by Charles Webb
He turned carefully right around the comer without going up across the kerbing.
‘Colin?’
‘Yes, Mandy.’
‘Can I tell you what I was thinking up there in the monument?’
‘I’d like you to.’
She looked down at the dashboard. ‘I was thinking how if there had never been a Revolutionary War, then there would never have been a Battle of New Cardiff. And if there had never been a Battle of New Cardiff, they never would have put up the monument. And if they hadn’t put up a monument, you wouldn’t have seen it out of the bus. And if you hadn’t seen it out of the bus, you wouldn’t have gotten out here. And if you hadn’t gotten out here, we wouldn’t have met. And if we hadn’t met we wouldn’t have been up in the monument.’ She looked over at him. ‘That’s what I was thinking about as we were kissing.’
‘It sounds like your mind was racing.’
‘It wasn’t racing exactly. I was just thinking of all the things that had to have happened for us to be up there.’
Keeping his eyes on the road, he nodded.
‘Were you thinking of anything like that?’
‘Not consciously.’
‘But you might have been thinking of it unconsciously.’
‘Unconsciously, anything’s possible.’
‘I usually don’t think about history,’ she said, leaning back in her seat, ‘but I guess you think about it when you’re caught up in it.’
‘Caught up in it.’
She nodded.
‘You felt you were caught up in history?’
‘You didn’t, I guess.’
‘It didn’t occur to me,’ he said. ‘Maybe I just wasn’t aware of it.’
‘I was probably just imagining it.’
‘But what do you mean.’
‘I don’t know. I was just thinking about how kissing an English person up in the Revolutionary War Monument was kind of like being caught up in history.’ She looked out at a billboard beside the road. ‘But I can see that was really stupid.’
There were no cars in front or behind him as Colin drove for a while in silence. ‘It wasn’t stupid,’ he said finally.
‘Yes it was.’
‘It wasn’t,’ he said. ‘You’re just saying if this was still a colony we wouldn’t have had anywhere to go and kiss.’
She turned to look at him. ‘You’re just making fun of me now.’
‘No I’m not.’
‘Yes you are.’
He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance over at her.
‘You know you are.’
‘I’ll tell you one thing though.’
‘What.’
‘Of all the colonists I know,’ he said, ‘none kiss like that.’
She laughed and looked out ahead of them again.
Suddenly a pick-up truck came up behind them and began flashing its headlights and honking. Mandy looked back through the rear window. ‘What an asshole,’ she said. ‘Don’t pay any attention.’
There was a squeal of tyres as the vehicle lurched out around them, its driver, in a plaid shirt and black beard, leaning over toward his open window to yell something as he passed.
‘Give him the finger,’ Mandy said.
‘I may not.’
‘Did you hear what he just called you?’
‘I did,’ Colin said, looking at the back of the man’s head between the bars of a gun rack as he sped away. ‘I’m treating it as a compliment.’
When they reached the motel, no other cars were in the parking lot but several linen carts were stationed in front of rooms as the maids went in and out, making beds and emptying wastebaskets. Colin pulled into the space in front of number twelve, turned off the engine and slumped in the seat. ‘Oh thank you, Lord,’ he said, letting his eyes close.
‘I’ll see if they’ve finished your room yet.’ Mandy got out and walked to the window of Colin’s room, cupping her hands beside her eyes as she looked through the glass. ‘They have.’
Colin remained in his seat, his arms limp at his sides.
‘Colin?’
‘What.’
‘They’ve done your room.’
After a few more moments he got out of the car, removed his wallet for the plastic card, which he inserted into the slot in the door, pushing it open.
‘Should I come in?’ Mandy said, still standing next to the window.
‘I hope so.’
He waited as she went into the room ahead of him. ‘If you can believe it,’ she said, ‘yesterday was the first time I’ve been in one of these rooms. I always come over here to visit Joanie, but I’d never been inside a room before.’
Colin came in after her. ‘There’s some coffee there,’ he said, pointing at a tray on the bureau, with a pot on it and packets of coffee in a cup.
‘Do you want any?’ she said.
He closed the door. ‘I thought you might.’
‘I just drink coffee at work,’ she said. ‘Right now I’m too happy to have any.’ She walked over to look at a picture on the wall. ‘Are you happy?’
‘Generally speaking.’
‘Why are you happy,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Maybe there’s no reason.’
‘I’m sure there is,’ he said, ‘if I gave it some thought.’
‘Maybe just because it’s a beautiful day.’
‘That,’ he said, ‘and the fact that we aren’t lying in adjoining drawers in a morgue. It’s the little things that cheer me.’
‘Could I ask you something,’ Mandy said, folding her leg underneath herself as she sat down in a chair in the corner of the room, ‘because you seem really …’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘… I don’t know what you’d call it, the way you seem to me.’
It was quiet in the room as she thought.
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
‘Like someone who wouldn’t get mad at me,’ she said, looking back down at him. ‘No matter what I would say. No matter what I would do.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose I would.’
