A red letter day. Agency finally sent me out-of-work actor as promised. Wonder of wonders, he not only cleans like an angel but has mended the vacuum as well. Apparently its illness was something trivial, though too complicated for me, far beyond my great academic brain. How the intelligentsia are penalised in this mechanical world. I said as much to him as he worked but he ridiculed the idea. ‘I’ve just got a way with machines,’ he said, grinning up at me (he was on the floor reassembling it at the time). Somehow I got the impression this might mean he had a way with people too.
In fact he’s a very personable young man: short and dark, with slim hips and surprisingly chunky shoulders. He looks strong, although he’s very light on his feet. I shan’t be afraid of overworking him as I was with Mrs Thing, who always contrived to imply imminent heart failure whenever I mentioned spring cleaning. And he’s certainly more decorative to have around: the sort who deliberately wears shabby clothes to suit the job – jeans and a T-shirt – but makes sure they’re incongruously clean and adds a touch of elegance with a scarf at the neck and a heavily buckled leather belt low on the hips. As if he’s not really a domestic but playing the part of one – which is, of course, the case. David Meredith. He seemed upset I had not seen him on television in some police saga, or at the Royal Court doing something avant garde. I wished afterwards I had pretended to know his name at least. But they all look alike, these young actors with their thin, hopeful faces. Unless you have a reason to remember them, that is.
Actually, he’s got quite a good face. I was studying him today during our coffee break. In repose he can look a bit sulky – when he’s listening, when the spotlight isn’t on him – but as soon as he gets a few lines, starts telling a joke or a story, then he’s all animation. His features are not too regular, that’s the secret: his nose is very slightly crooked as if it were once broken and badly set, making him look tough. (He said yes, he’d played a lot of villains in his time and he’d got a bit pissed off with that.) But his mouth is very sensual, distracting you from his eyes, which are rather calculating. They ought to be brown as he’s got such dark hair but they’re not, they’re a light grey-blue and very wary, as if he had good reason to distrust you. So his face isn’t all of a piece, which makes it more interesting. The eyes of a schemer, the nose of a boxer, the mouth of a lover – yes, I’ll certainly remember him in future.
He didn’t mind being stared at, or discussing his face. Used to it, I suppose. Perhaps he even enjoyed it: they’re all very conceited, aren’t they? (And why not, I’d be conceited too if I looked like him.) But he can talk about his face with great detachment, as a tool of his trade, which of course it is: he showed me his good and bad sides and I saw what he meant. At some angles he’s absurdly good looking, at others positively ordinary, even dull.
He asked me what I was working on, perhaps to reward me for taking an interest in his profession, and I told him about my translation. To my surprise, he’d actually heard of Troilus and Criseyde. ‘That’s Chaucer, isn’t it? We did The Canterbury Tales at school.’ He declaimed a bit, not making too great a hash of it. ‘What’s this one about?’
I considered how to make it easy for him. ‘It’s a love story. It’s about a man who arranges an affair between his niece and his friend.’
‘Why does he do that?’
‘Let’s say he has a heart of gold.’
He laughed. ‘You mean he gets a kick out of it.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And what happens in the end?’
‘Oh, they get separated and she betrays him. It all ends in disaster.’
‘Of course,’ he said.
Afterwards I wondered why I had made it sound like the story of Pandarus. Is that really how I see it?
Gemma’s birthday. I took her out to lunch and gave her my present, a ridiculously expensive silk scarf. She was delighted; she tried it on at once in the restaurant and people stared. I was embarrassed and thrilled. She’s so spontaneous. Childlike, even. It was the only flash of high spirits, though. She ate as heartily as ever and drank a lot of wine, but her depression hasn’t lifted; she still feels her life has no purpose. Reading between the lines, I diagnose a touch of frustration. Christopher, it seems, is now very active in family planning, doing extra work and giving lectures. All very admirable, of course, but it eats into their time together. ‘I hardly ever see him,’ she said wistfully. ‘If he’s not seeing patients he’s out at a meeting or locked in his study. He’s got mountains of paperwork – no wonder he gets so tired. I spend all my time watching television.’
My face must have betrayed me (suspicion, accusation, contempt?) for she suddenly leapt to his defence.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t complain; after all, he’s doing it for us. I expect it’s just my birthday. I hate birthdays. I don’t want to be thirty. It seems so old.’
I pointed out that Christopher was forty-one. She said it was all right for men and besides, she was actually going grey. I pretended to stare disbelievingly at her hair.
‘Oh, you can’t see it,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a rinse.’ Her eyes filled with tears and I quickly ordered her a brandy. My poor little love.
I am trying to get David to come here three times a week instead of twice. He is doubtful: he doesn’t think there’s enough work. I assure him there is, or there could be. I want the silver cleaned, and the windows. I want carpets shampooed and paintwork washed. The whole flat is dingy and I want it to be new and fresh. Perhaps even some interior decorating, could he manage that? A little light painting.
‘You’re just throwing money away,’ he said. He was wearing a tight striped jersey like a fisherman, Hollywood-style.‘The flat’s great as it is. You ought to see how some people live.’
I noticed the hairs on his wrists, on the backs of his hands, as he gesticulated. ‘D’you want the work or don’t you?’ I said.
