Turn Us Again (39 page)

Jenny doesn't reply.

On Thursday I get home late from work, bearing bags of Chinese take-out because it is my turn to cook.

“Sorry, but I have to continue working after dinner. There's a deadline tomorrow and as usual the media guys have given me half the visuals at the last moment.”

“No problem. Susan and I will have to watch
Pride and Prejudice
without you.”

“With Colin Firth? How many times have you seen that thing?”

“You wouldn't understand,” says Susan.

If Jenny had said it, I would have laughed. But since we came back from the hotel I've glimpsed the cat's claws several times. Is this because Jenny has told her she'll have to move on next weekend? If so, I can understand her feeling pissed with me and forgive a few scratches. Or is it because she has been here long enough to feel comfortable, and the early restraint is wearing thin?

My scream brings them both running to the study. All the drawers have been emptied on the floor, scrambled with the papers on the desk. The contents of the ashtray have been scattered over the keyboard, and the printer has been drinking coffee.

We look at the mess in silence.

“How the hell did April get in here? And how could she do so much damage without someone stopping her?”

“Gabriel, let's not get angry. Let's just try to fix it. I'll get some paper towel and cleaning stuff. You'll have to sort the papers.”

“I'm not getting angry, Jenny. But this mess must have taken a while. I don't understand where everybody was while she was doing this.”

By everybody I mean Susan, since Jenny has been at work all day.

“I don't know.” Jenny looks at Susan, but she says nothing.

Jenny goes out to get the cleaning stuff. I resolve not to speak to Susan, but a low titter spins me around as though I am attached to a thread. She is sitting on the arm of my chair and laughing.

“You think this is funny?”

“I think April is one amazing little girl. She must have snuck in here, quietly, and had a ball.” Uproarious laughter.

I'm not a calm man. I never have been. At this moment I feel such rage I could have kicked her teeth in. But it's one thing to feel these things, another to do them.

“Get out of this room.”

“Oh lighten up, Gabriel. We'll clean it up in two shakes. Besides, I've noticed you're not the cleanest person in the world. A little coffee stain on your printer should make you feel right at home.”

There are pinpricks behind my fucking eyes. I am going to do something emotional, like cry for God's sakes. Better to yell.

“I have a deadline tomorrow, and all my papers are in a mess, you fucking bitch. Since you're staying in my goddamn home, you might pretend to have some sympathy!”

“It's not you I have to thank for that, is it? You'd love to see me gone, but you don't have a choice, do you?”

At that moment Jenny comes in, and Susan puts her arm around her and smiles. I swear I hear the yowl of a cat.

I charge out of the room, but some instinct makes me creep back and stand to one side of the open door, listening.

“Really, Jenny. I don't want to pry or anything, but you've dumped better boyfriends than that one. What on earth do you see in him?”

“Gabriel is a very real person. Straightforward, honest, not a shred of deceit in him. I'm sorry he's making your stay here difficult, but at least he's not scheming behind your back. You know exactly what he thinks of you.”

“I'd rather not know, frankly. And who cares about honesty when he's a smoking gun, all ready to blow up? Personally, I think he's dangerous. Like father like son.”

I stiffen. How could Jenny tell her awful sister about my father? How could she?

“But not like Madelyn, like Jenny. I won't put up with any crap. Besides, I prefer our battles to the way that you and Dave interact, tip-toeing around in circles without ever meeting head-on. Avoiding conflict like the plague while you brim with resentment. I prefer Gabriel's here-I-am-take-me-or-leave-me approach.”

“Until you end up in hospital.”

“Oh don't be ridiculous, Susan.”

Next Weekend, I think. Next weekend, next weekend next weekend nextweekend nextweekend nextweekend nextweekend nextweekend nextweekend …

Susan and her small House Wrecker are still entrenched the following Saturday. I lie in bed alone and work myself up into a fury. This is my fucking house. It is inexcusable to impose upon me in this way. Jenny is behaving in a weak and pathetic fashion. If we are to have a long-lasting relationship she has to get her priorities right.

She pops in, smiling, with my breakfast on a tray.

“Have you talked to your sister yet?”

The smile wavers. “She's so depressed, Gabriel. She's lost her bearings, and it's hard because she's always been so sure of herself. She understands it's a terrible imposition, but she asks for another couple of weeks.”

“No way, no fucking way. Did you see what happened to my office?”

