The Course of Love (16 page)

Arousal seems, in the end, to have very little to do with a state of undress; it draws its energy from the possibility of being granted permission to possess a deeply desirable, once forbidden yet now miraculously available and accessible other. It is an expression of grateful wonder, verging on disbelief, that in a world of isolation and disconnection, the wrists, thighs, earlobes, and napes of necks are all there, finally, for us to behold; an extraordinary concept that we want to keep checking up on, perhaps as often as every few hours, once more joyfully touching, inserting, revealing, and unclothing, so lonely have we been, so independent and remote have our lovers seemed. Sexual desire is driven by a wish to establish closeness—and is hence contingent on a preexisting sense of distance, which it is a perpetually distinctive pleasure and relief to try to bridge.

There is very little distance left between Rabih and Kirsten. Their legal status defines them as partners for life; they share a three-by-four-meter bedroom to which they repair every evening; they talk on the phone constantly when they are apart; they are each other's automatically assumed companions every weekend; they know ahead of time, and at most moments of the day and night, exactly what the other is doing. There is no longer very much in their conjoined existence that qualifies as distinctively “other”—and there is therefore little for the erotic to try to bridge.

At the close of many a day, Kirsten is reluctant even to be touched by Rabih, not because she no longer cares for him, but because she doesn't feel as if there is enough of her left to risk giving more away to another person. One needs a degree of autonomy before being undressed by someone else can feel like a treat. But
she has answered too many questions, forced too many small feet in too many shoes, pleaded and cajoled too many times. . . . Rabih's touch feels like another hurdle in the way of a long-delayed communion with her neglected interior. She wants to cleave tightly and quietly to herself rather than have her identity be further dispersed across yet more demands. Any advance threatens to destroy the gossamer-thin shell of her private being. Until she has had sufficient chance to reacquaint herself with her own thoughts, she can't even begin to take pleasure in gifting herself to another.

We may, in addition, feel embarrassed and almost intolerably exposed when asking for sex of a partner on whom we are already so deeply dependent in a variety of ways. It can be an intimacy too far, against a backdrop of tense discussions around what to do with the finances and the school drop-off, where to go on holiday and what kind of chair to buy, also to ask that a partner look indulgently upon our sexual needs: that they put on a certain article of clothing, or take a part in a dark scenario we crave, or lie down in a particular pose on the bed. We may not want to be relegated to the supplicant's role, or to burn up precious emotional capital in the name of a shoe fetish. We may prefer not to entrust fantasies which we know can make us look ludicrous or depraved to someone before whom we otherwise have to maintain poise and authority, as required by the daily negotiations and standoffs of conjugal life. We might find it a lot safer to think about a complete stranger instead.

The week before, Kirsten is alone in the house, up in the bedroom, one mid-afternoon. There's a program on the television about the North Sea fishing fleet based at Kinlochbervie in the northwest. We meet the fishermen, hear about their use of new sonar technology, and learn about a worrying decline in various piscine populations. At least there's a lot of herring about and the supply of
cod isn't too bad this year, either. A fisherman named Clyde captains a boat called the
Loch Davan.
Every week he goes out on the high seas, often venturing as far as Iceland or the tip of Greenland. He has a brutish, arrogant manner, a sharp jawline and angry, impatient eyes. The children won't be back from their friends' for another hour at least, but Kirsten gets up and shuts the bedroom door tightly nonetheless before taking off her trousers and lying back on the bed.

She's on the
Loch Davan
now, assigned a narrow cabin next to the bridge. There's a fierce wind rocking the boat like a toy, but above the roar she can just make out a knocking at the cabin door. It's Clyde; there must be some emergency on the bridge. But it turns out to be a different matter. He rips off her oilskins and takes her against the cabin wall without their exchanging a word. The bristles of his beard burn her skin. He is, crucially, barely literate, extremely coarse, almost preverbal, and as utterly worthless to her as she is to him. Thinking about the sex feels crude, urgent, meaningless—and very much more exciting than making love in the evening to someone she cares about deeply.

