“You can buy a synthesizer,” she told him, “but you never buy anything for me. When was the last time we went anywhere? We’ve never been on holiday in the last eighteen months. I can’t remember the last concert we went to.”
“What do you want?” He said he had asked her. “All I want is to be happy.”
“Are you happy like this?” He said she had said.
“Yeah, I am. What about you?”
“You mean, am I happy?”
I have since asked myself the same question.
* * *
Rolf had split up with Julia three months before anything happened between us. He had grown tired of her constant demands for attention and complaints about him spending money on musical equipment. I was attracted to him, but only in passing. He was attached. That it developed surprised me but I thought everything would be OK. Working together we seemed able to intuit one another’s thoughts. Where would the complication be?
That I am kind is not difficult for me to acknowledge because I think most people are, provided there is no major inconvenience to them. When Rolf asked me if he could move in because of the trouble with Julia, I agreed. I did not even have to think twice. It would be easy to get more work done if we lived together.
“You’re a life saver,” he told me as I helped him carry his marimba up the stairs. It was a great time, musically speaking. We managed to complete demos for our third album, apart from the horns section. We played the brass parts on synthesizers as guides and erased them after having session players come in to redo them live. The album was finished two months ago and will be released next week.
* * *
The night when we got together was not all hearts and flowers, and perhaps we got together precisely because it was not. We had been arguing about filter levels on the drum loop of a song that was finally abandoned. He took it personally but this was usual. When Rolf likes or dislikes something he thinks that you have to share his opinion otherwise it is a personal attack. Because I had been working with him for so long I had no problems about this but now we were flatmates so it made things worse: with Rolf, if you disagree with something he sulks overnight and then he realizes that he has behaved like a child by the next morning. This time he was going to be around the flat, pacing.
“Coffee?”
“No. Something stronger.”
“OK. Let’s go out.”
We put our shoes on and got our coats.
Wine bars are not my idea of a good time. They are full of people who are happy to revel in mahogany furniture, elevator jazz and exceptionally expensive yet mediocre wines. Champagne drinkers are the worst. But on a Saturday night I did not want to encounter the binge drinkers who cause trouble before hitting the clubs where they copulate in toilets. So we sat in a wine bar on a Saturday night.
We spent a long time there; long enough for me to get wasted on Long Island Iced Teas. Eventually, I became more boisterous while Rolf became quiet and glazed. People looked at us. I looked at them. We decided to leave.
“Oh, shit,” I declared, drunkenly seeing the floor close up after a fall. Rolf picked me up, and his temper had all but disappeared; quite why, I wasn’t sure. It was only after he put me to bed and joined me that I realized exactly what was going on.
The morning after, I was scared. I was full of questions. Would it be like this all the time or would it be once and then over and done with, never to be spoken of again, allowing everything to be forgotten in due course? I had enough one-night stands in college to last me a lifetime. The same goes for so-called friends who never called me back. I went to the kitchen and made coffee like tar, thick, black and sweet, while I mulled over my situation. The worst that could happen, I thought, would be him leaving me and breaking the partnership. I was wrong: the worst thing that could happen would be him staying with me.
* * *
Julia turned up on my doorstep during the breakfast news on television one day.
“Is he in?”
“He’s still asleep.”
“I need to speak to him immediately.”
“You’d better come in then.”
I got Rolf from the bedroom. He came out while still fastening his belt around a pair of jeans.
“Oh,” he said.
“‘Oh’,” she said. “All you can say is ‘Oh’.”
“What do you want?” he said.
“It’s private.”
“I’ve got no secrets.”
“All right. I’m pregnant.”
I stood rooted to the spot, confused. I was not angry because I rarely get angry. I felt like an intruder in my own flat. There they were having a conversation that involved only the two of them but which concerned me. I almost threw up.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I told them. “Call me when you’re done.”
When I got back, Julia was gone.
“What’s happening?”
“We need to talk,” he said. People use those words when they want to talk about something the other person does not want to hear.
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. We’re good together. I told Julia I needed some time to sort things out. I have a really big favour to ask.”
That is how I ended up allowing Julia to move in with us. Rolf made a convincing argument: he never knew his father and he wanted to offer his unborn child something he had never had. With Julia living with us he could make sure she was taking good care of herself during the pregnancy and he could be together with me.
“Won’t Julia think this is all a bit weird?”
“Oh, she knows about you and me.”
“And what did she say?”
“It doesn’t bother her.”
* * *
Julia moved her things into the flat on a cold April morning. Both Rolf and I helped her. Even though I was reluctant to let her move in, I am nicely ordinary in the way that I cannot have a pregnant woman struggle upstairs with heavy boxes, bags and suitcases. Julia and I did not speak while doing this. When it was all over and done with, I made some tea.
“Thanks for letting me move in,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t let me. With a baby to take care of I’d have had to give up work and then I wouldn’t have been able to cover the rent.”
“Don’t mention it. Are you sure this isn’t a bit weird for you, what with Rolf and I…?”
“Not at all. I know it should be, but I trust you. I wouldn’t be able to trust just anyone to have an influence on the upbringing of my child.”
I let her move in. That was all. I did not want to have an influence on the way that she and Rolf chose to raise their child. At such an early stage in our living arrangement I thought to declare my intent of total non-influence would have been construed as me making an effort to be as difficult as possible so I refrained from doing so. This added to my discomfort.
