Chapter 3 #4
But Brian wasn’t going to let it go. ‘How did that come about?’
‘His parents had split up and he was living here with his mother but she committed suicide. His father brought him to England and packed him off to boarding school. He absolutely hated it, so one day he ran away and came to our house.’
‘Oh, you’re not telling it right,’ Freddie said crossly.
‘He walked all the way from some godforsaken hole in the north of England,’ he told Brian, ‘turned up at the O’Neills in the middle of a storm and practically collapsed on their doorstep.
It’s a wonderful story, isn’t it?’ he said wistfully. ‘So David Copperfield.’
‘It must have been really traumatic for him,’ Brian said. ‘He should come to my abandoned-children group. He might find it helpful.’
‘Will is thirty-two,’ Kate said drily.
‘It’s not for children, as you well know,’ Brian said patiently.
‘Anyway, he’s English,’ Kate said, with an air of finality.
‘What’s that supposed to mean? English people have feelings.’
‘He has that kind of English reserve. Sitting around moaning about his childhood with a bunch of strangers wouldn’t be his scene.’
‘It’s not about “sitting around moaning about your childhood”,’ Brian said huffily.
‘Well, whatever it is – drumming your pain or dancing the abandoned child within – I don’t think it’s him. Besides, it was a long time ago. He’s got over it.’
Brian looked at her pityingly. ‘You don’t “get over” being abandoned by your parents just like that,’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘Feelings of abandonment run very deep, Kate. I have people in my group well into their fifties who are still dealing with abandonment issues.’
‘Really?’
‘Believe me, deep down Will is still that abandoned child, crying out for love and security.’
‘God, do you really think so?’ Kate was horrified.
She had two abiding images of Will: one of him standing alone by the grave at his mother’s funeral, his pallor emphasised by his dark suit and black mop of hair, the other of him sitting in their kitchen, soaked and shaking like a puppy when he’d run away from boarding school.
It broke her heart to think that, deep down, Will could still be the lost, unhappy boy who arrived on their doorstep all those years ago.
‘Well, maybe not,’ Brian said, watching the play of emotion on Kate’s face.
Kate raised her eyebrows at his sudden about-face. ‘But you just said—’
‘You know him better than I do. Lack of sensitivity and self-awareness has its advantages.’
‘Will is not insensitive or lacking in self-awareness,’ Kate protested, ‘just because he’s not constantly navel-gazing and having breakthroughs.
Suzanne isn’t self-aware, she’s self-absorbed.
There’s a difference.’ Kate was aware that she sounded catty, but she couldn’t help it.
Suzanne was the person she’d figured Brian had in mind when he’d suggested they see other people.
‘I suppose Suzanne is in the abandoned-children group?’ she asked.
‘Actually, she is. She was adopted.’
‘I’m not surprised. If she was my child, I’d abandon her.’
‘She is a bit intense,’ Brian admitted, to Kate’s surprise.
The fact was, the break with Kate had allowed him to explore his relationship with Suzanne and he had found her neediness very trying.
It had proved to him that Kate was the person he wanted to be with.
She was the least neurotic person he knew, which was relaxing and restorative when he spent his working life dealing with other people’s pain.
‘I thought we’d go for a pizza,’ he said breezily.
‘I know it’s your favourite – and don’t worry about money.
It’s my treat, to celebrate your first night back. ’
* * *
‘Vegetarian deluxe,’ the waitress announced cheerfully.
Kate made a strenuous effort to hide her distress as a twelve-inch pizza was plonked in the middle of the table.
Early on in their relationship Kate had discovered, to her dismay, that when Brian suggested going for ‘a pizza’ that was exactly what he meant – a pizza, singular, which he had proceeded ceremoniously to carve down the middle.
That first time Kate had said nothing. Brian had already been faintly shocked to discover she wasn’t a vegetarian and she hadn’t wanted to compound it by having him watch her wolf down a pizza big enough to feed a small African nation for a month.
One of Brian’s favourite themes was the shortage of food on the planet, and she didn’t want him to think she was partly responsible for it.
Besides, she hadn’t expected the relationship to last long, so it hadn’t seemed worth making a fuss – which meant that now she was stuck with hiding her irritation and anxiety as Brian cut the pizza in half.
It also meant she was always limited to having the vegetarian, while she longed for pepperoni, leaching its oily spiciness into the tomato sauce.