“Stop swearing all the time…”

“Since when have you given a fuck about my swearing…”

“We cleaned your office up.”

“We agreed that she'd be gone by this weekend.”

“I didn't agree. I said I'd talk to her.”

I stare at Jenny, wondering what she would say if I told her how unpleasant Susan had always been to me. She would doubt me, wondering why I'd never mentioned it before. Or she'd think I was being paranoid, since I'd apparently acquired that label. It would sound so childish: “Susan doesn't like me. Susan isn't nice to me.”

“I need a date, an exact departure date, Jenny.”

“Look Gabriel, it's not like I'm fighting with you and laughing with Susan. I have the same unpleasant conversations with her. I'm the one caught in the middle. Of course I want an exact date too. What do you think, that I like all of us squished in this tiny house with you being so aggressive all the time?”

“I'm being aggressive? When have I been aggressive, for fuck's sake?”

“You don't even know you're being aggressive. That sentence you just said was aggressive.”

“I sprinkle fucks on my language like you sprinkle salt on your potatoes, and it's never bothered you. It's Susan telling you I'm aggressive.”

“Now you're being paranoid. Eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

I'm not hungry. What a shit feeling. Which is worse, April and her spoiled destructiveness or her feline mother? I can hear April's yodelling and exclaiming and yapping and crying every second of the day. I encounter wet patches all over the house, and when I don't encounter them I imagine them. The thick yellow mucus-train chugging out of April's nostrils is everywhere, underfoot, on the couches, smeared under tabletops.

I cannot wander around my own house freely. The difference between having guests and being alone with Jenny was emphasized at the hotel. Enough is enough. I will speak to Susan myself.

I dress and go downstairs. It is pissing rain, as usual. Our dining room table has been converted into an art studio, draped with a plastic tablecloth and newspapers. April sits at one end, naked, dipping her brush into different colours and smearing them hither and thither. Ten minutes to set up, twenty minutes to clean up, five minutes (max) occupation for two-year-old.

“Hello!” I cry in my falsely jovial fashion. I am determined to be reasonable, cool. Lay out the facts. Enough is enough.

I go to the mantelpiece and grope for my cigarettes. An indispensable aid in keeping cool.

Susan turns to me with a bright smile, even falser than mine. “Do you think we could reserve one room for smoking? Perhaps that small room off the hallway. I've been meaning to say something for ages, Gabriel. It's such a disgusting habit, and it's so bad for April's little lungs. I hope you don't mind?”

I am flummoxed, frozen in mid-thought. Even Susan couldn't be so stupid as to … unless she's trying to antagonize me. If so she is succeeding.

“Actually I do mind, Susan. This is my home, and I think I should be allowed to smoke wherever I please, especially since I only smoke about three or four a day. I don't appreciate being told that a most pleasurable luxury is ‘disgusting,' and I don't give a fuck about April's little lungs. Do we understand each other?”

“Jenny hates you smoking too, or is this just your house, you selfish bully? And you'll be glad to know that April used the f-word the other day, loudly, in the grocery store.” And with that she pounces on April, who is descending from her chair anyway, decked in all the colours of the rainbow. “Cleanup time!” she chirps cheerily, returning to the ongoing saga of life-is-wonderful-all-adults-are happy, even while she bolts from her husband and threatens her sister's boyfriend with wrathful heart attacks.

“I have something important to say to you!” my voice pings off the retreating wall of her back. There is nothing so infuriating as reasonable plans thwarted.

I stomp up and down the room in anger, blowing my cigarette smoke vengefully. Jenny makes the huge mistake of presenting me with a cup of tea.

“Did you tell your sister that you dislike my smoking?” I snap, pushing the tea away. It spills over my hand.

She sets it down. “Calm down Gabriel, before you do something you'll regret.”

“You tell that fucking bitch to get out of our house before you regret it,” I bawl at her.

“I have talked to her, and I told you that she asked for another couple of weeks. Okay?” Jenny's voice remains calm. This puts my emotion irrevocably in the wrong, even if I am right. If she experienced the same feelings as me, and yet controlled them, then she might have the right to smirk at my lack of control. But why should a cold fish smirk at a tiger? There is no merit in her frigid restraint.

Still, I struggle to achieve coolness in my voice, even while the blood beats against my eyes.

