I was browsing Claire’s email, losing any claim to moral superiority over Charlie’s bugging, when the reply from work popped up.
As long as you don’t come in too often ;-)
I felt surprisingly moved by this backhanded compliment.
But Claire’s inbox confirmed what I had expected. Dinner tonight in London with Concertina Ray.
I sent her an email:
How’s the deal going? Make sure you and the guys have worked through your BATNA. Good luck.
The reply came straight away:
Thanks. Deadline Monday. The weekend to decide. Leaning towards yes. We haven’t talked, but assuming for purposes of decision that you are not a part of it. Let me know if you want to discuss. Love, Claire.
I lay on the bed. What about Claire?
Claire had been my Charlie. Her message said she had not given up on me, but Leaning towards yes meant leaning towards moving to the US. Yet she still seemed prepared take my wishes into account.
Angelina was no longer an option. Say it again. Angelina was no longer an option. Where did that leave Claire?
Not twenty-four hours earlier I had been ready to make a life with another woman. I had told Angelina—and myself—that I left Claire for the prospect of something better.
I emailed back: Best to assume I’m not part of it.
I decided not to add any warnings based on what Charlie had told me. It would only appear that I was trying to talk her out of the deal, which would be as good as saying that I wanted her to stay in the UK. I did not want to let down a second person who had imagined a future with me.
My meditations on what to do with my own life were brought to a halt by Angelina putting her head in the door. She had been crying.
‘I did what you wanted me to do. Made it right with Charlie. I want you to know it wasn’t easy.’
‘Do you think you needed to?’
‘I know I needed to. I knew that already.’
‘For him or you?’
‘Him. Which means ultimately both of us, I guess.’
She turned and left before I could say anything more.
I leaned back into the pillows, trying to work it out. What had been so traumatic about confirming her commitment? Was I missing something?
A few minutes later, Charlie called me from the kitchen. ‘Hey, Adam, you still want that beer?’
We sat outside. Charlie had put out a plate of the best anchovies and olives I had ever tasted, with crusty bread.
‘More Spanish than French,’ he said. ‘Save some room for dinner.’
The beer and food made me feel a bit better and a load seemed to have been lifted from Charlie, at least since the morning. Angelina came down after about forty-five minutes, with the puffiness gone from her eyes but still looking flat.
Charlie fetched fresh beers, and had been forward-thinking enough to make a double mix of margaritas, which apparently contained the correct amount of Cointreau. I tasted Angelina’s and it seemed fine to me.
‘So,’ said Charlie. ‘Have you guys got it out of your systems?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and gave Angelina a look.
‘You read anything by John Irving?’ said Charlie.
‘The World According to Garp?’
‘That’s the man. But I’m thinking Hotel New Hampshire.’
‘I might have seen the film.’
Charlie laughed. ‘I doubt this bit’s in the film. The hero’s in love with his older sister. They can’t keep their hands off each other, even though they’ve never gone the whole enchilada. Then one day she calls him up—they’re adults living in apartments—and says, “Come on over and have your way with me.” So he races across New York and screws his big sister. And when he’s done, she says, “Do it again, and again.” Until he’s begging for mercy. And they’ve both really got it out of their systems.’
‘Cigarettes,’ I said. ‘When I was fifteen, my mother caught me smoking and made me smoke the whole pack. Until I threw up. Probably saved my life.’
‘They don’t make mothers like that anymore. She’d probably get put away for child abuse by the morality police,’ said Charlie.
‘When’s dinner?’ said the Equal Opportunity Commissioner. ‘I’m going to eat all that bread if you don’t take it away.’
‘Dinner,’ said Charlie, ‘will be at seven-thirty. And afterwards, we shall take the Hotel New Hampshire cure.’
‘Charlie. That’s enough.’
He smiled. ‘I speak metaphorically, of course. Nobody’s going to have to screw their soulmate. We’re going to play music until we’ve all had enough.’
‘What do you mean, we?’ I said.
‘I’ve got a blues harp,’ said Charlie. ‘Careful what you wish for.’
My beer bottle was almost empty, but I raised it and clinked it with Charlie’s. Angelina waited a few moments before joining in with her cocktail glass.
‘Amen to that,’ I said.
It would have been simple enough for Charlie to say, ‘Since this is your last night together, feel free to have a sentimental musical send-off.’ But that would not have been in character. He had to frame everything as a game.
It was hard to see how Charlie had taken the resolution of the marital crisis. He played his cards close to his stentreinforced chest; a lot could change beneath the veneer before any cracks showed on the surface. Angelina was looking more composed. Which left me.
Back in my room, I looked in the mirror again. Maybe I was fooling myself, but I didn’t see Freddie Sharp looking back.
Dinner was a tour de force, in keeping with tradition, except this time I made a contribution. The Jamie Oliver recipe for pork shoulder, which I had always bought in a ready-to-cook pack, was on the internet, and once I’d committed it to memory I only needed one surreptitious look at my phone to recheck the marinade ingredients. As a seasoned consultant, I was able to translate my last-minute cribbing into an impression of expertise good enough to convince my client, and put him on the defensive by raising an eyebrow at the lack of allspice berries.
