Over the last few weeks the reflection that I first began to notice in the mirror fifteen years ago has clarified and developed. I don’t know if I like what I see, but to see it at all seems rather wonderful. The very texture of my skin has coarsened, I’m more hirsute, and lines have appeared around my mouth and eyes. Minor ailments I never suffered from before queue up for my attention: headaches, indigestion, a nagging tooth. These details fascinate me as if I were my own homunculus, every bulging vein and tiny mole the surprising outcome of self-experiment. It’s good to have a body that can suffer and perish. But what if I die before I find Jenny and Abbie? I’m quite sure that they are both still alive. They didn’t tell me directly of course; prophetesses and oracles and sphinxes never do. Ambiguity is their trade.
The dog responds to me differently now. Instead of staring at me shiftily it gazes at me with devotion, licks me and climbs up on to the bed to sleep at my feet. I lie here, a nightly knight on my last crusade, my monument the blue-and-white striped duvet I once shared with her. I sleep and eat less than I used to do, fuelled by a dry, feverish, nervous energy that fires volleys of memory into the air. In the morning I feel heavy and am often unable to remember if I have slept at all. The dog bounces up with moronic optimism, whines for breakfast and wags its tail, insisting that the day is worth having. It drags me out for long walks, and I let it pull me for miles in all directions. There is always the possibility it will find them, sniffing their chemicals like truffles in the city dirt.
Now I have no more power over her, no magical privileges to glide me through the urban labyrinth. Just as my body feels coarser, so the city itself seems bigger, heavier, more formidable. This is a crazy task, a hopeless quest.
Another week trudging the hot streets. But now I see only the solid mass of bricks and mortar. Doors and windows no longer dissolve to show me vignettes from other lives. I get blisters and the pollution makes my eyes red and sore as I’m pulled by Johnny, driven by memory. There are so many London streets I’ve walked down with Jenny at one time or another. Memory itself has changed. Just as my skin has become thinner and more sensitive, so the tissue of my past life has become translucent. I see through the aggressive chic of this King’s Road to the old, dark, grim street dominated by the Chelsea Palace; through the cars and buses of Gower Street to her room above the horse-drawn traffic where we spent our first nights together. And these memories are painful, like a bloodstained plaster ripped off a wound. I realize now that all those years when I thought I was living for ever I was half dead, protected from the vivid entrails of experience.
As I walk with the dog across the park from Knightsbridge to Bayswater I’m accosted by a gang of screaming kids, about twenty of them, begging ferociously. I hand out a few coins and flee. Then I turn back to stare after them, wondering if Abbie could have been among them. Fifteen now, but she might look younger. If Jenny suddenly looked like the nonagenarian she was after I destroyed her contract, then she probably wasn’t able to work or look after Abbie. They would have sunk very quickly to that social level conveniently ignored by politicians and directors of the Metaphysical Bank: people who sit in doorways, sleep in cardboard boxes and eat food that has been thrown away by the rest of us.
A month ago this screaming flock of children would merely have disgusted me. Now they make me feel uncomfortable, and I even wonder what right I have to my bulging wallet and the Chinese lunch in Queens-way I’m looking forward to. Have I become one of those ineffectual hypocritical ninnies, a bien pensant liberal who shakes his head at the status quo, does very nicely out of it and sheds crocodile tears over misfortunes he has no intention of alleviating? Seeing that anarchic little army of homeless kids makes me realize just how cut off I really am from the life of the city I’m trying to penetrate: streetdumb, street-blind, streetdeaf. I understand no more about those children than about the pigeons in my roof.
How uncomfortable this mortality is. No wonder they complain all the time. Already I’ve lost my perfect complexion and the natural heavenly fragrance women used to admire so much. The sun has reddened my nose, and insects, which used to stay away from me because my signals were all wrong, have been devouring me, leaving hideous red lumps all over my arms. As I stride off on my marathon walks I sweat and my sweat stinks. Although I’ve spent a fortune in Boots on remedies for all these repulsive little problems, I’m stuck inside this big, smelly, clumsy, hypersensitive lump of a body.
