A Single Man (17 page)

Kenny doesn’t want coffee or tea; he would rather have beer, he says. So George gets him a can from the icebox, and unwisely pours himself a biggish Scotch. He returns to find Kenny looking around the room as though it fascinates him.

‘You live here all by yourself, Sir?’

‘Yes,’ says George; and adds with a shade of irony, ‘Does that surprise you?’

‘No. One of the kids said he thought you did.’

‘As a matter of fact, I used to share this place with a friend.’

But Kenny shows no curiosity about the friend. ‘You don’t even have a cat or a dog or anything?’

‘You think I should?’ George asks, a bit aggressive. The poor old guy doesn’t have anything to love, he thinks Kenny is thinking.

‘Hell, no! Didn’t Baudelaire say they’re liable to turn into demons and take over your life?’

‘Something like that. . . . This friend of mine had lots of animals, though, and they didn’t seem to take
us
over. . . . Of course, it’s different when there’s two of you. We often used to agree that neither one of us would want to keep on the animals if the other wasn’t there —’

No. Kenny is absolutely not curious about any of this. Indeed, he is concentrating on taking a huge bite out of his sandwich. So George asks him, ‘Is it all right?’

‘I’ll say!’ He grins at George with his mouth full, then swallows and adds, ‘You know something, Sir? I believe you’ve discovered the secret of the perfect life!’

‘I have?’ George has just gulped nearly a quarter of his Scotch, to drown out a spasm which started when he talked about Jim and the animals. Now he feels the alcohol coming back on him with a rush. It is exhilarating, but it is coming much too fast.

‘You don’t realise how many kids my age just dream about the kind of set-up you’ve got here. I mean, what more can you want? I mean, you don’t have to take orders from anybody. You can do any crazy thing that comes into your head.’

‘And that’s your idea of the perfect life?’

‘Sure it is!’

‘Honestly?’

‘What’s the matter, Sir? Don’t you believe me?’

‘What I don’t quite understand is, if you’re so keen on living alone – how does Lois fit in?’

‘Lois? What’s she got to do with it?’

‘Now, look, Kenny – I don’t mean to be nosey – but,
rightly or wrongly, I got the idea that you and she might be, well, considering —’

‘Getting married? No. That’s out.’

‘Oh —?’

‘She says she won’t marry a Caucasian. She says she can’t take people in this country seriously. She doesn’t feel anything we do here
means
anything. She wants to go back to Japan and teach.’

‘She’s an American citizen, isn’t she?’

‘Oh, sure. She’s a Nisei. But, just the same, she and her whole family got shipped up to one of those internment camps in the sierras, right after the War began. Her father had to sell his business for peanuts, give it away practically, to some sharks who were grabbing all the Japanese property, and talking big about avenging Pearl Harbour! Lois was only a small kid, then, but you can’t expect anyone to forget a thing like that. She says they were all treated as enemy aliens; no one even gave a damn which side they were on. She says the Negroes were the only ones who acted decently to them. And a few pacifists. Christ, she certainly has the right to hate our guts! Not that she does, actually. She always seems to be able to see the funny side of things —’

‘And how do you feel about her?’

‘Oh, I like her a lot.’

‘And she likes you, doesn’t she?’

‘I guess so. Yes, she does. A lot.’

‘But don’t you
want
to marry her?’

‘Oh sure. I guess so. If she were to change her attitude. But I doubt if she will. And, anyhow, I’m in no rush about marrying anyone. There’s a lot of things I want to do, first —’ Kenny pauses, regarding George with his
most teasing, penetrating grin. ‘You know what I think, Sir?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t believe you’re that much interested, whether I marry Lois or not. I think you want to ask me something different. Only you’re not sure how I’ll take it —’

‘What do I want to ask you?’

This is getting positively flirty, on both sides. Kenny’s blanket, under the relaxing influence of the talk and beer, has slipped, baring an arm and a shoulder and turning itself into a classical Greek garment, the chlamys worn by a young disciple – the favourite, surely – of some philosopher. At this moment, he is utterly, dangerously charming.

