I sweep my fringe to the side, trying to keep my arms tight to my body. He takes my hand.
‘I know you did and I feel the same way too, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Not while I’m still married. And I have to try and stay married for the kids.’ I’m deadly serious.
He nods slowly, removes his hand from mine, reaches in and picks up his tiny joint from the ashtray. He holds it between his thumb and index finger and puts the flame from a match to it. Then he puts it to his mouth and drags.
‘Just my luck, huh? I wait and wait to find the right one and when I do she’s already married … already met her lobster.’ He blows the smoke, pillowing out, high above my head.
‘I dunno about that.’ I stop as the coffees arrive. I take a chunk from the other half of the cake, swallow it down and then another.
‘I didn’t delete the picture by the way.’ He tries to hold back his breaking smile. His incisors creeping over his bottom lip.
‘I’m too stoned to be embarrassed, so this is a good time to talk about it. I have to be honest: I was wearing that for Colin, to see if I could try and fix our awful sex life … It didn’t work. I should never have sent it to you, it was very wrong of me.’
‘That didn’t work? Is he fucking blind as well as a dictator?’ Owen coughs on his exhale.
‘Delete it please, will you?’ I ask.
‘I will, I promise.’ He drags hard on the butt and on the exhale, he speaks.
‘Oh, if I had you in my bed in that gear. I can’t … I can’t tell you, buddy …’ His voice is low and husky.
‘What?’ I’m stoned as hell again now and brave as hell, I realise, as the marijuana hits me and my whole body tingles. I feel a rush from the tip of my toes to the top of my head. My heart is thumping; like, I can feel it’s every beat, but I also feel so calm.
‘Huh?’ he says through closed mouth, holding the end of his smoke deep into his lungs.
And then I think of Colin and how he speaks to me and how he treats me and how he doesn’t deserve me.
‘What would you do to me, Owen?’ I ask seductively, staring into his gorgeous face. I can tell he’s confused.
‘Come on! I can’t go there … I won’t be able to stand up to go to the bathroom!’ He laughs and pushes back his stool. When he’s gone I look all around me. How did I not notice how beautiful this room was before? The bright yellow paint on the walls like a magnificent sunrise, and the small windows where the light creeps through stained glass, like in an old church. I look at my hands. What a creation they are. I wiggle my fingers, these things, these fingers that move … All the things they can do … Amazing. How could we do stuff without fingers? My engagement and wedding rings look so shiny. The phone beeps in my back pocket and I take it out and marvel at the technology of it all. I turn it around in my hands. This slim machine joining the world together. Technology is a genius. I hold the phone at arm’s length as I find my focus. A few missed calls from Corina. Two texts. Must have been while I was dancing. How is it possible that we can speak to each other in different countries? It’s unbelievable when you really think about it. How can I type letters on my phone and those letters then appear on someone else’s phone somewhere else? Astonishing. Beautiful, wonderful, Corina. I open her message first.
CAN’T GET YOU!!! YOU NEED TO CALL ME IMMEDIATELY!!!!
She is so good, she wants to tell me all about Jade I know. I hope that Jade got a medal for participating. They do that these days. No one is a loser, not like my day when I always came last in sport. I flick up and there are pictures from earlier she has sent of my beautiful daughter. She looks great in her new leotard. A selfie of herself and Corina. I stare at their faces. Jade’s beauty is exceptional. Corina winks at me. That’s mad! How did she do that?
‘Hello?’ I speak to the picture. Nothing. Then I open Colin’s reply to my last text.
GO TO HELL YOU STUPID BITCH.
Whatevs, I say to him in my head.
‘All right?’ Owen sits. I can smell the bathroom soap from his hands. It’s like banana and something else. I sniff the air. It will come to me. I click the button on the side of my iPhone 6 and the screen goes dark. Colin can’t upset me today, he can’t rile my temper today, I just won’t let him. So long, sucker. Life-blood sucker.
‘I’d love a big fizzy pint of beer and some cheese-and-onion crisps?’ I slide the phone into the side pocket of my bag and drop it to the floor. My mouth is very dry.
