Boys and Girls (40 page)

‘Like to what? Something on your mind, is there Alan? Maybe wait till morning. Little bit tired, you know …'

‘Nonsense, Blackie – barely nine o'clock. Early even by your standards. Here – I'll pour us a Scotch.'

‘Still, though – think I might just turn in. Call it a, you know – day.'

‘What – not just a quick one? Poured it now.'

‘Oh well – right-o then, Alan. Right-o.'

Black now eased himself with care and resignation down and into his chair by the mantel, making the deep and throaty harrumphing sound habitual to his sitting (more final and an octave lower than the guttural grunt he would always come out with whenever he had to bloody well get up again). Alan pulled a side chair right up close to him.

‘I think, Blackie – well, now's as good a time as ever, I suppose. I mean – I don't want to, um … alarm you or anything, but …'

‘What? But what? Alarm me …? What on earth are you talking about, Alan?'

Alan compressed his lips and narrowed his eyes. He touched Black's hand, and then he swallowed. This is it, then:

‘Well … it's just that … our wife: I think she might be having an affair.'

Black just gaped at him, it was all he could do, and Alan – until the doorbell suddenly rang and made him jerk and then stand up – he could only goggle right back at the man in sheer and utter amazement at hearing in the air his very own words.

‘Who in Jesus name can that be? Back in a minute, Blackie.'

Black was gazing at the back of him as Alan quite hurriedly left the room. He put down the glass, and his rigid fingers went up to his eyes. He did not hear Amanda as she reappeared from behind the sofa – but he heard her cackled remark as she darted away and out into the atrium:

‘Well fuck me, Grandad: that was a close one, wasn't it?'

Amanda flitted through the hall and up the spiral of stairs, just as Susan was distractedly bustling her way through the front door and batting away all of Alan's anxiety and ministrations.

‘Just left my
key
behind, that's all … it's nothing to … yes I'm perfectly all right, of course I'm all right – don't I look all right? I'm quite all right, I tell you. I decided to come back early, that's all – not a
crime
, is it? Look, Alan – I'm sorry, I just want to go to sleep now, all right? Pounding headache. Oh Christ's sake don't ask me any more
questions
 – what's wrong with you at all? I just want to go to bed, that's all. It's not hard to understand. No – I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine – I
told
you I'm fine. Oh Christ just fuck
off
, can't you? Leave me alone. I'm going to bloody
bed
.'

Susan rushed up the stairs just as Alan turned and quickly glimpsed the wink of the ascending lift, no doubt with an equally somnolent Blackie inside it. Well. Right. I'll just do that, then: fuck off. Getting quite good at it.

So I spent the night on the beach. Thanks to all the technology that I don't understand (it's only a matter of time before it all goes wrong on me) I was able to watch the sun go down, and many hours later than it had actually done so in that other and awful place, the real world – a place where again I find myself wounded – and hence, I suppose, my headlong escape from it. Dazzlingly orange, and then the very most intense sort of crimson, my kind and warm and vibrant sun, as it sizzlingly touched and then dipped down with a majesty and grace into the deep and vivid sea, when all was swallowed by indigo – just the merest turquoise and hazy halo to guide my hand to the glass of Scotch.

I hated myself for thinking it – had tried so hard to smother the idea before it had breathed its life into me. But no: the seed was sown. And nor was it tender – it got no nurture from me, nor a sympathetic bed … but still the roots were shooting, and they seemed quite sturdy (grimly anchored and snaking with venom). And yet – I should not maybe have confided my suspicion. Not to an innocent. But here, of course, is no suspicion – this is something I know. Not an iota of evidence – and nor, Christ, have I sought any. I know it, though – just know it, that our Susan, she has strayed from us. I did not have to ask myself: But how could this
be
? Because I knew that too. I had no detail, and it hurt me. But detail, oh dear God – I run from even the thought of its heat: that could come near to closing me down.

