New World in the Morning (21 page)

But the Ritz that night was short on celebrated actors.

It didn't matter.

“All the world's a stage… They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” I can't remember now if there was any run-up to this small confidence or if I even let Moira know to whom I was referring. I
can
remember, though, remarking that if
I
had written that particular speech I'd have improved on it a little. “It isn't logical. Entrances should come
before
exits—well, obviously.” I saw myself, for a moment, right at the cutting edge of scholarship. “Do you love me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”

“I feel I ought to tell you,” I told her…carefully…”that I am not altogether very lovable.”

“And I feel I ought to tell you that perhaps you're not… altogether…the best judge of that.”

“Will
you
be my judge?” I then asked, earnestly.

“In this case, yes, certainly, with pleasure.” She put on her white cap. “I pronounce you very lovable.”

Anyone who can place a damask napkin on her head in the middle of the Ritz dining room—even for only a second or two—has to be a fairly decent judge.

I felt very safe being in the hands of such a fairly decent judge.

“But you haven't all the facts.” I knew there were lots of things I ought to say—and that I'd definitely never get a better opportunity for saying them. I hoped to harvest, or harness, as many of my wandering thoughts as possible. I swallowed some more wine.

“Then give me all the facts,” she invited. She gazed at me now with wholly undisguised affection. She leant her elbows on the table and put her face between her hands. “I don't know if I can reverse the verdict but I feel you'd better acquaint me with the evidence.”

“Well, you see, Your Honour, it's like this.”

What was it like, though? Exactly? I made a truly heroic attempt to consider what it
was
like. Exactly.

“I think it may be best if I tell you in the car.”

“Coward,” she said. “Procrastinator! But if it's going to take long—then, yes, you're probably right.” She had glanced at her watch and made a mild grimace at what it told her.

She signalled to our waiter and drained her demitasse as he approached.

“Please! You've got to let me!” I said, fumbling for my wallet.

But her tone was suddenly imperious; and partly because of this, partly because I had a lot else on my mind, I gratefully submitted.

And, gosh, was it a time to show gratitude! I didn't see the bill but thought that very possibly it would have necessitated another interview with Hal Smart.

21

“I'm really, you see, a married man. And I've been a married man for many married years. And I've got a daughter of fifteen called Ella and a son of Matt called twelve. And my grandmother didn't even make that cake, although I told you that she did, because my grandmother is dead and no longer does the cooking. And Susie doesn't belong to any of the neighbours—she belongs to me—well, to us, that is, to me and Junie and Susie and Matt. And I love you very much and I'm very sorry that I made up stories.”

And then I told her in great detail of my plans: London from Monday to Friday, Deal at the weekends (“but you'd hardly notice I was gone!”). I had the impression that all the right words were coming to me, that I spoke with unusual eloquence and was really getting through to her, letting her know all about my childhood and frustrations and mistakes. And, also, all about the compensations I had found along the way. I remember at one point I related to her the plot of
The Captain's Paradise
: how Alec Guinness, as the captain of a steamer plying between Gibraltar and Tangier, has a very domesticated kind of wife in one port and a very sensual and exotic kind in the other: the seemingly perfect situation. (In spite of its containing risks. As when the two women, each unaware of the existence of a counterpart, strike up a conversation in a store in Tangier at a moment when he himself is hurrying there to keep a rendezvous with one of them…! Suspense!) Seemingly perfect, I should say, because then Celia Johnson, who's the quiet, domesticated one, starts unexpectedly to change, grows tired of always being at home and wants to go out dancing, while Yvonne de Carlo, who's the sultry one, starts wanting to stay in and cook delicious suppers…which also struck me as a pretty fair solution so there must have been some reason why he hadn't just adapted and why he had somehow ended up in front of a firing squad (I'm sure there hadn't been a murder) although as the film was a comedy, one naturally realized he wasn't going to get shot. I think he must have bribed somebody… In any case I told Moira, quite honestly, I wasn't certain about that, which led me on to reassure her that until our meeting on the beach I had never told a single lie to anyone…well, at least never a real whopper; there were always going to be the very small ones, weren't there, and nobody's name had ever been George Washington other than George Washington's and anyone else who'd either been named after him or coincidentally been called George when their parents had chanced to be a Mr and Mrs Washington?…and, anyway, I hadn't really meant to deceive her, it had just sort of grown—“O what a wangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!”—and it was only because I had liked the look of her so much and had wanted to make myself interesting because I had liked the look of her so much (so in a manner of speaking it was she who was to blame: she shouldn't have bewitched and enthralled me like Cleopatra enwitching and bethralling Antony)… It suddenly occurred to me she hadn't said a great deal throughout all of this—or indeed, perhaps, hadn't said anything at all—but this was obviously because she couldn't concentrate both on the driving and on thinking over the various convincing arguments that I'd put forward; not as well, I mean, as being expected actually to reply to all the various convincing arguments that I'd put forward.

