Collected Stories (41 page)

Alec had got into her bed and was asleep. She put her notebook on the bedside table. She would keep it with her, using it as a journal. But otherwise she would stop writing for a while; at least six months, to begin with. She was clear that this wasn’t masochism or a suicide. Perhaps her dream of writing had been a kind of possession, or addiction. She was aware that you could get addicted to the good things, too. She was making a space. It was an important emptiness, one she would not fill with other intoxications. She might, she knew, turn into her mother, sucking stones at the TV night after night, terrified by excitement.

After a time there might be new things.

Morgan’s lover’s husband held out his hand.

‘Hallo, at last,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed watching you standing across the road. I was delighted when, after some consideration, you made up your mind to speak with me. Will you sit down?’

‘Morgan,’ said Morgan.

‘Eric.’

Morgan nodded, dropped his car keys on the table and sat down on the edge of a chair.

The two men looked at one another.

Eric said, ‘Are you drinking?’

‘In a while – maybe.’

Eric called for another bottle. There were two already on the table.

‘You don’t mind if I do?’

‘Feel free.’

‘I do now.’

Eric finished his bottle and replaced it on the table with his fingers around the neck. Morgan saw Eric’s thin gold wedding ring. Caroline would always drop hers in a dish on the table in Morgan’s hall, and replace it when she left.

Eric had said on the phone, ‘Is that Morgan?’

‘Yes,’ Morgan replied. ‘Who –’

The voice went on, ‘Are you Caroline’s boyfriend?’

‘But who is this asking?’ said Morgan. ‘Who are you?’

‘The man she lives with. Eric. Her husband. Okay?’

‘Right. I see.’

‘Good. You see.’

Eric had said ‘please’ on the phone. ‘Please meet me. Please.’

‘Why?’ Morgan had said. ‘Why should I?’

‘There are some things I need to know.’

Eric named a café and the time. It was later that day. He would be there. He would wait.

Morgan rang Caroline. She was in meetings, as Eric must have known. Morgan deliberated all day but it wasn’t until the last moment, pacing up and down his front room when he was already late, that he walked out of the house, got in his car and stood across the road from the café.

Although Caroline had described Eric’s parents, his inarticulate furies, the way his head hung when he felt low and even, as Morgan laughed, the way he scratched his backside, Eric had been a shadow man, an unfocused dark figure that had lain across their life since they had met. And while Morgan knew things about him that he didn’t need to know, he had little idea of what Eric knew of him. He had yet to find out what Caroline might have recently told him. The last few days had been the craziest of Morgan’s life.

The waitress brought Eric a beer. Morgan was about to order one for himself but changed his mind and asked for water.

Eric smiled grimly.

‘So,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

Morgan knew that Eric worked long hours. He came home late and got up after the children had gone to school. Looking at him, Morgan tried to visualise something Caroline had said. As she prepared for work in the morning, he lay in bed in his pyjamas for an hour, saying nothing, but thinking intently with his hands over his eyes, as if he were in pain, and had to work something out.

Caroline left for work as early as she could in order to phone Morgan from the office.

After a couple of months, Morgan requested her not to speak about Eric, and particularly not about their attempts at lovemaking. But as Morgan’s meetings with Caroline were arranged around Eric’s absences, he was, inevitably, mentioned.

Morgan said, ‘What can I do for you?’

‘There are things I want to know. I am entitled.’

‘Are you?’

‘Don’t I have any rights?’

Morgan knew that seeing this man was not going to be easy. In the car he had tried to prepare, but it was like revising for an exam without having been told the subject.

‘All right,’ Morgan said, to calm him down. ‘I understand you.’

‘After all, you have taken my life.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I mean my wife. My wife.’

Eric swigged at his bottle. Then he took out a small pot of pills and shook it. It was empty.

‘You haven’t got any painkillers, have you?’

‘No.’

Eric wiped his face with a napkin.

He said, ‘I’m having to take these.’

He was upset, no doubt. He would be in shock. Morgan was; Caroline too, of course.

Morgan was aware that she had started with him to cheer herself up. She had two children and a good, if dull, job. Then her best friend took a lover. Caroline met Morgan through work and decided immediately that he had the right credentials. Love and romance suited her. Why hadn’t she been dipped in such delight every day? She thought everything else could remain the same, apart from her ‘treat’. But as Morgan liked to say, there were ‘consequences’. In bed, she would call him ‘Mr Consequences’.

‘I’m not moving out of my house,’ Eric said. ‘It’s my home. You’re not intending to take that from me, as well as my wife?’

‘Your wife … Caroline,’ Morgan said, restoring her as her own person. ‘I didn’t steal her. I didn’t have to persuade her. She gave herself to me.’

‘She gave herself?’ Eric said. ‘She wanted you? You?’

‘That’s the truth.’

‘Do women do that to you?’

Morgan tried to laugh.

‘Do they?’ Eric said.

‘Only her – recently.’

Eric stared, waiting for him to continue. But Morgan said nothing, reminding himself that he could walk out at any time, that he didn’t have to take anything from this man.

Eric said, ‘Do you want her?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘You’re not sure? After doing all this, you’re not sure?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘What do you mean then?’

‘Nothing.’

But perhaps he wasn’t sure. He had become used to their arrangement. There were too many hurried phone calls, misunderstood letters, snatched meetings and painful partings. But they had lived within it. They even had a routine. He had received more from Eric’s wife – seeing her twice a week – than he had from any other woman. Otherwise, when he wasn’t working, he visited art galleries with his daughter; he packed his shoulder bag, took his guide book and walked about parts of the city he’d never seen; he sat by the river and wrote notes about the past. What had he learned through her? A reverence for the world; the ability to see feeling, certain created objects, and other people as important – indeed, invaluable. She had introduced him to the pleasures of carelessness.

