by Joan Smith
She had been turning the pages of the introduction with her left hand, not really seeing them, and now she came to the end and read her own name, followed by the date and place she had been living when she revised it for this edition: ‘Oxford, 1991’. She was still clutching the teaspoon in the fingers of her other hand even though she had long ago given up stirring.
Four
The journalist was waiting when Loretta arrived at the Café Noir, rising from a corner by the window and waving to attract her attention. ‘Dr Lawson? Over here.’
Loretta skirted her way between the circular tables, accidentally hooking her bag over a chair back so she had to stop and disentangle it. She shook the journalist’s outstretched hand, thinking she looked quite a lot younger than she sounded on the phone. ‘Carole Coryat? How did you recognise me?’
The woman picked up a copy of the book Loretta had been looking at in the museum restaurant. ‘From your cover photo,’ she said, even though the picture of Loretta was not a particularly good likeness. She smiled shyly. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet you. Do you mind sitting alongside me? I usually tape interviews ... Can I get you a drink?’
Loretta glanced at the menu, taking in little more than the fact that it was handwritten in black ink with the day’s date at the top. ‘Just a Perrier, please.’
She settled back in her chair, lifting her head so she could see over the lace curtain which obscured the bottom section of the window. The café was on a cross street between Fifth Avenue and Madison, the traffic not as heavy as on the avenues but still busy enough for short queues to form. A woman was getting out of a taxi which had stopped at an awkward angle, blocking two lanes, and there was an instantaneous angry blaring of horns.
‘That’s New York for you,’ Carole Coryat said, smiling ruefully, and Loretta looked at her. ‘Sorry?’
She gave her head a slight shake, almost as if by doing so she could dislodge her preoccupation with what was going on outside. Carole Coryat’s smile faded, giving way to a puzzled expression, and Loretta tried to look reassuring. The journalist was fair and big-boned, with springy hair held back from her wide forehead by a hairband — the kind Hillary Clinton used to wear before she became First Lady, Loretta thought, and just as unflattering. Her face and neck had the reddish tint of someone who habitually worked outdoors, as though she’d stepped off a farm somewhere in the Mid-West — not at all Loretta’s idea of a sophisticated city journalist.
‘How long have you worked for New York?’ she asked curiously, trying to guess Carole’s age. Twenty-one? Certainly not more than a couple of years older than that.
‘I’m not exactly on staff,’ Carole said in a rush, ‘but they’ve used two or three of my pieces since I left college last year and they’re very interested in this idea ...’ She stopped with obvious relief as a waiter approached, giving her a chance to order an espresso for herself and Loretta’s mineral water. ‘How do you like New York?’ she asked, changing the subject as soon as he returned to the bar. ‘Have you been here before?’
‘Yes, but not for a long time. I only arrived yesterday afternoon so I haven’t really had time to look around.’ She surveyed the other customers as she spoke, becoming aware that several were speaking French. At a table next to the bar, overlooked by an industrial-sized espresso machine, two men had their heads bent over a chess board. An ashtray piled with untipped cigarette butts was testimony to how long they’d been absorbed in the game.
Carole Coryat said: ‘I live on East 62nd Street and I eat lunch here most days ...’ She grinned. ‘Some days I help out waiting tables — the owner, Yves, he’s a friend of mine, it’s a shame he isn’t in today or I could introduce you. Sure you aren’t hungry? I can recommend the Salade Niçoise.’
‘No thanks, I had lunch at the Met.’ Loretta pushed her hair back from her forehead, feeling a bit sorry for the girl, for her gaucheness and undirected enthusiasm, and guessing there was a very good chance the interview, feature, whatever it was, wouldn’t get printed. It was too late to back out now and she said tiredly: ‘What can I tell you about Edith Wharton?’
Carole reached for a roomy kitbag, all shiny zips and buckles, which she’d dumped on a nearby chair. ‘Let me get this set up,’ she said, taking out a Walkman-sized tape recorder and placing it on the table in front of her. She pressed a couple of buttons, picked it up and examined it anxiously. ‘One two three ... testing ... I have a terror of this thing not working, I only just bought it.’ She fiddled about some more, played back her own voice, set it on the table again. ‘Are you ready? Um — I don’t know how you feel about Scorsese? Did you see the movie?’
