A Certain Chemistry (21 page)

nine

I slept on the sofa.

I’d like to think that this was a bit of autoflagellation, that I was punishing myself on Sara’s behalf. I certainly tried this line on my conscience—had a bash at seeking forgiveness in masochism—but I saw through me with damnable ease. It really had very little to do with an attempt at punishing atonement; it was simply cowardice. I couldn’t face the possibility of Sara waking as I slid, holding my breath, into bed. Of her rolling over, looking at me, and sleepily asking, “Where have you been?” It was a stomach-churning prospect. So, I slept on the sofa, in my underpants, with a coat pulled over me.

I didn’t sleep very well. However, even
I
didn’t have the cheek to try to make the residual decency in me believe that I was twisting and rolling, unable to get comfortable, because the cold realization of what I’d done was forbidding me to sleep. The vulgarly obvious fact was that I couldn’t get settled because I was on a sofa that had little room for maneuvering and I was there carrying another erection. I’d lain down in the darkness and, naturally enough, my mind had fallen to replaying what had just happened. The replay had barely begun when my erection turned up to watch.

I’d had
hugely
extensive sex with George twice that night, and yet I was still easily able to get another erection almost instantly and retain it pretty much until dawn. I’m not proud of this, obviously. That’d be unbelievably crass, wouldn’t it? Trying to get out some kind of idiot message about my sexual stamina in the midst of a situation like this. Still, there it was. Kept it until daybreak. I’m just stating the facts, that’s all.

Anyway, what with erections and so forth, not only didn’t I sleep very much or very well, but I was also up again by six-thirty. I wasn’t tired either. I was quite hyper, in fact, and also bobbing atop that one-step-removed, gently swimmy high you get when you’ve had virtually no sleep. I did think about avoiding Sara. I considered leaving a note on the table about having to go out somewhere. Somewhere that sounded logical and innocuous to be going before 7:00
A.M
. on a Saturday morning when you’d barely come back at all the previous night. You will, I trust, already have spotted the difficulty with that plan. So, instead, I ate a bowl of Cinnamon Grahams—which I detest (both tastewise—I hate cinnamon—and in a broader, sociolinguistic sense: as we don’t have the word “graham” in its “whole-wheat flour” meaning, then they’re surely vicious, bludgeoning, American corporate cultural imperialism, in cereal form, right?), but I couldn’t be bothered making toast. I also drank several cups of coffee. I wandered into the living room and turned on the TV. It was the Saturday-morning kids’ slot. I sat there, cupping my drink in anxious hands, while hyperventilating presenters shouted at me for forty-five minutes solid. It was probably what I deserved.

When, eventually, I heard Sara stir upstairs, the sound ran through me like a jarring electric shock.

I pushed at my ears with my brain, trying to force them to venture out and pick up more noises. I was shaking. Not visibly, but on the inside. The slow, soft thuds as she descended the stairs seemed to me not like the half-asleep footfalls of a smallish Scottish woman but rather the consciously and gleefully audible approach of some occult beast in a horror movie. I stared, unseeing, at the television screen as the living room door slowly opened and she entered.

“Awwwhen did you get back last night?” she asked, segueing into the sentence from a yawn.

“Hmmm . . .” I shrugged, so casually that I was practically boneless. “I’m not sure . . . Quite late, I think.”

“When was it—roughly?”

“No idea. Like I said, I didn’t really notice the time.”

I still hadn’t looked at her. I was staring intently at the television and speaking in a distracted, staring-intently-at-the-television voice. (I couldn’t have told you what was on the television if you’d offered me a million pounds.)

“Aye, but
roughly
.” She didn’t sound angry or chiding, just sleepily curious. She was simply interested in a conversational kind of way. The best answer to give would be “Oh, after four—I know it was after four,” or something like that: answer her perfectly reasonable question with a nonevasive reply. That was the way to go.

I said, “Jesus—
I didn’t notice,
okay? Why? Is there a curfew or something? Does it
matter
—
at all
—what time it was? It was ‘late,’ okay?”

