The School of Night: A Novel (16 page)

‘What?’

‘The Pavilion on the King’s Road. Go and get your coat and I’ll drive you over.’

I explained to Stefan that I was going out for the evening.

‘Good luck,’ he said and smiled. ‘See if you can find yourself a little female company for once.’

Dan now drove a Porsche 911 Targa. Its black roof had been removed and its white bodywork gleamed in the evening sun.

‘Not too fast, Dan,’ I said, fastening my seatbelt.

‘In London? The chance would be a fine thing.’ It felt fast enough all the same, the way he throttled and cornered. I think Dan imagined I was afraid of speed. It’s not fear, in fact, but a kind of vertigo when things blur by, lose their precision in the surge of movement. I feel as though I’m the one who’s disappearing. Probably why, for me, walking is the only form of locomotion compatible with keeping your wits about you.

‘Had this long?’ I asked as he swerved round Trafalgar Square and up on to the Mall.

‘No. Not long. To be honest I’ve just about got its number. It’s a real beast, this one, believe me. You have three litres of serious German engine crouching on the axle back there. As the acceleration increases, the rear weight hunkers down closer and closer to the road, which is fine unless you have to lift off suddenly while you’re doing a bit of hard cornering. Then, mild understeer turns into pronounced oversteer before you can even blink.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘It means you lose the car, that’s what it means. The back’s suddenly round the front of you. I know, because I took it out on a skid-pan a few weeks back and did it.’

‘And is that likely to happen?’

‘You’ve got to be going fast, Sean.
Fast.
You never have managed to get your brain round the speed of things, have you?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘But then, given the speed the BBC moves at, I don’t suppose it matters too much anyway.’

And on we went. Buckingham Palace went by swiftly and soon we were humming down Eaton Square, then round and up along the King’s Road. Two minutes later Dan pulled into the forecourt of his new possession.

*   *   *

The Pavilion was an enormous confection of white stucco, its façade contrived to provide the stone impersonation of a marquee. A large purple banner was now draped across the broad lintel, which read:
The New Pavilion. Opening Tonight.
I looked at Dan and he grinned.

‘Fancy a drink, Sean?’

‘Know anywhere round here that’s decent?’

‘This place isn’t bad, I’ve heard.’ And in we went.

Everything glittered and shone. Metallic chairs and tables winked at the chrome bar, which in turn reflected the gleaming fittings of the ceiling lights. Whatever wasn’t painted white was painted a bright primary colour. The waiters and waitresses went about their tasks dressed in yellow uniforms, the men in jackets and the women in some form of zippered jumpsuit.

‘Two restaurants, one burger joint and three separate bars.’ Dan said as we arrived at one of them. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘A gin and tonic,’ I said without thinking.

‘No you won’t,’ he said, ‘you’ll have a pint of this.’ And he laid his hand on the tap of the draught beer we both used to drink in Yorkshire. Tetley’s.

‘Does it travel?’ I asked.

‘Better than you do, I should think.’ As the pints were being pulled, Dan suddenly darted off and I watched him as he spoke to one of the young men in yellow jackets. The movement of his arms looked menacing. Then he was back again. He lifted his glass and chinked it against mine.

‘So what do you think?’

‘It’s very impressive, Dan. Congratulations.’

‘Only the beginning. In this particular field, anyway.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘Give this character here whatever he wants,’ he said to the barman, who nodded, ‘he’s an old friend of mine. My oldest friend, in fact, isn’t that right, Sean?’ Then he was off again, shouting instructions, shaking his head at something or other, disappearing downstairs. And I was left to sample his free drinks and look around me at all the dizzy sheen and glitter.

‘Known Mr Pagett a long time then?’ the barman asked, as he spilt a stream of change into the till with a professional jangle.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A long time.’

‘How did you meet?’

‘He beat up someone who’d annoyed me.’

*   *   *

Soon the place filled up. Invitations had evidently been scattered across London. People had been tempted to come and have a free glass of champagne. Most of them were dressed so elegantly that it was hard to believe they needed a free glass of anything. Food appeared on trays. Canapés and savoury chunks on sticks, tiny cubes of cheese, folded little whispers of meat. From time to time Dan appeared and nodded to me confidentially, as though we were the only ones who knew what was really going on. I turned round halfway through the evening and saw Dominique in the reflection of one of the full-length mirrors. I walked across to her. She was made up up for the occasion and wearing a black trouser suit I didn’t remember seeing before. She kissed me lightly on the cheek.

