by Robert Ward
Elizabeth looked across at him and studied him through partly drunken but still interested eyes. He was wearing a not quite black two piece suit, the jacket having narrow lapels, and a plain white open necked shirt. His shoulders were nicely wide and the way he moved indicated that he was slim. She could see that also, because his shirt, as he was sitting, did not bulge tightly over his belt. He was not tall and even perhaps a little below average, though taller than she was enough for it to not matter.
His complexion was sallow, as she had noticed earlier, but it also had a pink or rather dark red blush beneath it which made him seem quite rosy cheeked in the light. His hair was very dark, darker than hers, and short, almost close cropped, but not quite. It was also straight and fine though, from what little she could see of it. His eyes were that kind of flat grey-green-hazel colour so common amongst people whose eyes were neither true blue nor true brown. He was not handsome but neither was he ugly. He was, to an uninterested eye, ordinary, but not unpleasant to look at. A face in a crowd, perhaps. Unremarkable.
Elizabeth listened to the extraneous noises of the dining room and held her head in her hands, keeping her eyes fixed on Charles. Her cheeks felt hot on her palms.
“Why do we come to places like this?” she asked with her lips puckered from the pressure of her hands. “Or have I already asked that? The number of times I’ve been to places like this and sat talking like we are now. It indicates a dearth of imagination somehow, don’t you think?”
“Do you mean personally or collectively?”
“Both,” she said.
“We’re back to the human condition again.”
“Most of life is just so predictable and boring.”
“I think it’s miraculous,” he said. “Whether it has any meaning or not is irrelevant. Being alive is astonishing. We don’t appreciate just how lucky we are to be intelligent sentient beings. The chain of events that’s made us so is extraordinary whether by chance or design.”
“Design? You mean God or something?”
“More likely, something.”
“Time is funny, isn’t it? Why do things take time? And sea horses. I’ve always wondered why they are. Why are there so many forms of life? Like ladybirds and octopuses, or is it octopi? There’s just got to be a reason.”
“Again, a matter for the philosophers.”
“A matter for us all.”
“You’re right. of course. But sometimes just living is enough.”
It was some moments before she spoke. It was her turn to make something of a reassessment. She enjoyed talking to him. He was clearly an interesting person. And she was lonely she realised. An awful admission for her to make. Maybe she needed him.
“Are you, Charles or Charlie or Chas or Chuck?” she asked, wanting to talk to him but momentarily running out of things to say.
“Charles,” he said, surprised by the question.
“They call Prince Charles, Prince Chuck, in America don’t they?”
“I don’t think Chuck would suit me somehow,” he said.
“No,” she said, laughing. “You’re definitely a Charles.”
“And you are an Elizabeth or a Liz or an Eliza or a Beth or a Bette or a Betty or a Bess or a Bessie?”
She laughed again.
“Elizabeth, or Liz. I don’t think I’m a Bessie.”
“No,” he said, laughing also. “You’re not a Bessie.”
The long dark winter night made it seem later than it actually was and they were both tired and quite drunk but neither of them wanted to broach the subject of leaving. They felt comfortable with each other still, as they had from the beginning, and, if anything, were more interested in each other than before. More so for Elizabeth. Charles began to feel his head reel as they drank more whiskies.
“I can see I’m going to have to go into training in order to keep up with you,” he said. “I haven’t drunk so much for a long time.”
“You’re doing okay,” she said. “I’ve never met anyone who can drink me under the table. I’m quite proud of the fact. I’m not exactly sure why.”
“It takes great mental effort and concentration to remain conscious and coherent after drinking several gallons of alcohol. You should be pleased with your proud record.”
“I’m a drunken slag in other words,” she said smiling.
“Yes. I suppose so.”
They laughed again and she said she was dying for a cigarette.
“Those things will kill you,” he said.
“Something’s got to,” she answered. “I’m wary of people who don’t smoke. They’re afraid of getting cancer or heart disease and dying. Cowardice, I call it.”
“I’ve never heard it put like that before, but you’re quite right of course.”
“I’m always right, and you would do well to remember that,” she said.
“I’ll try,” he said. “But you must be patient with me. I’m new at this particular game. And you did tell me you’d teach me the rules.”
“And so I shall.”
They talked and drank and by eleven o’clock it was clear to them both that if they didn’t go home then, they never would. It was Charles who first suggested that they should do so, reluctantly, but still with the faintest notion of having something he had to do the next day. Elizabeth nodded, pleased by the fact that he and not she had done so. She still hated the idea of saying the party was over.
In the taxi on the way home, with Elizabeth being dropped off first, she said that as he’d left his car in the hotel car park, she would pick him up in the morning, as someone from the garage should have been to fix her car earlier today. He gave her his address and instructions of how exactly to get there and said he hoped she wouldn’t regret her generosity in the morning when she woke with her brain too big to fit inside her skull.