I spoke this brilliance to the TV. Beside me, I heard Sara not answer. Immediately after this, she didn’t answer again. Her silence began to pull at my face, twisting it in her direction. I was terrified of what might be in the box; this was forcing me, against my will, to look in the box.

I wasn’t sure which I expected or dreaded the most: an expression that told me she knew, in some way, what was going on, or a hurt look. She completely threw me by having neither of these arrangements of features. What she was doing was smiling. Smirking, in fact.

“Bit tired, then, love?” she said. “Been out late, and not really up to it anymore?”

As you can imagine, I leapt at this with both arms and hugged it to my grateful chest.

“Yeah . . . sorry.” I rubbed my hands over my face, as though trying to wash away a bit of fatigue. “I’ve clearly turned into a sickening lightweight.”

She grinned. She stood by the door, grinning. With her hair straight out of bed and still in open revolt and pillow marks across one of her cheeks, wearing a big, baggy T-shirt with a design faded almost to invisibility and holes in both armpits that was bravely hanging in there like some kind of stunt nightie. She was beautiful. Beautiful and beatific; she was the Madonna, Ophelia, Sybil Vane, and Alyson Hannigan all rolled into one, and I collapsed inside just looking at her. How could I have betrayed this . . . this . . .
angel
? You know, I don’t think I’d ever loved her more than I did at that moment. A fantastic night fucking a gorgeous woman against every solid surface in her hotel room really
does
make you appreciate how lucky you are to have your regular partner. I smiled at Sara. You know a “wan smile”? Like they say in books? It was one of those.

“Och. Give me your cup, my little soldier,” said Sara. “I’ll make you some fresh coffee.”

She went into the kitchen, and I sat there, alone with my agony. I thought about how sensitive I was—I bet some men could be unfaithful and not even think twice about it. Not me, though. My guilt ran knives through me; it clawed at my heart, and its sheer, glutinous weight closed my eyes and bowed my head. Christ—why did I have to be so deep?

Somehow, for Sara’s sake, really, I disguised the tortured, personal hell that was Tom and forced on a tranquil façade when she returned with coffee for us both. She sat down beside me on the sofa, curling her legs up inside her nightshirt and blowing into her mug.

“So, what happened, then?”

“Happened?”

“At the show. I watched it on TV here, of course, but what happened behind the scenes? Any gossip? Was Benny Barker really ill? How many of that boy band were there with their boy-band-friends?”

“Oh . . . there’s . . . nothing happened really. Or, if it did, I didn’t see it. I just watched the recording from this poky little room and ate peanuts.”

“And then went to a party.”

“A party? Why do you say that?”

“Hold on, let me think . . . Georgina Nye’s book is coming out tomorrow, the Benny Barker show is in town, you don’t come home all night, and when you do”—she wrinkled her nose—“you
stink
of smoke.”

“There was a party. Yeah. It was awful, actually. Just, really . . . well, it was really smoky, for a start. I felt obliged to stay, though.”

“Where was it?”

“The party?”

“Aye—obviously.”

“Right. I thought that’s what you meant. It was at the theater; everyone stayed on there after the show.”

“Did any extra celebs turn up?”

“No, not really.”

“Not
really
?”

“No, not really. They
really
didn’t. Turn up.”

“What about that Paddy character? The one who was standing in for Benny Barker. I thought he was quite funny. Is he funny off-camera?”

“No.”

She sipped her coffee.

“You could have phoned, you know. I was a bit worried.”

“Yes, sorry. I simply lost track of the time because I was so . . . bored.” Christ. Move on, Tom; move on
quickly
. “But I left my phone on. You should have given me a bell. Why didn’t you call, if you were worried? I left my phone on so you could do that.”

“Oh,
right
. So it’d look like the clingy girlfriend was calling to check up on you? A newly twenty-nine-year-old woman sitting at home brooding; timing how long you’re staying out of a night by her biological clock?”

“I wouldn’t have thought that at all.”

“No, but the people with you might have.”