Just before dawn – whether mine or the true one I can hardly care – I bullyingly was buoying myself up with a sadly hopeful and wilfully contorted construction on the matter: that Susan had been in so dully impassioned a state because she had at last been flooded by a bright and inner realisation … the smack of how foolish she had nearly been, a tremor on the rim, but now she was safely come home to us. And then I spent minutes straining with pain to become so stupid as to swallow the half of it. I couldn't. So what if … before even the thing took hold, a jagged and ugly break-up? Possible, surely? Well yes, but only in the way that miracles are constantly said to be. In truth, the state of her had given me not an atom of encouragement. Only depth moves us to the core – and Susan, believe me, was moved to the brink of turmoil … whereas fancies, on the other hand – well, these are famous only for passing.

Susan, though: her room is locked. Whether or not she is inside it, I simply couldn't say. Blackie, then. Couldn't, could
I? Just abandon him to thinking whatever he's thinking. Gone ten, now: strange that he hasn't sought me out. His caring will be of a different order from mine, but already he must surely be sour and unsettled, if only from the looming of something new. It is a beautiful morning – perhaps he is in the garden, the pergola, maybe. Because he rarely if ever goes away from the house now: says that all he wants is here.

No one in the pergola, nor on the terrace or the lawn. He wouldn't be in the meadow because he says it's just one hell of a trek and when he gets there there's something growing wild, couldn't tell me what, that makes his nose so itchy, and then it goes down to his knee. I like to think I know of all his irritants and foibles, though fresh ones are arising daily. One of the younger gardeners, trainee maybe (there seems to be a never-ending roster of them), is planting densely a long low row of geraniums – the total length of the lawn, as far as I can see. Red ones – the only colour in the world so very akin to new-dripped blood. But Blackie, though … no sign. The vegetable garden was a strong possibility – he had some fine vine tomatoes under glass and was always quite fascinated by the dexterity and athleticism of the runner beans, whipping their way up and around the canes. He wasn't there. I only caught up with him, Blackie, much later on in the drawing room, where very stupidly I hadn't even thought of looking. Told him where I'd been searching, and who I had found there instead: Amanda – stretched out on a lounger alongside the pool, a forearm flung over her eyes. Quite the young woman … and wearing only what appeared to be bunting – a few triangular strips of white, and loosely knotted simple string. Her hair was frizzy and
nearly dry. Just a short distance, but still I had thought I'd better call over – didn't want to startle her by my soft and sudden approach. I told Blackie this, and then I told him how the rest of it had gone: went into all the detail that I could remember. Wanted it to be as shocking for him as it had been for me.

‘Hello, Amanda. Morning. Not at school today?'

Amanda raised her arm from across her face and peered in the direction, waving him on as she squintingly focused.

‘It's Saturday, Dad.'

‘Is it? Is it really? Yes, I suppose it would be, by now. So. Had a swim, have you? Warm, is it? Water?'

‘Dad – sit down, can you? Wanna talk.'

Alan lowered himself warily on to the lounger beside her which was far too low and pitched a bit, till he was settled. Which was worse? Silence? Or people who wanted to talk?

‘What about? Had breakfast, have you? Thought I might make some coffee …'

Amanda looked hard at him, and seriously.

‘Mum, Dad. What do you think? We never like talk, OK? But now I think we should.'

The sun was beating hard on the back of Alan's skull. He put a hand there and his hair, it felt so warm. And another heat – the very smoulder he had failed in his earnest and repeated efforts in damping down, snuffing out, now took light and licked up before him. His eyes flicked over to check on Amanda; still she looked at him hard, and seriously.

‘Your mother? What do I think? In what, um, sense do you …?'

‘Oh come on, Dad. You know exactly what I mean. Blackie told me.'

‘Blackie?
Told
you …? Really? Told you what? I'm amazed. He
told
you …?'

‘Yeh. Sort of. Anyway – doesn't matter. Now just listen, OK Dad? Because knowing you, you're just so like going to do nothing, like you always do. But you've just got to this time – because this time, OK, it's just like so
disgusting
. I mean yeh OK – I thought at the time that with Black it was like
gross
 – but this, oh man, this is just …!'

‘What are you saying? How can you know what—?'

‘I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I know. I know exactly what she's doing, and it makes me like just so
sick
, OK? Because I know him. The guy, yeh? That she's doing it with.'

