Elegance and Innocence (10 page)

‘Fine,’ I agree and we walk to her house in silence.

When we arrive, Dan’s sending a fax in the kitchen.

‘Hey, Louise. You look great! Have you lost weight?’

‘No, thanks, Dan. Just got some new trousers.’

‘They’re really cute. Turn around.’

I do a little pirouette and Nicki rolls her eyes. She throws her coat on top of the dog and pushes past us.

‘For God’s sake, Dan. They’re just a pair of trousers,’ she hisses, chucking things out of the fridge onto the counter.

‘Where’d you get them?’ he persists.

‘Dan!’ She pelts some organic, vine grown tomatoes into a wooden bowl. ‘Who cares?’

‘Top Shop,’ I tell him.

‘Top Shop!’ He stands amazed. ‘My girls shop at Top Shop!’

‘No, they do not.’ Nicki slams the fridge door. ‘No one you know shops at Top Shop.’

‘They do now. How much were they?’

‘Nothing, thirty-five pounds.’

‘No way!’ The whole concept of buying a garment for as little as thirty-five pounds is new to him.

‘Dan, leave us alone. We’ve got work to do,’ Nicki commands, pointing to the door.

But he lingers on, unfazed. ‘Why don’t you shop at Top Shop, Nicks?’

‘Don’t call me Nicks.’ She’s chopping something with a knife and pieces are flying everywhere.

‘Come on,’ he persists, ‘why don’t you buy a cute pair of trousers like Louise?’

She turns, knife raised, eyes narrowed into two tiny little slits. ‘Because, my darling, I don’t need to shop at Top Shop. I can afford to buy decent clothes from a proper designer. We all do the best we can with what we have and Louise has done very well. It’s not easy for girls on a budget and then of course, certain figures are, shall we say, more challenging than others.’ She turns back and the knife hits the cutting board with a crack.

For a moment, there’s absolute silence. Dan stares at Nicki in disbelief.

‘My God, but you’re a rude bitch,’ he says at last.

Nicki turns around again and looks at me. Her eyes are dead, like a shark. ‘I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant …’

Dan turns to go. ‘I’m sorry, Louise. I really am.’

‘Don’t you dare apologize for me!’ she shouts after him.

He’s gone and the kitchen is quiet. ‘So.’ She turns to face me, smiling. When she speaks, her voice is like honey. ‘Would you like tuna in your salad?’

‘No. No, thank you,’ is all I can say.

She swivels around and continues chopping. ‘Suit yourself.’

Nicki and I never get beyond page fifteen. We decide we have artistic differences and have gone in different
directions. We never noticed it before, but now it’s all we can see.

Considering that I used to see her twice a week, I should miss her more than I do.

H
Husbands

There are three types of husbands:

1. The Blind Man, who says, ‘Isn’t that a new suit, darling?’ when he at last notices the ensemble you have been wearing for the past two years. There really isn’t any point in discussing him, so let’s leave him in peace. At least he has one advantage: he lets you dress as you please
.

2. The Ideal Husband, who notices everything, is genuinely interested in your clothes, makes suggestions, understands fashion, appreciates it, enjoys discussing it, knows just what suits you best and what you need, and admires you more than all the other women in the world. If you possess this dream man, hang on to him. He is extremely rare
.

3. The Dictator, who knows far better than you what is becoming to you and decides if the current styles are good or not and which shop or dressmaker you ought to go to. This type of man’s ideas on fashion are sometimes up to date, but most often he has been so impressed with the way his mother used to dress that his taste is, to say the least, about twenty years behind the times
.

Whatever type of husband you have, my advice is to make the best of it and to try to tame your expectations of him. Even the most devoted man is bound to be distracted at times and forgetful, despite all the efforts you have made to charm him. If you are wise, then you will allow it to pass unnoticed. It is better to develop a strong sense of your own style than to rely too heavily on the opinion of another … even that of your husband
.

I’m handing my husband, the Blind Man, a fresh cup of tea.

I walk across the living room and place his cup on the small round table beside him.

He looks up.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he observes.

I stand like a rabbit frozen in the headlights of a car. ‘Yes,’ I concede.

And for a moment I think he’s going to notice. For a
very long second it looks like he’s going to register the fact slowly but surely everything about me has changed. I’m wearing my hair differently. I’ve bought several new items of clothing. I’ve started to seriously go to the gym. For weeks now I’ve been making dozens of tiny little adjustments and silently waiting for some sort of response.

