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  She’d come straight from the studio and her shoes had drips of paint on them. They were scarlet, old-fashioned, with a thin strap and a buckle. Tap shoes, character shoes? Something like that. I thought they were rather sweet.

  Gillian Stuart is extraordinarily generous. I mean just that. If he was ordinarily generous, it would be easier to say: no thank you, we’ll carry on as we are, we’ll look after ourselves, thank you very much. But he doesn’t rush in with vague good will, he thinks about what we need, and that’s hard to resist. The girls call him Just Stuart, like a sheriff or something. In a funny way it’s appropriate: he is just.

  Oliver says I’m being stubborn and proud, holding out. I don’t think it’s that. What’s at the back of my mind isn’t the what but the why. We’re all behaving as if Stuart is trying to make amends now that he can afford to. Which isn’t the case at all. The opposite is—or ought to be—the case. Oliver doesn’t seem to take this in. He somehow assumes that because he, Stuart, has made a success of things, then he, Oliver, ought to benefit. So he thinks I’m being too scrupulous, and I think he’s being too complacent. And Stuart’s there saying: here’s the answer, it’s obvious. Is it?

  Stuart The lettings agency thought it might take six months or more to get the tenants out. I explained about moving in myself, but they said proper notice had to be given, and so on. They didn’t seem to get my point, so I went round to the house itself. It was a bit strange, going back, but I tried to concentrate on the job in hand. The house is divided into three tenancies. I saw them all separately. I made them an offer. I explained how long it would stay open, and that it was no use to me unless all three tenancies agreed. I was perfectly straightforward about it. Well, I may have invented a pregnant wife returning from the States. Something of the kind.

  There’s no need to look at me like that. I wasn’t throwing orphans out into the snow. I wasn’t using a gang of bully-boys. I was just suggesting a deal. It’s exactly the same as when you check in for a flight and the plane’s overbooked and they offer you a hundred quid if you’ll take a later flight. If you’re in a hurry and don’t care about a hundred quid, you wouldn’t give it a thought; if you’re a student with lots of time on your hands, it sounds like a nice idea. Money in exchange for inconvenience. You’re not obliged to accept, and you don’t hold it against the airline.

  People understand about deals, they’re not shocked by them any more, and they appreciate cash in hand. I told them the law was quite clear about my right to eventual repossession. I agreed it was a nice place: that’s why I’d lived there all those years ago and wanted to come back. I emphasized the desirability of a quick solution. I suggested they put their heads together. I had a pretty good idea what would happen. They gave me a No which meant Yes Maybe and which I then converted into Yes Please. I gave them half up front and the other half when they moved out. I asked for a signature. Not for the tax authorities—perish the thought!—just for my own records.

  Money for inconvenience. What’s wrong with that?

  Oliver and Gillian hadn’t quite made up their minds, but when I said the house was theirs in thirty days, it did seem to become more of a reality for them. I expected some last, extra condition. There usually is one when people are about to get what they want. It’s as if they can’t accept the simplicity of the fact, they’ve got to complicate it, impose their will in some unimportant way. Yes, I’ll buy your car but only if you throw in the furry dice dangling from the rear-view mirror.

  Gillian said, ‘But there’s one thing. You aren’t allowed to buy us a cat.’

  Typical Gillian. Anyone else would ask for more, she asks for less.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. And I took the hint. I cancelled the new dishwasher I’d ordered. I decided against having the place redecorated. Just a bit of making good after the tenants left. It wouldn’t do Oliver any harm to get down to some DIY.

  I also thought, once they’re in, I’ll leave them to themselves. I’ve been neglecting my work a bit. Maybe it’s time to look for a new pork supplier. I could widen the range of tofu savouries. And what about ostrich? I’ve always instinctively thought not, but I may be wrong. Perhaps it’s time for a customer survey.

  Terri Get him to show the photograph.

