Seven

She caught the tube at Belsize Park and emerged forty minutes later at Sloane Square. It was an area of London where she felt ill at ease. Hampstead had something cosmopolitan about it while Belgravia, for all the foreign embassies, felt alien and English. Eaton Square in particular, with its classical façades of white stucco, seemed as cold and aloof as the lover who lived there.

When she reached the entrance to the building whose top floor formed his flat, she rang the bell and waited for his voice to ask harshly who it was. When it did, she barked back, ‘Anna’, regretting, as she always did, that the evening should start by shouting her name into a microphone embedded in a wall.

The buzzer sounded. She pushed the door and went up the carpeted stairs to the top floor. Henry was waiting by the entrance to his flat. She glanced at his thin face to assess his mood, but he greeted her, as he always did, with a mask of courtesy – an empty smile, a brushing kiss on her cheek – before closing the door behind them and guiding her into his living-room, where the flames of a gas fire flickered soundlessly over asbestos logs.

She had no coat, and sat down at once on one of the large sofas while Henry crossed the room to pour her a drink. He was wearing, as he always did, a double-breasted, grey pinstriped suit which somehow suited his tall, slightly stooping figure.

‘Have you heard about Father Lambert?’ she asked.

He handed her a glass of white wine. ‘Yes. Andrew told me.’

‘Isn’t it sad?’

‘Particularly for Andrew.’ He returned to the tray of bottles and glasses to fill his own glass with whisky and water.

‘Did he tell you that it was suicide?’

‘Yes. Or murder.’ He sat down on an armchair which faced her.

‘And about the woman?’

‘Yes.’ He gave a sour smile.

She smiled too. ‘Poor Andrew.’

‘It had to happen, sooner or later.’

‘What?’

‘A crisis of this kind.’

‘Why?’

‘Because sooner or later, anyone in religious orders suffers a breakdown of some sort. With Lambert it came later, that’s all.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because a religious vocation is the symptom of a psychosis.’

‘Always?’

‘What else can it be?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, I sure don’t want to be a nun, but that doesn’t mean that anyone who does is crazy.’

He frowned. ‘By definition, isn’t it demented to lead a life in which you suppress all your natural desires?’

She thought of the bed next door where they so often ended the evening, and acknowledged to herself that it did seem odd. She was irritated, however, by the confidence with which Henry passed judgement on others and said: ‘Perhaps you just don’t have the imagination to envisage a life that is different from your own.’

This appeared to irritate Henry. He swirled the ice in his glass of whisky. ‘I can envisage a different life only too well,’ he said with a sidelong glance at Anna. ‘I can also envisage a different life for my brother.’

‘Well, so can I, I guess,’ said Anna.

‘It’s so patently obvious to me that after being deserted at a vulnerable age by our weak father, and then bullied in adolescence by our emasculating mother, Andrew found a psychological haven in the Catholic Church with its strong but kindly God the Father and passive, patient and ever-loving mother of Mary.’

‘Sure.’

‘Add to that the personal influence of Father Lambert, who was determined to bring fresh blood into his decrepit order, and at the same time recruit a secretary without having to pay for one …’

‘That’s very unkind.’

‘I think he was unkind to bamboozle my brother. And now, having led him up the garden path, he confesses, if not in word, then in deed, that the whole thing was a grotesque fraud.’

She sighed. ‘I really think he seems OK – Andrew, that is.’

‘For the time being, maybe. He’s clinging to the idea, which your father seems to share, that Father Lambert did not kill himself but was murdered.’

‘I don’t know why Dad thinks that.’

‘Andrew feels frustrated because he can’t call on the police. He wants me to play the detective.’

‘And will you?’

‘I’ll do anything to help my brother.’

‘That’s the …’ She faltered. ‘It’s one of the nicest things about you,’ she said.

‘The only nice thing?’ he asked, finishing her first sentence. He stood up before she could answer and moved towards the door.

They drove to Covent Garden to see Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. She had been to the opera with Henry twice before, and on neither occasion had she enjoyed it – not because she had disliked the music or the production, but because she had felt Henry was uneasy at being seen with her in public. In the four months since she had known him, she had never met any of his friends. She knew that they existed because the telephone often rang when she was in his flat, but it had soon become clear that he did not intend to introduce her into his circle.

At first she had thought this was because he wanted to keep her to himself, but later she decided that he was in some way ashamed of her or, if not ashamed, then embarrassed to be seen in her company. She wondered, without minding much, whether it was because she was Jewish or American or small; or whether he was conducting a parallel affair with some tall English rose who belonged to the group of his regular friends.

