Of -course Deirdre had let Brian into her house that night. She’d had no choice. He had arrived without notice, pissed as a fart at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night. There were limited alternatives, her lights were on and she had yet to draw the blinds, there had been no other option than to open the door.
She had been blinded by light just as she was settling down with Barry White, Vanity Fair and a huge gin and tonic. Brian was half out of a taxi, one hand in his pocket to find the fare, the other was clutching onto a large suit- case. The cab driver got out of the vehicle, he seemed to be in a hurry and Deirdre thought she could read relief on his face. He opened the opposite passenger door and reached in, then threw something in Brian’s direction. Brian had two cases. Her heart sank.
After an hour or so of physical and verbal staggering, Deirdre tried to digest the news that Brian had indeed left Sandra, and was moving in. She blew out the scented candle on the occasional table next to her favourite chair, positioned at just the right angle for watching the birds in the front garden; she closed the magazine, making a mental note to return to the article she had been enjoying, “ Cut back on Emotional Expenditure ,a Woman’s Guide.” She gulped back the gin like it was juice and poured another large one, straight. She stuck the kettle on for Brian, who was wittering on about crime, custard pies and fraud. She hoped there was a logical and acceptable explanation for Brian’s behaviour, like a vat of alcohol, illegal substances or perhaps some kind of psychotic episode. She said a silent prayer that rational thinking had not been involved in the decision-making process that had led him to leave his Wife. She helped him to bed after his refusal to drink the coffee she had made. She put him in the spare room with a bucket and a towel. She could not risk any kind of spillage on the crisp white Egyptian cotton sheets that covered her own bed.
The next morning Brian’s delusions remained, if anything, they were worse. He had insisted on going straight out to buy the Sunday papers. Deirdre had gone with him, convinced he was having some kind of breakdown given that the alcohol and possibly drugs had had more than enough time to wear off. Brian was manically mumbling about the press and the shame Sandra had brought on the family. She had wondered about dialling an NHS helpline, or calling her friend Gillian who was a plumber, she had no idea why that might help, but somehow she found it comforting, and Gillian always had a solution to everything. There was no time, so she’d knocked back three pain killers with the rest of the gin from the night before and felt instantly better.
Deirdre was almost relieved to see the shock headlines in the local paper confirming his story. It was true, Sandra had been arrested. There had been sideways glances at the till from someone who seemed to know Brian, she heard a voice saying, that’s the Husband there! Deirdre had linked her arm into his and danced Brian out of the newsagents just in time for him to throw up round the back of the shop. Deirdre sorted him out with a wet wipe and a polo mint then they found a private place to sit where they read the news alone.
The thing was, she hadn’t really planned on Brian moving in, not in those circumstances anyway. She had imagined a romantic coupling. A trouble-free transition, graded gently, with a growing togetherness, a bonding of souls over long walks and conversations affirming the deepening of their love, their lives popping open like a hibiscus border in spring after a long winter. Instead there had been panic, pain killers and vomit.
Deirdre had never wanted to marry. She was more committed to her garden; the risks were worth the returns. Brian’s decent on her carefully cultivated territory had been abrupt and, well, unnecessarily needy. And, now, she was facing the dreaded practicalities of sharing space. She felt squeezed in the wrong place, like the toothpaste tube that had been squashed out of shape from the top rather than rolled carefully from the bottom, and then returned to the wrong shelf. It was all wrong. She wasn’t sure she could adjust.
To begin with, she had to admit there had been a warm feeling triggered by the opening of the bathroom cabinet. There was shaving foam, a brush and a bottle of Diesel Eau de toilette manfully dominating a shelf. The collection of personal care products said, you have a bloke sharing your life, you are committed. The fragrance was called, Only the Brave. She remembered the first time she had caught the aroma of it, their first kiss. She had tingled and reddened. Now, the whiff only brought on full blown resentment at the fact that her Chanel No 5 L’eau had been demoted to the bottom, dripped on shelf along with her night cream and tampons. Man spreading, she had thought.
At first, the sight of his Ford Mondeo parked beside her Mini had given her a little thrill. It amused her that the neighbours might talk about the new car on the block, an outdoor metaphor of the romance within. But, Brain was an inconsiderate parker. She had left the house a couple of times to find her Mini barricaded behind the Mondeo and had to wake Brian up to get him to unblock her. Any intrigue the neighbours may have had of a mysterious lover would most certainly be shattered by a weary eyed Brian reluctantly moving his car clad in baggy boxers and a Led Zeppelin reunion tour tshirt circa 2007.
Bubbles were bursting. There were things Dierdre just couldn't deny disturbed her, like Brian’s slippers for example. She hadn’t expected them, perhaps it was the nylon, or the blue check, maybe the tartan insole? She couldn’t be sure, but it was a really depressing moment when she came in from work and saw them placed in a ready to step into position beside a chair that he seemed to have claimed in an institutional kind of way, and from where he watched an alarming amount of sport. It was, indeed a slippery slope, she thought.