‘What?’ Loretta’s attention had wandered to the window again while Carole was occupied with the tape recorder. She made an effort: ‘Scorsese ... yes, I’ve seen it.’
‘Phew, that makes it easier. I guess I’d like to start by asking you why you think Scorsese chose The Age of Innocence? A lot of people would say he’s not ... I mean, if you think about Good fellas, Edith Wharton isn’t the obvious place to go next.’
At that moment the waiter returned, interrupting the interview while he emptied a tray of a small bottle of Perrier, a glass with ice and an espresso. Loretta poured water into the glass, trying to picture Daniel Day Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer in the film.
‘The thing about Scorsese,’ she said slowly, ‘is that he’s always been interested in masculinity, both as a system of power and because of its inherent contradictions. I mean, I haven’t written much about film but I’d say right through his work, going back to Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, he’s always adulated masculinity and at the same time wanted to ... to interrogate it.’
Carole Coryat looked apprehensive. ‘Could you run that past me again? I’m not sure I follow.’
Loretta said impatiently: ‘It’s a novel in which men initially seem to have the power, they’re the ones who go out to work and have the money and pay for the big houses, but it’s the women who manage everything. The entire course of Newland Archer’s life ...’ She lifted a hand to her head.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Could you switch that thing off for a moment?’
‘Sure. As you like.’
Loretta waited until the tiny spools stopped turning and gestured towards Carole’s bag. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any what’s it called? Tylenol? I’m getting a headache.’
‘Sorry. I could ask at the bar.’ She started to get up.
‘No, don’t bother, it’s not that bad.’ Loretta drank some of the Perrier and refilled her glass.
‘If this isn’t a good time –’
‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ Loretta blurted out, ‘but I think I’m being followed.’
‘Followed? Where? Here?’ Carole’s startled gaze travelled round the room.
‘Not in here. I mean on the way. From the Met.’
Carole looked nonplussed and she leaned very slightly away. Caught up in what she was saying, Loretta did not notice the movement.
‘It started before that,’ she said, speaking abnormally fast. ‘First he came up behind me, I think he was playing some sort of game, seeing if he could scare me — and he did, he really did. I was looking at a picture and I didn’t hear him, at least I don’t think I did, not till he was more or less touching me. I mean, closer than you and I are now.’ This time Carole actually moved her chair, scraping the floor, and the noise made Loretta look at her in surprise. She continued: ‘When I went back with the attendant he’d gone, there was this other man in the same place and I was confused ... He had, you know, blotches on his face and I thought I’d made a mistake, you can imagine how embarrassed ... But later on, a lot later, after lunch I mean, I caught him watching me — spying on me through the legs.’
Carole stared at Loretta as though she’d gone mad. ‘Legs? Whose legs?’
‘The statue,’ Loretta said impatiently, ‘the diadoumenos. I was over here’ — she moved the empty Perrier bottle with her right
hand — ‘and he was on the other side of the room, about this far.’ She pushed her glass sideways, towards Carole, accidentally knocking over the little tape recorder. She righted it and went on as though nothing had happened: ‘Have you ever been in a crowded room and you get the feeling someone’s watching you? You might not know who it is, when you turn round there are so many faces, but that’s the point, you do keep turning round. That’s exactly how I felt.’
The door to the café opened and a young couple came inside, accompanied by a brief burst of traffic noise. Loretta barely registered it, so anxious was she to persuade Carole — and herself — that she hadn’t imagined what she was describing.
‘Say I’m here,’ she went on in what seemed to her a more normal tone, pointing to the Perrier bottle. ‘In front of a statue of a — an Amazon I think it was. And he was watching me from over here.’ She touched her glass. ‘These statues, they’re enormous, more than life size, and they’re on what’s the word? Plinths. He was here, behind the statue, staring at me through the legs.’ She ended triumphantly: ‘Why else would he go round the back if he didn’t want me to see him? They’re not meant to be looked at from behind.’
