Things We Nearly Knew Read online

‘How’s Arlene, Davy?’

  ‘She’s good.’ Pause. ‘Far as I know.’

  ‘Gone away somewhere for a while?’

  ‘Possibly. I can’t say. Haven’t seen much of her recently.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘Will we be seeing her again?’

  ‘You’d have to ask her.’

  ‘A little difficult as she’s not here.’

  And that was that. Goodbye, Arlene. We had no idea what had happened. Davy wasn’t saying more than he needed to, and he didn’t need to say anything. It was no one else’s business.

  I had a friend who got divorced after a few years of marriage. He and his wife had been childhood sweethearts, inseparable since they were knee high, and therefore cursed by the world’s expectations, their own included. They would have been friends for life if they hadn’t married. That’s not the point I’m making, however, although it’s interesting as a by-the-by. The point is that this guy had loads of pictures of his wife, as a kid, as a teenager, on their wedding day, in married life: dozens of pictures, in frames and in albums, scattered around the house.

  When they divorced, he destroyed the lot of them. The frames were saved, because he was a skinflint and they might come in handy for wives two, three and four. He placed the images of his ex-wife in a pile in the garden and invited some of his friends round. His male friends, I mean; I’m not sure he had any other kind. He cracked open a few beers, poured barbecue fuel on the photos and had a bonfire. I’ve seldom seen anyone look so happy. If you can have referred pain, I imagine you can have referred murder.

  I didn’t approve of this behaviour, and said so. I told him he was no better than the Soviets, changing their street names as soon as someone fell out of favour, pretending that yesterday’s hero had never existed. I didn’t expect him to keep framed pictures in the house. That would have been masochism. It was the wholesale destruction I objected to, and the belief that if you destroyed the image, you destroyed the person, and thereby any role they might have played in your life. You shouldn’t rewrite history, in my opinion. Things that happened, happened. Things that didn’t happen, didn’t happen. Maintaining a distinction between the two is fundamental.

  I’m getting distracted here. What I wanted to say is that Davy’s attitude to splitting up with Arlene was reminiscent of my friend’s attitude to his ex-wife. If Davy had photos of Arlene, they’d have been destroyed also. She never happened, thank you very much. Did you say the two of us had an affair for several months? I don’t think so. Where’s the evidence for that?

  In any case it didn’t last, Davy’s odd behaviour over Arlene. How could it? He was a hothead at heart. Soon after my surreal conversation with him, normal Norman reverted to normal Davy. He scowled in one evening and sat at a table with a beer, acting as if he was morose. That’s because he was morose, but he was also acting it. He wanted everyone to know he was morose. He was doing method school of morose.

  I stood a few feet away, hands on hips, Marcie style, and smiled at him. Not a big smile. What I thought was a sympathetic smile. I was hoping to have achieved the right compromise of attitude.

  ‘What are you staring at?’

  ‘Want another beer, Davy?’

  ‘I can ask if I do.’

  ‘Shall I set up a drink for Arlene?’ That was provocative on my part, but I don’t like to be treated that way by anyone.

  ‘Shithead.’ Davy slammed down his empty glass, got up and stomped out of the bar. A few seconds later we heard the screech of the wheels. The tyres were method acting too. Some joker went and put ‘My Guy’ on the jukebox.

  The next evening, Davy came in as if nothing was wrong. He sat at the bar with Nelson, and the three of us exchanged the day’s news. Some people feel awkward after an outburst and want to make amends. Others behave as if it never happened. Davy belonged in the latter category.

  ‘You guys will be seeing a lot more of me now,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Arlene’s gone.’ We had the official confirmation. It’s hard to describe Davy’s demeanour as he said that. There wasn’t any feeling in it. The previous night he’d been angry. Now he was . . . I don’t know. Indifferent.

  ‘That’s tough,’ said Nelson. ‘Did the two of you have a bust-up?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. She just went. Left a note to say she was going, and went.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘She said she was going to Indiana. Gone looking for Jack again. Maybe she has; maybe she hasn’t. I haven’t a clue. Don’t know where she came from. Don’t know where she’s gone.’

