Pack of Cards

by Penelope Lively

  He faltered, lost his way for a moment, picked it up again before anyone could have noticed and tapped his pointer for the first slide. Valerie. Well, well. Once upon a time, time out of mind ago, he and she had sunbathed naked on the deserted beach of a Greek island. He could see her now, a delicate prawn pink against the white sand, demanding applications of Ambre Solaire. He still possessed, expediently buried among some old papers that his wife wouldn't be interested in, a photo of her sitting on a rock wearing a yellow bathing costume, nicely tanned by then. And one of himself of which he was rather fond in which the blue of his shirt exactly matched the blue of the cluster of morning glory flowers behind his head; his eyes, in a bronzed face, were becomingly crinkled against the sun – one was, at thirty, a good-looking chap, not to put too fine a point on it.

  And wearing pretty well at fifty-five. Bit of a paunch (reminded, he drew it in), a few grey hairs, but (compared to some one could name) extremely presentable. He turned to the screen, talking of outlines and skin tones, his pointer wandering across the ivory flank of Ingrès's La Grande Odalisque. It occurred to him – the thought had a certain irony – that in fact he knew the bodies of the great female nudes of European art with greater intimacy than those of any real women. For instance, he could not for the life of him now recall much about Valerie's thighs or buttocks, but he could give a perfect account of the form of the Ingres lady – or of Velázquez's Venus or Rubens's Three Graces or of a score of others. Faces, though, were another matter. He could have conjured up Valerie's face, a trifle blurred perhaps but accurate in essentials, at any point over the years. To glimpse her just now for but a fraction of a second had been enough to recognise her; whereas had it been merely a limb, a torso, a breast that he had seen he would presumably have passed it by without a tremor.

  He had not run across her at all in the last twenty years. She had married a wine importer, he remembered hearing at some point, had a child or two, did a bit of up-market cookery journalism – he had found himself reading a piece by her once, in a dentist's waiting-room.

  How – interesting, touching in a way – that Valerie should attend his Brent-Caxton lecture.

  He reached the bottom of another page, paused, put his elbows on the lectern and began to extemporise – the sort of off-the-cuff light discursion with a joke that often came off rather well. Looking down at the upturned faces – less distinct now in the dimmer lighting – he saw the audience respond: smiles here and there, the engaged expressions of people who feel themselves addressed personally. He always enjoyed that feeling of command – indulgent command. It must be akin to the feeling stage actors get on a good night. He had always been a good lecturer; it wasn't something he'd ever had to work at. Of course presumably either you were or you weren't, it was one of those God-given things, like so much in life.

  He looked quickly at Valerie – attentive but gazing at the screen, not at him. His gaze passed beyond her towards the centre of the hall and there sitting by the aisle was his first love, Susan.

  He dried up completely. Words failed him. He floundered, coughed, retrieved some lame conclusion and fled back to the safety of his text. Christ! What a bizarre really rather entertaining coincidence!

  Susan – she of the long flaxen hair with whom he had first known complete unabashed consummation. In cold stuffy college bedrooms and subsequently in third-class pensions in Paris and Avignon. How closely one's early erotic experience had been interwoven with exploration of Europe. France still evoked Susan. And there she was, the flaxen hair no longer flaxen nor long but a rather attractive corn-colour, cropped short with a wispy fringe. He looked at her again – caught her eye, he thought, and looked hastily at the screen, where his pointer had summoned up Le Bain Turc. Oh yes, it was Susan all right – different as she was now. He began to talk about the painting; that ferment of female flesh, suspended there for inspection, seemed suddenly quite pornographic – he found himself almost embarrassed, indicating a breast here, an armpit there. He cut short his disquisition on the ambiguities of the picture and moved on to the next page.

