Man and Wife

by Tony Parsons

  And in the days and weeks ahead, she kept taking more pregnancy tests, looking for that blue line again and again, as if it was too good to be true. Maybe there are other pregnant women whose favourite pastime is taking pregnancy tests, even though they already know the answer, even though they have already had the happy result confirmed dozens of times.

  But Gina was the first woman that I ever really knew.

  The first woman I lived with, the first woman I married. She found a source of endless wonder in her daily pregnancy tests, and I found a source of wonder in her.

  That was almost nine years ago now. The world turned, and kept turning, and not only was my wife now my ex-wife, but she was about to become the ex-wife of another man. They talk about the divorce statistics, and the fluctuating failure rate of the modern marriage, but for my ex-wife and me the rate seemed to be 100 per cent.

  That thin blue line represented a little heartbeat inside her, and that glimmer of life was now a boy, almost eight years old, changing every week, growing teeth that would have to last him until his dying day, and this life he was leading – bouncing from one home to another, one school to another, one country to another, seeing marriages crumble, learning that the adult world was fragile and weak and fallible – seemed to be robbing him of his – well, I don’t know what you would call it.

  Robbing him of his halo of innocence. The aura of light that was all around him as a little boy, the light that made strangers stop and smile at him in the street.

  Pat is still a boy in a million. He still shines. To me he still looks like the most beautiful child in the world. But this life has robbed him of that angel glow. It has gone, and it will never come back, and while it is possible that we all lose that angel glow in the end, I can’t help feeling that Gina and I – who held that very first pregnancy test as if it was as precious as our baby himself – share most of the blame. We could have done better for our boy. But Gina’s mood was such that right now she blamed her latest ex-husband for everything.

  ‘Easter, right? Shouldn’t be a problem, should it? You would think that Easter doesn’t present too many possibilities for domestic strife.’

  We were in the tiny kitchen of her flat, drinking some jasmine tea. This love of Japan, this yearning for the life she had given up for marriage and me and Pat – she was never going to grow out of it now, she was never going to stop missing that life she had never known.

  ‘But Richard objected to the Easter egg that I bought Pat. Can you believe it?’

  Pat appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Can I watch The Phantom Menace on DVD?’ This to Gina.

  ‘No, you’re going out with your father.’

  ‘Just some of the special features. A few of the deleted scenes. The interview with the director. Production notes.’

  ‘Go on then.’ Pat disappeared. Stirring orchestral music swelled from the living room. ‘This Easter egg I bought – it was bloody lovely, Harry. Milk chocolate and covered with little hearts in red icing. A big purple bow around it. And Richard – get this – said it was the kind of egg you buy for a lover, not a child. For a lover! An Easter egg for a lover! That’s what he said! He said it was the kind of egg you buy for your husband or wife. I mean, can you believe the pettiness of the man? As if I can’t buy my son whatever Easter egg I bloody well like…’

  ‘Are you talking to him?’

  She smiled. ‘You’ve heard of the old cow syndrome?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘When a bull has mated with a cow once, he’s not interested any more. Doesn’t matter if the cow is really cute. The bull couldn’t care less. It’s called the old cow syndrome.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  She nodded. ‘Once is enough for the bull. No matter how attractive the cow is, he’s just not interested. Well, it works the other way around for this old cow. When I’ve finished with them, I’ve finished with them.’

  She made me laugh. I could hear the bitterness in her voice, and I knew that this new life was hard for her too. Because it was hard for any single parent. And – incredibly, it seemed to me – that’s what Gina was now. She was angry, sour and sad. But I felt an enormous affection for this woman who had once been closer to me than anyone in the world. A woman who would almost certainly be my best friend if we hadn’t ruined it by getting married.

  And for the first time I started to think that our marriage hadn’t been a failure. Not really. We could have done better for Pat. We could have been kinder to each other. All this was true. But we were together for seven years, we produced a sweet, caring kid whose existence will make this world a better place, and we could still talk to each other. Most of the time. When she was not being an old cow and I was not full of too much old bull. So who is to say that our marriage failed? A few good years and a great kid – maybe that’s the best anyone can hope for.

