Spencer picks up.
It is Hazel’s last phonecard, and also her first. It is the greyish one with Charlie Chaplin’s eyes, and for each one sold a contribution is or was made to the Royal National Institute for the Blind. A unit disappears, sinking into silence. It is nearly the end, and after so many other phone calls there’s nothing much left to say if not goodbye. Nothing much to say if not I love you.
‘Hold on to your hat, Spencer,’ she says. 'I'm coming on over.’
11/1/93 MONDAY 17:12
‘That was amazing.’
‘Unbelievably amazing.’
‘Completely utterly amazing yes.’
They lie sprawled across the mattress, only outlines now that outside it’s almost dark. The street-light turns itself on, and an amber glow filters their skin between the darker shadows trailing from limb to limb.
‘Rapid,’ Hazel says. ‘But still amazing.’
She pulls at the blanket until it covers them both.
‘What a day,’ Spencer says.
‘What a day.’
‘Tomorrow we’ll do something different.’
‘Something a lot calmer, maybe.’
Tomorrow, yet again, anything is possible. They could take a trip in Hazel’s car or by train or by bus, to the country or the seaside or the nearest swimming pool. They could search Oxfam or Help the Aged or Mencap shops for animal ornaments or detective novels or mugs with funny messages on. They could check the travel agents for bargain flights to Malta or Egypt or the Algarve, or laze about the house with nothing planned but the return of Spencer’s library books. They could visit Hazel’s parents or her sister, or Spencer’s Mum or his Dad or his brother. They could read the papers or watch videos or play computer games. They could work or not work, see William or not see William, stay in or go out.
‘No more either ors,’ Hazel says. ‘Let’s just make up our minds.’
‘Okay then,’ Spencer says. ‘We’ll make up our minds.’
‘A fresh start.’
‘Like any other day.’
‘So what’s it to be then?’
‘Easy. Let’s spend the whole day together in bed.’
‘Excellent plan, Spencer,’ Hazel laughs. ‘Impeccable.’
They grow quiet, remembering and re-arranging the events of the day. Already the details vary, multiply, or disappear altogether. But the feelings are clear, and what actually happened, and today is already being added to their catalogue of formative events. Like everybody else, Hazel and Spencer carry their past with them into the present. Their most intense memories, even as they revise and clarify them, remain the clue to who they are now.
Just getting things straight, Hazel asks Spencer what he’d have said to the Italians who cancelled their visit to look at the house.
‘I usually tell people it’s unsafe,’ Spencer says. ‘I try to discourage them from buying the place, seeing as it’s where I live, and where William lives. I say it’s a very old house with very old ceilings which have been known to collapse. I warn them about the flight paths from Heathrow, and the danger of debris from passing aircraft crashing through the roof of the swimming pool, tumbling lethal daggers of glass down towards the pale unformed bodies of their naked children splashing innocently below. Easy, scary stories, anything like that.’
And just for a moment, both Hazel and Spencer imagine a hundred and one unlikely but possible catastrophes, of the kind routinely reported in newspapers. Hazel holds Spencer tight, and he closes his eyes in the curve of her neck. Whatever it says in the papers, it’s not going to happen today. Or at least not to them.
Acknowledgement
All except twelve of the nouns in Damascus can also be found in The Times (London) of November 1 1993
Damascus Page 24