The Gulf Between Us

by Geraldine Bedell

  ‘Sorry about the morning,’ he said sleepily, at last. ‘Look, stay here as long as you want, OK? They do breakfast downstairs for us, and I’ll get them to leave everything out for you – or you can get anything sent over from the hotel.’

  A few minutes later, he was asleep. I lay looking at his outflung arm, thinking you could pick any part of him and admire it.

  Perhaps if he’d asked me to go to America in a different way, he might have got a different result. Or perhaps, by the time Dave asked, ten months later, the fact that James had left, done something entirely different, made me realize I could too. I remember joking that I couldn’t keep turning down men who wanted me to go abroad with them. And writing in my diary that this was my best chance of happiness.

  I could see now that I’d been quite insecure.

  It was a mystery why James was lying in bed beside me, and I had no expectations of anything much beyond the here and now. But I didn’t have any regrets; I didn’t feel insecure any more. James and I weren’t unequal, because, for all his ability to get women into bed, he seemed needy, as if he thought there was something he wasn’t getting while he hurtled and lurched from relationship to affair, movie to movie, shedding bits of himself like skin in all the different beds he slept in. He believed I was the opposite – that I was grounded, I’d had relationships that had lasted, children to slow me down and make me take things at their pace. The certainty and durability of my emotions seemed, I think, tantalizingly different to his own fleeting, opportunistic, expedient relationships.

  What seemed only a very short time later, a telephone rang in my left ear, and I stirred into consciousness of lying shoulder to naked shoulder with James Hartley, his hand lying lightly against my hip. The bedroom door opened and someone – one of his staff, I think – brought in a pot of tea and two cups on a tray and James was awake and out of bed and in the shower.

  I stretched and yawned and made myself sit up and look at my watch, which said five o’clock. James came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, and I had to take him in bit by bit, because it was all too much at once.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Thank you for a great evening.’

  ‘It was no trouble.’

  ‘I’d really like to see you again.’

  ‘OK…’ I said cautiously, ‘that can probably be arranged.’

  ‘The thing is, though,’ he added awkwardly, ‘I think we should keep it quiet. Just for now.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Once people start finding out, it will change.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No, because you haven’t been in this situation before.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Have you been out with someone like me?’

  ‘I’ve been out with someone exactly like you.’

  ‘I mean a movie star,’ he said, getting dressed.

  ‘Well, not often, no,’ I accepted, though it was a bit early in the morning for him to be pulling rank.

  ‘So you don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘I see,’ I said tightly. ‘What is it like?’

  He came back to the bed. ‘Look, Annie, I want to get to know you again. I don’t want to lose this feeling.’

  ‘No, it’s a very nice feeling,’ I agreed.

  ‘But we will if other people get a piece of it. Which they will, once they start finding out. So all I’m saying is that we should keep it quiet for a bit. Keep it to ourselves.’

  ‘Al Maraj already knows,’ I pointed out. ‘And the staff here. And Matt and Sam knew I was having dinner with you last night, and you can be sure they’ll have noticed I didn’t go home.’

  ‘I don’t mean Nezar. Or Fiona. And obviously I’m not asking you to lie to your sons. Just generally. Gossip gets out of hand so quickly, and the papers will print anything if they can get away with it. And then even you start to believe what people are saying… Anyway, I don’t mean for ever. Just till we get to know each other a bit better.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said disappointedly. ‘I was about to come downstairs with you.’

  ‘Really? We only have coffee. And then go out to the cars.’

  ‘If you don’t want me to, I won’t.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that. Look, fine, come down if you want. But you’re not even dressed…’

  ‘It’s not as if I’ll waste time choosing what to wear.’

  He smiled. ‘No. You’ll have to find your clothes, though. They’re all over the shop… Look, I’ve got a couple of things to run over with Fiona, so I’ll go ahead. But you come down when you’re ready. And if we’ve already gone, I’ll call you later.’

  Once he’d left I went into the shower and stood under the steaming water, thinking that one of the big attractions of sleeping with a global sex symbol was telling people about it. But of course, he knew that.

  I retrieved my clothes from the floor and put them on, found a hairdryer and ran my fingers through my hair, cleaned my teeth with a new toothbrush I found in the bathroom, then went downstairs into the dining room, where James was sitting in the corner reading a script, and Nezar Al Maraj and Fiona Eckhart were standing by the table. Everyone looked up when I appeared. Fiona frowned, Al Maraj looked disapproving, and James said with embarrassment, ‘Oh, hi, Annie. You’ve met everyone?’

  ‘Yes. Morning.’

  Fiona pursed her lips. ‘Nezar, what is it with this country? We still don’t have permission for filming at Wadi Ghul…’

  ‘It’s where the crown prince likes to ride, I’m told,’ he said, staring at me. I stared back. ‘Good morning, Mrs Lester. Coffee?’

  ‘Annie. Yes, please.’

  ‘But I thought he wasn’t even in the country?’ Fiona asked.

  James was sitting in the corner armchair, frowning at a script. ‘Wasn’t he in trouble in London?’

