R= They Ate the Truth part 18

Odd the way two bodies can fit together, the way that a woman's
knees can tuck in just so behind a man's knees, the way her arm seems
just perfect to go loosely around my neck and cup my left shoulder.
Everyone always imagines that they are the only people ever to have
fitted together like that, the only people ever to have fallen in love.
I've listened to too much music in my time to come to love with an open
mind - I'm much more a Love, Love Will Tear Us Apart sort of bloke than
Love Lifts Us Up Where we Belong fellow. Still, it is nice, and after
her soak in the bathtub her skin is soft and her fingertips ridged and
puffy. Her hair smells of pears and is still a little damp to the
touch.

"Are you going to tell me then? " she asks.

Everyone I know who I try to play down love to always goes on about
this 'connection', this ability to know what the other person is
thinking. Me, I've never found it and never been that keen. For a
start, I think it is mostly about familiarity - it is no great insight
into your partner to know that they are about to say, "shall we turn
over for Eastenders", it just means that the routines are as real as
the imprint you leave on your sofa when you stand up to go to fetch the
Pringles and Bud Ice. Also, I never wanted anyone to really know me
that well. I like to keep my distance.

Still, when you have it, it feels nice. Kind of like brandywarming,
rather than whiskey-shock.

I hope she's asking about? I don't know, I don't think there's anything
safe to ask about. She's perceptive, Lorrie. But I've been lying to
people for a while now, and I hope I've gotten good at it.

She needs some sort of explanation. I tell her that Johann stole the
Queen bug, which is the only female, and the only way more bugs can be
bred. I tell her that according to Chesterton, her job was to make him
fall in love with her, and spy on him. But that, again according to
Chesterton, she went over to the other side and actually stole the bug
for him.

"Why did he need me to steal it?"

I shrug, forgetting that her chin is on my right shoulder. It is so
much easier to lie to someone when you're spooning, this must be why it
is such a popular way of resting your body alongside someone else's.
She can't see my mouth or my eyes.

"I think Chesterton was already suspicious of him. He must have locked
the Queen down, to make sure Johann couldn't get at it. "

There's something off about the way I say Johann, and she picks up on
it, eye-contact or no eye-contact. I put too little emphasis on it,
trying hard not to express loathing.

"You don't like him, do you? " she says, "Apart from him being the bad
guy, I mean. "

I make a bear-like noise, intended to signify that this is not
something that is either true or if true up for discussion. She pushes
at my back, not too hard.

"You're jealous, " she says, laughter in her voice.

"Maybe a bit, " I say, "You did marry the guy. Your job was to make him
fall in love with you. "

"Ah, I was a different person then, " she says.

For a time, when I was training to be a doctor, I had a part-time job,
frying doughnuts. It was hot, took place in the early hours of the
morning and nobody in the team of seven had anything in common or could
stand each other. So I did what any right-minded English person would
do, I called in sick as often as I could get away with. And the
technique for this, maybe the technique for all lying is - you have to
actually convince yourself first, to the point where after you've made
the telephone call, you lie weakly on the sofa watching crappy TV and
feeling sorry for yourself, actually feeling like you have a bad head
cold. Perhaps the same is true for people whose job is to make men fall
in love with them, maybe they have to fall a little bit too, for it to
look convincing.

She kisses my ear a little and I start to feel slightly better.

"So what is he going to do with this Queen, now he has it?"

I prop myself up on my elbow, moving slowly so that we have the chance
to adjust to this new combination of angles and softer parts.

"I think he's looking for a buyer, " I say, "Some guy named Lafferty.
Ring any bells?"

I'm not at all surprised when she says no. Nothing rings any bells for
her.

"After that, who knows, " I say, "Someone with a grudge could cause
some serious damage with those bugs. Breed up enough and you've got an
army that would wipe out most cities, or breed them selectively and you
can pull secrets out of anyone. I hope Lafferty is just a well-funded
lepidopterist. "

"That's butterflies, " she says, "Lepidopterists collect butterflies.
"

"I'm aware, " I tell her, "But who knows the word for
bug-collecting?"

I lie to her again, tell her that Chesterton thinks that Johann wants
something from her, that's why he was having her watched. This is why
Chesterton wants to meet us later, I say, at Johann's old lab. That it
was Johann who wiped out her memories, so that she couldn't betray him,
even if she wanted to.

"That bothers you, doesn't it? " she says, "That you don't know whether
I would have, if I'd been able to. "

I pull a face, though she doesn't see it. "It's unfair, " I tell her,
"You're not that Lorrie anymore. You're not his Lorrie, you're mine.
But I still feel like his prints are all over you. "

She gets out of the bed. I've said the wrong thing. I can feel
something tight and bad in the room.

"Actually, " she says, "I come to you absolutely undamaged goods. I can
barely remember a second Johann and I spent together. The whole thing
was full of guilt, and I don't even know why. "

"Maybe at selling out your country, " I snap.

There should be something in a minute, a moment where the two of us
chide each other for falling out, for trying to spoil things and fall
back into each other's arms, vowing never to quarrel again.

It takes twenty-five, and I have to go into the bathroom where she is
sitting with one leg up on the side of the bath, shaving her legs
fiercely with a chubby aqua-blue razor. I have to hold her lightly
under the chin, as she tries to turn her head away from me, and look
her right in the eyes. The razor makes a scritch-scritch noise and she
keeps right on shaving, with long deliberate strokes.

"I'm sorry, " I say, "That wasn't you. I was wrong to throw it at you.
It's been a long week, and I can smell alcohol in my sweat even though
it's not there. "

There's more of this, but who needs to hear it? Making up is difficult,
especially when you're in the wrong. It takes time to find the right
words to soothe. Stupid, because it takes no time at all to find the
ones to really hurt someone, those words come out easy. Does that mean
the brain is hardwired to hurt people quicker than it is to love
them?

She says, "You loved your bugs, didn't you?"

I tell her the truth, this is a safe thing to be honest about. That
yes, I did, that although they were ugly, slightly creepy things, they
were MY ugly, slightly creepy things and we'd been through a lot
together.

She says, "I killed your bugs Alex. I killed your boys. "