The Sexopaths (35 page)

He’d sensed a tightening in
Monique’s posture.  She’d said, hurriedly as if to correct any
misapprehension he might have:

‘I know, my darling – but I
mean… it is normal conversation when you meet people or sit near to one another
at a lunch or dinner or even in a long meeting when there are breaks, coffee…
you talk about your life and where you come from and your family…’

‘So what about his family?’

‘He has four older children,
teenagers.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes… and yes – if you are
wondering – they are still together.’

‘So you were pointing out to him
his personal circumstances are not right either?’

‘Yes.  I make the
observation.  Politely.’

Adam had adopted an exaggerated
sanctimonious note.  ‘Given he’s offering to meet you at the first
opportunity – has emailed you straight back on the subject – I
don’t get the impression the wife and kids hold a lot of sway.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘So you think he would…?’

‘Would what?’

Her tone had told him she’d
understood the question and was only prolonging the inevitable reply. 
He’d said, patiently:

‘Like something to happen between
you?’

‘I don’t know… I suppose… yes…
maybe – but I don’t really know – you know how people can be
– it could just be he would like to meet up to chat and have a coffee or
lunch… to keep in touch.  Who knows?’

He’d tried not to let the word
‘yes’ derail him.  Three letters slipped into a disjointed sentence. 
That she’d said yes meant the answer was yes, and she knew it, full well. 
A white hot nucleus of truth that gave an inner opacity to the smokescreen of
evasiveness and self-denial that she’d wished to smother it with; for herself
perhaps as much as for him.  Rocking forward, tapping his bare toes on the
floor tiles, through gritted teeth he’d managed to say:

‘For a coffee… do you really
believe that?’

‘It is possible.  We all
meet business associates informally some time or other.  You too.’

‘But it’s not very likely in this
case, Monique.  You both make special trips to London for a coffee?’

She’d shrugged as if to say what
more could she add, then remained silent.  During the pause, a question
had suddenly struck Adam that, until that moment, had not occurred to him:

‘Has he said he’s in love with
you?’

‘Adam!’  Her retort had been
instant, as quick as a reflex, affronted (though now he recalls it, not a
denial).  She’d continued:

‘I am only in love with you, my
darling – you are the only one and have been since the first time we were
together.’

These words had worked some
magic, causing him automatically to draw her into an embrace, in which they’d
remained in thoughtful silence.  He’d sensed her body folding gratefully
into his; he too was feeling a thousand times better, despite a worm of doubt
that gnawed away, deep down inside; his own rotten core, as yet unpurged. 
After maybe a minute, he’d felt Monique’s hand slide timidly beneath the
waistband at the back of his briefs; they were still damp with sweat, and
becoming aware of the contracting prickle of dried perspiration that coated his
limbs, he’d said:

‘I need a shower.’

‘Je vous avez besoin de plus,
Monsieur.’

She’d pulled open the gown and
drawn him down on top of her, imploring him to take her quickly, rapaciously,
calling out loudly, repeating his name, that she loved him, that he felt so big
inside her.  Now, as they repair together, she has brought to mind such
flattery, an observation she hadn’t made for a good few years, he can’t silence
the devil’s advocate that says she must be making a comparison – that a
recent experience that has suddenly cast him in this different light –
not realising her admiration reveals the barely conscious knowledge.  He
shakes his head to disrupt the cynical voices that echo about the corridors of
his mind, looks skywards for distraction: incongruously, overhead a multicoloured
pastiche of laundry adorns the boughs of the trees.  Monique, meanwhile,
has stopped in her tracks, their arms slowly extending to their full reach as
he first continues, then is pulled to a halt, like a train stretching its
couplings.

‘Look – my darling –
what do you think is in there?’

