Black Widow (20 page)

‘I was serious when I said I wasn't comfortable with it, Lucas.'

‘Yes, but I'm offering a quid pro quo, and I know you'll go to any length to get a lead.'

‘I haven't told you what I'm working on.'

‘Come on, Jack. Inverness may officially be a city these days, but it's still a small town. How many stories could have led you to seek us out after all these years?'

‘Touché. So what have you got?'

‘First, do we have a deal?'

Parlabane sighed. Ordinarily he wouldn't concede anything until he knew the likely worth of the information, but he owed Lucas what he was asking anyway.

‘We have a deal. But this better be worth it.'

‘Oh, it's not. But it's marginally better than nothing and I figured you're desperate. My take on Diana and Peter.'

‘I'm listening.'

Lucas took another sip of malt and set down his glass, leaning forward. He dropped his voice too, and Parlabane was soon aware of another reason his deceit hadn't been unmasked in front of Austin.

‘I like Diana. Let me get that out there so we can be clear where I'm coming from. She's a bit of an acquired taste, granted, and she doesn't exactly bowl you over with her light and warmth, but ultimately her heart's in the right place, I think. She's had to put up with a lot of shit, so I can understand why Austin was so happy for her. Why he wanted to believe
she
was happy.'

‘You think she wasn't?'

‘I think she settled, that's all, and it was rough on her, coming to terms with that.'

Parlabane couldn't allow for ambiguity around Lucas's choice of words.

‘Settled?'

‘I mean I think she compromised: dropped her standards and was then in denial about it. What may have made it worse is that she was so high and mighty on the subject. Her blog was notoriously unequivocal regarding the “nobility of a woman being alone” as opposed to putting up with someone unworthy simply to be in a relationship. Unfortunately I think that's precisely what she ended up doing. That's got to be a blow to your pride when you finally realise it: especially if you suspect
other
people realise it.'

‘What are you basing all this on?'

‘Seeing them together. I met Peter a few times. He wasn't all that.'

‘Yeah, but it's not about what
you
saw in him, is it. I know plenty of people who don't get why a friend is with their particular partner. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was “that particular partner” in a lot of Sarah's friends' conversations.'

‘Never us, I swear,' Lucas replied with a deliberately coy smile. ‘Hey, look, I know what you're saying. It's one thing when you know a guy's punching above his weight, especially if he realises it and ups his game accordingly. But that's not what I saw when they were round here.'

Parlabane sat forward. From Lucas's face he could tell this was something that had troubled him, and yet possibly something he had found difficult to talk to Austin about.

‘Here's the thing. We never saw them together before they got married, so I can't compare. Nobody did, really. I remember Austin remarking on it: whenever Diana wasn't at work, she was with Peter, together alone, exclusive. Like a cocoon. He took it to be a healthy sign: who wouldn't? And maybe that built up my expectations, both of what he would be like and how they would be together.

‘As Austin told you, Diana was keen to be more sociable after they were married, and we missed the wedding because we were on holiday, so we had a dinner party for them after we got back.'

Lucas glanced over to the dining table, like he could still see them sitting there.

‘I was sitting opposite Diana, with Peter facing us both. He was pretty quiet at first. Struck me as naturally shy, so this was understandable in new company; and busy, loud company at that. After a few drinks, he was less reticent, but let's just say he should have stuck with shyness and letting us imagine his unspoken thoughts were profound.'

‘Was he crass?' Parlabane asked, thinking it unlikely, but he did remember being at Austin and Lucas's place in Edinburgh once and sharing their unspoken disdain for the improbable new boyfriend who had turned up on the arm of a surgical senior house officer. They had later concluded that she was road-testing this Rangers-tattooed fucknugget for shock value before introducing him to her parents as an act of revenge.