  Susan was wearing some smock-like garment. She looked wholesome, just as she had at nineteen, more ripely wholesome but still with that wholemeal-loaf-and-cream-cheese aura that had attracted him then, an intriguing antidote to the glossy lipstick and pencilled eyes of the day. A wonderfully compliant girl, one had often regretted her since, up against more difficult women. An adorable creature. And here she was! She painted still, of course, had had the odd exhibition from time to time in small provincial galleries. He had seen her once fifteen years or so ago at a Burlington House exhibition, and had introduced her to his wife, who asked rather a lot of questions that evening. Susan's presence today was not, when one came to think about it, all that startling. She was, after all, a painter. Still, she hadn't had to come. Touching, again. He felt rather glad, now, that Elizabeth had elected to stay at home on the grounds that she had heard the lecture several times before and she got awfully bored at those receptions afterwards full of milling strangers. There could have been more questions asked; Elizabeth's memory for faces was infallible.

  His confidence regained, Richard ventured another departure from the script, inviting the audience at rather greater length than usual to consider the cool gaze of Manet's Olympia – ‘Isn't it somehow at odds with the rest of her? That calculating stare, a bourgeois stare – you expect to see black bombazine below it, not nudity. Her body invites; her face rejects.’ He thought he saw Susan's head tilt to one side a fraction, in consideration; he almost smiled. Thus had she listened to his youthful perceptions in the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume.

  She would have observed his progress – the appointments, the publications, the chairmanships of this and that, the CBE. As would Valerie and … quite a few others. Benign observation, he imagined – there had not been bitter endings, merely movings on, though perhaps it was he who had usually moved first. One really couldn't quite remember now. It was beginnings you remembered – that moment of ripening interest in another woman. When had one first had that heady realisation that there was no end to them, that it was as though you had been let loose in a strawberry bed? It had seemed thus at twenty, and truth to tell one had never really lost that intoxicating sense of possibility. To walk down a crowded street, or to enter a room like this, was still to find oneself scanning with appreciation the wonderful variety of women, in an almost detached way, not necessarily sexual, marvelling simply at that abundance of faces and shapes. Of people. I like women, he thought. I get on with women. And they like me. Sex aside. Of course in the fullness of time one had begun to feel a need for stability, and Elizabeth had come along, but even then …

  Valerie shifted, crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt. Susan was looking down so that he could no longer see her face. What were they thinking? He felt indulgent and a touch sentimental. And amused. What an absurd situation! And how tiresome that one could share it with no one.

  He had arrived at Renoir; the screen was filled with the glowing fruity flesh of baigneuses, the whole room seemed suffused in reflected colour. He summoned them up one after another – the sloe-eyed biddable girls with their pouting nipples. He himself had reservations, he told the audience, one admired the sensuality, the flow of line, but felt ultimately drenched. All the same, look at them … and his pointer flicked at a rump here, a bosom there. They showed themselves off one after another – a play of luscious impervious light upon a sheet of canvas. ‘In some ways,’ said Richard, ‘these women seem to me unreal – idealised creatures, manifestations of the painter's imagination. To utter a heresy – they are a nudge or two away from Playboy.’ He tapped the pointer to dismiss the Renoir houris, turned back to the audience, and saw Elaine, the mistress of his maturity, sitting in the back row.

  No. Impossible. He stared, leaning forward a little. But yes, it was she all right. No mistaking her, even at that distance. The shock struck home and he dropped the pointer. The chairman leapt to pick it up; s
o did Richard. In the ensuing scramble he had time to cleanse his face of the expression of pure horror. Thank God Elizabeth hadn't come; she and Elaine had overlapped for a time, causing problems. But no sooner had horror given way to a flicker of relief than that was replaced by a surge of awful stomach-shrinking doubt. Just what was going on here? Valerie. Susan. And now Elaine. Elaine sitting there large as life looking young and pretty with her hair done differently and large fashionable specs.

  He was finding it difficult to continue. He lost his place, mumbled, improvised, picked up the sense again. The audience rustled, embarrassment transmitting itself. This was more than coincidence. It had to be more than coincidence. But how could it be? They don't know each other. How could they know each other? Of course they know vaguely of each other … Naturally one had let drop this and that to the current girl about others, women find that slightly titillating and anyway it's natural enough to talk of one's past in all its manifestations, and besides one could hardly appear to be a eunuch, it would be neither truthful nor appealing. Of course one had chatted a bit, probably rather specifically on occasion.

  But surely it was inconceivable that they had … It was too absurd to think that they … Or was it?

