September 1925, English Channel
Bettina was not a good water traveller and she did not like travelling with others. Bart, knowing this, went off to sit at the bar, sometimes coming back to check she was all right, and always preceding his queries with an incredulous, ‘Hello, wifey.’ ‘Hello, hubby,’ she croaked back, her cheek against the cabin window. She just wanted to fall on a bed and close her eyes. And think of Trude. She could barely think of anything else.
Trude was a blonde, bobbed wild thing, married but practically estranged from her ancient husband (he was fifty-eight and she thirty years his junior). She had one of those bodies seemingly designed to drive men crazy – large jiggling breasts, plump hips and a behind that looked like it was stuffed with pillows. Vogue was going potty over skinny waifs with boys’ hips, all the better to drape flimsy dresses over, and that was all well and good, but in the real world, thought Bettina, it still took a big arse and breasts to send men over the edge. And some women, clearly.
She’d be sitting opposite Trude in a tea shop and find herself tuning out, a slippery montage of sexually explicit scenarios shooting like ticker tape across her mind – legs spread apart, positively ripped apart like a land mass split by earthquake, hands kneading soft buttock fat, tongues … tongues … ‘Betts?’ Trude would say. ‘Bettina, darling, are you listening?’ and her eyes would unglaze and she’d blink guiltily at her new friend, knowing that when she next went to the toilet she’d find a wet viscosity, a drool – vile.
‘Are you sure you don’t have narcolepsy, darling?’
‘I wasn’t sleeping.’
‘What were you doing? Am I that boring that you must start day-dreaming whenever I open my mouth?’
There were times when Trude almost seemed to flirt with Bettina. Once they’d gone to an art exhibition in Mayfair and ambled arm in arm, swapping deadpan observations (‘When one says “quintessentially English”, what one invariably means is “bloody boring”’), and at one point, Trude gazed up at Bettina’s lips as she was talking and there was a hunger to it – yes, a definite hunger, she couldn’t be imagining it – and Trude visibly collected herself and said, ‘I bet Constable’s got a whopper on him.’
‘Would you like a drink or something, my dearest, darlingest wifeypoos?’ Bart. Leaning against the doorframe, eyes glassy with boozy bonhomie.
‘Anything I put in my body is coming back up again,’ she said.
‘You’ll feel better as soon as we’re on land. I’ll take you to Bras de Grenouilles for a slap-up meal.’
‘I don’t want to think of food right now.’
‘Oh, but it’ll be delicious,’ he said. ‘We’ll have prawns and quails’ eggs and oysters and more prawns – just imagine those pink, twitching, juicy prawns –and how could I forget about the snails? Slimy, succulent snails!’ He kissed the tips of his fingers. ‘Magnifique!’
‘You bastard.’
‘Correction, my love – I am your bastard husband.’ He blew her a kiss and strutted off. How long would it take before she began to hate him? Hopefully never – he was, after all, her favourite person. But hate was so easy.
At the hotel they had a bedroom each with a connecting door, a huge sitting room and a gothic-styled bathroom with a tub the size of a dining table. The light fixtures were dripping with fat crystals and all the soft furnishings and haberdashery were an opulent, silky gold. The beds were coated in red petals in a way that appeared random but which was probably artfully contrived – Bettina imagined the concierge deliberating over the placement of a particular petal, moving it around and standing at various angles with a finger at his pursed lips until he was satisfied.
She came into the sitting room to find Bart lying sultry-eyed on the chaise longue in one of her evening dresses, one hairy leg cocked up, cigarette held daintily. ‘If you’re after a woman, look no further,’ he purred.
She laughed, her hands on her knees, then held up a finger as if to say, ‘Wait a minute,’ and ran to his room. She stripped her clothes off and started to put on his, fumbling pink-faced and giggling with the buttons (so many buttons) and stopping every few seconds to fan herself with her hand. She looked in the mirror and grinned. Winked. She stuffed a ball of socks down the crotch of the underpants, then another, and moulded them into position. She walked in a wide-legged saunter to her husband, who, of course, burst into loud, reckless cackling, beating the cushion of the chaise longue.
‘What’s a lovely lady like you doing in a place like this?’ she asked, grabbing her sock-bulge and squeezing it. Bart was turning purple with laughter. She climbed on top of him, thrusting her hips up and down.
‘Stop – stop. I’m going to piss myself. Please – I can’t.’
She climbed off, slapping his behind. ‘Tease.’
