Jemma’s Version
I love giving surprises! What I like the most about couple life is celebrating special occasions and planning surprise parties. Who doesn’t, anyway?
What about presents?
And chocolates?
And roses?
I know, every day should be special when you’re in love, not only birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine’s day, but I believe in happy endings and Prince Charming, I believe in fairy tales.
And I believe that Alejandro will rip off my lace lingerie set as soon as he sees it.
I met him at a Cuban club in Camden, exactly a month ago. He asked me to dance salsa and we didn’t stop until the club closed. They kicked us out and we went to my place. Well, we knew we’d end up either at my place or his.
Alejandro is from Caracas. He’s tall, he’s got shaggy long black hair and his dark eyes are so intense that I lost myself inside them when he took me to the dance floor with him. His hands are strong and steady and when he puts them around my waist I feel I belong to him. It’s love, I’m sure. It must be if he makes me feel this way.
Today happens to be the theatre’s day off, so I decided to give Alejandro a surprise: I’m heading to his house sporting a sexy lingerie set under my coat; we’ll eat in bed, enjoying the delicacies I bought at Fortnum & Mason – even though I can’t usually afford them, I can spend some of my savings on special occasions – and then we will do something very romantic, like taking a candlelit bath together. Now that I think about it, I’m not even sure he has a bath tub… no worries, though, the shower will do just fine. We’ll also play some sensual background music.
His flat is in Barnet, close to the Tube station. At least I won’t have to walk for long, which is good, because the cold air entering my coat is freezing my buttocks.
There’s a boy going out of what should be the entrance to Alejandro’s block of flats. I ask him, just to confirm it’s not the wrong one. Okay, I have to admit I’ve never been to his place, but we shared a taxi once and it stopped right here to drop him off, before taking me home.
“Excuse me, Alejandro lives here, doesn’t he? Tall, Latin American lad with a strong Hispanic accent…”
He looks at me and hesitates for a second. “I don’t know if his name is Alejandro but there’s a Latin American boy on the fourth floor.”
It’s Alejandro, I’m sure.
I climb the stairs fast, risking a fall from my high heels.
I knock on the door and undo the buttons of my coat quickly while I hear steps approaching. When I see the door knob turn, I proudly show off my lingerie exclaiming: “Happy first month anniversary!”
And then, I put the coat back on, horrified. “You’re not Alejandro!”
No, he definitely isn’t. It’s a man in his sixties, looking at me in astonishment. “I may not be Alejandro, but you’re more than welcome!”
“I’m sorry, doesn’t Alejandro live here?”
The man comes out and nods towards the corridor. “The door over there, sweetheart.”
I realise that there are three more flats on the fourth floor, so I kindly thank the man.
“That’s a lucky lad,” I hear him comment while I head towards the right door.
I knock on the door, feeling pretty self-confident. I do agree, Alejandro is a lucky lad.
He opens the door in his shirtless magnificence, his body is still moist from a shower.
“Jemma?”
I take my coat off and, as it falls to the floor, I ask: “Shall we celebrate?”
He looks at me, doubtful. “I’m sorry?”
Why doesn’t he look happy?
“It’s our first month anniversary! We met a month ago,” I say, trying to make him feel my own enthusiasm while I walk past him into the flat.
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Well, of course you weren’t, if you were it wouldn’t have been a surprise…” I reply.
Alejandro doesn’t seem to get the point of my visit. “I’ve never told you I live here.”
“I have my resources. Why don’t we relax a bit, now? I’ll help you dry yourself…”
I reach out to close the door behind me, but what I touch isn’t wood: it’s something warm and soft.
“Help dry who?” The warm thing has got a female voice.
I turn round and I see a girl, also Latin American. She’s naked, and I notice that my hand is on one of her breasts. I pull it back sharply, shocked.
“Alejandro! Who… who is she?” I ask, horrified.
“I am Shoanah.”
“It’s Shoanah,” he echoes.
“Okay, it’s Shoanah, but what is she doing here naked?”
“She’s my wife,” he replies, most naturally.