Besides, I knew at the moment she was probably feeling angry with me (and had a perfect right to be feeling angry with me). I began to suspect that my growing awareness of there being a distance between us wasn't solely due to the fact of her concentration; and I understood this—it was natural—any woman (even the kind of woman Moira was: an angel: “there were angels dining at the Ritz”) could certainly have been expected to feel angry with me.

Very
angry.

Even Junie. Perhaps even Junie.

So then I began to apologize and to hope that I hadn't ruined her evening because until I had started to get everything off my chest it had been the very happiest evening of my life, the very happiest
two
evenings of my life, with the very happiest night and day dividing them. But the chest-baring had been necessary—as of course I knew she understood—although I greatly wished it hadn't. And I appreciated, too, the way that, apart from a single glass of champagne, she had stuck to only fruit juice or spring water throughout the entire evening, even at the theatre bar during the interval (although she'd also had a glass of the Bordeaux before we'd started out), which was a sacrifice which like the similar one the night before I hadn't at all taken for granted. By rights it should have been my turn tonight to make the sacrifice and I was truly a cad for not having insisted on doing so. I very much regretted that. And I was still apologizing as I followed her up the stairs to the flat; and was alarmed suddenly to find there were tears running down my face. All right, I was a beast, I knew it and I hated it, quite beastlike through and through, but I was going to make it up to her; I would eliminate the beast if it was the very last thing I did; and only weak men cried. I tried to wipe away the tears and pretended it was just a piece of grit and told her that mentioning Celia Johnson had made me think of
Brief Encounter
, about this woman with a dull but happy marriage who gets a similar bit of grit in her eye while waiting for her train and then has it removed—in the station refreshment room—by a nice-looking doctor who the following week walks into the overcrowded Kardomah where she happens to be having lunch… But it wasn't at all a funny film like
The Captain's Paradise
and it would depend on whether she wanted a laugh or a cry as to which I'd recommend if they chanced to be showing simultaneously, say on BBC 2 and Channel 4, and she hadn't got a video recorder.

Which she hadn't.

And neither had I.

Or neither had we.

But perhaps she'd already seen
Brief Encounter
? Perhaps it would have been surprising if she hadn't. Perhaps she'd already seen
The Captain's Paradise
? Perhaps the courteous thing would have been to find out.

Belatedly, I tried to find out.

Asked the question. But no good. I couldn't wait to hear the answer.

Had to rush off to be sick.

My God but it was sudden. Yet at least I'd made it home; at least I'd made it to the loo. At least I hadn't spewed up in the car. Thank heaven for small mercies. No, thank heaven for
huge
, never-to-be-forgotten mercies. Oh, my God! Imagine! Supposing I'd spewed up in the car!

I hoped she couldn't hear me. I knew damn well she could. The tears really did fall then, while I knelt and encompassed the cool china and disgorged throatfuls of splashing brown vomit and retched and retched as though my final hour had practically arrived. It distantly occurred to me that my dinner-suited arms embracing the white lavatory bowl looked like a thick black stripe bordering an envelope of condolence.