The trouble is, I have to work while he works, or he’ll get suspicious. So I hardly see him to talk to, except for coffee breaks and maybe a drink before he leaves. He arrives at ten (I’ve told him anything earlier is impossible for me) and I greet him provocatively in my dressing-gown. It’s a very nice dressing-gown but it doesn’t seem to be working. He grins and says, ‘Morning, professor,’ this being one of our in-jokes, ‘where shall I start?’ and whips into the kitchen before I have time to reply. The washing-up’s done in a flash and he plays the wireless while he does it; he has rubbishy tastes. I sulk in a hot bath and listen to him prowling round the flat with the vacuum cleaner; it purrs under his hand.
Gemma is not being absurd about age, or else I am. I know how she feels; I identify with her. He must be her age, or thereabouts. I am sixty-three. Is it ridiculous? Yes, of course it is. God is having one of his fiendish jokes at our expense. Why are we cursed to feel young when we are old, or old when we are young? I stood in front of the mirror today, before he came; I inspected my naked body. Pale, flabby and unappetising. We may as well face facts. Atrophied with disuse. Not that it was ever much to be proud of. I have always had to work hard for my pleasures. But this? Insanity. Crying for the moon, no less. An apt metaphor. I looked at the moon last night and I thought, no matter that they have landed on it, it’s still perfect and impenetrable.
Autumn is making me melancholy. And then I think how feeble of me to be so predictable. ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. What rubbish. Season of regrets and non-events, more like. David took the curtains to the laundrette today. What have I done with my life? I prepared a delicious salad and a pitcher of dry martini, his favourite drink. They say hope springs eternal. He came back bored and cross. ‘You know, you’re crazy, paying me to sit there and watch them.’ He couldn’t stay for lunch, he couldn’t even stay for a drink. And why? Because he had an audition.
Last week was terrible. I was too disheartened to record it. The audition went badly, it seems. (Because I ill-wished him? It certainly wouldn’t suit me to have him leave.) Anyway, he was in a filthy temper all week, breaking things and leaving a ring round the bath and nearly driving me mad by whistling all the time while he dusted. He actually whistles out of tune. I begged him not to but he said he always whistles when he’s depressed and went on doing it, as if I hadn’t spoken. But if I hadn’t been so angry I might have felt sorry for him, he looked so miserable. Like a whipped puppy. The shutters came down over his face and it was sulks all the way. He even dressed for the part: black jeans and a purple jersey, as if he were in mourning for his life, like Masha. I reminded him of that, hoping to raise a smile, but no, not a flicker. He even looked more annoyed that I should presume to be so flippant.
I thought about giving him the sack, in a moment of sadism – or was it masochism? But I didn’t, because if I did, then all the days would be the same. And I was rewarded: today was quite different. He arrived very late, about eleven; in fact I feared he wasn’t coming at all. When he did turn up he had a crashing hangover, so I was able to minister to him. Apparently he’d been drinking to drown his sorrows: he didn’t get the part. I pressed his shoulder as I handed him my patent hangover cure and said, ‘My dear boy, I’m so sorry.’ He looked at me strangely; he felt tense under my hand so I took it away. He said, ‘That’s where you’re lucky, squire’ – he was doing his pseudo-Cockney today, probably in memory of the part he hadn’t got – ‘you’ve got three jobs. Bit of writing, bit of teaching, bit of translating – you’ll never be out of work.’
I pointed out that as I was virtually retired from all three occupations and had never been very good at any of them, I was not much better off than he was. He considered this.
‘I suppose not. Well. That kind of puts us in the same boat then, doesn’t it?’ He downed the hangover cure and mimed an explosion going off in his head. Then he stood up. ‘Right, let’s get on with it.’ And to my amazement he proceeded to clean the flat like an angel once more, silent and thorough, making up for lost time. I offered him lunch and he actually seemed to want to stay, but: ‘I better not. Got one of my more demanding ladies this afternoon – Mrs Salmon – and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
There was something that alerted me (a look, an intonation?) so I said casually, ‘Like that, is it?’
He grinned at me. ‘Sometimes. She’s not really my style but the perks are good.’
I took a chance and said, ‘The perks might be good here too.’
He hesitated. ‘Yeah, I rather thought they might. Pity I’m not more versatile. No offence, you understand.’
‘None taken,’ I said.
Strange. It could have made an awkwardness, an embarrassment between us, but it hasn’t. He arrived for work today in a positively cheerful, expansive mood, obviously more relaxed with me now we’ve got that out of the way. Typically, he was more interested in my view of him than any disappointment I might have suffered. ‘Did you really see me like that?’ he asked over lunch. (Our first lunch.) I said no, I hadn’t, and that was chiefly the attraction. ‘I see,’ he said, ‘you like a challenge.’ I thought it was rather that I liked an impossibility. I had lain awake analysing why I was not more upset. Adjusted to failure, perhaps, conditioned to expect defeat? Or do I simply prefer the conquest of the mind to the conquest of the body? It yields a more refined satisfaction, no doubt of that, and lasts longer. Now that he trusts me not to pounce he won’t be so wary and I shall have more scope.
‘Only it has happened before,’ he said. ‘I mean people getting the wrong idea. I’m only sorry I can’t take advantage of it.’
