Jam (25 page)

He pulled out his phone and turned it on. It glowed, displayed a succession of logos, progress bars and slogans, then ordered its thoughts and began searching for a signal. He waited. One bar; two bars; the word ‘Vodafone'; then ‘E'; then, finally, the crowning glory, that magnificent pairing of letter and of digit, ‘3G'. Four whole bars of signal! Should he prepare what he was going to say to Bonnie's parents? Fuck it, he thought.

This time, the phone was answered after only two rings. ‘Hello?'

‘Becky. This is Max.' The phone was vibrating in his hand as the messages that had arrived during the blackout finally made their way through.

‘Max! Max!' came Becky's distinctive South African twang. ‘James, it's Max! Is everything OK? Where are you? Christ, it's three o'clock.'

‘It's the traffic. On the blasted M25.'

‘The M25? You're still on the M25? James, he's still on the M25. What? How long have you been there? How's Bonnie? Is she OK?'

‘She's fine. We're all fine. She's sound asleep.'

‘We've been going crazy, Max, absolutely crazy. James, call the police and tell them we've found her. You're sure she's there, Max? You're sure she's OK?'

‘She's fine. She's absolutely fine. She's asleep.'

‘Why didn't you call us before?'

‘It's a long story, Becky. The signal's terrible out here.'

‘You couldn't find a landline? You must have been sitting there for hours and hours.'

‘I know – I sent you an email, but it didn't send. Twice, actually.'

‘Max, thank fuck you're all OK. But I can't believe you left it until three to call. What's up with that?'

‘Sorry, Becky, I thought the email had gone hours ago.'

‘I've got to sit down . . . wait . . . there. Wow. Christ almighty. Wow.'

‘Did you really call the police?'

‘Where's Bonnie? Can I speak to her? Can I hear her voice?'

‘She's asleep, Becky. I'm telling you, she's fine.'

‘Did you give her something to eat? Has she done a wee? Has she been worried? Has she been crying?'

Max passed his hand over his face. So this is my penance. ‘Becky, she's fine. Ursula's got it all under control.'

‘Yes, of course, Ursula's there. Ursula's there. Has she done a poo?'

‘Who, Bonnie?

‘Yes, of course. Bonnie.'

‘I don't think she's needed to.'

‘Max, I'm glad you called, but why didn't you call before? My God. It's just been such a fucking stress. So why the massive hold-up? What is it, an accident?'

‘No idea.'

‘Have you broken down?'

‘No, no, we haven't broken down or anything. It's just traffic.'

‘Just traffic? Nobody's told you what the hold-up is? James, look it up online. There's got to be something about it online. Would you like James to come and pick you up, Max?'

‘There's no way he could get through the traffic. We've just got to sit it out. But the kids are fine, that's the main thing.'

‘I'm so glad you rang. We were going spare. We left you umpteen messages.'

‘I can hear them dropping in now. Sorry, I had no signal. I've had to walk up a hill to call you.'

‘You couldn't walk up a hill before now? Is she behaving herself?'

‘She's being a little angel.'

‘Really?'

‘Absolutely.' Max ground the heel of his shoe into the mud.

‘Christ, what a nightmare.'

‘You're telling me.'

‘Is there anything we can do? Order you a pizza or something? I've heard you can do that.'

‘You can't. It's a traffic jam.'

‘Yes, but they use those little motorbikes.'

‘We're fine. We're all fine. Thank you, though.'

‘Keep us updated, won't you?'

‘Of course. I can't get a signal unless I'm up here, though, so if you can't get hold of us, don't panic.'

‘I won't. I won't. God, thank fuck she's safe. You're sure she's safe? You're sure?'

‘Anyway, I'd better get back to the car.'

‘You're sure about the pizza?'

‘Becky. You can't order a pizza for a car in a traffic jam.'

‘You can actually. James's brother did it once. Didn't he, James? Andy did it once. Ordered a pizza when he was in traffic. What? Oh god, James, you are hopeless. His memory's going, you know. I swear you can.'

