An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful

by J David Simons

‘Holding you. Is that so bad?’

  ‘I’m a married woman.’

  ‘I thought you had a Japanese divorce.’ He continued to stroke her and he felt himself stir. ‘Sumiko?’

  ‘What’

  ‘Please turn round.’

  ‘Eddie. I am seventy years old. What do you want from an old woman?’

  ‘To kiss you.’

  He heard her laugh. ‘I can’t believe I have to push men off at my age.’

  ‘Don’t push me off.’

  She turned round slowly, used her drawn-up knees against his thighs to keep her distance. ‘What’s got into you, Eddie-chan?’

  He stroked her cheek again, then drew her face in close with both hands. He could smell her breath, not sweet as in his memories, but sour with a morning staleness. He tried not to think of his own breath odour expelling from his rotting lungs. He pushed himself forward and kissed her full on the mouth. Her lips were dry while his own mouth was over-salivated from his excitement. There was no passion, just a sense of senile desperation. But it was a kiss to be savoured nevertheless. She pulled away. Her eyes wide-awake now, he tried to understand what he saw in them.

  ‘I want to touch you,’ he said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m too ashamed.’

  ‘Let me try.’

  He put his hand over one breast, closed his eyes, the skin memory of his palm aching to recall the firmness, the tautness that had once so excited. He opened his eyes to see her looking directly at him. He held her gaze as he caressed her withered dug, felt the hairs around the nipple tickle his thumb, saw her wince with unexpected pleasure. He managed to release his other arm from under his body, brought it into play with her other breast. He lay like this for some time, fondling her, listening to the woodpecker, sensing her body in slow arousal, the quickening of his heart, the stickiness between them where their flesh touched, the opening and closing slam of a door in the hallway. She touched him for the first time, grabbing a handful of shirt and skin just above his hip, drawing his awareness away from her body to his own. The layers of belly flopping over his flaccid penis and his shrunken testicles. The skinny legs, the flaky skin, the itching underarm, the hairs in his ears and thick in his nostrils, the toenails needing to be cut, the wheezing breath, the over-excited heart. He released one hand from her breast, stroked downwards, felt the hollows around her abdomen, followed the curve underneath, fingers extended, expectant for the first brush with her pubic hair. She grabbed the exploring hand.

  ‘I’m not ready for this.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? I’m not some panpan girl.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned away, then over on to his back. Bodies separate now. Staring at the ceiling. He listened to her breathing, coordinating his lungs to her rhythm, sharing the beat of this life force. Such an aching emptiness. “Love comes from desperation.” Aldous again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I am fine, thank you. For a man of my age.’

  She moved closer to him, leaned her head on his chest. He felt uncomfortable with her weight, but he did not want her to move.

  ‘Why did you come back, Eddie?’

  The woodpecker had gone. He could feel her heart beat against his ribs.

  ‘I came back to where I was happy,’ he said. ‘That winter I spent here with you, cut off from everywhere by the snow, living together in this room, writing my novel.’

  She moved up the bed, stroked his face, placed little kisses on his scalp. ‘Now it is still early. Please go back to sleep.’

  ‘But I am not tired.’

  ‘Oh, Eddie. Just rest.’

  ‘No. I would like to get up. And do you know what I would like to do? I would like to relax in a hot pool. Takahashi-san told me the hotel onsen has been refurbished with Italian marble. That is what I will do. You go back to sleep. I will go for a soak.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  London • 1963

  Edward’s assessment of himself in these early years of both his career and his marriage was that he was content. Or at least he experienced moments of contentment – a fleeting balance between the meaningfulness he drew from his writing and the happiness he drew from Macy, which affected him so profoundly it obliterated any doubts or fears he may have otherwise possessed. It was, he thought, a precarious state to be in. An inner state that reflected the condition of the outer world as well. For everything was changing, nothing was sacrosanct. The earth was no longer the last frontier, presidents were no longer invincible, governments were no longer immune from scandal. The world was all shook up, he was all shook up, every day was a challenge just to know where he fitted into the scheme of things. To know his place in these tumultuous times. For without a sense of place, without a stance, without a perspective, how could he continue to write?

