Fourplay

by Jane Moore

  “To be honest, I was surprised to find you here,” she said with ice-queen calm. “Why aren’t you playing happy families?”

  He rubbed his eyes, apparently disconcerted by the sudden change of mood. “She thinks I’m away working. I couldn’t face spending New Year with someone I no longer want to be with,” he said quietly.

  “I see.” Her voice was clipped, but inside she could feel her iron resolve starting to buckle under the strain of desperately wanting everything to work itself out between them.

  Here was the emotional bank account she had invested in for a year, only to find it suddenly closed and with no interest payments at the end of it. It all felt like such a waste of time, and the thought of starting to invest somewhere else all over again was just exhausting. The burst of passion had heightened her senses again and she suddenly felt distinctly vulnerable. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to fall asleep in Sean’s arms and worry about the future in the morning. But she couldn’t do it to herself, knowing that if she took him back now, it would endorse his behavior and set a pattern she didn’t want to be part of. Before long, she would be just like any other long-suffering mistress, issuing endless ultimatums about him leaving his wife, threatening to finish it, then taking him back when he made the next set of promises. The mere thought of it snapped her back to her senses.

  “I haven’t come back, Sean,” she said, looking down at him where he lay on the floor. “Far from it. I just hated the fact that it had been left in limbo with no proper ending. That fuck was our grand finale.”

  “But I thought . . .” He frowned and lifted himself up onto one elbow, looking perplexed. The devilish grin that always floored her was nowhere to be seen.

  “What did you think, Sean?” Her face hardened. “That we’d have a shag and everything would be alright? I don’t think so. I came here tonight because I was drunk and I wanted sex. It’s not my style to seek it with a stranger, so I came to you. I used you like you used me. Feels like shit, doesn’t it?”

  Not waiting for him to answer, she walked toward the door then turned back to face him.

  “I also wanted the chance to say goodbye properly,” she said lightly. “So . . . goodbye.” Blowing him a kiss, she walked out of the door and down the stairs, not daring to glance back.

  Euphoric from her feisty exit, she immediately sobered up as she hit the cold night air and wondered how on earth she was going to get home. It had felt good to be so strong to his face, but now she was alone again she felt utterly desolate. Worse, she hated herself.

  It’s funny, she thought. When you’re lonely and drunk, you always go for the quick fix that you think is going to make you feel better. But in the cold light of day it never does and you wish you’d stayed away.

  She waited in the shadows across the road, to see if he would come after her. But he didn’t. He didn’t even look out of his living room window. After five minutes she began the long walk to the nearest car service, feeling cheap, and crying all the way.

  32

  waking Jo with a start. She rolled over and opened one eye, to see the clock registering 9:30 A.M.

  Nine and a half hours into the brand new year and she’d already made two major mistakes, she thought, groaning and burying her face in the pillow at her blatant bad behavior. First, she’d tried to snog Conor while his girlfriend was in the same room. Second, she’d slept with Sean. Third, and probably deservedly, she had a Grade A bitch of a hangover. Thank goodness I have no life, she decided. I’m not sure I could cope with an action-packed day.

  She lay staring at the ceiling for a while, unable to sleep because of the small man with an exceptionally large hammer who was currently trying to break through her skull. There was a time when an empty day stretching ahead of her would have been a glorious treat. Now it just seemed empty.

  She tortured herself for a while with thoughts of what everyone was doing right now as she lay there feeling bilious and alone at the start of another year. She pictured Rosie and Jim laughing together over coffee and warm pain au chocolat, her parents pottering around each other at home, Jeff making breakfast for the children, Conor and Emma snuggled up in bed. She wrinkled her nose at the thought of the latter and changed it to them walking hand in hand in the park. Her only consolation was that Sean was probably alone at this very moment too, though without the hangover or the sense of indignity that she had. Why was it that a meaningless sex session never seemed to trouble men?

  After teaching herself to walk again and edging her way slowly downstairs, she made coffee and a vast stack of toast, then crept back into bed again. She took a couple of Tylenol and spent most of the morning drifting in and out of a troubled sleep punctuated by a vivid dream, where she was marrying Martin with Sean, Jeff and Conor as bridesmaids. They were just posing for pictures outside the picturesque church when the phone rang and snapped her awake. It was 1 P.M.

  “You’re still in bed, you slut! I can tell by your voice.” It was Rosie.

  Jo groaned and rubbed her eyes, her finger black with last night’s mascara. “So would you be if you had my hangover. I’m never drinking again.”

  “Until next time,” said Rosie who sounded hideously jolly. “Yes, you were completely blotto on that Red Bull stuff. You never said goodbye, so I thought I’d better check you’d made it home.”

  “Good old you.” Jo sniffed dramatically. “At least you’d bother to look for me if I ended up facedown in the gutter.”

  Her friend tutted. “Oh God, you’re not having one of your nobody-loves-me days, are you? You always get maudlin with a hangover. Call me when you’re better.”

  The phone receiver went down and Jo stared at hers for a few seconds before placing it back on the cradle. Having a silent chuckle to herself, she swung her aching legs out of bed. Rosie was absolutely right. She did get boringly maudlin the morning after the night before, and always had done. But today of all days she felt she had more cause than most.

