"Exactly! He"s eighty-f.u.c.king-three and you s.h.a.gged him. My G.o.d! How did this happen? How does it happen that an attractive forty-four-year-old woman, in her prime, great body, big hair, the lot, s.h.a.gs an eighty-three-year-old man who she was the first to admit ..."
"It wasn"t ..."
"Who she was the first to admit is the fattest and most boring old loudmouth in the whole d.a.m.n universe. How? Huh?"
"Sydney! Please ..."
"Jesus, I can just imagine it."
"Imagine what?"
"You know what I mean."
"Don"t!"
"Guess what I"m visualizing, Carrie. I am visualizing this grey slug of a man with an enormous pale belly and a tiny p.e.n.i.s like a party-time Mars Bar hanging down below ..."
"Stop it!"
Carrie was on the brink of crying. She was so ashamed. It wasn"t even the act, the fact of it, that shamed her, only Sydney"s perception of it and then her perception of it as a result of Sydney"s. That was all. And if Sydney hadn"t insisted on the second ballet ticket it would never have been a problem, she could have hidden it. She could have pretended ...
"He must be loaded."
"What?"
"Money. Why else would you want him? Is he loaded? Is he going to, maybe, give you a little bit of money to start off your interior design business? Is that it?"
Carrie was mortified. "It isn"t like that at all!"
"No? How is it then?"
"I don"t know!" Carrie started crying.
Sydney was unmoved. She said softly, "You know, I kept thinking you were taking this whole Jack thing too well."
"I don"t want to talk about Jack!"
"What would Jack think, huh? What would Jack actually think if he knew what you were doing?"
Carrie stood up, covered her cheeks with her hands, bolted out of the sauna, through the changing rooms and into the showers. There she turned the tap to cold, ripped off her towel and pushed her burning face into the jet.
Sydney crossed her llama legs at the knee and then dialled Jack"s number.
"Hi Jack. It"s Sydney"
"Sydney? Well, h.e.l.lo. What can I do for you?"
"I want to see you. It"s about Carrie."
After Jack had put down the phone, he picked up his duffel coat and brushed it off. He was keenly looking forward to a cold snap.
It was a nightmare. Just as she"d imagined. Heinz wore his toupee and his t.u.r.d-coloured tie. He kept regaling them with terrible stories about his late wife"s beloved red setter which had died-following several years of chronic incontinence-after swallowing a cricket ball. Carrie supposed that he must be nervous. Poor lamb.
Sydney was horribly polite. She kept staring at Heinz"s stomach as she spoke to him, like she expected, at any minute, that something might explode out of it.
When Carrie drove her home, she didn"t talk for the first ten minutes of the journey. She merely said, "Carrie. Leave me. I have to digest!"
Carrie left her. Eventually, after she"d digested sufficiently, Sydney said, "He belched throughout the ballet. It was like sitting next to an old pair of bellows. Christ, the orchestra should recruit him for the wind section."
Carrie"s heart sank. "He wasn"t belching. He swallowed a toffee too quickly. It went down the wrong way. He kept apologizing."
"And that f.u.c.king dog! His dead wife"s dead f.u.c.king dog! Does he really think I"m interested in how they fed it a diet of fresh chicken to try and quell its chronic flatulence? Are you interested, Carrie? Huh?"
"No."
"Pardon?"
"No! No, I"m not interested. I"m not."
"And I just can"t believe ..."
"What?" Carrie tried to keep her eyes on the road, but Sydney"s expression ..."
"What?!"
"The two of you ..."
"What?"
Sydney"s eyes were glued to the road ahead. It was starting to rain. Carrie turned on the windscreen wipers just in time with Sydney"s next p.r.o.nouncement.
"f.u.c.king."
Carrie said nothing. They both stared at the road. Eventually Sydney turned her eyes towards Carrie. "Well?"
Carrie said nothing. She focused on the road and the wipers and the rain and the way that the light from the streetlamps reflected in the drops of water on the windscreen before each harsh stroke brushed it away. Where do they go? She wondered. Where do those moments go? The rain falling in just such a way, the light, the wiper. Something there and then something gone.
