Before She Met Me by Julian Barnes

you’d be bound to go straight home to Ann and blab it out on her shoulder, and
that
wouldn’t do either of you any good or solve anything. No, all I’m saying is, that is your cross-eyed bear. Every marriage has a cross-eyed bear, and this is yours.’
    Graham looked blankly at him.
    ‘Cross-eyed bear. Cross You’d Bear? Cross I’d Bear? Okay? Fuckit, Graham, we’ve both been married twice, we’re both practically clear of brain damage, we both thought about the whole thing each time before plunging into it. Now, four marriages tell us the honey time can’t last. So what can you do about it? I mean, you don’t think your present situation is Ann’s
fault
, do you?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘And you don’t think it’s yours?’
    ‘No—I suppose I don’t think about it in terms of fault.’
    ‘Of course not. Quite right too. It’s in the nature of the beast, that’s what it is. It’s in the nature of marriage. It’s a design fault. There’ll always be something, and the best way to survive, if you want to survive, is identify it, isolate it, and always make a particular response to it when it occurs.’
    ‘Like you calling up an old girlfriend.’
    ‘Sure. But you won’t want to do that.’
    ‘I can’t think of anything relevant I might want to do. All I want to do is take a holiday from being inside my head.’
    ‘Well, there are ways. Do something irrelevant if you like, but do it seriously. Have a wank, get drunk, go and buy a new tie. Doesn’t matter what it is, just as long as you havesome way of fighting back. Otherwise it’ll get you down. Get you both down.’
    Jack thought he was really doing quite well. He wasn’t used to acting as a problem page, and he’d been fairly convinced by the plot structure he’d presented to Graham at such short notice. He’d managed to impose some sort of pattern on both their lives as he went along. Still, that was his job, after all, wasn’t it: smelting order out of chaos, rendering fear and panic and agony and passion down into two hundred pages and six quid ninety-five. That was what he was paid to do, so this wasn’t too hard a sideline. The percentage of lying was about the same as well.
    Graham decided, though without much optimism, to think over what Jack had said. He’d always considered Jack more experienced than himself. Was he? They’d both been married twice, they’d both read about the same amount, they were of about the same intelligence. So why did he consider Jack an authority? Partly because Jack wrote books, and Graham respected books in both an abstract and a practical way, acknowledged a gut deference to their jurisdiction. And partly because Jack had had millions of affairs; always seemed to have a new girl in tow. Not that this necessarily made him an authority on marriage. But then, who was? Mickey Rooney? Zsa Zsa Gabor? Some Turkish sultan or other?
    ‘Or … ‘ said Jack. He was rubbing his beard and looking almost as serious as he could.
    ‘Yes …?’
    ‘Well, there’s always one solution …’ Graham sat up straighter in his chair. This was what he’d come for. Of
course
, Jack would know what to do, would know the right answer. That was why he’d come here; he knew he was right to come. ‘… You should love her less.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Love her less. May sound a bit old-fashioned, but it’d work. You don’t have to hate her or dislike her or anything—don’t go over the edge. Just learn to detach yourself a little. Be her friend if you like. Love her less.’
    Graham hesitated. He didn’t quite know where to begin. Eventually he said,
    ‘I cry when the houseplants die.’
    ‘Come again, squire?’
    ‘She had these African violets. I mean, I don’t like African violets much, and neither does Ann. I think she was given them. She’s got lots of other plants she likes a lot more. And they got sort of plant chicken pox or something, and they died. Ann didn’t mind at all. I went up to my study and