He had the grace to look ashamed.

"That's not what I'm worried about," he said.

"Oh really," I sneered at him.

"Yes, really," he said, sounding a bit more patient. "Look Claire, we've got got to talk." to talk."

"There's nothing left to say," I responded automatically.

Whoops! There I went again. More bloody cliches! Honestly, I could have died. It was so embarrassing.

And I wouldn't mind but it wasn't even true. There was lots to say.

Whoa, whoa, steady, easy, hold on, hold on, I told myself. "Isn't calm and civilized discussion the game plan?" the reasonable part of my brain sweetly asked the argumentative part. "Well, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," the argumentative part grudgingly conceded. Like a surly teenager.

"Can we at least try to be in control?" asked the reasonable part.

"I must stop," I told myself, taking a deep breath. "I will stop."

"Claire," he said, trying to sound gentle-as he pawed for my hand again. "I know I've treated you badly."

"Badly!" I exploded before I could stop myself. "Ha! Badly! That's one way of putting it."

Well, so much for being reasonable and in control! In spite of my pathetic efforts to keep a lid on my emotions the gloves were well and truly off now. All pretense of being calm and grown-up and civilized had gone by the board. Well, all pretense of my being calm and grown-up and civilized had. He still maintained a huge amount of equilibrium.

Equilibrium was one of the things he did best.

"Appallingly, then," he conceded.

He didn't sound very contrite. He sounded as if he was humoring me.

The unfeeling bastard! How could he be so self-contained? It wasn't human.

"How could you have been so irresponsible?" I burst out. I knew that would hurt him more than anything. He could 294 take accusations of unkindness, cruelty, hardheartedness on the chin. But to call him irresponsible was a low blow.

"How could you just have abandoned us? I needed needed you." you."

I ended on a high impassioned note.

A silence followed.

He sat very still-ominously still-for a moment and some kind of emotion, although not one I was familiar with, flickered across his face.

When he spoke again it became clear that a change had come over him.

Something had snapped. The patience well had run dry. He had gone to fetch a packet of tolerance and the cupboard was bare.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Not that he had been much in evidence anyway.

When he spoke it wasn't in his normal voice. But in a nasty singsong flippant tone. "Yeah," he said with a long pause between each word. "You.

Certainly. Did."

"Wha...at?" I asked, a bit taken aback.

I was still immersed in feelings of loss and abandonment, but I managed to grasp that something had happened to James. And that this something was not to my advantage. It was immediately obvious that things weren't right when he agreed with me so readily. It was even more immediately obvious that things were very wrong indeed when he agreed with me so readily in such a peculiar tone of voice.

"Oh," he went on, still in the peculiar tone, "I'm just saying how right you are. That's what you want, isn't it? In fact, I'll say it again, will I? You needed needed me." me."

What had happened? Events had taken a sudden and unexpected turn.

I felt as though I had wandered into someone else's discussion. Or as if James had, all on his own, decided to change channels. I was still knee-deep in the old conversation, the one about James leaving me, and felt pretty wretched about it. But he had flicked over to a new conversation about something totally different. I struggled to catch up with him.

"James, what's going on here?" I asked in confusion.

"What do you mean?" he replied unpleasantly.

"I mean, why are you being so weird all of a sudden?" I said nervously.

"Weird," he said in a thoughtful, weighty tone, and looked 295 around the room as if he was appealing to an invisible audience. "She says I'm being weird."

This from the man who was chatting to people who weren't there.

"Well, you are," I said. In fact, he was getting weirder by the second.

"All I said was that I needed you and-"

"I heard what you said," he interrupted angrily, the singsong flippant tone abruptly gone.

He leaned across the table and fixed me with a furious face. "Here goes,"

I thought.

Relief mingled with my fear. At least now I'd know what the hell was up with him.

"You said that you needed me." He made some kind of annoyed sound and threw his eyes heavenward. "What an understatement!"

He paused-for impact?-and stared at me, his face hard and angry.

I didn't dare speak. I was enthralled. What was coming next?

"I know know you needed me," he threw at me. "You needed me all the bloody time, for some bloody thing or other. How could I you needed me," he threw at me. "You needed me all the bloody time, for some bloody thing or other. How could I not not know?" know?"

I could only stare at him.

He didn't often get angry. So, on the special occasions when he did it was usually quite a treat. A bit spectacular. But not today. I didn't know where this anger of his came from but the message he seemed anxious to convey was that I was the one at fault.

