It turned out that, at the age of thirty, Natasha had had only two proper relationships, and a couple of casual ones. The last serious relationship had ended six months earlier. It had been her identification with my distress that had attracted her to me. Over the last few days, though, we’d discovered we had a lot more in common.
We both came from similar backgrounds – her father was an electrician – and we both resented the Hugos of both sexes who populated the advertising world. We covertly held in contempt what we did for a living and harboured secret, vaguely shameful ambitions of writing the great novel. Despite her focus in the office, she had a sharp sense of the ridiculous, and deftly satirized everything that she also took very seriously. She allowed people to laugh at her, at their projects and goals – and this, paradoxically, secured her their loyalty and increased their productivity.
Amazingly, by the time we got back to the office in the new year, I sensed that Natasha was falling in love with me. It was absurd, it was insane, but there it was.
Thus my fear redoubled. Love is about timing, readiness, blind luck. I was still in love with Kelly. Natasha had passions, desires and emotions that were powerful, primal, yet evolved to a level that no woman I had known before had reached. I was enfeebled, drained. Certainly, I carried off a decent enough act with her over Christmas – I could joke the jokes, laugh the laughs, deconstruct the constructions – but I kept thinking of Kelly.
It was then that I confronted for the first time what I would later christen Martin’s Law. The more indifferent you are towards a woman – particularly a sexy, attractive, smart woman whom any of a thousand men would dream of taking out – the more they want you. So long as the indifference is genuine.
Unlike Martin, I didn’t treasure my indifference. Natasha was fantastic, and I wanted to fall in love with her, and at any other time in my life I would have fallen in love with her – maybe I did fall in love with her a little, but not the complete giving up of myself that you need to deliver for a woman like her. She would expect everything, and would give everything in return. I had so little to give.
Nevertheless, the relationship wore on towards the spring. I think it was about mid-March when Natasha told me she loved me. I told her I loved her too. And I sort of did or, at least, I loved the idea of her, her vibrancy, intelligence, beauty, strength. In truth, I had not got over Kelly. I wanted Kelly, and for all Natasha’s remarkable physical, sexual and psychological attractions, she lacked the most important one: she wasn’t Kelly. I even used Natasha to try to get Kelly back. But although Kelly was jealous, and although she was angry (angry – the injustice of it!) she stuck with Hugo. She wasn’t about to let that one out of her grip. Certainly, she was disappointed that her insurance policy looked like it was expiring. But she’d just about reached the point now that she could live without it.
Meanwhile, I don’t think Natasha had a clue about my confusion. I was on auto-pilot. Anyway, what was I going to say – Forgive me, Natasha, but I’m still in love with Kelly? There are times when it is right to speak the truth, and there are times to be silent – hoping in this case that it won’t be the truth for much longer. But it stayed the truth. On some level Natasha sensed my indifference, which made her love grow, and sealed my indifference and fear. It was a mutually cancelling set of circumstances.
It wasn’t until we went on holiday together that the truth could no longer be avoided. We went to California. I was hoping that the combination of sunshine, sea and being away from England would do the trick. Because Natasha, I knew, was probably the best woman I was ever going to meet, and if I could just stop being so… messed up, I would be the luckiest man in the world.
It didn’t turn out that way. Somehow the intimacy and sheer weight of free time that holidays invariably involve threw the differences between us into sharp relief. Under the holiday pressure to have a ‘good time’, the space between us gaped. I retreated into myself, confused by my own emotions – or lack of them. Natasha became alternately tearful and aggressive. An incantation sprang up: What’s wrong? What’s the matter with you?
I couldn’t tell her, because I still felt, in my dumb, male way, that sheer force of will could make me fall in love with her. But Kelly was just too close. In the end, half-way through the holiday, her beautiful face turned to me, she said, in a cold, dry voice, You’re going to leave me when we get home, aren’t you?
Feeling like the biggest fraud, idiot and loser ever born, I turned to her and gave a single, desolate nod.
We flew home separately. She took the next flight that afternoon, I came back a day later. When I returned to the office, Natasha wasn’t there. It turned out she had been head-hunted some time ago, had turned the job down, but on her return had rung up the agency and the job was still there. I knew that she had gone because of me, and I thought what a mess I had made of this woman’s life, and of my own, and I sat down and cried for Natasha, and I cried for Kelly, but most of all I cried for me, self-pitying, egotistical, cruel, exploitative prick that I was.
I didn’t go out with another woman after that until two years later, and that woman was Beth – my ex-wife-to-be.
At least I’ve still got Carol Moon. The Great Carol, unflagging with her intelligence, loyalty, support and kindness. Thank God there are women like her in the world.
It’s three months since Alice went back to Martin. I hear of them occasionally, but nothing as bad as I’d like. It sounds like it might be working out, after all. Isn’t that great? I want to wish them happiness, but I hope they strangle each other, or die in a car crash. Carbon-monoxide poisoning also would be good.
I miss both of them like crazy.
Is life all loss? I say to Carol.
