Her Lover (122 page)

'Why?'

She blew her nose, her tears withered by the unsympathetic welcome they had been given. He observed that her nose was red and swollen. Oddly enough, he felt no resentment at this moment and stared at her puffy nose in a not unkindly way. He repeated his 'Why?' several times, without thinking, mechanically.

'I don't know what you're saying. Why what?'

'Why are you crying?'

'Because I'm sorry.'

'But why? You did what you did.'

'It all seems so hateful now.'

'But presumably you didn't hate it when you were biting his neck. Incidentally, did you bite his neck every day?'

'What are you trying to say? I never bit his neck.'

'Well, that's good to know. Thanks. I shall have to start asking you to bite my neck. At least that's something you won't have done with him. In any case, it's the only thing I'll ever ask you to do for me from now on. (She bit her lip to stifle a mirthless, nervous giggle.) How many times did you sleep with each other? I'll keep on asking until tomorrow if I have to.'

'I gave myself to him just that one time.'

'Gave myself! The words made him grip the glass he was holding so hard that it broke and blood flowed. She came closer and asked him to let her disinfect it for him.

To hell with antiseptics! Why just the one time?'

'I told him what we were doing was wrong.'

He burst out laughing. Like a schoolmistress explaining to the little boy that what he'd done wasn't very nice and really quite naughty! Suddenly he felt inexpressibly happy. He put two cigarettes in his mouth, lit both, pulled on them hard and heartily, walked up and down, highly pleased with himself. Stopping in front of her, his two cigarettes held between his second and third fingers, he glared at her defiantly, elatedly. The light of battle lit his mouth.

'So then and there, still moist and clammy, you told him.'

'No, next day.'

'You went back to see him, you were in love with him, you'd enjoyed it first time round, felt what you nobly call ecstasy, eggstatic eggstasy, and then you decided you'd had enough, right? But one time or a hundred times, it's all the same! Did you sleep with him a hundred times?'

'No, I swear!'

'Fifty?'

'No.'

'Nine hundred times?'

'No.'

'Fifteen?'

'Good God, do you think I kept a tally?'

Appalled, he sat down,.wiped his forehead with his bleeding hand. She hadn't counted! That meant it must have happened lots of times! Fifteen times at least, it seemed: fifteen would be a minimum!

'Go on.'

'What do you want me to say?'

'What I am waiting for you to say. Out with it!'

'I never felt anything after that first time,' she said after a pause.

Tainted, diminished, she looked away. Oh, he would stop loving her now. He stared at her with interest. Never felt anything! She certainly had a way with words!

'Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why didn't you feel anything the other times? You felt something the first time.'

'How should I know, for goodness' sake! I just didn't feel anything.'

'So why did you go on with it?'

'To avoid upsetting him. Oh leave me alone,' she groaned.

He sensed that she was telling the truth and looked at her with curiosity. A completely different species. To avoid upsetting him! How polite could "you get!

'Why did he used to come to your house?'

'That was just at the start.'

'Wasn't it good enough for him where he lived? Why did he have to turn up on your husband's doorstep?'

'Because I liked seeing him. Because my husband was boring.'

She coughed liked a consumptive, louder and longer than was strictly necessary. He felt a stab of pain. Liked seeing another man! That was worse than going to bed with him. He pictured her sitting at her window, waiting for Dietsch to appear on the horizon!

'And whenever your husband left the room you would kiss?'

'No, never!' she exclaimed, and again he knew that she was telling the truth.

'Why not?'

'Because it wouldn't have been right,' she sobbed.

He began spinning round and round like a dervish, arms outstretched, forehead streaked with blood. Her reply took his breath away. He stopped whirling, faced the wall, beat his head against it, beat his cut hand against it and began counting silently. He stopped when there were six bloody hand-prints on the wall. Poor darling, what you must be going through, she thought. Oh, if only he would at least let her see to his hand. Was it badly cut? And his forehead, it was all covered in blood. Her poor darling, and all on account of Dietsch. He turned, looked at her disconsolately, seeing another man's woman. Then he went away.

