Eventually, they have a fight and no amends after.
Not what he expected.
Can’t read everybody, then.
The lack of connection tightens his skin, pains it.
For a moment he’s scared she is too far away, irretrievable.
And more scared that he’s lost his new talent, that it wasn’t permanently his and tonight was simply an accident, or a mirage he’ll never regain or even be able to describe.
The man and his lover lie on their backs, separate and unsleeping in narrow twin beds. At last they stumble up into the morning when it arrives – no tolerance for food, no chatting – more silence on a bleak drive to their flat.
But the man believes that his lover continues to have him and hold him, whether or not they seem close – he is bound through and through her and she through him – no undoing that.
He will solve this – their first real difference of opinions – and they’ll carry on – the man and the woman together, side by side.
That’s what he expects.
Because he’s young.
After a while, the cabin is so oppressive – and so tedious, because Derek is so unconscious – not his fault – and Beth is so tired of sitting and staring, or creeping about, or easing out on to the balcony for a dose of salt and oceanic rage – that she decides she has to slip away. Her going won’t disturb him and will therefore do no harm.
Elizabeth eases out into the passageway, delicately pulls the door to and lets it lock. She’s bundled her coat out with her like a foldable shame and puts it on in the corridor where it won’t disturb.
I need a walk. That’s a perfectly normal impulse. I’ve been pent up all day, one way and another – and I have this energy, spare energy, rattling energy and it ought to be burned or it’ll turn septic, run to fat, some terrible something will happen.
And air – Christ I could do with some of that.
Elizabeth has the idea that a whole storm of air might do her good. She isn’t exactly rushing but – side to side and occasional stammers – she is progressing rapidly. She is moving like a woman with a goal.
Which, fuck it, I am.
Fuck, fuck and fuck it.
Just let’s be practical about this and head outside.
Fuck.
Elizabeth is full of shouting, but she ignores it, takes the stairs, moves on.
It isn’t so late that the communal areas are deserted, but there is a sense that somewhere a party has finished and the guests are wavering home. Little cliques are ambling and in spite of the rolls and plunges underneath them, they keep hold of loose formations as they chat, conspicuously elated they’ve already found themselves usable friends for their trip. They can relax, go to bed with tentative schedules for bridge, or poker, the sewing circles, gossip, a stamp collectors’ get-together, the before-dinner drinks.
The opportunities for Entertainment and Experience Enrichment are severely curtailed at this hour and the closed bars and emptied seating, while not forbidding, have certainly ceased to invite. Elizabeth is relieved when she reaches an exit that leads to an external door. A warning sign states that she shouldn’t be out here, that prevailing conditions may prove unsafe, then she’s pushing the door and it’s giving, it allows her through and on to the narrow and relatively sheltered path that circumnavigates the ship.
The Promenade Deck – that sounds likely. Maybe.
I should learn nautical terms, preoccupy myself with that.
She battles into the open and is caught by a sidelong blast that stops her and chastises.
Definitely refreshing.
A turn around the deck. That’s supposed to be the bracing cure-all, isn’t it . . .
Fuck.
So she heads off into the ransacking slam of it, mackintosh clattering round her legs, but no rain – just the taste of wilderness.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I’m here, though.
So this must be where I intend I should be.
Fuck.
Unless I’m just some kind of accident. Waiting to happen.
When she reaches the stern, the wind is muffled. And here it’s impossible not to feel – only gently, gently – that every option but the last has been exhausted, that she’s run out of ship, and meanwhile, the wide, pale tug of their wake both soothes and invites. A little camera has been positioned to observe, in case anybody succumbs to the attraction, plummets in to join the creamy, long perspective.
And here he is.
Waiting to happen.
Fuck.
Last option.
Fuck and fuck you and fuck you very much.
Here’s Lockwood.
Call him Arthur.
He’s leaning on the rail, arms braced wide and facing out, staring. He gives the impression the weather may be a product of his will.
Of course. That’s how he’d want her to find him – looking authoritative.
Fuck.
An additional pitch in her stomach, because whatever does happen will be undiluted, no interruptions, no distractions, they will meet.
And how long before he makes a point of giving his authority away . . . ? Smart manoeuvre, that, to snag you in.
‘You’re late.’ He’s quiet, intending that she strain slightly to hear him. He shuts his eyes, lets the breeze press at his face, fair hair lifting, hands deep in the pockets of his long, brown overcoat. It flaps expensively. Now that everything else is moving, he can be still.
And Arthur is always beautiful when he stops to let you see.
Which is appalling, so it’s important for Elizabeth to be angry. ‘I’m not late. You cued me in and then repeated it four times – and this is four hours after I left you.’
