The Life Situation

by Rosemary Friedman

  She produced a crumpled black heap from the bottom of his cupboard. “They must’ve slithered down and you put your shoes on top of them.”

  “Christ!”

  “Give them to me,” Karen said. “Quickly, or we shall never get there!”

  Marie-Céleste stood in front of her pier glass. She was wearing what appeared to be a plain white sheath, an inch-wide band of green satin at the waist. When she moved the skirt fanned out into a hundred fluid Dior pleats. The dress was high to the throat but cut away to show her bony, freckled shoulders. You could just see her white satin shoes. She wished she could do something about the sparkle of anticipation in her eyes. She was afraid they would give her away.

  Ernest, impeccable in his midnight blue, smelling of Equipage, came in from his dressing-room with her emerald. She held her hand out for it but he insisted on slipping it on her finger.

  He kissed her shoulder. “You look like a bride. I brought the bracelet too. Let me see.”

  She fastened it obediently. He stepped back a pace.

  “Perfect.” He smoothed a wisp of her red hair, fresh from the hairdresser.

  “I am a lucky man.”

  He regarded her as if she were a window he was dressing.

  “The martinis are ready.”

  We are like a page from Elle, she thought, looking at herself, with Ernest straightening his black tie behind her in the mirror. Two-dimensional, perfect, bloodless. She tried to sponge from her mind intrusive prictures of herself and Oscar struggling on the rug, entwined in the bath (you wash, I’ll dry), playing naked hide and seek around the flat; Oscar hiding behind the velvet curtains into the selection of which Ernest had put such effort and quoting Puccini: “In these velvet curtains there is comfort but little joy.”

  It had been an operatic afternoon; he had called her ‘Manon’ and sang while he grilled crumpets, which she had never tasted, for tea. She laughed at the memory.

  “Something wrong?”

  Ernest brushed an imaginary speck from his nose.

  She shook her head.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing. Not a thing.”

  He looked at his wafer-slim dress watch. “I think we should go.”

  Karen and Oscar arrived first. Normally Oscar hated such occasions and eschewed them. The reception room was rapidly filing and Oscar, mopping his brow with the silk handkerchief which did not absorb, looked over the heads for both their hostess and Marie-Céleste. Laura found them.

  “There you are! Karen, you look marvellous! Doesn’t she look marvellous, Oscar? Ashley’s organizing the drinks. We’ve a lovely table; you should enjoy it. We invited Katinka, you met at dinner, remember? But it seemed she had to return to Moscow in a great hurry, never even rang me to say goodbye. Ashley says she’s a member of the KGB, they all are. It’s hard to believe, such a delightful girl, but you never know with the Russians, do you, the most unlikely people…anyway Arnold Katz is here and Marie-Céleste and Ernest are coming and the girl who’s going to play the lead in the new comedy at the Globe and her fourth or fifth husband, anyway he’s backing the show. Then there’s a new man from the paper, Seymour something or something Seymour; he’s taking over features now that Michael Baker has that tiresome blood thing from which no one ever gets better, he’s had it for ages but they insisted it was anaemia and an absolute sweetie from Vogue I thought he might…and then who else? Oh yes, a widow, poor soul, American, they usually are, all blue-rinsed; I thought perhaps Arnold Katz. Ashley says I’m ridiculous but you never know. Here’s Ashley now. Ashley, Karen and Oscar have arrived. What do you think of Karen’s dress – doesn’t she look gorgeous in scarlet? You should wear bright colours more often, my dear, now what are you going to drink…?”

  Ashley fixed his eyes on Karen’s breasts and said: “It certainly brings out the best in you. I asked the waiter to bring a tray of shampoo; they had a jolly little Taitinger; it seemed less confusing with all these people.”

  “Take your eyes off my wife,” Oscar said.

  “I’m always telling Laura,” Ashley said, “Ah, here comes the waiter now.” He took a glass of champagne off the tray and gave it to Oscar. “Cheers! Now what is it I’m always telling Laura? Ah yes! I’m always telling Laura that it doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you eat at home. Isn’t that right, Karen? You don’t mind if he talks to pretty girls, do you? I’m sure you don’t. As long as you eat at home. That’s what I always say, isn’t it, Laura, my dear! She’s not even listening. She hardly ever does. See the paper today, Oscar?”

