The L-Shaped Room

by Lynne Reid Banks

  I felt strangely reluctant anyway. The same feeling of unease which had assailed me as we first entered now returned. I didn’t feel like getting jostled and bumped and pushed. But Toby had his arm round me and was firmly backing into the mass to establish a small beach-head for us away from the bar. Quite suddenly we were a part of that bouncing, pulsating entity; like single cells in a living organism, we seemed to be no longer individuals in the sense of having a separate identity; on every side we were hemmed in by other cells, as helplessly conformist as we were.

  Like many small men, Toby was a good dancer, or he could have been under more favourable circumstances. As it was we did what the others did – stayed more or less on our own little spot and moved to a rhythm we could sense in the movements of the others round us, rather than hear. Toby started off by holding me in the conventional way, with only one arm round me, but before long it was obvious that our other arms, stuck out as they were, were in imminent danger of being torn away; so he put both arms round my waist and I tucked my elbows in and rested my hands on his chest. In this position I felt in some way protected from the buffetings of the crowd. Before long our cheeks came together, but it was too hot to be comfortable; they stuck, and when the number ended they came apart with a peeling sound.

  ‘The heat in here’s frightful,’ I gasped as the coagulation broke up a little round us, restoring our right of individual movement.

  ‘You need another of those rum things.’

  ‘You must be mad! I want something iced.’

  ‘You just think you do. A hot drink’s much better for you. Like curry in India,’ he explained seriously.

  We were back at the bar. My eyes were smarting from the smoke and the top of my head felt as if someone were gently unscrewing it. ‘Anyway, you can’t afford it,’ I said, which was fatal, of course.

  ‘Who says I can’t? I sold an article a week ago, didn’t I?’ He ordered the rums, and when they came we fought our way into one of the dark corners of the room where there were a few tables and benches. There we sat down in the shadows, feeling aloof from the whirlpool centre of activity; from here we could stand aside, observe, and comment. We drank our drinks and watched curiously the goings-on in nearby shadows.

  ‘That one looks about thirteen,’ whispered Toby, indicating a girl in a cheap cottony sweater which showed her under-developed pointy little figure. A gangly boy of about the same age was leaning over her, touching the points with what appeared to be simple fascination. The girl wasn’t paying much attention; she was smoking a cigarette and occasionally brushed his hand away like a bothersome fly.

  ‘God, that’s terrible,’ said Toby under his breath.

  ‘Well, don’t keep looking at them, then,’ I said rather irritably. Something about the pair made me want to cry, and the sight of them gave me a physical pain too, in my breasts, a sort of sympathetic sensitiveness. I finished my drink and stood up. ‘Let’s go and see if John’s ready for a drink,’ I said, rather too loudly. Toby followed me willingly enough, but he seemed subdued.

  ‘A couple of babies like that,’ he said. ‘That girl – just bored with the whole thing, long before she knows what it’s supposed to be about.’ He was really shocked. He nodded his head towards another, much older, couple running their hands all over each other and laughing without pleasure into each other’s faces. ‘That sort of thing doesn’t bother me, somehow,’ he said. ‘It’s disgusting, but then so are lots of things; those two’d be pretty disgusting even if they weren’t touching each other. But that back there – that’s not disgusting – it’s sad. It’s tragic. She just doesn’t know what it’s about,’ he said again. He shook his head, frowning, as if bewildered.

  I had a frightened feeling that he mustn’t go on talking about them. In some oblique way, without knowing it, he was talking about me, he was telling me something about myself that I’d never allowed myself to know. There was a direct parallel somewhere; I wasn’t quite clear about it yet, but it was close; one step further in his thoughts, and he’d put it into words, words I didn’t want to hear …

  ‘Do let’s find John, he’ll think we’ve run out on him,’ I said urgently; but it was too late.

  ‘One of these days,’ Toby said, ‘that poor half-baked little bitch is going to have a baby, without ever having understood what love really means.’

  There it was; he’d said it, and I’d heard it, and it couldn’t be unsaid. It was true, and it was my truth; I understood it for the first time.

