Stardust

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Oh God,’ she said, after she had taken a long look at him. ‘I keep forgetting how beautiful you are.’

  He didn’t say anything, Jerome had nothing to say now, he could think of not one word, to impel them further forwards, or to stop them altogether. Instead he just leaned his head back even further, slowly, and closed his eyes.

  He heard Elizabeth walking over towards him, quietly. He smelt her scent, felt her breath close by him.

  ‘J darling. We must talk first.’

  ‘First?’ He opened one eye first, then the other.

  ‘Very well, if you prefer, the first thing we must do is talk.’

  ‘Jaw-jaw rather than war-war.’

  ‘It won’t be war, darling, I can promise you that, whatever we decide.’ She was taking his hand, leading him across the room, sitting him beside her on the bed, a double bed covered in a thin pale fuschia coloured satin spread, which seemed to hiss as they sat on it. The bed was high off the ground, so that Elizabeth’s beautiful legs dangled, unable quite to touch the floor. She still had his hand.

  ‘This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ she said. ‘And you will probably think I’m mad.’

  ‘No, no, Bethy,’ he whispered. ‘If anyone is mad, it is I.’

  ‘Wait, J. You must listen. You have to listen to what I have to say, or you’ll misunderstand. And there mustn’t be any misunderstandings between us, ever. Do you see?’

  He didn’t, but he nodded. All he could see were green eyes, a pale white skin and black hair, against a shiny pale pink satin which was cold under his hand, and which whispered with every move.

  ‘You see, I think you know as well as I do what’s wrong with us, why our characters are eluding us, why we can’t get there. And maybe you haven’t said so because either you are a much more noble creature that I am, or because you are more cowardly. I don’t know which. Maybe you don’t want to face up to the truth. Maybe it’s as simple as that.’

  ‘I don’t know the truth, Bethy, not any more. I’m confused, God damn it. I don’t know what’s what any more, what the truth is, what I’m saying to myself, what I’m doing. I just know . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ She prompted him, out of a silence.

  ‘I just know rather than something happening between us, I know that there is nothing happening between us, Bethy – because—’ He moaned, low, and hung his head.

  ‘Because we won’t allow it to happen, J.’

  ‘You seem so very certain, Bethy. How can you be so certain?’

  ‘How can you be so dishonest?’

  ‘Bethy – I am married, Bethy! What are you talking about dishonesty for!’

  ‘I’m married as well. Don’t be such a prig.’

  ‘A prig?’

  ‘A prig.’

  She let go of his hand and stood up, dropping that inch or so to the floor, and then walked away from him, running both hands slowly through her hair. ‘Oh, I knew you wouldn’t understand, J,’ she said, with just the right amount of helpless exasperation.

  ‘Oh Christ!’ Again, it was a moan, rather than an expletive, a sound designed to show his suffering, the torment he was feeling as he stared at her back, at her shimmering black hair, at her perfectly proportioned legs, her small rounded backside under the smooth wool of her skirt, her tiny waist, at the entire perfection of her. Ever since they had begun to rehearse this play he had wanted her. Ever since she had begun to work on her character, finding little bits of it here and there, a sudden open look to her face, or a sad bewildered puzzle in her eyes, a glimpse of Tatty’s naïvety, her ingenuousness, her frankness, even the way she walked, hopping down from tables, stools, beds, the lightness of her being, and her elusiveness, even though the whole was all still in disarray and unassembled, those glimpses, those hints of what she could do, of who she might be, they had been enough to make him desire her sexually more than he had sexually desired anyone. But he had taken a hold, he had held on and held on firmly, and done his best to shut down on the idea which kept feeding itself every day and night into the back of his mind, the conviction that sooner and not too much later he had to make love to her.

