This from Iain:
Katherine, I don’t know how much you saw, but I’m sorry. Things just happened. I’m going to leave you alone this weekend, but we need to talk. x
Leave me alone? More like not drag himself out of your bed.
I wondered, had you got the first train back to London in the morning together? Had you nestled your head in his chest and dozed as he gazed out of the window, occasionally turning his head to kiss your hair, which he would find startling in its natural vivaciousness, while calling to mind my dried-out, fake black scruff? And when you got off the tube at Manor House, did you run back to yours together, for fear of bumping into me? And when you let him into your flat, did you shower together, fuck, and then fall asleep sweetly in your bed? When you came to, did you fuck again, or did he disappear to fish around your flat for something to cook for you? And when you got out of your bed to find your lover, were you just wearing my copycat shirt and nothing else, and did he just have to fuck you again, there and then? Did you let him swim in his morning guilt before leading him to that big window over the reservoir where you knew he’d see gorgeous sunlight and maybe also the possibility of a piercing bright future? Did you fuck again, with your hands pressed against the glass, him behind you?
When I got back to London and unlocked the door to my flat, it felt like going into a museum. A staleness I hadn’t noticed before, probably because Iain and I had not been away overnight for nearly two years. The overbearing atmosphere of a monument to times gone.
I closed the door behind me and gazed at The Film poster for the thousandth time. I went to the living room and looked around at all my things. Beautiful things under gray dust.
I dragged a chair and reached up to one of my display mezzanines. On it, three Ashanti masks I’d picked up for peanuts in Ghana. I took the largest in both hands. I let my thumbs stroke its nobbled surface and thought about the cutoff combats I’d worn over the three weeks I’d spent in Africa, without Iain. I was twenty-seven. Life felt real. Vivid. Why doesn’t anyone tell you that’s It. These are The Days of Your Life. Why do you only realize that was It when It’s all over, when It is in your rearview? Why do you only really see It when it’s someone else’s turn? When you realize how old you’ve become because looking at the young makes your blood hot and your heart sink?
I raised the mask above my head and let it drop to the floorboards. It split as if it was divided by the hours on the clock, a dozen or so isosceles shards reaching away from what was once the center. I retrieved the next one and did the same, and again to the third.
Balinese ceramics: smashed. An art nouveau clock Iain had spotted in a market near Avignon: in pieces. A Victorian child’s rocking chair: smithereens. Everything I could reach, I took in my hands and shattered.
When that was done, I walked back to the hall. I lifted The Film poster off its hook. A shift of dust rose at the sides. I coughed and my eyes watered. It was heavy. It wasn’t easy for me to get it into the living room. I balanced it on the coffee table for a moment, looked at it one last time before letting it drop onto the hard floor. Stepping over it, I saw the impact had only left a single crack running across its width. If I were to put it back up again, Iain wouldn’t even notice it was damaged. I grabbed a thick slice of the largest splintered Ashanti mask, got to my knees, raised it up and over my head, and brought it down on the crunching pane. Again and again until my sweat mixed with powdered glass. Words formed between the blows. Iain and you. You and Iain. Not a sideshow. Not a stepping-stone? No.
“This…Is…About…Me!”
Even though I’d watched you screw my partner with my own eyes, I still knew I hadn’t called you wrong. This was all about me. I still believed this. You had zeroed in on me. Watched me. Tried to undermine me at every turn. Except when you weren’t. Except when you shone at me. When you smiled. When you touched my hand. When you danced with me. When you shared what I thought were your deepest truths. About your childhood; the pain of neglect. A pain I knew as well as you did. Or was that a lie too?
Please Kathy, I need you to talk to me. I need to know you haven’t done anything stupid. Just text me one letter. Let me know you’re ok. X
I think the guilt was really getting to Iain here. Was he worried he could have blood on his hands? And wouldn’t that kill his buzz?
Kathy, I’m so sorry. I know I’ve hurt you. Can we talk? Please? Xxx
I think he was already missing me by then too. Perhaps you’d said something insipid, taken offense at some off-color gag he’d made, and maybe he’d realized exactly how young you were, how you were obviously wired completely different from him, and me. He’d also, surely, discovered how you didn’t have any detectable sense of humor. That would bother him, if he’d managed to see past the tits, the teeth, the overall nubility. Or perhaps you’d suggested another bottle of wine wasn’t a good idea. That at least could have made him pine for me again.
Iain wasn’t much, but he was mine.
You stayed away from work that Monday morning. Getting myself to the office wasn’t easy, but I intended to stay on the right side of history where Gemma was concerned. I wondered if she knew what you’d done yet.
Clearly, it was a tough start to the week for Asif too. You must have told him you’d been with someone else; maybe even told him it was Iain. His eyes were red and he kept clasping his hand over the lower half of his face. He didn’t even look at me when I came in.
And just to keep things interesting, Acceptableinthenoughties emailed both Gemma and me later that morning:
Subject: Appropriate behavior?
Dear Publisher,
Your esteemed editor is a drug user. I strongly suggest an appropriate and immediate response, otherwise I’ll be forced to take more direct action.