I sit down to write my letter of resignation to the Metaphysical Bank. There’s no tradition of retirement; I’m the first and probably the last. It’s illegal for a mortal to be a director, and I wouldn’t want to be pursued by the lawyers of the Metaphysical Bank who are, quite literally, Furies.
So here I sit, toying with words at my grubby desk in my seedy room. I used to be able to write fluently in both Latin and Greek, but something has happened to my mind. All that comes out now is a rather stilted English, a sort of grovelspeak: Greetings to the Eternally Wise, my illustrious Fellow Directors of the Supreme Economic Mysteries … Even when I take out the capital letters it looks odd.
They’ll find out anyway, of course. I’ve already skipped three board meetings. There’s plenty of money, particularly since I sold the house. I could simply move it to an ordinary bank; there’ll be quite enough to see me out. I would like to leave Abbie something, if only I could find her. Age is catching up with me rapidly. Every time I look in the mirror I see new lines, broken veins, grey hairs. If I look like this on the outside, who knows what state my internal organs are in? I might have a stroke or heart attack any minute now.
As well as this new hypochondria, I catch myself feeling afraid for the first time. After all, my fellow directors of the Metaphysical Bank aren’t corporate pussycats, they are Nero, Boudicca, Genghis Khan, Lucrezia Borgia, not people to trifle with. Of course, those aren’t the names that appear on our letterhead, just their most successful incarnations. What if they revive some medieval clause that allows them to confiscate all my money? How I wish now I’d studied law instead of alchemy and conjuring.
The sheet of paper in front of me has turned into a love letter to Jenny. Suddenly my pen flies, and I know exactly what I have to say: this is the letter I never wrote you in all those years we were together. Somewhere in the universe there’s probably a sort of poste restante black hole where our unexpressed feelings and unspoken words go. Here is an undelivered letter to join them. Knowing you will never read this, I’m freed of shame and embarrassment. I’m experiencing love backwards, you see, as a searchlight, dazzling and transforming our mutual past. I was disingenuous when I said you won’t read this. Actually, I believe you will and that we will die in each other’s arms. At this moment that’s the height of my ambition. Are you laughing, Jenny? Oh well. Love is absurd, I quite agree. I have to see you again so that we can have a good laugh about it together. When I think how seriously I used to take myself, with my transhistorical investments and my multinational deals, fussing over what to wear and what kind of bathroom and kitchen to have. No wonder you left me.
But I’ve changed, Jenny, I really have. I know you have, too. I picture the gawky little girl from Hoxton, your raw, pale face with huge dark eyes burning with vitality like dark ponds in a snowy landscape. It was that energy of yours that persuaded me, ten years later, that you deserved a stab at immortality. Until very recently, you see, I never doubted that immortals were better, and better off, than mortals. We were the universal grown-ups, watching benevolently as you poor little creatures with your pathetically short life spans and infantile self-importance strutted around your sandpit.
But when you renounced your immortality you made me question thousands of years of complacency.
I see you in the hallway of our perfect house, that morning you came back from the Metaphysical Bank, your face covered with scratches and bruises. When you waved your contract at me I thought you were stupid and ungrateful. I didn’t love you or Abbie enough to interfere with what I kne
w was a form of suicide. That night I used my bag of alchemical tricks to destroy your contract. At midnight, alone in the house, I told myself you were dead and Abbie was lost to me for ever. I went into her room and stared at all her clothes and toys: that magnificent doll’s house, probably much grander than any house she will ever live in again; the rows of toys staring at me reproachfully; the books that were to guarantee her cleverness; and the cupboard full of miniature designer clothes. All the paraphernalia of the late-twentieth-century princess I had intended her to be.
I often looked for her as I walked or cycled around London, but after a few months I accepted that you would both have changed. For the first time since you were fifteen I had no control over who or where or what you were.
Who am I looking for now as I blunder down the streets of London? An old woman of a hundred, perhaps, accompanied by a young girl. I’m sure you’re out there somewhere. Pretty soon, my darling, I’ll look as ancient as you and we can totter towards death together. When I find you. If I find you.