‘Impressive, isn’t it? Your friend is doing well for himself.’

‘And he didn’t even go to Oxford.’

‘Or do analysis.’

‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Dominique.’

‘You always expect too much or too little, Sean.’ Then Dan was beside us. He took me by the arm.

‘Come, come now. This isn’t the time for old faces,’ he said, pulling me away and grinning. ‘It’s an opportunity for you to meet some new ones.’ Ten seconds later I stood before a woman in a tight white dress who had the brightest orange hair I had ever seen.

‘Kate Halloran, meet Sean Tallow. Sean’s my oldest friend and a very distinguished author. Get him to tell you about his book
Oral Sex and Dental Hygiene.
I found it full of useful tips, myself, though you might as well skip the archbishop’s introduction. Even you might learn a thing or two, my love. Kate, Sean, is a model.’ Then he was gone. Kate looked at me and shrugged.

‘Was he always like that?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he’s definitely improving.’

So we found a table and sat down. A bottle of champagne was delivered with the compliments of the house. I told her, since she asked, how I knew Dan. From time to time I caught sight of Dominique, who moved in and out of his circle at the bar. She seemed to laugh a lot, a lot more than I remembered her laughing. What was so funny, all of a sudden, and why had no one told me the joke? Odd how lonely seeing her laugh like that made me feel, so I tried to focus entirely on my new companion, who seemed more than happy to be focused on, and some time around midnight I went to get her coat. Dan was in the foyer, with a gaggle of men about him in various states of inebriation. They were all spraying him with the congratulatory dottle of their bonhomie.

‘Glad you’ve hit it off with Kate,’ he said and gave me a knowing smile. ‘I had a feeling you would. Was it the flaming hair attracted you?’

‘You know me, Dan. I just like girls whose hearts are in the right place, that’s all.’

‘I never got as far as her heart, but I think you’ll find all the other bits and pieces are more or less where you’d expect. Her exits and her entrances. You might find it a pleasant change, Sean, to be honest.’ A few minutes later, Kate and I were in a taxi heading for Museum Street.

That night we made love repeatedly and, given her cries and gasps, I suppose noisily. Dan had been right, I did find it a pleasant change, so pleasant that only in the morning light did I start to consider Stefan. He had, after all, encouraged me to go and find a female companion. On the other hand, he had been very particular about maintaining the boundaries of amorous discretion. Or did that only apply to him?

When I finally emerged from the bedroom, he was already there in the kitchen, percolating coffee.

‘Hello, Stefan,’ I said. He smiled at me. Given the byzantine complexity of his facial semiology, one could never be sure, but it looked like a smile of congratulation.

‘I brought a friend back last night.’

‘Yes, I heard. Is she still here?’ On cue, Kate padded in, having finally disentangled herself from the sheets. She was barefoot and barelegged.

‘Kate Halloran, meet Stefan Kreuz,’ I said, a little shyly. ‘This is Stefan’s flat, by the way.’

‘Hello, Stefan,’ Kate said, the words flowing slowly from her lips, still sticky with sleep, syrupy with solicitude. He took her hand and shook it very gently.

‘And hello to you, my dear.’

Kate went away that day, but only so that she could bring some of her things back in the evening. Our days together turned into a week. Stefan said nothing. I kept observing him closely to catch any signs of disapproval, but I could see none. During the following week, Kate started preparing meals for all three of us. She had never discussed this with me, but Stefan seemed more than happy to join in with the preparations. She was a very good cook. I came back one day to find them both in the kitchen, cooking and chatting amiably, as Stefan guided her through the preparation of an authentic goulash. I edged back out quietly, leaving them to it, humming a Bessie Smith tune quietly to myself as I went.

