Lurid & Cute (21 page)

— So, see you, she said to me, gently.

— Yeah see you, I said, in the gentlest way possible too.

We looked at each other. And in retrospect I wonder if that's how deftly a horoscope can come true: it was just there in the background, like all the quiet clickings and swooshings of people's phones and laptops when you're sitting in business class – in one single mute passage of meaning. But then show me what passage of meaning isn't total mute. I would like to see such meaning.

which leads to a gentle but disturbing conversation

But at this time I was only really aware of the ongoing noisy surface. Very much I wanted the atmosphere to calm, but what was happening was as usual jumpy. Have you seen jumpy? It is the opposite of the old phrase where a joint is jumping. The joint was tense. Whether or not from jealousy or just the wish to keep the level of provocation up, Romy gazed at Epstein in what could only be called awe, and simultaneously I knew that if I were to be an allegory for one of the ancient humours I could only have been the woebegone dishevelled figure of melancholy. Melancholy was my only option in world charades. For I have this constant problem with comparisons, I mean this problem that I am making them and I do not think that happiness is to be found in the making of comparisons. Not only did I have a simple problem of possession when I looked on like this at Romy but also I was very struck by what seemed her total devouring love for Epstein, and could not help comparing this to the more divided state of my marriage now to Candy. I knew this was unfair and that nothing is comparable, but still, that's what I did. So that when Candy said she wanted to go home early, I was both happy to go with her, so as not to continue to watch such scenes of my distress, but at the same time in the haziest way possible I knew that I was angry or annoyed, that to leave Romy at this fiesta and with her happiness with Epstein left me very much dismayed and like I was as always missing out. I was missing out on the one true bright thing.
We could also stay?
I probably said, with my big eyes, or something. And then was nervously surprised, because Candy did in fact consent to stay, which I was not quite expecting. And immediately it made me suspicious, I mean suspicious of her suspicions, that if she was staying it was because she wanted to survey me, to watch my interactions with Romy and examine the surface for clues to a possible depth, whereas in fact just possibly it was only Candy trying to show that yes she could stay out late even when she had to get up very early for metro journeys and meetings, and even that thought made me sad, for why should anyone change for anyone? But still, here she was, and there was no doubt that something was about to happen, I mean one last event to somehow prove that this indeed had been a fiesta to remember – because what's a party if you do not question your existence?

— You know what your problem is? said Candy. — Your problem is that you love me so so much you get confused.

— I do? I said.

— Uh-huh, she said.

— Well, maybe, I said.

In retrospect I understand that this response of mine was not enough, but it was the most I could admit to, because really at this moment I was not sure that I believed it, that I did love her, or love her enough, but also I liked her for saying it, very much – I think because I understood the pain that was making her try such a winsome tone, and yet still, that tone only made me hate her more. I say hate but of course I also adored her.

— You, fuzzy bear, she continued, — are all dopey because you love me.

— Yeah, I said.

We had slightly moved apart from Epstein and Romy, perhaps with some inclination to find more alcohol and snacks, but I think also we were audible, and that's never a situation I like although Candy seemed never to care: her lack of embarrassment in the social world extended in every direction, so she would happily cry in public or have major conversations on crowded metros whereas me I prefer the sequestered grove and wilderness mountains if my feelings are to be discussed.

— They're so happy, no?

— Who that? I said.

— Epstein, she said. — And Romy.

— Sure, I said.

I was trying to seem cool in case Romy was definitely listening, and presumably she was, after all, so I also offered something that was meant as a joke for possibly her ears only.

— Although you just wait. Soon they'll go with other people, I said.

— Like you? said Candy.

— Like what?

— Do you ever think about other people?

— Other people? I said.

It's really terrible when a joke for another person creates a situation in your own routine. Obviously I was trying to understand what possibly Candy had understood or known about Romy. I had no idea. If she was saying it so directly, presumably it meant the question was innocent, or perhaps it was some intricate deceitful invention designed to blur every level of the real. I could not know, because it's never easy to know what is happening inside a conversation, especially one like this where major things are being said without you in any way being prepared, as you would be for the ideal interview, with your notes and new pens and other aids. For while it might be true that miscommunication is in some way the motif of our age, I think in some way this does not do justice to the true happenings, for miscommunication implies some kind of arrow that goes missing or misses its targets, whereas the true problem is that neither the arrow nor the target is aware of its existence, since we are using so many lies and problematics with each sentence. Or so I now think, when I think about the end of this fiesta, so many sad things were being said and as if without hindrance or control. And also they were being said very loudly and that's interesting – I mean it's interesting when you become the centre of attention without wanting to be. But there seemed no way to stop this. Each sentence created another sentence – so that when my query to Candy created no reply, I did not soften things or end them which would of course have still been possible, but instead invented some other line, something like:

— You don't feel lonely?

Violence in arguments is one thing that previously gentle people are good at. Or at least I find that's true for me. When I'm frustrated I can throw things and Candy has been known to ruthlessly slap me in the face. But also it is violence just when two people begin to shout without embarrassment or shame. And to have a vision of Candy's rage was truly terrible.

CANDY

Lonely? Why would I feel lonely?

ME

Hey, don't shout.

CANDY

I'm not shouting.

ME

OK, OK.

CANDY

What do you expect? You think people who've been together for so long will be like people who've just met –

ME

Sure, no sure –

CANDY

I think our sex life is good. It's sometimes even delicious, boo.

ME

OK.

CANDY

You think we need to talk more about it?

ME

It should be easy.

CANDY

No one finds it easy! Ask anyone!

