There was the old man in a far alcove of the shop among his beloved paraphernalia. Adrian looked at Persia and looked away. He picked up a wooden ball and put it down again. Then he put his eyes on Persia and took them away. His watching could not leave her alone even though he gave it other diversions. She had a power it seemed, which commanded him and consumed him, and she stood and knew of her body, which pleased and compelled him.
The old man was playing a thing that turned and rang bells to a younger man who listened attentively. When it was finished the young man turned around to face the influx of buyers, and Persia saw that it was the boy from the restaurant, Paint.
To see Paint was to begin again. The day shut off and reopened a new time. He was simply there, flesh among the still old cobwebbed relics, cut sharply, making the whole room be new and fresh and of great significance. He was like bubbling and uncaptured things, to not be had, but present, like famous paintings on stretches of white gallery wall, to be admired and shared distantly, under a communism, unsatisfactorily. Because, like great masterpieces, you could not hold such glory, nor ever own, and you must be limited to staring, never touching, never renovating, never changing by living side by side.
It was of course possible that this Paint would not remember her because she was not deserving of his memory, which was probably littered with people who had wished to leave an imprint. But his face, which was inside his black hair and his eyes, which were inside his almost yellow skin which was laughing at itself, recognized and opened, and went forwards, and made greeting.
‘Persia,’ he said. ‘Are you rummaging for bargains too?’
‘Cecil is,’ Persia said. And now that she was talking, Adrian took the time to go into her properly and climb each crevice of skin so that the heat rose in her cheeks from his scrutiny.
‘Do you like sideboards?’ Cecil asked Paint.
‘I’ve hundreds of them,’ Paint said, and met and locked his eyes so that they had to struggle to escape each other again.
‘Do you have lots of clothes then?’ Persia asked.
‘No. I use them for guests to sleep in,’ Paint answered, and smirked at himself and everything else, so that his mouth was a satire of its own arrangement.
Adrian, who was still watching Persia from across a table littered in junk, said, ‘If you’re going to buy something Cecil, hurry up.’ But Persia put aside his looking.
‘Why are you called that name?’ she asked Paint.
‘Because I used to, and was a failure.’
‘Why were you a failure?’
‘Perhaps I didn’t care enough about success.’ He was fingering oddments. The old man stood in the background.
Adrian looked at his watch, and walked towards the door of the shop, and stared out, and turned round, and looked at Persia, and frowned because she had forgotten the wanting of him, and was flushed now with some other exploration. Then he bounced once on his heels, and stared out into the street once more, and glanced back to make sure she was still there.
‘You can come and see my house some time,’ Paint said.
Adrian came back from the doorway and stood behind the table, glowering across it. He was poured and set. He said no word but utterly forbad, on the strength only of his unfulfilled want.
‘Well I can’t now,’ she said. Paint smirked at himself in double time. He was so clinical about how he was that he almost exploded.
‘Some time then,’ he answered, and turned back to the musical instrument which had a handle which you wound.
At that time Cecil was purchasing two china basins, and Paint went over to him, becoming at once part of the exchange, putting all of his curiosity into the simple exchange of money for goods, as if he had never seen the process before and was considering it as the subject of an in-depth report. He had been taken and gone. Persia could only see his back. The only time she was in the same place as he, he had chosen to waste himself on other occupations.
But Adrian had secured himself without any surplus energy above the requirements which kept his body running at its normal rate. He still watched Persia, and then the door, and then his watch.
When Cecil at last had his two basins wrapped in brown paper Adrian shook hands with Paint, and said he’d have to play a game with him some time, and marched out of the shop. Cecil and Persia were left, it appeared, to follow by their own free will, but the remains of Adrian’s current compelled, and it was necessary to hurry, although they resented his orders.
‘Nice to see you again,’ Persia said.
‘And you,’ Paint answered without looking up from the instrument.
‘I hope to see you again,’ Persia said, and wanted to hold his face to her face, just for one moment, to have been in exchange with him so that going away she could hold some part for later admiration. But he would not give that pleasure, and shut every window so that only his smirk was left on the outside, peering in at himself.
‘Bye then for now,’ Cecil said. He put his hips under him then took them away again. He tapped with his fingers on his new parcel. The two of them fled from the shop leaving Paint still working over his instrument.
Cecil went to his flat to unwrap his new possessions. Adrian asked Persia to come and have lunch with him.
‘Thank you,’ Persia said, but Adrian did not even listen for her reply, because he knew already she would go for he had requested it. He did not answer, and merely stared. His stare was most foreign.
They went up in the lift. The feeling of wanting filled the lift. It was necessary for Persia to look at him to find out what he harboured. And when she looked at him she could only see how his skin would be when she was laid against it, or how his hand would be when he had laid it against her. She could not see him as a person. He was a body that drenched her with wanting.
When the lift stopped, they stepped out and Adrian opened the door with his key.