“No, it's not okay, Jenny. She has just told me I can't smoke in my own home and that fucking bale of straw just broke the camel's back. She has got to leave now.”

“Don't be ridiculous — one little ‘misdemeanor' after weeks of exemplary behaviour and you want to crack the whip? Don't you realize how much she's tried to accommodate you, creeping around hiding April as much as possible? Remember, this is my house too. I'm sure you'll survive another couple of weeks.”

“How dare you portray Susan as the accommodating martyr in the ogre's house! It is I who have been accommodating, allowing a narrow-minded, limited fool to inhabit my house for weeks. I insist you tell her to leave right now, or I will.”

“Don't push me around, Gabriel. I'm not asking her to leave after you've just had an unpleasantness, and neither are you. You won't even see her for the rest of the day. I'm sure she'll stay out of your way.”

“She's taking advantage of us, and I'm supposed to be grateful for her disappearing acts, and the fact she cleans up the outrageous messes of her own kid? I want her out of my house now. Do you understand that?”

“Keep your voice down, she'll hear you. You're just being a bully.”

My voice ricochets off the ceiling. “I don't give a fuck whether she hears me or not!”

As I deteriorate into a bubbling cauldron, Jenny metamorphoses into a prim, self-righteous school marm. “It's so stupid and immature to use that language…”

“Shut up!”

Jenny's recriminations flow on without a break. “You can't control yourself at all, can you? If we're going to stay together you're going to have to see a shrink or something about this violence.”

“Shut up!” I yell.

“You think you're being good, just because you're not screaming the place down every day. Your sense of entitlement makes me sick. You're so selfish!”

What have I done? “I just got back. I'm in terrible shape....”

“Oh yawn,” she interrupts. “That's you all over. You behave badly, and then you justify it. Whine, whine.”

A slow, red heat beats at my temples. “I haven't behaved badly. I'll show you bad behaviour, so you'll know the difference next time,” I hiss, moving towards her in a menacing fashion.

“Look at you, you stupid ape. I'm calling the shrink myself.”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

She shoves her face towards mine as the steady stream of her contempt ripples relentlessly. “You're a selfish bully just like your father.”

Then it happens. Before I can think. Before I can stop it. Not hard. A sudden thwack across the face to shut her the fuck up.

THIRTY-TWO

I
wander around for hours, rehashing the conversation over and over again. ‘I should have said this. Why didn't I think to say that?' My eloquence grows like a fetus with each rehearsal, until my mass of logic runs on interrupted while Jenny listens entranced. At first I'm unaware of passersby, but a sudden giggle alerts me to the fact that I am muttering to myself, and I head towards Point Pleasant Park to wander people-less trails.

After getting what I should have said down pat, I begin to justify my loss of temper. Her calm is so provocative. Is there anything more galling than unmerited contempt just because I have a passionate character? And her allusions to my violence. How stupid is she? I'd told her in no uncertain terms never to compare me with my father, how offensive I found it. And here she is, barely a month after my return, insisting I have a problem with violence. She should meet somebody who is really violent, to know the difference. Somebody who would bash her face in, blacken her eyes, just like my father did.

She's a controlled, unfeeling, unimaginative human being who cannot begin to understand the emotional complexity of somebody like me. How easy it must be to go through life as a Jenny, just like everybody else. I curse Jenny for not revelling in the fact that I am different.

I did hit her. I know this is wrong. Still, I didn't hurt her, and she was being so provocative. Am I automatically in the wrong, just because I'm a man and therefore stronger? I can't see why society should dictate such illogicalities anymore than it decides whether I smoke or not. If my
hit
is a light tap, no more than she is capable of giving me, then where is the wrong? I am not using my superior strength to advantage.

Of course, my rationalizations are bringing the argument onto another level of unpleasantness. Okay, it's wrong. I have to concede this.

Hunger pangs have been cavorting around my stomach for some time now. I glance at my watch and am amazed to discover it's five in the evening. I have been wandering for over four hours. A quick pat on my rear reminds me that I stalked out of the house without any money. I am torn between hunger (tripled once noticed) and the desire to drive Jenny frantic by staying out all night. I succumb after another hour of threatened famine and skulk back to the house.