Certainly the loudness with which Candy was talking was making me nervous and ashamed, and I am not sure that is really so wrong, not to want to be the film stars who are drunk and screaming at polite parties … Perhaps, I was suddenly feeling, the problem was that we had still not yet had children: without children, I was thinking, it was like you are creating all the energy in your house, like some animal that's being forced to go round and round to keep a motor running on electricity. It means that all your other energy is dead or otherwise dying. Or that was something I was thinking. I don't know why. I was often wrong.

that then escalates

Definitely it is no fiesta that does not alter your existence. And yet as always, even amid the most serious things I was being distracted, and I think somewhere I was having this backdrop thought as I listened to the songs that the problem with modern pop music was that it all got ruined by just the odd bad line. No rigour, that was the problem with pop music, and then I realised with surprise that I was saying this to Hiro. I had no idea where he had arrived from but also I was glad, because if Hiro was there then possibly this discussion with Candy might stop. And Hiro in response just gave me another upper to calm me down. I wasn't so sure it was a good idea but I did it anyway because Hiro wanted me to stay as cheerful as I could. And I was thinking how this fiesta situation was like one of my bad dreams. I was having bad dreams every night – unlike Candy, who just has lovely dreams, like a shoe is there and she examines it, or a sundae, whereas me I get all feverish and crowded with demonic shapes. But I had no time to analyse this sensation because Candy was back there with me. This constant substitution was exhausting, no doubt. She'd taken something, like maybe coke, and she was also turning serious which is a definite recipe for conflict. That's the problem with drugs – they make things happen but then you do not know what precisely they will have concocted until it's too late. What happened next was that suddenly we found ourselves the usual stoned minicab driver with views on the music of the 1980s – and to your surprise in such situations it turns out that you do too, and then you are back home in your parents' living room and listening to music that is perhaps just very loud, or also you are shouting in the kitchen, observing the neat arrangements of pots and pans and it is as if you are examining your childhood from the vantage point of some Swiss mountain sanatorium.

CANDY

How can we improve if you don't want to try?

ME

Maybe we shouldn't talk too much about this.

CANDY

Maybe I've never had amazing sex.

ME

Great, petrushka, thank you.

Yes, violence in arguments is definitely one thing that previously gentle people are good at. Not that it needs to be like Kayvon, who argued with his wife with a gorgeous passion, so much that each time she would throw his clothes out the window of their apartment, not because she wanted him to move out but just for the pleasure of seeing him go down and gather everything up, or not even for that pleasure, she once told me, but for the pleasure of seeing his embarrassment at being observed by the friendly Shahs on the third floor, looking down at him from their window, and to whom he would each time just offer a small but amicable wave. It's incredible the amount of violence that finds its strange ways of emerging, I was thinking, as suddenly Candy emerged onto a new plane of hatred, like in one of those ancient video games where you jump from rising platform to platform in your effort not to fall.

CANDY

Do you even love me at all?

ME

You just said that was my major problem.

CANDY

Fuck you, OK.

ME

Babe –

CANDY

Like what, really, are you doing here?

ME

Hey, calm down –

CANDY

Calm down?

ME

I didn't mean that. Just come to – come to bed. Or let's just sit down.

CANDY

You don't think you want to make me be like this? You don't think you have models?

ME

Who?

CANDY

Your
mother
, sweetness, your mother.

Zigzags occur always in conversations and zigzags are a problem. And yet in depicting such a zigzagging conversation, I think, a lot depends, because in such a conversation are all the problems of being me and the people like me: I mean all the people who go about their business in island cities, going to restaurants and concert halls and supermarkets in circles, those people who find talking difficult but also necessary. That was the class in which I have to claim my inheritance.

ME

Why does this always have to be so difficult to talk to you? You're shouting!

CANDY

I'm not shouting. I'm not shouting at all, kook.

She was crying and I did that face which is always depressing to produce, the kind which is softened and worried and hesitant because it is not the right face and you cannot locate the right face, it is somewhere lost among your collection of Pierrot masks and other carnival accessories. And it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the problem with every amour in history is that you know everything you need to know as soon as you meet someone, but then also you can live with knowledge for a decade and still do nothing with it.

— I'm really sorry, I'm an idiot, I said. — I love you, you know that.

— I don't need this, she said.

Always we were good at these conversations because we could make each other less hurt, even while we had hurt each other gruesomely.

— I do love you, I said.

— I know, she said.

— So much, I said.

— I know, she said.

That was how I managed to get her to our bedroom, and could even believe that I did not notice that the light was visible in my mother and father's room, as if I were way above such small concerns as other people. I was concentrating on Candy instead.

until the thoughts of blood return

Every conversation is a world apart, and I think I mean that as non-metaphorically as possible. That's why when I considered if perhaps I should just confess to everything, I was also thinking: why hurt her more? There's something so very convenient in all confessions, when really things could be much better managed in silence, by keeping all the different worlds apart. Yes, I was thinking, as we got undressed, I could be a better person by saying nothing at all. Even if the prospect did leave me very frustrated, that I had not managed to make a larger impression on the world. Oh, it's appalling the positions you end up in, it feels just sometimes too impossible to continue! But then wasn't this impossible structure what I also always liked when it came to the movies and pictures? I was just less happy if it was all for real. But I really had always liked those impossible objects where things happened in one medium that couldn't happen in reality, the more dreamlike the better, I always thought, and so I always loved the images that included impossible tricks, and in particular the technical ones designed to demonstrate errors in perspective – where a man's fishing rod loops up and into a faraway mountain lake, or a traveller on a distant hill is lighting his pipe from a candle held out of the window by the mistress of a hotel in the foreground, whose sign is hanging somewhere in the middle of a very far forest. Just as my ideal raconteurs were the stand-up kind who talked like those water slides where you descend one chute but emerge head first from another – the way I emerged from this fiesta on my bed with everything awry, or askew.