  If Arlene had left Davy a note, she’d left it at Davy’s place, unless she’d pushed it under his car wiper. We hadn’t known where Arlene and Davy used to go when they left the bar. We assumed it would have been his apartment, but it might not have been.

  ‘Where does she live?’ asked Nelson.

  ‘I never found out.’

  ‘You dated for three months and you don’t know where she lives?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you ask?’

  ‘Of course I asked,’ said Davy. ‘Asked her where she lived. Asked her whether she was married. Asked her where she came from. Asked her the same questions you’ve asked, and got the same responses.’

  ‘So you don’t know her any better than we do,’ said Nelson.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. In some respects, I know her very well. It’s just that I don’t know the answers to those particular questions.’

  ‘I never liked her,’ said Nelson. ‘Too tarty for my taste.’

  That was a dumb remark in any circumstance. It was also bullshit, given Nelson’s own attempt to pick up Arlene. I braced myself for Davy’s reaction and calculated whether I was fit enough to get over the bar and separate them, if it came to it. It didn’t come to it. Davy didn’t rise to the bait. I wondered if he was under sedation.

  ‘She’s not tarty,’ said Davy. ‘She looks it, I grant you, but she’s not. In a way, she’s quite strait-laced. There’s something old-fashioned about her. She belongs to more innocent times.’

  Marcie chose that moment to join me behind the counter. She sometimes comes down in the evening if there’s nothing to watch on TV, especially when there’s gossip around. Her antennae are tuned that way. Mike came in about the same time and I filled them both in on the evening’s news. Nelson was in the middle of telling Davy he was well out of it.

  ‘You may be right,’ said Davy, ‘although I can’t see how you’d know.’

  ‘I’ve lived a bit,’ said Nelson.

  We’ve all lived a bit. Davy as much as Nelson, and Marcie and me more than both of them. It doesn’t make you wiser if you’re not wise to start with, and Nelson had no reputation for wisdom.

  ‘You saying that Arlene’s gone?’ Mike sounded puzzled.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Davy.

  ‘Well, she hasn’t gone far. I saw her in town today.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘That’s a first. Whereabouts?’

  ‘She was getting out of her car near the Carradine Motel.’

  I tried to remember who I’d told that Franky was staying at the Carradine. No one, I thought. Only Marcie and myself knew. And Arlene, of course. None of the others reacted to Mike’s news.

  ‘We haven’t seen the last of Arlene,’ said Nelson.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Davy didn’t seem animated at the prospect, merely curious. ‘Is that what you think, Marcie?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Marcie. ‘Sometimes a wildcat comes back to the same farm. Sometimes not. We’re acting as if this is to do with you, Davy. Maybe it’s to do with Jack.’

  ‘Well, she’s certainly got us talking about her,’ said Mike. ‘If that’s what she wants.’

  ‘Who knows what Arlene wants,’ said Davy.

  ‘You seem pretty calm,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Davy. ‘I appreciate you saying that.’

  ‘A lot calmer than
last night,’ I said, in case he’d forgotten.

  ‘Yeah. Well. I’ve had a day of anger-management therapy now.’

  ‘What does that consist of?’

  ‘It’s a cut-price therapy,’ said Davy. ‘One part punch-bag at the gym. One part tranquillizers. One part crate of beer. And an ice pack afterwards. It works great.’

  ‘Must really help with self-knowledge,’ said Nelson.

  ‘What the hell would you know about that?’ I don’t know how you put a smile into a sentence, but Davy put a big smile into that one.

  ‘I reckon I’ve got it worked out,’ he went on. ‘Figured it to a T.’ He nodded his head several times to show that he agreed with himself. We weren’t nodding. ‘Went down to the gym this morning. Had a real good workout. Came back and lay on the sofa with a handful of beers and the pills, and figured it all out.’

  ‘What did you figure?’ asked Marcie.

