Low Expectations (18 page)

‘Does he like Van Morrison?' Dad's question is drowned out by Mum who says simultaneously,

‘He doesn't live in a squat, does he?'

She is suspicious that all artists and musicians are alcoholic ne'er-do-wells living in a constant state of near-homelessness, unless they are wildly successful, in which case they are of course visionaries.

‘No! Christ. Let's open gifts, shall we?'

Retiring to the living room, we settle around the little tree.
When I was a child, opening gifts with the older, conservative family members on my Dad's side, I would pass out everyone's allotted present and we would go around the circle taking individual turns to open them. It was, to me, a torturously slow, painful charade of gratitude before the wrapping was even off. This gratitude would remain determinedly lacquered on, whatever the bitter disappointment of the actual gift. We would outwardly ooh and ahh, inwardly wtf-ing, over things that we mostly didn't want and definitely didn't need.

Now that it is just us three, we quickly dispense with such politeness. Mum immediately re-gifts the fifties-style Roberts radio Dad has given her to me, saying that if her technology isn't modern, guests will think she's just held on to random junk from her childhood. Dad sweetly pretends that the Hermès tie I've given him isn't too slim to suit his girth and that he doesn't already own the Ayrton Senna biography that Mum gave him. I receive a beautiful cashmere jumper, some really strange jewellery and books on fashion and art. Mum declares that as Vitoria would never eat the marrons glacés she bought for her, we should open them now and have a glass of champagne before lunch.

A few hours later we are stuffed to bursting with turkey, Brussels sprouts and Christmas pudding. We have spent the day mostly pleasantly; the BBC holiday specials soothe us to the point where we send forth only an occasional sally of half-hearted criticism. It feels almost like old times. With the only
tears and shouting related to a heated Scrabble battle, I start to think that maybe, just maybe, we've turned a corner and a new peaceful era of forgiveness, love and proper grown-up behaviour has begun.

‘I've done something bad, Georgie. But I don't feel terrible about it at all. Does that make me a bad person?'

As Sarah and I sit down at a table in The Newt for our traditional Boxing Day hair of the dog, I have a rising sense of déjà vu. Though I usually avoid drinking where I work I am stingy and staff discount has lured me in. Besides which, I love Gary and though Scott hasn't been around much, he always puts a smile on my face.

‘I'm sure it can't be that awful, doll. Have you and Henry fought again or something?' I ask.

I have some juicy gossip to share myself, but clearly whatever Sarah has done is so dreadful that it takes precedence; we will dissect whatever drama she has embroiled herself in
like a mutilated cadaver in
CSI: Relationships
. The last time she did something ‘terrible' was when she drunkenly carved ‘I HATE YOU' in giant letters with her keys on the front door of Henry's flat during a particularly embittered row. The marks were so deep that paint couldn't fill them and she ended up having to replace the entire thing. Therefore, this confession could be pretty bad, but my job is to soothe her worried fears, not concur that she can be a total psycho. Loyalty works in strange ways.

‘No, we've been getting on better than ever recently. But … I'm having an A-F-F-A-I-R!' She spells the word in an exaggerated whisper, looking around her with the paranoid air of the recently institutionalized. It takes me a moment to work out what she means. Then I gasp.

‘Whaaat? No way! You've always been so anti-cheating!'

Sarah may be many things: loud, theatrical, brutally honest and disconcertingly direct. But although she is a very sexual person, who talks a big game when it comes to men, she has always said that she has never and would never cheat. However tempting, she considers it an act that it is for cowards and liars, two things she prides herself on not being. Fidelity is arguably a quality that has nothing to do with love. It is a matter of how you view yourself. Internalizing the notion that ‘I am not the type of person to cheat, lie or steal' is, after all, the only thing that prevents most people from cheating, lying or stealing.

‘I know, I know. The thing is, if you've never done something it's easy to dismiss it out of hand as something you would never do! I mean, I just had never been really tempted before and when I gave in I thought, well, this can just be a one-time-thing, a slip-up I'll never repeat. But I had no idea how I'd react to doing it. I'm like an Amish teen that's suddenly discovered bars, booze and boys. I feel like I'm addicted to him.'

‘Wait, wait, wait, who? Someone from work?' I ask, trying to think of a Don Juan alluring enough to overturn her principles.

Sarah is gnawing on her fingernails with a demented air; the manifestation of her nerves chewed onto her bloodied cuticles. But at this, she rolls her eyes.

