Rachel Wolcott, Fact & Fiction

A feast, and all it implies—indulgence, abundance, copia—is but a prelude. A luscious meal is in itself foreplay, a period of anticipation and desire, to a succulent coupling. Even the colossal Henry VIII, who moved though his kingdom assisted by hoists and pulleys, was not inhibited by a complete meal at court comprised of ten sides of beef, four sheep, eleven swans, thirteen herons, fifty partridge, nine peacock, one hundred fifty squab, dozens of smaller birds, hares, rabbits, fifty hogsheads of claret, one hundred pounds of apples, pears, apricots and peaches. This mammoth managed to wipe the spittle and debris from his beard and call for a whore. I imagine his servants used an elaborate system of heavy cords and levers to rock him over a frightened girl, her legs spread and eyes shut.
You, too, were a glutton.
I was fond of olive and caper tapenade, and even now I associate it, remorsefully, with our pre-coital meals. At the time you, my lump, were consuming every bit of pate, mango, pear, runny brie or whatever the specialty of the day was at the local gourmet shop. You complained about my olive taste. You said I was too salty and claimed you had a violent aversion to capers. You challenged me to describe precisely the essence of a caper and before I could respond that they were infant berries preserved in brine, you sat back in your chair and told me a story about the horrible caper soup that every Sunday as a child, your grandmother force-fed you. Apparently, this experience traumatised you.
“Buds,” you said. “Puss, they are flower buds or berries. Silly puss and you call yourself a gourmet.” Once, I said I was fattening you up to be a Christmas goose and you called me Puss. After that I was Puss, Pussy, or Puss-Puss.
I pretended to sulk and pout while I spread more tapenade on a baguette wedge. You were making smackereling noises over a cold herbed roast chicken and I noted to myself that you were getting awfully fat. I was certain I detected another chin and a hit of a fledgling roll of flesh falling over your loosened belt. Your bulk was not what I would describe as obese, but you were indeed voluminous.
Your wife, whom I had never formally met, was away most of that summer nursing her elderly mother who, I believe, had suffered a stroke, though I never did bother to ask. I thought it more appropriate to be indifferent to any emotions but my own and you did not seem to mind one way or the other. You never referred to her by name. She was simply “my wife”.
Occasionally in June, your wife called during our bouts of lovemaking and left maudlin messages on the answering machine. She loved you. She hoped you were eating all right. You did not let on that you had heard her and afterwards I would go into the garden, laugh and pick her flowers to take home. In the late spring, I had indulged in her peonies. A neighbourhood gumshoe could have learned my true identity had they followed the white petal trail to my doorstep. Later in the summer, it was mid-August, just as the tiger lilies were finishing if I remember correctly, she began calling in the mornings instead, by which time I was getting ready for work and couldn’t overhear your conversations clearly from the bathroom.
I did not think myself any better than your wife, though I did think her an idiot for being devoted to you, the corpulent churl. Each morning when I left, you smiled and thanked me, your bass voice brimming with a contentment suggesting I had gained something in the transaction. To you, I was nothing but a temporary receptacle, someone you thought you owned. You told the neighbours I was a sister who looked in on you in your wife’s absence. I had fresh bouquets—lilacs, fairy roses, corn and coneflowers, irises—all through the summer. Mornings I strolled to the train station, which was nothing more than a corrugated shack by some rusty tracks, with a sheath of posies under my arm, the blossoms bobbing along in the dewy air.
When your mother-in-law finally died, your wife returned to a husband who had not grown noticeably fatter, but had acquired a fresh repertoire of vices, the most outstanding of which was gluttony. Sloth ranked a close second. Especially after a meal you appeared to ooze rather than walk. Your behaviour, so obviously altered, was a signal of your faithlessness. Though I was not there to see the expression on her face, I imagined your wife might not notice the change. Perhaps she would assume that after having been deprived of her mothering it was indeed natural for you to revert to savageness, having lost your social graces as a consequence of her neglect. She would throw herself vigorously into the task of taming you once again; never suspecting another woman was behind your corruption. I’m sure it took much more effort on her part to recover you, than it did to strip you of your domestic sensibilities. It was not characteristic of you to deny any urges.
I only came out to you in the suburbs a few times a week. I prefer my concrete habitat, although I did envy your lawn. After we made love–as you quaintly called it–while you slept or watched television, I lay in the grass and stared at the sky. If it were dark I’d watch for fireflies or falling stars. You had an elderly maple tree where the phosphorescent insects congregated and blinked listlessly among the darkened leaves. On weekend afternoons (It’s stunning how quickly humans can fall into routines), while you lounged in the air-conditioning and watched baseball, I sat beneath that tree and read the newspaper, soaking up the ground’s dampness, being distracted by the tiny bugs hopping or crawling across the newsprint and, absurdly, wondering what types they were.
Sure that you would be doing nothing I called you one evening. I was on my own at my apartment in the city, in a way recovering and attending to the business of my life.
“I’m cooking for myself,” you said.
“What is it? Anything I showed you?”
“No of course not. I’m making pasta.”
“With red sauce?” I asked.
“What do you think? I’m a guy, aren’t I?”
I laughed. Alone you were a fairly unsophisticated beast. “I thought you liked the steak au poivre,” I said. “That’s easy.”
“It’s easier when you make it. Why are you calling? It’s because you want me isn’t it? Well, too bad Pussy. I want to be alone tonight. Maybe tomorrow you can come over. You can come can’t you?”
I told you I might have a work-related event to attend, but would let you know my availability. This news had you fairly seething in disgust.
“Don’t play with me Pussy. Tell me what you’re going to cook for me.”
