The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs (30 page)

He will look shocked, he’ll steal my catchphrase and say “But this isn’t fair.”

Oh, but it is, I’ll tell him and offer up The List as incontrovertible evidence of my fairness. I shall go through it point by point and he’ll know that I have been scrupulous. Maybe I should even start taking photos on my phone as visual proof.

I’m aware that it’s odd to imagine the moment of asking your husband for a divorce. It’s like the culmination of an anti-rom-com. A div-dram, maybe. It’s acceptable to daydream about a marriage proposal but not a proposal of divorce.

When we were going out together, before we got married, I even went through a phase of wondering how he would propose. I’m mortified by it now. Joel being king of the romantic gesture, I had high expectations. Not for him, I was sure, the corniness of a ring hidden in a fortune cookie, a mariachi band in a restaurant or rose petals across the bed. Joel would, I was sure, give me a Proposal Story to end all others.

For a shameful six months, I watched his every move, determined not to be caught out by his proposal. My face wore a perpetual expression of gracious acceptance and full makeup in readiness, like a nominee on Oscar night. I didn’t fill gaps in conversation if he looked momentarily thoughtful. I let him make all the plans when we went out.

After six months, I became bored of my uncharacteristically passive behavior. “Don’t you want to get married, then?” I said one morning over breakfast, while wearing the previous night’s slap and a pair of old pajamas. “I’d love to,” he said, giving me one of his enormous grins. “I thought you’d never ask.” That was that, the shortest proposal story of them all. We laughed and kissed and began planning and I honestly felt that I’d got the best proposal after all.

Since I was the one to suggest marriage, it’s only right that I should be the one to suggest that we end it.

The last two months are here. Two dozen credits and counting down.

It takes a couple more impossible invitations and curt conversations with Cara before I finally find myself standing on the threshold of her flat. I’m surprised that someone so precise in her appearance should only do last-minute invitations, but this time I left a message on Joel’s voicemail to ask him, no tell him, that I’d be going out straight from work and could he pick up the boys from Deena’s and don’t whatever you do be late. I then screened my calls in case he tried to persuade me that he had an assignation more pressing.

Cara’s voice wafts out of the intercom. I can almost smell it. Some sort of discontinued Givenchy scent available only in a perfumery in a tiny Parisian backstreet. I know that Becky is still in Newcastle, though no mention was made of her.

“Come in.” She is dressed in green. I am making a rare foray in heels. I nipped out and bought them in one of the weird boutiques that pepper the streets around the office, ones which always describe themselves as selling an “eclectic mix of vintage and new designers.” I used to have the right foreshortened calves to feel comfortable in some six inchers, but they seem to have lengthened back to their pre-pubescent shape and now I find only flat shoes feel right.

“Hello, how are you?” I say. “Sorry again about the walk, you know, in Norfolk, and not being able to make it for a drink those other times.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I love your flat. It’s so white. A polar bear would get lost in it.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“No, really. White is lovely. Wasn’t it true that in olden days, having very white skin was a sign of being rich, because it meant you didn’t have to work in the fields? Having a white sofa’s a bit the same these days, because it shows you don’t have to worry about people getting it dirty, or sticky fingers, or dry-cleaning bills.” I should stop now. “And this furniture. Is it what they call mid-century?”

“Some of it, yes. That’s the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona.” She points to a slippery-looking chair that I fear would defeat me.

In a parallel life, I live in a flat like this. “And it’s so quiet, too.” She’s not helping me. I wonder what she and Becky talk about. I can’t see any traces of Becky in this room. It is hard to believe that she lives here. It’s hard to believe she’s even been here on a short visit.

Cara stands in the galvanized-steel corner of the open-plan room. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes, I’d love one.” I think maybe I am supposed to say which drink I’d like. A glass of wine? Or am I supposed to have a cocktail? The only ones I can think of have comedy names like Sex on the Beach. I am so not asking for one of those.

“I’m having a martini.” Of course she’s having a martini.

“Sounds lovely.”

“I’m having mine bone dry with a twist.”

“Just the way I like them.”

I watch her make them with the ease with which most people boil a kettle.

