Sextet

by Sally Beauman

  ‘Sexual power?’ he said. ‘Come on, Katya—that’s a nineteenth-century novel. Closed bedroom doors.’

  ‘No-one screws, you mean?’ Katya, still concentrated, typed a final blistering sentence. She leaned back in her chair, removed her spectacles and smiled. ‘That doesn’t matter. In fact, it helps. The reader’s vile imagination does all the work…You want to know what makes a man erotic in a novel?’

  ‘I already know: money and looks. I’ve read Pride and Prejudice. Hell.’

  ‘You’re wrong, it’s silence: a capacity for silence. Obviously, money helps—or did. Social status. Dark eyes and dark hair…’

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ said Tom, whose hair was fair.

  ‘But silence is vital. If a hero is a man of few words, he remains mysterious, and mystery in a man is always erotic…’

  Tom looked at Katya doubtfully. He did not like this opinion or this conversation. He groaned. Beautiful, dedicated Katya seemed oblivious to his distress; she had picked up a notebook, and was scribbling a couple of aides-mémoire.

  ‘Interesting…’ She scribbled faster. ‘The links between eroticism and capitalism. Does the money enhance the virility, or is it the other way around? The silent man as the romantic hero…Fascinating. It allows the reader to write the hero’s script for him, of course. Maybe that’s why it works so well…’ She tossed down her pencil in sudden impatience and fixed Tom with her lovely, and very short-sighted, blue eyes.

  ‘Of course, all that stuff’s antediluvian. When I write a novel, it won’t have a hero or a heroine. I have no patience with that sort of thing.’

  Tom felt humbled. He made a private vow to be as Trappist as possible from then on. Perhaps it had been a mistake to be so open with Katya? Perhaps, in revealing his heart to her, he had disarmed himself and unwisely divested himself of a vital weapon in the male armoury. Enigma. Mystery. Silence. Erotic power.

  ‘Shit,’ he said miserably. ‘I’m a failure as a man. I see it now. I’m like Will Whatsit. I’m a eunuch, a castrate. I’m epicene.’

  That, at last, attracted Katya’s attention.

  ‘Are you?’ she asked, leaning forward and touching him in a way, and with an immediate result, that gave the lie to this statement. Tom forgot about novels and heroes, and also about the time. Ten pleasurable minutes later, he remembered clocks; he leaped out of bed with a panic-stricken howl.

  ‘Shit. Double shit. Where’s the duvet?’

  ‘On the floor. Pass me my jeans.’

  ‘This is terrible. This is appalling. I love you, Katya.’

  ‘I love you too. Comb your hair.’

  Tom combed his hair, which was now rather longer than when his mother had last seen it. He felt his chin, decided to shave, decided not to shave; he found a clean shirt and rushed about the room. While he rushed, Katya put things in order. She achieved this, it seemed to Tom, in about fifteen seconds. The dust disappeared; the fluff on the carpet was sucked away; papers lay down in piles; books stacked themselves on shelves. A quick, fierce burst of female efficiency; suddenly chaos no longer threatened and the detritus was gone.

  Fifteen seconds after that, Tom was posed on the sofa, surrounded by suitable evidence of undergraduate industry; Katya, also posed with book in hand, was seated opposite, smelling of rose-petal soap, demure in an armchair. For five minutes, all the church bells of Oxford chimed the half-hour. Both waited expectantly.

  ‘I told you she’d be late,’ Katya said a short while later. ‘I told you we had time. We could have…’

  Tom, intent on an heroic, erotic silence, ignored this prompt. He gave Katya a volcanic look; Katya giggled; Tom persevered. Katya’s amusement died away; she shifted in her seat, lowered her eyes and, to Tom’s triumph, blushed rosily. Tom was just congratulating himself on the ease with which he had mastered this effective new technique—nothing to it, much easier than actually speaking, a cinch—when the telephone rang. Both Tom and Katya expected it to be Lindsay, calling with some excuse for her delay—she had backed into a bollard, imprisoned herself in a remote cul-de-sac, or something similar. It was not Lindsay, however, but her friend, and Tom’s friend, Rowland McGuire. Rowland, it emerged, was trying to track down Lindsay.

  They spoke for some while, then Tom replaced the receiver.