The idea did not upset her because she herself felt detached from Henry. She found him interesting and attractive but entirely alien in a way that Andrew, for example, was not. She was fascinated by him, and flattered to be taken up by someone so rich, successful and decidedly grown up. She also appreciated the skill and the style with which he made love to her. Yet, once he had done so, she never felt close to him, or wanted to remain around. Once he had put on his cotton boxer shorts, his silk shirt and grey, pin-striped suit; once he had opened his mouth to speak in that sneering British drawl; once he had begun to move around in the stage-set of his grandiose apartment – she felt estranged, and as inappropriate and out of place as the jeans, tee-shirt, socks and sneakers which she picked up off the carpeted floor.

It was the same that evening at Covent Garden. She had taken trouble to dress as smartly as she could, but when she caught sight of herself in a mirror she saw just how preppy and teen-aged she looked, how out of place in the long gallery where the bankers and businessmen with their elegant wives walked up and down while waiting for the next act.

He had bought her a glass of champagne which she drank, even though she disliked champagne, while Henry, with a glass of whisky, asked her what she thought of the opera.

‘Well, it isn’t quite what you expect from Mozart, is it?’

‘It is apparently one of his last.’

‘You never saw it before?’

‘No.’

‘It’s certainly interesting …’

‘Why? To see that even a genius can be a bore?’

She laughed. ‘My father wouldn’t like it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Titus destroyed Jerusalem. He wasn’t very clement to the Jews.’

‘Yet Bernice was Jewish and she loved him.’

‘Sure. Titus and one or two others.’

‘Who else?’

‘His father, Vespasian. Three husbands. And her brother, Agrippa.’

The bell rang for the second act.

‘She also met St Paul,’ said Anna, ‘but he was in chains so I guess he was safe.’

‘How did she arrange that?’ asked Henry, taking her empty glass.

‘She and Agrippa were visiting Festus, the Roman procurator, in Caesarea. St Paul was waiting to be sent off to Rome. Agrippa asked to hear him preach.’

They went back into the auditorium.

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Henry.

‘From Father Lambert’s lectures,’ said Anna. ‘It came into his course on Biblical Archaeology.’

After the opera they drove back to Belgravia and had supper in Henry’s flat. This, too, was far from a simple bite to eat. Instead of the glass of milk and peanut-butter sandwich which Anna, on her own, would have eaten in her Aunt Miriam’s kitchen, Henry always arranged a three-course dinner, beginning with soup and ending with a sorbet, with smoked salmon, gravadlax or game pie in between. He did not prepare it himself; someone else came in during the day; but he served it methodically by candlelight at the polished antique table in the corner of his living-room.

There was always, too, a half bottle of Meursault or Montrachet and a full bottle of some fancy claret, then a choice of liqueurs to drink with their coffee; and, while Anna at first found the formality of such suppers a little absurd, particularly after going to a film, they had the effect of arousing a pleasant anticipation of what was to follow in bed.

Before they reached that point, Henry always behaved as if it might not happen; or, at any rate, he never referred to it with languorous looks or gestures. She sensed that for her to do so would offend Henry’s sense of decorum – like ogling the sorbet while sipping one’s soup. She therefore made conversation and, on that evening, returned to the history behind the story of La Clemenza di Tito.

‘I shall miss that course of Father Lambert’s,’ she said.

‘What was so special about it?’

‘He made the whole ancient world come alive and make sense. I hadn’t realized, for example, how tight things were …’

‘Tight?’

‘Well, I’d always kind of thought of Caesar and Cleopatra in one compartment, like History or Drama, and Herod the Great in another, like Scripture Studies. In fact Herod was a friend of Cleopatra’s, and of both Julius and Octavius Caesar. He named the Antonia fortress after Mark Antony. His son Antipas was deeply involved with John the Baptist, Salome and all that; and his great-grandchildren, Agrippa and Bernice, turn up listening to St Paul.’

‘And what did they make of him?’

‘Of St Paul?’

‘Yes.’

‘The procurator, Festus, thought he was crazy, but Agrippa was quite impressed. Father Lambert used to say that if you read between the lines, it looks as if Bernice dragged her brother away before he could be converted.’

‘I would have reacted in the same way as Festus.’

‘You’ve never been tempted to believe?’

‘If I was, I would resist it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it degrades the mind to fall back on superstition.’

‘I don’t believe either, but I don’t think it’s degrading. You could look on it as a kind of poetry, a way of letting something ancient and beautiful suffuse your being so that you are not in fact degraded but ennobled by it.’

‘Like marinating a fish?’ He smiled sourly.

‘Sure. We Jews, after all, are a people moulded by our myths, and I don’t have to believe that Moses heard God speak from a burning bush to be glad all the same that I’m part of that tradition. And Andrew, whatever may be the reasons for his believing, gets something very beautiful from his faith. He really is gentler and kinder than anyone else I know.’

‘That’s not thanks to Christ.’

‘Thanks to what, then?’

‘His fear of life. He’s like a monkey, threatened by a stronger monkey, who lies down and proffers his genitals to deflect the other’s aggression.’

‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’

‘It doesn’t help Andrew to shy away from an impartial analysis of his condition. Clearly his commitment to poverty, chastity and obedience is a way of saying: “I won’t compete for your money or your women, and I’ll do anything you say.”’

‘That’s what makes him nice.’

‘It makes him a victim.’

‘Of whom?’

‘Of all those repressed pederasts and menopausal spinsters who run the Roman Catholic Church.’

‘He’s nice to me too.’

‘But you don’t sleep with him.’

She blushed. ‘Liking and … loving are different.’

‘They are indeed. Different and probably incompatible.’

‘Why?’

‘Because love is just a gloss on the crude instincts which ensure the survival of the species.’

Anna looked down at her plate, wondering if this cynicism was meant to soften her up for the ending of their affair. ‘Can’t you love and like people at the same time?’ she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Perhaps. But even liking, in my experience, has some ulterior motive behind it.’

‘Like what?’

‘We choose our friends like our possessions, to enhance the image we want to present to others.’

‘You have a very low opinion of human beings.’

‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, as one of your prophets put it.’

‘Then why aren’t you pleased that Andrew has climbed out of this cesspit?’

‘Because you can’t climb out. We are what we are – isolated individuals in relentless pursuit of gratification and power. The only way to be content is to own up to it, and enjoy the chase.’

‘And do you enjoy the chase?’

He looked at her briefly as if assessing the prey. ‘Do I? Yes, I do. The fittest are always happy to survive.’

‘Whereas your unfit brother is unhappy?’

‘Yes, because of Lambert.’

‘But in general?’

‘The general and the particular are linked. That’s the point I am trying to make. He imagined that he had escaped the struggle by joining the Simonite order. Sooner or later he was bound to discover that you can neither change human nature nor deny it; you can simply pervert it. Most dangerous of all is the celibacy of priests, because all that energy which should be dissipated in sex is obliged to find other outlets like pride, ambition and the sinister pleasure which priests take in exploiting and manipulating the weakness and uncertainty of others.’

‘Do you say this to Andrew?’

‘No. It would upset him. But you – well, I should have thought that you would sympathize with my point of view.’

‘Because I’m a Jew?’

‘Yes.’ He answered at once but she could tell, from his slight confusion, that he would rather not have been caught labelling her in that way.

‘My brother would,’ she said, ‘but the only Catholic I have ever known besides Andrew was Father Lambert, and he always seemed to me to be kind, cheerful and completely unselfish.’

‘But now you know you were wrong.’

‘How?’

‘Because suicide is at the apex of egoism.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t kill himself,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he was killed.’

‘Even if he was killed, he went to bed with that woman before he died.’

‘That, well, in a way it’s kind of romantic. And it proves your theory wrong.’

‘How?’

‘Well, you can hardly say that he did it to improve the species.’

‘No. He was probably just curious to know what he’d been missing all those years.’

‘And had he been missing much?’ she asked, attempting the kind of ironic smile that she saw so often on Henry’s face.

‘By definition,’ he said.

‘Why by definition?’

‘Because if our genes are programmed for survival, not just as an individual but as a species too, then those things which ensure our survival must be pleasurable.’

‘Like eating?’

‘Yes.’

‘And screwing?’

‘Yes, except that it is complicated by psychological factors.’

‘Like love?’

‘Love, yes. Or the lack of it.’ He looked at her sadly.

‘It’s a pity,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Well, that I don’t inspire love.’

‘And do I?’

‘No.’ She lowered her head and shook it at the same time so that strands of hair fell over her face and hid the tears which had come into her eyes.

‘It’s better, don’t you think?’ he asked.

‘What?’ She understood what he meant but wanted him to say it.

‘That we stop.’

‘Don’t you like it any more?’

‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘It seemed perfectly simple up to now.’

‘For the body, perhaps, but not for the mind.’

‘You shouldn’t take it so seriously.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘It’s just sex, for God’s sake.’

He looked at her from across the table with no particular expression. ‘I’m sorry if you feel let down.’

‘No.’ She turned away. ‘I always knew, well, that there were no strings.’

He stood up and went to the kitchen to fetch the coffee.

When he returned, she asked: ‘Is it true that you always end things after three months?’

He frowned. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Is it true?’

‘In my experience, it’s always wise to quit while one’s ahead.’

‘Why?’

‘Because familiarity breeds contempt.’

‘Always?’

‘Always. But I wish …’

‘What?’

‘That it didn’t.’

She sniffed and stood up. ‘I guess it’s good for me to get dumped, once in a while, since it’s usually me who does the dumping.’ She moved towards the door.

‘Don’t you want any coffee?’

‘I’d rather get home.’

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded, and sniffed again.

‘I’ll call a cab.’

‘I can find one in the street.’

‘No, wait.’ He went to the telephone. ‘If I book it from here, you can charge it to my company account.’