The Man on the Bridge

by Stephen Benatar

  No, there wasn’t. There wasn’t at all. Cathy had become reunited with Heathcliff only in the pages of a novel, in the flickerings of a film. Each time one forgot that, even for an instant, one further let go of one’s saving grasp on reality, one shed a little more of one’s dignity as a self-reliant human being. There were degrees of letting go; of fooling oneself. There were degrees of insanity.

  “Imagine it,” Elizabeth said, on another occasion. “His father. Coming back to their rooms in the hotel, after a pleasant day out, and finding him dead in his chair!”

  Yes, dreadful for the parents too, of course—devastating!—but, as always, it was Tennyson of whom I was thinking. The utter shock of it all, the incredulity, the anguish. The depression, the despair. The ‘why, why, why?’ The eventual dulled acceptance. The frequent, oh-so-frequent, resurgence of sharp pain.

  Lasting for how long?

  “Did you know,” I asked, “that it took seventeen years to write those eighty pages?”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “Tennyson had just turned twenty-four when Arthur Hallam died.”

  “We were in Vienna,” said Elizabeth. She meant herself and her parents. “We might even have stayed at the same hotel. It’s possible.”

  “Seventeen years,” I repeated. “That feeling of sustained grief you get whilst reading it…”

  “Though Tennyson can’t have felt it all that time.”

  “Why not?”

  “He just can’t.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Are you suggesting a person can’t go on missing somebody for as long as seventeen years?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting at all! Naturally he can. And longer, much longer—a whole lifetime. But a quiet miss. Without the desperation.”

  I apologized. “I misunderstood you. Yes, a whole lifetime … Without the desperation…”

  “But you know the person my heart really goes out to? Tennyson’s sister. All that opposition to the match from Arthur Hallam’s parents; and then the way they softened when they finally met her. It all sounds very romantic but oh, Johnny, wasn’t the timing rotten! Just before that Continental Tour.”

  “Do you feel sorrier for her than for Tennyson?”

  “Well, obviously I do.” She sounded impatient. “At least Tennyson married. Did she? And at least Tennyson had the poem to think about—other poems, as well. Besides. I know they say that the love between two men can sometimes be as…”

  She broke off.

  I said nothing.

  “Also, of course, he had his religion to fall back on.” She was talking now more rapidly. “Although, I suppose, Emily did too. One could envy them both that. A belief in God must make things so much easier.”

  But I felt angry and I turned away abruptly. It was the last time we spoke about the poem.

  33

  In September we flew to Biarritz. I’d been speaking of it one evening and Elizabeth, on the sort of rich girl’s whim she didn’t indulge in very often, had suddenly said it would be great to see it together … and preferably as soon as possible, while we still had the tail end of the summer. So it was as well that nowadays I was going out to meet ghosts rather than to lay them—although I sometimes worried that the former might even be the prescribed way of achieving the latter. But we stayed in a far less magnificent hotel than the Empress Eugenie’s palace; and in lieu of a suite we had only an ordinary room with shower.

  Naturally the resort was more crowded than it had been in November, yet on the other hand it was good to be able to swim and to lie on the beach. This made us lazy. I showed her St Jean de Luz and Bayonne and San Sebastian but otherwise we didn’t do a lot of sightseeing.

  What’s more, we nearly didn’t visit Marnie Stark; for I neither knew whether she had liked me at the time of our first meeting—nor how pleased she’d be at the prospect of a second. But unthinkingly I’d mentioned her in London and Elizabeth had at once been interested. “Oh, Marnie Stark has quite a following in the States!”

  Now one afternoon she urged me: “Honey, do let’s go and see her.”

  I wasn’t sure.

  “Oh, yes, Johnny! It will be fun.”

  And I did have to admit—privately—that there was a certain pull. I’d made a point of not looking up old friends of Oliver’s, yet in a way old friends of Oliver’s, particularly his women friends, were the very company I craved.

  We went.

  “Oughtn’t we,” asked Elizabeth, “to telephone first?”