I take a sip. Christ, why don’t they just inject you with gin instead? The effect would be the same. My mouth feels hot with the alcohol. I want to hold my nose to get it down me. I swig it all down in an effort to get rid of the taste. Cara raises an eyebrow. She’s so good at the one-eyebrow raise.

“I was thirsty.” The act of taking one of those inverted
triangle glasses and knocking it back felt pleasantly cinematic. I feel emboldened, either through the alcohol or the gesture. “It’s lovely to be here, really lovely.” Still no response. I can’t think of anything to say, so I say what’s on my mind. “Why did you invite me over?”

“My, you’re direct.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. Well…” An elongated word. “I’d like to get to know you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I think you’re one of the most angry people I’ve ever met.”

“You can’t know many angry people, then.”

“I wonder what you’ve got to be so angry about.”

“Nothing. I’m healthy, my family’s healthy, we live OK. Honestly, I’m not.”

“Is your marriage good?”

Now who’s being direct? “It’s fine.” I look around the machine for living that is Cara’s flat and the way she matches it so perfectly. “Why? Has Becky said anything to you?”

Cara shakes her head and I immediately regret mentioning Becky’s name. I try to win her back with a confession. “It’s not perfect, my marriage. My life feels really chaotic and I can’t work out how to tidy it up. It’s all loose ends. Or bloody chargers that I can’t work out what they’re there for. That’s my life. Both in reality and metaphorically, if you know what I mean.”

“Not really. It sounds ghastly.”

Is she mocking me? “I know, I know, Joel’s wonderful and I’m so lucky.”

“He can’t be if you feel dissatisfied.” She’s one of the few people I’ve ever heard question the wonder of Joel. I think I may
cry. “He must be making you this way,” she continues. “You weren’t born this angry.”

“Don’t you believe it.”

“You should be happy and if you’re not, change your life. You’re an intelligent, grown-up woman, take control. I never put up with things that make me less than satisfied.”

“I do feel like I need to change it. Thank you. I feel like I’ve been going mad. But, you know, when you get to my age, to our age, it’s not so easy. It’s not like when you’re younger and you can chuck the man, the woman, you’re with or throw in your job and go around the world. Things aren’t as easily changed. I mean, I wouldn’t unwish my boys for the world. And really, I’m so lucky. Lots of women can’t have children so I should be grateful to have them. And I am. That’s part of the problem, I think—there are so many women so sad about not being able to have children that it feels churlish to complain. And I’m not, really.” Cara shudders as she makes me another martini. It is maybe too late to tell her I think it’s an unspeakable drink and I’d really rather a glass of wine, any color. “Do you want children?” I think of Becky and then unthink of her.

“Goodness, no.”

“Have you always known? I mean that you didn’t want children?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I never played with dolls and gave them those fake bottles of milk. When other girls were putting on towels and pretending they were brides, I was making perfect houses out of Legos. My future always involved me living alone.”

But you don’t, I thought. “Funnily enough, so did mine. I used to plan to live in a grand old country house with lots of cats and a lovingly tended garden. I don’t think it really means anything.”

“I knew, I always knew. And I was right, since I’m too old now.”

“Really? You don’t look it.”

“Thank you.” I must learn how to do that, to say thank you when someone compliments you, to accept it as your due. Cara is the embodiment of graciousness.

I take a second martini and down it as I did the first. My throat rasps. I’m longing for a snack, some Bombay mix, but that would be out of character for this environment. She might have some sashimi, though; that is the snack that Cara would have. None is forthcoming. The heels are making me sway slightly so I sit myself down on a silk-covered chaise longue. It’s not made for sitting, more for lounging, so that is what I do.

“And did you always know?” I ask.

“What?”

“That you weren’t going to get married?”

“That I was gay, you mean?”

I nod.

“Yes, always. As far back as it is possible to know. Even perhaps before then.” How like her to miss out on the period of confusion and the awful shambolic sex with men that Becky suffered. Mind you, we all had awful shambolic sex with men, with or without the sexual confusion.

Two drinks and I feel dizzy. This is pathetic, it’s only two drinks. Maybe they were spiked with something. Actually, I suppose the thing with a martini is that you can’t spike it because nothing is stronger than what it is in the first place. Except Rohypnol. “And what do you do?”

