At least he wouldn’t have to face Jerzy.
He started to walk home. Better not take the bus. Thank God he hadn’t bought a paperback. Unemployed again. The story of my life. Dishonourable discharge. No, that at least was not the story of his life. He’d never been fired from a job nor ever walked out of one on account of any imputation of dishonesty. In the past there’d always been handshakes, smiles, promises to keep in touch. Leaving presents. Lumps in the throat.
There’d never been a situation where he couldn’t face the consequences; where he’d had to turn tail and slink away. Like a thief or a traitor.
Supposing he ran into any of them in Nottingham? Not Barney—Barney didn’t count any more—but any of the others. Whether next week, or next year, or even the year after that. What on earth would he say?
There’d be nothing for it but to cut them dead.
Or supposing they came to the house?
He had never in the whole course of his life, through shame, through shiftiness, through guilt, had to cut anybody dead. Never. (Nor, apart from during times of depression, pretend that he wasn’t at home or be anything but hospitable and welcoming.) Apart from during those times of depression he’d always been quick to smile in fellowship at anyone he passed; head up, shoulders back, a spring to his footstep. He had usually been at his very best in the street: on the lookout for new friends, for admiration, for the potential enrichment of his life.
Especially lately. There wasn’t much potential enrichment of one’s life within the four demoralizing—sun-excluding—walls of home.
He didn’t want to go home. What was there for him at home?
He blinked. Savagely. He would not feel self-pity. (Why not? What was wrong with self-pity? It was reasonable, he felt, in certain sets of circumstances to feel some pity for oneself. Who else ever would?) He had no place to go.
Near the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, in a rather seedy side street leading to the railway station, there was a sex shop. He had never been in one but he felt scarcely any nervousness as he drew near. What he felt was closer to exhilaration. Abandonment. Recklessness. The kind of feeling that went along with thumbing your nose at the whole wide world and hitching up your pants and making a new start. The window of the place was simply a blank: grey slatted blinds. The glass of the door was painted black. Above it were the words Private Shop. Ephraim would have been devastated had this shop been closed; he experienced overwhelming relief as the door yielded to his touch. He was the only customer. A bald young man sat behind the counter reading a tabloid: burly, somewhat dour, yet not discomforting. He hardly looked up; gave merely the curtest of nods. Said they had only the two types of cock ring. Ephraim felt no embarrassment about making the inquiry; he could have been asking for a fountain pen. On the other hand there was a measure of disappointment when he was shown what were his options: one was made of pink plastic, the other was basically a leather strap, a leather strap with two metal rings and two smaller bits of leather to attach them to the main thong. He had hoped for something far more decorative, even beautiful, cloisonné perhaps—like a bracelet—or Chinese and made of ivory and engraved with dragons (as illustrated in The Joy of Sex; though obviously he hadn’t really hoped for that). But he adjusted, rapidly. Slim though the band of leather was, barely more than the width of a woman’s watchstrap, he suddenly remembered that leather was quite macho; began to see it in a different light. Simple—straightforward—tough. No frills; no nonsense; a statement. (Part of that statement: Up yours, Barney!) He asked the prices. The plastic one was ten pounds—ten! The leather one was twenty. There was no way he could afford either. It was ridiculous. Sheer exploitation. He would buy himself a woman’s watchstrap…at least this had provided the idea. Come to that, couldn’t he make do with a broad elastic band?
But he didn’t want a woman’s watchstrap; nor a broad elastic band. He wanted this—this proper cock ring, made of leather. He’d set his heart on it.
He tried to haggle.
The shopkeeper was uninterested. Shook his head. Bald, burly—thick. Uncooperative. Take it or leave it.
He had been thinking of four or five pounds, tops. And for something that was a good deal more than just plain plastic. Or even leather. Twenty pounds was nothing more than daylight robbery (to use one of his mother’s favourite phrases…though never, so far as he was aware, in connection with a cock ring).
