Penny was about to climb in when she felt her heart jump into her throat. Without understanding why she was suddenly falling, Igor’s hand shot out and held her steady, thinking perhaps she had tripped because of her high-heeled boots. In actual fact, she had spotted Marcus and Francisca walking together just a few feet away. They were pressed against each other and holding bags as if they had been out shopping. That familiarity, which screamed, We don’t just have sex, we eat together, breathe together – we are as one, hurt Penny more than their stolen moans through the door.
But Penny pretended not to see them. She pretended to be a happy girl who was going out for a real first date with her high school crush and saw nothing but him. She pretended to be a relaxed twenty-two-year-old in a green dress with a faded green lock of hair and a pink coat matching her pink hat, expressing her supreme happiness through all these colours. She even leaned over and kissed Igor on the cheek, dangerously close to his lips. The car moved off quickly, and she resisted the temptation to check the rear-view mirror.
Who knows when they’ll be leaving? she wondered in a fit of melancholy.
But then she told herself she didn’t want to know, didn’t have to know. She just had to live. Have fun with Igor that night, really have fun, and start all over again.
26
MARCUS
Francisca’s sleeping but I can’t. It’s almost dawn and I’ve been pacing around the apartment like a beast in a very small cage. I smoke and smoke and smoke some more, and a couple of times I stop at the door and think about going downstairs, but I don’t. I don’t have to do this. My woman is here, not somewhere else. I’ve been waiting for four years, and I’m not going to screw everything up for some random bitch. Sometimes I’d like to punch myself in the head to get Penny out of my thoughts. None of this makes sense; it’s total madness, it’s a disease. I’m here with the sexiest woman alive, and all I can think about is Penny. Can a man lose his mind in a few weeks? No. A man cannot lose himself in such a short time. And if that’s true, then this can’t be what I think it is, and it can’t last. It’s momentary madness, and if I refuse to give into it, it will pass.
I have beer in the fridge. I open one and drink it. Francisca gets out of bed and joins me. We smoke and drink and laugh and screw. This is the life I want. Tomorrow we’re leaving without telling anyone. We’ll be gone. Technically we’re not allowed – I’m on parole – but fuck the rules. OK, I’ve had four beers and some Johnnie Walker and I’m drunk, but if something is true when you’re sober, it’s also true when you’re drunk: it’s better to die on the run than live in a prison.
I finally fall asleep in a stupor of sex and alcohol. When I wake up it’s dark. Either it’s still night or it’s night again. I think we must have slept for hours. I get up and my head spins; I used to be able to hold my whiskey but now, after four years of sobriety, I admit I feel like shit. A cold shower is the best thing to clear my head. I need to go out and buy something to eat.
While I’m dressing, Francisca wakes up.
‘Wait for me, I’ll shower and go with you.’
We go downstairs and deliberately ignore Penny’s front door. I hold a cigarette between my fingers and take a deep drag and think Fuck you to whatever is behind that door. Luckily, we don’t see anyone; I don’t want to run into some decrepit old lady trying to make trouble.
It’s no longer raining outside but the air is freezing. The store is nearby and we walk. It’s strange to walk down this street with Francisca, strange to feel her next to me again. I thank Johnnie for the favour he has given me: I’m still too hungover to dwell on superfluous things, things that also include Penny.
But on our way back, each of us holding a paper bag full of gargantuan burgers and fries, my mission to stop thinking about Penny becomes impossible.
Because I see her in front of me, by the building, and she’s not alone. She’s getting into a car, and Igor is opening the door for her. She smiles, he smiles, and I stop smiling. The bitch is dressed like that day we went to the prison, and she’s wearing make-up, and she kisses him on the cheek and gets into his car, and he looks like some athlete who just won a race. Then they leave and I immediately want to know where they’re going and what they’re going to do – if he touches her, I think, I’ll tear off his arms. As this onslaught of thoughts hits me, I stop on the sidewalk and observe the car as it moves away. The whiskey is no longer enough, and I suddenly feel high, as if I’ve been drinking gallons of coffee, and yet suddenly foggy, all in the same infernal moment, but this is a different kind of fog, which has nothing to do with alcohol. It has to do with a murderous jealousy that’s invading me and threatening to set off World War Three.