  Oscar rolled his eyes. “Wedgwood chipped, Boots tied up in knots, air goes out of tyres!”

  “Glad I make an impression on somebody.”

  “Nauseating!” Oscar said.

  Ashley slapped him on the back, making the champagne go up his nose. “Read it though, didn’t you? Read it and remembered! Don’t forget to look tomorrow. Real corker for tomorrow.” He looked at Oscar’s raised questioning eyebrow.

  “Lips are sealed, old chap, you know that; lips are sealed. Cost you 10p to read my words of wisdom.” He took a gold-cornered jotter from his pocket and a slim gold pen. “Inspiration. Have to make a note before it goes.”

  Oscar looked over his shoulder.

  “Timbers out of the wood.” He finished his champagne.

  Oscar talked, as well as he was able through the babble of voices which was rising to a rapid crescendo, to John Seymour, the new features editor, and after a moment had to smile at Laura’s naïve plan to pair him with the girl from Vogue. He made no secret of the fact that he lived with a ‘friend’ who was ‘Sybil’ of Sybil’s Restaurant in Beauchamp Place, famed for its Caesar salad, and that shortly the two of them were off to the Loire valley, John for a travel feature and ‘Sybil’ for the new dishes for which he was always searching. He kept his maroon silk handkerchief in the sleeve of his maroon velvet dinner jacket and wore a diamond ring on the little finger of his left hand. He was highly amusing and obviously thought the world of Ashley. He said hallo to Arnold Katz, who seemed not to register until Oscar said: “You remember we met at Laura’s for dinner.”

  “Zere is nussing wrong wiz my memory,” Katz said. “You are ze writer of ze books. I like your wife.”

  That seemed to be the end of conversation as far as Katz was concerned so he spoke to Shelagh Shani, opening at the Globe next week with eyelashes three inches long, her dress held together in the front by boot-laces, who kept taking surreptitious little pecks at her fourth husband or was it her fifth, who had a grey toupée and looked worn out despite his lifted face and capped teeth and figure bearing witness to regular and meticulous attention to its physical fitness; there was nothing one could do about the age spots on the elegantly manicured hand that lifted the glass of champagne.

  The girl from Vogue, two foot taller than Arnold Katz, was telling him breathlessly that her people came from Scotland but that she had a super flat near Harvey Nicks and that London was absolutely super. When the toastmaster banged portentously with his gavel to say dinner was served Marie-Céleste and Ernest still had not arrived.

  They filtered through to the room where they were to have dinner to the strains of ‘Raindrops are falling on my head’, which Oscar thought singularly inappropriate, and were grouping themselves around the table number one – Laura of course was chairman of the committee – when Marie-Céleste and Ernest arrived. Ernest muttered “Apologies” and “Absolutely frightful traffic” to Laura while Marie-Céleste kissed Ashley and tried not to glance in his direction. She looked not only outstandingly beautiful, her red hair burnished against the white of her dress, but so patently happy that Oscar thought no one could fail to recogize the emanence that radiated from a woman in love. The thought stopped him. She had not declared herself in love with him. Looking at her he realized she had no need to.

  Laura, trust Laura, held both her hands and said: “You look radiant, darling, you must be in love. Ernest, you lucky, lucky
man!”

  None the less she seated her next to Oscar, but her face was impassive as granite as she organized the remainder of the table. He put his hand on her knee beneath the tablecloth and she teased his palm. After that he thought he’d better behave. Karen, on his other side, leaned across to chat to Marie-Céleste. Ernest had the ‘super’ girl from Vogue whose only other option was the pouf from the newspaper placed between her and Shelagh Shani who kept rubbing herself up against her impressario and remained oblivious to everyone else. The blue-rinsed American widow who requested everyone to call her ‘Doll’ was telling Arnold Katz about her late husband who came from Denver, Colorado, but he was reading the menu as if he had to take an examination in it and seemed singularly unimpressed by her charms.

