Our Tragic Universe (44 page)

Andrew came over and addressed Libby. ‘She’s in that cottage all the time knitting and sewing and making things. You want to take her clubbing or something before she becomes a complete hermit.’ He laughed. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

‘Same as Meg,’ Libby said. ‘I think we’re too old for clubbing.’

‘I’m only teasing,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m a hermit myself. Nothing wrong with it. Do you know what you want to eat? We’ve got oysters in, and some nice pollock.’

We ordered both and Libby looked properly at my sock, squealing with astonishment as she saw that it really was progressing as a sock should.

‘No one learns to knit socks from a book,’ she said. ‘It’s too hard.’

‘Lots of people learn things from books. Usually the wrong things. But my column’s all about how to learn good things – like knitting socks – from books.’

‘God. It’ll be like being back at school and having projects where you have to go to the library and learn how to build a campfire or put up a shelf or sew your own apron.’

‘It doesn’t have to be like that.’

‘I think you know how to knit socks because you cosmically ordered it.’

‘God, I did, didn’t I?’ I laughed.

‘It’s the most rational explanation.’

I looked more closely at Libby. She seemed to have aged a couple of years since I last saw her. ‘You OK? You look very tired and a bit ethereal, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘Oh, that’s because I forgot to put mascara on.’ She sighed. ‘I’m back with Mark. Or, at least, we’re sleeping together again.’

‘Shit. Why? How?’

‘Maybe he’s my destiny.’

‘You don’t believe in destiny.’

‘Bob does. He said I’m his destiny.’

‘OK. Tell me from the beginning.’

Libby sighed. As we ate our way through first oysters, and then pollock with roast beetroot and mashed potatoes, she explained what had happened.

‘It was like I had this dead feeling in my head all the time. Something between concrete and cotton wool. When I tried to think, nothing happened. I didn’t know what to talk to Bob about, all of a sudden. When I was with Mark I was always so busy rushing here and there, and trying to catch up with stuff all the time. Life felt exciting, you know? And real. Being with Bob felt more dishonest than being with Bob-and-Mark. Before, I had to pretend to love Bob – well, you know, to love him “like that” – while really loving Mark. Once Mark was out of the equation I was just left with “pretending to love Bob” as my whole entire life. I’ve thought about this a lot. Maybe I’m just trying to justify myself. But I was getting seriously stressed and a bit depressed. I never understood when you told me about your depression: that feeling of nothing really meaning anything, or having any point. But that’s what I started to feel. I literally
have to plan conversations to have with Bob. I make notes beforehand. But it doesn’t really help. You know when you’re a kid and you’ve got double biology with the most boring teacher in the world, and anticipating it just makes you want to go to sleep? That’s how I started to feel every time I thought about talking to Bob. I used to get through it by imagining being with Mark, you know, thinking about the last time I’d been with him, or the next time I was going to see him and what I might wear. I used to book hair appointments and do my nails because of Mark. I just didn’t have any motivation to bother to do it for Bob. Does all this sound awful?’

‘No, of course not. I know the depressed feeling you’re talking about. When I had it really badly I could hardly speak to anyone. I had absolutely nothing to say. If my mum phoned up and asked what I’d been doing, I wouldn’t be able to remember.’

‘Yeah, that’s exactly it. And it’s spilling over into the rest of my life as well. I stand in the shop all day with nothing to look forward to, and I can’t even be bothered to make new displays when we’re quiet. I just go out the back and cry, because at least that feels real, and dramatic: like something’s actually happening – must be happening – in my life. I’ve found myself putting on mascara in the mornings and wondering why I bother. I wondered why I bother with anything at all. Didn’t Darwin say that more or less everything is about sex? And sex is for reproduction. What use is my life if it’s all about sex with no reproduction? Does it mean everything I do is pointless?’

‘I think you can help the species without making babies yourself,’ I said.

