Al.
+++
“Mike.”
“Trove.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
“I wasn’t expecting to call you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“Really?”
“You have to stop fishing, Trove.”
“I want to be with you.”
“Thank you.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“You want to be with me?”
“Yes.”
“Trove, I think I do understand that.”
“You don’t. Last night, is what I’m saying, being with Al, I wanted to be with you.”
“I wanted to be with you too.”
“But you weren’t with Al, Mike.”
“I’m missing something here.”
“Previously, I’ve had my flings. Right? I told you about my
flings. Please don’t go all quiet on me, Mike. I did tell you about my flings. Right?”
“You told me.”
“And I enjoyed them. The sex, sure. Mostly too the company as well. But when I got back to Al, I was glad to be home. Like a vacation, you know? Bermuda’s great. But the best thing of the trip is the journey home.”
“Okay.”
“Last night, I just wanted to stay in Bermuda is what I’m saying.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“I’m scared, Mike.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Ever thought about missionary work? To some far-flung leper colony?”
“I’ve thought about the missionary position. Does that help at all?”
“That like the admonitionary position?”
“You’ve been watching too many ‘Brief Encounter’s.”
“It’s twenty-three years, Mike.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Not ‘honey’?”
“Honey.”
“Could you meet me tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“At the airport tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Could you come to Oslo?”
“To the ends of the Earth, Trove.”
“But you will come to the airport, huh?”
“How many ways are there to say yes?”
“I’m checking in at eleven.”
“Won’t Al …?”
“No.”
“He’s not going to want to …?”
“I talked him out of it, okay? Not that he needed a lot of persuading. I said I’d be fine on the bus. He was relieved, I think.”
“Okay.”
“Not to have to schlapp all the way to the airport.”
“Sure.”
“Or back again.”
“Right.”
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
“At eleven.”
“Do you think they’d allow us to fuck on the scales?”
“We’d be charged for over-jigging.”
“They got restrooms in airports, chapels, how come they’ve not got fuck-rooms?”
“Clearly an oversight.”
“More people, right, want to fuck than to pray?”
“Maybe they fuck in the chapel.”
+++
“I was kidding, Trove.”
“It’s deserted, Mike, the chapel.”
“I think God might disagree with you.”
“Like that’d be anything new! ‘Sides, isn’t God everywhere?”
“Well, that’s true too.”
“You think God would disapprove?”
“I think the airport authorities might.”
“We don’t have to fuck.”
“That’s very magnanimous of you.”
“Isn’t that a kind of gun? A magnanimous forty-five, or something? The one dirty Harry uses?”
“That’s not the same Harry, you know, who met Sally. The dirty he was wasn’t sexy dirty.”
“Hey, guess what, dirty Mike? This isn’t a kind of a gun. This is because you’re pleased to see me.”
+++
“The letter-writing? Well, that all started that first weekend. It was a gesture, no more. It all started out as just that, a gesture. I woke up on our first Sunday morning, and there, on my pillow, was this:
My darling,
As you read this, you will be waking up next to me for the first time. I write in the certain knowledge that that milestone too (as all the others) will see us only safer in our feelings for each other, more secure in our embrace, at ever greater ease with one another – with each other’s presence and with the mutual present which is ourselves. With love – Mike xxx
“Naff, no? You know what, though? It was actually its very naffness which I found most endearing. It was Mike exposing himself as much as he could. The debut stripper clutching desperately to his g-string. Do male strippers have g-strings? He would have considered his striptease to have been so complete as to be an x-ray. And, although his Salome still had about six-and-a-half veils to go, I still wasn’t used to any kind of striptease. And it touched me. The effort that it represented, and the clumsiness of the execution, they both touched me.
“See, I’ve been to therapists. … Oh Christ, I told you I was blah-diblahing, why shouldn’t I also tell you about this? Yeah, and how many stupid people in the world think of those two things as the same activity? Blah-di-blahing, I’m talking about, and seeing a therapist! And how come I feel more embarrassed about telling you about the therapist than about my … you know. It used to be called self-abuse. Self-abuse, I ask you. You know the best way you can abuse yourself, honey, by not blahdi-blahing. By ignoring your sexuality, and your carnality and your sensuousness and all that. That’s a real abuse of yourself. As is, of course, not seeing a therapist. ‘Least if you need one.
“Meanwhile, back at the point ... Therapists and that … There were … crisis points in my life. I saw no shame in seeing a therapist. Quite to the contrary, in fact. I’ve seen three. When my parents died, when I miscarried. No, four. Once with Al. When our marriage was going through a particularly rocky patch. ‘Particularly rocky’, you’ll note I said. I didn’t know that then. I thought that patch was just a rocky patch and for the rest it was okay. ‘There’s none so blind,’ they say, ‘…’
“I’m used to talking about myself is what I’m saying. Used to discussing my feelings … used to feeling my feelings.