‘You want to know if Lois and I – if we make out together.’

‘Well, do you?’

Kenny laughs triumphantly. ‘So I was right!’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. . . . Do you?’

‘We did, once.’

‘Why only once?’

‘It wasn’t so long ago. We went to a motel. It’s down the beach, as a matter of fact, quite near here.’

‘Is that why you drove out here tonight?’

‘Yes – partly. I was trying to talk her into going there again.’

‘And that’s what the argument was about?’

‘Who says we had an argument?’

‘You left her to drive home alone, didn’t you?’

‘Oh well, that was because. . . . No, you’re right – she didn’t want to – she hated that motel the first time, and I don’t blame her. The office and the desk-clerk and the
register; all that stuff they put you through. And of course they know damn well what the score is. . . . It all makes the thing much too important, and corny, like some big sin or something. And the way they look at you! Girls mind all that much more than we do —’

‘So now she’s called the whole thing off?’

‘Hell, no, it’s not that bad! It’s not that she’s against it, you understand. Not on principle. In fact, she’s definitely – well, anyhow. . . . I guess we can work something out. We’ll have to see —’

‘You mean, maybe you can find some place that isn’t so public and embarrassing?’

‘That’d be a big help, certainly —’ Kenny grins, yawns, stretches himself. The chlamys slips off his other shoulder. He pulls it back over both shoulders as he rises, turning it into a blanket again and himself into a gawky twentieth-century American boy comically stranded without his clothes. ‘Look, Sir, it’s getting as late as all hell. I have to be going.’

‘Where, may I ask?’

‘Why, back across town.’

‘In what?’

‘I can get a bus, can’t I?’

‘They won’t start running for another two hours, at least.’

‘Just the same —’

‘Why don’t you stay here? Tomorrow I’ll drive you.’

‘I don’t think I —’

‘If you start wandering around this neighbourhood in the dark, now the bars are shut, the police will stop you and ask what you’re doing. And you aren’t exactly sober, if you don’t mind my saying so. They might even take you in.’

‘Honestly, Sir, I’ll be all right.’

‘I think you’re out of your mind. However, we’ll discuss that in a minute. . . . First – sit down. I’ve got something I want to tell you.’

Kenny sits down obediently, without further protest. Perhaps he is curious to know what George’s next move will be.

‘Now listen to this very carefully. I am about to make a simple statement of fact. Or facts. No comment is required from you. If you like, you can decide that this doesn’t concern you at all. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘There’s a woman I know who lives here; a very close friend of mine. We have supper together at least one day a week; often more than that. Matter of fact, we had supper tonight. Now – it never makes any difference to her, which day I pick. So what I’ve decided is this – and, mind, it has nothing whatsoever to do with you,
necessarily
– from now on, I shall go to her place for supper each week on the same night.
Invariably, on the same night
. Tonight, that is. . . . Is that much clear? No, don’t answer. Go right on listening, because I’m just coming to the point. . . . These nights, when I have supper with my friend,
I shall never, under any circumstances
, return here before midnight. Is that clear? No – listen! This house is never locked, because anyone could get into it, anyway, just by breaking a panel in the glass door. Upstairs, in my study, you must have noticed that there’s a couch bed? I keep it made up with clean sheets on it, just on the once-in-a-blue-moon chance that I’ll get an unexpected guest – such as you are going to be tonight, for instance. . . . No – listen carefully! If that bed were
ever used while I was out, and straightened up afterwards, I’d never be any the wiser. And if my cleaning-woman were to notice anything, she’d merely put the sheets out to go to the laundry; she’d suppose I’d had a guest and forgotten to tell her. . . . All right! I’ve made a decision and now I’ve told you about it. Just as I might tell you I’d decided to water the garden on a certain day of the week. I have also told you a few facts about this house. You can make a note of them. Or you can forget them. That’s all —’

George looks straight at Kenny. Kenny smiles back at him faintly. But he is – yes, just a little bit – embarrassed.