I asked why he was sorry.
‘Well, it would be an extra dimension, that’s all. It’s always flattering if someone fancies you. Like being up for a part.’
‘You got the part with Mrs Salmon,’ I said.
‘Oh, that. Yes. Can I have some more quiche?’
‘Help yourself.’ (He eats as though he’s starving.)
‘Yes, I got that part all right and it looks as if I’m in for a long run. Only she must be fifty if she’s a day.’
‘And you like them younger.’
‘I don’t mind. Actually, I find the older ones are often more switched on. Last fling, I suppose. Anyway, this one is. Her old man left her pretty well off and she’s got nothing else to do. D’you… like women as well?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Only I was wondering… who’s the one in the silver frame? Every time I clean it I have a good look at her. Is she one of yours?’
‘My niece.’
‘Oh.’
‘Tell me more about Mrs Salmon. If she’s so keen and she’s rich, couldn’t you make a living there? I mean, why bother with all this cleaning?’
He laughed. ‘I couldn’t stand the pace. Besides, this way, if I get fed up I can just piss off.’
He would too. He looked so pleased with himself. I had forgotten the cruelty of youth. Oh yes, I’m well out of this one. Definitely not a nice young man. But then I never thought he was. Just attractive. He would wreak havoc and disappear. Like a hit and run driver.
Telephone at dawn. Well, half past eight. Groping for the receiver, blind, in the middle of the night, it seems, till I get my mask off. ‘Yes?’
‘Alexander Kyle?’
A clear, light woman’s voice, unknown. Not Mrs Salmon, surely, in a jealous rage. She would sound more robust and indolent. Peach-coloured and peach-scented flesh with a voice to match, I feel. ‘Yes?’
‘This is Catherine Meredith. I’m sorry my husband won’t be able to work today, he’s ill.’
‘Oh.’ (What?) ‘Oh.’
‘I’m sorry to ring so early but I’ve got to take the children to school.’
(Children?) ‘Oh. Yes, of course. Is he—’
‘It’s nothing serious. He’ll be back next week. But I’m sorry to inconvenience you.’
She’s gone. No goodbye, just a click. And I don’t trust people who apologise so often.
So now I’ve got all weekend to think about it. David married. David with children. Why didn’t he tell me?
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said. It was all I could do not to laugh when I saw him, actually. He had a black eye, making him look more like a boxer than ever.
‘Tell you what?’
‘About your wife.’
‘Christ, I don’t know. What’s the point?’ He examined the eye in my kitchen mirror. ‘God, I look awful. What a bitch. Suppose I’d had an audition.’
‘What happened?’ I asked with interest.
‘She threw a bloody vase at me. I usually duck, I must be getting slow.’
‘Does that happen often?’
‘Now and then. When she feels like it.’
I started to make coffee since he seemed disinclined to work. ‘Tell me more.’
He sat down and lit a cigarette, still gazing morosely at his damaged reflection. ‘Well, she found out about Carol – Mrs Salmon. She went through my wallet when I was asleep, looking for money, I suppose, she always says I keep her short, and there was this photo. I meant to throw it away but I forgot. So we had a flaming row and she hit me with the vase and chucked all my clothes out of the window so I couldn’t go to work.’ He looked at me accusingly. ‘I suppose you think it’s funny.’
I hastily composed my features. ‘Just a new angle on marriage.’
‘Don’t you believe it. Happens all the time.’
I said humbly, ‘I meant new to me.’
All the same, there was something not quite right about yesterday’s story. Anyone else might have believed it but to me, as a trained observer of human nature, there was a distinctly phony smell, an aura of duplicity. Why should Mrs Salmon give him a photograph when she sees him twice a week? Even if she were sentimental enough to do so, why should he keep it in his wallet and ‘forget’ to throw it away? He’s not sentimental. And his wife, that cool little voice on the phone, ‘This is Catherine Meredith.’ She didn’t sound like a violent, jealous harridan. Not at all the sort of woman to throw vases at eyes and clothes out of windows. But the injury was real enough, so how did he get it, if not from her? And why did he get it, if not because of Mrs Salmon? Either way, why couldn’t he work? There’s a piece missing somewhere, I think.
I tried probing a little today. Not easy. He veers from rank exhibitionism to extreme taciturnity. Yes, he married young, at twenty, to be exact. He didn’t know what he was doing. She was five years older, she cradle-snatched him, got herself pregnant on purpose. The last thing a young actor needed, to saddle himself with a wife and child, and then another child. No wonder they were always broke.
I asked if his wife could work at all, now the children were at school.
‘She does a bit. She makes bags and things. Sells them to shops sometimes. Sort of cottage industry. It might be all right in the Hebrides, it’s bloody ridiculous in Kentish Town.’
We were very sulky today. More sinned against than sinning, and all that. Well, at least I know where he lives.
I was in the bath when Gemma rang. He knocked on the door. ‘Your niece on the phone.’ I asked him to tell her I’d ring her back. When I came out he was waiting for me. ‘She’s got a lovely voice,’ he said, and grinned at me. Wickedly.
Gemma claims I’m neglecting her.
‘Who was that young man I spoke to?’ she asked. ‘Are you up to something?’
