The Importance of Gestures

Joan's antique suitcases line the wall, dozens of them, maroon and brown and beige and grey. Fruits of her obsession with ebay.

The cracked green case closest to the door was a present from me. I look at it now, remembering her face when she opened it. I saw it shake her, that feeling that thrills us all, that someone knows us, can choose us the perfect gift.

I watch a mushroom cloud exploding outwards on my small computer screen. As it starts to retreat back into itself I move my face closer. I'm trying to understand that there are worse things that can happen to a man than this.

The nuclear montage has been posted by Hang_Bush_666. Joan showed me this site when I still thought I would go back to the office, when I needed things to do while my back improved. I acted unimpressed.

Now it's hard to stop and I can't help wondering who's actually doing the work these days. It can't be anyone with access to the Internet. Not that I blame them. Who wants to chase up Tony in accounts when you can watch Saddam swinging to his death?

My daughter told me that looking at YouTube! is a sackable offence these days. It's written into her contract at the council.

I open a new window and click into my Facebook account. I feel incredibly sleazy, even though I only ever look at Joan's page. Maybe that's why I feel sleazy.

I have other 'friends' so I look normal, but I never 'talk' to them. I just requested people that looked sad or lonely or untrustworthy. People that might accept me. It depressed me how many of them sent personal messages.

When I realised I had to get Joan's permission to look at her page I edited my profile, including my friends. I made sure the ratio of white to non-white and male to female wouldn't rouse suspicion. I deleted some of the less subtle women. Remembering something my granddaughter had said once, I added a photo.
"Only paedophiles have no picture on Facebook," she said casually and I wished she was less comfortable using that word.

On Facebook, I'm Brian McKeith, a middle aged teacher from Ulster. Brian McKeith is actually a boy I went to school with. I hadn't thought about him for years. The name just popped into my head. He joined St Anthony's late and on his first day wet himself. He tried to mop it up with his school blazer but everyone noticed. I made up a nickname for him. I didn't use it, just told my friends to make them laugh, but it soon caught on. And stuck. Pissmop McKeith. Pissmop for short.

I remember being proud of that nickname because it was multi layered. If you got close enough to Brian McKeith he did actually smell of piss and his dad was the school caretaker. So it worked on two levels. I always wondered if anybody realised that but never dared ask. Eventually the name stretched out to include his dad: Father Pissmop. The McKeith's were Catholic.

Brian McKeith died a few years ago and Jonny Atkins had to remind me who he was by using the old nickname. I didn't go to the funeral. I suppose it doesn't matter now.

Joan bustles down the stairs in the new way she has developed. Since retiring she has transcended all sense of purpose into her movements. She bustles and hurries where she used to ponder and dawdle. Music follows her down the stairs, out of our, or what used to be our, bedroom. It's a female singing, probably young, probably beautiful. She's singing about being released. It sounds like Amy Winehouse or the new one, Duffy.

When I mentioned the influx of female singer songwriters Joan took the defensive straight away.
“Girls are much freer now, Peter. They don't leave the making to the boys anymore. They don't just aim for being somebody's girlfriend.”
I rolled my eyes at her and she misunderstood.
“You can roll your eyes, but it's all changing. You're a dying breed and us girls aren't going to be held back anymore.”

I scoffed at that: us girls. Like she was included.

The truth is Joan is a victim of a scam. It's not her fault. These sites she's addicted to have sprung up to fill common human needs. They've been made by intelligent people that can predict changes in human behaviour. The makers of Facebook recognised the need for community, probably even felt it, and then exploited it. And now Joan has signed herself up and given out her details. She's become a target. Anyone could have done what I did.

Joan drops a Dorothy Perkins shoe box by the pile, then rushes back up the stairs. Our door closes and the youthful, heartfelt voice singing about betrayal is slammed shut.

As my page opens, I can't help but smile at my picture. It's from The Edinburgh Woollen Mill catalogue. Pissmop has been brought back from the dead and this time he's a twinkly eyed, silver fox. I never saw the man he grew into but I can guess he was nothing like this. The resurrected Brian McKeith is the kind of man we all hope we'll grow into, whatever we look like.

Joan's picture is from a holiday in the Bahamas about ten years ago. There's lots of light and distance between her and the camera but the facts are undeniable. She's an old, ordinary, overweight woman. Her sparkly sarong didn't add the glamour she'd intended. The increased elegance and confidence we'd hoped for in our later years escaped us both.

Joan Bingley is BUBBLING OVER! 1h ago

She's edited her music section. Duffy is at the front of a long line of female names. I click into her list of friends and see a picture of this young girl lurking in there. I click on her face and exhale slowly as her page opens. Duffy is a sultry blonde with dimples and full lips. I watch a little clip of her and recognise that ironic manner the young use. That affectation that everything is ridiculous and unworthy of seriousness.

She starts to sing and the thought that I will never again hold young breasts pulls at my groin like gravity increasing.

The thought of someone else undressing Joan's tired body makes tears prickle at my eyes. I stare at the ceiling to keep them from wetting my cheeks.

