Despite the Angels (34 page)

So the following Saturday there was a huge pavlova and Martin made many complimentary comments. Alison had admired him hugely when he arrived and sat beside him being winsome, asking him all about himself, so no one else had to say a thing. Martin answered at length, explained carefully how he thought his old College rugby team were doing and how the Irish team was likely to do next season. He told them all about his job, how he had dealt with one of the customers and made a big sale and how he hoped to be sales manager before too long. He told them all about his family and how his mother had been ill last year and his sister was in France for a year, studying; how their dog had recently had mites in its ears. By the time they all moved into the kitchen to have dinner around the big pine table, Alison had fallen silent. Martin was a perfect guest, polite and deferential. He held Lucy’s chair out for her and she blushed and thanked him quietly. He passed the dishes to Betty Browne first, then to Lucy, then to Alison.

After he left, not too late, thanking them all again for a perfect evening, the four Brownes sat silent. Lucy watched them all, her heart bursting with pride that he had been so charming and with relief that Alison had not made a play for him. None of the others was looking at her. Her mother’s eyes were closed, her father had picked up a paper and was looking at the sports results. Alison was looking at her hands.

“Well? Isn’t he lovely?” Lucy was buoyant.

“Oh god Luce, he’s so boring.” Alison broke the silence.

“Sums it up.” Robert turned the page of his paper.

“What?” Lucy was stunned.

“Well, dear,” her mother started more gently, “he is very good looking. And very polite. And he’s been to Trinity,”

“Yea,” said Alison, interrupting, “and he lives on the southside.”

“And you tell me he has a good job,” Betty continued, ignoring the joke. This time it was Robert who interrupted.

“He told us himself about the good job. At length. I was a salesman once myself. I know how it is. He didn’t need to explain it all so carefully.”

“So I don’t think there’s anything actually wrong with him, dear,”

“He’s Catholic.” Alison’s voice broke across her mother’s and caused a stillness in the room.

“Hallelujah! I hadn’t paid attention to that. We’re home clear. Thanks Kumbal, everybody, looks like we’ve found a get-out clause.” Trynor smiled and the other three guides smiled back and relaxed, allowing their energies to flow, after keeping them tight all evening as they tried to control some of what their people were saying.
Betty made an effort to relax and be reasonable. She smiled. “Well, I don’t think we should hold that against a person, Alison.”

“But you don’t want us to marry Catholics, do you?” Alison wrinkled her nose at Lucy and stuck out her tongue.

“I would be sad to see my grandchildren grow up in a different culture to mine, that’s what I said.”

“You’re making Martin sound like a Martian…” Lucy was indignant.

“Only takes an A!”

“….but he’s not different from us really. And he almost never goes to church.”

“Oh dear.”

“Does his mother?”

“Yes, Mum, I think so.”

“Oh good.”

“It’ll come out when the chips are down, then. He’ll want his children Catholic.”

Robert Browne folded his paper and put it down. He looked round at them all, sitting on the edges of their seats and settled himself more comfortably, as though to prove that he was in control.

“I think we should all stop worrying. There isn’t going to be a problem, because Lucy isn’t going to marry him, are you love? Not because he’s Catholic, or a salesman, or a southsider, but because when the rose coloured glasses wear off, she’s going to realise he’s as boring as hell and her busy mind would freeze over in a nanosecond if she did. So I don’t think we need to discuss it. He didn’t ask you to marry him, did he, Lucy?”

“No. But Dad, he isn’t boring, not to me. He’s lovely. Funny, and witty, and charming.”

“He flatters you, you mean,” said Alison. “I’m awfully glad I learnt the knack of finding my own boyfriends and I’m not dependant on you anymore, if that’s the new type you’re going for. Philip was far nicer.”

“Philip was lovely. But you stole him and now, just ‘cos you don’t want Martin, you don’t want me to have him either. You’re all just jealous!” Lucy burst into tears and ran from the room. Robert put out his arm, to stop Betty or Alison from following.

“Leave her alone. It’ll blow over.”

“He’s probably right,” said Diljas, Robert’s guide, to Trynor, who was heading off after Lucy. “Let her stay with Martin a bit longer, till she gets used to her job and has the energy to look round again. Then you and Jotin can pull out all the stops. But you’re acquainted with Roki, it should be easier to work with him on moving Martin on. Could be harder to get her away from a brand new boyfriend just as you’re ready to roll. The humans have a saying, ‘better the devil you know’.”

“The devil you know certainly suits Roki when he’s being difficult! I suppose you’re probably right. We’ll wait and watch. She is really busy studying up on her patients, worrying about them. I think she finds Martin soothing just now. It’s good that she’s learnt some science, but I’m still wondering why she decided to become a physiotherapist, when she has all that experience as a craftsman. Still work with her hands, but not creative. I didn’t encourage it, I’m not sure it’ll make her happy.”

“She can do the creative stuff as a hobby. They have more leisure time nowadays, can try all sorts of things. Look at Robert, he’d have marquetry all over everything if he was let. But just paperwork at the office.”

“I’ll go up and get her to sleep. Thanks, Diljas.”

Kathleen flung a magazine onto the table in front of David.

“Explain this!”

A worn copy of Penthouse stared up at him, accusingly and apologetically.

“It’s a copy of Penthouse.”

“Yes, I know that, you bastard. What is it doing in your drawer? You filthy bastard, looking at all these, these, whores! And you a married man. Meant to be respectable. And I’m meant to be respectable too. How does this make me look? A wife with a husband who looks at filthy pictures. As though you didn’t have a woman of your own.!”

“I don’t.” David’s voice was almost inaudible.

“What?”

“I don’t have a woman of my own. That’s why I have that magazine.”