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Rowland’s going to join us for lunch. He’s going to drop in on his way back to London. He’s got some friend with him…’

  ‘A woman friend?’

  ‘No. Some man who was up at Oxford with him. Works in films.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Katya gave Tom a sidelong glance. ‘Lindsay will be pleased. You don’t think…’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Tom said, in a very certain tone. ‘Katya, I’ve told you a billion times, they’re friends…’

  ‘He might fancy her. I think it’s on the cards, and you’d be the last person to notice if he did.’

  ‘My mother? You must be mad. She’s thirty-five. She’s been thirty-five for quite a while.’

  ‘She’s Rowland’s age, or thereabouts.’

  ‘That’s different. Get it into your head—my mother is not Rowland’s type.’

  ‘Why not? She’s pretty; she’s nice.’ Katya paused; she gave a small frown, ‘What is Rowland’s type?’

  ‘Damozels,’ Tom replied darkly, ‘or so I’ve heard. Beautiful women. Difficult women. Women who need rescuing. Rowland’s gallant, or so people say.’

  ‘Do they indeed?’ Katya’s frown deepened.

  ‘People gossip about Rowland.’ Tom shrugged. ‘It’s probably all lies. They say he breaks hearts. In the nicest possible way, of course.’

  ‘He’s arrogant,’ Katya said, thoughtfully, after a further pause. ‘He’s one of the most arrogant men I’ve ever met, but some women—older women—like that kind of thing. Lindsay might like it, for one…’

  ‘She doesn’t. She never stops ticking him off for being arrogant, jumping to conclusions, that sort of thing. But he’s clever—’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘And he’s kind, so she forgives him. And she amuses him; she makes him laugh, relax. Rowland trusts her, and Rowland’s very reserved; he hardly trusts anyone…’

  ‘I’ve noticed that.’

  ‘So, they’re friends; that’s it, nothing more. Why can’t you accept that? As far as Rowland’s concerned, my mother’s an honorary man…’

  ‘An enviable fate.’

  ‘Katya, I’ve told you, Lindsay’s given up on men in the romantic sense. She gave up years ago. She’s not interested and she doesn’t need them. She has a good job, a good salary, lots of friends, her own apartment. She’s got shot of my grandmother, which is nothing short of a miracle. I’m not there, messing the place up. She’s her own woman. Why would she need a man?’

  Katya could think of several answers to that question, not all of them polite. In different circumstances, she would have voiced them, but now, merciful to Tom and condescending to the blindnesses of man and son, she remained silent. One day, she thought, when the moment was more propitious, she might have to explain to Tom, that he, like most sons and daughters, chose to neuter his mother. She herself avoided this error only because her own mother flaunted her sexuality with an abandon Katya both envied and loathed. This ambivalence Katya also wished to confess to Tom, but the moment had not yet come. She hesitated, then rose and crossed to the only mirror the room possessed—a small one, with a crack in the glass.

  Like her mother, Katya was tall; unlike her mother, Katya was not thin. She examined her own reflection censoriously; it suddenly occurred to her that her hair might look better down.

  ‘Maybe I should change,’ she began. ‘I’m not sure about this sweater…’

  ‘Change? Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. For lunch, I suppose. If all these people are coming…’

  ‘Don’t.’ Tom also rose. He kissed the back of her creamy neck. He wound one of the auburn tendrils around his finger. ‘Don’t, you look lovely just the
way you are. You…’

  He stopped, remembering the Trappist vow; a screeching of brakes was heard, then a few swear-words as Lindsay attempted to park outside.

  Tom clattered down the stairs to let his mother in; Katya remained, gazing moodily at her own reflection. Eventually, after many toings and froings, much unloading and dropping of packages, a laden Tom and a laden Lindsay finally arrived in the room, talking nineteen to the dozen as usual, and breathing fast.

