Remember Why You Fear Me (31 page)

“We need to talk,” he said, and hated the very words.

“I know. I know. We do need to talk. And I’d hoped we’d talk today, but something popped up, I have to go and . . . But soon. I’ll call you. Well. Thanks for this,” she said, tapping the handbag, “thanks for looking after it,” and she blushed, realizing what she’d said.

“Are you giving it to someone else? Is there someone else?”

“No. God. No. It’s not been a week . . .”

“I’m seeing someone else,” he said.

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not been a week.”

“You don’t mind, surely?”

“No. No, I don’t mind. God. Well, good for you. Well. What’s her name?”

“Gillian,” he said, without hesitation. He was pleased by that, because he’d no idea he had a single word left in his head before it popped out of his mouth like that. It could just as easily have been anything, it could have been ‘pipecleaner,’ or, or ‘sandpit.’

“Well,” she said, and smiled again, but it was a different smile this time. “As I say, thanks. As I say, I’ll call soon.” She left her keys on the table, and the spare keys, and the back-up set. She wasn’t coming back.

He closed the door behind her as gently as possible—it somehow seemed all the crueller that way. And he heard a clatter in the kitchen, and, hurrying back, saw that his heart was on the floor, writhing about in some distress. At least this time there’d been no pain, and he supposed that was an improvement; it had clearly spasmed so hard that it had flipped out of the Tupperware box altogether. Having spent hours hacking away and polishing the pig’s heart he no longer felt quite so squeamish handling his own. He picked it up, blew the dirt off, turned it over, and promptly dropped it on the floor again in surprise.

The underside of the heart wasn’t so much covered with spots as welts. Studded into the pink tissue, a couple were the size of ten pence coins. They looked like bones growing there—could they have even been bones? he didn’t know—he ran his finger along the surface of one of these white blobs, pushed hard, and he thought that maybe it yielded a little under the pressure. He set the heart back in the box, looked at it thoughtfully. Then he decided to turn it back over, because it looked slightly healthier that way up. And then he decided to put the lid back on, put a blanket over it, and shut it away in the cupboard where they kept the best china, because it looked a
lot
healthier that way.

His first weekend as a single man was pleasant. He watched television programmes he’d never have watched with his wife, and realized that although they were no better than the ones they’d watched together, they were now, at least,
his
. There was an unmistakeable thrill to be in charge of the remote control, and when he tired of what he was watching, he’d flip through all the channels as fast as he could—by Sunday night he’d got pretty speedy. He ordered in fast food on the Saturday, and enjoyed it so much, he ordered the same thing for the Sunday. “Yes, it’s me again,” he told the delivery man as he handed him his pizza, but he couldn’t be sure whether it was the same chap or not inside his motorcycle helmet. And he tried not to think of his heart. And he tried to think instead of Gillian.

Gillian worked in the Human Resources department, which meant that her entire job was a complete mystery to him. He didn’t know why his brain had come up with her name, but he supposed it might just know something he didn’t. Back at work on Monday, he looked at all the women in his open plan office. They were a pretty unprepossessing bunch, but at least Gillian wasn’t married, and was probably a bit younger than most. In her early thirties, he guessed, maybe even in her twenties—it’s so hard to tell girls’ ages when they get that overweight. When she went outside for a cigarette break he followed her.

“Hello,” he said. “I thought I’d like to get to know you better.”

She blew smoke out of the side of her mouth, said nothing.

“I mean,” he soldiered on gamely, “only if you’d like that too. I wondered if you’d like a drink some time. If you’d like that too.”

“You mean on a date?”

“Oh,” he said, as if surprised by the very concept, “I meant a drink. But, yes, it could be a date, yes.”

She looked him up and down. He felt irritated. He knew he was past his best, but at least he’d had a best, he didn’t look like a beached whale in a skirt. “Aren’t you married?” she asked.

“Yes. No. Well, sort of. A bit.”

She shrugged to shut him up. “I don’t really care either way.” So why did you ask, then? “You like Italian?” Yes, he liked Italian. So she gave him the name of a restaurant in town. “See you there at eight thirty.” She took a final puff on her cigarette, crushed it under heel, and waddled back to work.