  It was in this mood of reflective agitation, he watched Macy wriggle into the sequinned flapper dress she was wearing to Aldous’ New Year party. The Roaring Twenties was the theme to welcome in 1964. And if he had to choose a favourite decade it would have to be the Twenties. Of course, he had been born then and for that reason alone he could have said he felt the shadow of that era imprinted on his soul. But if he could choose to be a young artist caught up in the creative spirit of the times, those times would definitely have to be the shimmying, shimmering Twenties.

  ‘Human beings are at the peak of their creative abilities in their twenties,’ he said, admiring his black and white Oxford shoes, which along with his white suit, were meant to make up his Gatsby look. ‘And likewise in the lifespan of a century, the most creative decade will also be the Twenties.’ He began to prove his point by effortlessly counting off that era’s many great artists. F. Scott Fitzgerald, the inspiration behind his costume. Then Picasso, Miro, Hemingway, Kafka, Pound, Proust, Ernst, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Mann, Woolf, Colette, Chaplin, Jolson, Garbo, Gershwin, Ellington, Armstrong, Joyce, Eliot.

  ‘Uh? What makes you say that?’ She was in front of the mirror now, stretching a gold-tissue skullcap into a fit over her newly shorn locks. This devastating pruning of her hair for the sake of fashion had been a shock to him. He had loved her dark waves just the way they had been – thick, long, lustrous. A scented forest to be lost in. Now there was only a spiky thatch that left his fingers dangling.

  ‘Because one is old enough to have absorbed the knowledge of what has been, yet young enough to reject it and create something truly original.’

  ‘And you cannot do that in your thirties?’

  ‘By then, the freshness has gone, conditioning has worn you down. You can only be derivative after that. You can only admire the new talents of those coming up behind you.’

  ‘How depressing. So you and I can only be derivative from now on?’ She licked a finger, dampened down a curl on to her cheekbone.

  ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘No more abstract expressionism for me. And The Waterwheel will be your only truly original work?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I think I could squeeze another brilliant novel or two out of you yet.’ She came over to him and literally squeezed him. Two arms around his waist, clasping behind him, pulling him in towards her, so that he could feel all those threads of beads squashed against him. He loved her when she said things like that, when she made him believe in himself, when she was on his side. ‘Anyway,’ she went on. ‘I think you are underestimating the exciting times we are living in. There is so much happening now. In art and music and politics. Even fashion. Don’t you think the Sixties will be every bit as creative as your Twenties? Don’t you feel the excitement, Eddie?’

  What he felt was the excitement of her. But perhaps she was right. Perhaps the Sixties could be every bit as creative as the Twenties. They certainly had been iconoclastic up until now, clearing the way for what he did not know.

  ‘I worry my creative peak has passed,’ he said. ‘I do no
t feel such things.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ she said, using the one American profanity he had respect for. ‘You’re spending too much time with Aldous. You’re beginning to sound like him.’

  ‘Ah, Edward and Macy Strathairn,’ Aldous said, answering the door to them in a wide-shouldered dinner suit with a pink rose embedded in the lapel. The only item that differentiated his outfit from his usual attire was a black eye-patch with the word “Tony” embroidered on it. ‘The bright young things.’

  ‘What’s the deal with the patch, you old faggot?’ Macy asked, kissing Aldous on the cheek as she passed.

  His one blue eye brightened. ‘Can you not guess?’

  ‘Ask my husband here. He’s the clever one.’

  ‘Go on, Eddie. Help out this ignorant American broad.’

  ‘A character from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned. The dissolute Anthony Patch.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Macy sniffed. ‘Well, I’m the beautiful. Which one of you is the damned?’

  ‘I’m afraid I must answer to that description,’ Aldous said, before moving on to receive another pair of guests. ‘I am totally damned.’

  Edward followed Macy as she weaved through Aldous’ flat – a space which made no accommodation whatsoever for the guests. The bedroom door was open to a strangled twist of sheets and blankets, the lounge boasted piles of books serving as hazardous perches for ashtrays and glasses, tins of cat food yawned dangerously at anyone stretching for a peanut. Nor had there been any accommodation made for the music of the dress period either. The Beatles’ She Loves You blared out from the record player on a never-ending three-minute Yeah-Yeah loop. There were at least two other men dressed in white suits and spats. Then there was an Al Capone. A Ghandi. A Valentino. Lots of flapper girls. An attractive woman in flying goggles. ‘Amelia Earhart,’ she told Edward, as he slipped out of her grasp of his lapels. In the kitchen, Macy snatched at a bottle of red, poured herself a large glass.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You were fine when we left the house.’

