Talking It Over (21 page)

As I recall, Stuart had begged me into attendance, in picayune exchange, no doubt, for all those lustrous double-dates into which I had led the plumply quivering one. Steering my way between pipkins of Old Skullsplitter and opaque palm-tree-bedecked bottles of liver-lancing Caribbean spirit, I settled down beside a methuselah of Soave in some half-hearted attempt to get pissed out of my noddle. I was drinking the stuff through a twirly-whirly party straw and making quite good headway when dread hands clamped themselves on my shoulders.

‘Eheu, the gout!’ I cried, fearing involvement in the most
suburban of bacchanales. For the frenzy of the dance was not upon me that evening.

‘Ollie, you’ve been avoiding me,’ said the Hands, whereupon the Bum attempted a vertical landing on the arm of my chair, a manoeuvre beyond the piloting skills of the deciduous Val, who cascaded therefrom into my lap.

There passed between us over the next few minutes one of those routine flows of courtliness and badinage, but only the most inventive of text-scourers, only the most brusque denier of intentionality, would have construed the exchange as indicating either 1) that I preferred the company of Val to that of the gallon of Italian white; or 2) that I would for a moment have deprived my friend Stuart of what the young folk nowadays – no doubt unconsciously evoking the camel-hump of desire, the oasis of slaked thirst – oft refer to as ‘his date’.

So we parted, on civil terms as I understood it, she to the conga and I to svelte reverie. Without so much as a
boff de politesse
.

Val
There are two types of men who slag you off, I find: the ones you’ve slept with, and the ones you haven’t.

Stuart and I were having an affair and Oliver tried to get off with me. Stuart married that boring little goodie-goodie wife of his and Oliver got off with her. Is this a pattern or isn’t it?

What bugs Stuart is that I spotted his dry shampoo, and what bugs Oliver is that I wasn’t ready to leap into bed with him. Now don’t you find that odd? I mean, odd that this is
what bugs them? Neither of them turns a hair at the idea that Oliver’s fucking Gillian because what he really wants to do is fuck Stuart. What do you make of that?

And if I were you I’d take a closer look at Gillian. Isn’t she just a heroine, isn’t she such a little
coper?
Daddy runs off with his bit of gym-slip and Gillie heroically survives. She even comforts her grieving mother. How unselfish, how grown-up. Next Gillian gets trapped in a Love Triangle and guess which of the three comes out the best? Well, it’s Little Miss Who. Caught in the middle and still keeping her head above water while doing the right thing – which means shredding Stuart and keeping Oliver on a string.

She tells Stuart (who tells me) that some things – like seducing your husband’s best friend – ‘just happen’, and you have to do your best from there on in. Well, that’s an easy theory, isn’t it? Listen, nothing ‘just happens’, especially not in a situation like this. What those two boys don’t realise is that it’s
all about Gillian
. The quiet sensible ones who claim that things ‘just happen’ to them are the real manipulators. Stuart’s eating guilt already by the way, which isn’t a bad achievement, is it?

Oh and why did she give up wanting to be a social worker? Was she too fucking sensitive to the pain of the world? Wrong way round: if you ask me, the pain of the world wasn’t sensitive enough to
her
. All those damaged people and fucked-up families didn’t appreciate the astonishing privilege they were being granted of having their troubles treated by Miss Florence Nightingale herself.

And another question. When do you think she decided to make a play for Oliver? I mean, when
exactly
did she
start giving him the come-on without him realising that she was doing it? Because that’s her trick. She hasn’t been doing it to you, has she?

Oliver
Well, we are playing rough, aren’t we? And the virtuous Val presenting herself like Susannah, she who suffered from the horny-pawed Elders. Well permit me to blow off a little at that thought. If Val ever found herself spied upon in her nakedness by a couple of respectable dotards, they’d both be in a necklock before they could count her moles and she’d be charging them a tenner a grope.

I expect brief acquaintance makes you underestimate the pungent earthiness of the female witness before you. If Herod’s troops were on a house-to-house search for ambiguity they would not sojourn long at La Maison de Val. She is the type of being for whom the phrase ‘Would you like to come in for coffee?’ is gnomic to the point of incomprehensibility, and who would find the apothegm ‘Is that a pine-cone in your pocket?’ worthy of the Tantric masters. So Ollie might not be ungallant if he still retained a vivid memory of exactly who tried to get off with whom at that party.