He hadn’t got twenty pounds on him; he had five. The only place there might have been twenty pounds was in Jean’s building society account: her emergency fund. But what he had got on him, it suddenly crossed his mind, was his Barclay’s chequebook; also the banker’s card which he had certainly not cut in two and posted back in the envelope provided. (He’d felt damned if he was going to do that. Talk about adding insult! It was tantamount to saying: Sorry, bud, but we don’t trust you.) In the normal way he wouldn’t have liked making out a cheque to a sex shop—paranoiacally, he could imagine that whatever the name of the payee, the eyes of the bank clerk would light up with instant recognition: Hey, you guys, come look at this!—but, in these circumstances, what the hell, the cheque was unquestionably going to bounce (hard cheese and yet poetic justice for all these blatant racketeers) and by then, anyway, he wouldn’t even be in Nottingham any longer. No job; no money; no marriage; was there anything to keep him? He yearned for a fresh start; he always had done. Jean wouldn’t care. She could sell the house. It might take a long time to do so but if it was at least on the market this would surely forestall the threat of repossession—it would, wouldn’t it?—and there might be some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds left over to put down on a small flat for herself: a small flat with a bit of garden, or at any rate room for a window box. Roger would help her…Roger was a good lad. So if he was ever going to make a fresh start, this was definitely the time to do it. He wrote out the cheque; appended his signature with a flourish.
It was maybe symbolic. Whatever the bastards did to grind him down he would always spring up again.
Cock-a-hoop.
Having pocketed his purchase (it was on a piece of card, with a shallow, clear plastic front) and having asked how long it would be safe to wear it at one time—“For as long as you like, mate,” said the young man, certainly not expansive but not unpleasant either—he stopped to look at the covers of some pornographic magazines. The covers were all you could see, since the magazines were wrapped, unopenable. The covers were almost enough. They all showed photographs of well-endowed young men lifting their partners in poses that surely couldn’t be maintained throughout sexual intercourse. Or perhaps they could…the trouble was, you never knew. In that other realm, the realm of the virile, the imaginative, the suitably partnered—the realm of the perfect—possibly all these energetic postures were practically a matter of routine.
He found the magazines depressing; deflating rather than the opposite. Ephraim was reasonably proud of his physique (he would like to have been taller—and perhaps a bit hairier—but he guessed he was probably stronger than your average man) yet he had never in his life lifted anybody to such heights as a preliminary to a fuck; only his children as a preliminary to a ride, or as part of some boisterous game; and if he were to try it now—say, with Jean—he would no doubt either drop her or they would topple together or he would bring on a hernia. Possibly a combination of all three. (And he could already hear her voice, even if they were by then on speaking terms, let alone on having-sex terms: “Ephraim! What are you doing?”) What had he missed? Fifty-two years old. What had he missed? Oddly, the only magazine which did give him a hard-on—as distinct to feelings of wistfulness or mild revulsion—was not merely one where the activity looked less strenuous; it was gay; the participants were both male.
And…oh, for heaven’s sake!…the darker of the two looked a bit like Barney.
Despite his detour he arrived home early. Jean wasn’t there. She, too, was looking at photographs, albeit not in a sex shop but at the police station. If he’d known thi
s, Ephraim would have been staggered—staggered and hurt and self-reproachful—and would instantly have gone back into town. But he didn’t know it and so he went up to the bathroom instead, in order to fit his new appliance, his sexual aid, his symbol of a fresh beginning…although without its two clumsy excrescencies, which he had now decided to abandon. There was a little diagram on the piece of card—plus a discreet and mistily romantic photo—but it wouldn’t have been hard, perhaps mainly due to The Joy of Sex, to see what was required: to pass the leather strip beneath the scrotum and around the base of the penis, mind the hair, draw the strap tight, secure it on the furthest notch he could manage. (He almost had an orgasm, right then and there.) They gave you six notches. It was disheartening but he could use the sixth…although, thankfully, only after straining. Yet if it were to be effective it clearly had to be right. (A stud like Gary Cooper could probably have used the third—why not the first?—the fact they provided a first must mean that there were some who didn’t need the other five.) He was slightly worried that although, obviously, he gave himself an erection fixing the damn thing, he could still comfortably pull up his boxer shorts half a minute later; he thought the whole point of the contraption was to maintain that erection indefinitely.
