The Marble Collector

15

She’s never been for a massage before and so as soon as we arrive at the hotel in Venice she goes straight to the spa. She’s glowing, excited, I can tell she feels grown up. We were married yesterday and we still haven’t had sex. We partied hard until three a.m., in spite of all the Boggs and Doyles leaving early, the sing-song was in full swing when we left and then we both collapsed in a heap on the bed and had to get up an hour later for a six a.m. flight. Definitely no time for sex, particularly sex for the first time. For her obviously, not me. I sit on the double bed and bounce up and down. I’ve waited for her for a year, I suppose I can wait for the length of a massage. She thinks I’m a virgin too, I don’t know what got it into her head, I never claimed I was, but that’s how all the people in her life are. They’re the following-those-rules type of people and she got it into her head that I am too. I just went along with it, save myself the trouble.

I know how I want to do it with her. The first time. I’ve thought about it. I want to play Hundreds with her. You draw a small circle on the floor. Both players shoot a marble towards the circle. If both or neither marble stops in the circle then we shoot again. If only one stops in the circle that player scores ten points each time the marble stops in the circle on subsequent throws. Gina never wears a bra, she doesn’t need to, and always wears a tight tank top and flares. She doesn’t wear make-up, freckles across her nose and cheeks, freckles on her chest bone. I think about kissing them all. Most of them I’ve kissed already. The first player to reach one hundred points is the winner and the loser hands over a predetermined number of marbles. Only in our game, which will involve white wine because now we’re married and grown up, whoever doesn’t make it to the circle will have to strip off an item of clothes. She’s never played marbles before, she’ll keep missing, I’ll miss just enough times too to make her comfortable. By the time I reach one hundred, I want her in the circle, naked. But this won’t happen, I know. This is just what’s kept me going this year while I do the gentlemanly thing and wait. I’ve never mixed marbles and sex before, and although Gina laughed the first time I told her I played marbles, I want to do this with her, with my wife.

Gina is worth the wait. She’s gorgeous, any fella I know would do the same. She’s too good for me of course. Not too good for the me that she knows, but for the me that she doesn’t know. The part of me she knows is some man I’ve concocted over time. He’s good with people, patient, polite, interested. He doesn’t think everyone she introduces him to is up themselves and he wouldn’t prefer to top himself than have a conversation with them. It’s better being him, he makes life easier for him and me. But he’s not me. I try to keep her away from my family as much as I can; whenever her and Ma talk I break out in a cold sweat. But Ma will never say anything, she knows the deal, knows that I’m in way over my head, but she wanted me to marry her just as much as I do so she could tick me off her list, another of her boys taken care of. Gina’s only met Angus briefly, at the wedding; he’s living in Liverpool and he can stay there, but Duncan, Tommy, Bobby and Joe are okay in small doses. She just thinks they’re always busy. Good enough.

She knows one of my brothers died, thinks Hamish drowned. Well he did, but she thinks it was some freak accident. I plan on keeping it that way. Hamish’s problems were his own but I don’t want him bringing that into my new life. Gina’s sweet, she’s naïve, and she judges people. She’d hear a thing like that and she’d look at me different. She’d probably be right. Not that I’m trouble, I’m always on the right side of the law, but I’m not the lad who promises to play croquet with her granddad. Thank God her dad’s dead and her granddad’s not far from it.

I chose Venice for the honeymoon. I’ve wanted to come here since I saw a documentary about the Murano glass factory, an entire island dedicated to making glass is an island I want to if not live on, at least visit. I don’t have much money, in fact we have very little to spend here at all, but I’m not leaving this country without a pocket full of marbles one way or another, whether I have to beg, borrow or steal. This honeymoon is being funded by Gina’s granddad who couldn’t help but step in when he heard we were going to Cobh for our honeymoon. Pick anywhere you want, he said. Anywhere in the world. Gina was hoping for a week in Yugoslavia because that’s where one of her friends went on honeymoon, but I managed to talk her into three days in Venice instead. Yugoslavia we could maybe some day afford by ourselves, Venice we couldn’t. Venice is a real escape, an adventure in another world. She bought it, because I meant it. I don’t care about her grandda helping me out, giving me money. I’ll take any helping hand offered, it doesn’t hurt my pride. If I don’t have it, I don’t have it; if someone wants to give it, then I’ll take it.

I pace the small room; it’s not the most luxurious hotel, far from it, but I appreciate being here at all. I’d sleep anywhere and I can’t wait to get out and explore.

I thought I’d be knackered from last night but I’m hopping. I’m eager to get moving. I don’t know how long a massage is but I’m not sitting here in this room when there’s a world out there waiting for me. I don’t think Gina will want to spend much time looking at marbles, not in the way I want to, so I take my moment now and slip away. I don’t have to go far before I see the most incredible marbles I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re contemporary art marbles, definitely not for playing with, they’re for collecting. I’m in such awe that I can’t move from the front window. The salesman comes outside and practically pulls me in, he can see the lust written all over my face. Problem is I have the lust for them but not the money. He answers question after question that I throw at him about every aspect, allows me to examine the works of art under a 10x loupe so I can see the skill of the artist. They are clear handmade glass marbles with elaborate designs captured inside. One is clear with a green four-leaf clover trapped deep inside, another is a goldfish that looks like it’s swimming in bubbles, another has a white swan in a swirl of blue sea. There’s a vortex, a swirl of purple, green, turquoise, green storms that corkscrew to the very centre of the marble. It’s hypnotising. Another is of an eye. A clear marble with an olive green eye and black pupil, red veins trickle around the sides. I feel like it’s watching me. Another is called ‘New Earth’ and it’s the entire planet, every country created inside, with clouds on the outer layer. It’s a work of pure genius. The entire planet captured in a four-inch marble. This is the one I want but I can barely afford one, let alone the collection. The cost of one is the amount of money I have for the entire three days.

