On the Edge A Novel by Edward St. Aubyn Page B

case, challenging gender roles seemed to have become a stereotype of its own.
    They argued about everything, without either of them knowing what could be gained by arguing; they just couldn’t stop. That’s why she was taking them to Esalen for the ‘Letting go and Moving on’ workshop. She was blowing most of the five thousand pounds her father had given her for her thirtieth birthday. The packaging business had been good to him, as he never tired of pointing out. What Jason didn’t know was that his birthday present was a further weekend in a Tantric sex workshop. Haley had secretly decided that this was a make or break week. Either they were going to have a really deep transformational experience, or she would flood the stage with arguments about their relationship being totally sick. It wasn’t as if arguments would be hard to find, and she knew she had the support of her friends in CoCo: the Co-dependent Co-operative.
    Jason slouched home apprehensively. He didn’t want to argue all the way to California; on the other hand he resented being terrorized by Haley’s new habit of exhuming incidents from the graveyard of their past, and carrying them off with bitter triumph to the pathology lab of her meetings. She used to show the same amnesiac brio which characterized his own approach to life, but now he felt that there were thousands of labelled jars in which these diseased moments were murkily preserved.
    ‘We’re on the way out,’ he said to Barny, and Barny whined as if he understood the pity of their situation.
    Panita arrived half an hour early. ‘In case you have plane fever,’ she explained.
    ‘If we had plane fever, we would have asked you to come half an hour early,’ said Jason sarcastically.
    Orphaned, single, friendless and unemployed, Panita was an almost discarnate co-dependant, not weighed down by the actuality of a relationship, but perfectly englobed within her self-diagnosed anxiety. She was the concentrated essence of what Jason hated, floating free of the compromises made by ordinary co-dependants with other states of being, and existing in a pure state of passionate psychological handicap.
    ‘Weird route,’ he commented on the way to the airport.
    ‘I’m just going the way I know,’ said Panita.
    ‘Back-seat driver,’ said Haley, sensing trouble.
    But Jason couldn’t be stopped, and after the briefest pause he leant forward and asked in a voice of mock concern, ‘Is there anybody you’re co-dependent on at the moment, Panita?’
    ‘I hope not,’ said Panita.
    ‘Haley, for instance?’ asked Jason.
    ‘I think I’d know the signs by now,’ said Panita with grim expertise.
    ‘What are the signs?’
    ‘My eating, for a start.’
    ‘Oh, have you got an eating problem?’ asked Jason with undisguised delight.
    ‘Not at the moment, my recovery’s very solid.’
    ‘You had a healthy breakfast, did you?’ said Jason.
    ‘Oh, give it a rest,’ said Haley.
    ‘I’m worried about our new friend,’ said Jason. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you girls turned out to have a totally sick relationship.’
    ‘Calling us “girls” is really patronizing,’ said Haley.
    ‘Yeah, really patronizing,’ said Panita.
    ‘What would you like me to call you? Old hags?’
    Panita drew over to the side of the road.
    ‘Get out of the car,’ she said.
    ‘What?’ said Jason.
    ‘You heard me,’ said Panita, suddenly empowered. ‘I’m not having any inappropriate behaviour in my car.’
    ‘Oh, gimme a break.’
    ‘Get out!’ screamed Panita. ‘I’m sorry, Haley, but I don’t have to take inappropriate behaviour in my own space.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Haley, disconcerted, ‘but we’ve got to get to the airport.’
    ‘He can take the Underground, I’ll take you and the luggage.’
    ‘Can’t you just apologize?’ said Haley.
    ‘It’s gone beyond apology,’ said Panita. ‘I’ve been abused.’
    ‘But isn’t that what you secretly want?’ said Jason. ‘So you have something