The Wedding Salmon
Clouds parting to reveal blue sky, Marnie wondered where she’d seen this effect before and realised it was the opening credits of The Simpsons. She did not want to seem facetious and instead said, ‘That’s why they call it sky blue,’ so it was fair to presume she wasn’t sober yet.
After a while, ‘That didn’t really happen on my honeymoon,’ she said. ‘That was a joke.’
‘Good to know.’
‘I mean everything else went wrong, but not that.’
‘What went wrong?’ he said.
‘Quicker to say what went right. I don’t know, the whole thing was a mistake.’
‘The honeymoon or the marriage?’
‘Both.’
‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t—’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. My main memory of the honeymoon, the wedding day too, was thinking, Well, this is a very bad idea. He knew it too, we both did, we just couldn’t quite bring ourselves to say it, especially after we’d spent all that money. Even on the honeymoon, there was this running commentary on how much everything cost, like we were on a meter. His background was accounting, though he liked to call it “finance”, so he was good with sums. We flew premium economy as a treat and I knew how much every inch of leg-room cost, pounds per nautical mile. We had cocktails in the Rainbow Room, chinked glasses and he said, “That’s three quid a sip. Enjoy!” Then we had a massive row about whether a burger is technically a type of sandwich, so that was romantic too, walking down Fifth Avenue while someone shrieks, “Define sandwich! Define sandwich!”’
‘It’s not a sandwich.’
‘Exactly, thank you, Michael! Anyway.’
‘How long were you together?’
‘Married nearly three years, which is more than you get for manslaughter. Together three before that.’
‘And you met?’
‘At work. This was when I used to go to an office. You know those big billboards at roundabouts and train stations? We sold those. I got sent there when I was working as a temp, a receptionist, and they asked me to stay on. It was all right. Some nice people. Neil, my ex, used to act like he was Don Draper or something. That was the role he played. Nice suits, sometimes with a little waistcoat, always very neat, very confident, always talking about lunches with clients, what the right site could do for their business. He couldn’t pass a billboard without telling you how many impressions per day, how much it cost, the virtues of digital over paper. You’d go through Piccadilly Circus and, I swear, you’d want to throw yourself under the thirty-eight bus. I shouldn’t be mean. I married him and we did have fun, to begin with.’
‘Was he …?’
‘Attractive? In a cheesy way, the least popular member of a boy band. He was quite flashy and confident, posher than me, eight years older, and it was nice to be … I don’t know, swept along by that, to begin with anyway. I used to think, Why me? Why not choose someone more confident and sexy and brash? I thought it was romantic to be asking that, but it turned out he was asking exactly the same question. “Actually, you’ve got a point.”’
‘So how did you get together?’
‘Well, he used to flirt, sitting on my desk every morning, really cheesy stuff, Bond and Moneypenny, gross really. And sometimes we used to go for lunch. That was a thrill. He was the first man I ever saw eat sushi – this was 2006 – and I thought it was just … mind-blowing. I think he thought he was educating me, not books but, you know, being a man-about-town in a very minor men’s-magazine sort of way, espresso martinis and poker and tickets to see Stomp, I mean the glamour. There was this woman in human resources who fancied him and hated me, really hated me, a real bully, texting me at night, criticising my work, and he used to flirt with her too, he flirted with everyone, but then we went on this office team-building thing in the Cotswolds and we got off with each other, secretly, sneaking into his room. That was the start of it. And I was so thrilled, you know, to be picked, which is not quite the same thing as love but is part of it. He wants me! The first year was so exciting, snogging in the stationery cupboard and the lift, pretending to say goodbye then meeting up, real Romeo and Juliet stuff. That was the best part, when it was us against the world. And the sex too, I suppose, lots of sex, pardon me.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘I mean we did everything. By which I mean all three.’
‘All three?’ he said, and here she made a series of hand gestures, a kind of obscene hand-jive. ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘That is everything.’