‘But not by wearing mascara, presumably? I mean, does it matter whether I wear mascara or not?’ Libby sighed. ‘Does
it matter if I’m attractive? Poor Bob. It’s not as if he’s objectively boring or anything like that; it’s just that I don’t desire him and I’m not interested in him. I have baths all the time just to get away from him. He came into the bathroom the other day when I was in the bath, just to have a piss, and then he wanted to stay and chat. I ended up crying and telling him to go away, for no reason – just because I couldn’t bear to be in a room with him, even for ten minutes, and I couldn’t believe he’d actually started to invade my last bit of private space. And I didn’t want to have to pretend to be interested in the graphic novel he’s just read, or the song he’s learning. Did I tell you that his latest plan is that we form a band? He wants us to go on tour in a year or so – because we’ve been talking about going away, and he thinks that would be a really good excuse. I can’t sing for nuts, but he thinks I can. He says I have an “interesting” voice. We’ve had a couple of practices, and both times I just longed for someone else to be there, because singing to him, or with him, felt worse even than singing by myself.’

‘Sounds pretty miserable,’ I said.

‘Yeah. And on top of all that I’ve had to keep going out every Friday night, because I couldn’t suddenly say, “Oh, yeah, by the way, I dumped my book group.” I’d just drive out to Paignton and look at the sea. That was where Mark and I first kissed. The second time I went there, Mark turned up too. We didn’t talk. We just went back to his place and made love. I cried. I said it was goodbye sex, it had to be. He said he didn’t care any more; he’d take whatever I had to offer. He didn’t want me to leave Bob, even. I thought, “Why me?” I mean, surely Mark could find someone better than me, who’s single.
So the whole thing has started again, and I’m not depressed any more, but I don’t know what to do.’

‘You have to leave Bob,’ I said, surprising myself.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. Well, I don’t know. It has to be your decision. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘You’re right, though. I have to leave him. But I’m still not sure I can. Everything’s set up with Bob: the house, the business. You and Christopher didn’t really have anything like that together. It must have been easier for you … Oh, shit. What am I saying? It’s never easy, is it?’

‘Honestly, Lib, for about six years I thought about leaving and I told myself I couldn’t do it. I told myself I didn’t have enough money; I couldn’t leave Christopher to pay for the house on his own; things would work out. We gave up a lot to be together, as you know. I couldn’t leave him with nothing after all that. I couldn’t admit to myself that at the beginning with him it actually wasn’t about us having things in common or wanting to share our lives. I just wanted to fuck him, and I was prepared to seriously disrupt people’s lives in order to do it. If I admitted that was the real story, then what sort of character would that make me? There are always a million good reasons not to split up with someone. And so many of them are complicated reasons about how you define yourself, and under what circumstances you can even live with yourself.’

‘Maybe I’m just a coward.’

‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that. No one just “is” a coward.’

‘But if everyone split up with their partner every time they felt like it there’d be no relationships in the world.’

‘Yeah, but when you’ve been feeling like it for years … ?’

‘I thought you weren’t ever going to tell me what to do.’

‘Yeah. I know. But from everything you’ve just said, it’s kind of obvious. I’m just telling you back what you’re telling me. Apart from everything else, it’s not fair on Mark. It’s definitely not fair on Bob.’

‘I’m a terrible person.’

‘No, silly. You’re a lovely person. That’s why you’ve got all these men wanting you. You’re a bit confused, though, and you’re trying to do the right thing. I thought it made sense to stay with Christopher, even though I knew we were wrong for each other, because I thought passion could be worked at, or learned. But you can’t just decide to be happy, or learn passion, I don’t think. And like we said before, who knows what the “right thing” is?’

‘Yeah, but how important is my happiness in the scheme of things? Loads of people in the world are miserable, and they just get on with their lives. My problems are just trivial and pathetic. If Bob was my disabled parent, for example, I wouldn’t be able to leave him; I’d just have to get on with it. I kept telling myself to pretend he was my disabled parent. But it didn’t work.’

I laughed. ‘No wonder the sex didn’t go well.’