Nobody is at home. At first I feel relief. Instead of spending the evening sulking and angry, I am free. I lock the door and leave the key in the lock, so that nobody can enter unless I let them in. Then I don a pair of holey underwear, which I could never wear in the presence of Susan (let alone April, who would no doubt evince unhealthy interest in my unexplored territory) and roll a joint. Jenny doesn't exactly disapprove of marijuana — it's more that she doesn't enjoy it herself. Therefore, in true woman-like fashion, she sets out to diminish my enjoyment. For example, she knows I always love to talk when stoned, so she'll turn on the TV. If I pursue my conversational desire, she'll purse her lips and say, “I'm sorry Gabriel, but I'd rather watch the film. You aren't talking very intelligently, you know.” Since I'm under the impression that I am being very intelligent indeed, this never fails to crush me. I subside and try to concentrate on the film, which is so clever it's beyond me altogether.

So it is a ‘fuck you' gesture to light up and fill the house with the reek of joint, especially as I expect Jenny and her sister to waltz in together.

After spending an eternity enjoying my stone and marvelling that time is passing so slowly, I make Kraft Dinner, adding masses of extra cheese and some hot sauce. Jenny likes healthy meals, and literally gags on Kraft Dinner. I know it's rotten food, but I have a sneaking fondness for it and often slip a packet or two into the cart when it's my turn to do the shopping. I also gather chips, yogurt, a large bottle of coke and my cigarettes within comfortable reach and turn on the television.

When I start to nod off, I totter towards bed, leaving yogurt cartons and cigarette butts rebelliously in my wake. If I am lucky, perhaps they will discover April exploring a cigarette butt.

I glance at my watch before I succumb to exhaustion — 11:00 p.m. Perhaps Jenny had the same idea about ‘punishing' me by doing a disappearing act. If she knew how unworried I am.

The next day is different. Enough already. I try to enjoy my breakfast but find myself listening every time somebody goes by the house, to see if they are going to stop and come in. Then I start to imagine footsteps coming up to the door. Twice I go to the hall in case the door needs to be unlocked.

I am annoyed at myself and the ruination of my Sunday. I go out and visit a friend in the afternoon, for the pleasure of sitting and watching TV with somebody else. It happens to be a mutual friend, and I ask him if he's heard from Jenny, like, in the past twenty-four hours. He hasn't.

By nighttime I am seriously worried. Any punishment owed to me by my mild slap has surely been wiped out by now. Jenny is driving me mad with anxiety. I phone a few friends, planning how to bring up the main subject after forcing myself to blah blah blah for a few minutes about how they are and what my trip was like, if I haven't talked to them since my return. And of course I haven't, since Jenny maintains the contact with the majority of our friends.

Then, “I don't suppose Jen has contacted you in the past couple of days, has she?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“She told me she was going off for the weekend, and I've forgotten where she said she was going.”

A short, disbelieving silence.

“Anyway, I need to contact her with a message from her parents so I'm reduced to phoning all our friends.”

“Surely she wouldn't go to a friend's house for an entire weekend, without you?”

“No, no, of course not.” Ditch original idea, obviously implausible. “I just thought she might have mentioned where she's going to one of our friends. Anyway, nice talking to you. Better continue with the phoning.”

“Good luck finding her.” Blatantly incredulous tone.

Fuck you.

And so on it goes all evening. Nobody has heard from her.

In the end I give up and go to bed. I'm in an anxious turmoil, and imagine accusing Jenny with cruel mistreatment when she decides to show up. ‘Maybe she's had an accident,' I think, ‘and she's lying half-dead by the side of the road.'

This is the type of thing Jenny would think, if the positions were reversed, so she could dump buckets of guilt over my head when I did return. But I'm unable to get worked up about this idea. There has been no accident. Jenny has disappeared because she's angry with me. For God's sake, what did I do?

I hit her.

I can't sleep all night. At some point I switch on the light. There is a notebook by the side of the bed. I tear out a page.

I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her.

I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her. I hit her.

How bad is that?

I need to think. Give me clarity. Stop justifying. Oh God.

She said horrible things. I wanted her to stop. I was more upset than she was, because I get more upset. My emotions are stronger, more violent. Life is harder for me. It wouldn't have happened if she accepted that, and learned how to handle me. NO NO NONONONONONONONONONONO.

That's just what my father said.

No, please no.

I can't bear it.

I crumple up the page and throw it on the floor. The pain is like a physical presence in my heart. Think. Think. It isn't just about the hitting. It's a whole way of perceiving and relating to the world.