I pretended to be affronted. ‘My dear Gemma, whatever do you mean?’
‘I mean Oswald and Miranda, that’s what I mean,’ she said, quite briskly.
‘I stand on the fifth amendment,’ I said, ‘and that was my new domestic you spoke to. My theatrical Jeeves.’
‘Of course.’ She sounded quite excited. ‘I’d forgotten you were getting him. Who is he, what’s he like?’
‘His name is David Meredith and he’s quite adequate, thank you.’ But my last words were drowned: she positively squealed.
‘David Meredith! But he’s famous.’
‘Come on, Gemma, don’t exaggerate.’
‘But he is, I’ve seen him, he was in Calling All Cars.’
‘And that makes him famous?’
‘Oh, you,’ she sighed, ‘don’t you ever watch television?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘Well, he’s very good. What’s he doing now?’
‘Cleaning my flat.’
‘No, apart from that.’
What might I have said? Having rows with his wife. Screwing Mrs Salmon. Rejecting my elderly advances.
‘Nothing much,’ I said.
Now I have a choice. But I still don’t know enough about him. I studied him today, very dashing in a bottle-green jersey and corduroy trousers the colour of toffee.
‘You know your trouble,’ he said conversationally. ‘Too many plants. They gather dust.’ He flicked his duster over their leaves. ‘To say nothing of all those books, but I suppose they’re sacred.’
‘My niece is a fan of yours,’ I said.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, she’s seen you on television.’
He had his back to me, annoyingly. Was there really a pause or did I imagine it?
‘Then you should introduce us. I need all the fans I can get.’
I tried to explain about Gemma. He listened with extreme concentration, never taking his eyes from my face. He might have been learning lines: I could see him memorising everything I said.
I stopped. There was silence.
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘It’s odd. I get the feeling you’ve left something out.’
I shook my head, shrugged.
‘Oh, it’s all right on the face of it,’ he said. ‘Bored married woman, two kids at school, devoted husband too wrapped up in his work – oh yes, I know all about that. Only there’s something missing.’
I opened my mouth to protest my innocence. He misunderstood me.
‘No, don’t tell me. Let’s be subtle. I like a good mystery.’
He’s more intelligent than I thought. Dangerous. I don’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed. Now we are both suspicious, circling round each other and sniffing, like two dogs in the park. He seemed very cheerful after this exchange, let me pour him another drink while he went on polishing the silver.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ll just ask you questions and you answer them. Any way you like, of course. I’ll draw my own conclusions.’
I said all right, if that was how he wanted it.
‘The husband,’ he said, as if Christopher had no name, which pleased me. ‘Was he her first lover?’
‘Yes.’
‘Successful?’
‘Presumably. She couldn’t wait to marry him.’
‘And since then… anyone?’
‘For her, no. For him… I very much doubt it.’
‘What’s he like? Oh, I know you hate his guts, that’s obvious, but what’s he really like?’
I tried to be fair. It seemed important if we were planning a campaign. (Are we?)
‘When I first met him, very diffident. Even charming. Romantic, idealistic. The last few years… much tougher, rather pompous. Too successful for his own good. He’s got the upper hand.’
‘You mean he’s got out of control. No, don’t answer that. I’m just making notes. Is he a kind man, do you think?’
‘Yes… I suppose so. In his way. In a no-nonsense sort of way.’
‘Gentle?’
The question struck me as odd. ‘Yes… but what—’
‘Ssh.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t interrupt me, I’m working. Does he really love her… in his way?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said contemptuously. ‘I’m sure of that.’
‘Good. Is he a tolerant man?’
‘No.’ My answer came too pat; I sought to qualify it. ‘He’s quite religious.’
‘Ah. I see. Now: if you were writing a story about him, what would you call it?’
‘A Man of Principle.’ Instantaneous reaction: I was quite surprised.
‘Fine.’ He started putting away the silver. ‘Right; I think I’ve got all I need.’
‘But you haven’t asked about Gemma. Why all these questions about him?’
‘It’s the first rule. Know your enemy. She comes later. I can find her out for myself.’
‘If I introduce you,’ I said.
He paused at the door. I almost hated him, he looked so confident. ‘Oh, but you will,’ he said. ‘Won’t you, professor?’
‘I might,’ I said, ‘but first I ought to know what you’re going to do. If I introduce you.’
He smiled. Like mother with idiot child. Like benevolent dictator. Like nurse in hospital.
‘I shall do what you want me to,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’
I spent the weekend cooking. He wanted it all to be very casual and you know how much time that takes. I excelled myself, but all the while I had the feeling that Gemma wouldn’t come, or worse, that he wouldn’t. She didn’t know: she thought it was just lunch à deux, as usual. We’d planned it that he’d be finishing work when she arrived and I’d ask him to stay on. Not that she’s ever stood me up, but knowing that it mattered… I just had visions of myself eating that delicious food for days on end, wallowing in anticlimax.
But he was punctual, ringing the bell at ten. I let him in and he dripped rain all over the hall, taking off his Humphrey Bogart mackintosh.
‘She’s coming at twelve,’ I said, to reassure myself.
‘Of course,’ he said, enviably calm.