It takes everything I have to walk away and it’s the walking away that fires the salesman into action. The best negotiator is the one who is always willing to walk away and he thinks I’m hustling him, which I’m not, I would sell my house for this collection if I had a house. We have to live with Gina’s mother for a year while we save up for a deposit for a house. To even be thinking about buying any of these marbles is pure ludicrous and I know it. But. I feel alive, the adrenaline is rushing through my body. This is the only good side of me, the best side of me and she doesn’t know it. Looking at these marbles, I vow right here to be faithful to her and I don’t mean not sleeping around, but to let her see the real me for the first time. Show her this marble, show her the biggest and best part of me.

I buy a clear marble with a red heart inside. It has corkscrew swirls of deep red, like drops of blood captured in a bubble. I bargain hard and pay almost half of what he was asking for. It’s still too much money but it’s not just a marble for me, it’s for Gina, an offering of who I truly am. It means more to me than the ceremony yesterday and words that I didn’t feel in my heart. This means something to me. This is the scariest, bravest thing I have ever set out to do in my adult life. I’m going to give her this heart, my heart, and tell her who I am. Who she’s married.

The seller wraps the heart in bubble wrap, then places it in a burgundy velvet pouch, pulled closed by a gold plaited tie and glass beads that I can’t help but admire. Even the beads on the pouch are beautiful. I push it deep into my pocket and return to the hotel.

When I get back to the room I can see she’s been crying but she tries to hide it. She wears a bathrobe which is tied tightly at her waist.

‘What’s wrong? What happened?’ I’m ready to punch someone.

‘Oh nothing.’ She wipes her eyes roughly with the sleeve of her towel until the skin around them is red raw.

‘It wasn’t nothing, tell me.’ I feel the anger pumping through my veins. Be calm or she won’t tell you. Be the patient, understanding fella who listens, don’t go thumping people. Not yet.

‘It was just so embarrassing, Fergus.’ She sits on the bed and looks tiny on the big bed. She’s twenty-one years old. I’m twenty-four. ‘She touched my…’ Her eyes widen and the anger leaves me and I feel a laugh rising.

‘Yeah? Your what?’ My fantasy game of Hundreds comes to mind. She’s on that bed, in the robe, my wife.

‘It’s not funny!’ She throws herself down, covers her face with a pillow.

‘I’m not laughing.’ I sit down beside her.

‘You look like you’re going to,’ she says, voice muffled. ‘I just didn’t know a massage was so invasive. I didn’t wait all this time to have sex to have a four-foot Italian mama maul me before you.’

And on that I have to laugh.

‘Stop!’ she whinges, but I can see her smile buried beneath the pillow.

‘Did you like her hands on you?’ I tease her, my hand travelling up her leg.

‘Stop it, Fergus.’ But she means the teasing, not the touching, because for the first time she’s not stopping me. I have to do it now though, I have to show her the marble now, so that it’s me that she meets, it’s me that she makes love to for the first time, not him.

I stop my own hand from travelling and she sits up, confused, hair all in her face.

‘I want to give you something first.’

She moves her hair away from her face and she looks so sweet, and so innocent right at that moment that I take a mental picture of it. I don’t know it now but I’ll try to recall it in the future at the moments when I feel like I’ve lost her, or hate her so much I can’t help but look away from her.

‘I went for a walk around. And I found something special for you. For us. It’s important to me.’ My voice is shaking and so I decide to shut up. I take the pouch out of my pocket, remove the heart from the pouch, my fingers trembling. I feel like I’m giving a part of myself to her. I’ve never felt like this before. You married me yesterday but today is the first time you’ve met me. My name is Fergus Boggs, my life is marked by marbles. I unwrap the bubble wrap and I hold it out in my palm. Her reaction first, then my explanation. Let her take it in, drink in her drinking it in.

‘What is this?’ she says, her voice flat.

I look at her in surprise, heart pounding in my throat. I immediately start to backtrack, back-pedal, hide in my shell. The other me starts warming up in the wings.

‘I mean, how much was it? We said we wouldn’t buy each other anything here. We can’t afford it. No more gifts, remember? After the wedding? We agreed.’ She’s barely looked at it, she’s so annoyed. Yes, we did agree, we promised each other, but this is more than a piece of jewellery, it means more to me than the ring she loves so much on her finger. I want to say that but I don’t.

‘How much did this cost?’

I stutter and stammer, too broken and hurt to reply honestly. I’m caught between being him and being me, I’m unable to focus on being one.

She is holding it too roughly, too harshly, she moves it from one hand to the other too carelessly, she could easily drop it. I feel tense watching her.

‘I can’t believe you wasted your money on this!’ She jumps up from the bed. ‘On a… on a…’ She studies it. ‘A toy! What were you thinking, Fergus? Oh my God.’ She sits down again, her eyes filling up. ‘We’ve been saving for so long. I just want to get away from living with Mum, I want it to be just you and me. We budgeted for this trip so carefully, Fergus, why would you…?’ She looks at the marble in her hand, confused. ‘I mean, it’s sweet, thank you, I know you were trying to be kind, but…’ Her anger starts to calm but it’s too late.

She places her hands on my cheeks, knows that she has hurt my feelings though I don’t admit to it. I will take it back I tell her, I will gladly take it back, I never want to see it again ever in my life, to be reminded of this moment when I offered my real self and I was rejected. But I can’t bring it back because she drops it, by accident, and its surface is scratched, meaning it will never have a perfect heart again.