by John Gardner
‘You know it couldn’t be.’
Jen smiled, then the smile changed, a realization of sadness, her eyes moving away.
‘Sorry Jen, truly sorry.’
‘Tell me about it.’
He shook his head. ‘No torture. Not yet. It really isn’t worth it.’
She returned the nod, the other bodies coming back into her mind, the woman’s face still out of focus.
Three days to Christmas and Douglas drove to London in the morning leaving behind him a trail of questions in Jennifer’s mind.
She need not have worried, Douglas, cramped with his personal load of blame, arrived in London with one thought of getting some gorgeous Christmas present for Jennifer: maybe to appease his grinding guilt.
He found what he wanted after a slow irritating journey up, and the grind and frustration of elbowing through the crowds intent on stripping the shops in a last minute buyabout.
On the pavements and in the stores humanity grappled with the season of peace and goodwill: a river of people flowing multi-coloured along the main thoroughfares, branching off into tributaries which became seething lakes among the merry floorwalkers, their faces sprayed grey with fatigue. Everywhere the loaded, useless magnets of Christmas commercialism brayed, hung about with gold, red, silver and purple tinsel, bows and ribbons, while in the big store windows a hundred Santas overshot a hundred rooftops, sleigh and reindeer defying gravity.
Douglas found the ring in Harrods: a chunky wide modern setting carrying an inch long oval moss agate. It sat on black velvet crying out for Jennifer’s finger, and Douglas knew that this had to go back to Shireston with him. There was a mental double-taken when the saleslady, black dressed and oozing creamed sweetness like a crushed meringue, told him the price; yet he did not really have to think twice about buying it.
With the ring boxed and gift-wrapped, lying snug in his pocket, one gloved hand covering it against the possible pickpocket, Douglas began the long push towards the nearest entrance. Then, above the sea of bodies, about ten yards away, he caught the glimpse of a dark head tilted at a familiar angle. He struck out through the crowd, frantic, as though fighting a monster under-tow, shoving towards the girl, drawing near and realizing that it was not Carol after all: the desert opening up inside, a long mental wasteland.
The immediate effect of the incident caused Douglas to press himself back into the store, a wandering aimless fight, part of his mind sure that Carol was somewhere near, the other part wanting to buy her a beautiful memento, an act which might give them both a handful of hope. Or maybe it was just a salve to his conscience. In the end he purchased a luxuriant nightdress, heavy with four or five layers of flimsy material, high at the neck and encrusted with lace and bows, ordering it to be gift-wrapped and sent to Carol with a card on which he wrote — With Love. Douglas — the L of Love turning into an elongated squiggle as his arm was jogged by someone in the bobbing throng.
Only later, in the car, did he remember that Carol had no use for garments like nightdresses. Jennifer adored things which were considered feminine, while Carol had an austerity about her clothes which rejected even the tiniest lace trim; Carol relied wholly on her body, her femininity, she thought, needed no gilding: things like nightdresses did not come near her scene of living.
Why then a gift like that? And why the sudden violence? He had fought to get near the girl, mistaken for Carol, pushed hard with his shoulders and even handed off people. Perhaps, he wondered, this was the difference between obsession and love. Obsession with Carol and her body, love with Jennifer and her whole self.
Women tend to pry, especially when their security seems to be threatened. But the prying did not make Jennifer feel any better, she hated herself, going through Douglas’s pockets, examining the contents of his briefcase, going through the glove compartment in the car. It was worse because she knew that Douglas would never do the same to her, she could not see him turning out her handbags or examining the laundry.
Out of all Jennifer’s sifting the end product was one small clue, laid bare across two pages of Douglas’s pocket diary, five, six weeks before: neat clear writing, unmistakably a woman’s hand: three lines—
For the Chinese it may well be the Year of the Ram,
Or the Bear, maybe the Tiger.
For me this week has been the Week of the Small of your Back.
She could not even ask him about it because that would make her guilty also, yet it did not stop the clear pictures of jealousy projected inside her: the girl lying naked writing over the pages, her face brimming with love, adoration and physical satisfaction.
‘What happened? Did you just stop loving me, like dying stops you?’
‘I didn’t stop loving you at all, it was something else, Jen, I can’t really explain a thing like that. I’m not gifted with the use of the right words.’
‘Did you find the words with her? Did she find the words for you?’
What do you mean?’
‘I mean did you have a language? Are there special phrases you recall?’
‘Jen...’ stumbling around his mind for the phrases, yes of course he remembered what she had said — You want to make a circle? When you fill my body you also fill my mind, and when you’ve left my body my mind is still full of you. Dangerous Douglas Silver...But there were also phrases, sayings that only he and Jennifer knew. ‘Jen, must you? It is over, finished...’
‘I have to understand. It isn’t as though we didn’t get along. or if we constantly quarrelled. If you loved her and wanted her you must have put me out of your mind. I want desperately to get back in there.’
‘You were away, I needed someone to...someone I could turn to, physically. It progressed further than I thought it would. You never left me though. I didn’t stop loving you for a second.’
‘She was good for you though, I see it in your eyes and feel it in your...’