I set off towards the house, go up the stairs, and don’t notice Francisca until I’m inside my apartment again and drop the bag on the table like I’m weak from some kind of fever. Then I see her standing next to me, staring into my face.
‘Are you in love with that girl?’ she asks directly.
I start laughing, hard and bitter. ‘What the fuck are you saying?’ I exclaim, looking for a cigarette.
Where did I put the cigarettes? Where did I put those fucking cigarettes?
I find them and take one and light it and take a drag and laugh again, but Francisca doesn’t laugh at all.
‘Me, in love with her? Did you see her?’
‘I did, but I also saw how you looked at her.’
‘And how exactly did I look at her?’ I ask, in a teasing tone. Francisca and Sherrie are in competition with each other for who is more full of crap.
‘How you should have looked at me when I came back.’
‘Don’t talk bullshit, Fran.’
‘Then can I ask what’s up with you?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing, OK?’
‘Did you fuck anyone else besides her?’
The question makes me jump. ‘What?’
‘It’s a simple question. Since you’ve been with her, have you fucked anyone else?’
‘No,’ I admit, ‘but that means nothing.’
‘Did you kiss her during sex?’
‘Fran, that’s enough. Don’t break my balls over this.’
‘You’re the one breaking my balls. I just want to understand what’s happening to you. I’ve never seen you like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘All out of sorts. Your hands are shaking. You have a look in your eyes that I didn’t even see when we killed that guy. Did you kiss her while you fucked her?’
‘Yes, but what does that even mean?’
‘I don’t know, but I want to know if I still have a place in your life.’
‘Of course you do! I only screwed Penny and, yes, I kissed her, but to go from that to asking me if . . .’
‘So if, for example, I said to you, let’s start now, immediately, delete her, and you’ll never know where she went tonight or what she did with that guy and you won’t see her ever again, what would you say?’
I laugh, nervously stubbing out the cigarette in an empty beer can. ‘I’d say fine, let’s leave now! I’ll pack my bag and we’ll beat it! But do you really think that I . . . care about . . . about that one? You’re out of your mind, Fran, you’re out of your mind. We only dated because she paid me! And I fucked her here and there. What’s the big problem? I didn’t think you cared where I park my horny cock when you’re not around.’
‘I don’t care about that, but I do care where you park your heart.’
I laugh even louder now, and I fear myself, because my voice with its strident edge, which seems capable of cutting diamonds, sounds like the shrill laugh of a devil with no hope.
‘I’ll get my things ready and leave, OK? So you can stop talking bullshit,’ I say firmly.
I take the bag and begin to fill it furiously, just to show her, and while I’m doing it, I turn my back on a silent Francisca and can’t get the image of Penny and Igor out of my head. She was smiling – smiling! She was happy, and kissed him nex
t to his lips, and I swear to God that tonight he’ll try to screw her, and since he’s no idiot he won’t be violent like Grant, and she will say yes, she will say yes, she will open for him like she opened for me.
I stop and I hurl the bag against the wall with brute force. A diabolical blasphemy comes out of my mouth as I hit the punch bag with such force that it falls to the floor, which vibrates and creaks like a tree.
Francisca is still motionless in the middle of the room – tall, proud, shiny as a scalpel. Merciless, as she always has been, she goes back on the attack. ‘Are you in love with her, Marcus?’
And then it’s useless, it’s useless to try to get around it, like it’s useless to sweep away dust, fog, defences, or give a different meaning to something that only has one. I’ve never lied to Francisca, and I didn’t plan on starting today. I just didn’t understand. Damn it, I didn’t understand.
