Educating Jaime

She thought of the conversation with her friends; it gave her a bad taste in her mouth. She didn't think it would do any good to try and vindicate Jaime; they were all much too bent on believing all poor Mara said. Poor Mara indeed, she thought, and then she had to brake hard - there was someone crossing the road. She concentrated on the traffic for the remainder of the ride.

Mara felt elated with the house, the money, and, she hoped, a quick divorce. It surely rankled a little that she had been unable to keep Jaime toeing the line - but it was a challenge to crush him altogether now.

There had been a lull in the series of abuse showered on her runaway husband as she had temporarily run out of inspiration - and then she realised that she could not have him vent his unhappiness to anyone at all, and by way of a pre-emptive measure she wrote tearful story about how happy they had been and how his alleged girlfriend had done all she could to ruin that happiness, and how Jaime had fallen for her stories... She put it on Facebook with a satisfied grin. There - that would serve him right.

It certainly did. Mara's friends satisfactorily commiserated with her, and Jaime was generally seen as the lowest of the low. The bastard, to leave a loving wife and two poor children like that - it was incomprehensible. Well, he could have fun with that woman; no one felt inclined to talk to a cad like that.

Jaime found he got cold-shouldered by more and more people. The pub had turned into a palpably hostile environment; there was no fun in sitting with a pint all alone, and his friends apparently led themselves be led by Mara's counterfeited stories. One evening when he had just moved into the apartment he'd downed half a bottle of Grant's at home; it had been a sobering experience and he hadn't touched any spirits since.

He'd lost his appetite; he forced himself to cook, but half of his meals went into the dustbin uneaten.

He tried to weather the storm as well as he could. He had bought a couple of cheap bookcases and put his books and his music in order, he had bought two decent armchairs and attempted to make the place inhabitable. He tried to find refuge in his books, but that didn't work too well; he was too upset to do any writing and half the music he liked had lyrics that came too close. He'd tried to listen to some CCR; but even they proved insurmountable. "Proud Mary"'s lines "And I never lost one minute of sleepin' worryin' bout the way things might have been" cut like so many knives... Most evenings he'd just sit and stare.

Then he fell ill. He could not keep his food inside and he ran a temperature. He tried to keep on working, but found it was too much. He went home, to bed. He didn't have any aspirin, and he didn't know what to do with himself any more. Should he call a doctor? Then he remembered Molly had offered to talk with him if he felt the need. She'd been the last humane contact he'd had. He found her number in his cell phone and called her but she didn't answer. He gave up, and went to bed dressed in a couple of sweaters and with an extra blanket on top.

Molly, who at a little over forty thought she was a little on the plump side,, had gone for a swim that afternoon. When she got home she found a missed call on her phone, and answered it at once. Jaime answered the phone, but he was almost inaudible. Molly heard his teeth chatter and all she could make out was that he certainly was not ok.

She asked him if he could open the door when she came. He said he thought so.

Molly rang off, got into her car and drove over. She scolded herself for not having contacted him sooner; she should have realised he was too inhibited or perhaps just too modest to contact her.

She climbed the stairs and rang. It took a little while before she heard Jaime stumble through the hall and open the front door. He looked a sight - grey-faced, thin, tired, unhappy... She took his arm. Walking him back to his bedroom she felt her was shivering.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"C-c-c-cold," he said. "Sick. Tired." He retched.

"Got a thermometer?" she asked.

He shook his head. "At Mara's."

"Any paracetamols?"

He shook his head again.

"Alright," Molly said. "I'll go and get them, and then you're going to unburden your mind. And I don't care a hoot if you like it or not. Where's your key?"

She went and bought a box of paracetamols, a digital thermometer, and enough food for a couple of days. Then she drove past her own place to pack some clothes and necessaries, an air mattress and a sleeping bag. She had some momentary qualms about it. If anyone found out - Oh hell, she thought. Damn them all. She had felt very dissatisfied with the whole thing. She'd given their tea session a miss, and felt the happier for it; one of the others had texted her to inquire where she was, and she hadn't answered.

Witches' coven, she said to herself - vultures, more likely. Bah.

