State of the Union Read online

  “Don’t stare.”

  Tom stands up. He wants to get near the action, suddenly.

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “No. Sit down.”

  The woman walks into the pub. She goes up to her partner at the bar, pulls him off his stool by the hand, and takes him outside. Tom and Louise watch with rapt attention. Through the window of the pub, they see the woman say something to her partner. The depressed man looks at her . . . and then kisses her passionately. The kiss seems to go on and on, and the longer it lasts, the gloomier Tom and Louise get.

  “Well,” says Louise. “There goes Syria.”

  The couple break off, look at each other, and start kissing again.

  “Can you imagine?” Tom says. “At their age?”

  “‘At their age’? They’re younger than us.”

  “Really?”

  “They look it. Well, he does. Than you.”

  “Thanks. Anyway. That’s still old enough to know better.”

  He looks at his watch.

  “There’s still time for your drink, if you want one.”

  “Hold on,” Louise says. “This is important. ‘Old enough to know better.’ Can you explain? They’re kissing.”

  “In public,” says Tom with disdain.

  “They are feeling passionate about each other.”

  “Well, if they feel that passionate about each other, what are they doing in counseling?”

  Louise stares at him.

  “What?” says Tom.

  “Do you understand what you’ve just said?”

  Tom thinks.

  “I do now.”

  “It’s not good, is it?”

  “I can see why you say that.”

  “Are you suggesting there’s no passion left?”

  “Well. I don’t see passion as . . . as petrol. Something that runs out. I see it as more like, I don’t know, something you lose. Like keys.” He picks up the pen he’s using to do the crossword and waves it around. “Or this biro.”

  “Keys get found. Biros don’t. So it’s important for me to know which it is.”

  Tom doesn’t say anything.

  “Keys? Or a biro?”

  Tom doesn’t say anything. Louise is getting angry.

  “Come on,” she says. “Keys or a biro?”

  “We seem to be in a position where if I say the word ‘biro,’ our marriage takes an ominous turn for the worse.”

  “So don’t say ‘biro.’”

  “I hope keys. Of course. I’m working on the basis that it’s keys.”

  “But either way, it’s lost.”

  “Mislaid.”

  “Unless it’s a pen.”

  “If it’s keys, you look harder, don’t you? That’s why they get found. Pens get left all over the place. You might have left one under Matthew’s bed.”

  “Was that necessary?”

  “I’m just saying. If you’d left a ballpoint under Matthew’s bed, you wouldn’t necessarily have gone back for it.”

  “STOP! Enough. No more biros.”

  Tom puts the pen down. The couple outside start to walk up the road, hand in hand.

  “Look,” says Louise. “They’ve gone off for make-up sex.”

  “Won’t solve their problems.”

  “Maybe not. But they’re going to have a better evening than us.”

  “Maybe we’ll have a breakthrough with Kenyon.”

  “The breakthrough would have to be a row,” Louise says. “Row in there, make-up sex at home. We used to have good rows. And good make-up sex.”

  “Proper stand-up shouting matches,” Tom says wistfully.

  “Brexit was a row.”

  “We haven’t made up, though. Could we have post-Brexit sex?”

  “No. I voted in, and you voted out, and I hate you for it.”

  “We could come to an understanding.”

  “Oh, yes. Let’s ‘come to an understanding,’ shake hands, and then fuck each other stupid.”

  “That’s the thing. We were jogging along quite amicably until you started sleeping with someone else. I’ll ignore that last bit.”

  “Why?”

  “It was just . . . vulgarity for vulgarity’s sake.”

  “Really? A lot of men would like to hear their wives use the phrase ‘fuck each other stupid.’”

  Tom looks around, anguished by the profanity, but Louise is in full flow.

  “It suggests that there’s still some life left somewhere,” she says. “But not you. ‘Jogging along.’ ‘Come to an understanding.’ ‘Amicably.’ What is the point of being married? If there’s no sex, no feeling, no passion, no nothing? You could have worn a T-shirt saying I VOTED OUT long before anyone ever thought of a referendum. Europe: You’re out. Sex: You’re out. Work: You’re out. Marriage, life, friends: Out, out, out.”

  Tom looks at his watch.

  “We should go,” he says “We’re late.”

  He stands up. Louise looks at him.

  “That’s it?”

  “Well, yes,” he says. “That’s a reasonable summary of where I’m at. The work thing isn’t by choice, but . . .”

  Louise stands up. They walk out of the pub.

  “You know what’s wrong?” says Louise as they’re waiting at the pedestrian crossing for the lights to change. “We’ve aged differently. I think forty is like thirty, except you have to go to the gym more. You think forty-four is like being sixty-five, except your children are younger. It’s not over! Nothing is over! Where’s your fight?”

  She pushes him, quite hard.

  “Ow,” he says. “What do I need fight for?”

