‘An Arrangement’ by Tom Vowler

It is one of those late summer evenings in England – heady and languid. The garden’s drowsy scent marshals in me nostalgia for the dozen or so Augusts we have spent here, seasons laid down deep in the brain’s circuitry, more felt than known. Of droning bees, drunk on one of the colossal lavenders behind the old rockery, the day’s heat subsiding yet still irrefutable. I picture the summerhouse – where swallows nest each year, where we would converge as afternoons lapsed, to imbibe each other’s days – its exterior, I am told, in disrepair. And beyond this, quilted fields stitched with hedgerows of yellowing hawthorn, the sparrow-haunted rowan richly berried, fragrant walks that should have been more prized at the time. The radio said our summers will become wetter now. Last winter’s flooding will be commonplace as our climate enters a new phase, one we have cultivated, if the science is correct.

The low sunlight illuminating my wife’s shoulder as she sits at her dressing table is somehow both mellow and scalpel-sharp – some trickery of the new medication, I suppose, which, whilst inhibiting some of the pain, distorts reality a few degrees. She is precise in her movements, a well-honed routine to enhance a beauty that was, she insists, late to flourish and which is only now perhaps beginning to wane. Men age so much better, she is prone to say accusingly, although perhaps there is altruism here, in case on some level I am still preoccupied with how handsome or otherwise I remain. I want to speak, to deny the reminiscing further indulgence. Not because of her imminent departure, a vignette that has occurred monthly for the past year; but there is something to be marvelled at in this dance we are able to perform – it would be simple for her to get ready in another room – as if my involvement, albeit one of mere observation, is somehow vital, consensual. Some months she even solicits my thoughts on a particular dress, a combination of jewellery I think works best, and I advise with due sincerity, delicate in my judgement, fulsome in praise. Perfume, though, is her realm alone, as if it speaks to a level of intimacy neither of us can endure, its selection seemingly flippant, a final flourish of decoration rather than the olfactory manipulation it aspires to be. Whether she imparts more scent than the times we dined out together is hard to say; perhaps further adornment takes place in the taxi, a courtesy extended to me, one of several that have formed unbidden.

- You can ask me anything and I will tell you, she said at the start.

- I know.

And I have been tempted. Not from a rising paranoia or raging jealousy. More that I fear hearing such detail would arouse me on some level, allow a vicarious lust to play out. But I don’t ask. As lovers in our thirties, I would have tore open any such rival, or at least threatened to, confronted him with animalistic fury before collapsing a tearful wreck. Such confrontation is beyond me now, but I sense no real desire for it. I am not so naïve to mistake this for some Zen-like enlightenment, or worse still a Sixties openness to communal loving. I always wondered how that played out in reality, unadulterated by the rose-tinting of hindsight. Was everyone who partook accepting of such frivolous hedonism, the sharing of orifices and organs, or was homicidal behaviour only kept at bay narcotically?

- Are you okay? she asks. You seem distant.

- I was just thinking, I lie. Do you regret not having children?

This isn’t a fair question and could be construed as my attempting to mar her evening.

- Oh, darling, we’ve spoken about this.

- I know, but you might have changed your mind.

We were trying, right up until I became ill, which I suppose was rather late in life, at least for a woman. Careers had consumed us, the time never right. And then when it was: not enough blue lines in the little window. Tests showed no reason for our fallowness; it was simply a matter of perseverance, of sending enough seed swimming in the right direction. But the next batch of tests we endured – I endured – were of another order entirely.

- I’m content, she says. I don’t really think about it these days.

Absent of all segue she speaks of the dinner awaiting me, cauliflower cheese, that she’ll bring it in as she leaves. I make a joke about it being my turn to cook, but it’s an old, well-worn line and goes unacknowledged. 

- You’ve got your baclofen, she says.

- Yes.

- And you can take more naproxen at ten o’clock.

- All two of them.