  The evening followed the pattern of a million others with the inevitability that the sole véronique followed the soup and canard à l’orange with pommes rissolés and petit pois the sole véronique. ‘The Queen’ preceded the omelette soufflé surprise, the coffee was horrid, the cups too small, and Arnold Katz whipped all the crystallized grapes before passing round the petit-fours. They listened to the governor of the Home for the Handicapped Children to whose lady a child with a handicap presented flowers, causing every female eye to overflow and every male bottom to fidget uncomfortably. Then to a long-to-excrutiating-winded QC, MP, KCB and more who made an impassioned appeal for funds “for which purpose we gathered together tonight, having sumptuously dined and wined our thoughts must necessarily turn to those less fortunate etc etc… tombola…raffle…rely on generous support…unfailing hard work of the committee which had made the evening’s function not only possible but the outstanding social – and I hope financial (pause for laughter) – success it is undoubtedly going to be…not going to keep you much longer…only remains to thank…and…and…and…” Oscar thought, as he always did on such occasions, how much more the poor little handicapped buggers would have enjoyed the dinner than the overfed mob who had wasted the best part of it and sighed for the way of the world. He kept his knee tight against Marie-Céleste but studiously avoided exchanging more than the odd word with her and looked surreptitiously at his watch, waiting for the dancing when he could legitimately take her in his arms before her proximity and the Miss Dior drove him out of his mind.

  Ashley, being Ashley, had given them three kinds of wine and brandy and liqueurs and cigars. They were all pleasantly merry and as often as not laughing at their own jokes when the orchestra struck up for “Dancin’!” after which final announcement the toastmaster sneaked off to eat his dinner behind a screen.

  Oscar asked Karen to dance but she said she was going to the ladies’ room. Laura went to supervise the Tombola. Arnold Katz, level with her belly button, was steering ‘Doll’ around the floor, Shelagh Shani stood swaying, entwined with her Svengali on the perimeter – he charitably presumed they were dancing – ‘super Vogue’ had disappeared, leaving ‘features’ in a brandied torpor, so he asked Ernest if he minded if he danced with his wife.

  “Go ahead, old boy!”

  Oscar looked at her dress as she stood up.

  “I feel I should be wearing white gloves.”

  Ernest chuckled. “We’ll send you the cleaning bill!” Oscar thought suddenly of Mr Lumley and the rug.

  Ashley Beaumont, about whom he had forgotten, smoked his Havana and watched them speculatively. Was he aware or was he merely thinking up another excruciating bon mot for the city page? It was impossible to tell what was going on behind that impassive face.

  He took Marie-Céleste in his arms. They were playing the theme music from a French film they had seen together. Marie-Céleste was shaking.

  “For God’s sake, darling!”

  “I can’t help it. We shouldn’t have come.”

  “We should. We should.”

  “I thought the dinner would never end.”

  “Me too. I can feel every bit of you through your dress; every single bit.”

  “You’re pretty obvious yourself.”

  “How can you expect me to hold you so close and not…” He laid his cheek against hers.

  They did not notice that the tempo had changed and couples parted for the cha-cha-cha. They were unaware they stayed on the floor for almost thirty minutes.

  When they returned to the table Karen, back from the ladies’ room was talking to Arnold Katz. Oscar couldn’t be sure whether it was the brandy which had loosened his tongue or his desire to escape from ‘Doll’.

  Ashley stood up, stubbing out his cigar meticulously. “Paint sprayers hit ceiling,” he said to Oscar. “How do you like that?”

  INTERLUDE

  Nine

  It had, to his surprise, not been hard leaving Karen, the children. He had waited expectantly for the depression that usually accompanied feelings of guilt. There was no depression; no guilt. It was as if his relationship with Marie-Céleste was on another plane. He lied easily. He did not really want to go; it was essential for Death on the Riviera; he would miss them desperately.

  Karen packed his case as she did everything for him.

  “I’ve given you thin slacks and thick. One doesn’t know at this time of year.” She gave him Rosy’s spongebag covered with Dougals and Zebedees. He was aware of the shabbiness of his suitcase, soiled inside over the years by a variety of leaking bottles; it had not worried him before.

  “I’m sorry I can’t see you off. I don’t really like to ask Boyd.”

  “I’m only going to Nice for a few days; not the Himalayas.”

