by Ray Connolly
‘Cromwell Road Air Terminal followed by Campden Hill Road, Kensington, please.’
Settle back and I feel a sudden embarrassment.
‘You must be quite used to seeing people having all that… you know, all that, um … well, being in there. I mean the barium thing. I suppose it hardens you after a while, but it was the worst thing that ever happened to me … I mean I was very embarrassed. Well, more like humiliated.’
‘Well, not really. You see I’m only a student and I was called in to help this afternoon, because they were short-staffed. You’re the only barium enema case I’ve ever seen… you looked terrified … I can understand why. I think I’d be frightened…’
‘It just sort of makes me feel upset.’
Down Park Lane and into Hyde Park. A group of sodden riders walk their horses dejectedly across the road as we wait in the jam by Queen’s Gate. Steam rises thinly from the animals’ polished buttocks and thighs. My grandfather always used to say that by the time I was a man the horse would be extinct. He hadn’t accounted for Rotten Row and Princess Anne’s boost to the nation’s equestrian interests. But he was right in his way. His kind of horses, the heavy horses of the north, are virtually gone. As extinct as grandad.
Again I feel sick. And little pools of perspiration are forming in my palms. Pigtails, who hasn’t said much for several minutes, is watching me as I sit shivering.
‘Have you got anyone at home to look after you?’
‘No, I live alone. I’ll be all right when I get to bed. I think it must be the shock. And then I was told not to eat all day.’
Down across the traffic lights and into Queen’s Gate, and suddenly she’s opening the little glass hatch and talking to the driver: ‘Never mind Cromwell Road. Just go straight to Campden Hill Road … you did say Campden Hill Road, didn’t you?’
A dull nod from the depths of numbing nausea. Will I never be alone?
‘I’ll just make sure you’re all right. I can get a tube back to Gloucester Road. It’s very handy … Do you want the window open?’
Home. ‘Here we are.’ Thank God. ‘By the light on the left, please. Seventy-five? Take a pound. Thank you.’
‘You’re very pale.’
‘Will you call me a priest then?’
‘Not that pale.’
‘Come inside.’
‘No. I have to go.’
‘You should have stayed in the taxi.’
‘No, the tube’s fine. Really. Are you sure you’re all right now?’
‘Oh yes. Thank you for … er, you know, being nice.’
Standing by the gate. Getting soaked. Must go. Must get to bed, but now it comes to it I don’t want her to go. Twenty-nine years old and tongue-tied.
‘Can I telephone you tomorrow when I’m feeling a bit better?’
‘It’s difficult to get messages in the hostel.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Must have misunderstood her intentions. She’s clearly just following her vocation.
‘But I’ll phone you to see how you are, if it’s all right?’
‘Oh yes. Well, I mean, please. If you want, that is. My name’s Kelly…’
‘Yes, I know. I saw your yellow card. Are you in the phone book?’
‘Yes.’
The rain running down her nose and falling in drops off the end as she smiles again. And neither of us making a move.
‘Well, I must go. Now that I know you’re all right. Bye bye.’ And still smiling, she turned away down the road.
‘I mean it. We really can’t go on meeting like this,’ I called after her, but she didn’t turn round, and puddled off along the pavement, while the weekend getaway cars came racing up the hill to take their short cut over to Notting Hill Gate. She really ought to do something about that mac and that hair, I thought. Silly girl. Now, where are we—key into lock and treading over unopened letters lying on the doormat. I’ll look at them tomorrow, but now I mustn’t forget to dial my own number and leave the phone off or I’ll never get any sleep. I wonder what her name was. And I wonder where my hot water bottle is.
Chapter Two
I began to wake up at just after half past eight on the Saturday morning following my visit to St Jude’s Hospital. The first intimations of consciousness were occasioned by a couple of shrill blasts on the front door bell, which, while not having the desired effect of prompting me actually to get up and answer the door, did disturb the deepness of my sleep sufficiently to trigger off the regular thirty minutes or so of semi-conscious dream-fantasy with which Fd grown happily accustomed to begin each day.