“Fuck you! You have me.”

“Do you know how often you let me come near you? Have you counted?”

“Don’t be disgusting!”

“Well, I have. Twice, this year. And it’s October. That’s once every five months. Not enough.”

“It is for me.”

“Good for you. But not for me. Which is why I own a copy, one single copy, of Penthouse. To help me forget that I have some needs. To release some of the tension of being rejected all the time.”

“You mean you’re- ugh! I thought you were just looking at the pictures, but you say you’re, oh god, I can’t even say it, you’re…”

“Wanking.”

“What? Is that what you call it?  That’s revolting! How did you expect me to feel about it?”

“I didn’t expect you to know about it. I didn’t expect you to go delving into the bottom of my drawers and opening the bag I’d hidden there so it wouldn’t upset you. I thought I could have some privacy.”

“Secrecy, you mean. Married people aren’t supposed to have secrets.”

“Who says? I don’t remember promising to tell you absolutely everything I ever do or think.”

“Well you should.”

“I pooed twice yesterday. Used seventeen squares of paper altogether.”

“What?” Kathleen stopped pacing up and down the side of the table.

“You suddenly seem to think I should tell you all my private business. So I thought I’d oblige.”

“What you do in the bathroom is nothing to do with me.”

“Precisely. So my masturbation habits don’t concern you either.”

“They do. It’s sex. It’s for me.”

“Now you’re deluded. How can what I do in private be for you? After you’ve rejected me yet again? I’ve counted the number of times I’ve tried to make love to you and you didn’t allow me. I ran out of fingers a long time ago on that one.”

Kathleen stopped pacing and looked at David.

“Do I?” she said.

“Of course you do. Is it such a habit you don’t even notice? I want to have a normal marriage and you don’t. I don’t know what you want.”

“We do have a marriage. We have two daughters to prove it. And I look after the house for you, and you give me housekeeping money and, and everything.”

“Sounds like playing house.” David looked up at his wife, wondering where everything had gone so wrong. “Sit down, maybe we can talk.” Kathleen pulled out a chair and sat opposite David, picking at her nails and occasionally running her hands through her hair, as she always did when she was unhappy. She glared at David and began to sniff.

“Don’t cry. Nothing has happened.”

“Yes it has. I’ve discovered my husband is being unfaithful.”

“I have not. I could have been, but I haven’t.”

“What do you mean, you could have been? Who is she?”

David ran his hand across his eyes and closed them. He let his mind go back to that young receptionist at work, who had flirted with him so delightfully, the time they had had that impromptu party in the office, after landing the big order. They had all been a little giddy after working through most of the duty-free brought by the English supplier and she had begged him to accompany her to a party that weekend. He had wanted to go, oh how he had wanted to go - he had almost succumbed, particularly after she had cornered him in the kitchenette and kissed him, and he had held her bottom for thirty glorious seconds and felt it tighten as he gently squeezed. It had reminded him he was an attractive man, not just a nuisance, as Kathleen seemed to think.

“Oh yes, Davy, you’re attractive. She was a nice girl, you should have gone to that party. It would have got you away from Kathleen in time. We could easily have got the girl to move on to someone else and got you to Lucy. But no, you had to refuse her and go and buy that magazine to help you over it. It’s a bit ragged, why don’t you get a new one?”

“The only thing I have been unfaithful with, Kay, is a copy of Penthouse. And only because you are frigid.”

“I am NOT! How dare you?” Kathleen’s eyes flashed.

“Well, you are doing a damn good imitation, then. I’ve tried everything I can to turn you on. But nothing works, unless we go on a holiday, then you’re sexy for one day. Hence twice. Two trips this year.”

“I might get pregnant.”

“I use condoms, always. And so what if you did get pregnant? We can afford another baby.”

“The girls are nine. What would people think?”

“I don’t care what they think. They’d know we had had sex. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

“I can’t get pregnant, I just can’t.” Kathleen started to cry in earnest
. Haliken leant over to Jotin:

“She’s right. She doesn’t know why, but she really can’t bring herself to have a baby. It wasn’t in the original plan.”

“You’d think all bets were off on that, we’ve made such a mess of it. But she doesn’t have to get pregnant, does she? There’s all sorts of things she could do.”

“You’ll have to tie a knot in it, if you want to come near me again.”

“What?”

“What?”

“You can have a vasectomy.”

“No! You have to have the chance...”

“But it’s you who doesn’t want another baby, not me. Why should I have the surgery?”

“Are you saying you’d have another baby if you could?”

“Well, if you died…”

“Yes! Go on, Haliken, can you work on her dying?” Jotin was getting agitated.

“I thought we went through that. Agreed it’s too difficult. But I’m still trying to work on getting her away.”

“Oh, if I died, you’d find some floozy the next day and fill her full of all the babies you haven’t forced on me. Well, that tells me a lot. You’re waiting for me to die. I wish I could, make it all simpler for everyone.”

“How right you are.” Jotin smiled. “Funny, they think they’re being ridiculous, but they’re on the button, sometimes.”

“No-one wants you to die, don’t be ridiculous. We all love you.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Kathleen flicked at the magazine. “Vasectomy, or forget it.” She got up and ran out of the room. Sounds of sobbing could be heard going up the stairs. David sat at the table, his coffee cold beside him and the crumpled magazine looking cold to match. He stroked it, feeling the skin of an old friend. But no part of him responded with the buzz he usually felt when he got it out. She’s spoiled it for me, he thought. Even that release is gone now. He sighed and the soft pages riffled. What’ll I do? I don’t want to prevent another baby, really. I’d like to have another. Why shouldn’t we have another? We’re only thirty-five, hardly geriatric.