Conversations with Friends(39)

Don’t apologise. It’s what I would have done if I had a spine.

I swallowed. Melissa turned off the tap and started to rinse the glasses in the basin, sloppily, with no particular care for whether they were smudged any more.

I don’t think I could have this next book published without her, Melissa said. It’s kind of mortifying to tell you that.

No, it shouldn’t be.

And I’m sorry for being so unreasonable this afternoon. I know what you must think of me. I just felt so anxious after everything that happened last year. But I want to tell you, I don’t usually speak to Nick that way. Obviously things aren’t perfect between us, but I do love him, you know. I really do.

Of course, I said.

She kept rinsing the glasses. I stood there by the fridge not knowing what to say. She lifted one wet hand and dabbed at something under her eye and then went back to the basin.

You’re not sleeping with him, are you, Frances? she said.

Oh Jesus, I said. No.

Okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.

He’s your husband.

Yes, I’m aware.

I kept standing there by the fridge. I had broken out in a sweat. I could feel it trickling from the back of my neck between my shoulders. I said nothing, I bit on my tongue.

You can go back and sit with the others if you’d like, she said.

I don’t know what to say, Melissa.

Go on, it’s all right.

I went back into the living room. They all turned their faces up to look at me. I think I’ll get some sleep, I said. Everyone agreed it was a good idea.

*



That night when I knocked on Nick’s door he had his bedroom light off. I heard him say come in, and as I closed the door behind me, I whispered: it’s Frances. Well, I should hope it is, he said. He sat up and put the lamp on, and I stood beside his bed. I told him what Melissa had asked me and he said she had asked him the same thing, but earlier, while I was outside being rained on.

I said no, Nick said. Did you say no?

Of course I said no.

The bottle of Sancerre was on his bedside cabinet. I lifted it up and worked the cork out. Nick watched me while I drank and then accepted the bottle when I offered it. He drained what was left of it and then placed it back on the cabinet top. He looked at his fingernails, and then at the ceiling.

I’m not very good at these conversations, he said.

We don’t have to talk, I said.

Okay.

I got into bed, and he lifted my nightdress off. I put my arms around his neck and held him very closely against me. He kissed the firm upturned bowl of my stomach, he kissed the inside of my thigh. When he went down on me I bit on my hand to keep quiet. His mouth felt hard. My teeth started to draw blood from my thumb and my face was wet. When he looked up, he said, is it okay? I nodded and felt the headboard nudge the wall. He knelt upright and I let my mouth form a kind of long, murmured syllable, like an animal would make. Nick touched me and I snapped my legs shut and said no, I’m too close now. Oh, that’s good, he said.

He took the box out of the bedside drawer and I closed my eyes. I felt his body then, his heat and complex weight. I held his hand tightly between my finger and thumb, like I was trying to press it down into some absorbable size. Yes, I said. I tried not to make it end too quickly. He was so deep inside me it felt like I might die. I wrapped my legs around his back, and he said, God, I love that, I love it when you do that. We whispered one another’s names over and over. Then it was finished.

Afterwards I lay with my head on his chest and listened to his heart beat.

Melissa seems like a good person, I said. You know, I mean, deep down.

Yeah, I believe she is.

Does that make us bad people?

I hope not, he said. Not you anyway. Me, maybe.

His heart continued to beat like an excited or miserable clock. I thought about Bobbi’s dry and ideological reading of non-monogamous love, and I felt like bringing it up with Nick, as a joke maybe, not being completely serious but just floating the possibility to see what he thought.

Have you considered telling her about us? I said.

He sighed, the kind of audible sigh that’s like a word. I sat up and he looked at me with sad eyes, as if the subject weighed on him.

I know I should tell her, he said. I feel bad making you lie to people for my sake. And I’m not even good at lying. Melissa asked me the other day if I had feelings for you and I said yes.

The palm of my hand was resting on his sternum and I could still feel his blood pumping below the surface of his skin. Oh, I said.

But what happens if I do tell her? he said. I mean, what would you want to happen? I don’t get the impression that you want me to move in with you.

I laughed and so did he. Although we were laughing about the impossibility of our relationship, it still felt nice.

No, I said. But she’s had affairs and she never moved out of your house.

Yeah, but you know, circumstances were very different. Look, obviously the ideal thing is that I tell her and she says, well go ahead and live your life, what do I care. I’m not even saying that won’t happen, I’m just saying it might not.

I ran my finger along his collarbone and said: I can’t remember if I thought about this at the beginning. How it was doomed to end unhappily.

He nodded, looking at me. I did, he said. I just thought it would be worth it.