She parked her car in front of the apartment and went in. Then she took Jaime in hand. She took his temperature, gave him a couple of paracetamols, told him to drink a mug of weak tea without milk and fed him a bowl of boiled white rice.

"No gourmet's dream," she apologised, "but I can't have you throwing up all the time."

After finishing his rice Jaime dropped off. Molly nodded appreciatively. He had a nice face in repose, she thought - when awake you couldn't tell because he was so tense. She went to the kitchen to do the washing-up. She looked into the bedroom to find Jaime fast asleep, and went into the living room. There she inflated her air mattress, and unrolled her sleeping bag. Then she had a look round.

The place was much more inhabitable than last time. There was a chessboard on a side table, and he'd put up a couple of pictures. On top of one of the rows of books she found an exercise book that was full of poems written in a hand that became increasingly illegible. With some difficulty she started to read them. They were love poems addressed to Mara. The first few sounded quite happy, and she thought one or two of them were rather erotic. Then they changed to a minor key; they became more and more desperate the further she progressed.

Molly found them painful to read; she realised they must have been quite painful to write. She wondered what on earth Mara had made of them. She stolidly plodded on until she'd finished. The final written page must be quite recent - apparently Jaime had not been satisfied with it, for he'd made a large cross through the text.

Then she had a look at his books. He must have a lot of interests, she decided. There were books on music, whodunits, nineteenth century classics, modern ones, medieval texts, various collections of love stories, Chinese, European, the 1001 Nights in seven volumes... Two shelves were wholly devoted to poetry. No, she couldn't stomach any poetry after that exercise book, she thought. She selected a Ngaio Marsh she hadn't read yet, brought a chair from the room and sat down to read in Jaime's bedroom.

When she'd read some forty pages Jaime woke up. He sat up and look around him with a bewildered expression. Then he raised his eyebrows, closed his eyes and sank back onto the pillow.

"Hello there," Molly said.

Jaime opened his eyes again. "Sorry," he said. "I thought I was dreaming again. So you're actually here."

"Yes," Molly said, "and none too soon, either. You're ill. That's what you get from bottling things up - now you go and tell me all about your predicament, and please don't think you have to be nice about it. It won't help if you are. I promise you can trust me; but if you go on like this you will be in really serious trouble before long."

Jaime thought about it for a moment. Then he decided that he'd better try and believe her and started to talk, and once he'd started he couldn't stop any more - the words kept coming and coming, unstoppable like a stream of lava. Molly had some difficulty understanding him now and then, and she occasionally had to tell him to blow his nose before continuing. As his story progressed she got a better and better idea of what it must have been like for him to live there, a stranger in his own home...

It was nearing ten o'clock when Molly's phone went off.

Damn, she thought. She went to the living room to answer it. The caller was Mara, who had been told by a friend that Molly's car was in front of Jaime's apartment, and she was treated to a torrent of abuse. What on earth did she think to visit that bastard? And not at a decent time but at this time of night? She should have known Molly for the slut she was - and then Molly switched off, seething with anger. She tried to control herself for Jaime's sake, but it took a considerable time before she dared go back to the living room.

Jaime noticed she was angry, and asked her what had happened.

"Oh, nothing," Molly said, "just an unpleasant conversation, really."

Jaime lifted his eyebrows. He thought he could guess, but appreciated Molly's reticence.

She sat opposite him with her eyes closed. "Phew," she said. "I'm afraid I'm more upset than I realised. I could do with a drink. Have you got any?"

"Yes," he said. "There's some spirits in the kitchen cupboard. Be my guest."

She smiled a little at that. Right oh, she thought. She went into the kitchen, poured herself two fingers of whisky and carried it back into the bedroom, together with another cup of weak tea for Jaime.

"It was Mara, wasn't it?" Jaime asked.

She nodded. "If she went on like that to you, you've been much too mild describing things. I don't understand what's wrong with her... I've never heard anything like that before."

"Well," he said, "it didn't happen that often - as long as I managed to steer clear from any of her red flags... and the last few years I simply hardly ever talked. I just replied the way she'd expect me to..."