  He struggled on with the lecture. Words, somehow, came forth. And the thoughts boiled around in his head. They had set this up, somehow, got together and schemed, laughing at him. What a typically, feminine thing to do. Like plotting schoolgirls. Let's give Richard the shock of his life. Let's have ourselves a ball. It was so … childish … that it should just be ignored, except that he couldn't ignore it, stuck up here with them down there goggling at him. And supposing … God! – were there any more of them? For a hysterical moment he thought that he was going to discover he had been to bed with every woman in the audience. He stopped talking and took a drink of water. He allowed himself a long pause; he scrutinised the faces in front of him – the distinct and the indistinct. Please God, no more.

  There were no more. That was it. And quite enough. He was now in a cold sweat. He had to find a handkerchief and wipe his forehead. He felt the chairman's anxious eye on him. Grimly, he made himself go on with the lecture, turn from text to screen, talk of tonal values and composition, address himself to body after body, an eternity it began to seem of displayed flesh, woman after woman with their curves and dimples and shadows, their strategic wisps of material or concealing hand, their carefully arranged limbs and inscrutable faces.

  He did not look again at Valerie. Or at Susan. Or Elaine. He could feel their gaze on him like … well, like a bunch of harpies, to put it bluntly. What they were going to do, of course, was descend on him afterwards, at this blasted reception which he could not possibly escape. To which he would be led by the chairman, at which a glass would be put in his hand and the audience, eager to get the rest of its money's worth by way of liquor and conversation, let loose upon him. At which point Valerie, Susan and Elaine would converge upon him, grinning hugely, to feast upon his exposure, the target set up and brought down, the fall guy. What a treat for them. What fun to ring each other up later and have a laugh about it.

  He seriously thought, for a few moments, of feigning illness – dropping his papers, putting hand to head, allowing himself to be escorted from the platform and into a taxi. Going home to a loving and solicitous Elizabeth, who would fuss over him and put him to bed with aspirins and hot-water bottles, where he could fall immediately asleep and forget the whole unsettling occasion.

  No. Impossible. He hadn't the nerve. Besides … He tried to pull himself together – what could they do to him? No one else had any idea of the connection, after all – only he and they knew. No, this was ridiculous, he was playing into their hands getting into a state like this. All he had to do was brave it out, feign imperviousness, appear surprised and friendly if they – if any of them – accosted him.

  He delivered the final paragraph of his lecture; the rosy voluptuous girl sprawled on a couch behind his head was extinguished; the lights came on; he acknowledged the applause and was ushered by the chairman down the steps from the platform, out of the door and into the refectory, where waitresses stood about with trays of drinks. The audience surged after them; the room filled up; his attention was required – ‘Red or white wine, sir?’ ‘May I introduce our Provost?’ ‘Professor Swinton, you don't know me but I just had to say how much I enjoyed …’

  He looked furtively around. No sign. And then he saw Valerie, ten feet away, talking animatedly. Oh God! Elizabeth should be here, he thought petulantly, I shouldn't have to cope with this sort of thing on my own, Elizabeth should be here to back me up, to help me make discreet apologies and leave. His panic gave way for a few moments to resentment – Elizabeth was not always as supportive as she ought to be – sitting at home with a book or the telly when one was being harassed like this. It was really too bad of her.

  Some woman was chuntering on at him about his Watteau book. He kept looking through the crowd at Valerie; all of a sudden she looked back, raised a hand in greeting and went on with her conversation. What was she up to? Planning some sort of shock assault in her own time? He said ‘Excuse me’ to the Watteau woman and pushed his way to Valerie.

  ‘Hello, Richard. You were awfully rough on poor old Renoir. Do you know John Hailey?’

  Her companion began to speak. Richard interrupted, ‘I saw you in there. Why did you come?’

  Valerie laughed. ‘Really! John brought me. I'm afraid I didn't realise who was lecturing till just now.’ She was as cool as you like. Laughing at him, no doubt about it. The man must be in it too, whoever he was.

  Richard said, ‘Susan's here.’

  ‘Susan?’

  ‘Susan Marwood.’