And now here it is; he’s noticed.

And then, just as quickly, I don’t want to know. After years of being invisible, the sudden spotlight of my husband’s attention is too much to bear. It infuriates me.

As it happens, I’m in luck.

‘Don’t get too thin,’ he says, disappearing again behind the Sunday papers. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m safe.

I pick up the Style section of the
Sunday Times
and perch on the edge of the sofa with it. Wait a minute. Why is that a relief? What are my motives for changing the way I look if I don’t even want my husband to notice?

I’m doing a pretty good imitation of a woman reading the paper, but what I’m really doing is gathering my thoughts about me.

I’m changing. Fast. It started off gradually enough, but now it’s snowballing. I can’t explain it; things that were perfectly acceptable a minute ago are suddenly intolerable. At first it was only the clothes but now it’s seeping into everything – the way I eat, sleep, think. I steal a glance at the figure hidden behind a wall of newsprint on the other side of
the room. Here’s the rub: can I hide it from him? And do I want to?

I can hear him chuckling. ‘That television show Clive’s in has got
terrible
reviews.’

Clive Foster is my husband’s arch-rival and we hate him. I say ‘we’ because this is part of the glue that keeps the relationship afloat. There’s a kind of camaraderie in tearing successful people down, like a shared hobby. And Clive is one of our favourites. Not only is he a similar physical type to my husband, which means they’re always up for the same roles, but he’s also considerably more successful. If that weren’t reason enough, they’re at present sharing a stage night after night in
The Importance of Being Earnest
. My husband spends most of the evening trying to upstage him and Clive retaliates by cutting off his laugh lines. It’s an ugly business. But mostly we hate Clive because he’s out there, enthusiastic and determined and that’s deeply threatening to people like us.

He laughs again. ‘My God! They’ve even singled him out! “Clive Foster is horrifically miscast in the role of Ellerby”! Splendid!’

‘Poor Clive,’ I murmur.

Poor Clive?

Unexpectedly, I feel for Clive. Yes, Clive, who used to be the household embodiment of all that is evil and loathsome. Suddenly, getting what you want, thrusting yourself centre stage and taking risks doesn’t seem so offensive. What
is distasteful is the way we hide behind our own sterile mediocrity and take pleasure in the failings of someone who at least has the courage to try.

That’s when I start to lose the plot.

‘Poor Clive,’ I say again, only louder this time.

The paper comes down and my husband looks at me like I’m crazy. ‘Poor Clive? What, are you mad? The man’s a beast!’

Here’s where I should chime in. But I don’t.

‘And why is that?’

‘Louie, what’s wrong with you? You know why.’ The paper goes up again.

I feel a totally unreasonable fury building inside me. I should let this go. I should allow it to pass unnoticed. But I don’t. ‘Pardon me … I seem to have forgotten exactly why Clive is so offensive.’

No response.

Come on, let it go. I pick up the Style section for a second time; then, for reasons beyond my control, put it down again.

‘Is it perhaps because he’s not the way you would like him to be? Because he has the balls to be openly ambitious?’

The paper stays in place; his voice resonates behind it. ‘You’re being ridiculous. I’m not having this conversation with you.’

‘Not having this conversation? Not
having
… you don’t get to choose which conversations we have or don’t have!’

The paper remains. ‘I don’t need to talk to you when you’re being unreasonable.’

I can feel myself flushing; my heart is pounding so loudly I almost scream the next words. ‘I’m not unreasonable!’

He snorts from behind the paper. ‘Listen to yourself.’

I lose it. Before I know it, I’m on the other side of the room, tearing at the paper that divides us. My husband stares at me with a mixture of horror and disbelief. When I speak, my voice is hoarse and I have a hard time catching my breath. ‘Don’t you
ever
ignore me again! Conversations are over when we are done talking.
We
!’

My hand is crumpling the paper, shredding it. He grabs my wrist. ‘Fuck off,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘Fuck off, Louise.’

I reel backward. He’s smoothing back the paper with his hand and I reach forward, grab the whole section and throw it across the room. He’s going to notice me now.

‘If you don’t want to talk to me, why did you marry me in the first place?’

He stares at me in disgust.

