No, Leroy. That they simply can’t. Not Abigail. She’s private. I turn over on my back, slip my hand down, make sure she’s there. She is. I retrieve my stocking from the man with the moustache who has it draped across his face, stretch it taut as Cheryl did, rub it between my legs. Abigail approves. So do they. In fact, there’s so much money piling up, the catwalk looks as if it’s been re-carpeted not with scarlet matting, but with blue-green dollar bills. I’ve got to earn this money. The male strippers were just cons, collecting up the cash, but keeping on their g-strings. I stare down at my pants. Aren’t I doing just the same? I’m a fraud myself, a sham. In fact, if I were really generous I’d not only take my pants off, I’d masturbate for real. After all, I’m good at it, get a lot of practice, and that English teacher said we ought to use our talents, not let them go to waste. Jesus said the same.
Alexis and the rest all touched themselves (pretended), but it didn’t convince me for a single second. Oh yes, they gasped and groaned and panted and appeared to be pressing all the right buttons and ringing all the bells, but I knew it was just fake. Their hearts and souls weren’t in it. They were probably working out their tax returns or composing angry letters to their landlords about leaky roofs or overflowing dustbins. I know I could do better. You have to keep your mind on it, give it your total concentration, not care if you look stupid or make faces. Every night since I arrived, I’ve been touching myself up, alone and bloody miserable. Last night was worst of all. All those tears, and feeling such a failure. I’m not a failure. They love me here, adore me. I don’t need aphrodisiacs. I’m good at it, a natural, came seven times last night. Why hide away in bathrooms, sobbing and ashamed with only Milton’s snores to cheer me on, when I can do it here on stage to wild applause? These guys deserve to see me come – yeah, seven swaggering times. They’ve made me a celebrity, a star: music playing for me, lights trained on my body, every eye turned in my direction, every throat gasping out my name.
“Take ’ em off, Carole, Take ’em off!”
I will, of course I will. Just let me have another tiny drink to stop my heart pounding quite so hard. Thank you, Sir. You’re sweet. It’s a liqueur this time. Delicious. Amber-coloured, and very strong and warming. I dip my fingers in the glass, stroke them down my breasts. I can see eight breasts in the mirrors, all with stiffening nipples, all glistening with liqueur. My fingers are quite sticky now, so I lick them one by one, very very slowly, swirling my tongue around the tips, then up and down, up and down, lingering on each one. I like the taste of that liqueur, the pressure of my tongue. Men are milling round, sticking out their own tongues, going near-hysterical. Lazily, teasingly, I move my hand lower, slide it beneath the waistband of my pants, use my other hand to ease the wisp of nylon down. No rush. Take my time. I’m not quite naked – not yet, not completely. I’ve still got the stetson on, and the lights are veiling me, discreetly draping private parts – peacock breasts, rainbow bush. My pubic hair isn’t trimmed or shaped. No one seems to mind, though. Applause is roaring round me, fusing with the music, the entire room spinning, booming.
I shut my eyes, shut everything out, as I slip my finger down and in. Right in. I’m doing this for Reuben – only Reuben. It’s his finger I can feel: slender foreign finger, probing deeper deeper, his free hand on my breast. I let myself cry out. The music cries as well. I’ve never done it with music or with lights before. It makes it more exciting, more exotic – silver on my fingers, scarlet in my ears. I open my eyes a moment. I’m surrounded. Men are pouring up on stage, trying to touch me, on their knees, imploring. Why be mean? Why reward just Reuben when all these other guys adore me? I love them all, love the world like Jesus did. I want to give myself to them – all of me, all of them. Why restrict myself to Reuben when he hasn’t even bothered to come up here? No – this is for the Japanese, the Mexicans, all the men from the convention, the guy with the moustache, the security guards, the barmen, the car park attendants out there in the cold and dark. This is for Leroy and Snake and Milt, and for darling darling Victor, and for all the old and bald and ugly and all the lost and sad and lonely, and also for the beautiful – for Alexis and for Cheryl, for Tiny Tim, Guiseppo, Mr Universe. I’m almost there. Don’t stop. Don’t stop cheering, everyone. I love it, love your fingers. Want all your fingers, male and female, all your long and clever fingers. Yes, cheer me, cheer me, cheer me, cheer me, C-H-E-E-R. Oh, my God. Oh, Christ. Oh, Reuben!
