Better Than This (15 page)

She flashed me a look of such vehemence that I thought for a second she would hit me. “All I ever wanted was the best for my children. Sally was too young when she married you. I told her that. I said she ought to wait until she at least had some idea of what she was giving up.”

“What was she giving up? We’re not exactly living in a trailer park in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Perhaps not. But she certainly isn’t happy.”

“Jesus, Ellen, we’re not the first couple to have a bumpy patch in our relationship. It happens to everyone. What are you going to tell me? You and Frank never had a fight?”

“Oh, I think this goes a lot deeper than that.”

I hated the knowing edge in her tone. I thought if I pushed her hard enough she’d tell me about Garrison, and for a second I was almost tempted. Maybe it would be better anyway, and at least Sally would see her for the meddlesome crow she always had been. But the moment passed and then Ellen’s expression abruptly changed and disconcertingly she laughed as if I’d said something funny. The effect was surreal until I turned and saw Sally and her father coming towards us.

“What are you two plotting?” she asked, looking at us both with vague unease.

“We’ve been learning to understand each other,” Ellen smiled. “Haven’t we, Nick?”

“That’s right, we have,” I said, smiling with what felt like patent insincerity.

I put a disc on for the drive home, and when we reached the house I let everyone out while I put the car in the garage. When I went inside Sally’s parents had gone to their room. Sally was in the bathroom, with the door closed. I heard the sound of running water and the toilet flush. I started to take off my shirt, entertaining the pleasing idea of wrapping it around Ellen’s throat and throttling her. I had a vision of her with her tongue bulging and her eyes popping.

Sally came out of the bathroom. She had taken off her shoes and was in her stocking feet. Her head was down as she reached around to the back of her dress for the zipper.

“Nick, can you help me?” she asked. “It’s stuck.”

I went over, and saw that she’d caught her hair in it. “Hold on.” I carefully separated the strands until I was able to release the teeth. Her hair smelled faintly of apple blossom, and the feel of it trickling through my hands reminded me of fine powdery sand.

“There.”

“Thanks.” She started to step away.

I put my hand lightly on her shoulder. “Sally…” I began.

She turned around, her eyes clouded with unspoken thoughts. I felt a great and sudden need for her, but not just physically. I wanted to hold her, feel close to her again, but when I put my arms around her and held her I felt her hesitation. She rested her head against my shoulder and for a while we remained that way. I kept thinking about Garrison Hunt, and an unwelcome image of them together kept insinuating itself into my mind. We parted awkwardly, and when we were in bed I kissed Sally’s cheek, and with what felt like mutual relief we kept to our own sides of the bed and eventually fell asleep.

Sally’s parents left early the following morning, thankfully sparing me from having to endure a day maintaining the pretence that Ellen and I were becoming the best of friends. I was hugely relieved when the taxi finally arrived to take them to the airport.

Once we’d put the bags in the trunk Frank and I hung around in the garden, waiting for Ellen and Sally to say their goodbyes. We said all the things people do in those situations which nobody takes seriously. I hoped they’d have a good flight, it was good to see them again, we’d try and get up to Oregon before long. It soon petered out. The way these things should be done is you just shake hands, say thanks for everything and you’re gone. Everybody would really prefer it that way. But Sally and Ellen were still talking just inside the door, and Frank and I were left to endure a long uncomfortable silence.

I kept looking over towards the house, willing them to appear. Frank did too, and once or twice our looks collided. He rolled his eyes. We smiled. He looked at his watch.

“You should be okay on a Sunday, the traffic’s light.”

“I expect the flight will be late anyway,” he said.

“They always are aren’t they?” I seized on his opening. “I remember once I was on a flight from New York, got delayed six hours.”

“Six hours?” He shook his head in wonder. “That’s a long time.”

“It was American I think. Or maybe United. Who’re you flying with?”

“American.”

“I think it was United. You should be okay.”

“I think so.”