  Tom had been up at Oxford only a few weeks for this, the first term of his second year; this was Lindsay’s first sight of his new lodgings. Being optimistic and loyal by nature, she began admiring things at once. It was a wonderful house in a romantic street; she loved the trees outside and the leafy view of roofs and dreaming spires. The room was really spacious; you scarcely noticed the pattern on the carpet once you were inside, and as for that cerise sofa, well, it looked very comfortable, and the Indian throw was marvellous, how clever of Katya to find it…What, the kitchen was just across the landing, and shared? How convenient; what fun. No, of course she didn’t need to see it, but she had brought this huge casserole thing that Tom and Katya might find useful, oh, and some sweaters Tom had left behind—it might turn cold at any moment—and somewhere there was a poster she’d found, in case the walls were bare, and somewhere, somewhere, damn these wretched carrier bags, there was a bottle of that scent Katya had said she liked…

  Throughout the confusions of this speech, Lindsay, who could never bear to arrive anywhere empty-handed, delved into bags and tossed wrapping paper around. The gifts, apart from the sweaters, were well received. The walls here were bare, and Tom was delighted with the spider poster from Dead Heat. Katya opened a large flagon of scent called L’Aurore and dabbed some behind her ears. Into the autumnal sunlight of the room came a burst of spring, the scent of hyacinths and narcissi.

  Katya kissed Lindsay, then reminding herself, as she sometimes did, that she was going to be a novelist and as such should observe, she drew back and watched. She liked Lindsay, and now that she knew her better, she was beginning to see that Lindsay was adept at a variety of actressy tricks. Lindsay rarely entered a room, she erupted into it, chattering away, beginning on one sentence, and then, before it was completed, beginning on the next. She might look boyish, with her slim build and her crop of short, curly, dark hair; she might be inches shorter than statuesque Katya; and she might, like a small boy, possess a great deal of engaging and disruptive energy—but to a degree, Katya suspected, she cultivated this. Lindsay’s energy, Katya felt, was channelled in a protective way. The chatter, the hand gestures, the insouciance were a form of disguise—they distracted attention, and Lindsay intended them to do so, from what she might actually be thinking or feeling; and Lindsay, in a muddled, loving, well-intentioned way, was afraid of revealing her true feelings above all; or so Katya thought.

  Watching her now, Katya suspected that Lindsay missed Tom desperately, and was desperately afraid he might sense that. For this reason, intent on freeing Tom, she put on an act of loving dissimulation: possibly lonely, she stressed how busy she was; perhaps yearning to stay, she emphasized that this visit was a kind of fly-past, and that she would have to rush back to London immediately after lunch.

  Katya was touched by this and by Tom’s blindness to the deception. Tom loved his mother and was, in many ways, very close to her, yet he was blind in this respect. This interested Katya, the future novelist. She made herself some crisp, pitying mental notes on the insights and sightlessness of love.

  Lindsay’s acting ability, she noted, came under further strain when Tom announced that Rowland McGuire and some friend of his from Yorkshire would be joining them for lunch. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to disguise immediate delight—and Lindsay, Katya saw, could not do so. Her eyes lit; faint colour appeared in her cheeks; when she spoke, there was joy in her voice.

  ‘Rowland called? He called here? Which friend? Oh, Colin? Heavens, I spoke to him last night, when I was trying to get Rowland. He was terribly drunk…’

  At this point, breaking off, Lindsay suddenly remembered that she had brought with her some champagne, to celebrate the new lodgings; it was really for Tom and Katya, but perhaps one bottle might be opened up.

  One was opened, which provided Lindsay with more opportunities for distraction and conversational feints. Fiddling with the foil, as Tom and Katya fetched and washed various glasses, Lindsay gave them an animated, but edited, account of her telephone call to Yorkshire, and its results.

  She did not mention—she was too reticent, and too ashamed—the minutes she had spent staring at the unwinking red light of her answering machine the previous night. After all, to call Rowland—who had left the number in case of emergencies, he said—was an inexcusable weakness. Shortly before, she had vowed to exorcise his influence, to abandon her hopes…Yet working against that solemn resolve was a deep residual unease, the result of her final conversation with Jippy.

  Jippy had mentioned ‘York’, which must surely mean ‘Yorkshire’. He had advised her to check her machine, yet there was no message on that machine. Perhaps then, the absence of messages was the message…at which point, Lindsay’s nimble treacherous heart gave a lurch. Something was wrong, that was why Jippy had seemed so alarmed. Could Rowland be ill, or—and here Lindsay’s quick-start imagination kicked in—or worse, could there have been some accident? A climbing accident? A car accident? Frayed ropes? Failing brakes? One second Lindsay saw Rowland lying injured somewhere, the next second, he was deep in a gully, pale, dying, with her telephone number on his lips. She hesitated no longer; with a sweet sense of full justification for this recidivism, she had dialled the Yorkshire number at once.