And in punishment for my shrinkingness before her gummed palms (although I confess that chivalry towards Stuart was laggardly as a motive, coming a long way second to nerves, good taste, aesthetic considerations,
und so wetter)
, Val announces to you out of the cerulean that I have biological designs – had, have, will have – upon the tapir-like form of Stu-baby, and that spurned in my Uranian ambitions I squander my seed upon the most congruent surrogate I can find, namely Gill.
Now, I have to point out that anyone whose cerebral cortex indicated Gillian as an erotic substitute for Stuart would be advised to call the padded van immediately. I further wish to note that your informant Val is a dedicated habituée of that fetid compartment of the local bookshop which ought to be called Self-Pity but instead is mysteriously labelled Self-Help. Apart from the telephone directory and the A-Z, Val’s
petite
library consists of works designed to console and inflate her ego: such titles as
Life Can Be A Real Bitch Even To The Best People, Look Yourself In The Mirror And Say Howdy
, and
Life Is A Conga: Join In The Shuffle!
Translating the dank imponderables of the human spirit into a one-bite intellectual snack for the brain-dead: this is what your informant relishes.

Now listen: were it by any chance the case that Oliver’s radiant sexuality occasionally put aside the workaday, and were his heliotropic gaze to turn towards Stoke Newington’s unlikely Ganymede, then, to enlist a vernacular which my accuser herself will be able to grasp, I
wouldn’t have any trouble there, mate
. The need for some carnal deputy would simply not arise.

Stuart
This isn’t anything to do with anything. It’s not even a side-issue. OK, I bent Val’s ear a couple of times, I thought she was a friend, I thought that’s what friends were for. Suddenly it’s a crime to talk about one’s problems and Oliver is some delinquent homosexual who’s always secretly been after me. Now I think a number of bad things about this ex-friend, but not that. The only thing to do with mud is ignore it, otherwise it sticks.

For God’s sake let’s get on with the story.

Val
I see. Oliver says that of course he isn’t queer (what on earth could have given anyone that idea?), but that if he were, he wouldn’t have any trouble getting his leg over his best friend. And Stuart, despite being probably the most boringly conventional person it’s ever been my misfortune to get entangled with, isn’t at all surprised let alone alarmed by my psychological insight. All he wishes to say is No Comment. Members of the jury, I rest my case. Or rather, I’ll make it clearer. I think they’re both in this together.

Gillian
Most divorce petitions granted to women since 1973 have been on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour by the husband. Examples of unreasonable behaviour are: violence, excessive drinking, excessive gambling or general financial irresponsibility and a refusal to have sex.

The word they use in legal language when you ask for a divorce is
pray
. The petitioner
prays
that the marriage be dissolved.

Oliver
And another thing. She likes to pretend that Val is short for the éclat-lacking but perfectly reasonable
prénom
Valerie. She reportedly subscribes her halting interdepartmental memos and amatory communications thus. But you can’t even trust her on this matter. Val – and this is a detail you might care to savour – is short for Valda.

Stuart
Now this is what I call subtle, this is what I call dropping a delicate hint. What do I find casually lying on the table when I come home to my own house? One of those How-to books. Only this one is called
How to … Survive Divorce
. It is subtitled
A Handbook for Singles and Couples
. Is that what I’ll be? Is that what they’re planning to make me into? A ‘single’?

Did you know that since 1973 the principal reason for men divorcing women in English courts of law was because of the adultery of the wife? What does that tell you about women, I ask myself. Whereas the contrary isn’t the case. Adultery by the man is not a principal reason for women seeking divorce. Rather the opposite. Getting pissed and refusing to have sex seems to be one of the grounds on which women frequently get rid of their partners.