He smiles at this – after I left you – as if he has more delicate emotions than she does, as if every doubled meaning cuts . . .
‘And could you have said the word meat any more loudly? I’m neither deaf nor imbecilic. Neither is Derek.’ She offers him a pause within which he does nothing to help, so she has to begin again. ‘Well, we’re meeting,aren’t we? This is what you asked for.’
He turns and catches her with a hot look. He’s good at that kind of thing. ‘I’m so sorry. I was thinking four hours after we met. And sorry for the dreadfully unsubtle repetition. I’m out of practice.’
So he’s going to be the calm, calm gentleman. Which means I have to be the unreasonable bitch.
‘You’re not out of practice, Art. You’re never out of practice.’
‘Try not to make that sound quite so accusatory. I’m out of practice with you.’
‘And could you make that sound less accusatory . . . ?’
‘No, I don’t think I could, actually.’ But, somewhere, he is calm. Somewhere he is just glad to be looking at her and he’s letting it show, leaking signs and tells like an innocent, like a civilian. ‘It’s not as if I meet you often and it’s not as if I’m meeting anyone else, or have been for a while – ever really do – and it wouldn’t be like this if I was, so it wouldn’t be practice, Beth . . .’ Of course, he isn’t an innocent – when he gives out tells, he means to.
‘But you can meet someone else if you want, Art. We’re allowed other people.’ Which is not the direction she should take. Their terms and conditions have never been clear-cut and shouldn’t be discussed for fear of savagery and damages.
But Arthur doesn’t argue, is only firm with a dash of sad. ‘Yes, I know that. I can meet people and you can do that, too. I know that.’ He wants her to face him and sympathise, to let him in, but she angles her head to the side, says nothing and deflects him, so he continues, ‘You’re meeting Derek. I’ve been watching that all day.’
‘Not all day.’
‘Strangely, it feels like all day.’ He winces. ‘I do apologise again. I’m not allowed to s
ay that sort of thing. I withdraw it. Consider it unsaid. Blame it on the unaccustomed protein – heavy meal, rush of blood to the head.’
Elizabeth won’t feel guilty – has no plans to be anything like guilty. Nothing here is her fault.
It isn’t my fault this is insane, that when we meet it’s always going to be insane.
And this was his idea.
Therefore insane.
A weekend, two or three times in a year, forever and ever and ever, irremovable – that’s bad enough. To keep on meeting, for ever and ever and with no amen, that’s fucking futile – corrosive – infuckingsane – but a cruise? This long together on a fucking boat? I should just have said no. And then Derek – Derek who is normal – he wants to come along. And how to explain why not? I’m heading out with, as far as Derek knows, my school chum Margery – the Margery that I’ve been meeting for years, since long before I met Derek – so why shouldn’t he come and join us? Hang the expense, he’ll sort out the details – it’ll be fun . . .
Fuck.
And if Art isn’t meeting other people, that isn’t my fault, either. I’ve never asked him to be lonely.
The gale is humming and crying through some gap, around some obstacle – it’s singing and the sound is almost wonderful and she would like to listen to it and not deal with Arthur, or anything about him.
I did leave it late to tell Art – didn’t want to mess him around – I never want to mess him around – but I do and he does me – and then Margery’s falling on her sword – this isn’t my decision, but she won’t attend – Arthur provides her with an illness – dodgy heart – and we’ll ignore that double meaning – fuck, is there a meaning he doesn’t multiply, is anything ever just itself? And the lie about the heart – the heart lie – that meant we’d solved the problem – or not solved, but altered . . . me stuck on a boat with Derek who wants to propose instead of being otherwise stuck with Art who never will, or who might if I would let him, but I won’t. I can’t. I couldn’t . . . Main point, main fucking point – my fucking question would fucking be . . .
‘Why the fuck tell me you weren’t going to come on the cruise and then still fucking come?’
‘You knew I would.’
‘You said you wouldn’t.’
‘But you know me.’ He’s smiling again – putting a melancholywounded spin on it.
‘Stop it.’
‘Stop what? I’m not doing anything. Beyond reminding you we have met before. Have been meeting for years. My body has been meeting your body for y—’
‘Stop it.’
‘I’m saying you know me. That’s all. And anyone like me in my circumstances would be predictable. I’m not a story that’s hard to tell – not for you. No surprises . . .’
He is standing closer to her. They are propping themselves against a white-painted metal wall – bulkhead, maybe, she isn’t sure of the right word – it keeps them steady. And this desire to be steadied has drifted them in nearer to each other, tighter – that, and the hope to be warm.