I would like to disappear at once. I’m standing here in a thong and stockings in front of who I thought was my boyfriend and his naked wife.
“You never mentioned you were married!” I accuse him, while I pick up my coat and put it back on.
Alejandro looks at me without blinking an eye. “You never asked.”
My jaw drops open and I’m speechless. Shoanah looks at me from top to toe and says: “She can stay, she’s very pretty. I like her.”
He seems to love the idea. “Sure, now that you’re here, you could join us…”
“How revolting!” I reply, buttoning up my coat quickly. “Alejandro, you’re a bastard!” I shout and that’s all I can manage to say before running down the stairs and leaving that grotesque scene behind me.
Happy first month anniversary, Jemma. Didn’t you say you like surprises? Well, this serves you just right.
As the freezing cold comes up my legs, I feel more and more stupid. I curl up on the first seat I find in the Tube, pulling down my coat to cover the lace of my stockings.
I feel exposed, as if everyone could see what I’m wearing under my coat. I wallow in self-pity.
While I was setting up the surprise, and I was so happy, Alejandro was revising the Kamasutra with Shoanah!
At home, I enter through the building’s front door and head to my parent’s flat, stomping angrily up the stairs.
“I’m so stupid!” I announce, without even saying hello, while I collapse on one of the cushions placed on the carpet.
My mum stretches her neck from behind the kitchen door. “What did you say, angel?”
“That I’m so stupid,” I repeat, muttering.
“You know that I don’t like it when you spread negativity at sunset, it’s almost time for meditation.”
Big tears start running down my face. “Can you do it later?”
“Sure, I can synchronise with the Azores time zone. Why are you crying, then?”
“Alejandro’s married!” I cry desperately.
“Married?”
“I went to his place to give him a surprise for our first month anniversary, and he was in bed with another woman. His wife!”
At last, my mum comes out from the kitchen to hug me, but I draw back. “Mum, please put on some clothes! I’ve seen enough naked people today!” Apart from a colourful scarf in her long auburn hair with just a few grey strands, she is wearing nothing.
As a side note, I should mention that my parents are nudists, or naturists, as they define themselves.
I might digress and describe my parents, but I’m not in the mood right now.
“By the way, would you lend me something to wear?” I undo a few buttons to let her see what’s under my coat.
She comes back from her bedroom with two embroidered kaftans. I choose the acid green one, which gives off a strong smell of patchouli.
She sits on the cushion next to me in the lotus position.
“Help me remember, Alejandro…?”
“The salsa dancer.”
“Wasn’t that Roberto?” she asks, confused.
“Yes, but he also danced merengue.”
“Merengue? I thought the merengue dancer was Fernando…”
“No, Mum. Fernando was paso doble, at the Christmas Eve party.”
“They all seem the same to me… it must be because of my age,” she gives up, shrugging. “So, Alejandro is married?”
“Yeah,” I don’t know what else to say, but then I lose it. “What’s wrong with me? Why do men run away?”
“You’re perfect, Jemma!” says my father as his opening line. He’s just come back from the radio station. “I heard you screaming from the stairs,” he says, then he approaches my mum and kisses her. “What happened?”
“Alejandro is married,” she says, in a solemn tone of voice.
“Wasn’t this one Roberto?” Asks Dad.
“No, that one cheated on her with a figure skater.”
“Um, wasn’t Fernando the one of the figure skater?”
“No, Fernando had an affair with his sister,” says Mum to correct him.
Dad face palms. “Jings, how could I forget about that one!”
“It doesn’t matter who did what. This is the same old story: I’m not able to make any relationship work, they always cheat on me with someone else!”
Mum starts braiding my hair, which means she is going to talk about the major issues of life. “Um, Jemma, maybe you should figure out whether ten days are enough to consider it a relationship.”
“A month!” I correct her. “You and Dad barely knew each other when you got married!” I add, in an accusatory tone of voice.
“Those were other times, we were spiritual mates and we figured it out straight away.”
Her logic doesn’t work with me. “Perhaps Alejandro and I could have been spiritual mates, if only he weren’t married! And his wife even proposed a threesome!” I complain, outraged.
