Terms & Conditions (23 page)

Swamped with deliverables.*

* What
does
that mean?

‘What does that mean?' I asked.

‘It means I'm bloody busy,' she said.

‘I was just calling to say . . .' I realised at that moment that I couldn't tell her about hearing my father's voice. ‘I'm just so confused,' I confessed.

‘You sound confused, Frank,' she said. Wonderfully perceptive woman. That training again. I waited for her to tell me everything would be all right, I desperately waited for reassurance. She said nothing – and in the long pause that followed I heard a Spanish voice in the phone static shouting – ‘
Qué?
' Must have been a crossed line.

I said, ‘Hey, Alice, if Oscar was a disciple he'd be Judas.'

I really hoped she would joke along with me, try and trump me; I wanted her to play the game we always played, I wanted us to connect, even if it was just over hating Oscar.

With my grip slipping, I needed to gain purchase on something –
anything
.

My wife finally said, ‘I really have to go, Frank.'

Before I said goodbye, Alice said, ‘You have my phone, Frank, and I have yours. Can you drop mine back? I really need to check my messages. I'm waiting for an important one from Valencia. In fact, thinking about it, if Valencia calls, can you not answer? She'll be annoyed I don't have my phone, she'll think it unprofessional. Don't answer if Valencia calls. Got that?'

I was losing my mind and all my wife was worried about was how her boss would react to the fact she didn't have her mobile phone on her.

I said, ‘Fine,' but she'd already cut me off.

I don't know how much time passed – seconds, minutes, possibly an hour – as I ransacked my brain to find any memory of how I left the house, how I drove to Greg's house or why Greg's door had inexplicably vanished – when my wife's phone vibrated and the word
Valencia
appeared on the screen.

I answered it, and this is what I heard – ‘Fancy a fuck?'

Fancy a fuck!

It was Oscar. Oscar was on the phone asking for a fuck.

He asked again, ‘Fancy a fuck?'

Why is Oscar asking me for a fuck? And why, when Oscar called, did the name
Valencia
appear on my phone? Then I remembered. It
wasn't my phone, it was Alice's phone, and I thought,
What's Oscar doing asking Alice for a fuck?

It takes eight minutes for sunlight to travel ninety-five million miles to earth. That was how this realisation hit me.
Oscar and Alice?
Like something moving at incredible, unimaginable speed but still somehow taking quite a bit of time to actually arrive.
Oscar and Alice sleeping together?
First the idea hit me. I couldn't absorb it. It was ridiculous. Unbelievable.
My wife and brother fucking?
Epiphanies don't come wrapped in dramatic moments like the movies. You're not sitting on the edge of your seat, sunlight striking you at an interesting angle, a deep meaningful soundtrack throbbing. No. Epiphanies arrive with zero fanfare and are all the worse for their lack of frills. They just happen when you're sitting in your car on a dull street with a cocky sparrow flitting about.
Oscar and Alice?

But as the realisation sank below the shiny surface of logic into the more murky waters of doubt, I could see that it was less fantastical than it sounded. I switched the phone off as Oscar was saying, ‘Alice, you there, can you hear me, these fucking phones are . . .'

Could that really happen?
Alice and Oscar?
Behind my back?

A small voice in my head kept patiently answering
yes
to each question.

Was I so stupid that I didn't see this coming?*

*
Yes.

Isn't this the stuff of Greek tragedies, or worse, of daytime soap operas?*

*
Yes and yes.

Have I been a total, complete and utter idiot?*

*
Yes, yes and thrice yes!

