He ignores the implied accusation here, pretends that this really is about her writing. ‘You’d find something. You’re good at what you do. Anyway, why not worry about that when the time comes?’
She pulls a face and mutters something.
‘Seriously, though, why don’t you?’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake – I don’t know, Howard. Maybe this is all I’m good for. Maybe office equipment is all there is to write about.’
He withdraws his hand, exasperated. ‘Well, if you won’t do anything about it, then you’ve got to stop complaining.’
‘I’m not complaining, if you ever actually listened to what I –’
‘I do listen, that’s the problem, I’m listening all the time to you telling me you’re unhappy, but then when I try to encourage you to do something about it –’
‘Just forget it, I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Fine, but then don’t tell me I’m not listening when the problem is you don’t want to talk –’
‘Can we just forget – Jesus, would you put that fucking thing down?’ She stares at him, alight with wounded fury, until he slides the camera’s panel shut. Right, right, this is how they act. She grabs another cigarette, lights and tugs at it in a single blur of antipathetic motion.
‘Fine,’ says Howard, picking up his book and getting to his feet. ‘Fine, fine, fine, fine.’
He closets himself in the spare room and turns the pages of the Robert Graves book till he hears her get in the shower.
Halley and he have been together for three years, which, at twenty-eight, constitutes the longest relationship of his life so far. For a long time it coasted along, joshing and amicable. But now Halley wants to get married. She doesn’t say it, but he knows. Marriage makes sense for her. As an American citizen, her right to work here currently depends on the benevolence of her employer, who must renew her permit every year. By marrying Howard, she would become, in the state’s eyes, naturalized, and so free to go where she pleased. That isn’t the only reason she desires it, of course. But it does bring the matter into focus rather sharply: suddenly the question becomes, why do they not get married right away? And it hangs above them like some hulking alien spacecraft, blocking out the sun.
So why don’t they? It’s not that Howard doesn’t love her. He does, he would do anything for her, lay down his life if it came to it – if for example she were a princess menaced by a fire-breathing dragon, and he a knight on horseback, he would charge in with his lance without a second thought, stare the serpent right in its smouldering igneous eye, even if it meant getting barbecued there on the spot. But the fact is – the fact is that they live in a world of facts, one of which is that there are no dragons; there are only the pale torpid days, stringing by one like another, a clouded necklace of imitation pearls, and a love binding him to a life he never actually chose. Is this all it’s ever going to be? A grey tapestry of okayness? Frozen in a moment he drifted into?
And so in short everything remains on hold, and everything remains unspoken, and Halley gets more confused about where they are going and what is wrong, even though technically nothing is wrong, and she gets angry with Howard, and Howard as a result feels even less like getting married. Actually, when the plates start flying, it feels like they’ve already been married for years.
After dinner (microwaved) a détente of sorts is reached, whereby he sits reading in the living room while she watches TV. When she rises to turn in at ten-thirty, he presents his cheek for her to kiss. The protocol that has emerged of late is that the first person to the bedroom is given a half-hour’s grace, so he or she can be asleep by the time the second comes in. It is forty-five days, if you’re asking, since they last had sex. Nothing has been explicitly said; it is something they have agreed on tacitly, indeed is one of the few things they do not, at present, disagree on. Eavesdropping on the pornographic conversations of the boys at school, Howard considers how inconceivable the idea of not wanting to have sex would have seemed to his younger self – remembers how his every atom hurled itself (mostly fruitlessly) after physical contact with the unthinking, unstoppable urgency of a wild salmon flapping up a waterfall. There’s a woman in your bed and you’re not having sex with her? He can practically hear the disappointment and confusion in that younger self’s voice. He’s not saying that he likes the present situation. But it is easier, at least in the short to middle term.
Often, as they lie side by side in the darkness, neither letting on to the other that they are still awake, he has long, candid conversations with her in his imagination, where he fearlessly lays everything out on the table. Sometimes these imaginary conversations end with the two of them breaking up, others with their realizing that they can’t live apart; either way, it feels good to make a decision.
Tonight, though, he is not thinking about this. Instead he is sitting in the front row of a classroom, staring with the other boys at a globe that spins with luxurious, excruciating slowness under slender fingers. And as he stares into it, the globe changes under the fingers from a map of the world into a crystal ball… a crystal ball-cum-lucky dip, where any future you want is there for the taking; and under his breath he is murmuring, ‘We’ll see about that. We’ll see.’
H O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S H H H H H H H HHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s a lift going up your brain and right through into space! You can feel your eyes bulging like they’re going to explode! Your head’s full of elephants, cartoon elephants in a line, lifting their hooves and playing their trunks so music comes out! You’re laughing and laughing, you laugh so much you can hardly stand!
But on the ground Morgan is crying. He is crying because Barry’s kneeling on his arms, pinning him down. Above the skips the doughnut sign shines in the other direction like it doesn’t want to see.
Behind Ed’s is where things happen and if you know what is good for you you will stay the fuck away.
Almost as soon as they come the happy explosions start to drain away. Carl stops laughing and takes a step forward. Morgan shrinks back as far as he’s able, his white feet waggling in the dark like little animals. Barry whispers in his ear, ‘Just do yourself a favour and hand them over.’
‘I don’t have any,’ Morgan pleads. ‘I swear!’
‘Then why did you come?’ Barry’s voice is gentle, like a mother’s voice. ‘Why did you come down here, you faggot?’
‘Because you told me to,’ Morgan says, between sobs.
‘We also told you to bring something.’ When Morgan says nothing, Barry slaps him on the cheek. ‘We fucking told you to bring something, shithead.’
‘I came to tell you I couldn’t bring them.’ Morgan’s face is lifted up and back to look at Barry behind him, so the tears trickle backwards towards his ears.
‘Why not?’
‘My mum keeps them locked away! She keeps them locked away!’
Carl’s head is now very heavy. The elephants have stopped dancing; one after the other they are crashing to the floor. From far away he hears Barry say, ‘We asked you nicely.’ He gives Carl the signal.
Carl shakes the can hard. He knows what he has to do. But first HOOOOSSHHHHHHH, the sky bounces and pops, he comes out from under his jacket, his face a
‘Oh God…’ Morgan squeaks, ‘oh God…’