Woman Last Seen(61)
Daan keeps me busy and amused. He always has a bunch of ideas about what we could do, how we can spend our time. It stopped me thinking. I did things with Daan that I’d never have done with Mark. I don’t mean in bed—both men got fairly equal attention there. Or at least, both men got what they wanted there. I mean, I have had different experiences with Daan. I’ve been places, heard stories, met people, seen countries that were beyond Mark’s and my reach, or even imagination. Daan and I are a busy couple. Always occupied. It’s tricky to pin us down for a dinner or theatre date. Our schedules are booked up for weeks in advance. Maybe, if Daan’s personality type was closer to Mark’s, I might have had more time to think about what I was doing. To regret it. As it is I have been too busy for regrets. Being busy is a lot like being fulfilled.
Daan wanted a big wedding too, but his vision was nothing like Mark’s. It was impossible not to compare. Daan didn’t want a marquee in the garden, kids running around, wildflowers in jam jars, he wanted something sophisticated, oozing London chic. He had a number of friends who had married a year or so before we got engaged; the wives in those fresh couples rushed to give us recommendations on the hippest venues, the most sought-after florists, dress designers and pastry makers. Daan’s friends are all extremely stylish, they are the beautiful people that run the sort of Instagram accounts that terrify the rest of us. However, they were friendly enough with me from the off, they seemed delighted that Daan had finally found someone he wanted to marry. There is no doubt in my mind that before me, he’d been what my mother would call “quite a womanizer”—he’d never been in a relationship longer than six months. Daan’s friends gave me the impression that, before we met, he was the sort that bobbed and weaved in and out of many lives, avoiding the punches, leaving nothing worthwhile behind. He never wanted to be tied. He didn’t like to make plans that reached forward into the future, a future he wasn’t prepared to gift to anyone. But, by the time we met, that must have been quite exhausting for him and frustrating for his friends. Not to mention heartbreaking for all the women who had fallen in love with him and yearned for more. His intrinsic independence meant he didn’t want to be caught. I suppose that is why my repeated absences worked for him. He also didn’t want children. So my barrenness worked too. When we are polishing our meet-cute story—bringing it out in company and burnishing, buffing it—we don’t tell our friends about the joint or the sex acts in the disabled toilets.
I don’t tell them about the other husband.
“So eyes across a crowded art gallery?” they ask.
“Gallery steps to be accurate,” I reply with a smile.
“How romantic.”
And it was romantic.
His friends were delighted that he had found someone he was prepared to change his ways for, and that he’d chosen someone who appeared down-to-earth, normal. His female friends placed soft, manicured hands on my arm, squeezed conspiratorially and whispered that his exes had all been high-maintenance or shallow. They thought he had grown up. Picked wisely.
They had no idea.
Thinking about it now, all this time later, I suppose Daan sensed in me something not quite reachable and he found that fascinating. Some men always want what is just out of their grasp. I offered him a perfect blend of intimacy and detachment that most clever people find intriguing. He likes my tight bodycon dresses that say I want his attention, combined with my laissez-faire attitude and general abstraction that suggest I don’t—or at least if I do want it, I don’t need it. I am a challenge. Or I was. I wonder what I am now? A disappointment. A regret. A failure. Daan doesn’t like failing at anything.
You can meet a lot of people, spend a lot of time with them but still not know them. They do not know you. Sometimes that is the aim. Daan is a talker. He tells stories constantly. His whole life is divided like a book into chapters. His sporty school days, his idyllic family life, his interesting time at Harvard, the wild party years. The anecdotes all ooze a sense of accomplishment and happiness. They are well rehearsed, often recited but still chime with sincerity. His life has been blessed, fortuitous. Until meeting me, I suppose. I know one hundred times more about him than he will ever know about me. I wonder how this chapter of his life will be served up in the future. The period when his darling wife went missing, was torn from him, or perhaps the time when he imprisoned his bigamist whore of a wife. Although, who would he tell that story to?
26
Daan
Friday 20th March
“Oh, Mr. Janssen, it’s you.”
Daan freezes. He is not in the mood to chat to anyone and certainly not Alfonso, the officious concierge. Daan would prefer to keep all interactions with Alfonso brief and at the main reception desk. How can he explain being on the back stairs of the building?
“You’re still here, Alfonso—it’s late. I thought you’d have clocked off,” Daan says with a tone he hopes is full of bonhomie and ease, and does not betray the levels of stress he is under. Both men glance about. The back stairs are not dirty; they are befitting of the luxurious apartments, so the walls are painted and there is decent-quality coir carpeting, but neither man expected to see the other and can’t help being a little taken aback. Feeling vaguely wrong-footed.
“Heading that way,” Alfonso replies.
He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Daan always rushed home from work Monday to Wednesday when he knew Kai would be waiting for him. He tends to linger longer in the office on a Thursday and Friday, clearing admin until someone suggests a drink or something. Daan has never considered Alfonso’s home life. Now he finds he is curious about how other people live, manage. How they negotiate their way through intimacy. Until very recently Daan thought he had everything on lock, that he knew more than the average person about being a successful man. Now he just feels like a bloody fool; the humiliation burns inside him. Who does Alfonso return to of an evening? How does he spend his weekends? Daan thinks back to the rare occasions that he and Kai spent the weekend together. He would book exquisite restaurants, get great seats at the theatre, sometimes arrange for them to go backstage and meet the stars, because often he knew someone who knew someone, and those sorts of things were within his grasp. He would tenderly make love to her. Kissing her body over and over again, almost worshipping it. He thinks about how excited he always was about those precious weekends, how hard he worked to make them perfect from start to finish, certain that he was treating his wife, indulging her, rewarding her for all the time she devoted to her ailing mother.