Behaving Like Adults (10 page)

Nick's parents celebrated with a fury at Christmas. My God! The first December I went to the cottage, Nick bumbled and delayed so we got stuck in traffic and arrived at 5 p.m., three hours late. By the time we crunched into the gravel drive, I was tense.

‘Ta da!' cried Nick. I gasped. The apple and pear trees twinkled with tiny lights, and each dinky window of the cottage glowed orange, except for the one that was filled green with the midsection of a great fir tree, studded with red baubles and bows. A fat sprig of mistletoe hung from the porch. I felt like Cinderella, stepping from the coach in glass slippers. ‘See! See why I wanted us to get here in the dark!' We couldn't wait to reach the porch, we kissed in the car.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight and the vision faded. I was back in the kitchen and Nick was going to leave me forever.

‘Nick,' I said. ‘You know, I was thinking. And I thought, this is ludicrous, you moving out. It's really okay for you to stay, really, it is, if that's okay with you.'

I could hear myself using too many words, but I couldn't shut up. I felt myself shrinking, all the air fizzing out of me, like a witch evaporating to smoke. The more I said, the weaker I became. I had no dignity but I didn't care. I had to keep him in the house. He wouldn't have to talk to me, do anything, as long as he was there, a warm, safe, presence. Now that he was leaving, I loved him again. It all came back.

‘Are you insane?' Nick was looking at me as if I was some kind of nut. There was disgust in his eyes, and it got
me,
pck!
right in the chest. ‘Let me remind you, last night you fucked some guy on our kitchen floor. Do you remember that or were you too drunk? Nice behaviour, Holly, really nice.'

He turned and went.

MONDAY MORNING IN
the office, I caught Nigel counting my toes. It's a compulsion of his, he has a fear of people having six toes. I've wondered if there's a name for it, extratoephobia or something. Mostly, Claw and I tease him for being weird, but right then, I wasn't in the mood. I wanted to tell him to stop looking at me.

‘Nigel,' I said, curling my feet under my chair, ‘can you not do that? It's unlikely that I've grown another toe since Friday, when I believe you last checked.'

I felt mean as I said it, because despite being un-self-aware, Nige is painfully sensitive. He'll judge everyone else in half a second, but he cannot stand being criticised. His wife Marylou (they're separated but it's on–off) once called him a ‘greedy bastard'. Consequently – so legend has it – Nige was ‘literally unable' to hold up his head. He fled to the toilet and remained there, hunched and gazing at the floor until Marylou chanced to wonder, three hours later, where he was. She had to physically realign his spine and apologise for two days.

Nige cinched his mouth into a pout. ‘Holly, Holly, grumpy grumpy! It's only because I care. You know what I think, your blood sugar's low. What you need is a frosted bun. I'll just nip across the road to
M
—'

Remarkable. I'd known Nige for seven years and worked with him for one, and yet he still hadn't processed the fact that I dislike frosted buns. Our downfall – well, I only say that to sound pious – our
saviour
is the bakery – café across the road. It's called Martha's Got Buns, and
we'd probably starve to death without it. Their cheesecake, vanilla, crumbly, sweet biscuity base, could take over the world. One bite and nations would submit. Their chocolate croissants, light, feathery, oozy with liquefying chocolate, should be classified as a drug. God didn't create doughnuts, Martha's did. Their frosted buns, however, are vile. Studded with hard pellets of sugar that just about crack your teeth, no icing to speak of. just an unpleasant sheen and a dry tongue-clacking dough containing tiny particles of fruit that
might
be candied peel but might also be earwax.

‘I don't like frosted buns, I've told you before.'

‘Sweets, you don't know what you're saying, everyone likes frosted buns, you—'

‘Nige. I don't want a frosted bun.'

‘Sweetheart, you do, you've just forgotten what they taste like. Now you wait here and—'

My heart was pumping at four times its normal speed and my hands were trembling. ‘Nigel,' I said. ‘Are you deaf because you don't seem to be able to hear me. In the last twelve months, I must have told you at least four times that I don't like frosted buns. Hear me. I don't like frosted buns therefore I don't want one. Trust me. I know what I want.
You
do not know what
I
want. Do you understand me when I say that?'

Silence. Then the sound of my sister applauding. ‘You tell him!'

