Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
‘What are you sorry about? This looks lovely. You’re a great takeaway cook.’ I bite into a chip gratefully.
‘I’m sorry about what you said about Diarmuid not loving you
any more. Even though he still might, of course.’ His look is soft,
sympathetic. ‘Some people just aren’t very good at showing people that they love them.’
‘And some people aren’t very good at believing they’re loved,’
I say slowly. ‘I think I’m like that. I think I want a love diploma.’
I laugh hollowly. ‘“Diarmuid has passed his exams in loving Sally
Adams.” I would want it to be framed, too.’
‘And signed.’
‘Oh, yes. And then, of course, he’d have to have one from me
– but I don’t think they’d award it. I’m a marriage mitcher.’ I start t
o laugh again, a high, stupid kind of laugh. I sound as if I’m
drunk. I try to regain my poise. ‘I… I may
have been exaggerating a little about Diarmuid not loving me. Maybe he isn’t with Becky. Maybe he really is just revising.’
‘Yes,’ Nathaniel says, stuffing five chips into his mouth.
‘He’s a good man,’ I continue. Why do I spend so much time
defending Diarmuid? ‘This whole partial-marriage thing has been
desperately hard on him. I really couldn’t blame him if he’s
decided to stray. He’s not a great talker, that’s the truth of it. And
it’s amazing how helpful talking can be.’ I chomp sadly on my
cod, which is covered in crisp batter. ‘When someone doesn’t talk,
you start to fill the silences for them. You start to think, “Have I upset him? Did I say the wrong thing at breakfast? Am… am I a
bad lover?”’
‘I’d say that’s most unlikely.’ Nathaniel shoots me a wry, bright
glance.
‘Maybe I’m just not meant to be married.’ It’s something I’ve
been thinking for some time. ‘Maybe I’m just meant to live alone
and go to evening classes and comfort my friends and make lots
of tea. I could do with a cat, too – a nice purry cat who runs up to me as soon as I get home.’
Nathaniel reaches for the bottle of ketchup, which is on the floor between his feet. ‘I often think that, too – that maybe I’m meant to end up alone. It mightn’t be all that bad. I have lots of other interests.’
The way he says it makes me laugh. ‘You make love sound like
salsa dancing or something.’
‘Oh, you know what I mean.’ He throws a chip to Fred, who catches it in mid-air. ‘Do you think DeeDee found love?’
I sigh.
‘Who knows? She sounds like a very complicated person.
I alternate between disliking her and finding her fascinating.’
‘
I must remember to give you that notebook.’
‘Yes. I could read the recipes out to Aggie. I bet she’d like that.
I might even try to make some of the cakes; we could have little
tea parties in her room.’ I pause. ‘But I really wish I could find
that music box. It would mean so much to her. I think my mother
must have given it away and forgotten. She seems to have lost any
trace of sentimentality.’
Nathaniel pats Fred with his foot. He has taken off his shoes;
he’s wearing thick navy socks, which have a small hole in one of the big toes. ‘Have you ever asked your mother about DeeDee?’
‘No. Not recently. I used to when I was little, when I first heard
about her…’ I am suddenly remembering why I stopped asking
Mum about DeeDee. The last time I asked her, she actually cried.
I was about eight at the time, but surely I should have remembered her tears. How could I have forgotten?
‘I don’t understand it,’ I say softly. ‘It’s like DeeDee’s changed
the family somehow. But how could she? She isn’t even here.’
Nathaniel looks at me carefully. ‘Sometimes things need to be
healed that go back through generations. People don’t realise how
families can form habits, secrets, lies, because of someone like DeeDee.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It affects how people love each other. That’s what I think,
anyway. Once you’ve closed your heart to one person, you can do
it to others; you can even do it to yourself.’ He fiddles with his watch strap. ‘But maybe I’m wrong… It’s just my opinion.’
I find myself staring at him. He’s right. I sense it.
But I don’t want him to be right. Suddenly I want to be like the
rest of them; I want to forget about DeeDee, too. I want to find
out more about Nathaniel, who’s here, sitting beside me. I yearn
to reach out and touch the smooth olive skin of his hands.
I have never felt so mixed up about anyone. Sometimes I long
to kiss him, and sometimes I think it would have been easier if
we’d never met. Maybe he feels the same way about me. He looks a
t me so intensely sometimes, but he just treats me like a friend…
Maybe he doesn’t know what he wants either.
I decide to try to lighten up
.