The kettle barbecue had only been used once. The coals had cooled before the cooking finished, and Charlie had decided it was a bad job. I offered him some instruction and he was a willing student. An Australian taking lessons on barbecuing from an Englishman, albeit via California and Randall. Could it be any clearer that he did not feel competitive towards me?
Well, yes. The hors d’oeuvres threatened to kill our appetites. All week he had been sending me a message with the food and wine: This is what you would have to match. And to Angelina: This is what you would be missing.
Charlie was being less pushy with the wine than usual, and when Angelina waved an empty glass at him, he said, ‘Steady, it’s a long night.’
As we picked the meat from the not-too-rare-but-still-moist quail—blasted, at my internet-informed suggestion, for fifteen minutes at 300°C over the hot coals—I asked, ‘So, what do you eat of a Friday night at home?’
‘Not too different to this,’ said Angelina. ‘But Thursdays we always eat out at the same place.’
‘I know it sounds boring,’ said Charlie, ‘but we both work crazy hours, and if we didn’t lock in something, we’d never get around to having time for ourselves. Angelina would never get out of her work clothes.’
‘Your idea, right?’ I said.
‘We treat it like a business meeting. No cancelling without rescheduling, and the guys at the restaurant know us and look after us.’
She smiled, the first time I had seen her smile since the walk. ‘Family dinner on Sunday nights. Compulsory attendance.’
I excused myself to go to the toilet, then went to my room and checked my email. Claire had replied.
Message received. I’d still like to talk sometime. We should stay friends. Going to London Sunday to talk with VJ and Tim pre The Big Meeting on Monday.
I mailed back a Good Luck.
I walked back to the smell of roasting pork, and the voices of th
e couple who were going home to date nights and family dinners and everlasting love.
‘Thought we’d lost you,’ said Charlie.
‘Taking a bit of time out,’ I said. ‘Reflecting on what you two have managed to do. If I’d done half what you’ve done with Claire…’
‘You’d want to think it was enough, wouldn’t you?’
Angelina’s lips tightened. Charlie’s point was clear. It almost hadn’t been enough.
‘Charlie,’ I said. ‘You know I love Angelina. She’s a fantastic person and I’ve often wished I’d married her, even though it would have been a mistake. For her, in particular. The time I spent in Australia…’
I was drifting from my point, like a drunk. Do not start the next sentence with I just want to say.
‘I just want to say that if she has to be with someone else, I’m glad she’s with you.’
The smile he gave me in response was unmistakably ironic.
36
As promised, we adjourned to the piano after dinner and Charlie lined up not one harmonica but a fleet of eleven, one for each key.
It had cooled a little, and Charlie lit the fire again. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘This is how we play Fuck Your Sister.’
‘We’re not playing anything if you’re going to call it that,’ said Angelina.
‘Smoke Till You’re Sick, then. We play every song that means anything to you two until you don’t want to hear them anymore. Are we all in agreement? This is your doctor speaking.’
‘Some doctor,’ said Angelina. ‘Doctors have drugs.’
‘Fortunately,’ said Dr Charlie, ‘drugs Charlie supplies.’
He disappeared to the cellar.
Angelina looked at me. ‘You okay with this?’
‘I’m okay.’
Charlie came back with a bottle. I use the word loosely: I judged it as about a double magnum—a jeroboam in champagne country.
‘This is what is known as a pot gascon. Two and half litres of Armagnac.’
If I got nothing else from the week, I had another bottle size to add to my pub-quiz repertoire.
‘Did I get the year right?’ He tilted the bottle towards me. It was a 1963 vintage. My birth year.
‘You certainly did. Shit, don’t open it for me.’
‘It keeps. And we’re not here forever.’
I fetched balloons from the dresser in the dining area and Charlie poured three big measures. So much for going easy on the drink.
‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s on first?’
I’d had some time to think about it. While almost every love song reminded me of Angelina, we had few mutually special songs. Charlie didn’t need to know that.
‘Australian song,’ I said. ‘Nick Cave.’ I played ‘The Ship Song’, released a few months after Angelina and I had parted. It was more acknowledgment of reality than cry of pain. But Angelina took over the singing and it became apparent that there would be no easy options tonight. It was equally apparent that what we were doing had nothing to do with working it out of our systems. No, this was a test: Do your worst, Adam, do the one thing you do better than me, the one thing you and Angelina have that she and I don’t, and let’s be sure that she won’t crack. A few hours after she’s cried an apology and promise of uncompromised love. I may have seen a hard man in the mirror this morning, but I was surely looking at another one now with his elbow and his brandy balloon resting on top of the piano.
Fuck you, Charlie.
I played a few chords, hit a couple of wrong notes and stood up, consciously putting a lid on my anger.
‘I think that Armagnac’s finished me. Sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Angelina. She squeezed my arm. ‘I’d still like to sing a few songs with you. It’s our last night.’
She sat at the piano and sang Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Angel’, about waiting all your life for a second chance. She played nicely, and her mature voice suited the song—as well as ripping my heart out.
Enough. I was over having our feelings laid out for someone else’s assessment. I took the stool back.
