Divorcing Jack (7 page)

After breakfast I left a message for Parker at his hotel. He was already out being keen. Then I phoned Patricia. As I dialled, I saw her face as it had been in my nightmare. Cold. Beautiful. She answered on the third ring. Her voice sounded small, remote, down.

'It's your favourite husband,' I said, cheerily.

'Your joviality is misplaced.'

'I'm sorry.'

'It doesn't matter.'

We lapsed into half a minute of silence. She wasn't going to be the first to break it. 'When're you coming home?' I asked.

'I've already told you, Dan. I need some time.'

'Ach, come on. Come on home. I need you.' It felt strange to say it. I hadn't said it for a long time. Maybe never.

'No.'

'I'm not as bad as you think I am.' Her hair would be pulled back into a bun, the way she always had it when things were serious. Smoking a cigarette, but not enjoying it.

'I didn't say you were bad.'

'No, but you're thinking it.'

'I've already said what I'm thinking. I just want you to leave me alone for a while, Dan, please.'

'You don't want me to come up and see you? I could be up in a couple of hours.'

'No.'

'Will you call me when I can see you?’

'Sure.' It was difficult to detect any note of affection in her voice. She was hiding it well.

'Dan?'

'Yeah?'

'You know when you do something like that, like what you did, it puts a wall up between us, a very big wall. It can be impossible to get over.'

'Walls are there to be got over. They got over the Berlin Wall. They pulled it down.'

'You're asking me to build something out of rubble. It can't be done.'

'It can be done.'

'You just get another crazy wall.'

'Maybe you get something better.'

'I doubt that.' Her voice was starting to crack. I wanted to put my arms around her and say sorry. 'I have to go,' she said quietly and put the phone down.

I sat on the stairs for a minute, holding the receiver. I thought about driving up to see her, regardless. I would be irresistible in the flesh. I replaced the receiver. My head was aching, my hair felt sore, my throat was sore. I drank from the tap in the kitchen, then went back to bed. I would go and see her when the hangover had gone.

I was just drifting off to sleep when the phone went again. I rushed downstairs. 'Patricia?'

'Uh ... no. It's me. Margaret. I've been trying to get in touch with you for ages.'

Margaret. I had a vision of her naked. 'I've been out a lot.'

'You weren't avoiding me?'

'Of course not.'

She gave a little chuckle. Nervous. Cute, but nervous. 'I think you'd better come and see me.'

'I...' I wouldn't. I shouldn't. I can't. I can. Pregnant? No. Too soon. An interesting sexual disease? No. I'd be itchy. She's in love. Not beyond the realms of possibility. More sex? Jesus. I was sweating.

'She's caused a lot of trouble.'

'What? Who has?'

'Your wife. She didn't tell you?'

'What do you mean? Tell me what? She's not here. She's left home. She's in Portstewart. Tell me what?'

'Come and see me, Dan. It wouldn't do it justice telling you over the phone.'

'I . . .'

'Please...'

She put the receiver down before I could reply. I thought of Patricia and my Sex Pistols single. What could she possibly have done to Margaret? I sat with my head in my hands. My first instinct as ever, in time of crisis, was to run away.

* * *

I put on Dr Feelgood live. Turned it up loud. I needed the fast urgent blues beat of the Feelgoods. Pick-me-up music. I went upstairs and put on some cleanish underwear and a pair of black jeans. I selected a faded Tintin sweatshirt from the wardrobe. Pointy Head and Snowy were on the front with 60 Ans d'Aventure emblazoned across the belly-button line, which was like the Plimsoll line save that it had seasonal fluctuations. Tintin's cheatin' heart, the adventure Herge never wrote.

I went back downstairs and phoned for a taxi. A gruff voice at the other end said: 'Yes?'

'Uh, I'd like to book a cab.'

'Where to?'

'North Belfast. Lancaster Avenue.'

'What's your telephone number?'

'Sorry?'

'Your number. We need your number.'

'What on earth for?'

'Security.'

'I can't go giving my number out to complete strangers.'

'Okay.'

He put the phone down. I rang back. 'What do you mean, security?'