Poor man, she thought. What a life... "Look," she said, "from what I hear I can only say that you should realise you're not to blame. It might have been better if you had walked on her out sooner - but then, what with children and loyalties, I can understand that you didn't. Can I persuade you to have some more rice?"

Molly finished her drink while Jaime slowly had his rice; then she accompanied him to the bathroom. When he'd prepared for the night she put him to bed.

"Have a good night, boy," she said and stroked his cheek for a moment.

Then she went into the kitchen for another drink, rummaged through his CDs and found one that was sufficiently aggressive to make her anger with Mara subside a little. She put on his earphones and closed her eyes while the sounds of It's a Beautiful Day's "Wasted Union Blues" on repeat eventually blew Mara from her mind.

When she woke up she had some trouble realising what she was doing in a sleeping bag on someone's living room floor. Then she remembered she was in Jaime's apartment. OK, she thought. Time to have a look at my patient.

Jaime was still sleeping peacefully, so she showered and got dressed. She went into the kitchen for some boiled eggs, she toasted some bread and put the lot on a tray.

Then she sat down to her own breakfast. When she had finished she tidied up the kitchen and the living room and switched her cell phone back on. There were three missed calls, all from Mara - missed calls indeed, she thought - and five text messages. They were all from Mara's inner circle, and she deleted them all half-read. She thought she understood Jaime quite well now. It must be awful to be subjected to this sort of thing for years on end; no wonder he'd been intimidated.

She took the breakfast tray into the bedroom and resumed reading "A Clutch of Constables."

When Jaime was awake she sat watching him as he had breakfast. She couldn't understand what it could have been Mara had found fault with. He was quite likeable, she thought, even though he didn't really look his best. She did remember him from Mara's parties - but she hadn't particularly looked at him then. He certainly had not struck her as bad-looking or something.

When he had worked his way through two pieces of toast and egg, and had some more tea she asked him if he'd had any abusive texts as well. Yes, he said, he'd switched of his phone after the tenth one. He'd only switched it on when he really needed it - when he'd called her, for example.

"Is it still on?" she asked.

Jaime did not know. Molly asked where his phone was and went to investigate. She turned it on to find an avalanche of them. She patiently cleaned up the phone and went back to the bedroom.

"It's free from them now," she said.

"For the moment."

"Yes," she acknowledged. "You're right. Look, is there no one else that you can trust?"

"You have to go home?"

"No, you fool, I won't leave before I'm quite satisfied you're well again. Cross my heart and hope to die," she replied playfully - but Jaime understood she meant what she said.

She took his temperature again. It had subside a little but it was still far too high.

"Looks like you won't get rid of me today," she said.

He smiled. "I'm not a good host, I'm afraid."

"You're not in any position to. When you're well again you can show me if that's true or not."

"Would you come here when there's no need to?"

"Of course. People sometimes do things just for the fun of it. And the worst that could happen is Mara calling me a slut again." It slipped out before she knew, and she blushed deeply.

"So she was no different to you than she's always been to me?" Jaime thought about this for a moment. Then he said, "I think that's truly preposterous. We are married. I suppose that gives her the right to say what she pleases, but you -"

"Jaime! She hasn't! No one has any right to say what they please, not if they can't say anything nice! Don't you believe it. No one is ever justified in belittling anybody. I think it's a wonder you didn't walk out on her years ago, children notwithstanding."

It took some time for her words to sink in. Then he lay back thinking about what she'd just said, chewing on the inside of his cheeks.

"Want some more toast?" Molly asked after a while. "Tastes as good as your cheeks or better!"

He grinned. "Mara would have told me exactly what she thought, with slides and bells on," he said. "I think I prefer your style. Yes please, some more toast would be nice."

Mara went into the kitchen to get some, happy she'd seen Jaime grin, not just wanly like ten days ago, but a real grin. Good!

She spent the day reading and talking a little when Jaime was awake. He told her about his youth, and how life had revolved around his sister then. She had a very quarrelsome disposition and he had hated the endless shouting matches this had involved. Holidays generally ended after two or three days because she'd throw a spanner in the works, and it had taught him to efface himself and to steer clear of any glowing embers...

