Debatable Space (18 page)

And we were content, for a while. We no longer played the Sex and Death game. And as long as Andrei had slapped me at some
point in the day, he was fine. His impotence didn’t return. And he was good-humoured too, always laughing and joking. He was
genuinely, engagingly, adorable.

I dreamed that one day he would slap me and I would gouge out his eye and eat it.

But that never happened. And I never even, to be truthful, asked him to stop.

And after a while, I realised that he was slapping me because he thought that
I
wanted it.

And after a longer while, I realised that I
did
want it. I was locked in some crazy masochistic cycle. The slapping was Andrei’s sin, it was an unforgivable and callous
act of brutality and bullying. But the slapping was my sin too. I wanted to be disciplined, to be tamed, because in my heart
I saw myself as a beast.

For I am a beast. A whore, a nothing, a worthless piece of
. . .
I deserve everything I get! I am a
. . .
a
. . .

What am I? What really am I?

I find this hard to write about, to think about, to talk about. It’s so not me. Not everything I stand for. Everything I am.
It’s a jarring anomaly in my character arc. Me? Battered? A victim? Please!

But the slapping, I must tell the truth here, continued for several years. Morning, slap, noon, slap, night, slap. I never
called the police, I never told my friends. I didn’t, to be honest, regard it as strange. It just felt like another kind of
normal. Was he hurting me? No. Was I afraid? No? Did I consent?

Did I consent?

Yes, of course I did. Yes. So I can’t blame him. I blame myself.

Yet you see, though I may have said a few moments ago that this was the thing that doomed our love – yet perhaps I’m wrong.
For in many ways, this whole period was the best of our relationship. We were the perfect couple. I was happy. Relaxed. Fulfilled.
We were funny, witty, we had great times, we talked about life and literature and politics, or at least he did, and I listened.
And I couldn’t have been more happy – except for the fact that, once a day,

Slap.

So what’s so wrong with that? What—

No. Stop. It was wrong. Do you think I’m a moral imbecile? I know it was wrong. And eventually, I stood up to him, and I told
him, I told him—

No, that never happened. I’d like to think that one day I woke up and realised that I was acting like a fool, that I did not
deserve this treatment.

But it didn’t happen that way. No moral stand. No defiance. Instead, gradually, love corroded. How? Why? Why then, not earlier?
I simply do not know.

All I know is that the time came when I found myself waking up each day with a taste like ash in my mouth. Everything was
right; then nothing was right. I was happy; then I was not.

On the lake one day, while swimming, I was engulfed in a storm. Lightning ripped the sky and water poured down on me as I
swam. Then a rainbow sprang through the air and spanned the gap between the mountains.

It was the most extraordinary moment of natural beauty I had ever experienced. I was cocooned in water, my face crushed by
pouring rain, as the heavens themselves erupted in colour. It should have been the purest epiphany.

And yet I felt nothing. Just ash. And drabness.

Day followed day. Night followed night. My body trudged through it all. I had lost my ability to feel emotion. I concealed
this skilfully, but Andrei could tell something was wrong. I stopped flattering him around about then I suppose. Or was it
sooner? I have no record of it in my RAMs, which I appear to have a wiped, in a fit of dark depression. And I cannot, I literally
cannot remember when the death-of-love took place. Or how many months went by with me inhabiting this grey non-life.

Then one day I found myself in London, in Brown’s Hotel. I have no recollection of how I got there. But I stayed. I threw
away my mobile phone because it had Andrei’s number in it. I rented a flat for myself. I made no attempt to tell him where
I was. Four weeks later he tracked me down, and asked me, pleadingly, if I was having an affair. I mocked him, taunted him.
He stormed off, ranting, and I crowed at my triumph.

Then… I do not know. The missing months of my life. All RAM erased, no memories left.

Then my memories begin again, a few months later. I was living in a flat in Peckham. I was overweight, my hair had gone totally
grey. The flat was bleak and the wallpaper was peeling. Maggots crawled in the sink, among the remains of an abandoned apple.
And I realised I was missing Andrei badly. I ached for him with such intensity, it felt like I would die.