‘Come in,’ he said, and stood back so that Persia went through under his arm, and was close to his breath and his breathing. Then he shut the door behind him, and stood with his hand still on the handle, and looked at Persia, and she looked at him. Then he went into the kitchen to hide behind the pouring of drinks.
But after he came out of the kitchen he was smiling, and his eyes were tangled up and tripping over, and all his cool and strict stature had gone. So he sat down and stood up and walked once round the room and could not think of anything to say. And Persia sat on the couch, and watched him be unsettled and was glad to have a still point to peer from.
He was almost in despair. He threw up his hands and walked twice across to the door which he stopped before, and then deserted again. He rearranged a picture on the wall which was a coloured photograph with Swiss mountains and alpine huts.
‘I’ll put the pizzas in the oven,’ he said, and went away again.
Persia sat alone on the couch. She could see him through the open kitchen door, fiddling with dials on the stove and removing plates from various cupboards. He worked alone in his untidy bachelor’s kitchen, managing cooking he had never learnt to accept, having once been conditioned against it, a single, ageing, lonely man who was now cornered and flawed by some immature girl he might have wanted to escape.
A great softness filled Persia. She would have liked to have comforted his head, to have borne it heavy on her body which would hold it, and smell the hair, the soap, the sweat.
‘Four fifty degrees for half an hour it says on the packet,’ Adrian said, as he came out of the kitchen, leaving screwed up cellophane and dirty forks over the sink. He settled in the chair opposite Persia, grinned across at her, as though he did not know how he was making her pain. He had filled his glass for a second time, Persia saw, and he drained it quickly, and set it down with a bang on the side table. He looked across from a long way, a new and stronger glare. The air was so thick Persia could hardly hear what he spoke, and certainly not her own words which were distant behind the coagulation.
‘Not bad sort of weath
er for this time of year,’ Adrian said.
‘No.’
‘Although it’s a bit windy out there on the verandah.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, what does it matter?’ Adrian said, and stood up again, and walked over to the window and back again, and beamed, and frowned. Then he turned to the wall, and said in a voice which came from a great distance, ‘What does it matter? I may as well say it I suppose. I love you. I suppose.’
He remained staring at the wall, his hands in his pocket, examining a stain which he did not even pretend to care about. Persia could only sit. She had no word nor any thought.
‘I’m sorry,’ Adrian said, and went into the kitchen, and tried to open the oven door, which banged in his face. He dropped the tea towel on the floor and left it there, soaking up water.
He came back out of the kitchen, went into his bedroom, and came out again, sinking back into his chair, and looking across at Persia.
‘Do you mind?’ he said, and locked his fingers. Somewhere in the oven the pizzas were beginning to sizzle. The day went on turning and the world did not forget to rotate, and in other units separated only by walls other lives attacked Saturday lunches with piles of groceries on kitchen benches.
‘I’m glad that you said.’
‘It’s not much use to you. I’m old and set. You probably think me boring. But I wanted to tell you.’
‘That’s alright.’
Adrian drained his face. It cleared and was dispersed. He was left deposited and washed, like old men on park benches seeing a new world after a long doze.
‘I’ll look at the pizzas,’ he said.
Persia went into the kitchen after him and stood beside him at the sink. But it seemed that his words had taken all effort and his body was now void, and he could not touch her or come near, and could only become engrossed in the matter of tossing an indeterminate salad, and setting a rather untidy table.
So they sat at opposite ends, munching their way through soggy pizzas burnt round the edges, with very little to say, now and then glancing at one another, busy sorting the new knowledge within themselves, but unable to be warm or close or open. And at last, after Persia had helped with the washing up, and Adrian had broken a plate on the floor, and they had swept up the pieces and wrapped them in newspaper, she said she had to go, and went, because it was the only way to break the silence. And Persia found that the day which should have been the greatest luxury, was just like any other day once lived. And having imagined what it might have been like only made the reality all the more ordinary.
Chapter 4
On Sunday Adrian said, ‘Hello Persia, what are you doing in the hallway?’ He stood, and was most completely perfect.
‘I was thinking,’ Persia said. ‘Would you like to come in?’ She also stood, and they watched each other. There was no happiness so finished as the happiness of watching.
But eventually they did go in, and pushed aside some air, and settled back on chairs facing each other.
‘I would like to say that you are important to me,’ Persia said. ‘I would like to touch you.’
‘Yes. It is with me too. Sit down here.’
So she sat down there, and he put his arm round her, which was close and warm, although also stiff. But soon the stiffness went away because he was wanting too much, to keep it in blocks and freezers. First he looked very closely at Persia’s face, but that was too strong and unbearable, so he touched her face instead, with his face, which was hard from the bones in his jaws and cheeks. Also they put their mouths together and were joined by their mouths and their tongues. So Persia felt quite heavy inside from the heaviness of needing, and the heaviness sunk to a centre filled with blood and pulse and current.
After a while Adrian stood up and pushed himself back into himself, and shook himself, and gathered up where he was spread into one place, and ran his hand through his hair.
