The Post-Birthday World. Lionel Shriver
get it over with and fuck the bastard. Stop building it up into such a big deal and find out one more time that fucking is fucking. On this score, most men are fungible. Then patch things up with Lawrence. As for whether you tell him about it and have a big cry, or shove it under the carpet like a grown-up, that’s your call. But Ramsey is not a long-term prospect.”
“Why not?”
“For starters? Take what you said, about money. Sure, Ramsey’s made a lot of it. But according to Jude, it’s all very easy-come. There’s a corollary. She couldn’t believe how little there was to filch when they divorced.”
“She got a house in Spain!”
“Out of millions? I don’t know how much you know about snooker, but these boys make do-re-mi hand over fist when they’re on a roll. Why isn’t there more of it left? I’m not only talking about finance, but temperament. You go all the way to Roman Road so you can bring in your own bottle of red. You’re frugal. Ramsey? Is not frugal.”
“It could do me good, to learn to splurge a little. It has done me good.”
“Did you ever talk to Jude about what it was like to live with a snooker player?”
“Some,” said Irina defensively. “She moaned a lot. But she was prone to. As Ramsey says, she’s chronically dissatisfied. They were a bad match.”
“And you’re a good one? Go on the road with them, and you’re stuck in hotel rooms, playing with the tea machine. But they don’t want you to go on the road, not really. They like to play hard away from the table, too. And stay home, you’re a widow for the season, sitting there wondering how much he’s drinking, what’s up his nose, and who’s sidling next to him at the bar.”
“That’s a cliché.”
“They always come from somewhere.”
“Ramsey’s different.”
“Famous last words.”
Irina sulked over her spinach, and threw back another defiant gulp of wine. When the waiter silently opened the second bottle, she sensed his disapproval.
Betsy wasn’t finished. “If you’re seriously contemplating a future with this character, can we talk turkey? Ramsey’s, what, fifty?”
“He’s only forty-seven.”
“Big diff. Forty-seven, in snooker, is like ninety-five for everybody else.”
“Ramsey says that, when he started out, plenty of snooker players were only reaching their prime in their forties.”
“Times have changed. The superstars are all in their twenties. Ramsey’s slipping. You can count on the fact that he’ll keep slipping, too. Maybe it’s eyesight, or steadiness of hand, or just starting to get burnt out despite himself, but he’ll never get back to where he was. He’s never quite won the World Championship, and he hasn’t a snowball’s of winning it now. The point is, you’re getting the guy at the tail-end. It’s not the fun part. Sometime soon he’ll be forced to retire, unless he’s willing to publicly embarrass himself. Snooker’s his whole life, as far as I can tell. Retirement’s not going to be pretty. When I picture it, cognac and long afternoon naps feature prominently.”
“They almost always take up golf.”
“Oh, great.” Betsy heaped another spoonful of the neglected lamb onto her plate, eyeing Irina askance when she poured another glass of wine. “Listen, you must be having a rough time. But before you do anything hasty, try to be practical. Jude says he’s neurotic.”
“She’s one to talk.”
“I just want you to walk in with your eyes open. She says he’s a hypochondriac. That he’s superstitious and touchy, especially about anything to do with his snooker game. Expect snooker, snooker, snooker. You’d better like it.”
“I do like it,” said Irina. “Increasingly.”
“‘Increasingly’ means you didn’t give a shit about it before. But I get the feeling it’s not a fascination with snooker that’s driving this thing.”
“All right. No.” Irina had never tried to put it into words, and had a dismal presentiment that any attempt to do so would prove humiliating. Nevertheless, she’d give it a go. “Every time he touches me, I think I could die. I could die right at that moment and I’d leave this earth in a state of grace. And everything fits. No matter how we sit next to each other, it’s always comfortable. The smell of his skin makes me high. Really, breathing at the base of his neck is like sniffing glue. Slightly sweet and musky at the same time. Like one of those complex reduction sauces you get in upscale restaurants, which somehow manages to be both intense and delicate, and you can never quite figure out what’s in it. And kissing him—I should be embarrassed to say this, but sometimes it makes me cry.”
“My dear,” said Betsy, clearly unmoved; boy, was that speech a waste of time. “It’s called ‘sex.’ “
“That’s a belittling word. What I’m talking about isn’t little. It’s every thing.”
“It isn’t everything, though it seems that way when you’re drunk on it. Eventually the smoke clears, and there you are, with this guy downstairs hitting little red balls into pockets the whole day through, and you wonder how you got here.”
“You think it doesn’t last.”
“Of course it doesn’t last!” Betsy scoffed. “Didn’t you go through something like this with Lawrence?”
“Sort of. Maybe. Not as extreme. I don’t know. It’s hard to remember.”
“It’s no longer convenient to remember. Didn’t you two go at it hot and heavy for a few months? Or you wouldn’t have moved in together.”
“Yes, I guess. But this seems different.”
“It seems ‘different’ because right now you’re up to your neck in it. And meanwhile, there are traffic bollards in your head to keep you from getting at what it was like in the olden days with Lawrence. My money says it wasn’t different at all.”
“You think everyone goes round in the same cycle. You get all very giddy and infatuated at ‘the beginning,’ and then inevitably the fire dies down to sorry little embers. So in no time I’ll be having mechanical, impersonal relations with Ramsey three times a week instead of with Lawrence.”
“If you’re lucky.”
“I refuse to accept that.”
“Then you’ll find out the hard way, cookie.” Betsy’s eyes sharpened when they caught Irina glancing surreptitiously at her watch. “I’ll stand behind you whatever you do, because you’re my friend. And I promise I won’t say this again. Still, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t at least say it once. Lawrence may not be God’s gift to womankind. But—don’t laugh, this isn’t unimportant—he is a ‘good provider.’ He’s solid, and I’m pretty sure he loves you like all get out, whether or not he’s always able to show it. He’s the kind of man you’d want around in a flood or an earthquake, or when some hood is breaking into your house. Icing on the cake, he’s a caustic, irreverent son of a bitch, and I like him. I’m not saying that a girl doesn’t gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Just because if you leave him you’ll break his heart doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow your nose—literally, from the sound of it. But I think you’d miss him.”
“And, in the other event, wouldn’t I miss Ramsey?”
“I don’t doubt that cutting this thing off right now would probably feel like hacking off your arm. But it would grow back. You’ve been with Lawrence, what, ten years?”
“Close,” said Irina absently.
“That’s like a bank account, steadily accruing interest. You are frugal. Don’t shoot