by Tim Jeal
‘Why did you choose a wrestling match?’ A genuinely puzzled look. A slight delightful wrinkling of the nose.
‘Well, you can’t complain. I always remember you looking bored at the theatre.’
‘Did I? I suppose I thought it was the fashionable sort of thing to do. You didn’t often seem ecstatic.’
‘Perhaps I was worried about you.’ Plenty of humour in my voice. No serious journey down memory lane yet. The long and meaningful silences of yesteryear were best erased.
‘You once took me to Porgy and Bess before there was a film or anything like that. I seem to remember enjoying it.’
I said with a note of triumph:
‘But you really did look bored there.’
‘Perhaps we weren’t sitting so near the front. Perhaps I saw a girl of my age with clothes I liked better than my own.’ She threw back her head and laughed. ‘That was the time you bought a huge box of chocolates. You tripped over while you were carrying them out. Some ghastly old woman’s umbrella or something. I think I was rather cross with you at the time.’
‘Well I’m glad you can laugh now,’ I said remembering how much crosser I had been with myself. I decided to stop the ‘do you remembers’.
Martial music was coming from the loudspeakers. A man in a white track suit climbed up into the ring and started flexing the ropes to see that they were secure. A family party sat down in front of us. There were three children. Dinah seemed as determined as I was to see that there should be no silences.
‘Do you think they all belong to the same mother and father‚’ she whispered, nodding in the direction of the three children. Playing the game, I said seriously:
‘The one at the end has got sticky-out ears and the others haven’t.’
‘And one has got red hair….’
‘And the other two are dark….’
‘The one in the middle’s got a spotty neck.’
Had she ever thought that about me? We were interrupted by the arrival of the first competitors. The hall darkened and a vast light like the one over billiard tables came on above the ring. A man in a dinner jacket was speaking into a microphone, swinging the trailing wire like a skipping rope.
‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, we have tonight a programme which I feel sure …’
‘Very formal isn’t he, my dear‚’ whispered Dinah in stage cockney.
I giggled and immediately regretted doing so.
The roars of applause that greeted the wrestlers made it impossible to hear their names. I remember the question I had asked Andrew at the cinema.
‘Who do you think’s going to win?’
She delighted me by roaring back:
‘The good-looking one of course.’
I heard her gasp at the noise made by the men’s bodies hitting the canvas. I watched her wide eyes, and the lift of the white silk over her breasts. After the initial shock she sat back, looking I thought, eager for new developments.
She was right. The better-looking one did win. In spite of the expected happening she still looked interested. She kept on remarking on members of the audience.
‘Do look at that one. He looks as though he’s being tortured. Do you think his wife’s dragged him along?’
The arrival of the next fighters was heralded by jeers, whistles and roars of laughter. One of them was a mere fifteen stone. He seemed cheerful and looked more intelligent than any of his predecessors. His opponent was one of the fattest men I could ever remember having seen. His legs were huge bloated shapeless tubes that were almost arbitrarily attached to his inflated trunk. He was wearing a garment like an Edwardian bathing dress, only it was made out of zebra skin. This must have been the one the posters had called ‘The man everybody loves to loathe’. It seemed impossible that he should ever rise again if he was down.
‘This one will have to be fixed‚’ I yelled above the laughter. Dinah was laughing too much to hear me.
There was no doubt that fatty was the villain. The audience at once started to roar for the other man. whose name appeared to be Bob. At first Bob had everything his own way. Fatty amid hoots of laughter clumsily reeled about while Bob jumped around giving him nimble jabs and cuts.
A child behind us screamed:
‘Fatty’s yellar. He don’t even dare show his face.’
This was an allusion to the mask he was wearing. Other jeers of:
‘Take off his mask … kick him … lace ’im up ’orrible, Bob.’