Six months ago, when my mood found a new nadir, I began hoarding pills, with no more intent than to experience the sense of control it offered, some small reclamation of autonomy. Ever since she found them, their administration has been piously governed.

- You never ask me, I say.

- What you want for dinner?

- Whether I regret not having children.

She sighs, a minute outbreath escaping despite herself.

- Can we talk about this when I get home?

- Will that be before or after the sun is over the yardarm?

I can’t help myself. I don’t even feel the level of spite it implies; it’s as if I want to try it on – being a shit – like a jumper.

- I can’t cancel now. We agreed. If you don’t want me to go, you have to give me a few days’ notice. It’s courteous.

This word seems to me inappropriate, their arrangement requiring a more squalid lexicon.

- I want you to go, I say. I can sort myself out if you pass me some tissues.

- Please don’t be crude.

It’s true, I can just about, still – yet the thought fills me with weariness, the exhaustion of the thing, my mind the only reasonable place for sex to occur these days, and then only from habit. In the early years of incapacity we continued to make love, content in its gesture however unsuccessful the deed itself. And later, when this became impossible, she would use her hand, whisper lewd contrivances that led more to despondency than climax. Abstaining came wordlessly, a relief to us both.

And so my emasculation was complete. A man, in any true sense of the word, no longer. Whilst hardly the athlete, it has always been the loss of physical more than cerebral activity that I’ve felt more keenly. Who’d have thought batting at ten or eleven, plus eight overs of regulation off-spin for the village side ranked higher in my sense of worth than an associate professorship? Nothing like total debilitation to provide a little perspective. 

The blurred vision came at the end of a stressful week, where rumoured redundancies became reality, our department likely to bear the brunt, and so the early symptoms were neatly aligned with events at work. Medicine, I have learned, is a patient creature, never rushing to judgement, content in the knowledge time will out. And so a series of hoops must be passed through, each one narrowing, each one ruling out potential, less condemning causes. None of this was helped by my mild but well documented hypochondria, which in the end even I clung to. Tingling or numbness? Almost certainly nothing of concern, came the counsel. Fatigued? Aren’t we all. Even the disturbed balance prompted only rudimentary scrutiny, blood tests, talk of an MRI. But after the first seizure a neurologist thought it prudent to tap my spine for some of its fluid, a joyous procedure, which suggested my body, far from suffering the slings and arrows of modern life, had in fact turned on itself. Later a new vocabulary evolved: bedsores, converted bathroom, managing expectations.

My wife stands and checks herself in the mirror, turning ninety degrees left then right, a look of satisfaction rather than vanity.

- I’m sorry, I say, and she crosses the room, kisses my forehead, the Chanel still young, yet to blend with her own scent.

- If you’re awake when I get back, I can read to you if you like.

We are tackling my favourite Márquez, all 450 pages, most of which I won’t remember, at least not this time round. But the essence of the book lingers in the suburbs of my mind, and so despite my attention wavering every few lines, there is still pleasure to be had. Pleasure especially in the sound of the words, my wife’s voice a blend of honey and whiskey, a balm no painkiller can rival. I wonder what texts the students have been given this term, what anodyne classics have been selected for their enrichment, novels chosen by committee to illustrate technique or theme, rather than to delight in. A couple of colleagues visited in the early days, bearing gifts and conversations that groaned with formula, office gossip their stock offering. Better off here, they would say, away from it all. Certainly I was accommodated for in those final days at work. Reasonable adjustments, as they’re termed, were made as symptoms advanced: a parking space, pressure on fire doors eased, reduction of hours. I worked from home when possible. I knew all my work was re-marked, that I was just humoured in the end.

My wife moves the Márquez onto the bed, placing it in the space she will later fill, a promise of sorts. I smile, knowing the pills will render me beyond storytelling later tonight. In her absence I will listen to the radio, a surprising source of company that I’ve neglected most of my life. During the worst relapses, when mobility is nothing but fantasy, entire days can be built on the scheduling of programmes from around the world.

