Somewhere Beyond Reproach (9 page)

‘This one will have to be fixed‚’ I yelled above the laughter. Dinah was laughing too much to hear me.

There was no doubt that fatty was the villain. The audience at once started to roar for the other man. whose name
appeared
to be Bob. At first Bob had everything his own way. Fatty amid hoots of laughter clumsily reeled about while Bob jumped around giving him nimble jabs and cuts.

A child behind us screamed:

‘Fatty’s yellar. He don’t even dare show his face.’

This was an allusion to the mask he was wearing. Other jeers of:

‘Take off his mask … kick him … lace ’im up ’orrible, Bob.’

All the time Dinah was laughing uncontrollably. Bob got Fatty over by the ropes and managed to push his head through the top and middle ropes. He then pulled them tight. Fatty spluttered horrendously. His face, or what could be seen of it, looked almost purple. Bob hit his helpless
opponent
, and while the referee made various deliberately
ineffective
efforts to intervene, Bob appealed to the crowd as to whether he should do it again.

‘Murder the fat slug … kill ’im … ’it him,’ roared the
crowd by way of assent. Bob responded with a flurry of illegal punches to the slug’s head. Bob then nonchalantly strode over to the other side of the ring while the referee laboriously extricated his gasping opponent. Bob’s recent behaviour seemed distinctly out of character for somebody I had
mentally
christened as ‘everybody’s perfect dad in his prime’. The next development however had clearly not been foreseen by the promoters. Fatty became impatient with his role of
ludicrous
and inept buffoon and grotesque villain. After forcing Bob against the corner posts on several occasions, he decided to charge him and this time not to miss. Lucky Bob just avoided certain pulverisation. Unfortunately he was not quick enough to get out of the way of Fatty rebounding off the ropes. He fell, all thirty stone of him and travelling fast, on to the crouching Bob. The crowd roared their disapproval. But Bob could not have heard. He was still lying insensible when he was carried out. The hissing and booing were deafening. Not even Fatty’s seconds came to lead him
triumphant
home. He had disgraced himself by winning.

‘I bet you didn’t expect that,’ I said when the noise had died down a bit.

‘I don’t expect Bob did either,’ laughed Dinah. Then
maternally
serious: ‘I hope he wasn’t seriously hurt.’

The master of ceremonies was in the ring again. He looked rather less composed.

‘I can assure you ladies and gentlemen that it is not easy to fix a fight of equal weights in this class, but I do assure you that it was a fair fight. Bob Brandon knew what he was up against and accepted without hesitation.’ A rousing cheer. ‘I’m afraid weight has told its ugly tale. I feel sure that Bob will be none the worse for his fall when he gets back to Bootle tomorrow. Now for the next fight: we are very proud to present none other than …’ Once again the cheering
obliterated
his words.

This time a West Indian was to fight a smooth-looking young man in golden sequin-covered wrestling boots and a pair of gold and white striped trunks. The fight looked a great deal more genuine than either of the other ones and was
consistently
more hard fought. In the early stages of the fight the man in the golden boots had his hair well brushed back and done up behind his head with a bow, eighteenth-century style. In the second round the bow came off and the formerly smooth youth became as wild to look at as any old man of the woods. His knowingly complacent smile now looked
grotesquely
inept. The cries to the West Indian to begin with had been: ‘Go easy, he’s fragile.’ Now they became: ‘Watch him, he’s dirty.’ Half way through the third round a
red-faced
young man in the front row yelled some racially
undesirable
encouragement to the wild one. The black man leapt out of the ring and was at once shaking his fist at the now trembling spectator. The crowd laughed, booed and clapped. The golden-booted boy shouted: ‘You’re meant to be fighting me.’ Eventually the West Indian’s seconds managed to persuade him to go back into the ring.

The final result came a few seconds afterwards with a folding-body-press from the golden boy. The master of
ceremonies
announced the result and then went on gravely:

‘A very great wrestler and sportsman has just left the ring after a thoroughly clean and well-fought contest. A few minutes ago a
gentleman
in the audience suggested that he should “go back to the trees”. I should like to remind that member of the audience that our friend from the West Indies is not only a member of the British Commonwealth, but also a British subject and British passport holder….’ His voice faded as the clapping began, punctuated by the occasional hiss of derision. I saw Dinah listening with unbelief.

‘It’s so perfect, so completely to be expected….’

*

We left before the winning raffle-tickets were announced. I still suspect that Dinah’s guesses about the prizes may have been right.

