‘What I want to know,’ Mike said when they were seated in a booth with a couple of beers, ‘is what have I done to piss her off?’
‘I don’t think you’ve done anything to piss her off.’
‘Well why the hell won’t she see me? Why isn’t she answering her phone?’
‘She won’t see or talk to anyone except the bloke she’s in love with.’
Mike stared at him for several seconds. Then he took a drink of beer, lit a cigarette, drank some more, and then scratched his nose. ‘What bloke?’
‘This old fucker. She’s serious about him. True love and all that.’
Mike looked dejected. ‘When did this happen?’
‘When she was a kid.’
‘What?’
Jamie shrugged. ‘Nothing. I think it was my birthday. I think she went home with him on my birthday.’
‘Right, so that was… that’s only a month ago. I’ve been fucking her for six months; she can’t just ditch me for some blow in.’
Jamie laughed. ‘Right, you have seniority.’
Mike frowned as though he knew he was being made fun of but he wasn’t sure how. ‘Well, yeah, I do. Both of us screw around, but all the others are one-nighters. Six months is a long time for us. Me and Sarah have something special; we made a commitment.’
Jamie stopped laughing. Something was very wrong. He’d been expecting Mike to talk about how horny he was, or how angry he was that Sarah hadn’t even given him a good excuse. He expected bitching and complaining. Mike was genuinely distressed. And what the fuck did he mean by a commitment?
‘Um, what kind of commitment?’
Mike leant across the table. ‘A few months ago Jess went on this training seminar for work and Sarah came to stay with me. We had two days together and it was…’ Mike raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Jamie, man, it was the best fucking weekend of my life. We did it in every room of the house, we did it in every position known to man and then invented some new ones. She let me do things that I’ve only ever done with a highly paid professional.’ He stopped to sip his beer. ‘We talked about how cool it was to find someone else who’s into freaky stuff. When you’re just picking up a stranger for casual sex you can’t very well ask them to… well, anyway, we agreed that what we had was special and that from then on we would be body fluid monogamous.’
Jamie’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. If he moved it he would be able to open his mouth, and then he would scream and scream and not be able to stop. He kept it there and raised his eyebrows questioningly at Mike.
‘You know,’ Mike said, scratching his neck, ‘we agreed to stop using condoms on the condition that we would always use them with other people. I know it sounds tacky, but it wasn’t. It was… I hate saying it, but it was really romantic. You have to have a lot of trust in someone to not use protection these days. Me and Sarah have that trust, man.’
Jamie stared at Mike’s face and neck. He had been scratching the whole time he talked and now his skin was streaked with red. For Mike, Sarah was a plague of crawling, burrowing insects. The infestation had entered via his genitals and nested under his skin, eating at his gut, blocking his airways, nibbling the edges of his heart. The poor bugger could claw at himself until his flesh was red raw, he could scrape his skin right off, and he wouldn’t be able to get her out, because she went so deep. She got into the very core of you. Once she was in, you couldn’t get rid of her without a hell of a lot of damage to the supporting structure.
‘Well I’m not taking it. If she wants to end it then fine, but she has to at least tell me herself. I shouldn’t have to hear this shit from you.’ Mike rubbed his hand over his nose six or seven times. ‘I’m just gonna go over to her place and demand that she talks to me. I’m not gonna take this shit.’
‘She won’t listen. You should see this bloke. He’s about a hundred, and he’s really smooth, really fucking… cold. Sarah’s out of her mind about him.’
Mike sniffed, rubbed his nose, scratched his neck. ‘You’ve met him?’
Jamie snorted. ‘Yeah. He was my year nine English teacher. Our year nine English teacher’
Mike stared at Jamie. ‘You shitting me?’
‘Ask Jess. Ask her about Mr Carr. She’ll tell you about how he suddenly pissed off part way through the year. And how right around that time Sarah stopped eating, and started drinking and smoking and fucking everything in pants.’