  At first he thought he had known why because he thought he had known whom she was, and if she was whom he thought she was, then it was only logical he would want to make love to her. All during the early part of rehearsals whenever he got a glimpse of who Tatty Gray might be, or who she might be going to be, he was certain it was Pippa, even if it was only bits of Pippa he was seeing, and if he was right which he convinced himself he was, because that was how actors built their performances, out of bits and pieces of people they knew, then it was only normal to feel the way he did. Elizabeth was basing her character on Pippa, perhaps only subconsciously, and if she was so it was only natural that missing Pippa as he did, he should be attracted to her surrogate, however imperfect and unfinished the impersonation.

  But then Pippa disappeared, Elizabeth lost what she was doing, and started to assemble an entirely different character, someone who bore hardly any resemblance to Pippa except in the way she was costumed, which oddly enough meant next to nothing to Jerome since the person wearing them was no longer reminding him of the original. By the time of the first dress rehearsal, all traces of Pippa had been so totally expunged from Elizabeth’s performance that Jerome didn’t even notice how like Tatty’s costume was to the clothes Pippa wore, and by the time the play had opened in York, Jerome was foundering so badly that he had even forgotten why he had wanted Elizabeth so desperately only a few weeks before.

  What he hadn’t forgotten, however, was that he had wanted her, because he still did. He had just forgotten the reason. Elizabeth hadn’t, of course, and every now and then, just in case Jerome’s attention might be straying from her, she let him have a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of who Tatty really was, and once she did, Jerome would come back to life as if attached to a live electric cable. His eyes would flash at her, she could almost hear his heart pound, and the clarinet would once more soar above the piano. Then once she knew she still had him, she shut Pippa away, and started playing little-girl-lost-in-the-woods all over again.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Jerome moaned again, behind her on the bed. ‘Christ dear God.’

  ‘J, darling?’ It was a gentle question, not a rebuke, and so he looked up, a small boy wanting help so badly. ‘J there is nothing wrong, not intrinsically, in two people like us wanting each other, wanting to make love.’

  ‘Even if we are married?’

  ‘Who are you married to, darling boy? Who am I? We’re married to two wonderful people who understand and love us. But we’re also married to our art.’ She’d been a little afraid of this, when she’d run it through in her mind, and she tried it all sorts of ways, sad, sad-dramatic, rueful, factual, intense and despairing, finally settling for the shared secret, the you-know-it-as-well-as-I-do approach, which seemed to be working, because instead of staring at her with that mad stare Jerome used on people when they said something calamitous, he was pursing his mouth very slightly instead, looking at her, into her eyes and nodding, she was pleased to see, very slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘I know what you mean. I know what you’re going to say, because it’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.’

  This was precisely what Elizabeth had prayed he would say, and because of it she felt the triumph rise in her, the surge of adrenalin heating her veins, the tremor of excitement in those hidden parts of her, and that delicious almost unbearable anticipation, but all she did was look sad, as if the conclusion they were slowly reaching was regrettable, but inevitable, as if what they must do was not against their better judgement, but because of it.

  She came and sat down beside him again, but kept her hands in her lap.

  ‘It’s the only way,’ she said, having counted slowly up to fifty without him saying anything, without him even moving. ‘We’re never going to get there otherwise, J darling. It’s like an invisible barrier. And if we don’t, what a waste. You
know and I know, we all know what a beautiful, wonderful play this is. And you know and I know, and everyone knows that if there are two people who can make it work, those two people, my darling, are us. But because of our silly old inhibitions, because we’re afraid, in every way, we’re going to let everyone down, from Oscar to the last person who buys a ticket before they take the wretched thing off. It doesn’t matter that we fail, that’s something you and I will have to live with, that’s entirely to do with us. What matters is why we fail, and who we let down. We just have to break the door down, J. We have to come to each other, we have to know each other, we have to get this out of the way, because, darling boy, it is completely buggering us up.’

  For a moment his sense of excitement was so intense, Jerome thought he was going to pass out. His mouth was dry, he could only breathe as far as the very top of his chest, and it was as if he was shaking violently inside. He straightened one hand, cautiously, trying not to be noticed as he looked to see if he was in fact trembling, but his hand was still, the shaking was actually inside him.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked her. ‘You really think that’s what it is?’

