When All is Lost!, Page 2

that very same evening and it had been New Years Eve - we were both smashed. I hadn’t chastised her about that had I?

  Somehow I was accused of being smug, self-assured and well adjusted enough to keep on hurting her. She always thought I had psychopathic tendencies. She had downloaded a questionnaire, which asked ‘How well do you know your man?’ Tick boxing some of my traits she produced results that proved she should have left me at once. I took all this with a pinch of salt (maybe one of the symptoms). So what if Viv needed to think I was unreasonable and difficult to live with to counteract her own shortcomings, then so be it. The fact was that I loved Viv. I held faith in our relationship and if she didn’t then it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t compete with her insecurities, so I didn’t. She saw this as me being laid back and uncaring. If I reacted she would tell me I was being patronising. It was a no-win situation, not stuff that wars are made of, which requires stamina!

  The fact is that last night I was unfaithful to Viv, despite us being officially separated, after all Viv lives with him now. I did it in desperation really which didn’t bode well for the poor girl who ended up in my bed. I only remembered her this morning when she made a groaning sound, which made me jump out of my wits. It was then I remembered – there’s a stranger in the house! I heard her stirring and began to panic. What does she look like? How old is she? Too late – she’s here.

  “Hi there.”

  She looked at me in fascination only to become more horrified by the state of the room, which we both could see was in complete disarray. There were takeaway cartons on the rug nearby to where I had slept. Empty lager cans and wine bottle. A lid to a yoghurt dip had been used as an ashtray. I hadn’t liked seeing that. A scarf had been placed over a lampshade, one of Viv’s and I hadn’t liked that either. I remembered the previous evening more clearly in reflection. I had started to undress her, yes and we’d both been eager I couldn’t deny that - at the beginning. In the bedroom, later, when I’d needed to come up with the goods, it had been hard, to be hard so to speak. In the end I’d finally managed to go through with the whole sorry act. It had been a game of truth or dare with myself, a personal taunt. The thought of Viv being in bed with him had spurred me on. I asked myself, couldn’t I have sex with someone new as Viv had? I’d forced myself and enjoyed none of it. The girl’s movements had been all wrong, her scent, her touch, the way she had spoken full stop, everything really. Afterwards I had felt sick and self disgusted. It was nothing to do with the girl who was a stunner although I wasn’t convinced her tits were natural. It was all to do with the fact that she wasn’t Viv.

  I felt reminded of the evening Dad (or Alastair as I had called him from that moment) had brought home a woman from the pub. Fair do’s. Mum had been dead for seven years at that point and it hadn’t been easy. Alastair had shot me a glance that said something like “needs must.” I’d shot out of the house even though it was late and gone over to sleep at my friend Joe’s for the night. I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of another woman in Mum’s bed. Yet I understood. Alastair was a handsome doer, a lad about town. He’d done well to last as long as he had and he was aged forty-seven back then. Mum had had all on when she was alive to keep tabs on him, but she had, and many a contender had placed themselves in the ring of their marriage only to fall flat on their face. Simple thing was that Alastair loved Mum, his Tralee Rose as he called her, even though she was from Kilkenny and called Mary.

  It was the last I saw of that particular woman. Now Alastair is happily married with twin girls. Imagine being a brother twenty-six years older than sisters aged one. It doesn’t bear thinking about but I love the little smashers. Natalie is fun too, my step mummy as she cheerfully keeps reminding me – fifteen years younger than Alastair and she adores him. She makes fantastic meals, which suits me to the ground and she is quite a looker with a neat figure. A no go area of course which Alastair (my father) hadn’t needed to point out, but he had.

  I became aware of a movement and realised that I had been in a bit of a trance. The girl was moving around the apartment studying me as though unsure whether to be disgusted with me or seductive towards me. The result was that she appeared false and something was worse - she was obviously only about nineteen years of age, some man’s dream I know, but not mine. It came back to me. A student. Where from? Ah yes, the London College of Dreariness. I couldn’t be sure.

