An Evil Streak

by An Evil Streak (retail) (epub)

  The first gin and tonic of the morning (around half past eleven) was another peak. I could walk fifteen minutes along the beach to the nearest hotel for it, or take the magic ingredients, with ice in a flask, and mix it myself. I usually preferred the latter, the personalised ritual. The barman at the hotel was not attractive, and there were too many American matrons revealing themselves with rather more courage than tact. Alone on my private beach I could swim and drink, balancing the liquid within and without; read and sunbathe, laze and drowse. I even began to imagine that if my whole life could be spent like this, I might acquire a nicer nature.

  * * *

  Catherine wrote:

  ‘Dear Mr Kyle,

  I thought when you gave me your address it probably meant you wanted a letter. Are you enjoying yourself? I don’t see you as a holiday person, you seem to need your own environment. David and I don’t have holidays because we can’t afford them but I’ve always liked the idea of going somewhere new and strange for two or three weeks and telling some outrageous lies. A great opportunity to be someone else, holidays. David has borrowed a flat from a friend ofhis but it’s very grotty (I know the friend) so I don’t think she’ll like it. Anyway it means I won’t get raped by Wagner after all which will please my doctor who gets terribly jealous. I can’t understand jealousy myself any more. I know I did once but now I can’t remember how it felt. One body is very much like another, after all, it’s what goes on in the mind that counts. She’s written to him at the flat already, it’s a nice letter, do you want me to make a copy of it? They have a photostat machine at the post office that only costs 5p.

  Love (whatever that is),

  Catherine

  P.S. I saw her husband on TV the other night, he seemed to have all the right attitudes. I also thought he was rather good looking – I like that hollow sunken-cheeked style. Or maybe I just have a thing about doctors. C.’

  And then I began to miss them. All three of them. They were my children. What was I doing in this strange foreign place?

  * * *

  A honeymoon couple arrived to torment me. They were young and dark and thin and they kept touching each other. Apart from that, they did not do anything overtly embarrassing (in fact they were rather off-hand with one another verbally) but I resented them nevertheless. They were both very pretty and full of energy; they shone like well-groomed horses. The excesses of the night left a gloss of satisfaction on their faces as they chewed their breakfast paw-paw; afterwards they would play tennis and I would hear them shouting to each other, making fun of their bad shots, before I went down to the beach. They were younger than Gemma, and there they were, pledged for life, and seemingly delighted with the arrangement. About twenty-four, I thought. And rich enough to come to the island for their honeymoon. They always went to bed in the afternoon (I used to stroll past their chalet to soak up the sounds) and reappeared early in the bar, every night in new clothes, browner by the hour and smiling kindly at the rest of us. Like Gemma and David, they had a lot of goodwill left over.

  It all turned sour after that. I began to notice VD posters scattered around the island for some kind of health campaign; it struck me as I drove about that the older inhabitants were obsequious and the younger ones arrogant; even the weather did not seem as perfect, a few showers and a high wind at night. I started to dream, not the sort you remember in order to recount but those that leave you vaguely uneasy, knowing you have slept badly but relieved to wake up. Suddenly paradise was a hostile place.

  * * *

  Gemma wrote:

  ‘Dearest Uncle Alex,

  I hope you’re having a lovely time but I can’t wait for you to come back. We are borrowing a flat belonging to a friend of David’s but it’s not a bit like your lovely spare room. The sheets are filthy and there’s a horrid atmosphere. Still, we’re grateful to have anywhere – though we daren’t risk going there more than once a week. I can’t justify any more trips to town with you away. Hurry back!

  Chris’s TV thing was a great success but he wasn’t a bit excited about it, in fact he’s been very funny lately. He can’t suspect anything, can he? He’s very quiet and sometimes he looks so sad I just want to fling my arms round him and say I love him although of course I don’t – except that in a way I do. And then I feel disloyal to David. Anyway I can’t hug Chris, however much I sort of want to, and I think by now he’d be surprised if I did. I’m worried about him though – suddenly he looks so much older or else not well – I’ve tried to get him to have a check up but you know what it’s like trying to make a doctor do that.

  I wish you were here to talk to. I know I haven’t talked to you much lately but now you’re away I really want to. Because of Chris being the way he is and me feeling so guilty, I can’t argue with him about anything, and now he’s saying we must go to Majorca in June instead of Cyprus because of the troubles. I’m sure it’s all quiet there again now and would be quite safe to go but he won’t listen. I have this awful feeling he’s just making excuses and really he only wants to go to Majorca to have a second honeymoon with me. I keep telling him it will be horrid and touristy and spoilt – not at all like it was ten years ago – but he won’t listen. He insists there are still some nice quiet places left – I think he expects Robert Graves to ask us to dinner or the ghost of Chopin to materialise with a brand new nocturne – it’s going to be awful, I don’t know how I’ll bear it. After all this time away from our room, to be marooned on holiday with Chris being terribly affectionate is more than I can stand. It’s like a jail sentence.