As we pushed our way out past knees and feet I wondered how much we had both laughed out of nervousness, out of the delight to be able to laugh. But now we would soon be out in the street. We could recount the moments which had made us laugh. Wasn’t it funny when …? And then? Would
she come out to dinner? Did I dare risk refusal by asking? Anything I could do or say now must be an anticlimax. But we had enjoyed ourselves together. Nothing could take that away from me. And if she had laughed and joked with me could she now turn a mournful face and say that she had to go home? Yet two complete strangers could laugh at a wrestling match. What had been added except another ‘do you
remember
’?

In the street she shivered. Her coat was in my car.

‘I can’t let you go home to cook yourself something at this hour.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to. I’ve got to get my husband something to eat.’

He’s been ill you see. Not very good on his legs. She could have said it but she didn’t. Did this mean that she had not made up her mind? At half past eight I already felt it must be too late for her to cook Simpson supper. She must have left him something.

‘That’s a pity.’ My voice flat, unemotional, proud, giving away nothing. A pity. What useless words. And then if I
hurriedly
said on the drive back to her flat that after all these years would it be all right if just occasionally I could see her? Just for the passive pleasure of being with her, talking to her, looking into her dark eyes. If I said that …? ‘Success comes in cans. Failure comes in can’ts.’ I’d read that on the back of the matches I’d lit my cigar with the same afternoon. I wanted to scream. And the car was already a hundred yards closer, and she was walking so quickly on her high heels, her skirt moving ever so slightly over the cheeks of her bottom. What a word to use describing a sight that filled me with
helpless
and indignant longing. We used to lie in bed on Sundays and sometimes I sat on a chair afterwards and looked at her as she slept, looked at the curve of the stomach, the slight shadow round the navel. And your skin was so soft in the morning light and the falling line of your breasts so gentle as it swelled to the tips of your nipples. She clutched her arms round her and shivered. How thin the silk was. How easily the raw air would meet the warmth of her tender skin.

When she was seated next to me in the car I knew that I would say more.

‘I’ve booked a table.’

She looked at me, her dark eyes troubled.

‘You should have told me.’ No harshness in her voice,
apparently
regret. Did she act that well then? She looked straight at me. ‘You weren’t expecting
me
. Andrew was meant to come.’

‘You must have known, Dinah. I was expecting you.’

‘You mustn’t try to stop me going back.’ I thought there was slight desperation in her voice.

‘But after ten years … come, Dinah, you can’t begrudge me one evening after all that time?’ My voice laughing; my soul a broken jam jar on a grave. A couple passed arm in arm, their faces turned inwards towards each other. I saw her outside her aunt’s cottage in Tewkesbury. My hand clutching hers to say goodbye. Her hand withdrawn. ‘Not even that?’ Say yes, my love, say yes.

‘Honestly, Harry …’ A pause. Was she thinking: what use is comfort that is deception? She sat forward in her seat her mind made up. ‘Yes, I’ll come.’

Somewhere in the ruins of my hope a flower opens. My tongue stirs like a young leaf in spring.

‘I’m so glad, so very glad.’

*

A white tablecloth, a single candle, a basket of rolls, a dish of butter. The place is crowded. Dinah’s hands move in the candlelight, that keeps on catching her engagement ring. The chairs uncomfortable but the food good.

I had
coq
au
vin
and she
veal
à
la
princesse.
We talked a bit about how good the food was. I told her I sometimes came there for lunch. Dinah took another sip of wine and said suddenly:

‘What do you want, Harry?’

She was not asking about pudding or cheese. Her eyes firmly holding mine.

‘To see you sometimes.’ Her mouth curled slightly at the corners. She seemed slightly to shake her head.

‘And how often is that? Every now and then? When you feel like it?’

‘I don’t understand what you want me to say, Dinah.’

‘I want you to say what
you
want of me.’

The restaurant was hot. I felt the sweat at the back of my neck. My shirt clung to my back. No chance to laugh and joke my way out. She said:

‘You took out Andrew because of me. You gave him toys because of me. Is this a way to start a casual
acquaintance
? I’m not so stupid as not to see that one meeting means another, that more is said and known. That more is felt. Harry, we’re not old friends.’

‘We were lovers, and so must inevitably become lovers again if we meet? Is that what you’re saying?’ I managed an empty show of pious anger.

‘My husband said you met each other in the street. Another chance? First Andrew, then him. I thought I saw you
outside
our flats. Mark is a cripple, you saw that. You wanted to find out about the sort of life I lead, but you already know a lot. You brought the toys.’

‘I did what I had to because …’ Useless to finish: to say over my unfinished food: I did what I did because day without you is fathomless night. You are the first and only stirring in the memory of my blood. You are like the wind that can obliterate every footstep and trace that I have ever made. You have eaten my laughter. I have become pale dead grass upon the dunes. She said:

‘I’m sure that you think the process would be
imperceptible
. That I would begin to love you slowly.’

‘I’ve said nothing. I have asked you out to dinner after ten years. I was curious. I wanted to know. I loved you.’ My voice truly agonised.