I locked myself in the bathroom, tensed for the telephone. The rain would put Gemma off, or her car would break down. One of the children would develop instant measles and be sent home from school. When I returned to the bedroom in my bathrobe, he was there studying her photograph, desultorily wiping the frame.
‘Not long now,’ he said, and grinned at me.
I couldn’t work. Troilus and Criseyde seemed a million light years away. I dressed and sat at my desk staring at the rain, trying to decide if it was smoky or not. The telephone rang. I leapt in my chair and sat still. He answered it. I waited.
‘Wrong number,’ he called cheerfully. An omen? I went into the kitchen and put the finishing touches to everything. Then to the dining-room. He followed me there, admired the table, and mocked. ‘Sure you’re not overdoing it?’
‘You haven’t tried very hard,’ I said, looking at his clothes.
‘Casual,’ he said. ‘I told you. It’s a chance meeting.’
Did he even realise how lucky he was? I went back to my bedroom, changed my tie, and sulked. I had what they call misgivings. It sounds like a badly chosen birthday present but it’s very uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ve ever waited for anything with such a clear sense of doom. Perhaps that was the chief attraction, for nothing would have made me alter the arrangements. But it’s rare to be so conscious of what you are doing. We were set on collision course, as in a space fiction journey.
At ten past twelve, the door bell. ‘Oh God,’ Gemma said, ‘this bloody rain. Just look at my hair.’
Well, they ignored me. A night’s rest doesn’t change that. I was just there to effect the introduction and serve the food. Otherwise I might have been invisible. He talked non-stop about his precious career, telling her endless funny stories and name-dropping quite shamelessly; she encouraged him all the way (as if he needed encouragement) by asking asinine questions and gazing at him enraptured as he answered them. Between us we got through nearly three bottles of wine, and then they proceeded to consume vast quantities of brandy. I cleared away unaided; when I came back with the coffee they were deep in discussion of the foibles of their respective children. At ten to three Gemma suddenly looked at her watch, leapt up, said she must be going, she’d have to drive like a maniac and could she give him a lift anywhere. He suggested the tube station, she kissed me goodbye with alcoholic affection, and they were gone.
No one saw fit to praise the food: they merely ate it. All of it.
‘How’s the puppet-master today?’ he said when I let him in.
‘Satisfied?’ He hung up his coat, looking decidedly pleased with himself.
‘I haven’t heard her laugh so much in years,’ I said grudgingly.
‘Ah, I’m a very witty fella.’
‘Not with me,’ I said, advancing before him into the kitchen.
‘Oh dear,’ he said, starting on the washing-up. ‘A touch of the sour grapes today, have we?’
‘I didn’t know you could be so amusing, that’s all.’
‘Well.’ He glanced at me over his shoulder (a touch placatingly?). ‘I always try my best at auditions, that’s the whole idea. Isn’t it?’
I ignored that. ‘And do you think you got the part?’
He shrugged. ‘A bit early to say. I think I could – shall we put it like that? But at the moment she’s still pretending to be happily married. Any feedback?’
‘What?’
‘Has she said what she thought of me?’
‘Not a word. She hasn’t rung.’ I tried to sound casual: I was secretly disappointed.
‘Well.’ He brooded. ‘Could be a good sign. She’s self-conscious maybe. Doesn’t quite trust you.’
I said abruptly, ‘What did you talk about in the car?’
‘Nothing much.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t worry, not about you. And I didn’t make a grab at her, if that’s what you mean. Much too soon for that.’
‘I was surprised how confident she was,’ I said. (‘With ful assured lokyng and manere’: the line ran in my head. But that of course was when Criseyde still thought herself unobserved.)
‘Why not?’ He seemed unconcerned. He jangled knives in the sink for a while, ostentatiously busy.
‘Just out of practice.’
‘She shouldn’t be. She’s very pretty – very feminine.’ He said it as though it was unusual.
(‘Creature was nevere lasse mannysh in semynge.’ I hugged the words to myself like a spell.)
He turned suddenly round from the sink. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, that’s all.’
The days have a purpose again; the wheels have been set in motion. I walk with a light step, like a young man. I am amiable to tradesmen. My work goes sweetly and even when it doesn’t I am tolerant of myself. There is a stirring of something, more positive and less transient than happiness, an organic growth.
My annual visit to Gemma’s ritual fire-dance. She’s like a child about it, more of a child than her children. She doesn’t squeal, as they do, but she rushes about among her guests with a suppressed excitement that is far more potent than any sound. She is unnaturally solicitous for our welfare, our warmth and comfort. ‘Are you all right, can you see, would you like a scarf, a drink?’ The place swarms with neighbours and their children: well-bred accents float politely on the night air. Earlier in the day it has rained, of course, but now all is damply dry. People take pity on me as the bachelor uncle and make conversation; I know that I bore them. The air is thick with darkness, a special night. Expectancy makes us all talk nonsense in fits and starts: we know the true purpose of our presence. We are not gathered together to socialise, but to watch, to be amazed. We see each other dimly; we are not sure who the others are. There is a constant murmur of anticipation mixed with boredom at the delay. Some people are late. A lot have come pretending they are only here to please their children.
