Once I told her about Stephan Bibrowski, otherwise known as Lionel the Lion-Man, whose mother – so P.T. Barnum would have had the punters believe – had seen her husband savaged by a lion while Stephan was in her womb, thereby suffering the shock that transformed her foetus into a monster. Half-lion and half-human he may have been, but Lionel was popular with women, I informed Zoë, so hypertrichosis might have been a better career option for me. This was taken as a joke, but a later remark about the sexual liaisons with which the literature on dwarfism abounded (perverse and exploitative liaisons, but liaisons nonetheless) made her uncomfortable. In our early days she had told me, as confident in her analysis as any professional therapist, that she liked me because, as she put it: ‘You don’t need anybody.’ This line was never heard again after the remark about fornicating dwarves, and there was no uncovering of new tattoos in the last six of our eighteenth months, though I knew they existed. And one evening (this would have been not long before the last visit), while we were watching a film about alien abductions, I confessed to Zoë that from time to time I had wondered what sex felt like. (She had been frank with me, earlier that evening, about her feelings for more than one boy, and for Trix. Thus I felt frankness on my part would not be out of place.) ‘It feels great,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it does,’ I answered, ‘but that doesn’t tell me anything.’ For a few moments she thought, then she said: ‘I can’t tell you, Danny. It’s like nothing else. Sex is like sex,’ she said, and I wanted to kiss her for that, just to kiss her on the cheek.
It was not long after Celia and Matt had gone awry, and Celia had gone back to Italy, that I had what turned out to be my final visit from Zoë. On her way to a boyfriend down in Croydon, she arrived on a semi-derelict Vespa that she’d borrowed from one of the squatters. We watched a programme about film stunts that had backfired: safety nets missed, misjudged explosions, head-on smashes at not quite the intended speed. She left early, around eleven, saying she’d be back soon, the week after next maybe. My parents would be away then, I told her, so we could watch a film on the big new TV they’d bought. (They were going to France, visiting places my father had last seen on his grand demob tour with Bill Cowdrey.) ‘Sure,’ she said, and I knew immediately that she wouldn’t come, that she didn’t want to be alone in the house with me. The excuse, when she rang, was that she’d split with her boyfriend and wasn’t feeling too good. Then she was moving to another squat on the other side of London, but she’d be in touch soon, which she was, but now she was in a bad way and needed to sort her head out. And so it went, the intervals between calls getting longer, each of us pretending that the excuses weren’t excuses, until in the end there was nothing to say. It was impossible to make my life sound interesting. ‘What did you do today, Danny?’ she’d ask. And I’d tell her: ‘This morning I read the proofs of a book about Bismarck. In the afternoon I read a different book. Also I listened to two sonatas by Scarlatti. I have looked out of the window and I have watched TV too. Tomorrow I shall do something very similar.’
It’s past midnight when Ellen returns from her tête-à-tête with Roy, but she’s positively breezy when she comes in. ‘What you watching?’ she asks. I’m watching Chinatown. ‘Went better than expected?’ I ask. ‘Beyond belief,’ she answers. ‘Mind if I join you?’ Revelations are afoot, clearly. There’s a flush around the eyes, indicative of alcohol consumed. ‘Tell me tell me tell me El,’ I sing, pausing the DVD, and she does tell me.
The neutral territory chosen for the rendezvous was a new tapas bar, recommended by one of Roy’s pals. The man must have lost his sense of taste, says Ellen, because the food was criminal: lumps of sausage as tough as chunks of old tennis balls, and patatas bravas that seemed to have been made by dicing a bag of oven-ready chips and dousing the pieces in tomato ketchup. It’s called Pablo’s – hence pictures of Picasso all over the walls. The music – too loud – was a mix of flamenco and Ricky Martin. Fibreglass wine barrel segments were embedded in the walls; above Ellen’s table hung a swag of plastic garlic. Into this scene, ten minutes late, walked Roy, wearing a horrible brown suit and a wide, shiny and garish tie (sky-blue and lemon-yellow stripes). Had it been brand new, the suit would have been vile enough, but what made it especially unacceptable was that Roy had worn it on one of their first dates, and even then it wasn’t new. Years ago, however, its awfulness had been endearing, in a way. Here was a man, Ellen had thought, who needed someone to take charge of him. He’d bought the suit in a sale, he told her. The man in the shop had convinced him that it looked good. (Roy had the dress sense of a blind man, and was highly susceptible to persuasion from anyone who appeared to have a modicum of expertise in such matters. If the man in the shop had told him he looked good in purple satin flares he would have bought them.) The suit had never been fashionable; now it looked like something from a museum. Worse still, he was nowhere near the right size for it any more: the waistband cut a deep groove into his belly, and he couldn’t have buttoned up the jacket if he’d had every molecule of air sucked out of his lungs.
