Boys and Girls (45 page)

‘I mean to say, Blackie … if it's a school trip, why didn't I know about it? You see? I mean – Amanda, she said I'd had a letter. Said I had it ages ago. I don't remember getting
any letter. Maybe Susan did – maybe she got the letter, but I certainly didn't, that's for bloody sure. She didn't mention it – if Susan did get a letter, well she never mentioned it to me. Anyway – I suppose it's all right. Switzerland. Decent people in Switzerland, aren't they? Just as well you had some cash left, Blackie. Christ – what would we all do without you? Tara's going too, Amanda said. Think it's Tara. Could be Tamara. Doesn't really matter. She didn't take much, pack much, Amanda. Anyway … I suppose it's all right. Have to square it with Susan when she gets back. Don't want the blame. But it's odd though, isn't it Blackie? School trip all of a sudden – completely out of the blue. Oh well. There it is. But you'd think it would've come up, wouldn't you? In conversation. If you're going to Switzerland … Have to ask Susan about it, when she gets back. See if she remembers any damn letter. When do you think she will be, Blackie? Susan, I mean. Coming back. Shouldn't be long. Do you think she'll phone us first? Or just come back? Poor little thing – I do, you know, I do feel quite sorry for her. She'll be hurt, no doubt about it. But it was a cruel-to-be-kind sort of a situation, wasn't it really? We acted properly. In the long run we did, oh yes. We did the right thing.'

‘Um … talking of letters, old man – seems to be another one here. No stamp, or anything. Just stuck through the, ah … you know: hole thing.'

‘Ah! That'll be from Susan. Poor little thing. Paving the way, I expect. Here – let me see it, Blackie. Yes – her writing, look. On the envelope. “A & B”. That's us. Husbands A and B. Sweet. Right – see what she's got to say then, shall we? Poor little thing.'

Yes well. You just had to take one look at his face to
know that something was up, to see that something was off. Eyebrows – at first just hoicked up in anticipation, I supposed … then they contract, and soon they're dark and knitted. Next thing, though, they're just all over the place, the eyes beneath hurried and flickering, as if quite stunned by confusion. And then he wasn't looking at the letter at all any more – just gaping blankly ahead of him – so I prised it gently and then quite forcibly from the white tight grasp of his fingers. Read it. Looked up sharply to find Alan's gaze, alight with the need for assurances (we're
not
mad, are we? We
haven't
lost our senses …?). And then I read the bloody thing again:

We looked at one another, Alan and myself. No real words yet, though our eyes were splintered by half-put questions, and smothered in bafflement. I could hardly bear his pain and silence … I was on the verge of saying something, then – not sure what, can't have been much – and that's when Alan, he finally spoke to me:

‘Blackie … what the
fuck
 …?!'

‘Mm, yes. Well quite. Our elation was clearly premature. We appear to have been diddled, Alan. Made fools of. I can't say I like it. Not only has she left us, gone off with the bloody little shit, but I have just funded their expenses …'

Alan was wagging his head, his flat eyes pleading for reason.

‘Can't believe it. I just can't—! He didn't seem to have it in him – deception on that sort of a scale. Just a kid. Little kid. What does she want with a fucking little
kid
 …? Christ, Blackie … did they –
plan
it, do you suppose? Did Susan
know
we were going to go round there? Attempt to buy him off? She's capable – Jesus is she capable! Christ – they must both be laughing their fucking heads off. Right now. At our expense. We walked right into it. Four fucking grand! I can't believe it, I just can't believe it …! Christ, I feel so …'

‘Can't have been. A plan. Susie – she's got lots of money. I see to it, I'm afraid. She doesn't need four thousand.'

‘Oh Jesus. Well – can't you get it back? Freeze the account, or whatever they do?
Christ
if I ever see that little bugger again …!'

‘No. Money's cleared. Clears every month. Hers now. Nothing to be done.'

