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Great Writing - Home > Extended > Three accounts of events - part 15 (a)
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Extended Work
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| Three accounts of events - part 15 (a) | |
| By teddy | ||||||||||
| 27 May 2007 | ||||||||||
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I'm afraid this part is quite long. I'm not too sure about it either, I'm trying to portray the troubled relationship between Adi and Paul, but am I doing it right, am i not exagerating things? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks. We’re having lunch at 57 of Four Seasons hotel in New York. I’m sitting in front of Paul, watching him dawdling over his desert, and I wish he’d hurry up. My feet are nervously tapping the floor underneath the table. ‘What’s the matter, Adi?’ Paul lifts his eyes from the plate in front of him to look at me. ‘Nothing,’ I stare at the unfinished half of cheesecake slumped on his plate. ‘It’s half past two.’ He checks his watch. ‘Yes, I can see that, and?’ ‘Well, we only have half an hour left.’ He nonchalantly dips the spoon into the creamy cake. ‘There’s plenty of time.’ A waitress approaches the table and asks us if we’d like any tea or coffee and I’m just about to say ‘No thanks, we’re ok’, but Paul’s faster than me: ‘Yes, please, coffee would be fine.’ I frown at him, but he avoids my eyes. What’s he playing at? ‘You could always talk to her tomorrow if we missed her this afternoon,’ he says. Yeah, this is what you’ve kept saying for the last three days, I moan silently. We’ve been in New York for four days and for the last three I’ve been trying to make him call his parents before three o’clock, eight o’clock UK time, so I can talk to Vicky before she goes to bed. But there’s been always something getting in the way. I didn’t even want to come on this stupid trip. Not without Vicky anyway. But this was one of the presents Paul had given me for my birthday and no matter how hard I’d tried to get out of it, in the end I had to give in. Three weeks ago I turned twenty-five. Twenty-five? I still can’t get my head around it, that’s quarter of a century! Gosh, I’m really getting old. I got the first present from Paul very early in the morning while we were still in bed. ‘I love you, Adi,’ he said later on when we were lying next to each other exhausted. He brushed away a disobedient strand of hair shadowing my forehead. ‘I love you so much you can’t possibly imagine.’ He kissed my hair and held me tightly in his arms. These words I had so longed to hear before when Paul and I had first got together almost frighten me now, and I don’t really know why. At breakfast time he gave me a second gift, a beautifully crafted Cartier watch, no doubt it had cost a small fortune. ‘This is from me and Vicky,’ he said helping me to put it on my wrist. He’s been spoiling me rotten ever since we got back together and I wish he wouldn’t bother that much. There’s something I would give up everything in return for: the relationship between him and Vicky to get better, but there seems to be no improvement there. Vicky’s still throwing tantrums at him whenever she feels like, as for Paul, I’m afraid to say this, but at times it looks as if he’s started to give up on her as well. We already had a big argument because of her. The three of us were in the kitchen one evening, just as we had finished dinner. Paul was sitting at the table enjoying a glass of wine while going through the post that had come that morning, and I was standing by the sink sorting out the dishes. Vicky was presiding the whole panorama from her high chair. She was in a cheerful disposition and exercising her artistic talents by banging the spoon she had in her hand by the board in front of her. ‘Ta ta ram tam ta ta ram,’ the spoon was going up and down. ‘Ba bam ba ba ba bam ba,’ Vicky’s voice was accompanying its hectic noisy cadence. God, isn’t she a noisy little thing? I turned to her smiling. My smile wore off when I caught Paul glaring at her. I didn’t say anything right away, I thought I might have got it wrong. ‘For God’s sake, Vicky, can you stop doing that?’ I heard his voice rising a minute later. I turned around in an instant. Vicky’s face was scowled and I thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t, her hand rose in the air and the spoon was ready to strike again. ‘Vicky, no,’ Paul admonished her. The grimace on her face deepened as she looked at him. ‘Banggg,’ the spoon whacked the board. ‘I’ve told you to stop.’ I looked at them bemused, identical pairs of eyes, each bearing the same confrontational determination, neither prepared to back off. Paul was just about to grab the spoon of Vicky’s hand when I intervened. ‘Leave her,’ I said harshly. I was angry, she was only a baby, how could he shout at her just for having a bit of fun? I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of Vicky though. Paul’s eyes fixed me coldly before he got up. He grabbed his letters and walked out of the room. He wasn’t happy. But neither was I. After I put Vicky to bed I went to find him. He was sitting at his desk in the study, working on his laptop. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I started. He lifted his eyes and looked at me questioningly. ‘Meaning?’ he asked. I could sense irritation in his voice. I don’t like arguments, I hate confrontations, but for Vicky I’d fight lions if I had to. In less than three minutes there were lots of hard words exchanged between us. He accused me of spoiling Vicky, she knows no discipline, in two or three years time I won’t be able to control her at all he said. For heaven’s sake, she’s only a baby, I rolled my eyes. I told him his attitude stinks, he’s got issues he shouldn’t try to sort out by taking them on others. He started questioning my parental skills and didn’t forget to mention George’s bad influence on the whole thing. I told him to sod off in the end and left the room slamming the door behind me. We only spoke to each other briefly and when necessary for the next two days, and I spent the nights in one of the spare rooms. Until the Saturday that followed when he came back from the cricket club limping. ‘What happened?’ I couldn’t hide my worry, forgetting the animosity that had kept us apart for the last couple of days. ‘I don’t know, I must’ve pulled a muscle while playing, my leg hurts like hell.’ I asked him to lie down on the sofa in the living room and went to get some pain relief cream I remembered to have seen in the bathroom upstairs. Back in the room I sat down next to him and massaged his leg until he told me he had started feeling better. He pulled me on top of him, we kissed and made up, and by the next day everything was back to normal. On the night of my birthday he took me out for dinner at Chloe’s, an exquisite place in Knightsbridge where just the size of the tip would ravage a normal working person’s bank account. Paul looked very handsome, he was wearing a smart dark suit and white shirt, but no tie, and his supple figure, firm walk and beautiful face were pulling furtive admiring looks from many women dining there that night. ‘You’re beautiful, sweetheart,’ he told me as we sat down. He reached for my hand across the table and kissed it warmly when it reached his lips. I felt blessed. At the end of the dinner, while we were sipping the last drops of wine out of our glasses, he produced an envelope out of his jacket pocket. ‘This is for you,’ he said smiling. I opened it curious, I hadn’t expected another present. I scanned through its contents and I was overfilled with joy at first when I saw New York displayed on the tickets in my hand. But Vicky’s too small for such a long flight, it’d be an ordeal for her, my enthusiasm deflated the next second. I shared my worries with Paul, he is her dad, he’d understand. But he was just staring at me with an awkward look in his eyes. I dropped my eyes on the tickets again: there were only two and Vicky’s name wasn’t mentioned on either of them. ‘But, Paul,’ I didn’t want to sound ungrateful, ‘I can’t possibly leave her, not for that long.’ ‘Adi, please,’ he argued, ‘it’s only for one week. I’ve already spoken to my parents and they’d be delighted to have her while we’re there. You know how much they love her.’ Of course I knew. A month ago Paul had taken me to meet them. I was extremely nervous at first. As the car was strolling along lively green country lanes I kept biting my lips and fidgeting with my fingers on my lap. What will they think of me? They might adore Vicky, but will they like me? Paul’s never been bothered by the wider than the length of the Thames gap between our social status, but I had no assurance that they would feel the same. They received me with polite but cold smiles just as I had expected. The atmosphere started to ease off a bit when we sat down for dinner. Paul’s mum is an art lover and she seemed very interested in my work. As for his dad I think me being Vicky’s mum was just good enough for him. Before the pudding was brought over the smiles had already started to warm up and by the end of the day I had already reserved myself a seat to their next Sunday lunch. Paul’s not a snob and that must have something to do with his upbringing. ‘I know they would,’ I told him that night, ‘but she’d think we’ve abandoned her. She’s never been away from me for such a long period of time.’ Even when I was in hospital my mum used to bring her around every day. And no matter how much Paul’s parents adored her they were still strangers to her. If I could, at least, have left her with Tina or George, but that was out of discussion. Paul would’ve got insane if only I had suggested it, and I couldn’t really asked either of them two to take a week off work so I could entertain myself across the Atlantic. I haven’t seen George since we split up, or talk to him. My heart bleeds when I think about it, and I don’t even want to imagine what he must think of me, but I have to stick to my promise. I know I could always explain to Tina and ask her to pass the message on, but she’d go mad if she knew the truth and never let Paul get away with it. And it will all come back to me in the end. And George, well, I don’t know how he’d feel about the whole thing, Paul had been his close friend for nearly twenty years, no matter what happened after they had fallen out he wouldn’t probably believe Paul’s capable of such thing. I’m sure he’d be hurt. Paul had phoned him on the day before he was supposed to have Vicky, to let him know he could pick her up from Tina the following morning. ‘She’s not available at the moment,’ I heard Paul saying while on the phone and I assumed it was me George asked about. Fifteen minutes later my phone rang. I picked it up and looked at the lit screen. Paul was standing next to me, scrutinising my moves. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, he’ll give up in the end,’ he smiled when I blocked the call. ‘Aren’t you gonna wait for George to turn up?’ Tina asked after I dropped Vicky around theirs on Sunday morning. ‘No, I’m sorry, Paul’s waiting for me outside in the car. We’re going out for the day.’ I avoided looking at her. Tina eyed me suspiciously, but didn’t say much. Not then anyway. She held back the fire until I came back to collect Vicky later that afternoon. ‘Adi, what the hell is going on?’ she dragged me into the kitchen once I’d passed the front door. Vicky was with Craig, watching TV in the living room. ‘Are you avoiding George?’ ‘No, why?’ I played the innocent. ‘He’s been trying to get hold of you for the last couple of days, he said you wouldn’t pick up his calls. He’s been worried about you.’ ‘Oh well, I must’ve missed his calls.’ I made myself busy stacking Vicky’s bottles into her bag. ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’ Tina said moving closer to me, there was no warmth in her voice. ‘He won’t let you see him.’ ‘Who?’ I pretended I didn’t understand what she was going on about. ‘You know exactly who I’m talking about.’ There is no love story between Tina and Paul, one single look at them if you were lucky to catch them both in the same room, would be enough to convince you they can’t stand each other. ‘What have you done, you stupid girl?’ she shouted at me the night I had left George and landed on her door step ‘Do you really think he’s worth it?’ She only softened when she saw the state I was in, sobbing out loudly. ‘Come here,’ she hugged me. ‘Shush now, what’s done is done. I’m only hoping you won’t live to regret this, Adi.’ ‘Paul has nothing to do with this,’ I tried to convince her that Sunday afternoon. ‘I’ve decided it’d be for the best if George and I didn’t see each other for a while, give us both time to get over what happened.’ ‘course, Adi. That’s why you were so worried only a week ago when you couldn’t get hold of him. You don’t expect me to believe all this crap you’re giving me, do you?’ ‘I’m sorry, we have to go now, Paul’s waiting for us,’ I put an end to the awkward conversation. Paul has just finished his cake and is now slowly sipping his coffee. My cup stays untouched. We’re not saying much, Paul keeps examining me and I find that rather annoying. I look away frustrated. It looks as if he’s doing this on purpose, and I feel like snatching the bloody cup from his hands and pouring its entire contents over his head. ‘Can we go now?’ I say when my patience gets stretched to the limits. He slams the cup onto the saucer and gets up. Few drops of coffee jump out and dribble down over the edge of the cup. ‘Ok. Let’s go then.’ He doesn’t sound happy at all. On the way up in the lift we’re both quiet. Once in the room he picks up the phone and his fingers meander over the dialling keys. ‘Hello, mum.’ I hear him saying few seconds later. ‘Yes, thank you, we’re fine.’ He asks about Vicky. ‘Has she?’ he says looking at me and I know we’re too late again. I throw myself on the bed and curl up. Oh God, I miss my baby so much, if I could only talk to her, just to let her hear my voice. ‘I’m sorry,’ Paul says after he puts the phone down, ‘she’s gone to bed already. She’s ok though.’ He moves over and lies down on the bed behind me. His arm slips underneath my waist allowing his hand to sneak underneath the front of my top. The other hand pushes its way between my thighs and marches up until his palm rests contentedly on top of my crotch. ‘Now you’ve dragged me up here, you have to entertain me,’ he whispers in my ear bowing his head over mine. Yeah right, somehow I don’t think so, Paul. One thing I’ve asked you to do and you couldn’t give a monkey about it. ‘I’m not in the mood.’ I pull away mournfully. He lets go of me. ‘Fine,’ he says, evidently displeased by my rejection. He gets up and moves back to the desk he’s been sitting at earlier. He switches on his laptop, he has obviously better things to do than getting all concerned with my motherly crisis. I can’t help moaning though. The more I think about his attitude the greater my annoyance gets. ‘Why did you have to order coffee as well? We could’ve always gone back downstairs afterwards if you’d really wanted some. All I wanted to do was to talk to her for a minute, just to let her known we’re thinking about her. You knew she was going to go to bed quite early.’ ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Adi, she can’t even speak, she’s only a baby. You can’t be that stupid to believe she would even recognise your voice. So stop fucking whinging.’ I cringe on the bed. Why is he talking to me like this? ‘Go and find something to do, will you?’ he carries on ruthlessly. His eyes move back to the screen in front of him. ‘And stop bothering me.’ I stare at him in distress. I get up and shuffle towards the door. Once on the corridor I let the frustration come out and my foot kicks as hard as it can the skirting board edging the bottom part of one of the walls. The white paint covering the spot cracks and few flakes fall to the floor leaving a dark mark behind. I throw a quick worried look around hoping there aren’t any hidden security cameras spying on me. I stop downstairs in the reception trying to decide what to do. Going out on my own doesn’t really sound like fun so I head for the bar: a drink would probably calm me down. It is pretty quiet in there, it’s early afternoon and there are only few people seated at the tables scattered around the room. The speakers mounted along the walls are humming a silky, soothing tune of jazz. I move to the bar which looks pretty much deserted and sit myself down on one of the stools. I order a glass of white wine. The bar attendant, dragged back from his boredom, throws me a contented smile. I’m only half way through my drink when the bar gets animated by a second customer who asks for a G and T in a very strong Scottish accent. The familiar sound of the lingo turns my head in his direction and I can’t help smiling at the scene unrolling in front of my eyes. The bar attendant has panic written all over his face and the Scottish guy stares at him helplessly: there’s a communication problem going on over there. A G and T with ice and a wee bit of lemon is all the Scotsman wants, but the guy behind the bar looks as if he’s just been struck by thunder, he can’t understand a word of what he’s been asked for. ‘I think the gentleman wants a gin and tonic with ice and a thin slice of lemon,’ I step in in a very plain English, and they both throw me grateful looks. Once in possession of his desired drink the Scot moves over to where I’m sitting and asks if he can join me. ‘Sure,’ I smile encouragingly. I could do with a bit of company. He grabs the stool next to mine and thanks me again for my earlier helpful intervention. He finds it difficult to make himself understood around here and is really happy to have found someone who’s not put off by his accent. I smile sympathetically. He’s young, probably my age. He has dark hair and sparkling brown eyes attached to a very pleasant face. He introduces himself, his name is Steve. ‘I’m Adi,’ I say. He seems very easy to talk to. Less than twenty minutes and we already know lots of things about each other. He asks what the purpose of my trip to New York is and I tell him I’m in holiday. What about himself? He’s a tennis player, he’s here for the NY Men’s Challenger tournament. Wow, I’m impressed. Well, he acknowledges modestly, he’s ranked only number 86 in the world, it’s not exactly as if people would turn their heads when hearing his name. Then he asks about me, what do I do for a living? I’m an artist. I find myself telling him all about Max and his art gallery, and my two recent paintings Max’s put up for an art competition. If one of them makes it in the first ten I win a place to exhibit my work at the London Art Fair next year. It’s Steve’s turn to be impressed now. The glass of wine held in my hand and the friendly companion has already made me feel better. It’s good to have someone to talk to about your dreams and ambitions, someone who can understand. Paul has never expressed much interest in my work, he probably thinks I do it all just for fun. ‘Would you like another drink?’ Steve asks when he notices my glass is almost empty. Yeah, why not? I’m feeling good, I can see no harm in having another glass of wine. ‘I don’t suppose you’re here on your own,’ Steve says once the second round of drinks has been served. ‘I would love to invite you for dinner if you were.’ I laugh. He’s trying to chat me up now. ‘I’m sorry, no, I’m with my boyfriend.’ ‘That’s a shame,’ he smiles somehow disappointed. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,’ he says when he notices my embarrassed smile. ‘It’s just that I’m really enjoying talking to you and I would’ve loved to get to know you better.’ My just about to come out reply gets struck by Paul’s angry voice coming from behind. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ I turn around in shock. He’s standing behind my chair, hands in his pockets, staring at me furiously. ‘Nothing, just having a drink, that’s all. You asked me to find something to do so I have, I’m entertaining myself with a glass of wine.’ I throw an uncomfortable smile at Steve. Paul’s eyeing him coldly before getting back to me. ‘You’re entertaining yourself on my expenses,’ he says unimpressed. I wince hurt by the accusation, it’s not exactly as if I’d emptied his bank account, I only had a flipping glass of wine. ‘Come on, you’re coming upstairs with me. Now!’ Paul grabs my arm and forces me to get up. ‘Listen, mate,’ Steve interferes, ‘we were only having a drink and a chat, nothing else. No need to get so upset about it.’ Poor Steve, I don’t think he knows what he’s doing. Paul glares at him. ‘I don’t recall talking to you,’ he roars at him, ‘so stay the fuck out of it.’ Steve retreats, intimidated by Paul’s hostility. The few people sitting around are turning their heads curious, the dull atmosphere that has been lurking across the room until now is suddenly changing into an animated show, worth of attention. The guy behind the bar looks at us alarmed, unsure of what he is supposed to do. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ Paul pulls my arm trying to drag me along. I’ve never felt so humiliated in my entire life. It is fury that takes over the shock and makes me tear my arm away from his grip. ‘Take your hands off me, you fucking idiot,’ I hiss at him. Taken by surprise he lets my arm go, he certainly hasn’t expected me to dissent like this. I move away from him trying to ignore the pity looks following me out of the room. In the main lobby I hesitate for a second. It’s only when I find myself out on the street I bury my face in my hands and let the tears come out in loud angry sobs. I’m going home tomorrow, he can stick his holiday and his money. I’ll buy myself a plane ticket and go back to my baby. I fucking hate him!
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