‘Be greedy,’ Bunny was urging. ‘Feed yourself.’
‘Men men menace!’ shrieked the Women’s Lib badges.
‘Promise you won’t …’ Martin was imploring, leaving her to fill in the words—screw around, betray me.
Why were all the messages conflicting, all the words mocked by her wild and gasping breathing, her sudden yelps of pleasure?
‘Sshh …’ hissed Gerry suddenly. ‘There’s somebody out there.’
Heavy feet were echoing down the passage. She tried to lie still and silent as the footsteps stopped. Gerry froze. Someone was rattling the handle on the door.
‘Did you lock it?’ she whispered, aching with the strain of having to stop.
‘Yeah, I did, but …’
She heard the footsteps plonking off again, giggled suddenly. ‘Perhaps they were desperate for some loo paper. We should have pushed some under the door.’
‘Hush up.’ Gerry was back on form again, she moving with him, shouting.
‘Don’t make so much noise. If the supervisor finds us, we’re in trouble.’
She’d bloody shout if she wanted. It was a yell of triumph, anyway. She was coming—NOW—without even the help of a finger and before him. Her climax spurred him on. He had really got a speed up, ramming back and forth. That excited her in turn again. She ground her body into his, gripped him with her thighs. ‘Yes, come,’ she shouted, ‘come!’
He couldn’t not. His eyes were closed, his face screwed up, nails digging into her flesh.
‘Shirlee!’ he shouted, suddenly. ‘Christ, I love you, Shirl.’
There was a sudden silence. Thirty seconds passed before she freed her face from his, wiped her mouth. ‘The name’s Chris, actually.’
‘God, I’m … I’m sorry. I … er … don’t know what I’m saying.’
‘Don’t you? Shirlee’s your girlfriend, your steady. The blonde with big boobs—remember? You told me all about her over lunch.’
He bit his lip, looked down.
‘No sweat,’ said Chris. ‘We’re made the same, I told you.’
He was limp now, sagging out, his thing dripping blood, his thighs red and shiny with it. She eased up from the newspaper with its spreading scarlet stain, pummelled it into a ball, fought an urge to aim it at his head. She had no right to be angry or vindictive when she and Gerry were quits—both cheating on their steadies. If Martin slept with another girl, would he call the creature Chris? Martin wouldn’t sleep around. Martin was faithful. It no longer seemed a stupid word at all.
‘Hey, you’ve got newsprint on your bottom.’
‘Where?’ She twisted round to try and see her buttocks, glimpsed only a patch of floor. ‘What’s it say? ‘‘Bomb Scare’’ or ‘‘Win For Redskins’’?’ He was probably simply trying to change the subject, deflect attention from his own embarrassment.
‘I can’t read it. It’s just a splodge. D’you want to clean up? There’s a shower room upstairs. Wait a minute—I better check if the coast is clear.’
This was the time for afterplay—staying close and cuddling, winding down, whispering sloppy things. Instead, Gerry was crouching by the ventilator, mopping himself with spittle and a dirty handkerchief, dragging his clothes back on. He tossed her the hankie and her jeans, went to check the corridor.
‘Okay—nobody there, but hurry. Up the stairs and first door on the left.’
She turned the shower to hottest, tried to wash him off. He was stubborn like the newsprint. It had been good, damned good—the first time she had come without a finger. So why did she feel so rotten? It wasn’t just the guilt. It was more complicated than that. Sex meant Martin—all of him—his smell, his voice, his holey pants which no one ever ironed, the way he bounced and whistled afterwards, fed her with chocolate biscuits or bacon-flavoured crisps. She missed the crisps, the bits of salty crumb which tickled in the bed, the way he blew the bag up and then burst it like a kid, the sort of crazy specialness between them.
She dawdled over dressing, praying Gerry would be gone by the time she emerged. He wasn’t. He was waiting by the exit doing side-bends.
‘Time for a Coke?’
‘No, sorry. We’re going out. My Mum flew home the night before last—back to England. She just suddenly left without telling anyone, and my father’s worried that I’m still upset about it. I suppose I am in one way … Anyway, he’s taking me out for a meal to—you know—cheer me up.’ It had been Bunny’s idea, in fact, but it still gave her a kick to say ‘my father’ and she wouldn’t have the chance much longer.