I blushed. My blood sugar probably was low. But there is something deeply insulting about a person reinterpreting what you say – when you speak perfectly clearly – to suit themselves and their desires. And Nige did suffer from selective deafness. I knew that if I were a casting director every time I spoke his ears would prick up like a coyote's. People like him
choose
who and what they wish to hear and I call that dangerous.

I expected a huff, but to my relief the deaf one skidded across the room, sank to his knees in front of me and –
making full grandiose use of his Las Vegas singing voice – bellowed, ‘I'm sorreeee, so sorree, please accept my apologeee ah ha ho ho.'

‘Please,' said Claudia, looking up from
Rolling Stone
magazine. ‘Less of the Shania Twain. What
you
so cheerful about?'

Nige got up and tried to brush the dirt off his white jeans. The knees were grey. He beamed. ‘All I did was sing. And I'm accused of being cheerful! Quite the opposite,
actuellement
. I'm still in recovery from a grotesque and monstrous affront.'

Nige paused for effect. Claudia and I made ourselves comfortable.

‘Yesterday at 3.30,' began Nige, angling his chin to its best advantage, ‘I had an appointment with Derek.'

Nige said ‘Derek' in a meaningful tone, as if he were someone Claudia and I were closely acquainted with, possibly related to.

‘Who the sod's Derek?'

‘
Derek
. My deep tissue masseur!'

Claudia snorted.

‘And the man insulted me. It took every fibre of resolution not to rise from the massage bed and stalk from the room. Plus I'd paid forty quid.'

I could stand it no longer. ‘Right. So what did Derek do?'

‘I asked how my shoulders were and he said' – Nige's voice rose to a near scream – ‘“There's not much tension in them!” Not much tension! How dare he, him and his hairy fingers! The cheek of him! He knows I live for the verdict, “You are knotted!” It's a matter of personal pride! It's a badge of honour! For my shoulders not to be knotted . . . it's like, it's like
not
being stressed! In the modern world, if you're not knotted, if you're not stressed, you have no life, you're a nobody!'

‘Alright, Gielgud, can it,' said Claudia. ‘What is it really?'

His smile rearranged his eyebrows and tweaked the tips
of his ears. ‘I'—Nige stretched this humble vowel into a grandiose three-second syllable – ‘have an audition on Wednesday for the Courts ad! Yaaaaayyyy!' He jumped in the air, snatched us from our seats, and forced us to gallop round the office with him.

‘Nige,' I gasped, as the three of us lumbered about the main patch of carpet in a small circle, arms round each other's necks. ‘The Courts ad!' As I said it, I realised I was smiling without effort. And,
and
. His hand was draped heavily on my shoulder, and I wasn't bothered. This was a great relief to me. I'd felt funny for the last few days.

The weekend had not been good. I'd missed Nick. The house felt wrong and angry without him. I was hungry, but there was nothing in the fridge, so I ate food you don't normally eat unless there's a famine – a can of refried beans, tinned sardines on pasta, a jar of pickled cucumbers. I didn't feel capable of leaving the premises. When I wasn't eating processed food, I lay in bed, too heavy of heart and limb to move, quaking at every noise. When the phone rang I jumped but I was too lethargic to answer it. It was all I could do to feed Emily. I sweated a lot but I didn't wash. Maybe I should have.

But we're all allowed an off-weekend, aren't we? We don't have to be
constantly
jetting off to Prague or Barcelona for cultural mini-breaks, squeezing every last brisk minute out of our leisure time and making everyone else feel like sloths. By Monday morning I'd grown so still I could have merely stopped breathing. However. I'd pulled myself back from wherever I'd gone to and had a shower, applied make-up, driven to work. Simple actions that required as much effort as pulling a dead fat man uphill on a rope.

So. I needed reassurance that I was fine, and here it was.

Claudia extracted herself from the circle. ‘Hang on,' she said to Nige. ‘You don't mean that
hyper
cheap furniture ad.'

‘Oh yes I do!'

‘The one set in a sofa showroom?'

‘That's the one.'

‘With dolly birds draping themselves over the bargain leather?'

‘The very same.'

‘And men wandering around with blowdried hair and taupe trousers?'

‘Please God by me!'

‘Nigel Wilkins, how very naff. I commend you on your lack of class.'

