Altar Ego (23 page)

‘Oh, so they’ve finally found a cure for hypochondria,’ I said coolly. ‘Death.’

Julian changed psychological gear immediately. ‘You don’t look too well yourself, actually. Your complexion is showing a vampirical aversion to daylight. Are you eating correctly? Are you getting your greens?’

‘Julian, you are not respecting my boundaries!’

‘Boundaries? What are you all of a sudden? A
ranch
? Come back to me, Becky!’

‘Remember the “for better of worse” part of our marriage vows? Well, it was never for better. It was always for worse.’

‘If you don’t stop this ludicrous genuflection to youth, I’ll tell the entire world that you pluck that hair on your chin.’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘Try me.’

I steered him towards the exit. ‘This is exactly why I left you. You’re more controlling than a pair of Elizabeth Taylor’s pantyhose.’ I attempted to edge him out into the street. ‘I know I’ve hurt and betrayed you. Hell, I could win a Monica-Lewinsky-Behave-Alike Contest. And I’m desperately sorry, but we agreed that I could have some space …’

‘Space?’ Julian wheeled. ‘Oh, well, may I suggest
that
you look between the ears of your toyboy.’

The look of aggrieved vexation that came over my husband’s face told me that my lover had appeared behind me. I turned to find Zachary absorbing the scenario, hands on his sturdy hips.

‘Did you know she plucks a hair from her chin every second day? She also lies about her age. Did you know
that
? How old did she tell you she is? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Well she’s nearly thirty-three. The woman needs sheltered housing.’

‘Julian.’

‘Her hair is turning from grey to red.’

‘I do
not
dye my hair … much.’

‘You can’t trust a woman who lies about her age. If she cheated on me, what makes you think she won’t cheat on you? Have you thought about that, huh?’

‘Can it, libel-breath.’

‘Oh amazing!’ shouted Julian. ‘A rock star with the power of speech. That’s the only reason she’s picking this fight with me you know.’ Coils of anger loosened from his tongue. ‘… Just so that she can get to use words of more than one syllable – like promiscuous, ephemeral …’

Zack took a deep breath, controlling himself. He spread his hands wide in appeasement. ‘Becky has something she wants to tell you. I know it’s hard, man, but …’

‘
Please
don’t attempt to venture into psychology. It’ll be a nerve-racking experience for both of us,’ Julian
retorted
bitterly. ‘The point is, if you don’t stop committing marital vandalism and give me back my wife, then I’ll have to insist on a bit of practical negative reinforcement.’

Zack looked at me perplexed. ‘Say what?’

‘A traditional English term for beating the shit out of you,’ he said uncharacteristically.

This sent Zack into an explosion of derisive laughter. Julian took a shaky step closer to him, prompting Danny (the Dog Fondler) de Litto to heave into sight from behind the bookshop.

‘And what pray tell are you?’ Kate demanded of him. ‘Some kind of bouncer?’

‘Naw. I’m a gi-normous cupcake. What thuh fuck do yer think I am?’

‘I just hope you’ve planned on your next album being posthumous,’ Julian said, his face working with emotion. ‘Because of course you’ll be dead by then.’

‘It’s just …’ Kate, undaunted, prodded Danny de Litto, who was now in a predatory crouch position, ready to pounce. ‘We usually check our machine-guns at the door. It’s just a quaint little British custom.’

Drawing on my fine command of diplomacy, I did nothing.

The two men drew closer to each other. I placed my hands over my eyes. As I waited for the crunch of bone on bone, I was staggered to hear instead my mother’s brittle voice breaking the silence. I peeked between my
fingers
to see her sashaying into the foyer brandishing today’s tabloids.

‘Rebecca,’ she demanded, as the entire gathering quaked before her brutal cockney consonants. ‘Were you present when these photographs were taken?’

Kate suppressed a giggle. My father was cocker-spanieling close to heel. He was wearing a T-shirt as faded as he was, the message indecipherable; although ‘I’m With This Idiot’ would have summed things up.

Mum, in a dress that was strapless and a bra which wasn’t, flung the papers down on to the floor at Julian’s feet. Julian let out a desolate whimper as he saw the headlines.

‘Becky.’ I did a double take. My father, usually operating on auxiliary plankton power, had actually spoken, unprompted. ‘If you buy a car, he’ll treble your insurance, you know.’

‘It’s all
’er
fault,’ my mother rounded on Kate. ‘Youse feminists. Wouldn’t be ’appy till you ruined ’er marriage. Until she was emaciated.’