‘I'd better go,' said Max. ‘Just go to bed. Everything's all right.'

‘Christ, Max, I couldn't go to bed now. We'll wait until you get back. At least I will, don't know about James. Well, let me know about the pizza. Give Bonnie lots of kisses for me.'

‘I will. Bye, Becky.'

‘Take care.'

‘Bye. Take care. Bye.'

‘Bye.'

Max turned and looked out across the traffic again; then he looked across the hill towards the village. The job was done, but he wasn't ready to go back to the car yet. Not with his head in this state. Not with so much left festering. For a moment he was struck by the notion that all of his problems were actually rooted in the physical. Perhaps his body was out of alignment somehow, which was contaminating his emotions, which was making the world appear distorted. Should he exert himself physically? Try to flush it out, whatever it was? Should he just dash up the hill, sprint up the hill, until his blood boiled and his heart burst, and then thrash around in the grass, hollering and gnashing his teeth, until he had purged the stagnant energy and was fresh and clean, a newborn baby? Until the world was right again? He faced up the slope, took a single step in the direction of the brow, went no further. Then he threaded his way between the trees and came across a stump. He sat down, put his phone in his pocket, cupped his head in his hands. He stayed like this for a long time.

This had to be figured out, and figured out now. The confusion had gone on long enough; he would not leave this copse, he decided, until he had it all straight in his mind. Right. What was required to make sense of all this was cool-headed reason. That, he thought, was where he had been going wrong; his emotions had been clouding his judgement. Proceeding, then, with the basic facts. First: the male homo sapiens is evolutionarily predisposed to have multiple partners. This seemed to him to be self-evidently true. Although he could recall a time when he had eyes only for Ursula, that was when they had been in the very first flush of love, when they had been worlds unto one another. This phenomenon could be explained, he was certain, scientifically; something to do with the amygdala or dopamine, something to do with the evolutionary need to commit to a single partner long enough to mate. And before long the infatuation wore off, as it always did – as it was designed to – and his male instincts took over. The whiff of pheromone, the flash of a cleavage, the curve of a woman's hips, stole his mind and pricked his desire. So far as he could tell, it was the same for all men. It was the power of the basic urge to reproduce, to spread one's seed as widely as possible to ensure healthy fertilisation, healthy progeny. To chase down and conquer a sexual quarry; to dominate her; to impregnate her; to chase down and dominate another. This was his incontrovertible nature, and to restrict it, even with the very best of intentions, was to fight the tide.

Second: the female homo sapiens is biologically predisposed to attract a mate for life. Again, this seemed to him self-evident. Women did have affairs, of course, and sexually could be as profligate as their male counterparts, yet he had a strong sense that beneath it all, their essential nature was to make the home, to feather the nest, to nurture the children, and because a man was an essential precursor to all of this, and a very handy – if not, strictly speaking, essential – addition, it followed that within the feminine nature was inscribed the need to find a
man and keep hold of him. He supposed that in terms of evolution, it was beneficial for a woman to be attractive to a wide range of men, for if her principal mate proved unable to deliver the goods, so to speak, she would need the ability to attract a replacement. She needed to make men of all sorts wish to chase her down, dominate her, penetrate her, impregnate her. This explained her preoccupation with maintaining her attractiveness, which was instinctive even in old age. Essentially, however, she demanded only one partner, only one, to have and to hold. Which, obviously, was at odds with the nature of the male.

Third: his duty was no longer to Ursula alone. It was also to Carly, and whatever actions he took now would impact on her to the extent that they defined the entire future direction of her life. This was his responsibility.

This, he thought, was what it meant to be a man.