‘Ye gods, no. You've come to one of our after-work dos haven't you? No, no, it's Alistair. Remember the tall Irish guy in the fur coat at Beardy's gig?' I cast my mind back to that night, vaguely recollecting a man fitting this description. He was, though very handsome, camper than a row of tents.

‘The lanky one? You're sure he isn't gay?'

Sarah's all-time favourite, alive-or-dead fantastic famous dream-fuck is Tim Curry circa
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
; she likes a high-kicking edge to her masculinity. So if this Alistair is indeed a skirt-chaser, I can see how she was overpowered by lust.

‘Er, trust me, I think I have firmly established by now
that he is definitely, definitively, one-hundred-percent straight.'

Sarah manages to look guilty, lovelorn, pleased and tormented all at once. I notice that she is wearing sky-high fuck-me heels and a low-cut, clingy jersey dress that showcases her perky tits to perfection. I begin to wonder if she is going to ditch me later tonight or if she is now just dressing the part of an adulteress.

‘How did this start? You barely spoke to him that night.' She also barely mentioned him the next morning after she stayed at my house. She had ample opportunity, as we went for a late brunch of sausage and mash at the aptly named S&M Café the next day. Not best known for her subtlety, she must not have been so taken with him at the time.

‘He found me on Facebook a few days later and we started messaging each other. We had always had a spark between us, but, I don't know, it was one of those stupid things where I met him when I was younger and I didn't really realize how rare it is to have that kind of electricity with someone. I just let it fizzle, for pastures new, not yet knowing that those pastures would be by-and-large the sort of non-arable bits of land the American government palmed off on the Native Americans.'

‘You're comparing Henry to non-arable land? Harsh, dude.' I sip my wine and wonder what unflattering analogies ex-boyfriends may have made about me to their friends. After
all, even Tony Curtis said kissing Marilyn Monroe was like kissing Hitler.

‘Not Henry, no, but I was single and dating for a good two years between the two of them and yeah, it was a drought-stricken desert. I speak in terms of quality, not quantity, of course. It was never serious between Alistair and me, so I thought why not meet up, just as friends, you know?'

‘Ah. The old non-date date, I see. That rarely works out for anyone concerned, especially the clueless boyfriend. Is this guy seeing someone as well?' I purse my lips in mild disapproval.

It's not that I'm above cheating – when I am in love I have no interest in it. You can't really congratulate yourself on good behaviour that requires no effort. Maybe I have never sustained a relationship long enough to want to. I don't think I would, though – after my dad I can't help but find these situations a bit tawdry.

‘No, Alistair's single, he broke up with his ex a year ago and hasn't met anyone special since, apparently. I've been totally upfront and honest with him about my situation.' Sarah is getting defensive. I wipe any lingering judgement from my face.

‘Oh, poor boy! He's probably going to fall in love with you; a year after his last girlfriend is a ripe time for it.'

‘Whatever, Alistair knows what he's getting into, it's Henry I'm worried about. I mean, I feel terrible, but ever since I've
started seeing Alistair it's like all our problems have resolved themselves. It's like old times. I can't explain it. I used to get so angry with him about little things, like leaving the toilet seat up. Now I don't really care.'

I've never understood the big deal about toilet seats. Up or down, down or up. When was it decided and by whom, that the toilet seat should be left permanently down for the benefit of women, when it is men who are doing us a favour, going out of their way not to whizz all over the porcelain that we will then grace with our delicate arses? It seems an incredibly petty thing. Much like the stereotype of women eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's when our boyfriends leave (vodka, a gram and a rant is both more satisfying and less fattening), it is a cliché that has arisen from the ashes of chick-lit laziness to become self-fulfilling. I've not yet reached the stage of living with a man but I imagine that ‘He always leaves the toilet seat up' is not-very-enigmatic code for ‘Our love has been replaced by tedium and urine. I hate him'. It is the only feasible explanation.

‘Well, I imagine a little something-something elsewhere makes you treat him with a bit more affection in some weird way, or maybe it's just the magnanimity of guilt,' I hazard a guess. ‘Though I thought you said you didn't feel terrible?'