Abbie in Love
After meeting Mum and Rosa in the park I have a swim in the Serpentine. The lido’s as hot as Oxford Street and just as crowded. I love swimming underwater, but goggles are expensive, so I shut my eyes and launch myself in a sitting dive down into the murky, greasy water. Shouts and laughter are switched off, and I’m sealed in watery consciousness, moving blindly. I love being invisible like this, silent, alone in the forest of legs. My path through the water is blocked by something. I open my eyes and mouth in surprise, and the water attacks my lungs, flows up my nostrils and forces me to come up, spluttering, still entangled with the thing, which turns out to be a boy.
‘Sod off,’ I yell. I’m sort of disappointed when he does because he’s about my age, too young to be a dirty old man. He sits on the grass looking worried, his white legs dangling in the tepid brown water. His eyes keep swivelling back to me, and I keep pretending not to look at him. I mess about a bit, do somersaults and handstands in the water, wanting him to go on looking at me, feeling his eyes slithering all over me like the sunlit water. Then I turn and swim towards him. As his face comes closer I see that he’s smiling and really fit, with dark hair and green eyes and this long, slim body. He leans towards me and says, ‘I think you need a new swimming costume.’
‘I know. I’ll ask Daddy to get me one tomorrow.’
‘Is your father here with you?’
‘Oh no. Daddy doesn’t like me coming here, he wants me to join this incredibly expensive health club, but I think it’s more fun here.’ Funny thing is, he believes it. I don’t overdo it, don’t do a silly voice like those yah girls me and Rosa used to want to strangle when they came out of Harvey Nichols with all their bags. He’s not thick; he just thinks all kids our age have homes to go to.
After we’ve showered we meet and walk together towards Knights-bridge. I tell him I’m at Benenden and I’ve just taken my GCSEs. I want to see how much I can get away with. Then I ask him questions.
‘Well, it’s a long story. Why don’t we go for a walk and I’ll tell you. I hope you’re not shockable.’
‘Right. Shock me,’ I say. We sit down with our backs against a tree that shades us from the hot afternoon and share his bottle of water.
‘I bet your daddy wouldn’t like it if he knew you were talking to someone like me. What’s your name?’
‘Charlotte.’
‘I’m Steve. Do you know why I came swimming?’
‘To pick up girls?’
‘To get clean. I’ve been sleeping rough for the last year, ever since I ran away from school.’
‘Why don’t you go home?’
‘I haven’t really got one. My parents died in a plane crash when I was twelve. My father was a diplomat, so we were always moving around, from one cocktail party to another. After they died I was sent to this really strict public school where they beat me and tried to make me join the cadets. I’m a pacifist. During the holidays I had to stay with my uncle in Yorkshire. He’s terribly religious, and whenever I listened to my Walkman he said I’d go to hell and there was no TV, and he was always accusing me of telling lies. He really hated me because I was in love with my cousin, you see, his daughter. Guinevere. We used to go up on the moors together and ride our ponies and go for walks. Then she got pregnant, well, you can imagine, there’s not much else to do up on the moors with no TV. He knew it was me, and he threw me out of the house. So last summer instead of doing my A-levels I ran away and came to London. It’s hard sleeping out. I nearly froze to death last winter. You need a lot of drugs and booze to keep going. I don’t get much to eat, and I’ve been beaten up a few times.’ What a load of bollocks. I stare at his clear eyes and skin, clean T-shirt and jeans and new, expensive trainers. ‘I expect you’ll bugger off now. You wouldn’t want anything to do with somebody like me, I’m your parents’ worst nightmare of a boyfriend.’
‘There’s only my father. Mummy went off with the chauffeur when I was six. She lives in Malibu now. They surf all the time. She’s one of the most beautiful women in the world. She’s been offered lots of parts in movies; film producers come and queue up around her swimming pool, trying to get her to sign a contract, but all she wants to do is surf and make love to Johnny. He used to be Daddy’s chauffeur, but now he’s her second husband. He’s well gorgeous; you wouldn’t believe his pecs. I went to stay with them once, but she was embarrassed to have such an old daughter; she kept pretending to everyone that I was her niece. Then she said Johnny was after me – well, he was, but nothing happened.’
