Altar Ego (19 page)

My contrition started to sour. ‘Excuse me, but you recently spent several hours in court convincing three justices that …’

‘Speaking of which, when
did
the idea of infidelity first thrust itself between your legs? Before or after I saved your lover from deportation?’

‘… that Zack is a serious artist …’

‘Artist! Huh! An advanced tadpole could do what he does. If you’d left me for a nuclear physicist, okay.’ He plucked the Beatles’ ‘White’ album from a pile of old records and CDs I was sorting and clutched it to his chest. ‘But God, the humiliation of being left for a monosyllabic singer … The Titanic vulgarity of it is …’

‘Zack is not monosyllabic.’ I wrested the record from him. He just has occasional flashes of silence, that’s all … Unlike
someone I know
.’

‘The man needs Berlitz lessons – in
English
.’ He
yanked
back on the double album which swung open like a book. ‘He couldn’t double an entendre if he tried. He gropes towards a
single
entendre.’

Julian grappled more fiercely, tug-of-warring until the double album tore down the middle; the records frisbeeing stereophonically wall-wards.

We faced each other despondently, each clutching one limp collectible cardboard sleeve. ‘So, that went well, Jules. Shall we divide the stereo next?’

‘First you broke my heart and your marriage vows and
now
my favourite album …’

‘
Your
favourite …?’

‘And I won’t be able to afford another because no doubt you will need help with the child support.’ Julian drained the dregs of four abandoned champagne glasses.

‘Zack’s not
that
young …’

‘Young? Huh! You’ll have to carry him on your shoulders around EuroDisney.’ He criss-crossed the room, siphoning every glass in sight. ‘You’ll have to get stationery with wise-cracks printed round the borders and start putting a circle above your ‘i’s and buying multi-coloured drinks.’ He was rooting out crockery and cooking utensils from my paltry possessions and piling them up in his arms.

‘Age doesn’t matter. Not unless you’re a building or a grapevine or something. I mean,
you
make
God
look young. And yet do I ever mention it? You can’t even name the Top Ten.’

‘Um … the Spice Girls …?’

‘That’s last year’s Top
One
.’

‘At least I can remember all the names of the Beatles’ wives. But don’t worry. Just because you’re running around with a man old enough to be your son doesn’t mean our friends are sniggering behind your back … They’re
guffawing
. Out loud. To your face. I mean, where’s your self respect …?’

‘I don’t know.’ I undermined him with frosty efficiency. ‘
You’re
the one who puts everything away.’

Now
I
began drinking dregs. ‘My God. You’re making me feel as though I’m about to start hobbling around in a walker with drool on my chin.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ he retaliated bitterly. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t catch his fly zipper in a stretch mark.’

The living-room door swung petulantly behind him.

‘Stretch marks!’ I barged after him into the kitchen. ‘I do not have stretch marks! Where?’ I tugged down my jeans and scrutinized my thighs. ‘I dare you to find one stretch mark on my body! … Hey I bought that …’ I snatched the wok from his arms. ‘Just because he’s a decade younger, doesn’t mean Zack and I don’t have a lot in common, you know …’

Julian surveyed me, thoughtfully. ‘You’re both protein-based life forms, yes that’s true,’ he said, before wrestling the wok from my grasp. ‘This is mine, thank you very much. Mail-ordered from Perugia.’

‘Like me, he likes to share his feelings,’ I persevered.

‘The only thing
he’ll
share with you, you’ll need
penicillin
for. How can you swap our marriage for that kind of tawdry, passionless carnality?’

‘I wear flannelette pyjamas to bed. What does that tell you about our marriage?’

‘Um … that we need to turn up the heating? … So, it
is
just sex,’ he gloated triumphantly. ‘I kind of guessed you hadn’t outgrown me mentally.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I bristled.

‘Before you met me, the only thing you’d read from beginning to end were your vibrator instructions, apparently.’

‘That’s hitting below the belt … Though you need an anatomical orienteering course these days to remember where
that
is.’

