A Perfect Marriage Page 14

  While Charlie slowly extricates herself from the car, I look over the canal below. The water is dark green and viscous. For the first time I notice that it seems to be flowing to the west; not the direction I would have predicted.

  ‘You look lovely, Charlie,’ I tell her when she’s finally ready.

  She smiles; she never sulks for long, only long enough to make her point. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ she says. ‘Like me to carry the bottle?’

  After handing her the bag containing the wine and Jim’s birthday card, I click my phone onto flight mode. We walk west along Maida Avenue to the Little Venice basin. The boat is going to take us east along the Grand Union Canal almost as far as Islington, before turning around and bringing us back again.

  The weather has cleared, and a brisk wind is chasing away the last fragments of cloud from the washed blue sky and whipping the faded brown leaves from the plane trees. Kate is standing on the towpath next to a long dark green canal boat. It has smart yellow and red stripes along its gunwale and a brightly coloured design of flowers stencilled on the side of its long cabin. She is holding a clipboard and a pen; she looks as if she’s enjoying the challenge of organising Jim’s party, a project that would reduce lesser individuals to deep anxiety.

  ‘Hello Sally! Hello Charlie! So glad you’re here.’ She grins happily and looks down at her clipboard, on which is a sheet of paper with a list of names ‘Now we’re only missing the Dhillons.’ She puts a tick next to our names and guides us on board, squeezing my elbow as if she is especially pleased to see me.

  At least thirty people are here already. There is a babble of voices. In the background, a barely discernible filament of music winds its way through the voices. We stand at the edge of the crowd waiting for something to happen.

  ‘Sally!’ Kate’s husband, Jim, is shouting at me. I congratulate him on his birthday and introduce him to Charlie, who reminds us both that she has met him before. He is so tall that when I look up at him I can see how neatly he has clipped his nose hairs. There is a table of drinks behind him, with rows of glasses already filled. From this he picks up a glass of wine for me and for Charlie a glass of apple juice. ‘Hope you like this stuff, Charlie,’ he says. ‘And I remember your mother likes white wine rather than red at lunchtime. When she drinks at all, that is.’

  Charlie drifts off to find Ben. I take a sip of wine, and watch her flatten herself in an exaggerated way against the seats running the length of the cabin while she works her way through the crowd. She looks as if she’s pretending to be a guerrilla trying to sneak unnoticed down a dangerous street. There is Ben next to the stereo player; with him is a boy of about the same age; he has frizzy hair that grows upwards, like mustard and cress. Ben is tall and blond, like Charlie, but with olive skin. When he sees Charlie, a wide smile lights up his sallow face with its strong beaked nose.

  Jim is speaking to me but the noise in the cabin is so loud I have difficulty hearing what he is saying. I nod at what seem to be appropriate times and smile my good intentions. I think he is telling me something about how painful the age of forty is and that maybe he’ll stay forever thirty-nine. Around us other people’s words are skittering back and forth, competing with our exchange. When the Dhillons arrive and can find nothing suitable on the table of drinks, Jim shepherds them off to find some sparkling mineral water.

  So here I am on my own, feeling detached, an alien in this boatload of earthlings, none of whom I know apart from our hosts, though I’ve been told that Clive and Martha are somewhere in the throng of people. Kate begins to instruct one of the boatmen to bring in the gangplank and cast us off. She then advises the other boatman to start the engine. There is something deeply engaging about her evident belief that this boat will never get moving without her assistance. Ropes are unfastened, the engine hums and thrums, and shortly we are moving off. The hubbub of voices dies down as people turn away from one another and move to the windows. The boat manoeuvres its way out of the basin and into the Grand Union Canal, past Zoë’s block of flats, and through the brick tunnel under the Edgware Road. Soon people lose their interest in our stately progress along the canal and resume their conversations. The noise level is rising again, like the water in a lock.

  Now Kate is at my side, saying, ‘Follow me.’ We weave through the crowd and climb up some steps to a little deck at the front. The wind has dropped and the sun feels warm on our faces.