‘Where you going?’
‘Somewhere called ‘‘The Queen’s Head’’ in Hollywood. It’s an English-style place, my father says, where they all …’
‘I know it. It’s great. You’ll love it there.’
‘Well, I’d better make a move or I’ll be late. I’m late already. Thanks … for everything. And give my regards to Shirlee.’
She was glad he had the grace to blush.
‘What kept you, sweetie?’ Bunny was already in her wrap, red ruffles underneath, and all the bracelets.
‘I was playing … tennis with Gerry.’
‘Who won?’
‘We … er … drew.’
‘Congratulations.’ Neil was wearing a seersucker jacket in gold and navy stripes, a navy polo-neck to match. ‘He’s a damn good player. Why didn’t you go on and play a tie-breaker? You might even have beaten him.’
‘I was … um … too shagged.’
‘Well, hurry up and change, honey. We reserved a table and they’ll think we’re not coming and give it away to someone else.’
Chris put a dress on, the only one she owned, went to say goodnight to Dean. He wasn’t in his room.
‘He’s staying with the Bradleys,’ Bunny explained. ‘We thought we’d have you all to ourselves tonight.’
They were trying to make it up to her, assumed she was missing her Mum. It seemed crazy now that she should have brought a chaperone, felt she needed Morna there as confidante and buffer, someone to hold her hand and field the blows. In fact, she felt far better on her own. Martin and her mother were the two people closest to her and for that very reason, she was glad they weren’t around. They loved her, yes, but their love was like a wooden fence caging her in, blocking out the view. Bunny and Neil were different, didn’t keep watching her every move or patching up the fence with extra boards if she so much as pawed the ground.
The restaurant was a sort of Tudor palace with huge gilded axes which served as handles on the studded doors. ‘The Queen’s Head’ was starred in all the guide books, a top tourist attraction, where you had to book at least a week ahead, unless you were someone like her father who Knew People. He was already deep in serving wenches; all dressed as Nell Gwyns or Anne Boleyns or something, with flowing velvet skirts and lots of cleavage. The place looked distinctly schizophrenic. The dartboard and the draught bitter belonged in a British pub, whilst the court jester and the wenches had been imported from some MGM period spectacular. Except they had got their periods mixed. Sixteenth-century madrigals thundered from a twentieth-century synthesiser. The long wooden tables were mock-Jacobean, the suits of armour pseudo-Cromwellian, while both Victoria Regina and Queen Elizabeth I frowned down from the panelled walls, surrounded by a bodyguard of stags’ heads.
They were ushered to their table, knocking elbows, tripping over expensive feet. Neil and Bunny hardly had her to themselves. Half of southern California appeared to have joined the party, dinning out the music, dressed to kill. Her own frock looked poorhouse by comparison and clashed with the padded purple covers of the menus which were so large and springy Gerry could have used them as a trampoline. The lettering inside was gold italic, while the food itself ranged from King Henry VIII‘s Roast Sucking Pig to Lancashire Hotpot (anon).
‘Fish and chips for me,’ said Bunny, once they had sampled their Freedom Of London cocktails, which came in pewter goblets with miniature Union Jacks stuck in fat red cherries on t
he top. ‘It’s out of this world.’
At twenty dollars a portion, so it should be, Chris thought, twirling her little flag—and that probably didn’t include the newspaper. She couldn’t get away from newspaper today. She could feel the blood still seeping out of her, mixed with semen now. How long did sperms survive? Supposing they were still alive and kicking when Martin met her plane in six days time. Would he guess, sniff out Gerry’s traces? She tried to banish both of them, decipher the Olde Englishe spellinge on the menu. ‘Meade’, she read. ‘A fertilitie drink, made with honeye and rare spices’. She slumped back in her seat. Fertility. Gerry hadn’t used a Durex. She had been so concerned about her period, she had totally forgotten contraception. But weren’t periods themselves a sort of Durex? She was sure she’d read somewhere that you couldn’t get pregnant when you had the curse.
