by Brian Moore
My father, the lecher. My father who art in hell. In my dream about men, the men differ, they are nameless strangers, tall, small, blond, dark. But I am always the same. I come out of the bathroom in an hotel suite and walk naked into the bedroom where the man waits. My hair is down (it falls to my hips) and my make-up is on straight and I smile but am nervous. The man is sometimes naked and sometimes has a shirt on, but always he wears no trousers and his prick stands up. Naked means lying down, it means feeling each other up, it means I feel his prick throbbing in me as my mind miraculously erases all other times I ever made love, making it new like art is supposed to make it new, making it as it is with Terence, every time a first time. And so, I lie down with the nameless man but, as I do, he is no longer nameless, nor is he Terence. He is Hat. And now the dream is truth, I live again that first evening Hat and I went to bed together in the La Salle Hotel in Montreal. I walked out of the bathroom, my hair down, my make-up on straight and I was nervous, I was naked for the first time with Hat, old Hat, and he was naked too, but his prick wasn’t stiff and the panic started, the panic I lied myself out of, a lie paid for over and over for in the years that followed, no matter in what city, in what season, no matter what the window-dressing of each sexual encounter, nakedness between Hat and me was the overture to panic, a panic no longer of not knowing, but a panic of certainty, a certainty no matter what we did, no matter how well and fondly we lied to each other, asking, was it all right, oh yes, it was for me, was it for you, yes, for me it was fine, honestly, fine, was it for you, was it really? Yes, really. Lies, lies to let your partner sleep in peace that night, lies to make possible the fiction that Hat and I were lovers. We had five years of it. It seems impossible now, but we had five whole years, the five years from the La Salle Hotel that winter afternoon, through my divorce from Jimmy, Hat’s trip to Europe, Hat’s divorce, our marriage, the big job at Life which brought us to New York, then after Life fired him, his year as a freelance. Until the summer I met Terence. And then Hat came back from Washington.
I seem condemned to relive those few days, to go over and over them in my mind so that now, with time and repetition, those events are a play of which I remember every line, stage direction, entrance, and exit. The first act was: The Algonquin, August 3rd, 1962. I even remembered that the thermometer registered ninety degrees as I got off the Hartsdale train that night and walked across the main concourse at Grand Central station. The clock in the concourse said six twenty-one and I was wearing a green-and-lilac Swiss silk dress, expensive, but I did not like it. Hat and I were living out in Dobbs Ferry, and for the past three weeks Hat had been in Washington doing a story for Canada’s Own on ex-Harvard professors in government. Three weeks was too long for research on a story like that for a magazine like Canada’s Own, so there had to be some lost time, a bender in there some place. But, for once, I had not been angry or worried. A few days after Hat left for Washington, I took Hat’s boy, Pete, into New York to catch the plane for Toronto. Pete had been visiting us for six weeks and after I put him on the plane I went up to Jody Terrel’s for a drink and that was how I met Terence, that was something, I can’t explain it, but we met again the next day, and then, every day. I took the train to town to be with him, sometimes even staying overnight in his apartment on the Lower East Side. Which was foolish and dangerous, of course, but, how can I explain it, I was living in a state of elation, waking up in excitement every morning, finding myself smiling in the street when I thought of Terence and me, hating to go to sleep, feeling there never was, never would be a time like this, that New York was the greatest city, that, oh, that I had no nerves any more. For the first time in my life, I was happy.
Actually, as I crossed Grand Central concourse, it was my third time that day. I had come up that morning to have lunch with Terence. I had taken an afternoon train back to Dobbs Ferry and was hardly into our house (it was, I remember, five to five when I got back and Hat phoned at five) when, as I say, Hat phoned from La Guardia saying he’d just come home on the shuttle flight from Washington with MacGeorge Bundy (who was to be the leading figure in Hat’s magazine piece on professors in government) and would I put on my best bib and tucker and come into town and join him for dinner on the expense account? And I said, ‘Join who? MacGeorge Bundy?’ And Hat laughed and said, ‘No, MacHat Bell.’ And he sounded fine, not smashed and very up, and he said he had something important to tell me but it would keep until we met and could I make the five forty train which would get me into Grand Central about six twenty, so we’d meet in the Algonquin at, say, six thirty. Best bib and tucker though. Right?
