‘Look, up there. I think it’s a hen harrier.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Have a look. Go on – up there.’
‘I’m not interested. I’m sleeping.’
‘How can you not be interested? It’s beautiful.’
‘I’m too young to birdwatch.’
Emma laughed. ‘You’re being ridiculous, you know that.’
‘It’s bad enough that we’re rambling. It’ll be classical music next.’
‘Too cool to birdwatch—’
‘Then it’ll be gardening, then you’ll be buying jeans in Marks and Spencer’s, you’ll want to move to the country. We’ll call each other “darling”. I’ve seen it happen, Em. It’s a slippery slope.’
She raised herself on one arm, leant across and kissed him. ‘Remind me again, why am I marrying you?’
‘It’s not too late to cancel.’
‘Would we still get our deposit back?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Okay.’ She kissed him again. ‘Let me think about it.’
They were getting married in November, a small, discreet winter wedding at a registry office, followed by a small, restrained reception for close friends and family at a favoured local restaurant. It was, they insisted, not really a wedding, more an excuse for a party. The vows would be secular and not too sentimental and had yet to be written; almost too embarrassing, they imagined, actually to sit face-to-face and compose those promises to each other.
‘Can’t we just use the vows you made to your ex-wife?’
‘But you are still going to promise to obey me, right?’
‘Only if you vow that you’ll never, ever get into golf.’
‘And you’re going to take my surname?’
‘“Emma Mayhew”. Could be worse, I suppose.’
‘You could hyphenate.’
‘Morley-Mayhew. Sounds like a village in the Cotswolds. “We’ve got a little place just outside Morley-Mayhew”.’
And this was how they approached the big day: flippant, but privately, discreetly elated too.
This week in Yorkshire was their last chance of a holiday before their modest, discreet big day. Emma had a deadline and Dexter was anxious about leaving the business for a whole week, but at least the trip allowed them to stop off at Emma’s parents, an event that her mother had treated like an overnight visit by royalty. Serviettes were on the table, rather than the usual kitchen roll, there was trifle and a bottle of Perrier in the fridge. After the end of Emma’s relationship with Ian it had seemed that Sue Morley would never love again and yet, if anything, she was even more fixated on Dexter, flirting in a bizarre, over-enunciated voice, like a coquettish speaking clock. Dutifully, Dexter flirted back, while the rest of the Morley family could do nothing but stare silently at the floor tiles and try not to laugh. Sue didn’t care; to her it seemed as if a long-held fantasy was finally coming true: her daughter was actually marrying Prince Andrew.
Watching him through her family’s eyes, Emma had felt proud of Dexter; he twinkled at Sue, was boyish and funny with her cousins, seemed sincerely interested in her father’s koi carp and United’s chances in the league. Only Emma’s younger sister seemed sceptical of his appeal and sincerity. Divorced with two boys now, resentful and perpetually exhausted, Marianne was not in the mood for another wedding. They spoke that night while washing up.
‘Why’s Mum talking in that daft voice, that’s what I want to know.’
‘She likes him.’ Emma nudged her sister’s arm. ‘You like him too, don’t you?’
‘He’s nice. I like him. Just I thought he was meant to be some famous shagger or summat.’
‘A long time ago, maybe. Not now.’
And Marianne had sniffed and visibly resisted saying something about leopards and their spots.
They abandoned the search for the waterfall, and instead drove back to the local pub, eating crisps and playing closely matched games of pool through the late afternoon.
‘I don’t think your sister likes me very much,’ said Dexter, racking up the balls for the deciding game.
‘Course she does.’
‘She barely spoke a word to me.’
‘She’s just shy and a bit grumpy. She’s like that, our sis.’
Dexter smiled. ‘Your accent.’
‘What about it?’
‘You’ve got dead Northern since we’ve been up here.’
‘Have I?’
‘Soon as we hit the M1.’
‘Don’t mind, do you?’
‘Don’t mind at all. Whose turn to break?’
Emma won the game, and they walked back to the cottage in the evening light, woozy and affectionate from beer on an empty stomach. A working holiday, the plan had been to spend the day together and for Emma to work at night, but the trip had coincided with the most fertile days of Emma’s cycle, and they were obliged to take full advantage of these opportunities now. ‘What, again?’ mumbled Dexter as Emma closed the door and kissed him.
‘Only if you want to.’
‘No, I do. It’s just I feel a bit like I’m on a?.?.?. stud farm or something.’