‘Bloody postman,’ I thought benignly to myself, relishing the contentment of knowing that the poor fellow might stand ringing on the doorstep all morning before he was likely to get an answer, and immediately submerged beneath the safety of blue flannelette sheets. Warm. Reflective. A child again and it’s Corpus Christi 1950, one of those hot Thursday holidays of obligation in early summer for which all little Catholic children wait. It had been eight o’clock mass and holy communion at the Carmelite Convent, and then racing home on the bike I’d got new last Christmas, tearing past the local parish Junior school just at ten to nine as all the poor proddie-dog kids were lining up in the playground, and saying a quick thank you to the Almighty that Fd been born of the One, True, Holy and Apostolic faith and thus entitled to enjoy holidays which others were not. Bacon and egg from grandma, in a hurry to get out for 9.30 at St Theresa’s, and away for the day with an apple and blackcurrant jam on bread, and Bobby Bates, who’d bought my old bike from me for a pound last January. Two skinny little lads, two empty jam jars each, off paddling for tiddlers. And at four o’clock, jars overflowing with squirming little fish, a dam of rocks and mud built across the stream, tested, flooded and finally burst with hurling stones, and legs and arms red and smarting from the sudden sunburn, off for home again along lanes so recently tarred and shaled.
I remember that lane. Mill Lane. It had always been full of potholes. And then that day it was smooth and new. They probably hadn’t done that road since before the war. Who saw the bird first? I think it was Bobby. He was in front, both of us riding one-handed, each carrying a jar full of water and tiddlers. It was a sparrow. A very young one. Or was it? I must have known then. I knew things like that in those days.
One little bird caught by its feet in the lip of bubbled and melted tar that was spilling off the side of the road and onto the grass verge—wings beaten and smashed by efforts to escape. And two boys getting off their bikes to help, leaning them against the hedge, and gently digging into the treacly tar with sticks, tearing pieces of clinging shale off the pale downy breast, trying with a futile hope to clean the cloying tar away with a handkerchief dipped into the stream water in our jam jars. A little bird with snapped legs and a broken wing, that died around six o’clock on the feast of Corpus Christi in a lane in Lancashire as the farm labourers were pedalling home for their teas, and which was buried solemnly and silently under a pile of sods and stones in the roadside ditch by two boys of eight, hands and shirts covered in tar and a trace or two of blood. And back down the lane, one-handed on our bikes we went to return our day’s catch to the stream, hearts quite out of the aquarium in Bobby’s shed. We were friends for years but we never again mentioned that holy day of obligation.
I blinked two small tears into my pillow. Dreams of childhood always upset me a bit.
Finally up and trampling over yesterday’s clothes, dropped as always at the end of my large, bronze gateposted bed. Slippers somewhere, ah—here on the landing and karate-jacket-style-navy-blue dressing gown. Downstairs on the doormat four letters say good morning from their typed envelopes, three more large beige impersonal envelopes certain to be circulars, and a postcard. The Guardian and Daily Mirror folded together are shoved halfway through the letter-box. Opening the door, with some caution, since I have an abhorrence of finding myself the centre of every passer-by’s attention while still in my pyjamas. Outside now to pick up three large packets of lo
ng-playing records and a thick, large and wadded envelope with instructions to tear down one side which tells me that it is a complimentary copy of a new book from a publisher. And then with a quick glance up and down the road, braving half a dozen uninterested glances, nipping down three steps, grabbing my two pints of milk, and then back inside before I get a proper chance to be embarrassed. ‘I’ll break that fucking milkman’s neck. Every bloody morning it’s the same. Why can’t he leave it by the door?’ And now cradling my morning’s supplies in folded arms, stumbling a clumsy way down to the basement kitchen I’m still in the middle of equipping.
Breakfast. Post dropped onto table, milk into fridge, kettle on, two pieces of thick sliced bread into toaster, table set with one brown earthenware dish, matching half-pint mug, no saucer, non-matching small blue plate, Sugar Puffs, milk, toast and tea. Five minutes on the Mirror, two of them devoted to the cartoon page, and thus with intellectual self-satisfaction to the Guardian, turning from story to story, to the reviews, skipping through the interminable interviews and finally reading carefully the morning’s leading articles just to be sure and know exactly where a bright young liberal-thinking socialist like me ought to be standing on the issues of the day.