  ‘I know it is,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘All I know at this moment is that I want to make love to you, Bethy. That’s all I know.’

  ‘That is all, darling one,’ she whispered, ‘that you need to know.’ Then she quietly and easily moved her hand, so quietly and easily that he hardly noticed, hardly noticed that is until she slid it up between the top of his thighs and held him fast. ‘And that,’ she smiled, showing the tip of her tongue, ‘is all I need to know.’

  Like the people in the corridor who might not have seen them, and who might swear the corridor had been empty, Jerome could only really remember that moment and then being in bed. In between was a corridor in which he saw nothing, and in which he heard nothing. Of course, he remembered that they kissed and how they kissed, but in detail it was a long, blank, white-hot corridor. They had taken their clothes off, they had kissed, they had kissed, and kissed and kissed. Elizabeth had almost swallowed him, and he had almost drunk her, and he could recall her undoing him, not how, but the fact that she had, she had opened his shirt, and his trousers, she had slipped them down, when she was already part naked, that he knew. He had started to take her jumper off but she was wriggling, and she was out of her clothes faster than he could get her out of them, although she let him slip her panties down, slowly, she told him so, he recalled that, slowly, she said, very, very slowly, she had told him this on a breath, suspirato, as he slid his hand between the silk of the featherweight garment and the touch of her skin, his hand on her beautiful small and firm buttock – slowly she had said, and slowly he had done it, levering the silky garment away from her body with the backs of his hands and slipping them down her thighs, down further, down her legs till they slipped down her legs, like a chrysalis, while she must have undone him by then, although he still couldn’t say with certainty, he had just heard her gasp as she took him in her hand, gasp now that there was nothing between her hand and him, no overgarment, no undergarment, just him and her hand, him in her hand, and now they were in bed.

  Now they were in bed, and her eyes were looking straight up into his. They looked only a little surprised, but those green eyes were certainly open wider than normal, and fixed on his and into his as she told him to go on, please, she asked, go on, my darling, oh yes, please go on. She was so beautiful in his arms, with one arm round her for a moment, her black hair falling straight back against the white pillow, her neck arched and exposed while he eased her down on him and himself up into her, she was so, so beautiful as she lay back now, her hips moving with his and her teeth suddenly showing as she bit her lower lip, with more surprise in those wide green eyes now, she was so utterly beautiful and she felt so good he wanted to shout out, and yell, he wanted everyone to know how completely perfect this moment was, but what he did or whoever this was who was doing this did, was he opened his mouth suddenly, his face contorting as if in sudden sharp pain. Aaahhh! he said, softly – aaahhh! But she whispered urgently no! No not yet! She told him to wait and he did, smothering her mouth with his, kissing her right inside, deep deep inside, while he heard her groan as he went on, he heard her groan more and more. He looked and saw the eyes wide open now, and her hands were off his back and out somewhere in the air – she almost shouted an obscenity but Jerome didn’t care because they were one now, wholly one, and she was there at the same time, with him exactly and she was saying something over and over and over again and he could feel her hands in his hair, pulling his hair, pulling his head down and he saw blood, just a small dart of dark red blood on her lip where she had bitten herself, and then she was smiling, and licking her lip with a pink tongue before leaning her chin back and kissing him slowly and softly on his mouth, and on his neck, his chest his neck again, his arms, her arms round him as she sunk down on to him, his sweat falling on her white skin, on her breasts, breasts which gleamed with her own sweat, and which now cushioned their embrace as they just held each other, holding on, holding on in silence, while outside the world picked up again and they could hear the noise of the city, the cars, voices, other people, rain, a clock chiming somewhere, and in the room just their silence, and their breathing, and perhaps the slow easing of the bed springs and the rustle of bed linen, as Jerome turned on his back, pulling the covers up over them to keep them warm, and then raising his arm so Elizabeth could move and lie across his chest, in the crook of his arm, her hair brushed against his cheek, her left arm curled across his stomach.