  David and I have such fantasies about running away together one day. At least I suppose they’re fantasies. The trouble is he can’t bear to leave his children and of course I couldn’t possibly leave mine so it would mean taking four children with us and he’d never earn enough to keep us all and I could hardly work with four children to look after. That’s quite apart from all the upset for them, and hurting Chris and Cathy. And of course they might both fight for custody. Now I’ve written it down it looks quite ridiculous and yet we talk about it all the time. We ought to be satisfied with what we’ve got, I don’t know why we want more, we’re really very lucky. But it seems to be a terrible craving like for drink, to plan a future we know really we can’t ever have. We even talk about the sort of flat we’d get and how we’d furnish it.

  You must think I’m mad. Hurry back. Maybe I’ll be sane again once we’re back in our lovely room.

  Lots of love,

  Gemma

  P.S. I almost forgot to tell you the other awful thing – Inge is leaving. I’ve been so busy with myself lately I didn’t even notice there was anything wrong with her but she’s just announced she’s pregnant – it must have happened at Xmas when she went home – and she wants to go back to Germany and marry her boyfriend as soon as possible. She keeps apologising for all the inconvenience she’s causing us (I’m sure we’ll never get anyone so ideal again) but she looks terribly cheerful all the time and I’m so envious I could hit her. Being in love doesn’t seem to improve one’s character, does it?’

  On my last morning the honeymoon girl appeared pale and tense at breakfast. I imagined a quarrel but it turned out she had hardly slept because a large red spider had got into their room and her husband had failed to catch it. Wafts of reminiscent terror emanated from her, palpable even at several tables’ distance. The maids were sent in; at lunch they announced, triumphant, that they had captured the beast. Were they really sure? she demanded. Oh yes, they had kept it for her as proof. She shrank away under her husband’s shoulder. ‘No, no, don’t let them show it to me, please.’ He comforted her and reassured her they wouldn’t; everyone laughed good-humouredly, the maids’ large white teeth flashing, their eyes puzzled by the exhibition, but her terror and panic were real and I felt them. For one night at least her honeymoon had been ruined and she would remember.

  I flew back home vindicated, reading Gemma’s letter over and over again. Treasure trove.

 
; April

  The pleasures of homecoming: an even tan masking nearly all irregularities, making me almost enviable; the contrasting pallor of an English spring and the surly unconcern of the natives; and my flat, familiar yet strange after absence, full of contradictions. It looked larger and smaller, lighter and darker than I remembered it. Empty and hollow, yet containing so much of me that I half expected to meet myself coming down the corridor.

  Gemma was ecstatic. ‘You look marvellous – oh, it’s so good to have you back.’ It was my spare room she was really talking about as she hugged me.

  David merely said, ‘Yes, you’re very brown, it’s all right for some.’ Then he looked round the flat suspiciously with his expert’s eye. ‘They were very clean and tidy, your friends. Not a thing out of place.’

  I said smugly, ‘Americans are great respecters of property,’ and went out. I had a lot to do and so, presumably, had they.

  * * *

  The mirror was a huge success. I had been right to be apprehensive: the price brought tears to my eyes. But it was worth it, once they got it installed. Just like old times in its accustomed place: boldly on the wall in their room, safely behind the tapestry in mine. I could not afford to take any risk of David finding it in the course of his cleaning.

  I trembled a little as I looked at it: the culmination of a dream and the nearest I would ever get to paradise. I had been a fool to quibble at the cost. You cannot measure such privilege in terms of mere cash.

  There were of course certain practical problems to be overcome or perhaps simply risked. David would have to become accustomed to my locking my bedroom door occasionally when I went out – better still when I went away. They would think themselves doubly alone then and be more relaxed. If I made sure he cleaned my room on Wednesdays, I could say I was going away for weekends and watch safely on Mondays and Fridays. The excitement was almost too much for me; I feared for my heart. If the very thought of watching them had this effect, what would the reality do to me?

  In case you are wondering, I had no guilt. I was not stealing, merely taking what was my due, which they had withheld. They had stopped talking to me and they no longer wrote letters. They would not be the poorer by my action, for they would never know.

  * * *

  Catherine said, ‘You seem very restless. As if you were expecting something to happen.’

  We were walking by the Serpentine, a new meeting-place, in the pale spring sunshine. I was surprised to have succeeded in luring her so much nearer to my territory, so far from her own.

  I said, ‘Not expecting, my dear Catherine. Merely hoping. I get bored easily, you see. Any event would be welcome.’ She walked slowly in her flowing caftan, her hair loose. The garment was sea-green; it was the first time I had seen her in a primary colour. She seemed a different creature with the change of season: there was colour in her cheeks (though still no make-up) and she walked with a lighter step. She seemed younger, nebulous, floating. For a mad moment, making nonsense of my mirror and all the expensive delights to come, I thought David must be crazy to prefer Gemma to her. Gemma had proved so attainable.

  ‘Well, it’s too soon for disaster,’ she said equably. ‘I told you that before.’

  ‘I remember.’

  Back home they would be making love in front of my mirror, unobserved. A kind of undress rehearsal (I permit myself the occasional pun). It was a Wednesday, of course. David would clean my room either before or after the performance. I was getting them accustomed to the new regime, and I did not grudge the delay. True artistry cannot be hurried: it grows slowly, like a plant. In truth I was a little afraid to face the moment when I was to watch for the first time. There would be no way to recapture that novelty, however many times I watched and however much variation I saw.

