Ned (5)

5.

  Robert and Helen’s sex life was determined by one thing – there was a wonderful, reassuring predictability about it all.

   By year three of their marriage coitus had levelled itself to three or four times a month. Helen would shuffle over to Robert’s side of the bed and he would respond by placing his book on the bedside table. They would kiss and engage in a few minutes of gentle foreplay, followed by several minutes of intercourse in a maximum of two different positions. Afterwards, they would wipe themselves off with the colour co-ordinated tissues lying next to the phone, then one or both would visit the bathroom. Resettled, and silently thankful that the exercise was over for another week, Helen would peck her husband dutifully on the cheek and go to sleep while Robert resumed reading. Only on special occasions – Christmas and summer holidays – would sexual activity increase, a phenomenon Robert put down to their mutual dislike of rich food.

   But the critical juncture of their marriage was reached one fateful evening twelve months before Robert mortally wounded the school drinks machine. In bed Helen slid over to her husband and Robert obediently placed his book (he was brushing up on Eliot’s The Waste Land) onto the bedside table. They kissed and heaved but Robert’s penis refused to rouse itself. The few minutes of foreplay was extended to half an hour. Still there was no response.

   ‘Try and massage it’ Robert suggested, attempting to seize the moment.

   ‘Massage what ?’

   ‘My member, of course.’

   ‘I have been massaging it.’

   ‘Perhaps you should massage it more slowly. Pretend you’re enjoying it…..that you’re in love with it.’

   After some initial hesitation Helen duly obliged, without success.

   ‘It’s no good’ she said.

   ‘What about if you massage it with another part of your body ?’

   ‘Such as ?’

   ‘Your mouth, for example.’

   Robert knew that he was opening a can of worms saying this. He could remember Helen giving him blow-jobs with passionate regularity when they first met. Over the years she seemed to have lost interest, the last one being given on the day the Berlin Wall fell.

   Helen baulked at the suggestion.

   ‘Oh come on’ she said haughtily. ‘We’re not sixteen anymore.’

   Now, Robert had never known Helen when she was sixteen and as she said this he meditated – as one occasionally does about one’s partner – on the number of back alley blow-jobs Helen had given in her life. He stopped short of asking her outright because, tentatively, Helen was making her way down past his flabby corsage towards his shrivelled member which was lying to one side like a long dead baby trout. However, despite Helen’s valiant attempts at resuscitation the trout remained motionless, whereupon Robert returned to his Eliot and Helen retired to the bathroom to sterilise her mouth. From that evening onward, sex was taken off the menu.

*

Helen reappeared at the summit meeting two hours later with the forlorn look of a weary delegate given over to compromise.

   ‘I want us both to sit down and talk seriously about my erection’ Robert said.

   Bowing to the inevitable she began to percolate some coffee. Men and their erections: there was no telling how long the discussion might take.

   ‘Ok – let’s talk.’

   ‘I think I know the reason for its disappearance.’

   ‘Go on.’

   The percolator began making its infuriating, wheezy drone.

   ‘My needs have become more complex’ he told her.

   ‘In what way ?’

   ‘They’ve become more forceful…..more dominant.’

   ‘Robert - what the hell are you talking about ?’

   I feel repressed. You’re repressing me.’

   ‘Oh, for God’s sake…..’

   ‘I’ve never fully understood to what extent my sexuality was being held back.’

   ‘You’re attracted to men. Is that it ?’

   Robert held his hands in the air. ‘No! I’m not attracted to men. I’m…I’m suffering. I’ve tried to ignore it but I can’t. There are areas…..considerations…..that I haven’t had chance to fully explore…..’

   ‘Robert – please. Let’s stop right now. And on Monday I’ll arrange an appointment with a councillor…..’

   ‘It’s too late for counsellors. Don’t you understand ? I’m at a turning point in my life.’

   ‘Oh, stop being so damned selfish. Think about the children…..’

   And so it went on. Robert had thought about the children, those two cherubs he’d nurtured and guided…..Emma who, from the age of four, was able to recite from memory Ophelia’s mad scene…..and Zoe who, at the same age, was able to recognise the faces of Virginia Woolf and Graham Greene in Robert’s postcard collection of famous British writers…..and now, during his summit with Helen, he felt that he’d lost them…..that they despised him…..that they didn’t need him any more…..

   ‘Rubbish!’ said Helen when Robert told her this. ‘You’re forever in your study. You’re just not prepared to make an effort, that’s all. I think you need to go away for a while and sort yourself out.’

   ‘That’s exactly what I want to do! I want to get out! I want to take my own life in my hands again. I’ve decided that I’m leaving and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’m glad I’ve lost my job. I’m proud that I’ve done nothing other than lie on the sofa for the past month. In fact, I might just sit around on the sofa for the rest of my life. How about that, Helen ? You know, I feel like stout Cortez, staring with his eagle eye across the Pacific, or wherever it was that he stood. Only I’m staring at a lifetime of sloth! And I can’t wait to get started!’

   After Robert’s hysterical monologue had come to its end, husband and wife came to an agreement. Helen would allow Robert  to try and make it as a writer as long as he allowed her to get in touch with some crack-pot psychotherapist who in turn would attempt to get to the bottom of his non-existent hard-on. They set a six month trial period, to be reviewed thereafter. In the meantime Robert would find an agent, write every day, and try and repair his relationship with his offspring, not to mention his wife. And when they’d drained their coffee mugs and Robert was making his way to his study in order to begin his magnum opus, both concluded it was the best outcome they could have hoped for.