Ordinary Miracles (23 page)

‘Peel off those panties, peel them down,’ Brian crooned in
that predictable way of his. At least I didn’t say ‘Why is
he wriggling around like that? Does he want to go to the
lavatory?’ Some adult usually made this comment when one
of my teenage idols appeared on the screen.

When Brian started singing, Bruce very sensibly fell asleep.
He hasn’t had much rest lately. I tried to read a book on
Gauguin given to me by Richard MacReamoin, my former
adult literacy student. I also managed to polish off half a box
of chocolates.

Bruce stayed with us at Charlie’s place on Christmas night.
He was so tired I really couldn’t turf him out. The thing is
once he’d got settled in the spare bedroom he brightened up
considerably and said he wanted to talk. He didn’t actually.
I realised this when he tried to put his hand between my legs.
I gave him a goodnight kiss on the cheek and left. When I
walked back to my bedroom I noticed the door of Katie’s
room was slightly open. She was peering through the crack.

As I lay alone in my single bed that night I ruminated
on the wisdom of my current rigorous sexual standards. It
seemed to me that if I adhered to them I might never, ever,
have sex again – with another person anyway. I miss sex. I
didn’t think I’d miss it so much. When it was around it often seemed bland and predictable – like something on a list of domestic chores: load washing machine, iron shirts, sew on
missing button, have sex, defrost mince. That sort of thing.

The morning after Christmas Bruce, attired in Charlie’s
dressing-gown, brought me breakfast in bed. He hasn’t done
this in years.

‘It took me quite a while to find some recognisable
foodstuffs,’ he smiled. ‘Those rice cakes look like they’re made from packaging material.’ I gave him a quick hug to thank him and, at that very moment, Charlie walked by the open door of my room. He must have just got back.

Though I’m still staying with Charlie things between us are very different now. I have, for one thing, insisted on paying him more rent. He explained to me about the woman in his bed. The woman’s married and lives in Devon, apparently. She and Charlie lived together for some years a long time ago. They didn’t have sex the night she stayed, he said. They just cuddled for old time’s sake and because she was sad. She was sad because some record company executive said she was too old to appear in a micro-mini with a feather boa across her tits on the cover of her new CD. The record company want her to cultivate a more mature and sultry image and this has made her grieve for her lost youth.

This sounds marginally plausible to me, but I’ve allowed a large element of doubt to linger. Since the fake diamond hair grip incident I know how innocent men can sound when they’re lying about where they’ve put their penis.

‘So you see, there was really nothing to it. We’re just friends,’ Charlie said.

‘Ye Ha,’ I replied, because a more considered response couldn’t have adequately conveyed the depths of my new cynicism.

‘Is that all you’ve got to say on the subject?’ he persisted.

‘Frankly, Charlie, you could have both bonked yourselves through the bedsprings for all I care – though I’m sure her husband might have another view on the matter,’ I replied. ‘I just need somewhere to stay until Susan’s flat-mate moves out. What you do is up to you.’

Actually if it’s true – that stuff about the feather boa and the micro-mini – I do have a certain sympathy with the woman. I call her the woman because I keep forgetting
her name. I’ve been grieving for my lost youth for a while
myself.

When I was younger men often looked at me twice. It
wasn’t something I was really aware of until Bruce pointed it
out. I’d presumed the second glances, when I saw them, were
probably prompted by some shameful error in grooming. I’d
rush to the mirror afterwards to check. Then Bruce told me
men looked at me that way because I was an attractive
woman. He was amazed that I had somehow remained innocent of this fact. Actually I’m not sure I was innocent of that fact. I think it was something I knew but chose not
to register.

You see the thing is I wanted to be loved for my soul. While
I was glad that I didn’t look like the back of a bus, it was the
radiance of my inner-being, my essence, that I wanted men
to connect with. In pursuit of this goal I wore big shapeless
jumpers which gave me no discernible figure. ‘My God, you
have lost weight!’ friends would exclaim any time I wore a
T-shirt.

It seemed to me that any man who saw the true woman
beneath my sack-like armoury must be a cut above the rest. All my boyfriends, including Bruce, were put to the test. I
learned later that Bruce knew I must be fairly slim because
I had a ‘nice tight bum’.

‘Attractiveness is not just a physical thing, Jasmine,’ he
lectured. ‘An attractive woman is much more than just a
pretty face or a good figure. Make the most of yourself.
Enjoy who you are.’ Bruce always seemed to have a much
clearer view of who I was than I did.

