Page 57 of Pictures of Him

‘But he came back?’ My voice a whisper.

‘Well that would have been a bit awkward. Of course he didn’t.’

Jack moved forward to kiss me. He aimed for my mouth but caught my cheek.

‘You should drink tequila more often. You were wild.’

I was crying without tears, just ragged breathing, pacing around the kitchen, clutching my chest. No, no, no. The splintering of my world. The violence of our lovemaking – hatemaking – pressing against my brain, a fragmentary memory or a nightmare?

‘You’re saying we slept together?’

‘Sor-ry. I’m really not buying into you not remembering it. You were unbelievable. I’ve never had sex like it.’

‘I don’t remember.’ I whispered it, but now the memories were rushing back in.

Jack and I fucking each other – his word, never mine, a vocabulary to deepen my shame – in your bed. The one we’d lived in, you and I, not leaving it for a whole week once, our own love-in, we said at the time, like John and Yoko. How could this have happened when it was the last thing I’d ever wanted? I would never have allowed it, never, not when I loved you so.

‘Of course we shouldn’t have done it, but at least let’s be honest. I’ve seen the way you look at me. I feel the same.’

No. I knew this wasn’t true.

‘I didn’t want to have sex with you.’

I said it quietly, even as my mind was blurring through the details, searching, searching for clues. But I was still drunk probably, and poisoned by panic; I was frozen into a state of no recall.

‘Well frankly I find that a bit fucking offensive, Catherine.’

This ‘fucking’ of his, imbued with hostility, made me look up.

‘Of course you wanted to sleep with me. You know you did.’

‘I didn’t.’ I whispered it, but now Jack was shouting.

‘Bullshit, Catherine! If I must remind you, you were the one who started it. You were the one who started kissing me when we were dancing, and I kept pushing you off and saying, no, no, we can’t do this. And then it just got out of hand. We both lost control.’

I slid down onto my knees, my body curved over as I wept. I heard Jack sitting down on the kitchen floor next to me, felt his hand on the back of my neck. I thought I might be sick. I hurled myself away from him. I needed to talk to you, make you understand. This was not something I’d ever meant to happen; it was a mistake, a devastating mistake. I was so drunk I didn’t know what I was doing. I must have encouraged Jack, given him the wrong idea, but there was no way I would ever have wanted it to happen.

‘You know how drunk I was. I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing. You took advantage of me.’

‘Believe that if it makes you feel better. We both know it isn’t the truth.’

Oh the sweeping hopelessness, the vanishing of my dream, my life, my love.

‘Catherine? We need to talk about this. You can’t just repaint what happened and put all the blame on me. That’s not fair. You wanted it at the time just as much as I did, and you know that really, don’t you? It’s not like you tried to stop me.’

I did look up at him again then, but I was crying so much it was almost impossible to speak. I nodded instead.I hadn’t said no, I hadn’t tried to stop him. Jack was telling the truth, I just couldn’t bear it.

‘I love him,’ I said.

‘We both do.’

‘What are we going to do?’

Even as I said it, this ‘we’ broke me. I didn’t want any kind of alliance with Jack. This shared secret, I knew, would slowly corrode inside me; I would never be the same again. But I was still clinging to the possibility that somehow you and I could stay together.

‘The important thing is that he never finds out. He’s fragile. I’m sure you know that.’

A weighted pause, Jack hovering, circling, with his sentence of destruction.

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