Eric said, ‘I met Caroline when she was twenty-one. She didn’t have a line on her face. Her cheeks were rosy. She was acting in a play at university.’

‘Was she a good actress? She’s good at a lot of things, isn’t she? She likes doing things well.’

Eric said, ‘It wasn’t long before we developed bad habits.’

Morgan asked, ‘What sort of thing?’

‘In our … relationship. That’s the word everyone uses.’ Eric said, ‘We didn’t have the skill, the talent, the ability to get out of them. How long have you known her?’

‘Two years.’

‘Two years!’

Morgan was confused. ‘What did she tell you? Haven’t you been discussing it?’

Eric said, ‘How long do you think will it take me to digest all this?’

Morgan said, ‘What are you doing?’

He had been watching Eric’s hands, wondering whether he would grasp the neck of the bottle. But Eric was hunting through the briefcase he had pulled out from under the table.

‘What date? Surely you remember that! Don’t you two have anniversaries?’ Eric dragged out a large red book. ‘My journal. Perhaps I made a note that day! The past two years have to be rethought! When you are deceived, every day has another complexion!’

Morgan looked round at the other people in the café.

‘I don’t like being shouted at,’ he said. ‘I’m too tired for that.’

‘No, no. Sorry.’

Eric flipped through the pages of the book. When he saw Morgan watching, he shut the journal.

Eric said in a low voice, ‘Have you ever been deceived? Has that ever happened to you?’

‘I would imagine so,’ said Morgan.

‘How pompous! And do you think that deceiving someone is all right?’

‘One might say that there are circumstances which make it inevitable.’

Eric said, ‘It falsifies everything.’ He went on, ‘Your demeanour suggests that it doesn’t matter, either. Are you that cynical? This is important. Look at the century!’

‘Sorry?’

‘I work in television news. I know what goes on. Your cruelty is the same thing. Think of the Jews –’

‘Come on –’

‘That other people don’t have feelings! That they don’t matter! That you can trample over them!’

‘I haven’t killed you, Eric.’

‘I could die of this. I could die.’

Morgan nodded. ‘I understand that.’

He remembered one night, when she had to get home, to slip into bed with Eric, Caroline had said, ‘If only Eric would die … just die …’

‘Peacefully?’

‘Quite peacefully.’

Eric leaned across the table. ‘Have you felt rough, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Over this?’

‘Over this.’ Morgan laughed. ‘Over everything. But definitely over this.’

‘Good. Good.’ Eric said, ‘Middle age is a lonely time.’

‘Without a doubt,’ said Morgan.

‘That’s interesting. More lonely than any other time, do you think?’

‘Yes,’ said Morgan. ‘All you lack seems irrevocable.’

Eric said, ‘Between the age of twelve and thirteen my elder brother, whom I adored, committed suicide, my father died of grief, and my grandfather just died. Do you think I still miss them?’

‘How could you not?’

Eric drank his beer and thought about this.

‘You’re right, there’s a hole in me.’ He said, ‘I wish there were a hole in you.’

Morgan said, ‘She has listened to me. And me to her.’

Eric said, ‘You really pay attention to one another, do you?’

‘There’s something about being attended to that makes you feel better. I’m never lonely when I’m with her.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ve been determined, this time, not to shut myself off.’

‘But she’s my wife.’

There was a pause.

Eric said, ‘What is it people say these days? It’s your problem! It’s my problem! Do you believe that? What do you think?’

Morgan had been drinking a lot of whisky and smoking grass, for the first time. He had been at university in the late sixties but had identified with the puritanical left, not the hippies. These days, when he needed to switch off his brain, he noticed how tenacious consciousness was. Perhaps he wanted to shut off his mind because in the past few days he had been considering forgetting Caroline. Forgetting about them all, Caroline, Eric and their kids. Maybe he would, now. Perhaps the secrecy, and her inaccessibility, had kept them all at the right distance.

Morgan realised he had been thinking for some time. He turned to Eric again, who was tapping the bottle with his nail.

‘I do like your house,’ said Eric. ‘But it’s big, for one person.’

‘My house, did you say? Have you seen it?’

‘Yes.’

Morgan looked at Eric’s eyes. He seemed rather spirited. Morgan almost envied him. Hatred could give you great energy.

Eric said, ‘You look good in your white shorts and white socks, when you go out running. It always makes me laugh.’

‘Haven’t you got anything better to do than stand outside my house?’

‘Haven’t you got anything better to do than steal my wife?’ Eric pointed his finger at him. ‘One day, Morgan, perhaps you will wake up and find in the morning that things aren’t the way they were last night. That everything you have has been sullied and corrupted in some way. Can you imagine that?’

‘All right,’ said Morgan. ‘All right, all right.’

Eric had knocked his bottle over. He put his napkin on the spilled beer and popped his bottle on top of that.

He said, ‘Are you intending to take my children away?’

‘What? Why should I?’

‘I can tell you now, I have had that house altered to my specifications, you know. I have a pergola. I’m not moving out, and I’m not selling it. Actually, to tell the truth’ – Eric had a sort of half-grin, half-grimace on his face – ‘I might be better off without my wife and kids.’

‘What?’ said Morgan. ‘What did you say?’

Eric raised his eyebrows at him.

‘You know what I mean,’ Eric said.

Morgan’s children were with their mother, the girl away at university, the boy at private school. Both of them were doing well. Morgan had met Eric’s kids only briefly. He had offered to take them in if Caroline was prepared to be with him. He was ready for that, he thought. He didn’t want to shirk the large tasks. But in time one of the kids could, say, become a junkie; the other a teenage prostitute. And Morgan, having fallen for their mother, might find himself burdened. He knew people it had happened to.