At this point, I hear my breathless, desperate voice saying only ‘Yes’. And then it says, ‘Forgive me.’ So without even turning around to face Francisca, I grab a jacket and my car keys and race out of the apartment like a man who’s running for his life.
27
The play did Penny more harm than good. It was the story of a woman who goes in search of true love, and before she finds it she experiences a long list of tragicomic false starts. All heightened with music played by a live orchestra and hand-painted scenography in a style that imitated the rich and vivid brushstrokes of Van Gogh.
Sitting in the second row next to Igor in a small cosy theatre all trimmed in blue, Penny tried to smile. She had turned off the sound on her phone to be polite. Every now and then she checked it for fear of missing a call from the hospital, and was astonished to find that Marcus had phoned. The temptation to call him back was enormous, but she didn’t give in. Maybe he just wanted to know how she was, maybe he wanted to apologise, maybe he wanted to say goodbye because he was leaving.
He loved me in his own way. It’s not his fault I’m not Francisca. But I don’t want to talk to him again.
Whatever the reason for those calls, she didn’t care. They had nothing more to say to each other.
At the end of the show, Igor introduced her to the people in the theatre company and Penny shook hands and smiled until her cheeks hurt, realising with sadness that the play was continuing to the bitter end and she was now the lead. She was pretending to be cheerful and nice, in that same damn dress that was far too short, with her face made up and her heart in black and white. Fortunately, Igor didn’t seem to notice. It was to Penny’s advantage that she had never been a particularly outgoing girl, the kind who commands the room, the kind people notice when they fall silent. After all the pleasantries and pats on the back and mutual compliments and fake smiles, she and Igor left at last.
‘Would you like to come and have dinner at my house?’ Igor asked her. ‘I’m a very good cook.’
Penny accepted at once, thinking that fate was a pimp. Fate wanted her to sleep with Igor, or just maybe, given that her clothing that evening was channelling a girl who barely bothered with wearing her underwear, she had sent him a message loud and clear all by herself, which he had gratefully received.
On reaching his apartment, Penny saw that it was small but colourful and whimsical. It featured abstract paintings, certainly by his own hand, with the same dense brushstrokes as the scenography, as well as a low table made from an old barn door, and quotes – phrases taken from famous poems – drawn by hand on to a wall that was a mosaic of bricks in relief. Even the glasses were extravagant: some shaped like stills in a distillery, others with huge hollow cubes inside, others shaped like the headless, sinuous bodies of women.
Penny sat down on a couch and Igor handed her a bottle of beer, then he sat down beside her and asked frankly, ‘So, do you want to tell me what happened?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why are you here with me instead of with Marcus? You seemed so decided yesterday, and I was confused when you called today.’
‘In a good way, I hope.’
‘In a great way, but . . . why this sudden change?’
‘We . . . er . . . we broke up.’
‘Can I ask you what happened, or is that too much?’
Penny took a sip of beer and tried a casual smile. ‘Nothing special. It just didn’t work out.’
‘So suddenly? It seemed like it was very much working out.’
‘I was . . . I’d been thinking about it for a while, actually. It was just a physical thing, nothing more, and I want more.’
Unexpectedly, Igor reached out and took her hand. ‘Miracles do happen then. I want more too. I know it’s early, but . . .’
‘It’s never too early,’ she said, a little agitated, wondering what the hell she meant by that remark, tossed out to fill a void and hide a heartbeat.
‘So if, for example, I kissed you, you wouldn’t think I was an asshole taking advantage of your vulnerability?’
‘I’m not vulnerable at all,’ she said firmly, feeling as fragile as a house built on sand.
Igor smiled, continuing to hold her hand. ‘I am really trying, of course, but I don’t just want that. I do really like you. I’ve always liked you, ever since I first saw you. You were sixteen and you wore a braid over one shoulder and a sky-blue coat with big buttons.’
‘You still remember that? Grandma sewed it for me, but I stopped wearing it after Rebecca made fun of it. It made me feel like some poor kid.’
