by Isabel Wolff
“Yes, I weel visit you. I veesit you very soon. Very soon. I have to go now. I have to go to Nassau, to the bank. So I say goodbye, Teeffanee. You keep dancin’. We do salsa—in London!” He grabbed my hand, kissed it, and was gone.
Kate looked at me. “Oh well,” she said. “There’s always Directory Inquiries.”
“Yes,” I said, “São Paulo’s not that big.”
“No. That’s right. Only ten million people,” she pointed out as she buttered her toast. “Pity you don’t even know his surname, though.”
“Yes. That could be a bit of a drawback . . .”
“But I’m sure it’s worth pursuing,” she added. “I mean you both communicated so well.”
After breakfast I wandered over to the Club Med shop where, like everything else in the Bahamas, the prices are thrillingly high. A T-shirt—forty quid. A swimsuit—one hundred and twenty. I decided to buy a postcard. I found a tasteful, artistic scene of a solitary palm tree leaning over a vast, cerulean sea. And then I sat down and wrote on it, “I’d really like to shake your coconuts!” Actually I didn’t write that at all. Even though Seriously Successful would have laughed like a drain. I just didn’t have the nerve. I’d save it until later, when I felt braver—maybe this evening after the dolphin excursion. Because, you see, Kate and I have booked to go on this amazing Dolphin Encounter on the Blue Lagoon, a short boatride away. And it should be really brilliant because not only can you see real dolphins—you get to swim with them. It would be an amazing experience because swimming with dolphins is proven to benefit people with all kinds of serious conditions—autism, epilepsy, depression—and it can have miraculous, healing effects. I found myself wondering whether it could do anything for terminal singleness. Anyway, we walked down to the quay where we joined a large group of people from another hotel. Then we stepped on board a cruiser and headed out toward the lagoon. And it was quite ironic really, because nearly everyone else going on the Dolphin Encounter trip was either Japanese or Norwegian.
“I suppose the last encounter you had with a dolphin was between two halves of a sesame-seeded bun,” I said to a couple of Japanese honeymooners sitting next to me. Actually I didn’t say that at all. I just smiled at them politely. And as for the Norwegians—God, they were a noisy bunch, it was the entire sales force of the Oslo branch of Black and Decker on an incentive travel freebie.
“We met our targets,” said one of them proudly. “This trip is the reward. I sold twelve thousand cordless multidrills in the first six months of this year.”
“Congratulations!” I said. “That’s marvelous. How many did you sell?” I asked this other bloke, who was tall and blond and built like a Viking.
“None,” he said. Oh.
“So what are you doing on this trip, then?” I said accusingly.
“I’m not Norwegian,” he said. “And I don’t work for Black and Decker. I’m an artist, I’m English and I’m staying at Club Med.” Oh. I hadn’t spotted him there. “I arrived yesterday,” he explained. “My name’s Eric.”
To be quite honest, Eric looked a little bit familiar, though I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why. Anyway, he joined our group as we all jumped into the water with life-vests while “our” dolphin, Mclvor, swam around us, chirruping like a bird, splashing the water with his leathery fins or leaping over our heads in high, elegant parabolas. Being so close to a dolphin, gazing into his clever, watchful eyes like that—well, it’s the kind of thing that makes me believe in God.
“Wasn’t that wonderful,” said Kate, as we made our way back to Club Med.
“Fantastic. Did you see the way that dolphin looked at me?”
“You’re really a sad case,” she replied. “Let’s ask Eric to join us for dinner,” she said, as we disembarked in the late afternoon heat. A couple of hours later the three of us were sitting on high-stools at the harborside bar, sipping banana daiquiris beneath a slowly revolving fan.
“Tell us about your paintings,” I said, as a bead of sweat rolled down my neck into the small of my back.
“Well, they’re not really paintings,” he said. “I mostly do conceptual work.”
“Rotting cows’ heads? Bisected sheep?” Kate inquired politely.
“There’s more to conceptual art than bits of dead animal,” he said slightly resentfully. “I’m not Damien Hirst. I use photography a lot.”
“Can you actually, you know, paint and draw?” Kate asked innocently.