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I need to be more assertive,’ said Davy. ‘Not aggressive. Assertive. I’ve been confusing the two. I’ve never known how to be assertive before now. That’s why I get aggressive. That’s why I hit people.’

  ‘You still hit people?’ I said. ‘I thought that was just your calling card when you first came here.’

  ‘I’ve always hit people,’ said Davy. ‘I’ve come to expect it of myself.’ He shook his head slowly. Maybe he was now disagreeing with himself.

  Davy had been half standing, elbow on the edge of the counter, and half sitting, backside on the edge of his high stool. Now he slid off. The elbow was the first to lose tenure, followed by the rest of him. The stool collapsed behind, and Davy collapsed on to it. He was out for the count, briefly. I fetched a jug of water and splashed it over his face until he came round.

  ‘You should take care of your surfaces,’ he said. ‘A good lawyer would make mincemeat out of this joint.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Marcie.

  ‘Yeah. Now where was I?’

  Davy was not all right. I didn’t think he’d done himself serious damage, but he was not all right. I can usually spot the warning signs with the regulars. Drink takes each of them in a different way, but it takes them. Davy was the hardest to spot. He’d give the impression of being sober until the moment he hit the ground. It had happened three or four times in the past. Each time it caught me by surprise. I should learn to pay attention to his calmness: it’s not natural to him and it means he’s smashed.

  ‘It’s time to go home,’ I said.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Davy. ‘I’m fine. Just slipped, that’s all. Time for another beer, Mr Bartender, please. And one for my good friends here.’ He waved his arm in the general direction of Mike and Nelson.

  These are the moments I dread. I’m happy to take anyone’s money most of the time, but the job comes with responsibilities, and one of them is not pouring alcohol down the throat of someone who’s already had too much. I didn’t know how Davy would take that news. The short fuse seemed to have lengthened a few feet in the last day, but I didn’t trust it not to shrink again without notice. I wasn’t sure it was wise for Davy to go home, although I’d suggested it. Who could tell what he’d ingested in the past twenty-four hours? Perhaps he should go to the hospital, as a precaution. I dread decisions like these too. I’ll take them for Marcie, just as she takes them for me. But other people ought to take their own decisions: that’s how I look at things. Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable with that, and then I get confused.

  ‘Davy, old friend,’ I said. ‘You’ve spent the day on the booze and the pills. You’ve banged your head on the floor. I can’t serve you another drink.’

  Davy considered this refusal for a moment. ‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘I’ll go home.’ He took the car keys from his pocket. Marcie looked at me, hands firmly on hips.

  ‘I’ll take you back,’ I said.

  ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘Yes, there is. I’m taking you.’

  I was still expecting an argument, but it didn’t come. Davy resisted each suggestion once, as a reflex response, then submitted to it. I put an arm around his shoulder and we wove our way through the swing doors and into the parking lot. I slid him into my car and we set off. I knew roughly where he lived, but not exactly, which was as much as he knew at the time. Eventually we came to an apartment block a little way from the town centre and Davy decided this was the place. Having dropped the keys twice, he let me open the door for him.

  I’ve been to the homes of a few of my regulars over the years, but not many. Sometimes, Marcie and I like to imagine the places where they live. It’s rare to get the opportunity to see if we’re right or not. In this case we were right in principle, but hadn’t foreseen the scale of it. The place was a wreck. Food cartons and beer cans lying around; a couple of chairs on their backs; stains on the carpet. The place stank too, of old grease and sweat. It hadn’t got that way in the space of a fortnight. I couldn’t help noticing a smashed photo of Arlene in the corner. And one of another woman, not smashed.

  ‘No place like home,’ said Davy.

  He surveyed the scene in silence, a long pan shot round the room and back again. My eyes tracked his and then met them.

  ‘Did the two of you have a fight?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Did you ever hit her?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘How did the place get like this?’

  ‘I’m not the tidiest,’ he said, ‘and I chucked a few things around last night.’

  ‘Can I use the bathroom?’

  ‘Sure. It’s through there.’

  I didn’t need to use the bathroom. I wanted to see it, and the bedroom too, if I could. Both were in a similar state to the sitting room.

