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Small (cheap) dining chair; loose spindles in the back pinch and prod. Fidget. Shift weight from side to side, shake left leg in staccato. Chair legs (ends raw, uncovered by bits of felt) scrape beneath, drawing vertical lines (raw wood directed by never-ceasing motion) on the dining room floor. Leaving evidence of this awkward dinner party. Take the furniture out and you could still read this scene as clearly; the loving couple (John at the head of the table, Mary to his right) leaning toward each other, beaming, happy, radiant, and their anxious guest (uncomfortable, ready to leap up at a moment's notice, full of unresolved tension) on the right. You could read the story in the floor: two people with no regrets; one made of them.
"I opened it, and there was a condom in there. With a paperclip inside it. A paperclip!" Mary, telling droll library stories. Mary has good comic timing, a dramatic flare. Typical skills of a pathological liar. (To be fair: also typical skills of those generally considered socially successful and charming.) "He came back the next day, asking for his bookmark."
John laughs. Touches her arm.
(His hair is slightly mussed; hers, recently re-styled (fresh hairspray, cheap). Freshly-applied lipstick (very cheap), with a smudge inching too high on her upper lip. A bit of that same lipstick rubbed into John's jaw. Their bed (behind a closed door, as if they are trying to hide the presence of the marital bed from me, as if it were somewhat unseemly for me to see it) was swiftly and recently re-made. Smells of sweat, lubricant (cheap), and semen. They had sex before I arrived. Can almost see the oxytocin drifting through John's veins. The heaviness around his eyes, the quiet weight of satisfaction. Trust. Affection. (Love. Call it what it is.)
His face doesn't clench up with frustration (anger, hurt?) when he's with her (like it does so often when he's with me). She smooths out his face (his shoulders, the long muscles in his back, the small ones in his hands, the complications of his post-war life). She speaks; he laughs. Full, unrestrained, confident, unafraid.
(The lack of fear: his body doesn't like it. His body feels tension where his mind believes there is none, invents injury in the face of its deliberate and steady absence. The war broke John. The thing he wants (happiness, stability, comfort, love), this thing that he has is what cripples him.)
My valued contribution to this blissful arrangement: jeopardy and fear. Uncertainty. Danger. (Bitterness. Regret.)
A twinge.
(Valid evaluation. Accurate. I seek out danger as a matter of course. Problems and crimes, evidence and careful thinking, observation and deduction: they keep me sane. Am I largely incapable of providing the kind of comfortable, unwound, unsullied pleasure I can read on John’s face as he drapes his (right) arm around Mary? The body weighed down with complete trust and oxytocin? Is this what John thought I would hate? The dullness of shared bedclothes and mussed hair, a familiar body under my fingers, reacting in predicable ways? (My own unpainted lips against his jaw?) Would I hate it? Was he wrong? I don't know. I think he was. I think I was. Regret. Rewind: start over.)
“More potatoes?” Mary has the spoon in her hand (enamel on the handle is chipped; she will cut herself on it if she shifts her hand a little to the left). She smiles at me. Perfectly pleasant.
A surprise: Mary hides her tells. She is nearly impossible for me to read (on this point, at least, this one point). Her whole body is neutral: her behaviour seems natural, but it’s the opposite. The lesson: it is possible for Mary to have sex (with John, with anyone) without me being able to conclusively deduce that she has done so. Her eyes are clear and friendly, her gaze direct. She looks like someone enjoying the moment, full of confidence, all else shuttered behind her eyes, her mouth, the deliberate expression on her face. I can look at John and know what happened within minutes of my arrival here, but her eyes (face, body) tell me absolutely nothing. Disturbing.