Even Danny the Dog Fondler snickered at that one.

‘E
man
cipated, I think you mean, Mum.’

Perching on the ticket desk, my mother fired off a barrage of disapproval about Zack. Despite this verbal volley, I noticed that she surreptitiously flashed him her camiknickers as she crossed her legs.

Oh, God. Here we go again. That was it. I’d had enough. Thinking with my feet, I made for the door at a trot. Julian grabbed my arm in a quivering, feverish
grip
. I turned. The muscles of his face were numb with despair; his eyes ringed by the strain of estrangement.

‘You’re really not coming back?’

I’d always thought that life was a bitch, but it struck me suddenly that maybe I was. Zachary’s eyebrows urged me to go on, the set of his jaw indicating that he wouldn’t tolerate any procrastination.

‘I … I …’ I guzzled air. I’d presumed separation from Julian was merely a symptom of my PMT (Pre-Monogamy Tension); symptoms for which Zack would be the cure. Then what the hell was I doing? Of course I shouldn’t split finally and for ever from my dear, sweet husband. I loved him. But rationality had gone cold turkey on me. I needed to attend a small, anonymous meeting. ‘Hi, my name is Rebecca. And I’m a Zack-aholic.’ Which way to the Linda-Trip-Double-Crossing-Two-Faced-Bitch Seminar? My God. If I wanted to self-destruct, why didn’t I just become a crack addict or a car salesman or something?

Zack gave a determined nod.

‘I want a divorce.’ I said shakily, then left my husband standing there, like a man waiting for a train.

24
Better Latent Than Never

‘DIVORCED?’ SQUEALED ANOUSKA
. ‘It sounds so glamorous, doesn’t it? So Somerset Maugham. It’s rattan pine chairs on colonial verandas, Gauloises, vodka neat and slowly whirring fans …’

‘You can’t get divorced,’ exclaimed Kate, craning her head between the two front car seats. ‘You’re not out of love with Julian, are you?’

I paused. ‘No. But I’m also
in
love with someone else.’

Anouska dented a bollard in a heart-stopping, paint-scraping manoeuvre which Houdinied her into a disabled parking space in the car park beneath the YMCA.

‘If only men came with hallmarks, so you’d know his real value,’ Kate lamented, un-impaling herself from the gearstick.

‘
What?
’ I swivelled around to face her over the back
seat
. ‘Could it be! A malfunction in the Kate McCready All-Men-Are-Bastards Prototype Factory! You’re the one who told me not to marry him!’

‘But if I’d known you were going to turn around and pick an unripe lemon from the tree of life …’

‘Zack is not a lemon. He’s conjugating verbs now, you know.’

Anouska locked the car and we trudged across the concrete tarmac to the rickety lift.

‘Oh, ye Gods! A Verb-Conjugator! Wow! … Rebecca, the guy’s an embarrassment socially. If Zachary were a dog, he’d need a lead. If he were a drink, he’d need a coaster. If he were a …’

The lift doors yawned open.

‘I do still love Julian. But the trouble is, he’s too nice.’

‘Yes. I hate that in a man,’ said Kate sarcastically. ‘Get out now while you still have some self-respect.’

‘I want you to go and talk to Jules about giving me an early divorce,’ I interrupted, punching the ground-level button.

‘Just make sure you get a lawyer, doll. Britain’s husband-friendly in divorce settlements,’ Anouska moaned as we shuddered surfaceward. ‘You want to make sure everything gets shared equally …’

‘Yeah,’ Kate scoffed. ‘Between your lawyers. Lawyers just charge a humungous amount to tell you what you already know, except they tell it to you in Latin. Divorcus Alimony Maximus.’

‘It won’t come to that. Besides, there’s nothing to share … We threw it all at each other weeks ago.’

The Ladies’ changing rooms were shrouded in a fog of talcum powder, fem-fresh spray and hair volumizer. We jammed our plastic membership cards into the locker slots and started to disrobe.

‘But why divorce?’ Kate sat on the wooden bench that ran the length of the locker aisle to peel off her jeans. ‘Oh my God!’ She lifted her head so quickly she took a chunk out of her skull on the sharp edge of a locker door. ‘You’re not going to marry Zack, are you?’ I wouldn’t put it past you. In your book being single is just the shortest space between two marriages.’

‘Well,
you’re
never even going to get close to matrimony wearing
those
.’ I flicked the elastic of her M&S bloomers. ‘Nothing could get inside them. Those knickers could deflect machine-gun fire.’