So I went back to him in the villa on Lake Como, apologetically, desperately, tail between my legs. But by then he’d changed
the locks. He’d burned all my clothes on a bonfire. And he already had a new girlfriend, who was wearing my jewellery. And
I was consumed with jealousy so strong it made my jaw ache.

I tried to hit him in fact, but he was too fast, too strong. Damn him. I left, weeping. The girlfriend looked scared.

Now, when I look back, I realise I was right to leave him. It was the beginning of my beginning. At the time, though, I cursed
myself and hated myself. How could I have given up the love of my life? What kind of woman was I?

And I decided, in my blackest moment, I would never forgive myself. I flew to Australia. I became an actress, and failed in
that career. I drank, I took drugs, I crashed two cars, I had a nervous breakdown. I wasted many many years. And I didn’t
see Andrei again until he was almost a skeleton.

But I dreamed of him constantly. And I missed the slaps. I found myself yearning for them. I sometimes stared at myself in
the mirror, stroking my cheek, imagining the slap. I went to the karate dojo and sparred and deliberately dropped my guard
so that I would be punched or kicked in the face. Just to feel that joyous shock once again!

With time, the slap-yearning faded. I internalised my insanity. But it’s still there. I don’t need a therapist to tell me
that my desire for Sex and Death and my longing for a strong man to strike me are signs of an dangerously unstable psychology.
I know I am, deep down, all wrong. I just hide the signs.

I’m.

All.

Wrong.

… that’s what I always say.

After I broke up with Andrei, and after the drink and drugs years, I decided it was time to settle down, behave more sensibly.
So I sobered up, detoxed, and forgave myself. I bought a whole new wardrobe, having decided to dress older. And I dyed my
hair an attractive grey.

Then I went to university and did a BA in Maths, followed by a BA in History. I started a PhD in Marine Biology but abandoned
it. Then I travelled a bit more. Then I became a schoolteacher for two decades, at a series of independent secondary schools
in the UK. I taught history, and politics, and organised all the school trips. It was, in its own way, exhilarating and challenging.
Then it got boring, the staffroom in-fighting started to piss me off, so I quit.

And I was old now, very old indeed. One hundred and forty-three years old. But though I now favoured a slightly mature-woman
look, my joints were as supple as ever. I could run a mile in four and a half minutes. I could bench-press those two big weights,
whatever they are, the biggest ones. I could swim for an hour. I could sleep with two different men on the same night, and
satisfy both. Though that happened quite rarely and gave me little pleasure. I could read very small print without reading
glasses. And I had surgically implanted memory chips to help me keep track of all my experiences.

I was no longer unique, or even unusual, however. This was a boom period in physical and mental rejuvenation. The cost was
falling year by year; even middle-class people could now aspire to live for ever. Admittedly, I was among the oldest of the
rejuves, but who’s counting?

But we rejuves were a revelation even to ourselves. We would snowboard, break limbs, and have them healed within months. We
were optimistic, cheerful, and always willing to believe the best of others. We went for walks at night; we chatted to rebellious
teens; we believed profoundly in giving criminals a second chance. The young were a bitter, listless generation, unable to
outdo their elders in the most basic things. The old had no cellulite, no wrinkles, no saggy boobs, no creaky joints. The
old were the new young; the young were simply callow.

Which serves those cocky bastards right…

After I gave up teaching, I spent about twenty years enjoying myself, in moderation. Then my conscience kicked in and I got
a job working for Save the Children, for about nine years. Then I applied for a job as chief executive of a new charity called
African Aid, and I got it. And after a few years of
that,
I got broody and I went to the baby bank and asked for my baby back. Peter was unfrozen and then born. I became a mother.

So there I was – with a baby, and a job, and a conscience, all at the same time. I was a devoted mum; and I was also Chief
Executive of a major charity. Humanitarian. Liberal. Idealist. Workaholic-with-child.

