Becky finds herself saying Yes not because it would make sense to her in that situation but because he is telling the story as if it would make sense to him, a man with expectations and appetites. And if she said No? She wouldn’t hear what happened next.
‘And so I was caught,’ he continues. ‘I wanted to sleep with her but I could also see that this was nothing but trouble for me. And bear in mind that I was drunk, too, by then. This is sort of what I can recall. And what happened next was … Well, it’s really hard to explain. And I feel terribly ashamed of it.’
She feels a slight caving inward, at how the admission of a weakness makes her warm toward him. We all make mistakes.
‘We began to have sex on the sofa,’ he says, ‘and then she looked me in the eye and said, “I knew you still loved me,” and I thought, fuck, oh God, this is terrible. How do I convince her, after everything, this whole evening we’ve had and what we’re doing together now? And my idea then was to try to show her that I didn’t love her. To make her feel certain that I didn’t have any feelings for her, so that maybe she’d hate me for it, but at least she’d be free of this … terrible delusion. And I had her on the floor and I told her, No, I don’t love you. You’re cheaper than a whore. And she wouldn’t believe me! She thought it was a game. So I kept on. I felt I had to show her. I insulted her. I belittled her. And eventually I think she did believe me. But it was all happening so fast. I don’t know if she ever said Stop or anything like that. But at some point I know she pushed at me and called me some terrible name and I wouldn’t let her go because I needed her to know that her opinions didn’t matter to me. It was a kind of theatre. I couldn’t think of anything else.
‘And then afterwards she was crying and I desperately wanted to say, Look, I’m so sorry, I just needed you to understand that I don’t love you and telling you that I only liked you wasn’t working.’
Becky is rapt. An audience member in the theatre, a cinema, at home on the sofa. ‘It’s good you were upfront with her again. No room for ambiguity there.’
‘Well and then she asked me to call her a cab and I did that,’ he says. ‘We didn’t talk much while we waited for it to come.’
‘What more was there to say between the two of you?’
‘Exactly. But then she said she’d never forgive me for what I’d said and I said I didn’t expect her to. I put her in the taxi and I wished her well. And that was that. Well, then DB called me the next day and went off at me, saying Amber had called saying I’d assaulted her. And Antonia – well, you were there when she came to the office, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, that looked … it must have been awful.’
‘Amber had emailed her.’
‘Oh God.’
‘And then I realized, I think I got this wrong.’ Matthew laughs, but it is an authentically despairing sound. ‘I told DB, No, this is about me cutting things off with her. And the idea that I’d “assaulted” Amber was, well, I couldn’t even take that in. Is there any world in which she might have honestly thought that? How could she strip off her underwear, seduce me, and then call it an assault? But of course I’d said all those things to her. I’d aimed to destroy that idea, that I loved her, and I’d done it while we were having sex with each other. It seems like an insane idea.’
‘We all do stupid things under pressure.’
‘I swear at the time I thought, This is what I have to do to make her see.
‘I called her, after I spoke with DB and after I’d talked to Antonia. I told Amber, Look, I’m sorry for how I was. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted you to see that I’m not in love. It’s never going to work the way you wanted it to work. And I told her that I was weak and I bitterly regretted how I’d gone about things, but that I hoped maybe in time we’d find a way through it to be friends. She listened to me, she said that she got it and she accepted my apology and that was the end of it. She said she couldn’t imagine wanting to be my friend. I said I understood but that I hoped one day that would change. And I meant it.
‘And then we were off to Cannes. And I thought, God, I have a mountain to climb to mend fences with lovely old DB and my darling wife, who deserves so much better than an email from … But if I can do that, and maybe put in a quiet word for Amber somewhere where she won’t know it was me, maybe I can begin to dig myself out and learn from this. And Cannes is such a bubble. And this time it was you who was the star attraction. You’re so talented.’
Becky bows her head and blushes at the compliment.
‘I could sit back and just admire watching you work. It reminded me of so many things I realized I needed to reconnect with Passion for the work. A hunger to