‘No,' Lucas replied. ‘Just conspicuously out of his depth. His frame of reference was so limited: all internet memes and sci-fi and videogames. It was like talking to a fourteen-year-old. When we were talking politics, he kept bringing it back to
Game of Thrones
and even
Star Trek
. Seriously, the guy could quote Star Federation directives on every issue but was considerably less up-to-date on UK or Scottish government policy.'

‘So what?' Parlabane asked. ‘I mean, I get that you found it annoying, but maybe Diana reckoned she needed a bit of geek in her life to counter-balance all the overblown hyper-seriousness that we both know comes with the job.'

‘It wasn't me who had a problem with it: that's what I'm telling you. It was Diana. She spent most of the evening spinning for him.'

‘Spinning?'

‘Managing the message. Interpreting for him. Saying “I think what Peter means is that …” You know?'

‘And how was he taking this?'

‘He was looking at her like: what the fuck? A mixture of embarrassment and confusion. He thought he was doing just fine, and here she was, explaining on his behalf. Not only explaining, either. She was quoting him on stuff more than he was opining himself, like he had played his A game elsewhere and she wanted us to see that rather than how he was performing here tonight.'

‘Quoting him on what?'

‘Gender issues, hacking and privacy, climate change, religious fundamentalism. When these things came up, he'd make a limited or sometimes inane contribution, and she'd be like: “Peter, what was that great thing you said about this that time …” He seemed reluctant to quote himself, maybe from being cued up and put on the spot like that, so he'd say he didn't remember, and she would say it for him.'

‘And what was his A game like?'

‘It sounded a lot like Diana's opinions reflected back at her after being rehashed enough that she thought she was hearing a new angle. Not exclusively, though. She was particularly keen to showcase what he had to say on things she didn't get, like hacking and cyber-crime and cryptocurrency. But even on those, she didn't seem so much like his wife as like a mother who was over-eager for her teenage son to impress in front of grown-up company.'

‘Ouch. That sounds like a pretty harsh take, Lucas.'

‘Just telling you what I saw, Jack. I may be biased and kinda bitter at having to wait a decade and a half for the state to permit me to marry the man I love, but it gives a certain perspective upon the danger of getting married after a whirlwind romance. While you're distracted by the sex and the excitement, you can deceive yourself about your partner's limitations. After the wedding, though, there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Sooner or later you have to face the truth.'

When I was twelve, my parents eschewed our usual February half-term skiing trip in search of some winter sunshine in Lanzarote. I hated it. Instead of snow, there was a constant precipitation of black dust, like a cruel inversion of the holiday I would have preferred. Plus I had not long hit puberty, so the previously unproblematic issue of sharing a room with my two younger brothers became a vortex of awkward, made all the worse by getting my period that week too. I got all kinds of grief from Mum and Dad for being grumpy and sullen and ungrateful for this unrequested privilege, particularly over my reluctance to don a bikini or ever take off my shorts and T-shirt. I recall them bemoaning what they interpreted as the first heralds of my becoming a sulky teen, thereby giving a textbook illustration of the term ‘self-fulfilling prophecy'.

My one positive memory of the trip was our visit to Cueva de los Verdes, a volcanic tunnel created by a subterranean lava flow. There was no guide, so we were left to explore by ourselves, which made me all the more alarmed when we reached its dramatic central cavern and I observed how the ground fell away in a sheer plunge only inches from the edge of the path. The drop had to be fifty feet, down to jagged rocks and thus certain death, which made me fearful for my heedless brothers who were always wrestling and pushing and tripping each other. I was appalled that there was no barrier, not even a warning sign, and that my parents weren't cautioning us to stay away from the precipice.

Then I realised that it was an illusion. What actually lay inches from the path was a shallow pool, untroubled by the movement of air and thus perfectly reflective of the cavern's carefully designed lighting. But the weird thing was, once I understood what I was looking at, I was disappointed. Now I could simultaneously see the pool and the phantom ravine, but I only wanted to see the latter. That's what is seductive about certain illusions. Even when you know the truth, you can still choose to see things that are not there. You can prefer the illusion to the reality.