  10

  CONDOMS

  Ellie Condoms, every time. Every single time until he’s had an AIDS test and I’m standing at the altar. I only trust what I can see. You would too if you’d known some of the boys I have. And some of the men. Not that men are any more truthful than boys. OK, call them all men for the moment, even the boys, and ask yourself this question: if there was a male pill, one they could take every day, and every time they took it they’d be infertile for a 24-hour period, and if it was them that had to say, ‘It’s all right, I’m on the pill,’ then what percentage of times, when you heard that line, would they be telling the truth? Forty to 45 would be my guess. OK, you’re less cynical, you say 60, no you say 80, maybe 90. Maybe even 95. Is that enough? Not for me. 99.99 recurring isn’t enough for me. Knowing my luck I’d get the 0.01 that didn’t recur.

  No. Condoms, every time.

  And I don’t mean I want to get married. And if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be in a church.

  Stuart I don’t mind. I mean, there are pros and cons to every method. I don’t think it’s a big question, unless someone has strong feelings on the matter. As they say, Passion Overcomes All. Or something. It’s just a technicality. Really, I don’t mind.

  Oliver Argumentation, per et contra, by one versed in venery, one slick in the salmon subtlety of the heat-seeking spermatozoon, one as familar with man-made barricades as any Communard.

  (1) The French letter, English overcoat, or (as our Slavic cousins so depressingly put it) the galosh. Indeed, something of the rubber overshoe does hang about this device. Call me an aesthete if you dare, but consider the ramifications—semiotically, psychologically—of the man who puts a teat on the end of his todger. And while its presence may furnish comfort and resolve to those of a hair-trigger disposition, the aftermath has always struck me as adorned with tristesse. That first moment of withdrawal, the fingers nervously locating the thickened quoit, and then the long lubricated pull. Why am I always reminded of those prisoner-of-war films when the escape tunnel has collapsed and the smothering RAF officer has to be hauled out by his heels? And then, to be presented with the dangling evidence of one’s deed, as an infant is proudly shown its potty. A lightning strike of cosmic melancholy is appropriate at that moment, surely?

  (2) The diaphragm, cap, or (that extinct flightless South American bird) the pessary. Waiting out the inamorata’s visit to the bathroom—always a detumescing blip on the graph of action. The longbow is drawn and taut, the archer straining at his aim, when Henry V—or, more likely, Bardolph—orders him to return the arrow to the quiver pro tem. Ah well, time to hum a little gamelan music to oneself en attendant. Then there is the question as to whether lingual delight is enhanced or not by the flavour of lubricating gel. For a rare and happy few, perhaps it is.

  (3) The pill. Ah, flesh on flesh, the careless rapture, the shame-free Adam-and-Eveing of it all. As the motorist’s life was transformed by the self-starter, so was the sensualist’s by the pill. After that, everything else felt like hand-cranking.

  (4) What is called the female condom. No personal knowledge or experience here, but is it not, must it not, be like fucking a groundsheet? Perhaps useful for those fetishized by early scouting experiences.

  (5) Vasectomy. It’s the-ectomy that puts me off.

  (6) Non-penetrative sex. Waiter, I’ll have the three-course dinner, please. An amuse-gueule, a palate-cleansing sorbet, and a decaf espresso.

  (7) Semi-penetrative sex, time-delay systems, karezza, withdrawal, mutual masturbation, sleeping naked with a sharpened sword between you, Scotch love (as the French wittily denote dry-humping), twin beds, chastity belts, celibacy, the Gandhi option … all that impedes the true meeting of true bodies: forget it. For-f
ucking-get it.

  Gillian It’s always a compromise, isn’t it? I mean, unless you’re doing your best to get pregnant. The pill made me feel bloated. The coil made me bleed more than usual, and I never quite trusted it since the day a friend’s Copper 7 came out with the placenta of her first child. So it’s the old choice between condom and diaphragm. Oliver hates condoms. Actually, it’s more that he isn’t all that good at using them (which is why he hates them). And there’s something a bit passion-killing about Oliver cursing and struggling from the other side of the bed—almost as if it was my fault—and on more than one occasion flinging the thing across the room in a pet. For a time we solved this by me putting them on him. He liked being mothered in this way. But that was around the time he got depressed, and he sometimes—well, quite often, actually—used to lose his erection in the middle of things. Which used to make me anxious as well, in case, you know, it fell off inside me.