‘You wouldn’t, would you.’
‘You don’t seem like someone anyone would get mad at.’
‘Tell that to my family members,’ she said, getting up again. She walked over to the window. There was a clicking sound as a maid wheeled her cart past on the walkway outside. ‘Can I close the curtain?’
‘Go ahead.’
Mandy reached to the side of the window and pulled a cord, drawing the curtain closed. ‘I want to do something I’ve never done before,’ she said, turning around. ‘Okay?’
‘Something you’ve never done before.’
‘Is that okay?’
‘Well what is it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘I just want to do it.’
‘In your life you’ve never done it before?’
‘Never.’
‘Well I don’t know,’ Colin said, after a pause. ‘Maybe you should try it out somewhere else first.’
‘I want to do it here.’ Starting at the top, she began to unfasten the buttons of her shirt.
Colin watched till she’d unfastened most of them down the front. ‘Unbutton your shirt?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You’ve never unbuttoned your shirt before in your life?’
She finished unfastening them. ‘Not for the reason I’m doing it now,’ she said, as she slipped her arms out of the sleeves and set the shirt on the bureau. ‘I’ve taken my clothes off with people for other reasons.’ She put her hand between her breasts to undo the clasp of her bra. ‘But not for this one.’
Colin watched her remove her bra to set on the bureau too. ‘Which is what.’
Mandy bent down to untie her shoes, took them off, then straightened up and unbuckled her belt. ‘This may sound strange,’ she said, pushing her pants down around her legs, ‘but with you I don’t even feel self-conscious.’
‘The thing you’ve nev
er done,’ he said.
She pushed her light-blue underwear down over her legs, then stepped out of both pairs of pants, leaving them on the carpet. ‘This feels wonderful.’ She stretched her arms up over her head toward the ceiling.
‘Mandy.’
‘The thing I’ve never done before.’
‘If I might hear that now.’
‘All right,’ she said, raising herself up on her toes, ‘ever since I was a little girl, whenever I was really happy, I’d want to take off my clothes. It’s just always been an uncontrollable urge.’ She lowered her arms till they were stretched out beside her. ‘And when I was really young I’d just go ahead and start taking them off. But obviously people would be shocked and punish me and all that.’ She came down from her toes and spread her feet apart on the carpet. ‘So I learned to go to my room when I felt really happy and take them off by myself, away from other people.’ Keeping her arms out beside herself she let her head fall backwards. ‘And that’s what I’ve always done.’ She bent all the way forward, putting her fingers down on the floor to balance herself. ‘Till today. This is the first time I’ve ever taken my clothes off for joy in front of another human being.’
Colin watched as she put her hands on top of her bare feet.
‘And it’s so much better this way. Because when you go in your room by yourself, sure, you might be expressing your joy, but there’s that little guilty part, because you know you had to go off by yourself to do it, so the joy isn’t quite complete.’ She rose up to a standing position again, stretching her arms over her head.
‘Incomplete joy,’ Colin said.
‘That’s how it’s always been before.’
He sat looking at her as she held perfectly still for a few seconds, looking back at him.
‘Try it yourself if you want.’
‘What’s that.’
‘What I’m doing.’
‘Undressing for joy.’
‘It’s nothing to do with sex.’
‘No.’
‘If that’s what you were thinking.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Most men would think it was to do with that,’ she said, slowly twisting from side to side with her arms out beside her, ‘but I can tell you’re a person who’s able to just accept it for what it is. That’s why I feel comfortable enough to do it in front of you.’ She spun around in a circle. ‘But really. Take yours off. It feels wonderful.’
He watched her spin around several more times. ‘You know something,’ he said, seating himself on the edge of the bed, ‘actually I may take some of them off.’
‘Don’t just take some of them off. Take them all off.’
‘I don’t know if I’m as joyful as you are yet.’
‘You will be, once they’re off.’
Colin bent forward to untie his shoes.
‘People have sex with their clothes on,’ she said, raising a leg and taking hold of her foot with one of her hands. ‘It happens all the time.’
Colin removed his shoes, and then his socks.
‘You probably have yourself.’
‘Had sex with my clothes on.’
‘Have you?’
‘I have, actually.’ He unfastened the top button of his trousers.
‘So have I,’ she said. ‘So what.’
‘So what,’ he repeated.
‘Two people who are naked together don’t have to have sex,’ she said, ‘any more than two people with their clothes on are necessarily not going to have it.’
‘Naked people may have it more,’ Colin said. ‘I don’t know if there have been studies.’
‘I’m sure they do, but that’s not my point.’
He took off his trousers. ‘No, I understand your point. You’re saying people with their clothes off don’t have to.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m following your thinking.’
‘I mean in a way it does kind of seem like we might,’ she said. ‘Does it seem that way to you?’
‘Have sex.’
‘What do you think.’
‘I feel it could go either way.’
‘This may sound odd,’ she said, ‘but if we do, maybe we should put our clothes back on.’
