But now I realize that I don't know what to do with my arms. The right arm, under my torso, is starting to tingle, so I wrench it out from under me, jabbing Alice in the kidneys.
“Ow!”
“Sorry!”
“'S all right.”
But now they're just sort of dangling pointlessly in front of me, at weird angles, like a discarded marionette, and I'm trying to remember what I usually do with my arms when I'm not in bed with someone, i.e., my whole life. I try folding these strange new extra limbs across my chest, which doesn't seem quite right either, and now Alice has shifted slightly nearer the wall, taking the eiderdown with her, so that my backside is hanging over the edge of the bed, and a draft is blowing up the leg of my boxer shorts. So I can either yank the covers back, which will look a bit rude, or risk moving closer, which I do, so that I'm now lying curled up tight against her back, which is wonderful, and I think is technically called spooning. I can feel the rise and fall of her breathing, and try and synchronize my own with hers in the hope that this will make me fall asleep, though this seems unlikely, because my heart is clearly beating way, way too fast, like a greyhound's.
And now her hair is in my mouth. I try to flick it away by spasming an assortment of facial muscles, but this doesn't seem to work, so instead I crane my head backwards as far as I can, but her hair's still there, creeping up my nostrils now. My arms are still folded across my chest and pressed against Alice's back, so I have to lean backward and extricate my arms and brush the hair away, but now my left arm is outside the eiderdown, and cold, and I don't know where to put it, and my right arm is starting to tingle, either from cramp or an impending heart attack, and the underarm deodorant is smelling overwhelmingly Cool and Blue, and my boxers are out in the draft again, and my feet are cold, and I'm wondering if I should maybe reach over and get the hiking socks and …
“Quite a fidget, aren't you?” mumbles Alice.
“Sorry. Can't work out what to do with my arms!”
“Here …” And then she does the most amazing thing. She reaches over and takes my arm and pulls it tight around her ribs, under her T-shirt, so that my hand is resting against the warm skin of her belly, and I think I feel the curve of her breast brush against my forearm.
“Better?”
“Much better.”
“Sleepy?” she asks, which is an absurd question really, considering that her right breast is rubbing against my wrist. “Not … really,” I say. “Me neither. Talk to me.”
“What about?”
“Anything.”
“Okay.” I decide to grasp the nettle. “What did you think of Spencer?”
“I liked him.”
“You thought he was all right?”
“Yeah! Bit bloke-y, bit full-of-it …” she says, putting on her Radio 4 cockney accent, “… bit ov a jack-the-lad, but I thought he was great. And he obviously loves you.”
“Well, I don't know about that.…” I say. “No, he does. You should have heard him, singing your praises.”
“I thought he was chatting you up.…”
“God, no! Quite the opposite …” she says. What does that mean? “How come?” I ask. She hesitates, and half-turns her head and says, “Well … he seemed to have this idea in his head that you had … a bit of a crush on me.”
“Spencer said that? To you, tonight?”
“Uh-huh.” So there it is. It's out there. I don't know what to say or where to look, so I roll onto my back and sigh, “Well, thanks, Spencer, thank you very much …”
“I don't think he meant any harm by it.”
“Why, what else did he say?”
“Well, he was pretty pissed, but he said that you were a really good guy, and, well, his exact words were that you could be a bit of a twat sometimes, but that you were really loyal, and decent, and that there weren't many blokes out there like you and if I had any sense I should … go out with you.”
“Spencer said all that?”
“Uh-huh,” and I have this fleeting image of Spencer standing under the streetlight, in the drizzle with his eyes closed, the heel of his hand pressed against his forehead, and me walking the other way.
“What are you thinking?” says Alice, facing the wall again.
“Um. Don't know, really.”
“I assume it's true, though, yeah? I mean, I had an idea that it might be true.”
“Is it really so obvious?”
“Well, I suppose I have caught you looking at me every now and then. And then there was our dinner date …”
“Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed about that …”
“Don't be. It was nice. It's just …”
“What.”
She's silent for a moment, and then sighs deeply and squeezes my hand, the kind of gesture that lets you know your hamster's died, and I brace myself for the good old “let's-be-friends” speech. But then she flips over to look at me, pushes her hair behind her ears, and I can just about make out her face in the pulsing orange glow of the radio–alarm clock.
“I don't know, Brian. I'm really bad news, you know.”
“No, you're not.…”
“I am though, really. Every relationship I've ever had has ended up with someone being hurt.…”
“I don't mind.…”
“You would, though, if it was you. I mean, you know what I'm like.…”
“I know, you've told me. But like I said, I don't mind, because isn't it better to try? I mean, wouldn't it be better to give it a go, see how we got on? It would be up to you, obviously, because you might not like me in that way.…”
“Well, I've thought about it, obviously. But it's not even to do with you. I haven't really got time for that whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing, what with playing Hedda, and the team and everything. I value my independence too much.…”
“Well, I really value my independence, too!” I say, though this is of course a lie of absolutely epic proportions, because what am I supposed to do with independence? You know what “independence” is? “Independence” is staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night with your fingernails digging into the palms of your hand. “Independence” is realizing that the only person you've spoken to all day is the man in the off-license. “Independence” is a value meal in the basement of Burger King on a Saturday afternoon. When Alice talks about “independence” she means something completely different. “Independence” is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old “lonely.”
