by Francis King
‘As all right as I’m ever likely to be.’ He lowered his hands, turned his head, and smiled at her. ‘ I was – overcome.’
‘Overcome?’
‘Weary. I’m so weary of this ghastly world.’ He sighed. ‘And so weary of my ghastly self.’
Marilyn, not knowing what to say, gazed down the table. At its far end, Mehmet was sitting between Sarah and Gilbert’s Thai wife. Both women were laughing, as he told them something, inaudible to Marilyn. Then Sarah’s voice could be heard: ‘Oh, you are wicked!’ Whatever wicked thing he had said, it had clearly delighted her.
‘Who is that?’ Gilbert asked in a hostile voice.
‘Oh, that’s Sarah. I can’t remember her surname. Andy’s agent.’
‘Oh, of course I know Sarah. I’ve known her for years. One of the sharpest brains in the business. I wish she’d been my agent in those dear, dead days beyond recall. No, I mean the young man.’
‘Oh, that’s a friend of mine. Mehmet Ahmeti.’
‘Of yours? H’m.’ Gilbert looked over at Mehmet again, then looked down at his plate, and gave a little smirk. ‘He seems to be a great success with the ladies.’
‘You’re not possessive of your wife, are you?’
‘Oh, good lord, no! I’m always delighted when she hits it off with someone at a party. It means that I have no qualms about flirting with someone like you. She’s my third, you know,’ he abruptly volunteered.
‘Oh, I thought the total was two.’
‘Sometimes I wish it had been! It’s such an expense to have had so many wives. I managed to squeeze some money out of the Royal Literary Fund to have these’ – he tapped his front teeth – ‘crowned, but I doubt if they would look favourably on a request for a grant to help towards alimony.’
When the child waitress had removed the plates of their main course, the Romanian brought in a vast chocolate cake, which he set down in the centre of the table. There was a bubble of sweat on the end of his long nose. Marilyn feared for a moment that it would fall on to the cake. ‘Where are the candles?’ Gilbert’s wife squeaked, to be rebuked by him: ‘Don’t be silly, darling. This is not Andy’s birthday. We’re celebrating something far more important.’
She put a hand to her mouth, and giggled in embarrassment. ‘Sorry, sorry! I forgot, I forgot!’
Gilbert looked at Marilyn, as though to say ‘Look what a silly woman I’ve married,’ and gave a groan.
Brian slipped through the curtain and approached the table with a tray. On it were eight champagne glasses. A moment later the Romanian appeared with two bottles of champagne.
‘Compliments of one of the guests,’ Brian said.
When Gilbert cried out ‘ The Widow, the Widow!’, Marilyn assumed that he was the benefactor. But then, to her amazement, Brian put a hand on Mehmet’s shoulder. ‘ Here is the generous man!’ He patted the shoulder. When had Mehmet ordered the champagne? Marilyn wondered. Then she recollected that, during the meal, he had suddenly slipped away, to go the lavatory she had supposed. Champagne was certainly not cheap and this particular champagne less cheap than most. How was he proposing to pay for it? She could only assume out of some of the five twenty-pound notes that she had left on the dressing table in ‘Laurence’s room’. For a moment she seethed with indignation. He did not even know Andy; and, in any case, if anyone treated them to champagne, it should be Andy himself, with that advance of his, or Sarah, who had so skilfully negotiated it and who had no doubt already taken her generous cut. Typical of Mehmet to want to make that sort of splash. Now Carmen would certainly talk about it at the surgery and in no time at all everyone would be believing that Dr Carter was having an affair with a rich foreigner, perhaps even a member of the Albanian mafia. But then she thought: How touching. No Englishman would show that sort of impetuous generosity. She smiled across at him and, smiling back affectionately, he raised his glass. Then he had to raise his glass again, as Gilbert called out ‘Let’s drink to the success of our golden boy!’ Since Andy was clearly over forty, to call him a boy struck Marilyn as odd. It was even odder that Gilbert should use the same phrase that, years before, had been used of himself.
Andy was calling out: ‘Brian! Brian! Come and join us for a glass of bubbly.’