‘And
you
need a shrink. The only balanced thing about you is your cheque book, thanks to me. I plan all your holidays.’ He ripped the calendar off the wall and threw it at me. ‘I pay your bills.’ He rifled through a kitchen drawer and pelted me in envelopes with cellophane windows. ‘I file all your appliance warranties …’

‘Then let me put this in language you’ll understand. The warranty on our sex life has expired. Last time I tried to seduce you in the shower, you stopped to de-mildew the tiles. Every time I want to have sex, you’re off in some supermarket somewhere, fingering kiwis. Ouch!’ I banged my head on the Italian kitchenware Julian delighted in hanging upside down, for some bizarre reason, from a fully retractable stainless-steel ceiling rack. ‘You take the Christmas tree down on
Boxing
Day so the carpet won’t get dirty. You get mortally offended if I use the wrong towel. Or leave it on the bed …’

‘Wet towels on the bed create an ecosystem that supports the growth of entire populations of microscopic spore.’

‘Y
ou sorted my tights by denier number
. You have a cardiac arrest if a shirt gets hung on a wire hanger. You once yelled at me for draining the asparagus too roughly. Honestly,’ I swigged at somebody’s wine then slammed the glass down on to the oak table. ‘If you didn’t fuck women you’d be gay, do you know that?’

‘Could you puh-lease put a coaster under that?’ He swooped on the offending wine glass.

‘You see?’ I groaned, fighting my way through the jungle of dried organic herbs suspended from his faux seventeenth-century beams. ‘You’re spontaneity-impaired. I want a man who doesn’t worry whether or not his decay-preventative dentifrice oral hygiene programme is effective enough …’

‘Oh, right, you want a rock star with
pool algae
on his teeth,’ he said, squeegeeing up stains and food crumbs left over from the party. ‘You might as well go and roll yourself naked over the floor of a public toilet and tongue kiss the lavatory seat. I just hope you contract a disease that requires a completely humiliating treatment.’

‘The only sick person around here is
you
. Terminal
workaholism
. We never go anywhere,’ I ranted. ‘We never see anyone. Unless it’s related to Bisexual Dwarves with Learning Difficulties seeking refugee status. This is not so much the end of a marriage as
Case Closed
.’

‘I’m dedicated to my work. Oh! Let me do the honourable thing and Suicide now. Well, we know one thing for sure.
You’ll
never be spoiled by success.’

He stomped out of the kitchen. I galloped after him, spinning him around. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You’re thirty-two years old and still don’t know what you’re going to do when you grow up. If it weren’t for Kate’s kindness you’d have no career to speak of. All that creativity and cleverness squandered. Why? Because you’re so spectacularly lazy. If you had your way, fingernails would come already painted, martinis pre-stirred …’ He entwined the iron in its own cord. ‘You approach ironing with the firm belief that the rumpled look must soon make a comeback. Which is why you won’t be needing this …’ He shoved the iron back into the cupboard in the hall. ‘You’re impatient …’

‘I’m not impatient!’ I trailed after him. ‘I just wait in a hurry.’

Julian sprang up the stairs, with me on his heels, strode into our bedroom and began shedding clothes. He shucked off his shoes. ‘You’re dishonest, dysfunctional …’

‘Well if I’m dysfunctional, who dysfuncted me? You,
that’s
who. I mean, I’ve been with you nearly all my adult life …’

‘Oh yes, it must be my fault,’ he said flippantly. ‘It must be the surplus of culture I’ve forced you to endure … the chamber music, the opera, the literature, the poetry …’

‘But can’t you see?’ I gestured despondently towards the shoe-trees, which, even mid-anguish, he didn’t forget to insert in his footwear. ‘All the poetry has gone out of our relationship. It’s now like prose. Bad prose. Or worse – Jeffrey Archer.’

‘No,’ Julian sighed. ‘Our marriage is like a romance novel … where the hero dies in the first chapter …’

I looked down at my hands. ‘I … I didn’t mean to fall in love with him. It just happened.’

‘But I
was
your hero once, wasn’t I?’ he said in a wistful voice, sinking on to the end of the brass bed in his underwear.

‘Oh yes. And you still are …’ I drooped down beside him. ‘We’re fighting over a non-stick wok. It’s unfathomable, isn’t it? Look, Jules. It’s just a trial separation, that’s all. Until I sort myself out.’

‘No, Rebecca. We can get past this. Let’s analyse your feelings.’

‘No! Let’s analyse why you want to analyse everything! I’m sick of love from the eyebrows up. Animal magnetism, that’s what I want.’

‘I can be animal. I can! I can change!’

‘Oh where have I heard that before? It’ll just
disappear
into the Bermuda Triangle of promises along with “I’ll join a gym”, “I won’t work so hard”, “I won’t correct your grammar in public …” Please, Jules. I need some time.’

