The Fourth of July

by Bel Mooney

  Anthony eased his body down with a creak, and laughed, half-embarrassed, half-pleased.

  “Now my Mom’s gonna give me away,” he said.

  “It’s like I said, there’s no call to be ashamed of tears. Anthony and I used to watch all the big musicals, but South Pacific was his best one, and what do you do now if you watch it on TV, or West Side Story? Be honest with the family now …” Teasing, she laid a hand on his knee.

  “Aw – I still cry,” he said.

  “Oh, that’s real nice,” said Lace, sentimentally.

  The conversation broke into fragments, of films, and childhood, and whether men find it hard to show emotion, and the need for chaperones even in the thirties. My eyes were heavy; I longed for bed. When at last Emmeline rose to go indoors, saying she was cold, others struggled to their feet as well.

  “You look tired, Marylinne,” said Corelli.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Gotta get your beauty sleep. Why don’t you two girls go on up now? It’s getting late.” I heard the instruction and shuddered.

  “You’re cold,” said Luenbach flatly.

  Zandra stood by the lighted doorway, and I apologised to her. “Oh, honey, it’s really quite late. We’ll all be going soon,” she replied. I think I kissed her, but the memory is hazy. Certainly I believe my voice was slurred; I can remember nothing but the desire to lie down. My last sight, as I turned to climb the stairs, was of Emmeline leaning over her grandson, ruffling his hair as he concentrated on the television screen, ignoring her.

  (Here I hesitate, because I am telling you this story as best I can, and I don’t want to tell you what happened next. I could omit the episode from my tale, but the story would be different, as picture editors who crop a photograph can deliberately unbalance the most carefully worked-out composition. Lending intensity. And in general we shy away from truths that force us to peer into murky corners we had rather not acknowledge. But I cannot just be nice in my words, no more than in myself, do you hear me? You must hear me. You must look where I tell you to look, for there is no mercy in the not-looking. I told you a long time ago that I felt I could not ask for protection when Annelisa had none. So … although I’m ashamed of what comes next, I stare back at you from your mirror telling you that you should not seek protection from me or my pain. These things happen.)

  When I heard the tap on my door I knew who it was. There was a strong feeling in me that, even if I made no move to open it, the woodwork would melt and dissolve, and like a creature in a dream the man would enter, the invader. It was impossible, therefore, to avoid the opening of the door, and the inevitability.

  Luenbach’s arms seemed full. He glanced over his shoulder as I stepped back to let him pass, but there was no one on the landing.

  “I brought you another drink.” He was carrying a bottle of champagne, two glasses, and a small radio. “I thought we’d have us our own little party, Barbara,” he said.

  I looked at him, without speaking, watching as he removed the gold foil, prised off the wires, and expertly twisted the cork so that it eased off with barely a sound. From time to time he glanced up at me, with satisfaction in his slight smile, expecting no response.

  “Here’s to your future with Emperor” he smiled, clinking the two glasses together before handing me mine, “and something else, Babs … the reason I came: here’s to us.” He held out his glass, looking quizzical when I ignored it. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know what I want,” I said.

  Looking down at myself from a height, even then, I recognised a voice from my childhood, a cry that was not mine alone. Annelisa’s too. Maybe my brother’s. Certainly my mother’s. I don’t know what I want; all I know is that it is not what I have. Somewhere else there lies the key, if only someone could help me to find it …

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said I don’t know what I want. I never know.”

  “Sure you know what you want. And I know what you want,” he replied, reaching out to take my glass, and put it down on the table. Of course he had no ears to hear that cry; he was responding to what was present, to everything observable, and in responding he was correct. I did know what I wanted, and that that was why I had let him into my room. He knew it too – that even that morning in the kitchen something had been decided, and that it had depended on my accepting – even drunk and passive.

  Yet I can’t let myself off so easily. I did want him. I wanted sex. I thought it would be good and I wanted that release, quite simply, because it had been too long. Many times in my life I have allowed such situations to develop, sometimes through actual wanting, but often because I simply can’t be bothered to apply the brake. And always, always, I feel in control – glad when the hotel door, or the door of my flat, closes behind them and I can bathe away the smell of sex; glad, too, of the momentary unravelling of my brain.