As the taxi stopped outside her house she leaned across and kissed him full on the lips with her hands pressed to the back of his head. His hair felt soft and yet slightly prickly because it was so short. She felt wonderful to him as their faces met, and he put his arms around her and gave her a gentle squeeze. Alone in the back of the taxi on his way home, he smiled to himself and closed his eyes, picturing her in his mind.
CHAPTER TEN
The night air was heavy with heat as Richard stood at the window and watched as fat moths beat against the glass trying to get in at the light. It was late but only just dark and the park had only recently become empty. The square was filled with quiet birdsong.
His shirt was sticking to him and he could feel the sweat running down his back, and beading on his forehead. His glass of beer, only recently from the fridge was already almost warm. He breathed heavily.
“The heat, the flies, those damned drums. Will they never stop?” he said.
“We don’t want them to stop,” Miranda said as she joined him at the window. “When they stop it means they’re coming for us. My God, listen, they’ve stopped.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got one bullet left in my revolver. I won’t let them take you alive.”
“I think I’d rather you did,” she said.
Miranda was an actress. She and Richard had met when she was cast in one of his plays. She played the second female and was the best thing about the production he thought. New drama was always difficult to produce, and was confined to the minority media, but he had been lucky enough to have had three productions in the last two years, all as part of themed series, one of which had been commissioned. He was making just enough money to live reasonably on, though it was radio drama that was his staple. The small but almost regular income he gained from it gave him an illusion of security. He sometimes wished he was a professional something or other working nine to five with a company car and a pension, but not often.
Sometimes, if he happened to wake early or had been up all night, he would watch as people in the square left for work in the morning looking fraught and miserable, and would think how lucky he was in some ways
. Time was freedom he thought.
Miranda finished her beer and went to the fridge for another. He asked her to get him another also. He felt as though he was sweating more liquid than he was drinking.
She was wearing a light green and white striped shirt and pale blue jeans with white pumps. She had a shock of gloriously golden red hair and beautifully smooth skin which one normally would have expected to be freckled but wasn’t. Her eyes were pale blue. Richard turned to watch her as she reached into the fridge.
“The strong ones,” he said.
“Which are they?”
“The ones at the back. The black cans.”
She poured the beer into their glasses as they didn’t like the taste drinking straight from the can.
“This stuff is so sweet,” she said, grimacing as she drank. “Isn’t this what they call tramp-juice?”
“You get used to it,” he said.
“It knocks your head off you mean.”
“That is a plus point.”
“What does the thermometer say?” she asked.
“Twenty seven.”
“What’s that in old money?”
“About eighty.”
“I like it that way better. It sounds more.”
“All things to excess,” he said.
“Open the window. Maybe there’s a breeze.”
“I don’t want the insects to get in.”
“Maybe if we explain to them, that you’re frightened of them I mean, they’ll understand and stay outside.”
“I’m not frightened of them. I just think they’re hideous.”
“They probably think you are too,” she said.
“That is a matter of the greatest indifference to me.”
She placed her hand on his shoulder and looked out of the window with him.
“You’re right. they are hideous,” she said as a big brown furry moth flew directly into the glass and stunned for a second, then repeated the attempt to get in. “Their memory retention must be non-existent.”
“I don’t suppose they actually think,” he said.
“Do they have brains at all?”
“I suppose there must be some kind of brain, to make them move.”
“I think we’ve exhausted the moth conversation, don’t you?” she said.
“Yes, how did we get into this anyway?”
“Opening the window.”
“Oh, yes. Are you hungry?” he then asked suddenly.
“No, it’s too hot to eat. Why? Are you?”
“No, not especially. I just can’t remember when we ate last.”
“Lunchtime. We had pizza at Umberto’s.”
“Was that today?”
“The memory retention of a moth is no longer a matter for concern,” she said.
They sat down together on the settee and drank more beer. Miranda then got quickly up again and put some music on the stereo. She sat back down, leaning away from him and resting on the arm. She drew her legs up underneath her.
“When was it you knew him?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Daniel Howard.”
“Oh, years ago. It must be… oh, years now.”
“You were friends with his daughter?”
“Yes, she was my best friend. I still write to her, and phone sometimes. When was it you worked with him?”
“Three years ago, at the Barbican. I had the tiniest part. It was only marginally better than playing a tree. He was brilliant though. The party after the run was unbelievable. I was drunk for weeks. He seemed like a really lovely man. Did you like him?”
“Yes. I didn’t know him well of course. He was my school friend’s father. But he always seemed nice.”
“Your school friend, not your girlfriend?”
“Well, yes, my girlfriend, I suppose. We were very young of course.”
“Old enough though. I had my first boyfriend when I was thirteen.”
“Yes.”
The night cooled a little, though it was still oppressively hot, and they found themselves falling into a languid stupor brought on by the heavy atmosphere and many strong beers. Neither of them had the will to go to bed and lie there on top of the duvet, restless and steaming, and so they almost fell asleep where they were, listening to the music, and occasionally speaking disjointedly to each other, making irrelevant statements or asking questions without expecting answers. The recording ended and they sat in silence for a time and then fell fully asleep.