We’re at the paddling-pool with Poppy, who’s in her Hello Kitty swimming costume, looking unbearably cute. I smile. She makes it all worthwhile. Lately, she’s calmed down a lot, now that Beth and I don’t have anything left to fight about. She’s almost like she was before we separated -sweet-natured, well-behaved, thoughtful and kind. People heal.
Carol’s Marmite-coloured hair is natural again, and a few streaks of grey have started to show at the crown. It looks great. Some people have to grow into their natural age, and Carol was middle-aged when she was thirteen. She turns to me and purses her pale lips. Stop being such a maudlin, self-pitying toad, she replies, quite without malice.
Honesty is annoying, not to mention impolite. I’ve fired Terence now, so I don’t have so much of it to put up with. He told me I still had a lot of ‘issues with anger’. I politely disagreed, then I told him to fuck off and take his fucking introspection with him. Then I told him that, based on the lack of success of my treatment, I wouldn’t be settling his final account. Upon which it turned out that Terence had some issues with anger too.
I can’t fire Carol, though, and she’s more annoyingly honest than Terence ever was.
Fair point. Well aimed. Taken.
I don’t think Daddy looks like a toad.
Neither of us had noticed Poppy come up behind us from the paddling-pool, dripping and wriggling. I hand her a towel, which she wraps around her shoulders. She hops on to Carol’s lap.
He does look a bit like a frog, though, says Carol.
Poppy giggles and cuddles up to her. Why don’t you and Auntie Carol get married?
Would you like that, poppet?
I love Auntie Carol. She’s the best fun. Why don’t you live with her like you used to with Mummy?
Because we’re just friends, darling. Wipe your nose.
Do you have sex with her?
Poppy!
Carol laughs her donkey laugh, half through her nose. Her shoulders shake as she tries to keep it in, knowing that Poppy might think she’s making fun of her. But Poppy seems unoffended.
No, Poppy. I don’t have sex with her.
Why? Don’t you think she’s pretty?
Of course I think she’s pretty.
Don’t you think she’s nice?
/> Yes.
Is she married?
No. Not any more.
Then why won’t you have sex with her? Because it would ruin everything.
Why?
Because – oh, for God’s sake, Poppy. You shouldn’t even know what sex is at your age.
Carol has stopped laughing now, gives Poppy a friendly pat on the bum, then hands her a pound coin. Why don’t you go and get yourself an ice lolly?
OK, she says cheerfully.
I look at Carol and we hold each other’s gaze for a moment, then turn away.
Carol comes with me when I drop off Poppy. Beth’s not in, just Oliver, of whom I’ve grown quite fond now that the jealousy has subsided, now we both have it clear that Poppy’s only ever going to have one father. He invites us both in for a cup of tea, but we’re going to a movie and I’ve booked a table for dinner afterwards.
Poppy throws her arms around Carol’s neck and gives her an enormous kiss. I love you, Auntie Carol.
I love you too, Poppy.
Then she runs into the house and out of sight. The door closes. Carol and I make our way back to my car.
Do you really love Poppy, Carol?
Of course, she says, blithely. I love both of you.
And do you really think I look like a frog?
Yes. But I’ve seen worse-looking frogs.
Still, I’m a frog.
It’s better than a toad.
We drive back towards Acton, so that I can change my clothes. We’re going to a smart new Russian restaurant round the corner from my flat that specializes in different types of vodka, and before that, some arthouse Japanese film, Audition. I’m anticipating a hangover tomorrow, but looking forward to the night ahead. I haven’t seen much of Carol over the last month or two: she’s been working hard and, as usual, her personal life has been a disaster area. The married man she’s been seeing left his wife for about a week, then went back to her. Carol’s single again, but seems reconciled to it. Being alone seems to be doing her good: she’s looking relaxed, tanned and slim – attractive.
When we get back to my place Carol helps herself to a cup of coffee, puts her feet up on the sofa and switches on the television. She’s so at home here. There’s no need to talk to fill up empty spaces as I would if she was a male friend. She kicks off her shoes. Her dress has ridden up her thighs.
I pick up a couple of letters from this morning and absent-mindedly tear them open while I go into the bathroom and fumble in the cupboard for some aftershave. I find the bottle, but leave it where it stands.
I remove the letter from the envelope. It is printed on what looks like a piece of cheap A4 paper. It is the flimsiness of the envelope that catches me off-guard. I would have thought something like this would come in vellum, with copperplate, handwritten script.
Certificate of making Decree Nisi Absolute (Divorce) In the High Court of Justice Principal Registry Family Division
Between
Daniel Patrick Savage
and
Bethany Louise Collins
I drop the paper, a white angel wing falling to earth.
My marriage is over.
I feel the wrench inside, a jump of joy, followed by the kidney-punch of sadness. All gone. The ten years of waking up together, the years and Poppy – God, the joy of Poppy -our home together, our life together, our dreams and memories, our hopes, our fights. Our kisses. Legally null and void.
Come on, Spike. We’re going to be late.
What?
It’s nearly six thirty. The film starts in fifteen minutes.
OK. Coming.
I stand and stare at my face in the mirror for a few seconds. Old. Old. Then I turn, generate a convincing smile, and walk back to where Carol is waiting for me.
