Carl was a slight pale man of average height who looked to be in his early-twenties, he had brown collar-length hair that hung about his gaunt, pale, face in loose curls, he had brown eyes. He was possessed by a nervous disposition and was prone to make sudden erratic, and sometimes inexplicable, movements. Rose was largely unaware of this as she had a soothing effect upon him. He was slightly older than he looked, he was twenty eight but looked to be in his early twenties. He and Rose were very much in love, he sat opposite Rose now.
Rose was shorter than Carl, shorter than most people at five feet four. She was slightly plump, especially round the face, she had apple cheeks. Her hair was dyed blonde at the moment, like most women her age, twenty eight, it changed colour at fairly regular intervals, her eyebrows were light brown. She wore her hair in a bob because that's what she believed men liked it to be. It was long enough from them to play with but not so long it got in their way. Her eyes were huge, deep and a bold blue, they were lined with tiny vague crow's-feet. She used subtle make-up deftly to obscure these. She was very cute. Unlike Carl she was not particularly animated except in her eyes. Her gaze had a fleeting, constantly active searching quality about it. Though when her eyes settled upon you, she could really stare. Not using body language too much, except a trademark flick of her bob, her eyes and facial expressions were everything when she communicated, but especially her eyes.
They'd just been to the bar and had sat down in a remote part of this respectable pub. The pub had plush red carpets, wood chip wallpaper painted white and lots of wooden fixtures. It was decorated in an old rustic style which would not fool anything but the most cursory glance. Brass was everywhere and there were various prints hung on the walls in fake baroque frames. The jukebox was an oddity in this setting but was never up loud enough to draw undue attention to itself or to obscure the quiet conversations going on at various tables. It was, however, loud enough to interfere with any attempt to eavesdrop on those conversations. The pub was moderately busy, it was a cold Sunday night in late January. Nobody was going to win an award with this pub but somebody had clearly got it just about right. It was your typical respectable suburban pub.
Carl looked at Rose earnestly, they hadn't had the chance to talk in her dad's car. It had been an awkward silence though they'd held hands together in the back seat. He put a question to her, `Why were you crying when I phoned Rose?'
`I'm sorry Carl, I was crying for two reasons,' she was feeling very emotional and gulped her pint just to swallow her anxiety. `I was afraid you wouldn't phone. I thought it was him, Roy, on the phone again, he'd just phoned me,' she spoke carefully
and painstakingly slowly.
`What!' Carl exclaimed, `He phoned? But I thought you weren't going to talk to that wanker again!' Carl's words just gushed out, he hadn't chosen them. Rose looked at Carl, he seemed upset that Roy had made her cry but she couldn't help but wish he had also alluded to the fact that she was also crying for him. `Does he believe I was crying for him? If he doesn't he must believe me,' she thought. She stared at Carl purposefully, to reassure herself that he understood the gravity of her feelings for him. He in turn imagined she was staring at him to ascertain how angry he was at Roy for upsetting her. To show the depth of his feelings he dug his nails into the table, dragging them back until his fists were balled, and shook his head from side to side. This was not a wholly contrived gesture and, although it was carried out in a sort of slow-motion, had the effect of making him look very intense. Rose imagined that he was angry at himself for upsetting her. Indeed, he was only half acting; he was steaming mad at Roy.
Carl's display attracted the attention of a bored man who jabbed, a little too roughly, at his female companion to draw her attention to it. She looked on disinterestedly, she did not want to be here at all. Neither Carl nor Rose, who were utterly intent on each other, noticed them at all.
`Don't be angry at yourself Carl, it's really not your fault,' Rose spoke softly, stroking his hands with hers. `What did he want this time? To be friends? Ha! He's obsessed with you, it's not healthy, how long has it been now, two years?'
`Yes, two years, you know that because that's how long we have been together.' `Why do men never remember these things?', she thought. Carl felt embarrassed by her reminder and hurriedly added, `They've been two brilliant years. Why did you speak to him?'
Rose chewed her bottom lip, none of this was relevant, `In answer to your question, he phoned me out of the blue, I just happened to be at Mum's. I'd only answered the phone in case it was you calling to apologise for the nasty row. I was shocked that it was him, Roy, to be honest, and the only reason I didn't hang up the phone very rudely was that my mum was there, looking on. She's seen me cry over Roy and she wants you and I to be something better. She wanted it to be you on the phone Carl, probably as much as I wanted it. I didn't shout, I just told Roy that I needed to get a cigarette. As I got a cigarette I whispered to my mum, "This is private Mum." She nodded that she understood and as I went back, smoking, I closed the door behind me.'
