Ménage Read online

  ‘Hello again, Molly,’ he said and gave her a little wave.

  ‘Mommy says Kurtie killed himself.’ She had an endearing mid-Atlantic posh accent. ‘But I think all the other singers murdered him cos they were jealous.’

  ‘Sorry?’ He really had no idea what she was talking about.

  ‘Nirvana!’ the kid said, stomping her foot.

  ‘Oh, OK. Really, so your mum lets you listen to grunge?’

  She stared at him.

  ‘You’re weird,’ she said. ‘But that’s OK. I’m weird too,’ and pootled back down the hall to her mother.

  He was bewildered.

  Later, he waited alone in his study as Dot read her child a bedtime story.

  ‘“Lady Frogspawn was so tired of being a horse.”’

  Every word random. Totally bewildered.

  That night Dot fell asleep before any explanations were forthcoming. As he held her while she slept, he thought of how it had always been like this with her. Huge life-changing events happened with no discussion or plan. Sentences started up from nowhere and were left unended. Lady Frogspawn and Kurtie. Weird, yes, but I’m weird too, he thought.

  It started with contact lens solution, then deodorant, then her toothbrush and woolly slipper-socks; her copy of Plath’s unabridged journals that she left by his bedside, that she never seemed to get more than a page or two into before reaching for a kiss or falling asleep, that he sometimes had to prise from her comatose fingers. And her toothbrush lying next to his, his examining of the bristles, the little traces of blood because she brushed too vigorously. That week she’d bought a second toothbrush for Molly and it was there in his sink cabinet. A small investment in their future. It made him laugh. Her hairs in the shower drain; her little Post-it notes to herself, stuck on whatever object was at hand, whenever a brilliant new idea came to her, that said cryptic things like: TRY VIDEO FEEDBACK and THREE PEOPLE IN A ROOM and MILK THISTLE DETOX.

  As he went about his day, finding her hairs everywhere, on his keyboard, on the coffee cup that had been his favourite before she claimed it as her own; the lipstick kiss on the rim of her wine glass; the smell of her perfume in his bed; the subtle scent of her sex on their sheets, it became increasingly absurd to him, this pretence that they were ‘just seeing each other’.

  There was much talk of the difficulty of selling her flat in the recession and maybe renting it or redecorating it first and of the search, always, for the new perfect place to live, and how sweet he was to be helping her out. And it was crazy that Molly was in nursery in Notting Hill and not somewhere nearer London Bridge because it meant Dot was leaving her home an hour earlier to commute then leaving her studio an hour earlier just to pick Molly up.

  ‘What am I fucking doing?’ she said on the phone just yesterday. ‘Putting in four hours’ work a day and spending the rest of my time running from –’

  ‘Tube to tube.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d . . .’

  Yes, he understood, but did she, as to where this was headed? Her impromptu flustered calls brought a sense of expectation to his days. Would she call around four, or earlier? What would her excuse be this time?

  ‘God, I just can’t face cooking tonight!’

  Or ‘Molly’s got toothache and we’re stuck here in the studio.’

  Or ‘I’ve got to do a radio interview at 6.30 a.m. It’d be easier to crash at yours.’ Or any of the many excuses that always ended with the same line unspoken. So Owen would find himself saying it for her: ‘Fine, just pop over then.’

  After their first month had passed, the time of day when she called got earlier and earlier and the pretence that she was just popping round on a whim became increasingly, endearingly, transparent.

  He slept at Dot’s twice a week and she slept over three or four times at his. Leaving them just a day or two apart, the hours of which were usually spent on the phone to each other. And, absurd, on the days that he slept over at hers, that they’d both have to take the ten stops on the congested Central Line back to Bank, for her to change to go south to her studio which was only, actually, four stops from his flat.

  Her aromatherapy night oils, three now, in their bottles by his beside: lavender, thyme and bergamot. And their little spills that had started seeping into the covers of his books. Yes, they were putting on a brave show. Both thriving on the thrilling denial of facing where this was ultimately heading.

