“Your patience, ladies and gentlemen…is about to be rewarded.”
He inched down one side of the shorts; then pulled it up again. Jean continued to lie there with her back supported by her pillows and wore the same longsuffering expression.
Now finally he went into his dance. There was satisfaction to be had—even elation and excitement—from improvising below his breath a jazzy accompaniment which his feet could nimbly follow and his body swing in time to. He thought about Swayzee; almost forgot about Jean. When he looked to check on her reaction, she was yawning and glancing at her watch.
He had a hard-on. If this wouldn’t do it nothing would. He peeled off his shorts with the fluidity and style (he told himself) which had earlier been missing.
“Tarr-ah!” He gave a showman’s flourish, like the master of ceremonies in the centre of the circus ring; and regretted the lack of a top hat he could sweep down to the floor.
But his bow didn’t do anything to interfere with the erection. His cock looked enormous—even from above. The leather strap was biting into it and lent an added touch of the machismo he’d originally envisaged.
He didn’t know, however, if Jean was going to be impressed or disgusted or amused by it. He remembered the time when he had twirled her pink umbrella, also with a full and—well, depending on your viewpoint—quite obscene erection.
“My God!” she said. “What’s that?”
“What I was telling you about. It’s called a cock ring.”
But even as he said it his cock began to soften.
“It’s an erection-maintainer. I should have got one,” he remarked, “a very long time ago,” putting his hand on the strap as if to straighten it, hoping that the pressure of his fingers would restore the tautness.
“Where on earth did you get it?”
“Sex shop near the station.”
“How much?”
“Three pounds.”
“You spent three pounds…on that?”
“It’ll be worth it if it works.” His cock had shrunk now nearly to its normal size. “Even if it doesn’t I still think it’s—well, I don’t know—I think it’s sort of sexy.”
“I think it’s sort of pathetic.”
“Pathetic?” he asked.
“Sad,” she explained. “I think it’s just so sad.”
There was a pause.
“I’m going to brush my teeth,” he said.
“I’m going to read my book.” She called: “And what’s that bottle of wine doing on the table? Where did that bottle of wine come from?”
He didn’t take it off—the ring; kept it on as a measure of defiance; ran down to the floor below, taking the stairs two at a time as he did so, watched his penis swing with the momentum. He peed with it on, stirring up a froth in the water (“Do men really have to pee right in the centre of the bowl?”), cleaned his teeth with it on, and, standing well back from the small mirror above the basin, sucking in his stomach muscles and practising all sorts of supposedly seductive poses and gyrations, brought himself off with it on. The experience was one of almost total joylessness.
As he swilled the semen out of the basin his penis once again contracted. The strap was plainly useless.
He still kept it on, though. To have taken it off would have seemed like the final—but final—admission of defeat.
All he needed now was for Jean, with supremely ironic perversity, to reach out for him in bed. “I’m sorry, love. You’re right. Please come and fuck me.”
Some hope, however.
He spent a largely sleepless night.
In the morning he got up at six—even a little before that. It was unlikely Oscar would arrive for about another twelve hours (unlikely Abby, this weekend, would arrive at all) but he didn’t mean to take chances. Besides…the sooner he got off, the less time in which to waver; and if he could pack without even waking Jean, then that would obviously be best. One thing he knew at any rate: she wouldn’t hear the bath water. From the point of view of cleanliness a bath mightn’t be essential—often he would have a quick, overall wash just standing at the basin—but from the point of view of symbolism it was imperative. Total immersion. Baptism. The only way to set out upon a journey that really mattered; perhaps the last momentous journey of his life.
Perhaps the first?
In the bath he quoted something he had learnt at school.
“‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.’”
The fact that he could remember it so easily, word for word, after forty years, more than forty years—without one single hesitation, nor, so far as he knew, one single mistake—seemed an excellent omen. When the time arrived for him to feel nervous and become less sure that he was doing the right thing (as he was aware would inevitably happen; he was a realist; even now tendrils of lonesomeness and insecurity were beginning to entwine around his gut) he would simply repeat those half-dozen lines quite calmly and think about the classroom in which he’d first stood up and recited them.
Prep school. Lymington Road. West Hampstead.
Where his mother had stood at the front door and rang the bell, in 1945, in time for her appointment with the head. The school had long since been converted into flats but he would go again to gaze at the place on those dull red tiles where his mother had once stood. He felt sure they wouldn’t have been changed. The front door, too, would look the same. The house itself would. It would be one of his myriad places of pilgrimage.
He had probably learnt it with ease—that passage from Shakespeare; one of the homeworks you scarcely had to bother with. He’d probably understood it, as well, and shot his hand up to answer all the questions. He’d been looked upon as bright at Warwick House; quite possibly the brightest. Nice-looking. Good-natured. Helpful. Full of fun.
Teacher’s pet.
(The way that Mr Dallas, sixty-five-ish, silver-haired, nicotine-fingered, unsteady on his feet—childless—the way he’d used to take him on his lap would these days, of course, be regarded with extreme suspicion, but there had never been the least trace of any funny business…Ephraim was sure of that.)