‘What did my mother tell you when you went to see her? That I hated you?’ She was leaning forward. I remembered that same desperate light in her eyes.

‘Did she tell you that I was afraid of you? Did you think that was why I married Mark so fast?’ She said this without her voice rising.

‘She told me nothing except that you had been miserable. If you want to you must tell me.’

She lifted her glass and drank. She said nothing for a moment or two. Then:

‘Not yet, Harry.’

I wanted to be out in the street, out of the heat. I wanted the cool air in my lungs. I looked at her still holding the glass in her hand. She was smiling. I didn’t know why. What had happened? Where had I lost control? Anger again. Why the smile? For the first time my voice was raised:

‘Will you see me again?’ I will go mad if you don’t stop smiling at me. My question asked, the smile faded. Her face became an empty mask.

‘I don’t know, Harry. Honestly I don’t.’

*

In the car everything was different. I asked myself whether I had not imagined what had been said in the restaurant. She talked about her mother’s imagined rheumatism, about Andrew’s last school report. Did I think he was intelligent? What film had we seen? How was my business going? Her mother had been so impressed. She’d thought it was impossible to make money these days. Where was I living? Did I like it? Outside the flats she asked me whether I liked miniatures. I said I liked some. She was going to look at some miniatures at Sotheby’s after lunch the following Tuesday. She had bought several rugs there recently. Better than Christie’s, she thought.

With my catalogue in my hand I wandered around the crowded showrooms. It was just before two. I looked at a small tortoiseshell box, with a metal tracery pattern on the lid. Obligingly the catalogue told me that no. 68 was a
toothpick
case with canted corners, the lid decorated with silver piqué, gilt metal mounts.

An overalled attendant nudged me and pointed to a small Persian box with an obscene painting in the lid, the woman bending over, the man approaching from behind. I looked away. ‘Very fine’ I muttered. He let out a noise which could have been the prelude to vomiting but which I knew to be a laugh. I decided to get back to the miniatures. I whipped round as I heard her voice behind me:

‘Look at this one: Venus and Cupid at the altar of love.’ Dinah was smiling at me and pointing to an ivory box. My catalogue provided me with inspiration.

‘I’d rather have an English oval
memento
mori
pendant.’

‘Isn’t that a bit lugubrious of you? Come and see the one I want.’ Her smile was still there. I suppose in her place I would have found everything highly amusing. The miniature she wanted was by James Hone. I examined it carefully. A woman was sitting on a bench, which had an
embroidered
shawl hanging over the back. There were pearls
in her powdered hair and she was wearing a dark-blue velvet dress. On her lap a King Charles spaniel looked up at her sharp features with an expression of imbecile devotion.

‘I like it‚’ I said.

‘No more than that?’ she said with mock disappointment.

‘The detail is fantastic of course,’ I added lamely.

‘Don’t you like the spaniel’s face?’

‘I prefer the pearls in her hair.’

‘Would you come and bid for it?’

‘For myself or for you?’

‘For yourself of course.’

‘I’m not a collector,’ I said fatuously.

‘Nor am I‚’ came the inevitable answer. ‘I just like it. Look at the gold fringe on the shawl.’ Dutifully I looked. Very
exacting
work. Well done, James Hone.

‘When is the auction?’ I asked.

‘It tells you on the front of the catalogue. Next Friday.’

‘Can I give it to you?’

‘I wouldn’t like to have to return something I like as much as this.’

I felt like ripping the thing from its case and stamping on it. I looked more carefully at the woman’s face. The artist had certainly caught her effortless arrogance. The spaniel stared up sadly.

Over by the door I caught sight of a marble Venus, her finger pointing towards the door. Art and love so delicately and eternally entwined. Dinah followed the direction of my gaze. She said:

‘There used to be a statue like that in the garden of Mark’s father’s place.’

There had. I saw the stump of that crudely maimed arm pointing senselessly into the rhododendrons, exhorting me to search for another tennis ball. The plinth had been chipped. She wobbled if you pushed. I had tried to kiss Dinah beside her one sunset. I had wobbled too and almost fallen as she stepped back. Did she remember that?

‘Can we go now?’ I asked.

‘I haven’t seen much yet.’

So we looked at a gold and hardstone vinaigrette, a French bronze watch stand in the shape of a lyre, a miniature of an officer wearing a blue uniform with red facings, a miniature of a divine with powdered wig, black robes and white linen collar. I pretended not to be looking at the same as her. She indicated a miniature of another military gentleman described in the catalogue as of the ‘9th Regiment S.E.L.L.V.’.

‘What on earth do they all stand for?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

‘I don’t suppose it really matters,’ she said seriously.

Venus beckoned me to the door a second time.

‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have some tea or coffee?’

‘I’ve only just had lunch.’ She looked at my sullenly
resentful
face. ‘Oh, all right then.’ This in a ‘There, there, everything will be all right’ voice.

*

In the street Dinah said:

‘So you’ve seen me again.’ I couldn’t calculate whether this remark was made with some serious intent or whether she was still mocking me.

‘I hope I’m going to be able to see you for tea as well.’

‘I thought that was the general intention when we left the showrooms.’

I wondered whether I had ever really seen Dinah as an individual before. Her present behaviour was a not altogether pleasant assertion of her separate identity. Gone were those silent days. This was more the Dinah of the tennis court, the Dinah whose forehand drive I had shivered to receive. How easily she had seen through my tactics, and yet she had been vulnerable once. She had hated me leaving after my nights at her flat. She was like the skilful fighter who fights to defeat herself. Or this was what I hoped. She had told me where to come. She had wanted to see me again. Was that enough? Did I have to know her reasons? Was she to be the proud heroine of some movie? After the clever conversations, the rejections of the man she had always loved, would pride after the statutory time melt away with the final clinch?

The tea room we chose was crowded and peopled almost
entirely by old women, their ankles swollen after the shops. Ten shillings for tea and cakes. Oh yes, real cream. Since she had decided to take the initiative I decided to let her go on doing so. We neither of us spoke for some minutes. We would be there for over twenty minutes. It would probably take that long to be served and get the bill. One of the women at the next-door table said:

‘I’d rather take a grubby little room in Soho than go and stay with them.’

The waitress came. We chose from her laden trolley.
Carefully
she lifted out our chosen sticky morsels. I insisted that we did not want toast. I did realise I would pay for it? Yes, yes.

Behind me I heard:

‘So because Jack was learning to fly Tom also had to have a try. It had been just the same with sailing; he was quite useless at that too.’

A smile from Dinah, who had also heard.

‘Am I going to pour the tea?’ she asked in a surprised voice. As though she had expected it to pour itself.

‘I’ll do it.’ The water jug was too hot to move. ‘Like that? Bit more?’

In a way I enjoyed it. The delightfully nervous self-
consciousness
of the whole performance. Like writing a play, or a book. What line comes next? I knew where I was trying to get to. Only a matter of getting there. But so many
alternatives
. And this play alas, could not be a monologue.

‘How did you get on with Mark when you met him in the street?’ she asked, emphasising the last three words.

I guessed that he had not confirmed her suspicion that I had followed him.

‘I don’t think I was with him long enough to form an opinion.’

‘Well that’s lucky.’

‘I don’t quite see that.’

‘It would have been awkward if you’d disliked him.’

My face quite blank as she looked at me with amused eyes.

‘Awkward for him, for me, for you?’ My bewilderment seemed to delight her.

‘For all of us.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Do you?’ A look of cunning.

‘No, of course I don’t.’

‘You shouldn’t try to mislead me then.’ The irony of her words did not escape her. She went on: ‘I was thinking that as you want to know so much about me, I might try to show you
me
in my natural habitat. A sort of cosy evening, just the three of us at home.’

‘Would Mark enjoy that?’

‘I don’t see why not. He doesn’t get about a lot. New faces, don’tcha know.’

Again I was sweating. This was worse than our dinner. So was she thinking: if he actually comes he must really love me? Was she trying to embarrass me or her husband? Was she suggesting it because she didn’t care what she did?

‘It wouldn’t be quite fair to keep you all to myself.’

‘I’m honoured,’ I choked out. Then: ‘Do you enjoy trying to make a fool of me?’

‘Didn’t you enjoy it once?’ My stomach seemed to have been seized by a cold and bony hand. I put down my cake and breathed deeply. She looked at me with slight alarm.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

The feeling passed. I said slowly:

‘You know that if you ask me I’ll come?’

‘Yes‚’ she replied without hesitation or surprise.

All her levity had gone. She looked at me closely. Those eyes, Dinah, those eyes that burn out my mind. I thought of her in that coffee bar in Notting Hill after I had first slept with her. ‘Some people are afraid of me.’ But now she said quietly:

‘You really don’t see why, do you?’ Her tone was almost exasperation. ‘Can’t you see that I can’t lie to Mark. That if I see you, he must see you? Do you have any idea how ill he was? And that isn’t right either. I don’t mean that I can’t bear to lie to a cripple. I can’t lie to Mark.’

I remembered my own confession of embarrassment to him.

‘I see.’ She did not challenge my comprehension this time. She said abruptly:

‘You’d better get the bill.’

I did so, and we walked out into the street together.

‘I’m going to get Andrew some vests and pants.’ As she left me she said:

‘I’ll let you know when our dinner is.’