Martin & Marie

Martin sat at the table facing his beautiful wife and contemplated, briefly, what she would look like after a swift slap to the face. The thought was swiftly suppressed. She was scrutinising him, clearly irritated, and he realised that his small, intrusive thought of mild violence had caused him to miss what she had said. 

“What?”

Her eyes rolled back into her head. She sighed. The disrespect made him want to give her the imagined slap, but no matter what she did, he could never bring himself to hurt her. No matter how tempting the thought might be. 

“We need to get rid of them,” she was too impatient to complain about his listening skills (for once). “I hate them, Martin.”

“Sweetie,” he tried not to sound condescending, even as he mentally dismissed her as a silly little woman. “Sweetheart, you were the one that wanted me to get them in the first place.”

“What I wanted, Martin,” the tone ground upon his own thinning patience, “was a nicely decorated home. What I wanted, was bespoke furniture and a wardrobe that matched my dressing table.”

“Don’t you have those things?”

“They’re calling me names, Martin!” She exploded in a ball of white-hot fury. “The dressing table called me fat, and you laughed! The wardrobe wouldn’t let me take my favourite red dress off of the hanger, it said that after it watched me eat half a pack of digestives it wanted to save me from the ensuing self-hate I was about to experience!”

“Well,” he tried not to smirk. “Did you eat that many digestives?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Her little face registered a thousand emotions between shock and hurt, and then crumpled in abject disappointment as tears filled her eyes. He watched the transformation, and then felt really quite horrible himself. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” he sighed a little, guilty. He knew she had been angry, but didn’t realise how serious the conversation had been for her. “Darling, I’m just winding you up. I don’t think you’re fat.”

“But I did eat them,” her voice wavered. “I was upset that you went to dinner with Janice, and I sat and ate them and cried by myself and watched Pretty Woman. The wardrobe watched. The bedside table told me that maybe if I didn’t cry so much, then you wouldn’t have gone.”

“The bedside table is talking a load of rubbish,” he reassured her, even though a part of him was very deeply irritated (irritated in part by his own sense of shame) to once again be having to talk about Janice. “You know that I had to go to that dinner as part of a business agreement. We had to iron out the details of the company contract. I have absolutely no attraction to the woman.” That was true, but it didn’t mean he had stopped her from rubbing her stockinged leg up and down his beneath the table. It also didn’t mean he had pulled his hand out from under her own when she had gently placed it there, laughing at one of his jokes. It didn’t mean he had stopped the sexual innuendos flying loosely after the first bottle of wine. 

It was harmless, though. He loved Marie. Always had, always would. A little flirting, a little touching wouldn’t hurt her as long as she didn’t know about it. He hadn’t even done anything himself. He just hadn’t stopped it.

“I know she’s your work colleague,” Marie’s teary eyes moved from his face, down to her lap. She doubted him, and he knew it. “I know that, but I don’t get…” She sighed, looked away, physically ending the topic. She was beautiful, he thought, watching her. Even as she drove him insane, even as he entertained other women, she was beautiful to him. Reluctantly, he acknowledged to himself that he would never be able to hurt her, or truly cheat on her, or leave her. If only she made it a little easier for him to tell her that. 

“You don’t get what?”

She looked back. The tears were trickling down her cheeks. She looked a little defiant. “I don’t get why a business meeting doesn’t happen at an office. You both have very nice, very professional expensive offices.”

They looked at each other. He wondered whether to come clean. She saved him from doing it. 

“I’m not in business, though” she shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. So who am I to say anything?”

No, he thought. You’re nobody to say anything about business meetings. But looking at you, feeling love for you, however reluctant I am to feel it…I feel guilty now.

“I love you, Marie,” he told her. She looked up at him again. For the last few years, every time he spoke those words, she would light up. Her eyes would sparkle, her cheeks would get rosy and pink, her face would crack open in a smile as though she couldn’t stop herself from smiling, so happy she was to hear the words. He wasn’t sure when she had stopped believing him, but looking at her contemplating him now, he knew that she had. 

“I love you,” she smiled sadly, tiredly. “So, you want to keep them?”

“We can’t refund them, honey.” He moved around the table. She looked cold and alone. Sinking to his knee in front of her, he pulled her into his arms, held her close. Slowly, her tense muscles melted into his chest, and he was able to mold her to him; to encase her in his warmth, to comfort her as he never could with his words. The things he wanted to express sat beyond his capabilities; beyond his emotional limits. She felt she was never enough; he had to live with the knowledge that he certainly was not, and never would be. 

“We can’t take them back,” he kissed her head and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her nose to his neck. Love. It was always there between them, no matter what they were going through. “We named them. You can’t take them back once they’re named, it’s in the contract.”

She sighed. “What did you name them?”

“Don’t be mad,” he ruffled her hair, smiled into her scalp. “The wardrobe is Woody, the dressing table is Buzz, the bedside table is Andy, and the kitchen worktop is Bo Peep. Cause she’s a girl.”