  She sashayed up to him, and said too loudly: ‘It’s the curse.’

  ‘I thought it didn’t affect you like other women,’ he whispered back. ‘You told me you got away lightly in that department.’

  ‘It is not the pain. It’s what it represents.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Forget it. I am more concerned for our friend. Don’t you think Aldous looks awful?’

  Aldous always looked so pale, it was hard to tell whether he was sick or just normal. Skin the colour and contours of the moon, the man shied away from the sun.

  ‘He looks the same to me.’

  ‘Same to you? You just have to look at the way that suit hangs on him. He’s lost a lot of weight. I think he’s ill and he’s not telling anyone.’

  ‘He would tell me.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure.’ She plucked a cigarette out of the silver case she kept in her purse, screwed it into a holder.

  ‘Allow me.’ A silver-plated Zippo appeared between them. And then a face Edward recognised.

  ‘Hi, Eddie,’ the familiar countenance said, his fingers sparking a flame into life. ‘And you must be Macy. The author’s glamorous wife. I’m Jack. Mortimer.’

  Edward had met Mortimer before at some literary do. Another writer. With a punchy, confident prose sprung from his journalist roots that had helped rack up three consecutive bestsellers on the spy game.

  ‘Is that Jack Mortimer or Mortimer Jack?’ Macy asked, pulling her head back from the snap of the lighter.

  ‘The former,’ Mortimer said with a tolerant grin. ‘I’ve seen some of your stuff.’ He made this remark as he clawed the air with his lighter-free hand. A tall, blonde woman in a gold lamé dress, looped over with strings of pearls, responded to the summons. ‘And this is my wife, Vena.’ A protective arm around her waist. ‘Edward Strathairn. And his wife, Macy.’

  Vena nodded a smile that displayed a smear of red lipstick on one of her front teeth. An endearing smudge, Edward thought, on the presentation of an otherwise flawlessly beautiful woman.

  ‘My stuff?’ The words came out of Macy’s mouth in a swirl of smoke. ‘You hear that, Eddie. He’s seen my stuff. What stuff have you seen, Jack?’

  ‘You know. The Pollock stuff.’

  ‘Well, Jackson had his stuff. And I have mine. And he’s dead now. And his work’s worth a fortune. So maybe I should do the same, Jack. Get drunk and wreck my car. Or maybe I should just slash my wrists. What do you say to that? Jack?’

  ‘I would say that is your artistic choice.’

  ‘Touché. And what about you, Vena?’

  ‘I have no idea what you talk about,’ she slurred, her accent noticeably Nordic. ‘But I would like another gin. Will you bring me one?’ She purred her request into Jack’s shoulder.

  ‘In a moment. I want to finish this…’

  ‘Come on,’ Macy said, taking Vena’s arm. ‘I could do with another one myself. Let’s leave these men to their men-talk. To their stuff.’

  Edward watched the women go, their scent remaining somehow as a warning of their not-too-distant presence. Jack rocked back on his heels. ‘She’s a tough one, that.’

  ‘Yours or mine?’

  ‘Yours. Mine’s a softie. Behind that cool exterior.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Depends how you like ’em.’

  Edward felt as if he was talking to a character in one of Jack’s spy novels. The succinct, snappy, dialogue of men who held their cards close to their chest.

  ‘How do you like them, Jack?’

  ‘Intelligent and attractive. In that order.’

  ‘And that’s Vena?’

  ‘No. Vena’s just about sex. And Macy?’

  ‘Intelligent and attractive. In that order.’

  Jack grinned. ‘Got another book in the pipeline?’

  ‘Mulling around a few ideas.’

  ‘Second one’s the hardest.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Proving you’re not a flash in the pan.’

  ‘How did you manage it?’