CHAPTER 98

He poured eau-de-Cologne over his cut hand, decided that as gashed hands went he'd made a pretty good job of things, then felt bored. Surely she wasn't not going to come, was she, and leave him all by himself? For something to do, he thought about dying, imagined himself lying in his coffin with all the grisly details, then he inflicted assorted poses on the furry teddy-bear, turning him into a lover declaring his passion and then into a dictator haranguing a crowd. He was making him play football with a jade marble when he heard two knocks. He turned and saw that a sheet of paper had been slipped under the door. He picked it up.

'All the people I knew had dropped me. The only person I was really close to, my uncle, was in Africa. I was so isolated, my life was empty. I only went to bed with you know who so, that I could have him as a friend, so I wouldn't feel all alone. I never loved him. He was my refuge from the poor devil I married. The moment you appeared on the scene and wanted me, he simply ceased to exist. Don't laugh if I say that I came to you virgin in mind and body. You mustn't laugh because it's true. Oh yes, virgin in body too, because I never knew what physical joy was until I met you. Don't leave me. If you're tired of me there's only one thing left for me to do. I'm so unhappy. Please let me come in.'

Behind the door he heard muffled sobs. He put on a pair of white gloves, gashed hand first, and got into a fresh dressing-gown, a black
one, to contrast with the gloves. After a look at himself in the mirror, he opened the door. She was sitting on the floor, hair in a tangle, with her head against the jamb and a little handkerchief in one hand. He took her by both arms and helped her to her feet. She was shivering, so he opened his wardrobe, took out one of his coats, and put it over her. Standing there lost in a man's overcoat which was far too big and long and left only her ankles showing, she seemed very small, like a little girl. She kept her hands hidden in the sleeves, her teeth chattered and she looked waifish, swamped by his enormous coat.

'Sit down,' he said. Til make you some tea.'

As soon as she was alone, she got up, felt in the pocket of her dressing-gown for her comb and compact, tidied her hair, blew her nose, powdered her face, sat down again, waited, looked around the room, and was surprised to see the teddy-bear: he'd never mentioned any teddy-bear to her, it was the twin of the one he'd given her. She ran her finger through its fur. When he returned, carrying a tray, she began shivering again.

'Drink this, darling,' he said when he'd poured her a cup. (She sniffled, looked up at him with eyes like a beaten dog, swallowed a mouthful, and shivered some more.) 'Want a biscuit? (She said no with a meek little shake of her head.) Have some more tea.'

She steeled herself and said: 'Do you still love me?'

He smiled, and she took his gloved hand and kissed it gingerly.

'Did you disinfect it?'

'Yes.'

'Won't you have some tea too? I'll get you a cup.'

'No, don't bother.'

'Drink out of mine, then.'

He took a sip and then sat down facing her. The sound of dance music floated in from the neighbours' house across the way, and there was a burst of happy voices. They paid no attention. It was late, but she did not feel sleepy. Nobody's bored tonight, he thought. She picked up a cigarette-box off the table, held it out to him, and gave him a light. He took two pulls on the cigarette, then stubbed it out. He smiled again, and she sat on his knee and held out her lips. Their kiss lasted some time. She wanted him, and in no time at all, as though nothing untoward had happened, she knew that he wanted her too. Women sometimes have a way of catching on. But, suddenly remembering that these lips had been offered to another, he freed himself, but calmly and without fuss.

'It's over now, darling girl, and I want to say I'm sorry. But, if you really want it to be over for good, you must tell me everything.'

'But afterwards things would be worse, not better.'

'On the contrary, it'll make me easier in my mind: I won't have this unbearable feeling that you're hiding things from me. I was impossible back there, and I'm truly sorry. It's just that I felt excluded from a part of your life, I felt like a stranger who had no right to know. It was too hurtful.'

He gently rearranged a lock of her hair.

'Are you sure it'll be all right afterwards?'