  “No, we’ll take her by surprise.”

  Mrs Stark was just as I remembered: she was wearing either the selfsame smock or else its counterpart; a faded denim skirt in place of a slightly less faded corduroy one; and again a pair of chunky sandals over large and unbeautiful bare feet. November or September … apparently the weather made very little difference.

  “My God, the honeypot!” she cried. “By all that’s wonderful!”

  “Marnie, this is my wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth—Mrs Stark.”

  “Your wife?” repeated Marnie Stark—as she vigorously, if somewhat automatically, pumped Elizabeth’s hand. Her surprise was clearly enormous but her manner remained cordial.

  “Why did you call him the honeypot?” laughed Elizabeth, on our way into the living room.

  “Why not, my dear? Isn’t he something, then, to smack your lips over? I always thought so.”

  She looked around her vaguely.

  “Now where are we going to find some space? You’d better sit over there, I think—don’t mind Pooh Bah! What will you have to drink? My martinis are rather famous … I expect your husband told you.”

  The state of everything appeared unchanged. When I had to remove a tilting pile of books from my own chair I would scarcely have been surprised to find it the same pile as before; it was certainly the same chair, although I would have liked the one where Oliver had sat. Marnie handed us our drinks, offered us cigarettes, proposed a toast. “Cheers!” she said. “To absent friends!” Her eyes met mine, briefly, as she raised her glass. I felt a tremor of unease.

  “Yes, absent friends!” echoed Elizabeth, cheerfully.

  “By the way, Honeypot—you don’t mind my calling you Honeypot? How is Oliver? I haven’t heard from him for ages.”

  I stared at her.

  Elizabeth caught her breath.

  “Oh dear,” said Marnie Stark. “I do apologize. I seem to have been tactless.” She took a long swig at her drink. “I’m just a stupid old cow who was never too good at diplomacy.”

  “But don’t you know about Oliver?” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “None better. I’m only a little surprised, my dear, that you do.”

  She gave her raucous laugh.

  “Or have I been too previous? Know what about Oliver? Come on—you’d better fill me in. All I do know is, the dirty dog hasn’t written to me since Christmas; didn’t remember my birthday for the first time since we met; and when I rang to ask why the bloody hell not, there seemed something wrong with his number—I couldn’t get through. Also—I admit it freely—I was pissed.” Again the rasp of husky laughter. “Anyway, what’s he gone and done, the big sap? Been shoved into some prison?”

  But suddenly her voice rose sharply as she evidently took in, at last, the looks on both our faces.

  “What’s happened to him?”

  “Oliver is dead, Marnie,” I told her. “He died last March.”

  “What?”

  Elizabeth got up quickly and went to put an arm around her. “I’m afraid it’s true, Mrs Stark. It never occurred to us you wouldn’t know. Otherwise, we’d have tried to break it far more gently.”

  “Dead?”

  The glass fell from her stubby fingers, a spreading pool of liquid soaking into the carpet.

  “How?” she demanded. “Dead? I don’t believe it! How?”

  Elizabeth sent me a swift glance; then turned her attention back to Marnie.

  “He had a heart attack,” she said.
r />   “A heart attack! Dear God. He wasn’t even forty.” Already tears were running down her face and she looked ugly; she was a messy crier.

  Elizabeth mouthed to me the word ‘handkerchief’—her own was in her handbag. I gave her mine, then went to stand by the window, with my back to them. My legs were shaking.

  “Was it quick?” asked Marnie, having blown her nose—done so repeatedly. “Did he suffer?”

  “Oh Christ!” I said.

  “Yes, it was quick,” put in Elizabeth.

  “At home? In hospital?”

  “At home.”

  Marnie had obviously started to cry again. “Oh God,” she said, “I loved that man. He was the truest friend I ever had.” She sobbed brokenly, for what seemed like a very long time. I couldn’t even turn my head. “Was your husband there … when it happened?”

  Elizabeth hesitated. “No.”