Still, she mustn’t be ungrateful. Brian had come here to please her. It wasn’t his fault she had never come clean with him about her pizza habit. Determined to cheer up, she tucked into the pizza, which was delicious.
‘I’ve really missed you,’ he said, smiling across at her.
Kate wished he hadn’t sounded so surprised about it.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe he was her boyfriend.
His thin, angular face was so handsome, and he had a fantastic body, honed from years of strenuous yoga and in peak condition from always eating the right stuff in moderation and getting enough sleep.
And he was so caring and considerate. It was all very well for her family to be derisive about him, but they didn’t know how sweet he was to her.
Freddie could rant all he wanted about Will being ‘the one’, but the reality was that he hadn’t always been very nice to her – and it was screwed up to keep hankering for someone who wasn’t interested in you.
She had adored Will, but what she had with Brian was real, grown-up and, best of all, mutual.
The sex was fantastic too. She looked at his long, thin fingers playing with his wine glass and thought with longing of the pleasure they could give her. Suddenly overcome with lust, she considered abandoning the pizza and dragging him home to bed.
Brian smiled at her intimately, catching the look in her eyes.
‘Did you enjoy yourself at the wedding last night?’ Kate asked, shaking herself out of her stupor.
‘Oh, I didn’t stay long, but, yes, it was fun.’ Brian felt a momentary pang of guilt as he thought of the rather desperately eager girl he had slunk off with. ‘It was interesting seeing you there with all your family,’ he said. ‘You’re different when you’re with them. You become an O’Neill.’
‘I am an O’Neill. What else would I be?’ Kate said.
‘That’s exactly what I mean. When you’re with them you’re an O’Neill. With me, you’re just Kate.’
‘God, you must be the only person in your line of work who’d consider it a problem that I’m close to my family.’
‘I don’t. I just think you’re a bit… enmeshed.’
‘Enmeshed?’ Kate scowled.
‘Yes. Your identity is submerged in the family. You need to differentiate yourself more from them. You need to be Kate, not just one of the O’Neills.’
It was pretty much what Kate had been thinking earlier about how she had felt in Africa.
But it was one thing for her to think it and quite another for Brian to say it.
He was like the psychological equivalent of a plastic surgeon, believing everyone could be improved with a little work. Why couldn’t he accept her as she was?
‘Your being away the past few months has made me think,’ he said now.
Here we go, Kate thought, sighing inwardly. The relationship discussion.
‘I’ve been giving our relationship a lot of thought while you were away,’ he continued. ‘It’s made me realise how much I care about you and want you in my life.’
Kate had hoped to put off the ultimatum for a bit longer, but now that the subject had come up, she was determined to stick to her guns and tell him she wanted marriage, kids, the whole bit, or they would have to call it a day and go their separate ways.
She would also, she decided, have to let him know where she stood on the subject of pizza.
A lifetime of shared pizza was too horrific to contemplate.
She was so anxious, building herself up to present Brian with her ultimatum, that she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.
Still, it wasn’t really necessary, she thought wearily, as she caught the word ‘commitment’ floating by.
It wouldn’t be anything she hadn’t heard from him a million times already – that he wasn’t ready to make a commitment, that you didn’t need a piece of paper to love someone, that he lived ‘in the now’ and you couldn’t legislate for what might happen twenty years down the line, etc. , etc.
‘What are you thinking?’ Brian cut into her reverie. He was giving her one of his deep, intense looks. Kate sometimes wondered if he practised them in the mirror.
Marriage, kids, pizza, Kate thought, drilling herself in her head, pumping herself up to say her piece. God, she wasn’t cut out for this – she wasn’t the ultimatum type. Marriage, kids, pizza, marriage, kids, pizza.
‘I still don’t know how you feel,’ Brian persisted.
‘About what?’
‘About what I’ve been saying.’
‘Oh, um, about commitment and all that?’ Kate prevaricated, not having heard a word.
‘Yes, about commitment and all that,’ Brian said mockingly. ‘I mean, I’ve told you what I want. I don’t know what you want.’
It was now or never. She wasn’t going to get a better opening. Marriage, kids, pizza, she rehearsed one last time, and took a deep breath.
‘I want my own pizza,’ she heard herself say.
‘What?’ Brian burst out laughing.
Shit! She hadn’t meant to start with the pizza thing – but he’d taken her by surprise. How could she go from pizza to marriage? It wasn’t exactly a natural segue.