Mike didn’t believe him. Jamie told him the whole story, or at least as much of the story as he knew. By the end, Mike was plotting Daniel Carr’s murder. Jamie didn’t care about causing trouble or invading Sarah’s privacy or protecting her honour. She was in danger, and since Jamie had been banned – on threat of divorce – from seeing Sarah alone, and since Sarah would not answer her phone and talk to him, Mike was possibly the best chance Jamie had of rescuing Sarah from herself.
‘Let’s go. We’ll bang on her door until she lets us in,’ Mike said.
Jamie had considered doing the same thing about a million times. The reason he didn’t was that he didn’t – at this time – want to be divorced. Also, there was a certain danger in turning up at Sarah’s uninvited; last time Mike did it he got a naked giant and a broken nose. He gave Mike this last reason, and not a hint of the first.
‘So what?’ Mike said. ‘It’s not going to be a calm conversation anyway is it?’
Jamie wavered. His need to see her was like a burn, but he didn’t want to piss her off. Turning up uninvited would piss her off, and turning up uninvited with Mike would piss her off even more. Also, Mike would assert his right to touch her and Jamie would have to sit quietly and watch Mike’s hands go all the places that his hands should be going.
‘We could try and call her again,’ Jamie suggested.
Mike thumped the table with both fists, drained his beer and picked up his car keys. ‘Fuck that. We’ll just go and talk to her.’
‘I’ll try one more time.’
Mike thumped the table again, but did not argue. He bit his lip and scratched his arm with his keys as he watched Jamie dial.
Jamie was not expecting her to answer; it was more a stalling tactic. He had rushed into giving Mike all the information, thinking it was best to build an army of defence against old Mr Carr, but already he was doubting the wisdom of that move. There was Shelley to consider, although if went to see Sarah with Mike he would not really be breaking his promise. But if he went to see Sarah with Mike, there would be no way to talk to her properly. And she would hate Jamie for involving Mike in all this. Jamie hated himself for involving Mike in all this. Except he needed him to… oh, fuck. It was never-ending.
‘Hello?’ Sarah’s voice, husky and a little anxious.
Jamie nearly dropped the phone. His stomach turned to soup.
‘Daniel?’ she said.
Oh God. ‘It’s me, Sar.’
A beat. ‘Hi, you. How’ve you been?’
‘I’ve been worried about you. You okay?’ Jamie was going to just burst. Mike was gesturing wildly. Jamie turned away and looked out over the car park.
‘Yeah. I was going to call you. It’s funny you called, because I was going to call you in like, five minutes.’
‘I’ve been calling all week, Sarah.’
‘Oh.’ He heard the click of her lighter. ‘Look, can you come over? I need to see you.’
‘Now?’ Jamie said, forgetting Shelley and Mike and everything else that didn’t matter. Remembering soft skin, blue eyes, ticklish feet. ‘I can come right now.’
‘Now would be perfect.’
‘On my way.’ Jamie hung up, elated at his success.
‘Well done, my friend.’ Mike punched Jamie in the arm.
Jamie hit himself in the head with the phone repeatedly. When he’d finished he had to run to catch up with Mike who was already climbing into his car.
Although it was past midday, Sarah answered the door in her pink flannelette pyjamas. The bags under her eyes were worse than
Jamie had ever seen them. Sallow skin, chapped lips, a tan bruise over her right eyebrow. She was messy and unbelievably, overwhelmingly pretty.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Sarah said, peering over Jamie’s shoulder. ‘Mike, what are you doing here?’
Mike stepped forward, nudging Jamie aside. ‘Can’t you even pretend to be happy to see me?’
She grabbed Jamie’s hand and pulled him close. She smelt sour, like she’d been sick. Jamie kissed her forehead, cradling the back of her precious head. She whimpered, which was so strange, then gripped him harder. ‘Why’d you bring him? I needed to talk to you alone.’
‘Can you please not talk about me as though I’m not standing right here?’
Sarah sighed, releasing Jamie and turning to Mike. ‘I need to talk to Jamie alone.’
‘Why are you giving me the brush off?’
‘I really don’t have time to explain.’