What I obviously needed was sleep: lots and lots of sleep; and then it might come right once more.
Somehow
come right once more. But not tonight. There was no way I could take her riding round the world again tonight: either on a cockhorse or up in a balloon or even under sail, in a pirate ship, alongside Errol Flynn—this time in his role as Captain Blood. Just the thought of any kind of undulation was enough to make me heave.

And heave and heave and heave.

22

Oddly, it was again around eleven-fifty when I woke, and again I was alone in the bed. But before I realized either of these things, I'd remembered all the throwing up; remembered it with a cringing in my gut, a shrivelling in my crotch. Oh, God. Oh, God.
Oh, God!

But that was my very last recollection: being on my knees—in my dinner jacket—with my arms around the bowl. I couldn't remember undressing, or brushing my teeth, or leaving the bathroom. Strain as I might I couldn't even recall having flushed the lavatory. I
must
have flushed the lavatory. Whatever else I had done, or had not done, during the whole course of the evening—during the whole course of my life—I must, please God, dear God, I must have flushed that lavatory.

I had been on my knees. Now I tried to will myself into a recollection of the act of getting up from them. I couldn't.
Couldn't
! Had I simply passed out? There on the bathroom floor?

Yet, here in bed, I was certainly undressed.

Except for the boxers. I flexed my feet. And except for the socks.

That was it, then. If I'd undressed myself I would never have left on my shorts or my socks. Never!

Oh, Moira.

Moira.

Where are you?

She must be in the kitchen. Drinking tea. Reading the paper. And yet…the depth of the silence…I heard the thrumming of the fridge; a far-off conversation in the street. No radio. No creakings of a wooden chair. I pushed aside the duvet; slid my legs across the bed; forced myself to find the floor.

Extreme mortification (together with a desperate desire to take at least that first step along the road to recovery and atonement), this kept my hangover to some extent at bay: kept it quivering before me at arm's length, at finger's length, while I stumbled, collided, lurched towards the kitchen. Sudden contact with daylight, even slate-coloured daylight, felt stingingly offensive.

But she wasn't in the kitchen.

I already knew she wasn't in the sitting room.

Nor was she in the bathroom.

I stooped painfully—raised both the lid and seat of the lavatory. Everything was fresh, sweet-smelling; the water tinted blue. (Well, surprise! Had I honestly expected her to leave it?) More painfully I examined the exterior of the porcelain, the fluffy rug around its base. But then I remembered that yesterday's rug had been the glowing shade of thick honey. Today's was a dull green.

My evening suit lay folded on a stool. My shirt was maybe with it but I didn't want to look.

I urinated; washed my hands; rinsed out my mouth. Made my way back to the bed. Lay down, closed my eyes, tried to think. Tried to retrieve my memory…gain with it some measure of reassurance.

Half an hour went by. I couldn't stay like this. I knew I had to be showered and shaved and smelling of toothpaste and
Cool Water
(My Scintillating Future!) by the time that she returned. I should be clean and penitent and dignified, not rough-skinned, sour-breathed and rheumy-eyed. No whining, no weakness. The situation wasn't lost.

Respect surely retrievable? That was the issue, the
sine qua non
. Without respect you lost everything. You lost the lot. Precious metal transmuted back to base. Second-class citizen—and, in the eyes of those who had recast you, doomed always to remain one. No appeal; no redress. You might as well be dead.

But even so. I wasn't dead yet. I could forestall this tragedy. All I needed was the willpower.

All I needed was to put the enemy to rout. My greatest enemy …inertia. I said to myself through every stage of my ablutions:
Be positive! Broad-shouldered! Unbeatable!
At one point I was actually shouting it, in competition with a forceful jet of water. My resolve—so fragile when I'd left the bed—began to grow. My hangover began to ease.