For his birthday, Arthur and Stanley had bought him a ticket to see Leonard Cohen. Ralph looked for a second ticket in the envelope but there was only one. Sadie had bought him a black shirt, a pair of trousers, three pairs of socks and a feng shui owl for his office.
“Thank you,” he said, with the presents on his lap. “They’re all lovely.”
Sadie was pressing a bag of frozen peas against her face. “You’re welcome.”
“Why the owl?” he asked, holding it up to inspect it.
“It represents wisdom. Helps you acquire it, apparently.” She tried to smile. Her sneer was another small failure.
“Right.”
Putting aside the matter of the swollen eye and frozen peas, Sadie looked beautiful this afternoon. She was wearing old jeans and her I Love New York T-shirt. Ralph remembered her buying the T-shirt from a store near Central Park while they were on holiday three years ago—their first holiday alone since the twins were born. She put the T-shirt on there and then, in the middle of the store, pulling it down over her white long-sleeved top. He preferred her like this, natural and relaxed, but by the time their guests arrived this evening she would be dolled up and pretty in heavy make-up. What had happened to the woman he went to New York with? Yes, the cracks were beginning to show, but as they drank cocktails in their Tribeca hotel, called his parents to check on the boys, hunted for paperbacks in the Strand bookshop, walked through Central Park to the Guggenheim Museum, they were happy. Well, perhaps not happy, because happy is difficult to define, but they respected each other. She was in old jeans and old trainers, with a heart on her T-shirt and a hot dog in her hand. It was simple, it was easy. She took his photo in the park because she liked him.
“Anyway, I’d better get changed,” said Sadie, leaving Ralph alone in the kitchen with Arthur, Stanley and the cocker spaniel.
“I know it’s your birthday, Dad, but we have to ask,” said Stanley.
“Ask what?”
“Did you hit Mum?”
“Of course not. I would never hit your mother.”
“What the fuck happened then?” said Arthur.
“Why do you feel the need to swear all the time?”
“Just answer the question.”
“We were messing about. I was tickling her.”
“Tickling her?”
“Yes. Haven’t you ever tickled anyone?”
Stanley wanted to say actually yes, I’ve been tickling Joe Schwartz and he’s been tickling me. Instead, he found himself asking if anyone fancied a glass of Ribena. Telling his parents that he was gay wasn’t the problem—he knew they wouldn’t care. The problem was telling them something personal, revealing, sexual. Did they really need to know the intimate details of his private life?
“No thanks,” said Ralph. “I’ll have a lager, though.”
“I’ll have a lager too,” said Arthur. “But no fucking Ribena. What are you, eight years old?”
“People of all ages drink Ribena. Stop trying to show everyone you’re a grown-up, it’s really boring.”
Ralph smiled, which made Arthur want to pick him up and throw him across the kitchen.
Upstairs, Sadie applied all the usual make-up, apart from foundation. She had no intention of covering up her husband’s mistakes, which were swelling on her cheek and around her eye. She set a Suzanne Vega album playing and turned up the volume. How had Suzanne Vega’s music eluded her until now? She had been listening to this acoustic collection of old songs on repeat over the past few weeks. It was poetic, funny, clever, romantic. It belonged to Kristin.
Sadie Swoon @SadieLPeterson
Suzanne Vega: total goddess
Jilly Perkins @JillyBPerks
@SadieLPeterson Lost my virginity at a Suzanne Vega concert (Marlene on the wall)
Arthur stood beside his father, swigging Peroni from the bottle, appeasing his own toxicity. How did he know that he was toxic? His mother told him after his and Stanley’s sixth birthday party. “How did I end up with such a toxic son?” she said, her hands gripping his shoulders. “What’s wrong with you? You have everything a boy could ask for. Why are you always sulky or angry? Why can’t you be more like your brother? Look at him, Arthur. I said look at him. He’s smiling, see? That’s what normal boys do. They smile every now and then.”
TOXIC. The word had lit up inside his brain. He was hot-headed, headstrong. He was poisonous.
Years later, Arthur read about a psychological experiment in which one group of children (group A) were told that they were especially clever and another (group B) that they were less clever. In the tests that followed, every child in group A achieved better results than they used to, while the little Bs got lower results and seemed unmotivated. Over time, motivation levels in group A also began to fluctuate (if you’ve been labelled “clever”, why bother to try and appear clever?). Arthur read about this experiment and shook his head. It reminded him of something—something uncomfortable—but he couldn’t quite reach it. All this thinking made his head hurt, so he finished his chicken sandwich and went into the back garden to throw a chair across the lawn.
“Hormones,” the doctor said. “He’s brimming with hormones. And if you call him toxic, that’s what he’ll become. I should know. I’m toxic. I shoot pigeons for fun. Real ones. It’s not illegal. It’s pest control. But keep it to yourself. Is there anything else I can do for you, Mrs Swoon?”
“What did it feel like?” said Arthur.
“What?”
“Hitting Mum.”
Ralph stood up and slammed his bottle on the table. “I’m going to say this one last time, all right? I did not, I repeat not, hit your mother. I’ve never hit a woman in my life. Have you got that?”
