Love Rules (46 page)

‘Saturday night?’ Mark questioned.

‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘I thought I'd phone Janine and Laurence.’

‘
Janine and Laurence
? But I thought you found them dull,’ Mark protested, ‘after they organized that murder-mystery dinner that went a bit wrong?’

‘That's the point!’ Alice revealed excitedly. ‘I thought I'd invite them
and
Thea! But I've told Thea that
you
organized it and she has to come to give me moral support.’

‘Darling, apart from the fact that you've given me the role of Big Bad Wolf, why on earth do you want to spend our third wedding anniversary forcing your best friend to socialize with a couple you don't much care for?’ Mark despaired. ‘Anyway, I have a reservation at Claridges, you daft girl – you're not going to have me cancel it, are you?’

‘Yes, cancel Claridges,’ Alice said, ‘we can do Claridges
next year. Because you see, I was thinking you could invite Joel too! Sneaky old me!’

‘Alice Sinclair!’ Saul exclaimed. ‘Joel is only over for a brief visit – I have a feeling he flies out at the crack of dawn on Sunday.’

‘Oh, he travels Business Class,’ Alice brushed, ‘he can always change his flight. Please phone him, pretty please?’

‘But more to the point, darling,’ Mark said, ‘I thought you'd approached Thea about meeting Joel when he was last over and she'd rejected the idea.’

‘That was ages ago,’ Alice told him. ‘She's my best friend. I know her. And I know this is good timing.’

Mark sighed with happy exasperation at his wife. ‘I have to go, Alice – I have a meeting.’

‘OK!’ Alice chirped. ‘I'll see you later. Do you think I'm the sneakiest minx in the world?’

‘Yes,’ said Mark, ‘I bloody do. You're like a maverick Jane Austen busybody.’

‘But you love me anyway! See you later, darling.’

Funny thing, friendship, Mark thought as he made his way to the boardroom. In the past he'd felt excluded from Alice and Thea's intimacy. He'd also been privately envious of their bond. He had many friends himself but none with whom the tenets of friendship ran so deep. Over recent months, how-ever, he'd been touched by the unstinting support Alice offered Thea and he'd been moved at Alice's private distress for her friend. He decreed it the mark of a good person when dedication to the deeds of friendship was obviously so paramount. He knew that Alice saw him as her best friend too. She'd told him so one morning over the Sunday papers. He felt greatly honoured by such a role.

However, it transpired that Thea had already organized a weekend in Wootton Bourne with her mother. And Janine
and Laurence couldn't make it anyway. And Mark never did phone his cousin Joel. So Mr and Mrs Sinclair celebrated their third wedding anniversary in style at Claridges. Just the two of them.

The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence

Edward Thomas

I've been thinking about fidelity. I've been thinking about love. I've seen Ian and Karen's friend Jo a few times. We have a laugh, we have good sex, she's interesting and attractive. I have to admit that it's a relief, refreshing even, that she's so different to Thea. However, sometimes I feel like I'm cheating on Jo by missing Thea still. And, conversely, occasionally I feel I'm betraying Thea by enjoying my time with Jo.

I do miss her, my Thea, my ex. I love saying her name. I hate saying ‘ex’. When I least expect it, I get winded by a sudden pang. When I heard Lynne's terrier Molly had died, I was grief-stricken because I was transported back to that disastrous second date with Thea. And then on to thoughts of her scar. I felt bereft. I thought, did I kiss that scar enough? And I couldn't quite remember if it snaked this way or that. Ultimately, Lynne ended up comforting me even though her dog had just died. If I'm carrying tension in my shoulders I have to tell Jo: no, left a bit, up a bit, over a bit, deeper if you can while I remember how Thea knew instinctively what to do. I gave my Armani jacket away. I buy
Heat
magazine every week.

But it's not that I harbour even the most silent of secret hopes that Thea and I will be together. I don't because we won't. I'm OK about that. I understand. I've come to terms with it. I now believe that the love of one's life may not necessarily be the person one ends up with. And we have to work bloody hard not to make that fact a tragedy. It's no reason to be maudlin or unprincipled, it's no excuse to reject or downplay the potential of future relationships. I have come to acknowledge that the intensity of the love I had with Thea – that perfect blend of companionship, desire, affection – has become a yardstick. It's something to aspire to because I know it exists – after all, for a blissful two and a half years I was lucky enough to come by it.