  Jeff arrived back with the children at 4 P.M., rather conveniently timed to coincide with the end of a Bette Davis film Jo had sniffled her way through.

  “Mummy, your nose is red,” said Sophie disapprovingly, prodding it with a pudgy forefinger.

  “I know sweetie,” smiled Jo, stuffing a soggy tissue back up her sleeve. “I’ve just watched a sad film.” She looked up to find Jeff standing in the doorway, smiling at her in a whimsical sort of way.

  “You always were a big softie,” he said gently. “Do you remember that car ad with the red balloons that always made you cry?”

  Before she could answer in the affirmative, Thomas bowled into the room brandishing a page ripped out from the local newspaper.

  “It’s on! It’s on!”

  Jeff grimaced. “I said we might take them to see the new Disney film if it was on,” he said apologetically.

  “Oh, did you?” Jo raised her eyebrows in mock disapproval, but secretly she quite fancied the idea after a day spent alone. A bit of mindless Disney moralizing would probably do her good.

  “Mummy, puh-leeeeease!” said Thomas, clasping his hands together in mock prayer and falling to his knees in front of her.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, lifting him to his feet.

  The cinema was crammed with those trying to escape the nullifyingly boring prospect of another day housebound, and watching New Year’s Day television. So they’d come to watch an even bigger screen instead.

  While Jo and the children joined the snaking line for popcorn, Jeff queued for tickets, waiting patiently behind two foreigners who weren’t sure what film they wanted to see or what time it was on.

  “This is just like old times, isn’t it?” he said warmly, settling himself down into the aisle seat and dipping his hand into Jo’s salty popcorn.

  “Er, no actually,” she murmured out of the corner of her mouth so the children wouldn’t hear. “You would never do this before, always griping about having time to yourself after such a busy week.”r />
  He had just opened his mouth to answer her when the opening credits of the film started and Thomas leaned across with an urgent “Sssssshhhh.”

  When they came out ninety minutes later, it was a crisp but clear winter’s night.

  “Look, I’m smoking!” said Sophie, holding two fingers to her mouth and blowing her breath into the icy air.

  “Shall we walk back across the Common?” said Jeff, looking questioningly at Jo. “What about you kids, are you up to it?”

  Thomas and Sophie ran on ahead to indicate that indeed they were.

  Jo tugged her overcoat closer round her body and fell into step beside Jeff. They followed the children along the dark road leading to the Common.

  “Look, there’s that high wall,” he said, pointing into the gloom. “I threw your glove over it once and you were absolutely furious.”

  “Don’t remind me. As I recall it was early on in our relationship and I very nearly dumped you because of it. What an arse.”

  Jeff jutted out his bottom lip, pretending hurt. “I was just trying to impress you in that rather curious and immature way that men do,” he said. “I bought you a new pair.”

  “Yes, half the price, the wrong color, and too bloody small,” she scoffed. “But apart from that, they were perfect.”

  Jeff laughed. “That’s the relaxing thing about spending the evening with your ex-wife . . . she already knows what an idiot you are.”

  They were on the Common now, striding toward home with the bright lights of a fairground in front of them. As Thomas and Sophie started running back toward them, she and Jeff looked at each other with a weary sense of inevitability.

  “OK, but just two rides and that’s it!” said Jo, as the children whooped with joy in front of them.

  Five minutes later, as her overexcited offspring shrieked with delight on the spinning teacups ride, Jo started to feel exceptionally weary. The cold night air was seeping through her overcoat and into the very marrow of her bones, and she wanted desperately to go home.

  She had just endured a long monologue from Jeff about all the interdepartmental problems he was experiencing at work. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say, “Hey, I listened to all this shit when I was married to you, but I sure as hell don’t see why I have to listen to it now.” Instead, she simply let it wash over her while she considered the virtue of rarely having to suffer such tedious minutiae any more. Eventually, they retreated into an exhausted silence. When he next spoke, it took her completely by surprise.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” She thought she’d heard him correctly but she wasn’t too sure.

  “I said, I’m sorry,” he repeated, staring fixedly ahead at the teacups ride. “It struck me that I’d never actually said that to you before.”

  Jo felt awkward at his sudden change of tack. “Sorry for what?” she said, although she knew perfectly well.

  “For leaving you and the children,” he said quietly. “For fucking up all of our lives.”

  There was a time when she would have agreed wholeheartedly with this statement, but she wasn’t going to allow him to accord himself such importance now, not when so much water had passed under the bridge.

  “Oh, I don’t know. In a way, you did me a favor,” she said, waving at the children as they spun past.

  He looked stunned, then turned to face her. “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t get a chance to answer him because the teacups ride had slowed to a halt and the children were hurtling toward them shouting, “Carousel! Carousel!”

  As they made their way over to the brightly colored horses, Thomas and Sophie ran on ahead and threw themselves onto the stationary platform, desperate to get the garish mounts of their choice.

  “It’s really over, you know. Me and Candy,” said Jeff, smiling at the children as the ride started to move and they began to bob up and down, holding on tight.

