Every Night's a Bullfight

by John Gardner

  ‘I shall be selective.’

  ‘Well at least that’s a starting point. How would it be if Mr. Silver replied to the letters which you publish by writing an exclusive article for your newspaper?’

  The editor frowned. ‘Well, it would depend. If the article is constructive and—’

  But Adrian had heard enough. ‘Listen chum,’ he barked, ‘I can show you letters from the editors of two Sunday heavies and a couple of national weeklies, pleading for articles by Douglas Silver. I also spend part of each day cooling features writers who want to come down here and interview the man. When the company arrives it will get worse, the pressure will really be on and all we’ll have time for will be one press conference. After that it will be selective. I’m offering you a unique chance because I think our local public relations are important, but it’ll be like a drop in the ocean once we really get started; and your little society can howl its head off while nobody listens. We are professionals, Moir, all of us, so get that into your head. We’re running a living theatre not a memorial or a museum. I’m sorry if you don’t like the way we’re doing things, but it’s the way that makes most sense to us. Now, do you want that article?’

  ‘I’ve—’

  ‘Never had this kind of treatment before? I bet you haven’t. Well you’re dealing with the cream now. Mr. Silver will read the letters and there’ll be an article for publication, not more than two thousand words, on your desk a week on Monday. You can play it from there.’ He paused, as though studying the man.

  ‘When I deal with provincial journalists I always ask myself one question. Is this guy in his job by choice, or did he never get any further up the line because he wasn’t good enough?’ Adrian rose to indicate that the meeting was at an end.

  David Wills was full of apologies when Douglas came off the telephone and explained the Benneto-Doul fracas.

  ‘One of those things, David.’ Douglas shook his head. ‘I’d better sort it out now, but you’re going to have to deal with these matters by yourself from here on in. We cannot risk this sort of internal aggravation. Get hold of Mrs. Doul and tell her I want to see her in fifteen minutes.’ He turned away abruptly and crossed the stage towards Archie Swimmer. Douglas knew that he was going to rely heavily on his stage staff and that he could get to them through the stage carpenter, so he made a point of always spending a few minutes with Archie whenever he was in the theatre.

  Mrs. Doul was already waiting for Douglas when he got back to his office. At first she was inclined towards truculence, so Douglas quickly took a hard line.

  ‘Look, Mrs. Doul. I won’t play games. I think the staff cafeteria’s a disgrace. You’ve been running it like a soup kitchen; the organization’s terrible, the food’s disgusting and the standard of service is appalling. There are going to be a lot of changes around—’

  ‘Well, if you don’t like it I shall have to go elsewhere won’t I?’ Douglas detected the note of the hysteric.

  ‘I hope not, Mrs. Doul.’ It was going against his common sense, but he felt a kind .of pity for this thin, easily-bruised woman. ‘A lot of dead wood is going to be chopped away, but we don’t really think of you as dead wood. We must have change, and Mr. Benneto is an experienced man. Can’t you even try to work with him?’

  It took half-an-hour to convince her, and a further half-an-hour, with Emilio present, to get them both on the right track; it was well after five by the time Douglas got them out of his office, actually smiling and looking as if they might tackle the job in harness. By then Adrian Rolfe was waiting with his tales of local intrigue and Shakespearean intolerance, briefing him about the letters and the article he would have to write for the Gazette.

  ‘Draft something would you, Adrian? Just a skeleton. I’ll put the flesh on it.’

  It was long after six before Douglas could even think of going up to his flat in Shireston house. He had almost forgotten that Jennifer would be there waiting for him, and the fact of his memory slip worried him more than all the problems of the afternoon. In the far back of his mind there was the question —did he want to forget?

  Jennifer was enchanted by Shireston, even at this depressing time of the year it had a strong natural beauty about it which made her feel that she might find truth and the eternal values in this place. She loved the apartment, the views over the lawns, the high ceilinged rooms and leaded windows. As Douglas predicted, she was horrified by the shabby furnishings, and straight away set about making lists and taking measurements, planning what had to go and what she needed to have brought down from Elton Court.