  Catherine asked, ‘So what are you hoping for?’

  ‘Satisfaction,’ I said, feeling that to say happiness would be over-reaching myself.

  She laughed. ‘Are you in love with them? Are they doing it for you?’

  So casually asked, it threw me. I could not answer. The Serpentine spun in the thin April sunlight.

  She went on, ‘Satisfaction through others, it’s only saints and voyeurs who can live like that. The man in your poem, David told me about that.’

  I said faintly, ‘It’s Chaucer’s poem, not mine.’

  ‘Well, you know what I mean. You’re making it yours. That man was in love, wasn’t he, supposed to be anyway, with someone who never rewarded him?’

  I was taken aback. ‘You’ve actually read it.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘a long time ago. I’m not as ignorant as David. I was going to do English before I switched to Art. Only I never really believed in Pandarus having a lady, however cold and distant. I think that was just an excuse he used to put people off the scent. I think he was in love with Troilus and Criseyde.’

  She was going too far, too fast. I was scared of her again. ‘I think he was in love with power,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s just a smokescreen.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Poor you,’ she said gently, to my amazement taking my hand. ‘Has no one ever loved you?’

  ‘Not your pity,’ I said. ‘Please. Spare me that.’

  ‘You mustn’t mind,’ she said. ‘It’s the kindest emotion I can feel. And I told you I’d find out eventually. But it doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t. Love is such a myth.’

  * * *

  I had the intercom installed. I told the man that the child of a friend of mine was coming to stay and I must be sure to hear her if she cried in the night. He tested it for me with one of us in each room, but after he had gone I put the radio on their bed and went back into my room. I folded back the tapestry and hooked it out of the way; then I lay on my bed. There through the glass I could see the radio lying innocently on the winter quilt. And I could hear it: every word, every note of music. There would be two bodies coupling and I would see every movement, hear every sound. I would share their love at last; I would be part of it.

  * * *

  David got a job. Only a small one, of course, a guest appearance in some long-running TV series in Birmingham, but it meant being away for a week. I was disappointed and angry at first, then I thought that perhaps it was just as well: a break in routine at this point might make him less likely to notice or question my new habits and the locked bedroom door. He was jubilant, of course; I assumed it was merely actor’s ego, but when I saw a strangely intent conspiratorial look on Gemma’s face I knew there was more to it than that.

  ‘If you’ll help,’ he said, oddly diffident for him, ‘we can have a night together. It’s our only chance.’

  ‘Please,’ Gemma said. ‘You will help, won’t you?’

  I liked their soft words and pleading faces. The plan was simple: David would go up there for a week, all bona fide, and Gemma would join him for a night, pretending to be with me.

  ‘A Saturday night would be best,’ she said. ‘It’s very awkward now Inge’s gone and the new girl hasn’t arrived.’

  I was amused at the intrusion of these domestic details into their night of bliss.

  ‘I won’t be there on a Saturday, it’s Monday to Friday.’

  ‘Then make it Friday and we can travel back together on Saturday.’ Her face lit up at the added bonus: on top of a whole night together, their first, the joy of a train journey as well.

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell Cathy there’s a party or something, she won’t care.’

  ‘And you’ll have finished work, so I won’t be distracting you.’

  They were both trembling with excitement, as if they were planning a bank raid.

  ‘I never thought I’d be so pleased about going to Birmingham.’

  They both laughed as if this were terribly witty. Then they looked at me.

  ‘You will, won’t you?’

  ‘You don’t have to do a thing. Only say I was here. Just pretend, in your head. You don’t have to stay in or a
nything. You can go to the pictures if you like.’

  ‘My children,’ I said, ‘how can I refuse you?’

  ‘Oh.’ She hugged me so hard that for a moment I could scarcely breathe. On David’s face I saw no gratitude but intense relief.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘To be practical.’

  ‘Just remember to say I was here for the night on Friday if anyone asks. That’s all. I’ll explain to Chris.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s a little more to it than that. Why are you here?’

  ‘Oh.’ She pondered. ‘I’ll think of that later.’

  ‘You’re ill,’ David said promptly to me.

  I said with a smile, ‘You needn’t sound so pleased. And I don’t like pleading illness to a doctor.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  Happiness had made them stupid.

  ‘Your husband,’ I said, ‘might ring up.’

  ‘Why should he?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he? To speak to you. To ask how I am. To check up.’

  There was a short pause. I could almost hear them thinking, like the ticking of a clock in another room.

  ‘I know,’ Gemma said. ‘We’ll do it in easy stages. Then he can’t ring up. I’ll come here at lunchtime as usual to type. Then in the afternoon I’ll ring Chris and say you’re ill and can I stay. He’s bound to say yes. Then it’s all spur of the moment and I’ve spoken to him and he won’t ring up. You’ll have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘And if he does ring up?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘But if he does.’

  She looked exasperated at my obstinacy; I was spoiling the dream by conjuring up reality. I represented all her worst forebodings and she would not admit them so she must condemn me instead.