‘I had to fire Ross,’ said Arthur matter-of-factly, uncorking the bottle.
‘Oh! God, well, that’s even more brilliant. Isn’t he the one you thought was a bit of a tosspot?’
Arthur nodded. ‘With a good tossy right hook.’
‘Ooh!’ She sat by his knees, hugging her own, and lifted up her glass to be filled. This was it. This was the moment. No wonder he’d been so quiet, if he’d been working up to such a wonderful surprise!
‘So, there’ll be a bit more money coming in, won’t there?’
‘Um, we didn’t discuss it … Probably.’
Oh God, thought Arthur. He suddenly had an inkling as to where this was heading. Thank God his eye was already black. Although of course she could still scratch it out.
‘So, you know, maybe we could …’ She twirled her manicured finger around the top of her glass. Looking at it, Arthur realized for the first time that he didn’t really like manicures. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to sound like he was encouraging her. The pause grew longer. She looked up at him, firstly with hope, then, as the silence continued, almost as he watched, the light in her eyes slowly dimmed.
She stared at the seagrass carpet for an even longer time. It was killing Arthur to keep quiet, but he didn’t know what else to do. He felt a lump in his throat. The wait grew interminable. Finally, and very slowly, she raised her head back up to look at him. Her eyes were full of tears, quivering, hovering and waiting to fall.
‘Are we …’ She was attempting to sound dignified, but there was an immediate wobble to her voice. ‘Are we – are you …’ She shook her head to get a grip, and managed to steady herself. ‘Do you really want to be with me, Arthur? Properly? To settle down and have a – a family and everything?’ Immediately her eyes flicked away. A ten-ton weight settled on Arthur’s ribcage. He had to say something soon. He had to.
He couldn’t think of anything. He was failing.
‘Aren’t you even going to talk to me?’ The tears were falling now.
‘Aren’t you going to even deign to … Am I really worth that little to you?’
Fay’s voice was angry now, and hard.
‘Look at me, Arthur.’
Slowly, Arthur lifted his head. Her face was white, and her hands were gripping the wine glass so hard it was frightening. Neither of them spoke. Arthur loathed himself, and his cowardice.
‘Are you – are you talking about having a baby?’ Arthur managed to force out, quietly.
‘No!’ said Fay, indignant. ‘Can’t I ask a perfectly reasonable question about where our relationship’s headed without it turning into a big fuss about … babies.’
‘Oh. Only, I thought you were talking about babies.’
‘Yes, of course I’m talking about babies.’
She attempted to laugh and half choked, loudly in the quiet room. Arthur reached out his hand to her but she shook it off.
‘Fay, – I’m not sure I’m ready.’
Her face creased with disappointment, then she took a breath. ‘How … How … When would you be ready? We have three bedrooms and two cars, for fuck’s sake!’
‘I know.’
‘We chose this place together!’
‘You chose it, Fay,’ he said, as gently as he could, realizing of course that this wasn’t fair.
‘I chose it because … because we’re going out and you’re thirty bloody two years old! And so am I, nearly! We’re not fifteen! You don’t fuck about with someone just to go out with them!’
‘I – I’m not fucking about with you.’
‘I’m thirty-one years old. If you don’t want to get married and have a family with me, you’re fucking about.’
Arthur felt disgruntled. ‘Who invented that rule? I thought we were having a perfectly nice time.’
‘Did you?’
He ignored the obvious truth in her statement.
‘I don’t see why, just because we’re seeing each other … I mean, I don’t owe you anything.’
As soon as he said this he realized how awful it was. She blinked twice rapidly and edged away from him. ‘You … you …’
‘Listen, Fay, I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t. It’s just … I’ve had a really tough day and you’ve just started in on this and …’
But she had already stood up and was backing away across the room.
‘Look, Fay.’
But she didn’t even look like Fay any more. She looked like some strange person he’d never met before in his life. Her eyes frightened him.
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ she echoed.
‘Oh, come on, let’s talk about it.’
‘No, no need for that. You don’t owe me a thing.’
‘Fa-ay.’
Now she looked around, bewildered. She stopped herself. ‘Well,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Well, I guess I’ll be back to pick up my stuff … whenever …’ She cast an eye round the tasteful living room that they’d gone down to London to furnish – the brown leather sofa, the Habitat rug, the widescreen TV. Suddenly she had pulled herself together, and was eerily calm.
‘You owe me that sofa,’ she said. Arthur was standing now, casting his arms around, trying to say something, anything, but realizing as he did so that somewhere, underneath all of this, there was a definite feeling of relief – and that this was the biggest betrayal of all.
‘You … you betrayed me,’ she said, unnervingly voicing exactly what was going through his head. ‘Maybe not with another woman – but then, of course, I don’t know you at all, do I?’
‘There aren’t any other women,’ said Arthur dully, although he couldn’t help wondering – it was a flash, nothing more – about Gwyneth’s set up.
‘But you betrayed me, nonetheless. You saw me every day and you knew absolutely what I was in for, and absolutely what I was after and you spat on it and pissed it out the window the whole damn time. Did you laugh as the years went by, Arthur? Did you laugh every day because I still hadn’t cottoned on that nothing – nothing I did was any use? That there was nothing I could do? You stole that time from me, Arthur Pendleton. You stole it, and you know you did.’
‘I …’ Arthur exclaimed helplessly.
‘You absolute wretch. Well, fuck you! That’s my curse on you. Fuck you and everything that will ever happen to you.’
‘I wish people would stop saying that today.’
‘Fuck you,’ she said again, and it echoed around the room as she slammed the door. Arthur stood there for a second, until she marched back in, scooped up the television remote control, her bag, her dressing gown, then stood in front of him where he was frozen to the carpet and calmly blacked his other eye.