‘Well, if I'm totally honest, I don't. I feel great, not a bit guilty and the knowledge that I must be such an awful, selfish person makes me feel terrible intellectually, though I don't
care emotionally. Do you see what I mean?' Sarah takes a large sip of her cider and tugs worriedly at her hair. ‘This is totally off topic, but do you think shoulder-length is too long for me? I haven't been for a trim in a while and I feel like it makes my jaw look fat.'

‘What? No, it looks fine. Don't change the topic, woman, there are more important things to talk about here! How often have you been seeing him?'

‘A few times a week. Henry's been off with his mates a bit more than usual, we sort of talked about taking some time to do our own things separately to give us time to miss each other. Which has worked, I did and do miss him when I don't see him every day. I've just—'

‘Been getting some dick on the side?'

‘In a nutshell. Georgie, Alistair is so great, so everything that Henry isn't, you know? He's fun and always joking, things are an adventure with him. We've … well, I've … been kind of paranoid about running into someone I know so we've taken day trips to Brighton, then we stayed in a country hotel … basically we've been doing random things. It's all so thrillingly spontaneous.'

I feel a pang for Henry. Perhaps if she had tried some thrillingly spontaneous escapades with him, she wouldn't have reached the point of no return. Or maybe they would have spent the entire time locked together in a cottage, arguing about the low-count bed sheets and the weather.

‘And the sex,' she carried on. ‘Oh my God – just incredible. Fantastic. I-forgot-it-could-be-like-that kind of sex. With Henry, it's always me making me come, you know? I have to really work at it and sometimes if he tries and fails, I get super-angry but repress it. He barely ever goes down on me. With Alistair, the first night we spent together, I came four times like that.' Sarah clicks her fingers, the skin on her cheeks flushed with colour and a gleam in her eye. ‘It was just so good.'

‘Why don't you just break up with Henry before he finds out and carry on seeing Alistair then? It sounds like you're really into him and from what you've said in the past, things haven't been right with Henry for a while now.'

Poor Henry. I feel disloyal and almost guilty myself for talking about him in this way, but it is what it is; Sarah is more important to me than him. I suspect she will come to regret this affair, only realizing what she's had when it is gone, but she has been unconsciously set on messing things up, in one way or another, for months now. She seems fairly relaxed about the situation, but then cheating is like shoplifting. You only get caught when you get comfortable and therefore, complacent. Or so I've heard.

‘I can't break up with him, yet. I'm not ready to let go. I still love him. He's good to me and he's good for me, I think. We complement each other. He's so kind, Georgie, kind in ways we have firmly established that I am not. I respect him. He
frustrates me but he also can make my heart melt, you know? And isn't that just what being in a long-term relationship is about? Boredom and frustration intermixed with moments that pain you with their sweetness, so you hold on, hoping the next surge of affection will come along sooner? I do really love him. I just feel trapped with him.'

‘Well, you can't just have your cake and eat it, Sarah. At some point you're going to have to choose and if it isn't sooner, your choice will probably be taken from you. Can you imagine how devastated Henry would be, if he found out?'

‘I know. It's so selfish. I would kill him if he did this to me, but the thing is that I genuinely think he never would. But you never know, do you – if someone asked him right now, I'm pretty sure he would swear down that I would never cheat on him. One month ago I would have said I would never behave like this. But I'm quickly realizing the only moment I'm likely to feel guilt is when I'm caught. If I'm caught. God I hope I'm not caught.'

Sarah fiddles with a long, stylized hangman's noose necklace made from woven gold, staring at it sadly. She had lusted after it for months and every time she passed by the jeweller's window display in which it had pride of place, she would give a little squeal. Henry gave it to her this Christmas.

‘Christ, Sarah. I don't know what to say.'

‘This is a stupid question, but I feel I have to ask it because
it seems so glaringly odd to me, now. Why can't I have my cake and eat it? Surely it's the most natural thing ever to want to do, to fulfil all parts of myself with different people. No one can truly find perfect happiness in one other person, so why not share ourselves? Where, really, is the harm? We've been conditioned to accept monogamy as the answer, but maybe it's far more natural to have multiple loves that sometimes cross over, don't you think? I mean, it happens all the time.' Sarah purses her lips, deep in thought – her mood temporarily buoyed.

‘Ah, man, I have no idea, you're asking the wrong person. I need to hold down one successful long-term relationship before I can think about taking on anyone else. But generally speaking, I thought they tried and failed with all that free love stuff in the sixties. Then the seventies put a seedy, avocado-hued nail in that coffin.'