The motif of a beloved taking second place to a random stranger in a masturbatory fantasy has no logical part in Romantic ideology. But in practice it is precisely the dispassionate separation of love and sex that may be needed to correct and relieve the burdens of intimacy. Using a stranger bypasses resentments, emotional vulnerability, and any obligation to worry about another's needs. We can be just as peculiar and selfish as we like, without fear of judgment or consequence. All emotion is kept wonderfully at bay: there is not the slightest wish to be understood, and therefore no risk, either, of being misinterpreted and, consequently, of growing bitter or frustrated. We can, at last, have desire without needing to bring the rest of our exhaustingly encumbered
lives into the bed with us.

Kirsten isn't alone in finding it safer to partition off some bits of her sexuality from the rest of her life.

Tonight Rabih checks that his wife is asleep, whispers her name, and hopes she won't answer. Then, when he is sure it is safe, he tiptoes out, thinking he might, after all, make a good murderer, and heads down the stairs, past the childrens' rooms (he can see his son curled up with Geoffrey, his favorite bear) and to a little annex off the kitchen, where he navigates to his favorite chat room. It is almost midnight.

Here, too, things are so much easier than with his spouse. There's no need to wonder whether another person is in the mood; you just click on their name and, given the part of the Web they're in, assume they will be game.

He also doesn't have to worry, in this milieu, about being normal. This isn't the version of himself which has to do the school run tomorrow, or give a talk at work, or later host a dinner party with a few lawyers and a kindergarten teacher and his wife.

He doesn't have to be kind to or care about others. He doesn't even have to belong to his own gender. He can try out what it's like to be a shy and surprisingly convincing lesbian from Glasgow taking her first tentative steps towards a sexual awakening.

And then, the moment he's done, he can shut off the machine and return to being the person that so many other people—his children, his spouse and his colleagues—are relying on him to be.

From one perspective, it can seem pathetic to have to concoct fantasies rather than to try to build a life in which daydreams can reliably become realities. But fantasies are often the best thing we can make of our multiple and contradictory wishes: they allow us to inhabit one reality without destroying the other. Fantasizing spares those we care about from the full irresponsibility
and scary strangeness of our urges. It is, in its own way, an achievement, an emblem of civilization—and an act of kindness.

The imaginary incidents on the trawler and in the chat room aren't an indication that Rabih and Kirsten have ceased to love one another. They are signs that they are so engaged in each other's lives that they sometimes no longer have the inner freedom to make love without self-consciousness or an inhibiting sense of responsibility.

They are a modern couple and therefore share tasks according to a complex arrangement. Rabih goes to work five days a week but comes home early on Friday afternoons to look after the children, which he is also responsible for doing on Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Kirsten works Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays till two o'clock and on weekends is with the kids on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. He does Friday bathtime and prepares supper four nights a week. She buys the food and the household supplies, while he takes care of the trash, the car, and the garden.

It's just after seven on a Thursday evening. Since this morning Rabih has attended four meetings, dealt with a failing tile supplier, cleared up (he hopes) a misconception about tax rebates, and sought to bring the new CFO on board with a scheme for a client conference which could have great implications for the third quarter (or, alternatively, could be a bit of a mess). He has had to stand in the aisle of a crowded commuter bus for half an
hour each way and is now walking back from his stop in the rain. He is thinking about how great it will be finally to get home, pour himself a glass of wine, read the children a chapter of the Famous Five, kiss them good night, and sit down for a meal and some civilized conversation with his most sympathetic ally and friend, his spouse. He is at the end of his tether and inclined to feel (justifiably) sorry for himself.