  I must have stopped moving, because he turned and came back to me and his face showed a sudden anxiety. ‘Jane, what is it? Aren’t you well, love? You’ve gone awfully pale …’ I couldn’t speak, nothing seemed worth saying or doing. I was right in the middle of a moment of truth, and it was still and quiet and empty in there, as it is supposed to be in the heart of a tornado.

  Then John came forcing his big flame-coloured chest through the crowd and said, ‘Hallo, there! I thought I never find you!’ And I came out at the other side of the moment; the truth was still there, and still just as terrible, but after all it was something I’d known before, really, only I’d never let myself look at it. The trouble was that now I’d been made to look at it I couldn’t seem to stop, the enormity of it kept shoving everything else out of my mind until I thought if I didn’t get rid of it for a while I’d start shouting and banging my head against a wall to drive it away. So I drank the new drink someone had given me and asked for another. After that I started to feel better in one way, but not altogether, because now I was getting drunk and I knew I was, and for the first time in my life I made myself go on drinking when I reached the stage of wanting to stop.

  I danced with Toby again and this time I didn’t notice the crowds; I seemed to be cushioned against everything around me, and in Toby’s arms I felt safely insulated. I rocked and floated gently and the pain was like the crowd, near and all round but unable to touch me.

  I don’t remember leaving the club, but I remember being in a taxi and saying to Toby, ‘I’ll pay for this,’ and him saying ‘This is my party, and I’m not sure this isn’t the best part of it.’ He put his arm round my shoulder and feeling it behind my neck I relaxed against it and I think I went to sleep, because the next thing was he was helping me up the stairs at the house; there were hundreds of flights, we kept finding more and more, and I kept going to sleep, and then the lights would come on again, and I was giggling because there were so many stairs and it kept being black and then light and then black again, like a checker board. Then at last we reached the top, and while Toby was fiddling with the key I thought I wouldn’t wait for him to open the door but would just lie down there and go to sleep, because I’d never in my whole life felt so tired.

  At last we got safely inside. Toby lit the table-lamp and the gas-fire, while I stood at the angle of the room looking at it. It looked better than it had ever looked, and I said to Toby, ‘It’s pleased to see us.’

  ‘What do you mean? What is?’

  ‘The room,’ I said. ‘It’s happy we’re home. It’s saying “Shalom”.’

  He stared at me. ‘How do you know that word?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it means “peace”.’

  ‘I know what it means,’ he said.

  Then I started to cry. It was because the little room was wishing me peace, and there wasn’t any peace, any more, ever. And because of the truth, too, the ugly truth about the sin I’d committed, the blasphemy of creating a life by accident, without understanding the true pleasure and beauty of love. Toby sat me on the bed and held my hands and said to me, ‘What is it, darling? Don’t cry, love, please, don’t, what is it, can’t you tell me?’– wiping my face with his handkerchief. And then he was taking the tears with his lips, he was kissing them away; he was kissing my eyes and my mouth and our arms were round each other, and somehow my crying changed, I wasn’t crying in despair and wretchedness any more, but with a kind of luxury. My tears weren’t co
ming out of pain now, but out of a new feeling, a feeling his lips were rousing, and his hands, and there was no part of my mind or body that wished to resist it, or had the strength to: without reasoning or doubting, all of me wanted what he wanted. But apart from that, there was a reason, a dark reason somewhere at the back of my mind that was urging me, that came from something I’d once heard or read that had lodged itself in my memory and rose up now and said that this might solve everything. But whatever wickedness in me added that vile motive to the other clean ones, was foiled and deluded; because if he had been my husband, and known I had his child in me, he couldn’t have been more gentle. And the thought that wasn’t really a thought fled before the pleasure I didn’t deserve, but which came anyway, swelling and overtaking, in a generous wild exploding splendour that I had thought I would never know.

  I hardly knew when it was over because that part was so wonderful too that I thought the magic would last forever. And when at last it began to fade, when I could begin to think again, his lips were still against my face and his arms warmly round me, and his voice murmuring to keep the frightened thoughts away.