I nodded, and looked back towards the house, the possibilities of that topic exhausted. I prayed for an end to this torture. How much did Frank know I wondered? I thought I should thank him for warning me about Garrison Hunt, but then I figured if he’d wanted to get involved any further, he would’ve just said what he had to say directly rather than via his cryptic gardening metaphor. All the same I wanted to let him know I was grateful.

I stuck out my hand. “I want to thank you for your advice yesterday, Frank.” He looked at my hand in vague surprise. “The aphids.”

“Oh yes. The aphids.” He smiled and we shook. “You should spray them.”

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I will.”

I looked over at the house again. I would have given a lot to be a fly on the wall so I could hear what final entreaties Ellen was making. When they appeared I studied them both for some clue as to what had passed between them. Sally seemed a little annoyed and I sensed a little friction. I opened the door for Ellen, and as she got in our eyes met briefly, a silent acknowledgment of our mutual dislike. Then Sally kissed her father and at last they were leaving. We stood in the driveway and waved them off until the taxi vanished around the next corner, then we dropped our arms and looked at one another. Suddenly alone.

As we started back towards the house it was impossible to ignore the eddies and subtle unspoken tensions between us. Sometime during the night I’d woken feeling thirsty, and on the way to fetch a glass of water I’d had an idea. Lately I’d taken to picking up the picture of Sally and me that had been taken years ago in Mendocino. I was struck by how happy we looked then. During the night I’d thought of that picture and it prompted an idea which at the time I wasn’t sure was a good one, but now I thought it was. I loved Sally. I thought she loved me, and somehow we needed to start again from that point.

“You remember that inn where we stayed once up around Mendocino?” I said to Sally. “It was after I got offered a job in San Francisco.”

“Yes,” she said, puzzled.

“I think we should go there.”

“What?”

“Right now. We should get in the car and drive up there. We could take the coast road. It’s a nice day, we’d be there this afternoon.”

“Go all the way up to Mendocino. Now? Why?”

“Because we need to.” I stopped, and faced her. “I haven’t had a chance to think this through, but we both know we have to talk.” I reached for her hand and took it in my own. “I feel like I’m losing you, Sally, and I don’t want that to happen. I want us to go somewhere, away from here. I don’t know, a change of scenery, maybe it’ll do us good. It’s just that I know I don’t want to stay here and tiptoe around each other like people walking on eggshells. Like strangers.”

“But why Mendocino?” she said, trying to accommodate my train of thought.

“Why not? We were happy there once.”

“What about your presentation? My job?”

In truth that weighed heavily on my mind too, but some things shouldn’t be put off. I shook my head. “We can be back tomorrow. I’ll make up the time and you can call your office in the morning.”

“I don’t know, Nick.”

“Sally, please. We need to do this.”

She was silent for a minute. I didn’t know what things she was weighing in her mind. “It seems such a crazy thing to do,” she said, which I knew was no objection. She was halfway convinced. She looked at the house, and I think perhaps the idea of the two of us banging around together in there for the rest of the day made up her mind and at last she nodded her agreement, albeit uncertainly.

“Great. Go pack a bag.” As she went I banished the lingering doubts I had about this myself, aware that as well as saving my marriage I could be hastening the end.

We took the Saab and drove with the top down. It was a beautiful day, the kind that makes you want to get out on the road and drive for ever. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and took the old route one coast road that meanders north with the ocean on one side and hills and farmland meadows on the other.

At Bodega Bay we stopped at a store on the side of the road to buy a milkshake which we drank sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean watching the breakers roll in. We were talking, making jokes, trying to be natural with each other and doing a lousy job of it. Everything we did or said seemed forced and I couldn’t help wondering if I had made a mistake. They say you can never go back somewhere to recapture a time of happiness, because our memories are idealist. We take snapshots of laughter and happiness and store them away, conveniently forgetting about the bad or the mundane.

As we went back to the car the wind caught Sally’s hair and whipped it around her face. She swept it away and tossed her head and some loose strands caught in her milkshake, and for a second we both laughed. It was a tiny moment, but it was like a shaft of bright sunlight breaking through cloud, to remind you that it’s there. I knew then I needed no reassurance to myself that I loved her as much as I always had. I couldn’t imagine being without her.