And there may be nothing more to this: simple comforts required by them both and allowed to exert their influence without manipulation.
But Elizabeth has begun to feel pressured, as if she can taste him, working in. She isn’t easing herself away again, it’s true – although she’d partly like to – and she’s aware that Arthur chose the boisterous location, the tempestuous cold – he could have predicted their effects. He’ll always have her story worked out, too.
This being the kind of behaviour for which there’s no excuse – like his rant about fucking – like saying he wouldn’t be here and then being here – like being Arthur Lockwood – makes her – she feels, quite reasonably – angry and an angry woman is allowed to say, ‘You cunt.’
‘That’s uncalled for.’
‘And your . . . what would you say it was? Your oration? Your speech in the restaurant? That was called for? And lying to me?’
‘I didn’t lie.’
‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d thought you’d be here.’
‘If you remember, our original arrangement was that I would be here and that’s why you’d come – sorry, for the double meaning, we can act as if it didn’t happen. Of course.’
And he is making her be – letting her be – furious, which she doesn’t want. Any large emotion would be bad – it would let the others in.
‘I wouldn’t have dragged Derek along to be—’
‘Oh, I think he’s been dragged along from the start, hasn’t he? Doesn’t realise he’s being dragged, but that’s hardly putting you on the moral high ground . . .’
‘Cunt.’
‘Sorry, that’s not very specific – are you just saying that I’m generally a cunt? I’m not allowed to . . . intuit what you mean, so you’ll have to explain.’ And he gives her that flinching, wearied look – consistently very effective – and he moves to face her, stands between her and the ocean, and he holds her forearms, pulls her forward so they both stand free of the wall, balance and sway with each other in the ocean’s great, grey twists of thought. ‘I didn’t lie, Beth. I don’t lie to you.’ And he lets her see he’s giving up and won’t fight her any more – that she can win if she wants. There will be no argument.
He’ll be beaten if she wants. ‘I said that I wouldn’t enjoy the trip without you, Beth. I said that I wouldn’t enjoy it if you were with him. Which is true: I am not enjoying it, but why assume that I won’t do something because I’ll be hurt – why, of all things, assume that?’
And she would like to reach for him but can’t because his hands are fastening more intently and, anyway, she shouldn’t.
‘I didn’t absolutely say I wouldn’t be aboard, Beth . . . and Christ what do you want me to . . .’ And he’s blinking and it’s hard to be sure, although not hard enough to be sure that he won’t start crying.
No. Not crying. He wouldn’t allow that, not when I’m with him and have to watch, when it’s something too effective to ever be used. We wouldn’t stoop to that.
So it would be the worst trick he could pull.
Or not a trick at all.
And perhaps it isn’t a trick.
Because he takes care to avoid breaking completely and makes himself unsympathetic, fends her off. ‘I can smell him on you. I can smell his pedestrian little cock.’ He studies her expression then releases her, appears satisfied, sets the heels of his hands to his eyes and rubs.
She should get away now. She knows he would let her go, but she’s already begun, ‘Art. I can’t deal with this. Derek’s a good man. He’s a reliable man. He doesn’t do appalling things.’ Before she can prevent herself or regret it.
Before they can both regret it.
And he tells her, ‘Please.’
He is so particularly eloquent with that word – please.No one should be able to ask so well, it lets them grow accustomed to more than they deserve.
‘Please.’
She fails to leave and this means he can say, ‘Beth, just let me . . . I was rude and I’m sorry and I apologise and I will be perpetually sorry if you want and I will apologise and apologise . . . I was . . . Let me . . .’ He reaches out and then she discovers she’s holding his hand. Anyone who saw them would think they were lovers – hand in hand in the privacy of night.
But I’m so cold I can’t feel him.
And then Arthur frees her, unbuttons his overcoat – this takes a clumsy while, he’s clearly also numbed. He turns himself away from the hardest edge of the weather and opens the long, brown cloth of his coat before he folds her in, hugs her in with the sky blue lining which is probably silk and shouldn’t be near salt water. He gives her what’s left of his heat.
And anything but this and anything but this and anything but this she can deal with.
Anything but him.
Like lovers.
We were lovers.
We are.
We were.
We are.
Cold cheeks, cold lips, like a dead man’s, his words fumbling a little for this reason, or for other reasons. ‘Beth, I didn’t tell you where I live.’ But his voice in her hair, quick beside her ear, and it feels like inside, it has the temperature of inside who he is, of who they have been together – it touches her like a long time ago and like their being other people, like her being someone else and with him. ‘You don’t know where I live, Beth.’
‘What?’