  “You know what I brought my radio for?” he asked, softly. I nodded, but it was clear that he would continue his ritual no matter what the response from me. “These walls are thin. And I don’t want anyone to hear us, Babs, no one but you and me.”

  Soft jazz-rock filled the room, as that lean, mocking face approached mine, and his open mouth suctioned down on me, his teeth moving harshly against mine as though they would grind me to dust. He pushed his tongue into me, and it lay in my mouth, like a fish. As Luenbach began to ease the straps from my shoulders, I pushed his hands away and pulled back, undressing myself. He nodded, that gaze never wavering, the pale blue eyes fixing me as though on a pin, as he began to unbutton his shirt.

  So the motions begin as if programmed, and I have known them all before, as all of us have, willing and not yet willing the final consummation. Practised people, we showed no shy clumsiness in the arrangement of our limbs, as we lay down and he kissed me a little, and licked my breasts, and ran his hands the length of my spine, and told me I was beautiful. Slowly and gently his fingers explored me, opening me, parting me as Annelisa’s had done to herself. My own flesh opened for his finger, softly at first, then with a spasm of wetness, and I shivered, feeling the muscles slacken, the emptiness inside growing larger, wanting to be filled. Luenbach was skilful; every movement he made felt cool, computed: a man apeing passion, for whom desire means nothing but control. Feeling this in each touch, my mental revulsion lingered even as my body went through the physical moves by rote.

  He was murmuring in my ear, with a voice I had not heard before: coarser – more like Corelli’s. “Mmmmm, that’s it, nice and wet, you feel real good, baby, waiting for me. But you’ll have to wait a bit longer,” he whispered. “Go down on me. I want you to suck me now … go on, baby, suck me hard.” And he made as if to push me downwards.

  I pulled back, shaking my head.

  “What’s the matter, don’t you like it? I won’t come, not in your mouth – c’mon,” and again he grasped my shoulders, putting more pressure on me this time.

  “Don’t,” I said,

  “What’s wrong?” He grinned, but his eyes were cold.

  “I just don’t want to.”

  “I know. You’re one of those women who don’t like giving a man pleasure. You want to lie there and have it all happen to you, don’t you?”

  For a second I was shocked, and wanted to deny it, and do whatever he wanted. Then I remembered what Annelisa had said to me on the beach, and hated myself suddenly for being so stupid. She was right, and I – who thought myself so clever – had made of fool of myself with the very person who had set out to challenge me from the beginning.

  It had gone. Whatever ludicrous, drunken mood of acquiescence had made me let him in, and the passing desire that had taken me this far, had disappeared completely. I sat up, twisting from his hands. “Luenbach, this isn’t going to work. I’m sorry. Why don’t we just forget it?”

  He propped himself up on one arm. “Forget what?”

  “This. Look … just get dressed and go, please. I’m really sorry, but …”

 
“You want it, Barbara, you’ve been dying for it all day.”

  “How the fuck do you know?” I shouted, trying to get off the bed.

  He stopped me. “I can tell. It’s written all over your face. Tell the truth …”

  “The truth is, I can’t stand you and I want you to get the hell out of my room.”

  “No, the truth is – you’re a frigid bitch, is that it?” he said, still grinning, those even white teeth terribly close to my face.

  I stared at him, then told him to leave.

  “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m not going to leave. Not yet.”

  “Please,” I said, too weary to be angry.

  “Yes, that’s right – say please. I’d like to have you begging for it, right now, on your knees, go on, say please”

  Before I realised what was going to happen he sprang from the bed, and pulled me roughly after him, hands on my shoulders, forcing me to the floor. I was on my knees facing him. One of his hands twisted into my hair, pulling my head back roughly, the other shoved his erect penis into my mouth. There was a sweetish taste and smell, of soap and fresh sweat; then the choking, retching sensation of the thing at the back of my throat, jabbing. I tried to pull away but he held my head in place; he laughed as he moved backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, to the small sounds of my retching, and the frenetic saxophone on the radio. My stretched lips ached. I tasted all bruises, all decay, and the bitter little seepages from him, corroding my mouth.

