BIRTHDAY AND CHRISTMAS

By Tim Parks

MARTHA said, `I'm just going into town.' 'On your own?'

'Yes, if you don't mind.'

'But how can I work then? Somebody'll have to look after the kids.'

'Right. You.' And Martha said, 'Oh, come on, Clive. It's Saturday, you don't have to work this afternoon. Let me go.'

'Well, if I have to look after the kids, why don't we all go into town together?'

'Please, let me go on my own.'

'But why?'

As if giving up on an idiot, she said, 'What day is it tomorrow?'

Her husband appeared puzzled, then smiled. 'Oh, my birthday.'

'Only your 40th, dummy. I wanted to get you something special.'

'But I don't want anything.'

'Oh, come on. What kind of attitude is that?'

'But really, I don't. It's such a waste spending money when you don't want any- thing. Especially with Christmas coming straight afterwards.'

'You don't want anything because you haven't seen what I'm going to get you.'

'Okay, all right, but please, nothing too expensive. Remember the overdraft.'

'Miser,' she said, smiling as she turned to go. 'Oh, and give the kids a snack or some- thing around four. There's yoghurt in the fridge.' She grabbed her sheepskin, handbag and car keys and was out of the door. But the conversation wasn't over yet. For as she walked round the side of their home to the garage, he poked his head out of the living- room window above her. 'The only thing I want for my birthday present,' he said, 'is you.'

She turned, unable to reply, so that for a moment the couple just stared into each other's eyes: the petite young woman with her bright, generous face; the heavier, bland-featured man leaning forward over the sill. Afterwards, climbing into the car, she rested her forehead on the steering- wheel, clenching and unclenching her fists, then thrust the key in the ignition and reversed out into the street too quickly, clipping a back tyre on the kerb.

She'd got about halfway there, driving fast under thickening drizzle, when she realised that she felt no joy at all. This sur- prised her. It came at once as a shock and an explanation. No, she felt no joy. Even selecting a certain special tape for the stereo did nothing to recover the excite- ment she had felt back in the summer. As she travelled rapidly into creeping Decem- ber twilight, she was constantly aware of having to cancel out the image of her hus- band's face at the living-room window. Yes, there it was, with its characteristic sulki- ness, its moments of dry humour and low- key tenderness, constantly there and con- stantly cancelled out, as the rain on the windscreen was now swept away no sooner than it fell.

Martha pushed in the lighter, turned up the volume on the stereo and sang along. As so often, she was conscious of putting off the inevitable showdown with common sense, yet all the same felt determined to go on doing so. Every few seconds she glanced up to the winking digital display above the windscreen where, quietly and steadily, the afternoon was being pared away. Acceler- ate! She passed from one suburb to the next, negotiated a series of side-streets in reckless haste, but only to get held up hunt- ing around for a meter. Could she take a risk? A ticket in this area would be hard to explain. She just beat a silver executive thing to a space being vacated on the right-hand side of the road. For a moment she thought the man might shout at her and so kept her head down as she sorted through change in her purse. A pound. Two. How long did she have? An hour was probably wishful think- ing. Pay it anyway. With a key kept in the innermost sanctuary of her purse, she let herself into a decaying Guinness Trust building opposite and heard the scrape of her heels echoing up the stairwell. Andy was

waiting at the door. ■■■• 'Peter's in.'

'Oh no! I thought you said...' 'He changed his mind. But he won't dis- turb. I told him more or less what the situa- tion was and he said he'd stay in his room.'

Nervously, she crossed the unwelcoming gloom of the sitting-room with its muddle of second-hand furnishings and stale smell. Radio chatter came from an only half- closed door to the left. Her unreasonable fear of discovery had her lifting a hand to an ear to hide her face as she passed. That was stupid. Nevertheless, as soon as they were in Andy's room and had drawn the curtains, they fell into each other's arms. For a moment Martha relaxed. They kissed and rubbed their faces together. But there was so little time.

'Oh, by the way, are there any shops around here?' she broke off to ask. On his narrow bed he already had her blouse off. 'Depends what you want.' He sat up and pulled off his own tee shirt to reveal a boy- ish chest. 'There's a chemist and a Paid shop at the corner of Wilmington Street.'

'Oh.' She looked at him.

What've you got to get?'

'Doesn't matter. But I better leave about half an hour before the shops close.'

`If you tell me what you want..

She silenced him with a kiss and pulled him down towards her. As she did so she was aware of doing this partly out of gen- uine and urgent desire, but then partly because she feared their lovemaking might go on too long. 'Andy,' she muttered, 'Andy.' She clutched at his hair. But just when they seemed to have got into their routine, he whispered, 'You know, I feel guilty sometimes.' He lifted his face a little above hers.