‘So what exactly do you do, now that you’re not a social
worker?’ I ask, dipping a chip in the pool of tomato sauce on my plate. The minute I’ve said it, I regret it. It sounds like the sort of
‘explain yourself’ thing Marie would say. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean
to sound… you know…’
‘I help Greta out in the office most mornings. I’m sort of her
temporary PA.’ Fred jumps onto the sofa between us and puts his
head on Nathaniel’s lap. ‘The rest of the time, I try to get on with
my psychology course.’
‘You’re studying psychology?’
‘Yes. I’m a perennial student; last year I was doing philosophy.’
‘
Oh.’
‘And I also play the guitar in a restaurant.’
I gawp at him. I have never met someone who can actually play
the guitar properly.
‘Mostly flamenco music. I’m not that good, but I think the owner likes me.’
‘I bet you are good,’ I say. ‘I don’t think anyone would let you
play the guitar in restaurants if you sounded like crap.’
‘
Thank you. We really need some wine, don’t we?’
‘No. Some water would be fine
.’
‘I have a bottle someplace.’ He gets up, and Fred leaps off the
sofa, follows him into the kitchen and starts pushing his food
bowl towards him. ‘OK, Fred, OK!’ Nathaniel says. ‘I came back
here and fed him before I went out for the DVD. I really should be more firm with him.’
Fred cocks his head and fixes Nathaniel with a liquid, chocolate-brown stare.
‘Oh, all right, then.’ Nathaniel extracts a tin of dog food from
a cupboard, and Fred dances around excitedly. ‘I envy him his enthusiasm,’ Nathaniel says, as Fred attempts to jump onto the
kitchen sideboard. ‘It’s just as well I don’t have children. They’d
be delinquents. I’d be far too lenient.’
I think of Diarmuid and our arguments about diaphragms.
‘Did you and… Ziggy…’ I wonder if I’ve remembered his ex-wife’s
name correctly. ‘Did you and Ziggy plan to have children?’
‘We weren’t sure. Ziggy worried about overpopulation and the
world’s resources, and she said she didn’t have any real need to
spread her genes. We thought we might adopt a street child from
India.’
‘That sounds… admirable.’
‘Yes, but I don’t think she could have dealt with the paperwork
of adopting a child. She would just have wanted to grab one and
bring him or her home. She hates form-filling and bureaucracy; she finds it offensive to be asked all those questions.’
‘Is she a… a social worker too?’
‘Oh, no.’ Nathaniel laughs. ‘She’s an actress and a dog-walker.
She was the person who showed me that maybe I didn’t have to be one particular thing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, my family is full of doctors and solicitors and
accountants and high-class civil servants. They’re very disappointed in me, even though they try not to show it. Social
worker sounded sort of OK to them, but now that I’m nothing in
particular, they are mightily pissed off. They’re very civilised about it, though.’ He smiles at me ruefully.
‘Does it frighten you?’
‘What?’
‘Being a… a disappointment?’
‘Well, I have a little cluster of cousins who are disappointments
too. That helps. They’re off hill-trekking in Nepal and that sort of thing
.’
‘That sounds wonderful!’
‘Yes, to us. But they don’t own houses or cars, or want to do anything very impressive with their degrees, and none of them
seem to have any plans to get married. I’m very grateful to them.’
‘I wish I had cousins like that.’ I sigh. ‘There was a time when
I thought one of them was a lesbian, but it turned out she just liked short hair and dungarees. She’s a diplomat now. She’ll probably have her own embassy any day.’
Nathaniel grins. ‘Here’s the wine. That should cheer you up.’
‘
How did you learn to be like this?’ I stretch out on his sofa, cosily clutching a soft yellow cushion.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When did you learn not to let things get on top of you?’
‘Do I seem like that? I feel like I go around looking like all sorts
of things are on top of me.’ Nathaniel hunts for the bottle-opener.
‘In fact, there are days when I think I look like a skip. Eloise agrees with me about that. She says my shirts are shameful.’
I don’t like the sound of the way Eloise seems to be treating him. ‘Your shirts seem fine to me.’
‘That’s because you’ve never had a good look at them. There
are buttons missing and the cuffs are frayed, and some of the collars are almost falling off.’
‘You’re exaggerating again.’
‘Yes, but only slightly. When I left my apartment in New York,
I just grabbed the first clothes I saw. All the good stuff was in the
laundry basket, and now I can’t afford new clothes.’
‘Why did you leave in such a hurry?’ Fred is snoozing on my
lap. Every so often his nose twitches excitedly, as if he’s dreaming
of chasing rabbits.
‘I thought if I didn’t leave in a hurry I mightn’t leave at all. I
thought… you know, that I might find myself thinking it was all
OK. That I could get used to it.’