If I was so dissatisfied with the way things were, why did I let her move in? Rolf would have been funny about things, leaving me bereft. I am not sure I would have had the guts to find someone else to work with and I do not think I would have had the confidence to work alone at that point, especially with the album only half finished. I would not have wanted him to leave me to live with her alone again. My confidence with relationships was low then and it would have proved to me that I cannot maintain a relationship for very long.
Almost immediately Julia was right at home: nothing in the fridge was where I had left it because now it was “properly organized”; the bathroom was overrun with creams, lotions, powders, solutions, syrups, gels and jellies. My home was previously unscented apart from CK One, coffee and the odd bottle of Merlot from time to time. Now it was perfumed with incense, air freshener and room spray. The only analogy I can make is with confectionery. When a company changes its recipe, it always promotes it as “new and improved” but there are an awful lot of people who liked the recipe the way it was before. My flat was already comfortable and to behave otherwise was just impolite, not asking first if it was OK. This new living arrangement was supposed to be futuristic and more evolved but I was happy with the way things were before.
Julia’s clothes littered the entire house, not just the guest room which became her room. The dining room was invaded by socks, sweaters discarded due to fluctuations in her body temperature, baseball caps and outdoor jackets. The hall played host to sixteen pairs of shoes: my respectable shoes, my old trainers and my new trainers; Rolf’s lace ups, loafers, running shoes and tennis shoes; Julia’s footwear colonized the whole reception area, from her pastel-hued running shoes in blue and pink, slip-on and lace-up Merrell hiking shoes, black Converse hi-tops and lo-tops, Salvatore Ferregano loafers in brown and black, Gucci slingbacks, and Prada heels. I do not know if this is an indication of me joining the moral majority, but I do not see why a pregnant woman would need to wear slingbacks or high-heeled shoes.
There were advantages to the situation regarding work. Previously we worked from about 11am until 9pm or so. When Julia was in the flat we kept slightly more ordinary hours. Thus our work lacked the laziness it previously had, where fastidiousness was sometimes neglected in favour of getting something finished at a decent hour. We were no longer awake at indecent hours. We had turned ourselves into something more disciplined. We started at 9am, stopping at noon so Rolf could take Julia to her antenatal class, and I ate lunch and read or listened to music, impressed by how pleasant it was to have time alone in the flat. They would come back and we would have tea or coffee (Julia avoided coffee on and off), and then get things started again. We finished at 6pm when Julia would serve dinner and I would silently forgive her habitual untidiness and myriad shoes in the hall.
* * *
Though I tried to be placid, Rolf noticed my increasing irritation, and usually he bore the brunt of it while we were working.
“No, no, no, no, no!” I would say about a synth figure, bass riff or even just an effect added to a part.
“What’s wrong with it?” he would ask. Usually there would be something wrong, like a ridiculously histrionic and showy sound. Sometimes it was just that I wanted to blow my top at him about the living arrangements and I know it is unreasonable but the only other thing I could have done would have been to tell him the real reason I was irate and that would have caused a lot more discomfort than I was willing to deal with.
Everything came to a head one night when I came home from a concert. Rolf had been tending to Julia, who had a cold. While I was at the concert I could not really concentrate upon the music because I was teeming with bitterness and distrust. However, I had felt bad about this because Rolf had said he really wanted to come but that he should stay home because Julia might have over-exerted herself otherwise. I was not scared that Julia would try to seduce Rolf, but that Rolf was already being seduced by what I could not give him: a child. All along, this had been what I was against; their sugary ideal centred on the family that allowed them to live with me.
Out of spite I stayed until the end of the concert. As I walked out into the chilly night, I was angry that I had paid a lot for the ticket, so not only was it expensive but a waste of time too. That I couldn’t enjoy the music was a spark. I wanted to make flames of my anger and revel in it. On opening the door to the living room, I saw them curled up on the sofa together, him with his head on her pregnant belly, with the gall to look serene.
“Wake up! Time to move out! Get your stuff, pack your suitcases and get out. I’ve had enough!”
“What’s got into you? Are you drunk?” he asked, rearing his mussed-up head.
“I haven’t touched a drop.” I had never felt elation such as this before. I suppose I had never really lost my temper since I was child. “Everything is clear to me now. Everything is perfectly clear. You don’t love me. You only love yourself. You want me because I run around after you, and you want the child but you can’t have both.”
“But what about me?” Julia pleaded dead straight in my eyes. “I’m going to have the baby in less than a month.”
“There are hotels. This one’s fully booked.”
“You are being so unreasonable,” he said.
“Me? I’m being unreasonable? That’s funny coming from you. You make the unreasonable request to have your ex-girlfriend move in with us. If you loved me like you say you would never have asked me about it in the first place.
“I only did this to make you happy but you never once considered my happiness. There’ve been the odd few Euros here and there but neither of you have offered any real money for gas, electricity, water or rent. I can’t believe you’re going to have a child when you’re both children yourselves.”
“Alright. You win. Give me until morning, at least,” were the last words he spoke to me.
It has been a week now since they moved out and now I have everything I wanted: Peace. No more tripping on strange shoes. I have confidence regarding relationships or lack thereof. My standards are higher. Friends provide company. The arguments of before are now silence.