“Al at those counselling sessions … well, shit, they may as well have been in Sanskrit. He just sat there, open-mouthed, gaping at me, wondering what the hell I was talking about. It wasn’t that he was unwilling – no, it really wasn’t – it was just … it was just that the concept of talking about yourself in that way was so completely alien to him. So completely alien, I mean. It was, I don’t know, like trying to describe the taste of a banana to a hump-backed whale. It’s not the whale’s fault that it can’t understand. There is no point of contact with even the concept.
“Which would have been fine. He’s a man, for Christ’s sake. That’s on the one hand, and on the other his upbringing was one where feelings were taboo subjects. Shit, mine too. I was just in such pain at those times … those three, four times in my life … I wanted to be out of that pain. No, I had to be out of that pain. That pain was going to kill me. Maybe very slowly. I didn’t want that. So, I wasn’t being all holier-than-thou about this counselling number. I wasn’t claiming any kind of, I don’t know, matrimonial high ground or anything. I was fine with his unfineness is what I’m trying to say.
“What wasn’t fine, what I wasn’t fine about, was that Al didn’t even try. Finally, that was all that I wanted out of him, that he tried. And he wouldn’t. And his wouldn’ting was far more troubling for me than his couldn’ting. He was like a six-year-old kid who won’t eat a Chinese meal because he’s never eaten one before. It looks strange and smells strange, so he convinces himself it’s going to taste strange before he even tries it.
“Mike wasn’t much better, to be honest. And to be fair to Al. (Though why I have this need always to be fair to everyone is something else I almost certainly need help with.) But what Mike was, he was able to try. To try, oh, the shark’s fin soup, for example.
“He couldn’t talk, Mike, not what we mean by ‘talk’, us girls. But he kind of knew he couldn’t talk. And so he wrote. Well, no, he didn’t write – except that note. Not at the beginning. Not until I asked him to. But when I did ask him to, he was prepared to have a go at it. He felt a sense of obligation, it seemed like, to find out about his feelings and to acknowledge mine. And to acknowledge the need I had to talk about mine.
“Thank God, huh? Gives me something now I can remember him by!”
+++
She was a woman rapidly approaching fifty. She had the bottom of a woman twenty years younger. As she went through the airport’s security gate I was trying to watch her back. But, as if by a magnetic force, my eyes were pulled to her bottom.
As she picked up her bag from the conveyor belt, she turned back. Just to smile at me. Just to wave an almost coy goodbye. And yet again she was fifteen-years-old. Almost with braces on her teeth. The smile of a glorious shyness. She was going to the prom. She had, Mom, a date for the prom. Okay, maybe not exactly the football captain, but – hey, Mom – a date: a real, honest-to-goodness date.
Teenage happiness is one which vacuums inside of itself the whole of the planet. Scarce are the times beyond our teenage years when we are again filled with that Earth-encompassing happiness; and on the rare occasions that we are, it always requires us to become teenagers again.
The stirring I felt in my loins was almost disturbing. This was almost under-age sex. But the arousal was to do with a woman’s body, not a girl’s – and with a woman’s sexual virtuosity, not with the awkward fumbles of the apprentice.
The bottom danced before me long after she had disappeared. The savour was to stay with me for far longer even than that.
+++
“Hi.”
“How’s Oslo?”
“I shouldn’t be phoning.”
“Okay.”
“I said I wouldn’t phone.”
“I’m glad you did, Trove.”
“Are you?”
“Stop fishing. How’s Oslo?”
“They fish in Oslo, Mike. It’s what they do.”
“You fish if you want to, Trove.”
“It’s Norwegian, Mike. That’s how Oslo is. You know what else it is?”
“Scandinavian?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this. I promised myself I wouldn’t tell you this. You know what else Oslo is, Mike?”
“Hot?”
“Mikeless.”
“Toulouse, Trove, is also Troveless.”
“Know what?: a Mikeless Oslo, Mike, it’s missing something.”
“Like Athens, you mean, misses the Elgin marbles?”
“It’s like a smorgasbord next to a sandwich.”
“Open to the elements?”
“With need of a top layer to cover it all over, keep it all together.”
“I think in Oslo they usually call that snow.”
“I need a top layer, Mike, to cover me all over, keep me all together.”
“You’re getting me somewhat hot and bothered here, Trove.”
“I use the word ‘layer’ advisedly. Know what layers do, Mike?”
“No, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”
“If lay-preachers preached less and laid more, think how many more they’d get in the congregation.”
“Same deal with turning airport chapels into fuck-rooms.”
“See what I could do for world peace. We could start a whole new movement, Mike.”
“We started a few over the weekend, honey.”
“You know how much I like ‘honey’?”
“An evangelical movement, even. You’re right, we should start one. One devoted to sex.”
“An e-fanny-gelical movement, then?”
“Right, Trove.”
“This call is costing a fortune.”
“I could call you back.”