She was unsettled. 'But why?'

'I always just drag you straight into bed.' 'We have so little time.'

'Right. All the same, it makes it look as if that's all I want.'

'Well, I'm the one who always comes back for more.' She tried to laugh off his worries, though they were one of the most endearing parts about him. They conferred a sort of legitimising poignancy to it all.

'I suppose so.' Then he said, 'Sorry, I mean I understand how difficult it must be for you to get out and it just struck me I was behaving like a sex maniac, taking advantage.'

'Oh no, no,' and she offered her face, urgently now, small lips apart, eyes wide with such an expression of passion and sur- render that the couple very quickly made love. The small room was blissfully still around them. All the same, a glance at the plastic alarm-clock on a desk piled with books showed it was already a quarter to five. Suddenly she became aware of Peter's radio rapidly parroting out football results. And she felt guilty herself now to be simply getting up and walking straight out on this sensitive boy who loved her so eagerly. But the present had to be bought. It was the present that had enabled her to be here. Catching his eyes as her own returned from the clock, she felt much the same as when her husband had appeared at the liv- ing-room window — frightened and exhila- rated by her own duplicity.

'What's the matter?'

'I've got to go.'

'You seem so tense.'

'No, not really.'

He lay, head propped on an elbow as she dressed, his body long and lean and very young. Obviously he was upset that she was not more relaxed after lovemaking and that there was no sense of resolution; it was as if he had failed. He said, 'I don't know, I just keep getting this feeling that I've become more of a problem than a plea- sure.' His voice was very flat, giving her every opportunity to confess to this reality.

'No. But why?'

'The way you're acting. It's like we've run out of steam. We've got nowhere to go.'

'But no!' she exclaimed. 'Don't be silly.' In her underwear she sat on the bed and fondled his hair. She looked at him, his upturned nose and clear eyes. Then, with- out thinking, she said, 'Why don't you 'Are you the ghost of Christmas spending?' hurry up and get dressed and we can go shopping together and maybe have a coffee afterwards?' It wasn't what she had planned at all.

The nearest shopping centre turned out to be 15 minutes away, and then she had trouble finding a place in the four-storey carpark. Fortunately with it being nearly Christmas some of the shops would be open for an extra half-hour. Still, it was precious little time to find a present that would satisfy the expectations she had deliberately built up. Picking a way between wet cars, Martha found herself biting at a corner of a thumbnail. Not sur- prisingly, the carpark lift was broken; they had to walk down an exposed concrete staircase in a chill wind carrying the occa- sional flake of snow.

In the car, speaking of his imminent bar exams, of her most recent argument with her husband, they had felt close and com- panionable, and now, hurrying down these bare, foul-smelling stairs, she would have liked to have prolonged that intimacy by holding his hand or walking arm-in-arm, but she was inhibited as always by the fear of some thousand-to-one encounter with an acquaintance. She felt goose pimples pricking up her legs and was intensely aware of being unhappy.

But Andy had cheered up. He took a jump and hung on to a low beam above their heads, swinging his legs. 'God, I feel so terrific when I finally get away from those books! You know, I haven't been out of the flat since Wednesday.' Dropping down, he leaned over and tickled her, dig- ging fingers below her ribs. 'I feel so fresh and sexy.' She laughed and didn't want to tell him not to. At the same time it was the kind of thing, as they came through swing- doors into the main concourse, that made her extremely nervous, 'What are we supposed to be shopping for, anyway?'

She thought; she must be rapid and prac- tical. That would give her a sense of achievement. Making love to Andy and getting a super present for Clive, all in the space of two and a half hours.

'Anything exciting?' Andy asked.

'Just follow me.'

They walked past a small fountain with coloured lights. Christmas decorations were everywhere. Heavily laden old women occupied benches that were no more than squares of cement tiled over in ochre. The crowd pushed this way and that, swallowing up a Father Christmas distributing sweets. A woman on crutches was begging.

'In here.' Martha had found the main department store.

She looked at the floor guide. Sports equipment. Some gimmick for his golf? Too boring. Hi-fi? But he was such an insufferable expert in all these things. You got something and invariably he'd already had his eye on some better model. As for diaries, he was sent so many by his clients that they usually packed them up and gave them to relatives at New Year. After 15 years' marriage his taste in books was still elusive. You couldn't buy a video for him because he always said it could have been hired at a fraction of the price. And he was right.

Which left menswear. Third floor.

A rather vulgar girl's voice came over the public-address system to tell them the store would be closing in 15 minutes.