  Kate and I chat idly about work as we watch the passing scenery. Ahead of us is a metal bridge across which a train thunders. The sides of the bridge are decorated with graffiti – huge, flesh-pink lettering, rimmed in black, voluptuously splayed over the flat grey sides of the bridge. We float under Park Road, and on our right are the skeletons of trees, the few leaves still left on the branches fluttering like flags in the breeze. The mosque lies beyond, and we’re passing white stuccoed mansions, newly built.

  After a while Kate vanishes inside. I should mingle too but the afternoon is so glorious I decide to stay outside a bit longer. Soon Charlie comes out on deck, with Ben and the other boy. We cruise past more people on the towpath, some strolling aimlessly, some marching purposefully; I listen to Charlie and the boys as they start telling stories about these people.

  ‘There go the SMs,’ Ben says as we glide past a couple in their twenties. The woman is wearing tight leather trousers that she might have been sewn into, a matching cropped jacket, and stiletto heeled black boots, and she’s pulling along behind her a reluctant black poodle. The man with her is similarly dressed, only with black sneakers and no poodle.

  ‘SMs?’ Ben’s friend enquires.

  ‘Sado-masochists, Chris. She ties him up with her dog leash and beats him with the poodle.’

  Ben and Charlie collapse into giggles. Chris is not amused; miffed no doubt at not knowing what SM means.

  ‘See that toy boy there?’ Ben points to a young man of about his own age. He’s wearing a suit and slouching along with his hands in his trouser pockets. Beside him walks an elderly woman, probably his grandmother, with dyed blonde hair. I can see she’s heavily made up, even across the couple of metres between the boat and the path, and she’s wearing a pink suit with the skirt hemline well above her knees. Too short for someone of her age, it makes her legs look somehow vulnerable as if they might snap at any moment. She’s being pulled along by an enthusiastic wolfhound. It seems that admission to the towpath is by leashed dog.

  ‘There was a young toy-boy from Woy Woy,’ Charlie says after we are out of earshot. ‘Who saved up to purchase a borzoi.’ She pauses.

  ‘But she who had hired him, got jealous and fired him,’ Ben contributes.

  ‘So borzoi and toy boy lost employ!’ says Charlie.

  They crumple into another fit of giggles, while Chris smiles in a rather forced sort of way. I feel sorry for him: three is not a good number. Someone always feels left out.

  ‘Very witty.’ Kate has come out on deck unobserved and is standing right behind Ben. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you, Ben.’ Kate gives him a severe look. ‘I want you to go inside and entertain your grandmother and Auntie Jean. They’re sitting on their own.’

  Ben makes a face at Charlie and Chris, and follows Kate into the cabin. It looks as if Chris and Charlie can think of nothing to say, so I ask Chris what he plans to do next year, after he leaves school. This sets him off on a long and complicated story about his preferences and his anticipated A-level grades, and how various combinations of results will lead to different outcomes, but that based on his performance to date the expected outcome is that he’ll to get into Cambridge. He speaks just like that, so I am not a bit surprised to learn that his parents are both statisticians.

  The boat is now passing through the zoo, with the enormous aviary on our left. The netting is suspended from tall poles and looks too slack, as if it might blow in and entangle the birds. A seagull is perched on the top of a pole, on the outside, as if looking for an opportunity to get in. The sight of the
waterfall running through the aviary sets Chris off again on another anecdote, this time an interesting one about the history of the three dams project in China. Charlie and Chris begin to converse quite animatedly. They are sweet and innocent, or am I being a romantic again?

  Chapter 32

  THEN

  I was a second-year undergraduate when Jeff and I decided to marry. We could never remember who thought of it first, but it seemed the natural thing to do. We both wanted a child, sooner rather than later.

  ‘For God’s sake, wait,’ my mother said. ‘You’re far too young to marry. You’re only nineteen.’ I had rung her up to tell her the news. As soon as I heard her reaction I knew that this was a mistake; I should have told her face-to-face. I needed to be able to see her expression so I could better tailor my comments to suit her reaction.

