by Rachel Cusk
He told her about his mother and saw her amusement become kinder and more genuine. She liked to hear of him as a little boy, and he sometimes feared that her feelings for him found a more natural object in that younger incarnation.
‘What on earth did you think it was?’ she said.
‘An erotic sex toy,’ he admitted gamely, playing the fool. Belinda’s revelation had made him feel quite light headed.
‘But how—?’ She began to shake with laughter, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘Really?’
He sensed a thread of mockery in her voice, and for a moment he didn’t understand how he had changed from an object of sympathy into one of ridicule. A flash of anger tore through him, not at her, but at his mother, for seeing in his young, pliant face a future in which this scene would come to pass. Her failure to save him from it, to make the world easier for him, seemed to constitute evidence of a horrifying neglect, but thinking about it later, he saw in it something far worse, a submission to indignity, the certainty of a terrible homogeneity which made the future as inescapable as the past.
The sense of imprisonment within his own faculties which had haunted Ralph then still plagued him, and lately he had found that the wide and insuperable border which lay between himself and Francine, rather than lending him a prouder definition, had made him feel more than ever sealed up inside himself. In the beginning he had fancifully imagined that their differences might eventually be fertile – she had said so herself, in fact, reading to him from a magazine in that impervious way she had, about the attraction of opposites – but once or twice he had glimpsed himself lost in the bleak open spaces of their conversation and had since abandoned the hopeful examination of their prospects. Had he been going to put a stop to it all and return to the imperfect but comfortable life which only a few weeks ago had been in his grip, that moment when he had diagnosed a fatal sterility in their situation was the time to have done it. Now, however, his senses were no longer vigilant against novelty, and although he had developed no real liking for the element in which he currently lived, custom made it harder to remember Francine’s insinuations and thus extricate himself from them. His early posture, redolent of imminent departure, had disintegrated into an attitude of collapse from which thoughts of change or movement were hazy and reluctant. He was waiting, he supposed, for an outside impulse to direct him towards action, knowing that his own mechanisms had failed and their authority been superseded by that of circumstance. His resolutions visited him like ineffectual salesmen, and although he had often persuaded himself with the memory of his most recent meeting with Francine to draw their history to a halt, the subsequent encounter would invariably demonstrate the intractability of the status quo in the face of his attempts to suborn it.
‘I think I need to spend some time on my own,’ he had even said to her one evening, his heart growing wild in its cage of timidity.
They were sitting in his flat watching television, a habitat in which at first he had been benumbed with sorrowful incredulity, but which was becoming every day more familiar to him. Francine had certain programmes she liked to watch, and their recurring nature formed a schedule from which, he soon found, she could not be derailed. The appearance of such habits had been swift, and the hostility of their tastes meant that their diversions rarely blended to form an impression of mutuality. The depth of Francine’s security in her own preferences, in fact, meant that Ralph’s suggestions of things they might do were often overridden, and he had begun to suspect that her early willingness to investigate his cultural activities was merely ceremonial. She had beaten him at the negotiating table, he had to admit, with the luring inference that she might be willing to change, but having secured his interest the hint of compromise disappeared. His only manoeuvres were those of indifference, and he was surprised to discover how much of it her vanity could withstand.
‘Why?’ she had replied, creasing her forehead in the mildly irritating demonstration of incomprehension she gave him when he said things she didn’t understand. He perceived the reprimand for obtuseness contained within this expression, and knew that she really didn’t see what he meant. Her face told him that he would have to be much clearer, clearer than perhaps he could be and certainly more cruel, if he wanted to make himself understood.
‘Why do you want to be on your own?’ she repeated.