It was then that the breakthrough occurred. He could feel a thought rising like a bubble from the mystery of his unconscious, and he held his body very still to allow it to fully develop. Love and duty. How closely intertwined these were! He had thought, for a time, that they were polar opposites. He had thought that the love between Ursula and himself had faded, and that duty was all that bound them now; that meanwhile, a new love was blooming between himself and Nicole. Now, however, he realised that the driving emotion that turned his mind daily to Nicole – a woman he barely knew – was the primordial lust. The bonds that connected him to Ursula – of devotion, of nurturing, of fondness, of duty – were not animal. They were of a purely human order, a civilising, compassionate force. If all members of a society were dominated by their lust, how would it survive? And if an individual allowed himself to be dominated by his lust, how could his personal harmony remain intact? It was obvious.

The conclusion, when he arrived at it, was stunning. That companionship, that stability, that affection? That quiet, unremarkable, special thing? That willingness to endure the difficult
times? The arguments? That, in fact, was love. He'd had it back-to-front all along, and he was on the brink of ruining everything.

He raised his head from his hands and looked through the trees towards the road. His eyes were swollen, and he felt at once profoundly tired and ready to take on the world.

He reached into his pocket for his phone. It nestled in his palm, a pat of butter, a pebble. He awoke it, scrolled to the number, paused, got to his feet. The signal was strong here. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. Then he dialled the number. It rang for a long time; he was almost certainly waking her up, and he didn't care.

‘Hello?'

‘Max?'

‘Yes, it's me.'

‘Do you know what time it is?'

‘About three, I'm told.'

‘Is something . . . wait a moment.'

At the sound of her voice his heart quickened, he was starting to feel intoxicated; they got to speak so rarely. Was this really only lust? Was it not something more, something celebrated in the poetry of the greats? He heard her walking up some stairs, entering a room, closing a door.

‘OK, I can speak now,' she said. ‘Is something wrong?'

‘Nothing's wrong,' said Max. ‘I just had to speak to you.'

‘You shouldn't call out of the blue like this,' she said softly. ‘Especially in the middle of the night. We agreed. Text first.'

‘I know. Sorry. I just . . . I had to speak to you.'

‘OK. I think Mark's still asleep. Go on, then.'

Her voice was warm, lilting downwards, like champagne being poured into an empty flute. He had woken her up, yet still she was completely devoted to him, not angry at all. He knew her now. He knew what she was expecting: a proposal for another encounter. The words stuck in his throat, and he screwed shut his eyes. A moment ago, it had been so clear. But
now? Emotions were strangling his logic. Perhaps it was a mistake to eliminate emotion. Perhaps it should be reason that bowed in the face of genuine, overwhelming love . . .

‘Max? What is it?'

‘I . . .'

‘I miss you, Max. I've been thinking about you.'

‘I've been thinking about you too.'

‘When can we see each other properly?'

They had fallen so quickly into the familiar pattern. Her voice was so low, so charged with sex, that it seemed to slip down from the phone and caress his groin. The fog that surrounded him felt like an expression of his mind. He knew what he was supposed to say. He was supposed to suggest a place, a time. He opened his mouth.

But then, in the middle of all this, two synapses in his brain fired, and his capacity for clear thinking returned momentarily to him. He did not think he was a brave man. But he knew that he was a man.

‘We can't,' he said awkwardly. ‘I'm worried that . . . we're both putting our families on the roulette wheel.'

‘I know,' she sighed. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I feel like such a fraud.'

‘I'm just really worried that someone will see us. I'm . . . I don't think any man deserves this much happiness. It's all the deception, I can't live with all this deception.'

‘Has something happened? You've got me worried.'

‘No, no. God, no. At least, I don't think so.'

‘You don't think so?'

‘No.'

‘You haven't said anything to anybody?'

‘Christ, no.'

‘Ursula hasn't raised any suspicions?'

‘No, no. I'd tell you if that were the case.'

‘What then?'

‘I'm just worried that something bad is going to happen.

There are only two ways this is going to end. Either we're going to end it, or we're going to be discovered. There can't be another way.'

‘I know,' she said, with sudden, unexpected decisiveness. ‘I don't think we can ever see each other again.'

Something within him howled. ‘We could be friends,' he said, ‘don't you think?'

‘We can't,' said Nicole, ‘not after this. We've started something. Either we manage it or we cut it off.'