Carole Coryat didn’t sound convinced. ‘So did you ... I mean, did he say anything to you?’
‘Oh, by the time I moved across he was gone.’
‘Did you get a good look at him?’
‘Only his back. I mean, I think he had on a — a dark jacket, light trousers .. .’
‘You didn’t... he wasn’t anyone you knew?’
‘Someone I knew?’ The thought had not occurred to her. ‘I didn’t — I only saw him from behind.’
‘Then what happened?’
Loretta lifted her hands, palm upwards to show they were empty. ‘Nothing. He was too quick for me, maybe he knows the layout better than I do.’ This was another possibility that hadn’t previously occurred to her and she hesitated, turning it over in her mind. ‘The next room’s full of bronzes, helmets and things. I couldn’t see him but there’s an exit to another room, a corridor actually, it leads to the — the Rockefeller wing.’ She shivered, remembering how she had stood alone among the jutting visors with their dark, empty faces. ‘I went back and walked round the statue, the diadoutnenos. And I found this’ She reached into the pocket of her trousers and held up a small shiny rectangle.
‘A matchbook from the TriBeCa Grill? I don’t get it.’
Loretta frowned. ‘It proves he was there. I didn’t imagine it.’
The door opened again and a man entered. He glanced round, made his way across the room and sat down a couple of tables away, asking the waiter for a kir and opening a copy of the Metro section of the New York Times.
Carole said, sounding genuinely perplexed: ‘You’re saying there were two guys? The one who came up behind you and the one behind the what’s it called? The big statue?’
‘No, that’s what I’m saying, it must have been him both times. I was just confused by the man with AIDS –’
‘Man with AIDS? I don’t think I —’
‘Oh, forget it,’ said Loretta, angry with herself for confiding in a total stranger. She hadn’t told the story well, there was no reason why Carole Coryat should believe her.
‘Hey, I didn’t mean...’ Carole touched her arm lightly, sounding embarrassed. ‘Do you know anyone in New York? Do you have friends here? I read an article in the Times, I don’t recall the figure they mentioned but it was like — a really big percentage. Eighty per cent?’
Loretta stared at her, slightly hostile. ‘What are you talking about?’
Carole shifted in her chair, obviously a habit of hers when she was uncomfortable. ‘It was about these guys who, you know — get fixated on a woman. They follow you on the street, hang round your apartment, call you up in the middle of the night, send you flowers. According to what I read, more often than not it turns out to be someone you know. Someone you worked with, an ex-boyfriend, even the guy who fills your car with gasoline. There was a woman in Texas –’
‘Hang on, you’re saying it’s someone I know, someone who recognised me? But I hardly know anyone in New York.’
‘OK, it was just an idea. Think of O J.’
Loretta grimaced. ‘My ex-husband’s arriving this afternoon. From Washington. But he doesn’t — we’re on very good terms.’ If it hadn’t been for the ache in her head she would have laughed out loud at the notion that John Tracey intended her harm: British Academic Stalked by Jealous Ex-Husband? No, she couldn’t see it. ‘I’ve said a lot of things about John but he’s not a what-do-they-call-it? A stalker.’
‘Sure?’
‘Of course.’ Loretta stared at the journalist as though she had taken leave of her senses. ‘Anyway,’ she added, clinching it, ‘John’s too short. The man I’m talking about is –’ She hesitated, confused by her attempt to picture the space between the statue’s legs. She held her hand up horizontally a few inches above her head. ‘Taller than me, anyway.’
‘You know anyone else in New York?’
‘My agent, and before you ask she’s a woman. So is the friend whose flat I’m staying in, Toni Stramiello.’
‘Stramiello as in the restaurant? On East — East 25th Street?’
‘East 26th, her father owns it. I had dinner there last night.’
‘Where does she live? I mean, where’re you staying?’
‘Riverside Drive.’
‘Dr Lawson –’
‘Loretta.’ The correction came automatically but Carole Coryat did not immediately respond to the invitation.