  ‘Want a beer?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Davy already had one and was popping a couple of pills.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘Make yourself at home.’

  ‘I can’t stay long. Can’t leave Marcie and Steve alone on a Saturday night.’

  ‘Don’t see why not,’ said Davy. ‘Get on like a house on fire, those two.’ He looked around his apartment. ‘Go on. Say it.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Tell me this place is a dump.’

  ‘Did you bring Arlene here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘To a motel.’

  ‘Whose idea was that?’

  ‘First off, it was Arlene’s idea. I went along with it for . . .’ Davy surveyed the room again. ‘. . . for obvious reasons. Then it became a habit. It gave us an equality. I didn’t know where she lived, and she didn’t know where I lived. It made us feel we were two strangers, meeting for the first time in a cheap motel, having an illicit affair. We liked that idea. It turned us on.’

  ‘Which motel did you use?’

  ‘The Albany Lodge,’ said Davy. Not the answer I was expecting.

  ‘Where did Arlene go in the mornings?’

  ‘She didn’t wait till morning. She left in the night.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Always. I did too. When she’d gone, I got dressed and came back here.’

  ‘Where did you think it was going?’ I asked. Davy looked at his beer can and said nothing. ‘Did you think it was going anywhere?’

  After a long silence, Davy answered. ‘I don’t think anything’s going anywhere,’ he said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure what it means. I think what it means is that I’ve been treading water for the last two years. Maybe that’s all I’ll ever do now.’

  To listen to him, you wouldn’t think that Davy was dosed up with booze and tranquillizers. He was more lucid than most sober men. However, I didn’t feel his presence in the room. He was someplace else, with me peering through the win
dow, trying to discern where that place might be. His voice acknowledged my presence; his eyes did not. They were fixed on a point where two walls met the ceiling, three planes colliding in cracks to the plasterwork. Much the same as Arlene had done on the bench at Coney Island, only her horizon was wide and distant, and Davy’s was close to home, or to where home had once been.

  ‘I should be getting back,’ I said. ‘Do you reckon you’ll be all right on your own tonight?’

  ‘I guess so.’ His eyes were fixed on the cracks.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you then.’

  That wasn’t the end of this story. Two weeks later, in mid-July, Arlene came back. Doors swung open, and an orange coat, black purse, lipstick and attitude slunk in. She waltzed up to Steve at the counter, ordered a vodka Martini and asked if Davy was around. Within a week, the two of them were back together.

  Horses with three legs sometimes win races, I suppose, if the other runners forget to pitch up. The odds of this reunion happening were on a par with that. It was the first time we’d seen Arlene since the split, although we’d seen plenty of Davy. We’d also seen plenty of Franky. The two of them, Davy and Franky, had spent a few long evenings talking in a corner of the bar. Since Marcie and I suspected Franky of having designs on Arlene, and the other way about, and since we had surmised that the two of them might already be an item, this was strange to say the least. We debated whether to warn Davy. As usual, we decided we wouldn’t. We knew nothing for certain. Experience said that poking our noses into the affairs of our customers was never a good idea.

  We got the impression that Franky was the prime mover in these conversations. This invited the usual question as to his motives. Davy seemed to have no suspicions on that score, but Davy didn’t know Franky as well as we did. He told Marcie that Franky had been a real help in getting him over Arlene. He told her he found Franky easy to talk to, which was true enough. He said that Franky was one of the few people to take an interest in his life. That was surely untrue. Davy believed it.

  I remain perplexed by the episode. In many ways, I am more perplexed by it than by anything else in this story. It doesn’t make sense to me. Most of the time, you take educated guesses about situations, and the guesses prove educated enough to have got a college degree. Not this time. Marcie and I never understood the two-way flow between Davy and Franky. Nor the three-way flow when Arlene joined in. I suppose, sometimes, you have to accept that there are things that you don’t know, that you don’t understand, and that you’ll never figure out. Whatever lay behind it, Arlene and Davy were back together.