After he’d scrubbed and brushed and deodorized, and tried to recall other preliminaries he should perform before a date, he opened up the cupboard, took out the tub, fished out the moths that had impossibly got inside, and gave his heart an examination. At first he assumed that he was looking at the underside, it was so covered with those bony welts, but then he realized that all the little spots had clustered and hardened all over. He weighed it in his hands, and guessed it must be a good three, maybe four pounds heavier since he’d last held it. He put it down, thinking hard. He checked his watch. There was plenty of time—he’d got dressed and ready to leave a good two hours early, as usual. Then he came to a decision, and went to fetch the knife.

He worked on the bigger of the blotches first. He considered that so much damage had been done there already, he could hardly make it much worse. He hoped the nodule wasn’t too deep, but as he inserted the blade into the gap between pink and white and pushed carefully at an angle, it met resistance. He pushed deeper still, and just as he thought he didn’t dare push any further, that sticking knives into his heart may not after all be the wisest course of action, he felt the bony substance at last giving. It prised out with a slight sucking sound; at first he was a bit too timid about yanking the thing out once he’d got purchase, and it sank back into the tissue with a plop, but he’d now seen what needed to be done and that all it took was a bit of gusto. He freed the pebble, put it into a saucer; where it had been cutting into the heart most deeply there was a bit of gristle attached, a bit of blood, but all in all it was a remarkably clean excision for a beginner. Mind you, there was now a hole in his heart, but it wasn’t a
hole
, not really, it was just a little pockmark.

By the time he was attacking the seventh lump he was almost enjoying himself—he got a little careless and knifed through some living tissue, and that gave him a pang of discomfort. He staunched the bleeding as best he could, then put a sticky plaster over the cut. He held the heart up to the light, appraised it dispassionately. Not too bad at all. Of course, there were lots of bone bits left, like rivets, but they seemed too small to worry about for now. He felt around the rim of one of the holes he’d created, and it had been so numb during the surgery itself he was surprised to feel that it itched to his touch. A furious itch, and he couldn’t help himself, he had to scratch away at the crater, scratch deep and for all he was worth, and the more he scratched, the greater the itch, it felt so
good
and yet it was
burning
, he wasn’t scratching now he was tearing, and he literally had to pull his hand away from it with the other to stop. Under his fingernails now were fine shreds of pink, he’d got spots of blood upon his cuff. He checked his watch again. There was still time to change his shirt—thank goodness for that!

She was waiting for him. Black nail varnish, a nicely patterned top, her skirt a little shorter. “Hi,” she said, and let him kiss her cheek. There was a bottle of white wine in front of her, and she’d already drunk about half of it.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, although he wasn’t late nor sorry.

They talked as they waited for their food to arrive. They didn’t watch the same TV shows. He hadn’t even heard of her music. She seized upon the garlic bread when it arrived. “I love garlic bread!” she positively enthused, “do you love garlic bread?” He said he did, and she smiled; it was the first thing they’d found in common. She pushed an entire piece into her mouth, and it barely touched the sides. “It’s very wide, my mouth,” she told him, and grinned. He wondered what her heart was like. Wide and plump and rubbery, like a trampoline.

And as they ate it turned out they had still more things they could agree on. The people she hated at work were, by and large, the same people he suspected hated him. He’d never liked Denise from Marketing. “No, she’s a bitch,” Gillian agreed, devouring a tiramisu and draining the second bottle of house white.

“Things have gone rather well,” he said. “Do you think? I mean, this could happen again.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “Why not?”

“I mean, we could be friends.
Really
friends.”

“Sure,” she said, and shrugged.

“I have something for you,” he said. He reached into his bag, and offered her his heart.

“Oh,” she said. “Now look. This is just a date. Isn’t it? I mean.”

“You don’t have to take it now,” he said. “I was just saying. You know, if in the future, you
wanted
my heart. For any reason.”

“Sure,” she said. “Wow.” She tried to pour herself another wine, realized the bottle was empty, and accepted his glass when he pushed it towards her.

“I’ll get the bill,” he said. “This is on me.”