  ‘Twenty in one month’s time.’ I sat down on the floor of the white cube of our living room and contemplated Jeff’s Patrick Heron forgery that adorned the far wall. He was very good at forging paintings; he could do almost any style but my favourite was this Patrick Heron, with its strong forms and primary colours.

  ‘You’re nineteen,’ my mother said. ‘Even if you were twenty, I’d still say you were far too young.’

  ‘We’re already living together.’

  ‘I know, but that’s different. Anyway, we never approved of that either, as you know. Wait a while. What’s the hurry?’

  ‘We’re in love. You must have noticed.’

  My mother made an uncharacteristic noise that could best be described as a snort, and there was a brief pause in the conversation. Then she said, ‘Being in love’s a delusion. Loving someone is not. When you’re in love you’re simply projecting your needs onto someone else.’

  ‘You sound so cynical.’

  ‘No; honest. Forget all the twaddle about being in love. Romantic love’s simply a sexual gimmick. It ensures the reproduction of our species, or so I read recently in a book review.’

  There was a silence that stretched and stretched. I felt surprised, not only by her cynicism or by the revelation that she had been following developments in socio-biology, but also because there was some truth in what she said. Romantic love as a sexual gimmick; that was a neat concept. Other animals didn’t have this. Birds didn’t have this, or not as far as we knew.

  Yet Jeff was what I wanted and I was what he wanted. And anyway, you couldn’t really take this socio-biology stuff seriously. I said, starting to giggle, ‘Jeff and I were genetically programmed to fall in love with each other.’

  She was not amused. ‘You were genetically programmed to fall in love with anyone,’ she said firmly. ‘Jeff just happened to come along when your hormones were particularly rampant.’

  I repressed a snigger at the thought of my rampant hormones and mentally filed my mother’s comment away to tell Jeff later. ‘I’m going to marry him anyway, Mum. You might as well get used to the idea. We’ll do it with or without your approval. I’ve known him nearly two years, after all.’

  ‘You’ll change, Sally. You’ll develop, both of you, and not necessarily in the same ways.’ I could hear the thinly disguised irritation in her voice. ‘He’s not mature for his age. In some ways you’re much more grown up than he is.’

  Although tempted to ask her in what ways she thought Jeff was immature, I didn’t want to get side-tracked again. ‘We’ll grow up together, Mum. Think of it that way.’

  ‘Your father’s not so keen on Jeff.’

  I guessed this actually meant that she was not keen on Jeff. Apart from his family, my father was more or less indifferent to anyone who was not related to his work as a research chemist or who did not sail. As Jeff did neither, he had little hope of actively engaging his interest. ‘Well, Dad’s not marrying him,’ I said. ‘Anyway, fathers always think no man’s good enough for their daughters.’ I added, hoping to persuade her because of her own experience, ‘Isn’t that what Grandpa said to you when you got married? And you and Dad are very happy.’

  ‘That was different,’ she said, sighing. ‘And you’re our only child.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything? Jeff and I want to have a child. That’s why we want to marry. Wouldn’t you like to have a grandchild?’ This was hitting below the belt; I knew there was nothing she would like more.

  ‘But you’re so young. Anyway, get Jeff to talk to your father. I’ll have a word first, but I’m not at all keen on you doing this yet.’

  It was the prospect of a grandchild that clinched things. ‘Thank you, Mum. You’re the most wonderful woman in the world.’

  ‘Humph,’ she said, and hung up soon after.

  The following weekend, Jeff and I went around to my parents’ house. In old-fashioned style, Jeff and my father vanished into my father’s study and emerged twenty minutes later, both looking somewhat embarrassed.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Jeff said as they came out, and he gave my bottom a surreptitious pinch. ‘He’s agreed.’

  ‘Your mother says the reception will be in our garden.’ My father spoke these words as if he were reciting something learned by heart earlier. He then smiled at me in his absent-minded way before disappearing into his study again.

  I married Jeff in late November.

  A red-letter day.