He remembered many things about Warwick House: the fact that he’d always been amongst the top—academically, athletically—a prefect (for the whole of his last year, school captain) but popular with it, courted, looked up to, even literally looked up to, since until he had reached twelve or thirteen he had actually been tall for his age. A hero out of Talbot Baines Reed…or perhaps Malcolm Saville; the only time he’d ever won prizes—unless you counted the medals he’d got for his dancing, the cup for his jiu-jitsu, when he was about eighteen. He remembered a story he’d had printed in the school magazine, a story which Mr Dallas had encouraged him, shortly before the end of Ephraim’s final term, to send off to the Evening Standard. (It had been sent back, with a rejection slip, on the last day of the holiday.) He returned to Lymington Road during his first week at the Grammar—where he was finding it unexpectedly difficult to settle down; and indeed he never particularly shone there, in that far less intimate atmosphere—to discover that Mr Dallas was ill and, for the moment, asleep. When Ephraim went back again, a few days later, the headmaster had died. Mrs Dallas had asked if he’d like to see the body, an invitation he somewhat awkwardly declined but she had perfectly well understood and had told him to pick out a volume from her husband’s bookcase, as a memento; he’d chosen Quentin Durward. At the end of that Christmas term the school disbanded. For some reason he’d lost touch with all his friends there. Quite frequently in recent years, however, he had thought about putting an advert in the papers or phoning in to some radio show that dealt in such matters, and trying to organize a reunion, the beginning perhaps of a
n old boys’ association. But although the notion had often tempted him he’d somehow kept putting it off.
Of course, it wasn’t too late. Maybe now, in this new life of his, he would finally get round to doing something about it.
A time for making resolutions. A fresh set of resolutions.
He got out of his bath and as he dried examined himself in the mirror. He bet that few of the boys from Warwick House would look as good as he did. If he joined a health club and lost half a stone or so he still had the kind of figure that many men his age, or even men a good deal younger, would envy him. (He held his head up. His throat was not growing crepey.)
He put on his cock ring.
Just his knowledge of its presence would assuredly give him confidence; would remind him to move gracefully and to hold himself well. (Walk tall, walk tall, and look the world right in the eye. That’s what my mother said to me, when I was just knee-high…) He whistled as he shaved. My God, he would walk tall.
Conquer his neuroses. Wage war, do battle. And win.
And even if he didn’t…then smile cheerfully in defeat. In its own way, perhaps the truest kind of victory.
So—whatever happened—how could he possibly lose?
Every new day was going to mean something.
Hey, look me over. Lend me a ear. Fresh out of clover. Mortgaged up to here.
But don’t pass the hat, folks. Don’t pass the cup. The only way when you’re down and out—the only way is up.
He went back into the bedroom and extracted his clothes in stealth: not just the ones for wearing but for packing too. In quickness and in stealth. (That pleased him.) He planned to be decisive from now on. No shilly-shallying; no weakness; no old-maidishness. He opened and closed drawers, took some things, left others, allowed himself no second thoughts. Jean stirred a little—he stood like in musical statues—but he reckoned that her inner clock had at least another hour to run; maybe two; even on the day her son was coming home. He decided that he had enough time to take Polly for a final walk.
(But he must be careful, even mentally, not to use the word final. That made it sound as if he were slamming doors with such vigour they would have to stick. Yet need this be so? And, anyway, what he must concentrate on now was the opening of new doors, not the closing of old.)
Polly seemed surprised at being let out so early—surprised, perhaps, it was with him and not with Roger she should have her first encounter of the day. Surprised but not unhappy.
He took her, as usual, round the reservoir. The lamps were still lit; the sun wouldn’t rise for about another hour. He threw her red rubber ring and there was apparently enough light for her to distinguish it each time and come running jubilantly back, dropping it before him with an air of pride. This couldn’t be the last walk he would ever take her on, the last game he would ever play with her. As he watched her twist and leap and go bounding off, he did so with a fresh determination to live only for the passing moment, to try to hold onto it, string it together with all the other passing moments: a chain of too often unappreciated worth that would wind its way through the rest of his life to such magical effect that if, say, he had only one year of existence left to him, he would live more deeply in just that one year than other men might live in fifty. For instance right now: the expression in Polly’s eyes, the swish of her tail, the poised gracefulness of her whole waiting, compact, keyed-up being; the way the ring went sailing through the air, the supple swing of his own body, the feeling of agility and faultless timing and of unleashed strength. There was so much to get out of every single moment; and the days would be jam-packed with single moments! It was purely a matter of practice. He knew that he could do it.
Life begins at fifty-two! On Saturday the twenty-eighth of October at…he peered at Liz’s watch, dear Liz’s watch, he was very glad he hadn’t pawned it…No, life had actually begun about an hour ago, say at six o’clock, on Saturday the twenty-eighth of October. This marvellous, unique and wholly unrepeatable day. This once-in-all-creation day…Life had begun at—
But on second thoughts you couldn’t say at six o’clock. He hadn’t told himself it was beginning at six o’clock and it was necessary to have been aware of it—right then—at the exact and vital moment; not merely, however happily, in retrospect. There was enough of it…time. He needn’t regret again the wastage of the past.