“Of course—but art’s about more than pigment and paper.”
“Where did you train?” I asked him.
“Brighton art school.”
“And where do you live?”
“Hackney. I’ve got a house on London Fields.” That sounded familiar too.
“And do you also own a vintage Jaguar?” I asked him. Actually I didn’t ask him that at all, because I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of Kate. Because by now I knew who Eric was—which explained the strong case of déjà vu I’d had all afternoon—he was the bloke who had answered my lonely hearts ad. He was Eric the artist with a restored racing Jag who’d been to Brighton art school. What an amazing coincidence, I thought. Of all the Club Meds in all the towns in all the world, he had to walk into mine. And had he twigged who I was? He’d seen that photo of me at Glyndebourne, but by now my face was so disfigured by my failure to use sufficient sunblock that he probably hadn’t recognized me at all.
“I know who you are, by the way,” said Eric, after supper, as we sat by the pool, drinking brandy and listening to the distant trill of the cicadas. Kate had gone to get some more mosquito spray. “You’re the ‘sparky tennis player’ in The Times, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, as a coconut tumbled off an adjacent palm tree with a muted thud into the grass. “What an amazing coincidence,” I added. “If I were a writer and I put this in a book it would be dismissed as an improbable fiction.”
“I know.”
“Do you know how many Club Meds there are?” I asked him.
“No.”
“A hundred and twenty. And you chose this one. Actually I’m amazed you recognized me,” I added, rubbing my flaking nose. “I’m not normally this color. I’ve been a bit silly with the sun. I look like Michael Gambon in The Singing Detective.”
“You look fine,” he said. “I knew it was you when I saw you on the boat this afternoon, but I decided not to say anything in case you were embarrassed. Did you meet anyone nice through your ad?”
“Er, no. I met a guy whose wife, it transpired, had expired just five weeks earlier. And then I had a Saturday nightmare with a budding film director who wanted to take me to a Mexican restaurant in Hampstead where they charged five quid a head.”
“Oh dear,” he said. “Bad luck. The funny thing is that I was just about to ring you last week, and then I decided to have a week’s holiday. And here you are—in the very same place. Weird,” he said. “There’s obviously a karmic connection here.”
“Yes. There is.” But was there any other kind of connection between us? Well, to be honest, not really. I liked him. He was extremely interesting. And he was nice. But not as nice as Seriously Successful, I couldn’t help thinking. Not as funny. Not as sophisticated. Not as attractive, either—at least not to me. And certainly not as well-dressed. When I got back to my room I stared at the blank postcard, and then picked up my pen and wrote: Anytime. Anyplace. Anywhere. Tiffany. x, briefly wondering, as I did so, what the precise difference is, exactly, between “anyplace” and “anywhere”—surely they’re the same thing aren’t they ? Anyplace? Anywhere? Anyway, I then filled in the address, which to be honest I didn’t know, but I knew that if I just put Albany, Piccadilly, London, W1, it would probably get there. However, it was not lost on me that the name Seriously Successful might not mean much to the porters. So in brackets underneath I wrote, Tall, really quite good-looking and very amusing publisher who plays the cello and wears Hermès ties. That should do it, I thought happily, and then, becau
se I was slightly tipsy—although normally I’m very careful about my alcohol intake and never drink more than twelve glasses—I ran straight over to the letter box and dropped it in! Oh God. Oh God.
“Oh God,” I said to Kate at breakfast the following morning.
“What’s the matter?” she said as she sipped her paw-paw juice.
“Well, you know that thing you’re not meant to do. That thing about writing to someone when you’re drunk and then posting it before you can change your mind?”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
“Well I did it. I wrote an affectionate postcard to Seriously Successful at two o’clock in the morning. And then I posted it straightaway. And I got up too late this morning to retrieve it. It is winging its way to Piccadilly as we speak.”
“Tiffany,” she said, very slowly. “Can I give you some advice?”
“Of course.”
“You should never, ever, ever, write to anyone when you’re pissed. Also, you should never, ever, ever, rush out and post something without giving yourself proper time to pause and reflect. Because you might well regret it.”
“Thanks, Kate,” I said. “I’ll remember that. Oh God oh God oh God,” I continued. “What have I done? What a disaster!”