  “‘Do not go gentle into that good night.’ It’s not even night, for Christ’s sake. It’s not even teatime. Fight for your life. Fight for your marriage. Fight for work. Fight to be less bloody miserable.”

  The lights change. Tom walks ahead, embarrassed. The driver in the front of the traffic queue is watching them and laughing.

  “Just . . . bloody FIGHT.”

  She pushes him again, in the back. He stumbles and falls. He breaks the fall with his arm.

  “Oh, shit,” says Louise.

  Tom is lying on the ground, stunned.

  “I think I may have broken my wrist,” he says.

  week four

  PLASTER CAST

  Tom is sitting at the usual table by the window, a newspaper spread out in front of him. He’s holding a pint in one hand; the other arm is wrapped in a plaster cast covered in signatures and little drawings. Louise comes into the pub. When she sees him she rolls her eyes. She walks over to the table and sits down.

  “Really?” she says. “When there’s nothing wrong with your arm?”

  Tom doesn’t say anything.

  “Where did you get the cast from, anyway?”

  “You can buy them online.”

  “And who signed it?”

  “The kids.”

  “There are loads of signatures on there.”

  “Yeah. They were at it for ages. Making up names and practicing different autographs. It was actually quite a, you know, an educational exercise.”

  “You’re a marvelous father. They’ll be able to forge anything now. So if you bought it online, it clearly wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  “Next-day delivery.”

  “So you thought about it yesterday.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “The day before yesterday, anyway.”

  “So two days ago, you were worrying about what to say to Kenyon about your arm.”

  “We told her I’d broken it! And I haven’t broken it!”

  “She’ll be relieved to hear it.”

  “But we canceled the session because of it.”

  “Just
tell her it was badly bruised.”

  “It is badly bruised,” says Tom.

  “So show her the bruising.”

  “It’s internal.”

  Louise sighs.

  “Kenyon must feel like the prime minister,” she says. “There’s a plan, and a goal, but she’s firefighting all the time. You run away, you fall over, you pretend your arm is broken when it isn’t . . . We never get anywhere near the actual marital problems. You know that I’m going to walk in there and tell her your cast is fake, don’t you?”

  Tom is aghast.

  “What?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You’d grass me up?”

  “You haven’t been arrested. It’s a marital therapy session. We go in there and tell the truth, otherwise what’s the point?”

  “We don’t have to tell the truth about everything. What if I had, I dunno, an STD? Would you want to go in and talk about that?”

  “Very much so, yes, seeing as I haven’t given it to you.”

  “Yet.”

  “Charming.”

  “To be fair, I’m not the one who’s slept with someone else.”

  “If I had given you an STD,” says Louise, “then, yes, absolutely we should be talking about it. It would be a big deal.”

  “An STD is a bad example. What about if I’d hurt my penis in some way? Would you want to talk about that?”

  “If you wanted to talk about it.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “But what if you hadn’t hurt your penis, but went in to see Kenyon pretending that you had?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Why would you put a fake cast on your arm? What’s the difference?”

  “Because I didn’t tell her I’d broken my penis . . .”

  “(You can’t break your penis.)”

  “(I am perfectly well aware of that.) I told her I’d broken my arm. I think this is a big moment for us.”

  “Explain?”

  “You have to choose: Are you with me? Or are you with her?”

  “I’m not going to play that game.”

  “It’s not a game,” Tom says. “Are we a couple? Two against the world? Or aren’t we?”

  “Two against the world?” says Louise scornfully.

  “That’s what marriage is, to me.”

  “You’ve just made that up. Because of the cast. Where do the kids fit in?”

  “I’m against them, most of the time.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “So the four of us against the world, then.”

  “But that’s family, not marriage.”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  “I have never felt that it’s the two of us against the world.”

  Tom holds out his hands as if she’s just proved his point.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says.

  “What’s the world ever done to us? We’re hardly Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Go on. You’re in a hole. Keep digging.”

  “How is it digging to say we’re not Romeo and Juliet?”

  “It’s not very romantic.”

  “So in your fantasy, we’re two lovestruck teenagers whose families don’t want us to be together?”

  “Obviously we’re not teenagers. But there’s the age gap.”

  “Four years.”

  “And the arts/sciences divide. That’s a sort of modern Montague/Capulet thing. It’s subtle, but it’s there. A very faint whiff of, you know. Ooh, how does this work? Her a doctor, him a music critic?”

  “First of all, no, it isn’t there,” Louise says. “And secondly, you need more than faint whiffs. The Montagues and the Capulets stabbed each other. They weren’t whiffing faintly.”

  “Granted, there was no stabbing. But there was family pressure. My mum didn’t want me to marry you.”

  “She warned me off.”

  “She warned me off.”

  “She told me I was much too good for you, you were bloody useless, and I’d end up leaving you,” Louise says. “What did she say to you?”