  By the state of the kitchen it was obvious that Douglas had done little more than make himself the odd cup of coffee there. Jennifer needed to stock the larder from scratch, so, late in the afternoon she took the car, which Douglas had left for her, and drove down into Shireston with a list of necessities ranging from herbs to dish-cloths.

  She was back by five-thirty, checking her lists like a newlywed and preparing a chicken casserole for their evening meal. The kitchen already had its standard number of pots and pans, yet, even doing a simple meal, Jennifer longed for her own familiar equipment from the London flat.

  Douglas came in just before six-thirty, looking tired and distracted. The curtains were drawn and the flat was warm, mainly from the big electric fire which had only been installed a couple of days before. Jennifer poured drinks for them and prattled on about what she intended to do.

  ‘If your people here can move out some of this junk, and I can get the stuff ready to come down from London, I think I can get the place straight by Christmas, even though it’s only a couple of weeks. What do you think Doug?’

  ‘You’ll have to. We both start working for a living the first week in January.’ He forced a grin. ‘So, Jen, you’ll have all of your time cut out being a little home-maker.’

  ‘Can we play house? Mothers and Fathers?’

  ‘Watch it. That kind of talk can lead to trouble, you might even end up giving Othello something to be really jealous about.’

  ‘A preggy Desdemona. The critics would go crazy. But seriously Doug, I’ll play house and I’ll make this place good for us: get it really straight.’

  Douglas lounged back in the threadbare armchair, took a sip of his drink and smiled. ‘I’d better hire a car for you, so that we can move around independently for the next couple of weeks. I’m going to be dashing to and fro as well.’ The picture in his mind was Carol; the tongue moving wet along her lips; standing naked, her back to him, peeping between the curtained windows of her snug rooms near the Bayswater Road; the movement of her hips and the sway of her buttocks; their hands playing, turning her hand so that it was fiat, palm upwards on his stomach, forcing open the fore and middle fingers and running a stiff forefinger up their apex in steady hard motion; her nails in his back; her tongue in his ear; his hand in the coarse black triangle between her legs; his mouth open against her stiff nipple.

  The picture cleared and there was Jen, the beloved face smiling at him in innocence as she sprawled in her chair. Her breast moved under her shirt and Douglas caught the line of her thigh under the long black skirt as she shifted a leather booted leg. Just a few short weeks ago that movement would have enticed him, now he glanced away.

  But Jen had seen his look and misinterpreted it.

  ‘Now?’ she asked, glancing towards the bedroom.

  ‘Let’s eat first. There’s a great smell coming from the kitchen. This place really feels like home at last.’ It was a half lie, for he remembered what he felt about the fiat the first time he entered it.

  A minute or so later, Jen called from the kitchen. ‘Sorry I’m not properly organized yet, love.’

  ‘We both have a lot to do,’ he replied.

  ‘We’ll spend all our time leaving messages for one another. Let’s try and meet once in a while.’ She had come to the kitchen door.

  Douglas looked up at her. ‘Most of the time we’ll be in the same place. It’s only a matter of days after al
l.’

  They ate, and Jennifer still went on talking: about how she intended to put the leather buttoned settee into the bow window, as Douglas had thought she would, and how she would have to get new curtains made up if they were going to be there for three years.

  In the bedroom, later, she asked Douglas about the bed. Just after they had married she had seen a big brass fourposter, a Victorian design, hung round with thin white curtains. It was in Harrods and it appealed to her. ‘Just imagine,’ she said, ‘it would be like sleeping in some plush tent, like an ancient Arabian princess, cut off from the world.’

  ‘You’ve been at those cheap romance paper-backs again,’ Douglas had laughed. ‘And who am I supposed to be? The ancient prince?’

  The bedroom at Shireston was huge, with a large fireplace, two long windows on the outside walls, and the ten-year-old double bed seemed dwarfed. Now Jen recalled the brass four-poster. ‘It would be ideal here, Doug. Can I get it, please?’

  ‘It’s going to cost...’ he began.

  ‘Let me pay for it. Let it be my treat. I’ve just made a movie, remember?’

  Douglas shrugged and reached out to her, closing his eyes. ‘If that’s what you want, Jen.’