Mary has developed a masterful skill in hiding her tells, or she was blessed enough to never have any in the first place. (Sociopath? No. I don’t think so.) Were she marginally less careful, or less distrustful, or more more secure, less powerfully focused on controlling herself and her situation, I would see the evidence of her recent sexual activity in her face, her body. She is more dangerous than I realised. When she gets caught (three failed marriages and an engagement called off: she obviously gets caught) she does it on purpose. (To punish herself? Possibly. Guilt. Shame. Desire to be different, better? Desire to start over? Do her own mistakes stain the ones she deceives? Does her ability to deceive them make them less attractive to her, less interesting? Do they remind her of their failures with their complete ignorance?)
John and Mary are in very different places, sitting here in her Clapton flat, inclined together toward each other like saggy ragdolls, laughing at rehearsed stories. She is controlled and affecting nonchalance; he is loose and vulnerable, comfortable. Unwound. Open. He is by nature honest with those he loves; she is by nature dishonest. Mismatch. She’s holding a gun to his head. He’s leaning into it. Disaster.
He is in at least as much danger of pain and suffering with her than he ever is with me, but he obviously doesn’t know it. Being with Mary should frighten his limp away too. He doesn’t even need me.
“Ouch!”
“Oh you’ve cut your--”
“Ow!”
“Let me--”
“Just a--”
“I’ll get my--”
She moved her hand to the left. Gash on her palm. It bleeds profusely. A drop of blood on the potatoes.
“No swimming tomorrow, then.” John bandages her hand.
“I suppose not,” Mary says. “But tomorrow night I’m with my,” the slightest pause, “book club, remember?” Pitch of her voice, very slightly different. Her hand (the left, the one John is not bandaging) absently moves to her face. She glances over at me, then back at John. “The Sentimentalists.” Another pitch again. Rehearsed, deliberate. Deliberately normal. Calm. She makes eye contact. She stills her hand. She smiles. “Really looking forward to it, it’s a wonderful book. Canadian. Prize winner. Have you read it?”
She’s lying. Did the pain of the cut throw her off for a moment? The surprise? The blood? She’s lying about the book club. Is it the first time? The first rendezvous post marriage? Can’t be. John has no idea. He’s letting her change the subject, he’s never heard of The Sentimentalists, or of the Giller Prize. She tells him about both. She’s done her research. She’s read the book. (She’s a librarian.) Airtight. The book club exists (of course), but I would bet my life (her life, his life?) it’s not meeting tomorrow night, that’s the lie. (Might meet tomorrow afternoon, keeping her lie very slight, as close to truth as possible, but gives her a few hours of alibi for something she doesn’t want John to know about. Wants to get away with. The thrill of it.) Skilful. Practised. No guilt around her at all, not now. Now it’s all the ploy, the game, the high; the sex tonight, moments before I arrived, it was part of the lead up. She’s addicted to danger too. She’s addicted to getting away with it. Skirting the line so close she’s about to get caught. But she doesn’t. Not until she wants to.
“You two should do something, though.” Mary’s eyes are all smiles. “Solve a crime or watch telly, right? You’ll take him out for dinner first, won’t you, Sherlock?”
“Of course.” I smile right back. I can play that game too. All warm and genuine. Is she trying to get me off her trail, keep me occupied why she occupies herself? If I’m entertaining John (dinner, telly, maybe a crime scene), that would keep my attention off of her nightly wandering. (Is she that calculating? Does she know I suspect? That I would trail her, watch her from windows, observe and deduce?)
“Such a gentleman!” She laughs. “You two, out on a date while I sit with the girls at the book club. I should be jealous!”
Deflecting. Classic. Suggesting that John would be unfaithful when a tryst with a lover is likely her plan. Obvious. She laughs at her own joke. Finds herself so amusing.
John shoots her a wounded look. A burst of anger in his face, rapidly tamped down. She’s crossed some kind of line. (What sort?) John’s whole face is tensed, his hand clench, then unclench again, deliberately grasping for control. He is very angry; I have never seen him so angry. He smiles tightly at me (an apology: why?) and takes a sip of wine (cheap: terrible). He’s been betrayed, one of the thousand tiny betrayals between lovers. Slip of the tongue. Touched a sore spot. Embarrassed in front of me. (Why? Is John keeping secrets from me?)