My home was in Johannesburg. But I had offices around the world, so I had two live-in nannies to help me look after Peter.
I breast-fed for a while, but got tired of leaking milk in meetings. So I paid the nannies to take lactating tablets and provide
a regular supply of breast milk. I hated the idea of giving my baby formula milk, I always felt the natural way was so much
better. I took great joy in passing Peter from one nanny to another, and I loved the smell and the look of these women’s ripe
breasts as they suckled my child.

I was fascinated at all that screaming business. One minute, my Peter was a little bundle of joy, so cute you wanted to lick
him all over. Then something would be wrong, he’d be hungry or cold or hot or consumed with angst or whatever it is that troubles
babies so, and he’d swell and turn red and bawl and bawl. A breast was usually the solution. But sometimes the crying continued
and continued, and I marvelled that a single small human being could contain so much unfocused rage.

I think having a baby was a humbling experience for me. It made me a much richer, more grounded person. I would recommend
it to anyone. Even if it’s only for a couple of years, it’ll really change your life. Trust me.

But I regret, really, the fact that I was working for African Aid at the time I had Peter. It was bad planning really. There
have been so many periods in my life when I had time on my hands, and I would amble through the day, taking breakfast at noon
and watching daytime TV until it was time for the first drink of the day. If I’d had my baby during one of those periods,
we could have had so much fun with each other. We could have gone to the park, rolled on the floor together, played with choo-choo
trains, maybe even gone to mother-and-baby movie shows. All those sharing moments. How I wish I’d had them.

But in this period, I was a driven woman. I felt a genuine idealistic passion for my work, and I was convinced that I was
going to make the world a better place. And my love for Peter turned in on itself and transformed into an unshakeable desire
to make the world fit for a new generation. I wanted to end poverty and infant mortality and corruption. I wanted to redeem
Africa. I was, I’m not afraid to say it, an idealist. But because of my ideals, my hours with Peter were sadly truncated.

I travelled a lot, across Africa, to America, and over Europe. So weeks would go by without me seeing my child. And I worked
long hours at the office, and slept no more than three or four hours a night. But when I was most ready to play – usually
at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. – Peter would all too often be fast asleep. And I would have to gently shake him awake, so I could cradle
him, and place his toys in front of him.

I was taking nildormer tables of course to help me reduce my sleeping hours. The pills had the effect of keeping me on a constant
adrenalin high. I had big plans, and broad objectives. I had the ability to keep dates and priorities in my head, and unripple
complex strategies as if I was opening a spreadsheet. My attention to detail was legendary.

And I built a team of acolytes who were devoted to my passions, and subordinated their entire lives to my dreams. Amy, John,
Michael and Hui, these were my core team members. Amy was from Dorking, with raven-black hair, and a nose that could easily,
in my view, have been corrected with cosmetic surgery though she seemed to like it the way it was. When I first got the job,
she was a visibly bored and underfulfilled secretary. But I promoted her to be my assistant and she blossomed, and became
my brilliant right-hand woman.

John was black, South African born, a lawyer by training, and spoke in a babble of energy that made him hard to understand.
But he was always worth listening to, and had a wonderful sense of humour and always laughed at my jokes. John was an orphan,
both his parents murdered in a Nairobi carjacking, and he had a sad soul.

Michael (London born, black) and Hui (New York Chinese) were the fact-finders. Fast talking, fast thinking, astonishingly
astute. He was broad-shouldered and intense, she was funny and witty and had heartbreaker eyes. Michael and Hui were very
tactile, very horny, very much in love. Then Hui spoiled it by having an affair with a journalist on the local paper, which
she then told Michael about, in graphic detail. I don’t know why the hell she did that – was she afraid of being happy? Would
it really have been so hard to keep her affair a secret? But anyway, they broke up, bitterly – but carried on working together.

What a team they were.

And I took pride in how well I led them. I was authoritative, inspired, never at a loss, fearsome and demanding, but secretly
full of love for “my” people. They were my everything, really – I was all work and no play. A total workaholic, with sensible
shoes and a “don’t flirt with me” attitude. Sometimes my staff liked to speculate about what kind of sex life I might have
had as a young woman; not much was the consensus. I would cheerfully eavesdrop all this with my enhanced hearing, and smile
to myself. If only they knew . . .