  “How do you know, then, it was quick? It might have lasted minutes. Minutes!”

  “Because Johnny was told it was. Instantaneous.”

  “Who by?”

  “The doctor. Oliver had a manservant. The manservant called the doctor.”

  But Marnie refused to be comforted. “To have nobody with you!” She blew her nose again, as loudly as before. “How terrible to die alone! A man as outgoing as that. With such a gift for friendship. To die alone. To die alone—after the sort of life which he had always led!”

  I spun round, impulsively.

  “Shut up!” I cried. “Stop it! Shut up, the pair of you!”

  “Johnny!” exclaimed Elizabeth.

  “Well, he’s dead, isn’t he? Oliver’s dead. Does she have to go on about it?”

  And with that I turned on my heel and left the room. I went out of the front door, round the house and into the back garden. The cicadas were chirruping and the scent of bougainvillea filled my nostrils. The evening air felt refreshingly cool. I began slowly to recover.

  Ten minutes later Elizabeth came out as well. She had seen me from the window.

  “Sweetie? Are you all right?”

  “How’s Marnie?”

  “A little better. Perhaps we ought to go?”

  “Elizabeth,” I said. “I thought you were pretty good in there.”

  “Oh! I wish that were true. I felt so inadequate.”

  We returned inside.

  Marnie looked both wild-haired and puffy-eyed but she had stopped crying. She had even powdered her face. The effect was incongruous; you felt she rarely used cosmetics. She seemed to have put the powder on in patches, with defiance, as a child might. She was pouring more martinis.

  I said: “I’m sorry I blew my top.”

  But she waved away apology. “No, no. My fault. I respect you for it. Have another drink. You, too, Elizabeth.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather we went?”

  “No, no,” she said again. “Oh, please—not yet! I’d hate to be alone.”

  We sat down. Took up our glasses. Marnie began to sound like a hostess with a party that was flagging. It wasn’t a role which came naturally. It was dreadful to listen to.

  “Tell me more about yourselves. Married! How marvellous! Do you realize I’ve neither congratulated you nor drunk a toast to your happiness?”

  “Thank you, Mrs Stark.”

  “Marnie! Marnie! Haven’t I been calling you Elizabeth?”

  She raised her glass again.

  “I hope you’ll both be exceedingly happy! May all your troubles be little ones!”

  “Thank you. Thank you … Marnie.”

  We sipped our drinks. I struggled for something to say.

  I wasn’t fast enough, however. Our hostess was faster.

  “But far too soon to be thinking of little ones! I imagine this must be your honeymoon?”

  “Yes—but, oh, such a delayed one!” Elizabeth spoke with that same awful brightness. “We were married in May.”

  “May? What—a whole four months ago? And when were you engaged?”

  There was suddenly a note of something new. I picked up on it at once and just as quickly recognized the reason for it, but there was nothing I could do. Elizabeth, thinking only of being an easy guest, rushed on without a pause.

  Brightly, brightly.

  “We became engaged in March,” she said. “It was all rather romantic. Wasn’t it, darling? I mean, in a slightly horrid sort of way. You see, my parents—”

  Then at last she stopped; belatedly sensing, I suppose, the change of atmosphere.

  “Did Oliver know of your engagement?”

  There was a brief but highly tension-filled hush—broken only by the heavy breathing of Pooh Bah.

  I said: “Listen, Marnie. I was going to tell you, anyway. It came to me, out there in the garden: the sort of friendship you enjoyed with Oliver—it was wrong to try to fob you off with just a lie.”

  But then I faltered.

  “So we finally arrive at the truth, do we?” Her tone may have been sarcastic, but it no longer seemed to threaten tears, even if the powder on her cheeks looked more than ever ludicrous. “And what is the truth the sort of friendship I enjoyed with Oliver would now appear so gloriously to merit?”

  “Oliver didn’t die of a heart attack,” I said. “Elizabeth was trying to spare your feelings. He threw himself into the river.”