‘No beer here. Wanna finish your cake and I can get you beer and food at the Teylers Museum? Your little book said there is a really nice cafe in the Garden Room “with a delightful view of the museum’s courtyard”. It said, if we look carefully, we will see an “art tree” here. Hand me that book again, will ya?’ He holds out his banana-smelling hand.
I pull the book back out as he flicks to the marked page again.
‘Yeah, here it is … the art tree. “A lime tree standing on five feet, made by the artist Sjoerd Bu … Bui … Buisman in 1948.” Like you can only get to this cafe if you are a visitor to the museum. I really wanna see that. Seems fitting for us today, don’t you think? We still have a few hours.’ He runs his hand carefully over the cover of the guidebook.
I find the movement extremely erotic. I push myself closer to him.
‘I just want to smell you,’ I tell him and I lean my face into his neck and inhale him. Is the other smell pear? We sit this close for what seems like an age but could only be minutes and I smell and smell. Precious minutes. I will never get this close to him again.
‘This is sooooo nice,’ he moans as he leans his shaven head against mine.
I just listen to his heart beat and his breath.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom. Everything as it should be.
‘OK, let’s go, Ali,’ he says eventually. I don’t want to go, I never want to leave this bit of heaven on earth. But I do.
‘Thanks, man.’ Owen gets down with the waiter’s lingo as we pull on our leather jackets. Owen pays our bill and we head to the door. On the way I spot a Ms Pac-Man machine.
‘Oh, Ms Pac-Man! One game please!’ I pull Owen to the machine, nearly tripping him as he tries to zip up his jacket.
‘A euro, have you got a euro?’ I ask. ‘I used my last one on the jukebox.’ I’m so excited. This was my favourite game as a kid. He rummages in the front pockets of his jeans and pulls out a handful of coins. I flick through them in the palm of his hand and find my euro and slot it in.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
Ms Pac-Man comes to life. All the yellow dots start winking at me as I negotiate the hungry, circular, open mouth around the screen.
‘There … there’s a ghost!’ Owen shouts at me and I laugh hard as I wiggle the stick and move my body to escape the menacing ghosts. Then all of a sudden I see myself in the machine.
It’s me.
I’m Ms Pac-Man.
I mean, there’s a small round yellow ball with a red bow in its hair but it’s me. My face. My hair. How did I get in here? I know what I’ve gotta do: I’ve gotta get the hell out. It’s a sign. I yank the leaver down vigorously and drag myself around the screen, swallowing all the yellow dots as I move, just as they turn into Colin, eating them as I go. Eating every Colin I see.
‘Let me out,’ I say to myself from inside the machine.
‘I don’t want to be stuck in here any more. I need to be free!’ Ms Pac-Man me shouts.
‘I know you do,’ I tell myself.
‘What?’ Owen asks me. He has been staring out the window in a daze.
‘I need to be free!’ I get eaten by a ghostly Colin.
‘Fuck. Give me another euro!’ I jam my hand this time into his front jeans pocket and he gasps under the rummaging of my hand.
‘Are you OK?’ He looks at me, his eyes totally glazed now.
‘A few more games, that’s all … I think the universe is talking to me through Ms Pac-Man.’
Owen se
ems somehow to understand and he goes back to staring out the window. I slot the money in.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
And I am off. Where is she? Where is that little red-bow-haired me? A-ha, there I am. This time I’m my normal self. I’m not Ms Pac-Man; it’s just me, Ali Devlin, in jeans and a white shirt, eating the little yellow balls. No longer Colin, just balls. I stare at me. I’ve changed. Now I’m wearing a fantastic full-length ballgown. It’s a skin-tight red halter-neck with a long flowing skirt. I turn. It’s backless. My hair is so long. It’s all curly and tousled. I look incredible.
‘You look amazing,’ I tell myself.
‘It’s all a show,’ I whisper out from in between a maze of yellow dots.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask myself into the dark glass of the game.
‘No. I’m trapped within myself,’ I tell myself.
‘I will set you free!’
I play the greatest game of Ms Pac-Man I have ever played and at the end the computer asks me to input my name, I have done so well. There it is: Ms Ali Devlin, number seven on the leader board.