I was to realise later that that is the ultimate shame of an affair such as this, of being cuckolded. The terms and conditions of being cuckolded are tantrically slow in being uncovered – they're only ever truly revealed over a long, extended and painful period of time, like the
exposure of an incredibly slow Polaroid. But, although slow to arrive, their final mark is an indelible tattoo that you will never rub clean.*

* Yes, the heartache is bad and, yes, you feel betrayed and all of those things. But what you truly grasp over time is that it's the fact that your lover, your wife, and your brother have somehow reduced your life to the tacky sensationalism of a soap opera. That's the final insult. That's the bit that just keeps on smarting, that part where you have to explain to someone what happened and you feel as if you are reading a soap-opera plot. You think your life is so deep and meaningful, that you're this existential man, muddling your way through the rich riddle, when all it takes is for your brother to bonk your wife, and suddenly you're just a bit part in
Neighbours
. That never leaves you. That ridicule sticks like the mortifyingly embarrassing tattoo you got too young. They stained that rubbish plot line into the very flesh of your life.

But that was all to come. At that moment, as I sat there, I found it difficult to face this fact. This would make my already fairly miserable life seem unbearably miserable. (And
fairly miserable
and
unbearably miserable
are two very different propositions. Believe me.)

I called Oscar back and said, ‘You just called Alice and asked her for sex. Why?'

‘What! I did not. Was that Alice's phone I called? How come you are calling me on her phone? Anyway, brother, I must have called the wrong number. I was trying to call Nina and talk dirty to her. Those French birds – they can't get enough of all that filthy sex talk,' said Oscar.

I waited to detect the lie but he said it so calmly, so in control. Maybe it was true.

Then Oscar made a joke. He said, ‘Alice and I don't exactly get on, you know that. Jesus, no offence, little brother, but I wouldn't touch her with yours.'

‘You're a prick,' I said.

But I was actually convinced.

It was exactly as Oscar would have reacted, he was being completely normal; there was no fluster in him at all, he responded with just the right amount of irritation, sexism and idiocy to make me think he was being honest. He was incredulous but not indignant and he was, above all, convincing. And I had to accept that I was just being paranoid.
After all, hadn't I just heard my dead dad talking? Maybe Oscar hadn't said ‘Alice' at all?

Of course that would never happen. Not Oscar and Alice. No way.

But – just as I was about to cut him off – Oscar made a mistake; he showed me he was lying.

He said something else – something he would never have said normally – he said, ‘I must have hit the wrong button or something, these silly bloody phones, I just don't get them.'*

* It was a detail – an unnecessary footnote (something Oscar never dealt in (footnotes were my department)) – it rang untrue and I realised that this was actually happening. But I didn't confront him, not yet. I just said goodbye and laid my head gently back on the seat. First, I had to talk to Alice.

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF FACING ALICE

You ain't ‘role-playing' your way out of this one, sweetheart!

I started the car, put the windscreen wipers on to get the pesky bird off the bonnet, and – drunk and delirious – drove to my wife's office.

‘Can I help you?' asked the receptionist.

A giant montage of ethnic children smiled gleefully from the wall behind her.

‘I want to see my wife, I mean, I want to see my Alice . . . I mean Alice. I want to see her now.'

‘Do you have an appointment?'

‘Of sorts. I'm her husband.'

‘Please wait here,' she said.

‘No, I don't think I will,' I said and walked past the desk and into the office shouting, ‘Alice! Alice!'

I barged into the offices named Earth, then into Wind and lots of serious men and women in serious suits said serious things like, ‘Excuse me. We are having a meeting here!'

‘Well, excuse me; I'm having a fucking crisis. Alice! You here! Alice!'

I spotted her through a glass wall sitting on the edge of a sunken trough of plastic balls. She was still somehow elegant, even though she looked like she'd been swallowed by some children's monster with balls for teeth. She had her head tilted to one side, the way they were taught to listen in a meaningful way.

‘Alice,' I screamed.

‘Frank. What's wrong? What's going on? You look terrible. Have you been drinking? Did you remember to bring my phone? Did Valencia call? You didn't answer, did you?'

‘How could you? With Oscar. With fucking Oscar. My brother. How could you do this to me? How could you fucking sleep with another man? And him, him, him of all fucking people, my brother? Anyone but him. Anyone, Alice, anyone. Even this prick would have
been better,' and I randomly pointed to one of the men in the ball pit. The man smiled awkwardly.