That wasn't part of the script.

I was the one in the right. He was the bastard. That's the way it was.

"You needed me for everything everything," he almost shouted.

I think I should point out to you at this juncture that James never shouted.

He'd never even almost shouted.

"You demanded constant attention," he went on. "And constant reinforcement. And you never gave a damn about me and how I felt and what I might need."

I stared openmouthed at him.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Why was he attacking me?296.

He was the one who'd left me, right?

So if there was any accusing to be done, I was the correct person for the job.

"James..." I said faintly.

He ignored me and continued ranting and jabbing his finger at me.

"You were impossible. I was exhausted from you. I don't know how I stayed with you as long as I did. And I don't know how anyone anyone could live with you." could live with you."

Now look it here! That was too much. Anger surged through me.

Talk about a kangaroo court.

I was being done a terrible injustice.

And I wasn't letting him get away with it.

I was livid livid.

"Oh, I see," I said, absolutely furious. "So now it's all my fault. I made you have an affair. I made you leave me. Well, that's funny, because I don't actually recall holding a gun to your head. It must have slipped my mind."

It's true what they say. Sarcasm really is the lowest form of wit. But I couldn't help myself. He was criticizing me. And I was burning, scalded scalded with a sense of injustice. with a sense of injustice.

"No, Claire," he said. He actually spoke through gritted teeth. Which I'd never seen anyone do before. I thought it was just a figure of speech. "Of course you didn't make me do anything."

"So then what are you saying?" I demanded.

I had a funny cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew it was fear.

"I'm saying that living with you was a bit like living with a demanding child. You always wanted to go out. As though life was one big long party.

And it was, for you. You were always laughing and enjoying yourself. So I had to be the grown-up one. I had to worry about money and bills. You were so selfish selfish. I had to be the one who reminded you at one in the morning, at a dinner party, that we both had to be at work the next day. And then I had to put up with you calling me a boring bastard."

I was dumbfounded at this torrent from James. Apart from its unexpectedness, I felt that it was so unfair.297.

"James, that's the way it worked for us," I protested. "I was the funny one, you were the serious one. Everyone knew that. I was the light relief, the silly one who made you laugh and unwind. You were the strong one.

That's the way we both wanted it. That's the way it was. And that's why it was so good."

"But it wasn't," he said. "I was so bloody tired of being strong."

"And I didn't ever call you a boring bastard," I exclaimed suddenly. I knew that something he had said there was wrong.

"It doesn't matter," he said irritably. "You made me feel like one."

"Yes, but you said that I-" I started to protest.

"Oh, for God's sake, Claire," he burst out angrily. "There you go again.

Trying to score points. Can't you just let it be? Can't you, for once, just once, accept blame?"

"Yes, but..." I said weakly.

I wasn't even sure what I should accept blame for.

Never mind. I didn't have time to think about it. James drew another breath and was off again. And I had to give what he was saying all my attention.

"You just made messes." He sighed. "And I had to clean them up."

"That's not true!" I shouted.

"Well, believe me, that's how it felt," he said unkindly. "You just don't want to admit that it's true. There was always a drama. Or a trauma. And I was always the one who had to deal with it."

I was silent. Totally dumbfounded.

"And you know, Claire," he continued solemnly, "you just don't magically wake up one morning and know how to be an adult. You don't know overnight how to pay bills. You work at it. You work at being responsible."

"I know how to pay bills," I protested. "I'm not a total moron, you know."

"So how come it was me who had to take care of that end of things?" he asked primly.

"James"-my head whirled as I searched for ways to defend myself-"I did try to help."

I distinctly remembered a time when I had sat with James 298 as he self-importantly flicked through check stubs and ATM receipts and tap-tap-tapped with a calculator. I offered to help him that day. And he told me with a suggestive twinkle in his eye that he would stick to what he was good at and that I should stick to what I was good at. And then, if I remember correctly, and I'm sure I do, we had sex on the desk. In fact, the bank statements and the Visa bills for July 1991 still bear certain rather interesting imprints. But I couldn't find the nerve to remind him of that.

"I really did offer to help," I protested again. "But you wouldn't let me.

You said that you'd be much better at it because you had a head for figures."

"And you just accepted that?" he asked nastily, shaking his head slightly as if he could hardly believe how crass and stupid I'd been.