The bonfire has been protected from the elements by a tarpaulin; now it is unveiled by Christopher, master of ceremonies. The fireworks are arranged on a wall, out of reach of young hands, gloved or otherwise. The children, deprived of risk but assured of intact limbs, wander about feebly waving sparklers at each other, twirling them in the air, making figures of eight out of the feathery fall-out. They offer them to me and I refuse, generously. Bangers are banned; Christopher considers them dangerous. Suddenly, we’re off. An eruption of gold and silver sparks rising upwards and falling in a shower of colour. Other strange lights, red and green, and a cloud of pungent smoke. Gemma grabs my arm; she is unfamiliar in a sheepskin jacket and jeans, her firework kit. ‘Oh,’ she breathes, ‘aren’t they lovely?’ Around us the oohs and aahs proliferate: from now on they will form a humming chorus until the end of the spectacle. I wish Christopher would light each firework singly so we could do it justice; I am confused, I cannot concentrate. I say so to Gemma. ‘I know,’ she says, ‘but he likes a display.’ It’s always the same but it still seems out of character. I am irritated by the inconsistency. (And all this time she has not telephoned me. No feedback, as David would say.) We gasp at some excessive piece of glamour; Gemma says, ‘I wish I could remember their names. I tried writing them down one time but next year they’d changed them all.’ She sounds so disappointed. I remember that Beatrice did not approve of fireworks so Gemma had a deprived childhood. I squeeze her hand. Will she confide in me? She squeezes back and says nothing.
The unlucky Beatrice is in charge of the chestnuts, sweating as she rakes them out of the fire. The grotesque guy has collapsed into the flames; I think it vaguely resembles her and enjoy watching its disintegration. Christopher darts to and fro, knocking corpses off his wall and lighting fresh victims. An acrid smell fills the air, characteristic of only this one night in the year, or else of war. The glow of other people’s bonfires illumines the night sky, pierced intermittently by distant rockets, their stars falling like a dying bouquet. Our rockets are yet to come. Christopher’s penultimate display of Catherine wheels (Catherine?) spit and spin before our dazzled eyes, a far remove from torture in the name of religion.
And then: their sticks planted firmly in earth, their blue touch-paper lit, oh so safely, in a meek line Christopher’s rockets swoop into the sky and explode and flower and die, so swiftly, before our gasps of admiration fade away. Suddenly the night is very black, our eyes blinded with the imprint of colour; the fire is falling apart, pale orange and crumbling inwards, and we regroup, a little foolish, drifting towards the house and sausages, potatoes, drinks.
Gemma says in a whisper, ‘Can I come to lunch again soon?’
‘No, really,’ she said. ‘I meant just the two of us.’
‘Fine,’ I said casually. ‘That suits me. I was only trying to be unselfish for once. You seemed to get on so well I thought you might enjoy meeting again.’
‘Yes.’
There was no way to interpret that, try as I might. Her voice was quite expressionless.
‘And I don’t think he gets enough to eat.’ Was I overdoing it?
Suddenly, she laughed. ‘Oh, you,’ she said. And hung up.
‘She wants to discuss you with me,’ I said. ‘I think.’
‘About time.’ He was sulky today, up a ladder, cleaning the paintwork, his tone morose. I resented having to look up at him.
‘She’s worth waiting for,’ I said. I wondered if he even realised the rich prize I was offering him. ‘It’s only been a week.’
‘Ten days.’
I was gratified and surprised that he was counting. I had not thought him so sensitive. Then he added, ‘I should have heard something by now,’ and I realised he was still treating the whole matter as work.
‘Maybe you’ll have to audition again,’ I said to annoy him.
He dropped the cleaning cloth and turned round dangerously on the ladder. ‘I’m sick of your jokes,’ he said.
‘I wasn’t aware I made so many.’
He looked at me with contempt and came down, jumping the last few steps. ‘I don’t think you’ve got any idea what it’s like to be out of work for months on end,’ he said bitterly. ‘No money and the kids have got colds and Cathy keeps moaning. The water heater’s gone wrong and the bloody gas board won’t come – Christ, you don’t know you’re born, sitting here wrapped in central heating having cosy little chats on the phone with Madam in her detached mansion, four beds, two cars, planning to “discuss” me over one of your ritzy lunches to pass the time while I’m out there cleaning someone else’s stinking house.’
We looked at each other. His anger appealed to me: he is so moody and self-pitying, even worthless perhaps. The attraction is irresistible. He is petulant and sour and destructive: he will lead us all astray, with luck.
‘Can I have a drink?’ he asked suddenly, smiling at me. ‘It might improve my temper.’
‘I was just about to offer you one.’ I made martinis for both of us while he sat and watched me. The smile had made him look much younger and somehow unprotected, like a charming child when its tantrum is over.
‘Christ, that’s good,’ he said, tasting his drink. ‘You make the best martinis in the world.’
‘Well, I have to be good at something,’ I said.
When she had talked about everything else she finally said, ‘You’re quite right, I would like to see him again,’ and stared at me defiantly, as if daring me to condemn her.
‘Why not?’ I said.
She coloured. ‘And I know he’d like to see me.’
‘Well, then.’
She fiddled with her glass, the cigarette substitute. I thought:
Good aventure, o beele nece, have ye
Ful lightly founden, and ye konne it take;
And, for the love of God, and ek of me,
Cache it anon, lest aventure slake.