‘Oh, you are. You are.’
By nine o’clock, Emma was asleep in the large, uncomfortable bed. It was still light outside, and for a while Dexter lay listening to her breathing, looking out at the small patch of purple moor that could be seen through the bedroom window. Still restless, he slid from the bed, pulled on some clothes and stepped quietly downstairs to the kitchen, where he rewarded himself with a glass of wine and wondered what they were supposed to do now. Dexter, who was used to the wilds of Oxfordshire, found this kind of isolation unnerving. It was too much to hope for a broadband connection, but in the brochure the cottage had also proudly boasted its lack of a television, and the silence made him anxious. On his iPod he selected some Thelonious Monk – he found himself listening to more jazz these days – then flopped back onto the sofa, releasing a cloud of dust, and picked up his book. Half-jokingly, Emma had bought him a copy of Wuthering Heights to read on the trip, but he found the book almost entirely unreadable so instead he reached for his laptop, opened it and stared at the screen.
In a folder called ‘Personal Documents’ lay another folder called ‘Random’ within which lay a file of just 40KB called bigdayspeech.doc: the text of his groom’s speech. The horror of his witless, incoherent, semi-improvised performance at his previous wedding still remained vivid, and he was determined to get this one right, and to start work on it early.
So far, the text in its entirety ran as follows.
My Groom’s speach
After a whirlwind romance! etc.
How we met. At same Uni but never knew her. Seen her around. Always angry about something terrible hair. Show photographs? Thought I was toff. Dungarees, or did I imagine. Finally got to know her. Called Dad fascist.
Great friends on and off. Me being idiot. Sometimes don’t see thing in front of face.(corny)
How to describe Em. Her many qualities. Funny. Intelligence. Good dancer when she does but terrible cook. Taste in music. We argue. But can always talk laugh. Beautiful but doesn’t always know it etc etc. Great with Jas, even gets on with my ex-wife! Ho ho ha. Everyone loves her.
We lost touch. Bit about Paris.
Finally together, whirlwind romance nearly 15 years, finally makes sense. All friends said told you so. Happier than ever been.
Pause wile guests vom in unison.
Acknowledge second wedding. Get right this time. Thank caterers. Thank Sue Jim making me welcome. Feel like honorary northerner gags here etc. Telegrams? Absent friends. Sorry Mum’s not here. Would have approved. At last!
Toast to my beautiful wife blah-di-blah-di-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.
It was a start, and the structure was there. He set to work in earnest, switching the font from Courier to Arial to Times New Roman and back again, changing it all to italics, counting the words, adjusting the paragraphs and margins so that it looked more substantial.
Finally, he started to speak it out loud, using the text as notes, trying to recall the fluency he had once had on TV.
‘I’d just like to thank everyone for coming here today?.?.?.’
But he could hear the creak of floorboards above his head and quickly he closed the lid of the laptop, slid it furtively beneath the sofa and reached for Wuthering Heights.
Naked and sleepy-eyed, Emma padded down the stairs, stopping halfway and sitting with her arms wrapped round her knees. She yawned. ‘What time is it?’
‘Quarter to ten. Wild times, Em.’
She yawned once more. ‘You’ve tired me out.’ She laughed. ‘Stud.’
‘Go and put some clothes on, will you?’
‘What are you doing anyway?’ He held up Wuthering Heights and Emma smiled. ‘“I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul”! Or is it “love without my life”. Or “live without my love”? Can’t remember.’
‘Haven’t got to that bit yet. It’s still some woman called Nelly banging on.’
‘It gets better, I promise you.’
‘Tell me again, why is there no television here?’
‘We’re meant to make our own entertainment. Come back to bed and talk to me.’
He stood and crossed the room, leaning over the banister and kissing her. ‘Promise you won’t force me to have sex again.’
‘What shall we do instead then?’
‘I know it sounds weird,’ he said, looking a little sheepish. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a game of Scrabble.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Middle
THURSDAY 15 JULY 2004
Belsize Park
Something strange was happening to Dexter’s face.
Coarse, black hairs had begun to appear high up on his cheeks, joining the occasional long grey solitary hairs that crept from his eyebrows. As if that wasn’t enough, a fine, pale fur was appearing around the opening of his ears and at the bottom of his earlobes; hair that seemed to sprout overnight like cress, and which served no purpose except to draw attention to the fact that he was approaching middle age. Was now middle-aged.