“Is it?” she said with a shrug. “It’s only a postcard.”
“Yes, but my message was extremely provocative.”
“What did it say?”
I told her.
“Oh, I see,” she said seriously. “That is extremely provocative.”
“I know,” I said. “It sends all the wrong signals, and he’s disastrous—a married man looking for a mistress. I ask you! Seriously Unscrupulous. And now he’ll think I’m very keen on him.”
“You are very keen on him,” Kate said. “Oh, look—there’s Todd.”
Todd was having breakfast with the attractive Croatian hairdresser who had won the Paper Plane Throwing Competition on the beach the previous day. “No, really, I thought your design was brilliant—you fully deserved that piña colada,” I heard him tell her. “The aerodynamics were truly outstanding.”
Todd, we knew, was due to leave later that evening, and Kate and I were going the following day because suddenly, our two weeks were up. Bye bye Bahamas. Pip! Pip! Paradise Island.
“Come and visit me in L.A.,” said Todd, giving us both a hug.
“Yes, please. And do come and stay if you’re ever in London on one of your assignments.”
“I’m having a private showing at my gallery in late November,” said Eric when we went to say goodbye to him. “I’d love you both to come.”
“We’d love to come!” said Kate happily.
“I’ll send you an invite,” he said as we handed him our cards. “It’s on November twenty-eighth. See you then.”
And that was it—back to reality; back to work; back to an empty house, and no boyfriend. Back to the vacuum cleaner. Back to the dishwasher. Back to the microwave. And the fridge.
November
“I haven’t phoned her for twelve days,” said Kit triumphantly on Tuesday morning. His normally smart, curly black hair was a wild, uncombed mess, he had four days’ growth on his usually close-shaven chin, his shirt was open at the neck and there were traces of mud on his jeans. “It’s driving her completely mad,” he added with a wild grin. “She’s left twenty messages on my answer phone ranging from the casual ‘just wondered if you’re back yet’ to the hysterical ‘why aren’t you phoning me back you bastard, why why why? Are you seeing someone else? I bet you are you bastard I’ll never speak to you again.’ In her last one she threatened unspeakable violence if I didn’t phone her back immediately. She said she’d never been treated so disgustingly in her entire life and she was going to tell her parents. It’s brilliant. Gosh you look brown, Tiffany.”
“Did you phone her back?”
“No,” he said. “I’m going to leave it until Thursday. And then I’ll tell her, very, very calmly, that the reason I didn’t call was that I was busy and didn’t have time.”
“Well don’t overdo it, Kit, I think you’ve made your point.”
“I can’t help it. I feel different now, Tiffany, after the bonding weekend. I feel liberated. Oh Tiffany—you’re still making lists!” He snatched my shopping list out of my hand, which I had been scribbling on while he talked, ripped up all five pages, and then dropped them into the bin.
“Why did you do that?”
“To help you, Tiffany,” he said purposefully. “To release you from the tyranny of compulsive enumeration.”
“Look, could you please just give me the top ten points about the Inner Warrior Weekend,” I said. “I’d like to write them down so that I get it straight.”
“It’s changed me fundamentally,” he said forthrightly. “That whole thing I was taught as a child about being considerate and respectful to women, well that’s fine—as long as they’re considerate and respectful to me. And Portia hasn’t been. I’m making up for the all the times she never phoned me, all the times she made me feel insecure, all the sleepless nights I had. And I’m making up for all the times she pushed me around as though I were her amanuensis, not her boyfriend, and what did I get out of it—what? What? What? What?”
“Er, well, I agree with you, Kit, but please don’t go too far.”
“By the way, Tiffany,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about your Love Hearts copy. Some of it’s crap, you know.”
“Oh. Is it?”
“Yes. It just doesn’t convey the benefits of the product at all. I think you’ll have to come up with something better than that, otherwise we’ll lose the pitch. I’m selling the Discovery,” he added. “I’m buying a Ferrari. Turbo twin-engined.” Good God.
“And I’ve cancelled Parenting magazine and I’m getting GQ and Loaded instead.”
