State of the Union

by Nick Hornby

  He shakes his head.

  “The trouble is, marriage is like a computer. You can take it apart to see what’s in there, but then you’re left with a million pieces.”

  Louise sighs in despairing agreement, and then rallies.

  “How about this?” she says. “We shove the big bits back in, chuck the small ones away, close it up, and get on with things.”

  “But it won’t work.”

  “It won’t work, but it will look like a computer.”

  “Is that what you want? A marriage that looks like a marriage? Even though it won’t work?”

  “Well, it would be a start. At the moment I have a husband who won’t sleep with me and lives somewhere else entirely. I might as well tell everyone I’m married to Brad Pitt.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck getting him to watch Call the Midwife.”

  “He doesn’t have to watch it. He just has to not go on about how much he hates it.”

  “I had to watch it.”

  “Once. And only because you kept slagging it off without having seen it.”

  “So he’s got to watch it once.”

  “And I’m sure if he does he’ll respect my enjoyment and not make puking noises all the way through.”

  “We’re getting sidetracked again.”

  “Let’s do a couple of crossword clues before we go in. A morale-boosting exercise.”

  She moves her chair so she can sit next to him.

  “Oh, look,” she says. “Twenty-seven across. ‘Game of cricket put strain on marriage.’ Test match.”

  “Quite an easy one. Hadn’t noticed it.”

  “Remember we’re team-building, not point-scoring. Sixteen across. ‘Party touring Russian capital to shared bed.’”

  “Are you deliberately picking out the clues about marriage?”

  “No! And ‘shared bed’ doesn’t mean marriage. As we know. But do another one. One across. We need that. ‘Rogue caught mate dividing loot.’ Ignore the word ‘mate.’”

  “I can’t,” Tom says. “It’s a crossword.”

  “Begins with s and ends in g.”

  “So ‘loot’ is ‘swag’ . . .”

  “Scallywag. ‘Ally in swag.’”

  “With the c from ‘caught.’ There we are. Morale boosted. Team rebuilt.”

  Louise takes the pen and writes in the word.

  “Oh. It’s all wet and bumpy. That’s annoying.”

  Tom gives her a look.

  “Let’s actually make a plan for this evening’s session,” she says. “Let’s not go in and start arguing about something completely bloody irrelevant. Go in with an agenda. What are the big pieces we want to shove back into the computer? I don’t even know if computers have big pieces, do they?”

  “They must do. Batteries, and . . . valves. Not microchips. They’re small. I might take that dead one apart tomorrow. I can take it back with me when I’ve had dinner with the kids.”

  “Would that be a good use of your time?”

  “As good as anything else.”

  “I so hate you having nothing to do.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I mean . . . I am being sympathetic. But it’s embarrassing, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “And it drags us both down. Sorry. But if we don’t tell it straight, what’s the point? You haven’t started this biography yet?”

  “Still researching. I think I may have to go to Cape Verde.”

  “Is that where your guy came from? What’s his name?”

  “Horace Silver.”

  “I thought you’d decided on someone else in the end.”

  “It turned out not to be the end.”

  “So Horace came from Cape Verde.”

  “No. His dad.”

  “You’re going to Cape Verde because that’s where his dad was born? How many copies is this book going to sell?”

  “Oh, nowhere near enough to cover the cost of the flight. So . . . Yeah, expensive and pointless. I probably won’t go. Probably won’t even write the book. I don’t know why I say all this crap.”

  “To give yourself hope. That’s understandable.”

  “I’m not sure there is much hope. The world has changed. Nobody wants music writers anymore. There’s no paid work. Time has moved on. I’m like a coal miner, or a blacksmith. Is it embarrassing, living with an unemployed blacksmith?”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Well, it sort of is. I got a degree in English, but I couldn’t be an English teacher or an English tutor, could I? No. Not good enough for me. I had to chase after the free drugs and the expenses-paid trips to L.A.”

  “Yes. Inexplicable.”

  “I should have thought things through.”

  “You couldn’t see the Internet coming. Just like blacksmiths couldn’t see cars coming.”

  “Oh, they should have seen cars coming,” says Tom. “It was only a matter of time.”

  “So you’re saying you’re smarter than a blacksmith?”

  “Not as such. But I’d like to think that if my dad had been a blacksmith, and he was trying to hand over the keys to the shop, I’d have said, ‘No, Dad. Those days are coming to an end.’”

  “Right. And what would you have done instead?”

  “I don’t know. Advertising. PR. What year are we in? And what part of the country?”

  “Oh, I’d have moved.”

  “If you manage to prove to me that you’re smarter than a blacksmith, how far down the road toward marital harmony will it get us?”

  “I was just defending myself.”

  “No, you weren’t. You were attacking blacksmiths for their bad choices.”

  “I have to take pleasure where I can find it. Attacking blacksmiths is about all I’ve got left.”