‘Come into my flat,’ he said. His voice was very thick and his mouth was shaped sideways because it was distorted by lust. Also his eyes were veiled, and drooped, so that he had to hold them to themselves, and make them to be true to their kind.
Adrian took Persia’s hand, and he opened her front door, and pulled her across the hallway, and opened his front door with his key which was in his pocket, while she closed hers, and he pulled her into the living room and locked the outside door, and they sat on the couch and began again.
And it was the same, except in a different place, and the passion went deeper, and shot off and would not be controlled and went through the whole of space in its own trail of jet and smoke.
They did not say anything because of the urgency. Adrian put himself against Persia, and they had themselves in each other and inter-changed and were swapped. And it was nothing to do with loving; just that the love happened to be there too. And because it was there, it entered and was sealed off, and remained.
Afterwards Persia lay on the shoulder of Adrian which was gristle and bone.
‘You are the first person,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m glad you are the first person.’
‘I will be the only person.’
‘You might go away.’
‘I will not go away. Not ever.’
Then they did not say anything. Then he said, ‘Will you keep it for me?’
‘Yes, I will keep it. But you did not.’
‘How could I? Although if I had known I might have.’
‘I don’t mind.’
They touched each other to make sure they were together in the same room and had shared the same encounter.
‘Has it changed you?’ Adrian asked.
‘Now I will not be curious. I know what it is like to be rubbed and used.’
‘Would you like to marry me?’
‘Why? Because it is the done thing?’
‘It would be correct.’
‘To be your friend is more important than to be your bedfellow.’
‘I would like you to marry me.’
‘I have not discovered yet if I should.’
But already Adrian was restless and looking at his watch over Persia’s head. And after a while he stood up and began to pull on his trousers.
‘I wish you would just lie.’
‘Somebody might come.’
Persia did not answer. She saw she was not needed at all minutes, as she needed Adrian. He buttoned his shirt and hummed to himself, already having entirely forgotten, and he did not even want to know how it was to give yourself and roll over your whole life.
‘You had better dress,’ he said.
So Persia was made to feel ashamed, and pulled all her clothes all about her, and combed her hair in the bathroom mirror with Adrian’s comb, and tried to pretend it had not happened which was what he wanted her to pretend. She sat on the couch and tried to remind herself that it had happened, but in secret, for fear of offending.
‘What will you tell Smithey?’ Adrian asked from the kitchen.
‘She won’t mind. She’ll be too busy with tennis balls.’
‘She’ll have to find somebody else to share her flat.’
Persia then by those words was even more invaded. To be suddenly with a man and to know his room and to use it as if it was your own, and to hang your clothes beside his clothes and see his toothbrush beside your toothbrush, he seemed to consider his prerogative.
‘What will your mother say?’
‘She’ll be thrilled to get rid of me.’
‘And soon you will change your mind about not marrying.’
‘I had not thought of the practicalities.’
‘You won’t have to pay rent. That’s a practicality.’
‘But I will have to cook your dinner.’
He came out of the kitchen and his hair was ruffled where Persia’s hand had spread it. All his disorder and all his stillness, the way he was serene, and his eyes were clean and light, you had done this to him by draining all that he was. This man Adrian, w
ho shared a common building, sat beside you and smiled at you.
He would not touch you now though, because he had completed that part, and was more concerned with legalities. You leant against him but he moved away, and began negotiating lists in his mind.
‘Is Smithey home this afternoon?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know. We seldom talk.’
‘Then you can tell her when you see her. I’ll pay her a couple of weeks’ rent in advance.’
‘You have a mouth,’ Persia said, and touched it. But Adrian drew it away.
‘I’ll clear out one end of the wardrobe,’ Adrian said.
‘I like to touch your face,’ Persia said.
‘As regards your mother, I’ll invite her round and explain.’
‘This is the first time I have been so close to your face.’
‘I suppose I should buy another set of crockery.’
‘Before I did not know what it would be like so close.’
‘I saw a special in David Jones on Friday.’
‘I would like to see it before you buy it.’
‘Then you choose whatever you like tomorrow.’
‘I wish you would not worry about plates.’
‘There are many things to be settled.’
‘You will not speak to me.’
‘I am speaking to you.’
‘But on a different line. And for different ends.’
‘You can say anything you want.’
‘I wish you would not go away.’
‘I’m with you.’
‘No you have gone.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Whatever I want, it is not here.’
Adrian sighed. He went out of the room and Persia could hear him knocking on Smithey’s door. There were voices, and the two of them reappeared, standing together facing towards the couch. When Smithey saw the way Persia sat (although she was fully dressed and her hair was combed), she flushed and looked at the floor.
‘I said we had something to tell her,’ Adrian remarked.
‘Yes. I’m going to share his flat.’
Smithey kicked at her foot with her sandshoe. She had on a short tennis dress and her arms and legs were covered in freckles. Her shoulders were too wide.
The Beginning of Everything and the End of Everything Else Page 4