But perhaps it was only after ejaculation you could properly test its efficiency. He was vague on the mechanics of it all, yet he remembered the phrase ‘stiffening a part-erection following a full orgasm’—something about blocking off the veins of the penis at its roots. It sounded gruesome. But magical. He would have been tempted to masturbate at once if he hadn’t wished for the time being to go on savouring in ignorance the possibilities of this wondrous gadget. If it wasn’t going to work he didn’t want to know. Not yet. He wanted to hang on to his illusions, if that’s what they turned out to be, for as long as he could.
Jean came home. She informed him she had spent the past hour at the costume museum—and, yes, found it very interesting, thank you—but he realized two things almost immediately: that, firstly, he couldn’t tell her he had lost his job and, secondly, there was still very little chance he’d be able to try out his new acquisition on her tonight. His sense of letdown felt unbearable.
Nevertheless, despite the portents, he judged it to be worth a shot. At half-past-nine she suddenly stood up. “I’ve had enough of television. I’m off to bed. Tomorrow of all days I don’t want to feel tired!”
“Nor me,” he answered, “no, nor me. Do you realize that tonight we’ve got the whole house to ourselves?” He put this question as though it followed on quite naturally and as though he’d only just thought of it.
Then he added a second. “When did that last happen?” It was almost equally rhetorical, for he himself perfectly well knew the answer. In the summer, during a rail strike.
“Heaven knows. What difference does it make?”
“I could chase you up and down the stairs. Starkers. Pelt you with peanuts. Every hit scores a penalty.”
“No, thank you,” said Jean. “Will you take up the water or shall I?”
“Oh, come on, love. We’ve been gloomy long enough, both of us. Let’s snap out of it. We could circle round the fire to music with a jungle beat.” Again he meant naked. “Or you could do the dance of the seven veils for me. Me, the Caliph of Baghdad.” Me, Tarzan. You, Jane.
Before her return he had nipped out to buy a bottle of wine with which to mellow her…and paid for it, what’s more, with money! But even if it had mellowed her—and, in truth, there wasn’t much sign of it—he knew she would never have agreed to this last suggestion: at the best of times she was far more inhibited about nudity than he was, far too conscious of her weight.
“No, thank you,” she repeated briskly. “What’s got into you tonight?”
“I want to let bygones be bygones! To start all over! As if we were newlyweds—just at the beginning of our glorious dream.”
“Interesting choice of word,” she remarked.
Hadn’t she realized then that it was tongue-in-cheek? “Why? Wouldn’t you like to be a newlywed again?”
“Not especially. At all events the circumstances would need to be a whole lot different.”
“What about the partner?”
“And in any case that wasn’t the word I was referring to. The one I meant was dream.”
“I suppose you’d prefer to settle for nightmare?”
“I’d prefer to settle for reality.”
“Come on, honeychile. Don’t be a spoilsport. Give us a smile.”
“Maybe, when I’ve got something to smile about.”
“Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.”
“Yes…it must be getting on for ten.” The fact that she had made a little joke and that for one whole minute now, possibly two, she’d allowed him to stand there with his arms about her—though, admittedly, without her showing much responsiveness—encouraged him to hope she might be softening.
“How about it, then? Let’s do some dirty dancing.” (Now there, by all accounts, was a mover. Patrick Swayzee. In the mould of John Travolta. It was a film he’d really like to see. And it occurred to him that he had never used his own talent for dancing as a form of foreplay. Why hadn’t he? What was the matter with him?)
“Oh, Ephraim, don’t be so—” Then she did pull away.
“So what?”
“You can’t just switch it on and off like that. Whenever you feel like it. So completely heedless of how anyone else may feel.”