“Sorry?” Again the rising eyebrow.

“What do you actually do, you know, in bed?” I’m really drunk now.

“You don’t know what lesbian sex is?”

“Yes. No, I mean obviously I know what women do, in theory, but at the same time, I feel a bit like when I’m cooking a
vegetarian meal and I can’t think of anything to replace the meat. I know what you do, but then I’m not exactly sure of the way it goes in reality, when I really think about it.”

“And do you think about it a lot?”

“No, no, never. Well not never. Not very often. Sometimes. How does it go? In what order? I’m from the country,” I offer in explanation.

“What do I do? What do
we
do?” she ponders. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On who I’m with, what sort of mood I’m in, where I am. Whether I want a quick fuck.” I blanch at the bald use of this word. It’s one I’m happy to use in any other context, but not that one. In fact I blanch doubly, both at it being used to describe sex and then at it being used to describe non-penetrative sex. Although is it non-penetrative? Does she use, I don’t know, some sort of strap-on thing? I really don’t think of two girls fucking. And then I find that I can think of nothing else and cross my legs with the beginnings of sweet pain. Cara continues, “A quick fuck or something more languorous.” She draws the word out onomatopoeically.

“Today, for instance,” she continues, “I’m feeling slow, relaxed. Definitely it’s a languorous sort of a day, isn’t it? Today, I would keep clothes on for as long as possible. Draw out the anticipation. Keep it almost innocent. Almost, but not quite.” She smiles to herself.

My mouth has gone very dry now, but I don’t dare break the spell by getting myself some water. Cara looks as cool as ever, while I feel beads of sweat sieve through my skin.

“Today, if I were going to do something, I would start by running my finger along their neck.” She demonstrates on herself. “Especially the clavicle. The clavicle is so underrated. Don’t you think? I would run my finger down, but not very far, just to here.” She stops in the space between her small breasts. “Then
I would trace their face and put my finger across their lips and then into their mouth.” The finger in question has a perfect pale pink manicure and is long like a pianist’s. “Then I would follow this path with my tongue so that they’d know what was coming, until I’d kissed them. But only gently, I’d only graze their lips—even though they’d try to pull me near, desperate, I’d draw myself away.”

My mobile rings. It’s Joel. I press the red button. “And then?” I rasp.

She gives me a sly look. “I think then I’d move onto the breasts, but with the veil of clothing. I’d feel them and stroke them but only through the clothes. The friction can be so delicious. Her nipples would harden beneath the fabric of her dress, they’d snap at my fingers. Then, just as before, I’d do everything that I did with my fingers, now with my tongue. This time without the fabric between us. Slowly I’d lick the top of her breasts and as I did so I’d undo”—she glances in my direction. I am wearing a shirt dress—“the buttons. At this point, the nipples would be almost able to move toward my tongue, they’re so hungry to be touched.” She runs her hand across her own, which I can see outlined beneath the thin material.

“Then, finally, I’d start very slowly moving down, letting them imagine, hope, where I am going, but then I’d stop.” She stops speaking. I’m scared of the sound of my own breathing, in case it should sound like panting. “And skip over, straight to the thighs, leaving them weeping with frustration.”

I shift in my seat, aware of a wetness developing. Random thoughts jostle. She calls them breasts, like a breastfeeding counselor. My own have had their own evolution, from being tits before children to boobs afterward. Boobs: jokey, unsexual, pillowy, unthreatening. I wonder what vocabulary she’ll use when she finally gets there. Please let it be soon.

“Stroking, stroking, stroking. So lightly. Then,” she pauses and then speaks louder and more quickly, “I’d stick my finger inside her cunt, hard.”

I reel just as if she’d actually done it. So that’s what she calls it. I think about mine. Joel doesn’t care about vaginal topiary. He says he likes a woman natural. I used to wear bikinis and have bikini waxes. Now I wear the post-partum woman’s bikini, the tankini, with low legs and I don’t have anything waxed. Didn’t Becky once tell me that Cara liked a woman to be kempt down there? I’m not. Mitzi is. Mitzi has her Hollywood. We know that.