‘Why waste a good opportunity?’ I said. ‘You enjoy each other’s company, why shouldn’t you meet again?’
‘You know perfectly well why,’ she said gravely. ‘Because we’re both married.’
I affected amazement. ‘Gemma, you astonish me. You’ve only met him once. I’m talking about a simple, harmless friendship.’
‘You’re not,’ she said. ‘Even if there is such a thing. And I didn’t tell Chris about him. When I got home I didn’t say I’d met him. Why didn’t I?’
‘Why should you?’
She shook her head. ‘You’re not being honest with me.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘D’you remember when I was a child… how you used to make me stay up late, eat too much, read me horror stories, give me nightmares…?’
‘And you loved it,’ I said.
‘And I loved it,’ she said, looking at me steadily.
‘Well?’
‘You’re still doing it,’ she said. ‘You put temptation in front of me like a big cream bun.’
I began to laugh. ‘David would love that.’
Then I noticed she was suddenly crying.
‘You don’t know,’ she kept saying. ‘You don’t know.’ She buried her face in her hands.
‘Tell me,’ I said. (My consulting-room voice.) And passed her a box of Kleenex. I could not allow myself to get carried away with emotion; I had the feeling I might be about to hear something to my advantage. ‘What don’t I know?’
She blew her nose loudly on a tissue and threw it neatly into the waste-paper basket. Her aim was good, even in tears. She had always been a co-ordinated person, a child who could run and jump well, if not brilliantly, whose limbs obeyed her, who had a tidy, compact body. Now that she was an adult it was reflected in her driving, her housekeeping, her handling of her children. Only her emotions were undisciplined – I hoped.
‘Oh,’ she said, pushing her hair back and wiping her eyes, ‘I’ve tried so hard not to tell you.’
‘Well, you succeeded.’
‘Yes.’ The faintest hint of a smile, gone quickly. ‘Look, I do love Chris, I really do.’
‘Of course.’ I relaxed. I would still listen, out of curiosity, but it would no longer be strictly necessary. Once they start protesting like that, the battle’s won.
‘He’s very good to me. And the children. He’s marvellous with the children.’
And love based on merit: whoever valued that?
‘Yes.’ I waited for the but.
‘But sometimes I feel a hundred years old.’ She paused, her eyes staring vacantly into the distance as she thought what she wanted to say. ‘We’re like middle-aged people sitting there night after night. He comes in late, we eat, he works again, I watch TV and he joins me later and reads something while I watch. We don’t talk much; we know each other so well. If we do talk, he talks about work. I talk about the children. And all the time I’m thinking, Will we make love tonight?’ She was so lost in her reconstruction that she didn’t even blush at this as she normally would. ‘Usually we don’t. We go to bed about half past eleven and he falls asleep, he’s so tired. I lie awake for a bit, then I take a pill and I go to sleep too.’
Pause for a silence so intense I listened to the ticking of my own clock.
‘And I keep thinking, what’s it all for?’ she said. ‘Oh, I know marriage can’t be romantic forever, but it’s only ten years and I’ve got help in the house, we’re not poor, the kids are at school, I’m not tired at half past eleven, I want to talk, I want to make love, oh, I shouldn’t be saying all this, it’s disloyal, that’s why I didn’t say it before, you always get me drunk. But we didn’t get married just to have a nice home and children and sit in front of the television reading books and going up to bed like old people.’
Another burst of angry tears.
‘I know,’ I said soothingly. ‘I know.’ I felt it would be fatal to touch her, much as I wanted to: it would break the cocoon of self-exposure she had put around herself. I waited a moment, not too long. ‘But when you do make love,’ I said, for this was important, ‘is it all right? As good as ever?’
‘Yes,’ she said dully; disloyalty would not stretch that far. ‘But it’s the same as ever. It’s like someone who plays Chopin terribly well but they always play the same piece in exactly the same way. And they never play Bach or Beethoven.’
And David, I wondered. Would he be Brahms or Schoenberg?
‘So you see,’ she said, ‘it’s nothing to do with him.’ She still wouldn’t use his name. ‘It might be anyone. It’s between Chris and me. Only I’m vulnerable and you’re taking advantage.’ I felt the time had come for some emotive words. Pandarus, I reflected, had been quick to reassure Criseyde that he was not suggesting anything dishonourable: that would shame them both.
‘Gemma,’ I said, my voice very serious, ‘I promise you I’m not doing that. How could I? A harmless diversion, a little fun, that’s all. The other day, when you met, he made you laugh. I thought it would do you good to laugh more often.’
She didn’t look at me. We both felt the weight of the lie.
‘After all,’ I went on quickly, ‘you’ve only seen him once. Aren’t we making a lot of fuss about nothing?’
There was a long silence. She looked at me with what seemed like gratitude and terror. ‘D’you know,’ she said, ‘when I married Chris, dear Chris, I thought I’d be safe from you for ever.’
Told David she was on the brink. He said it was about bloody time and he was sick of waiting.
It appears he’s been telephoning her at home, on and off, just to keep her interest alive. He let it slip today. All this time, and she never mentioned it. Really, they are both behaving in a most underhand manner.