I know I won't ever feel for Jo the way I feel for Thea but I suppose that doesn't mean that we can't have an enjoy-able relationship. I know intrinsically that the love I felt for Thea can never be equalled. But it's not something I should continue to mourn. It's not something to bury. It's something to revere. It's a legacy. Being in love with Thea Luckmore has made me a better, more complete person. The experience enhanced my life.

And do I still pay for sex? I haven't since I split from Thea. But, if I'm honest, that's not because I'm a reformed character who's learnt his lesson. That would imply conscious misbehaviour. For me, such purchases were a simple and non-invasive way of sating a peculiar yet common hunger. Read my column in last month's
Esquire
– ‘Love and Sex – hands up who can do the one without the other?’. I suppose it is one of my life's great ironies – I may be a hard-working bloke but I'm a lazy wanker. Literally. I still don't consider it a crime or a sin or genuine adultery. To me, emotional infidelity is heinous – the ultimate betrayal – and I can never be accused of that. Christ, that one time years ago I came close to feeling it, I felt a moral obligation to finish
with Emma immediately. That's why I feel uncomfortable about really liking Jo but still missing Thea. I don't fuck Jo and imagine I'm making love to Thea. I don't compare Jo unfavourably with her. I don't see Jo so that I don't have to think about Thea. It's just I do still miss Thea, I really do. We were very much in love, we really were. It was beautiful. Perhaps I need to be patient. Perhaps next month I'll find that I think about Thea less than I do now.

Has Thea met someone? I don't know. I don't know how I'd feel about it – whether I'd want to punch the bastard or shake his hand and tell him to look after her. In fact, I can't actually think about her with another man. So I don't. I've decided not to and, being a bloke, I can do that. You should read my column in the
Observer
magazine this Sunday: ‘Barefaced Bloke wonders whether his ability to compartmentalize is a skill or a weakness.’

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence

H. L. Mencken

I saw Kiki today. I mean, I saw her as a client – my client. Poor girl had ricked her ankle tripping on the kerb. Bloody Westminster council – I told her to write to them, I've told her I'll check the letter for her. Anyway, I didn't charge her for the treatment – I figured I owed her, minute for minute, for the time she gave me. She's a lovely woman. I don't feel sorry for her or sad, I don't feel threatened or repulsed, it's her career and she doesn't regard herself as a victim at all. I see now how my turning on her – and then turning to her – enabled me to let go of Saul. That day, she seemed to represent every prostitute in the world and I felt rage and hatred and fear. I really felt that, as a woman, she was letting us all down. Until I stopped and sat on her bed and let her hold my hand. Don't you see, as in all trade, the control is with the purchaser not the provider? The instinct is within the punter, it's not forced by the prostitute. Demand. Supply. It is absolutely not a case of chicken and egg. Man came first and Woman saw there was – quite literally – a hole in the market and, to put it crudely, a market for that hole.

Saul Mundy was the love of my life. I was deeply in love with him and it was a glorious state to be in. I was so looking
forward to running headlong, hand in hand, into our future. And then I found out. And I cannot begin to describe the untold shock. He wasn't who I thought he was. Worse still, he didn't see love the way I see love. How can you look forward in the same direction if you don't see eye to eye? I know all the theories that it's a bloke thing to be able to keep sex and love apart. I know all the facts about how many men use sex workers. I know that it needn't mean that their wives don't satisfy them, or they have secret perversions, or they're lonely. They do so simply because they can. And they can do so with fundamentally no ramifications on their home life.

But do you know what, there are many men who
don't
pay for sex and, actually, I'd like one of those. The control is with the purchaser, remember, not the provider. I know Saul wanted to provide me with more than all the love I could ever need but actually, I'd rather invest in someone else. Saul was my long-held dream, my fantasy incarnate, who swept me off my feet, who made my spirit soar and my heart fly free. Ultimately, I suppose it was me who didn't love him enough. I couldn't allow him his entire personality. I couldn't love him unconditionally. He was just being himself but I didn't like him enough to let him.

