by Ray Connolly
‘See what I mean, Clare?’
Clare turning to Tibby: ‘What do you do?’
‘Well, really I’m a designer—you know, for films, or interior decoration, or anything like that, but finding myself out of work, I’ve taken a very temporary job working for Paul here in one of his shops. It’s easy work but the money’s terrible. He’s very tight with the pennies. Shouldn’t be surprised if he deduct’s tonight’s dinner from my pay packet at the end of the week.’
‘What do you sell?’
‘Antiques. Well, he calls them antiques, but if you ask me he has a little factory somewhere in Shepherds Bush knocking up original Chippendales and Hepplewhites by the hundred.’
‘Now that’s not fair.’ Time for me to interrupt. ‘I happen to know that our Paul here is on very good terms with both Mr Hepple and Mr White personally. Isn’t that right, Paul? Which reminds me, Clare needs a job. D’you know of anything which might suit her?’
Clare kneeing me under the table with embarrassment.
‘Does she, now. Know anything about antiques, Clare? No? Right, start nine-thirty Monday morning at my place on Kensington Church Street. Sixteen pounds a week, plus commission. Interested?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What about luncheon vouchers?’ It would be nice to find something in the Factory Acts I could get Paul on.
‘I don’t think a pretty girl like Clare will have too much worry about lunch. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of young men around only too willing to give her a quick bite to keep her going.’
Clare grinning at the slight double entendre, and the implied flattery, and for a moment I’m struck by a quick shaft of jealousy.
‘Can I think about it for a day or two?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you.’
‘What’s this bastard like to work for, Tibby? Keep molesting you all the time, does he?’
Tibby looks at me with what could be a knowing smile: ‘Oh no. He’s a proper little gentleman, so long as the customers keep rolling in. And his lunch hours are so long that we hardly ever see him. Which is nice.’
Even Tibby’s having a go. There really must be something about Paul Proudlove which brings out the daggers in people’s souls. ‘Why do they call you Tibby, Tibby?’ I ask, although I couldn’t really be less interested.
‘Well, my name is Tabitha, and when I was small I could only say Tibby, so it sort of stuck.’
‘And what sort of sadistic sods of parents would call their baby girl Tabitha?’
‘Well, I’m not altogether sure, but Tabitha is an old family name, and my father thought that by naming his brood after all the members of the family with any money it might tempt them into coughing up a bit in their wills. It didn’t, though. All I ever got for being lumbered with a lousy name like Tabitha was a set of Chambers’ Encyclopaedias—“to my dearest great-niece Tabitha I bequeath my entire library that by study she might improve her mind before it is too late”. And her entire library consisted of a dirty great pile of National Geographic Magazines, a collection of novels by Mazo de la Roche in paperback, an unopened French bible with the pages still fastened together and the rotten encyclopaedias. It could have been worse, though. My brother—they called him Cedric —was told that he could only inherit if he became a practising Muslim. Or was it Hindu? I’m not sure. Anyway Uncle Cedric had spent too long exploiting the fuzzy-wuzzies, and in the end he went native. When he died they burned his body on a great funeral pyre at Bath and sailed it down the Avon, and then the local fire brigade came and put it out, thinking it was a boat that had been set on fire by accident. When they found the semi-charred remains of Uncle Cedric the police arrested all the family and mourners on the spot and charged them under some old law against witchcraft and black magic.’
Really, despite all, it’s turning into a pleasant evening. Tibby’s streets ahead of Paul’s usual birds, sharp enough to know without being told, I’m sure, and it looks as though we may have found a job for Clare.
‘Benedict, why are you so awful to Paul?’ Clare asked later on the way home. ‘He seems quite sweet. I think I probably will go to work for him, if only until I find something better.’
‘Good girl. I’m not really awful to him, you know. I don’t mean half of what I say. It’s just that he seems to ask for it so much. You know, he sets himself up as an irresistible target to be sniped at.’
‘Is he queer?’