“Pigs in blankets,” I said and laughing again I hung up. You were convinced the rest of my life was a fabrication, a pathetic attempt to make you jealous. Even a summer cold was nothing but hypochondria designed to evoke your sympathy.
“Don’t expect me to play Florence Nightingale, Pussy,” you had told me.
Before we started eating and sleeping together, we had met casually several times when your wife was present. We were reacquainted ordinarily enough over cocktails with a mutual friend. I stirred my martini and sized up your potential as a lover. You drank beer. Later that evening you arrived at my apartment and informed me you were taking a break from your marriage, but did admit your wife did not know about the hiatus.
“So why not divorce?” I asked.
“Because she loves me,” you said.
You were so brashly full of yourself, I suppose I thought it was amusing, though I don’t recall why. What I really think I found attractive about you, which was awful of me, was that you were married. Though, reflecting, I suppose mistresses, adulteresses, courtesans and the like all find that aspect of their various men appealing. Except, perhaps the silly ones who believe the lout in question will leave his wife. But those women are of a different breed, certainly to be pitied. I also had an idea that ultimately, you couldn’t make any demands on me. We would grow bored with each other and conveniently forget about the indiscretion. I also liked the idea of deceiving your wife, who by all reports was an utter angel. In fact, I loved that idea.
There were few pictures of you, the happy couple around your house, not even a wedding photo. Your wife had a collection of dainty porcelain and glass slippers, which spread over the fireplace mantel and an end table. There was one I found particularly loathsome, a yellow and green show painted with flowers and toy bears. I couldn’t conceive of why she collected these trinkets or the pleasure they brought. Her chintz sofa was so incredibly demure I could not bring my sullied self to sit upon it. The kitchen window overlooked your wife’s meticulously kept herb garden where all the plants were marked by ceramic placards as carefully placed and as appallingly darling as the ceramic shoes.
As part of our clever ruse, you and I never rode the train together. The train was unreliable and the journey was becoming reluctantly routine. At least once a trip the train stalled causing the lights to cut out, making reading a book or the evening paper difficult. It didn’t take long for the cars to overheat and my clothes to stick to my body. At these moments, crammed in the with perspiring commuters in the dingy grey car, I uneasily reminded myself you were nothing but a bad habit. I mapped out your foibles, mocked your patchy brown hair, your masculine helplessness and your generally uncouth demeanour.
This evening the train stopped and sat on the tracks for almost an hour. A basket of potent cheeses was at my feet; their over-powering aroma sent me off to sleep for ten minutes or so. I awoke, my head feeling as heavy as a sun-warmed stone, and began to imagine how our final encounter would play out. I presumed your wife’s mother would pass on at any moment. Though you never felt inclined to mention anything related to her condition in my company, through others I learned the woman was slipping away. I pictured a wasted quasi-corpse in a hospital bed surrounded by flickering machines recording the penultimate moments of her live. Your wife sat at the bedside engaged in some kind of handicraft project, looking up periodically to see if the old woman was still there.
I decided the affair would simply implode under the weight of its own lethargy, like an abandoned building that has outlived its usefulness. Nothing would remain but a harmless cloud of dust. Or we might quarrel, blows would be exchanged and I would return to my sphere of influence slightly bruised, vowing never to leave the city again. No matter how the denouement came about, I took it as a given. I knew our relationship, if it could be called something so formal, would not last and had been planning my life without you. Europe appealed to me.
Looking out the train window, I continued my fantasies and for a moment permitted myself to believe our situation was not temporary. Each evening I would ride the grey train through the misty summer air, past the endless car parks lit with orange fluorescent lamps emitting humid halos. I would bring baskets of roast meats, bunches of fresh tarragon and thyme, and other heavily scented victuals. We would grow immense together—you a hearty Bacchus and myself a fecund Gaia. As this mental narrative progressed, I felt queasy. Looking into our future was like peeping through a curtain at a carnival sideshow. You laugh at the display supposing it to be a hoax only to realise with profound horror you are staring at a deformed human specimen that was very much alive.
The train lurched forward and slowly gathered speed. I went out onto the small platform between cars to cool off and let my sodden clothes dry out a little. I began to feel less disgusting and headed back to my seat. It was going to be another 20 minutes or so until I reached your station. I was planning a rant. I was hot and tired and it was getting late. I was wasting so much time on this damn train, pissing my life away providing you with a catering service. How had I been duped into this role? I never even offered to pick up sandwiches for my work colleagues when I went out for lunch. I realised I was a complete fool.
By the time I detrained, I had worked myself up into a state of profound agitation. I decided to forget you, forget dinner and head home. I had one image in my head and that was of me asleep in my own bed, alone between my cool white sheets. There is a train timetable pinned to the side of the station and while I studied it to see what time I could catch the next train home, I saw you waving and smiling. And of course, you weren’t greeting me. Your wife had just passed me on the platform. She quickened her step, obviously anxious to see you. I admit watching you and your wife embrace then walk over to your car. You did not carry her bag.
For thirty seconds after you and your wife drove off, I was pleased to find myself handling the situation very well. I felt nothing and believed the numbness was a signal not just of my strength but also of my apathy toward you. I sat down to wait for my train, thinking again of my white sheets.
Thirty-three seconds after you left the station reunited with your beloved wife, I began to cry. I had lost you. I continued sobbing, clutching my basket of now horrible smelling cheese, for the entire train journey. People stared at me, but no stranger approached me to offer comfort. I have never felt so self-conscious in my life, and each time I tried to calm down to regain my dignity, sadness bubbled in my chest and exploded outwards in a howl.