‘Ssssshhh. Why should you? You didn’t want to. You don’t want to. Sound decision – you needn’t. But . . . I have the flat in London, that you . . . there was that afternoon when you nearly visited and I can see why you wouldn’t – that’s all right – and I also have regular hotels . . . but that’s not where I live, not home, I . . .’ He’s shivering – a delicate instrument, Arthur, tends to show his shocks, his unfavourable circumstances. He’s built to indicate distress. He needs gloves. They both ought to have gloves, and his fists should at least be in his pockets, but Beth feels them knotted close at the small of her back. Her fingers are against his chest, his ribs, his breathing, the way that he’s thin, broken back to his final limits, to the fights in his thinking, his intention. ‘Listen, Beth. Listen. There are bluebells. In the spring. Campion, sea campion, primroses, thrift, violets, bird’s-foot trefoil, wild garlic in white drifts – all kinds of flowers – but I love the bluebells – in the dusk, they glow – they return all the shine of the day and I walk out past the bank around my house – high, high bank – and that’s what I see there and I can smell that blue – it has a smell – and the powdery, perfumey, sugary gorse: it’s like cheap sweets and face powder and I love it, too – and under that is the scent of the island – like a big dog – a big, warm animal – woody and clever and dusty and living and salt and I love it the most – boots covered in live dust and after the first night I smell of the island, too, and I forget who I am and what I do and I tramp – yes, still avoiding the sun, I am mostly still avoiding the sun – you know I have to, because of . . . and I’d burn – blonds burn and it’s forever since I was out in the summer, fully under it – because of the other things, too – but I can stop – I could stop, I . . . and sometimes I sit in the garden under the tree – but mainly I tramp out at night with a torch or by memory – there are no street lights on the island, not anywhere, so we’re good at the dark – we all keep our secrets – we all know them, but we keep them, we’re polite – and I go along the cliffs, judge where I’ll be safe by the ocean’s breathing – the same way it’s breathing here – a dark that’s alive in the dark – not too near the edge and not too far, that’s what I aim for, I don’t want to fall – same ocean as this – and I’m on paths that are warm still, that are skin heat – and it is dangerous – slightly – occasionally – depends where I go – but not so much so, because I remember, I have learned the shapes of places and how they are and what they want – and then I get home again safe and behind my bank, inside my bank – the place is set back from the deep of a path – it’s been worn in, you see, feet and carts, cutting it down for so very long – and the house above – all hidden and hedged – wrens nesting in the hedge – blackthorn and brambles and honeysuckle, the tangle they like . . . Did you ever see a wren in spring? He’s so tiny you could lose him in your hand and with the ticked-up tail and he’ll sit and pour out music – huge music – flares his wings, bristles with it, all unfolded by the way he is, has to be – he wants to be bigger and he is – I have a wren – a pair – they live in next to me – and I have my house, walls of pink and grey granite made feet thick for the winters and with stones for the witches to sit on built into the chimneys, so you won’t have them pestering you in your house – believe that you could have the witches and then you’ll believe you need the stones – the fact that you don’t see the witches means the stones repel them – that’s how it works – matters of faith – I am aware you understand, even if you no longer want to – and I have a porch for boots and with hooks for hanging up – my boots, my coats, my hats – serious fireplace in my living room – the stone is old, is huge – fat mantelpiece, not much on it, I like it as itself – no ornaments on it and no photographs – no photographs – and rugs, two armchairs – mine and a spare, or rather mine and another, but only for balance because I don’t have visitors – lots of whitewash – and my desk is in the study with a sensible chair and some cabinets you’d want me to be rid of – you wouldn’t like their contents – some books that you wouldn’t like either – and a big kitchen you can sit in and eat breakfast on the table – eat whatever you like – which is what I do – and upstairs there’s a bathroom which looks out to the ocean and another little room with just ordinary, good books for reading and then my bedroom with wardrobes and a double bed – and I don’t need a double bed – and I can lie in it, if I prop myself up, and I can watch the sunset and everything there is perfect – it is fucking perfect – and remember that summer bedroom? Remember the rose scent from the garden at that hotel and the big squares of sun on the carpet and nobody saw us, because we never left the room. Remember? The first time after Beverley, remember? And my house is ready and it’s nice and you should just once, just once . . . there are so many stars, thick stars – I can get drunk with staring at them . . . just once . . . You know I wouldn’t . . . I don’t . . . That’s what I wanted to talk about, to tell you in the buffet. Not the other stuff. But I couldn’t tell you, so you got the other stuff, because I couldn’t, that’s why . . . I wanted you to be here on the ship, so that I could tell you about my house. That’s what I wanted.’
The Blue Book Page 8