EPISODE FIFTY-ONE
Following Ted’s outburst, Marjorie
stood in the hall, paralysed by shock.
She felt nauseous and thought she might faint, so she steadied herself
against the hallstand. Gradually the
feeling passed, giving way to a sudden craving to eat something sweet and
sickly.
She
rushed into the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed the remains of a Black
Forest gateau, then sat at the table and shovelled it into her
mouth as if she hadn’t eaten for weeks.
‘That’s
better,’ she sighed when she had finished.
She looked towards the larder, wondering if she could still fancy a
chocolate biscuit, and the picture calendar that hung from a rusty hook on the
wall nearby caught her eye. She stared
at the beach scene with a blazing sun, and frowned.
Then she got up, fetched the calendar from
the wall, and turned back the pages slowly until she reached March, a picture
of lambs gambolling in a field. Her lips
felt dry. The cake had made her
thirsty. She fancied a cup of tea now.
But that would have to wait.
She went out into the hall and picked up the
phone. She knew the number off by heart but
it was a long time before the receptionist answered.
‘It’s
Mrs. Blackburn. Marjorie Blackburn,’ she said when she got through.
‘I’m a patient of Doctor Jordan.
Would he be able to see me today?’
*
At midnight
on Saturday, the golf club dinner and dance began to wind down for a
half-twelve finish. Barry and Pauline
got up for a final smoochy slow number.
He held her tight while she sang along to James Blunt’s “Your beautiful”,
softly in his ear.
Their
taxi arrived bang on half-twelve and they both fell into the back.
When they got back to her bungalow, she
invited him in for a brandy night cap, then they lay back on the sofa, both a
little tipsy after so much wine.
‘I
checked in my old diary,’ Barry said.
‘On Wednesday it will be the second anniversary of our first date.
We ought to do something.’
She
avoided looking at him. ‘I’m playing
golf on Wednesday.’
‘In
the evening. I’d like to take you out
for a meal to celebrate.’
‘There’s
a meal being laid on after golf. I will
have eaten.’
‘Okay
then,’ he persisted. ‘Maybe we could go
out somewhere for a drink afterwards.’
There
was the briefest of silences, before her rush of words.
‘I can’t go on like this anymore. I really
can’t. I can’t carry on this way.
It’s got to end.
I can’t make love to you anymore.’
It
was so unexpected, at first he couldn’t take it in.
But he could see by the tension in her body
that this was for real. It was showdown
time and floods of uncontrollable tears ran down his cheeks.
‘But
we can’t split up,’ he begged.
‘I
just don’t think we can be lovers anymore.
I’m not in love with you, and I feel it’s wrong when we make love.’
‘But
why now, so suddenly?’ he sobbed.
‘I’m
sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.
I really didn’t. I did try to
tell you sometime ago. I said I wasn’t
in love with you. I like you, but I don’t love you.’
‘Yes,
I remember. That was last September,
when we got back from that barbecue. And
at the time I said I didn’t want to replace your Rick’s love.
I know how much you loved him up until his
death. But I remember telling you that I
wasn’t trying to replace him, or air-brush him out of your history, and I was
quite happy to settle for affection and respect.
And our relationship seemed to be okay after
that. For a good nine months for
Christ’s sake. So what’s suddenly
happened to change all that?’
‘Nothing,’
she said, her mouth setting tightly.
He
gulped back the brandy and demanded another.
She brought the bottle and he poured himself an enormous measure.
As he stared down at the drink, more tears
blurred his vision, and his voice shook with emotion.
‘There’s
someone else,’ he said. ‘You’ve met
someone else.’
‘I
haven’t. It’s just that I don’t want to
carry on making love to someone I’m not in love with.’
Anger
crept into his voice. ‘In these scenarios, there’s always someone else.
The reason you’ve given me is...well, it’s
pathetic. There must be another bloke.’
He
gulped back another mouthful of brandy, his head now reeling from the drink and
the bad news.
Her
voice dropped to almost a whisper.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way.
There is someone I’ve known for thirty years.
Before I met Rick.
And I always fancied this person.
I still do.
I had a do here last Saturday, and he stayed the night.
But he slept in the spare room.
And I promise you nothing happened.
And perhaps nothing will.
It’s complicated.
He’s having an affair with
a woman who’s married.’
‘Oh,
this gets better and better,’ Barry cried, then took a swift gulp of brandy.
‘And you had a do last Saturday.
Barbecue, was it? And I expect
you invited all your friends round. Most
of those we saw tonight. So why wasn’t I
invited?’
‘I
feel guilty – so guilty – about that.
But it wasn’t possible to invite you as well.’
‘You
mean, as well as this other bloke.’
Almost
imperceptibly, she nodded her head.
‘Can
you remember the Friday before your do, by any chance?
You came round to my place for dinner.
And we made love afterwards.’
‘I’m
sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I really didn’t
want to hurt you. I like you.
But I just can’t go on with it anymore.’
He
knocked back more brandy. By now he was
slurring and feeling numb from the depression that had hit him.
They talked for another hour but found
nothing new to say. Eventually, having
drunk three-quarters of the brandy, he fell asleep on the sofa, dead to the
world.
He
woke up at eleven in the morning, and rather than feeling weirdly disoriented
from the hangover, and the fact that this was the first time he had slept in
her spare room, he knew immediately where he was and what had happened.
His trousers and jacket lay in a crumpled
heap on the floor, but he was still wearing his dress shirt. Then he happened
to look out the window into the back garden, and the anger rose in his throat
like bile. He let out the worst
obscenities he could think of, cursing over and over, disgusted by what he had
seen.
Pauline
came running in from the garden, saying, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What’s
wrong,’ he yelled indignantly. ‘I fell
in love with you and my world is falling apart.
And what do you do? You stand out
in the garden practising your golf swing. That’s priceless.
A real George-bloody-Bush moment.’
Then
the anger left him feeling weak, and he sobbed again.
‘I’m sorry.
It made me angry. It’s just that
I fell in love with you.’
She
sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand.
‘I didn’t want to hurt you, I really didn’t. I’d still like to be your
friend. But if your not in love with
someone...’
‘You
can’t force them to love you,’ he finished for her.
And
now he knew the horrible truth. It was
over. There was no going back now, no
second chance or “Let’s try again” as in a crumbling marriage. When he got home
he flaked out on his bed and sobbed again, and spent most of the afternoon
going over and over what was said.
Eventually, he dragged himself to his feet and telephoned Pauline,
leaving a message on her answerphone.
‘I’d
sooner be your close friend than lose you altogether,’ he said
‘Maybe we could have a picnic at the
seaside. No strings attached.
Ring me.’
IN EPISODE FIFTY-TWO
Ted’s dons his rail uniform as
another gesture and Barry struggles to make sense of what’s happened.