  And he had committed to writing the essays on the Nine Works. There were deadlines now, six weeks till Zurich, and much work to be done, writing about her art with the required objectivity, to be her critic, to make an historical appraisal. The DVDs stacked and ready to watch. A month, it would take.

  On their late nights, after a typical dinner of pesto and pasta and Molly put to bed in the spare room, settling down on the sofa with a bottle of Rioja and a movie, he’d find himself stealing glances at her.

  They were sitting watching TV in his lounge and her hands sat face down in her lap. Those wrists she always hid from him, the silver scars he knew were there and would have longed to have kissed.

  The hands, impassive, looking as if she did not know how perfectly proportioned they were. Just tools for her, two objects she threw in the air when ranting. The way her thighs had filled out so slightly, womanly, that tiny bulge round the top of her jeans, her top, her breasts, braless, as always, beneath, the tiny points of her nipples that made him recall the sucking, the hardening between his fingers. Her long, long neck and the way she rubbed it sometimes as if trying to reconnect her head to her body. The taut tight skin of her cheekbones, ankles, neck, the tiny creases that spoke of survival. And how she tucked her feet under her thighs when on the sofa, the way those long slender feet would brush his leg and she would say ‘Sorry’, pulling herself into herself. The endearing clumsiness of her every move: she would have laughed at if he ever told her. The way her fingers played with her now long hair, as if remembering how close she’d once shaved it, almost to the skull. The way she would sometimes catch him staring and laugh to herself, and just as he was about to tell her how beautiful she was she would kick him gently with that slender foot and laugh.

  ‘Stop it!’

  She had just caught him again. She did not kick, but spoke.

  ‘But you know . . . I don’t want to get into a . . .’

  The game of second-guesses.

  ‘ . . . a long-term thing again?’

  ‘God, yeah, it’s so fucking . . .’

  ‘ . . . stifling?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah yeah . . . so glad you agree.’

  These lines they swapped, taking each other’s. Dot sometimes finishing Owen’s for him. To remind and caution each other. The words that would stop abruptly as the eyes looked to lips and eyes closed and lips were found. This shared sense that they were doing something dangerous, forbidden. She would break away then and say: ‘I’ll never do the . . .’

  ‘God, me too. I mean, what does it mean, this . . .?’

  ‘ . . . falling in . . .?’

  ‘Exactly . . . sounds like . . .’

  ‘ . . . like someone’s bound to get hurt.’

  And in bed she whispered that this was all wrong, that she was not going to be weak again, as she stroked his cock and made it ready, as she climbed onto him and moaned as he entered her, whispering sorry, sorry, yes, yes.

  Then it was Molly’s Hello Kitty toys and her grizzly bear, and a few extra nightshirts and first one then two then five of Molly’s favourite bedtime books, and Owen had found himself online, shopping for Hello Kitty child-sized duvet covers. And all the time, neither of them said anything about the accumulating shared possessions, the little credit-card spendings that were starting to mount up to an investment.

  Saul.

  On the day that Dot had brought round Molly’s inflatable bouncy castle Owen found himself thinking of Saul. There had been maybe three late-night phone calls in that last month. He had turned the ringer off and stared at
the flashing light, willing it away. BT informed him that they could only bar a known number, not a withheld one. He’d been developing this paranoia that somehow, impossibly, Saul knew everything and wanted to destroy it. A shadow had been following him on the street. Every time he turned to look there were only strangers with shopping bags. On the nights Dot slept over, he pulled the phone from the wall socket, discreetly.

  ‘Man is one and woman is his negative. History has made her so,’ Saul had once said. ‘One plus minus-one equals nothing.’

  Midway through the ridiculous exertions of pumping up the castle, he found himself saying words to her he’d promised he would never say again.

  ‘Look, this is crazy, why don’t you just move in?’

  ‘I . . . I couldn’t . . .’

  ‘Seriously, what the fuck am I doing rattling around here by myself . . . C’mon. At least till you find your new place. It’d give you a chance to get Notting Hill cleared up for selling too. You bring enough stuff here for a month, pack the rest and . . . it’s not like I’m . . .’