He realized that she merely considered him boring, a consideration which possibly troubled her as much as his own misgivings. The spirit of reform had left him after that, and Ralph began to wonder if the problem was really his own. The way in which Francine presented herself to him as if with the expectation that he would manufacture substance, would perform tricks like a man sawing at a spangled woman in a box, cultivated in him the suspicion that what he was witnessing was merely the spectacle of his own inadequacies. Through her he saw the lives of strangers, heard their footsteps echo through the halls of her heart, watched their ghosts slip inadvertently from her lips as she mentioned them, the advertising executive with the sports car, the local nightclub owner, the married manager, even the geography teacher at school, for Heaven’s sake; these men whose keys had fitted the mysterious lock with which Ralph daily wrestled, amongst whose furnishings he was expected to make himself at home, these dreadful characters whom he could not but feel it was ordained for him never to encounter, suddenly sharing with him the most galling intimacy! They hung about him like an ill-fitting second-hand coat, a dark path around the collar, pouches at the elbows, a roll of old mints discovered in a pocket. He was repelled by their proximity. He had loathed Belinda’s old boyfriends too, of course, but in a more brotherly manner: they were more perfect versions of himself, with whom nevertheless he felt a certain kinship, a loose matching of identities which left his essence undisturbed while jealously could torment his surface. His relation to Francine’s redundant men was altogether more troubling, for he could not see what it was that united them. They made a shiftless, uncomfortable group, a band of brigands amongst whom one had to watch one’s back, their common principle not love, but weakness.
He had seen Stephen recently, for the first time in weeks, and his familiarity had made an exhibition of Ralph’s secret changes, retrieving them from the obscurity of his suffocating heart and putting them on prominent display. They had met in a pub near Stephen’s flat in Notting Hill Gate with the intention of having Sunday lunch; an arrangement which Stephen always suggested, making it sound so appealing, so proper, but for which history could make hazardous claims, coming as it did so soon after the night which traditionally saw the eruption of Stephen’s worst excesses. Ralph had often sat for half an hour in the pub waiting for him to appear, and would berate himself for remembering the last such interlude, and the resolutions he had made during it, only when immersed in the next. He supposed that in other circumstances he might have been pricked to deny his company to someone so careless of it, but he knew that it was not awe or even ineffectualness which delivered him time and again to Stephen’s rudeness. Rather, he saw in Stephen’s recurrent request for the assignation a need for someone to be waiting for him on a Sunday afternoon, a forecast of continuation which, when he awoke on Sunday morning, he could use to ward off whatever obsolescence lingered from the night before. That was Ralph’s suspicion, in any case, although whether the person equally needed to be him was less a matter for certainty. These days Ralph brought the newspapers to the pub and read them almost contentedly until Stephen turned up.
It had come as a surprise, then, to be met on his arrival by the sight of Stephen sitting on a stool at the bar reading a book. He looked almost dapper, in an old-fashioned tweed jacket with a pale shirt undone at the collar beneath and loose trousers of some soft material. Ralph glimpsed the back of his neck bent over his book as he approached. It was pale and more slender than he remembered, a bare stalk which embarrassed him but which for a moment he almost wanted to touch.
‘Good God,’ he said humorously, standing next to Stephen’s stool. An inap
propriate feeling of love lodged fluttering in his throat.
Stephen’s eyes stayed on his book for a second too long, and Ralph remembered how he had used to read like that when they were at school, striking a contemplative pose and ignoring anyone who approached him, including teachers, until he had finished a particular page or chapter. His bouts of reading usually occurred directly after the execution of some misdemeanour or other, and Ralph had come to suspect that Stephen’s erudition was merely a dramatic device for the production of high contrast, a baroque detail of the measured eclecticism with which he created himself
‘Afternoon,’ he said finally, snapping the book closed without, Ralph noticed, marking the page. ‘You’re looking very chipper.’
‘Likewise,’ said Ralph. ‘I hardly recognized you when I came in. What’s going on?’
‘I will brook no interrogations,’ said Stephen briskly. ‘Your absence has been noted.’
‘Sorry. I’ve been busy.’
‘I know.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ralph’s voice sounded fluting and nervous, like a girl’s.
