The Post-Birthday World. Lionel Shriver

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      She didn’t overdo it. She didn’t light into a reprise of the diner scene in When Harry Met Sally. In fact, with a soft, shuddering groan, she tried to imply that this was one of the quieter ones—and wasn’t it. She worried that she had underplayed the performance to such a degree that it had gone right past him, until Lawrence moved a few times and pulsed; he must have been taken in, because he always waited.

      To have got away with the sham was discouraging. After all these years he should know the difference. Now sexual fraud joined the list of other little white lies, like claiming to have forgotten about Ramsey’s birthday, or pretending that it had been early in the evening when the bill arrived at Omen. And she had ruined a perfect record. Never again could she say to herself that she had come when having sex with Lawrence every single time. Now she knew how a pinball player felt on an unprecedented winning streak, when abruptly the ball drops, clunk, into the machine.

      The deception was minor. If she had effectively passed a counterfeit note in bed, the denomination was low—at most, a fiver. Doubtless some women faked climaxes for years with their partners; one bogus orgasm over nine years of the real thing could hardly matter. So why did she feel so sorrowful? She should be jubilant. Lawrence was home. Moreover, she had been tested last night, and her fidelity had not proved wanting. But drifting uneasily to sleep, Irina couldn’t be entirely sure if she had passed the test, or failed it.

      

chapter three

      Spurning her few minutes’ lie-in, Irina was first out of bed the next morning. The rev and horn blare of bumper-to-bumper traffic on Trinity Street had been driving her insane. The relief of being on her own while buying a Daily Telegraph up the street was all too brief. As she ground beans and waited for the milk steamer to spit, the monotony of their morning routine grated. For a moment it had been touch-and-go as to whether she would top up the steamer with bottled water one more time, or shoot herself. At least while she ran through these paces it was unnecessary to look at Lawrence, or talk to Lawrence. Over the Telegraph at the dining table, her eyes glazed once more; sexual intoxication had turned her into an overnight illiterate. An illiterate who never ate and couldn’t work and slept little, so what did you do when you were smitten? You fucked. And that was the one thing she could not do, would not do. Even for a changeling, there were limits.

      Lawrence the up-and-at-’em was dawdling. That toast was taking him forever. His coffee was getting cold. For pity’s sake, if he wanted to read The End of Welfare he would concentrate better in his office. It was nearly nine o’clock! As she turned the pages of the paper, it was hard not to slam them. When the minute hand on her watch passed twelve, her chest burst with ludicrous, hurtful, and patently unjustifiable fury. It was Lawrence’s right, was it not, to linger with his “wife” a few minutes before soldiering to an office where he laboured long hours? Had Lawrence ever sat at table enraged by her mere presence, crazed with a desperation to get her out of her own flat, she would die. She would just die.

      Still, she couldn’t contain herself. “After having been gone for ten days, I guess you have a lot of work piled up at Blue Sky.” The sentiment might have come off as seminormal, save for the angry quaver in her voice.

      “Some,” he allowed. Since rising, she had been convincing herself that Lawrence didn’t know her at all. A sudden vigilance suggested otherwise.

      “I wonder if I feel like having another piece of toast,” he supposed.

      “Well, do or don’t!” she exploded. “Have a piece, or don’t have one, but don’t faff about deciding! It’s only toast, for God’s sake!”

      Numbly, he collected the dishes. “I guess I won’t, then.”

      She winced at his sense of injury as if ducking an incoming boomerang. Apparently cruelty hurled at someone you love—whom you used to love until two days ago, or who at any rate didn’t deserve it—has a tendency to whip back round and thump you on the head.

      Finally Lawrence gathered his briefcase. Once he stood on the threshold, Irina flooded with remorse. Now that he really was leaving, she kept him at the door with manufactured small-talk, trying to be warm, to do a creditable impression of a helpmate who will be left alone the whole day through and is reluctant to say good-bye.

      “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said. “I’m getting behind on the illustrations for Seeing Red, and I’m anxious to get to work.”

      “I’m not stopping you.”

      “No, of course not. I don’t know, maybe I’m premenstrual.”

      “No, you’re not.” Lawrence kept track.

      “Peri-menopausal, then. Anyway, I’m sorry. That was totally uncalled for.”

      “Yes it was.”

      “Please don’t hang on to it!” She squeezed his arm. “I’m very, very sorry.”

      His stricken mask broke into a smile. He kissed her forehead, and said he might ring later. All was forgiven. Patching over her outburst had been too easy. She couldn’t tell if Lawrence accepted her apology because he trusted her, or feared her.

      She steered clear of the telephone at first, relishing the opportunity to think straight, or if not straight at least alone. Besides, Lawrence could always come back, having forgotten something, and she wouldn’t want to have to explain to whom she was speaking. By nine-thirty, her timing was poor, but Irina couldn’t be bothered with the niceties of Ramsey’s night-owl hours when her whole life was falling apart and that was his fault.

      “Hallo?”

      Irina deplored callers who failed to identify themselves. “Hi,” she said shyly.

      The silence on the other end seemed interminable. Oh, God, maybe what was for her an exotic journey on a magic carpet was for Ramsey a casual grapple on the rug. Maybe he really was the ladies’ man the magazines made him out to be, and she should hang up before she made a bigger fool of herself than she already had.

      A sigh broke, its rush oceanic. “I’m so relieved to hear your voice.”

      “I was worried I’d wake you.”

      “That would involve my ever having got to sleep.”

      “But you didn’t get a wink the night before! You must be hallucinating.”

      “Since I let you go—yeah. I been worried I am.”

      “I started to worry that—that for you, it didn’t mean anything.”

      “It means something,” he said heavily. “Something shite.”

      “… It doesn’t feel shite.”

      “It’s wrong.” What he must have intended as emphatic came out as helpless.

      “Strange,” she said. “Not long СКАЧАТЬ