‘I rang about lunch,’ she said, blushing. ‘You said I should. I hate those machines.’
‘At least you had the guts to speak. You wouldn’t believe how many people just hang up. I can’t bear it when I get back and there are flashing lights and I get all excited about my messages and then it’s a great yawning silence punctuated by bleeps.’
They smiled at each other. He was aware of how childish he had made himself sound, and how much they were both smiling, goodwill overflowing everywhere. He did hope she wasn’t a virgin: he wasn’t sure he could face such a responsibility. Two or three clumsy lovers ahead of him would be fine.
‘This is nice,’ he said, indicating Mozart on the stereo.
‘I told you I could be civilised.’ Now it was like role reversal, with Sally trying hard to be grown up. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘No, thanks.’ He was going to need to be clearheaded. ‘I just had a couple with my agent. Poor woman, she did her best to motivate me, but it’s uphill work.’ He paused: the pink dress seemed demanding of his attention. ‘You look very smart.’
‘Do I? I was going out but it’s been cancelled.’
He didn’t believe a word of it and he was touched. Kids didn’t go out with each other dressed like that. She was dressing for him.
‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘As we’ve both been stood up, why don’t we have dinner together instead of lunch?’
‘That would be lovely,’ she said, sounding demure.
He took her to one of the clutch of restaurants he had collected over the years, near the flat for instant seduction (though he was not expecting that tonight) and also to minimise drunken driving, absurd expense and detection by Elizabeth or one of her friends. One could never be sure, of course, but by now he had half a dozen of these places that he thought of as safe houses but which were yet glamorous enough to gratify his companion. Sally, in any case, was too young to be fussy, and tonight they were actually innocent enough to afford discovery, though of course it was always better avoided. He found himself still taking refuge behind school and asking her about her set books, which seemed a pure enough topic, but even so there was a strong sexual undercurrent to the conversation, as if they were speaking in code or a foreign language which both could translate at will.
‘Othello’s a bit weird,’ Sally said. ‘I don’t really understand about jealousy. Why couldn’t he talk to her? It somehow spoils it that it was all a misunderstanding – like the letter going astray in Romeo and Juliet. I hate things to happen by accident.’
‘A lot of things do in real life,’ said Felix, thinking that this evening was one of them.
‘Yes, but not like that. It’s the same in Tess and I always feel it’s a cheat.’
‘You look rather like Tess,’ said Felix, still fascinated by her mouth.
‘Do I?’ She sounded pleased but embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause.
‘What about Vanity Fair?’ He was longing to get off these academic topics yet somehow unable to. He began to understand why he had never bothered with someone so young before: it was simply too much effort.
‘Well, it’s too long.’
‘Most books are. Except mine, of course.’
‘And it’s sad.’
‘Sad?’ He was surprised. ‘Most people find it amusing. Well – a good read, anyway.’
‘Yes, it is, in a way, but… oh, it’s so sad when Dobbin finally gets Amelia and then he doesn’t really appreciate her.’
‘He’d waited too long,’ said Felix, identifying with the poor sod.
‘Yes, but that shouldn’t matter – not if he really wanted her.’
God, the idealism of youth. ‘Oh, but it does. Timing is very important. It’s like catching the tide.’
‘If I really loved someone,’ Sally said, looking him straight in the eyes, ‘it wouldn’t matter how long I had to wait.’
‘If I really loved someone,’ Felix said, looking straight back at her, ‘I’d want them right away.’
Suddenly he had the feeling that they were having an important conversation. There was quite a heavy silence while they applied themselves to their food and wine; he could almost feel the weight of their thoughts. When Sally spoke again it was as if they had reached a different level of intimacy.
‘Did you mean what you said the other night – about losing your nerve?’
‘Yes.’ He never bothered to lie if it wasn’t essential. ‘Not very glamorous, is it? When you’re young you’ve nothing to lose, but later on, there’s everything at stake.’
She seemed to identify with that, leaning forward as if to touch him, reminding him with her body that they still hadn’t touched. He hoped he wouldn’t have to spend so much time getting to know her that by the time they finally did touch all the excitement would be gone.
‘But you’ll always have what you’ve done,’ she said, sounding envious. ‘I haven’t done anything yet.’
‘You’ve got it all ahead of you,’ he said, thinking how young she was.
‘But suppose I never do anything worthwhile.’
‘I don’t think that’s very likely. What d’you want to do?’
‘Well, I’ve always thought…’ She looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, it sounds awful saying this to you – I’d like to write but I’m not very good. I keep a diary but…’
‘That's a start,’ he said encouragingly.
‘Now you’re being kind. You must be sick of people telling you they want to write. I bet it happens all the time.’
‘Now and then.’ Millions of would-be writers swarmed before his eyes, accosting him at every turn, everywhere he went, and he saw himself with a machine gun, mowing them down and laughing. ‘Most of them don’t really mean it.’
‘I do, but I’m not sure I’m single-minded enough. There are so many other things I want to do as well.’
He smiled; he knew the feeling well. ‘Such as?’