She lit a cigarette now, flicked back her hair, as if the smoke had gone in her eyes, and flashed a delicate little smile at him. 'So what did that bastard say this time? The same as always I expect.' Rose lamented this disruptive response to her carefully chosen agenda-setting words. 'Where is my apology? Where is the acknowledgment of my need, my mother's desire, for him to phone?' That's what she thought as she regretted that Carl wasn't talking about them and she hated Roy for this too. She still felt she should answer the question, to get the issue dealt with and put away in its box. Her answer might help Carl to understand.
`Roy had been to London to hand in more work for his stupid course, he was ecstatic about this, it was obvious to me. He said hello to me and then began to get very agitated complaining that, I "messed with his mind", and, "sent him on a mad one with women".'
`Why doesn't he change the record?' interrupted Carl.
`I think his needle got stuck somehow Carl,' replied Rose sternly. After pausing briefly for thought she flashed him a timid, enigmatic and somewhat sexy humourous smile which she meant to say, 'Look at little me, I stuck it.'
`So carry on then,' Carl urged her, contrary to his earlier interruption. He was totally deadpan in his delivery, which disappointed Rose, she winced slightly.
`I only listened because I was vulnerable because I am so in love with you. The whole story was mixed up, it would pick up on one episode and, without concluding that, start on another. Only one thing was clear to me, that was that he had been sleeping with a lot of tarts. I was not surprised by this, when he and I had gone our separate ways he was in a right state: high and low on drugs and very confused. No decent woman would look at a man like that. To be truthful, I think he always wanted me to be a tart, though I never was, not with my background. All I ever wanted was a man to treat me right, though none ever have, before you that is darling.'
At this point Rose took her lover's left hand in her own two hands, squeezed it softly and flashed her loveliest, most innocent, almost childlike, smile at him. Her big blue eyes looked into his and she continued in an even softer tone, `That's why I had rowed with you, because I've been treated like shit before.'
`I try to treat you properly, to show you I love you. You know that don't you?' Carl looked scared, his eyes wide open like a rabbit caught in the headlights of Rose's demanding passive gaze. His mouth hung open. Rose noted his good teeth and remembered Roy's bad. `Yes I know that, my love,' replied Rose with a wide beam which showed her own.
`So he didn't tell you about the beautiful women this time then?' Carl inquired bitterly.
`No he didn't Carl. Well, yes, he did say that the one he is seeing at the moment is beautiful (she would be wouldn't she?) but the others... suddenly they're all slappers, apparently. I don't care if the women he sleeps with have two heads, to be honest, I've got you, my sweetheart, and that's all that really matters.'
`Thank you, that's all that matters to me too. What else did he say?'
With a sigh, Rose began to answer, `Anyway, so, Roy, without even mentioning the blonde that he fell in love with, apparently, before, went straight on to this woman, well girl really, she is only twenty one! Far from the age difference being an adverse influence it's positive, positive! I tell you Carl, positive.' Rose had just began to speak in a raised voice but now stopped talking, she put out her cigarette and drank some more of her lager. This seemed to have a soothing effect.
Rose now spoke softly again, she was once more calm, `You see Carl he has it in his mind that she, the girl, was predicted by these Tarot Cards he had read for him. I'm not too clear on why he believes in them but I remember other ideas like that he had before. He is not mad but he is insane.' She gave him an authoritative studious look over the rim of her pint of lager. 'Anyway, from what I can gather he thinks this police spy was living at his Mum's with him and it was this spy which read these last cards,' said Rose. What she was saying was upsetting her, she put her pint down, straightened her hair, then picked up her pint again. `Anyone his age who lives at his Mum's is sad, full-stop,' pronounced Carl.
`That's what this so-called "police spy" had said, more or less, I think,' giggled Rose.
`You don't need to be a detective to work that out!' added Carl, rocking with laughter.
