We came here because Savinien remembered it new, could stare at the waterfront buildings and think of them under construction, raw stone. He found that he wanted to call on friends who could not be at home and I waited while he walked round the small garden at the island’s head, composed himself, looked at the sky, scuffed his shoes across the countless hieroglyphic sparrow tracks in the pale, sunny dust.
All that afternoon, we walked slowly round and round the island, crossing in and out of the sun. It seemed to ease Martin/Savinien to be on the move and there were very few cars here to worry him. On one circuit we noticed a man and a woman lying. They were in the shade of a small sunken courtyard, next to a flight of seventeenth-century steps, and were fully occupied in being a pair of Parisian lovers. Not actually having sex, but both were deeply engrossed in each other, silently writhing, artfully unaware of the straggling tourists photographing them and moving on. Having no cameras, we simply looked.
“There you are, then. What Paris is all about. Meant to be.”
Savinien closed his eyes. “We are like dogs now. This is all so much the same in the buildings, but now the people are like dogs, to fall on each other in the street. Come away, they would like us to watch and I have never enjoyed that kind of entertainment—to be staring or to be stared at in the street.”
“I’m not so terribly fond of it myself.”
“No, by here.” We walked down, off the pavement and on to a slipway of sloping butter yellow stone that gradually disappeared into the brown-blue river. The sun sprang at us from the hot flags and the honeycoloured embankment.
“You think I am shocked.”
“No.”
“Nothing can affront me, I assure you. No action. The setting was a surprise, nothing more. Eh, but I always did say that if men were to walk abroad every day with their swords to hand (such dangerous things these blades, all pressed together into a city with tight-fitting playhouses and cabarets and streets) then why not display their other, more peaceable weapons. I see no offence in this, only pleasure. Obviously my compatriots have taken to heart my advice, their rapiers and daggers are gone and very soon, I would guess, they will reveal their less cumbersome replacements.”
“It’s an interesting idea.”
“It does at least get to the meat of the matter.”
“Very subtle, yes.”
“I never could support these terrible outbreaks of versified mediocrity and soft broiled brains that were meant to display undying love. Probably quite sane men and women trading sick little couplets, all prettiness and dying flowers and mildewed ornament when what they wish is to fall on each other like dogs. These stillborn misconceptions they insist on nursing and dragging through the streets to fling into each other’s arms—they have no point.”
“Not everyone is a poet.”
“I know this! Why pretend, then! Why not do what they do and have done with it as best they can and let those of us who are able exercise the public points.”
“Don’t tell me, you’re really North European history’s greatest lover and you just forgot to tell me. And you know how I enjoy meeting experts. Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
I leant against the slipway’s fat retaining wall, felt its heat licking through my shirt while Savinien turned to face me, one of his feet faltering with a slither of damped sand. He lifted one hand to block out the sun.
“Lover? This has nothing to do with loving, any kind of loving, this is a point!”
“Another point.”
“This is a combat of hearts, a delicate, demanding expression of virtuosity in the point. Love was a real illness, then. At the very least a fever of the brain producing phantoms, fasting, evil humours and whitened hair. My hair only became rather thin, it was the best I could do.”
“Is this serious?”
“Serious? This was a vocation. Men could spend their whole lives being in love. And besides, a point is always serious, you should know that by now. I will show you. An Exercise in Love. A point.”
“Ssssh. We’ll get a better audience than the couple by the stairs.”
“Yes!” And he suddenly stood somehow taller. He did something that meant he was taller than his natural height, balancing on his toes, his arms lifted to either side, as if he might begin conducting an orchestra, or simply executing a forward roll. “Now! You should watch, this will not be something you have previously seen. For three hundred and seventy-five years this will not be something Paris has seen. Do you love me?”
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“If you truly loved me, if you truly did . . .” He turned his back and began to walk to the end of the slipway.
“What are you doing?”
“I am proving love. I shall continue to walk and this will be a proof of love.” The water lapped at his shoes and then over them. He turned to face me. The light sparking and rolling on the water made him almost a silhouette against a sheet of irregular white. He placed his hands on top of his head. “If you were true to me, I could walk on this water. If you loved me. I shall place my trust in your love,” a shuffling step backwards, “and that will bear me up. I believe in you.”
“Don’t.”
He had shuffled to ankle depth and now let the water inch placidly towards his knees. “I cannot stop. If I stop I am dishonouring your love, I am showing I lack faith.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re being ridiculous.”
“Tell me that you love me and my passion will answer yours. The fire of my emotion will roast the Seine into clouds of vapour and together we will walk its bed. Huoh!” His arms flailed out as if he might fall.
“Careful!”
He smiled and folded his fingers together under his chin. “I’ve proved you do care, then? A tiny measure of care, for when I stumble and fall to my death? Because I am well able to swim but the currents here are strong and treacherous. How soon, do you think, before this stone falls away and is only water. One step more? To my knees?”
He moved as if to start another step.
“No! Don’t.”
The head cocked to one side, the profile suddenly intent, almost sly. “No what.”
“No, whatever you like.”
