by Tessa Hadley
Ray and Pete were arguing about Giacometti, and then about socialism, and then about primitive art. Ray still had his brown face but he had taken off his turban and his mustache. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back to the rows of Penguin and Pelican paperbacks on bookshelves made of painted planks and bricks. Sometimes he waved his pipe dramatically in the air as if he were drawing things; sometimes he closed his eyes, sucking on it. Joyce remembered that he was only twenty-five or -six; when he was teaching she always thought of him as immeasurably older than herself. His eyelids were deep and fine-skinned, crinkled; the flesh on his face was soft and thick; his mouth was red, with a lower lip so swollen it looked as if he had been stung. Someone had said that with his curls and that soft mouth he looked like a cross baby. He was always completely absorbed in whatever one thing he was doing: pouring whisky, constructing an argument, painting. If he tried, say, to pour coffee and talk at the same time, then Iris had to unpick the coffeepot apologetically out of his hands before it got cold.
—What we have to do, he was shouting, is get right up close to Africa. You know, like getting up close to one of those totem figures, one of those really tall ones, with teeth and eyes and bits of hide and bone. We’ve got to frighten ourselves, that’s the truth. All the old taboos, all the old forbidden things. You’ve got to cut through all these layers of fuss, of baby clothes, and all this stuffing, all this stuffy upholstered old Europe with its taboos and its dead skin.
—And what about the Empire? Pete shouted back. What about what’s happening in Kenya? What kind of a civilization is that?
—That’s exactly it, that’s exactly it, said Ray, that’s exactly what I’m trying to say.
—You’re not making any sense at all. Joyce laughed at them.
—We are, Pete said indignantly. You just don’t properly understand what it is we’re talking about.
When Gillian and Mary had left in their taxi, Iris stood up and said she was going to bed. Joyce thought that she had better go to bed too, although she didn’t really want to; she felt her energy was inexhaustible and she was sure she would lie awake listening to the talk through the wall. The men were passing the whisky round and changing the record. (—You’ve got to hear this, Ray said. This is raw jazz, really raw, really down to the bone, nothing pretty about this.) It would seem presumptuous to stay up without Iris and be the only girl.
The bed in the spare room was left as it must have been when Ray last slept in there. Joyce assured Iris that she didn’t mind not having clean sheets; it had clearly not occurred to Iris that anyone might. Her face was dislocated by a yawn so deep she hardly seemed to hear Joyce saying good night. Joyce undressed, listening to the music and the rumbling of voices through the wall. She had brought her pajamas and her toothbrush in a bag; when she had taken off all her things (thinking that it was the second time she had been naked in this room), she realized she had left the bag in the lounge but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t cold. She climbed in between the sheets in her bare skin and must have fallen asleep as soon as she put her head on the pillow.
* * *
When she woke up she had no idea how long she had been in there or how many hours the others had gone on talking; the lounge was silent now and the flat was dark. What she knew was that someone was in bed with her: a naked man. She could feel him bulky and hot and soft beside her; she could smell him, a spicy mix of sweat and spirits and smoke and something personal, a green smell like cut grass. She was sure the man was asleep because he was breathing through his mouth, heavily, in a broken snorting pattern; he must be lying on his back. She too was on her back. She had no idea how long he might have been there. In her dreams, perhaps, she had been aware of an arrival, of a stirring of accommodation to another presence. In her dreams she must have let him climb in, as if this were something understood between them. It was his snorting breath that had waked her.
It was so dark she could not see anything, not her own hand in front of her eyes, let alone the face of the man whose heat was radiating against her where her thigh touched his. And yet, in spite of the dark, in truth she knew immediately who he was. (It was not only her thigh that touched him. She could feel under the toes of her left foot the hairy calf of his right leg, and his right arm was thrown heavily, carelessly, across her belly, palm up. Vividly, too, she was aware of them circulating the same air in their noisy breathing; she could taste the whisky in it.) It would have made perfect sense for it to be Yoyo; although it wasn’t supposed to be common knowledge that they had slept together, he might have been tempted by such a lucky opportunity as this, might have pretended to settle down on the floor in the lounge and then crept into her room later. But Yoyo would surely have wakened her. And anyway, she never for one moment thought it was Yoyo, whose presence in a bed was light and neat as a boy’s. She put her hand to where this man’s head should be on the pillow and felt curls, damp and short, and then with her fingers felt bits of a face, incomprehensible in its arrangements in the pitch dark but known to her, known vividly.
She leaped up into a sitting position, pulling away from where she touched against him as if she was burned.
—Mr. Deare, she hissed, Mr. Deare! Wake up! You’ve made a terrible mistake. You’ve come to the wrong bed. I’m in here.
For a long moment there was no response, only a whistling exhalation on a different prolonged note. Then the snoring broke off and he also sat up abruptly in alarm; he grabbed her painfully tightly by the shoulders, as if she needed protecting from something, or he did.
