The Heart Broke In by James Meek Page A

marriage becauseI panicked when you brought out your ring with all the weight of it.’
    ‘You pitied me.’
    ‘You make pity sound like a punch in the face.’
    ‘That would have been better,’ said Val.
    ‘Yes, I see that,’ said Bec. ‘You never talked about love. I liked it that you weren’t throwing that word around the way people do. But perhaps because you didn’t tell me you loved me, it made me think it was all right that I didn’t love you.’
    A change came over Val’s face. The muscles of his face tightened, his eyes seemed to harden and his mouth twisted into an expression of hatred.
    ‘You really are a modern Englishwoman, aren’t you?’ he said in a harsh, alien voice. ‘An atheist prattling about love, a hedonist bragging about her good works among the poor, an arrogant intellectual who thinks science has all the answers and who knows nothing about the lives of ordinary, decent, hard-working people. You move from party to party, from man to man, without a thought for family, loyalty, commitment. How many men have you been with? Twenty? Fifty? How many still to come? One day you’ll wake up dry and alone and wonder why your house is so quiet, why there aren’t any children in it.’ He gulped water and the glass hiding his mouth emphasised his bulging eyes and the rage that had taken possession of him.
    The shock of his words pushed Bec’s spirits into a crouch, as if she were suddenly fighting for her life, and amid the roar of blood and the battering of her heart her mind was clear. ‘You could have asked me to marry you before you put your hand between my legs,’ she said. ‘You could have asked me to marry you before you kissed me. You talk as if there are rulesI should be living by but if there are, you don’t know them any better than I do. I wish there was some kind of moral foundation I could stand on or try to blow up if I didn’t like it but there isn’t one.’
    Val’s eyes softened and he relaxed, as if a demon that had possessed him had left his body, taking with it all consciousness of what it had just made its host say. ‘There can be, darling,’ he said. ‘Be my wife, be the mother to my children, and you can stand on that moral foundation: tradition, common law and the ten commandments.’
    Bec was already getting up before he finished speaking. ‘I’m not the one,’ she said. She put out her hand for him to shake. He didn’t move. She said: ‘Goodbye. I’m sorry I made such a bad mistake.’

16
    A month later Val invited Ritchie to lunch in his office. In the lift going up Ritchie regretted not having brought someone with him. He stuck the clip-on visitor badge in the pocket of his jacket. You chose your team according to who you were up against, he thought. Sometimes it was better to be alone; you projected trust and confidence. But there were times when you wanted a sidekick. What they did wasn’t important. Sometimes, when he was on his way to meet a cunning man he didn’t like, and he wasn’t sure what they were going to talk about, Ritchie wanted another body on his side of the table, just for the extra mass.
    The lift doors opened and a woman was there to meet him. She smiled and he followed her sprightly march along the corridor. Their footsteps made no sound in the thick carpet of this, the executive floor. The building was a steel, concrete and glass tower from the 1980s but on this level the walls were panelled with old oak and hung with paintings of – who? Past editors? As long as it wasn’t about trying to get Bec to change her mind, thought Ritchie, it would go well; there was always advantage to be gained.
    ‘Here you are,’ said his guide, opening one of a set of double doors.
    Ritchie went in and the door closed behind him. Most of the room was taken up by a long, narrow walnut table, polished to a deep lustre. Val sat at the far end, talking on a mobile. Two places had been set for a meal there, with bottles of water, glasses, a bowl