I'm so glad that I experienced the level of love I attained with Saul. It gave me proof it exists. And I'm glad that I mourned Saul so deeply – thoroughly enough to visit a brothel in my quest to confront my fear and understand him. I'm so relieved that my belief in love remains unsullied. Actually, my belief in love has strengthened because it's deepened. It's had to. True love needs to be more than a feeling, more than that rush of phenylsomething. I must have Alice tell me how to pronounce it once and for all. I can see now that the success of love is dependent on the sum of its parts; on the presence of friendship and affection, understanding and tolerance,
moral compatibility and practical support. Essential elements in balance.

I wonder whether Mr Mencken meant it derogatorily, that love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence? Wasn't he the man who said marriage is a wonderful institution ‘but who would want to live in an institution’? How awful to be so cynical and so decided against love. Did he not read
Sense and Sensibility
? Did he never soar with another person? What is life worth if you don't believe in happy-ever-after? Is that deluded – or is such hope positive and affirming? I have come to see that the course of love might be a tough climb and we have to accept that it might lead us to pastures new rather than the fields carpeting our previous dreams. Life might be easier if we lost our need to find love – but I feel for those who shun the fantasy. The earth can't move for those who don't believe that love makes the world go round.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own

Robert Heinlein

I like to believe that if we're good in life, if our thoughts are honourable, our goals worthy, our deeds and dealings principled, then happy-ever-after is our reward.

Would you just look at me and what I have. A beautiful wife, a career which is well paid and stimulating, a large circle of good friends, a stunning home. It is a charmed life I lead. I am the envy of many. I feel truly blessed.

Twenty years ago, we did ‘The Miller's Tale’ at school for our A-level Chaucer. I vividly remember thinking silly carpenter, let that beautiful spirited Alyson run free. Can't you see she will indeed cuckold you if you repress her spirit and try to cage her like that. Don't deny her that feistiness. If you corral that filly you'll destroy her spirit, and she'll just stand there, beautiful but broken. A façade. She'll hardly love you for it.

Did my wife have an affair? She may have done. If I'm honest with myself, I'd have to admit that I had reason to suspect so. But the point is I don't know for sure. What I do know is we are very happy now. We were going through a bad patch back then – as I expect all marriages do. We were distant – very literally, in my case, with all that travelling for
work. She was stroppy and needy. I was too busy, too tired, too stressed to pay attention.

Was I turning a blind eye or was I just choosing wisely not to look? I admit I didn't try too hard to find out. Instead, I found it easier to look for evidence to the contrary. Because I'm an optimist. And what I do not know cannot hurt me. Where is the sense in panic when there is no real proof of transgression? I don't think that to hold on to an element of naivety is foolish; I think it's sometimes wise.

I love my wife and I admire her. Whatever she did or didn't do, she never made a fool out of me. She came through it all with her spirit intact and my love for her not damaged, her love for me rejuvenated. And she does love me. I know she does. She tells me often enough.

Love is often the fruit of marriage

J.-B. Molière

I laughed. I thought it was not just pretentious but also rather incongruous to see my local grocer using a quote by Molière to advertise exotic fruit baskets. But, as I walked back home with my ridiculously expensive Charentais melon and out-of-season cherries, I committed that Molière quote to memory and I refer to it often. It's become the blueprint for my marriage.

When I proposed to Mark, I suppose you could say I was on a reverse-rebound. God – that sounds like a shout line for an article in
Lush
– maybe I'll even suggest it at the meeting on Tuesday. What I mean is, rather than getting over my then-ex Bill by shagging around or serial dating to distraction, I grabbed the antithesis of every man I'd ever had because I realized I'd never found happiness with any of those men I'd fancied rotten. Call me self-centred and manipulative but I calculated that Mark would never leave me, never behave badly, that I'd never have to feel that gut-hurling insecurity again. So I decided that to marry him would be an excellent idea. I knew that he'd always held a torch for me. And it was precisely that. Mark was a beacon of light when I was stuck in a murky place. Deep down I know I was not
actually ‘in’ love with him and for a long while I felt privately ashamed about that. Until I was at the grocer's and saw the Molière quote a couple of weeks ago. I can see now that I proposed to Mark because I knew that he was the one man I sensed I could love deeply.