Alan shut his eyes, as his mind tore away in a frenzy. So wished he hadn't, now – come to talk to Amanda. And his heart … a fist inside him was gamely fumbling, but it was just too late to catch it as it fell down hard and into somewhere black where at first it lay there dead and heavily, before there came the slicing. Because merely an inner and solitary certainty, that still can be just about tolerable, blinking in the dimmest shadow of a glint of battered hope; corroboration, though – that just brings despair. And Amanda – despite his pleading at first with her not to, and then insisting she did so immediately – Amanda, she told him, yes she did, and with a fierce directness, who it was her mum was doing it with.

‘Amanda … that
can't
be right …! It just … who is this man? How do you …?'

‘Not a man, Dad. Boy. Not yet, like – eighteen? Harry, he used to be my kind of boyfriend. Mum, shit – she went to see him.'

‘Why did she—?'

‘Because I guess I told her I was knocked up. Pregnant.'

‘Jesus, Amanda! You're—?!'

‘No. Not. I'm not. It's just what I told her.'

‘Jesus, Amanda! Why did you—? Are you or aren't you, Christ's sake?'

‘Not. I'm not. Why did everyone believe me when I said I was, and now like I'm saying I'm just so
not
, everyone's just going to me oh yeh,
right
 …'

‘Well I just can't understand why you'd—!'

‘No well I don't either. It just like came out. She was giving me a hard time, you know? Anyway – not the point. She told Harry not to see me again, OK? And man, did he go for that big-time. No argument at all. Chucked me out, more or less. And now I know why. Mum, when she was talking about him, she'd gone all kind of creepy on me? Weirded me out. And then Harry – do you want to know what he said about her? Do you know what he called her? Eee-
yow
 – just
so
sick.'

‘Jesus …!'

‘He said she was “cute”. “Kinda cute” is what he said. Shit. How sick is that?'

‘He's … how old did you say?
Eighteen
 …?'

‘Nearly. Yeh. I know. Sick, right?'

‘But are you
sure
, Amanda? How can you—?'

‘Sure. I'm sure. You know when you just, like –
feel
something? You just look at people and you
know
?'

And Alan nodded, because mm, he did, he did. He did, yes. And all this later, as he just blankly stood there, was what he woodenly repeated to Black.

‘I have been into all the detail I can remember. I wanted it to be as shocking for you as it has been for me.'

Black nodded, and sipped his whisky. Lit another cigarette.

‘You have succeeded. I am … shocked. No – more than
shocked, actually. I'm in – pain. Physical pain. How perfectly extraordinary. So … your suspicions, Alan, would appear to be sound. When you said that to me last night, I thought you might be drunk. Delusional. But Amanda … it's all a bit … is she absolutely positive? I mean to say – one must be sure. Mustn't we? Thing like this. We don't want any slip-ups here.'

‘Slip-ups? What on earth are you talking about?'

‘Well I mean to say, Alan old man – we've got to do something about it, haven't we? Can't just – let it happen, can we? Got to do something.'

‘Do something? Like what, Christ's sake?'

‘Well I haven't the slightest idea. I'm still in a state of … but we can't just stand idly by. What do other married couples do in a situation like this?'

‘But we're not, are we? A married couple. We're a married triple. That's the problem. I doubt if there are people who get into a situation like this.'

‘See what you mean. God though, Alan – I just feel so …!'

‘I know. So do I. Didn't, when you came along. Not for a minute. Funny. But now I do. Very. This is different.'

‘But what can have
possessed
the woman at all? I mean – hasn't she got everything she wants? Wasn't that the point of all this? Haven't we been good husbands to her? Why are women always so—?'

‘Because they're always chasing more and more. That's why there's never a good answer to “What do women want?” Because the only answer is always
more
. For us, I think, it's the other way round: we want less and less – and certainly, Christ, nothing
new
. But good, yes – we've been good up to a point. And this is the bit that kills me, frankly. I mean, you – you pay the bills. Gave us this wonderful house. You were the
means whereby Susan could stop working and I could stop pretending to look for a job. Me? Well – old time's sake, really. That, I imagine, is why I'm still around. Is all I can think. Never could really fathom why she wanted you as well as, and not instead of. Amanda's father, of course – might have something to do with it. But ask yourself, Blackie – and this is painful, I warn you. You – me. What's missing? What else could she be craving?'