'I mean, too many of our drivers have been shot up there. We have to check out our passengers.'

'Fuck, times are getting bad.'

'Fuckin' more dangerous being a cabbie than a peeler these days. What's your number?'

'Of course by revealing my number, it could end up with anyone.'

'It could. It won't.'

I gave it to him. He phoned me back and I ordered. It arrived within five minutes. A middle-aged woman was driving, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.

'Starkey?' She asked, her voice an angry rasp.

I nodded. 'That's me.' I climbed in. The back seat was thick with dog hairs.

'That's some fuckin' crap you write in the paper.'

'Thanks.'

'Mind you, the husband loves it.'

'Good.'

'But then he's a stupid fucker.'

‘I see.'

'But not stupid enough to drive a fuckin' taxi, that's for sure.'

'No.'

'Not that stupid to know he's onto a winner by gettin' me to drive the fucker 'cause he's scared of getting topped.'

'No.'

As we turned onto Great Victoria Street she wound down her window and spat. Not so much a question of Finishing School as never having finished school. She was maybe forty. Gnarled-looking. She wore a creamy-white cap-sleeved T-shirt that revealed a blotchy tattoo: the letters UVF, only her arm was so thin that the F was lost round the horizon and all you could really see was UV, like she was advertising a sunbed. Her hair was wild and greasy, tinged red. Or maybe it was the world's first nicotine-stained hair.

The Belle of Belfast City dropped me at the corner of the estate. 'I'm not going into that fuckin' Fenian hole,' she said.

I thanked her and walked down towards Margaret's. Even from the end of her street I could see that every window in her house had been smashed.

Jesus, Patricia.

She had tears in her eyes. She threw her arms around me and hugged me tight and before I knew what I was doing I was hugging her tightly back, like we were long-term lovers not the remnants of a one-night stand. We had hardly exchanged more than a few words in sobriety. But it felt right. Margaret kissed me lightly and I could taste the salt on her lips. She took me by the hand and led me into the lounge. Her portrait stared down at me and if I hadn't known better I'd have sworn that those oily eyes followed me across the room to where she sat me down in an armchair beside the record player. It was like being in an episode of
Scooby Do.
I could hear Patch growling from the kitchen.

Margaret said: 'I'm sorry.'

'What on earth have you got to be sorry for?'

‘I should have left you alone.'

'Rubbish - I'm as responsible as anyone.' She sat on the floor, her legs folded under her and looked up to me, her black eyeliner smudged, tear stains on her cheeks like a dried-up river bed. My hand rested on her shoulder, I raised it to her cheek, held it lightly, then bent towards her and kissed her. Lingering.

'Tell me about it,' I said when we had finished.

She was wearing a short black skirt over black tights and a black sweater; her hair was tied back, not as spiky as on our first meeting. Her pale face looked fragile. She took a tissue from her sleeve and blew delicately into it.

'There was a knock at the door on Sunday morning and she was just standing there. I didn't know what to say. I just stared at her. I was in shock. She said, "It's taken me a while to find you," but it wasn't angry, really cool, really calm. She had this bag with her, like a shopping bag. She opened it up and took this potato out.'

'A potato?'

'A potato. She held it up to me and said: "This is a Comber potato. If you're going to sleep with him you can bloody well cook for him as well," and she heaved it through the front window. I just stood there. I didn't know what to do. Then she took another one out and fired it through the top bedroom window. She did every window in the house.'

'Jesus.'

I just stood there the whole time, frozen. All the neighbours were out but they didn't go near her, just stood around watching. When she finished the potatoes she turned and went to her car - then she turned and said: "He likes turnip as well. I'll be back tomorrow." I just went in and bawled my eyes out.

'I cleared the glass up later and some friends of my dad helped me board the place up. I wouldn't let them put glass in. I didn't want her coming back and doing it all over again. But she didn't come back. Not yet.'

'Did you call the police?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'I couldn't have your wife arrested. I couldn't. Dad told me not to. He said it would be too embarrassing for him if it got into the local papers.'

'God love him.'

'No, it would, he's having some sort of trouble at work, he wouldn't say, but I could tell he needed me in bother like a hole in the head.'