  Louise sighs.

  “Are you thinking that we should give Kenyon up?”

  “Yes. Yes. Of course. Every week. Are you? We’re going backward. As you said.”

  Tom notices the elderly couple leaving Kenyon’s house. The man is walking with particular difficulty. He has to stop halfway across the road.

  “He’s not getting any quicker, is he?” he says.

  “She’s a marital therapist, not a personal fitness guru.”

  They watch as the old couple come into the pub. Louise and Tom watch them intently—rudely, even. The woman points to an empty table nearby and the man shuffles off to sit at it. The elderly woman turns to them and smiles.

  “How are you getting on?” she says.

  Tom is aghast.

  “What?”

  “With Kenyon,” the woman says. “We couldn’t help but notice you knocking on the door last week.”

  “Wow,” says Tom. “That’s a bit . . . It is supposed to be private, you know.”

  Louise smiles.

  “We’ve watched you coming out,” she says.

  “Speak for yourself,” says Tom to Louise. “I’m not interested in other people’s personal business.”

  “We think she’s very good,” says the woman. “We’ve been seeing her on and off for years. It takes time, that’s all. You’ve got to get through all the hurt and the petty niggles. But you’re young. You’ve got lots of time. Lucky you. Anyway. Good luck.”

  She crosses her fingers for them and goes to the bar. Tom watches her go. Louise gathers her things and stands up.

  “That was rather sweet, didn’t you think?” says Louise outside the pub. “Like a film. An elderly woman gives a younger couple good advice, and saves their marriage.”

  “That’s a color film, if ever I saw one. Anyway. Did you hear what she said? Years and years. Hurt and niggles.”

  “But maybe we can do it quicker,” says Louise.

  “Not at the rate we’re goin
g. Not with Call the Midwife and A4 paper and so on. We’ll be in there fifty years.”

  “So let’s get down to it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Let’s give it to each other straight.”

  “No more subtext?”

  “No more subtext.”

  Tom makes a show of rolling up his sleeves.

  “Okay, then,” he says. “Bring it on.”

  week eight

  DOLPHINS

  Tom is at the bar, buying the usual round. Louise is sitting on the sofa in the pub, because their normal table is occupied. Tom hasn’t seen her, and she’s got a glass of white wine and a pint of bitter already. She’s looking good. She’s wearing lipstick and a plunging sweater—she’s the one making the effort. As Tom picks up his drinks and walks toward their usual table, she gestures at him. He comes over and sits down, puts Louise’s second glass of wine down.

  “Oh, well.”

  “Not to worry. Don’t have to drink them both.”

  “Hello,” she says sweetly.

  “Hi.”

  He looks at her. She gives another smile.

  “You haven’t started . . . You’re not going out on a date afterward, are you?”

  “No!” says Louise. “I just thought . . . After last week’s session . . .”

  “Which bit?”

  “When you told me I was unsexy.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You did. I listened to it again to check.”

  “What? How?”

  “I’ve been recording the sessions.”

  “Seriously? You record the sessions and listen again?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I put my phone on the coffee table before the second session and Kenyon asked if you were okay with it and you said yes.”

  “Oh. I see. I thought she was asking if I was okay with you putting the phone on the coffee table.”

  “That would have been weird.”

  “Not as weird as recording the sessions. When do you listen?”

  “They’re good for dog walking. They’re pretty gripping, actually.”

  “Like a BBC radio drama sort of thing?”

  “Yeah. Except there are some credibility gaps. Like, wow, these two people would never get together in real life.”

  “That’s the beauty of real life, though, isn’t it? We did get together.”

  “Yes, I noticed that much. And we are where we are. My point was that it might not have been a good idea.”

  “Not . . . on paper. But the real world is gloriously unpredictable. And here we are, with two wonderful children. Are you wishing them away?”

  “Of course I’m not,” Louise says. “But maybe we should have had two wonderful children with other people.”

  “So four wonderful children? Who wouldn’t even know each other? The thought of that breaks my heart.”

  “Why would you even care whether they know each other or not?”

  “Because they’d be . . . They’d be half brothers, kind of.”

  Louise laughs in disbelief.

  “They might not all be boys. And they would absolutely not be related.”

  “I think they would be. Spiritually.”

  “So do you think ours are related to what’s-her-name’s children? Your ex? Sinead?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “But you could have had children with her.”

  “That was never in the cards.”

  “You jump in and out of fantasy worlds to suit your argument.”

  “I just happen to feel more sentimental about the children I never had with you than the children I never had with her. I’m a romantic that way. So shoot me. Why did we get together, if it was all so unlikely?”

  Louise considers the question for a moment.

  “Because I was going through a dry spell,” she says.

  Tom is appalled.

  “That’s it?” he says.

  “You asked why we got together, not why we stayed together. Did you have any long-term designs the night we met?”