‘This was one my father used to play,’ I said, and sang ‘For Once in My Life’. Angelina, of course, had never met him. Nor had Claire. His memory was now shared only with my mother.
I sang about not letting sorrow defeat me, about being able to make it through, and, in memory of my dad, the man who I did not want to be but who right now I was happy to have in my corner, I fudged the augmented fifth. I felt a bit better.
It was after midnight.
‘One more song each,’ said Charlie. ‘Ladies first.’
Angelina took my place at the piano again. It was a good thing, because, though I was familiar with the song, I would have stepped away. Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’. Angelina knew that I had played it at my father’s funeral. What message was she trying to send?
She sang the French song in English—‘No Regrets’—which for me weakens it. A song in a foreign language that you understand but are not fluent in has a special poetry, and the English version is not an exact translation. Gone is the beautiful ambiguity in the line about lighting the fire with your memories.
Angelina was well into the song before I realised that it was not about me at all. She was looking at Charlie, and Charlie was looking right back.
If it was a staring contest, she won. Charlie dropped his eyes and turned away from the piano as Angelina sang the last verse. He topped up his glass, then walked back.
‘That was the song we played at my old man’s funeral,’ he said.
There was no cosmic coincidence here. For men of our fathers’ generation, ‘No Regrets’ was up there with ‘My Way’ on the funeral hit parade.
‘Your turn, Adam,’ said Charlie.
Angelina interrupted my attempt to think of something to take the tension down.
‘Play the one you played last night. “Angelina”.’
That wasn’t going to do it.
‘I said it was Adam’s choice,’ said Charlie. There was an edge to his voice, the edge of someone who has had one drink too many. It had been a hell of a day for me, but surely worse for Charlie, even if he had ended up with the better outcome.
‘Happy to take advice,’ I said.
I sang it through, just as a song, not a cry of anguished love. This time I remembered the verse about doing my best to love her but being unable to play the game.
‘Got a musical challenge for you,’ said Charlie. ‘A bet, if you like. What’s the most original rhyme in that song?’
‘Original or outrageous?’
‘That’ll be the one.’
‘Angelina and subpoena.’ It’s a song of perfect rhymes. No Ditta and bitter.
‘Agreed. So the question is: who was the first lyricist to use that rhyme?’
‘What do I win?’ I said, and immediately regretted it. I could see us both doing something appallingly stupid.
I looked at Charlie and pleaded with raised eyebrows: don’t do it.
Angelina was standing stock-still. I had never heard the rhyme outside this song, but I am an experienced user of limited information. Three times a week.
I could think of only three contenders, unless it was a show tune, which was a strong possibility. That’s where you find the witty rhymes. It would be a lottery among the Lerner-andLoewes and Stephen Sondheims.
The trick option was Dylan. Most people wouldn’t have asked the question if that was the answer. But Charlie wasn’t most people.
Then there was the parody- or comedy-song option. The leading contender would be Tom Lehrer. ‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park’. Except he only made three studio albums and my dad had them all. That rhyme was not there. Sammy Cahn, maybe. He used to do songs to order. Maybe for some famous legal colleague.
My final option was the undisputed king of rhyming. Better still, I knew where the lyric would fit. Write it down, Sheilagh.
Charlie still had not told me what he was wagering. Please don’t say
Angelina. Because then I’ll have to fake a wrong answer.
‘Angelina,’ said Charlie. ‘Get it right and you can sleep with her. One last time.’
All right. Just sex. That wasn’t a problem at all. I would just have to deal with the emotional consequences later.
‘W. S. Gilbert, in Trial by Jury,’ I said.
I think astonishment would be a good word for the expression on Charlie’s face.
‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t like you on the other side of an acquisition.’
‘I believe I get a say in this,’ Angelina said. Her tone made it clear that Charlie had crossed the line.
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘You don’t. If you wanted a say, you should have said so before Adam answered the question. Anyway, you’ve chosen every other night.’
Big difference between choosing and having someone else choose for you. Of course I wasn’t going to sleep with Angelina if she didn’t want it. She knew that. Perhaps it was on that basis that she let it go, at least for the moment. She was simmering.
Charlie got to choose the final song. No surprise there. I wondered what he would request if he was drunk in a piano bar. I imagined him walking up with a twenty in one hand, scotch in the other. It would have to be a song of his unstinting, self-sacrificing love for Angelina. Nothing obscure. ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’? ‘Wonderful Tonight’?
‘“Bird on a Wire”,’ he said. ‘Leonard Cohen. Do you know it?’
Deduct half a point. The title is ‘Bird on the Wire’. Written in Greece, circa 1968. Kris Kristofferson said he wanted the first two lines on his gravestone. Joe Cocker did a nice cover. Which is to say, I know it.
‘Bird on the Wire’ is not a song of love for another. It is a song of reflection, perhaps of apology, but mostly of self-justification. For the first time all week, Charlie was giving away something significant.
I played an intro, and after Charlie half-sang, half-talked the first couple of lines with me, I let him go on alone. He slowed it down, sang around the lyrics a bit, repeated lines, putting a lot into it. Angelina had backed away from the piano.