  “Oh, honey, that was blunt,” exclaimed Elizabeth. “You could’ve made it softer.”

  I turned on her, savagely. “Softer? Tell me, then—how would you have done it? How would you have made it softer?” But after a moment I relented. “I’m sorry, love,” I said, wearily. “Yes, you’re right. Of course you are.”

  Our eyes went back to Marnie.

  “My God!” she exclaimed. “My God! My God! My God!”

  She then began to laugh.

  “Stop it, Marnie!”

  “He killed himself because of you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “And can you guess why I’m laughing? To hear you say, ‘I’m sorry, love.’ Oh, my God, that’s good, that’s really good, that’s rich, that is. ‘I’m sorry, love!’ I mustn’t forget that one. I must put that in my next book. The trouble is: no one would ever quite believe it.”

  “Mrs Stark,” said Elizabeth, “—please—is there anything we can do for you before we go?”

  “You bitch!”

  “Marnie! For God’s sake! It wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault.”

  “You bitch! You goddamned fucking bitch!”

  “Marnie!”

  “How much are you worth?” Marnie’s attention was still firmly fixed on Elizabeth; it seemed as if nothing could tear it from her. “Tell me that, eh? A million dollars? Two million? Three? How much does it take to buy a honeypot? A homosexual honeypot? And has your money been well spent? Does he fuck all right? Does he satisfy you the way he used to satisfy poor Oliver? Yes? Then savour him, my pet. You won’t have him very long. There’ll be another bee buzzing into sight one day, with a heavier money bag than yours. I tried to point this out to Oliver. But he was too besotted. He wouldn’t—”

  I used the age-old remedy of Hollywood. I slapped her. My slap was highly inefficient. She gave another burst of laughter.

  “Strong man! Does that make you feel all grown up? You’re becoming such a big boy now. Twenty yet? What a triumph! Imagine—by the time you’re twenty—to have had somebody kill himself for you! Only a queer, of course, no one of the top rank. Yet—still—not a bad achievement. Something to notch up. A beginning.”

  “Come on,” I said to Elizabeth. “It won’t do any good to stay.”

  But Elizabeth seemed incapable of leaving her seat.

  Marnie, though, appeared to leave hers with ease.

  “Yes—get out of here!” One would almost have expected her to point: Never darken my doorway again! “The two of you—get out of here! You deserve each other … my God, how you deserve each other! And what worse thing could ever be said about anyone?”

  She spat at us as we drove from the
house. She hurried after us and spat. Her spittle ran slowly down the windscreen of the Renault we had hired, and when I set the wipers in motion they only smeared it right across the glass.

  “Oh—spit!” I said.

  There followed a minute or two of stony silence.

  “I’d better phone Robertson and Keyes as soon as we get back to London.”

  She didn’t ask me why; but I continued as if she had.

  “Well, there’s clearly been a letter that must have gone astray.” Again I tried to add a lighter touch; I felt we stood in need of one. “Or you never know—perhaps it’s just been buried underneath the clutter! Did you ever see anything like it? Perhaps Pooh Bah was sitting on Mr Blackmore’s unopened correspondence!”

  I turned to look at her. She was staring straight ahead, along the road lit by the Renault’s headlamps. Her face showed not the shadow of a smile. But at least I did receive an answer.

  “If you don’t shut up,” she said, “I shall open the door and jump out! I think I really mean that. Why must you always talk? Is it because you’re so young? Is it because you’re only twenty?”

  I pulled a face. It was such a small thing at the moment, but she might as well be set right on it, even so—that one last silly detail.

  “No,” I said. “I shan’t be twenty, as it happens, until the fifteenth of December.”

  34

  My only proper row with Elizabeth was more far-reaching than the one I’d had with Oliver.

  It chanced that a minute earlier I had mentioned his name. I now went on: “When did you first realize about him and me?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? I’m interested.”

  “Like in everything else that relates to you and Oliver! Your main area of interest, bar none.”

  I ignored this. “Was it when I told you about the car?”