The Inner Warrior had certainly been released in Kit. Along, I feared, with the Inner Brute, the Inner Beast and the Inner Bastard. This was not what I’d had in mind.
“Kit, I wasn’t recommending a complete personality change—just a minor modification. Don’t you think you’re going a bit far? Don’t forget—you’re fond of Portia. You don’t want to drive her away.” Although it would be nice if you did, because then I could go out with you again instead.
“Yes, I am fond of her,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to lose her.” Oh. Fair enough. “But I don’t want to lose myself either. I’m remolding myself,” he added. “I need to. It’s an inevitable ‘blokelash’ against years of oppression. I mean I did a lot of sharing with these guys—we showed each other our ‘wounds.’ ”
“What do you mean, ‘wounds’? You haven’t got any wounds.”
“Our pain. The pent-up pain of years. The pain of wounds received in childhood, in adolescence; wounds inflicted by our parents, our siblings, our children . . .”
“You haven’t got any children.”
“I know. I’m just speaking metaphorically . . . where was I? Oh yes, wounds from our uncles, our aunts, our grandparents, our cousins, our teachers, our friends, our next-door-neighbors, our delivery men and, especially wounds from our wives and girlfriends. I mean, there was this one guy there who worked in the City and he’d had a terrible time—much worse than me—I’ll tell you about him in a minute. Anyway”—he paused for breath—“we showed each other our wounds and we cried. And crying helped us to rediscover our maleness, because real men do cry, you know. That’s what the bloke running the course said. He said, ‘Male tears are beautiful.’ And they are. And that’s what we did, we released our tears and rediscovered, and celebrated, our manhood, our maleness—our nonoppresive, positive maleness.” Kit had a faraway, messianic look in his eyes as he gulped down his Nescafé.
“Do you know what else we did, Tiffany?” he said, biting into an éclair. “We chopped wood. Heaps of it. Like lumberjacks. And we beat drums. Big drums, deep in the woods, and the sound of eighty men all beating out this rhythm was incredible, it was infectious, you jus
t got totally sucked into it—and now, now, I feel really, really strong.”
“Er, oh good. That’s lovely,” I said.
“Yes, and we all hugged each other—no-holds-barred. And it’s perfectly OK to hug another man. It’s not poofy, or wimpy. It’s OK. There were eighty of us, all hugging at the same time. I like hugging men, Tiffany,” he added enthusiastically.
“Well, don’t do it too often, Kit. I mean, you know—just do it . . . now and again.”
“Anyway,” said Kit, “there was this one guy, the one I mentioned just now, and his wife had walked all over him. I mean we really bonded—he gave me a lift down there actually, he stopped for me on the M3 and it turned out that he was going to the Inner Warrior Weekend too.”
“How did he manage to get away for this bonding jamboree if his wife’s so domineering?” I asked.
“He told her he was staying with his mother. And his mother had to lie for him, because his wife kept ringing up and demanding to speak to him; and apparently it was really touch and go. Anyway, this bloke, he’s forty-seven now, and we got on really well, and I knew that I would end up like him if I didn’t change—if I didn’t start to make demands in any relationship instead of just giving, giving, giving all the time.”
“Who was that, then?”
“Well this poor bloke, he’d been slaving away in the City for years so that they could have this big house and accounts at Harrods and Harvey Nichols, and private education for their kids and designer clobber for her; and his wife didn’t even appreciate it at all and she didn’t even work, right, because she was this not-very-successful actress, and wouldn’t even consider doing a part-time job or anything when she was out of work. She seemed to give him nothing, but it was obvious from what he said that she expected him not only to bring home the bacon, but to cook it, dish it up, and wash everything up afterwards as well.”
“Oh. Poor chap. How unfair.”
“I know. But, I mean, this guy didn’t just sit there and bitch about his wife, we all had to draw it out of him, bit by bit—what a cow—she’s got really expensive tastes, and he’s just a walking wallet as far as she’s concerned. He doesn’t even feel that she loves him or appreciates him or has any respect for him—actually, that was when he cried, when he told us that. And she’s obviously a mad cow because she accuses him of having affairs with other women, which he said he’s never done, and she keeps saying he’s having it away with Nicola Horlick . . .”