‘I don’t even think we were breaking any rules but we thought it would be better that way. Or he did. “Best not tell.” But then someone said something to someone and it was all out in the open and that was when it got really horrible. This woman, human resources, was furious, furious,blaming me for stuff, ignoring me, hinting that maybe I’d be happier somewhere else, and he still flirted with her. So I started to get really unhappy, losing sleep, getting depressed, and that was when I started looking for a change. I didn’t have a degree but I’d always read so much and so quickly, best part of my day, reading on the train, two, three books a week, and I was quite good at fixing the copy and the letters and the marketing material, better than my bosses. So I did a course in my spare time, wrote to all these publishers and editors and got a few trial jobs. And then I resigned. Became self-employed.’
‘And all this time …’
‘We were going out. He was nice. He encouraged me, partly, I realise now, because he wanted me out of the office but we were quite happy for a while. Moved in. Got a lot of cheap furniture, an espresso machine, and when our lives were too tangled up, got engaged. That’s when I should have paused, really, because no one was pleased, I mean no one, not really. It’s like we’d announced that we were going to, I don’t know, start a camel farm together – everyone frowned and smiled at the same time and said, “Good for you,” but you could tell they all thought, Fucking hell, a camel farm, that’s a terrible idea. The only one who straight out said don’t do it was Cleo. She always hated him, thought he was naff, a charm boy, not even that charming, with his little waistcoats. She came to our flat once, only once, and we had this big expensively framed poster as you walked in, for Moonraker, and she looked at me and her eyes said, “Pack your bags and go.” She was right, of course, she’s always right, as you know.
‘In a weird kind of way, I was rebelling. Cleo kept saying, “You don’t have to do this, wait,” but I was twenty-five, it’s not unheard of, and that whole thing of waiting until you’re thirty-five, it just seemed a bit … posh. And I wasn’t a high-flyer exactly but he was, we were doing all right. My parents liked him, my mum anyway. His parents thought he was marrying the maid, but they never said it. We’d talked about kids in a year or two, he wanted to be a dad, had dad fantasies, thought it would mellow him. Why wait?
‘But I think I knew. And the wedding, that was a challenge. I mean I would have loved to be jilted. Miss Havisham, that was the dream. The service was horrible – the indifference in that room – the speeches were horrible. The best man told this long, awful story about Neil pissing his pants in junior school assembly. Complete. Silence. Then my husband got up and talked about it a bit more, like pissing his pants was the biggest thing that had ever happened, like he’d done two things in his life, pissed his pants and got married, and then he just went on and on about how expensive the wedding was. Joking but also very much not joking. I don’t want to sound like an egomaniac but it was my wedding day, I thought I’d at least get a mention. You know, a cameo. We had to cut the cake early because everyone was leaving, couldn’t get out of there fast enough. By the time we did our first dance, I swear, there were about nine people. The best man had to tell the caterers to stop stacking chairs until the song had finished. Blushing bride? I was mortified. And the volume of leftover salmon. He made us take it home in bags to put in our freezer. It’s traditional, I know, to keep a slice of the wedding cake but not the main course. We lived on it for years, like we were in a nuclear bunker. What’s for dinner? Oh, great, the wedding salmon. Hey, this mountain’s nice. What is this mountain?’
‘Helvellyn.’
‘Ah. There she is. Little bit of snow on top, it’s a good look, it works. Are mountains “she”?’
‘I think so. Mountains, boats and rivers.’
‘She looks good for her age. Which is?’
‘About five hundred million years. But the honeymoon?’
‘Ah, the honeymoon. I think that’s when we realised. It was such hard work, trying to keep him upbeat, keep it light, keep it sexy, and you could feel the enthusiasm just … leaching away. We went out to the Statue of Liberty and he said it was smaller than he expected and so was the Empire State and so was the hotel room and so was the marriage.
‘Anyway. We gave it a go, but he kept putting off having kids, which was suspicious, and it was as if … You know that thing when you’re watching a film that you’re not really enjoying and the other person doesn’t like it either, but you’ve paid for the rental, you’re halfway through, you sort of want to know what happens and, besides, there’s nothing else on. But really you’re just waiting for someone to say, “Can we stop this? I hate it.” And neither of us did. Some people sit like that for their whole lives together. Waiting for it to pick up, waiting for a good bit. We were lucky in that respect. It could have gone on longer.’
‘But you drifted apart.’