Except there was also always the exception which broke the rule, broke your life apart. Imagine having Gerry’s baby. She could see it in its cradle wearing running shorts above its nappies, flexing its biceps on the feeding bottle, practising its sit-ups. She gulped her cocktail, wincing as the ice cubes froze her teeth. Maybe Bunny was wrong about sex. It couldn’t just be kicks (or vitamins) when there was a chance of making kids. Kids made it sacred. She was old enough to have a kid already. Dean could be her child—just. She’d like that. Or Martin’s child—who’d be born with fins and a snorkel and drink bacon-flavoured milk.
‘What d’you want to eat, honey?’ Bunny asked, passing her own menu across and shouting above the clatter of plates, the cackle of conversation and the strains of ‘Where The Bee Sucks’ recorded on electronic sackbut. ‘The vegetarian dishes are down the side—see? There’s Shepherd’s Pie and …’
‘That’s not vegetarian.’
‘It says it is.’
‘The shepherd must have lost his sheep, then. I don’t think I’ll risk it, anyway, just in case one or two slipped in. I’ll have Anne Boleyn’s salad, please.’
‘Sounds dangerous to me,’ said Neil, slipping an arm across her shoulder. She still felt shy of him. Odd to think she was actually made of the same flesh and blood and genes and things (well, half at least). It didn’t feel like that. If you shared your building-bricks with someone, shouldn’t you be closer, be able to see into their soul or communicate without the need for words or the constant worry that you wouldn’t quite come up to scratch? There were new lines on his face, disguised by the smile, but remaining there after it had faded. He had always had frown lines, as far back as she could remember, but she didn’t recall those two deep furrows running from nose to mouth. She felt angry with them suddenly, as if they marked her five long years without him, like those rings on tree trunks which grew one for each new winter.
Bunny was still poring over the menu, holding it up to the light of the (all-electric) candles. ‘We’ll have the Poacher’s Broth first, shall we? It’s very good.’
‘Okay.’ Chris traced a G with her fork prongs on the tablecloth. Poachers meant snares and traps and meat again, no doubt, but she couldn’t be worrying about fur and feather when Gerry’s naked kid might be taking root inside her, building cell by cell.
‘What’s the matter, hon?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Missing your Mom?’
‘A bit.’
‘She’s just fine. She told me so. She was real glad to get that job.’
Chris was silent. There wasn’t any job. Her mother was hardly so important that clients phoned around the world for her. They just passed the work to someone else. There were enough out-of-work translators, for heaven’s sake, panting for a crust.
Neil snapped his Union Jack in half, jabbed the broken ends against his palm. ‘She should have turned it down. I mean, dashing off like that in the middle of a vacation and changing all the plans …’
‘Leave it, Daddy, can’t we?’ Chris couldn’t understand why her father should object to Morna’s going. Unless it were just pride. No one ran away from Neil, and the things he planned must always prove an unqualified success. Her Mum had kiboshed that. Or maybe he was jealous—had somehow sussed out that boy/girlfriend in the Ocean View Motel.
‘Let’s put our crowns on,’ Bunny smiled. ‘Be kings and queens tonight.’ She was papering over cracks. Each person’s place was set not only with olde worlde knives and forks in pseudo-pewter, but also with a paper crown. Bunny reached across for Neil’s, set it on his head at a rakish angle, removed a rosebud from the vase, stuck it in the band. Neither matched his frown.
Chris picked up her own crown, rammed it on her head. Her Mum had left because she couldn’t stand the tension, the frowns beneath the rosebuds. There wasn’t any boyfriend. The whole idea was quite absurd. Her mother didn’t go for men, or only ones like Rilke or Sainte-Beuve who were safely dead and buried. Even in the States, Morna had started on the culture thing, bought poetry books and tried to foist them on her—American stuff to match the trip—Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell. She had dipped into them both, in fact, found them difficult, depressing. Poetry didn’t seem to belong in California. Even back in England, it was all a bit of a con—one of those things the adult world approved of, like drinking orange juice instead of gin, or going to the Natural History Museum or early bed, but which the adults never bothered with themselves. If you took all the people in this restaurant, for example, you could bet your life not one of them chose Pound or Lowell as their bedtime reading. Literature was something Important like Church or Freedom or Equality which all had capital letters but which didn’t get much of a look-in compared with lower-case things like stuffing yourself or getting laid or making money or merely making out. Most of the grown-ups she knew spent their reading time on newspapers and magazines, business reports or recipes, or even cornflake packets. Perhaps the whole thing was the wrong way round. Wouldn’t it be better to save your studies for later on, when you were settled or married or resigned, or at least less confused about all the basic things like being faithful or submissive, or whether you wanted a career or kids, or neither. They could invent new A level courses in Knowing Who You Were, or at least finding out whether you meant yes or no and then not regretting the one you had plumped for. And with that weight off your mind, you might have energy enough to tackle Leaves Of Grass or Life Studies.
