Warhol's Prophecy

7

THE ROOM WAS small. No more than fifteen feet square. Sparsely furnished. It contained little except three chairs, a filing cabinet and a small coffee table. The walls were plain, their banality not even enlivened by a photograph or a painting.

The consultation room reminded Rob of a cell.

Cigarette smoke hung in the air like a curtain of dirty gauze, and the ashtray on the table next to a box of Kleenex was already full. Hailey and Rob were both smoking, watched with something approaching disapproval by the woman who sat in the room with them.

Marie Anderson was in her early forties: a small woman with the kind of outrageously rosy cheeks that made her look like a badly painted doll. She looked from Hailey to Rob, and then back again. For three weeks they had been attending these Relate sessions. For three weeks she had listened to their pain and their anger spilling out into this small room. And what she had heard from them she had heard a hundred times before, from a hundred different couples.

Words like ‘Betrayal’, ‘Infidelity’, ‘Anger’, ‘Revenge’ . . .

‘Hatred’.

Marie often wondered if her role was merely that of referee to these bouts of emotional pugilism. She had voiced her concerns about that to some of her colleagues, but found they saw their own roles as something similar. They were there to guide, to cajole, to interpret; they were not there to solve problems. They could not wave magic wands and reassemble marriages shattered by infidelity or a hundred other kinds of indiscretion.

The thing that Marie had found most difficult when she first began as a Relate counsellor was distancing herself from the personal problems of those she advised. It had been difficult then to merely lock up the office and walk home after every evening’s emotional upheavals. As time went on, Marie had found it all a little more bearable, but every now and then she was more deeply touched than she should be by the plight of a particular couple or individual. She wondered if even that would wear off in time. Was it ever possible to become immune to pain? And, if so, how long did it take?

Hailey stared at Marie, as if willing her to force an answer from Rob. Wanting her to make him reply to the question she had asked him a moment ago.

He took another drag on his cigarette, and blew out a stream of smoke to join the grey haze already filling the confined space.

‘Can you see why Hailey is still so upset, Rob?’ Marie said finally, her voice soft. ‘She’s still concerned that your affair might begin again.’

‘I can understand it, but it won’t happen,’ he said.

‘As long as she works with you, the temptation’s always there,’ Hailey intervened.

‘So what do you want me to do: sack her?’ he demanded.

‘If that’s what it takes.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Not fair,’ Hailey snorted. ‘She had an affair with you. It could happen again. No wonder her husband divorced her.’

‘I told you, I won’t let it happen again.’

‘Crap. If she comes on to you, you’ll fuck her. I know you, Rob. You’re weak.’

‘If the only way to reassure Hailey that you wouldn’t have another affair with this woman was to get rid of her, would you be willing to do that, Rob?’ Marie wanted to know.

He took another drag and tilted his head back, a headache crawling around his skull.

‘Look, if I sack Sandy and get another secretary, Hailey will start thinking I’m having an affair with her.’

‘It depends what she looks like,’ Hailey said acidly.

‘Do you think Rob would do this again, Hailey?’ Marie asked.

‘I know what he’s like, especially with attractive women. He likes to be surrounded by them. It boosts his ego.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Rob muttered.

‘It’s true,’ Hailey continued. ‘If you did hire another secretary, you’d make sure she was good-looking. Don’t deny it.’

‘All right, it’s true. If two women came for the job, both with the same qualifications, and one was pretty and the other looked like the back of a fucking bus, I’d hire the good-looking one. Satisfied?’

‘Is that the reason you first got to know Hailey?’ Marie asked. ‘Because she’s good-looking?’

He nodded. ‘But it wasn’t just that. It was her sense of humour, her attitude, the way she made me laugh. It just helped that she was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.’

‘And is she still?’ Marie asked.

He nodded.

‘Does she still make you laugh? Do you still like her attitude and her sense of humour?’ the counsellor continued.

‘Of course I do. I never intended to leave her for Sandy. I would never leave her for anyone else.’