Sydney found she was boiling. Not hot, but something inside. What else could she do? What else could she say? Carrie had closed down, shut up, like a clam. Sydney cursed herself. She was too impetuous. Too quick to judge. If only she"d tried to be nice, to be supportive. Maybe then Carrie might have provided her with some details. Something to ponder, to mull over, fat to chew on. d.a.m.n! Sydney crossed her arms, stared at the road, boiled.
"I got your number from the book," Heinz said.
"Didn"t I give it you?"
"No."
"I should"ve."
"She didn"t like me."
"No. Actually, I think she really hated you."
"Sometimes I can be overwhelming. It"s a fault of mine. I know that. But I am simply myself. When you get old ..."
"You tried your best."
"But did I? One tends to forget how it is to ... uh ... to play the game."
"Never mind."
"Can I see you?"
"Pardon?"
"Tonight?"
Carrie rubbed her eyes with her spare hand. "I only just got in. It"s raining outside ..."
"Tomorrow?"
Sydney lay on her stomach and rested the weight of her head on her hands. What was wrong? It was just ... she couldn"t imagine. Carrie and that fat old man. My G.o.d! She just couldn"t picture it. Not properly. Not graphically. She rolled on to her back. Couldn"t imagine. But my Lord, my Lord, how she longed to!
Sydney stared at Jack"s b.u.t.tons. Jack pretended not to notice. Sydney sighed.
"Jack," she said, "you haven"t a hope in h.e.l.l of winning me over with that old three b.u.t.ton trick."
Jack"s eyes blinked and then widened. "What do you mean, ma"am?"
"Nor that Courtly American Gentleman s.h.i.te."
Jack scowled. "What"s the axe you"ve got to grind, Sydney?" he asked, not charming any longer.
"No axe," Sydney said. "I just thought you should know ..." She paused. What did she want to say, exactly? Would she tell Jack about Heinz? She looked into Jack"s face and knew that the notion of an eighty-odd-year-old man sleeping with his wife was hardly going to incite him to jealousy.
"Is it Carrie?" Jack asked.
"Yep." Sydney rubbed the corner of her eyes.
"You look washed out," he said.
"Tired. Haven"t been sleeping."
"Really?"
Sydney uncrossed her legs. "Carrie"s got someone new."
Jack looked surprised. "Already?"
"Yeah."
"Who?"
Sydney cleared her throat. "Someone she"s known for a while."
"She met them at the gym? Who is it? Do I know them?"
Sydney shrugged. "That"s not the point."
"So I do know them?"
"I didn"t say you knew them."
"Are they younger than me?"
Sydney squirmed. "I just thought ..."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Sydney picked up her briefcase. "Not for any reason, really." She frowned and then asked out loud. "Why am I telling you? I don"t know." She stood up. "That three b.u.t.ton thing you do", she said finally, "I just wanted to tell you that it"s a real cheap trick."
Half a bottle of Jim Beam later, it finally clicked. The only thing that made sense. Carrie was having an affair with Sydney. And Sydney was terrified of what exactly his response might be. She was intimidated by him. She was threatened. Naturally. And she"d really wanted to tell him too, to throw it in his face, debilitate him. Only then ... only then she just didn"t have the nerve. That was it! Had to be. Carrie and Sydney. Sydney and Carrie. Wow.
"You won"t believe this, Sydney. Something so odd happened ..." They were pulling on their leotards and tying up their laces.
"Try me."
"Jack rang. He left a message on the machine. He wants to drop by. On Wednesday."
Sydney pulled the bow stiff on her lace. She straightened up.
"But Wednesday!" she exclaimed. "Isn"t that ballet night?"
Carrie looked uneasy, momentarily, like she didn"t know quite what Sydney was getting at. "Uh, yes ..."
"So you won"t be needing your tickets?"
"I suppose not, unless ..."
"So I could have them both, maybe?"
"You?"
"Yeah. I quite got a taste for it the other night. How about it, huh?"
Heinz started when he saw her. He wondered whether Carrie had come with her but had popped to the Ladies for some reason, or to the bar. He squeezed his way over to his seat.
"h.e.l.lo there."
Sydney looked up. "Oh, hi. How are you?"