‘And your father hasn’t married again?’
‘He’s still in love with Mummy. And he says I look just like her, so he’s terribly possessive. When he’s away on business he pays this private detective to follow me around …’ I look over my shoulder, and he looks terrified. ‘But I think I managed to lose him in Harrods.’
‘What does your father do?’
‘Buys and sells things. Houses. Oil. Movies.’
‘Really? I bet you live in an amazing house.’
‘Well, it is quite big, considering it’s in the middle of London. There’s the indoor pool and the library and the billiards room and the ballroom. I have my own suite, of course.’
‘Maybe you could smuggle me in some time.’
‘I think that might be dangerous. Daddy’s heavies are all over the house. And they’re really heavy. Like, guns and hand grenades – I don’t think you’d stand a chance if they caught you.’
‘So how come you’re sitting under a tree talking to a creep like me?’
‘I just have to get away sometimes. It’s all too much: the formal meals even when I’m on my own, the personal shopper waiting outside my door each morning, the charge cards, the dinner invitations.’
‘Sounds awful. I would have thought you’d be away at this time of year.’
‘Well, of course, I could have gone on a cruise or to Thailand with Daddy or to stay with our friends in Cans.’
‘Where?’
‘Cans. It’s in the south of France.’
‘I don’t think you pronounce the “s”.’
‘You do if you live there.’
There’s a brief silence. Then he leans towards me, smiling gently, and puts his hand on the back of my neck. Just as well I smell of shampoo for once. He smells of soap and old money; last time he saw a cardboard box was when he pulled his new computer out of it. He kisses my neck and then my mouth. It’s not too disgusting. He doesn’t fumble in my knickers, just puts his arm around me. ‘Shall I walk you home?’
‘Better not. Someone might see you and shoot you. I have to go. We have dinner at eight. Horse dervrers and three courses. It’s such a bore, and I have to change into an evening dress.’
‘Will you meet me here tomorrow at two?’
‘OK.’ I try to sound cool and walk off in the direction where my house is supposed to be. That’s the odd thing about lying; you almost convince yourself. Later, I turn back to t
he bunker where I lie awake all night thinking about him.
The next day I don’t really expect him to be there. I think he must have seen through my Charlotte story, must know I live in a squalid hole and don’t even go to school and always wear the same clothes because I haven’t got any others. He’ll disappear, like all good things.
The tree is in a straight line from the bandstand nearest to Knights-bridge; you can just about see the Serpentine from it. I’ve no idea what kind of tree it is: a love tree, a happiness tree. I’m not in love. Don’t be silly, I hardly know him, can hardly even remember what he looks like: tall, thin, dark straight hair, green eyes. It’s his voice I remember, warm and funny, and the hardness of his body whenever we not quite accidentally touched. There are lots of boys in the park who look like him, and all the trees look the same, too. I panic and imagine us waiting by different trees, missing each other, never finding each other again.
Then I see him a few yards away, smiling at me through the trees. I run up to him. I want to fling myself into his arms, but I stop a few inches away. It looks so easy in films.
‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ he says.
‘Is this the same tree?’
‘Yup. Nineteen from the bandstand. I counted yesterday.’
We smile at each other and slide down, our backs to the tree. ‘You’re looking smart. Got an ironing board in your cardboard box?’
‘No, it’s a new shirt – I mean I nicked it.’
‘Yeah, right. Bet you’re a master criminal.’
‘Well, I looked up your dad’s company last night, and it doesn’t exist.’ We catch each other’s eyes and grin. We sit and talk until our throats are so dry we have to go to a kiosk to buy drinks. Then we go back to our tree and talk some more until it’s nearly dark. Can’t remember what we said, only that I felt completely relaxed beside him, watching his long fingers play with the grass. We don’t exactly tell the truth but stop telling quite such elaborate lies. As the last daylight disappears he says, ‘I will walk you home anyway. Wherever it is.’
Loving Mephistopeles Page 31