‘So why did you fuck that slag, then?’ rasped Hailey.

‘Because I could,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t know what else to say. How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘That isn’t a good enough reason,’ Hailey persisted. ‘There must have been more to it.’

‘Did you feel that there was something missing from your relationship with Hailey?’ Marie enquired.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Look, you could strap me into an electric chair now and ask me why I did it, and I still couldn’t tell you. You’d have to throw the switch. I never fell out of love with you – ’ he looked towards Hailey – ‘I never fell in love with Sandy. I was never going to leave you. I never wanted to.’

‘Did she want you to?’ Hailey demanded.

‘She knew exactly where she stood. She knew there was no future in it.’

‘Yeah, I bet she did,’ Hailey hissed. ‘She knew you were married, so why the hell couldn’t she leave you alone, find someone single? Or did she keep nagging away at you because she knew you’d give in? Did she know you were weak, too?’

Rob shot her an angry glance.

‘I know what I did was wrong,’ he replied furiously. ‘How many fucking times do I have to say sorry? If I said it every minute of every day, every day for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t alter what’s happened, would it?’

‘Do you wish you could change what happened, Rob?’ Marie interjected.

He nodded.

‘Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,’ Hailey muttered.

‘Yeah, I wish I could change what happened,’ Rob said. ‘I wish things could just be the way they were between us before all this shit.’

‘Shit that you started,’ Hailey reminded him.

Again he glared at her.

‘That’s what makes me sick,’ Hailey continued. ‘You were the one who had the affair, and yet you’re the one who’s angry. Why?’

‘Because I want things between us to go back to the way they were. I hate this arguing, sniping all the time. Every time we have an argument you throw it back in my fucking face.’

‘What do you expect?’

‘Is that true, Rob?’ Marie wanted to know. ‘Are you angry? There certainly seems to be a lot of aggression inside you. Who is it directed at? Hailey?’

‘It should be directed at her,’ Hailey spat. ‘At that fucking whore.’

‘It’s not just her fault: it takes two to tango.’

‘See, you’re doing it again. You always defend her.’

‘I’m not defending her. I’m just trying to tell you what I feel, what I believe. I went after her.’

‘Then she should have told you to clear off, since she knew you were married. But she wouldn’t do that, would she? Being chatted up by the boss, being taken out for lunch, being taken away for weekends. Why should she give all that up? God, she must have thought you were her dream come true.’

‘I don’t know what she thought. I don’t care what she thought.’

‘Do you think your marriage is worth saving, Rob?’ Marie asked.

‘Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here,’ he told her.

‘I’ve told you before, you have to accept that there’s been a lot of pain and that things won’t go back to normal overnight. They’ll probably never go back to the way they were before this happened. Your relationship will grow stronger if you let it; it’ll just have a different shape.’

‘Yeah, a fucking pear-shape,’ Rob murmured, stubbing out his cigarette.

‘How long did you expect it to take before things got better between you?’ Marie asked.

Rob shook his head.

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ he confessed. ‘Some days things are fine: we manage to get through a whole day and night without all this shit being raked up. And on other days it just goes on and on.’

‘At least you’re off at work,’ Hailey snapped. ‘I’m stuck at home with the time to think about it, time to wonder if you’re chatting up that bloody tart while you’re there together in the office, wondering what you’re saying to her.’

‘Then stop thinking about it.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake . . .’ Hailey shook her head despairingly.

She saw Marie glance at the wall clock behind them.

Time up.

They’d been there for their allotted hour.

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?

Hailey was first to get to her feet, running a hand through her brown hair and exhaling deeply.

They made an appointment for the same time the following week, said their goodbyes, then headed out to the small car park where the Audi was waiting.

As Hailey clambered into the passenger seat, she thought how cold it had grown. How chilly the night air was.

She looked briefly at Rob as he started the engine.

As he did, the cassette burst into life too, the lyrics echoing inside the car.

‘. . . Will you be there, am I the one who waits for you, or are you unforgiven too? . . .’

They didn’t speak during the drive home.