Why in God’s name, Ellen asked herself, had he decided this evening to resurrect an outfit that should have been consigned to the bin years ago? Perhaps it had been the first thing that came to hand, or he was hoping that the sight of it might rekindle memories of happier times. (He’d never known that the sight of it had always been unpleasant to her, despite the fact that, whenever he’d proposed wearing it for an evening out, she’d usually steered him towards an alternative ensemble.) Or perhaps he wanted to show her that, while he was capable of making a bit of an effort to impress (the tie was new), he was so helpless without her that couldn’t muster something smarter than this exhausted old suit. This was the most convincing explanation: the desperate garment was saying that its wearer was in need of her care – and her cash.
The sufferings of Roy’s wallet were a leitmotif of the evening, introduced during the overture: no sooner had they sat down than he proposed that they should split the expenses of the evening. ‘Hope you don’t mind, love,’ he apologised. (‘You never heard anyone say “love” and sound so bloody sorry for themselves,’ says Ellen. And when Roy asked how things were going with the sick bloke, you’d have thought the sick bloke was the fancy-man for whom she’d left him.) Later, irritated by Roy’s complaining about how much a builder had quoted him for repairing a lintel, Ellen observed that she couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t yet been forced to pawn the car (an overpowered Subaru that does about one mile to the gallon and costs a fortune to insure; it’s a ‘driver’s car’, says Roy, meaning that its priceless qualities must remain incomprehensible to the likes of non-driving Ellen), so he still had some way to slide before hitting skid row. Roy’s response was to contemplate ruefully the precious vehicle, which he’d parked directly opposite the restaurant, under a street-lamp, so he could keep an eye on it while they were eating. Grinding his cigarette into the ashtray, he muttered that the car was just about his only pleasure nowadays.
‘Apart from a drink every now and again,’ Ellen pointed out.
Roy inspected the glass of wine in his hand, considering whether or not it could be classified as a pleasure. ‘Not drinking much nowadays,’ he replied. (By the end of the evening he’d downed ninety percent of the bottle of Rioja (cost shared fifty-fifty, however), plus a whisky before the meal and a brandy afterwards.)
‘And don’t forget the fags,’ said Ellen.
Roy grimly studied the evidence of the ash tray. He needed to cut down, he admitted.
‘And the fishing,’ she reminded him.
‘Haven’t been out for weeks,’ murmured Roy, with a slow shake of the head, bewildered by how heavily his spirit had been crushed.
‘That bad, eh?’ Ellen commiserated. It was all she could do to prevent herself from laughing. ‘Nothing from Mags, then?’ she enquired. She’d never called her Mags before; she found the nasty syllable peculiarly satisfying.
‘Of course not,’ said Roy. He did another slow head-shak
e, and his eyes were full of bitter self-reproach. ‘She’s history,’ he stated. When the waitress brought him his brandy he thanked her with the excessive courtesy of a man who has been severely chastened. ‘I’m in with a chance of a job,’ he told Ellen. ‘Gatwick. Better money. Good money,’ he said.
Ellen had intended to talk about money. They needed to start talking about selling the house, she was going to tell him, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to start on the subject after Roy had sunk the best part of a bottle.