I was standing over her as she tried desperately to get out from the trough of balls, spilling them all across the room as her colleagues looked on. A ball hit my foot and on it was printed the word
Slant
. Another followed,
Perpendicular
.

‘You're upset,' she said, having finally got out of the hole.

Stating the fucking obvious but making it sound like an astute observation – another consultancy technique. She placed her hands in the air between us – they floated there – and I watched her palms move towards me as she said, ‘Now you have to calm down and tell me what's going on. Let's process together.'

More balls rolled by:
Angular
,
September
,
Majestic
. I noticed her two colleagues nodding as they observed Alice try to gain control of the situation.
Epicentre
. They seemed to think this was some sort of drill, a role-play.
Plinth
. They nodded wisely at her as if to say,
That's the right way to deal with this situation, hands up to calm him, voice calm, using the word ‘process' a lot, that's nice work
.

Avocado
,
Elemental
,
Synchronicity
. I stepped closer to Alice, pushed her hands out of the way and shouted, ‘Don't try to calm me down with your consultancy crap.'

Simulation.

‘Tell me the problem and we can develop the solution,' she said.

Evolution.

‘Don't fucking look at me like that, Alice. Don't you dare think that eye contact will get you out of this. You fucked Oscar and you fucked me. There's the problem. Now develop the fucking solution. Process
that
.'

Distortion
. She looked stunned.
Rewind
. Even her colleagues now seemed uncertain.
Blot.
Then I made the situation a little worse. I started to cry.

Inspirationally.

It looked like Alice wanted to hug me; she stepped closer. I held my hand up, warning her to stay away. Then Alice started denying. Alice started running.

Wonderment.

She said, ‘Frank, listen, you are in a bad way but you have to believe me, I am not having an affair with Oscar. Whatever made you think that?'

Fantastical.

‘I took your phone by mistake, and Oscar called it and asked if you fancied a fuck, and his name came up as Valencia, does Valencia even exist, how long have you been doing this to me, it all makes sense, you and Oscar saying the exact same shit about the weapons manufacturer, using the same crappy phrases like,
It's good for my profile
, Oscar obviously telling you about the IPO when it was highly confidential, and then I asked Oscar about you two and I could tell he was lying and then, another thing happened,' and I really lost my audience when I said, ‘I think this sparrow has been following me all day . . .'

And that was when I knew it was all over.

Aspirant.

‘What do you mean a sparrow was following you?' she said.

‘I mean it's been on my back all fucking day.'

Hypnotic.

She said, ‘How can you tell it's the same sparrow, not lots of different sparrows?'

I heard myself say, as if it made complete sense, ‘Because this one has a certain attitude about it. The way it flits around, it's the same one, he's sort of cocky but happy.'

A cocky but happy sparrow.

Distil.

It was over.

Effervescent.

I wasn't sure exactly what was over but I sensed that something was over. My grip loosened, my hands opened and I let go of everything.

Atmospheric.

Alice looked at me with pity in her eyes and her colleagues shook their heads as if this role-play had fallen apart because I wasn't acting properly. I'd slipped out of character.

Potent.

‘Take a breath and think about what you are saying. Something's wrong,' Alice said.

Recalcitrant.

Something's wrong.

Something
was
wrong.

Opportunity.

She's absolutely right.

Serendipity.

‘You're damn right something's wrong,' I shouted.

Equator.

‘Something's very wrong,' I shouted louder. ‘Everything is wrong.'

‘What's wrong?' said Alice. ‘Tell me what's wrong. Speak to me.'

I felt faint, I scrambled to find the right words, I saw the eyeballs of my wife and her colleagues floating around me, everything was too hard to explain and then I heard my now quiet voice whisper, ‘Alice, the real problem is that you make my heart grow small.'