She told me she had been born in Portsmouth. At the age of eighteen she had entered the photographic files of the Southsea Model Directory and soon found herself walking down some of the less attended catwalks of the Home Counties, simulating smiles, cavorting to the syncopations of desire. Soon she had come to London, hoping to be photographed for the tabloids. Two days later she was surprised to find herself in a draughty studio in Wandsworth, alone with a photographer who was unshaven and hung-over, his pale flesh ghostly in the morning light. He had spent three hours shooting her topless. A few of these pictures were subsequently published, not however on Page Three of her chosen red top, but instead in magazines with predictable names that always end up on the top shelf at the newsagents. Which was why, she explained, needing money as badly as she did by then, she had found herself working four nights a week at a nightclub off St James’s Square, which advertised itself as ‘an exotic oasis in the city for gentlemen’. The waitresses all served topless. No physical contact was permitted in the main bar, but there was a separate room below, dark and spiky with music and smoke, where plenty of touching took place to make sure all the bits and pieces were in the right places. And if a gentleman in pursuit of his urban exotica was prepared to pay £100 to the management, either by credit card or cash, he could start out into the night with the waitress of his choice, with whom he must then make his own
ad hoc
financial arrangements regarding hourly rates and services to be provided.

All this information was provided in sleepy conversations over the pillow, between our frenzied engagements. The teeth-clenched intensity of her thrown-back head was new to me. Dominique had never done more than moan quietly to herself, as though chasing whispers down the corridors of her repressions. Or could they have been mine?

Kate’s flesh seemed powdered somehow, like her face, chalky-white with moondust. And she was usually fogged as though she had just emerged from sleep, or was about to make the long descent back into it. Somehow she seemed to spend half the day either dressing or undressing, though she could be snagged for hours at a time in a limbo of dishevelment somewhere between the two. The white flesh of her legs and sometimes, when she only wore one of my shirts and sat drinking coffee in the kitchen, that of her breasts, was easily visible as she loped about, curled, stretched, or leaned forward with an easy motion to reciprocate whatever gesture had just been offered.

I couldn’t keep my hands off her and it took a few weeks before I started to register the discrepancy: Kate would go into her frenzied mode before I’d barely touched her. Her cries and contortions always arrived with the same regularity, continued at the same pace, died away with the same attenuated fall. I started to wonder if Kate’s body could be telling me lies. I felt some strange and unwelcome memory stirring, of touching the flesh but knowing the spirit was elsewhere. Then one day, when she had gone for a walk down Oxford Street, I rifled through the bags in the corner where she kept most of her things, and found her portfolio from the Southsea Model Directory. When I saw the teeth-clenched intensity of her thrown-back head, with nothing more sensual than strobe lights caressing her breasts and thighs, I felt curiously hollow; felt as though I’d at last found the body of evidence under the body; caught out my own desire as somehow fraudulent, entrapped and entangled in a scheme that had preceded it.

I could no longer connect, not with any conviction, and asked myself whether she’d ever truly connected at all. Soon I couldn’t bear to hear her moans. I had a feeling that she’d once recorded them, then simply memorised the performance. I didn’t feel as though they had anything to do with me and I longed once again for Dominique’s soft and self-beguiling murmurs, as she sank further down and I sank further in.

*   *   *

‘It’s been wonderful, Kate, really, but I just feel I need to be alone again for a while, that’s all. I’m essentially the solitary type. But Dan probably told you that.’ She looked at me and then shrugged. Exactly how we’d met.

‘I’m going up north for a fortnight,’ I said, ‘and I’ve had a word with Stefan about you staying on by yourself here while I’m gone, so you can find somewhere else. He said that would be fine. I’ve settled the rent. I’ll be back on the fifteenth. So, if you could find somewhere by then…’

‘As long as you enjoyed it,’ she said.

‘Oh, I enjoyed it, believe me.’

And that weekend I took the train from King’s Cross to Yorkshire.

11

On the way up I tried to register all the different counties, but half of them seemed to have melded one into another by the time the train finally pulled into the station. I caught sight of one of the old public buildings and was back twenty years before. I had gone to the local art gallery one weekend and stood next to a Henry Moore sculpture of a woman, the great gaping mountain of a woman, with outcrops for breasts and a vast void of a womb. I had placed my hand carefully on its rough-cast surface, just above the blind declivities of her eyes. A uniformed figure had beaked swiftly out of a corner.