Chapter Sixteen
“Norah, wake up. Wake up. I’m getting married. Today. Tonight. At midnight. You can be the bridesmaid. Norah, did you hear? What are you doing sleeping in the middle of the day? You ought to be outside. It’s gorgeous. The best weather we’ve had yet. Blue sky and sun and …”
She opens her eyes. She’s lying on her bed, fully dressed, even with her lace-ups on. The curtains are drawn close, the whole room gloomy, airless.
“Are you all right, love?”
Slowly, she sits up, rubs her eyes, rubs her forehead. “I … I had a headache.”
“Oh, bad luck. I’m sorry. Did you find the aspirin? Jeez! I’m so excited, Norah. He’s wonderful. You’ll love him.”
“Milt?”
“Of course not Milt. Milton’s in Chicago. No, Reuben. Reuben Avraham Ben Shmuel. He’s Jewish. We’re going to Israel for our honeymoon. Well, not our honeymoon. He’s got to fight. It’s a sort of … mission. He wants me to go with him and become a Jew. I’ve already got some Jewish blood. I’ve never really thought about it much, but he said if I converted, it would completely change my life, give me something to …”
“Where is he?” Norah’s groping for her glasses. I think she expects to see my spouse-to-be looming over her bed. I can see him, actually. He’s imprinted on my mind, reflected in my eyes; my body’s wet with him, my heart thumping out his name. Reuben Avraham. He took that name just a year ago to reaffirm his Jewishness when his father had denied it. His father called himself Sam Lee when he moved from the New York ghetto to LA. He was really Samuel Litovski. That’s why Reuben chose the surname Ben Schmuel, which means son of Samuel. Reuben himself started off Dick Lee – Richard. The only thing he kept was the initial R. Reuben was his grandfather’s name, the one born in Lódz. Avraham is more symbolical: the Father of the Jews. No hope of explaining all those names and ancestors to Norah. I was pretty much confused myself when Reuben started on his lineage – not just the Polish grandpa and Russian grandmother (who both fled to New York to escape the pogroms), but also his slightly older and more famous forebears – Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Abraham himself.
Norah’s polishing her glasses, peering round the room. “Did you bring him?”
“Oh, no – he’s got a hundred things to do. So have I. It’s such a rush, you see. We’re hoping to get married at the stroke of midnight, and we haven’t got the licence yet or …”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. New Year’s Eve. Just as it moves into New Year’s Day. Isn’t that fantastic – after all I said myself about a new start and a new year and everything, that he should feel the same? He didn’t want to wait at all. Not even till tonight.”
Norah flops down from the bed, takes a few dazed steps. “I thought we were going to the show tonight.”
“Show? What show? Oh, you mean the Show Spectacular. God! So we are.” I do a few lightning calculations in my head. Too much magic in one night – fireworks, show and wedding. I can’t let Norah down, though. I read her all the spiel about the show, made her quite excited by leaving out the topless girls, concentrating rather on lions and tigers, elephants and princes.
“That’s okay, we’ll fit it in,” I tell her. It doesn’t start till ten, so we’ll have to miss the end, and also miss the actual New Year rave-up when the clock strikes twelve, but Norah won’t mind that. We’ll be in the chapel then, with any luck, me exchanging vows with Reuben, while she acts as our witness. I still can’t quite believe it, that things have moved so fast. He said as soon as he set eyes on me he knew …
“You’re going to … fight?”
“Well, not in the Army. Though women can, actually, in Israel. Maybe I will later. I’m not too sure.”
“Israel?”
I wish she wouldn’t interrupt, keep parroting my words. I don’t think she’s too well. She looks very pale and drained, keeps swallowing and blinking. I hope to God she’s not going down with something.
“Israel?” she asks again. It sounds completely different when she says it. Reuben made it glitter. I march over to the window, fling the curtains back – which takes some doing, since there are at least three sets of ruffles, drapes and nets. Reuben had no curtains in his room, and only one small and smeary window, looking over dustbins.
The sun floods in, gold-leafing my arms. “Yes, Israel,” I breathe, shining up the word again. “We’re going to settle there. Reuben says it’s our spiritual and political home.”