‘I honestly don’t know for sure. I think he might be inclined that way. Well, I’m sure he’s not as heterosexually inclined as most blokes I know, but I don’t know whether he’s a fag or not. Not for certain. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve hardly ever met any. They don’t have many at all girls’ boarding schools. But he’s certainly a very fancy man. Perhaps you treat him badly because he brings out the latent homosexuality in you, which you’re trying to suppress.’
‘Quite a little paperback analyst, aren’t you? I suppose you could be right, but I don’t really think so. A psychiatrist once told me that everyone at some time in their lives tries it the other way, you know, a homosexual experience, but I can safely say at twenty-nine I’ve never yet had any urges whatsoever in the direction of men, boys, those of indeterminate sex or even butch-looking ladies. But then maybe I will next year. Who knows? It’ll be fun to wait and see.’
As we pulled up outside the hostel and waited to say goodnight there was a slight pensive silence from Clare: ‘Are you quite sure I can come to live in your house?’ she said. ‘I mean, I won’t be cramping your style or anything, will I?’
‘You’ll be cramping my style if you don’t come. All of this necking in parked cars gets embarrassing when you get to my age. What time shall I call for you tomorrow to take your things over?’
‘Well, would twelve be all right?’
‘Right. I’ll be there.’
And then I gave her a brief hug, and for the first time all evening I felt a little closer, although somewhere in the back of my mind I was troubled with self-disgust. And I wondered what Mary Jane Tinhorn would be doing right there and then. And I thought what a rotten little sod I’d been to both of them.
Chapter Ten
Clare was ready at twelve, lugging two enormous suitcases down the hostel steps the minute I turned the corner: and then while I put them in the boot of the car she rushed back inside to return a couple of minutes later with two handfuls of paper carrier bags, and a tennis racket. Who on earth could she have envisaged playing when she brought that thing to London, I asked, and she screwed up her nose and said didn’t I know that tennis was a passport to some of the best scenes anywhere in the world these days. And remembering the Wimbledon strawberries-and-cream-groupie fortnight in June, which I’d once been asked to cover, and after which I felt thoroughly satiated with sexual excess, I withdrew my mockery, and instead indulged an unhappy fantasy in which Clare was up to no good behind the tennis pavilion with the local Surrey tennis roué, she in little fluffy lace panties that bounced about under her skirt, and he all sunburnt arms and legs and a hundred-mile-an-hour serve.
But it was a sunny day and the jealous and imaginary cloud passed instantly. And, within a few minutes we were home, me taking the cases, and staggering up the stairs, intending to show virility, while Clare, back in her navy blue flared corduroy suit, with a pink man’s button-down shirt, trailed behind with her paper bags and racket.
‘I hope you will find everything to your satisfaction, madam.’ I pushed open the door, having taken care before going to pick her up to make sure that everywhere was neat and tidy, and having opened the window to let in some fresh air. ‘And that you will enjoy your stay with us.’
‘Oh yes, very pretty. But … oh dear, well never mind.’
‘Madam?’
‘Well, I notice there’s no view of the sea from here. I had been hoping … but it really doesn’t matter.’
‘No, unfortunately madam, when the tide is out, as i
t is today, one cannot always see the sea—on account of how there’s about two hundred miles of land between here and the nearest water in that direction, you ungrateful little bugger— eh, madam.’
‘You may leave my cases by the bed, boy. Thank you. Now I suppose you’ll want a tip.’
‘Well—ahem…’
‘Well, come here.’