  Al Maraj handed me a coffee cup. ‘He gave a speech,’ he said. Did I imagine it, or did he shake his head at me? What, in despair?

  ‘Would you like some breakfast?’ He indicated the dining table, which was piled high with enough bread, pastries, fruit, juice and cereal for at least ten people.

  I was starving, even though it was nowhere near breakfast time. I hadn’t eaten much at dinner. I helped myself to a chocolate croissant and took it over to a small table in the corner.

  James glanced up from his script, smiled at me encouragingly, then went back to his reading.

  There were two chairs at the table and, as soon as I’d sat down, Al Maraj came over and joined me.

  ‘James told me about your son,’ he said quietly.

  I frowned. ‘You mean Matthew?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked over at James but he was still engrossed. Al Maraj leant forward. ‘This is a difficult time politically,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s doubtful whether the emir will recover from his stroke.’

  ‘Right…’

  ‘Matthew should be careful.’

  ‘Er, well, it’s sad, about the emir, but I’m not sure what it’s got to do with Matt.’

  ‘Homosexuality is illegal in Hawar.’

  ‘I know that.’ Did he think I was stupid? I was the one who lived here. ‘I think he’s careful.’ Why was he hectoring me like this? Was he homophobic? Did he want to make me feel bad? ‘No one’s been arrested, have they?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For years. They haven’t arrested anybody.’

  ‘That’s not the point…’

  Wasn’t it? Why not?

  He frowned and said, ‘Hawaris aren’t ready for the whole gay lifestyle…’

  ‘That’s a shame, given how many gay Hawaris there are. But if you mean they’re not ready for Matt, you’ve got him wrong. He’s not the campaigning sort.’

  Al Maraj sighed, as if I were missing the point. ‘Tell him to be careful. That’s all,’ he said, and looked at me hard. Why did he keep doing that? I looked back, equally hard.

  Fiona said the cars were waiting. ‘G
oodbye, Mrs Lester.’ She whisked past with her arms full of clipboard.

  ‘Annie.’

  She smiled thinly.

  ‘Can we give you a lift anywhere?’ Al Maraj asked.

  ‘Her car’s round the back,’ James said. I think even he wanted to get rid of me now. But he dropped a kiss on the side of my head, somewhere near my ear, and whispered that he’d call, and then they were gone and I was left alone with a small mountain of food.

  I sat down to gather myself for a moment. I could see it might take a little time to work out what this thing with James amounted to. He seemed keen enough – almost painfully so – when we were on our own, but awkward and embarrassed in company. Still, it was probably worth investing a bit of patience in trying to understand him and the exigencies of his celebrity. He had to be careful with people, clearly. He was used to not giving too much of himself away. Being famous was a bit like burlesque – you showed a bit of yourself and then had to whirl away again to hide it.

  The guard shuffled out of his post to lift the barrier into the compound, smirking as if I’d proved something of satisfaction to him personally. Western women are sluts, presumably. I wanted to lean out of the car and say, ‘I was with James Hartley, actually,’ to see if his expression would change (it would have) but obviously I didn’t.

  I slid the car quietly through the compound, left it in the carport and let myself into the house, closing the front door quietly behind me.

  I could hear Matt talking in his room and, for a moment, I thought he might have someone in there. I’d reiterated the point about it being OK to bring someone home and he’d said: ‘Really, mum, you’ve been fantastic about all this, but I don’t think you’re ready yet for gay sex.’

  What did he mean? Was gay sex particularly noisy, or intrusive in some other way I hadn’t thought of because of having a limited sexual imagination?

  I did remember once seeing a television programme about the trial of Oscar Wilde and there was quite a lot of fuss in that about semen and faeces mixed together on the sheets at the Savoy. So perhaps he had a point. Perhaps I would be ready for gay sex when he did his own laundry.

  The trouble was that for as long as he didn’t bring anyone home, I was left thinking he was having random and promiscuous sex with men he met in coffee shops and at private parties or down some back street of the souk. My investigations on the internet suggested that gay men generally speaking had a lot more casual sex. I’d come across an online diary by a gay man (I don’t know who was in charge of the censorship software in Hawar, but he was incompetent) who claimed devotion to his boyfriend was consistent with his also having something called tricks – which seemed to be one‐night stands – and something else called fuck buddies – who were friends he had sex with every now and then, like other people might meet for a coffee. He thought heterosexuals got themselves into a muddle about monogamy.

  So perhaps Matt assumed I wouldn’t understand the whole business of tricks and fuck buddies, and he was right, I wouldn’t.

  He didn’t seem to have anyone in his room. He’d been on the phone. Now he wandered into the kitchen. ‘And what time d’you call this?’

  I put the kettle on. ‘You’re up pretty early yourself.’

  ‘Website training.’

  ‘Were you on the phone?’

  ‘What? Oh, that was Jodie. Trouble with Adam again.’ Completely unconvincing. There were some things, clearly, that he wasn’t going to tell me.

  ‘So, it was a success then,’ he said, getting butter and milk out of the fridge, ‘with James Hartley?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Although Al Maraj didn’t like my being there and Fiona Eckhart could barely bring herself to speak to me this morning.’