Bettina knew all about Étienne. Bart sometimes read out bits of his letters, the especially romantic lines (‘My love for you is a crime for which I have been arrested,’ he once wrote, ‘and I pace this aching jail, a madman with bleeding feet.’) He talked about the man’s beauty (‘You could eat your pudding out of his dimples’) and his integrity, his ability to think for himself, which Bart valued above most other things. He lived a bohemian lifestyle but he wasn’t a bohemian – and thank God, said Bart, because bohemians were superficial idiots. And they honked, the lot of them.
Bettina liked hearing about Étienne and was dying to meet him. ‘Oh, you’d hate him,’ Bart said. ‘He doesn’t enjoy the moneyed class one bit and only tolerates me because he loves me. And I him.’
Bettina had felt a pang of jealousy at that. Which was silly.
‘In fact,’ Bart continued, ‘the only time he relaxes his views about inherent power struggles is when he’s got a cock in his mouth.’
‘Bart! Don’t be vulgar.’ They were lying in Bart’s bed now, in their nightclothes, rose petals stuck to their skin. A bottle of champagne lay empty on the floor. ‘I really wouldn’t mind if you wanted to go and see Étienne now,’ she said. Only halfmeaning it.
‘Stop saying that, would you? This is our wedding night.’
‘But it’s not a real wedding night.’
‘Oh, stop it.’ He picked a rose petal off his neck and started nibbling it. ‘Anyway, he might come over on Tuesday. I asked if he wanted to have a meal at a restaurant. Meet the wifey and all that. But he loathes restaurants unless they’re the humblest of shitholes, so I invited him here for a room-service supper. You must promise not to be all high and mighty around him. He’s an urchin.’
‘I won’t be. I’ll be open-minded.’ She smiled. ‘At the very least I’ll pretend to be.’
‘I’ll be awfully upset if there’s friction between you.’
‘Bart! I am actually less of a snob than you.’
‘On the surface.’
‘Will you shut up, please? You’re insulting me.’
‘Sorry. Sorry. It’s just I’m nervous about you meeting. You’re my two favourite people and I want you to get on.’
‘I’m sure we will. I’m sure I’ll love him.’
And what if she didn’t? Well, it was very easy to be around people you didn’t like; society had prepared her well for such a likelihood. You just smiled a lot then feigned a headache and went to bed with a good book. Imagine she ended up with Trude – oh, she knew there was no chance in hell, but just imagine – and Bart displayed signs of not liking the woman. Would she care? Or would she be too busy indulging her pleasures? ‘Good night, husband,’ she said, kissing the side of Bart’s head and turning out the night lamp. And she drifted off to sleep, her belly hot and her heart dipping and soaring, owl-like, as she anticipated these same pleasures.
‘Oh, but I’ve tried to appreciate it,’ said Bettina, ‘really I have.’ They were talking about modern art, specifically the paintings of Picasso and Man Ray. ‘Only, I feel like I’m missing something. As if someone has told me a joke and the punchline has gone right over my head. I feel the same about Virginia Woolf, actually. That’s the first time I’ve ever admitted that to anyone, so keep it to yourself.’
Étienne took a sip of his wine – a very dainty sip, thought Bettina, as if he was trying to prove something. ‘You are perhaps thinking too much about it. I will take you to an exhibition tomorrow. You must see the work with your own eyes.’
He had entered the hotel room wearing a brown tweed suit – ugly but a good fit – and grasping his cap in both hands, seemingly ill at ease but with a defiant look in his eyes (and very nice eyes they were). He started to relax after his first glass of wine. His left ear was pierced and he wore a maroon cravat around his neck. He was eloquent and – this was strange – both guarded and open at the same time. The guard, she assumed, only came up around people with money. People like her.
‘Am I invited?’ said Bart.
Étienne pouted, as if considering. ‘If you promise to behave.’
‘Oh, I like him!’ said Bettina, clapping her hands.
‘Don’t you two gang up on me.’
Étienne squeezed Bart’s thigh – quite high up. Bettina stared at his hand, quickly averting her gaze when Étienne looked at her. ‘Many interesting people will attend. Women like you.’
‘What, you mean the place will be rammed full of gorgeous, refined redheads with marvellous intellects?’ She yanked her head back and laughed into the ceiling. She didn’t normally laugh at her own jokes quite so flagrantly, but she was quite drunk.
‘Lesbians,’ said Étienne, smiling (he did indeed have lovely dimples). ‘There will be lesbians.’
‘Steady on,’ said Bettina.
‘She still isn’t entirely convinced that the word is a good fit for her,’ said Bart.
‘But why?’ said Étienne. ‘It’s a beautiful word.’ He closed his eyes and said, ‘Lesbian. Lezzzzbian,’ swishing his wine glass around on the tail end of the word.