‘And now get me another drink.’

‘Okay, Sir.’ Kenny rises from his chair with noticeable eagerness, as if glad of this breaking of tension. He picks up George’s glass and goes into the kitchen. George calls after him, ‘And get yourself one, too!’

Kenny puts his head around the corner, grinning. ‘Is that an order, Sir?’

‘You’re damn right it is!’

‘I suppose you’ve decided I’m a dirty old man?’

While Kenny was getting the drinks from the kitchen, George has felt himself entering a new phase. Now, as Kenny takes his seat again, he is, though he cannot have realised it yet, in the presence of a George transformed; a formidable George, who articulates thickly but clearly, with a menace behind his words. An inquisitorial George, seated in judgment and perhaps about to pronounce sentence. An oracular George, who may shortly begin to speak with tongues.

This isn’t at all like their drunkenness at The Starboard Side. Kenny and he are no longer in the symbolic dialogue-relationship; this new phase of communication is very much person-to-person. Yet, paradoxically, Kenny seems farther away, not closer; he has receded far beyond the possible limits of an electric field. Indeed, it is only now and then that George can see him clearly, for the room has become dazzlingly bright and Kenny’s face keeps fading into the brightness. Also, there is a loud buzzing in George’s ears; so loud that he can’t be certain if Kenny answered his question or not.

‘You needn’t say anything,’ George tells Kenny (thus dealing with either possibility), ‘because I admit it – Oh, hell, yes – of course I admit it – I
am
a dirty old man. Ninety-nine per cent of all old men are dirty. That is, if you want to talk that language. If you insist on that kind of dreariness. I’m not protesting against what you choose to call me or don’t. I’m protesting against an attitude – and I’m only doing that for your sake, not mine —

‘Look – things are quite bad enough anyhow, nowadays – we’re in quite enough of a mess, semantically and every other way – without getting ourselves entangled in these dreary categories. I mean, what is this life of ours supposed to be
for
? Are we to spend it identifying each other with catalogues, like tourists in an art gallery? Or are we to try to exchange
some
kind of a signal, however garbled, before it’s too late?
You
answer
me
that —!

‘It’s all very fine and easy for you young things to come to me on campus and tell me I’m cagey. Merciful Christ –
cagey
! Don’t you even know better than that? Don’t you have a glimmering of how I must feel – longing to
speak
?

‘You asked me about experience. So I told you. Experience isn’t any
use
. And yet, in quite another way, it
might
be. If only we weren’t all such miserable fools and prudes and cowards. Yes, you too, my boy. And don’t you dare deny it! What I said just now, about the bed in the study – that shocked you. Because you were determined to be shocked. You utterly refused to understand my motives. Oh God, don’t you
see
? That bed – what that bed
means
– that’s what experience
is
—!

‘Oh well, I’m not blaming you. It’d be a miracle if you
did
understand. Never mind. Forget it. Here am I. Here are you – in that damned blanket; why don’t you take it right off, for Christ’s sake? What made me say that? I suppose you’re going to misunderstand that, too? Well, if you do, I don’t give a damn. The point is – here am I and here are you – and for once there’s no one to disturb us. This may never happen again. I mean that literally! And the time is
desperately
short. All right, let’s put the cards on the table. Why are you here in this room at this moment?
Because you want me to tell you something!
That’s the true reason you came all the way across town tonight. You may have honestly believed it was to get Lois in bed with you. Mind you, I’m not saying one word against her. She’s a truly beautiful angel. But you can’t fool a dirty old man; he isn’t sentimental about Young Love; he knows just how much it’s worth – a great deal, but not everything. No, my dear Kenneth – you came here this evening to see
me
; whether you realised it or not. Some part of you knew quite well that Lois would refuse to go to that motel again; and that that would give you an excuse to send her home and get yourself stranded out here. I expect that poor girl is feeling terrible about it all,
right now, and crying into her pillow. You must be very sweet to her when you see her again —