  Chapter 33

  NOW

  The canal boat glides under an arched iron bridge. A tramp is lying on his side in the dirt under the bridge support, his face invisible behind his unkempt beard and hair. He has wrapped some newspapers around him, as if even this mild autumn afternoon is too cold. The contrast between us and him seems almost obscene. I start when I hear a deep male voice behind me. ‘You’re in the biology department, aren’t you?’

  Two men are standing behind me. One is taller than the other but apart from that they’re virtually indistinguishable, dressed as they are in almost identical tweed jackets and corduroy trousers. Charlie and Chris are so intent on their conversation they don’t notice the new arrivals.

  ‘Frank McDonald,’ says one of the tweed jackets. ‘And this is John Smythe. Kate said we should come out and introduce ourselves. We’re in the sociology department.’

  How like Kate to take action to ensure I’m not a wallflower. I look over the shoulders of the tweed jackets and see her waving at me from inside the cabin. I grin and wave back, before shaking hands with each of the tweed jackets. I find I cannot remember which is which.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you before. Some conference I expect,’ says the tall tweed jacket with the resonant voice.

  ‘Senate, more likely,’ says the short tweed jacket.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I say. Senate is full of men like these.

  ‘Kate tells me you’re a very good friend of Zoë McIntyre,’ says the tall tweed jacket.

  I don’t say anything. There is a pause while the short tweed jacket struggles to think who Zoë McIntyre is. Then in tones of incredulity: ‘The woman who does that TV show?’

  ‘Yes. Kate says you’ve known each other for years, Sally. School, I think she said. Or was it university.’ I am about to say that we haven’t known each other quite that long but I don’t get a chance. ‘Zoë was the presenter for Rearranging Lives,’ the tall tweed jacket explains to his friend. ‘Do you remember that TV programme years ago? I used to have a crush on her.’

  ‘I don’t watch much TV,’ says the short tweed jacket with a sigh, as if watching TV is a hobby that he might engage in if only he had a bit more time.

  ‘That was the show where she put someone doing one job into a totally different job at another firm, and watched how they coped with it.’

  ‘Ahh, I remember now. They used hidden cameras to record colleagues’ reactions.’

  ‘Zoë was the good-looking one who did the story. I always thought the data from that would make a nice case study. In fact I tried to contact her a couple of times about that but she never replied.’

  ‘You’d have trouble getting that sort of thing past an et
hics committee these days,’ says the short tweed jacket. ‘I thought the programme was rather ghastly, if you want to know.’ He is right; it was. I watched one episode after I met Zoë and that was enough.

  ‘It was hilarious actually,’ says the tall tweed jacket. ‘But there was some scandal when she was doing that. She got beaten up or something, it was all over the papers. She appeared on her programme with a black eye.’

  I freeze. Opening my mouth to speak, I can only manage a strangled mumble, but neither tweed jacket takes any notice.

  ‘There was going to be a court case,’ the taller tweed jacket continues, in quieter tones now. I am relieved that Charlie and Chris have their backs to us and won’t hear this conversation.

  ‘I remember now. They caught the chap who did it. He was her lover apparently.’ It’s obvious that the short tweed jacket is not used to saying the word lover; it’s as if he has put it in inverted commas to emphasise that it’s a word he doesn’t usually use.

  ‘He died in mysterious circumstances a few days later.’

  ‘Well, that bit passed right by me,’ says the short tweed jacket.

  ‘I’m an avid reader of that sort of thing. Living vicariously.’ They both laugh.

  Charlie turns round at this point. I pray that she hasn’t heard but she fixes her green eyes on the taller tweed jacket. He looks at her as if she is a specimen from another tribe that he’s encountered for the first time. She says, ‘When was that?’

  ‘It was only some silly gossip about Zoë.’ A pulse is pounding in my throat. I glare at the tweed jacket but he is looking at Charlie not me.

  ‘When did Zoë get beaten up?’ Charlie says again.

  The tweed jacket will never be able to remember this and I begin to relax slightly. But he pulls at his chin for a bit as if that will aid his memory and eventually says, ‘I reckon it was about ten years ago. I remember seeing the headlines on the way to the cricket the year England played Pakistan. I went with you, Frank, do you remember?’