‘Bugger me! You are going to marry him, aren’t you? You collect unsuitable men the way, I dunno, fly-paper collects blowies!’ She gave a retaliatory flick to the lace on my G-string. ‘Tell me, do these come in thermal? Winter’s coming, you know. How can you
wear
them? I mean, they’re not
undies
. They’re a
curette
!’

‘Elasticated waistbands are completely incompatible with foreplay,’ I counter-attacked.

Kate stepped out of the offending bloomers and shoved them into her duffel bag. ‘Petting, I’ll have you know, is only for animals.’

‘And if the knickers don’t stop him, battling his way
through
the pubic undergrowth will. That bikini line could be gainfully trained up the side of a house! I mean when are you going to start waxing, Kate?’

‘She’s right, doll,’ Anouska decried. ‘That’s not pubic hair. That’s a hearth rug.’

‘Just tell me you’re not going to get hitched to the mongrel?’

‘I may have to marry him if we go to the States. For a Green Card.’

‘Ah-huh,’ Kate sing-songed. ‘And so that
he
can come back and stay in England without being an illegal immigrant.’ She gave me a knowing look before crunching into a Kit Kat. ‘Now it’s becoming clear. A fish out of water is an easy catch, you know, Rebecca.’

‘… Not to mention those love handles, Kate’ – I slapped her rump – ‘… It’s pointless exercising if you then go and mainline chocolate. Though I suppose eating
is
the safest sex in the world.’

‘They are
not
love handles. These’ – she placed her hands matter-of-factly on her hips – ‘are protein storage … Marry Zack? Christ. Although hey! Why am I getting my tits in a twist over this? It’ll never happen. He’ll fail the written exam for the marriage certificate. I mean, he hasn’t even reached the age of consent.’

‘Protein storage my ass. There probably was a thin person inside you trying to get out, Kate, but you ate her. Zack is not a kid!’

‘Really? I bet he wears pyjamas with
feet
.’ Kate
hoiked
up the stretchy trainer pants bucketing her ponderous buttocks. ‘And anyway, I’m not fat. It’s just period bloating.’

‘
Four weeks a month?
’

‘It’s water retention.’

‘If
that’s
water retention, then the Pacific ocean must have run dry last time you went for a dip, doll.’ Anouska, busy threading her spindly legs into a Gucci leotard with matching lycra tights, did not see the thunderous look that crept over Kate’s countenance. ‘I mean Rebecca’s right. You must start looking after yourself. You don’t even moisturize. Your skin is so scaly, doll, my crocodile handbag gets a hard-on just looking at you,’ she said, daringly.

‘Yeah? Well I bet it’s the only bloody male excitation in your household, you great galah.’

Anouska stopped laughing. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but now you’ve bloody well asked for it.’

Kate yanked Anouska out through the changing-room door and pressed her pert nose up to the window of the Free Weights room.

‘What?’ demanded Anouska, irritatedly.

Kate pointed at the thigh-extension machine. Sprawled before the mirror, legs splayed, was the Prince of Darkness himself.

‘Darius? What’s
he
doing here. He never fraternizes with the Great Unwashed.’

‘Keep watching, dag-features.’

‘This is silly. I’m going in to say hello …’

‘Anouska, how can I phrase this? … It’s a bloody Ken and Ken kind of situation, savvy?’

‘What?’

‘Well, let me try and put this in an English kind of way,’ Kate elaborated. ‘Your husband is a middle order batsperson
for the other side
…’

‘Oh my God,’ I shrieked. ‘Are you serious? How do you know?’ Our breath fogged the glass.

‘I still have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Anouska whined.

‘What Kate is trying to say is that she thinks Darius might have effete of clay …’ Anouska’s face was still resembling a piece of blank paper.

‘He’s sailing up the windward passage,’ thundered Kate impatiently.

‘The man leaves no buttock unturned …’ I added.

‘He drinks at the Hot Cock Tavern … The Bun Boy Bar.’ Kate exploded with frustration. ‘He lunches at the Rim Café, goddamn it!’

The colour drained out of Anouska’s face as a tanned personal trainer hooked his finger in the front of her husband’s shorts and tugged him close. Darius clenched his trainer’s buns and darted his tongue into the Adonis’s ear.

‘My husband picks up men at the YMCA?’ she gasped.

‘Unfair, isn’t it,’ said Kate. ‘The only thing I’ve ever picked up here is tinea.’

Anouska collapsed back on me. ‘But he’s straight.’