  So that leaves the diaphragm. Which isn’t perfect. But at least I’m in control. Which is what I want. And, I think, what Oliver wants.

  Oliver Meant to say. When we lived in France. Buying condoms. You ask for préservatifs. Monsieur Druggist, it’s the jam-making season again. A sachet of preservatives if you please. Odd that a Catholic country should make them sound like life-savers, when in fact they are the opposite. ‘Packet of sperm-assassins, please’: that’s what you’d expect, wouldn’t you? What are they meant to preserve? The health of the mother, the boiler pressure of the father?

  Terri I guess it was a year or so into our marriage. Before we saw the therapist, anyway. I date it to the time Stuart started getting in shape. The step machine in the apartment, trips to the gym, Sunday-morning jogging. Stuart taking his pulse while the sweat broke out on his forehead. It was kind of cute in a way. It was a health thing. I suppose that’s obvious. What I mean is, I thought at the time it was only a health thing.

  He didn’t like me being on the pill full-time. We had a few jokes about genetic modification and preferring organic produce, and so forth. He suggested the morning-after pill. Lower hormone dosage into the body, no interference with sex-life: made sense. I’d been using it a couple of months when one Sunday morning I can’t find my pills. I’m not the tidiest person in the world, but there’s always a few things a woman knows where she keeps and one is control of her own fertility. Stuart is pretty calm about it, and I’m getting a little crazy and end up calling drugstores to see who’s open and driving halfway across town. Actually, Stuart’s driving, and I’m going Faster, faster, and he says, It doesn’t work like that, but I don’t think either of us knows. I’m worried that when the car hits a bump it will, like, help things on their way.

  A few days later, I find my pills, underneath some Kleenex. How did they get there? Brain damage, I think. A couple of months go by, another Sunday morning, again I can’t find my pills, and like the last occasion, I realise it’s really high-risk time. Stuart’s up already, on his step machine, and I just rush at him and go, ‘Did you hide my fucking pills, Stuart?,’ and he’s Mr Calm, Mr Sensible, and swears he hasn’t and just carries on stepping up and stepping down, and then he reaches for his pulse and I just lose it. I push him off the machine and go downstairs in my robe and bare feet and get in the car and head across town to the drugstore. The same clerk serves me, and he gives me an eyebrow, like, Lady, get your life together. So I do and I go back on the pill. The before pill, the always pill.

  Mme Wyatt Quelle insolence!

  11

  NOT A BOWERBIRD

  Stuart Gillian told me, in strictest confidence, that Oliver had a bit of a mini-breakdown after his father died. I said, ‘But he hated his father. He was always going on about him.’ Gillian said, ‘I know.’

  I thought about this for a long time. Mme Wyatt gave me a complicated explanation in several parts. I gave her a much simpler one: Oliver is a liar. Always has been. So maybe he didn’t really hate his father, just pretended to in order to get sympathy. Maybe he really loved him, so when he died Oliver felt not just grief but guilt at having slagged him off all those years, and the guilt provoked the breakdown. How about that?

  What did Gillian say, when I went to dinner with them? ‘Oliver, you’re always getting things wrong.’ That’s from someone who knows him inside out. He thinks the truth is bourgeois. He thinks lying’s romantic. Time to grow up, Oliver.

  Terri He still hasn’t shown the photograph, has he? Do you think a subpoena will work?

  Stuart And while we’re clearing things up: Terri. I was married to Terri for five years. We got on. It just didn’t pan out. I didn’t treat her badly or anything. I wasn’t unfaithful. Nor was she, I hasten to add. She had a slight problem with … the previous incumbent, but that was all. We got on. It just didn’t pan out.

  Terri You see, basically what I was up against with Stuart was all that fucking reasonableness. He comes on like this nice, normal guy. And that’s not wrong, so far as it goes. He’s straight with you, he’s honest—up to the point where he can’t see when he’s being dishonest. So what else is new? I don’t know how far he’s a typical Brit, so I don’t want to put down, like, the whole nation. But he’s about the most secretive guy I’ve ever met, emotionally, I mean. You ask Stuart to talk about his needs and he looks at you as if you’re some kind of New Age kook. You ask him to define his expectations of a relationship and his face is like you’ve said something obscene.