And silently in a cartwheel of slow motion we tosstailed over her suitcases and bounced onto the bed, aired that very morning by me, with a couple of hot water bottles, just in case. And for a while we played as happily as we could, under the circumstances, which, for a grown man of some experience in these matters was a bit limiting, but nonetheless pleasant, and I told her I loved her. And she didn’t answer. Though I wanted her to so much. And then feeling me excited on top of her, she kissed me and helped me to come, while I stared out and over her shoulder and caught sight of a cobweb in the corner of the room, and in my mind called Mrs Pollock all kinds of unpleasant things. And a little later, when I was too tired to do anything but lie on my back and watch, Clare unpacked, putting dresses onto coat hangers and into the wardrobe, pulling out stacks of hastily packed underwear, and shoving them with equal haste into drawers, and then sweaters, and blouses and shirts and jeans. For a nurse she wears an awful lot of blue jeans. And then taking her blue corduroy jacket, which had somehow come off during our earlier tussle, she hung it onto the knob on the door, said she liked the curtain material, and opening up her other case began pulling out pictures and posters, and, using her shoe and drawing pins which she must have brought with her from Cromwell Road, happily began to pin them to my newly painted walls. And I didn’t mind. Not even when she knocked a great lump of plaster out. She was so quick. And everything was efficient. And she with her hair loose, looking so clean and pretty. And so young. And I wondered whether it was all happening to me. I was so happy. And when I offered, a little belatedly, to help, she just smiled and said no, you recover, you randy beggar. And I did. And I thought about Cathy, as Clare busied herself setting up her new home, and how once I’d loved her, for so many years, of how we’d met at a tennis club, where she was the local champion and I neither use nor ornament. But how I was the one who’d got off with her, despite all. And courted her, on and off for years. Mostly off. But how best of all was that summer when we met, when I was eighteen and she was sixteen. And I was so immature. Getting off with girls was such a ritual in those days, and I didn’t know the games to play. But I let it be known about that I fancied her, and perhaps because I was very sunburnt that summer, she thought why not, because she let it be known back that my advances wouldn’t be repelled. And they weren’t. So we went to the pictures in Southport, the second half of a foursome which sat in the back of my friend’s little Ford van, and played the radio, and sang along to Radio Luxembourg. And when they played ‘Cathy’s Clown’ everybody laughed, especially my friend’s girlfriend, with whom I had once had a more than passing acquaintance. Small towns can become very incestuous places, it seems to me. That night we went to see East of Eden, which was being revived about that time, and which probably wasn’t the best of choices since it blew my cover for the James Dean persona upon which I’d modelled my courting techniques. But still. And then after the pictures we had a quick coffee in the El Cabala, which was the only thing to do in those days, particularly with girls who were, and who looked, under-age, before nipping smartly down to do a bit of quiet courting in the sandhills and pine forests at Formby, which, considering the film hadn’t ended until after ten, and as we had to get our girls home before twelve, cut down our chances of mad sexual adventures somewhat considerably. But we all enjoyed it. And all night the music kept playing. I must have been a very immature eighteen. But I was a madman for music. And still am. Though now it’s for nostalgia’s sake.
It was a good summer. Two months on the pea vines, working fifteen hours a day, seven days a week and bringing in a regular thirty pounds a week, which, as I was a student, was tax free, and a fortune. And I had a good time though Cathy gave me the run-around, and eventually met up with someone who played rugby for Waterloo and Lancashire. And that was my lot. But it wasn’t really. Because for years I used to think about her. And want her. And no girl I ever met quite measured up to her, because she really was so healthily pretty that it hurt to remember her, and though her mind wasn’t up to much, I must have overlooked all of that, because whenever I was at home and staying with an aunt and she was short of a date, she would telephone, and I’d be there. Happy to be used. Until one day when I was about twenty-two I must have had some kind of revelation, because I just stopped going home. And stopped allowing myself to be used. And, though I thought of her every day, I went about my life and career. And got on with courting other ladies who I didn’t take to see East of Eden, although it still shows from time to time at the Classics. But still I thought of Cathy a lot. Every day, I’m sure, and wished that things had been different. And was hurt and upset when I heard she was married to a travelling salesman for a group of soap manufacturers. And then one day, sitting in the office, not more than a year or so ago, there’s my secretary saying there’s someone called Cathy on the phone for you. Shall I put her off? And me saying no. And hello. And what a surprise. And how are things? And she saying she was in town because Arthur had come to a soap suds convention in Russell Square, and did I know that they lived in Knutsford now, which, I supposed, meant that Arthur had done well, and anyway I just thought I’d give you a ring, you know, after all this time, and being in London I didn’t really know what to do. And so I said well let’s have a drink. And she said yes. My Cathy. And I said why not lunch? And she paused, and then said yes. That would be nice. And was no doubt thinking ‘well, Arthur will never know.’ But was I sure it was all right? And I thought, there she goes, still using me, still sure of herself, but now with some diplomacy. But I didn’t mind. I never minded. So we met. And she was still pretty. Though not quite so healthy looking. And she said well, well, you’ve done well, haven’t you. And I was very embarrassed. And ordered. And we talked about the old days, and the sandhills and the Everly Brothers, and I asked her did she play much tennis any more, and she said no. And we talked about Arthur, and how successful he’d been, and how she met him at a barbecue, and about her new house, which had cost them £10,500. On a mortgage, of course, but then Arthur was very well paid. And within about ten minutes I was being bored to distraction. And in another ten minutes we both fell silent. Or talked about the food and the restaurant. And then we said goodbye. And, in a way, I was sorry we’d met. Because now I knew that for all those years I’d been dreaming about someone who didn’t exist. And probably never had existed. And it was a rotten disappointment to find out. So I said say hello to Arthur. And call again some time. Though I hoped to God that she wouldn’t. And the disappointment was crippling. Though, now I think about it, it was nice to imagine oneself in love in that hot summer. And now I see that Clare has finished her unpacking and everywhere is neat, and friendly and homely looking, and she’s making me get up for a moment while she spreads an Indian counterpane across the bed, which gives the room and its glistening new whiteness a patch of colour. And now she’s unfastening her belt, and unbuttoning her pink shirt. And with her back to me, slipping out of her shirt and throwing it over her shoulders towards me onto the bed. And now stepping out of her trousers, and throwing them too. With a laugh. And there she is in pale blue pants. And laughing at my amazement, while she finds a pair of Levis, and a T-shirt, and gets dressed again. Finally pulling a grey knitted cardigan around her, since I do not live in a particularly warm house.
Thought you’d like a bit of a show,’ she says, and grabbing hold of my hands pulls me off the bed and pummels me gently in the stomach.
‘Thank you very much,’ say I, and lead the way down the stairs.
She was always like that, those first few days. One minute the big tease, and the next dancing discreet little pirouettes around the house, knocking mod
estly on my door in the morning, then being deliberately, tantalisingly sexual. For the rest of that week we were rarely out of each other’s sight during our waking hours. I soon gave up any idea of work, at least until she began working, and telephoned the office to say that I was ill, and wouldn’t be in this week. It was like dropping out for a week. None of the things I’d been obsessive about, which was mainly work, seemed to matter, compared with the good time I was having playing house with Clare. Going shopping together. Watching her cook lunches for me, and then falling asleep, bloated and blissful from the effects of too much wine shared between too few people. Most of the time I left the phone off the hook, and thus dodged the daily dozens of callers, and the mail went mainly unopened and all unanswered. Now and then Clare would say didn’t I ever do any work, and I’d tell her this was a holiday. Which it was. The best I ever had. And so off we’d go to the pictures every night, because she said she wanted to be able to join in when my trendy friends discussed all the latest films. She also mentioned books, but when I pointed out that most of the trendy people I knew had never read a book in their lives, and certainly wouldn’t be discussing them in any depth in her company (nor mine for that matter) she lost interest and concentrated on films. And music. And though I tried to turn her onto John Lennon, she took up a liking for Joni Mitchell. And played her all the time:
When I first saw your gallery I liked the ones of ladies Then you began to hang up me and started to portray me
Which gave the house a vague air of melancholy from time to time. A calmness in between the fun. Most of the time we were very close, and I told her all kinds of things I hardly knew I felt, but now and then there would be a slight aloofness that became a barrier between us, and through which I watched her, an opaque image that wandered quietly around my home. Not dreamily. But unapproachable. She never talked about her family, and after a couple of attempts I didn’t bother to ask. She didn’t appear to have any particular friends. Once she said something about how the girl she’d shared with in the hostel had cried the night before she moved out, but she was clearly unmoved by the emotion. Or perhaps she just couldn’t understand it.