So I discarded the sack look and got used to admiring
glances. I don’t get many admiring glances now. Not unless I’m really dressed up and have made an effort. Strange men do still smile at me occasionally. They don’t actually guffaw
into my face. It’s more a conspiratorial little smirk. I don’t know why they do this, but I don’t think it’s meant to be
offensive.

The other day I put this second glance stuff to the test at
a bus stop when a man who’d joined the queue looked at
me. It was evening and the bus stop was by a shop window.
I could see his reflection in the glass and I watched it to see if
he looked at me again. He didn’t. I had obviously not made
the slightest impression on him.

When I was eighteen this would not have bothered me one
whit – but now I’m forty it does bother me somewhat. I’m
not so confident about being loved for my inner-being as I
used to be. It seems to me my inner-being may need a little
help – a little marketing.

‘Love yourself,’ that’s what all my self-help books say. I
suppose they’re right, though I wish they wouldn’t go on
and on about it. One of them, called
You Can Heal Your
Life,
says affirmations like ‘I love and approve of myself,’ can
help. You’re supposed to say that affirmation over and over
again, to yourself or out loud. I say it to myself sometimes
when I’m out walking. After a while my mind occasionally strays to more mundane matters and I realise, for example,
that I’m repeating ‘Collect coat from dry cleaners. Collect
coat from dry cleaners,’ instead.

I do think I like myself a bit more these days. I don’t bully
myself so much about my perceived deficiencies. It seems
to me encouragement is far more helpful than continuous
scolding, and this applies to oneself as much as to others.

I also find I’m getting to know Bruce better. We meet for
lunch occasionally. Now that he’s no longer so entangled in
the web of my expectations I have a clearer picture of who
he is. It seems to me he’s not a bad man, but he’s not a
particularly good one either. It seems to me he’s lonely, but
not in a way I can help him with. He’s lonely for himself. For
all the bits of himself he chooses not to see – the parts he just
shuts out.

He’s become terribly earnest over the years. There’s a
whole ream of interests he’s decided he hasn’t time to pursue.
For example he used to paint very well. His canvases were
always rather large and abstract. There was no discernible
theme, but his use of colour was excellent and most evocative.
He got completely lost in those colours – daubing them
quickly as though to some inner map. After one of his
painting sessions there was a deep calm on his face. I haven’t
seen that deep calm on his face for a very long time.

The only new interest Bruce has taken up in recent years
is jogging. He occasionally jogged in the past, but around his
fortieth birthday it became an almost nightly event. There
was something obsessive, I thought, about the way he strode
up to the bedroom each evening, hung up his clothes, cleaned
his ears and put on a tracksuit. A liberal dusting of anti-fungal
foot powder onto feet was later added to the ritual. When I
learned about him and Cait I suspected that he’d just used
jogging as an excuse to be with her. He insists that this was
not the case. I’m not sure I believe him.

Avril: A Woman’s Story
is almost in the can and now Bruce
has been asked to direct a TV film about a young Irish
emigrant to New York. He was full of apologies as he
told me this. He said he’d been neglecting me lately. That
we needed to talk more. I didn’t tell him that leaving me
alone for a while was just what I needed. I think he finds it comforting to believe that his marriage is simply one more th
ing he currently doesn’t have time for. To believe that once
he can slot it in his schedule again it will resume its normal
course.

I am truly pleased that Bruce is getting the chance to do the work he wants to do. His eyes were as bright as a boy’s
as he spoke about possible locations in Brooklyn. He wants
me to come over and stay with him in New York when he’s based there. Not for the whole time because he’ll be so busy.
Just for a week or so. And, you know…I just might.

We squeezed in one appointment with a marriage counsellor before he flew to America to work out some pre-
production details. I was not at all looking forward to it.
I thought my rage might assume volcanic proportions in
such an indulgent setting, and though I knew this might
be therapeutic, I also knew it would be extremely painful.

My feelings towards Bruce are very volatile. For long
periods I feel I’ve almost grown to like him again, and then some memory or remark can convince me that he’s a complete and utter shit. At moments like this I really
can’t bear to be in the same room with him. And yet that,
of course, is what marriage counselling required me to do.

The blaming started almost immediately. ‘He forgot my
fortieth birthday,’ I blubbed, reaching for a Kleenex from the
large box on the coffee table. ‘And – then we were supposed
to go to Galway to make up for it, only we couldn’t because
of
Avril

‘Avril?’ the counsellor repeated, obviously feeling she was
on to something important.