  Look. The evidence. The photograph. I need some money. Stuart tells me to take a fifty from his wallet, a photo falls out, I look at it, I say, ‘Stuart, who’s this?’ He goes, ‘Oh, that’s Gillian.’ The first wife. Yeah, sure, why shouldn’t he, and all that. In the wallet, two, three years into our marriage, well, why not? I’ve never seen her picture before, but, hey, why should I have?

  ‘Stuart, is there anything you’d like to tell me about this?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ he says.

  ‘Sure?’ I say.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I mean, that’s Gillian.’ He takes the photo and puts it back in his wallet.

  I book the marriage therapist, naturally.

  We last about eighteen minutes. I explain that basically my problem with Stuart is getting him to talk about our problems. Stuart says, ‘That’s because we don’t have any problems.’ I say, ‘You see the problem?’

  We chase that around the block for a while. Then I say, ‘Show the photograph.’

  Stuart says, ‘I haven’t got it.’

  I say, ‘But you’ve carried it around with you every day for the whole of our marriage.’ I’m guessing, but he doesn’t deny it.

  ‘Well, I haven’t got it today.’

  I turn to the therapist, who is (a) a woman, and (b) the least flaky person in the world, and therefore (c) chosen to help Stuart take the lid off himself a little, and I say to her, ‘My husband carries around with him in his wallet a photo of his first wife. It’s in color, and it’s a little out of focus, and it’s been taken from above, from an angle, I guess, with a long sort of lens, and it shows his wife, his ex-wife, looking terrified, with blood on her face, as if she’s been beaten up, and she’s holding a baby, and to be honest when I saw it I thought she was a refugee from a war zone or something, but it’s just his ex-wife looking like she’s screaming, with blood on her face, that’s all. And he carries it around with him. Every day of our marriage.’

  There was a long pause. Finally Dr Harries, who has been strictly neutral, strictly non-judgemental for like sixteen minutes, says, ‘Stuart, would you care to speak to that?’

  And Stuart says, in his most tight-assed way, ‘No, I wouldn’t care to.’ And he gets up and leaves.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ I ask.

  The therapist explains it’s a rule of the practice that both partners have to be present before she will make any comments or suggestions. All I’m asking for is an opinion, a simple fucking opinion, but I don’t even get that.

  So I leave, and I’m not at all surprised that Stuart
is waiting in the car for me and he drives me home while we talk about the restaurant. As if he hadn’t taken offense—which in a way he hadn’t, I suppose. He just wanted out of there.

  I give it one more try, later that day. I say, ‘Stuart, did you do that to her?’

  And he says, ‘No.’

  I believe him. I mean, it’s important to say that. I absolutely believe him. I just don’t know him. Who’s in there? He’d be a great guy to love if you didn’t need to ask yourself that question.

  Oliver Do you remember Mrs Dyer? My concierge and Cerbera at number 55 when I roosted across the road from the newly nuptualised Hugheses (how I hated that plural). There was a diseased monkey-puzzle tree in the front garden, and a gate that winced and ailed. I offered to mend it, but she claimed that there was nothing wrong with it. Unlike moi. I was bruised and she tended me. The pages of her own life were by now well foxed; her head sat on her spine like a drooped sunflower upon its stalk; her white hair was reverting to biscuit. I would gaze tenderly upon her incipient tonsure, a breathing hole in a pie-crust.

  A sudden fear: might she be dead, replaced by some confident young couple who have rehued her ochre door, hung cheery Roman blinds in her windows and levelled the tree to make off-road parking for the family space-wagon? Oh, please be there for me still, Mrs Dyer. The deaths of those we have known but passingly strike a different note, the celeste rather than the mighty tubular bell, yet they are a surer mark of time’s relentless betrayal. The deaths of those close to us may well be the ‘life events’ beloved of The Men Who Guess; but the deaths of those who enter but fleetingly the orchestral score of our lives make us whiff the marsh gas of mortality.