  “Why did you choose to sleep on the floor rather than with me?” She asked.

  I could hear the internal voice of my mother speaking again.

  “She’s not backwards at coming forward is she?”

  “Indeed not.” I spoke aloud forgetting myself, which caused the girl to startle. I begged God to send me her name so I could converse with her like a gentleman.

  “What do you mean, indeed not?” The girl asked in a perplexed way.

  My God she wouldn’t keep still, she was circling me and I felt a little bit frightened. She wasn’t crazy was she? Her name began with ‘L’, I felt sure of it.

  “Forget all that.” Said my mother. “Get her out of the house, she’s brazen is this one.”

  “I agree.” I said this out loud too.

  “Agree with what?” Said the girl.

  “That I chose to sleep on the floor rather than with you, because of the snoring.”

  The girl was indignant. “I don’t snore!”

  She stated this a little too aggressively, which reminded me how she had issued step-by-step instructions to me last night as though she was some sort of Rubik cube that I had to fathom out. Remembering my disgraceful sexual performance I coloured up.

  “I do, and I didn’t want to disturb you.” She seemed to buy my ‘cop out’.

  I looked across to my wooden fruit bowl, which cradled some shrunken lemons. I’d intended to throw a party and forgotten to invite people, such was the state of my mind. Here was this girl, scantily dressed as though trying to allure me and all I wanted to do was order her out of the apartment. I felt immense levels of annoyance when she began to pick up photographs and books as she wandered around. Intimacy is a funny thing. It had been easier to share my body with this stranger than to witness her touching my things, Viv’s things. It would help more if she picked up a few lager cans and got the Dyson out, but no! Girls these days didn’t do that.

  “Ralph, you stubborn, self-centred, lazy article.”

  Oh dear, Mother was with me again.

  “This is why you get nowhere in life and I blame myself for waiting on you hand and foot. I made you what you are and now I can’t save you. Pick up the mess yourself! Today it’s equality that counts with the lasses. Although as far as I can see all it’s done is make the lasses as lazy as the lads were in the beginning.”

  The girl sat on the settee and produced a cigarette from somewhere. It was a very awkward moment, I couldn’t remember her name and she was about to smoke.

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Smoke.”

  “You didn’t mind last night.”

  “I do now.”

  “You live in a dump like this and you are worried about a bit of smoke.”

  “It’s not normally a dump, Viv kept it beautiful.”

  “Who’s Viv?”

  I didn’t want to explain myself in this way. I had little enough power left in my life. Anyway, this girl with no name, it wasn’t her fault.

  “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “Yes please. Does that mean I can light up?”

  “Go ahead, you’re right, who’s Viv!”

  This nameless beauty had a point. What was I protecting myself from? Spirals of smoke when my life was in complete tatters. The landlord wanted me out because I couldn’t afford the lease on my own. I didn’t want to live with anyone else but Viv. Why had she left me, why? For Gods sake I worshipped the ground she walked on.

  I couldn’t las
t another hour with this girl without knowing her name.

  “Look. Last night, I was a little …. you know.”

  “Pissed.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re telling me!”

  “Look I’m sorry, I’m usually dead good.” I tried a weak laugh here.

  “At what.”

  “You know.”

  “If you say so.”

  He tried again. “The thing is … my memory is shot these days… please don’t be offended but I struggle to remember anyone’s name especially if it begins with ‘L’. She was out of the door. Shame! Her exiting flounce had been marginally more spectacular than Viv’s and it made her appear more interesting. I didn’t chase after her because overall I felt relieved that she was gone. I didn’t know how far she had to travel to get home or whether she had any money. I had never not walked a girl to a tube station or bus stop in my life. I don’t think she even had a coat. It was raining but she was young. Was I now an official low life?

  I let an hour pass before taking myself off for a walk in Hyde Park. Sitting on a bench I could visualise myself as Viv might have seen me. I was