Because hundreds of kids are literally slaughtered for her drugs.
Time is running out.
* * *
—
GEMMA ARRIVED LATE and called me straight into her office.
“Take a seat.”
“Mind if I stand?”
“Would you tell me now if you know anything about this?”
“Do you want to be more specific?”
“Do you know who is sending you these messages?”
“I can’t be sure, but, this is really difficult for me to say to you…” She sat there waiting for what she must have felt was the inevitable. “Can I ask you, Gemma, why did Lily say she wasn’t coming to work today?”
“She’s not well. Sore throat,” she said flatly. She clearly didn’t believe it any more than I did.
“A sore throat,” I nodded, dragging out Gemma’s agony. “So nothing to do with the fact my partner and I attended a party with your niece this weekend, but I didn’t get to take him home because he was too busy shagging her. So, I wonder now, just who could have been sending these unkind messages?”
And I saw that twitch again, the one I’d seen that first time I’d asked her if there was anything I should know about you. Gemma sat forward in her seat and placed her hands flat on the surface in front of her. Her whole demeanor seemed to change from “Say it isn’t so” to “Let the training kick in.” How many times had she needed to clean up after you?
“I need you to say nothing about this to anyone before I’ve had a chance to speak to her. Am I clear?”
“As a bell. Are you going to be investigating now? Has this gone far enough yet?”
“If that’s what you expressly want me to do, I will,” she said firmly, but I detected a tremble that belied she already knew any inquiry’s conclusion.
“I do, Gemma.”
A final purse of the lips. Gemma only knew about the previous crimes, not the current. You were vulnerable, and now I could see she wasn’t party to your masterplan, Gemma was at risk too.
I spent the rest of Monday doing no work at all. I ig
nored the interns, looked up impossibly expensive wellness retreats, called an old contact and got him to take me to lunch on the Southbank, where I stayed until after 4 P.M.
Like so many things, a lunch with him was so much less fun than it used to be. He was one of my bank of regulars. The older guys I’d go to for free bubbles, a snippet of news, some bit of gossip I might be able to spin up into a feature, and a surefire ego boost. I let them drool over me at the restaurants of the moment, occasionally letting them have me, because their gratitude and awe at getting me into bed was something else. But that lunch shattered another illusion. I’d allowed myself to believe they worshipped me, my bravery, my craft, for God’s sake! No, they only adored the twenty-nine-years-and-below version of me. They gave praise at the altar of my young flesh, but their patronage, which I had felt gave me power, did not. It gave me and every woman like me a shelf life.
“You must tell me more about your stunning new recruit,” my old contact said, eyebrows high on a greasy forehead.
“There’s not much to tell. She’s just a kid. The publisher’s niece. You know how it goes. Anyway, tell me what’s been keeping you busy.”
“Ah, part of the family business is she? Well, however she got there, she’s really got something. She made quite the impression on the great and the good at your awards.”
Of course you had. With me out of the way, the floor was all yours.
And yet even in my rage at you, I could see you and your kind had a point with the movements you’d instigated to put a halt to sex entering the workplace. I’d previously lamented the rise of such puritanism. I’d called it out as the neutering of society. Why couldn’t we all do what we wanted without securing written consent first? But now I realized all those times when I felt I was riding high, I was doing so on the most narrowly defined of patronages. I could now see just how limited, how temporary these endorsements were. They converted three-dimensional women with brains and hearts to ravishing fillies when we’re young, then beasts fit only for sympathetic pasture when we dare to age. Definitely fuck you, I thought that afternoon, but definitely fuck them too. Yet another incident where I’d automatically written off the millennial perspective, then was forced to see you lot had a point after all. Fuck you for being right.
Iain texted to say he was waiting for me at home. Good. Let’s see what he had to say. Let him see the mess he’d made. But I wouldn’t be rushing back to him. He needed to see the cool, hard me. The devil-may-care me. The strong me. The young me. Gemma left before five; the interns slunk off indecently soon after.
Asif was still there, forlornly pretending to work. He’d stayed out of my way all day, but he obviously wanted to talk and I wanted to know what you’d told him.
“So. How’s it going, Asif? Heard from Lily today?”
Trembling, he told me, “I…I thought she was perfect, K. It’s like she made herself perfect for me. Everything she said…Now—”
“Now you know she’s a liar and a cheat.”
“I guess.”
“What did she tell you about this weekend?”
“Not much. She’d already told me to cool down because she was falling for someone. Yesterday, she told me about her and Iain. She didn’t want me to hear it from anyone else.”
“From me? And falling for? What a crock of shit.”
“She told me exactly the same thing last week.” He rubbed his eyes. “Sorry. I’ve not been myself lately, distracted I guess. She’s just so…distracting.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, not wanting to look at him. “We’ll save it all up for your next review.”
“Review?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard whispers…They’ll be making me do a fresh round of job losses. I’d put money on it.”
“Shit. Right.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Drink?”
“I’m not really in the mood tonight, to be honest.”