‘Oh, calm down.’ Stephen cackled with laughter. ‘I’m merely – surmising from your failure to return my calls and your shining pelt that you’ve been—’
‘Do you want a drink?’
‘—hard at it. Right you are.’
Stephen raised his eyebrows and smiled. Ralph turned to the bar and fumbled in his pockets for money. For a moment his thoughts were in darkness, but he could feel their predatory movements.
‘What’ve you been up to?’ he said. He kept his face turned away, his eyes following the ministry of the barman. He could feel the heat of Stephen’s examination beside him.
‘Oh, working, same old crap. The magazine menstruates monthly. And I’m being punished for a little – cock-up from last month.’ He seemed willing to offer an explanation but Ralph, shying from involvement with his complications, didn’t ask him for one. ‘So this month it’s cars of all things, talking to morons about the potency of their Porsches. Loaded, every last one of them. Sticks in my craw, old boy.’ He sighed and then laughed. ‘I’ve got a good one for you, though. This bloke, this real Home Counties Kev, said to me, you’ll love this, he says, “Look, mate—”’ Stephen lowered his voice in imitation, gruffly conspiratorial. ‘“Look, mate, I know it cost a lot, but it’s paid for itself in twat, see?” In twat! Glorious!’
‘That’s funny,’ said Ralph. He turned to give Stephen his drink and met his eye.
‘And yourself?’ said Stephen.
The pub was filling up, and in the warm, rising clamour of voices, the furniture of bodies from whose mouths brazen laughter burst in white plumes of cigarette smoke, Ralph felt his painful singularity begin mildly to disperse. He knew he shouldn’t discuss Francine, but Stephen’s almost involuntary skill at interrogation meant that only physical escape would make a certainty of his intentions. From the bruised and tender distance of Ralph’s curtained intimacies, Stephen seemed more abrasive than ever, and although the sight of his friend pressed upon him a chilly consciousness of his recent loneliness, he feared the confessional impulse which was every moment mounting within him.
‘Oh, not much. Work, I suppose. Nothing much, really.’
Stephen’s face betrayed a fleeting impatience and he jigged slightly on his stool as if in encouragement of social momentum.
‘Met anyone new?’ he chirped hopefully.
The unexpected appearance of Roz’s terrible question filled Ralph with a sudden private mirth, and before he could stop himself he heard a ghastly laugh rush from his lips. Stephen looked at him in surprise, and, really only to cover his moment of awkwardness, Ralph suddenly found himself prepared to admit everything.
‘I’ve been seeing Francine,’ he said loudly, turning to face the room. ‘Shall we sit down?’
‘Who?’ said Stephen. He picked up his glass and followed Ralph to a table, hovering avidly behind him like a reporter.
‘Francine.’ Ralph felt his brief flash of euphoria subside. ‘The girl we met at Alf’s.’
‘The secretary?’ Stephen sat down, as if in shock. His face was a cartoon of astonishment. He began to laugh, shaking his head. ‘You’re joking. I don’t believe it.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t believe it.’ Stephen paused for a moment and then yelped again with laughter. One or two people turned their heads. ‘I just don’t believe it.’
‘Well, it’s true.’
‘Francine!’ His disbelief dissipated into a wide smile. ‘You’re a bloody quiet one. I wouldn’t have thought she was your tipple, not in a million years.’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’ Ralph picked up his glass. His hand was shaking.
‘What’s she like?’ said Stephen, grinning.
‘What do you mean, what’s she like? Is that all you think it is?’
‘Well, what is it, then? She’s a—’ He gestured mountainously from his chest with his hands and then looked exaggeratedly contrite. ‘She’s a nice girl.’
‘She’s not stupid, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Of course she’s not.’
Stephen leaned forward and fixed him with a serious look, his eyebrows mockingly furrowed. Ralph shrugged and stared at his hands. They lay on the table, waxy and nerveless, instruments of indifference. The articulation of his secret had illuminated in its very first hateful exposure a veiled background of half-denied truths. In that moment Ralph knew his own misery, recognized it beyond doubt.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ he said dully. ‘I can’t seem to get out of it.’