  “Yeah, exactly the same thing.”

  “That you were too good for me?”

  “Ha, ha,” says Tom mirthlessly. “Have you met my mother? No, of course not. The point is, I said to hell with her and married you anyway. Us against the world.”

  “Us against your mother, anyway. The rest of the world reacted with pleasure or complete indifference.”

  “Would you say honestly that you’re on my team?”

  “Yes. Of course I’m on your team. I support you, for a start. That’s what you do with teams, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a low blow.”

  “Saying you support someone is a low blow? I want you to do well. I worry about you. I . . . Well, I love you.”

  “‘Well’? What’s the ‘well’ doing here? What function does that serve?”

  “I was just . . . I hesitated.”

  “Why?”

  “People are allowed to hesitate. Hesitation is a thing.”

  “You hesitate when you don’t know what you want to order in a restaurant. Not when you’re telling somebody you love them.”

  “Love is a bigger deal than ordering a pizza, surely?” says Louise.

  “If you’re sixteen, yes. But not when you’re married.”

  “You know why you hesitate when you’re sixteen? Because you’re scared you’re going to look a fool. It’s not because . . . well . . .”

  “More welling. Well this, well that . . . ‘Well’ is fast becoming a very dangerous word.”

  “It’s not because you have doubts.”

  “You have doubts?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a lie. How can you not have doubts? You don’t want to sleep with me, we spend half the time arguing, you seem to be happier with other people than with me . . .”

  Tom shrugs.

  “I suppose my ‘well’ was supposed to indicate, you know . . . ‘underneath it all,’” says Louise. “Underneath it all, I love you.”

  “Underneath it all.”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.”

  “To be honest, I think you should be happy with that. You’re lucky there’s anything still there.”

  “Let me ask you this: How would you feel if I left you for someone else?”

  Louise thinks for a moment.

  “Well,” she says.

  “‘Well’ again! Oh, that’s great.”

  “You really don’t like considered conversation, do you?”

  “I notice you don’t ask if I’ve met anyone.”

  “Have you met anyone?” says Louise wearily.

  Tom doesn’t say anything for a moment.

  “Well,” he says.

  “Oh, very funny.”

  “Why can’t I consider?”

  “Because either you have or you haven’t. And I don’t think you have.”

  “There are all kinds of gray areas.”

  “Such as?”

  “Online dating.”

  “You know you actually have to go out to do online dating, don’t you?”

  “No, you don’t,” he says. And then, less certainly: “Do you? I thought you did it online.”

  “You talk to someone online. And then you meet them. You haven’t been anywhere that I know of.”

  “You don’t know what I do during the day.”

  “But if you’re going out to meet someone during the day, that wouldn’t be a gray area, would it? You’d have met someone. Would you like to meet someone?”

  “No. Not really. Where would that leave us? As a matter of interest?”

  “Are you asking about
an open marriage?”

  “God, no,” says Tom. “Unless that’s what you want.”

  “No, it’s not what I want. If you met someone you’d be moving out of this marriage and into a new relationship.”

  “What about you?”

  “I suppose that’s the fantasy, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, when you’ve been married a few years and everything’s . . . gone off a bit. You know it is,” she says. “The fantasy is, you come home, your partner says he’s met someone else and he’s moving out.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s everyone’s fantasy.”

  “Oh, it is, believe me. Is it yours?”

  “Well.”

  “That’ll do,” says Louise.

  “Can I leave my cast on?”

  “Oh, what the hell.”

  “Thank you.”

  He looks at his watch.

  “Shit,” he says.

  He drains his drink and stands up.

  “We’re late,” says Louise.

  She stands up, too, and they make for the door. Their path is blocked by Giles and Anna, former next-door neighbors who moved because of schools.

  “Hello, you two,” says Giles.

  Tom and Louise are flustered.

  “Oh. Hi,” says Louise.

  “How are you?” says Giles.

  His eye falls on Tom’s plaster cast.

  “Oh, dear,” he says.

  “Oh. Yes,” Tom says. “Bloody snowboards.”

  Louise looks at him.

  “Oh, where have you been snowboarding?” Anna says.

  “Well, all over, really.”

  “We haven’t seen you for ages,” says Anna.

  “Stay for a drink,” says Giles.

  “We can’t,” says Louise.

  “Not even a quickie?” Giles says.

  “Afraid not,” says Tom. “Another time.”

  “You’re not going to the cinema, are you?” Anna says.

  “Yes,” says Tom gratefully.

  “Ah, well, we’re fine. We looked it up. Doesn’t start for another twenty minutes. And that’s the program, not the film.”

  “Useful to know,” says Tom. “Very good reviews.”

  “You never know whether to trust them, though, do you?” says Giles.

  “No. But I’ve got a good feeling about this one. One of Louise’s colleagues was raving about it.”