  ‘Not so difficult in the thriller genre. Just give ’em much of the same. Flawed hero. Good plot. Lots of military hardware. Bit of sex.’

  ‘You’re making it sound too easy.’

  ‘It can be. But literary fiction’s different.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Got to show ’em more of your inner substance. The big ideas. You’ve got to have something to say. Do you have more to say, Eddie?’

  ‘It’s a pressure. But I’m working on it.’

  ‘Yeah, well I hope you come up with the goods. I kind of liked The Waterwheel. We all need to do a bit of soul-searching. Especially now.’

  He knew what Mortimer meant. The British press had tried to distract with Keeler and Profumo in the New Year run-up but it was the images from across the Atlantic that still prevailed. The golden Dallas afternoon, the slumped Kennedy, the pink princess in her pill-box hat scrambling across the boot of the moving car, the widow and the saluting son. The world would never be the same. America would never be the same. But what would it become? Even with Aldous’ themed trip back in time, there was no getting away from the present. A hole had been blasted into the world. Everyone was shell-shocked. He could see it in the frantic drinking, hear it in the high-pitched voices, he could smell it in the air. It was visceral.

  He moved away from the kitchen to find Macy. She was dancing with Vena in the lounge, the two of them lassoed by Vena’s pearls, silk-rubbing themselves against each other, breasts to breasts, belly to belly, hips to hips, skirts riding high. Men watching, leering, clapping, yeah-yeahing. He grabbed her away, forgetting about the strangle of pearls, the string snapping, beads all over the place, Macy screaming about the cut into her neck. No blood, hardly a scratch, just a red mark, but her giving him a really hard time about it anyway. This was not how he wanted to bring in the
New Year. But later, Macy softening with her drinking, until she had forgotten all about the neck burn, and she was snuggling against him, draped in his arms, smooching to Sinatra. She had done it to him again, given him that roasting, rollercoaster of an evening, stretching his emotions this way and that until he was just relieved, just sheer grateful, that she had calmed. That she was still with him. The countdown came but she stayed locked in his arms. And when the first bell struck she lifted her head from his shoulders, looked at him with wet eyes.

  ‘I want a baby, Eddie. I really want a baby.’

  ‘I do too,’ he said, mouthing this thought for the very first time. But knowing it was true, knowing that this was his desire, to create another being from an intimate union with this woman in his arms.

  ‘We are trying to get pregnant,’ Edward politely told the cleaning lady, the vicar, the postmistress, his friends, anyone who asked about his wife. Such a wonderful phrase, such a wonderful euphemism for sex, which allowed him to verbalise in public the vision inside his head that had him making love to Macy at every opportunity and from every angle. Macy demanding his sperm, desirous of it, desperate for it. He had never felt so needed. His work also beginning to blossom from these pollination attempts as he churned out page after page of his latest draft with remarkable ease. He had the opposite of writer’s block. He had ‘writer’s flow’. ‘Writer’s ejaculation.’ And he found himself happily immersed in a period of total creativity and procreativity.

  His second novel, the proof he was no flash in the pan, was about the homeless and rootless. Not just the beggars in the streets, the vagrants sleeping under bridges along the embankment, but the broader political issues. The slum landlords, the housing shortages in central London, Tory policies that created a climate of profiteering in an unrestrained property market, the exploitation of the working class. Where he had got the inspiration from, he wasn’t exactly sure. Perhaps now that he was no longer homeless and rootless himself, he felt he could start to tackle such topics. But his book was not preaching from the pulpit, a rant against social injustice. Instead, he was focused on the plight of just one man, Dominic Pike, a schoolteacher, happily married, living in a three-storey terraced house in North Kensington. Dominic Pike, who fell through the cracks. Who lost his job, his savings, his wife, his home, his friends, in that order. Until he was picked up off the streets by a bunch of well-meaning volunteers steeped in good Christian values who ran a hostel for the single homeless. And where was this hostel? In North Kensington. In fact, it was a conversion of Dominic Pike’s former home. There was the front door he had painted, the boiler he had clad, the cracks he had plastered over, a set of shelves he had put up for his ex-wife. Mr Pike was now homeless living in his own home. Edward finished and delivered a polished draft to Aldous in just under a year.