I click back to my profile and realise I have a new message. It's from Joan, of course. The thrill when I see her little picture pop up feels just like having an affair.

I really am bubbling over! I can't wait to meet u and see the transport museum and the docks and your allotment and Ulster. And you Brian, always you. Will write l8r!

The text speak is a joke between me as Brian and Joan as Joan. We are giving the youngster's irony a go. Mocking them at the same time as we try desperately to keep up.

I realise I'm laughing quietly, at this constant, futile battling, against my wife, old age, death. I think about how no matter what changes progress brings, and however terrified we all are of them, really we're just finding new ways to do the same things. New ways to shop, new ways to watch, new ways to fight, new ways to mate. Nothing really changes.

I wonder what it is that I am engaged in with Joan now. Am I watching or fighting or trying to mate? I don't know anymore.

I was certain she wouldn't accept my friend request. Then I was sure she wouldn't reply to my message. But after a few conversations I knew she would accept my invitation to meet up.
And now she's leaving me. For a dead man. For Pissmop's rotten corpse. For a silver fox from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill catalogue.
But, still I click reply and write back.

Can't wait to see you too. Have trimmed my nasal hair especially! Remember to dress as lamb... xx

I hit send, thinking back to our conversation yesterday. When we were just Peter and Joan.

“This is my life, Peter. This is my one chance at living. There's no heaven or hell. This is it. This is all we're getting. And we can't waste it.”
I looked at her without speaking, unable to believe that she was saying these things to me like I might not know them. Like they were new thoughts. I couldn't think of a thing to say.
“Joan...”

She looked back at me, her eyes still bright beneath the saggier, emptier eyelids. Her nose still slightly crooked beneath the wrinkled, slipping brow.
“Peter.”

She came over to hug me then and I couldn't help it. Those familiar arms brought a sob up easily from my old throat. I remembered her holding me in the hospital when my father died and then a month later when my mother died too. I remembered how she put our hot chocolates down on the green plastic seat so she could cuddle me properly, without distraction, and when the nurses came to give us the forms she didn't let go.

She held me out then and looked at me with a little laugh, but her eyes were full of tears.
“Silly sausage,” she said in the voice she used to use on only on the grandchildren, and it only made me sadder.

I look at my Facebook page and Brian McKeith taunts me. If human beings weren't so vain, none of this would have happened. I wouldn't have been tempted into testing my wife's loyalty and her head wouldn't have so easily turned.
I don't even blame her.

They really get on, Brian and Joan. It's amazing how well. Brian's easygoing and quick to lol. He doesn't get irritated by Joan's silliness and sensitivity. He's positive and open and embraces new things like c u l8r.

He tells her if he wasn't so old he'd grow his hair and wear eyeliner, that's the kind of guy he'd be, and she lols and tells him she'd just be a tart, plain and simple. Goth, emo, whatever. They lol together.

Joan scurries down the stairs with our photo albums and I don't ask her not to take them.
She stands thinking, looking distractedly over her bags and I click back to the window of nuclear explosions, tell myself there are worse things than Joan leaving.

"Peter, I'm ready. Can you help me load up the car?"
I stay where I am for a minute to show she's not the boss of me.

She picks up the green case I bought and I nod bitterly. There it goes. But as she carries it out to the car silently, I feel winded by guilt. Here I am acting all hurt and betrayed, like the innocent party, while actually I'm completely responsible. I've spent months tricking my wife into making this mistake.

She comes back in. Seeing me poised to pick up a case, her face softens and I see past the oldness to the girl she used to be. She's wriggling her fingers the way she always does when she's anxious and I wonder if it's not too late to stop this.
"Joan..."
She blinks at me.
Please please don't leave, I think, but I say, "don't take the photo albums."
"We can get copies made."
"But I don't want there to be copies."

I want there to be one set. Just one set owned by the two of us in the whole world. One set so valuable that if it was destroyed in a fire we'd cry every time we thought of it. I don't want there to be back ups and spare sets and copies. I don't want our memories to be reproduced.

Joan sighs in that way that makes me feel like a hopeless old man and I slump down onto the bottom stair.

"I bought you that little green case. Do you remember?"
"Of course I remember Peter. It was a lovely gift."
"You were surprised that I got it right."
Joan doesn't say anything.
"Even though we've been married for thirty nine years. You were still surprised I could choose a present that you loved."
"Well... the year before you bought me a wok."
"But that's what you wanted."
"Not for my birthday Peter. But it doesn't matter now..."
"I asked you what you wanted and you said you wanted a wok."
"It doesn't matter Peter..."
"But you said..."
"I didn't want to be asked."

Joan picks up a maroon case and a brown case and walks out the door, perfectly balanced. I rest my head on my hands. I feel sick. I can't bear the thought of Joan waiting at the Folk and Transport Museum in Ulster by herself. I can't bear the thought of her realisation, the slow suspicion growing to a certainty. Her youthful hope quashed again. I've got to make her stay.

