me before he barked, ‘Dave?’

  ‘Yeah, all right, Dave. I was gonna knock off, but one more.’

  I was pretty sure that I’d just arranged to be taken to the station by the guy next to me, but wasn’t entirely convinced. No one seemed to be moving, everyone seemed to be called Dave, and I was near bursting with pent-up energy to catch up with Rob.

  ‘I need a cab to Euston, right now!’

  Not bothering with all the niceties I had tried to maintain, Rob burst into the office and strode straight up to the counter. Despite the urgency in his tone, the controller still waited his mandatory fifteen seconds before replying. During that time Rob turned around and spotted me jiggling from foot to foot as Dave — the driver, not the other one — scratched himself, folded up his paper, and patted his pockets for keys.

  ‘Dave’s just taking this gentleman here,’ Dave explained to Rob. ‘He might share, otherwise it won’t be till after Mrs Layton has made it to bingo.’

  Rob looked at me, with eyes like an abandoned dog on an RSPCA appeal.

  ‘Car won’t start. The battery’s dead.’

  ‘Train station’s that way,’ I said.

  ‘She’s my wife, sport,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Right!’ said Dave with a clap and rub of his hands. ‘Are we off, then?’

  I shrugged and the three of us headed for the ageing Mondeo, Dave whistling and saying a cheery bye to Dave, the two of us bristling awkwardly.

  ‘So Euston, is it?’ he asked chirpily, which got a grunt from both of us.

  ‘Funny you both turn up at once. Trains to catch?’

  More grunts.

  ‘So either of you two fellas been following the Dancing on Ice this year?’

  That barely got a shake of the head from either of us as we stared out of our respective back seat windows.

  ‘I see. You’re probably more “Andrew Lloyd Webber Finds a Priscilla” kind of blokes. Each to their own.’

  We sat in silence as the cab made its way into central London in the quiet Sunday morning traffic.

  ‘You’re supposed to be on my side, sport,’ Rob finally said, still looking out of his window. ‘Since you came around, you’ve just blamed me for everything. Maybe it is all my fault, but you’re still supposed to be on my side.’

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t really.

  ‘And it isn’t all my fault, by the way — thanks again for backing me up there — but I’m willing to take the blame because I want my marriage to work out.’

  I didn’t say anything, but in the front I could see that Dave was paying close attention, and was probably weighing up some advice to chip in at some point.

  ‘And I didn’t tell you about yesterday evening.’

  ‘Hn, what?’ I broke my would-be dignified silence so quickly it was now obvious even to Dave that I was hiding something.

  ‘You knew about me seeing Laura last night. And now I think of it, you seemed to know all about H checking up on my texts before I mentioned it too. You’ve been speaking to her. You knew something was going on and you didn’t tell me. Why not? She spends a bit of time dressing you up like a Ken doll, and telling you it’s not your fault you’re basically disabled around women and poof! All those years of friendship. Gone.’

  ‘That’s…that’s not fair.’

  ‘I’m going friggin’ spare all morning. You know something, and you’re not telling me. Do you know where she’s going?’

  ‘Honestly, I’m as in the dark as you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s reassuring. I’m only the husband, but at least I know as much as the sidekick.’

  Tell him, already, I told myself. Stop taking the jibes and the easy way out. Yo
u owe him that much.

  The cab was closing in on the station, heading down Euston Road, to where we were going to find her.

  Now was the time.

  ‘There’s something, Rob. Something I should have mentioned earlier, but I didn’t. So I’m mentioning it now. Because it needs to be mentioned. You have a right to know, and I’m sorry for not mentioning it sooner. But some things are hard to mention.’

  He looked at me nervously. Or maybe the word ‘mention’ had just lost all meaning, like when you say anything too many times.

  ‘I… We… You…’

  The taxi slowly pulled up to the station’s drop-off zone, Dave slowing down so he could hear how this was going to turn out, Rob watching me intently.

  ‘I…I haven’t got any cash on me.’

  The cab juddered slightly as Dave instinctively pressed down on the brake, before continuing his roll towards a parking spot with a beady eye on us both.

  ‘What?’ said Rob. ‘What were you going to do if I hadn’t come? I’ve not got my wallet on me anyway.’

  ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, I’ll go and get some from the machine now. Sorry about the hold-up,’ I said, addressing both the guys in the car.

  Then I added, in a slightly lowered tone that unfortunately would still have been audible in the front seat, ‘And, um, I’m really sorry, Rob, but last night I slept with Hannah.’

  With that I let my seat belt zip-line back into place, swung open the door and slipped out of the cab, patting the roof and shouting, ‘Back in a minute!’ in an attempt at a cheerful and reassuring voice.

  A glance back in the direction of Rob saw him sitting there staring at the headrest in front of him. But before I could make it to the automatic doors to the station concourse I heard a flurry of car doors opening and shutting and he was out of the cab too and coming after me, followed by a not-so-jovial-now driver making sure we weren’t doing some kind of amateur-dramatics-fuelled runner. I picked up my walking pace to a nervous high-speed mince.

  ‘What, what, what are you saying?’ asked Rob as he fell into step with me, the pathetic little boy face from this morning making a reappearance. ‘She stayed at yours last night?’