Why would that statement bother John so much? A slight against his heterosexuality, his masculinity? Probably not. He says things like it’s all fine. His sister is a lesbian. He’s kissed me (on the lips), he’s curled up next to me in his bed. Admitted to having desire (unusual as it is) for a man (for me). Can’t see him being offended by a joke (obviously a joke) about him getting off with me.
Oh.
It’s not a joke, no matter how prettily Mary laughs.
In the dark, maybe, in bed, on a cold night some time last winter with Mary in his arms, the dark of night making all confessions seem less dire, he admitted his wayward but (deliberately) unfulfilled desires (for me). Of course! No secrets between spouses; John is romantic enough to believe that. Total honesty. He has been totally honest. She knows there was something (undefinable, unthreatening, surely, she doesn’t appear to feel honestly threatened) between John and me.
(Does she know about the kiss? Does the kiss even matter, a light thank you between friends, chaste and sweet press of lips against lips? I didn’t even reciprocate. Wasn’t time. Was caught off-guard. Is that why it didn’t matter? Do they imagine I wasn’t a willing recipient? Is that why the idea of her being jealous is so funny to her?) He wanted to (have sex with me). (And still does?) And he didn’t. (Not because he couldn’t. Because he wouldn’t. Because we agreed it would break us. Hurt him.. Doesn’t she know that? Of course she does. Doesn’t he remember that? Did he interpret it differently?) Have I been projecting rejection and unwillingness all this time?
She’s laughing: is it because I am so incapable? Because John won’t, because I won’t, because I am some kind of monster, toying with John’s affections for fun? (Or the opposite? John as a monster, toying with me? Impossible. Inconceivable. Not funny, at any rate.) Or does she believe (do they both believe?) I am some sort of asexual creature who doesn’t understand what the closeness (the kiss(es), the hand on my hip, forehead against my back, fingers in my hair) mean and therefore can’t be seen as actual threat to their marriage? Can’t be seen as a legitimate partner, companion, lover?
Oh.
Is this joke on me? Or on John? The incapable virgin terrified of having/not having John (impossible: they do not know any of these things, how would they? How could they know?), or the broken ex-soldier with a(n unrequited?) crush on his asexual, unemotional, unattainable flatmate and best friend? Or on the both of us, locked in this ridiculous stalemate? Stumbling over assumptions and confusions. I have been so stupid.
John’s anger at Mary is fleeting, but the discomfort remains. He is struggling to forgive her already, sitting there in a terrible dining chair, the spindles squeaking against his back. She has had a bit too much wine; he loves her; he chalks it up to her low self-esteem, her fear. The truth. He has feelings for me he will not stow away. Acknowledged them. He will not isolate himself from me, in spite of his feelings for me. She is justified in her nervousness. He accepts it. Forgives her. He forces himself to smile, to chuckle lightly. False laugh even she should notice. She doesn’t.
I remember what Mycroft read aloud to me: Mary is primarily attracted to emotionally compromised men. Men who are emotionally unstable, or unable to love her back, or who are in love with someone else. Mary is self-aware enough to know this; John is honest enough to admit to the bifurcation of his emotions. They have reached a compromise.
She is mocking him. Mocking him for being in love with an asexual sociopath. His anger (hidden behind false laughter) is palpable.
It’s still just moments after she said it (though it feels so much longer: my world has shifted forever, I need the space and time to readjust). She’s still laughing. Eyes shut. John’s blaze of anger unseen by her, softened to awkwardness in the space of a few seconds.
I suggest: “Maybe you should.” Be jealous, I mean. Everything she thinks she knows about me is wrong.
She laughs again, even louder, as if I’ve just said the most ridiculous thing. It appears that I am playing along. John tries to keep smiling, pushes out some fake laughter, but his eyes: mortified; confused; hurt. A question there, dismissed. There is more under the surface here. More than I can dissect tonight. How can I explain, sitting in this terrible chair, leaning over an over-cooked roast and under-cooked potatoes, watery gravy?