Jennifer would not let it rest. If Douglas had caused the first damage it was Jennifer who spread the infection, her mind wriggling with dark fantasies that could well contain truth. The unfound face and the nameless name playing havoc with her confidence, crumbling her inner self: the destruction of knowing that, for a time, she had been unwanted, not needed; the despair of seeing for herself that whatever terrible thing had lurked in Douglas’s immediate past there were traces of it still there, crouching, waiting to destroy the trust and that happiest encoiled relationship which they had known. Or was even that a myth in her mind? Had she lived a dream alone all the time, imagining what she felt: Douglas leaning across the table, grasping her hand; the smile radiant (through him she had come to know the meaning of that word); Douglas whispering, Jennifer Frost, you don’t know how much I love you. There had been safety in this thing. now the roots of safety had been ripped out by...By whom? No face. No name.
So she picked, probed, prodded at Douglas who genuinely wanted to ease his smarting conscience, simply to rid his mind of what had been between Carol and himself. At times he even wished that Jennifer and he could be promiscuous people, able to shift partners and return to each other, embroidering their own intimate moments with close muttered tales of what he had done, or how she had reacted, and so spark anew their own private flame. But their feelings were so entangled that all Douglas could sense was the real agony of the inner gnaw, the grind of the rats’ teeth at his guts and the need to purge himself so that it could be sane again; so that he could face the company when they arrived; so that he could meet Carol on a new and professional level.
***
There was only a handful of people at Shireston House over the holiday; most of the stage and office staff lived locally and the few others departed for friends and relatives. Of those who remained, Ronnie Gregor had already installed his current blonde, nineteen-year-old, girl-friend, Stephanie, in one of the double apartments with Douglas’s blessing; Adrian Rolfe’s wife and two young daughters, little dark girls with mean eyes like their father’s, now regarded Shireston almost as
their birthplace; Art Drays was an anywhere-I-hang-my-hat-is-home man, so he had bedded himself down in one of the unused flats and settled in, comfortable and self-reliant.
‘I haven’t noticed a turkey walking around. Or nuts. We not celebrating the Winter Solstice this year?’ Douglas asked on Christmas Eve.
‘Discovered,’ sighed Jennifer, relaxing for a moment in ordinary things, her subconscious blessing the fact that Douglas could still make remarks like this to her. ‘The grub’s ordered, darling, and they’re bringing it up from the town this morning.’
‘Bringing it up from the town, eh?’ Douglas assumed his country dialect, ‘Yer Jack, this lot be for the big ‘ouse. You git ‘im up there sharpish.’
‘But we won’t be having turkey.’
‘Scrooge.’
‘There’s a quarter of humbugs.’ A tentative grin.
‘I want my turkey.’
‘Oh does he want his turkey? You’ll get it, darling,’ she smooched at him. ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’
‘You shouldn’t tell secrets.’ He saw it was wrong as he said it, the sudden lowering of spirits, the words misunderstood and placed in the context of his infidelity, her face becoming frozen, hard, dead with unspoken hates and pain. ‘I’ll give you a kiss for your secret,’ he said, longing for the magic to flash between them.
Jennifer gave a small switched smile. ‘It’s worth more than a kiss.’
‘Name your price. I can be very generous.’
‘You can’t pay it. Not yet.’
‘Give me credit. I’ll pay soon enough.’
Her smile widened, not the screen smile known to a million seat-paying clients, but the one she reserved for Douglas and private moments. ‘Okay,’ she took a deep breath, raising herself on tiptoe, arms straight at her sides, like a small girl trying to get some indiscretion off her chest. ‘There’s going to be a Christmas party here. I fixed it all with Emilio; his chef lives alone and had nowhere to go on Christmas Day. So we’re going to christen the new restaurant, Christmas night, tomorrow night: turkey, plum pudding, crackers...’
‘Figs?’
‘Plenty of figs, and nuts, dates, celery. The works.’
‘Can we get a little drunk and come back here to make abandoned love?’
She looked at him, all serious eyed, ‘That would make a beautiful Christmas present...’ a pause and giggle, ‘...but who’s going to be the little drunk? Adrian?’
Douglas pulled her to him and smacked her bottom lightly. ‘You and I, my darling, will share a bottle of champagne and eat sparingly. We will do our duty as the director and his lady, then we will steal away to this our chamber, there the deep art of sexual combat to apply.’ The last words spoken in his Olivier’s Richard III voice.
The party was one of those strange bits of organized spontaneity which worked in spite of all things being against it. Christmas Day was cold, gusty winds blowing at the stripped branches, ripping at tiny pieces of garden litter, pushing at the house rattling the windows and creating moans along the empty passages. It was very much the kind of day for staying indoors, a situation which made it difficult for people to pull themselves together, struggle out of lethargy and head for the restaurant which had been decorated and made attractive for the occasion.
Emilio had given up the entire day to making a success out of the small affair, while his chef, the newly-appointed Dominic, grinning, red faced with a long drooping Mexican moustache and an almost traditionally fat body, came out to greet the guests and see they were happy with his work. Emilio buzzed around, refusing to sit with his colleagues; his wife, the pert and bright Doris, assisting enthusiastically with the serving, but with eyes for nobody but her husband. Douglas noted with a secret pride that Emilio had persuaded the thin Mrs. Doul to help, and that she actually looked happy.