He sprang forwards, up the slipway, genuinely slipping as he came, wheeling his arms to save his balance and laughing. “Eh, you see? The testing of wills, of true hearts and, in an instant, there is the point.”
“Well, you didn’t have to make it with me. And look at you.” His trousers clung blackly to his shins, rolling with river water while his shoes bubbled in silence. He assumed his most patient expression.
“We are in France, this is a country with a functioning sun. A person can be wet in the open air and not die of it, one simply becomes dry.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“It was an exercise. I had such a lovely day today, I felt I wanted to be alive.”
I patted his shoulder. “I know. But don’t do it again, okay. It could be worrying.”
“I wanted to be alive.”
As we rose again to the pavement and its slim trees an old woman in a print dress stared at us. Then she smiled and flapped her hand, sucked in a little gasp with a tick of her head.
Savinien shrugged his mouth and nodded. “Je sçay, je sçay.”
I’ve never liked public discussions of love. I’ve never liked pointless things in general, and why spend so much time whining and obsessing over something no one can define. There’s absolutely no point in that. I mean there isn’t a common or garden point. Or even a French one.
There’s a useful addition for the good old vocabulary— Improve Your Word Power with the French Point. I used to try and describe it to people but now I don’t bother. As you may have guessed, there’s no point.
But I could give you my personal definition of love. Or I could at least tell you what it makes me think of. Not roses, bells, hearts, even broken ones. I think of a thin, round black leather case w
hich was lying at the bottom of my wardrobe with the shoes, last time I looked. And in the case?
Clickclickclick, every trip. Snug in the leather, curved together one on the other, a nicely heavy metaphor for many things, but to me they mean only love.
Ever tried them? Handcuffs? They are such an indelible cliché, they will now always be automatically far more than themselves, loaded with sleazy authority, unexpectedly harsh. The three thick chain links between the cuffs really don’t give the freedom you might expect and the fit of the bracelets is indeed firm, tight, can even be painful. Given its way, the hinged arm of each cuff would swing right round, only your wrist, or some other inserted interruption, will stop it.
These are not gentle things, these mean metal against flesh. They cannot give, may in fact even enjoy an element of struggle, allowing them to bite. Set into each lock is a little switch which can be flicked over to prevent the cuff closing too tightly and nipping the skin, compressing veins, rubbing the bone and nasty goings-on like that. Beside each switch is the word STOP.
Clickclickclick. STOP.
Because you should stop. Although they are so small and amusing, so very readily available and not even embarrassing to purchase publicly, quite a joke really, you should stop and not buy them at all. If you are like me. They are the door you will open in order to go too far.
For us—for Steven and I—they made Captain Bligh much less pleasant than before. And, goodness me, Bligh was already getting more than out of hand. My performance was beginning to be painfully pointless: for Steve. I was, as they say, feeling no pain. One or both of us might have quibbled that Bligh never was—in any historical sense—anything like a lady. But then again, neither was I.
“Very well, sir, very well. The gunner’s daughter, you shall find, is waiting and you shall be restrained.”
Our accuracy was physical rather than factual. Steven squealed when I snapped on the cuffs with that quick flip-click you see in the films which takes a little practice but is worth all the effort, believe me.
“That’s . . . I’m sorry . . . that’s too tight.”
“What was that you said?”
“Ma’am, that’s very tight, ma’am.”
“Are you questioning my decision, sir?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. It would go hard with you if you were. Wouldn’t it?”
Oh naturally, of course, this wasn’t all we did but this was what I aimed for, this was my consolation while we shared out all the landlubberly, preliminary stuff. The pedestrian rolls in the tedious hay were more or less proficient I suppose, but somehow they failed to impress. The good Captain was always impatient to get out.
After all, what did all that penetrative pitch and roll amount to? In the end? You know as well as I do. The graded variations on that particular, same old, theme:
You know. That stuff.
People write about it all the time and it never does a thing for me. With Steven, I would lie or sit or stand beside or above or below or in front or behind him and have never a thing done for me, thinking, “You shall be sorry for your faults, sir. I shall make you.” Excellent motivation, that—never failed.
So, Clickclickclick. STOP.
But don’t stop. And off we go.
The best thing was to fasten him across the kitchen table. Naturally, we would require an empty house. I have never liked to trouble co-tenants with even conventional disturbances, knowing how sensitive I was myself to such intrusions. Sensitivity breeds sensitivity.
Our proceedings were more than averagely disturbing. A broad belt, vigorously applied, truly does swish in an endlessly fascinating way. It will not crack as a whip might in the air, but across the back, buttocks, legs, stomach. “And where else shall we go, sir? Will you trust your Captain tonight? Will you?” That’s the game. Wherever the Captain and I thought fit, there we would go and crack away remarkably. Re-mark-ab-ly.
With thought, we might have avoided the inevitable. I might have. I had, after all, known my emotional deficiencies for many years by this time. Given a situation I found so interesting, so releasing, I would naturally find it hard to concentrate on another person’s pain. I would forget they were there and be in danger of doing them harm.