The residue of mirth drained from Stephen’s cheeks and Ralph was almost gratified to see a glint of sobriety in his eyes. It was difficult to slay his good humour, and there was a strange pleasure to be derived from being the proprietor of a situation serious enough to achieve it.
‘You prat,’ he said, more kindly. ‘What are you on about?’
‘She won’t – I don’t really understand it. I don’t know what to do.’
‘She won’t what? Bugger off?’
Ralph nodded.
‘When it first started, I thought she understood it was just a temporary thing. You know, a one-off.’
‘One-off!’ Stephen barked with laughter.
‘You know what I mean,’ said Ralph irritably.
‘All right, all right. Une fois.’ He laughed again. ‘De temps en temps.’
‘I mean, you can’t just tell someone, can you? I thought I made it as clear as it could be.’ Ralph shook his head. ‘She came round for dinner and it was quite friendly, but we didn’t exactly hit it off, for God’s sake. I was actually surprised when she offered …’
There was a pause, and in it the two of them reached for their glasses.
‘Consummation?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what was it like?’
‘I don’t remember,’ said Ralph stubbornly. ‘I was drunk.’
‘And since then?’
‘All right, I suppose.’
‘Fussy,’ said Stephen, raising his eyebrows.
‘No – well, yes, in a way, except that I don’t really care about all that. I mean, I do care, I want to care, but then she’ll say something and I just—’
‘Don’t give a shit?’
‘If I could see what was in it for her then at least there’d be something to, you know, get to grips with, but she doesn’t even seem to like me very much.’ As he said it, Ralph realized that it was true, that it was the most bewildering thing of all. His predicament seemed suddenly more inescapable than ever. Stephen’s face before him was perplexed. ‘That’s it, really. She doesn’t actually like me.’
There was silence, which the noise around them at first amplified and then engulfed. Stephen drained his glass, his head tipped back, his throat pumping.
‘Another?’ he said, standing up with his fingers on Ralph’s glass.
‘Thanks.’
While he was gone Ralph waited anxiously, as if his absence were some kind of judgemental interlude from which he would return with a result.
‘Things have been pretty sweet lately,’ said Stephen when he returned, setting the brimming glasses carefully on the table and sitting down. He stretched contentedly and gave a grinning yawn.
‘That’s good,’ said Ralph. He felt the jolt keenly, the brutal message that Stephen found him tiresome. A feeling of dislike for himself gathered and sluiced coldly over him. ‘Tell me what’s been happening.’
‘The pursuit of pleasure,’ said Stephen vaguely. ‘Grotesque but successful. For the time being, anyway.’
‘What was that problem you mentioned at work?’ said Ralph, driving back his growing awkwardness with ingratiation. He felt peeled and exposed. ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘Oh, that. No, not really. They should have seen it coming. They sent me off to do a piece on girls’ boarding schools. Can you imagine?’ He laughed. ‘So I roved for a week through the groves of girlhood, and my God, there’s some talent there, old boy. Nothing like those speccy dogs they used to recruit from the local brain-bin for our end of term disco.’
‘So what happened?’ interjected Ralph. His voice sounded false with dread.
‘What do you think? One of them took a fancy to me, I invited her up for the weekend, and next thing the headmistress dobs me in to the magazine. Slapped hands all round.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Fifteen. Is.’
‘You’re still seeing her?’
‘Doing the school run, as they say. Very hush-hush, though. She’s an enterprising girl.’
‘Right,’ said Ralph despairingly.
Afterwards, they walked through the cold, electric sunlight down the Portobello Road towards Stephen’s flat. The light made Ralph feel fatigued, blinding him, blanching life from his skin. Stephen suddenly extended an arm and patted his shoulder jovially.