“For fuck sake,” her tone had changed at last, lighter, happier. “Martin!”

“What?” He laughed, tickled her sides. She shuddered, tried to wiggle again. “What? Did you want to say something? What is it Marie?”

She howled and slapped at him, laughing hysterically, and they wrestled a quarter of an hour away, while Bo Peep listened in the kitchen, and Woody, Buzz, and Andy heard the echoes floating up the stairs. 

#

Martin woke slowly, uncertain at first what had triggered his mind into shifting awake. He peeled his eyes open, squinting at the clock on his own bedside table, a quiet little thing called Leo, after DiCaprio, Marie’s favourite actor. The table didn’t fit in with their newer belongings, a small pine affair. Everything new was smooth white laminate. 

He heard what had woken him; sniffling, uneven breathing, little hitches, the minutest movement of the bed. 

Marie was crying again. 

He thought, briefly, of smothering her to sleep. It sounds cruel, but Marie was a troubled soul. When they had first gotten together, he had lain awake night after night, talking through her problems, soothing her, trying to help her rest her beautiful eyes. Now, after a few years of such behaviour and the correlating, constant sleep deprivation, he found himself leaning more and more into sleeping pills and wanting to put a pillow over her face. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted her to shut up and go to sleep, and wake up fresh and happy and smiling for him to kiss. It was rather infuriating that no amount of words, or love, or reassurance could make her just get a simple eight hours of uninterrupted, tear-less shut-eye. 

He closed his eyes, decided to try and ignore it and sleep through it. He felt bad, but also redundant to help, and once again the sense of being not enough overwhelmed him. The knowledge that no matter what he said, she would keep on crying, made him feel utterly useless and emasculated. He couldn’t fix this woman’s problems, and it made him feel less of a man in turn. His traitorous mind slipped to Janice. Janice who was always laughing. Janice, who he could make smile with nothing more than a thumbs up. Janice, who never found fault with him. He bet Janice could be reassured. He bet Janice could get eight hours of sleep if he said the right combination of words. He bet that he would be enough for Janice. 

He felt unkind and unhappy at his own train of thought, and forced his mind to drift, hoping to sleep and wake feeling better. He would never be with Janice, not when he could be with Marie. He loved her. He couldn’t hurt her like that, and in his heart he knew he would never be as happy with Janice, because he didn’t love her. Marie would be so upset if she knew how he thoughts.

“Wake up,” hissed his nightstand, so quietly that he barely registered it at first. “Martin! Wake up.”

“What?” He whispered back, curling closer, not wanting Marie to know that he was awake and ignoring her anguish. 

“Listen, mate,” Leo hissed. “Listen to what Andy’s saying.”

For a second Martin wasn’t sure who Andy was. Then he remembered. The other troublesome beside table, currently one of the biggest causes of drama within his relationship. He opened his eyes again, glared at Leo, then reluctantly strained his ears. It took a minute for him to register the words amongst the steady stream of whispering, pspspspspsps, coming from the other side of the bed. 

“You know I’m telling you the truth,” Andy was hissing, voice silky smooth. “Marie, you know none of us would ever lie to you, we always tell you the truth, even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts you, we make sure we only give you the absolute honest truth. We tell you what clothes make you look fat, which ones make your butt look big.”

“You’re just being mean,” Marie whisper-cried back. “And you’re wrong about Martin.”

“We’re not wrong,” a deeper, manlier voice uttered from a little further back in the room. Woody the wardrobe joining in. “We see how he behaves when you aren’t here, Marie. We see how he looks at his phone. When she texts him, he smiles. A proper smile. Like he used to do for you.”

“You’re lying,” she turned her face, and her voice became muffled. He knew she was sobbing into the pillow, exhausted from wiping her face. His chest hurt. “You’re all liars, Martin would never cheat.”

“Even if he hasn’t cheated yet, he will,” poison coming from Buzz the dressing table. “He likes this other girl more than you. She isn’t so needy or annoying, or pathetic. She doesn’t wake up every morning with swollen eyes, and she doesn’t go on and on at him. Or ask for reassurance. She just sends fun messages, fun photos. If you know what I mean. She’s more fun that you. Who would you want to be with, a smart, sexy, bubbly, fun-loving business woman or a sad sack who sits around the house crying?”

“I’m not a sad sack!” Her voice rose. Immediately all three of them shushed her. 

“You don’t want to wake him,” Andy whispered. “You already annoyed him today, don’t wake him up.”

“Janice would never,” agreed Buzz, and Marie started to cry harder. 

“I hate her,” she told the pillow. “I hate Janice, and I think I hate myself. I think I hate Martin too.”

“We know,” Buzz soothed. “We know, Marie. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she clung to the pillow, curling around it with the strength of her misery. “It’s not okay. Everything is ruined.”

“You’re the one who ruined it, you can hardly complain,” Andy chuckled. “There’s only two ways to fix it, Marie. Kill him or kill yourself.”