“Not just in money.”
“No.”
“I’m not leaving Al, Mike.”
“I know that.”
“It’s just … Hello?”
“I’m waiting, honey, to find out what it’s just.”
“You know.”
“No.”
“You’re a shit, Mike, you know that?”
“I’ve been told often enough.”
“‘Course you have. Shits need to be told they’re shits.”
“I’m still waiting.”
“It’s just, Mike, I want a Miked Oslo. There, I said it.”
“I want to be there.”
“We can’t do it, huh?”
“You know we can’t.”
“I know we can’t. I don’t want to feel like this.”
“You could come to England.”
“I can’t leave Oslo just like that. Plus you’ve got to get yourself settled first. In England, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“I want sex with you now.”
“Me too.”
“You want sex with you?”
“I really want sex with you, honey.”
“Get on a plane.”
“You know I can’t.”
“I know you can’t. Still …”
“Still?”
“Get on a plane, Mike.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Copenhagen. I could meet you in Copenhagen.”
“Oh, that makes sense! For us both to get on planes!”
“Berlin, then? Even Amsterdam?”
“The two of us flying, that doesn’t make any kind of sense.”
“None of this makes any sense, Mike. This isn’t about sense. This, in fact, is probably exactly about nonsense. Sense doesn’t matter, don’t you see? It’s not part of this equation.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No, you’re right: Sense is not any part of this equation.”
“Don’t come to Oslo, hon. It’s ridiculous. Absurd. You’ve got to pack up for England. The trip’ll cost a fortune. Just for a day
or two. It doesn’t make any sort of sense – even within the complete no-senseness of the entire thing. Besides …”
“Besides?”
“I’m not leaving Al, Mike.”
“No.”
“Will you text me something dirty?”
“I don’t think my shirts are textable.”
“You’re a great lover, Mike.”
“Thank you.”
“One of the world’s great lovers, in fact.”
“You too.”
“Don’t get snippy.”
“I’m waiting for the sting in the tail.”
“Not, Mike, one of the world’s great comedians.”
“That hurts, Trove.”
“It does?”
“From the author of ‘an e-fanny-gelical movement’, that really hurts!”
+++
“Welcome to Oslo, Mike.”
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, honey.”
“And you look good enough to eat.”
“You can eat me.”
“I wasn’t sure, you know …”
“… I’d make it?”
“I thought, at the last minute, you might, you know, chicken out. Decide you really had too much to do. Decide this was all getting too complicated, too messy.”
“Here I am.”
“And you know what? I’m still not sure.”
“By way of a flying visit, but this is me. Promise. In the flesh.”
“We said we weren’t going to do that, Mike. Remember?”
“Sorry.”
“You’ve just got here, already you’re talking about going.”
“Sorry.”
“Talk about coming instead.”
“Just talk a
bout it?”
“Come.”
“Here?”
“Kiss me, Michael.”
“It’s the withering looks, hon.”
“What???”
“The looks we get from anyone under thirty.”
“They wither?”
“The looks too from pretty nearly anyone over thirty.”
“They’re just jealous, sweetie.”
“You can’t wither like that without disapproving.”
“It’s envy, Mike.”
“I find it intimidating.”
“They’re strangers.”
“Strangers, Trove, are just enemies you’ve yet to meet.”
“We’re wasting good bed time here.”
“It’s good to be with you, honey.”
“Say ‘ass’.”
“Arse.”
“Ah, shoot: You were getting so good at ‘honey’ I had hopes a bit of trans-Atlanticism might, you know, be taking some kind of shape.”
“And?”
“You’re British, Mike.”
“Okay.”
“Beefeater British.”
“Right.”
“Hard core.”
Chapter 6
“Michael never sent postcards. He wasn’t a postcardy person. We’d been friends for … what was it? … twelve, thirteen years. In all that time, I think he’d sent me one other card. Possibly two, certainly no more.
“It’s such a lovely day. It seems a shame to be cooped up inside. Would you like to go back out into the garden?
“Good. No, just leave the cup there. I’ll throw it in the sink later on. Shame, really, you didn’t bring a swimsuit with you. I scarcely ever use the pool. It’s a waste, really, and an extravagance. I think, actually, if you felt like it, I may just … Well, if you change your mind, don’t be shy. Just let me know.
“He was due, Mike, to be in Oslo for twenty-four hours. He sent me postcards four days running. Telling me of the reasons why he was postponing his return – never by more than a day. He was always leaving ‘tomorrow’. The following day, I suppose I should say: The tomorrow that never comes.
“People say, don’t they, of pivotal periods that, after them, situations have ‘changed gear’. I don’t think Michael and Petrova did change gear then – indeed if you use ‘gear’ in the sense of clothes, I’d lay odds they never changed it. Just climbed into their birthday suits and stayed in them for what Petrova would probably have called the ‘duration’.
Al's Well Page 8