  ‘And I got Colin,’ she said, pouring champagne. ‘He was celebrating. Apparently, Tomas Court is about to make a film in England, and Colin’s the location manager…’

  ‘Tomas Court? Wow!’ Her son gave a low whistle.

  ‘Court’s been giving him a very hard time, but thanks to Rowland, Colin has finally found him some house he needs. We had a long talk. He told me all about Court and that strange ex-wife of his—she was being stalked, he said, for years, and she nearly had a breakdown, and it led to their divorce…Colin was not discreet. And then…’ She paused. ‘Then, he started flirting with me. Rather well, considering I’ve never met him.’

  Tom sighed and gave his mother a censorious look.

  ‘And very well considering how drunk he was. We were talking for ages. Rowland was out on one of his strange night walks and Colin kept saying he’d be back at any moment—only he wasn’t. And then…’ She glanced at her son with a smile. ‘And then, this was the best bit, Colin proposed.’

  ‘Proposed?’ Tom’s face was now very censorious indeed. ‘And he’s never met you? He must have been pissed.’

  ‘He fell in love with my voice,’ Lindsay said, with dignity. ‘We’d been talking about obsession—obsession was in the air, like a germ, and I think Colin caught it. We discussed love, at length, then he proposed. I accepted, of course.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. Mum, listen…’

  ‘We’ve decided on a spring wedding. Then we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, in contentment and decorum, after some initial years of heady romance.’ She paused. ‘So, you’re about to meet your future stepfather, Tom. I hope you’re looking forward to that…’

  ‘One question. One little question.’ Tom groaned as he refilled their glasses. ‘Why didn’t you hang up?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Lindsay replied with spirit. ‘It’s time I remarried and Colin is the man for me. He is very charming. I think I’ve done well for myself.’

  ‘This lunatic’, said Tom, in a gruff tone, ‘is arriving here any minute—with Rowland. Now, I’m praying he was so pissed that he’s not going to remember any of this…’

  ‘In that case, I shall remind him—at once. I don’t intend to be jilted, Tom, I can assure you of that.’

  Tom san
k his head in his hands. His capacity to be embarrassed by his mother was well developed—indeed, he could be embarrassed by her breathing, or so Lindsay said. He gave a deep sigh.

  ‘Mum, you remember the time you turned up at school prize-giving in that micro-skirt?’

  ‘The Donna Karan? Yes.’

  ‘And you remember that cricket match, when I was out l.b.w., and you argued with the umpire?’

  ‘That umpire was blind as a bat.’

  ‘…And then you chatted up the headmaster over tea in the pavilion?’

  ‘Of course I remember. He was a widower. That was such a brilliant move.’

  ‘…And then he invited you to lunch?’

  ‘A very useful lunch. Consider the consequences.’

  The consequences had been that, several months later, the headmaster had been snapped up by Lindsay’s svelte but difficult mother, Louise. He was now, therefore, married to Tom’s grandmother. Fortunately, this appalling event, which Tom could never have lived down, had happened after he left school. Lindsay, unrepentant, regarded this as one of her greatest coups; her son did not.

  ‘All of those occasions, Mum, every single one of them, were embarrassing. They caused me suffering—trauma, I expect. Well, the embarrassment quotient now is even higher. When this Colin maniac arrives, Rowland’s also going to be here, and Rowland can be unpredictable. He might not like this…’

  ‘Too bad.’

  ‘He’ll think you’re making fun of his friend…’

  ‘Make fun of my future husband? I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Mum, I’m warning you, and I mean it. Don’t. You’ll be making a mistake.’

  Tom rose. He had spoken quietly, but there was suddenly no doubt that he was in earnest. Lindsay, who had been about to reply, stopped short. There was a silence. Consternation came into Lindsay’s face.

  ‘Do you mean that, Tom?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Sometimes—I guess you just push too hard, all right?’

  ‘Tom, wait a second now,’ Katya began. ‘Lindsay was teasing you. She didn’t mean…’

  ‘No, no, Katya—he’s right.’