I was ready for that Oh my God moment. I knew that things might look rather scary once the honeymoon was literally over, that we might both be inclined to inflate the significance of any emergent problems because we were terrified of it not working, of us having made a huge mistake. But I also knew, as I had told myself when he proposed, that in a marriage, you value what you build, and the dividend is in overcoming difficulties together.

It is not that I was blind to Peter's faults before we were married. More that he concealed them beneath what in myth is known as a ‘glamour': a magical disguise that prevented me from seeing who he really was. And once we were married, once the seduction was complete, he discarded it.

The first thing that struck me was that we seldom ate together. Often it was because of our respective schedules, one of us coming home later than the other. Two decades in surgery had prepared me for that, but it made it all the more disappointing on the occasions when we were both home and yet didn't sit down to the same meal. Peter would say he wasn't hungry and slope off to his computer or his Xbox, only to fix himself something or even order junk food a couple of hours later.

He was usually drinking too. Not to extremes, but he seldom seemed to have a dry night, and he would look at me like I was being ridiculous if I ever drew attention to it. I never said anything melodramatic, merely passed comment: ‘Wine on a school night?' That kind of thing.

‘Jesus, Peter, we're becoming more like flatmates than a husband and wife,' I complained one night, having barely got five minutes of his time between him coming through the front door and disappearing into his den with a can of beer and a McDonald's.

‘I'm sorry,' he replied, indignation underlining that he was the opposite of apologetic. ‘I've got a lot on my plate at the moment and some things I need to look over before tomorrow, because I need to finish a brief for one of the subcontractors. I've been working fourteen hours straight and I'm stressed out my box, so if your idea of being a husband and wife is to be getting on my case rather than being supportive, then flatmates sounds pretty good right now.'

It was an exchange we had over and over again. One time he apologised and put down the laptop, and we ended up in bed; but mostly he made me feel guilty for being selfish.

‘I'm trying to build something here, Diana. I'm trying to do what I've never done before, like you encouraged me to do. And when I get home, if I don't have more work to do, I need space to unwind.'

‘I appreciate that,' I replied. ‘But before we were married, your idea of unwinding didn't involve retreating into your own company all the time.'

What troubled me was that we didn't talk the way we used to, and by that I don't mean as often. I mean literally the
way
we used to, and in particular the way
he
used to. We would talk about things that mattered, things that made us feel connected. Every conversation was an exploration of who each of us was, pregnant with plans and possibilities of who we might be in future, together. He was articulate, he was engaged, he was passionate.

To give you an example, not long before we got married, I was quite upset about something that happened at work. I had a death on the table, which is fortunately very rare, and even though we had done everything, it was still a horrible thing to deal with. I went over and over the case in my head, all of the decisions I had made and actions I had taken, but could find no way I might have done things differently that would have affected the outcome for the better. It may seem odd, but somehow this only made me feel worse, until Peter said something that made sense of it, and I felt like a burden was lifted.

‘It is possible to commit no error and still fail, Diana,' he told me. ‘That is not a flaw, just life.'

It was moments like that which assured me I was making the right decision about marrying him. Where did he go, I wondered: this man who understood me, who inspired me?

I recall we went to my colleague Austin's house for dinner a few weeks after the wedding, and Peter seemed so dull, like a dilute version of himself. I was so frustrated because I wanted everyone to see the real him.

‘What was wrong with you in there?' I asked him as we drove home.

‘What do you mean?'

‘You didn't sound like you. It was like you couldn't be bothered being yourself so you were phoning it in.'

‘I don't understand,' he replied, confused and slightly exasperated. ‘I am myself. You make it sound like you needed me to suit up and be some alter ego, like you wanted Superman but got Clark Kent. Is that why you kept speaking for me? Explaining what I “meant” to say? Because that was bloody mortifying. Did you want me to be more impressive in front of your friends, is that it? To be somebody else because they might think the guy you've married is beneath you?'