‘That’s pretty impressive stuff,’ our waiter tells me.
‘Ready now?’ Owen is trying not to laugh.
I grab my bag from him.
‘That was absolutely mental,’ I tell him as the freezing December air hits me and my head comes back to normal somewhat. My thinking is clearer again. We walk in stoned silence until we hail a cab at the end of a wide, tree-lined street. It’s very welcome, the heat of this taxi, as we sit very close together.
‘Teylers Museum … Haarlem … eh … er … please … damn, I’ve forgotten all me Dutch!’
Owen reaches down for my hands and I give them. He warms them between the palms of his own, taking them to his mouth and blowing hot air on them. We look out the window at the darkening December afternoon in Amsterdam. Bicycles criss-cross in the traffic and we don’t talk. My head is calm now. There is no anxiety for the first time in so long. I can tell you now, it’s just as well I don’t live here – not only would I be twenty stone, eating all that cake all day, I’d be stoned every day. If this is being stoned, then I like it. My shoulders seem looser than they have been in months. Flickering Christmas fairy lights twinkle on buildings and shops are decked out with festive trees in every window.
‘You OK?’ He’s still rubbing my hands.
‘Mmmmm.’ I smile at him and he laughs at me.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Nothing … Just don’t think I’ve ever seen you so relaxed.’ His words come out slowly.
When we pull up at our destination, Spaarne 16, the Teylers Museum. I’m all ready for it. I want to see things that will stay with me for ever. A large red flag flies above the entrance, waving wildly at us in the wind. I can hear the wind flap it about. We enter hand in hand. Ridiculous and risky, I know, and as we enter I inhale that museum smell. Those smells of history. Of time passed. We release each other as we walk around and gather various information leaflets. Owen pays for our tickets.
‘That was my twist: you got the last tickets and the bill and the taxis.’ I tut-tut.
‘I want to pay for you, please?’
I hand him some information. Crowds throng in. It’s a busy day.
‘Oh, look, the Real Winters exhibition, perfect for us here in the depths of winter. “It’s an exhibition of the most beautiful nineteenth-century Dutch winter landscapes and winter scenes,”’ he reads and is very excited. He unzips his leather jacket. It’s all very surreal now, kind of an out of body experience. I try to swallow but I am absolutely parched.
‘Follow me,’ Owen says and we walk across the echoing foyer and up the stairs. We walk through an oval-shaped room and up another flight of stairs to the first-floor balustrades. Then we enter the library.
It’s breathtaking. I love it all. I stand and do a 360-degree turn, taking it all in as I close my eyes and inhale the smell of the old books. My head’s still muzzy. From this spot we can look around the entire library. I move carefully across the old wooden floor as it creaks beneath another new visitor.
Owen walks ahead, his arm outstretched like a little boy as his fingers gently feel the throngs of books squashed together on the shelves. Brown and red old covers, flaking, fading but still very much alive. The light that comes in through the magnificent ceiling reflects the gold binding of the books.
There is no noise, I notice, apart from footsteps and squeaking doors.
I don’t think I’m terribly stoned any more. I think I’m halfway between sober and stoned. A lovely place. Mellow. Fully in control and all my senses wide open but no anxiety. I walk slowly away from Owen and stand in front of a large book on a wooden lectern. An atlas. A map of the world.
I’d love to bring the kids here someday. Teach them about the world. I raise up the flyer in my hand to read it. The museum was established in 1778 originally as a museum for art and science. I want Jade to be interested in this, not Seven Super Girls or bra-and-knickers sets from Penney’s. I guess it’s up to me to make that happen. She can’t love what she hasn’t seen. She can’t want to be where she’s never been. I want to be one of those mothers who shows her children important things … things they pass on to their children. Like this museum, which will be here long, long after my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
We tour on our own and I like that. I’m ecstatic with the non-anxiety. I watch him walking around staring at the art and the books and he’s totally content.
‘Come here, look at this piece.’ He gently takes my hand in his again as I move to stand beside him. He places me in front of it, then he stands behind me, his banana-and-pear-scented hands firmly gripping my shoulders.