  Gina and I had been through the mill, and we could still sit in a room together, drinking jasmine tea while she bitched about her future ex-husband. Deep in our history, Gina and I had something that Cyd and I lacked.

  It went back to that blue line.

  It went back to that day I came home from running in the park and, through laughter and tears, Gina told me that she was having our baby.

  We had missed that, Cyd and I, the hope and joy and optimism that Gina saw in that blue line, that thin blue line leading to all our tomorrows, and our stake in the future.

  ‘Ah, sure, there’s nothing like it,’ Eamon said. ‘To love pure and chaste from afar. Nothing like it – except, perhaps, wild unprotected sex as you take her roughly from behind. Sure, that’s even slightly better.’

  I was beginning to wish that I had lied. I was beginning to wish that I had never told him that Kazumi and I hadn’t consummated our relationship.

  ‘She understands me.’ It was true. Kazumi knew what I was going through with my mum. And my son. Even, although we didn’t like to put it into so many words, with my wife.

  ‘She understands you too well, Harry.’ Eamon took a slug of his mineral water, ran a hand through his thick black locks. ‘She’s playing you, man. Don’t be fooled by that sweet act. All that hello-flowers, hello-sky stuff.’

  ‘Hello-flowers, hello-sky?’

  ‘Kazumi understands that when a man gets what he wants, he never wants it again.’

  We were in Eamon’s dressing room in a comedy club in the East End. The dressing room was more of a broom cupboard compared with what we were used to in television, and the club was actually an old-fashioned, pints-and-pork-scratchings, tobacco-stained pub that had belatedly tried to hitch a ride on the comedy bandwagon.

  It was not a million miles away from the kind of place that Eamon had appeared in before TV came calling. What had changed was his attitude to women. The cavalier shag merchant of old was now urging caution, doing everything he could to get me to go back to my wife and stop the madness. Addiction had done to Eamon what it does to a lot of people.

  It had made him long for stability.

  ‘You’re messed up, Harry. You’ve screwed too many of the wrong women and screwed over too many of the right women. Like your wife.’

  He had always had a soft spot for Cyd.

  ‘You’re on in five minutes.’

  But he would not let it go. Eamon – the only one who knew anything about us, apart from the cello-playing flatmate – thought that it would be different if I could sleep with Kazumi. Get it out of my system. If Kazumi and I had sex, Eamon told me, then I would see her as just another girl. Because right now that was the one thing Kazumi was not – just another girl. But I didn’t think that sex, when it finally happened, would make any difference. Except to make it impossible to live without her.

  ‘Can’t you see what you’re doing, Harry? You’re making the best bit go on and on.’

  ‘The best bit?’

  ‘The chase. The pursuit. The fever of anticipation. It’s the best bit, isn’t it? If we own up, it’s much better than a
nything that comes later.’

  ‘Remind me never to have sex with you.’

  ‘You don’t want the good stuff to die, Harry. Like it died with Gina. And with Cyd. Your wife. And every other woman you ever knew. You want the best to last. So what do you do? You get this platonic thing going. You make the chase, the pursuit, the delay of pleasure last forever.’

  ‘Is that what I am doing? I don’t think so. I’ve slept with plenty of women that I didn’t love. Why can’t I love a woman that I haven’t slept with?’

  Slept with – I couldn’t stop using that inaccurate euphemism. Everything else just sounded too mechanical.

  ‘Look at it this way. What is it all about? The whole thing – sex and romance, men and women? It’s about delaying the moment of release. It’s about postponing pleasure. It’s about putting ecstasy on hold. Relax, don’t do it. Frankie Goes to Hollywood knew what they were talking about, Harry. And what are you doing with this woman you haven’t slept with?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s obvious. By falling so hard for someone you haven’t shagged, you’re delaying the moment of release – permanently. Of course you’re mad about her. Why wouldn’t you be? You’ll be mad about her until you see that she’s flesh and blood. Just like your wife.’