‘Oh, just living. But when I say that to Mum, she says, “Well, it’s not a career.”’
Felix laughed; it sounded so much like Helen. Helen whom he would never have, no matter what he did, no matter how long he waited.
Sally said, ‘D’you want to write more than anything else in the world?’
‘Not any more.’ How long ago it seemed. ‘I used to, when I was young. Now I just want to be happy.’
‘Before they drop the Bomb,’ she said, as if she understood.
‘Before I get run over,’ said Felix, with deep anxiety at the knowledge of his own mortality. ‘In case I die in the night.’
* * *
In fact Felix loathed writing. Like acting, he thought, it was not a job for a grown man: pretending to be someone else. Unlike acting, it could only be done alone, in an empty room, so it did not even offer the consolation of sociability, though you did get to play all the parts. It was a sick profession; there was no doubt about that. No wonder they all talked about money: it was comforting to pretend to themselves and to others that was why they wrote. Too alarming to admit that they were addicted to sitting alone in a room facing the blank sheet of paper, making up stories about people who did not exist, people who were their other selves whom even the shrink could not tolerate, spinning a web of words from their own entrails until they went mad with the loneliness of it all and escaped to be interviewed on television.
At the same time it was the ideal life. Your time was your own; you were answerable to no one. You had the satisfaction of creation, and your work, when good (or lucky) enough, could keep you in idleness for years. People confided in you and lusted after you, because you had, it seemed, the combined allure of psychiatrist, magician and priest. It amazed Felix that you were not seen instead as someone who had been granted a licence to remain a child for ever, someone to be pitied as well as envied, because only children were allowed to live in a world of make-believe. Felix felt about his profession as he might about a woman he detested but with whom he was violently in love – alternately sickened a
nd thrilled. He saw all writers, especially himself, as social misfits who could only exist in the world by withdrawing from it, as if into a secular monastery, from which they emerged at intervals to be reassured, flattered and paid.
Tony Blythe had come into Felix’s life almost by accident. After his first three novels, a university trilogy entitled Going Up, Up and About, and Coming Down, which were praised by the critics and made no money at all, he had come to an end of all possible postgraduate grants, dabbled in journalism, and married Elizabeth, letting her keep him while he wrote The Heartbreak Merchant, in which a lot of women fell in love with a man who treated them badly. This made a great deal of money, thanks to the tough bargaining of Felix’s agent, Natasha Blor: paperback, American and foreign rights rolled in, and in due course the film, with a script by Felix rewritten by a well-known playwright and further rewritten by the sister of the producer’s mistress. The critics all agreed that the book and the film were rubbish, and Felix was suddenly, by his own rather low standards, rich.
He was bemused by the turn of events. He had in fact thought of his first three novels very much as prentice work, salad days produce; but he had poured his soul into The Heartbreak Merchant, which he truly believed was a work of genius, though he agreed with the critics about the film. It was very pleasant to be rich, and for a year or two, or three, he was able to drift along doing interviews and taking expensive holidays and thinking about his next novel, until he finally had to face the fact that he didn’t have an idea in his head. Natasha was nagging him, ever mindful of her ten per cent, but Felix felt frozen in his success, like a fish in a block of ice. Everyone now expected more of the same: because he had done it once, he could do it again, that was how the thinking went, which could hardly be further from the truth. He had no idea how he had done it once and there didn’t seem the remotest chance of his doing it again. Besides, that was all there was: he had written about himself at university and about his marriage to Elizabeth and about screwing around and about his mother, and that was it. He had done it. Unless his life changed dramatically, there was nothing more to write about. He was a journalist masquerading as a novelist: his style had carried him through, but he had run out of material.
He was then thirty-two and beginning to panic, because he had grown rapidly used to the fruits of success and saw no way of replacing them when they had rotted away. Accustomed to poverty once, he found the prospect of returning to it, after being comparatively rich, quite intolerable. The terrible spectre of job-hunting danced before him: interviews leading to rejection (a blow to the ego) or to acceptance and regular hours (worse). Besides, what was he equipped to do except write or (God forbid) teach others to write? He was virtually unemployable and becoming more so all the time.
‘I did like that detective of yours,’ Elizabeth said idly one evening when they were watching a thriller on television. ‘Much more fun than this lot.’
‘Which detective?’ said Felix, who had stopped rereading his own work in case it turned out to be not as good as he thought.
‘The one in Heartbreak Merchant. When she’s on drugs.’
‘Oh yes. He was rather good.’ Felix glanced at Elizabeth affectionately. She had praised every other aspect of the book in immense detail: she must really think he needed cheering up if she resorted to praising minor characters like Tony Blythe. All the same, the idea took root, and next day he looked at one of his many copies of the book and found the relevant chapter. Elizabeth was quite right: Tony Blythe was a sexy, sardonic cop, destined for a book of his own; he had been carelessly tossed into the already rich brew of The Heartbreak Merchant back in the golden days when Felix’s imagination was fertile enough to be liberal with all his inventions.