  “Get up,” he said, pulling me to my feet, and thrusting his tongue deep into my mouth, working it round and round as he eased me backwards, and we toppled on to the bed. Then he pulled back and looked down at me, those pale blue eyes like dots of light.

  “You want it inside you, now, don’t you? You’re all the same, you bitches, you’re hard to get but you want to be crammed. Let me feel.” Roughly he thrust his hand down between my legs, pushing three or four fingers into me. Then he laughed. “Just as I thought. You’re a slack cunt, like all of them. All slack cunts wanting to be filled. You want it? You want it. Well, I like something a little tighter, lady, you know that? Turn over.”

  I flattened my back against the bed, but it was no use – Luenbach was too strong. I tried to pull away, but he straddled me, one arm across my chest.

  Why did I not scream, so that Anthony and the others might have run to help? It did not occur to me; it never does – to women, all women, spreadeagled there with me on that bed.

  “See this?” he said, reaching near the radio for something he must have placed there before. With a look of contempt, he held it in front of my eyes. First I saw the Chinese characters, then the words “Tiger Balm”.

  I was afraid now. “What is it?” I whispered, lying still.

  “It’s a magic ointment for frigid women. It’s going to give you a surprise, Barbara. It’s going to warm you up at last,” he said, staccato, pulling and pushing me over on to my stomach.

  Clenching my eyes, so that bright spots appear, whirling in the darkness, I see myself as if through the wrong end of a telescope, a small creature writhing on a bed. A tangle of sheets, head forced down into the pillows, face squashed, nose almost blocked, breath snatched through great gulps through the corner of her mouth, knees bent uncomfortably underneath, buttocks” thrust up towards him. And Luenbach kneels, smears the ointment over the tip of his penis, and pushes, slowly at first, then more roughly. The face in the pillow grunts, a stupid sound, a sound of a dumb beast who has given up and therefore deserves its fate.

  “Calves are easily bound and slaughtered/ Never knowing the reason why/ But whoever treasures freedom/ Like the swallow must learn to fly,” I used to sing, in my teenage folk song phase; maybe I deceive myself, but I think those lines came into my head then.

  “Please don’t, please …” I cried.

  “Loosen up, you tight bitch. Loosen up … that’s it, that’s it … You love it. You love it …”

  I could feel my flesh tearing, with little pinpoints of pain, as he jabbed and prodded at me, both hands bearing down on my back, harder and harder.

  “That’s it, I’ll fuck you to death up here, I’ll feel your shit …”

  The sphincter muscle gives sooner or later, the world split open for that woman on the bed, gasping now as the stinging begins deep within her, a burning pain spreading through her body. And her spine will break as he pushes down savagely, both hands clawing at the flesh of my hips, and there is no breath left, not even to snatch. As Luenbach silently pushes up and up, withdrawing only to thrust with more force, fire spreads, burning up all the waste within me – oh, but I must say inside her, for that creature is not me, cannot have been me – not my mother’s daughter, my father’s little girl.

  I did not see her, as they did not see her – yet nothing can erase that image, crisp on the lightbox.

  Oh, Mother!

  I heard the sound, buried deep in the pillow, but did not recognise it as first. But it was me. “Oh, Mother, oh Mother, help me.”

  It seemed that I was driven into that suffocating grave, with repeated blows, for hours. The only sound he made was to grunt when he came; by then the pain was anaesthetised by heat, and I fancied that my mind would slip away, ease itself into blackness and forgetting. Yet there was no escape; I remained where I was, even when he pulled himself out, leaving me to close like an anemone, aching and torn. Suddenly there was a space behind me, air where his body had been. My sweat cooled in the void. Humiliated by my position, I turned on to my side, pulling the sheets around me.

  I heard the sound of water in my bathroom, then flinched as his footsteps came out again. For a few minutes I kept my face down, dreading his eyes. At last I looked up. Luenbach was dressing calmly, as a husband might before a dinner party, his wife watching with pride. He glanced down at me and smiled, raising his eyebrows slightly. I stared back. What do people say to each other when they have just colluded in the unspeakable?