  ‘You think I’d stop caring about Kazumi if we had sex?’

  ‘No. I think you would be able to think more clearly. At the moment you’re falling in love with a fantasy, and that’s the most dangerous thing in the world.’

  ‘You really think you can’t care about someone until you’ve exchanged bodily fluids?’

  ‘Hey, don’t knock it, Harry. It breaks the ice.’

  I looked at my watch. ‘You’re on in one minute.’

  ‘No man can think clearly until he’s been despunked, Harry.’

  Maybe. I could see that a platonic relationship made everything seem hopelessly romantic. A mid-afternoon cappuccino with Kazumi in some sun-dappled little café became something I’d remember forever. A Polaroid we took of ourselves on Primrose Hill – Kazumi laughing as we banged our heads together, trying to get in shot – became the highlight of my week. She squeezed my hand in the back row of the Swiss Cottage Odeon and it was more exciting than most of the blow jobs I’d had in my brief career as a boy about town. She just did it for me.

  And, yes, I could see that this thing was getting out of control. But it was more than a fantasy. I was starting to measure the practicalities of a life with Kazumi. Dismantling one home, setting up another home, giving Kazumi and me the chance to get to that point that all couples, even the ones that are crazy about each other, have to reach eventually. That point where ‘you don’t even feel the need to talk to each other.

  It could work. I knew it could work. And maybe she was the one that I had needed all along. And perhaps it would make Cyd happier if she was with someone else. She certainly didn’t seem too thrilled by her life with me right now. So maybe it would be better all round. One harsh, painful tearing asunder – of a marriage, a house, a home – and then everybody would get a chance to have their happy ending.

  You don’t even know her,’ Eamon said, interrupting my plans for a new life. ‘You’ve spent – what? – a hundred hours around each other? If that.’

  ‘How long do you think it takes? How long before you know?’

  He shook his head, exasperated. Outside, surprisingly close, we could hear hecklers shouting down the female comedian on stage.

  ‘You fucking idiot, Harry. You’re really going to leave your wife, your terrific wife, who you do not fucking deserve, for some slip of a girl you hardly know?’

  He was genuinely angry with me.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Well, where do you think this thing is heading?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You better start knowing, pal. You have started it now, and sooner or later – probably sooner – it will all end in tears.’

  ‘Why should it end in tears?’

  ‘Because you have to choose, you dumb bastard. Once you get into one of these things, you always have to choose.’

  ‘And what if I make my choice, and I choose Kazumi? How do you know it would be a disaster? How can you be so sure?’

  He held up his hands, a mocking surrender.

  ‘I don’t know, Harry. Neither do you. But have sex with Kazumi. Have lots of sex. Then see how you feel the first time she says something negative about your son.’

  ‘What if she never does? What if she’s great with him?’

  ‘Then pack your bags and go.’

  He pressed a silver key in my hand. I stared at it. He didn’t have to tell me that it was the key to his flat.

  ‘Kazumi’s great,’ Eamon said. ‘But the world is full of great women. That’s what romantic fools like you never admit. There are a million great women out there. Ten million. You could be in love with any one of them. Given the right circumstances, given timing. Sooner or later you have to stop tormenting yourself with the thought that there’s just one out there with your name on. You have to be happy with what you’ve got. You have to love the one you’re with. You have to say – this is my home now, this is my wife, and this is where I’m staying. Stop looking, Harry. Just stop looking, will you?’

  From long ago, I heard the voices of my parents. Just rest your eyes, my mum and dad would tell me. Just rest your eyes.

  But Eamon held out the silver key.

  And I took it.

  ‘I started using these sensitive condoms,’ Eamon said, prowling across the tiny stage. ‘Sensitive condoms – yeah, they’re great. What they do is, after you have had sex and fallen asleep, the sensitive condom cuddles the girl and talks to her about her feelings. Sensitive condoms send flowers the next day. Never forget to call…’

  A swell of laughter in the audience, mixed with a few groans. There wasn’t the easy willingness to laugh that you found in a TV audience. There was a kind of punter who came to these things for the pleasure of baiting the poor sap on stage. Out in the smoky darkness, some of them were restless.