‘Make time. I deserve an explanation.’
Sarah turned to Jamie and pulled a face, then went to Mike and put her hands on his shoulders. She was so short that her arms were stretched to their full length. ‘You’re right. We do need to talk, and I promise we will, but not now. Right now I need to talk to Jamie alone.’
Mike lifted Sarah’s hands off his shoulders and brought them together, pressed between his own. He bent and kissed her lips. Sarah kissed him back, pressing herself into him. This was exactly what Jamie had hoped to avoid: being a witness to the touching reunion between the lovers.
‘Please, Mike?’ she said in her fuck me voice. ‘Leave us alone for a couple of hours, okay? When you come back I’ll give you my full attention.’
Mike nodded, touching her face in a way that could only be described as tender. ‘Promise you won’t brush me off again?’
‘Promise.’
‘Alright, babe.’ Mike kissed her again, then came over to Jamie and slapped him on the back. ‘I’ll head back to the pub. Be back in a couple of hours.’ He opened the door then turned back with a grin. ‘Be good, kids.’
Sarah and Jamie stood staring at each other until they heard Mike’s engine kicking over. Then Jamie wrapped his arms around her and started crying.
‘Oh, heh! Oh, don’t cry. Come on, Jamie, please.’ Sarah kissed his neck and face. He couldn’t stop sobbing. She was just so… God, there were no words. She was everything. ‘Stop this nonsense.’ She pulled away and wiped his face off with her pyjama sleeve. ‘Come and talk to me.’
He sat with her on the sofa. The sofa he had found for her at a garage sale and helped her carry home. The sofa he had drunk a thousand beers and had a million conversations and not enough sex on. Sarah’s sofa. Sarah’s flat. Sarah’s smile and Sarah’s hands turning his over.
‘Didn’t need stitches?’ she said.
Jamie shook his head, turning toward the window and noticing it had a board across it. He wondered if Sarah had done that herself or if he had done it for her.
‘Do you know how mental I’ve been going?’ Jamie said.
‘I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been going mental too.’
‘The only thing that would make me feel better is hearing you say that you’ve broken up with old whatsisname.’
Sarah bit her lip. She looked so tired, poor darling. God only knew what that monster had been doing to her.
‘I hoped you might have gotten a bit used to the idea,’ she said.
‘I’ll never be used to it. He’s bad for you.’
Sarah’s eyes flashed. ‘You’re wrong. When I’m not with him, it’s bad. I feel bad. I love him. Why can’t you be happy for me?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘Try!’ Sarah squeezed his hands. ‘You’re being so selfish, Jamie. You have a whole family. I’ve never had anyone. Now I do, and you’re all angry and mean.’
He was angry and mean. But not with Sarah so much as every one in the world who wasn’t Sarah. Shelley especially had been copping it. Despite her superhuman tolerance, they were fighting all the time. Just yesterday she had asked why he was so grumpy when she was the one with cracked nipples and swollen ankles and no sleep. Jamie reminded her that he also got up several times a night to soothe the baby and he had to go to work for eight hours every day. Then he said that her cracked nipples and swollen ankles were no treat for him either. Shelley cried for an hour after that one, and Jamie tried to work out what the fuck was wrong with him. He realised that no matter how hard he tried to be a good husband, the fact was that he looked at Shelley and didn’t see what he wanted to see, which was Sarah.
He couldn’t help thinking that if Shelley had not fallen pregnant then he wouldn’t have had to marry her and then he would’ve been able to marry Sarah. It wasn’t logical, because a) Sarah had only shown an interest in him after he moved in with Shelley, and therefore may have never started sleeping with him in the first place if Shelley hadn’t got pregnant; b) Sarah didn’t want to get married; and c) even if Sarah did want get married it would never be to Jamie, because she didn’t love him in that way. He used to take comfort in the fact that Sarah didn’t love anyone in that way, but that comfort was gone because now she did, and Jamie was frozen out and haunted by a train of thought that he knew was ridiculous but which wouldn’t stop. He hated Shelley, and he hated himself, and he hated Daniel Carr, and sometimes he even hated Bianca. He never hated Sarah but he was aware that he certainly should.
