Who's Sorry Now?

by Howard Jacobson

  He looked up at her. Was that it? Was she finished? She met his eyes. Hers were raw with tears. His too, though his tears were the dewier. He had been a weeper, Kreitman, from the cradle, but when it came to tears of this bitter sort, old worn-out encrusted tears, he was the baby of the two. How long did they look at each other? Ten seconds? Twenty seconds? Or was it twenty years? Back, back their look went, unravelling all the way to the beginning. They were so spent they could almost have embraced. Now that we know what we know, what’s to stop us? Wouldn’t it be the supreme act of mutual charity, me for you, you for me? Could there be a single thing nicer we could do for each other? Or for poor Juliet, the sour fruit of our union, lying bruised in her bed?

  Then the look between them went out like a dead match and Kreitman rose from the stairs and left the house.

  Finale

  Left from Shaftesbury Avenue into Wardour Street and then left again into the wicked warren of Berwick and Brewer and Broadwick. Round in a circle, then out via suppurating Peter Street, lined with pimps picking their teeth with old needles, and back in again through Piss and Shit Alley, where the homeless doss down and do whatever the homeless do. What does he know?

  Has he come looking for Nyman? Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t. Up to the top of Dean, then right into Soho Square, then left into Tottenham Court Road, then right, following the scholars’ route, in the direction of the British Museum. More Hazel’s mother’s beat than Nyman’s. But where Kreitman’s going Hazel’s mother has never been. On a Liberty-print sofa in a rose-pink Bloomsbury/Weimar boudoir, the lights shaded with doilies weighted at the corners with copper coins, like an Ethiopian’s headdress, cut-glass decanters on the sideboard, porno in a green Italian leather Harrods magazine rack, Kreitman outlines his desires. He doesn’t have any. He wishes to be de-desired, that’s why he’s here.

  He shakes his head to questions which he is assured are for everyone’s protection. No to slave, no to submissive, no to cross-dresser, no to housework. There is a man on his knees, in woman’s bloomers, circa 193 5, polishing the legs of a Biedermeier rolled-top desk which could have belonged to Kreitman’s father. The man is polishing it with his tongue, what else. Kreitman does not look at him. ‘Just nothing absurd,’ is Kreitman’s only stipulation. He has done absurd.

  Broken skin? Yes to broken skin.

  He does not want to choose the person who will break him. He’s done choosing. ‘Whoever,’ he says. ‘But no frilly French-farce maid, and no cat-woman in rubber boots.’ No role-playing, that’s his other only stipulation.

  Picky for someone who has come to be de-desired? Picky only in order to be unpicked.

  He is led into a dungeon, which disappoints him. A dungeon is role-play. Dungeons don’t figure in the real life of men like him. But what would he prefer? That they beat him in a stockroom? That they tie him to a lectern?

  Undress!

  So he undresses.

  A hand inspects his genitals. He doesn’t know what for. He isn’t here for sex. He’s done sex. But he submits to the inspection, looking away. He would rather not see who’s handling him.

  Cuffs of leather and steel go around his wrists and ankles. The old smell of leather. He sniffs.

  Too tight?

  He shakes his head.

  There are toggle bolts or cleats or whatever – he doesn’t have the language – fastened to the cuffs. With these he is attached to metal rings driven into a contraption that reminds him half of a crucifix, half of an easel for a chalkboard. Paraphernalia – why does there always have to be paraphernalia? Why can’t the physical world ever match the purity of the mental? A black hole is what his mind demands.

  He is facing a wall which is meant to look like dripping prison stone, but is probably wallpaper. He closes his eyes.

  Spread your legs!

  He spreads his legs so that the toggle bolts or cleats can be tightened. He is now an X shape, like Leonardo’s Renaissance man.

  A hand takes hold of his genitals and squeezes them. Crunch. His eyes water. But this is more like. He is a bullock, not a man. A Renaissance bullock. Mere meat.

  It would be good if they were to turn him on a spit and roast him. Good for everybody, but especially good for him. It is turning out to be a hard thing to kill, desire.

  He is offered a choice of whips. A cane, a hunting crop and something with thongs. He waves away the choice. He doesn’t know which whip does what. They have never fallen within his sphere of interest, whips, not even the leather ones.

  It starts with the thongs. Tickles rather than beatings. Short, insulting flicks and jibes. Derisive. Clever of her, the woman seeing to him, to know that derision will do the trick. She is a serious, faintly despairing woman. No to the frilly French-farce maid, and no to the mistress in rubber boots, so they have given him a philosopher in a straight skirt. Perhaps she is the cleaner. He would like it if she were the cleaner. When she’s finished deriding him, she might flush him away.

  Another crunch of his genitals. Her property, that’s what her crunching fingers say. Hers to do with, or dispose of, as she wishes.

  And now the hunting crop. He hears her flexing it. He arches his back towards her, inviting oblivion.

  ‘When I say,’ she reprimands him, laughing – ‘not before.’ Eager to be beaten, this one.

  His knees go weak. When I say. Please God make her the cleaner.

  ‘All right,’ she tells him, smoothing his flanks like a horse’s, calming him, preparing him. ‘We’ll start with twenty strokes. See how you survive those. That’s one! That’s two! Now you count …’

  And Kreitman – alive in every fibre – counted.

  A Note on the Author

  An award-winning writer and broadcaster, Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, brought up in Prestwich and educated at Stand Grammar School in Whitefield, and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied under F. R. Leavis. He lectured for three years at the University of Sydney before returning to teach at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Kalooki Nights (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), the highly acclaimed The Act of Love and, the Man Booker Prize-winning The Finkler Question. Howard Jacobson lives in London.

  By the Same Author

  Fiction

  Coming From Behind

  Peeping Tom

  Redback

  The Very Model of a Man

  No More Mr. Nice Guy

  The Mighty Walzer

  The Making of Henry

  Kalooki Nights

  The Act of Love

  The Finkler Question

  Zoo Time

  Nonfiction

  Shakespeare’s Magnanimity (with Wilbur Sanders)

  In the Land of Oz

  Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews

  Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

  Whatever It Is, I Don’t Like It

  Copyright © 2013 by Howard Jacobson

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. For information, write to Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York, 10018.

  Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Jacobson, Howard.

  Who’s sorry now? / by Howard Jacobson. — First U.S. Edition.

  pages cm

  eISBN: 978-1-60819-744-6

  1. Adultery—Fiction. 2. Male friendship—Fiction. 3. London (England) —Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR6060.A32W47 2013

  823’.914—dc23

  20120
47624

  First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Jonathan Cape

  First U.S. Edition 2013

  This electronic edition published in July 2013

  www.bloomsbury.com