  ‘I'm sorry,’ said Valerie. ‘Is this someone I should know?’

  ‘Apropos of what you were saying about the Ingres restoration,’ said the man, ‘I've always felt myself that

  Richard caught sight of Elaine – a glimpse of that unmistakable profile on the far side of the room. He knew now that the thing was to move first.

  Stand around like a dummy while they worked up to whatever it was they had in mind and he was done for. Get in first – that was the thing – wrong-foot them. He turned his back on Valerie and the man, shouldered his way towards Elaine. Someone seized his arm and said, ‘Professor Swinton, I've been dying to ask you if …’ He shooed them off. Elaine had her back to him now, talking to a man he vaguely knew – Walters, that was who, that art critic – and a woman in red. He pushed himself into their group and said, ‘Well, Elaine …’ In a strong, let's-have-no-nonsense voice. And the Elaine-figure turned to him the face of a stranger.

  ‘Ah, Richard,’ said Walters. ‘We were just rubbishing the Hayward exhibition. Have you seen it?’ The not-Elaine person stared at him. The woman in red said, ‘Oh, Professor Swinton, you know my brother, I think, Tim Rogers, he was saying only the other day that you

  Richard backed off. He stepped on someone's foot, felt someone's drink slop on his arm. He mumbled something, scattered irritable apologies. Stupid woman. He could have sworn. Spitting image of Elaine, seen from thirty feet off.

  The room was packed. He tried to shove his way through, landed up against a colleague who started to introduce someone, sidled this way and that in an attempt to escape, looked at last at the woman who was being offered to him, started to say, ‘Yes, how do you do, I'm frightfully sorry but I'm afraid I've got to rush now …’ – and the woman was Susan.

  Except that she was not. She was wearing Susan's smock dress and had Susan's cropped corn-coloured hair but a bland never-seen-before face and irritating affected voice that was now saying how much she'd always wanted to meet and how thrilled she was and she wondered if.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ he said, ‘I've got to go.’ He waved as though acknowledging some summons, turned, got past another group, found himself blocked again. The noise was frightful, the frenzied amplified insect buzz of a party, women's voices predominating and giving it
that upper edge that jarred the ear. Everywhere he looked there were mouths opening and shutting showing teeth and tongues, while elbows and backsides and swinging shoulder bags knocked against him as he tried to head for the exit. He edged his way past emphatic thighs, found his arm up against a squashy bosom, smelt the bathroom smell of bodies, that compound of sweat and perfume, thought he would go mad if he was stuck here another minute. And emerged at last into a sparser area. Where there was Valerie again, alone now, sipping her drink, quite at ease, observing him.

  She said, ‘You look as though you're in the most awful tizz about something.’

  ‘I'm perfectly all right.’

  ‘Well, good,’ said Valerie. She put her hand to her mouth, deftly smothering a yawn. ‘I must be off. I've lost John. Funny meeting up like this. I got quite a shock when I saw who was giving this lecture.’ She grinned. ‘Anyway, I enjoyed it. I say, are you sure you're all right? You look knackered.’

  ‘I'm fine,’ he snapped. ‘You're well yourself, I take it?’

  She looked attentively at him. ‘Extremely well, thank you, Richard.’

  ‘Good night, then.’

  ‘Good night.’

  He plunged into the street. Ten yards along the pavement he realised he had forgotten his raincoat. He turned back. A woman was hurrying away in the opposite direction, the shape of her instantly emotive. He stood on the pavement in the rain staring uncertainly at what seemed to be the retreating figure of his wife.

  Black Dog

  JOHN CASE came home one summer evening to find his wife huddled in the corner of the sofa with the sitting-room curtains drawn. She said there was a black dog in the garden, looking at her through the window. Her husband put his briefcase in the hall and went outside. There was no dog; a blackbird fled shrieking across the lawn and next door someone was using a mower. He did not see how any dog could get into the garden: the fences at either side were five feet high and there was a wall at the far end. He returned to the house and pointed this out to his wife, who shrugged and continued to sit hunched in the corner of the sofa. He found her there again the next evening and at the weekend she refused to go outside and sat for much of the time watching the window.