“I was only joking,” he said.
“Yes—well. You were only joking; I’m only going off to bed. And I’ll leave you to turn out the lights.”
She stopped for a moment at the door.
“Ephraim? Tomorrow’s going to be special, isn’t it? Very special. Please remind me why.”
In other words, he thought, you’re not going to spoil things, are you, by anger or sullenness, resentment or jealousy? But he hoped he was big enough not to blame her for sensing some of his underlying feelings and aiming to provide a gentle, non-explicit warning. It was clumsy rather than gentle but he wasn’t going to take offence.
He even managed a laugh. “As though you need to be reminded!”
“Oh, it’s Oscar, isn’t it? Yes, of course.”
He stayed downstairs for the next twenty minutes, flicking through the following week’s Radio Times to see what films they had lined up. (In other words, would he be missing much if he did slip off to London?) He also spent about five minutes crouching in front of Polly’s basket, scratching her on the head and underneath her jaw, repeatedly tickling her on the tummy. Whenever he stopped she rolled back into a sitting position to nudge him into more affection. He put his arms about her neck and drew her to him in the kind of hug she didn’t normally receive from him; only sometimes from the children. Then he stood up and—not forgetting the water, nor the remainder of the wine, nor the two chilled goblets optimistically prepared—said God bless and went upstairs.
Jean was already in bed, reading.
“You look pretty,” he said. He liked her with her hair loose, framing her face, soft against the pillow.
“Thank you.”
“As my Aunt Julia used to say…you’ve got a birthday.”
“Thank her.”
This, again, was faintly promising.
“I bought something today,” he said.
“Did you?” But she still kept her eyes fixed upon her book. Tenaciously. “And what was that? I hope it wasn’t anything for me.” Because I’m really not in any mood for appreciating presents was the clearly unspoken rider. And for having to say thank you.
“Only indirectly,” he replied. “In fact, it’s something that will make you laugh.” Which wasn’t what he meant; not in the slightest. Something that will turn you on. That’s how he would have put it.
“Oh, yes?”
“I’m wearing it. Watch closely.”
Then at last she did look up—though with an air of resignation, even of barely contained
impatience. Rather than focus on him, however, her eye was caught by the tray which he’d set down on a table, with the wine on it. “Why’ve you brought that up?”
“Why do you think?” he said, momentarily diverted from the more important item that he had to show. “Because I’m not taking no for an answer. Because I’m hoping that—like I was pressing for downstairs—we can now celebrate, properly celebrate, the end of all depression…along with, as we did at supper, tomorrow’s triumphal return of our prodigal son!” If she wanted to quibble about any of the words he used, she could certainly question ‘triumphal’, although he was sure that this was how it would appear. “I thought, too, that we might use it as a love potion.” He grinned at her, roguishly.
Or such was his intention.
“Well, none for me,” she said. “I’ve just cleaned my teeth—and I’ve taken half a sleeping pill. What’s this thing I’m meant to be looking at? I thought you mentioned—”
“Ah…Abracadabra! Now as I say—watch closely.” (She might always change her mind about the wine, he thought.)
He undid the buttons of his shirt, with a provocative glance and a swaying of the hips, as if embarking on a seven-veil exercise himself. Which indeed he was. “Ten pounds to the first contestant who manages to spot it!”
“Ephraim, I’m sleepy,” she said. “I want to read my book. Either just tell me or don’t.”
“And when I say, ladies, the first contestant who manages to spot it, I am not referring to the size of my dick. Although, madam, if you thought I was, you might be getting warm. Warmer than you realize.”
By this time he had his shirt off—he wore no undervest—and was unfastening his jeans quicker than he’d meant to.
“Any second now, you lovely audience—we’re very nearly there!”
But he had forgotten he still had his shoes on. Any pretension to ease and suppleness of movement had to be abandoned. He sat down on the edge of the bed and yanked them off without undoing them. His trousers swiftly followed; were likewise flung to the floor. Socks, too. He stood up in just his boxer shorts.
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