That week I went to class every day and spent every evening in the library writing CVs and printing them off on the library printers. I had to get a job so I could give Nick the money back. I had become obsessed with repaying the money, as if everything else depended on it. Whenever he called me I hit the reject button and sent him texts saying I was busy. I said the scan was clear and there was nothing to worry about. Okay, he texted back. Is that good news? I didn’t reply. It would be really nice to see you, he wrote. Later he sent me an email saying: melissa mentioned bobbi moved out of your apartment, is everything all right? I didn’t reply then either. By Wednesday he sent me another email.
hey. i know you’re angry at me and i feel really bad about it. i would like if we could talk about what’s bothering you. at this point i’m presuming it has something to do with melissa but i guess i might be wrong about that too. i had the impression that you knew this kind of thing might happen and you just wanted me to tell you if it did. but maybe i was enormously naive about that and what you actually wanted was for it not to happen. i’d like to do what you want but i can’t if i don’t know what it is. otherwise maybe you’re not feeling well or something else has upset you. i find it hard not knowing if you’re ok. it would be really good to hear from you.
I didn’t write back.
Before class one day I bought myself a cheap grey notebook and used it to keep track of all my symptoms. I wrote them out very neatly with the date printed up at the top. It helped me to become more intimately acquainted with phenomena like fatigue and pelvic pain, which had previously seemed like vague discomforts with no particular beginning or end. Now I came to know them as personal nemeses which dogged me in various ways. The grey notebook even helped me to feel out the contours of words like ‘moderate’ and ‘severe’, which no longer felt ambiguous but definitive and categorical. I paid so much attention to myself that everything I experienced came to seem like a symptom. If I felt dizzy after getting out of bed, was that a symptom? Or what if I felt sad? I decided to be completist in my approach. For several days in the grey notebook, I noted down in tidy handwriting the phrase: mood swings (sadness).
Nick was having a birthday party that weekend in Monkstown, he was turning thirty-three. I didn’t know whether to attend or not. I read his email again and again while I tried to decide. On one reading it might give an impression of devotion and acquiescence, and on another it appeared indecisive or ambivalent. I didn’t know what I wanted from him. What I seemed to want, though I didn’t like to believe this, was for him to renounce every other person and thing in his life and pledge himself to me exclusively. This was outlandish not only because I had also slept with someone else during our relationship but because even now I was often preoccupied by other people, particularly Bobbi and how much I missed her. I didn’t believe that the time I spent thinking about Bobbi had anything to do with Nick, but the time he spent thinking about Melissa I felt as a personal affront.
On Friday I called him. I told him I was having a strange week and he said how nice it was to hear my voice. I rubbed my tongue against my teeth.
You kind of threw me with that phone call last week, I said. Sorry if I overreacted.
No, I don’t think you did. Maybe I underreacted. Are you upset?
I hesitated and said: no.
Because if you are, we can talk about it, he said.
I’m not.
He was oddly quiet for a few seconds and I worried he had something else bad to tell me. Finally he said: I know you don’t like to seem upset by things. But it’s not a sign of weakness to have feelings. A kind of hard smile came over my face then, and I felt the radiant energy of spite fill my body.
Sure, I have feelings, I said.
Right.
I just don’t have feelings concerning whether you fuck your wife or not. It’s not an emotive topic for me.
Okay, he said.
You want me to have feelings about it. Because you were jealous when I slept with someone else and it makes you insecure that I’m not jealous.
He sighed into the phone, I could hear him. Maybe, he said. Yeah, maybe, that’s something to think about. I was just trying to, uh … yeah. I’m glad you’re not upset.
I was really smiling then. I knew he could hear my smile when I said: you don’t sound glad. He sighed again, a weak sigh. I felt like he was lying on the floor and I was tearing his body apart with my smiling teeth. I’m sorry, he said. I’m just finding you kind of hostile.
You’re interpreting your failure to hurt me as hostility on my part, I said. That’s interesting. This party is tomorrow night, right?
He didn’t say anything for so long then that I was afraid I had gone too far, that he would tell me I was not a nice person, that he had tried loving me and it wasn’t possible. Instead he said: yeah, in the house. Do you think you’ll come?
Sure, why wouldn’t I? I said.
Great. It’ll be nice to see you again, obviously. You can arrive whenever.
Thirty-three is so old.
Yeah, I guess it is, he said. I’ve been feeling it.
*
By the time I got to the party, the house was noisy and full of people I didn’t know. I saw the dog hiding behind the TV set. Melissa kissed me on the face, she was obviously very drunk. She poured me a glass of red wine and told me I looked pretty. I thought about Nick shuddering into her body when he came. I hated them both, with the intensity of passionate love. I swallowed a huge mouthful of red wine and crossed my arms over my chest.
What’s going on with you and Bobbi? said Melissa.
I looked at her. Her lips were stained with wine, also her teeth. Under her left eye was a small but visible shadow of mascara.
I don’t know, I said. Is she here?
Not yet. You need to sort it out, you know. She’s been sending me emails about it.
I stared at Melissa and a shiver of nausea ran over my skin. I hated that Bobbi had been emailing her. It made me want to step on her foot very hard and then look in her face and deny that I had done it. No, I would say. I don’t know what you’re talking about. And she would look at me and know that I was evil and insane. I said I would go and wish Nick a happy birthday and she pointed out the double doors to the conservatory.
You’re in a bad mood with him, Melissa said. Aren’t you?
I clenched my teeth. I thought of how hard I could step on her if I put my whole weight onto the foot.
I hope it’s not my fault, she said.