Sebastian Soper is a London based fiction writer and poet, with a background in the visual arts.

 The following is an excerpt from a work in progress, which tells the story of a couple in a struggling marriage failing to communicate effectively.

contact:  sebastian.n.soper@gmail.com

_____

I Have Definitely Made Things Worse

My wife is sitting on the roof with a glass of wine, and her cigarettes, talking to a younger man on the telephone. She is laughing; she is having fun up there on the roof, with her wine, cigarettes, and telephone – none of which I object to. The younger man I do object to in principle but am in fact not sure that he exists, so stating my objection would clearly be a mistake, could even be considered cause for concern. 

Sitting below in my studio, I suspect the younger man on the telephone of existing. I am perhaps only two or three metres away, directly underneath April, but I doubt she is as interested in our corresponding positions in space as I am. The window is open, I can hear only the odd word, but her laughter is clear and sharp. Each time she laughs it is like I am arriving at a wild place I knew as a child, but the land has been developed, and I am no longer permitted access.

I know what I should do, in the futile way I often know. I should go downstairs and make myself some toast or turn on the TV for a while. Pacify myself until this performance is over. I don’t, of course. I sit, not working, not drinking my wine. Just letting the sparks of language from above me light fires in my head. Many small fires, the kind I have spent the last six years learning how to extinguish.

We had an argument on the Underground platform today. I don’t know how it started, or what it was about exactly. I think I had done something wrong; had made a navigational error and delayed our journey. I doubt the argument was really about that though. It was, I think, about how upset we had become at becoming upset about something. That is the danger of trying so hard to tolerate someone, while trying even harder to be tolerable oneself.

We had been miserable for a few days already. I had been miserable first – or that’s what she maintained – then she had become miserable too, either in solidarity or as retribution.

Three or four months ago, April stated her need to be free to see other people. We had always thought of ourselves as a modern couple. Mutually consensual affairs had, theoretically, always been on the table. We had fantasised about it, anticipating how allowing each other such freedom would testify to the depth of our mutual trust in a powerful and exciting way. Playing with the idea of it, how it would breed a new kind of lust between us. 

We had not previously acted on that freedom which we assured each other. I hadn’t at least, that much I knew. The act itself had not seemed important, and no opportunity had seemed opportune enough. Perhaps I didn’t dare to invite her version of such acts. Maybe I was waiting for someone who would come right up to me, kiss me, and start undoing my belt. As it turns out, people don’t tend to do that. Come up to married men, kiss them, and start undoing their belt. Not men like myself at least; not men who look scared.

So her statement that she needed this freedom was then a statement of something else instead. It was a statement that she was not happy. She stated it again soon after, this time without the coding. She said simply, as we walked home from a restaurant one night, “I’m not happy.”

She was not happy. How could she be happy with a man whose reaction to being seduced by another woman would be fear? Anything but fear.

*

It is Tuesday, I am alone at home as usual. Work is eluding my attention, and the studio cannot contain me. On days like this I tend to divide up my time occupying different poses around the house. 

I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, picking at black heads in a trance-like state. I twist towards my own reflection until my neck is sore, and peer down at my chest with an unattractive tucked in chin grimace.

I pace about, inspecting the joinery of the bookshelves and kitchen cabinets. I walk out onto the balcony, look out across the rooftops. A flock of something like sparrows flutters into view. About twelve or fifteen of them. They loop back on themselves, and all land on one television aerial, touching down nearly simultaneously on its various metal protrusions.

 I am passing the time, and passing time is not a pleasure I afford myself in good faith. I am striking a pose; acting out a kind of stoic ideal, to myself and to anyone who might see me up there on the balcony. 

Inevitably I indulge. I eat four rows of chocolate with my third coffee. I dress myself in one of April’s summer dresses. I decide to allocate a portion of the day to masturbation. 

The bed covers are recently laundered, and the white cotton is fresh and a little crisp still. I am seeking a closeness with April in her absence, in the absence of her closeness. I have a sparse collection of photos of her scattered about my phone’s gallery, some semi-compromising, but none as compromising as I would like in these moments. 