He began writing with something like his original excitement. He wanted, while remaining uniquely himself, to achieve a blend of Simenon and Chandler; he wanted also to have fun. It seemed a chance to deal with sex and violence, death and depravity, without incurring disapproval. Tony Blythe, while basically the guy in the white hat, would have endearing human flaws such as a weakness for women and a tendency to thump people he knew were guilty. Felix swiftly got him out of the police force, after he framed some heroin dealers, and into more profitable pastures as a private investigator. Technically it was just as difficult as writing a straight novel, but it had the attraction of novelty and it also spared him from delving too deeply into himself, from being obliged to mine a seam that he feared was exhausted.
Still smarting from the annihilation of his film script, Felix began by having Tony Blythe investigate the murder of a film producer (the greatest problem being the multiplicity of suspects). Death on the Set was a success, and Felix, encouraged, killed off his agent, of whom he was actually quite fond, in The Ten Per Cent Murder, and moved on to exterminate his obliging bank manager (Death in the Red) and his accountant (Death Ledger) before turning his attention to his publisher (Murder Jacket). Elizabeth then fancied a holiday in France, so Felix wrote A Nose for Murder while they disported themselves in Grasse. It occurred to him that Tony Blythe was his passport to anywhere in the world on tax deductible expenses: drilling for oil (Death Rig) or lounging in the Caribbean (Murder Calypso).
A television series was under way, with scripts written by Felix, so he and Elizabeth made the decision to live abroad, wherever the fancy took them, away from British taxes and British weather. One or two Tony Blythe books a year was the plan, to finance the gypsy life. Unspoken but heavily present in the air between them was Felix’s dream of writing a worthy successor to The Heartbreak Merchant, something moving and significant, witty and incisive, a social commentary, a human document. In short, a masterpiece.
Nothing happened. He wrote less and less. They moved from one haven to another, diverted at first by the scenery, the customs, the language, the climate; buoyed up by the effort involved in setting up and dismantling a new home each time. Then they began to quarrel, because they were thrown back upon themselves, marooned in a foreign country without their familiar support system of theatres, cinemas, galleries and friends. They did not trust the natives, who were always so tiresomely foreign, and they did not trust the expats, who were never the sort of English people they would have chosen to know in England. So they clung together like siblings at an alien boarding-school, and inevitably started to fight. This alarmed them because it was not their way; it was not natural to them. They were used to diplomacy and evasion. Now there was nowhere safe to go to relieve the tensions of their relationship: they had not realised before how much they depended upon frequent retreat to achieve close harmony.
They could not discuss this new problem overtly, for they were not programmed for confrontation, but they made discreet sideways movements, crab-like, which they both understood very well, in the direction of England and home, gradually edging nearer as they had originally edged further away, and inevitably ended up in Ireland. Their letters to Helen and Richard were almost a signal of distress, a flare sent up on a dark night over the sea.
* * *
Once again in the car on the way home the atmosphere was as highly charged as it had been on the drive back from the disco. He thought it had something to do with the lack of space, with being together in a small dark place and looking out at the lighted world, as if they were in a tent or on a boat. He wanted to talk about something important, so he asked her if she saw anything of her father these days.
‘No, I haven’t seen him since I was little.’ She sounded sad but resigned, as if she didn’t expect to see him ever again. ‘I often think about him. Sometimes I hear one of his concerts and I try to pretend I can pick him out – you know, I think, now which viola is he? And I sort of imagine he sounds better than the others. It’s silly really.’
‘Would you like to see him again?’
‘In a way. But Mum might feel I was being disloyal and Richard might be hurt. Anyway, I hardly remember him. We might not get on. And now he’s got Marsha and all those children, he probab
ly doesn’t think about me much.’
Felix said with feeling, ‘I should have thought he’d be haunted by you.’ At that moment they were driving past his flat and on a sudden impulse he pointed out the building to her. ‘That’s where I work. Top floor. Why don’t you ring the bell one day? Then you wouldn’t get that awful machine. I often leave it on when I’m working.’
‘All right,’ she said, very small, and he felt as if they were conspirators. There was a scent in the car that he now identified as vanilla; whether it was soap or perfume or simply skin, it was the essence of Sally and made him think that kissing her, making love to her, would be like eating ice-cream, a childish, nourishing, exuberant pleasure.
There were lights on in the house when they got back, so he drove past it and parked round the corner. It seemed very dangerous for Richard and Helen to discover them together unless they had agreed to tell the truth. And if they did, that could mean there was no future for them.
‘Thank you for dinner,’ Sally said, like a well-brought-up child. ‘It’s been a lovely evening.’ But he thought he heard a wistful note of disappointment or even frustration in her voice, and he was pleased. The more he could make her want him and keep her waiting, the less chance there would be of her rejecting him when he made his move; the less blame would attach to him if, God forbid, they were ever found out. It was vital to avoid a situation where he was pursuing her and she had the power: however flattered she might be, that could turn him simultaneously into victim and dirty old man, both unrewarding roles, to be avoided if at all possible.
‘It’s funny,’ he said. ‘I feel as if we’ve only just met.’
‘So do I,’ Sally said, sounding relieved.
A Sense of Guilt Page 6