Saturday is not a good day for newspapers. A third mug of tea: and now the mail. First the book. Unzip along the blue arrows. Shove hand in gloved jacket. How Freudian! Christ! What’s this? Games For Swinging Lovers. Pretty jacket. Wonder why the lady involved hasn’t got her knickers on. What are you reputable publishers coming to? What a lovely reputable bottom the lady has. And here folded inside the cover a letter from a sort of friend.
Dear Benedict,
re: ‘Games for Swinging Lovers* by Mary Jane Tinhorn On November 5 we are publishing this explosive first book by young American housewife Mary Jane Tinhorn. In it she tells of her adventures as a newlywed in the wife-swapping suburbs of Los Angeles, and how she and her husband devised all kinds of games for the weekly Saturday night parties which they held.
This is not a book of remorse, nor does it condemn what Mary Jane describes as the ‘swinging society*. Rather it is a straightforward account of her and her husband’s extra-marital adventures, and contains an ominous forecast of the way she believes Western marriages will develop in the sexual sense during the next ten years. Mary Jane Tinhorn is 25, very attractive, and exceptionaly articulate on the subject of wife-swapping. She will be in London for one week to promote the book from Monday, November 2, and I thought she might make excellent material for one of your interviews. Accompanying her on her visit to London will be her agent and friend, Felix Yanov IV. They will be staying at the Dorchester.
Should you be at all interested in meeting Mary Jane, please don’t hesitate to call us. I am enclosing a picture as an apéritif! ! !
Looking forward to hearing from you.
All my love,
Yours,
Suzy.
P.S. The book has already been fifteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists.
Slipping off the paper clip I studied a badly focused print of a neat little blonde lady climbing out of a swimming pool in a bikini.
Twenty-five? Well preserved, but she’ll never see thirty-five again. Must be all that sunshine in California that makes them all so randy. Like the wives of the army officers in Aden and Hong Kong. They’re all supposed to be ravers.
The rest of the mail was the usual collection of pop and film circulars, reminders from the accountant that it really was time I began to take my financial position more seriously, a nice letter from the bank manager drawing my attention to overdrawn accounts, and an invitation to the opening of a new discotheque. Bit by bit, with what I like to imagine was studied impatience, I screwed my mail into little balls and aimed it at a moth crawling drowsily up the windowpane. Games Tor Swinging Lovers, however, looked worthy of further consideration, and after a quick glance at a section titled How To Be Sure And Get The Man You Want At A Key Party, up it went on the mantelpiece with a mental note to start each day with a chapter. A fetish a day keeps boredom at bay.
Only towards mid-day, lying loafing during the second hour in my bath, and having three times topped up the cooling water with more hot, did I allow myself to consider carefully my yesterday at St Jude’s. Of course from the second I’d woken up I’d been aware of it, but I didn’t want to remember the details. Last night I’d staggered upstairs feeling like death after saying goodbye to that kindly nurse, had a quick wash, taken the study phone off and dropped into bed.
Now there I was soaking myself and scrubbing with the fervour of a washerwoman, convinced that that foul and lingering smell which hung so very heavily in the air of St Jude’s lavatories might have attached itself to me and remain with me as a haunting social embarrassment for life. Not only Oil of Patchouly, but Brut bath salts and green essence had been lavished into the water, the Patchouly forming rather sordid little greasy floats on the surface.
Should have found out more about the girl with plaits, I considered absently. She was nice, and she didn’t have to bring me home. Must have been feeling really rotten not to have thought to ask her name: not like me. Grey eyes, and lived somewhere in Cromwell Road. I remember now. Oh, but Christ, I couldn’t face her. Not after what she saw. God, I felt ill. Strange there should be no after-effects. Must be clean by now. Inside and out. Shampoo. Hair too long. Must put Dettol in with my jeans and things when I wash them. Never know what germs are lurking about those bloody hospitals. Expect she was embarrassed too, or don’t nurses ever get embarrassed?