I remember when I put the phone down my only thought was relief that I’d been home in time to get his call. I opened my closet and looked at my dresses and there was no doubt which dress would be prettiest for dinner but then, I thought, what if there’s a chance for me to have dinner with Terence, say tomorrow night? And so I did not pick out my best bib and tucker, or even my second best. I picked out the green-and-lilac silk which was expensive and okay for a good restaurant but not something I’d ever liked. After all I was going out with Hat, only Hat. I was not in love with Hat, I was in love with Terence. I had never, will never, love anyone the way I love Terence. Yet when I remember picking that green-and-lilac dress I did not like, it makes me want to cry for Hat.
But, that evening, sitting in the cab going towards the Algonquin I had no sorrow about what I had done to Hat. I know it was selfish of me but I was so happy I wasn’t even nervous about meeting him. I remember, as we drew up at the Algonquin (how strange that I remember this and so clearly), I looked up at the sun visor above the cabby’s head. He had it half pulled down, and wrapped around it were notes to himself, business cards, and a watch on a cheap steel bracelet. I can see that watch now: I was early, it was only six twenty-five, and I remember wondering for a moment, what if Hat notices how changed I am? Will he see that I am a way I never was before, will he know I am in love?
I doubted it. Hat’s radar was for bad news, for hidden irritations, for tension beneath the surface. He lived with such things: they were his emotional language. Happiness (other than the spurious, momentary happiness of a booze euphoria) was something he did not know, had never known. I had no guilt for him to sniff. I had no nerves. I remember how calm I was as I walked into the Algonquin lobby and saw Hat sitting there with another man. Terence and I had not planned this, but it had happened and my one thought as I approached Hat was this: My God, if I had not met Terence, that person sitting there, Hat Bell, poor, damned, arrogant Hat – he would be my life.
The man sitting with Hat was introduced as Jack Freed. He had been in Washington too, doing a piece for Harper’s or was it The Nation? I don’t remember. Anyway, I wondered if he’d be having dinner with us. Hat hated to see people go in those days and so, I suppose, did I. We needed other people, we were nice to them, we tried to amuse them. They were our buffer against being bored with each other. And people liked us, we were considered good company in a way in which Terence and I are not. So when this man, Jack Freed, finished his martini and stood up, I expected Hat to try to keep him. Freed said his train was due in fifteen minutes. He said he’d better try to make this one.
‘We know,’ Hat said, standing up and offering his hand. ‘We’re commuters ourselves, God help us. Or were.’
When the man had gone and Hat sat down, smiling and happy-looking, I asked him, ‘What does that mean? Or were?’
‘Damn,’ he said. ‘I meant to spring it on you when I had you properly primed with wine and food. But probably I couldn’t have kept it to myself that long. Waiter?’ He rang the little brass bell they have on the tables there and hitched his armchair close to mine, his long boyish leg jiggling as he talked. That nervous trick of his. And it came out. Unknown to me he had been flown from Washington to Montreal for a one-day chat with de Belleville, the magazine’s publisher. Parsons, the articles editor of Canada’s Own, had had a sudden heart attack and they were considering Hat
as his replacement. So Hat met de Belleville, but nothing had been said directly. De Belleville simply talked to him, then sent him back to Washington to complete his story assignment. Hat didn’t phone me. Superstitious, I suppose. He sweated it out alone down in Washington and two days later, de Belleville phoned from Montreal and offered him Parsons’s job. If Hat accepted we were to move to Montreal within the month.
‘It could be permanent,’ Hat said. ‘We could buy a house. Something in Westmount, madame? Or would you prefer Outremont? And what about a kiss?’
I kissed him on the cheek and the woman across the way smiled at us. Hat took my hand and held it between his own. I noticed he had not touched his drink. ‘Now, look, Mary,’ he said. ‘I know you love this town and I know you were glad to leave Montreal. So, remember. It’s your life too. I’m not going to twist your arm. If you say no, we won’t go.’
‘What do you think?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘this last week, finishing up my assignment in Washington, I’ve thought a lot about it. I wanted to dope it all out before I put it up to you.’
‘And?’