When the coffees came, Roy gave his cup a long and thoughtful stir. About twenty times the spoon went round the cup. Clearly Ellen was expected to ask him what was on his mind, but she wasn’t in the mood for any more of Roy’s thoughts. Determined to tease the question out of her, Roy introduced a hint of a smile, directed at the cup. This also failed to achieve a result. Ellen remarked on the odd taste of the coffee. ‘Seems fine to me,’ said Roy. He resumed the stirring; he frowned lightly. ‘You’re going to wear that bloody spoon out,’ said Ellen. He gave her a sad and soft smile, a smile that spoke of regret and at the same time was intended to project something of the appeal he had once possessed, but in fact looked like the sort of smile he might give a young barmaid after six pints. ‘Maybe we could go away for a weekend together, you and me?’ he suggested. ‘Little place out in the countryside. A walk and a talk, you know. That’s all.’ Ellen pointed out that she was needed at the house, and anyway she could see the countryside perfectly well from her window. ‘No rush,’ said Roy, showing his palms like a salesman easing a customer towards the close of the deal. ‘I know you’ve got commitments. I understand that. I can wait. I have to wait. Whenever you want. Months from now. I don’t mind. Whenever. But what do you say? Just as an idea. What do you think?’ Propping his face in his hands, he looked steadily at her.
Such was the depth of his delusion that, despite everything she’d been through with him, despite all the nonsense of this evening, Ellen almost felt sorry for him – almost, but not quite, because behind the tenderness he’d put onto his face she could still see an aggrieved hostility, like a brick wall seen through a curtain of gauze. ‘Sorry, Roy,’ she answered. ‘There’s not a chance.’ She waved for the bill.
‘Just think about it.’
‘No need to think about it,’ she said. ‘I’m going home.’
‘No you’re not going home.’
She was fishing about in her handbag when he said this, and she heard the words as a threat. Glancing up, though, she saw a face pumped full of pathos.
‘You’re not going home,’ Roy elucidated. ‘You’re not living at home. I’m living at home. That house isn’t your home.’
‘It’ll do for the time being.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then I don’t know.’
Roy drained the last drops of his brandy. He looked at her as if her last utterance had been enigmatic, and as he looked at her he seemed to be hearing a voice that was advising him not to push his luck, to accept this as a position from which future negotiations could proceed. ‘I know this is what I deserve,’ he said meekly.
‘Yes, it is,’ she told him.
‘I can’t argue with you.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, putting the tip on the edge of table and making sure that the waitress saw how generous he was being.
‘I’ll walk,’ said Ellen.
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Roy repeated, with the quiet insistence of a man who was content to have achieved what he’d set out to achieve. He nipped in front of her to open the restaurant door; at the car he opened the passenger’s side first.
‘I’m walking,’ said Ellen.
‘Come on,’ he wheedled. ‘Let me drive you back.’
‘I’m walking.’
‘Why?’
‘One: it’s a nice night. Two: it’s not far. Three: you’re ratted.’ (By the end of the evening, the flame of his lighter was no longer hitting the end of his cigarette on the first attempt.) And, she might have added: ‘Four: I’m not getting myself locked into a confined space with you when I know you’ll turn nasty.’
Roy remonstrated: he was not ratted; he’d been taking it slowly and had drunk lots of water. ‘Come on,’ he pleaded. ‘I don’t want you to walk.’
‘I’m walking.’
He tried a change of tack: the streets weren’t safe at night for a woman on her own, he said, demonstrating a hitherto unsuspected awareness of the female perspective on life.
‘Damned sight safer out here than in there,’ countered Ellen, and she started to walk away. ‘I’m tired. I’m going,’ she said, at which point he ran up to her and grabbed her by the arm, so strongly she could feel the pressure of every finger.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please, Ellen. Come on. I’ll drive slowly.’
‘Let go,’ she ordered. He released her arm and held both hands up, as though to show to a policeman that he wasn’t carrying a weapon. ‘You want to wipe the slate clean?’ she asked him.
Suspecting that this was a trick question, Roy hesitated before answering: ‘That’d be good, but I know it’s not possible. I know that.’