Very well, then. It didn’t matter. Life began at six-fifty-one and…fifteen seconds. Now!
No, he must wait for six-fifty-two. Six-fifty-two precisely. That made it even better. Neater, more appropriate. Add six full years to his present fifty-two. At fifty-eight he would still be a young man. Even at sixty-four he would still be a long way from old: full of bounce and bonhomie and physical attraction. He would deal, indeed, in packages of six. It seemed like a further wonderful and wholly heaven-sent omen.
So…six-fifty-two.
Now!
And as one of the first important actions of his new life he decided he would leave a note for Roger. “My dear old Rodge…,” he would begin.
He would like to think of something which was matey, wise, inspirational. Memorable. Non-tacky.
“Just a line to say how much I love you and to let you know you’ve always been one of the best things in my life. Sorry for failures and crossness and mistakes. Good luck with your studies. I hope you’ll swiftly find a new job that will be well-paid and bring you lots of satisfaction. But have a short holiday first. Always live for the moment. I shall. Dad.”
Or, in fact, would that be a bit naff? The last thing he wanted was to embarrass the lad. On the other hand, a degree of temporary embarrassment might not matter, so long as over the years he should derive pleasure from it—comfort?—a knowledge of his father’s love. Ephraim hoped he’d keep the note in his wallet and perhaps take it out to reread, reread and pause over, possibly once a month…or once every couple of months.
‘Pa’ instead of ‘Dad’?
Cross out the bit about living for the moment? Partly because that was something you had to come to for yourself. But more especially because—and at least he recognized the meanness of this, and recognition of such things was maybe more than half the battle—more especially because…Well, it was his own discovery and for the moment he was still a little jealous of it. Roger had almost thirty years before he reached his father’s age. Ephraim couldn’t give away his secrets until he’d at any rate stolen some kind of march even on his favourite son.
But then, too, he wanted his children to be happy—genuinely wanted this, quite apart from the fact that the happiness of his children, and the happiness they brought into the lives of others, represented the chief vindication of his own existence.
“I really wish I could have measured up to Lieutenant James Still,” he would say, in a PS. To endeavour to show he understood; that there were some things he had always understood; shared aims he had always attempted to live up to, even if he’d known better than to try to put them into words. “I think perhaps you’ll manage it. No, I feel almost sure you will. If anybody can, it’s you.”
When he got home he wrote the letter hastily. (Unfortunately Polly had lost her rubber ring and although they’d spent time looking for it their search was fruitless. She came away only against her will, but she would find it, he told her, as good as promised her, upon some later walk.) He wasn’t very pleased with it. Inside his head it had sounded almost incomparably better; and he would have liked to make a fair copy but that struck him as false. Better the crossings-out and the few words he had added as an afterthought to make the rhythm of it flow. The spontaneity was vital.
He slipped it in an envelope—annoyingly, he could find only a cheap one, because for stationery he had invariably gone to Woolworth’s—and left it on Roger’s pillow.
Then he took the Royal Doulton figurines and wrapped each in a teacloth. Packed them among his shirts and socks and underwear…and, good, this reminded him also to take a towel; two towels; he had remembered, of cours
e, his sponge bag, shaving things, toothbrush…yet still the medium-sized holdall he had so carefully pulled out from under Jean’s side of the bed wasn’t quite full. He liked that, the idea of that. Dick Whittington, with his bandanna. Not weighed down by possessions. Not weighed down by all the clutter of imprisonment. If he could have managed it he, too, would have preferred just a bundle tied to the end of a stick. Turn again, Dick Whittington—thrice Lord Mayor of London! But in fact this not-very-bulky holdall was (for 1989) almost the same thing. The longing for adventure. The joy of the open road. Mr Toad, as well as Dick Whittington. Where the rainbow ends. The streets paved with gold; the essential decency of life along the river bank. St George and the dragon. He remembered all these things from his early boyhood, this mélange of children’s plays and pantomimes…and the integral teas at either Buzzard’s or Gunter’s or a Corner House. With grandmother or great-aunts or mother or cousins: as Dodie Smith had put it, “the family—that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape.” Mona and Joan and Maggie. My God, how he had loved them, all those people who had introduced him to the wonder and entrancement of both stage and screen. The warmth—security—escape. But obviously he hadn’t known it then: how enduringly he would love them…and how ever more consciously, more wistfully, with time.
Such thoughts as these all helped him leave the house without too drastic a lowering of the spirits; he’d realized, anyway, that it was going to be a wrench—in two years there’d been a lot of happy times here, particularly in retrospect. He didn’t look about him, then, too lingeringly…what was the point? He whistled as he closed the front door; whistled something from The King and I. He nodded to the postman three houses down the road but didn’t stop to see what mail he might have brought.
He hadn’t left a note for Jean.
He wondered if she’d feel concern.
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