‘And I think it’s my chance.’ He picked up his glass and looked at it. ‘This is my first drink since I went up to Montreal to talk to de Belleville. I knew they were worried about that. I lied to de Belleville. I told him I’d quit drinking. Then, when I got back to Washington I decided that if I got the job I really would quit. And you know? Since I heard I had the job, I haven’t needed a drink.’
He put the drink down, Scotch and water, still untouched. His right hand, fingers browned by nicotine, combed through his hair which was streaked with grey. ‘Dammit, Mary,’ he said, ‘let’s face it, I know now I’m not going to set the world on fire. Since I got the boot from Life I’ve been going downhill. I’m forty-three. Jesus, I’m too old. I hate freelancing, I hate doing junk assignments just to pay the rent. I need this job. It’s the last good offer I’m likely to get.’
His drink, untouched, the ice melting, his handsome face, worried now, skin a little puffy, fingers combing through his greying hair, yes, he was getting old. He had said it. He needed this job, he needed me to say yes to this, the last good offer he was likely to get. And I (how can I describe what I thought when I still don’t understand it myself?) I remember saying to myself with false calm, well, Hat has levelled with me at last, he’s right, this is his chance. If I say yes to him it means not seeing Terence again, not ever, and I had better get with it right now and say yes and go to Montreal and hope this last good chance will work.
Hat sat waiting for my answer. His wild black eyes which used to frighten me had become dog eyes, dark brown, not at all sure of me. And then I noticed the left hand, the one which was not combing nervously through his grey-streaked hair, the left hand had reached for the glass of Scotch and held it like a gun, a gun with which, if refused, he would again blow up his whole life. I guessed that a no from me meant a yes to that, but it was not the threat of that which made me act. It seemed to me I had no choice.
‘Hat,’ I said, ‘that really is good news. When would we leave?’
‘As soon as you’re ready. How long would it take us to pack and get out?’
‘A week,’ I said. I did not care if it was too short a time. I would have said a day if it were possible, for, if I were not going to see Terence again, I wanted to be far, far away from the temptation of ringing his doorbell. Oh, it hadn’t sunk in, it hadn’t sunk in at all. I remember that I drank two martinis while Hat virtuously nursed his Scotch and, of course, he was full of plans, he wanted to take me to Café Nicholson but I vetoed that because I felt sick at the thought of facing a big table d’hôte dinner and so, as Hat didn’t really care much for food, we wound up having a bowl of oyster stew at Grand Central and taking the nine thirty back to Dobbs Ferry. And it was there, driving out of Dobbs Ferry station in our car, sitting beside Hat going down a dark country road, that I thought: I am alone with him. I will spend the rest of my life locked up with him. I turned and looked at his face in profile as he drove the car and I thought of those horror films where ordinary people turn into vampires and, for a moment, Hat seemed a vampire and I wanted to scream, as though a scream would release me, end the panic, let it out.
But I did not scream. And, as I turned the key in the front door, the phone began to ring in the living-room. I went for it, but Hat came through the garage and got there first. It was a quarter to eleven. I knew it was Terence, calling to say good night. Hat picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Hello?’ He listened, then put the receiver back on the hook. ‘Another silence heard from,’ he said and went into the bathroom, loosening his tie, saying something about our taking up skiing in the Laurentians once we got back.
I remember listening to him going on about skiing as I stood there by the phone, thinking Terence, you are there, all I have to do is pick up the phone and call. Terence, I am here and I can’t do without you, no, I can’t.
I thought Hat would want to stay up and talk half the night, but, from the bathroom, he called, ‘What about going to bed? and I said, ‘All right,’ and went into the bedroom and sat at my dressing-table which was in an alcove between the bedroom and the bathroom. I began to take off my make-up. He knew I liked to be alone while I did that. I heard him washing his teeth in the bathroom and then, as I sat at the mirror wiping off eyeliner, I saw the bathroom door open and he came out, naked. His penis was erect. He came towards me, bent over me and unzipped the back of my dress. He began to undo my bra and, as he did, his hands shook. (It was three weeks since he’d been home: he was nervous and not drinking.) He slipped the bra down and cupped my breasts in his hands. In the mirror I saw his face, the slightly reddened skin ending in a white line at his neck, his wild eyes, now brown and pleading, his hairless chest, his slightly sloping shoulders. I felt faint. I leaned forward, shut my eyes and put my head down. My forehead was damp and as I bent over I felt something brush against the small of my back. It was the tip of his erect penis touching, very lightly, moving along my skin. I stood up, deathly sick. I ran to the bathroom, got there just in time, clutched the basin, threw up.