‘Well … at least she won't be getting any more. Have to bloody work for a living, same as … well, most of us. Because him, the little shit, what can he earn? Yes. Well … at least she won't be getting any more. Will she? Blackie …? You're not saying anything, Blackie. Why aren't you saying anything to me?'

‘Well, Alan – we can't, can we? Let her – starve. She'll come to her senses, of course she will eventually. But until then, well – can't just cut her off, can we? She is our wife, after all …'

‘Great. That's just great. You've given them four grand for their honeymoon, and now you propose to maintain them both in the manner to which you have accustomed her! Excellent. And what sort of a wife is it anyway? That would hook up with a, Jesus –
toyboy
, and walk out on her husbands! “Take care of yourselves”, she says. Huh! No fucking
choice
, is there …?'

Bitter, bitter, oh Lord how bitter he was. We drank a lot that night, I mean more than usual. Alan, he came up with all sorts of, well – schemes, he called them, but each one was really only a recipe for vengeance: Let's go back round to his house, the shit. Why, Alan? He won't be there, will he? Remember? He's gone away with Susie. I know, I know … but at least then we can tell his stupid parents what a
shit
he is. Or OK then – let's hire a detective to find them! Why, Alan? She won't come back if she doesn't want to, will she? I know, I know … but at least then we can shame them in public – tell everyone what
shits
they are. Or what about this then? We take out a full-page advert in all of the papers …! On and on. Poor Alan. Bitter, oh yes – Lord, how very bitter he was. And I suppose at the time, we neither of us could see, project, not beyond the black and hurt of the night – could not imagine how anything other could one day be. But time, as I say – and of course one has noted it before, but still you know, it always rather delights and amazes me … how, just by its passing, it can not only mollify, dab at one's tears and smooth the jagged edges, but somehow it will heal, like a tacky mastic shot from a gun, the way it fills up all of those voids and cavities, bestows a welcome evenness and polish to a new and somehow more durable surface. Changes in the procedure, adaptation to the new-found road, ways of going about things that never one
would have thought to even float, or tentatively fly … and though unsought, they become so surprisingly quickly not just grudgingly acceptable, but a mighty step beyond. Maybe even … the very consummation that had always been desired: true companionship, without somewhere at the back of your mind being constantly frightened to death.

At first, though, there was a very strong sense of … what might you call it? Displacement. Yes, I think so. Odd, in one way, because Susie, she had never been the personification of the hausfrau, and nor, to be fair to her, had so humdrum a role been ever her remotest ambition. Her absence, however, was everywhere. Not just in the vastness of the silent vacuum, but in the little things as well. Alan would say, Where are the Corn Flakes? Aren't they usually here? Isn't this the shelf they're normally kept on? Well I couldn't help him, of course. Didn't know we bought Corn Flakes – never eat them, stick in my teeth, as do most things: might, you know, need dentures soon (yet more delight in the offing). And then he'd say. You know Blackie – while never understanding why it was she ever stuck around, still you know – I never thought she'd leave me. Poor Alan. He'd worked out, you see, that by importing me on to the scene, Susie had put into train the only solution to her loathing of the situation as then was standing. Joyous, he said he had been, when it all seemed to be going so smoothly. And – he said this repeatedly – and now all
this
. Then he would marvel at the fact that she hadn't phoned, not once, to check that the two of us were still alive, if not very kicking (young people, you know – they say that: I've heard it on the television. They say that this or that is ‘kicking'. Extraordinary, isn't it really? No idea what it means). Now then … what was I …? Oh good Lord, it's happened again,
you know. More and more this is happening to me now. Start off talking about a thing, some other damn bit of nonsense suddenly strikes me and
poof
! Gone. Thin air. Awful, isn't it? Bound to get worse. Everything does, in the long run. Might be the first stages of … can't remember the fucking name of it. Went to my doctor the other day – nothing to do with that, this was something else. Said it's my knee. Aches like blazes. And then sometimes when I walk, it sort of gives out a twingeing kind of a thing and buckles in on itself, best way I can describe it: one of these days, it'll have me over. So he checks me over, gave me a check-up, the doc, and he says to me it's my hip. Jesus, I don't know – how can my knee be my hip? You wonder sometimes whether it's you or just everybody else who's losing their minds.
Alzheimer's
, that's the chap. And much to my surprise, I've just remembered my thread, so I'm not completely gaga yet, at any rate – but don't hold your, um … Alan, yes. And then he says, Well you'd think at least she'd phone to see that Amanda's all right, even if she doesn't give two fucking hoots about either of her husbands. Breath – don't hold your breath, God curse it. And I remind him that in the first place Amanda isn't here (bloody long school trip, is all I can say – don't say it to Alan, though: it would only worry him) and in the second place, they both have mobiles, don't they? Could be chattering away thirteen to the dozen twenty times a day. Alan says: I doubt it. I doubt it too, but you've got to say something, haven't you?