  ‘I know, but it’d be . . .’

  A line from Saul flashed through his mind.

  ‘ . . . impossible.’

  The smile on her face seemed to acknowledge it. Owen finished the line off, to claim it as his own.

  ‘In the era of the predictable, the only thing left to live for is the impossible!’

  OK, she said, but it wasn’t like she was moving in. Just temporary. They’d see how it went. She’d be off to Zurich in a month and she’d have to have a new artwork come up with, and maybe being so close together would help and she’d finally get a good idea and no more time wasting, cos really he had to make a start on the text for the catalogue. And God, she really had to get with the apartment searching. There were three new potential warehouse places, one in Bethnal Green that looked ideal, he could come and see what he thought, help with the estate whatnots, if he wanted.

  The next day he took time off and hired a van and was round at Dot’s old place packing things into crates, constantly reaffirming that she’d soon have her new place, just in case. Molly threw tantrums and wanted to take all of her teddies then wanted nothing but to stay. He concerned himself with packing the laptop and DVDs, books and CDs, while Dot threw armfuls of clothes randomly into her travel bags. Six boxes, seven cases and eight hours later Dot and Molly had moved in.

  Owen really couldn’t believe she had said yes.

  Just temporarily of course.

  *

  TRANSCRIPTION FROM VIDEO FOOTAGE

  Harsh top light. 3 people. 3 names.

  Saul Metcalf (S) has JESUS written on the Rizla on his head. Dorothy Shears (D) has SID VICIOUS written on her head. Owen Morgan (O) has MARILYN MONROE written on his head.

  D: OK, am I alive or dead?

  O: Yes/No answers please! Like – you say ‘Am I dead?’

  D: OK, am I?

  S: Yes, you are.

  Laughter, the camera moves to focus on S.

  S: This is dumb.

  S touches the paper on his head that reads JESUS.

  O: Don’t take it off!

  S: OK, OK. Fuck . . . am I a film star?

  Laughter.

  D: No!

  O: Nope, sorry.

  The camera moves to focus on O.

  O: OK, am I a cartoon character?

  S: This is so fucking –

  D: Shh. No, you’re a real person.

  The camera moves to D. Exchange of spliff. A drink poured. D drinks.

  D: OK, am I a lovely person?

  Laughter.

  O: Come on, he wasn’t so bad! He was just pretending.

  D: Aha! So I’m a man!

  Off-camera dispute between O and S as to whether O had given away a clue. The camera is passed to focus on S.

  S: Am I a writer?

  Laughter. S again touches the paper on his head that reads JESUS.

  O: No, sorry.

  D: Well, there is one book, you kind of inspired it.

  O: Stop giving him clues.

  Laughter. The camera is passed to focus on O. He stares upwards, comic moment when he flicks his hair back, momentarily obscuring the name MARILYN MONROE.

  O: OK, am I a man?

  S: I sometimes wonder.

  D: Shh, you bitch. No, no, my dear, you are the perfection of all womankind, in a kind of fucked-up way.

  Laughter. The spliff is passed; camera is passed to focus on D.

  D: OK, so I’m . . . dead, I’m a horrible person and a man.

  She raises her eyes upwards. SID VICIOUS on her forehead.

  D: OK, did I . . . kill people?

  O: No, no, only yourself.

  S: Bollocks. Your girlfriend too.

  D: No way.

  O: Nah, it was an overdose.

  S: With a fucking gun!

  D: My God, who wrote this on me?

  Laughter. The camera passes to focus on S.

  S: OK, am I an artist?

  O: No.

  D: No, no, but . . . you’ve got your head in the clouds, my dear.

  S drinks, smokes. Laughter off-camera. The camera is passed to focus on O.

  O: I’m a woman . . . am I . . . sexy?

  S: Oh, how trite!

  D: Oh yes, very.

  S: I never thought so.

  O: So am I dead?

  D: One question at a time, darling.

  O: I just know I’m dead, I always end up dead, why are we all dead?

  D: Shhh! Don’t tell him.