There was one sentence in the book that I liked. Do you know how much solicitors cost? I didn’t either. In the provinces it’s anything upwards of £40 an hour (plus
VAT)
. In London it’s from £60 to £70 an hour (plus
VAT
) while posh firms charge £150 an hour or more (plus
VAT)
. So the chap who wrote this book concludes: ‘Clearly, with such charges involved, it may be cheaper to replace many minor items (a table, a chair, a set of glasses or whatever) than to face a legal bill for the fight.’ Yes, that sounds very sensible. Of course I could just break this glass I’m holding in my hand, plus the other five over there on the sideboard, that way we wouldn’t have any trouble over the division of the spoils. I’ve never liked them much anyway. They came from my wife’s snooty mother.

If I just said No I won’t, I haven’t done anything wrong, I won’t give you a divorce, you can’t prove anything against
me and in any case I shouldn’t think ‘violence’ covers headbutting your wife’s lover, that can’t be grounds I wouldn’t have thought, if I just said No and stuck my heels in, do you know what she’d have to do? She’d have to move out and wouldn’t be able to get a divorce for five years.

Do you think that would fuck them up?

I mean, look at these glasses. You may be able to drink Pernod out of them, but not whisky. It would indeed be cheaper to replace such minor items rather than face a legal bill for the fight. She can have them – all except this one, whoops, it just slipped off the arm of my chair, didn’t it? Just slipped off, jumped six feet through the air and smashed in the fireplace. You’ll be a witness to that, won’t you?

Or perhaps it wouldn’t make any difference.

13: What I Think

Stuart
I loved her. My love made her more loveable. He saw that. He’d fucked up his own life, so he stole mine. The premises were totally destroyed by a ZEPPELIN RAID.

Gillian
I loved Stuart. Now I love Oliver. Everyone got hurt. Of course I feel guilty. What would you have done?

Oliver
Oh God, poor old Ollie, up to his mucous membrane in a tub of
mer de
, how crepuscular, how inspissated, how uncheerful … No, actually, that’s not what I think. What I think is this. I love Gillian, she loves me. That’s the starting-point, everything follows from that. I
fell
in love
. And love operates on market forces, a point I tried to get across to Stuart, though probably not very well, and in any case I could hardly expect him to see it objectively. One person’s happiness is often built upon another person’s unhappiness, that’s the way of the world. It’s tough, and I’m sorry as hell it had to be Stuart. I’ve probably lost a friend, my oldest friend. But I had no choice, not really. No-one ever does, not without being a completely different person. Blame whoever invented the universe if you want to blame someone, but don’t blame me.

Another thing I think: why is everyone always on the side of the fucking tortoise? Let’s hear it for the hare for a change.

And yes, I do know I’ve just said
crepuscular
again.

14: Now There’s One Cigarette in the Ashtray

Stuart
I’m sorry. I really am. I know I don’t come out of this next bit particularly well.

He came to mine. Why shouldn’t I go to his?

No, that’s not good enough.

Why did I do it? Was I trying to hang on, or trying to let go? Neither, both?

Hanging on: because I thought she might change her mind if she saw me?

Letting go: like not asking for the blindfold at execution; like turning your head so that you can watch the guillotine blade fall?

And that business with the cigarettes. Just chance, I know, just an accident. But that made it all worse, because the whole thing has been one ghastly accident, like a swerving lorry that
smashes across the motorway barrier and pulps your car. And I was just sitting there, and I put my cigarette into one of the little grooves in the ashtray, and then I noticed there was another cigarette in one of the other grooves already. I was so upset I must have lit another after putting down the previous one. And
then
I noticed that there was a stub in the ashtray as well. Three cigarettes in the ashtray – two of them burning and one stubbed out. How could anyone stand that? Can you imagine the pain I felt? No, of course not. You can’t feel someone else’s pain, that’s the problem. That’s always the problem, the whole world’s problem. If only we could learn to feel someone else’s pain …

I’m sorry, I truly am. How can I apologise?

I’ll have to think of a way.

Gillian
It’s Stuart’s face I’ll never forget. He looked like a clown, a turnip head, a Hallowe’en mask. Yes, that’s right, one of those pumpkins you get at Hallowe’en with an artificial smile cut into it, and some false, flickering, ghostly light beaming out through the eyes. That’s what Stuart looked like. I was the only person to see him, I think, and the sight will be with me forever. I screamed, Stuart disappeared, everyone looked round, there was nothing but an empty stage.