‘What I’m thinking,’ she began again, anxiously, as though she wasn’t sure whether to say it, ‘is maybe you should talk to the cops? It sounds kinda weird, everything you’ve been saying. I mean, they must deal with this stuff all the time, maybe they could tell you ...’ She saw Loretta’s reaction and added quickly: ‘They’re much better than they used to be, really. There was a time when their attitude to any kind of a sex crime, spousal battery –’
‘Spousal battery? I told you, John and I are on good terms, better than we’ve been for years. And his plane isn’t arriving till this afternoon.’
‘That’s what he told you. It’s only an hour from DC.’
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Loretta looked at the journalist’s wide and, as it now appeared to her, somewhat bovine face. ‘Listen,’ she said, trying to adopt a conciliatory tone, ‘I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. I haven’t been to New York for a long time and ...’ She did not know how to finish the sentence, not wanting to prompt any more crackpot theories; John Tracey lurking behind statues in the Met, the idea was absurd. ‘My head’s getting worse and I’d like to lie down before... before I meet someone for dinner. Can we get on with this?’ She pointed to the tape recorder.
‘If you say so. I mean, I have some free time tomorrow if you’d prefer.’
‘Let’s do it now,’ Loretta said curtly, meaning — let’s get it over with. ‘How far had we got?’
Carole put out a hand and activated the tape recorder. She said hesitantly: ‘You were talking about ... something about the women making all the decisions in The Age of Innocence.’
‘I remember.’ Loretta sat back in her chair, her mind reengaging with Carole Coryat’s original question. She began to feel calmer, her headache less insistent, and she said: ‘Scorsese’s obviously interested in hierarchies and how you move through them — what happens to people who challenge them. Up to now his interest has been the Mafia but if you think about Old New York as it’s presented in Wharton’s novels, it’s hard to imagine a more structured society –’
‘Just a moment, Dr Lawson. You mind if I order another coffee?’ Carole sounded depressed.
‘Fine, but nothing for me.’ Loretta waited while Carole signalled to the waiter behind the bar, her eye lighting on a headline in the newspaper which the lone man was reading two tables away: Pupil Slays Teacher, Injures Classmates, in Shoot-Out. As she watched he lowered the
paper, shook a cigarette from an open packet of Camels and felt in his pocket. His hand emerged empty and he leaned across to Carole, who was nearer to him than Loretta: ‘Excuse me, do you have a light?’
She picked up the matchbook Loretta had left lying on the table and passed it across.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, gesturing that he should keep it. Loretta was about to protest when she realised the uselessness of asking for it back. What was she proposing to do, fingerprint it?
Carole prompted: ‘Dr Lawson?’
‘Sorry,’ she said, and attempted to pick up her interrupted train of thought. ‘What The Age of Innocence is about,’ she said distractedly, glancing towards the bar, ‘is — is the limits of individual action within a hierarchy, a hierarchy composed of families. That’s where I’d see the link with the Mafia, since both types of society are essentially tribal...’
Her confidence returned and she began to speak more fluently, almost forgetting what had happened at the Met. She answered Carole’s questions patiently, even the ones which struck her as silly or off the point, and imperceptibly the journalist slipped back into the role of student which she had given up so recently. Loretta started to enjoy herself, throwing out ideas and challenging assumptions exactly as if she was back in her room at St Frideswide’s, taking the last supervision of the day on a muggy summer afternoon in Oxford.
The TV news was on when Loretta opened the front door of Toni’s flat, the dog snoring gently in front of the television with her stubby legs stretched out; she seemed to like the sound of human voices, even though she couldn’t understand them or make sense of the accompanying images. Loretta glanced at the screen and saw a sickly boy in a push chair, incongruously dressed in a child’s version of the New York police uniform and surrounded by real cops. As she put down her shopping, her eyes still on the screen, she heard a female reporter explain that the child, who was dying of AIDS, had been made ‘cop-for-a-day’ by officers from the 7th Precinct who were touched by his predicament. The child’s skin was grey and he stared listlessly up at the adults from sunken eyesockets, a deep weariness evident from the effort it took even to move his head. ‘The boy was born with the disease,’ the reporter went on relentlessly, ‘after his mother contracted the virus when she was raped. Doctors say –’