I giggled. ‘What will you have to do at the audition, Nige?'

‘Well.' Nige dragged his chair into the centre of the room, sat down and crossed his legs. ‘It's going to be deeply embarrassing. It'll probably be in a warehouse on an industrial estate. I'll be in there for two minutes, in front of a camera and a panel of people who'll require me to make love to a sofa. Or rather,
act
as if I want to make love to the sofa. I'll feel like the most enormous fool. Then I'll have to act like I'm in love with the nest of tables. But dears, it's money and it's telly and I want it to be me!'

‘You've got to practise then,' I said.

‘What!' Nige couldn't believe his luck. ‘Now?'

Usually, I can't wait to start work. I love the thrill of discovering who's dropped onto the mat, and the kick I get when something they say clicks and I just
sense
who to match them with. I even like it when Nige opens what he terms ‘a communiqué from a desperado' and bellows, ‘Pass me the tongs!' But right then, I needed to encourage Nige's good mood in the hope it would be catching. And that meant postponing toil.

‘One quick rehearsal,' I said, ‘then we should get on.' Claudia nodded.

‘Okay,' said Nige. ‘I'll have to warm up first though.'

I'd forgotten this bit. I chewed my pen to keep from snickering. Nige tucked his chair under his desk, bounced to centre stage, rolled up and down his spine, shook out his
ankles, breathed deep to open up his resonators, ensuring his vocal passage was free so he could connect with his centre (‘that's your truth,' he explained as Claw and I watched, rapt), tried to connect his diaphragm to the roots in his feet (‘for more truth'), allowed the sound to travel up through his spine (‘mmm aaaaaaaaah aaaeeeoooo'), took command of all the vowel sounds, limbered up his tongue by attempting to write his name in the air with it, opened up his range by standing on all fours like a cat, miaowed ‘up and down a wall' (touching the appropriate body part when he reached the bottom note ‘to focus the sound'), and diligently completed his articulation exercises (‘pepperpot pepperpot pepperpot pepperpot! Many men many men many men many men!').

At the end, Claudia and I clapped. Partly to ensure it
was
the end. I offered Nige my chair – we didn't have a sofa in the office, the last thing I needed to do with those two was encourage sloth – and he bowed his thanks. Then he pretended to be in love with it. He did a good job. It was an ugly grey chair, one of those orthopaedic contraptions that bullies you into correct posture and spits in the face of style. At one point his lust for that chair was so
visceral
I looked away. My face screwed up of its own accord.

I told him afterwards, ‘That was very convincing. Wasn't it, Claw?'

‘Oh yeah. We'll probably come into the office tomorrow to a family of little chairs.'

As it was hard to say if she was being sarcastic, Nige was forced to be satisfied. (Although only a standing ovation from Dennis Hopper and Al Pacino could have accomplished that.) Of course, another great swathe of the morning was then frittered fetching celebratory cups of coffee and KitKats and discussing what makes someone a lead, and the method and the breed of actor who, if cast as a murderer, felt obliged to run amok first and kill five people. I was enjoying myself, until I looked at the clock and saw that it was midday.

‘Right,' I said. ‘That's it. Come on. Work.'

Claw and Nige sighed, wiped the crumbs from their mouths and turned to their desks with regret. So did I. I found it hard to concentrate. I hadn't told them about Nick moving out, not only because it would have meant another bumper round of coffees and KitKats. They'd have demanded an explanation and I didn't want to explain. Unless the words are already formed in your head, neatly packaged like a false alibi, explanations can drag you down paths you don't wish to go. Friends ask bold poking questions and trick you into analysing the whys and the hows of your experience.

I'd patted earth over my experience so I wasn't going to allow anyone to dig it up. Now and then a rotting claw sprang from the cold earth but I'd stomp it down again. Anything else wasn't in my best interest. I started going through applications. Funny, how some women in their mid-twenties still write on bunny rabbit notepaper. And I don't mean Miffy or Hello Kitty (a cat, I know) or any childhood character that could scrape by as ironic kitsch. I mean earnestly sketched brown creatures hopping about a painstakingly drawn forest glade. I suppose it's acceptable when you're seven or seventy, but I can't condone it when favoured by someone in between. It suggests self-delusion on a grand scale.