‘You call this talking? Is this what you call the art of conversation?’ He turns hyper-English. ‘I’m perfectly happy to talk to you in a calm, reasonable manner.’

‘No, you’re not! I just tried and all you said is, “I’m not having this conversation with you.” We are
never
having this conversation. We’ve
not
had more conversations than anyone I know! And why are you the arbiter of all that’s
calm and reasonable? Why can’t we have an unreasonable conversation? Why can’t we say anything we want?’

He’s cold and calm, blinking at me with his pale blue eyes. ‘Like what?’

I start to feel foolish, awkward. And then it comes out – out of nowhere. ‘We never fuck.’

The world melts; goes all Salvador Dali. I’ve reached new heights of absurdity. He laughs at me in amazement. ‘What’s that got to do with Clive or his TV show?’

I’m crazy – I sound crazy. But what I’m saying is true. I say it again.

‘We never fuck.’

He stops laughing, quite suddenly, like Anthony Hopkins playing a psychopath. ‘So what. Plenty of people don’t have sex all the time.’

My breath is slowing and I’m calming down. I say another true thing. ‘You’re not attracted to me.’

He considers this. ‘You’re a very attractive woman, Louise, when you’re not behaving like a banshee.’ He shrugs his shoulders and employs his customer service voice; the one he uses to extract refunds from unwilling sales assistants. ‘I’m sorry that I disappoint you sexually. I obviously don’t have the same sex drive you have.’ The word ‘sex’ hisses with disdain.

I feel ashamed for being so base. Only, I’m tired of feeling ashamed.

I say one last true thing. ‘I don’t think my sex drive’s unusual.’

He stands, walks to the door and smiles graciously. ‘Then it’s me.’ He does a little half bow. ‘I am The Defective One.’

He rises above me and my brute animal sex drive. I am, after all, common – from Pittsburgh, where people fuck and fight and fart. The Three Fs.

‘Where are you going?’ I sound plaintive and hollow.

‘I’m going into the garden. Unless there’s anything else you’d like to say to me.’ He’s playing the end of a Noël Coward scene. ‘I so enjoy these Sunday morning conversations.’

Fuck Noël Coward.

‘I think we should see a marriage counsellor,’ I blurt out.

He looks me up and down. ‘Feel free.’

‘But we need to go together.’

‘Louise, you are the one with the problem. My marriage is fine.’

Once again, I find I’m alone in the barren wasteland of the living room. The torn paper is the only evidence of life.

The words, ‘If you are wise, then you will allow it to pass unnoticed’ swim around and around in my brain. I’m not wise. But I don’t know why.

I go into the bedroom and look out of the window; he’s pulling weeds in the back garden. How can he do that? How can he carry on with basic domestic tasks when everything between us is deteriorating? But he does.

I watch him rearranging the garbage bins at the back of the building in order of size and fullness. He does it carefully, earnestly. He needs to. He needs to believe it matters. That he’s protecting us from all sorts of chaos – the chaos of dusty surfaces, the violence of unevenly stacked books, the irreparable damage of a fruit bowl found to contain an onion next to an apple. He’s an errant knight, on a quest to save a lady who doesn’t want to be saved. Who doesn’t even want to be a lady and who’d rather sleep with the dragon than sleep with him.

And that’s when it hits me. I go back to the moment when he comments on my weight loss. I freeze-frame it in my mind’s eye. And there, there it is, clear as day. The truth is I don’t want him to notice me, to cuddle me, or touch me, or say how pretty I am. I just want him to leave me alone.

After all that, I don’t want to fuck him either.

We have both been blind.

I’m sitting on the edge of the biggest bed you can buy in the United Kingdom.

The zip has come undone, the beds are drifting and soon the walls of the bedroom will not be able to contain the sleeping figures that are floating apart.

In the weeks that follow, I become obsessed by Oliver Wendt, otherwise known as The Man Who Can See Me.

I spend inordinate amounts of time wandering around the theatre on the off chance that I’ll encounter him and then running away when I do. I find myself lurking, like a stalker, outside his favourite pub, standing across the street in the darkness, glued to the spot by desperate, confused lust. The weird thing is (and I don’t really get this at the time), is that the lust I feel is for myself – the self I see in his eyes. I don’t really want to talk to him, or know him; I just want to be seen by him.