Arthur shrugged.
“What kind of question is that anyway? What a fucked-up thing to ask.”
“Now who’s swearing?”
Stanley was standing in the garden with a pint of Ribena. He looked around at the multicoloured lanterns hanging from trees, the citronella candles waiting to be lit, the chairs positioned in a semicircle to the left of his mother’s gargantuan, top-of-the-range, six-burner gas barbecue. It arrived last summer after another of her trips to B&Q. She had called it a symbol of independence.
“I will not be a suburban cliché,” she announced, releasing the shiny red beast from its cardboard cage while her family watched. “I’m not going to cook all week in the privacy of our home, then have my husband stand in the garden in front of our friends, tossing burgers like he’s king of the cooking, king of the barbecue, king of everything while I run in and out of the house, in and out all the time, carrying bowls of lettuce. I refuse to become one of those women who stands by while her husband takes the glory. If I cook in private, I cook in public.”
“Fine by me,” said Ralph.
It was fine and it was not fine. He hated the pressure of barbecues, having to stand there in a silly apron and produce the perfect burger (chargrilled but not burnt, tender but well done) for everyone they knew. He was glad she wanted to take over, but his gladness was not the whole story. He felt as though something had been stolen that he couldn’t describe. The longer they were married, the stronger this sense of unknowable loss.
Stanley sat on the wooden bench at the bottom of the garden and looked up at the house. He could see the shape of his mother upstairs in the bathroom, fiddling with her hair in front of the mirror. She wasn’t like other mothers. She did all the driving when they went on holiday. She bought his father flowers and chocolates. “Norms thrive because they’re invisible,” she once said, holding a bunch of roses. “It’s only when I overturn them that you’re able to spot them. Do you get what I’m saying? Why are you looking so fed up?”
The kitchen door opened and closed, revealing Harvey, black and glossy, tumbling towards him, landing on his lap, making him laugh. Daft dog, running up and down the bench, licking his face, jumping off again, pulling a paper lantern from a low branch and ripping it to shreds.
Inside the house, Ralph was on the phone to his father.
“Happy birthday, son.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“How old are you now?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Thirty-seven, deary me.”
“Are you still coming tonight?”
“Of course. Your mother has prickly heat, but we’re still coming. She thinks her sweat glands might be blocked.”
“Are you sure it’s prickly heat? It’s not that hot out.”
“I never argue with your mother’s diagnoses. She’s here now, she’s grabbing the—”
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mum.”
“Happy birthday, dear. Are you having a good day?”
“Lovely, thanks.”
“What have you been doing?”
“I popped into work this morning, but other than that, just pottering really.” He thought of Sadie, naked on the bedroom floor, crawling away from him. “What time are you coming over?”
“What time are we allowed to come?”
“You don’t have to ask that.”
She was referring to the secret contract. A few years ago, Frank and Brenda had decided to move closer to Ralph and their grandsons. Before they sold their bungalow, Sadie posted an agreement for them to sign and return as discreetly as possible. She was advised to do this by an agony aunt called Suzie who worked in the local farm shop. Suzie kept a cardboard box in the corner of the shop for customers’ letters, which she promised to respond to within a week if the writer supplied their initials. She left her replies—short, blunt, alphabetized—in a basket beside the organic dog biscuits. Suzie made the biscuits too. She was multitalented, buxom, often warm, often sharp, depending on the day. Sadie found her trashy and intimidating and she longed for her approval.
“Come over any time you like,” said Ralph. “You’re always welcome, you know that.”
“What time are other people arriving?”
“About seven-thirty.”
“So that’s when we’ll arrive.”
Ralph sighed. Today was hard work. “Dad said you have prickly heat.”
“Did he? Fancy telling you that. Well don’t worry, I’ll cover myself up. I’ve bought new trousers and a lovely yellow cardy from TK Maxx. They’re women’s golf clothes. Quite nice, I think. I’ve never tried golf. Have you tried golf? Did I mention that Auntie Madge has piles?”
Ralph knocked on the bathroom door.
“What?”
“We need to talk.”
“No we don’t.”
“Of course we do. Before tonight.”
“I don’t see any point.”
“Sadie, can you unlock the door?”
“Not right now.”
“Why not?”
“No you’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell.”
“How?”
“Just let me in.”
“No.”
“Why are you listening to Suzanne Vega? You hate Suzanne Vega.”
“I do not hate Suzanne Vega, I’ve never said that.”
“Are you smoking in there?”
“Of course not.”
“What’s that smell then? Are you tweeting and smoking?”
Ralph thought about kicking the door down. Was he even able to do such a thing? Was he strong enough? He’d seen it done a thousand times in films, but the doors were probably made of imitation wood with fake locks. Did he and Sadie have a fake marriage? They had sex today. Sex means hope, surely? He told himself that if Sadie unlocked the door within the next two minutes, everything would be all right. She would find him and he would find her. He looked at his watch. He waited. He listened to the music coming from the bedroom, a song about a soldier and a queen, and he followed its narrative, mesmerized by the words and the melody, wondering what it was called, walking into the bedroom to find out, not hearing the bathroom door open and close as Sadie made her way downstairs.