‘Well, since the place is so empty …’ It was now past ten, so it was clear that the emptiness had nothing to do with the hour, as he had previously suggested.
‘Come and sit beside Carmen!’
‘Nothing would have delighted me more. But I’ve so often sat beside Carmen and I’m going to have lots and lots of opportunities to do so in the future. So – I’m going to sit beside that attractive bird over there.’ He had picked up a glass, and now pointed it, wine slopping out from it, at Marilyn.
‘No offence taken! No offence!’ Andy was swiftly becoming drunk.
Brian pulled up a chair from another table and placed it so close to Marilyn’s that she could feel his knee against hers. He had an attractive but far from handsome face, with thick black eyebrows and long black eyelashes, a bunched, red mouth, that gave the impression of constantly pouting, and high, gleaming cheekbones. He leaned across the table so that now his arm was also in contact with her shoulder. She could smell kitchen-fat and sweat.
‘Andy told me you’re a quack.’
‘Oh, I hope not. I’m a doctor. Or I like to think that I am.’
‘And you’re frightfully literary?’
‘No, not at all. But I’m one of those people essential to the existence of every writer. I’m a reader.’
‘I’m afraid I seldom read. And certainly not novels. It’s all I can do to read a recipe in Delia Smith or Elizabeth David. I shan’t be reading Andy’s novel, even if it becomes a best-seller.’
‘Have you told him that?’
‘I don’t have to tell him. He knows. I did history at Warwick. But that was no good to me. I didn’t want to teach, and what else can you do with a third in history? So I went into the catering trade. But tell me – tell me about being a doctor.’
Soon he was asking her about his headaches. His doctor – who was really far too old to be any bloody good – had told him that they were migraines, but didn’t one have visual disturbances, that sort of thing, with migraines? He did wonder if the headaches might not be associated with the amount of chocolate that he ate. He was really a chocoholic, always had been. But in that case the headaches must be migraines, mustn’t they, since everyone knew that the most common trigger …
On social occasions Marilyn had endured innumerable conversations like this. Jack had once told her that, as soon as anyone started such a conversation with him, he would say firmly ‘Why don’t you come and see me at my surgery? Then we can really get to the bottom of things. But I must warn you that, since you’re not on my list, I’ll have to charge you.’ Whether he did in fact say this, she doubted. He had an innate courtesy, which concealed his essential coldness from those who did not know him.
As Brian droned on and on, Marilyn nodded, smiled, and from to time interjected something. Then, all at once, she became aware that Mehmet was glaring at her from the other end of the table, his chair pushed far back, as though he wished to disassociate himself from the rest of the company. His face was rigid and starkly glistening in its whiteness.
Suddenly he jumped up, pushing the chair back even farther, with such violence that it would have toppled over if Sarah had not quickly put out a hand to catch it. ‘Marilyn!’ he called down the table. ‘I think we go. Late.’
‘In a moment.’
‘No, now. Now!’
Fearing a scene, she got to her feet and reached under the table for her bag. She turned to Brian. ‘ I’m sorry we can’t continue this conversation. But Mehmet has a train to catch.’
She knew that neither Brian nor any of the others believed this. She felt humiliated and furious.
Calmly, with extreme formality, Mehmet said goodnight to everyone in turn, shaking hands, bowing. Then he turned away abruptly and str
ode towards the door. Marilyn hurried after him.
‘Hey!’ They were by the door now, and Brian was behind them. He held out a plate, with a folded piece of paper on it. ‘Don’t forget this!’ He grinned.
Before Mehmet could do anything, Marilyn snatched up the bill for the champagne. She glanced at it, then fumbled for some money in her purse.
‘I will do,’ Mehmet said angrily.
She paid no attention.
‘Thanks. I’ll bring you your change in a jiffy.’ Brian went off. Marilyn sat down at a table by the door but Mehmet did not join her. He gave the door a violent push and marched out into the street, where he at once lit a cigarette.
Eventually, having received her change from the Romanian waiter, Marilyn joined him there. Without a word to each other, they both made futile attempts to flag down a taxi. Few passed, and all were full.