  “Really? I thought she just wanted some space,” said Jo, deliberately keeping her tone nonchalant.

  He plunged his hands deep into his jacket pocket. “She did, but it turns out the space she wanted was infinite and finite,” he sighed. “She has decided I’m too old and set in my ways.”

  “Aren’t we all.” Jo gave him a sympathetic smile.

  Staring ahead, Jeff remained serious faced. “She’s gone and I feel absolutely nothing except what an old fool I’ve been to throw away a good marriage for that.” He spat the last word out with such ferocity that Jo flinched.

  They stood in silence for a few moments, staring ahead at the cozy scene of their two excited children flashing past under the bright, warm lights of a fairground ride.

  With a deep sigh, Jo stretched out her left foot and began absentmindedly pressing down on a lump of soil in front of her. “It wasn’t that good though, was it? Not toward the end, anyway.” After all the months of thinking it, she’d finally said it.

  Jeff looked puzzled. “Is that what you meant earlier, when you said I’d done you a favor?”

  “Sort of, yes. I think we’d both stopped making an effort, really. It wasn’t just your fault, although of course you were the one who chose to look elsewhere rather than sort out the problems with me.” Jo gave him a quick glance, then started to walk toward the exit of the ride, now virtually at a standstill.

  She could tell Jeff was desperate to continue their conversation, but Thomas and Sophie had dismounted and were running toward them.

  “Right, you two,” he said, rummaging in his trouser pocket. “Here’s two dollars each to spend in the arcade over there. Once it’s gone, that’s it.”

  “Commonly known as buying time,” said Jo. She watched them sprint toward the arcade and started to follow them. She was about to step inside when Jeff put his hand on her arm and gently pulled her back.

  “Do you really think I did you a favor?” He looked hurt.

  “Yes, but not because my life is better without you,” she said kindly, not sure whether she meant it or not. “Simply because I think I had become bogged down by trying to be a good wife, good mother, good daughter, good interior designer, whatever. And I’m sure it was the same for you too.”

  He looked at her curiously for a moment, then shrugged. “Sort of, I suppose.”

  This, of course, was ludicrous. Jeff had never become particularly bogged down by anything unless it was work. He avoided his mother most of the time, just making the occasional phone call to check she wasn’t dead, and if there was ever any problem with the children, he had always automatically assumed it was up to Jo to sort it out. After all, he had work to do. And as for being a good husband, well that clearly came pretty low down on his list of priorities. But Jo didn’t feel the need to bring all that up tonight. It was all done and dusted anyway, and these days she preferred to keep things nonconfrontational.

  “When you left me, I had to face up to failure,” she said, picking at a piece of chipped paintwork. “It taught me that you can’t be all things to all people. More important, it taught me that you have to take time for yourself occasionally, be a little selfish maybe. The way we were going, something had to give. It turns out it was our marriage.”

  Jeff frowned, considering what she’d said. Then he turned back to face her. “It’s not irretrievable though, is it?” He looked and sounded pathetically hopeful.

  “Our divorce papers said it was,” said Jo quickly, unsure of how to respond to his question.

  He placed a hand on her forearm, and she felt a gentle squeeze through the thick layers of her overcoat and sweater. “Why don’t we put all this behind us and start again?” he said softly, his eyes boring into her, looking for a reaction.

  “Jeff, I . . .” But before she could carry on he had launched into an impassioned speech, his words spilling over each other.

  “I know it won’t be easy for you to trust me again, and I deserve that. But I’m a different person from who I was. My time away from you all has made me look at things objectively and re
alize what I had. I’ve become a better father and I have learned to appreciate you again.”

  He placed both hands on her shoulders and pulled her round to face him, his face just inches from hers. “You’re beautiful Jo, and you’re honest and bright and a fantastic mother. I haven’t said those things to you in a long time, and I damn well should have . . .”

  Tears pricked Jo’s eyes, and one ran down the side of her nose and into the corner of her mouth. She raised a gloved hand to wipe it away. She couldn’t believe that, even after all this time, Jeff and the thought of their once happy marriage could still prompt such strong feelings.

  “Mummy, that machine ate my last quarter,” said Thomas crossly, pointing at the offending object.

  “Never mind, love,” she sniffed, hoping her son put her red eyes down to the cold. “It’s time to go home now, anyway.”

  When Jeff returned with an irate and indecisive Sophie still clutching her untouched money, they set off on the short walk home.

  “We’ll talk about it another time,” she whispered, thankful that Thomas’s timely interruption had given her time to regain her composure. Jeff simply nodded in silent agreement.

  By the time they reached home ten minutes later, Sophie was fast asleep in the piggy back position on Jeff’s shoulder and Thomas was whinging for Britain with sheer bloody-minded exhaustion. While Jeff traipsed upstairs to put Sophie to bed and ordered Thomas to follow him, Jo wandered into the living room to check the answering machine.

  There was one message. It crossed her mind that it might be Sean calling after their impromptu sex session, so quietly she closed the living room door for privacy and pressed the “play” button.

  As she stood and listened to the disembodied voice crackling into the room, the blood drained from her face and she dropped Thomas’s anorak to the floor in disbelief.