If you hadn’t died first, of course, of syphilis or AIDS. She had probably caught both from Gerry. America was famous for V.D. Herpes was so common, there was a special dating service for people who were infected, and you could even buy plastic models of the virus to offend your friends. She’d pass it on to Martin and then he’d know she’d been unfaithful (that word again) and she would have to keep grovelling and letting him win arguments in order to make up.
‘Ah, here’s our first course.’ Neil shook out his napkin, spread it on his lap. The Nell Gwyn waitress had paused to flirt with him, her cleavage plunging so low, you could almost see her navel. Chris tried to keep her attention on the soup. It had come with English muffins which were neither English nor muffins, but so big and soft Anne Boleyn could have slept on one and still room to spare for some of the other wives. It had been worse for Anne Boleyn. She couldn’t even choose about babies, just lost her head for not producing a son. Chris let out a sudden nervous laugh.
Bunny squeezed her arm. ‘That’s better. You’ve been looking as if you’d lost twenty bucks and found a dime.’
Hadn’t she? Martin was worth two hundred of Gerry, at least, yet she had valued him at nothing, kicked him in the gutter. Bunny would say ‘Enjoy them both, honey child. A dime-store’s fun as well as Saks Fifth Avenue.’ She snatched a glance at Bunny, who was giggling with the waitress, mopping butter off her chin—having a ball, to use one of her own phrases. Bunny was always cheerful, always having a ball—the only person she knew, in fact, who seemed genuinely happy, not merely coping or content or not complaining. And it wasn’t just because she was an uncomplicated type. So was Martin’s mother and yet she had grievances. She didn’t like the Co
uncil or the milkman or the neighbours opposite or the way they timed the coffee breaks at work. Why didn’t they have A levels in Happiness? It was obviously quite a skill, yet seemed as scorned as subjects like Home Economics or Dressmaking. In fact, half the writers they studied at school had lived thoroughly miserable lives and the American ones were worse. Pound had landed up in an institution, branded as a fascist and a traitor; both Lowell and Roethke had been in and out of mental hospitals all their lives, and …
‘How’s the soup?’ asked Bunny.
‘Great.’ Chris picked out a scrap of chicken and discarded it on her side plate, swirled the rest with her spoon so she could spot any further offerings from the poacher.
‘Good God!’ said Neil, pushing back his chair. ‘Look over there.’
Chris looked, couldn’t see anything new—just another troop of people frothing through the door, adding to the crush.
‘It’s Irving Stroud, would you believe?’ Bunny was goggling now as well.
‘Who’s he?’
‘You must know Irving Stroud, honey.’
Chris blushed. He was probably some top movie star or leading politician, the sort of Shining Light who made the cover of Newsweek. What was the use of her lousy prissy school if all it taught was nineteenth-century fogies?
‘Is he that … er … you know …?’ She wasn’t even good at bluffing. Neil wasn’t listening anyway, was already on his feet, striding to the door, where a slight man in his early sixties with flabby skin the colour of stewed onions and eyes like two black peppercorns, was shrugging off a fur-lined overcoat.
‘Irving!’
‘Neil!’
Their voices carried, even over ‘Greensleeves’ amplified on lutes and viols. Neil had meant them to.
Bunny turned back to her soup. ‘He’s one of Neil’s old clients. He was big then, but now he’s very big. His last party made all the headlines. Everyone was there.’
‘Were you? I mean you as well as Daddy?’
‘Oh, yeah. I bought a whole new outfit. Shocking pink. Everyone wore pink. You had to. It said so on the card.’
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