I nip into the kitchen to mix a gin and tonic. Plenty of lime instead of lemon, the way the youngsters drink it, the way she always has hers now. I even put lime in mine. I know the importance of gestures.
I pull the chair from my desk to the end of the stairs and when Joan comes back in for the next load I ask her to sit down, hand her the gin and tonic.
"Have a drink with me."
"I'm about to do a big drive Peter."
"You can have one."
She takes a sip. "This tastes pretty strong."
I smile sheepishly and take her glass back into the kitchen. I hear her take more cases to the car.

She sits back on the chair and I pass her the gin.
"Don't go Joan."
She tuts.
"Peter. Just think of it as an adventure. Think of it as our last chance at youth..."
"I'm too old for youth. I don't want an adventure."
She looks at me questioningly. "Really?"
"I don't want an adventure without you."
"That's nice Peter. But I'm not sure we could have an adventure together. I'm not sure we've got it in us."
"We've got it in us Joan."

I look at her seriously, with just a little mischief in my eyes. At least that's what I'm hoping. I try and make them twinkly, like the silver fox, but she just frowns at me and I can tell it hasn't worked.

"We've got it in us. We've just been taking each other for granted." I wince at this cliche of the new age.
"See, you can't even say it, Peter."
"That doesn't mean I don't know it's true." I say, but she's talking over me.
"You can't accept anything new. You're resigned to being old. You've given up on life and I'm not ready to do that. It's hard for me to say this to you, but it's true. Even your daughters have noticed."

She sips her gin and I realise I haven't got a choice. I can't let her leave.
"Joan. I know about Brian McKeith."

She swallows wrong and has to cough to clear her lungs. She tucks her hair behind her ear and presses her lips together. She breathes out of her nose, a long, slow exhalation.
"How do you know?"
"It's easy to find things out on the Internet."
She drinks the last of her gin.

"He's just a friend Peter."
"He's just a friend now. But you're on your way to meet him. You're on your way to get to know him better. And if you're honest, you're hoping he'll turn out to be more than just a friend. You think he's your last chance at happiness, that he'll make you feel young, but you're married Joan. You're my wife. You've given birth to three of my children. Over thirty years ago. You aren't ever going to be young again."

Joan puts her drink down then and I think she's going to cry, but she just picks up a binliner full of bed linen. She shuffles it out to the car, then comes back in for the Dorothy Perkins shoe box.

"That, is why I'm leaving you Peter. Thanks for the gin and tonic. Look after yourself."
She pulls on her grey wool coat and slips her bag onto her shoulder. As casual as a teenager she walks out the door.

I run into my study to get the Edinburgh Woollen Mill catalogue from under my desk. Joan's recently acquired Fiat Panda starts up and I run out to open the passenger door. I try to get in but the green suitcase is sitting there, under the binliner of bed linen.
"Shit."
"Peter, go back in the house."
"No way. I'm coming with you."
"Peter!"

Joan starts to reverse the car down the drive and I stumble out the way as the open door tries to drag me along with it. She stops reversing to pull the door shut and I run round to the back door.

Ebay cases cover the back seat and I throw myself on top of them, sprawled out on the old leather.
"Peter, for God's sake."
"I mean it Joan. You can't go to Ulster. You're making a terrible mistake."

Joan swings the car out of the drive and my shoulder cracks against the door handle. I feel a familiar pain in my back and groan loudly.
"You're not stopping me Peter. I'm going. You can get out at the garage."

I stay quiet, focusing on breathing to distract myself from the pain running up and down my spine.

As Joan indicates into the Shell garage, I use all my strength to pull myself up on the back of her seat. I thrust the Edinburgh Woollen Mill catalogue onto the steering wheel, open at page Brian McKeith.
"Peter!"

There's a loud crunching noise and I'm jolted forwards. Joan's antique cases tip me off the back seat and line up along my back, cold and heavy.

Her door opens and I hear a young voice shouting.

I wake up in our old bed by myself. I try to heave myself up but it's too painful. The Edinburgh Woollen Mill catalogue is resting on top of my legs, open to page Brian McKeith.
"JOOOOOOAAAN!"
The silver fox taunts me from the pages, the resurrected Brian McKeith smouldering out at me.
"JOOOOOOAAAN!"
I fall to sleep.

When I wake again up my eldest daughter and grandaughter are sitting by the bed. Rhys is tickling my ears and June is reading a magazine.
"Where's your mum?"
"Grandad!"
June passes me some water. She pops two tablets out of a pack and I swallow them.
"He's awake he's awake he's awake he's awake!" Rhys is chanting.
"JOOOOOOAAAN!"

It is dark and the silver fox is in our bedroom. There's a little boy next to him and I recognise him as Pissmop.
"I'm so sorry Pissmop." I tell him but he won't listen. "I'm so sorry."

Sun shines through my eyelids and my world is a bright bloody pink. I blink and flutter until I am used to the light.
Someone is holding my hand.
“Joan.”
“Don't try to move.”
She puts two tablets on my lips and tips in some water. I squeeze her hand.
“It was my Edinburgh Woollen Mill catalogue, you know Peter,” she says and I pretend to fall asleep.