Rose felt happy that Roy was serving as a medium to put them at ease and continued giggling into her pint for a while. Then lowered her glass to the mahogany table, she raised her cool blue eyes and looked at Carl with a serious perceiving stare, she found him so attractive that it scared her and her puffy bottom lip quivered slightly. He sensed her anxiety, leant across the table, kissed her ample cheek, sat back in his seat and stroked her face with his left hand. His hand was in a fist but it was not a clenched one. He knew what she was thinking, about how horrid Roy was, and he deeply loved her vulnerability.
Rose smiled, this was hard for her but Carl was making it much easier. She remained silent, she genuinely did not care about Roy very much at all anymore and wanted to drop the subject and talk about them.
So what else did Roy say to you Rose?' He was studying her reactions as he spoke. On hearing the question Rose shuddered and Carl saw. Rose shuddered because she was beyond Roy's pathetic ideas about herself, in particular, and about love in general. She wanted to discuss them! Carl believed Rose's shudder signified painful memories of what Roy had said. This just made him even more eager to know. He'd met Roy only twice and Roy had threatened him the first time and beaten him up on the second, he really hated him. Even more he hated the idea of all the times his sweet little Rose had been alone with him and at his mercy. His eyebrows knitted and his pupils turned to hard dots as he urged her on, `Please tell me Rose,' he wanted to be sympathetic, Roy would be an ideal vehicle for this, that in itself was revenge on that absent phantom. He'd like to wring his insubstantial neck!
Across the pub the other couple had just bought another round of drinks, Babycham for her, bitter for him. `I wonder what they are talking about?' The woman's voice had a dreamy, almost absent tone.
`Eh? Who?' replied her spouse in a slightly offended sort of manner.
`That couple up there, the ones you pointed out before,' she replied pointing more discreetly than he had.
`I dunno, he's probably not giving her a good shafting,' he answered nudging her with a quiet laugh and raised eyebrows.
`I know the feeling,' she thought, `but it is definitely not that,' her mental train continued to run. `Mmmm, yes, probably,' she spoke very slowly and lightly then let out a nervous, empty, little giggle. Her husband ignored her, he'd returned to counting his change. Working out how many pints he could afford and whether she would let him drink and drive on them. She was left lamenting the fact that not only did he pay no attention to the things she said but he no longer even paid any mind to the things he said to her.
Rose gulped on her beer and took another pull on her cigarette before grinding it hard and slow into the green glass ashtray. She continued to speak in a soft tone, `Anyway, these particular cards were said to predict a dilemma, either he starts to believe in love or he has a life of imprisonment and pain ahead of him.' Rose looked down to her own jeaned lap in confusion. She had more or less said as much to him herself numerous times.
`That's the sort of life he deserves. So why does this girl come into it?', inquired Carl. In doing so he realised the double
meaning of his question, on the one hand, it had its face value: "Why this particular girl?" Then, on the other, it might be
directed towards the principle which governs worldly Justice: "Why can a special woman enter the life of one so low?" This aspect had a particular bearing on the circumstances of Rose's past. `Why her Rose?', he repeated the allegorical question in order to grab her attention and reassure himself of the question's, more mundane, meaning, perhaps.
Raising her head, and lying about her intent, she continued to explain, `I was just coming to that, these cards, it was said,
predicted a young person, the Page of Cups, to lead Roy on this discovery.' Rose had not really answered Carl's question and didn't want to, she wondered why he was asking her all this. Why he was still not tackling the issue of the row? On seeing her confusion, Carl interrupted her thoughts, `So why her in particular? This girl I mean.'
After a pause of several seconds, masked by a drink, Rose continued, `Well, he seems to think that she's the Page of Cups because that card traditionally represents a young character who lives a happy-go-lucky life. She works as a barmaid, is young and has told him that she lives her life for pleasure.'
`There are an awful lot of bright young barmaids, what if his special woman, if she even exists, is totally doolally and works in a motorway cafe serving teas to truckers?' Carl was beginning to feel slightly odd talking in this way and, in a hurry, added, `She will not find much pleasure with him in any case, only pain.'
In his own way, Carl was talking about their relationship. He was trying to draw stark contrasts between himself and Roy. Rose said nothing but made a very quiet sort of whimpering sound and sniffed, a tear began to roll down first her left, then her right, cheek. Instinctively Carl stood with his fists balled. He spoke both angrily and loudly, `I wish you would let us go to Trumton and beat that fucker within an inch of his life, you know the others would come!'