You could tell that the Rolfes would much rather have remained at their own fireside, and that Ronnie and his girl, Stephanie, had been clutched to each other, coupling and uncoupling all day.
Douglas and Jen had spent the holiday in mutual good humour, both of them taking trouble and care to push their double problem far below the surface, Jennifer entranced with her ring.
‘It will be my Desdemona ring, Doug. I’ll wear it all the time and it will bring luck to your production.’
At first, when everybody gathered at the restaurant, they sat around the long table, decorated with holly and Christmas roses, like members of a family who had been separated for a long time, not ready to reinstate each other back into full confidence, but, as the food and drink began to circle the table, as crackers were pulled and the paper hats put on with that everlasting self-conscious bravado, they stopped being stiff individuals, relaxing, beginning to share. Turkey with chestnut stuffing, roast potatoes, carrots and swedes, thick slices of white meat, Christmas pudding with the brandy flames electric blue, the dry bubbles of champagne lighting other fires deep inside.
Of his own volition, Art Drays had fitted up one of the big tape machines and amplifiers so they could eat to modern standard Christmas music like White Christmas and all its derivatives right down to Little Donkey, and, as the evening moved on, more pop beats emerged and people began to dance.
Douglas, as director of the company, did his duty and danced with each of the ladies in turn. It was as he danced a slow blues with Ronnie’s Stephanie (who prattled about her chances of getting a job with wardrobe and what did he think?) that Douglas looked up and caught Jennifer’s face, her expression begging him to leave.
They slipped away just after eleven and, in the big brass four-poster, again knew joys that, Jennifer at least, had not known since their honeymoon.
The individual members of the company were due to arrive over the first three days of January and the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day passed in a tunnel of preparation, a sense that they were all just beginning.
‘Good Christmas Archie?’
‘The usual, you know. Quiet.’
‘Yes, always have a quiet Christmas nowadays. Pissed most of the time though.’
‘Ah. Sitting in front of that bloody box watching it all happen without you.’
‘She’s incredible, Art, I’ve never known a girl like her. Never satisfied.’
‘Ronnie, you always say that. It’s you that’s never satisfied.’
‘You don’t partake do you?’
‘Sex?’
‘Yes.’
‘No sex, Ronnie. I haven’t the need.’
‘Not for anything? Anyone?’
‘Only once. A long time gone now. Come on, how about some work, chum?’
Romeo and Juliet 216/217
Link III: 4/5
Exit Paris. Exit Capulet through door.
Lights slow black.
Fly doorway and window.
Drop in interior window.
Trucks on with bed etc.
Sound: the dawn chorus horribly mutilated (like a conman might hear it).
Lights up to dawn. Romeo and Juliet in bed.
Movement and sexual sounds.
Lights slowly up to daylight during next five minutes.
As dawn chorus reaches crescendo overlap with electronic whoops turning to long screech and silence.
Romeo and Juliet very still then Romeo disentangles himself and slips out of bed moving to the window. He is naked. Juliet begins first speech (Wilt thou be gone?) leaves the bed and joins him close at the window. She is naked.
‘Oh Ash, just a few more days and we’ll be there.’
‘Right in the sweat, love.’
‘I’m not thinking about the sweat, I’m thinking about being down there in the country, with a proper, decent flat to live in and really big actors to watch.’
‘Good-bye to the Chamber of Horrors.’
‘The Bloody Tower.’
Internal Memo
To: Douglas Silver.
From: Adrian Rolfe.
Date: 28th December 1970.
Subject: Reception for th
e Company.
All arrangements have now been made for the reception for the company to be held in the green room at 8 p.m. on 3rd January. I have instructed the catering staff that you will be speaking to the company and their wives at about nine o’clock. May I suggest that you make this speech one of informal welcome as the press will be present. Matters of company policy should be kept until the company meeting at 9 a.m. on 4th January in the rehearsal room.
‘Hallo?’
‘Adrian?’
‘Yes.’
‘Douglas. I just called to ask you to watch the wording of your memos in future.’
‘What’s wrong with my wording?’
‘Nobody, but nobody, tells me when I should make statements on company policy.’
‘I didn’t know I had.’
‘Well read that last memo carefully, Adrian, and don’t presume again.’
‘How do you describe love, Doug?’
‘Human love? Two people?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t have the facility. I interpret I don’t write, though I suppose you can do it with sounds. Music describes love for some people doesn’t it? Objects, trinkets acquired on the journey.’
‘For me it’s words. I suppose some people think it’s sentimental but do you remember the passage from As You Like It where poor, moonstruck Silvius describes love?’
‘You mean: It is to be all made of sighs and tears,?’
…It is to be all made of faith and service;
...It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all deservings;—’
‘They’re the big, straight simple statements aren’t they? The trinkets touch me more. Try this one.’ He leaned back on the pillow, eyes closed, willing memory, voice just on the right side of emotion not to make it sentimental.