All the time Dinah was laughing uncontrollably. Bob got Fatty over by the ropes and managed to push his head through the top and middle ropes. He then pulled them tight. Fatty spluttered horrendously. His face, or what could be seen of it, looked almost purple. Bob hit his helpless opponent, and while the referee made various deliberately ineffective efforts to intervene, Bob appealed to the crowd as to whether he should do it again.
‘Murder the fat slug … kill ’im … ’it him,’ roared the crowd by way of assent. Bob responded with a flurry of illegal punches to the slug’s head. Bob then nonchalantly strode over to the other side of the ring while the referee laboriously extricated his gasping opponent. Bob’s recent behaviour seemed distinctly out of character for somebody I had mentally christened as ‘everybody’s perfect dad in his prime’. The next development however had clearly not been foreseen by the promoters. Fatty became impatient with his role of ludicrous and inept buffoon and grotesque villain. After forcing Bob against the corner posts on several occasions, he decided to charge him and this time not to miss. Lucky Bob just avoided certain pulverisation. Unfortunately he was not quick enough to get out of the way of Fatty rebounding off the ropes. He fell, all thirty stone of him and travelling fast, on to the crouching Bob. The crowd roared their disapproval. But Bob could not have heard. He was still lying insensible when he was carried out. The hissing and booing were deafening. Not even Fatty’s seconds came to lead him triumphant home. He had disgraced himself by winning.
‘I bet you didn’t expect that,’ I said when the noise had died down a bit.
‘I don’t expect Bob did either,’ laughed Dinah. Then maternally serious: ‘I hope he wasn’t seriously hurt.’
The master of ceremonies was in the ring again. He looked rather less composed.
‘I can assure you ladies and gentlemen that it is not easy to fix a fight of equal weights in this class, but I do assure you that it was a fair fight. Bob Brandon knew what he was up against and accepted without hesitation.’ A rousing cheer. ‘I’m afraid weight has told its ugly tale. I feel sure that Bob will be none the worse for his fall when he gets back to Bootle tomorrow. Now for the next fight: we are very proud to present none other than …’ Once again the cheering obliterated his words.
This time a West Indian was to fight a smooth-looking young man in golden sequin-covered wrestling boots and a pair of gold and white striped trunks. The fight looked a great deal more genuine than either of the other ones and was consistently more hard fought. In the early stages of the fight the man in the golden boots had his hair well brushed back and done up behind his head with a bow, eighteenth-century style. In the second round the bow came off and the formerly smooth youth became as wild to look at as any old man of the woods. His knowingly complacent smile now looked grotesquely inept. The cries to the West Indian to begin with had been: ‘Go easy, he’s fragile.’ Now they became: ‘Watch him, he’s dirty.’ Half way through the third round a red-faced young man in the front row yelled some racially undesirable encouragement to the wild one. The black man leapt out of the ring and was at once shaking his fist at the now trembling spectator. The crowd laughed, booed and clapped. The golden-booted boy shouted: ‘You’re meant to be fighting me.’ Eventually the West Indian’s seconds managed to persuade him to go back into the ring.
The final result came a few seconds afterwards with a folding-body-press from the golden boy. The master of ceremonies announced the result and then went on gravely:
‘A very great wrestler and sportsma
n has just left the ring after a thoroughly clean and well-fought contest. A few minutes ago a gentleman in the audience suggested that he should “go back to the trees”. I should like to remind that member of the audience that our friend from the West Indies is not only a member of the British Commonwealth, but also a British subject and British passport holder….’ His voice faded as the clapping began, punctuated by the occasional hiss of derision. I saw Dinah listening with unbelief.
‘It’s so perfect, so completely to be expected….’
*
We left before the winning raffle-tickets were announced. I still suspect that Dinah’s guesses about the prizes may have been right.