And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyze and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you're lonely and of course they'll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly.
Well, I've been lonely as a snake all my life and I'm sick of it. I want to be part of a team, a partnership, I want to sense that audible hum of envy and admiration and relief when we walk into a room together—“Thank God, we're all right now, because they're here”—but also to be slightly scary, slightly intimidating, sharp as razors, Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night, glamorous and sexually enthralled with each other, like Burton and Taylor, or like Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, except stable and sensible and constant, without the mental breakdowns and infidelity and divorce. I can't say any of this out loud, of course, because there's nothing at this moment that would scare her more, short of producing an axe, and I certainly can't use the word “lonely” because it does tend to make people uncomfortable. So what do I say instead? I take a deep breath, and
sigh, and put my hand to my head, and finally this is what I come up with.
“All I know is that I think you're absolutely amazing, Alice, and stunningly beautiful, of course, not that it matters, and that I just love being with you, spending time with you, and I think that, well, I really think that we should …” And then there's a pause, and that's when I do it. I kiss Alice Harbinson.
And then I'm kissing her, actually kissing her properly, on the mouth and everything. Her lips are warm but dry at first, and very slightly chapped, so that I can feel a little hard, sharp spur of dead skin on her bottom lip, which I contemplate biting off, but wonder if maybe that's perhaps a bit audaciously sensual, biting, within the first few seconds. Maybe I could kiss it off, might that be possible? Can you kiss off dead skin? What might that involve? I'm just about to try when Alice pulls her head away, and I think maybe I've blown it, but instead she just smiles and reaches up and pulls the little flap of dead skin off her own lip and drops it down the side of the bed. Then she blots her lip with the back of her hand, glances at it to check she's not bleeding, licks her lips and we're kissing again, and it's heaven.
When it comes to kissing, I'm obviously no connoisseur, but I'm pretty sure that this is good kissing. It's very different from the Rebecca Epstein experience; Rebecca's a great person and a lot of fun and everything, but kissing Rebecca Epstein was all hard edges. Alice's mouth appears to have no edges at all, just warmth and softness, and despite the ever-so-slight tang of hot, minty bad breath from one of us—me, probably—it is pretty much heaven, or it would be if I wasn't suddenly aware that I don't know what to do with my tongue, which suddenly seems to have grown massive and meaty, like something you see shrink-wrapped in plastic in a butcher's. Is a tongue appropriate here? I wonder. And then in answer I feel her tongue just tentatively touching my teeth, and then she takes my hand and moves it on top of her T-shirt, Snoopy lying on his kennel, and then underneath her T-shirt, and then after that I have to confess that everything starts to get a little bit blurred.
32
QUESTION: What was the more familiar name of the Hungarian rabbi's son Erich Weiss, famed for his feats of escapology and disappearance?
ANSWER: Harry Houdini.
The next morning we kiss some more, but with less of the ardent erotic abandon of the previous night, now that we're in daylight and she can see what she's up against. Also Alice has got a 9:15 mask workshop, so just after 8:00 I'm holding on to my mud-caked shoes, and heading for the door. “Sure you don't want me to walk in with you?”
“No, no, that's okay …”
“You're sure?”
“I've got to get my stuff together, have a shower and everything.…”
I'd be very happy to hang around for that, and feel in some indefinable way that I've earned it, but it's a communal bathroom, which obviously makes things difficult, and, besides, I've got to remember, play it cool, play it cool …
“Well, thank you for having me,” I say, trying for a kind of saucy swagger that I don't quite pull off, then I lean in and kiss her. She pulls away a little too quickly, and for a moment I wonder if I should be offended, but she immediately provides a perfectly rational explanation: “Sorry, bad breath!”
“Not at all,” I say, even though her breath actually does smell really, really bad. I don't care, though. She could be breathing fire and I wouldn't mind.
“You could be breathing fire and I wouldn't mind,” I say.
She makes a skeptical “hmmm” noise and rolls her eyes delightedly, and says, “Yeah, well, you'd better go, before anyone sees you. And Brian?”
“Uh-huh?”
“You're not to tell anyone. Promise?”
“Of course.”
“Our secret … ?”
“Absolutely.”
“Completely?”
“I promise.”
“Okay—ready?” and she opens the door and peers down the corridor to check that the coast is clear, then gives me a loving little shove out of the door, as if pushing an unwilling parachutist from a plane, and I turn around just in time to see her beautiful face disappearing behind the door, smiling, I'm pretty sure.
I sit on a radiator in the corridor, and tap my ruined shoes together, flaking mud all over the parquet floor.