  After a long time he lifted his face and it was a new face to me, as if I’d never seen it before. Then he grinned, and that was the same, a left-over from before, and said, ‘These idiotic beds aren’t big enough for one person, let alone two,’ and he rolled off and stood up. I clung on to his hand, in terror lest it should all become ordinary and awful with our physical separation; but he understood and bent towards me, whispering, ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’m not going. We can’t both sleep on that bed, but I’m going to pull up this chair and sit beside you all night.’ He reached out and caught the chair by the arm, and dragged it over one-handed so that he need not let my hand go. Then he sat down in it as close to me as he could get. He helped me to get between the sheets, and turned out the light, and I could still see him beside me in the half-darkness, and feel his hand holding mine.

  ‘You’ll be so tired …’ I began.

  ‘I’ll sleep, don’t you worry. And so will you. Go to sleep and don’t be unhappy about anything, and in the morning the first thing you’ll hear will be me telling you that I love you.’

  I slept because he had told me to. I dreamt no dreams, and in the morning the first thing I knew about was his hand, still in mine; I opened my eyes and there was his face, with the shadows deep on it, but awake and smiling; and before I had even moved he leaned over me and said, ‘Jane, I love you.’

  I closed my eyes and said to myself, Oh God, now what have I done?

  Chapter 8

  As with drinking, so with love – it’s the morning after that counts, often more than the night before. And on this morning, of all mornings, James phoned at the crack of dawn and asked me to preside over a ridiculous Press party. Shivering at the landing extension, I heard his brisk boisterous voice rattling on about the historic meeting of a famous comic and a famous bust who were going to make a film together. ‘The whole thing’s a farce, of course, they’ve known and loathed each other for years, but the official version of this world-shaking meeting of titans has to take place in public where it can be duly recorded – and one of us must be there, and why should it be me on a Sunday morning when I’ve got an angelic assistant? You don’t mind, do you, Jane dear, dear Jane?’ I said no, I didn’t mind, feeling nothing but numbness and coldness.

  Toby stood at my elbow, and when I’d hung up and told him said, with a strange urgency, almost like despair: ‘No, no, not this Sunday, for Christ’s sake, can’t you get out of it?’ And I said no, I simply couldn’t, banishing the thought that I probably could, quite easily, just by ringing James back and sounding a bit pathetic. I got ready with ludicrous haste (why? I kept thinking. There’s no real hurry, it’s not till 11.30) chatting brightly to hide the hollow empty absence of anything at all in the way of feeling, and kept my eyes off Toby’s face which had a look on it as if someone were dragging his insides out.

  When I was ready I went and stood beside him and touched his shadow-stained tired face and said, ‘You look dead, Toby. Go to bed and get some sleep. Please. I’ll be back before you wake up.’

  He pushed his face awkwardly into my hand, nuzzling it like a puppy, and then suddenly grabbed it in both his and kissed it. ‘I wish you weren’t going out now,’ he mumbled into the palm.

  ‘I wish not too,’ I said, not knowing what I wished.

  He came down to the front door with me. There was no one about and he kissed my cheek and looked at me speechlessly. ‘Don’t look like that,’ I said, trying to laugh. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours!’ I started off, but he stopped me.

  ‘You’re not sorry?’

  I had so hoped he wouldn’t ask that. But as he had, I could only give him the answer he needed, without knowing for sure whether it was true or not. ‘Of course not, darling!’ The endearment eased the expression of pain on his face a little, but still he held me and still he searched my eyes for something I knew wasn’t there.

  ‘You haven’t said you love me,’ he said in a low voice.

  My heart almost stopped with its own heaviness. I closed my eyes.

  Quite suddenly, he let me go and his voice changed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding as he might have sounded yesterday. ‘I am an idiot. How could you say that yet?’ I looked at him, surprised at his quick recovery, but then I saw he hadn’t really recovered, he was just pretending in order not to hurt me. ‘Go on,’ he said lightly, ‘quick, or you’ll get the sack. And when you’ve done your duty, come ’ome, Jim Edwards.’ He kissed me again, a different, unanguished sort of kiss which was somehow much more difficult to bear than the other.