  “Still…”

  “You’ll hardly notice I’ve gone.”

  Rosy and Daisy were only concerned that he remembered their Pierre Gourmand lollipops, fruit for Rosy, caramel for Daisy; not to forget.

  “You’ll look after Mummy?”

  “We’re going to the Chinese restaurant for dinner. I shall have prawn balls and seaweed. Yum! We might go to the pictures if there’s an ‘A’.”

  “Sounds as if you’re going to have a good time.”

  On Friday morning Karen left first. His plane was not until mid-day.

  “It’ll be horrid without you.”

  “Sorry, darling. I’m just bogged down.”

  “I don’t mind. I mean I do mind, but it will just not be nice. Will you ring me?”

  “Of course.”

  She put her arms round his neck. “Have fun.”

  “That’s not the object of the exercise.”

  “Behave.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Nothing. I trust you. I’d better go. See you next Friday.” She kissed him on the mouth.

  When she’d gone the house felt empty. He began to be nervous; wanted to ring Marie-Céleste to see if she’d forgotten. He picked up his case, slung his raincoat over his shoulder and made for Cromwell Road air terminal.

  At the airport he felt like a bit player in a James Bond film. He was early. He had arranged to meet Marie-Céleste briefly in the departure lounge, then she was to travel first class (both for reasons of circumspection and the fact that Ernest had bought her ticket), and meet up again at Nice.

  He checked in with the hoi-polloi but could not resist a glance towards the first class checkin. A middle-aged man in a camelhair coat and brown trilby and his beminked wife registered their off-white matching baggage. Weekenders, Oscar thought; flat in Cannes, out on Friday back on Monday, there’s the life. He thought suddenly that Ernest would probably accompany Marie-Céleste into the airport and hid in W. H. Smith’s where he bought an extortionately priced biro with ‘London Airport’ written on it. He examined the ashtrays embossed with Union Jacks, the little flags proclaiming ‘London’ and the airline bags. He bought what he knew from experience would turn out to be an unreadable paperback with a shiny pornographic cover, and Vogue for Marie-Céleste.

  In the departure lounge a nasal voice whined “Will passengers for Frankfurt on Flight BE416 please proceed to gate number nine and have their boarding passes ready…” He bought a doubl
e whisky, taking it to a table so that he could watch the doors. He remembered when there had been glamour about airports and flying. Now it was no more than a bus or coach station, people dressed anyhow carrying nothing more than a newspaper and returning the same day; fur coats and frayed trousers; boots from Chelsea Cobbler and dirty toes in thongs; Samsonite briefcases and rucksacks; hippies and smoothies; young and old; black and white; saris and yashmaks; the ubiquitous cleaners sweeping all before their yard-long brooms.

  “Will passengers for Frankfurt leaving on flight BE416 please proceed to gate number nine and have their boarding passes ready…”

  He wanted to go to the gents. He stood between a Chinaman and a flat-headed German passing water. When he came out Marie-Céleste was in the departure lounge. He allowed himself a moment’s hesitation. The affair carried on in her flat was one thing, this was something else. Something larger; a flying in the face of Karen, (ha!) of convention, of everything his middle-class upbringing had led him to expect. For some reason he thought of his father in Brighton, walking along, head bent, Raffles by his side, towards the new marina. He wondered whether he had ever been unfaithful to his mother. He doubted it but people would probably say the same thing about him. Marie-Céleste stood uncertainly; heads turned to watch her, patently first-class in her blonde suit and silk shirt, blonde crocodile shoes and handbag, blonde fur over her arm.

  “I bought Vogue. To read on the plane. Did Ernest come with you?”

  “Yes. Fortunately he had an appointment. The chauffeur took him straight off.” She laughed when she saw him eyeing the box of liquorice all-sorts she was carrying. “For Marie-Claire. She adores them. I think we’d better split up. I feel awfully nervous. Some of Ernest’s friends go for the weekend. A Friday was stupid. I’d better see you at the hotel. Thanks for the Vogue.”

  “Bon voyage.”

  “A bientôt.” She made it sound like a caress. He felt his knees grow weak and was glad it was she who walked away as if their meeting had been a chance one.