Even this has become food for insecurity: why has she only ever sent me photos in which she is fully revealing herself with her head cropped out? Has there never been any trust in our relationship?

There is one photo in which she is half undressed, still undressing. Forever undressing, and never revealing anything more. I settle on this image; she has that look in her eyes that I haven’t seen in a long time.

I feel a warmth in myself for foregoing pornography in favour of images of April. It feels like a loving gesture; a compliment paid through my most primal actions, proving its own veracity. To choose an uncropped image, sacrificing such excitements as her headless and touching herself in a Greater Anglia train carriage toilet, gives extra merit to my private show of affection.

*

I do get brave sometimes. It’s a novelty I enjoy, and I find alcohol can help in finding this bravado on occasion, but it’s not a trick that works every time. We are going to a party, so I mix a drink while we get ready. We don’t go out often these days, so I need to get a little brave just to remember how – that’s my excuse for this evening.

For a long time now, leaving the house together only ever happens like this: April says she is going to something, kind of offhand, as an aside. Then I have to find a way to invite myself along too, like I’m not too bothered either way.

If I fail to invite myself, she will be angry, and there will be an argument while she is getting ready. Sometimes there is an argument because she acts like she wants to go alone, and I get insecure about it, thinking this time she really doesn’t want me to come.

Tonight, we navigate this ritual with relative ease. The party is at the house of one of April’s artist friends: Cecille, whose work I really endeavoured to appreciate the last time we went to one of her private views. I strained myself to cultivate a sympathy for it, standing in front of a given piece for many minutes and willing it to move me. 

I am not looking forward to this evening. My bravado has yet to show, but I am trying to make an effort for April’s sake. Unfortunately, I sense that she anticipates my lack of enthusiasm; she seems to believe I am even more resistant than I really am.

I ask April as we sit in the back of the taxi, how it is that she has more artist friends than I do. She points out that I prefer losing friends to making them and therefore the odds of her holding that title are in her favour. We don’t bother saying much else on the journey, it seems that most things that can be said between us in the back of taxis already have been.

When we arrive, it turns out most of the other guests have been there for several hours, and some people are preparing to leave. A couple takes the opportunity of our arrival to slip out past us as we hang up our coats in the hall. They tell April how sorry they are that they didn’t get a chance to talk. They keep moving in the direction of the door, and the girl reaches out both arms in April’s direction like she is being carried off against her will.

April is annoyed, and perhaps embarrassed. She has a way of holding her shoulders when she is upset, a sign of tension which I recognise as I follow her into the living room. Clearly there has been some mix up about timing or the nature of this party, but I take comfort in having played no part in our organisation or timekeeping this evening. 

We used to make jokes about being fashionably late, taking hours to get ourselves ready. Drinking glass after glass of wine, delaying each other at every false start, before falling in through the doors at the height of whatever it was. It was not always healthy behaviour, but we never hesitated, we always knew our lines in those days, even if our lines were slurred and senseless.

Things have got off to a bad start here, and I jump at the offer of wine perhaps a little too enthusiastically. April shoots me a profoundly humourless glance.

In a bad mood April runs on automatic in social situations. I find her remarks a little cringe worthy but scanning the modestly intoxicated faces it seems everyone else is happy enough to give her the benefit of the doubt.

I stand, sort of behind April, a little outside the huddle. Cecile appears beside me and presses a glass of wine into my hand. I thank her, and our eyes meet very briefly. She has beautiful tired grey eyes, an ‘old soul’ as the cliché goes; she has a mother’s eyes, she has MILF eyes. She stays there at my shoulder, also at a slight separation from the group. I feel a pulse of teenage excitement in my stomach, sensing her body beside me as we politely turn our heads towards those speaking. I feel that there must be a purpose to Cecile standing where she has chosen to stand.

Soon I am doing what I usually find myself doing at parties: skulking. This is the whole reason I don’t enjoy parties, so often skulking seems to be the only available activity for me, while everyone else is tripping over each other with things to say and people to say them to. Conceptually I like parties, it all seems like it should be a lot of fun, but in practice it’s never like that. It’s often just wondering about looking for the most natural spot to have a sit down without looking like a suicide risk.

