I was waitressing in the daytime and clubbing at night. I had friends, good people. I was dead happy half the time. The only thing was I could never take the happiness home with me and enjoy it later, by myself, whenever I felt like it. It seemed simple enough when you had it but it wasn’t, it was complicated happiness, it had too many ingredients, the people I needed, the places I went, the right sounds, the right drugs. I did a little dealing myself and I met some people who helped me out, I turned into a restaurant manager, and I got a mortgage on a basement flat with a garden in a city. That was a change. It was painted and varnished and all the rooms were empty. I walked in the first day with an ornament I’d just bought and put it on the mantelpiece. It made the place look even emptier and I took a couple of days off work and broke the limit on all the plastic I could get. I got furniture, rugs, candlesticks, scatter cushions, little boxes. I had a passion for the little boxes. I had brass ones, teak ones, birch bark ones, laquered Japanese ones. None of them had anything in them. I wanted all the empty space I had hidden in pretty enclosures. And there were so many candlesticks. Of course I had to get matching candles to go with them.
One time I realised I hadn’t seen one of my best friends for a long time. We’d known each other for years, slept together a few times. I thought about it and decided I hadn’t seen him since I bought this monster bronze coffee table with a verdegris effect. I hadn’t missed him, either.
I was in a big pileup on the motorway in the fog. You couldn’t see the bonnet of your own car in front of you and we were all tanking along at fifty. There were three dozen cars and trucks went into each other. The cars at the front caught fire but I was close to the back and I stayed in my seat, hands on the wheel, watching the lights flashing at me on the dashboard with that ticking sound they make, listening to the screams and shouts from the fires up ahead. I turned the volume control on the radio to try to make them quieter. A man with a bare chest knocked at my window. He was covered in blood and oil and dirt and he was carrying a handful of cotton strips he’d torn from his shirt to make bandages. He asked if I was OK. He was going to be my husband.
He drove me home later in my car. I asked him to. I liked him. I could see he liked me. He told me he was in sales. I didn’t say much. I was in shock because my car was damaged and when it happened I realised that since I’d bought it, I hadn’t once gone clubbing, and it didn’t hurt.
I loved him. I loved him much too much. I loved him like dying of cancer. He didn’t feel the same. He was a good man and he loved me like a favourite dog. I mean he was really fond of dogs. But he never had one while we were together. For him it would have been like polygamy.
He was a collector, he was an enthusiast, he hoarded facts and gadgets. He collected Marvel comics, Motown records and Laurel and Hardy films on video. He had to have them all. Carpentry was another thing. He got very good at that though he never made anything we needed. He kept adding extensions to the bird table. He called it the bird table of Babel. One day, he said, the god of birds would get angry with his work and destroy it.
There was this time I tried to sit down with him and explain the way things were. I told him about how I’d replaced one of my best friends with a coffee table and swapped going out clubbing for a car. I told him how all the nice things we had in the kitchen, the copper pans and the sky blue crockery, how they were taking up space where other things used to be, a walk, a date, a sky. And he said he knew what I meant, you change as you get older, your possessions get a hold on you, and you need to own more things to be satisfied. And I said well that wasn’t exactly what I was meaning, I meant that love and owning things and having a good time were all spaced out along the same spectrum and you couldn’t take it all in at once so you tuned in to different parts and right now I was just tuned in to him. He was like a radio station that played one song and all I wanted to do was listen to it over and over again.
And he said I know what you mean.
And I said Do you?
And he said Yes, even though it’s irritating for other people and they can’t stand it, all you want is the same thing over and over again. I’ve got all the Laurel & Hardy films on video but the only one I watch is Sons of the Desert.
And I said So what’s the point of having all the others.
And he said It’s the complete set.
And I said But you don’t need the others if you only watch one.
And he said I like having the collection. I like having it there. It makes me feel complete.
And I said So you don’t know what I mean.
I came back from the restaurant without a job after I tore up the menus and started asking the customers why they ate so much when they weren’t hungry. I began taking things to charity shops. First the candles, then the candlesticks, the boxes and the scatter cushions. It was a while before my husband noticed and when he did I said we don’t need them. I decided we didn’t need the pictures, the plants, most of the kitchen equipment and the gardening stuff. It was only when I took the TV and video away that he got angry. When I told him we didn’t need them he said there was more to life than need. He was a salesman, of course, like you. He said I was ill. That was a bad day. It wasn’t as if I gave the electrical stuff away for nothing. It got easier after that. I managed to get rid of his records and his comics. I thought he was going to kill me then, although there wasn’t much left in the house to do it with. What are you so upset for? I said to him. You didn’t need any of that stuff. You’ve still got me.
He left that night, after calling me a Jesuit, communist, Big Brother, fanatic, hermit, freak, nun, prude, evangelist, sanctimonious killjoy, Calvinist and bore. I said I loved him and asked if he really needed that other wristwatch? He said is there anything you need? I said I need you, and I took his hand and put it down inside my pants. He said I was a sex-mad Puritan who ought to be put away. He took what he could load into his car and left. It took me weeks to empty the house and sell up to get enough to buy this place and live on. The last thing I got rid of was that ornament I put on the mantelpiece. Then I was ready to open the Museum of Doubt.
Jack had stopped crying. He was sitting with his shoulders still bowed, looking up at her, listening. He looked younger. His eyes were full of wonder and attention, like a child at the theatre, and his face had a cast of wisdom without experience. You’re right, he said.
Adela smiled out of one corner of her mouth. I’ve convinced you, have I, she said, looking out of the window.
I was always convinced, said Jack. It only needed someone to say it. I don’t have to ask how you live without music. You listen to yourself instead. You read the same five books over and over again. The world in daylight is your television.
You’re making me sound like a mad hermit. I am a hermit. I’m not mad, though.
Jack frowned and stood up. I’m wondering whether we really need this stool, he said. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall.
The floor’s cold, said Adela. I don’t like to be uncomfortable. I thought you were a salesman?
I was until today.
What happened?
I met you.
Adela sat down on the stool, leaned her elbow on the table and looked down at Jack. Not so funny, she said.
When I began to sell, it was good. It was paradise. It was my calling. I never thought of it as making money. The money thing was an obstacle in the way of me handing out gifts to people. I’ve walked and ridden and driven the roads for a time. For a long time. I’ve seen the clients’ homes get bigger to make space for the things I gave them. The homes are brighter now, especially the kitchens. I brought those small, dark homes so much light, space and music. I brought them so many cameras, so many motors, so much food. Why did it take so long for me to understand they didn’t really need it? Nobody turned me away before you did.
First you make me