I float home. I've not really eaten anything except crisps and peanuts for twenty-four hours, so I'm starving hungry, and I've managed to pull a muscle in my neck while kissing Alice, which has got to be a good thing. I also have that dizzy, hollow, drugged feeling that you get when you've stayed up all night, and am pretty much running on adrenaline, elation and someone else's saliva, so I stop in the garage and get a can of Fanta, a Mars bar and a Mint Aero for breakfast, and start to feel a little better.
It's a beautiful crisp winter morning, and there are crowds of school-kids holding hands with their parents, strolling to school. Standing eating the Mint Aero at a pedestrian crossing I catch the eye of the little girl standing next to me, who's glancing curiously at my shoes and trousers, which are still caked in mud, so that it looks as if I've been dipped in milk chocolate. This strikes me as the kind of quaint picture-book image that little kids respond to, so I smile at the little girl, bend down and say aloud, in a J. D. Salinger-ish kind of way: “I've actually been dipped in milk chocolate!”
But something happens to the words between my brain and my mouth, and it suddenly sounds as if this is the strangest and most disturbing thing that anyone has ever said to a child. Her mum seems to agree too, because she scowls at me like I'm the Child-catcher, picks up her child and hurries across the road before the lights have even changed. I shrug it off, because I'm determined not to let anything spoil this morning, because I want to keep hold of this feeling of slightly queasy elation, but there's something else bothering me, something that I can't quite shake off.
Spencer. What do I say to Spencer? Apologize, I suppose. But not too solemnly, I won't make a big deal about it, I'll just sort of say, hey, sorry about last night, I think things got a bit out of hand, mate, and then we'll just sort of laugh it off. And I'll tell him about how Alice and I made love, except I won't call it that, I'll call it “got off with each other,” and then things will be back to normal. Of course it's probably best if he does still leave today, but I'll make an effort, I'll bunk off lectures and patch things up and escort him to the train station.
But when I get back to Richmond House, he's not there. In fact the room seems exactly the same as when we left it yesterday afternoon—the bed frame, the mess of duvets and cold, damp towels, the smell of ammonia and Special Brew and gas. I wonder if he's left any possessions here, and then remember that he didn't actually have any in the first place—just a thin plastic bag with a three-day-old Daily Mirror and a stale meat pasty in it, still beside my desk where he left it. Anxious, I pick up the plastic bag, and head out to the kitchen, where Josh and Marcus are eating poached eggs and checking their share prices in the Times.
“Did either of you see Spencer last night?”
“No, 'fraid not,” says Josh.
“Isn't he with you?” grumbles Marcus.
“No, we got split up at a party. I thought he'd make his own way back.”
“Why? Where have you been then, you dirty stop-out?” leers Josh.
“Just staying over at a friend's place. My friend Alice's, actually,” I say, and then remember that I'm not meant to tell anyone.
“Whooooooooooo,” they say in unison.
“Well, you know how it is, you've either got it or you haven't!” I say, put Spencer's stuff in the bin, and leave. I haven't got “it” of course, I've never had “it,” never will have “it,” am not even sure what “it” is, but there's no reason why I shouldn't let people think that I do have “it,” even if it's just for a little while.
Round Four
Rosemary stood up and leanded down and said her most sincear
thing to him: “Oh, we're such actors—you and I.”
—F.Scoot Fitzgeral
d, Tender is the night
33
QUESTION: In his article of 1926, published in the review Lef by the poet Mayakovsky, Sergei Eisenstein proposes a new form of cinema that relies less on the static, logical, linear unfolding of action, and more on a stylized juxtaposition of images. What is Eisenstein's name for this new cinematic form?
ANSWER: Montage of attractions.
There's a generic convention, recognizable particularly from mainstream American film, where the hero and heroine fall in love with each other during a protracted, wordless montage sequence, inevitably underscored by some sort of lush orchestral ballad, usually with a sax solo. I'm not sure why falling in love should be wordless—maybe because the actual business of sharing your most intimate thoughts and secrets and desires is a bit of a chore for those not immediately involved. But, anyway, this sequence illustrates all the various fun things that young lovers are meant to do— eating popcorn at the movies, giving each other piggybacks, kissing on a park bench, trying on goofy hats, drinking glasses of wine in a foam-filled bath, falling into swimming pools, walking home arm in arm at night whilst pointing out the different constellations, etc., etc., etc.
Well, with Alice and me, the last week has been absolutely nothing like that at all. In fact, I haven't heard from her, which is fine because my new watchwords are Cool and Aloof, and I'm taking great care not to infringe on her precious independence, especially as she's so busy with Hedda Gabler. And I really don't mind not hearing from her. In fact, I've only telephoned her, what, five, six times during the entire week, and I haven't left messages either, so the beauty of it is that, as far as Alice is concerned, I haven't phoned her, either! Admittedly, there was one slightly sticky moment when Rebecca Epstein picked up the phone, and I had to subtly alter my voice a little way into the call, but I think I got away with it.
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