  Sitting in the train, with a Sunday paper which I’d automatically bought lying unopened on my knee, I felt a sense of relief at being away from him, at being surrounded by a lot of impersonal uncaring strangers who could see nothing different about me because they’d never seen me before last night. I was sure I must look a different person, that my guilt and radiance must have transfigured me.

  I struggled to make some sense of this new and appalling complication. This time yesterday I would have said that what had happened last night was a laughable impossibility. I had done nothing to precipitate it; on that score at least my conscience was clear. Until the very last minute I had had no idea it could happen. But it had happened, and happened in a way that changed me, changed Toby, changed everything. Everything except the one thing that needed changing; that alone remained unspeakably the same.

  Why, why hadn’t I told Toby about it long ago? Then this would never have happened, or if it had (I couldn’t bring myself to unwish an experience which still washed over me with waves of delight when I remembered it) at least Toby would have known what he was doing, his eyes would have been open. He wouldn’t be suffering now, and he wouldn’t have to suffer more, oh, how much more, later, when I told him … To think of telling him, now, made me feel sick with horror.

  I was almost afraid to examine my feelings for him. It seemed dreadful that I didn’t know whether I loved him or not, that I had never even thought of it in those terms. Everything had happened in the wrong order, and now I had to try to bring my feelings up to counter-balance the overpowering weight of this physical attraction which had sprung up out of nowhere and knocked me sideways. I closed my eyes and tried to think of Toby – just his face. What came was a sort of double-image – the boy I had known up to yesterday, young, grubby, entertaining, kind, lively, with his impish, monkey-plainness; and the face I had seen last night for the first time, a face wiped clean of everything but rapture and tenderness and astonishment, a different face, a face to love and find beautiful. They were the faces of two entirely separate people, and try as I would to superimpose them they wouldn’t focus into a single man for whom I had a single, straightforward feeling.

  As I came into the hotel I tried to project myself back into a time when I’d have been thinking – ‘Sunday press party, rather fun. Wonder if
old so-and-so will turn up?’ Now my mind was so burdened with problems I couldn’t even remember what James had said the party was about. I had to ask the man at the desk which room the reception was in; he mentioned the two famous names, and then I remembered, Oh yes, the phoney meeting. Several of the photographers and columnists were already drifting in in the hope of an early drink (they’d be unlucky – we couldn’t serve drinks before twelve). I nodded to them, but when they looked at me I turned away quickly, for fear I should see them exchange puzzled glances.

  I hurried into my own office, locked the door and stood before the mirror. Apart from the fact that I’d put my make-up on badly in my haste, I looked fairly normal – a bit flushed, maybe, and my eyes seemed unusually bright, but perhaps they only looked that way to me. I sat down behind my desk and tried to pull myself together; I was trembling suddenly, and I felt the hollowness inside me growing into a pain. I remembered I’d had nothing to eat or drink before leaving the house, and thought how awful that I hadn’t even made Toby a cup of tea before obeying my impulse to run.

  There would be hot coffee in the reception. That was what I needed – strong hot coffee. But something kept me sitting at the desk. I hated the idea of going in there among all those cheerful, back-slapping journalists with their good-natured vulgarity and genial earthy humour. I felt naked and horribly vulnerable, like a snail with its shell off; every nerve was close to the surface; I thought if anyone so much as touched me, I’d scream. Suddenly I wanted Toby, very much; I knew now how he felt when I left him. In a sense we were still in the aftermath of being one person. I realized suddenly that that was why lovers always feel the need to sleep together after making love, and to rest and be together the next day. They’ve been joined and need time to separate again into two complete people; if they’re torn apart too soon there’s a spiritual bleeding. I was beginning to understand a lot I’d never known about before, and for the first time that day Toby’s fatal unthinking words came back to me: ‘One day she’ll have a baby without ever having understood what love really means.’ Perhaps that wasn’t completely true of me any longer. Certainly the sting had gone out of the words; I could think of them without being quite so ashamed.