Outside it was starting to rain. “Better get a taxi,” said Gillian. “Too pissed to drive.”

“I’ll get you one,” he said. “You stay here, in the dry. I’ll get one.” He stood on the pavement for a full three minutes waving his arms like a windmill. And he thought, this is nice, I’m being protective of her, she’ll think this is nice.

He held the door open for her, as she told the driver where she lived. “Thanks,” he said. “This has been nice.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

“Sure,” he heard himself say.

Inside she lit a cigarette. The driver told her there was no smoking in the cab. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll open a window.” He told her there was no smoking at all. “If you don’t like it, then chuck me out.” The driver said nothing, and drove on. “Don’t give him a tip,” she said loudly, and blew smoke in the direction of the window when she remembered to do so. “Can I see that heart again?” she then asked unexpectedly.

He gave it to her. She peered at it curiously, holding it close to her face, ash dropping on to it. “Looks like a Swiss cheese,” she said. “And what are all these knobbly bits?”

“It’s not much of a heart,” he admitted. “I just need someone to take care of it. It needs taking care of, you see.”

“I’ve never been given a heart before,” she said. “Not by anyone.” She kissed him in the ear. He wondered whether she’d been aiming for somewhere better and had missed, but now she was there she coated the inside of it with her tongue. “Did you like that?” she asked him. He told her it was very nice.

In spite of what Gillian had told him, he gave a generous tip. The taxi driver glared at him and drove off. Gillian staggered into her house. “Denise!” she called. “Denise!”

“Who’s Denise?”

“My flatmate. You know Denise. Good, she’s in bed. I told her to make herself scarce. Come on. Do you want a drink?”

He told her he didn’t need another. She fetched a bottle anyway. She sat him down on the sofa, then stuck her tongue once more in his ear. He tried to tilt his head so that she could work her way to his mouth, pretty soon she got the general idea. And before long they were all tongues and teeth—well, to be fair, most of the teeth were hers, and he thought at least two of the tongues—and he was trying to remember how you breathed during kisses like this, it was through the nose, that was it, and she didn’t taste like his wife whatsoever.

“Come on,” she said, and all but pulled him to his feet.

On top of her duvet were half a dozen stuffed toys. He felt a twinge of affection for Gillian; here she was, all hard-drinking and hard-smoking, but deep down she was still just a little girl who slept with teddy bears. He felt he’d caught the real person unawares, seen beneath the brassy exterior something small and sweet she liked to keep hidden. Then he remembered that she’d obviously planned on bringing him back here, so always knew he’d see her toys, and didn’t know what to think any longer. “Listen,” she said, as she swept a Snoopy in World War One goggles on to the floor, “I should say. I’m not going to give you
my
heart.”

“Of course not,” he said. “That’s okay.”

“I mean, I
can’t
. You see? When I was fourteen I sent it to Robbie Williams. I was a really big fan of his.”

“He must get a lot of hearts.”

“Yeah. I had such a crush. Thing is, I’d really like it back now. I’ve written to him lots of times, put in stamped addressed envelopes, he wouldn’t have to pay the postage. But nothing.”

“He must get a lot of post.”

“Sometimes I think,” she said, and she was thinking, she was tilting her head to one side as if to egg her brain on, and it looked odd to see her think whilst quite so drunk, “I think that we give away our hearts too easily. You know? We’re all in such a hurry to get out there and fall in love as soon as we possibly can. And maybe we’re missing out, that maybe our hearts would feel so much better if we just kept them inside our chests. I mean, what does Robbie Williams want with my heart anyway?”

“He must,” he said again, “get a lot of hearts.”

“It’s the reason I smoke,” said Gillian. “And why I eat so much. I keep thinking, if I keep
damaging
my heart, he’s not going to want to hang on to it so much, is he? He’s going to want to post it back, just to get rid of the thing. But I wanted you to know,” she said, and kissed him again, “if you think I’m holding back. If you think I’m not putting myself into it completely. That’s the reason why.”

And they had sex. He didn’t especially feel she was holding back, but now she’d put the doubt in his head he couldn’t not let it nag at him. And at the moment of climax, he thought, so that’s adultery. That’s it. I’m an adulterer.