He was worried, of course. I lied and said I’d had trouble with my period. But Hat had radar for bad news. He lay awake beside me, saying nothing. I wonder which of us slept more than two hours between the time we went to bed and the time we got up next morning? Anyway, when I did get up, I had coffee and began to pack. I packed all day and when the phone rang I let Hat answer it and when he went out for a while in the afternoon it rang twice. I let it ring.
The next day I went on packing and throwing stuff out and by eight in the evening I had finished. We went down to Hartsdale and ate some pizza, then came back and fell into bed. He did no more than kiss my cheek and as I turned over to go to sleep, I told him I wanted to leave the next day, if possible.
‘Why?’
‘Just, if we’re going, I want to go and be done with it.’
‘You don’t really want to go, do you?’
‘I do.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Maybe, if I’m lucky, we can make it the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll drive into New York first thing in the morning. I have to do something about the bank and the car and see about subletting this place, and, well, anyway, it will take all day. Do you want to come with me?’
‘No. I have things to do here.’
He was up at eight and gone by eight thirty. At ten I broke the promise I’d made to myself. I phoned Terence, told him Hat was back, and asked if I could meet him for lunch.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ve been worried about you. How about Chez Napoléon at one?’
Some time before all this, when Hat’s back seized up, a doctor gave him some double-strength reserpine pills to ease the tension. Hat had said they calmed him. I remembered that and hunted in the medicine cabinet for the bottle. There were two of the pills left and I took one just before I phoned for a taxi to drive me to the Dobbs Ferry stati
on. I caught the eleven ten to New York and it was as I sat jiggling on the wicker-covered seat going in to Grand Central that the pill began to work. It was stronger than I could have believed. I remember leaving Grand Central and going in the direction of the restaurant and then, as though waking from sleep, found myself standing on the steps of the Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, tears in my eyes, staring up into the muzzle of a stone lion. And in that moment of sad clarity, knew how wrong it had been to take the pill. There are pains a person must face without prescription: there are times when attempting to avoid the consequences of a misdeed is more wicked than the misdeed itself. This was such a time. I felt stupefied, I could not seem to comprehend or care about what was going to happen. Even my tears were not real: they were therapeutic, not grieving.
But my moment of clarity was just that (false girl staring at false lion, both equally stone-stupid), for I remain hazy about most of what followed. Our luncheon and what was said is as unclear now as those long-ago details of my father’s funeral. And unclear in the same way, in that I am not sure what part of it I remember and what part I remember only because Terence retold it to me. Yet, a few things do come back; they float isolated on a wave of memory and are washed up again and again for my examination. I pick them over but they are detritus, I cannot put them together to form the shape of those events. The first is a moment before lunch. I had arrived early at the restaurant and, not wanting to wait alone at the bar, remained outside, standing in the doorway of one of those little newsagent-grocery corner stores at Fiftieth and Ninth, two doors down from Chez Napoléon. I remember I was looking dully at the sex headlines on copies of the New York Examiner and Midnight which were stacked alongside the Daily News outside the place when someone called ‘Mary?’ and I turned and saw Terence wave to me from across the street; crazy Terence and his long British hair and bright clothes, isolated as in a colour snapshot. I even remember what he wore, his black-and-white houndstooth jacket, tan corduroy trousers, blue workshirt, red kerchief, suede boots. I remember it because, for the first time, the sight of Tee did not produce the usual Pavlovian leap of my heart: instead, staring dully at him as he paid off his cab across the street, I remember thinking, he’s too young for me, he looks like a schoolboy. (Which is nonsense, he’s only a year younger than I am and even then he’d done much more than I had, he’d written and illustrated three children’s books, sailed the Atlantic in a ten-foot dinghy, he’d been a singing waiter in Greenwich Village, he was writing lyrics for an off-Broadway show.) But if I feel compelled to rehearse all the things he’d done up to then, then, methinks, I do protest too much. The truth is he does look young: then, he looked like a schoolboy.