‘Yes; ha, ha.’

‘Anyway, disabled parents don’t prevent you from falling in love.’

‘The ones on TV do.’

‘Yeah, but no one would hold it against you on TV – falling in love, I mean. Isn’t that the point of the disabled parents on TV shows? They just function as an obstacle in the way of the hero or heroine. Just another version of the parents who want to tie you down or arrange your marriage or make you take
over the family business. With an obstacle like that it’s your moral
duty
to fall in love, so that your disabled parents can lead a fulfilled life of their own without having to rely on you.’

‘Yeah, that’s true.’

‘And your relationship with Bob is completely different. You do have to have sex with him, and you can’t love anyone else.’

Libby covered her mouth with her hands, and then uncovered it again.

‘Oh, my God. You’re right.’

‘Sorry to be so blunt.’

‘God. No, it’s all become clear now. I’m really going to do it. I’m going to split up with him.’

‘It does make sense. Just like you said.’

‘Oh, fuck.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So my downfall continues.’

‘It doesn’t have to be a downfall. You can’t predict what’s going to happen. I thought I was doing a really bad thing when I left Drew for Christopher, but after we split up Drew’s career took off and he ended up with Rosa Cooper. He’d always had a thing for her, so it all ended up OK for him, at least for a while … And I ended up like something caught in a gum trap, stuck in Dartmouth with Christopher.’

One of Vi’s favourite folk tales was about a rabbit that becomes stuck in a farmer’s gum trap. A coyote comes along and asks the rabbit what he’s doing and why he’s stuck there. The rabbit tells him that the farmer was annoyed with him because he refused to eat melons with him, and now he’s trapped him and is going to force him to eat chicken with him instead. The coyote frees the rabbit and sticks himself to the gum trap,
because he wants to be the one to eat chicken with the farmer. But of course when the farmer comes he shoots the coyote. This wasn’t exactly a storyless story. In fact, it was a conventional story with all kinds of reversals (the coyote goes from free to trapped; the rabbit moves from tricked to Trickster and so on) that seem satisfying only because the rabbit, being weak and cunning, is positioned as morally superior to the coyote, who is strong but stupid. But in real life strength and stupidity normally win, and rabbits can’t speak.

Libby had blushed, and was looking down at the table.

‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘I never thought to say anything about Rosa. God, Meg, I’m really sorry. I know you sort of hated her, but she was your oldest friend, wasn’t she? I’m a selfish, self-obsessed cow. I completely forgot.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I did sort of hate her.’

‘But you’re not glad she’s dead?’

‘No. Of course not.’

We finished our drinks in silence, and when Andrew came over I insisted on paying. Libby picked up the box of rhubarb.

‘You don’t have to make jam, really,’ she said. ‘It was a joke.’

‘No; I’ll make it. I want to.’

‘I’m so embarrassed about everything. Can I look at your house now?’

After Libby had gone the day darkened and it started to rain. I curled up on the sofa in front of the fire and knitted some more of my sock, while listening to the spit and hiss of the logs and the lazy rolling of the sea. Now that I was into a rhythm
with the sock I could just about think of other things while knitting it, and so my thoughts drizzled along with the rain. At one point I imagined myself with Rowan, and colours formed in my mind like an unexpected rainbow. I imagined walking down the beach with him and getting him to promise me – to swear on his life – that the moment he stopped loving me he would leave me. Not a year later, or seven years later, or thirty years later: the very moment it happened. But I couldn’t even imagine walking down the beach with Rowan, not really. I could barely imagine sharing a cup of tea together in this cottage. I couldn’t imagine us ever going on a train together, or taking it in turns with the review section of the newspaper, or him walking B because I had a headache. I couldn’t imagine ever looking in my purse for 50p for something and then him automatically looking in his pocket or wallet when I couldn’t find it. He’d have to start loving me before he could stop. There’d have to be a beginning and an end to the rainbow, both of which were impossible to contemplate.