‘But you were delicious, and so original, so different from the others. So different that I believed Rebecca’s lie. I was a boy. I was stupid – I should have asked you out anyway.’
Penny gave him the best smile she could muster just at that moment.
‘Come here,’ he urged. Igor had no intention of saying it twice. He leaned in and kissed her on the lips.
Penny waited for the world to turn upside down, for her heart to leap into her throat and hands and legs, yet nothing happened. But she didn’t try to wriggle away. She was determined to stay and make it to the end. So she placed the beer bottle on the floor and moved even closer to this angel with the blond curls and the cornflower-blue eyes. She looked at him as if she were begging him to throw her a rope while she was falling over the edge and into the abyss. Igor, despite his fairy-tale appearance, was still a man – a man who moreover had always had a thing for her, and he didn’t stop to think about just why she’d so impulsively rushed into his arms. He simply welcomed her.
They found themselves one on top of the other on the couch, which was very different from the one in Marcus’s apartment, in that it was not a worn-out, patched-up old thing but a comfortable chaise longue in bold stripes of indigo and yellow. Igor was holding her tightly, with Penny intent on wiping the slate clean to forget her painful memories. Their long kiss wasn’t in any way bad, but it was only a kiss. Fully aware of the difference, of her utter failure to put her memories behind her, unable to think about anything else but Marcus, wondering why the hell she had loved him so much and how it was possible to love him so much and if six weeks were long enough for her to love anyone so much, Penny began to cry like a hopeless fool.
Igor couldn’t help but notice; he pulled back, concerned. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
Lying beneath him, Penny squirmed until Igor moved aside and she got up, her eyes flooded with tears. All she could repeat was, ‘Please excuse me – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’ She kept repeating it as she put on her coat and made for the door and left the house and walked out of Igor’s life forever.
Running down the stairs, she repeated the same words over and over in her mind. It was nothing to do with Igor, it was all her fault and because of her stifling way of loving, her exclusive need for Marcus, even though he didn’t deserve her, even though he was the last man on earth who could offer her the hope of a nest and safety and a future.
She arrived home distraught and took off her boots, hurling them into the corner as if they were on fire. Sudde
nly there came a loud knock at the door, and she rushed to open it in a burst of childish desire, hoping against all hope that it would be Marcus.
But it wasn’t him.
There on the threshold stood Francisca. Seeing her, Penny couldn’t hold back a sudden intake of breath. Francisca parted her lips and squinted, staring at Penny with a somewhat-bemused look on her face.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked, entering without waiting for permission.
Penny went on the defensive. ‘What do you want?’
‘I should be asking you the same thing, chica. What do you want from Marcus?’
‘Nothing.’
It wasn’t true – she wanted everything, but for someone who wants to imprison a rainbow in a box, everything is like nothing.
Francisca sat on the couch, pulling up her supple legs, which were wrapped in a pair of tight jeans that highlighted her perfect body. Penny felt a sense of annoyance at the confidence expressed in this gesture, and at the same time some relief. Francisca had a naturally threatening air – she was so strong and solid, with her powerful jaw and eyes blacker than ebony, and for a moment Penny had feared that she wanted to attack her. Instead, it seemed that her strange guest was there to talk.
‘Marcus and I share a special bond,’ Francisca continued. She seemed as comfortable on the couch as if she were the host, while Penny, barefoot, remained standing. Despite her apparent position of supremacy, she felt low and defenceless.
‘I know. Why do you feel the need to remind me?’
Francisca didn’t answer her question and went on cryptically, ‘He needs to feel free, not oppressed by anything or anyone. He’s lived in a cage since he was born. There are so many different types of cage, you know?’
‘Really, I don’t understand what—’
Francisca cut her off. ‘We love each other in our own way. We don’t suffocate each other, we don’t fear each other, we don’t force ourselves to be together.’
Trying Not To Love You Page 25