“Whatever for?”
Felix reached down and pulled his jeans back up. “You still taking your thing?”
Felix saw a flash of fury pass over her face, and also how it was contained and dispersed in the action of opening the cigarettes, tapping one out, lighting it, smiling grimly, laughing.
“No need. More chance of being struck by lightning. The blood just about still runs, but trust me: the well is almost dry. Nature, the enforcer. The destroyer! Speaking of which, dear brother James is meant to be taking me out to The Wolseley for a celebration of our mutual decrepitude — he phoned up yesterday, completely natural on the phone. You’d think we spoke every other day. Just ridiculous. But I played along, I said, ‘Hello, twin dear!’ He suggests a birthday lunch — our birthday’s not till October, mind you — and I say fine, but of course I know precisely what he’s up to, he wants me to sign the bloody deed so he can sell out from under me. He doesn’t seem to understand that no matter what he thinks a part of that place is mine and who knows how much he’s already mortgaged it to pay for his little darlings’ education, up to the hilt, I’m sure, I doubt there’s a penny left in it, and we all know he wished he’d gobbled me up in the womb, but I’m afraid he didn’t manage it and as long as our mother is alive I really don’t see why it should be sold — where is she to go if it is? And who’s going to pay for it? That kind of care costs money. But he’s always been like that: James has always acted like he is an only child and I don’t exist at all. Do you know what he and Daddy used to call me behind my back? The afterbirth. Shall we have another drink? It’s so muggy.”
She lay back down on his chest. She kissed the skin round the neck of his t-shirt. He put his fingers in her hair.
“You should probably take one of them other pills — the ones you take after. To be safe.”
Annie made an exasperated sound.
“I don’t want your babies, Felix. I can assure you I’m not sitting up here like some tragic fallen woman every night dreaming of having your babies.” She began tracing a figure of eight with her fingernail along his stomach. The movement looked idle but the nail pressed in hard. “You realize of course that if it were the other way round there would be a law, there would be an actual law: John versus Jen in the high court. And John would put it to Jen that she did wilfully fuck him for five years, before dumping him without warning in the twilight of his procreative window, and taking up with young Jack-the-lad, only twenty-four years old and with a cock as long as my arm. The court rules in favor of John. Every time. Jen must pay damages. Huge sums. Plus six months in jail. No — nine. Poetic justice. And you wouldn’t be able to—”
“You know what? I should chip.” He slid her head off his body, pulled his t-shirt down and stood. She sat up and crossed her arms over her breasts. She looked in the direction of the river.
“Yes, why don’t you?”
He reached down to kiss her good-bye but she jerked her head away like a child.
“Why you being like that? I’ve got to go, that’s all.” Felix felt something was off: he looked down and saw his zip was open. He pulled it closed. It occurred to him that he had said and done exactly the opposite of all he’d intended to say and do ever since he walked through her door.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No need. I’m fine. Next time bring your Grace lady. I like conscious types. They’re so much livelier. I find that most people are in a semi-vegetative state.”
“I’m really sorry.” Felix kissed her on the forehead.
He started walking toward the trapdoor. After a moment he heard footsteps coming up behind, and saw the flicker of her dressing gown, a few silk swallows on the wing, then a hand clamping down on his shoulder.
“You know, Felix”—a dainty little voice, like a waitress reciting the specials—“not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I’m not afraid! I’ve never been afraid. Most people are, you know. But I’m not like most people. You’ve never done anything for me and I don’t need you to do anything for me.”
“Never done anything for you? When you was lying on this roof, dribbling out your mouth, with your eyes rolling back in your head, who was here, who put their fingers—”
Annie’s nostrils flared and her face turned crueclass="underline" “Felix: what is this pathological need of yours to be the good guy? It’s very dull. Frankly, you were more fun when you were my dealer. You don’t have to save my life. Or anyone’s life. We’re all fine. We don’t need you to ride in on a white horse. You’re nobody’s savior.”
They were speaking softly enough, but putting their hands on each other, more and more violently, and pulling them off, and Felix realized it was happening, it was bad as it could be, the dreaded scene that had kept him from this place for months, and the strange thing was how precisely he knew what it was like to be Annie at this moment — he had been in Annie’s role many times, with his mother, with other women — and the more he understood it the more he wanted to escape her, as if losing in the way she was losing right now was a kind of virus and pity the way you caught it.
“You act like we’re in a relationship, but this ain’t a relationship. I’m in a relationship — that’s what I come here to tell you. But this? This ain’t shit, it’s nothing, it’s—”
“Christ, another hideous word! God save me from ‘relationships!’”
Desperate now to leave, Felix played what he believed was his trump card. “You’re forty-whatever. Look at you. You’re still living like this. I want to have kids. I want to get on with my life.”
Annie forced out some approximation of a laugh: “You mean ‘more kids,’ don’t you? Or are you one of these optimistic souls who feels they become a new person every seven years, once the cells have regenerated — blank page, start again — never mind who you hurt, never mind what went on before. Now it’s time for my new relationship.”
“I’m out,” said Felix, and began walking away.
“What a mealy-mouthed pathetic word, ‘relationship.’ For people who haven’t the guts to live, haven’t the imagination to fill their three score and ten with anything other than—”
Felix knew better than to get into it: he had no more cards and she was anyway playing by herself. When she was like this she could have an argument with a coat-stand, with a broom. And how could he know how much she’d taken before he’d even turned up? Now he turned from her and opened the trap door and made his way down, but she followed him.
“It’s what people do these days, isn’t it? When they can’t think of anything else to do. No politics, no ideas, no balls. Get married. But I’ve transcended all that. Long time ago. Eons ago. This idea that all your happiness lies in this other person. This idea of happiness! I’m on a different plane of consciousness, darling. I’ve got more balls than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I was engaged at 19, I was engaged at 23, I could be moldering in some Hampshire pile at this very moment, covering and recovering sofas with some Baron in perfect sexless harmony. That’s what my people do. While your lot have a lot of babies they can’t afford or take care of. I’m sure it’s all perfectly delightful, but you can count me the fuck out!”
In the hall between the bedroom and lounge, Felix turned round and grabbed both her wrists. He was shaking. He hadn’t realized till now what he wanted. Not just that she lose, but that she not exist.
“You’re lucky that you find life easy, Felix. You’re lucky that you’re happy, that you know how to be happy, that you’re a good person — and you want everyone to be happy and good because you are, and to find things easy because you do. Does it never occur to you some people might not find life as easy to live as you do?”