On the escalator, Martha bit her lip. Standing below her, Andy looked around playfully, pushing his head this way and that like a thief in a cartoon, sniffing the air, rolling his eyes about. Then, feigning immense care, he lifted her hand out of her coat pocket as if it were a wallet, raised it to his eyes to gloat, then quickly tried to stuff it down the front of his trousers. Martha pulled back, smiling wanly. The escalator creaked. Still playing the fool, he beckoned to her to lower her head so he could whisper in her ear. Taking just the swiftest glance around, she did so. Waves of freshly washed, scented hair fell forward to frame a face vulnerably precise for hav- ing been so meticulously cared for: the small, pointed nose, the deftly sharp lines of make-up around bright eyes. Gently tak- ing her head in his hands and lifting her hair so that his broad lips were right against her ear, he breathed warmly, 'Not to worry so much.' With the escalator sud- denly reaching the top, she stumbled and almost fell over. He grabbed hold of her, laughing, and pulled her up, quickly kissing her mouth.

'Andy!'

'People can fool around together without being lovers,' he said. His voice was frank and loud.

She didn't argue with this for fear he would attract attention. And where was the men's stuff? They seemed to be surround- ed by toys. The place was packed. She thought at some point so much tension must make something snap. She would go mad.

'You know, I really have a lot of fun when we come out together,' Andy was say- ing. 'I love it so much. Being around with you. So much better than when we just jump into bed and then you have to go.'

She wondered if he was telling the truth.

But now here they were. Jackets — for- mal, leather, synthetic — suits, shirts, socks, belts, sweaters; a hush of thick green carpet after the cackle and squeal of chil- dren. She stopped by the ties, another sen- sible housewife intent on the last-minute purchase.

'Oh, not a birthday present for Clive" Andy shouted. He seemed almost drunk, o: gleeful at having caught her out. 'So that's why you didn't tell me what you wanted.' And again he put an arm around her. 'How silly of you! Why should it worry me? Come on, what are you going to get? Fancy underwear?' He picked up a pair of boxer

shorts that had colourful condoms in trans- parent pouches around the waistband.

Martha felt lost. She'd forgotten she'd mentioned her husband's birthday. It had been part of the argument over whether they went to his mother's again this Sun- day, and she always told Andy about all their arguments, all Clive's unreasonable- ness. They were a kind of excuse. So how could she have imagined he wouldn't have guessed? I'm losing my grip, she thought. She looked at him, his boyish face, some- how the more loving the more impish it became. She knew he was just trying to make things easier for her and have her enjoy herself. So why did she feel so anx- ious? And why did the business of buying something for Clive, a task she should sure- ly have been able to handle on automatic pilot, suddenly seem so impossible?

Martha stood in the brightly lit space and felt quite nauseous with the heavy smell of new fabrics, the leathers, the tweeds. The truth was her husband needed nothing, wanted nothing and there was nothing she particularly wanted to give him or to see him in. Buying presents for him was just part of traditional family life, another ges- ture in the unending mime of the ordinary. I'll never escape it, she told herself. Do I really want to? But the impulses that would usually have taken her to one counter or another simply weren't there today. Martha stood still, bewildered. It was suddenly as if she had never been in a men's department or even a department store before. Then, feeling that she really might faint or perhaps, scream, she made a massive effort to pull herself together. She said, 'If you were getting a present for yourself, Andy, money no object, what would you get? Come on, we've only got ten minutes.'

He looked around, tried to be serious:1 doubt if I have the same taste as Clive.'

'In women you do,' she remarked rather coarsely. 'Anyway, why not shock him? You choose. Exactly what you'd like. Come on.'

He twisted his jaw to one side in mock puzzlement. `I'm afraid us students, y'know, are usually forced to buy what we need not what we'd like. I wouldn't have a notion.'

'I insist that you choose,' she said, with sudden forced brightness. 'I insist. I'm going to close my eyes until you choose a birthday present for my husband. I won't lifts finger.'

So saying, she went to lean against a patch of upholstered wall, put her head back, gave him one last horribly twisted smile and closed her eyes. When he tried to take hold of her wrist, she shook him off and, lips pouting, silently mouthed the words, 'You choose, damn it.'

Had he gone now? Had he gone off to choose? The space buzzed and hummed beyond her closed eyes. She concentrated inwardly, on herself. She had a sensation of sinking rapidly downwards through an expanse of warmth and darkness where deep colours alternated in the obscurity. It was at once strange and comforting. There was no fear of drowning, nor of striking any bottom, but rather as if somebody else were down here, welcoming her, someone who was the darkness somehow, gentle and suffocating. She thought: I have given up; I have given up all practical control over the situation; I am surrendering myself com- pletely to this strange world, this strangely powerful darkness, this calm panic that is always here, waiting for me, in the blood behind my eyelids. It really did feel like a person. I have closed my eyes in this shop, she thought, and I won't decide anything about anything. I won't decide about Clive, or about Andy, or about this stupid pre- sent, and least of all will I decide about the wisdom of my behaviour. I will just sink down into these soft layers of red, of mauve, of deepest emerald. 'I love you,' she muttered.