The front door bell went at one-thirty, just as I was finishing Chapter Three of Games For Swinging Lovers. Washed, scrubbed, shaved, shampooed, liberally sprinkled with nearly half a tin of talcum powder, and virtually washed again in a pool of aftershave lotion, I’d finally found a new pair of jeans and a clean shirt and, thus purged, decided that maybe Mrs Mary Jane Tinhorn ought to be savoured today rather than be saved for tomorrow and tomorrow, and pulling the counterpane over my unmade bed I settled back to be happily outraged by the marital mores of Southern California. The doorbell had rung a third time before I reached it.
‘I hope you don’t mind my calling, but I just thought I’d make sure you were quite all right. I did phone … well, I tried to. But the line was always engaged…’
The pigtails are gone, and her hair is now long and limp down her back and round her shoulders. Fair, but not blonde. Pale blue shirt, and smokey-blue flared corduroy jeans with an open jacket to match, fitted at the waist and flared around the hips. A different girl.
‘… it was just that you looked so ill last night—I thought I’d make sure.’
‘Oh yes, yes. I’m fine today. I forgot, but when I got home I took the phone off so that no one could ring me during the night. I was dead tired. It must still be off. I’d forgotten all about it. Well, come in. It’s nice to see you. You will come in today, won’t you?’
Opening the door wide, oranges and lemons as she goes under the arch of my arm, into the Wedgwood-blue of the hall. Leading her through into the living-room, still neat and tidy since it hasn’t been used since Mrs Pollock came yesterday morning to tidy the house. Over to the end of the room overlooking the garden. Pigtails looking round at the children’s pictures so carefully framed in the white panels in the pale blue walls. Smiling now. White teeth. Very clean, and no make-up. Mrs Mary Jane Tinhorn, you can keep your sexual aberrations for the time being.
‘Is this all your house? It’s enormous.’
‘Yes. I wanted a house with a garden and this was the only one I could find in Central London. Well, I mean it was the only one I could afford. It was very run down when I bought it, but I’ve spent the last two years doing it all up myself.’
‘But doesn’t anybody else live here?’
‘No.’
‘Why don’t you let it? You could make a fortune letting off the rooms as bedsitters. Is it three floors?’
‘Four. Before I moved in I always thought that
I’d be a sort of Rachman and fill it full of Pakistanis at ten to the room. Well, you know what I mean. But really, I just don’t want to. I like having it all for myself. Would you like a drink? I think I’ve probably got something in here. I know I’ve got some Champagne because some clot sent me some which I never drank. Shall we have that?’
‘Oh, no really, it doesn’t matter. I was only passing. I’m going to Biba’s … shopping… Well, if you want some! Just a glass.’
Oh my little Pigtails, you’re so diffident. So unsure of yourself, so timid. And yet is there not a quality about you that says ‘Yes I know I’m a pretty girl, and I’ve got you interested’ ? The arrogance of the attractive and the timidity of youth. Now there’s a nice combination. Last night I hardly noticed you in your nurse’s smock but today you’re here with your meekness and manners grabbing hold of my imagination like no one has done for so long, you and your pretty eyes and schoolgirl face. How old are you? I’ll ask you later, but I swear not a day over eighteen. And there you are, I’m sure, clinging onto your virginity, though you’re not exactly backward in coming forward, if you don’t mind me thinking that way. And me, a worldly-wise twenty-nine, going on thirty, and shy, yes I admit it, before a bit of a girl like you.
‘It’s only a half bottle, so you can only have one decent-sized glass. Tell me, are you always so concerned about your patients’ welfare? Or am I something special? I’ve heard of after-sales service, but I never thought the Ministry of Health went in for such things.’
Why the cynicism? Nerves do terrible things to a man. Now I see you’re embarrassed, you and your southern classless accent, your round ahs and mellifluent tones, and any minute now you’re going to go scooting off like you did last night. And me, after all this time, at my age, quite out of my depth, facing that look of injured innocence.