  “Well, yes. But the long-term became short-term pretty quickly.”

  “Because I was so easy, you mean?”

  “Agreeable, I’d say, rather than easy.”

  “And then no plan?”

  “Not no plan. Just . . . the same one.”

  “Isn’t that how most couples get together? They want to end a dry spell, and then it all gets out of hand?”

  “I suppose. Unless there’s money involved. That woman with the huge breasts who married the billionaire . . . I don’t know whether she was worried about a dry spell.”

  “And Jane says she knew she was going to marry Charlie the first time she saw him.”

  “And there are people who were friends for ages before they fell in love,” Tom says.

  “And arranged marriages.”

  “But still. As you point out. Plenty of people start with sex and go on from there.”

  “It’s like, I don’t know. Starting in a new job. One day follows another, and twenty years later you’re still there. But you can’t know on your first day.”

  “No. Otherwise you’d shoot yourself.”

  Louise gives him a look.

  “If it was a boring job,” he says.

  “Do you remember anything about the first time we had sex?”

  “What a question! Yes. Of course.”

  “Really? I can’t.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “There was some disappointment, I think,” Louise says.

  “I’d hoped you’d forgotten all of it.”

  “That’s why I wanted to give it another go. I didn’t think it was fair to judge you on that one time.”

  “Ditto,” Tom says defensively.

  “What did I do wrong?”

  “You were a bit . . . lackluster.”

  “Oh, it’s all coming back to you now.”

  “I can’t remember much. Just that you were, you know. Medium. Six out of ten. Six-point-five, maybe. Two-thirds, let’s say. Me?”

  “Well. It was basically a no-jump, wasn’t it? Or a let. So I don’t think I can give you a score.”

  “Can we not talk about this? It was nearly twenty years ago. We’ve gone on to better things.”

  “And back again,” says Louise. “Like a pleasure cruiser.”

  “Perhaps that’s the whole trajectory of married sex. Out round the rocks to look at the seals, and home.”

  “‘Round the rocks’? ‘To look at the seals’?”

  “Or dolphins, or whatever.”

  “When were the dolphin years?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Not really.”

  “I can remember some exotic spectaculars before the kids were born. Kitchen tables and so on.”

  “The kitchen table being the dolphin?”

  “Yes,” Tom says. “And the shower. And the garden.”

  “And didn’t we do something . . . Oh. No. We didn’t.”

  “What are you thinking of?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It wasn’t recently, was it? With your friend?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Why ‘of course not’?”

  “Do you really want to go into this?” Louise says.

  “Yes and no. I want to know and I’m terrified, all at the same time.”

  “It was just sex. No dolphins or seals.”

  “Or blindfolds.”

  “No! Why would you ask about blindfolds? Have you wanted me to wear a blindfold all these years?”

  “Not . . . not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “Not a blindfold as such.”

  “Can you dr
aw this thing? If it’s complicated? I’ll try and knit one, if it helps.”

  Tom takes a pull on his drink.

  “You must be bored,” he says sadly.

  “Are you?”

  “You first.”

  “Now is hardly the time to ask me. I’m bored with nothing at all, that’s for sure.”

  “What if I’d asked you a year ago?”

  “You didn’t,” she says.

  “So you won’t answer hypothetical questions?”

  “Why don’t we just say it?”

  “What?”

  “We were both bored. It’s become less and less important to us, and you packed it in, and then everything went wrong.”

  Tom doesn’t say anything.

  “Isn’t that right?” says Louise.

  “No.”

  “What have I got wrong?”

  “I was never bored. But I did feel humiliated.”

  “Humiliated?”

  “Because I knew. I knew you were bored. I could feel you were bored. There were . . . indications. And I got embarrassed to ask anymore, because I got knocked back so often.”

  Louise looks stricken.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought I knew where this conversation was going.”

  “Of course it’s not your fault. Everything bounces back and forth between us. I’m boring, you get bored, I get more boring, you get more bored . . . Our sexual relationship is like a Newton’s cradle.”

  “And even they stop, in the end,” Louise says sadly.

  Tom is genuinely surprised.

  “Do they? I thought that was the whole point of them.”

  “You thought they went on forever?”

  “Yes. I thought it was a perpetual-motion machine.”

  “So why aren’t any still going?”

  “I thought either because people got fed up with the clacking or they got fired and had to change offices.”

  “You know that perpetual-motion machines don’t exist, don’t you?” Louise says.

  “No. I did not know that.”

  “If they did, all our energy problems would be solved forever.”

  “How can you run a car off a clacking executive toy?”

  “It’s not . . . We’re getting sidetracked. But maybe that’s what we expect marriage to be. A perpetual-motion machine that never runs out of energy. But we have kids, and a mortgage, your mother, my father, work, no work . . . How can one not be ground down by it?”