`Sit down Carl, people are staring,' was all Rose could manage before throwing her head violently into her cupped hands. Her blonde hair wound over and between her fingers. She began sobbing. Carl moved around the table and sat in the empty chair next to
Rose, he began rubbing her back in circular motions with his left hand while his right arm held her to his chest. He felt her head rest on his shoulder and he could feel her warm breath in his ear as she whispered, `I don't want you to do anything except stay with me.'
`I won't ever leave you,' he replied. While he did so his arms held Rose tightly. He was looking over her head and defying the various onlookers in the pub. He noticed that the people who had been staring were now embarrassed to be witness to this intensely private moment and now looked back at their drinks and companions.
The woman turned to her companion and wondered out loud, `Do you think he's finishing with her?'
`I wouldn't be surprised love, she's a bit plain. I thought he was going to hit her for a minute. Look at the little twerp staring, he thinks he's hard. I could kick his head in easily.'
His wife didn't answer, indeed she had to bite down on her bottom lip to avoid doing so. She just thought, `You really are a shallow bastard.' She was right.
Rose was crying; not because Roy had found another, in his own terms, mystical, sort of love but because Carl's last remark had reminded her of her vulnerability to him, the same she'd once had to Roy. Her utter dependence on love and the need to be cherished. She wanted Carl for the rest of her life. She wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her striped top and raised her head to kiss Carl softly on his lips. Carl could feel a fresh teardrop trickle into his mouth, it tasted salty.
Rose drew away from Carl slightly but they were still in each other's arms, she wanted to see his face, and for him to see her own. The whites of her eyes were red and moisture from her tears was still on her round cheeks. `I don't care about Roy any more, he's a lost wanker and I don't want you to care about him either. We're all that matters now, you and I Carl.' Rose was intent and appeared suddenly very strong and resolute to Carl. He in turn looked calm and tender. `I don't know why Roy phoned me and I don't know why I listened to him. Well, yes, I do know, I listened because I was so upset that we'd argued, I listened because, you, you're everything he's not, by listening to him I reminded myself of what you are,' Rose whispered.
She took herself in check and straightened up, she no longer spoke in hushed tones, `Only one thing he said made any sense to me.'
`What was that Rose?', asked Carl. His voice carried a tiny hint of a new kind of impatient annoyance. He wanted to get out of this pub and take her home, to make passionate love to her. Rose noticed this subtle agitation though it did not worry her, she assumed he was still a little upset over Roy.
`He said he was unsure if she would find him special in return, he was afraid of being hurt, he could not see what someone like her would want with him and mentioned something about her CV.'
`What? CV as in Curriculum Vitae?' queried Carl in bewilderment.
`Yes.'
Carl unconsciously let go of Rose, shrugged his shoulders and raised his palms to the heavens as he said, `I just don't understand it anymore Rose.'
`I didn't understand it at first either, but apparently this girl has made all sorts of achievements and worked hard. He's done
nothing for years; while we were together he just wrote cheques he could not honour. Well he's been taught a lesson now, hasn't he? I always told him to get a job but he wouldn't. Now I bet he wishes he'd listened to me. He's been working for the agencies and he's hated it. But none of that matters, what matters is that I could understand those feelings, because of my past. I never felt he would love me and sometimes I find it hard to believe you love me too. Now he's in that position with this girl and it serves the bastard right!', Rose was clearly upset, her tone had grown as bitter as her love for Roy.
`But I do love you Rose, come back home sweetheart,' pleaded Carl. He placed his arms round her once more.
`Yes I will, I love you Carl. I love you more than I've ever loved anyone.' Rose kissed Carl tenderly on the lips to reinforce her words. As she did so, she found it hard to comprehend that these words were even necessary. Didn't Carl realise she had no choice but to go back with him? Then her mind drifted into an expectant fantasy about the love-making that's a fundamental part of all these reconciliations.
They held each other tenderly close as all this was said and thought.
'Shall we walk home or phone a taxi?'
'Let's get a taxi,' replied Carl.
The two of them finished their drinks quickly and went into the cold outside holding hands. As they left the tall man at the bar turned to his younger wife and said, `Weird couple.'
`Yes they were rather intense,' she answered absently, her mind was elsewhere. Seeing Rose and Carl cuddling had made her yearn for her lover.
`I'm glad you and I don't go in for those sorts of scenes, tears and anger.'
She did not reply but looked up at him as if he had intruded on a private act.