  S: Aha, so I am.

  D: Shh, he didn’t know he was dead!

  O: Well, he’s not really, I mean God, sorry, some people still believe in him, millions in fact. Mostly Americans.

  D: Shhhh!

  Laughter. The camera is passed to focus on S.

  S: I couldn’t give a shit.

  D: Don’t spoil it, c’mon. Play the game.

  S smokes.

  D: OK, you’re . . . not a writer, not a film star and there’s some debate over whether you’re dead.

  S: Thanks a bunch.

  D: Why do you have to take everything so personally?

  O: Comrades, pleeez!

  S drinks.

  S: OK, did I kill myself?

  D: No!

  Laughter.

  O: You just sort of vanished, and then you came back and then you went away again.

  Laughter. S tries to stand. Hand of D restrains him. Off-mike whispers – encouragements to stay. The camera moves to D.

  D: Is it my turn?

  O: We’re getting kind of . . . I dunno . . . morbid or –

  D: No, it’s you.

  S: Fuck sake.

  D: Your go again, anyway, whatever.

  O: OK, I’m sexy, I’m a woman, I’m dead . . . Am I . . . Janis Joplin?

  S: She’s not sexy.

  D: She is soooo sexy. You don’t know what sex is.

  Silence. The camera gets passed to focus on D.

  D: So I killed my girlfriend and I’m a guy?

  S: Yeah.

  Silence.

  D: Am I Ted Hughes?

  S: Oh puh-leez! What is this? The feminist half-hour?

  Silence.

  S: This is so adolescent.

  THE FOLLOWING FOOTAGE WAS DELETED FROM THE COMPLETED ARTWORK.

  S gets up, the camera remains on D.

  D: Is he OK?

  O: He’ll be back. Just keep on playing.

  A moment, then the camera is dropped. Sounds of D and O kissing. Camera films the floor: an empty vodka bottle, a Pot Noodle carton full of cigarette butts.

  O: Stop, he’ll see us.

  D: I don’t care, you’re so serious and sexy-looking.

  O: Shhh, we have to keep playing.

  The camera is lifted again. D laughing. Putting on a serious face.

  D: OK, am I –

  O: Isn’t it my turn?

  D: Sorry. You think he’s all right?

  The camera is swapped, focusing on O.
<
br />   O: He’ll be off doing some fire and brimstone or taking a shit. He’ll be fine.

  Laughter.

  O: OK, I’m dead and I’m sexy.

  D: Dead sexy.

  Laughter.

  O: Did I kill myself?

  D: My God, we’ve all asked that!

  O: Suicide or?

  D: I think it was an accident.

  Silence. The camera swaps.

  O: Your turn.

  D looks out of frame, over her shoulder.

  D: Am I . . . sorry, I can’t really . . . this doesn’t really work with just two, it’s like . . .

  O: Interrogation?

  D: Parents, I was thinking parents.

  S re-enters frame.

  S: OK, my turn.

  D: OK, great, you OK?

  S: Let’s get this done.

  The camera shifts hands to focus on S. S lights a cigarette butt.

  S: OK, so I’m dead and no one believes in me.

  D: I do . . . sometimes.

  S: Yeah yeah yeah. OK, am I Jesus?

  Laughter.

  D: Yes, yes!

  O: Cheat.

  S: What?

  O: You went to the bathroom and saw it in the mirror.

  S: Fuck you, any stupid fucking kid could have guessed. If you must know it came to me while defecating.

  O: Cheat! Can’t we just play a simple fucking –

  D: Boys! Pleez.

  S: I just want to know which one of you wrote it.

  Silence.

  S: You think you’re so fucking funny.

  O: Oh and what about you writing Sid Vicious on her head, that wasn’t exactly –

  D: Am I Sid Vicious?

  D takes the name from her head, laughs. O takes the name from his head.

  O: Marilyn Monroe, what? You trying to tell me I’m queer?

  D: No . . . Boys! Please! I wrote it, it was just a –

  O: This is so –

  D: I’m turning the camera off now. Just a game, Jesus.

  *