"I thought it would stand me in good stead with Mara. But it didn't help much," he said.

She nodded. "It might have been better it you'd been more assertive, perhaps - but I think that wouldn't sit too well on you. By the way, I found your poetry. I hope you don't mind my having read it -" Jaime shook his head - "but I wondered what on earth Mara made of it. She must have noticed something..."

Jaime shook his head again. "She never read any. She was rather angry about them. She thought I was just playing. Oh well, I don't know. I'm not sure they're any good."

"I think they are. I suppose they kept you going, in a way?"

"It was the only way I could say what I felt, and... yes, I think you're right."

He lay back on the pillow and looked at Molly. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans, a black T-Shirt and a necklace of small glass beads. She had put up her hair in an untidy bun, and she wore no make-up apart from a little greenish eye shadow. When she smiled she had dimples in her cheeks, and he enjoyed feeling her eyes on him. She was decidedly nice, he thought. Her face got momentarily replaced by Mara's as he remembered it from their last evening together, and he shivered.

"Someone walking on your grave?"

"I thought of our quarrel," he said.

Molly smiled. He looked at the dimples in her cheeks and her blue eyes resting on him, and he thought how different this was from what he'd been accustomed to. He smiled back at her.

"You don't know how happy I am to have you around," he said, and then he blushed.

"Alright," she said. "Would you like to try some coffee again?"

Yes he did, and it turned out to agree with him, too.

That evening he felt a lot better. They decided he would spend a couple of hours in the living room, wrapped in a sufficient amount of pullovers.

Molly had prepared an easily digestible meal, and Jaime had eaten with quite an appetite. Now they were having coffee and biscuits in the living room. Jaime was going through a couple of letters that had arrived that morning, and Molly, who had finished her book, was looking for a new one to read. She had a look through the music section. There were a couple of books she'd heard about, and she took Sam Charters off the shelf. As she took it to her chair something fell out and she bent over to pick it up.

Jaime turned beet-red, and looked at her shamefacedly with frightened eyes.

Molly sat down and looked at it. It was a DVD in a cardboard sleeve with a blurred image of a woman's breasts on the cover.

She looked at Jaime and raised her eyebrows. Then she saw his colour and the look in his eyes.

"Don't worry," she said, "I don't think you are a pervert because you've got an explicit DVD - I have a vibrator I sometimes use, you know. I might have if you went in for sadism or what. Is it nice?"

"I don't know," Jaime said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he said, "I only watched the first few minutes."

"Oh," she said, "So it was effective, at least."

He blushed fiercely. "No," he said, "you are getting me wrong." He hesitated a moment and then told her why he had had to try and still his needs by watching the disc and how it had only increased his misery. Molly sat listening to his story motionlessly. God almighty, she thought.

"I shouldn't have, I suppose..." he said, looking away.

"Jaime," she said, "there is nothing to be ashamed of in what you did, and if you think of yourself as depraved I'm going to be very disappointed in you. That's what Mara said to me - you'd be living a life of depravity here. Well, she certainly deprived you of all that's human, and that's a fact. It's a good thing she's not around, or I'd give her a piece of my mind. I'm very sorry and I know she's still your wife, but I think she's a bloody bitch."

She felt to her dismay that she was close to tears. "Sorry," she said as she got up. "I need a drink. I won't be a moment."

In the kitchen she wiped her eyes. She looked in the mirror and decided to wash her face. I can't have him see me like this, she thought - enough trouble as it is. Then she went back into the living room with the whisky bottle and a glass.

Jaime handed her one of the letters. It was a message from Mara, announcing her terms for her pending divorce, wrapped in abusive language and making some mention of her as Jaime's slut. She read it and handed it back.

"There's friendship for you," she said. Funnily enough it lifted her spirits a bit. "You know, this makes it impossible for me to take her seriously any longer. I think you'd better send this wonderful document to your lawyer and let her deal with it. It wouldn't do any good if you tried."

He nodded. "That's what I thought as well," he said. "Do you mind if I play some music?"

"No," Molly said. "Please do."

"Anything you dislike?"

"Why do you ask?"