‘This is a bad area for taxis,’ Marilyn said. ‘Too poor.’
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Mehmet shouted, startling an elderly, male passerby under a vast, sideways tipped golfing umbrella. He flung his half-consumed cigarette into the gutter.
Finally they caught a taxi. Mehmet opened the door for her and then, as she was entering, gave her a rough push, so that she all but toppled on to the floor. He jumped in after her, pulled back the glass, and gave the driver the address.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘What the hell you doing?’ he countered. ‘I order champagne, you pay. You think, because I am Albanian, I cannot pay. You racist, very racist.’
‘Oh, don’t be so idiotic! I paid because I didn’t want you to use the money I gave you for your expenses for the week. In any case, you didn’t have to order that champagne. You weren’t celebrating anything, you were meeting Andy for the first time.’
‘You do not understand!’
‘No, I don’t understand.’ She leaned forward and pulled across the glass between the driver and themselves.
‘Albanian way,’ he said. ‘You do not understand Albanian way.’ Then he swung round to face her. A hand grasped her arm, so hard that she almost cried out. His mouth was distorted, one side pulled upwards, like a snarling dog’s, and his eyes were half-closed. ‘What you say to that man?’
‘What man?’
‘Owner of restaurant.’
‘He was telling me all about his headaches.’
‘Headaches!’
‘Yes, headaches. He suffers from headaches. So he thought he’d have a free consultation with me.’
He gripped her arm again. ‘No, no. I understand well, very well. He try make love to you.’
‘Are you crazy? Let go of my arm. Let go!’ Reluctantly he released her. He raised a hand to his mouth and bit on a knuckle. ‘I watch you. Watch you all time. You think I no watch, but Mehmet watch, watch.’
‘This is too silly.’ Suddenly her voice was calm. She turned her head aside and looked out of the window. They were now in Kensington High Street. Thank God, they would soon be home.
Again he bit the knuckle. Then he demanded: ‘Why he call you bird?’
‘It was a joke. No man calls a woman of my age a bird. He was joking.’
‘But bird mean prostitute.’
‘It certainly does not. If it did, every girl in London would be a prostitute.’
‘You lie.’
‘I am certainly not lying. Now stop this nonsense. Stop it at once.’ She might have been speaking to her dead daughter Carol in one of her difficult moods.
‘No, no!’ he protested as, first to leave the taxi, she opened her bag to pay the driver. Oh, well, she might as well leave him to it. She snapped her bag shut and ran up the steps, unlocked the door and slipped into the house, leaving the door wide open behind her. Without even taking off her overcoat, she hurried into the sitting-room, grabbed a glass, and poured herself out a stiff shot of vodka.
As she was raising the glass to her lips, he was suddenly behind her. He put out a hand, covered hers with it and then prised away the glass. ‘No. Not good.’ He set the glass down. She turned on him in fury. Then, all at once, he was laughing. ‘ Come on. Leave it. Later. Upstairs. Upstairs!’
The whole scene in the taxi might never have taken place.
Later, they lay, silent, sweaty and half-asleep, in each other’s arms, without bothering about the bedclothes, which had tumbled to the floor. Marilyn stirred herself, raised her head on an elbow, and then with a forefinger gently traced the line first of one of his eyebrows and then the other. Next, she ran the forefinger down his nose to his upper lip.
‘I think that was the best,’ she said. It had certainly been the most violent. She knew that next day there would be bruises on her shoulders and arms.
He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. He nodded. Then he sat up in the bed and, leaning back against the headboard, folded his arms over his chest. ‘ Marilyn, I have idea.’
‘Yes.’
‘Listen to me. Idea, good idea, best idea. We marry.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Marry!’ She was taken aback, even – she had to admit it – appalled. Was he being serious? She decided to assume that he was joking. ‘Oh, no, one marriage was more than enough for me.’ When she had said that, she at once felt a pang of guilt for being so disloyal to Ed. So far from marriage to him having been more than enough, it had been far, far too little. ‘I don’t want another marriage.’
‘But I want to marry you. Very much.’ Yes, he was being serious, totally serious.