I have to change.

Somehow.

I cover my face with my hands and weep.

The next day I phone in sick to work and continue dialling numbers: neighbours, work colleagues, anybody who has ever met Jenny. Finally, after sitting for a long time over the phone gnawing my knuckles in dread, I phone her parents.

“Hi, this is Gabriel.” I try to iron out the belligerent undertones.

“Oh hello. How are you?”

Just do it, just ask right away so it's not hanging over me anymore. No crap about her going away this weekend because if she's there they know all and I'll sound ridiculous. “Do you have any idea where Jenny is?”

“Jenny?” in surprised query.

“Yes.” Remember your daughter whom you called the uninspiring name of Jenny?

“Why would we know where she is? Isn't she living with you?”

“Okay, thanks.” I hang up. It rings two minutes later.

“Has Jenny disappeared?” I can hear the hope in their voices — maybe she's left me.

“Disappeared? How dramatic. No, there's been a communication glitch, and I don't remember where she was supposed to be this weekend. Never mind, sorry to bother you.”

I replace the phone, determined not to pick it up again if it should ring. It doesn't.

Then I phone the police, in order to register her as a missing person. I think you can do that after twenty-four hours or something. In the middle of the phone call I hear the doorknob twisting back and forth. I drop the phone and run to the door, wrenching the key around and flinging it open. It's Jenny. She doesn't look at me, just pushes past with two big suitcases in her hands and disappears up the stairs. I bark an explanation down the mouthpiece and rush after her. She's placing her jewellery box carefully into the corner of the suitcase. I feel fear, and bluster.

“I've been looking for you for two days! I just got off the phone to the police.”

“I've just come to get my things. You're supposed to be at work.”

“Why are you leaving me? Why are you overreacting like this?”

“Nobody hits me. Nobody. It's not decent human behaviour, and I won't put up with it.”

“I didn't hit you hard.”

“Not this time.”

There is a steely quality to her voice that dissuades me from pursuing a ‘you're overreacting it was nothing' tactic. Besides, that's not the truth. I want to tell her that I understood the truth, for a fleeting second, last night.
It's a whole way of perceiving and relating to the world
.

“Jenny, listen to me. I understand that I need to change my patterns. The way I relate to the world. To you. My reactions.”

“I'm not interested Gabriel. Shut up Gabriel.”

This isn't how she is supposed to react to my revelations. Anger stirs in my belly. It's okay if I allow one angry sentence. I can control it.

“I tap you on the face, and you chuck years of building a relationship away, like it doesn't matter? Are you so superficial that you can't understand what's important?”

She doesn't even look at me. “You've always been a dam waiting to burst. It's not the one smack on the face, it's the constant potential.”

“I know that. You're not listening to me. I know I have to change the way I react.”

“Look at you,” her voice vibrates contempt. “Your voice is getting angry even while you say you need to change.”

“Because you're not listening. I mean it. I will learn to react differently, but I need your help.”

“Oh, no Gabriel. Your ability to control yourself can't depend on some script I should be following. And if I don't, then what? ‘Oh sorry I hit you but it was your fault'?”

An angry retort pulses around my lips — I can't do this alone, you have to help. But then suddenly, for a fleeting second, I get it.

“You're right, Jenny. I need to travel this path alone. It doesn't depend on anything you do. You are your own person, and I am mine.”

Jenny doesn't reply. I look at her face, trying to absorb the fact that it doesn't matter what I think at all. Jenny can destroy our relationship, single-handed. My opinion has nothing to do with it. I feel frightened, desperate. In any relationship, one owns the prerogative to leave. It is the strength of the weaker half.

“What can I do to make you stay?”

“Nothing.”

“It was wrong, I was in the wrong. I lost it. Please. There is so much that is good in our relationship.”

“That's what all violent people say. And alcoholics. That they won't do it again.”

“Please. It's the first time I've lost it like that. You have to give me a second chance. If anything like that happens again, you can leave. Please. It won't happen again.” The spectre of losing Jenny paralyzes me.

Jenny sits on the bed and looks at me for a long time. I pray that she will give me another chance. I pray passionately to God, for the first time since I was a child. The remembrance of this fear will stay my hand forever.

“I will be in touch,” she says, snapping the suitcase closed and going to the door.

“You're leaving?” I whisper. I can't believe it.

She turns to look at me. “I'll be in touch.”