‘Well, not drifted exactly. He was fucking Human Resources, so unless he drifted into fucking her …’
‘Ah. Okay. The one who—’
‘Yep.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Oh, she told me. She wasn’t going to let that opportunity slide. I got a text, like it was birthday cake in the tea-room. “Hi, Marnie, how are you? Just giving you the heads-up.”’
‘Well, I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. I can laugh now. Look!’ She bared her teeth. ‘She got her Stomp tickets, and I got some stories out of it. An encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bond movies. Maybe two good years and less than half the flat. He still owes me fifteen grand, the bastard.’
‘Well, you must get it back.’
‘That’s what Cleo says. I think in his mind it’s like I cancelled at short notice so he’s keeping the deposit. Anyway. All my friends were very nice – “You’re better out of it”, “His loss”, all that stuff. “Go, girl!” Of course, as soon as we’d celebrated the divorce, they all went off to get married. It’s like I’d just got off this terrible rollercoaster, covered in my own vomit, going, “Don’t do that, it’s awful,” and they all said, “No, no, we’ll be fine, we’re going to have a different experience, bye, goodbye.” And for the most part they have. I hardly see them now. So. Lucky them, I suppose.’
‘And do you regret …?’
‘Go on.’
‘Not having kids?’
‘With him? Not with him, but … That’s a big one. I’ll tell you what I do feel …’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose the main thing I feel now, and I want you to remember I’ve had a drink or two, is that I would have liked to have loved someone. You know, mutually, and for a period of time, and at that time of life, when you’ve got so much of it. Love, not salmon. I think I’d have been good at it. That’s what I wanted, and I did try, really. But he was the wrong … I don’t know … I was going to say object of affection, but he was just an object. It was a bad investment. I should have put it somewhere else.’
‘Maybe you will.’
‘Well, I’ve spent it now. I’m too jaded, too old. Me and Helvellyn. At this time of life, a relationship, it feels like starting a book halfway through. And presenting yourself to a stranger like that, not even your whole self – because who wants that? – but the self you think they’ll like, thinking about what you say and how you dress and what your face is doing. Honestly, the self-consciousness is so great I’d get sucked up by it, like a black hole eating itself. And who wants a date with a black hole?’
‘How would you split the bill?’
‘When they’ve eaten everything.’
‘I hope you don’t feel like that right now.’
‘No, but this is different, this is just conversation. But down there …’ She gestured to where she thought London might be. ‘Why put yourself through that? I’m very happy alone. Do what I want, watch, eat, read, listen to what I want, sleep. Now. Shall we abruptly change the subject?’
‘Only if you want to.’
‘I do. Here’s my question. Are we nearly there yet?’
‘We are! Fifteen minutes.’
‘Oh. Really? I could have walked further.’
‘You see? New socks.’
‘New socks. Powered on by the sound of my own voice. Now you’ve got to tell me your origin story. In revenge. What happened with you and …’
‘Natasha? That, I’m afraid, is what in an exam we’d call a sixteen-marker.’
‘Maybe another time.’
‘Maybe over dinner. Shall we have dinner, when we get there?’
‘Sure. I’d like that.’
‘We’ll sober up and then we’ll start drinking again.’
So they walked into the wooded valley, the last rags of cloud breaking up and evaporating like steam on a mirror. The stories we tell about ourselves are never neutral: they’re shaped and structured to create an impression, and Marnie hoped she’d not gone too awry. But she was surprised that recalling misery had not made her miserable. The opposite was true and though later, sober, she might regret saying so much, she was happy to abide in the pleasant wooziness of the afternoon, the low spring light, the various birds beginning their evening session in what she still thought of as the drivetime slot. For the moment she felt content, not because she’d spoken but because she’d been listened to.
And this feeling persisted until later, on the driveway to the grand hotel at the edge of Ullswater, where the strange thing happened.
They had paused for a moment at the hotel gates and he’d taken her gently by the arm so that they were facing each other. ‘Can I just tell you …?’ he said, then exhaled as if exasperated. ‘I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first saw you at the station,’ and he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her towards him, and instinctively she closed her eyes, lifted her chin, put her head to one side.