Yes, so in the early days I was heartily engaged in bucking him up to the best of my ability on a more or less wall-to-wall basis. I didn't mind. What friends are for. And for his part, well – he's just been marvellous, you know, with all of the running about. If I've left something upstairs or in the
garden, say, he'll hare away and fetch it. Do it a lot, goes without saying. Constantly leaving things all over the bloody place, and more often than not, of course, I'm damned if I can remember where. But Alan, he always seems to track them down. I call him The Bloodhound. Actually, that's an arrant lie – never called him The Bloodhound in my life. Maybe I ought to start. Doesn't matter. And he does all the shopping, you know, because I don't even drive now. Truth is, in Alan's car I can't reach the pedals, and I don't want to be fooling around with adjustments all the time; did toy with buying a car of my own, but even as I was toying, I knew that I'd never get round to it. And never mind a car – it's a hip, apparently, I'm going to be needing now, according to the doc. That's the latest. Maybe two, he says. Well why not? More the merrier. The things they can pull off though, these days – remarkable, isn't it? What did people with useless pelvises do in the old days? Lie down, I suppose.

But time, you see – that's what I was saying: the passing of time, and how it affects things. Now, Alan buys the – well, Corn Flakes, say, and puts them on whatever shelf he damn well pleases, knowing they'll be there for him the next time – not moved, and not eaten. We dine, you know, not so much at mealtimes, but just whenever the fancy takes us – and nearly always simultaneously, as chance would happily have it. He cleans – and very well too, I must say. New pin. And I do the accounts. We both of us continue to cook, and we're becoming rather good at it. The gardeners go on gardening, and everything there is lovesome (God wot). We formulate ideas, that's another thing we do. Well, I say ideas – more viewpoints, really: conclusions reached in the face of the evidence. And because, I suppose, we each well know our
respective audience, we're not at all afraid to express them, Lord no: eager for it, really. We store them up. Other evening, I postulated the theory that the reason this country has now been quite thoroughly overrun by yobboes and foreigners is that the decent English people, the proper ones, were too polite to lock the doors (certainly true of the BB bloody C). And when it became plain to all that this upsurge of moujiks could barely express themselves, they somehow contrived to make inarticulacy a lovably fashionable idiom, if you can fucking believe it. Why now with even highly educated and literate people you have to machete your way through a throttling overgrowth of sortas, kindas and likes (know what I mean?). Alan was right behind me on that one – no huge surprise, I confess – and in return suggested to me that as one gets older and is seeking to improve one's lot, it is no longer a question of ambition nor frantic acquisition, but first a process of shedding, and then one of simple barricade: ruthlessly excluding all that one very certainly does
not
bloody want. Much the principle with first-class travel and accommodation, really: it's not really about what you get for your money, so much as all of the horror that can be loftily avoided. Yes. I sometimes think we ought to be on
Question Time
.