‘It is a lovely word, starved of its context,’ said Bettina. ‘But so is “syphilis”. You know, when I imagine an actual lesbian, all I see is a woman who hates men and dresses abysmally.’
‘That is true of some,’ said Étienne. ‘But many are like yourself. You will see. Romaine Brooks will be there. And Djuna Barnes.’ He placed his hands over his chest. ‘Nice boobies.’
Bettina burst out laughing, spilling her drink on her stomach. Funny and gorgeous. She wondered what he would look like with no clothes on. Him and Bart with no clothes on. No. Better not to think of things like that. What the hell was she doing thinking of things like that?
They called up for room service and sat down together to eat, Bart and Bettina opting for cassoulet, Étienne wolfing down half a chicken and a bowl of potatoes in a herb-butter sauce. He had no table manners and his dainty sipping had made way for purple-lipped glugging. Bettina caught Bart glancing at her, challenging her to say something. Well, she damn well wouldn’t.
They pushed their plates away and lit their cigarettes. Étienne talked about the Left Bank, the best bookshops and cafés. He lifted his legs onto Bart’s lap and told them about the time he’d attended one of Gertrude Stein’s salons and been kicked out for bringing alcohol (‘She is a genius but she takes herself too seriously, I think’). He gave them a lecture on how language is used to perpetuate class oppression (‘The wealthy “fuck” or “make love” but poor people “rut”, and what is the difference, truly?’), Bettina nodding her head perhaps a little too eagerly and saying, ‘Quite right, quite right.’ He suggested authentic bistros they could visit in Naples and risqué clubs in Florence (for the second and third stages of their honeymoon), Bart watching him with love and pride in his eyes. He’d rolled up Étienne’s trouser leg and was stroking his shin, up and down, up and down, his thumb skimming the soft dark hair.
‘I need to piss,’ said Étienne, after their fifth bottle of wine.
‘Don’t be a brute,’ said Bart.
‘Oh, but I am a brute! I am your bit of rough, no? Your obvious rebellion. That is what I am to you. Fuck you, dead father! That is what you say when you fuck me. Non – that is what you say when we are rutting.’
‘Oh dear,’ murmured Bettina, putting a hand over her eyes.
‘Oh, look, we’re embarrassing the wife,’ said Bart. ‘Sorry, wife.’
‘Sorry, wife,’ said Étienne.
‘We must remember that she is still a lady,’ said Bart to Étienne.
‘Don’t paint me as a prude.’ She was not a prude. Nor a snob. But there was such a thing as over-sharing.
‘She saw my cock earlier, you know,’ Bart said.
‘Lucky girl,’ said Étienne.
‘Oh my God,’ said Bettina. ‘Will you both please shut up?’ She had indeed seen his ‘cock’ earlier – he’d come out of his bathroom wearing only a shirt and it had hung out, slapping his thigh as he walked. ‘I’m going to bed.’ She stood up. ‘It’s been lovely meeting you.’
Étienne came at her and hugged her tight. ‘I like you, wifey, we will be good friends.’ His words hot and boozy on her neck.
Bettina smiled unnaturally. ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure we shall be.’
‘For the love of God!’Bettina’s eyes shimmered mercury-like in the dark. Next door a headboard was going thud-thud-thud against a wall. She sat up, pushing out an acidic red wine burp. She wasn’t going to picture what they were doing. She wasn’t going to picture what they were doing. How disgusting. She lay back down and pulled the covers over her face. Ghastly. We really are a degenerative breed, she thought. But especially them. She needed to urinate. She really oughtn’t to have done it. Married him. And now she was doomed to this – perverts next door, slamming each other into the headboard, rutting, hands all over each other’s … Horrid. She couldn’t believe she’d seen Bart’s cock. Never in a million years had she ever imagined … And why on earth was she calling it a cock? What was happening to her? It was Bart, it was. Filling her mind with smut. She really needed to urinate. Oh God.
She pulled the covers down and climbed out of bed, and maybe her subconscious was driving her with nasty little pitchforks, because she climbed out on the right side, the adjoining door side. Fidgeting her feet into her slippers, she tiptoed across the carpet, and there were those pitchforks again, poking at her hip, because suddenly she was veering off towards the adjoining door and pressing her ear to the lacquered wood, and why would she do a thing like that?
Thud, thud, thud.
‘Whore. You whore.’
A slap. ‘Oof.’ Another slap. ‘Ugh. Harder.’
Thudthudthudthudthud.
‘Heavens.’ Bettina walked in a hot daze to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Her urine came out scalding. She wiped herself. Wiped again. Flushed. Washed her hands and walked out. Passed the mirror, did not look at it.