—Who are you? he whispered urgently into the dark.
—It’s Joyce, she said, Joyce Stevenson.
—And what am I doing in here?
—I think you made a mistake. You came to bed, and you forgot that Iris said I could stay the night.
—Jesus Christ. I wasn’t asleep?
—You were. You must have gone right off to sleep. Then I woke up.
—Jesus Christ.
It was so strange that they couldn’t see each other, although he held her tightly in his hands for these few minutes while they spoke. He groaned, a groan out of all proportion to what had happened: as if he confronted a wholesale indictment of his irresponsibility, his drunkenness, his insensitivity.
—I’m such an idiot, he urgently whispered at her.
—No, not at all, it was an easy mistake to make; it doesn’t matter.
—It does, it does, he hissed, insisting. What should I do now?
—Just go back to your own bed. There’s no need for us to mention anything to Iris. There’s nothing to mention.
—All right, he said, are you sure?
—Of course I’m sure. Nothing’s happened.
—All right. If you’re quite sure.
As he let go of her and moved to feel his way out of the bed, his right hand fell from her shoulder—palm open, hot and damp from where he had gripped her—and brushed quickly across her breasts, so quickly she couldn’t be sure whether it was an accident or not.
—Good night then, she said into the dark. Don’t worry about it.
—You’re very good to make no fuss. I hope I’ve got all my clothes.
—If there’s anything here in the morning I’ll put it out on the landing.
—I suppose this is all really very funny.
—It is, she whispered firmly. It’s terribly funny.
When he had gone she lay awake, parched and nauseated with hangover, feverish with consciousness of what had happened. She had done nothing to be ashamed of, and yet she felt that something precious had been spoiled; she wished she never had to see Ray Deare again. She also wished she dared to slip into the lounge and fetch her pajamas out of her bag, so she could cover herself up; her naked breasts felt hot and heavy and she ached from imagining, over and over, although she forbade herself, his hand across her front.
* * *
The next day, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, someone rang the doorbell of the Stevenso
n flat in Benteaston.
They were all at home. Lil and Joyce and Ann were washing up Sunday dinner. Martin was excused from washing up in return for polishing shoes; he had these spread out on sheets of newspaper in the middle of the carpet in the front room and put on a great appearance of rubbing and buffing every time one of them came through, although it was obvious he was mostly engaged in reading all the articles in the paper. He read things out to them from time to time.
—Listen to this. “House painter hypnotizes woman while her teeth are extracted.”
Lil, who had read the paper through already that morning, obliged by exclaiming in astonished sympathy.
—“Widow leaves six thousand pounds, car, house, and wines to chauffeur.” “Man digging in garden finds unexploded bomb.”
Ann and Joyce ignored him. They got through the mountain of dirty dishes and pans in a trance of uncommunicative efficiency, only scowling if they bumped up against each other in the cramped little kitchen while they were putting things away. It was Joyce who hung her soggy tea towel over her shoulder and went to see who was at the door. Sometimes some of her college friends came over on Sunday afternoons to take her out for a walk on the heath.
Ray Deare stood on the path, hangdog and miserable, with his shoulders hunched up and his hands thrust into the pockets of his tweed jacket. Joyce hadn’t seen him again since she’d found him in her bed; she had slipped out of the Deares’ flat early in the morning before anyone was up. There were traces of brown makeup in front of Ray’s ears and in his eyebrows. It was a muffled gray day, cool for summer, very still. In the tiny paved front garden the blooms on the aged pink standard rose that Lil had tried to prune into shape sagged gloomily earthward, turning brown before they’d opened.
—I couldn’t believe you’d just gone, he said. You left this. I thought I’d better bring it.
He held out the little pink-painted bag she had forgotten, with her pajamas and toothbrush inside. Joyce supposed he was miserable because she had blundered into his sacred privacy, even though it was through no fault of her own. There were things about him that he must know she would not be able to forget: his yielding hot soft flesh; his smell close up, sweet and ripe like grass; his humiliating shy panic when he discovered his mistake. And now nothing that she did would ever be right for him again. She wondered how he’d found out where she lived.
The woman from the flat upstairs was hanging over the banisters with curiosity, her hair in curlers and a net.
—Is it for you, dear? Joyce reassured her it was, but she made no move to retreat.
—I just had to come and apologize for yesterday, Ray said.
—There was really no need. Do you want to come in?
Even as Joyce offered this and he accepted it she realized what a mistake she was making. There was nowhere in the flat she could take him. The tiny hall was windowless and half filled with the hallstand. The whole place reeked: of cabbage, boiled bacon, the wet cloths off the steamed pudding, shoe polish. She led the way into the front room and then stood helplessly. Martin’s polishing had spread right out across the floor; there was no way to walk round him, and anyway, she could hardly have taken Ray into the bedroom.