Their secret meetings in hidden laybys or hotel rooms had been replaced by jaunts to Tesco. The first couple of times Deirdre had found it amusing to find that Brian preferred white bread to brown and full fat to skimmed; that he liked his sausages square and his eggs, scotch, There was, however, no funny angle to the way that he tended to walk behind her, whistling through his teeth accompanied by the noise of jingling change in pockets. She had observed this behaviour with other couples in supermarkets and had pitied the women, wondered why the men were there, for what purpose? Deirdre missed whizzing round, buying all her favourite foods in super efficient time. With Brian there, it was all muddled up. He questioned things and she resented having to explain.
Despite her deepening concerns about depressing domesticity, Deirdre tried to maintain the mystique. She'd re apply make up before bed, sneaked out from under the covers before he awoke to check her breath, squirting some freshener on her tongue and some scent between her breasts. Yesterday, performing her usual tip toeing gait, avoiding the squeaky floorboard so as not to be caught, she observed Brian in the harsh light of the morning sun. There was dribble on the pillow and he was snoring, it penetrated the silence of the room that had once been her private sanctuary, and she wondered why she had bothered.
It had been a relief to see Sandra in KrazyKuts car park that day she had sneaked away from the barbeque to replenish supplies. Brian was cooking everything so quickly that they had run out. Brian had created a burger mountain, hiding behind stacks of meat rather than talk to the guests. In a moment of surreal feminist thinking, Deirdre had imagined that she could strike up some sort of sisterhood pact with Sandra. Sure, she was Brian’s ex-wife, but maybe there was a chance could persuade her to take him back? She could give her the number of the couple’s counsellor she and Brian had been seeing ever since Dierdre had lost the plot in Tesco and abandoned Brian and the trolley for the pub next door, anything to help. If Sandra hadn’t had an important mission that seemed to involve crawling under cars and feeding seagulls, she thought they might have been in with a chance of coming to some sort of mutually beneficial plan, even if it was just some tips on how to persuade Brian to spend money, that his wallet was not the enemy. It had been awkward, and in retrospect, a tad optimistic to hope for that level of interaction. Sandra had backed off as though in a hostage situation and Deirdre had headed towards the two for one charcoal offer at the front of the shop. The store manager had arrived to talk to Sandra so the it was pointless forcing any further conversation. Deirdre was glad she knew where Sandra worked though, if things got really bad, she could return at a more convenient time, when Sandra was not in pursuit of a missing child or some other high alert security quest .She wondered what Sandra had seen in Brian.
On her way back to the barbeque, Deirdre was aware of an unfamiliar tight feeling in her chest. She realised that she was anxious about going back to the party, no, it wasn’t the party so much as Brian’s behaviour with her guests. He was not mingling the way she had envisaged, instead, he had practically barricaded himself behind mounds of food, like a hunter gatherer or butcher in residence. Gilly Dowling had mistaken him for hired help and had offered advice about how to construct the chicken kebabs. Deirdre had rushed over and introduced them before Gilly moved on to the chilli sauce, which was overpowered with garlic and lacking in salt. Brian had adorned a jokey apron regarding hot dogs, he had salad tongs in one hand and an oversized fork in the other, which he was using to prod at the unnecessary amount of food on the go. She had watched as her friends from the botanicas, Trudy and Trevor, had made attempts one by one to communicate with him, each interaction had lasted six minutes, consisting of the shaking of hands, a couple of unnecessary nods and the spreading of multi seeded baguettes. There had been polite, but charitable stacking of paper plates, followed by awkward retreating from the grill/Brian area, the plates had been placed on a rattan table and left untouched. Brian had looked over at her and had given a thumb-up sign. A thumb up for Fuck’s sake.
Deirdre stopped the mini and reached into the glove compartment for her emergency Dunhill’s. There was only one left in the pack. It was her fifth pack since Brian had moved in. She sucked in the nicotine and tried to relax. It was early days. They needed time to adjust. They would be fine.
When she arrived back at the house, Trudy approached her as she was getting out of the car. ‘Listen Deirdre, Ryan seems to have locked himself into a room and now well. He’s fallen into a plant. I think he might be in need of some, well, sobering up and, well, Trevor is trying to…’
‘Oh dear, this is what happens with underage drinking, who’s Ryan, is that one of Gilly’s boys?’
‘No, Dierdre, your new boyfriend ,eh, partner?’
‘Brain?’
‘Yes, sorry, that’s it Brian- he seems a little, well, he overheard Trev and I talking and, well I think he was a bit upset and.’ Deirdre thanked Trudy for letting her know and muttered something about Brian mixing drink with his medication for allergies, it was the first thing she could think of. She added making excuses for someone else to her growing list of begrudges.
Deirdre had helped Brian to bed and returned to the party. Everyone avoided the topic with the diplomacy she knew would mean gossip. Lots of it, topped with judgemental statements and remarks over lunches she would fail to be invited to. The guests left in droves and the party ended. Deirdre fetched the last of the Dunhill’s from her stash in the summer house and found a bottle of Chablis in the outdoor rattan ice bucket, a freebie with the table and chairs set. She dragged a chair to her favourite place in the garden, beside the water feature, lit a cigarette, sucked, gulped the wine and swallowed.