He follows the line of her
indication across the street to what appears to be some kind of open-fronted
indoor market, where scores of milling Chinese are carefully examining wares
laid out beneath hanging aluminium parabolic lamps.  They cross and enter
the building; though the only Europeans, no one seems to pay them any
heed.  Adam realises in fact it’s a large covered courtyard, its roof a
Heath-Robinson affair of stanchions and clear corrugated plastic.  Traders
operate from trestle tables, while others squat on the concrete floor
surrounded by their goods, some of these as yet unpacked from polystyrene
cool-boxes, those on sale spread about their ubiquitously sandaled feet. 
The product, whatever it is, seems homogenous at first sight: hundreds and
hundreds of round white pill-boxes each about the size of a teacup, with
silvered metal lids.  Prospective customers – all male – are
taking one container at a time, gingerly opening them, lifting them up to their
faces and prodding the contents with a small stick.  Generally
dissatisfied, it seems, they move on to the next box and repeat the little
ritual.  Adam, aware he’s too obviously a tourist who isn’t here to buy,
doesn’t feel able to pry himself, but being taller than the entirety of the
intensely preoccupied clientele he manages to steal a glimpse over a
particularly short Chinaman’s shoulder.  He turns to Monique, whom he
notices is more preoccupied with her open-toed shoes and the
less-than-hygienically maintained underfoot conditions.  He hisses:

‘Crickets.’

‘Pardon, my darling?’

‘They’re buying crickets.’

‘Yuk - to eat, do you think?’

‘Hardly, one at time. 
They’d be here all day at this rate.’

‘For a love potion,
perhaps?’  She giggles.

Again it’s a remark that jars his
still-tender sensibilities.  He says:

‘I think they’re listening to
them.’

Monique looks nonplussed. 
‘Lifen will tell us.  And we must remember to ask her if those DVDs are
okay to buy.’

Adam nods in assent, but as he
does so the Chinaman over whose shoulder he’d towered turns triumphantly,
clutching a pill-box between both hands as if it’s a much-wanted trophy. 
He catches Adam’s eye as he squeezes past and, confirming Adam’s theory, quips
in English:

‘Beautiful song.’

‘Congratulations.  Cliff
Richard.’

Monique casts a worshipful glance
at him as he takes her hand and begins to tow her through the crowd back in the
direction of the street.  He says:

‘Where the Spanish do canaries,
the Chinese do crickets – must be a lot cheaper to keep.’

She affects a shudder.  Adam
is familiar with her uneasy relationship with household bugs, and he’s a little
surprised she didn’t make a more rapid exit when he announced they were
surrounded by thousands of live creepy crawlies.  Now, their short but
congested escape route takes them past bowls teeming with paddling terrapins of
many varieties, caged birds that look suspiciously like the local house
sparrows, and rabbits in containers so small that he guesses the unfortunate
creatures are not destined for careers as domestic pets.  Monique is
evidently thinking along similar lines; she says:

‘Remember we have promised
Camille a rabbit for her birthday.’

Adam nods.  He’d originally
protested the impracticalities to Monique, and had hoped the pledged bunny
would become usurped in Camille’s wish-list by some more salient and
self-reliant must-have electrical item.  Now he feels strongly and
urgently that he wants to buy Camille a pet.  A puppy perhaps?  He
pictures the three of them huddled before the flickering hearth on Christmas morning,
Camille ecstatically nursing her tiny tail-thumping charge, Monique looking on
dewy eyed.  Stepping back from this imagined scene of family bliss, he
realises his motivation is not of altruism towards Camille, but in order
vicariously to cement the bonds between Monique and himself.  As they
emerge back into natural light and turn along a line of open-fronted shops and
stalls displaying mainly practical goods, housewares, ironmongery, he says:

‘That guy – he doesn’t care
about Camille.’

‘What are you talking about, my
darling?’

‘The French guy.’  Adam
doesn’t even want to say the name Lucien, as if it’s an admission of him into
their private circle, recognition that he has a place within their lives, a
status approaching that of a former lover or ex-partner that he doesn’t wish to
grant.  ‘Your President.’

Monique looks at him with a
questioning, though openly pained expression in her eyes, as if he’s directly
accusing her of inflicting harm upon her precious child.  He wonders if
it’s an insight that until this moment hasn’t formed in her
consciousness.  She doesn’t reply directly, so Adam elaborates.

‘Does he care if Camille’s mummy
and daddy split up?  Does he care about me?  No way.  You
– does he care about you?  Causing an irreparable fracture –
something that would do that to your life?’  If Monique hasn’t looked at
it this way before, then neither quite has he – and his inadvertent use
of the nouns for himself and Monique, in Camille’s terms, has caused an anger
to rise within him.   He feels his grip on Monique tightening. 
He says:

‘So I don’t rightly care a great
deal about him.’