“You always say that,” her voice became heartbreakingly pitiful. “Please, please let me sleep now. Please. I don’t want to listen anymore.”

“Why aren’t you defending her, mate?” Leo sounded baleful. “She’s crying over there! They’re talking murder-suicide and you’re pretending to snore!”

“I’m honestly not sure if I’m awake or dreaming,” Martin had found the trio of furniture delightfully charming at Ikea. They’d all been so excited at the idea of being a romantic surprise for a depressed partner. They’d all reassured him they would make sure every day that she knew she looked beautiful, they would make sure she knew she was the most wonderful girl in the world. He’d honestly thought that they were going to fix things. When Marie had tried to complain, he thought she’d just taken their jokes badly. Or was being over dramatic. 

But…could she have, in fact…been right?

“I love him so much it hurts,” she sobbed pathetically into her pillow, and his heart broke a little bit. 

“I love you too!” He sat and spun at the same time with his urgency, tangling the duvet completely around his legs, whipping it away from his partner. Marie screamed and tumbled straight out of the other side of the bed, slamming her head against Andy’s sharp corner. 

“Ow!” She curled up on the floor, clutching her skull. 

“Hey!” Andy shouted in surprise. “You hit me! You got something wet on me! Quick, wipe it before it stains me forever!”

“That’s my girlfriend’s blood, you dick!” Martin bellowed back, grumpily kicking the nightstand as he vaulted to crouch next to Marie. “Marie, sweetheart, are you okay? Let me see it, love.”

He gently unclamped her fingers and winced at the blood oozing out of a nasty scalp wound. “You’ll be alright,” he kissed at her head, pressing his lips against the skin around the injury. “Let’s go downstairs and fix it up, sweetie. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, but your heart doesn’t need to hurt anymore. I love you.”

“Not Janice?” She peered up at him from beneath her hair, stuck to her face with blood and tears, eyes unfocused and full of doubt.

“No, Marie, not Janice. Never Janice.” He kissed her again, wiped at her face with his thumbs. “You were right, it didn’t need to be a dinner. We could have done it in our offies. And we will next time, sweetheart, but I didn’t cheat. I promise. I just…enjoyed a meal and a bit of attention that I shouldn’t have.”

“Do you promise?” She blinked a few more tears out. “You didn’t do anything?”

“I shouldn’t have even gone,” he began. 

“But he did go!” Andy piped up. “He prefers Janice!”

“Shut up,” Martin growled, and kicked the nightstand again. “I do not prefer Janice. I didn’t do anything with her, I just…didn’t put her off as much as I should have.” He looked back at Marie sadly. “I love you, Marie. Just…sometimes I find it hard, knowing that you’re so unhappy and I can’t change it. I feel useless. We had a rough patch where every day was just you crying endlessly and me sitting watching…so I agreed to a dinner I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Marie.”

“Okay,” she sniffled, felt at her head, winced. “It’s okay. I love you. Can we please get rid of the furniture now?”

“Yes,” Martin glared at Andy, Buzz and Woody, who all remained suspiciously quiet now. “Yes, we can. We will take them to the dump tomorrow.”

‘The dump?!” Buzz wailed. “No! The dump smells!”

“We don’t want to go to the dump,” Woody pleaded. “Please, can’t we go somewhere else?”

“Anywhere else,” Andy sounded on the verge of furniture-tears. “Legitimately, anywhere else. Please.”

“You said my butt was big,” Marie glared at Buzz. 

“I lied! It’s the perfect, petite behind!”

“A dainty derriere!”

“It’s the ass of a goddess!”

“Give them to Janice,” she looked back at Martin, a wicked gleam coming into her eye. “Give them to her, and we’ll be even. I’ll never bring up the dinner thing ever again, not even to win an argument.” 

She held out her hand. Martin considered.

“Therapy,” he countered. “I give the furniture to Janice and let her get bullied, and you call the therapist I gave you the number for five months ago. You thought I forgot, but I didn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to start an argument again. We both do that, and put this behind us.”

Marie flushed, cheeks rosy pink. She was so beautiful. 

She considered his offer, and his own outstretched hand. 

Then she placed her warm hand in her own, and shook.

“Deal.”

“Alright,” he kissed her head again, “come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

They left the room together, Martin helping Marie out. In the silence, the three spared pieces of furniture considered their fate. 

“That was nice of her,” Buzz sounded subdued. “She could have insisted we get dumped.”

“I told you guys they were good together,” Leo was smug. “I said you were going to get into trouble.”

“Shut up, Leo!”

“Well I did! I told you so!”

“Shut up!”

A squabble broke out, the different furnishing all shouting over the top of each other. 

Finally, Benjamin the bed frame spoke up. 

“None of you have the right to complain about anything,” he declared. “None of you have to lie here while they hump on top of you. Shut up so I can get some sleep before they come back and start having make up sex.”

Quiet, at last.