As we pushed our way out past knees and feet I wondered how much we had both laughed out of nervousness, out of the delight to be able to laugh. But now we would soon be out in the street. We could recount the moments which had made us laugh. Wasn’t it funny when …? And then? Would she come out to dinner? Did I dare risk refusal by asking? Anything I could do or say now must be an anticlimax. But we had enjoyed ourselves together. Nothing could take that away from me. And if she had laughed and joked with me could she now turn a mournful face and say that she had to go home? Yet two complete strangers could laugh at a wrestling match. What had been added except another ‘do you remember’?
In the street she shivered. Her coat was in my car.
‘I can’t let you go home to cook yourself something at this hour.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to. I’ve got to get my husband something to eat.’
He’s been ill you see. Not very good on his legs. She could have said it but she didn’t. Did this mean that she had not made up her mind? At half past eight I already felt it must be too late for her to cook Simpson supper. She must have left him something.
‘That’s a pity.’ My voice flat, unemotional, proud, giving away nothing. A pity. What useless words. And then if I hurriedly said on the drive back to her flat that after all these years would it be all right if just occasionally I could see her? Just for the passive pleasure of being with her, talking to her, looking into her dark eyes. If I said that …? ‘Success comes in cans. Failure comes in can’ts.’ I’d read that on the back of the matches I’d lit my cigar with the same afternoon. I wanted to scream. And the car was already a hundred yards closer, and she was walking so quickly on her high heels, her skirt moving ever so slightly over the cheeks of her bottom. What a word to use describing a sight that filled me with helpless and indignant longing. We used to lie in bed on Sundays and sometimes I sat on a chair afterwards and looked at her as she slept, looked at the curve of the stomach, the slight shadow round the navel. And your skin was so soft in the morning light and the falling line of your breasts so gentle as it swelled to the tips of your nipples. She clutched her arms round her and shivered. How thin the silk was. How easily the raw air would meet the warmth of her tender skin.
When she was seated next to me in the car I knew that I would say more.
‘I’ve booked a table.’
She looked at me, her dark eyes troubled.
‘You should have told me.’ No harshness in her voice, apparently regret. Did she act that well then? She looked straight at me. ‘You weren’t expecting me. Andrew was meant to come.’
‘You must have known, Dinah. I was expecting you.’
‘You mustn’t try to stop me going back.’ I thought there was slight desperation in her voice.
‘But after ten years … come, Dinah, you can’t begrudge me one evening after all that time?’ My voice laughing; my soul a broken jam jar on a grave. A couple passed arm in arm, their faces turned inwards towards each other. I saw her outside her aunt’s cottage in Tewkesbury. My hand clutching hers to say goodbye. Her hand withdrawn. ‘Not even that?’ Say yes, my love, say yes.
‘Honestly, Harry …’ A pause. Was she thinking: what use is comfort that is deception? She sat forward in her seat her mind made up. ‘Yes, I’ll come.’
Somewhere in the ruins of my hope a flower opens. My tongue stirs like a young leaf in spring.
‘I’m so glad, so very glad.’
*
A white tablecloth, a single candle, a basket of rolls, a dish of butter. The place is crowded. Dinah’s hands move in the candlelight, that keeps on catching her engagement ring. The chairs uncomfortable but the food good.
I had coq au vin and she veal à la princesse. We talked a bit about how good the food was. I told her I sometimes came there for lunch. Dinah took another sip of wine and said suddenly:
‘What do you want, Harry?’
She was not asking about pudding or cheese. Her eyes firmly holding mine.
‘To see you sometimes.’ Her mouth curled slightly at the corners. She seemed slightly to shake her head.
‘And how often is that? Every now and then? When you feel like it?’
‘I don’t understand what you want me to say, Dinah.’
‘I want you to say what you want of me.’
The restaurant was hot. I felt the sweat at the back of my neck. My shirt clung to my back. No chance to laugh and joke my way out. She said:
‘You took out Andrew because of me. You gave him toys because of me. Is this a way to start a casual acquaintance? I’m not so stupid as not to see that one meeting means another, that more is said and known. That more is felt. Harry, we’re not old friends.’