  ‘Got any coke, Eamon?’

  ‘Ah, I don’t do that any more,’ Eamon said mildly. ‘The doctor gave me suppositories for my addiction. I told him they weren’t working. He said, “Well, have you been taking them regularly?” I said, “What do you think I’ve been doing, doc? Shoving them up my arse?”’

  More laughter. And some boos.

  ‘Yeah, sensitive condoms. People say wearing a condom during sex is like wearing a raincoat in the shower. They’ve got to be kidding. With all these new diseases, not wearing a condom during sex is like wearing a live fuse box in the bath…’

  Laughter and a smattering of increasingly vitriolic abuse.

  ‘You loser, Eamon, you has-been!’

  ‘Fuck off back to the detox clinic!’

  ‘Waiter, this fish is off!’

  ‘Condoms, yeah.’ The little Woody Allen cough. ‘These days you get packs of condoms for all different nationalities. You get the six-pack for Italians. That’s Monday to Saturday with a day of rest on Sunday. And you get the eight-pack for the French. That’s Monday to Saturday, and twice on Sunday. And you get the twelve-pack for the British.’ A pause. His timing was always good. ‘January, February, March…’

  A belligerent voice from the back, hoarse with cigarettes and loathing.

  ‘Come in, Eamon Fish – your fifteen minutes is up!’

  ‘My parents didn’t have to worry about condoms. Buy me and stop one – no, they didn’t have to worry about any of that. Not that their sex life was very happy. One night I heard them through the bedroom wall. They were trying to have sex and it just wasn’t working. My mother said, “What’s the matter? Can’t you think of anyone either?”’

  ‘You’re not funny!’ the voice shouted.

  ‘It’s not that kind of comedy,’ Eamon said.

  It was a big city but a small world. Sooner or later we were going to be seen toge
ther.

  Naturally we avoided the danger zones of north and central London, that surprisingly large swathe of the city where Cyd could be working, or Gina could be lurking. But eventually we would be spotted. I knew it.

  When it happened it was worse than I had imagined – and it was not my wife, or even my ex-wife, but someone from the outer suburbs of my life. He saw me as soon as he walked into the club, and took it all in.

  The married man, the girl by his side who wasn’t his wife. In a quiet corner of the pub above the comedy club, having a drink, holding hands like they had done it before.

  And I felt a sickening guilt that this man knew, this stranger, and my wife didn’t. I was ashamed of myself. It seemed like the worst betrayal imaginable.

  ‘Harry,’ Richard said, looking at Kazumi.

  What the hell was he doing here? What possible reason could this man have to be in a comedy club in Hackney?

  ‘Richard. I thought you were still in the States.’

  ‘Came over to see Gina.’ He finally took his eyes off Kazumi. ‘To be honest, I want her to come back.’

  ‘This is Kazumi,’ I said, for a cowardly moment thinking about passing her off as a work colleague, or a business associate.

  But the truth is that Richard didn’t care. He was in a state that was beyond caring about the romantic tangles of others – no job, no wife, and a life that had reached a point that he had never imagined. I knew the feeling.

  ‘I’m staying with some friends,’ he said. ‘They’ve got a house around here. It’s becoming quite popular with the City people, isn’t it?’

  ‘Them and the crack dealers. Listen, Richard, we have to go. Good luck with…everything.’

  I watched Kazumi and Richard smiling and shaking hands and I thought of Gina’s old bull theory, knowing he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting her back.

  Then we left him, our drinks abruptly abandoned, my guilt herding us out of the door.

  And that’s when I remembered the key in my pocket.

  We let ourselves into Eamon’s flat.

  It had been bought during the boom years of Fish on Friday, lucrative personal appearances and beer endorsements – a waterfront loft overlooking Tower Bridge, the Thames and the colonised docks, all lit up like a tourist postcard of London at night. Kazumi went to the wall-high windows and stared out at the inky-black river, the illuminated bridge, the glittering city.