'I don't care about his troubles, I care about you.'

I was looking at Margaret, but I could see Patricia. Stonyfaced, a cool white anger masked by steady determination. Outside the house, bag of potatoes in hand. A novel revenge, calculated to cause the maximum of embarrassment and expense. She would have guessed that Margaret wouldn't go to the police. She'd discovered my lie, fumed in Portstewart, then calmed down sufficiently to work up a meaningful revenge. Indeed, she would have shopped around for the cheapest potatoes. Carried out the attack and driven back up to the coast. And no hint of it when next I spoke to her. I took Margaret's hands and said softly: 'I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I should have handled things better.'

'What could you have done? She had a right to be angry.'

'She had no right to do that. She should have punished me.'

'Maybe she did. Maybe she thinks that if you care about me, the best way to hurt you is to attack me.'

'I assured her I didn't care about you.' Her fingers tightened in mine.

I let her hands go. 'What do you want me to say?' It came out sharper than I meant. I sat back. Confused. What was I supposed to say? 'I've only known you a few hours.' And I knew then it was long enough, but I couldn't say it. I couldn't say anything.

‘I don't expect you to declare undying love, Dan. But I know what I feel.' And her eyes were wide and beautiful and magnetic.

'Margaret... I don't mean I don't feel for you .. . but, Jesus, we've only known each other a few hours

'What difference does that make? You know from the start. As soon as you meet someone you know whether they're the right one. What's the point in taking five years to get to know someone you know you're not going to end up with?'

I got up and walked to the window. The hardboard across it gave the room an odd feeling, like we were in a children's fort, playing at being adults. Maybe we were, with all the petty jealousies and fights of pre-pubescence. And at the end of the day we'd all be friends. I'll say. 'What'd you tell your dad?'

'I wasn't going to tell him anything. He just arrived round. He nearly had a heart attack.'

'I'm sure he did. What'd you say, re-decorating?'

'A jealous boyfriend. He chewed me out, like, but he's paying for it. He couldn't be too nasty about it, the only reason he came round was to give me my birthday present.'

'Happy birthday.'

'Thanks, but it's not for another two weeks. He brought it round because he didn't think he'd be here for it. Said he was going abroad on business.'

'Ah, well, it's the thought that counts.'

'Thought nothing.' Margaret leant over to the record player and removed a cassette tape from a shelf just above it. She tossed it to me. It was one of those cheap compilation tapes made up of classical music that had been used in popular television commercials. 'I'd rather listen to static. Keep it.'

I shrugged and slipped it into my pocket. 'If you insist.'

'That's how well he knows me, a shoddy bloody tape like that.'

'I gather you're not too close then.'

'Close isn't the word for it.'

'Maybe your mum will get you something nice.'

Margaret smiled. 'Optimist.' She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, making the make-up worse in the process, but it was a small sign of recovery at least.

I walked back over to her, knelt down, put my hand on her shoulder.

'I love my wife, you know?'

'She's a hard bitch.'

'She can be. She doesn't believe in hiding her feelings. But I do love her.'

A thin smile played on her lips, those eyes bored into me again.

'What are you saying?'

'I'm not saying anything. I'm just telling you. You should know. Whatever happens between us, I love my wife.'

'Are you saying you can't love me?'

'No. I don't know. Maybe I will. Maybe it's in the future. All I'm saying is that no matter what I've done to my wife, no matter what she's done to me, or to you, I love her.'

'Maybe you can love two people.'

I nodded slowly. 'Maybe.'

She took my hand in hers, stood up and led me upstairs to her bedroom. I was a sucker for subtle seduction.

Later, she persuaded me to go out and get us something to eat and drink. There wasn't a lot of arm twisting involved. She fancied chips, so I trotted up to a row of shops a couple of hundred yards away to a place called Victor's she had raved about, but it was closed. A sign written in the thick black marker strokes of a child or educationally sub-normal said
closed due to varicose veins
which under normal circumstances would have been enough to put me off food, but I was physically drained and needed the calories. Another hundred yards up there was a pizzeria. They took a note of my order and told me to come back in twenty minutes.