When we started north again I rummaged through my CDs and found a drive compilation which I’d bought on impulse from a bargain bin on a market stall. At the time I’d pictured myself on the open road with the sun at my back, music playing and a long empty stretch of desert highway ahead. An escapist moment that was all imagery and vague longing, but completely lacking in substance. I couldn’t remember ever playing the disc in its entirety. If I played it on the freeway headed for work the old songs only sounded corny and I couldn’t think why I’d bought it.

Now, however, as the first track started playing, the music quickened my blood.

“Remember this?”

Sally listened. “REO Speedwagon.”

‘ “Keep on Lovin’ You”.”

The verse built to the chorus, that whole wall of sound thing reminiscent of Phil Specter, with the echo effect in the vocals and the layers of instruments behind. There’s something about certain songs that are perfect for driving. The sun was shining, we were cruising along the highway in no great hurry, and perhaps we were eager to seize on something that took us out of ourselves. We started to sing together, harmonizing badly at the top of our lungs.

It became a spontaneous competition to see who could get the most lyrics right, and to see who could sing the loudest and remain vaguely in the right key. I turned the volume up to full, and as that song ended and another began we were laughing. We passed a house back from the road, and in the garden a woman stopped to watch us go by. I don’t know what she made of us. Perhaps she thought we were rowdy and ought to know better at our age, but then maybe not. I like to think she smiled indulgently as we went by.

When the album finished I dug around for a Simon and Garfunkel Greatest Hits disc I knew I had and we sung along to all those great tracks like “The Boxer’, “Feelin’ Groovy’, and my all time favourite, “Mrs. Robinson’, which was from The Graduate, a movie that Sally and I both loved and had watched together a dozen times on video. The songs were great. They captured some essence of time and place that was gone, but which lingered in hearts and minds. Like “Mrs. Robinson’ they evoked a sense of lost innocence, and I suppose the sentiment and nostalgia reflected things we were feeling too.

At some point along the way to Point Arena the disc ended and I turned it off. We exchanged looks. How long had it been since we’d laughed that way, since we’d really had a good time? Sally looked away, as the music ended and the moment faded.

We arrived at Mendocino and drove through the quaint town and on to the inn where we’d stayed seven years ago. From the road it was suddenly familiar again. Little appeared to have changed, and a sign announced there was a vacancy. I made the turn and followed the curve of the approach road through a belt of silvery elms. The place was called The Lookout Inn, which we both remembered as soon as we saw the sign. More mansion than house, though there had been additions to the original construction, it was perched on top of a cliff on a promontory that was known locally as Lookout Point, though it didn’t appear on any map. Built by a sea captain, the main house complete with an observation turret and a widow’s walk, the story went that he had been a whaler out of Nantucket before he’d retired to California, where perhaps he preferred to gaze on the Pacific ocean rather than the cold Atlantic and the memories it held for him.

We checked in and were shown to a room on the third floor, the chief feature of which was a large four-poster bed. The prominence of it, and the connotations it evoked made us briefly awkward. Sally went over and sat down to test the mattress. She surveyed the expanse of the white bedspread, and when our eyes met she smiled uncertainly.

“Let’s go for a walk, work up an appetite for dinner,” I suggested, to which she gratefully agreed.

At the end of the long sloping lawn, steps had been carved into the cliff that led down to the cove below. A crescent of dark yellow sand was flanked by black rocks on either side, the protesting ocean squeezed into the space between them. In the middle of the cove incoming waves boiled on underwater rocks out from the shore and by the time the breakers reached the sand they were short and messy. From the top of the cliff we stopped to watch. The cove was choppy, the water flecked with white, land and sea locked in a perpetual struggle.

“What are you thinking?” Sally asked me.

“Nothing,” I said, though I was thinking about us. It occurred to me that we were like the sea down there.

We climbed down the steps, and sat on the rocks. I skimmed a couple of smooth stones across the water but they were quickly lost in the chop.