Well, not strictly speaking mine. I’m not Jewish yet at all. It doesn’t count on your father’s side, only on your mother’s, and my Ma’s very much an Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Reuben says you’re either Jewish or you’re not – you can’t be just a quarter. I was quite upset about it, but he said it didn’t matter: once we’ve lived in Israel for a while, I can become a Jew, legally and wholly. I love that word convert. It sounds so dramatic, offers me the chance of becoming someone else, someone with a purpose, a conviction.
Norah’s face looks paler still, as if all the blood has drained from it. Her mouth is opening and shutting like a fish’s, but no sound comes out at all.
“Norah, love, don’t think I’m deserting you. I begged for you to come as well. I said you’d be no trouble, but Reuben’s quite difficult to argue with. He knows so much, you see. He’s incredibly clever and has read almost every book on almost every subject and runs workshops and action groups, and his room is full of leaflets he’s distributing, or posters he’s designed or …”
I sink down on a sofa, shrinking from the velvet, ashamed now of the luxury preening all around me. It seems vulgar and excessive after Reuben’s shabby bedsit, which is smaller than our bathroom here, and dirty. He said it didn’t matter, that things like food and furniture were mere distractions and ephemera, and we should be ready to give everything to a higher cause or calling. I gave him all my prize money and the great wad of dollar bills which all those men had thrown at me, or stuffed into my stocking-tops or bra-cups. I didn’t even count them. Nor did he. It wasn’t really giving because what’s his is mine now, whether money or a cause, and he also made me see that by donating it to something more important than myself, I benefit as well, since I’m part of a community, a People. And anyway, he’s got to buy our tickets to Tel Aviv and a whole mass of other things.
God! It was so incredibly exciting. Not only did I win, had my photo taken for the Las Vegas Sun and Mirror and was the toast and star of Ritzy’s (and so loaded down with money I couldn’t even fit it in my handbag – left the place with two bulging plastic carriers), but Reuben slept with me. No, not slept. That’s such a boring sluggish sort of word, completely wrong for our wild electric night together, and we didn’t sleep at all. There wasn’t time, and anyway, we were both far too high and happy to close our eyes even for a moment.
I close mine now. I want to re-run that stupendous sacred scene. I’ll never forget it, not ever in my life. All my fears about being odd or over-sexed or hostile to men or fixated on my father simply flowed away in Reuben’s sweat. That sounds wrong as well. Why are words so crude? Reuben did sweat, but it was like a Baptism. I lay under him, on his thin and scratchy rug, and I felt these warm wet drops falling on my breasts, my face. At first, I couldn’t understand it. I was still a bit hung over and thought the roof was leaking. After all, his pad was pretty slummy. Then I realised the man was sweating out his lifeblood in my service. We’d been going at it for over an hour by then and his whole body was covered with this film and sheen of sweat. I didn’t feel put off. He wasn’t some vulgar muscle-man like Mr Universe. This was spiritual sweat.
Reuben made love to me with the same sheer wild unstinting passion as he gives to his chosen country Israel. I was no longer just a stranger, some odd English girl, a hanger-on of Angelique’s. I was Woman, Sexual Woman, Political Woman, his helpmate, henchman, midwife to his cause. The sex simply clinched it. It wasn’t something separate or different. With most ordinary men, everything’s in compartments: eight hours work, an hour or two drinking with the lads, another hour or two for sport or snooker, then a brief ten minutes’ sex before eight or nine hours sleep. Reuben sleeps for just four hours – no more. He says man must evolve until he doesn’t need much sleep; must use the extra time for struggle, revolution. He doesn’t bother at all with sport or recreation, and work and sex are both aspects of the cause, both energy, commitment.
Energy, my God! He came four times in one night. I didn’t know that men could even do that. I mean, four real times with all the build-up and the heaving, and when he came, he cried. Yes, really cried, each time. I’ve never seen such feeling. Jon would give an embarrassed little gasp, then push off to fetch a beer or have what he calls a leak, or start making Marmite sandwiches, doorstep ones, with stale bread cut all crooked. Reuben stayed – right there on that rug – the tears still running down his face and saying all these marvellous highflown things, using words I hardly understood, dazzling words more suited to religion. He simply wasn’t bothered with boring things like eating, or swilling down Black Label from the can. He just kept talking talking talking, stroking me, adoring me, sharing all his plans. It made me feel tremendously important. I could see he really trusted me, needed me to help him in his work.