Asked what they talked about. He was evasive. Finally said, Oh, you know, stuff about what he’d like to do if he was alone with her and how he didn’t want to make love to his wife any more, and did she ever pretend Christopher was him? Stuff like that. Surely I knew the routine?
I was fascinated. Gemma’s extremely keyed-up state suddenly makes sense.
Went to bed early but couldn’t sleep. Deeply depressed that so many years since anyone made an even faintly pornographic telephone call to me. And the last time I made one, the person hung up.
Had completely forgotten my Leeds lecture next week till letter came today confirming trains, reception etc. A most unwelcome interruption. He pounced on it at once. ‘Arrange lunch with her that day,’ he said. ‘Make her come here. She’s refused to meet me in town.’
‘All right,’ I said, excited but uneasy. Now it will all happen behind my back. ‘She hasn’t told you to stop ringing her?’
‘No.’ He grinned. ‘She won’t do that. She wets her pants on the phone. I can say anything I like.’
Somehow I didn’t like him talking about Gemma like that but I wanted him to go on.
‘Such as?’ I said.
‘Naughty. You’re peeping again.’
Will it happen? Will it actually happen? Will she take her clothes off for him in my flat? Will he have her at last – where? On the floor, on the sofa, in my bed? Will she betray Christopher here, cry out with pleasure here, beg for more here?
Or will she simply run away when she arrives to find I’m in Leeds?
‘Don’t forget to leave your keys,’ he says, casual and cocky.
Fog. What if I am prevented by fog?
‘I may be a little late for lunch,’ she says on the telephone. ‘I want to do some shopping first.’
‘Course,’ he says, ‘it’s all a load of rubbish telling her I don’t fancy Cathy. Well, I don’t, but Cathy wouldn’t notice if I never fucked her again.’
(Distant bells rang. So why throw vases, etc.? Return to that later when my mind is clear.)
‘Still,’ he goes on, ‘it turns them on thinking another woman isn’t getting it. They all hate each other really, they’re all rivals, whatever they say. Later, it turns them on thinking another woman is getting it. But that’s later. After they think you belong to them. That’s when you get them corrupted. If you betray them then, they get terribly excited, they’ll do anything to get you back. But at this stage it’s all fidelity and saving it up till you get them hooked. I tell you something’ – and he looks at me, sure of my interest – ‘I’ll be relieved when we get started. All this suspense. I’m screwing Mrs Salmon into the ground, wearing myself out I am. She’s delighted, of course, but I’m bloody sick of it.’
I make sympathetic noises. (Not quite the noble Troilus I might have selected but still, beggars can’t be choosers.)
Go through my lecture notes on the train, sorely distracted by images of Gemma in obscene attitudes all over my neatly typed pages. Journey passes swiftly.
Deliver lecture in usual charming manner, wit and erudition nicely blended. (Well, I am all right when I have time to prepare it; it’s spontaneous wit and erudition that defeat me.) Warmly received, and some not too idiotic questions. Afterwards have great difficulty restraining myself from getting drunk with my hosts. Intoxicated by thought that while I discoursed on so-called Courtly Love, Gemma was (perhaps) abandoning the sacred to embrace the profane under my roof. Have trouble hearing everything my hosts say. If the rendezvous a success, all well and good: if, however, she runs away, she has every reason to be very angry with me for arranging trap. Have not considered this before: why not?
Go to sleep after heavy meal and dream of Christopher. (Never before, as I recall.) We are walking about a minefield, he and I, looking for Gemma, who has suddenly become very small. I know she is somewhere else but I can’t tell him where because I am secretly hoping he will step on a mine. At the same time very much afraid I will instead. Sense of fear extremely vivid in dream. Also maddened by conflicting goals: destruction of Christopher, preservation of self. Why can’t he go on looking for Gemma in minefield and let me go safely home? For some iron reason not clear in dream, this cannot be.
Wake in small hours. Never sleep well in a single bed. And I have indigestion. Take pill. Picture Gemma lying (how interestingly ambiguous the word lying is) beside Christopher in the dark, reliving adultery – or thanking God it never happened. Which? How long before I’ll know? Will he tell me tomorrow? Will he tell me the truth? And she?
Take another, final pill, and sleep.
On way back reflect on unfairness of life. Pandarus not sent off on train just when his best efforts were coming to fruition. He was there, stage-managing everything. Instead, they have banished me. Man opposite me on train has extraordinarily obnoxious habit of interlocking fingers and cracking joints. Amazing how loud a noise this can be. I jump as if I’d been shot, each time, in an effort to deter him, but to no avail. He is innocent and insensitive. He does not appear to notice what he is doing and yet every time he does it an expression of pleasure and relaxation passes over his face, like a dog masturbating.
It seems strange to be home. I’ve been all over the flat carefully, like a detective looking for fingerprints. There is nothing to indicate what, if anything, has occurred in my absence. I don’t feel I can relax till I know: the furniture holds a secret. For the first time I am uncomfortable in my own home. I stare at the telephone, but the obstinate beast will not oblige me by ringing. I examine the carpet for stains, I sniff the sheets. My home is not my own. They haven’t left a trace. Not a scent, not a mark, not a single erotic clue. I am excluded.