  To my horror I felt tears welling in my eyes. “Why did you do that?” I asked, closing them briefly so that he would not see.

  He was not even looking at me. Fastening the buttons of his shirt, one by one, with slow care, Luenbach said, “You should learn something, Barbara.”

  “What?” I said. “That most men hate women as much as you do?”

  He smiled again. “I don’t hate women. I just like for women to hate me.”

  “You bastard,” I said.

  “Sure,” he shrugged.

  “How long have you planned this?”

  “I don’t plan these things, Barbara. I decided you weren’t bad-looking, and you needed a little help, you know? You should say thank-you.”

  “What if I go downstairs right now and tell Anthony and Zandra? Tell them to get the police because you raped me, and like that too, you bastard.” I could hear my own voice rising in hysteria.

  “You do that. A sophisticated woman in her thirties who’s asked a man into her room … sure! Don’t worry about it, Barbara. Tomorrow night it’ll be better for you. I taught you one lesson tonight, but tomorrow night I’m gonna let you have it straight. Or maybe tomorrow afternoon if you’re lucky.”

  He made a little mock bow, switched off the radio, picked it up with the ointment, and left the room. And Luenbach’s last words were, “See you in the morning,” as if nothing had happened.

  It was just after one. I lay in sheets stained with blood, shit and semen. I could smell it all around me, mingled with stale sweat. My body ached; I fought a shocking, loosening need to go to the bathroom, and evacuate him completely. It was disgusting. Most of all now, I wanted to cry – as if the water would be healing. But my eyes regretted their momentary weakness; there was nothing there, even when they ranged around the darkness of the room, revolving as the eyes of a fly revolve when its wings have been plucked.

  I thought bleakly of how men say that some women ask for what they get. Yet / don’t know what I want, I had said, even at my age, when I should know; and so he ga
ve something to me, a gift of knowledge. Something I wanted. Something from which I learnt my own need for punishment – just or unjust.

  And did she lie like this in the darkness, my mother, as full of hatred as I was of resignation, and smelling as I smelt? He loved her, my father loved her, and yet she was repelled by a touch, an intrusion into her body made even in love. She loathed what made me; it seemed fitting that I should be doomed to accept, in loathing, what could make nothing at all.

  I found myself singing: Donna, donna, donna, donna, donna, donna, donna, don …, as I began to fall asleep. It was like a lullaby – consoling me at last. And somewhere out in the darkness I was dimly aware of the soothing flow of the incoming tide, and – nearer – a very faint splash, like a sigh.

  Chapter Twelve

  The scream seemed to begin at the end of a long tunnel, down which I was walking, then trotting, then running, towards the circle of light at the end. Yet as I approached, in terror, the light faded into blackness, sealing the escape route, and the scream grew louder and louder, reverberating all around me.

  “Jesus God! Somebody come, somebody come!”

  I sat up, groaning aloud at the dull ache at the base of my spine.

  A window was thrown open; there was a noise of voices. Then more screaming, and the sound of water splashing. I ran to my window and jerked the curtains apart. Miranda Carl stood dripping on the edge of the pool, looking up, with a pale panic-stricken face, at the house. At that moment Anthony Carl, wearing a white towelling robe, ran around the corner of the house towards her. The early morning sunlight danced on the surface of the pool, the jagged white and blue glare almost blinding. Yet, screwing up my eyes, I saw it: at the bottom of the pool, barred with light and indistinct, was a small black shape, like a stain.

  I stepped back, aware that I was naked and stank. For about ten minutes I stood there on the spot, fixed, knowing what had happened. Conscious of no need to rush I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The shock of cold made me gasp, but I did not make it warmer. The dancing pressure of water of my face and shoulders, running down my limbs and between my legs, was like a thousand tiny signals, telling me that I was still alive. I worked up a lather in my hands and slowly soaped myself all over, twice. The skin around my anus was sore; the soap stung, but it did not stop me from cleaning myself. I needed that icy tingling sensation, even the pain. I needed to be perfectly clean.