‘We were lovers, and so must inevitably become lovers again if we meet? Is that what you’re saying?’ I managed an empty show of pious anger.
‘My husband said you met each other in the street. Another chance? First Andrew, then him. I thought I saw you outside our flats. Mark is a cripple, you saw that. You wanted to find out about the sort of life I lead, but you already know a lot. You brought the toys.’
‘I did what I had to because …’ Useless to finish: to say over my unfinished food: I did what I did because day without you is fathomless night. You are the first and only stirring in the memory of my blood. You are like the wind that can obliterate every footstep and trace that I have ever made. You have eaten my laughter. I have become pale dead grass upon the dunes. She said:
‘I’m sure that you think the process would be imperceptible. That I would begin to love you slowly.’
‘I’ve said nothing. I have asked you out to dinner after ten years. I was curious. I wanted to know. I loved you.’ My voice truly agonised.
‘What did my mother tell you when you went to see her? That I hated you?’ She was leaning forward. I remembered that same desperate light in her eyes.
‘Did she tell you that I was afraid of you? Did you think that was why I married Mark so fast?’ She said this without her voice rising.
‘She told me nothing except that you had been miserable. If you want to you must tell me.’
She lifted her glass and drank. She said nothing for a moment or two. Then:
‘Not yet, Harry.’
I wanted to be out in the street, out of the heat. I wanted the cool air in my lungs. I looked at her still holding the glass in her hand. She was smiling. I didn’t know why. What had happened? Where had I lost control? Anger again. Why the smile? For the first time my voice was raised:
‘Will you see me again?’ I will go mad if you don’t stop smiling at me. My question asked, the smile faded. Her face became an empty mask.
‘I don’t know, Harry. Honestly I don’t.’
*
In the car everything was different. I asked myself whether I had not imagined what had been said in the restaurant. She talked about her mother’s imagined rheumatism, about Andrew’s last school report. Did I think he was intelligent? What film had we seen? How was my business going? Her mother had been so impressed. She’d thought it was impossible to make money these days. Where was I living? Did I like it? Outside the flats she asked me whether I liked miniatures. I said I liked some. She was going to look at some miniatures at Sotheby’s after lunch the following Tuesday. She had bought several rugs there re
cently. Better than Christie’s, she thought.
Thirteen
32. AN ATTRACTIVE MINIATURE of Jane Haydon, head and gaze three-quarters sinister, wearing a blue dress, her auburn hair dressed in ringlets, against a pillar and cloud sky background, oval, 3¼ in.
With my catalogue in my hand I wandered around the crowded showrooms. It was just before two. I looked at a small tortoiseshell box, with a metal tracery pattern on the lid. Obligingly the catalogue told me that no. 68 was a toothpick case with canted corners, the lid decorated with silver piqué, gilt metal mounts.
An overalled attendant nudged me and pointed to a small Persian box with an obscene painting in the lid, the woman bending over, the man approaching from behind. I looked away. ‘Very fine’ I muttered. He let out a noise which could have been the prelude to vomiting but which I knew to be a laugh. I decided to get back to the miniatures. I whipped round as I heard her voice behind me:
‘Look at this one: Venus and Cupid at the altar of love.’ Dinah was smiling at me and pointing to an ivory box. My catalogue provided me with inspiration.
‘I’d rather have an English oval memento mori pendant.’
‘Isn’t that a bit lugubrious of you? Come and see the one I want.’ Her smile was still there. I suppose in her place I would have found everything highly amusing. The miniature she wanted was by James Hone. I examined it carefully. A woman was sitting on a bench, which had an embroidered shawl hanging over the back. There were pearls in her powdered hair and she was wearing a dark-blue velvet dress. On her lap a King Charles spaniel looked up at her sharp features with an expression of imbecile devotion.
‘I like it‚’ I said.
‘No more than that?’ she said with mock disappointment.
‘The detail is fantastic of course,’ I added lamely.
‘Don’t you like the spaniel’s face?’