Mum and Dad exchange a knowing look.
“What’s with the two of you?” I ask, irritated.
Mum tries to explain. “Jemma, you give much too importance to physical possession. You intend love and relationships to be the material confinement of your partner.”
I look at them, increasingly puzzled.
Dad gives his precious contribution. “That’s right, Jemma, what your mother is trying to say is that, back in the seventies, we had free love. It wasn’t rare to have even five or six partners.”
“Group sex…” she continues.
My dad smiles at her. “I could achieve physical pleasure with anyone, but your mother is the only person who gives me spiritual ecstasy…”
“Yes, it’s the same for me with your father. Monogamy is very restrictive in the way you intend it.”
“For God’s sake, please!” I try and chase away the image of my parents as twenty year olds having orgies in the seventies.
“Carly, perhaps she needs some help to calm down.”
“You’re right, Vance, I’ll go make something hot for her.”
My dad puts John Lennon’s Imagine on the record player, while my mum comes back from the kitchen with a tray and three steaming cuppas.
I take a sip but I spit it out immediately.
“Jemma, sweetie, be careful, it’s very hot! Be patient!” My dad comments.
“What did you put in here, Mum? It’s a marijuana infusion, isn’t it?”
She shrugs and then makes a hand gesture, bringing her thumb and index finger close to each other. “Just a wee bit…”
“Mum! Camomile would be more than enough to make me relax!”
“It made you sleep so well when you were little!”
I love my parents, but I can’t spend too much time with them. I stand up and head to my cubbyhole.
“Where are you going?”
“Downstairs. I’ve got a headache. I’ll have a shower and go to bed.”
“I made hummus for dinner!”
“I’m tempted but no, thanks.”
*
My mum was raised by my grandmother Catriona to become a lady in British high society and marry a nobleman. Her family, which was wealthy but had no title, aspired to climb the social ladder, and the matter of nobility was very important to my grandmother.
When my mum came of age, a titled husband-to-be was chosen for her, but the marriage never happened because while she was visiting a friend in Southampton, she secretly went to a concert where she met my dad. They got married and went back to London together, to my grandparents’ fury. For long standing manufacturers of weapons and military supplies, having a pacifist daughter who married a long haired hippy is a tragedy. She was immediately repudiated, so they lived in a kibbutz in Wadi Ara for a while, then in a commune in Goa, and they returned to England just when she got pregnant.
My dad is a dj at an independent rock radio station, he usually wears bell-bottoms and ties his grizzled hair in a ponytail. My mum gives holistic massages to rebalance chakras and prepares natural remedies with the herbs she grows on her terrace. They’re hippies from top to toe, and I was raised in total freedom. They never scolded me, because they’re against punishment. Sometimes I wonder how I survived until twenty-five.
For instance, my parents were sure they would have a boy, so they picked the name ‘Jimi’, after Jimi Hendrix. Later, they were told I was a girl, so ‘Jimi’ became ‘Jemma’.
By ‘hippy’, I mean the above: drinking, eating and smoking marijuana is part of the daily routine of my family home. In addition, their car is a cheerful melon coloured van; they’re nudists and I regularly went to nudist campsites and beaches as a child; they have no tv; they’re vegans, ecologists, animalists and antimonarchists.
If I can say ‘they are’ and not ‘we are’, it’s because the best part of having hippy parents is that I’ve always been free to choose. So, when I was fourteen, I ate at McDonalds after a Backstreet Boys concert. And I declared eternal love to beef and cheese.
Unfortunately, on the matter of monogamy and cheating – at least from a physical point of view – I can’t count very much on them, given that they took part in the sexual revolution.
I lean against the wall of the shower for something like half an hour with my face covered in running water – which gets steaming hot if the first floor neighbour flushes and gets freezing cold if the second floor neighbour does. Then, I drag myself into bed in order to bury this disastrous afternoon under layers of sheets.
I barely notice a text.
It’s Derek’s.
You told me to solve the issues with your inheritance. I might have found a solution. Let’s talk about it at dinner tomorrow, meet me at 8 p.m. at Berners’.