The same rather vulgar voice invited shoppers to take their purchases to the nearest cash desk.

Martha didn't move. She wouldn't open her eyes till Andy came back. But what if he had gone? Left her. What if he had cho- sen this moment to put her out of her mis- ery? Wasn't he being rather a long time? It was difficult to gauge time in this world behind the eyelids, in the embrace of this seductive inner dark. And, anyway, it didn't matter. Certainly she wasn't going to betray herself by looking at her watch. She would just go on blissfully sinking and sinking. The darkness was so oddly bright, so intense, so wonderfully empty. Perhaps even when she did open her eyes she wouldn't be able to see, wouldn't be able to feel, wouldn't ever be able to bother about anything again. She would have dissolved into the hum of this deepest, deep green inside her head.

A few moments later Andy and Martha were laughing about it at the cash desk.

'I thought you'd gone and hypnotised yourself or something. You know, I called you three times before you heard me. If I hadn't shaken your arm I think you'd have stayed there all night.'

'Oh, I have these trances occasionally. I was a witch-doctor a couple of lives back. Sometimes I turn myself into a hedgehog.'

'Not during sex, I hope.'

Trying to look austere and professional, a tired, acned young man was packing three garishly designed and very expensive shirts with deliberately clashing ties into a green plastic carrier bag. Pandemonium was the brand-name. Martha offered the boy her Visa card.

But on the way down the escalator, Andy said, 'Oh, damn!'

'What?'

'His size. Oh, I'm so stupid! You didn't tell me. I just went and got the size I always do. Quick, we can still go back and change them.'

Martha wasn't at all perturbed. Leaning down, very conscious of the surrounding bustle of the busy concourse, she whis- pered, 'Silly, didn't you realise the present was for you? I won't be seeing you until the New Year now. Happy Christmas.' Speak- ing, Martha let the tip of her tongue just touch his earlobe, and outside by the foun- tain, in full view of everybody, she engaged him in a long and very satisfying kiss.

'But...'

'Do you think,' she asked, 'I'd be so downmarket as to go buying my husband's present with my lover?'

Later, having grabbed a coffee and dropped him off at his flat, she drove slow- ly homewards along busy roads where great snowflakes now fluttered blindly against the windscreen like soft moths. And she wondered why she always did this. Why when the time had clearly come to end it, she always took another great plunge and raised the stakes? Martha stared at the snow. Why? There was affection there, but mostly it was pure self-destructiveness, and a furious hatred, she thought, of that mousey anxiety that formed such a large part of her character. But none of this real- ly explained it. Deliberately using the credit card, for example, for a purchase that would certainly raise eyebrows if her hus- band checked the bill when it came; why

had she done that? Martha couldn't say. Only she felt an extraordinary yearning and a willingness to cope with any amount of complications so long as this other thing could be kept alive. This adventure. Adven- ture in general. And though she couldn't have said why, she had sensed there, as she stood with her eyes closed in that depart- ment store, that if she didn't make some gesture now, if she let Andy stand by while she bought her husband's present, if she didn't show that she was wild enough to give whatever he chose to him, and to pay for it with her credit card, then not only the relationship — the relationship really wasn't important — but something inside herself would die. It was very strange, that feeling of having met someone behind your eyes.

Brushing snow off her coat at the front door, the garden around her already white, Martha had the feeling of having pulled off an important mission just in time, by the skin of her teeth. The emotion should just about tide her over till their next encounter.

Inside, Clive was valiantly bathing the two younger children. He had built an impressive castle out of Lego and made a tent in the sitting-room with blankets and chairs. Martha prepared supper while he got the kids into their pyjamas. Very practi- cally and quite happily, they went through motions they had performed a thousand times. A bedtime story was read, teeth were cleaned, Clive fooled around with Tommy on the hearth-rug, hot-water bot- tles were filled. Until, when they were on their own at last, she inquired, 'Go okay?'

'Oh, I had a good time. Once you've decided to look after them it's always fun.'

'I can never see why you complain so much.'

'No, you're right. And this marvellous present? I didn't see you bringing anything in.'

'Oh God' — she looked straight at him — 'you know, everything was so expensive, it's unbelievable. Plus the thing I was think- ing of had gone and sold out of course.'

He nodded, clearly relieved. Then, with mock petulance, he said, 'So what does old hubby get on his 40th?'

'Me,' she lied.

'You're not related to Gordon Brown by any chance, Ebenezer?'