‘I’m moving into his place,’ Sarah said in the kind of mock-cheerful voice that people used when they were telling you bad news but wanted you to think it was good.
‘When?’
She mumbled something that sounded like ‘today.’ ‘When?’ he asked again.
She spoke more clearly. ‘Today.’
‘Today.’ Jamie stared at her fingers. Her nails were bitten to the quick, like his. But Sarah had never been a nail biter; she always trimmed and filed them so there was a perfect white moon at each tip.
‘Well, tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yeah, so… I have to pack, I have to be ready.’
‘You have to be ready.’ Jamie continued to stare at those ragged fingernails. They were the nails of an anxious, frustrated, impotent person. The nails of a person just hanging on.
‘Stop repeating everything I say!’
Jamie looked up. ‘I didn’t realise I was.’
‘Yeah, well…’ Sarah half-smiled into his eyes. ‘You okay?’
‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’
Sarah kissed him then. Soft, sweet, so gentle, so warm. For so many years of his life he’d dreamt of kisses like this. He’d watched her sitting in class and he’d thought about her touching his chin and leaning in with her lips parted. He’d watched her playing soccer and running the Cross Country and swimming in the carnival and had imagined what her natural, joyous athleticism would mean to a boy she loved. He’d seen men grope and pull and prod her, and he imagined how differently he would treat her. He swore that if he had her, he would never treat her roughly. If he ever got that lucky, he would never, ever hurt her, not even in an act of passion.
Fast forward through his dreamy aching teens, and now he was a man, and he’d had Sarah many times. Many times in many ways and he had still never hurt her, although he understood what drove men to do that. Sarah controlled men with her too-soft hair and her clever lips and her insatiable cunt. She made her men feel simultaneously grateful and exploited. And she was so cavalier, so damn haughty, that you wanted to make her take you seriously. There was an instinctual need to show her that she had met her match, that you were a stronger, better man, the likes of which she had never come across; you were a man who could make her beg you. When you had her in your arms you wanted to know that behind the armour of her technique, underneath the roar of her shameless mouth, she was in awe of you. It was a strong, strong drive, and Jamie felt it now like he’d felt it every time she’d touched him.
But he was different to other men. He had been privil
eged enough to know her when she was brave and sweet and well-fed. He had known her before she’d been screwed, and that made all the difference. It was why he would never hurt her, why he would never let his lust, or his vanity, take control. He would always kiss her like this – exactly like this now – because whatever that animal had tricked her into thinking, real love was not selfish and cruel. Real love should draw no blood from the loved and buckets from the lover.
‘Why do you have to go?’ Jamie asked, still kissing her.
‘It’s just the way it is.’
Jamie started to cry again and it was like she didn’t notice, except, he knew she did. She just wasn’t the type of girl to draw attention to pain. She just kept right on kissing him, rubbing his lower back, then the skin above his waistband. Rubbing and kissing, ignoring the hot wet tears that were sticking her eyelashes to his cheeks.
‘Where is he taking you?’
‘Not far.’
Jamie kept crying, taking off her shirt and pants, helping her with his, kissing her softly in between the unbuttoning and the sleeve pulling and the underwear peeling.
‘I’ll still be able to see you, won’t I?’
Sarah answered with a gasp. She had wriggled her way under him and without really meaning to, Jamie had pushed inside her. He briefly worried that this was the last time he would ever make love to her, but the thought slipped away rapidly. The world was Sarah’s flesh clenching his. Everything that wasn’t her was incomprehensible, but he intuited that the answers lay somewhere at the end. Surely this unspeakable urge had a purpose beyond physical satiation. Surely there had to be the meaning of life or the secret to inner peace or the key to her heart waiting for him at the end.
There was no revelation. There was just the too brief feeling of peace, and then there was Sarah, as unfathomable as always, smiling up at him, stroking his shoulder blades and his back. He asked if she wanted him to get off and she said never.