  ‘Don’t ask any questions,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  ‘We can tell each other things, but we mustn’t ask any questions.’

  ‘Like how was it for you?’

  He couldn’t see her smile, but he could feel it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But since you ask—’

  ‘I don’t ask. That wasn’t a question. It was a for example. I don’t have to ask, Bethy. This wouldn’t have happened, not like this, not if we had to ask how it was.’

  ‘No. No, of course it wouldn’t. Of course it wouldn’t, darling boy.’

  Silence, long and peaceful. Then she moved and propping herself up on her elbows, on him, she smiled into his face.

  ‘But as I said, we can say things. So I’m going to say something. Two things. Firstly, if we haven’t broken the door down now, Jerome Didier, then may God help us. And two – I don’t know how to say this.’

  ‘Your husband is mad to let you out of his sight.’

  ‘No husbands, no wives. This is for art. And that was art.’

  ‘Even so, the man in London who lives in your house with you must be certifiable.’

  ‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking—’ Elizabeth suddenly laughed, and then grew mock serious. ‘That’s what I was trying to say. It’s never happened like that, J. Not once. Not even remotely like that.’

  Jerome stared back at her. He could hardly believe it. He wanted to tell her she was brilliant, that he had never made love to a woman as dextrous, as agile, as brilliant as she, but she was looking at him in truth, there was no misreading the expression on her beautiful face. It had been the same for her as it had been for him, an experience for which there are no known words or phrases.

  ‘I hated making love before,’ she said. ‘It bored me.’

  Jerome began to laugh. Elizabeth pinched him.

  ‘It’s true, J! I’d come up with any excuse possible. And if the man who shares my house in London and who lives with me insisted, I would lie there with my eyes closed and think of the next part I was going to get.’

  Jerome laughed even more.

  ‘It is true,’ she insisted, and it was. Elizabeth, the greatest actress of her generation, had not had to fake one thing. Which had surprised, and frightened her.

  ‘I believe you,’ Jerome said, seeing her expression once again. ‘And I have to tell you something.
I have never, ever, known anything like that, not – in my whole life.’

  Elizabeth looked back at him, and seeing that he too had been frightened, felt better, felt comforted, and so she sighed and then lay down again across his chest.

  ‘I love the way you say ever,’ she smiled. ‘Evah.’

  ‘I love the way you make love,’ he replied.

  ‘You shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘It’s not a question.’

  ‘No. It’s provocation. How long do we have?’

  Jerome picked up his wrist watch off the table and looked at it.

  ‘We have a whole hour until we have to be at the theatre.’

  ‘Good,’ Elizabeth slid herself slightly further down and kissed him feather lightly on his stomach. Then she looked back up at him. ‘Plenty of time to make sure I haven’t lost my touch.’

  At this very moment, Pippa was standing in front of a painting of an industrial landscape, by coincidence a picture of Manchester, by the eccentric Mancunian artist L.S. Lowry. It was a compulsive work, a composite of reality and the imagination which the artist preferred to call a ‘dreamscape’, full of small stylized figures, anonymous people without shadows, hurrying through a life dominated by their place of work, a vast green-grey mill. Pippa loved the painter’s work, even though the feelings he conveyed were ones of desolation and loneliness, so she stood for an age in front of the canvas, staring into it, lost in the despair of a big smoky city, unaware even that it was Manchester.

  At this very moment, the woman who had crossed the Atlantic on the same plane as Oscar when he had returned from America moved into place behind Pippa, back to back, in order to view the small Spencer which hung on the opposite wall. As soon as she did so, the woman felt her eyes close of their own accord, a familiar event which had long ceased to disturb her, as the words began to come into her head. She listened very carefully as always and memorized them, which was no problem since she could hear no other sound. Then when the words stopped, her eyes opened once again and she turned immediately to where Pippa was still standing.