It’s a painting of winter. But the sky is painted with light oranges, pale pinks and light greys, so it looks warm in a way. There is ice all over the ground and people in winter coats and hats skate across what I now see is a frozen river; fishing boats lay destitute on top of the ice; trees bare and two windmills at the back of the painting stand tall.
‘It’s exposed, isn’t it?’ he asks me.
I don’t claim to understand art – I just like it.
‘To me … it’s cold but there’s warmth about it. Hope?’
‘A change will come, would you say?’ He squeezes my shoulders, massaging deep onto the knots I have been holding onto. I moan softly under his touch.
‘Yeah, a change will come: winter will pass and the ice will thaw and it will be a new beginning. Fishermen will fish again and the trees will be in full bloom … Life goes on. Without hope there isn’t life.’
‘Snap! That’s exactly what I see.’
‘So I’m right?’ I’m incredulous.
‘There’s no right and wrong in art, Ali, not as far as I’m concerned anyway – it’s whatever you take from it and maybe you take nothing at all. Maybe you simply admire the brush strokes or the colours or whatever.’ Owen lets go of my shoulders and comes in front of me.
‘Hungry?’
‘Oh, I’m so hungry, seriously it’s not even funny, and I am absolutely gasping for water!’ I peel my tongue away from the roof of my mouth. I seem to have zero saliva.
‘Me too. I’m on it … and I’ve an idea. We hydrate you first, but then shall we take some red wine to look at the art tree, madam?’ He puts his left arm on his hip and I link mine through as we make our way to the cafe.
I see people looking at us. I like the fact that they think we are a couple. We make a nice couple. My phone beeps away in my bag but I’m not answering it. Yet. It will no doubt be Colin feeling bad for telling me to go to hell. Retracting it. We enter the cafe but it’s heaving.
‘Are we brave enough?’ Owen points to a small round silver table outside with two chairs sitting over the gardens.
‘Oh, I dunno it’s baltic!’ I shiver at the thought.
‘They have blankets though, see?’ And there in a wooden trunk by the exit lie plenty of thick-looking, colourful blankets.
&nb
sp; ‘OK, let’s do it.’ I push the exit door open. If I don’t get a drink I may die.
It is indeed balticly baltic as I sit.
‘Hang on, hang on, I was in the scouts. Up! Up! First, a blanket down on the cold chair: protects the kidneys from getting a chill.’ He bends and takes one of the red blankets we took from the trunk, shakes it, then folds it over, before putting it on my chair. I sit again. Then he takes another and places this one around my shoulders and a third over my legs and knees and I hold this one up.
‘I need water, Owen.’ I suck the words out.
‘Shit!’ He turns and enters the cafe and I see him go to the counter and take the huge jug with lemon and two glasses. I have to say I feel as snug as a bug in a rug. When he returns I literally drink four glasses in a row.
‘Is there anything worse than thirst?’ I ask.
‘Starvation doesn’t even come close, does it?’ he agrees and downs another glass himself. Then he bites at the lemon and winces.
‘Well, I wouldn’t know, thankfully,’ I say as the waitress appears and we order a bottle of Malbec with two glasses.
‘I’m feeling the vibes from the art tree,’ he says. ‘Now I know how Bono got his muse from the Joshua tree.’
‘Are you not using a blanket?’ I ask, dumbfounded.
‘No.’ He shakes his head and he then runs both his hands several times over his shaved head. It’s been a few days since he went at it with his shaver. Little dark specks of regrowth lay across his scalp. Makes him look younger.
The red wine arrives and I’m the designated tester. I swirl its richness in my mouth a few times and swallow. I smile my approval at our waitress. Lovely temperature, warm but not too warm. I wrap my hands around the glass to heat its flavour. God, I love wine. This is kinda all sorts of weird, I think now, as Owen dips his nose into his wide glass. I drink. Me and Owen, drinking red wine at the Teylers Museum of a Friday afternoon in December. I drink more.
I might be coming up again. Is that the correct lingo?
‘Did you ever see Indecent Proposal?’ he asks.
The Week I Ruined My Life Page 17