They woke to the renewed chorus of birdsong, this time with the light beginning to stream in from the new day.
Miranda looked about her with bleary eyes and gingerly sat upright, nursing her cramped legs. Her mouth was dry and she went to the fridge to get a drink of orange juice. It was going to be another bakingly hot day she knew, from the forecast and from the already blindingly blue sky outside. It was cool at the moment, but she knew it wouldn’t last.
They took a lukewarm shower together and dressed in light summer clothes. He wore a short sleeved white cotton shirt with light-brown trousers and black trainers and she wore a black and white polka dot dress with her white pumps. They had thought about going to bed for an hour or two, as neither of them had slept very comfortably on the settee, but they decided against it. It seemed a pity to waste the day. It was a Saturday morning.
They had cereal with ice-cold milk, and coffee for breakfast, and listened to the radio. It was a pop channel and the DJ was relentlessly upbeat, but he did play some good summertime music. The babble between records was simply sound without meaning.
They were going out for the day but it hadn’t yet been decided where. Each suggestion did not meet with the approval of the other. They couldn’t make up their minds if they wanted to be with other people or alone together. With other people, or at least where other people went, was finally decided upon.
The seaside was too far, but there was a fair on in one of the parks and that was considered a strong possibility.
“But will there be a roller-coaster?” she asked.
“I don’t know if they have mobile roller-coasters.”
“Will there be gypsies there? Handsome ones with dark curly hair and earrings, leaping from dodgem to dodgem?”
“I think there might be.”
“What about freaks? Will they have sideshows with Siamese twins and bearded ladies?”
“I wouldn’t count on that. I don’t think that kind of thing is allowed anymore.”
“Pity. Life is so sanitized now. It’s like the elimination of true poverty. There was a time when us Toffs could get absolutely anything we wanted by throwing a few coins to the peasants.”
“Is that what we are? Toffs?”
“Of course we are. I know you have delusions of being a working class hero, but you’re hardly one of the angry young men, now are you? Those times are long past.”
“You sound like her sometimes,” he said.
“Like who?”
“Elizabeth Howard. Daniel’s daughter.”
“Do I? Is that good?”
“Yes, I suppose it is. But she did talk the most awful drivel sometimes.”
“Is that a roundabout way of telling me I’m talking drivel?” she asked, before draining her coffee cup.
He smiled at her and raised his eyebrows and she smiled back at him.
“They used to flog actresses along with the prostitutes, you know? They were considered to be the same profession,” he said.
“But I wouldn’t have had to be an actress in those days, would I? I’ve have been Lady Fotheringay or something and worn a beauty spot on a prominent bare bosom. It’s only these ridiculously egalitarian times that have made it necessary for me to work at something.”
“And you, a Labour luvvy as well.”
“One has to be politically correct,” she said, this time it being her turn to smile and raise her eyebrows. “And don’t take everything so seriously. Can’t you tell when I’m being facetious.”
“No
, I can’t, that’s the trouble. I think you disguise what you really think by saying it but pretending you mean the opposite,” he said. “Sometimes,” he then added.
“Understanding the opposing argument does not mean you agree with it,” she said. “And lighten up would you? I’m not really in the mood for some deeply profound argument. It’s too early and it’s too nice a day.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Am I being a bore? Yes, of course I am. I’m just an old grumpy-boots.”
“I think you’ve got a thorn in your paw,” she said. “I just hope I can take it out before you claw me to death.”
No other suggestion being agreed upon, the fair won the decision, despite its probable lack of freaks, and they left the flat having decided not to drive there. It seemed like a day for walking and hopping on and off buses and walking again.
For mid-morning the heat of the Sun was intense and they could tell that by the afternoon it would be baking hot again. There were lots of people about and they seemed relaxed and light-hearted. It was amazing how warmth and light made the world seem a friend rather than an enemy, but it was Miranda who pointed out that rioting took place after long hot summer days when the blood temperature was high in the surreal half light and unnaturally half darkness of night.
Even the pavements seemed somehow soft, as though melting under their tread as they moved through the hot, almost visible air, and Miranda’s light dress billowed about her in the occasional zephyr-like breeze. On their journey they stopped at a shop which seemed dark and cavernous and almost cool after the glaring heat outside and bought ice lollies. Miranda had pineapple and Richard, strawberry. They tasted intensely fruity and the cold, almost freezing feeling on their tongues and lips was strangely sensuous given that numbness was the main effect. They sucked along the flat lolly sticks and licked their hands where the sweet melting juice had run down them.
From the upper deck of the open-topped bus they could see in the distance the big Ferris wheel rising above the tall and broad full green leaved trees of the park and there was a red and white striped concave sided tower with a castellated and flagpole bearing top which they later discovered was a multitracked slide. They could hear the mingled noises of the fair floating over to them on the hot air, and red and white and blue balloons rose to tremendous heights in the pale blue sky, released on strings from sticky little fingers in the park below. Some of the balloons were silver and in the shape of hearts, though these were fewer, being more expensive, and more reluctantly parted with.