“Take this in your mouth, sir, and bite. I’ll not have crying out, there. I will not.”
I would see the shiver of his muscles, the plum and scarlet bruising, the sheen of fear on his skin. Sometimes I would only swing the belt, or stroke his back, and he would flinch. If I only inhaled emphatically he would flinch. I could make him flinch just by breathing. Nice.
Oh, and he got to come. Naturally. Being a good, brave sailor and doing his bit for the two we had to be to tango. And he came because I wouldn’t let him not—there was always that to be considered, having the power to satisfy. Pipe aboard the Captain and no hands are needed at the pump.
Not that I was utterly numb myself. I had a reaction or two, even calm old me. I’m still blood and flesh, I was affected. I wouldn’t be honest if I said I didn’t, in the end, enjoy what we did, relish it. So much so that away from him, I wouldn’t think of what we did. The images I could recall—and remember that I did have the best possible view—were too strong, they would slide away from me under their own steam, showing me where they might lead next. It was far wiser to forget about it all until we were together again. By which time, the Captain would take charge and relieve me of my responsibilities. I always found the Captain a great relief.
And if all this were not enough in the way of monstrously damaging fiascoes, please bear in mind that the naked human body, in itself, is not something I find endlessly fascinating. I do not find it especially easy to look at. It is messily put together and has altogether too much skin when compared to other animal forms. I should know, I grew up watching both the male and female model put exhaustively through their paces. I do know.
Naturally, if you beat a man, you will eventually be looking, not at him, but at what you have made of him. But looking at him before you have caused enough change on that body, in that body, this may be a problem. What will solve your problem beautifully and for ever will be the handcuffs—love, as I understand it. Fix your man securely and you need only look at him when you wish, you will already know where to strike.
I am ashamed of the cuffs now, they are like a bad old friend from another life and I’ll not use them again. When I look for shoes I am half aware of the case. I push it further into the shadows and leave it be. The leather is slightly mouldy now.
Do you know, now that I’ve given this thought, it feels right that I should just throw the case and the handcuffs away. I’ll do that. I’ll wrap them up in a carrier bag and dump them—go for a walk and leave them in a public wastebin or a skip where I can’t get them back and no one will know they belong to me. I’ll do that now.
ALL GONE, all done. My little parcelled wickedness is now sleeping in a skip along with half a dozen furtive empty bottles, the fruits of an interior upgrading, and some dead mattresses. Probably there are some abandoned syringes in there, too. We have passed the time when anywhere in this city will be entirely free of used syringes, of our public sicknesses.
It’s also rather cold out. I’m better off in here with the radiators on, quietly putting paid to the atmosphere with profligate energy use.
There’s nothing like a good symbolic act to give you a sense of achievement. Buying a poppy seems almost as good as preventing a soldier’s death, phoning a radio programme seems nicer than taking part in democracy, and throwing away your handcuffs feels just like being free. If you happen to have a past like mine. Just as I have no physical reminders of my parents, I now have no concrete proof of Steven’s existence as part of my life. More importantly, our mutual friend Bligh has been dropped ashore—I really couldn’t face that performance again. Everything gone, better now.
And leaving me far more room to think about our household’s resident dead Frenchman. Slowly, we all started to get used
to the person everyone still referred to as Martin. It became unremarkable to find him in the living-room, eating an apple with a knife and fork, or to watch him pacing the garden round, humming high unfamiliar tunes. He had a remarkable adaptability, walking out with me quite calmly, managing traffic, overhead aircraft, billboards and bicycles with only a famished curiosity. Soon, he was setting out by himself, returning with lists of questions and sometimes objects he’d found on his way. I bought him a little notebook which he began to carry with him everywhere in the pocket of Pete’s abandoned East German Army parka, along with a huge supply of Biros. I don’t think his devotion to disposable plastic pens ever faded.
And often he would ask me to go with him to the park round the corner where he had been afraid once and I would do that.
“Thank you.”
“It’s all right. I like a walk sometimes.”
We sat on one of the fireproof red metal benches provided, folding our hands under our armpits against the mounting cold and looking at the dribble of traffic falling down the Crow Road. We were surrounded by the strong, bitter smell of dead leaves and the occasional detonation of early autumn fireworks.
“That’s us cold, then, ah?”
“Mm hm.”
Conversation wasn’t particularly part of the proceedings.
“It reminds me.”
“Yes?”
“Perhaps you don’t wish to hear this.”
“I won’t know until you’ve said.”
“I cannot deny that. No, I cannot.” He rubbed his front teeth with the ball of his thumb, watched the pale cloud of his breath drift gently and lose its shape.
“Well?”
“Well, I am reminded of another time as cold as this, colder, and I am on the field, or in the field near Saint-Germain. It was morning, I had just seen the dawn and the air was full of the end of the year, like this, and there was a darkness there which the sun could not drive out. Frost was in a glass across the meadow and the grey dead leaves, lying as they are today. We could not walk anywhere without crushing something irreparably. You must understand, I hate the winter, waiting for it to come, like a sleeping death.
So I Am Glad Page 9