I try to remember the first occasion the matter of her taking a lover came up. Curious verb that, more something you associate with a hobby, the taking up of a pastime. Which lover would madam like to take? Have you browsed our online options? Just click Add to Cart. I know nothing of him, no particulars beyond a handful of unsolicited revelations: age (around ours), profession (middle management), marital status (widowed). So he at least waited, I thought.

- Just tell me he doesn’t play golf, I said. I couldn’t stand that.

They met at badminton, or yoga, I forget now. He knows the score, of course, knows our situation. Presumably they still interact at badminton or yoga, but dinner and its attendant digestifs are kept strictly to the second Friday of the month, the first couple of which remained platonic, if I read between the lines correctly. She used his name more, was how it started, the word registering subliminally until one day its utterance became frequent enough to jar. And then came the conversation, the one you never conceived of midway through your marriage vows or on honeymoon as you coiled and writhed and devoured one another. A mature tête-à-tête, one that addresses base needs, that purports to be pragmatic, but in itself is enough to crush you. There would be no question of anything else, we agreed. Our bond was beyond severing, half a lifetime’s narrative to this footnote, this loveless frisson. Like servicing the car, it helped to regard it. I could request its cessation at any time, and yet I have begun to cherish the mornings after, when she lies by my side and silently strokes my face deep into the day. It’s as if she returns in need of forgiving, though no such exchange takes place. And then it’s done for another month and I can almost forget about it.

She brings in dinner, checks I’m okay to feed myself, which sometimes I’m not.

- My taxi’s here, she says, and now I think about it I can hear the rapid tolling of the diesel engine, this vessel of sin, this transporter of goods. I wonder what the drivers think as they drop her off at the same restaurant, this woman who sports a wedding ring yet is always alone. Do they speak among themselves about this fare, about the house in the adjacent village they collect her from in the early hours?

- I will always have my phone on, she once said, in reference to my physical rather than emotional needs. If you text I will come straight back. He understands this.

Very good of him.

When sufficiently strong I like to revisit in my mind our first few years together, conjure as vividly as possible our trip to Tuscany, to the Lakes, moments within moments kept alive by their rehearsal, my senses fed sound and colour and smell, words re-enacted. Done well my mind can even trick itself, escape its cage for a few minutes. I remember the time I fell in love with her, the exact second as new lovers in our twenties. We’d taken a small cottage on the Gower, and out walking one morning came across a table of free-range eggs for sale, below which was an honesty box. We had no money, but the thought of cooking up those eggs for breakfast was all we could think about. I suggested we just take some, that worse crimes happen all the time, but she insisted we write an IOU note, posting it in the box. After we ate them she walked back the few miles to settle up.

My wife kisses my cheek, tells me not to get in to any trouble while she’s out.

- I plan to have an ASBO before you return, I say.

She’s almost at the bedroom door when I speak again, the words sounding so plaintive they almost disgust me.

- Eat with me tonight.

She looks hard at me, gauging the words, my face, to assess if it’s still part of the banter. I lower my head like a child asking to take a puppy home.

- Please.

And we remain there in bloated silence, the spoils of a marriage charging the air between us, giving it voltage, and as I stare down at my stricken being I want to say I am still me, the same collection of particles and molecules and memories, still more than this shape-shifting abomination can ever reduce me to. I am more than the sum of my broken parts and I thought I could share you but I can’t. 

Instead I ask her if this year’s swallows have left.

From issue #3: autumn/winter 2016

About the Author
Tom Vowler’s debut story collection, The Method, won the Scott Prize and the Edge Hill Readers’ Prize. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels What Lies Within and That Dark Remembered Day. He edits the literary journal Short Fiction and lectures in creative writing at Plymouth University. His second collection of stories, Dazzling the Gods, was published by Unbound in 2018.