‘Back on.’
‘Get dressed again,’ she said.
‘To have sex.’
‘If we do have it.’
‘Why would we get dressed again.’
‘So we wouldn’t spoil the feeling of joy.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sex is one kind of joy,’ she said, ‘but I’m talking about the innocent kind of joy we’re feeling now.’
Colin looked down at his trousers on the carpet.
‘Why take the chance of spoiling that,’ she said.
‘And then take them back off again afterwards?’
‘What?’
‘I’m just asking—after we had sex, we’d then take our clothes back off again?’
‘Don’t you wear underpants?’ she said, making large circles beside herself with her arms.
‘I was in a rush when I left. I couldn’t find clean ones.’
‘I don’t know about you,’ Mandy said, ‘but I’m starting to feel cold.’ She walked around to the other side of the bed and pulled down the covers. ‘Joanie and Fisher must be trying to save on their heating bill.’ She got into the bed and pulled the covers up over herself.
Colin remained seated on the edge. ‘Will we be putting our shoes back on to have sex?’
‘You know that kind of innocent joy I was talking about?’ she said. ‘One thing about it, you never know when it’s going to come, and you never know when it’s going to vanish. It’s magical.’
Colin nodded.
‘So it may have gone for now,’ she said, ‘but that doesn’t mean it won’t be back. When we least expect it.’ She moved under the covers over next to him. ‘And in the meantime, while we’re waiting for it to come back, we have the other kind.’
‘The uninnocent kind.’
‘Are you going to get into bed?’
‘I have no idea.’
After a moment she reached up and began massaging his scalp with the tips of her fingers. ‘Remember when I was doing this yesterday?’
‘I do.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘Very much,’ he said. ‘It was planning for my Journey at the same time that sort of detracted.’
‘Do you want to come in bed and I’ll do it some more?’ He raised himself up and she pulled down the covers on his side of the bed. ‘Now you can get in.’
Colin got into the bed.
‘Don’t you want to take this off?’ She began unbuttoning his shirt, then helped him remove it and dropped it on to the floor on his side of the bed.
‘I may not quite have the basic concept yet.’
‘What concept.’
‘Co-ordinating the different types of joy with the various stages of clothes removal.’
She put her arm around his shoulders. ‘You don’t have the concept yet,’ she said, one of her breasts coming to rest against the side of his face as she began moving her fingers through his hair again, ‘but I can tell you why you don’t.’
‘Why is that.’
‘You’re trying to make it too complicated.’
‘I’ve been told I do that.’
Both breasts covered his face as she reached around to massage the back of his head.
‘It just clicked into place.’
She pulled back. ‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘I said, it just: clicked into place.’
‘What did.’
‘The basic concept.’
She looked down at him for a few moments. ‘Colin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you like the way my breasts feel against your face?’
‘It’s a peaceful feeling.’
‘Shall I put them there again?’
‘If you’re up to it.’
She leaned forward so they rested a
gainst his face again. ‘I should have done this yesterday. Instead of making you think of beaches and forests.’
Colin closed his eyes and they sat quietly as she pressed against him.
‘Too bad I can’t get them to feel peaceful this way over at the Shores,’ she said, ‘but somehow I don’t think I’d have my job too long.’
‘I’m sure I can find a job for you in my organisation if they make you redundant.’
After a few more moments she pulled back again to look at him. ‘Make me what?’
‘Redundant.’
She frowned.
‘You don’t say that.’
‘I never heard of it.’
‘Fired?’
‘Oh, fired.’ She brought his head back against her breasts and again it was quiet.
Colin let his eyes close.
‘Redundant,’ she said. ‘I thought that meant over and over again, something like that.’
‘Actually,’ Colin said, ‘I think it might be one of those words that means pretty much anything you want it to.’
6
Ordinarily in doing a portrait Colin would choose his own subject. Something would strike him about someone he saw—a look in the eye, an expressive mouth—and he would approach the individual and ask if they would sit for him. He rarely made exceptions to this rule, although in the case of Mandy’s brother he did, since no graceful way to decline the offer of Rob Martin as a subject came readily to mind.
The drawing was done on Saturday morning at Rob’s high school. There were no classes in session, but a few students were walking around the paths and one of them directed Colin to the building containing the swimming pool, which is where they had planned to meet.
The pool filled nearly the whole interior of the low building, and as soon as Colin stepped inside he could see a large teenage boy doing the butterfly stroke, lurching from one end of the pool to the other, loudly sucking in air each time his head came out of the water. The next time he reached the shallow end Colin was squatting at the edge of the water beside the handles of an aluminium ladder.
‘Rob?’
Grinning, the boy stood up and pushed a pair of goggles up over his forehead. ‘Mandy’s friend,’ he said, struggling to catch his breath.
Colin reached out and shook his wet hand. ‘Colin,’ he said. ‘Aren’t I interrupting your practice?’
‘I’m just messing around.’