‘No, Roy, it’s not possible.’ She was addressing him as if he were a child in a remedial class, but she was so angry now, after he’d clutched her arm, that she didn’t care if he felt insulted. ‘But we can do the next best thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘For a start: you go that way and I’ll go this way. Then, in a few days’ time, we talk about selling the house. That’s what we should have done tonight. We’ll do it soon. Then we’ll sell the house. And then we’ll never bother each other again.’
Second by second his temper was rising. ‘Look—’ he began, jabbing a finger.
‘No,’ she interrupted, ‘you look.’ But there was nothing more she wanted to say to him, so all she said was: ‘Just fuck off, Roy.’ She was surprised to hear herself swear, but not as surprised as he was. The way he looked at her was wonderful – it was as if he couldn’t fathom out how those words could have come out of that mouth. It was like a man baffled by a talking shop-window dummy. She walked away quickly, so quickly that Roy’s last contribution to the debate was not perfectly audible. That he was furious, though, was plain from the way he revved the car before performing a turn that made the tyres screech.
It’s amazing how quickly things change, Ellen muses. By the time they’d finished the food, she says, she was asking herself what she’d ever seen in her husband. The reason Roy is so keen to get back together, she knows, is that the debacle with Margaret has made him think that podgy old Ellen might be the best he can hope for at his age.
‘No,’ I protest, but she’s firm in her view of what’s going on, and apparently sincere when she says that she can’t condemn him for it.
‘Because isn’t that what people do? It’s what I did,’ she says. ‘I made do with the best that was on offer. And there wasn’t a lot on offer. Nothing at all, to be honest. There was never a queue at my front door. Still, I should have been pickier. Sometimes it’s better to miss the boat.’
‘And it was an experience, being married,’ I suggest.
‘I suppose,’ she says. We watch another half-hour of Chinatown, then she goes to bed.
7
Janina departs. ‘I’ll still be here when you get back,’ I say, and she gives me a stern look: ‘Yes, you will,’ she says, as if my dying would be an egregious betrayal of her trust. She has left instructions and lists of phone numbers for Ellen that cover every eventuality from a blocked sink to the collapse of the roof. She’s left her a debit card for the shopping, but on no account is she to think that she’s obliged to cook for Charles: ‘That was never part of the agreement. He can take care of himself,’ she says. But Ellen is cooking for me anyway, and poor Charles is at work for twelve hours a day if you count the travelling, so of course she cooks for him. The first evening: she attempts a recipe from one of Jani
na’s books – a Moroccan dish. An hour is spent planning it and an hour cooking it, but it doesn’t quite go right. ‘Controversial,’ I remark, after a mouthful of sugary meat. Charlie tells her that his brother has never had any manners. The food is delicious, he assures her, but even Charlie can’t quite clear his plate. Back to pasta tomorrow, Ellen tells us.
Arriving home, Charlie finds the parcel that the postman delivered this morning. He’s so keen to get it open he doesn’t even take his coat off. It’s a boxed set of CDs entitled Goodbye Babylon, and it really is a box – a cedarwood box, with a couple of balls of cotton packed around the CDs. ‘Living, Stirring, Sacred Songs, Odes and Anthems’, its says on the cover of the booklet. ‘That’s the next few evenings taken care of,’ Charlie announces, bearing the box into the living room. He explains to Ellen that he can’t listen to his hardcore stuff if Janina is in the vicinity, because it drives her round the bend. ‘I see her point,’ says Ellen, after Charlie has played us a random track: the Charles Butts Sacred Harp Singers, recorded on August 3 1928, bawling something called ‘Murillo’s Lesson’. Ellen looks as if she’s got toothache. ‘Fantastic, isn’t it?’ says Charlie, and he really does mean it, as Ellen says to me later, bemused. She could hardly make out a word of what they were singing, if you could call it singing, and when she could make out the words she wasn’t any the wiser. ‘Sounds like a singalong at the deaf school,’ I tell Charlie. But CD 6 looks promising – a collection of sermons, including ‘The Black Camel of Death’, ‘That White Mule of Sin’, ‘Death May Be Your Santa Claus’ and ‘Black Diamond Express to Hell’. We listen to a selection. ‘Death winked at your mother three times before you was born,’ the Reverend J. M. Gates reminds us.
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