The movie makes me feel sick. It starts with what seems to be an innocent search for love by a Japanese man whose wife has died in a tragic accident, and ends up with him finding a new girlfriend who turns out to be a complete psycho-bitch. At the end, she shoots him full of a paralysing drug, so he remains fully conscious but incapable of movement, then gets a quiver full of acupuncture needles and inserts them in the most painful points she can find. In the eyes, the chest, the groin. As she inflicts excruciating pain on her hapless victim she laughs. It’s unbelievably repulsive – yet it seems depressingly accurate as a metaphor for marriage.
When the film finishes, I’m borderline traumatized – not just by the film but by the decree absolute, which is stuffed into my pocket. I look at Carol, who seems fine.
You’ve gone grey, Spike.
Sick bitch. It turned my stomach.
I thought it was quite funny. And sexy.
You know why? You know what that woman represented? The universal female unconscious.
This therapy business is going to your head.
That’s what it’s meant to do.
‘The universal female unconscious’. What nonsense. It was an S and M movie. Pleasure and pain. She was wearing a rubber dress, for God’s sake.
He didn’t seem to be getting much pleasure out of it.
Well, it turned me on.
Then you’re a sick bitch.
No use trying to keep secrets from you, is it, Spiky? she says, laughing, her crimson mouth parting wide.
Why is Carol looking sexy tonight, when I don’t find her sexy? That’s why we’ve stayed friends for so long. I feel the paper in my pocket. Why is my heart breaking over a letter I’ve longed to receive?
I should tell Carol about the decree absolute, but she thinks I’m a self-pitying creep as it is. I’m just going to have to fake it through the evening. This is going to be impossible without support from my old ally, the bottle.
The restaurant has a menu of thirty-five different-flavoured vodkas. I don’t think I’ll be able to get through them all but, then, maybe I’ll surprise myself. We drink vodka flavoured with beetroot, cherry, cabbage, horseradish – and after that I forget.
Carol keeps up with me. She’s always been able to hold her drink. Her face is blurring, as if someone has spread Vaseline on it. Why have I never noticed before how sexy she is?
Goodbye, Beth. Goodbye, my dear wife.
Another vodka.
I wonder what happened to that Sharon Smith? The first time we met?
My voice, I am capable of registering, is remarkably unslurred. I’ve always been good at concealing intoxication – I’ve sat through dozens of high-level marketing meetings completely trashed. No one seemed to notice.
It wasn’t the first time we met. 1 was the Belly-flopper, remember? At the swimming club.
The first time we spoke, then.
I heard that she emigrated to South Africa. Something to do with ecology.
She must have left a few broken hearts.
Were you in love with her, like all the other boys?
It was purely physical.
I was jealous.
You were jealous? You’re having a laugh.
You were dead cute.
Come on. I’m a frog, remember?
Frogs can turn into princes.
I take a sip of the what tastes like cough-drop vodka. Is Carol flirting with me? Or trying to support me?
You’11 find someone else, Spike. You just have to get clear of the wreckage of your marriage.
It follows me about. It’s possessed wreckage.
So what happened to you and Beth in the end? What did you learn from it? What did you write in the… What’s it called?
The Love Secrets of Don Juan.
What did you write in The Love Secrets of Don Juan about it? What was the lesson?
Skol!
Skol!
We toss back another glass.
I learned that when it comes to love, people get what they need. Will do anything to get what they need.
Is that peculiar to women?
No. I went after Alice, even though she was my best friend’s ex-girl. I knew what I was doing. I sold out Martin. Because it was
what I needed. Then Martin did whatever he had to to get her back – because it was what he needed. Alice went back to him – because that’s what she’d planned in the first place. Three examples of an immutable law. Morals count for nothing when it comes to love. The stakes are too high.
Carol nods. For once, she hasn’t got a snappy comeback. Your theory about the three great women. Was Beth one of them?
Sort of.
What do you mean?
I thought she was the third great woman a lot of the time we were married. But when you stay with someone that long, you start to strip away their layers. You find out what they’re really made of. I thought at the time that Beth was one of the great women, but now I think she wasn’t. I expect Kelly and Natasha wouldn’t have stayed great women if I’d married them. Life corrodes everything. You don’t know what people are like until life puts you to the test. Always, there are tests. Then, in a moment, all the things that you thought were true about someone are wiped out. A moment of decision, a moment that requires courage, or dignity or even self-sacrifice. Beth isn’t who I thought she was. Not that she was lousy to get married to, but she was really, really lousy to get divorced from.
I liked Beth.
You know, Carol, I want to tell you something. Something important.
What, Spike?
I’m utterly pissed.
I thought you were going to say something profound for a moment there.
I was. Oh. What was it? Yes. When I started dating women… I used to think women were good. I used to think they were better than me. People to look up to, almost.
Women have changed. ‘Being good’ was just code for ‘being exploited’.
Maybe they’ve changed. Or maybe they’ve just come out of the closet. Either way, where are we now? All in the swill together.
Carol laughs, a big fruity laugh. She toys with her vodka glass. Am I one of the three great women, Danny?