Tonight, I am skulking with intent. It is not as bad as skulking with existential anxiety, I have a purpose, a target. I have misplaced Cecile, ever since she disappeared from the kitchen-dining room some fifteen minutes ago.

I peer casually up the stairs. I loiter by the sitting room door. I wander back out onto the terrace for the third time. There she is, on her own. Sitting on one of the folding wooden chairs, her wine glass poised in her thin hand, raised at a decadent, slightly outward leaning, vertical from the armrest.

I walk over. She is staring out into the darkness beyond the garden, at the tops of the trees or the sky just beyond. There are no other chairs nearby, so I crouch down beside her. She keeps looking out into the night and takes a sip of her wine. I rummage desperately in my head for something to say

‘Are you okay Stephen?’ she says, finally breaking the silence.

I reply ambiguously. I don’t want to say I’m not okay, but I don’t want Cecile to think I am entirely okay.

‘How are things between you and April?’ she asks.

I share some of what’s going on, trying to explain how hopeless it all is, like I’m some kind of martyr. I am overtaken in this moment with a sense of possibilities beyond my current life, possibilities like Cecile; her eyes holding whole new and wonderful futures.

‘Well, tell me if there’s anything I can do to help you feel better’ she looks at me again.

This is going well I think, as I prepare the right sort of coy reply that might subtly suggest the kind of thing which might help me feel so much better. 

Before I find the words Cecile gives me one more flash of those eyes and gets up from the folding chair. I reach up from my crouching position and take her hand as she makes a first step towards the double doors and the murmur inside.

She stops. I find my balance and raise myself up beside her. I pull her hand and turn her towards me, her head follows her body after a delay. This is the moment where something else should probably be said… or perhaps not. I lean in towards her darkened face.

‘Stephen,’ Cecile turns away, ‘I think you should go and see if April’s alright.’

I stand there. She crosses the terrace and disappears into the lighted interior without looking back. I turn my back to the house and look out at that patch of darkness above the trees. I groan quietly into my wine glass.

After some time, I go back inside and skulk some more, firmly planted in existential angst this time. I do find April, and sidle up beside her, but she doesn’t seem at all interested in including me in her conversation, so I skulk off again.

Eventually, after I’ve managed some small talk with another man for a while, I notice April in the hallway with Cecile. She is putting her coat on. I down my wine and make my way to join them. They hug and April is walking out of the front door by the time I get there.

I’m confused for a moment, but Cecile’s expression makes it clear that she is waiting for me to follow April’s example. I put my shoes on hurriedly while she stands there, momentarily forgetting how to tie my shoelaces. I try to say a flirtatious goodbye, but Cecile’s eyes look far less inviting in the bright light of the hallway than they seemed earlier on the dark terrace.

April is sitting in the back of the waiting taxi, with a hard expression on her face. I say something stupid about being touched that she hadn’t driven off without me, and then we proceed to once again say nothing.

By the time our cab is navigating the familiar streets of our borough the tension is getting the better of me. 

‘Did Cecile say something to you?’

April tips her head back against the headrest, eyes shut.

‘No. Cecile did not say something to me,’ 

I can tell I have definitely made things worse. Maybe if I had kept my mouth shut, if I had avoided confrontation like any sensible person, it would have blown over by the morning.

‘Cecile said, goodbye, thanks for coming, how lovely it’s been, she gave me a long hug… I fucking saw you!’ April’s eyes are alight now. ‘I saw you on the terrace! I looked out of the window, and do you know what I thought?… I thought – oh look my husband is making an effort to be sociable with my dear friend Cecile – and I was happy, I was looking out of the window, and I was happy.’

There is a rushing silence as we stare at each other. I feel a pang of terror sweep through me, I feel suddenly nauseous. It is dawning on me that I might have made a mistake.

‘Come to think of it, that was probably the highlight of my night, looking out and seeing you actually talking to one of my friends…’ There is more silence. ‘But you weren’t just being nice for once, were you? you weren’t trying to be sociable… you were trying to fuck her.’

 I stare at April’s handbag, where it lies like a dead thing at her feet. 

‘But,’ I say – and I am aware that I should be very careful now not to make things any worse – ‘I thought you wanted us to see other people?’

*