I don’t leave immediately; they would both think I was leaving in an offended huff. Everyone would be angry. John would fret. I wait another hour and forty-five minutes, through dull conversations about local crime and bad telly. Innocuous. Tedious. Simple. The atmosphere absorbs this tentative revelation, the inherent tension in the room. It dissipates as if it never happened. The power of the assumptions and lies flees and John relaxes again. Laughs. Tells stories about cases, much of which Mary barely believes. She looks at me as if waiting for me to counter and correct John, but I don’t.
I can’t keep my eyes off of John; have to deliberately keep myself from staring. I am terrified and fascinated. Watching him for more evidence, some subtle motion, a definitive look on his expressive face, some additional clue. Ambiguous. He pours more wine. We finish the meal; John goes into the kitchen and brings out a plate of Bakewell tarts. (I recognise them: they come from a bakery for which I have a high regard.) John smiles at me. I smile back. (Evidence? Hardly.)
Mary’s eyes are sagging with sleep and with wine by the time I stand and put on my coat. She is looking at John with naked affection. (Love. Call it what it is.) For all her faults, a lack of feeling isn’t one of them. She has not appeared to notice that she insulted and embarrassed John earlier in the evening, and provided a vital bit of evidence for me. (My conclusions must, absolutely must, remain tentative: it is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. And my bias in this case is obvious.)
In the doorway, as I am about to step down the stairs away from this wretched little flat, John hugs me. Friendly. A goodbye hug. A clatter of dishes and utensils in the sink from the kitchen: Mary cannot see. A hug. An apology.
“Thanks.” John’s voice: I can feel it through his skin, the vibration of it against me. “Glad you came.” He is. Whatever else is going on between us, we are friends. Important to one another. Glad of one another’s existence. Complicated.
He pulls back from me a little, his hand still on my back. Hesitating. I smile. Make a decision in a flash: don’t let myself think it through. I lean forward and kiss him. Let my tongue run along the edge of his upper lip. (Wine. Roast. Gravy. Almonds. The milkiness that is him.) He’s a little started by it, but slightly drunk; his reaction times are slower, his defences are down. Unrestrained. He’s unwound and trusting. (Even with me; maybe especially with me. Why not with me?) Lightly sucks my bottom lip. Grips my back. Hand slides up to my neck. His tongue. In my mouth. Odd texture against my own. Passion. My veins are all on fire. Lips. Wet. A clatter of utensils in the kitchen; water runs. (A reminder.) We let go. His hand slides off my neck. We stare at each other. Panting slightly (him; also, I notice a moment later, me).
“It was nice.” I mean dinner. Is that clear? Not prepared to evaluate the kiss just now, not like that. Nice probably not the word I would choose. Feel so awkward. Exposed. “Thanks for the invitation.” Still mean dinner. Hope that’s understood. (Was there an invitation to kiss him? Possibly. It was reciprocated. Our first (last? Surely not) fully reciprocated kiss.) My voice is slightly more hoarse than I anticipated. He looks struck a bit dumb. Surprised. (How can he possibly be surprised? If, if...need more time to consider. To piece it together.) He is aroused. Also true of me. Heart is pounding in my ears. I am surely flushed. Blushing. Must be so obvious. (Chalk it up to the wine.) “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I can’t stay here. I don’t know what to do.
I turn, start down the stairs.
“Tomorrow.” John says. Confirming. An edge to his voice too. I don’t hear him shut the door. He’s watching me. Tempted to turn back, share a significant look, acknowledge that I understand a bit more about him, that I misunderstood before (I think), that he misunderstood me (surely), and say something ridiculous and emotional that I would immediately regret. But I don’t turn back.
Outside, the rain is pouring down. I barely notice. Veins on fire. Skin thrumming. John.