  ‘This is what I want now.’ Her hand went down to him, slack and unroused. She locked her lips on to his, pulling him towards the bed, fumbling at his buttons and zip.

  For Douglas it was the same problem. The magic did not work, the drive and passion of what had been seemed to have dissolved. They stretched out, naked under the covers, and Douglas lit cigarettes for each of them.

  ‘Sorry love,’ he spoke into the darkness, staring up at the ceiling, blowing smoke against the burning red tip of his cigarette. Jen put her hand out and squeezed the upper muscle of his left arm.

  ‘What is it, baby?’ Repeating her question of the previous night.

  ‘Work. Non-work. I’m too involved with non-directorial trivia. I told you that already, but today’s been an object lesson.’

  He outlined the events of the afternoon: his discussion with David about the exhibition, his doubts when he saw the auditorium in ruins CI talked with the stage carpenter, a character, you’ll like him, Archie Swimmer. He wanted to know when I was going to spend an equivalent amount on the stage and back stage.’ He laughed aloud. ‘I must say all that does worry me. There’s a barn of a rehearsal room at the back and I think we’re going to be stuck in that for weeks. I can’t see them finishing the auditorium until towards the end of February.’); the sudden blow-up with Emilio and Mrs. Doul; Adrian Rolfe’s concern over the local newspaper and the Shireston Festival Society.

  ‘Poor love,’ said Jen. ‘You’re up to your eyes in it. Seriously, Doug, how much plotting have you really done on the plays?’

  Douglas was silent for a full fifteen seconds. It seemed a long time in the darkness. At last he said, ‘The first two scenes of The Merchant and scene one of Othello. That’s how bad it is.’

  ‘Well you’re going to have to delegate more of your authority aren’t you? David Wills must take over more and more.’

  She was right. Ronnie Gregor and Art Drays were due down tomorrow. Once more it swept in on him that not only the festival but also his whole career was at stake. This time there had to be complete ruthlessness; there was no room for sentiment or emotion. Tomorrow he would see Carol and change that relationship, or at least alter its foolish, suicidal direction. If she could not face coming to Shireston on those terms then he would get another black actress to play Juliet: it was as serious as that. In his private life Jennifer had to be reinstated. As though suiting the action to the thought, Douglas reached out for Jennifer and she moved her body closer to his. They fell asleep holding hands like young lovers, though Jen’s mind was filled with unaccustomed thoughts of rugs and curtains, furniture and the fabric that would surround them at Shireston.

  Douglas, in spite of his resolution, could not ward off the erotic pictures of Carol, the many poses of their sexual combat weaving through his dreams so that he woke in the early hours, erect and clinging to the deep slumbered Jennifer. Even in her sleep she turned for him and opened her thighs in need. Douglas lifted himself over her and felt her close compass him. She groaned as he reached his climax, pushing her belly towards him, oblivious to the fact that, in the unseeing eye of night, her skin had changed colour and her face was not that of Jennifer Frost.

  The winter sun trying to brighten the whole wretched business as it flooded in through Carol’s window, picking up the dust spots and ending in a wan burst on the carpet near to where they sat.

  Douglas’s mind was held in a vice, as it had been since his arrival an hour before; and now Carol was crying. Not an hysterical outburst of self-pity, but a small volcano of genuine sorrow: for what they had done and for what they meant to each other.

  Douglas thought about what he had done to the unknowing Jennifer. It rose like some baroque monument in his mind, over-dramatized into figures of treachery, the stab in the back, the betrayal. Could a few loving fucks be a betrayal? That wasn’t really the question, it was the mental involvement, the love, solace, comfort, stimulation that was the betrayal.

  From the outset, Douglas had been gentle with Carol, while staying true to his decision.

  ‘It’s for all our sakes: for you and Jen as well as for myself. I’ve taken on an important job, Carol, and I have to see that through: I have to put it first. I thought there would be time for us to straighten out our relationship before Jen came back. But that hasn’t worked and I have to put our personal and physical desires to one side. I have to be realistic.’

  ‘It’s not just physical. It’s a longing for your presence as well.’ The last word coming up in a long wail of distress, a choke.