‘You’d really trade in warmth, friendship, intimacy for a …’

‘Intimacy? The most intimate moment we’ve had all year was when I had to check you for an anal fissure.’

‘I was in pain.’

‘Hey, so was
I
.’

We both laughed, an exhausted, convulsive explosion of tension.

‘Can’t you see? We know everything about each other.’ His voice was plaintive with defeat. ‘Please don’t go, Beck.’ He grabbed my hand. It suddenly felt inappropriate and awkward to be in a bedroom with my husband.

My taxi was muttering outside. I picked up my suitcase and moved towards the stairs.

‘Rebecca, why do you have this illogical desire to be the butt of people’s jokes?’

I scooped up the wok and my half of the ‘White’ album.

‘Answer carefully. I’m a lawyer, remember. I only need another two signatures to put you away.’

‘Oh yes. I
must
be mad if I want to leave
you
,’ I said sarcastically.

‘You’re the only woman in the world who’s looking for love without commitment, do you know that?’

‘I’ll … I’ll call you.’

His face slammed shut. ‘Make sure it’s long distance.’ The door echoed his sentiments with a bang.

Zack was waiting on the threshold of his Brixton flat, the door wide open. Once inside, I collapsed on to the couch, lethargy clinging to me like satin in summer. The wind shuddered against the window pane.

‘I can’t believe what I’ve just done.’ I began to weep at my own audacity. ‘I know nothing about you. Except you’re way too young. And a rock star. I know nothing about rock and roll. I was never part of a garage band … We never even had a garage. The only “acid” I know about is in my stomach from the stress of leaving my husband for a rock’n’roller. Maybe I’m having an early menopause? And
you’re
my hot flush? Maybe you’re just like plastic surgery, only not as painful …?’

Zachary cradled me, his touch sending splinters of desire down through my whole body. He swept me up in his arms and carried me, like the cover of some gaudy romance novel, into the bedroom.

Later, when Zack went to mix me his favourite drink – an ambrosial concoction involving amaretto, sweet vermouth and gin – I rolled over on to his side of the bed, all warm from his body. I felt his contours in the way the mattress moulded under me.

It felt right. It felt good … It felt like bungee jumping without a rope.

20
The Trophy Bonk

WHEN LEAVING A
marriage, many problems arise. The most serious of these, apart from who gets custody of the cat, is Friend Division. Which is why, a week later, when Zack and I woke in the late afternoon, legs entwined in velvet torpor, I kissed his sleepy, creamy eyelids and informed him that we were getting dressed for a dinner party at Vivian and Simon’s place.

‘A dinner party?’ He opened one steely eye. ‘Ain’t that where people yer hate come round, drink up all yer beer, toke all yer dope, up chuck on yer sofa, stay till, like, dawn … then bitch about yer at the next dinner party yer not at?’

‘Well, yes. But it’s a tradition. You’re my partner now, and you’ve got to fit in with my friends. I want them to understand what it is I see in you. It’s time you lost your social virginity.’

So, I led Zachary down Ladbroke Grove – the Couple Who Do Everything More Successfully And Fabulously Than Every Other Couple in the Known Universe lived in the heart of the Home-Made Pasta Belt in Notting Hill Gate.

‘They’ll adore you,’ I reassured him with a kiss.

Simon, wearing an embroidered Ghanaian shirt, met us at the threshold of their Feng-Shui-ed, four-storey terrace. He ushered us into the stark, pared-down ‘living space’, decorated in mandatory cool grey and creams with polished blond floor-boards and a minimum of spare, modern furniture. Even the pot plants had that ‘talked-to’ look.

I noticed, to my amusement, that Simon had left copies of books by Ben Okri, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou conspicuously on the coffee table and that African music was throbbing out of the speakers.

In the kitchen Kate, Anouska and Vivian were muttering over the bouillabaisse like the witches in Macbeth. When Zack entered, the conversation stopped abruptly. At her first sighting of Zachary, Vivian’s eyes whirled like plates on a magician’s stick. She was wearing a vivid turban with matching beads and big dangly earrings, upstaged by some sort of batik Kaftan in boisterous primary colours.

‘So pleased you could join us in our humble home,’ Vivian said, with the diction and demeanour of a progressive nursery-school teacher. ‘I
love
black people. I love
Africa
. I feel so rooted to
Africa
. That wonderful warmth and enthusiasm!’