Then there was the widow’s peak, particularly noticeable now after a shower; two parallel byways gradually widening and making their way to the crown of his head, where the two paths would one day meet and it would all be over. He dried his hair with the towel, then scrubbed it this way and that with his fingertips until the path was covered over.
Something strange was happening to Dexter’s neck. He had developed this sag, this fleshy pouch under his chin, his bag of shame, like some flesh-toned roll-neck jumper. He stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror and put one hand on his neck as if trying to mould it all back into place. It was like living in a subsiding house – every morning he woke and inspected the site for fresh cracks, new slippage in the night. It was as if the flesh were somehow cleaving from the skeleton, the characteristic physique of someone whose gym membership had long since lapsed. He had the beginnings of a paunch and, most grotesquely, something strange was happening to his nipples. There were items of clothing that he could barely bring himself to wear now, fitted shirts and ribbed woollen tops, because you could see them there, like limpets, girlish and repulsive. He also looked absurd in any garment with a hood, and only last week he had caught himself standing in a trance, listening to Gardeners’ Question Time. In two weeks’ time he would be forty years old.
He shook his head, and told himself it wasn’t that disastrous. If he turned and looked at himself suddenly, and held his head in a certain way, and inhaled, he could still pass for, say, thirty-seven? He retained enough vanity to know that he was still an unusually good-looking man, but no-one was calling him beautiful anymore, and he’d always thought he would age better than this. He had hoped to age like a movie star: wiry, aquiline, grey-templed, sophisticated. Instead he was ageing like a TV presenter. An ex-TV presenter. A twice-married ex-TV presenter who ate far too much cheese.
Emma came in, naked from the bedroom, and he began to brush his teeth, another obsession; he felt like he had an old mouth, like it would never be clean again.
‘I’m getting fat,’ he mumbled, mouth full of foam.
‘No you’re not,’ she said without much conviction.
‘I am – look.’
‘So don’t eat so much cheese then,’ she said.
‘I thought you said I wasn’t getting fat.’
‘If you feel you are, then you are.’
‘And I don’t eat too much cheese. My metabolism is slowing down, that’s all.’
‘So do some exercise. Go to the gym again. Come swimming with me.’
‘No time, have I?’ While the toothbrush was removed from his mouth she kissed him consolingly. ‘Look, I’m a mess,’ he mumbled.
‘I’ve told you before, darling, you have beautiful breasts,’ and she laughed, poked him in the buttock and stepped into the shower. He rinsed, sat on the bathroom chair and watched her.
‘We should go and see that house this afternoon.’
Emma groaned over the sound of the water. ‘Do we have to?’
‘Well I don’t know how else we’re going to find—’
‘Okay. Okay! We’ll go and see the house.’
She continued to shower with her back to him and he stood and stalked into the bedroom to get dressed. They were scrappy and irritable once again, and he told himself that it was because of the strain of trying to find a place to live. The flat had already been sold and a large part of their possessions placed into storage just to make room for the two of them. Unless they found somewhere soon they would have to rent, and all this brought its tensions and anxieties.
But he knew that something else was going on and sure enough, as Emma waited for the kettle and read the paper, she suddenly said—
‘I’ve just got my period.’
‘When?’ he asked.
‘Just now,’ she said, with studied calm. ‘I could feel it coming on.’
‘Oh well,’ he said, and Emma continued to make coffee, her back to him.
He stood to wrap his arms around her waist and lightly kissed the nape of her neck, still damp from the shower. She didn’t look up from the newspaper. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll try again, yeah?’ he said, standing there with his chin on her shoulder for a while. It was a winsome, uncomfortable stance, and when she turned the page of the paper, he took it as his cue to return to the table.
They sat and read, Emma the current affairs, Dexter the sport, both taut with irritation while Emma tutted and shook her head in that maddening way she sometimes had. The Butler Inquiry into the origins of the war dominated the headlines, and he could feel her building up to some kind of topical political comment. He focussed on the latest from Wimbledon, but—
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? How there’s this war going on, and virtually no protest? I mean you think there’d be marches or something, wouldn’t you?’
That tone of voice riled him too. It was the one he remembered from all those years ago: her student voice, superior and self-righteous. Dexter made an uncontentious noise, neither challenging nor accepting, in the hope that this would be enough. Time passed, pages of the newspaper were turned.
‘I mean you’d think there’d be something like the anti-Vietnam movement or something, but nothing. Just that one march, then everyone shrugged and went home. Even the students aren’t protesting!’