“Your girlfriend’s just fucked my partner; my life. Would you please have a drink with me, Asif?”
“OK…sure. Whatever you need.”
I retrieved the remaining third of the bad wine from the fridge and took it to his desk with two mugs. I chucked down a wrap of coke in front of him, and let it all happen. We got high, decamping to the toilets to screw. And I did feel like me again.
There was a sick excitement as I climbed the stairs to my flat. I wondered what Iain could possibly say to me, whether I’d be greeted with contrition or defiance. I considered the narratives he’d choose and how we would all be cast: Who would he paint as the hero, the villain, the innocent. Whatever the story, the ultimate ending had to be that he was very, very sorry.
I’d picked up a bottle of wine and a big bag of popcorn, like I was readying myself for the show. I also wanted to give my impatient, coked-up jaw something to do.
I walked into the living room where he was waiting in silence. He stood up from the sofa in a hammy manner that reminded me of a soap opera policeman about to tell the parents the bad news of what’s happened to their daughter. I didn’t look at him yet, but went to the kitchen and got a glass for me before sauntering over to a chair across the room from him. I poured myself a drink and opened my popcorn, took a sip, then started spooning fistfuls of food into my face and waited for him to begin.
“Are you off your face?”
“And you’d care, why?”
“Don’t start, Kathy. Please.”
“Well, don’t tell me how to be.”
“What the fuck happened here then?” He scanned around the broken mess of our home. “Looks like we’ve been burgled. What did you do to my poster? It’s fucked.”
“What happened here is what happens when you catch your partner screwing your intern.”
“OK, OK.” He held his hands up.
“Iain, will you just sit down and get on with it.”
He obeyed and took a breath. “OK. I made a mistake doing what I did, how I did it on Saturday, big time. It was disrespectful to you and it didn’t fully respect Lily.”
“Didn’t fully respect Lily? Next you’ll be telling me about your ‘triggers.’ Wow, Iain, you’re so fucking woke now it’s kind of making me sick.”
“Would you just let me speak? The sooner I say what I need to say, the better. Please just listen and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“What if I don’t want you to be out of my hair?” I dropped the popcorn and encouraged tears to come.
“Kathy, please. I need you to listen for a minute.”
“OK.” I swallowed. “Go on.”
“I’ve come to realize…I need to change. I want to get sober. I need to get sober.”
“So, is that what was happening on Saturday? That was just the booze problem you’ve suddenly realized you have? Out of the blue. We’re going to medicalize this, are we?”
“Please. Please. This is important. I take full responsibility for what happened on Saturday, but can you remember something? Or maybe it’s that you’ve made a decision to forget. Me in rehab. Me before you and me. My big bro, God rest him, giving me chance after chance. Just before I met you, the last one. He had somewhere booked for me. Then you came into my life. You made it all OK. What did I need rehab for? I was fine, wasn’t I? Who says I have a problem? Well, not you. Fantastic. Happy Fucking Christmas, wasn’t it? Life was so fucking easy with you, it was so ‘great.’ No matter I can’t hold down a job. No matter I never made it back to rehab and I never spoke to my brother again. No matter we don’t do anything normal couples do.”
“You want to be a normal couple now? Some great timing there, Iain. Did you want to be a normal couple when you were fucking her in the fucking garden?”
“Please. Please don’t. I’m sorry. I’ve said I’m sorry.”
“What you were saying, it was great, it is great because we were great
together. After all this time, we still are; we can be again. Even better.”
“I think we’ve too many secrets.” He shook his head slowly. I shook mine more desperately as he went on. “You and me. Too many secrets. Too many things we know, deep down, but we never say.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t make me say them. I don’t want to.”
“But Iain, we don’t have secrets. Not really. That’s why we work.”
“You don’t know my secrets and I can’t make myself think too long about yours.”
He chewed the side of his thumb, then rubbed his palms together. He didn’t normally do that.
“I don’t know what you think my secrets are, but—”
“Don’t. Please. I don’t want us to do this now. Maybe never.”
“Tell me, Iain. I deserve to know!” I stood up, shouting.
“Well, I know what you make yourself do in the bathroom after dinner every night, for a start. You think I don’t, but I do. Always have. I’m not stupid. I don’t know why—”
“Is that all you’ve got? This is how you’re justifying what happened on Saturday?”
A pause.
“What else?”
“No. Not today.” He breathed out hard again, as if I was trying his patience. “The thing I want you to know first and foremost is that I want to stop drinking. Forever.”
“I understand that. It’s your decision, but you know you’re fine as you are, regardless of whatever she’s said.”
“It’s nothing to do with anything Lily’s said, or not said. It’s where I’m at. Where I’ve got to. I can’t live like this anymore. This’s been building for a while now.” Where he’s at? Your clean white mitts were all over this little move. “I need things to change. I need to change and I can’t do it with us doing what we always do, being who we always are.”
“I’m here. I’m still here for you, Iain. We can change together. Forever.”
“I need to ask you to help me out.”
Precious You Page 22