'Afterwards you will be a sweet girl who's made a clean breast of everything to the man she loves. Besides, after all, so what, dull as Dietsch-water, all passed under the bridge now, right? (He's so sweet, she thought, still so young, very loving, if a little shell-shocked.) We mustn't let him loom so large: he's not worth it. Oh, I know that the a conductor/the conductor business wasn't important. And anyway you broke it off with him at once. (He rearranged another lock of her hair.) Actually I'm not in any hurry, just knowing that you'll tell me everything sooner or later has eased my mind. You see, I'm quite a different person already. If you don't want to talk about it tonight, you can tell me when you're good and ready: tomorrow, the day after, next week.'

'I'd rather get it over with now,' she said.

Now in buoyant mood, he kissed her, all smiles, surrendering to the anticipated pleasure of hearing the tale. Like a boy at the circus waiting for the clowns to be brought on. Fussing over her, he brought her another, warmer, coat, his vicuna, which he spread over her legs, and then offered to make more tea. He danced attendance, treating her as though she were pregnant or a genius about to deliver herself of a masterpiece and not to be ruffled at any cost. He turned off the ceiling Hght, lit the bedside lamp, and even suggested that she had a He-down, but this she refused.

'I'd prefer it if you asked me questions,' she said, taking his hand.

'How did you get to know him?'

'Through Alix de Boygne, a friend of mine, the only one I had left, much older than me, middle-aged. (Enter the Bawd, he thought.) She was very kind to me.'

'Tell me about her,' he said warmly, all ears.

'Good society background, but there had been someone in her life, a married man whose wife wouldn't give him a divorce, it all caused a bit of a stir in Geneva at the time. But all that was ages ago, and it's forgotten now. (The hypocrisy of that "someone in her life" filled him with anger, and he felt a sudden hatred for the lascivious old tart. But he didn't let it show, and nodded understandingly.) She's very generous, keeps an open mind. (And that's not all she keeps open, he thought.) She was very interested in art, helped to fund a chamber orchestra and invited budding musicians down to stay at her house in the country. (A taste for young flesh, he thought.) She was tremendously cross with the people we knew for dropping me. She rallied round and rather spoilt me.'

She sniffed and wiped her nose.

'Was she fat?'

'A bit,' she said awkwardly. (He smiled, thrilled by her obesity.) 'But terribly elegant. (Courtesy of steel-boned stays, he thought, and a maid to pull the draw-strings tight.) And tremendously cultured too.'

'You never mentioned her when we were in Geneva.'

'That was because I'd stopped seeing her. She left town just before I, before I got to know you. She went off to Kenya to live with her married sister.' (And with black men, he thought.)

'And you met him at her house?'

'Yes,' she said, underlining the word with an affirmative but restrained nod.

The respectable, conventional gesture set his teeth on edge, but he overrode his irritation. After all, she wasn't going to launch into the dance of the seven veils just because the man had crept into the conversation.

'How old was he?' he asked with a twinge of unease.

'Fifty-five.'

He smiled faintly. That meant he'd be about fifty-six now. Good. And four years from now, sixty. Even better.

'Tall?'

'Not tall, but not short either. Middling.'

'What sort of middling? Middling to tall or middling to short?'

'A bit shorter than average height. (He smiled benignly. He was almost getting to like comrade Dietsch.) Look, can't we drop this now?'

'No. Describe him some more.'

'If I do, it won't all turn nasty, will it?'

'On the contrary, darling. I told you. What about his hair, for example?'

'White, combed straight back,' she said, looking at her sandals. (He put his hands on her knees and squeezed gently.) 'Now that's enough describing, if you don't mind.'

'And his moustache. Also white?'

'No.'

'Black?'

'Yes.'

He relaxed his grip, changed his mind, and squeezed again. He did not dare ask for further details. Comrade Dietsch was quite capable of being trim and well-proportioned. Stick to his head. Not bald, unfortunately. But at least his hair was white, thank God.

'Yes,' he said earnesdy, 'I can quite see that the contrast between the black moustache and the white hair must have been quite striking. (She coughed.) Sorry?'

'I didn't say anything. Throat tickling a bit.'

'But the contrast was striking?'

'At first, I found him off-putting. (Fine, but let's get on to later!) It was his moustache, it looked dyed. But I soon realized ... I can tell you everything, can't I?'

'Darling, look at me. I'm calm as can be, and that's because you've stopped holding me at arm's length. You were saying that you soon realized.'