‘How about going to McDonald’s?’ I said.
‘Fine,’ she said.
We went to the one on the Haymarket, and sat upstairs. I had a quarterpounder with cheese, regular fries and a large coke. All Madeline would have was a cheeseburger. We ate in silence for a while. She was clearly depressed about something and her moroseness didn’t take long to spread in my direction. I thought of all the evenings we had spent together in the last six months, all the hope and excitement I had felt at the start of the relationship, and it seemed cruel and pathetic that we should be sitting there, not even talking, just picking at junk food in these bland surroundings on a freezing winter’s night. When I finally dared to speak, it seemed to require enormous effort.
‘So,’ I said, ‘what have you been up to, the last few days?’
‘Nothing much. You know me.’
I pointed at her cheeseburger.
‘Is that all you’re going to eat?’
‘I’m not very hungry. Anyway, I hate this food.’
I must have made some gesture of frustration, because she took pity and said: ‘I’m sorry, William. We’re both in a bad mood, that’s all.’
I could have pointed out that I hadn’t been in a bad mood, until she kept me waiting for half an hour, but it seemed more constructive to take her up on her attempt at friendliness.
‘We recorded a new song on Tuesday,’ I said.
‘Oh?’ Naturally, she sounded bored.
‘Took us all day, in fact. Six hours’ studio time.’
‘This is turning into quite an expensive hobby, isn’t it?’
‘You know perfectly well it isn’t a hobby.’
She took one of my fries and said, absently, ‘You still think you’re going to make a career out of this, do you?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t think of it in those terms.’
‘Why do you do it then, this music? What’s the point?’
‘I do it because I have to.’
Her stare was blank, uncomprehending.
‘I do it because I’ve got all this music, locked up inside me, and I have to let it out. It’s… what I do. It’s what I’ve always done.’
‘Sounds most inconvenient: like a bowel problem or something. I’m glad I don’t have it.’
‘No, it’s not like that at all. It’s a gift. It’s a way of expressing feelings — putting them into permanent form — preserving them. Feelings which would otherwise just be dead and forgotten.’
‘What sort of feelings?’
Bravely, I said: ‘Feelings about you, for instance.’
‘You’ve written songs about me?’
‘Yes.’
‘How embarrassing.’
There was a short silence, during which I wondered whether she realized how wounding this had sounded. Then I said, ‘Thanks.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked — picking up on my sarcasm, for once.
‘You know something that really pisses me off?’
‘If you’re just going to be rude to me tonight,’ she said, ‘I don’t have to sit here and listen.’
‘I’ll tell you what pisses me off. It’s how nice you are.’
‘What?’
‘How nice you are to everybody but me. God, you’re so polite, and gentle, and considerate, and generous, you’re so brimming over with good feelings for everyone: and not a scrap of it comes my way. Not a bloody trickle.’
‘I think you’re being unfair. Very unfair.’
‘No I’m not. Why should you treat me differently from anyone else? Just because I’m your boyfriend, that doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to a bit of courtesy now and again. Jesus, you keep me waiting for half an hour, you’re sulky, you won’t talk to me. You won’t even tell me what’s wrong.’
‘There’s nothing wrong.’
I took hold of her chin and forced her to look at me.
‘Yes there is. Isn’t there?’
She looked away.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
My fingers had been covered with pickle and tomato sauce. She took one of the paper serviettes and wiped her face clean.
I sighed. ‘Tell me, will you? You owe it to me.’
She tried to meet my gaze but had to look away as she said, brokenly, ‘I want… a change.’
‘A change?’
‘In this relationship.’
I frowned.
‘What sort of change?’
‘You know what sort,’ she said, looking up again.
‘No I don’t.’
For several seconds we stared at each other, two pairs of eyes in angry, hopeless deadlock, straining to communicate and yet straining to block each other out. Finally Madeline broke away.
‘God, you’re stupid,’ she said. ‘I’ve never known anyone as stupid as you, William.’ She stood up and put her bag over her shoulder. ‘I’m going.’
‘Going where?’
‘Home.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘I’m not being silly. I’ve had enough and I’m going home.’
‘I’ll come with you to the bus-stop.’
‘Forget it. I don’t want you to. I’d rather go on my own.’
I stood up, too.
‘Will you stop messing around? Are we going to talk about this properly, like two — ’
She pushed me back down into my seat.
‘Shut up and finish that cheeseburger.’
And before I had time to stop her, she was off, running down the staircase and disappearing from view. I sat there, baffled. In front of me was a plastic carton containing a half-eaten cheeseburger: a potent symbol of a failed relationship if ever I saw one. After a few moments I pushed it into the waste-bin and left the restaurant myself.
There was no sign of Madeline out in the street. I knew which bus-stop she would be walking to, but there seemed no point in following her: better to let this mood subside, and maybe call her tomorrow. The evening was turning colder, and there was a damp mist in the air. I buttoned up my thin old raincoat, thrust my hands deep into the pockets, started to wander aimlessly up the street and then struck out in the direction of Samson’s.
It was a long shot, but it paid off: Tony was there. I didn’t want to speak to him right away, though, so I sat at a table in the corner and ordered a bottle of wine, which I began to drink on my own, slowly and methodically. The next thing I knew, it was three-quarters empty. The place was practically deserted, so there wasn’t much in the way of distractions — conversation, clinking glasses, the scraping of chairs — to prevent me from listening to his piano-playing. We had ‘Night and Day’, ‘Some Other Time’, ‘Blue in Green’ and, finally, ‘My Funny Valentine’. Though I say it myself, it wasn’t as good as the version I had played for Madeline that night. It was more polished, but less emotional. It got to me, all the same, prompting me to wander over to the piano, before Tony had a chance to start his next number.
‘Hi.’ He seemed genuinely pleased to see me. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘When’s your break?’ I asked.
‘Well, I could take one now.’
‘Come and have a drink, then.’
We ordered another bottle of wine, even though he didn’t seem to drink much of it, and I filled him in on the argument with Madeline. I don’t know what I expected to gain from confiding in him in this way. Men don’t tend to be a great deal of use to each other at times of emotional crisis, and I found myself wishing that there was some woman I could have gone to, someone who wouldn’t have felt embarrassed about hugging me, to start with, and then discussing the whole thing openly. Tony, I could see, was also suffering from the temptation to say something along the lines of ‘I told you so’. I wasn’t going to let him do that.