“Not tremendously likely, is it? And even if they did, none of them knows you, so what the hell would it matter?”

“Okay, so I was overthinking a bit. I was lying—alone—in our bed, I was twenty-nine years old, my boyfriend was out at a glamorous showbiz bash, and I came over all defensive.”

“You missed me?”

“Let’s say that I recall thinking, ‘Well, I’m not ringing the fucker. That’ll be just what he wants me to do.’ It was that kind of mood, you know?”

“Ah.”

She lifted a minor chaos of hair away from her face and took another sip of coffee. “Why did you sleep on the sofa, by the way?”

“Oh, it was late. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I wouldn’t have minded.”

“And, you know—eugh . . .” I waggled my shirt, fanning it. “I stink of smoke.”

“Awww.” She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “But next time . . . phone—you wee English twat.”

“Next time? What ‘next time’?”

“Well, whatever. . . . But you’re still a wee English twat, okay?”

“Okay.”

I kissed her nose.

“Do you love me more than the moon loves the sea?”

“Twice as much.”

She moved over to rest against me, and I nuzzled the top of her head.

Inside, of course, I was churning with self-loathing. I mean, I don’t even have to tell you that, right?

“Where are you going?”

“Oh . . . only into town.” I was pulling on my jacket as I spoke.

“What for?”

“Just a few things.”

It was, of course, perfectly legitimate to be going to see George at her book signing. To have a look at how things were going and say hi to her (without letting any of the punters know who I was, naturally). I knew Sara wouldn’t have thought it remotely odd or suspicious. What I knew also was that she would have wanted to come along, because she was desperate to meet George. I really didn’t want this. The exact reasons I didn’t want it sank through two levels of vileness. Allow me to share.

The first one was simply that I’d be worried about taking her to meet George at all. George had sensed I was attracted to her; maybe Sara would sense it too. Even if she didn’t, it would still be an awkward situation for George and me; playing innocent just makes you feel all the more guilty. The second reason was easily more odious. Quite simply, with Sara there, there’d be no chance of anything happening after the signing. If I was alone, maybe George and I could go back to her hotel afterwards. You know, if it felt right—I wasn’t counting on it or anything. But if Sara came along, that was a complete nonstarter: “Right, off you go back home now, Sara—I’ll be staying on for a while so that George can sit on my face.” It was simply repugnant to be thinking this way. I didn’t even have the psychological salve of it being unconscious, of not being able to see my motivations clearly; it was all perfectly plain. Jesus, I thought, I’m utterly worthless.

I thought again about George sitting on my face and hurried frantically out the door, calling good-bye to Sara.

I’d never been to a book signing before. Most of the authors I really admired didn’t do book signings, on account of their being dignifiedly dead for at least a century. I like to think that the authors I admired wouldn’t have wanted to get involved in them anyway—what is more evocative of the concept of “celebrity” than the notion of “the signature”? No, all my favorite authors would have fled at the very idea. Well, except Dickens. Dickens would certainly have done signings in Borders bookshops, and readings, and the odd
Hello!
photo spread—but I bet it would have been to raise awareness about something or other. Anyway, there’d never been a reason for any publicity people to hurl
me
bodily into a branch of Blackwell’s because none of the readers of the books I’d written wanted
my
signature scrawled across the inside (a state of affairs—let me be clear about this—that suited us both).

Even though I’d never been to any signings, I had a picture of them in my mind. An author, sitting behind a table, with a stack of books neatly piled to one side. That’s it. Not a prospective purchaser for ten thousand miles. It was more, even, than a lack of people who wanted his books, let alone his signed books. No, what I pictured was an actual exclusion zone of embarrassment around him. Bookshop staff, heads furiously down, busying themselves so as not to accidentally catch his eye and have to join him in yet another “Tch—it’s a lark, eh?” click of the teeth and a smiling roll of the eyes. Customers bunched up together, as distant from where he was sitting as they could make themselves and too fearful even to walk past him to the section they wanted because of the screaming statement of non-his-book-buying, non-his-book-wanting-signing this so clearly made.