It’s so wonderful to have work; to have met a man who’s so absolutely certain; knows exactly what he wants, where he’s going, what’s important and what’s not. All my own confusion, my seesawing from one view to another, my sheer muddle as to who I even am, simply seeped away. I’m Reuben’s bride, his soul mate.
“Carole … ?”
I open my eyes. Norah is standing by the sofa, still dressed in that depressing green, which by now is like an archaeological record of our trip: airline gravy overlaid with Sunday champagne brunch; Victor’s chocolates merging into spilt Moroccan couscous; strawberry ice from yesterday, and a new anonymous stain to bring us up to date. They haven’t found her case yet. I’ve got to put a claim in, dig out our insurance forms, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t got around to it. She won’t touch the Gold Rush clothes. It’s as if she’s clinging to security, still hanging on to Beechgrove via her Crimplene.
“Are you really getting married?”
“Yes, of course.” I try to avoid her haunted frightened eyes. If it weren’t for Norah, I’d be over the moon. Of course it hurts to leave her. And I can’t help feeling worried. I mean, how will she get back or manage on her own? Actually, I’m still hoping Reuben will change his mind, agree she can come with us. I’ve got to work on it – and fast.
“Norah, you haven’t got a bit of Jewish in you, have you? Somewhere far far back, perhaps? I mean, you never heard that … ?” I break off. How could she have heard anything when she knew neither of her parents, never had a relation in her life? That really chokes me. I mean, how d’ you cope when you’ve nobody at all? It’s bad enough for me, with my father gone and no brothers and sisters, but I’ve always had aunts and cousins (and even second cousins) and two rather distant grandparents. Norah’s on her tod. I’m her sister and her cousin, her mother and her daughter, and I’m walking off, orphaning her again. No, I’m not. I can’t. I’ll really plead with Reuben. After all, if Norah is our bridesmaid and our witness, then she’s someone very special, part of th
e whole marriage.
I pat the cushion beside me, try and coax her down. “Norah, you will be bridesmaid, won’t you?”
She doesn’t say a word, just shakes her head. She really does look awful, sort of agonised and grey; still keeps swallowing, as if something sharp and jagged is sticking in her throat.
“Why not?” I take her hand and squeeze it. It’s cold, clammy cold, feels rigid, unresponsive, as if that hand has died and is just beginning to stiffen.
She doesn’t answer. She’s staring down and blinking. I think she’s close to tears, but is trying desperately to hold them back. I want to weep myself for all the complications. Angelique said “no” as well. She’d have made such a stylish bridesmaid and been an extra tie with England, but I suspect she’s cut all ties, after our one short night of friendship. I phoned her just this morning from Reuben’s place, to tell her about Israel and the wedding and she was really weird – cool and rather distant and yet sounding scared as well, scared and angry. She was much the same last night, in fact, when I left to go to Reuben’s. She kept telling me to leave the guy alone and not get involved in things I didn’t understand. Reuben says it’s merely jealousy. Apparently he slept with her as well, once, and she was so uptight and frigid, she didn’t come at all. He says she’s probably guessed we’d be wonderful together and simply couldn’t face the contrast. I felt a whole conflict of emotions – a red rush of jealousy that she’d ever been to bed with him; regret that I’d upset her when I’d hoped she’d be a friend and might even come and see me when she was visiting her mother back in England; and a sneaking satisfaction that I was better in the sack than a trained exotic dancer who was considered worth a thousand bucks a week.
I stride into the bathroom, start stripping off my clothes. They’re sweaty, creased and oily and I’ve got to look immaculate. I’ve things to do, people to impress. Norah follows. She’s usually so modest she always keeps her distance when I’m changing clothes or washing, but today she seems nervous like a child, clinging to my skirts in case I disappear again. I remove my pants and stockings, put them in the basin to soak. So many men have pawed them, they must be alive with germs, almost crawling on their own into the water. I blush as I remember. Ritzy’s seems a hundred years ago, instead of just a morning. I think it’s because I grew up in those last few hours with Reuben, received the sacrament of adulthood, was touched and quickened by some higher power. I swing round, give Norah a great hug. I want to share my joy with her, my triumph; heal her misery, transform her from a cold and trembling spinster to a radiant bride.
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