  ‘Of course it isn’t just physical. But I’ve got the hardest question yet for you to answer.’

  She looked up and then away again, covering her eyes. Douglas went on speaking.

  ‘Under the present emotional stress, bearing in mind we will have to work together without really being with each other, and allowing for the fact that Jennifer will be around, do you still think you can give me a Juliet?’ There was a silence in which all the unsaid things hummed between their minds. ‘I have to be horribly professional about this, love.’

  ‘You mean you’d even get somebody else?’ The voice bordering on incredulity, as though the shock was just starting to hit.

  ‘For all our sakes I’d have to get somebody else.’ He was conscious of repetition — For all our sakes. Douglas struggled for the right words, new words, different words, but there were not any new or different words. ‘Don’t you see that? Don’t you see that I have no other real choice?’

  ‘I see nothing but my love for you and my need for you, Doug. It fills my nights and days; like the song says, it’s my reason for living, so I’ve got to cling on to some small hope. If not now then maybe some other time.’

  Suddenly Douglas wanted to break up the heaviness, he had the urge to be frivolous and say, melodramatically, ‘some other place’.

  But Carol was still talking. ‘Christ knows, I seem to have said it a million times, I didn’t mean it to go this way, but it’s as though you’ve crawled inside me and made your home there. You pervade my atmosphere.’

  ‘Pollute it.’ Douglas had yet to get used to the slime of guilt which had seeped into him.

  ‘No. No, never that. Human love — real love, not the romantic swash, or infatuation — real love is bloody terrifying: it...it’s so demanding...so crippling.’

  ‘I know.’ Ice cold. ‘I know this is something that should never have happened. The thing with bodies shouldn’t have turned into the tangling of minds.’ With half his conscience, Douglas was aware that it would be the physical side that would, at first, be the maiming blow to Jennifer. If she ever discovered. With this knowledge also came the unreasoned sense that discovery was inevitable. He turned back to Carol, reaching out with his hands. ‘I know, love, I know how you feel.
I bear it as well.’

  ‘The body pull’s still here.’ She touched herself and seemed to be speaking to herself. ‘I want you, Douglas. All the time I’m wet for you.’

  ‘I know. I know.’ A meaningless litany.

  ‘I want you now.’ It was then that she really began to cry, the great tears soaking the long black lashes and running down her face like thunder rain. It went on for what seemed to be hours, only a few minutes, but who really understands time; and Douglas felt helpless, squatting there uncomfortably, with one arm round her, not knowing what to say.

  Then, without any warning, Carol straightened up violently. ‘Shit.’ Running the backs of her hands over her eyes, sliding the tears away with her forefingers in almost balletic movement. ‘This is no way. You’re quite right Doug, we’ve got to be professional, but that won’t stop me trying to make you every chance I get. Yes, I’ll play Juliet, and I’ll give you the best Juliet you’ve ever seen, or that you’re likely to see.’ She tossed her head in the standard gesture for shaking away the last traces of grief. ‘We’re very resilient, us spade ladies.’

  Douglas knew that he was watching the enforcement of hard professional discipline. If she could do this she could do almost anything with Juliet.

  Completely under control, Carol looked up at him, breaking out a small shy smile. ‘And now, Mr. Silver, will you, for the love of heaven, take me — just for old time’s sake’

  The afternoon winter sunshine was also crawling across the book which Jennifer held lovingly on her knees. She crouched, in neat symmetry, feet tucked under her, in the middle of the living-room floor at Elton Court. Around her were books, boxes (one big cardboard monster marked in black stencil, Bristol 188 Jet Plane Each In An Ind Box Quan Doz G.W. 9 Lbs.), two large old fashioned leather suitcases and an assortment of odds and ends: photograph albums, a cuttings’ book, a large pile of neatly folded clothes (blacks, whites, reds predominant; cottons, rayons, wool; on the top a small pile of clean and laundered underclothes, blacks and whites predominant: the whole topped with a note. For the Family Service Unit. To Be Called For). There was a tin box spilling trinkets, a sheaf of papers, a little bundle of letters, and the book on her knees.