Kirsten has meanwhile been home almost all day. After driving the children to school (there was an ugly fight in the car over a pencil case), she put away breakfast, made the beds, took three work-related calls (her colleagues seem to have a hard time remembering she's not in the office on Thursdays or Fridays), cleaned two bathrooms, vacuumed the house, and sorted out everyone's summer clothes. She arranged for a plumber to come and look at the taps, picked up the dry cleaning and delivered a chair to be reupholstered, booked a dental checkup for William, collected the children from school, prepared and fed them a (healthy) snack, cajoled them into doing their homework, got supper ready, ran a bath, and cleaned a set of ink stains off the living room floor. Now she is thinking how great it will be finally to have Rabih come home and take over so she can pour herself a glass of wine, read the children a chapter of the Famous Five, kiss them good night, and sit down for a meal and some civilized conversation with her most sympathetic ally and friend, her spouse. She is at the end of her tether and inclined to feel (justifiably) sorry for herself.

When they at last find themselves alone in bed reading, Kirsten doesn't want to cause trouble, but there are a few things on her mind.

“Will you remember to iron the duvet covers tomorrow?” she asks without raising her eyes from her book.

His stomach twists. He strives for patience. “It's Friday,” he points out. “I thought perhaps you could do that kind of thing on a Friday.”

Now she looks up. Her gaze is cold. “Gotcha, gotcha,” she says. “Domestic stuff: my job. Never mind. Sorry I asked.” Back to her book.

These grating, scratching encounters can be more exhausting than flat-out rage.

He thinks: I earn two-thirds of our income, possibly even more depending on how the total is calculated, but it seems I also do more than my fair share of everything else. I'm made to feel as though my work were solely something I was doing for me. In fact, it's rarely satisfying and invariably stressful. I can't be expected, on top of it all, to take on the duvets. I do my bit: I took the children swimming last weekend, and just now I loaded the dishwasher. Deep down, I want to be nurtured and protected. I'm furious.

And she thinks: Everyone seems to believe my two days at home are all about “relaxing” and that I'm lucky to have this time. But this family wouldn't hold together for five minutes without all the things I get done in the background. Everything is my responsibility. I long to take a break, but whenever I bring up some chore I want to pass on, I'm made to feel I'm being unfair—so, in the end, it seems easier to be quiet. There's something wrong with the lights again, and I will have to chase the electrician tomorrow. Deep down, I want to be nurtured and protected. I'm furious.

The modern expectation is that there will be equality in all things in the couple—which means, at heart, an equality of suffering. But calibrating grief to ensure an equal dosage is no easy task: misery is experienced subjectively, and there is always a temptation for each party to form a
sincere yet competitive conviction that, in truth, his or her life really is more cursed—in ways that the partner seems uninclined to acknowledge or atone for. It takes a superhuman wisdom to avoid the consoling conclusion that one has the harder life.

Kirsten goes to work for enough hours of the week and earns enough money that she isn't inclined to be overly grateful to Rabih just for his slightly greater salary. At the same time, Rabih has taken on enough tasks around the house, and has been left to fend for himself on a sufficient number of evenings, that he isn't inclined to be overly grateful to Kirsten just for her greater efforts around the children. Both are engaged with a sufficient share of the other's primary task not to be in any mood for unalloyed gratitude.

The difficulties of modern parents can in part be blamed on the way prestige is distributed. Couples are not only besieged by practical demands at every hour, they are also inclined to think of these demands as humiliating, banal, and meaningless, and are therefore likely to be averse to offering pity or praise to one another, or themselves, just for enduring them. The word prestige sounds wholly inappropriate when applied to the school run and the laundry because we have been perniciously trained to think of this quality as naturally belonging elsewhere, in high politics or scientific research, the movies or fashion. But, stripped to its essence, prestige merely refers to whatever is most noble and important in life.

We seem unwilling to allow for the possibility that the glory of our species may lie not only in the launching of satellites, the founding of companies, and the manufacturing of miraculously thin semiconductors but also in an ability—even if it is widely distributed among billions—to spoon yogurt into small mouths, find missing socks, clean toilets, deal with tantrums, and
wipe congealed things off tables. Here, too, there are trials worthy not of condemnation or sarcastic ridicule but also of a degree of glamour, so that they may be endured with greater sympathy and fortitude.