Monique pulls him closer. 
She says:

‘Adam, Camille’s mummy and daddy
are not going to split up.  I love you very much.’

‘And I love you very much.’

They move on in silence, but his
head still spins.  The heat feels oppressive.  Dodging oncoming
cyclists, boneshakers overloaded with carrier bags and passengers, they cross a
bustling side-street that’s like a small rushing river of travelling humanity, banked
with what look like dwarf London plane trees where more garments hang, drying
safely out of reach.  As they land on the comparative haven of the
opposite pavement’s shoreline they halt to examine a display of flip-flops and
plastic jewellery laid out upon a blanket; there’s nothing of interest to them,
but the distraction provides a temporary respite from the unfinished discomfort
of reconciliation.  They move on; in his mind’s eye, Adam sees shadowy
images, flashbacks of events, moments, some real, some imagined, times with
Monique, and others, she with the Russian masseur, the AMIE Board,
Jasmin-Sharon, Lucien, emails, texts, phone calls… he strives to frame a
question that will make sense of these elusive shapes, make something of the
jigsaw; after a minute or so he says:

‘How did this happen,
Monique?  How come I made a fuss before… about things you said were
nothing… yet I was probably right even if you were, too.  How come here I
am having to say it all again, and this time you’re so much closer to falling
off the edge?  It’s like a terrible kind of déjà vu – where the
thing keeps repeating but getting worse each time.  What have you done?’

‘My darling – nothing is
getting worse.  I have done nothing.’

He wants to stamp, to shout, to
shake her, to insist, to tell her to stop saying the word nothing!  It
doesn’t make sense, there can’t be
nothing
.  But he maintains his
composure; he wants to believe her.  He says, patiently:

‘At least then you’ve acquiesced…
reciprocated – I don’t know what conversations you’ve had, what emails
you’ve sent.’

‘If you mean to Lucien… look
– we have hardly talked.  He does not speak very good English and,
at the meetings, I am a little embarrassed to speak French because I sound
silly.’

‘It didn’t seem that way to me in
Mykonos.  Anyway – you’ve obviously given out your email address and
phone number.’

‘But of course – all of the
members of the Board need to be in touch.  There are communications and
circulars going around all of the time – there is a central database with
everyone’s contact details – I could not avoid it.’

Adam slowly shakes his
head.  ‘ I don’t like it that you’re out there and people think you’re
approachable, available…’

‘But I am not available… I am
just nice to people who are nice to me.’

His thoughts are strained,
confused; he wants to attack, to criticise, but he knows she is right –
and she can’t help it – her great strength just happens to be an
agonising weakness for him in their relationship.  He wants her to be
attractive – he wants to fancy her – so he knows he shouldn’t be
surprised if others do too.  He says:

‘But you’ve let this guy think
you’re available.’

‘I have certainly not.’

‘Look – I’m not saying I
don’t believe you – it almost doesn’t matter – it’s what it feels
like – that you’ve got yourself into a situation – you’re so close,
can’t you see it? – you’re one email or text message away from having an
affair – you reply with a date… and you’re having an affair.’

‘I shall not reply with a date,
my darling.’

‘But what will you reply with…?’

It irks him increasingly that she
hasn’t already replied, negated the offer, terminated the connection, presented
him with the gift of the news, the blood money.  Monique says:

‘I shall find the right words
– my, darling, Lucien is sensitive to the situation – he said he
would not go to the last meeting if you were going to accompany me.’

‘You mean because I rang his
number?’

‘Aha.’

‘So you discussed that?’ 
His heart sinks anew.

‘Only to say… I thought I should
explain what happened – that you had thought it might be… important
– a message coming to my phone late at night.’

‘It was important all
right.’  He’s pained that they – Monique and Lucien – have
since had some dialogue about the matter:
‘Does he suspect?’  ‘Don’t
worry, I can handle it.’
  Why would Lucien say he should avoid
him?  Only out of some outmoded and extreme sense of honour would such an
offer make sense; clearly no such protocol applies to Lucien – it could
only be to minimise embarrassment, detection.  ‘Monique,’ he wheezes as if
the air is thin, faintness assailing him, ‘I’ve learned I couldn’t recover from
you having an affair… you make me feel like you’ve had one.’