She shook her head, then put a hand to his cock, her cheek up to his. ‘No. Things are so wonderful as they are. Perfect. Let’s leave them like that.’
She sensed an immediate change in his mood. He pulled away from her, to reach down for the bedclothes and jerk them angrily over his own naked body but not hers. ‘Why you no wish to marry?’
‘Well, what would be the point?’
‘People are in love, they marry. Is that strange?’
‘No. Not at all. But … well, we have our separate lives.’ Then she thought: Yes, I have my separate life but what sort of life does he have? ‘If we saw too much of each other …’
‘When people in love with each other, they wish together all the time,’ he countered.
‘And often – sometimes – that’s a mistake. One of the best things about my marriage was that my husband so often had to go away for his work. Absence makes the heart grow fonder – that’s what we say. And it’s true. I found that I loved him so much more when he came back after weeks or even months abroad.’
‘You always thinking about husband.’
He was right, but how did he know it? Once again, she was surprised and disconcerted by his powers of intuition. ‘ No, not always. Often I’m thinking of you.’
He made a scoffing sound at the back of his nose. Then he said: ‘It is because I am Albanian.’
‘What is because you are an Albanian?’
‘That you do not wish to marry. Yes, you are racist. All English are racist.’
‘Oh, do stop that racist nonsense!’
He nodded. ‘It is true. Also – you bored me.’
She knew what he wanted to say: He bored her. To some extent that was true, she had to admit it. With him, she suffered those trashy films, full of natural disasters and violence, that he so much loved. With him, she was unable to share whole areas of her life. He would never read Andy’s book, and so they would never be able to discuss it together; and when, excitedly, she had once begun to talk to him about the production of Handel’s Semele to which Laurence had taken her, he had clearly had no idea who Handel was. She often said that she liked people who were intelligent but unintellectual, and Mehmet was certainly both those things. But between them there was an incompatibility so radical that to imagine that they could marry and share their lives was nonsense.
She sighed.
He got off the bed and reached for a towel. Winding it around him, he said: ‘Tell me about this husband.’
She sh
ook her head. ‘What’s the point?’
‘Tell me!’ he repeatedly angrily. ‘I think you love him more, much more than me.’
She realized that he was one of those people who can be jealous even of the dead. ‘He’s dead. Don’t you understand? Dead.’
‘How he die?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘How?’
She said nothing.
For a while he glared down at her. Then he said ‘ I take shower’ and left the room. It was past two. She hoped that he would not wake Audrey and so provoke yet another complaint. She put one of the pillows on top of another, and smelled that odour – of hair-oil, some sort of aftershave lotion and healthy sweat – that she could always now identify, with a dizzying pleasure, as his. How he die? No, she could not bear to speak of it to anyone, not even to him. But she could not stop thinking of it. Still damply sticky from their lovemaking, she thought of it now.
They have quarrelled, as they rarely quarrel, over something trivial. They have just sat out and eaten lunch in the Piazza Repubblica and he has suggested that, for her pudding, she should have what appears on the menu as zuppa inglese. ‘But I don’t want a soup, and certainly not a Brown Windsor or something like that. Don’t be so idiotic!’ But he insists: ‘I want you to try it,’ and gives the order to the portly waiter, hurrying, red-faced, from table to table. Marilyn realizes now that a zuppa inglese cannot be a soup, but she does not let on, since she does not want to spoil the joke for Carol. The waiter brings what looks like a trifle smothered in too much cream, and Marilyn acts out amazement. Carol screams with laughter, putting her hands to her cheeks, so that an elderly French couple at the next table look over with disapproval. As she dips her spoon into the cream, Marilyn feels a tremendous, serene happiness. She and Ed have had so few holidays in recent years, and this one has been perfect. Laurence had wanted to come too, and after she had decided that she hadn’t the heart to tell him that that was out of the question, Ed, with uncharacteristic brutality did so – ‘We’ve been looking on it as a second honeymoon.’ Did couples take their child with them on their honeymoons, Laurence, deeply wounded and furious not with Marilyn but with his son, wanted to ask. But he did not do so.