  ‘You’ve rattled them.’

  ‘They might just be rude.’

  I poured two mugs of tea and handed one to him. ‘Matt, we agreed – James and I – that we wouldn’t say anything to anyone at the moment about seeing each other.’

  He frowned. ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? You already did.’

  ‘I don’t mean to you. To anyone outside.’

  ‘Why not? Is there some kind of union rule? You must have had a certain amount of Botox before you can officially date a film star?’

  I laughed uneasily. It hadn’t occurred to me that this might be about the way I looked. ‘It’s more that he’s kind of public property and people feel they’ve got a right – you know, to take a view.’

  ‘So you don’t want me to tell anyone?’

  ‘Please.’

  He poured some orange juice. ‘Pity. It’s the only glamorous thing that’s ever happened in our family. I could have been glamorous by association.’

  He took his juice and went back to his bedroom to finish getting ready. By the time Sam had to get up, fifteen minutes later, he’d already left the house.

  ‘You stayed out last night,’ Sam said in an accusing tone, as soon as he walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Uh‐huh. Toast?’

  ‘Is it because he’s famous?’

  ‘Is what because he’s famous?’

  ‘Is that why you stayed the night with him?’

  ‘How can I possibly know? He is. I can’t do anything about that.’

  Sam sat down at the table. ‘Or are you attracted by his money?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sam! I’m not going to get any money out of it. We’re not getting married. It’s an affair.’

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘No, Sam, it isn’t.’

  ‘You dumped him when he was a plumber.’

  ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.’

  ‘Well, if you can’t see what it looks like, I’m not going to explain it… Why’ve you made me toast? I don’t want toast.’

  ‘You always have toast.’

  ‘I want muesli.’

  ‘OK.’

  I removed the toast.

  ‘You realize people will talk about you?’

  ‘Actually, they won’t, because we’re not going to tell anyone.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘People will gossip.’

  ‘What, so he’s ashamed?’

  ‘No! It’s… fragile.’

  ‘You just said it was a silly affair.’

  ‘I don’t remember using the word silly. All I meant was I’m not sure it has much chance and…’

  ‘No, well, he could go out with anyone.’

  ‘Well, thank you for that support.’

  ‘What is he doing with you, though?’

  How do you explain passion and regret, pleasure and nostalgia, a sense of something left behind and lost to a sixteen‐year‐old? Sam didn’t want to contemplate the possibility that I might have sex that wasn’t either procreative or dedicated to holding a family together.

  ‘I don’t think he’s had much in the way of real, sustained relationships.’

  ‘So he’s not very good at having girlfriends? What, can’t he hold on to them?’

  ‘Sam, you’re being needlessly hostile.’

  ‘You’ve got to admit it’s weird.’

  I put the milk jug on the table and said wryly: ‘That should make it easier to keep secret.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Sam said through a mouthful of muesli, ‘I don’t suppose it will last anyway.’

  When Khaled brought the post later that morning at school, there was a letter from dad. He said he’d had a lovely time at the wedding and how nice it had been seeing me in the Gulf looking so well and that James Hartley had obviously thought so too. He wondered if I’d had the chance to see him again and hoped everything was all right with Matthew and he was sorry if he hadn’t taken it as well as I’d hoped at first but it wasn’t something people of his generation found easy, because there didn’t used to be so many gay people. Now it felt as if a lot of them had suddenly come from nowhere. He didn’t know if there really were more but it was hard to believe that that many people had been pretending all that
time, so perhaps something really had changed because they say all the fish are turning female, which is something to do with plastic bags and hormones, so you have to wonder what’s being done to us.

  I don’t think he was really trying to say that Matt was an early warning of environmental catastrophe. I think he was trying to apologize.

  For me, everything that day passed in a bit of a blur. It was like jetlag only with something better to look back on. I worked mechanically, avoiding actual conversation with people whenever I could in the hope that no one would notice that I was drifting around in a daze.

  Will called half way through the morning, except that it was early morning for him and he was on the bus, rattling into work. He wasn’t very focused, either: I could hear him rustling the FT even while he was telling me that work was fine, the flat was fine, Maddi was fine, fine, fine, fine… I knew his mind was really on the day’s meetings and all the other hectic City stuff he’d have to deal with once he got into the office – instant info, breathless exchanges, just‐in‐time trades. But I couldn’t really blame him because he was talking to a brain‐furred school secretary in a global backwater, and she wasn’t making any effort either.

  At lunchtime, Karen rang. ‘Don’t tell Chris I’ve called you,’ she said in a rush, ‘because he thinks it’s too expensive, but I’m worried about your dad. He’s called Gay Switchboard.’

  ‘Chris?’

  ‘No, Ted!’

  ‘He’s not planning to come out as well?’

  ‘Annie, please! It’s not funny. Chris won’t talk about it…’

  ‘Were they helpful, at Gay Switchboard?’

  ‘I don’t know! They gave him a number for some other organization and now he’s going to a meeting.’

  ‘That’s OK, isn’t it? He’s not making you go with him?’ ‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’