—How about this? Martin read with glee, partly for the benefit of the visitor. “Woman who died: ‘Nothing wrong.’”
Lil came out of the kitchen, wiping her wet red hands on her apron.
—Come on in, pet, she said. You’re too late for dinner. Would you like a bit of cold bacon?
—Oh, no, said Joyce, he wouldn’t.
—I won’t, thank you, said Ray with weary politeness. I’m not hungry.
Since they moved into town, Lil had got a job working in a cake shop. The frilled caps and aprons she had to wear were draped across a clothes horse on the hearth rug along with the girls’ stockings and brassieres; this normally stood in the kitchen sink when it wasn’t full of dishes.
—Excuse the mess, said Lil cheerfully. Let me lift that bedding off the sofa so you can sit down, and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.
—This is Mr. Deare, said Joyce. He’s one of my lecturers. This is my mother, and my brother and sister.
—I thought you were just one of Joyce’s chums, said Lil in real dismay.
Joyce thought that Ray ought somehow to have explained himself, to have taken charge of the situation from his position of authority. Couldn’t he at least have said he’d come to talk to her about her work? Instead he stood cowed and desperate looking, as if he might make a dreadful mistake and accept the cup of tea.
—We could clear up in here, offered Lil, flustered. If you need to talk to Joyce. We could all wait in the bedroom.
—I haven’t really come to apologize, said Ray to Joyce, ignoring the others gawping at them. I need to talk to you.
—Actually, I shouldn’t have brought you in, Joyce said then, recklessly. We don’t really have the space, as you can see. I’ll get my coat. We could discuss things as we walk along.
—You’ve still got that tea towel round your neck, said Ann.
Joyce unwound it with superb indifference, then fumbled in the dark in the hallstand for her outdoor shoes.
—Will you be long? said Lil with foreboding.
—Might be.
It didn’t matter that she knew she sounded falsely bright; she would have pretended any brazen thing, just to escape. Efficiently, she steered Ray out into the street.
—Shall I put the kettle on? Lil called after them.
—Don’t bother to wait for us.
They walked up toward the heath. It was an ordinary Sunday. Family groups or couples or absorbed solitary walkers straggled desultorily on Clore Hill, so bustling and purposeful on weekdays but muted now, with its closed shops and its road empty of traffic. Joyce walked as though she were wearing giant boots, the kind that make you take huge mile-long strides with every step; she was leaving her old self behind forever in no time, in a few minutes.
—I love you, Ray was saying. I’ve fallen in love with you.
Of course this was ridiculous.
And yet Joyce was also ready for the possibility that it was true. Secretly, she had probably always believed that if only someone ever uncovered her real self it might command love like this, all at one blow: like a vindication from outside of all the innumerable tiny things that made her up and that otherwise only she would ever know.
* * *
This peremptory absolute need had seized ray deare once or twice before since he had been married to Iris. He recognized the helplessness and the astonishment at his own abjection. Every day he moved safely among women, enjoying the nearness of their bodies, their scent, their various blooming faces: students, models, women passing in the crowd. And then suddenly by some signal, some tiny-seeming word or touch or hint, one of them would separate herself from that background awareness and swell until she filled out all his thoughts, consumingly, swallowing up the point of everything else. It was impossible to work as long as he felt like this. Impossible to eat or to think, at least until something was settled one way or the other.
Joyce laughed out loud at him, shaking her head.
—Don’t be ridiculous, she said.
Her earrings and her ponytail swung excitedly. She had put on a suede jacket to come out with him and knotted a scarf jauntily round her neck, a beige silk one decorated with a pattern of coins: her clothes were always easily stylish; she made no fuss. How unusual it was, to have that red hair with a skin so creamy pale and clear, even with a hint of blue vein at the temple. He grasped at the top of her arm as they walked, wishing they weren’t hurrying, longing to be with her somewhere alone where he could convince her, not absurdly on the public street; he was furious with anger at everyone they passed who looked at them.
This wasn’t exactly like those other times. With those other girls he had known, even while he was burning up for them, that he wasn’t afraid; he could pull himself back if he wanted.
—Do you think I’
m ridiculous? Do you really think that?
He searched her face, trying to read her expression. Probably she thought he was stuffy and ancient. She might be disgusted because he had touched her last night; for all he knew she was a virgin and it had been her first contact with a naked man. Perhaps he had smelled, or snored, while he lay beside her.
—Well, no, of course you’re not a ridiculous person.
—I love you. Everything about you.
He had not undressed and lain beside her last night because he had had too much to drink and had forgotten she was staying. It wasn’t even because he had been swollen and agitated with desire for her, although he was now, hardly knowing where they were walking to or what he was saying. He had lain beside her because she was the one who matched him, the one he ought to be lying down with every night of his life. He’d only known that for a few hours, but it seemed quite certain. He tried to explain to her.
