Love Again Page 16

  And yet, if it really is so terrible, so painful, that sitting here I feel like a miserable old ghost at a feast, why is it that for two decades, more, I lived content with a deprivation I only now feel is intolerable? Most of the time I hardly noticed that I was ageing. I did not care. I was too busy. My life is too interesting. With better luck (meaning, if I had not entered Julie’s territory), I could have lived comfortably with something like a light dimming, or a fire dying down almost unnoticed, and arrived at being really old, hardly feeling the transition. And I suppose I can expect soon to be cured of this affliction, when I will look back and laugh. Though at the moment laughing is certainly something hard to imagine. I couldn’t forget how I am suffering now—could I?

  How could I have been so callous? When I was young—and not so young—men were always falling in love with me and I took it for granted, exactly like Mary Ford sitting smiling kindly at Jean-Pierre, exactly like Molly being sweet to Stephen, and like Bill, sitting there with his hands behind his head and looking up at those stars (not as bright as they might be, with so much pollution—Julie’s stars were certainly much brighter), knowing that we are looking at him, our eyes dragged towards him while he is (apparently) unaware of it. When a man looked at me in that particular way, the burning accusing eyes, the aggression, the body that made the single flagrant assertion, I want you, did I then give him a single compassionate thought? Yet I knew what a terrible thing love is, and there is no excuse. There is a terrible arrogance that goes with physical attractiveness, and far from criticizing it, we even admire it.

  It was late. The square’s load of cars was dispersing. It actually seemed, as the vehicles left, that the pavements and cafés and hotels stood higher in relation to the hills, the stars, the trees. People were dispersing, if reluctantly, saying they must go to bed, they must get their beauty sleep.

  From a hotel car, arriving late from the airport, there alighted on an empty pavement Henry, with Benjamin Greenfield, the American who had flown in to take a look at his, or his bank’s, investment. Sarah was already on her way to her hotel (her beauty sleep) when Henry came fast up to her, saying, ‘I’m starving. The plane was late. I’ve got to eat. Will you join me?’ She was saying she had eaten, as Benjamin Greenfield came to join them. He and she had spoken often and at length over the telephone, and now felt they knew each other. He too invited her for a late supper, but she converted the supper into a possible breakfast. Henry stood by while this went on, and then she found Bill beside her. He embraced her with ‘Good night Sarah. I do so want to talk over a problem with my uniform tomorrow.’ She introduced him, as he had intended, to Benjamin. ‘Our American sponsor, and this is one of the stars of Julie Vairon.’ Benjamin was led back to the pavement outside the café and its spread of tables, now mostly empty. Sarah watched how Bill deferentially pulled out a chair for the older man and sat down, leaning forward. Sarah did not allow her eyes to meet Henry’s: she knew that he was thinking, as she was, Well, it’s a cruel profession. Henry now decided that after all he would do without supper. Stephen came up with Molly. The four walked together to the hotel. There Sarah stood in the foyer with Henry and they watched Stephen take Molly by the arm and lead her to a display case showing photographs of the real Julie, who could now be bought not only as her own self-portraits but as scarves, lockets, and various types of T-shirt. Stephen and Molly had their backs to them. Henry smiled, ironic, at Sarah. She smiled, ironic, back. This exchange was balm and butter on open wounds. ‘Show business,’ said Henry briskly, and then, ‘And now I’m going to telephone my wife. An exercise in relativity, this time business. She is just putting my son to bed.’ With another smile at Sarah, he ran lightly up the stairs, disdaining the lift, while Sarah chose the lift, not looking back down at the foyer, where she knew Stephen made excuses to stretch his moment alone with Molly.

  It was a night of truly atrocious suffering. To be in love—always bad enough, unless kisses match imagined kisses. But to hate oneself for it: she kept seeing Bill come modestly up, then embracing her, with one eye on ‘our American Croesus’.

  Suppose Bill did turn up at her door now. He would not. But…patience. Years ago, left a widow, she had gone through months, years, believing that if she could not have him, her dear and familiar husband, beside her at night, there was no point in living. This soon converted to: if she could not sleep enfolded with a man, then…Soon, and expectedly, she arrived at a state where to sleep alone was a gift, and a grace, and she could not believe that so recently she had wept and suffered for the sake of a man’s body companioning hers. After that—years of equanimity. Sexlessness? Well, no, for she sometimes masturbated, but not because she longed for a particular partner. She had perfected the little activity so that it was briefly accomplished, a relief from tension but without pleasure, rather with irritation because of the gracelessness of it. Self-divisive too, because the narcissism which is so much part of eroticism now could not be fed by thoughts of how she was—was now: images of her own charms could not fuel eroticism as, she only now understood, they once had, when she had been almost as much intoxicated with herself as with the male body that loved hers. Nor could she dare to admit memories of how she had been, because they had latent in them a dry anguish of loss—dangerous, for did she really want to live accompanied with multiple ghosts of herself, as old people often set around their rooms photographs of themselves when young? Now, in carefully controlled fantasies, she was voyeur, because some kind of pride, expressed as an aesthetic choice, forbade her participation in scenes of young bodies, male and female—or, at any rate, female and male bodies as central figures, the main actors, even if assisted by others in supporting roles, ambiguously sexed. The figures she imagined were never people she knew: she did not care to make use of them. This sexual landscape had about it something ritual, permitted, as part of the life of some people, or tribe, from the past (or the future?), in a place set apart for love-making. But she could almost think of this sex as impersonal, partly because of her own non-participation in it. Certainly it had as much to do with real eroticism and its multifarious submissions to pleasure, its celebration of male and female, as chewing gum has to do with eating.

  Where now was the cautious woman? Her erotic self had been restored as if the door had never been slammed shut. Above all, she was no longer divided. Her fantasies were as romantic now as when she was adolescent, and as erotic as when she had been a ‘love woman’, and were of herself, herself now, and this was because, embraced by Bill, she had felt his desire for her so strongly announce itself. She lay mouth to mouth with Bill, and his thick red penis was inside her as far up as her throbbing heart. Lust and anger beat through her in waves, and tenderness absorbed both.

  She could feel him there with her so strongly she could hardly believe he was not there, would not knock at her door. This was how the myths and legends of the incubi and succubi had emerged: born of this powerful longing. A couple of hundred years ago, she would easily have been persuaded that a sensual demon was in her bed, a demon all vitality…. That animal vitality of Bill’s, what did it remind her of? Of photographs of herself, young, when she had exactly this robust attractiveness, an animal and glistening physicality, arrogant and even cruel in its demands on whoever looked—and desired. If people fall in love with their own likenesses (and you can watch them doing it, every day), then she had now, at least in part, fallen in love with that girl whose calm but proud set of the head, eyes looking straight back at the photographer, had made the statement: Yes, I know, but hands off.

  It goes without saying her sleep was full of erotic dreams. The alarm woke her at eight, and almost at once, his alarm having woken him, Stephen rang from the room just above hers to say he had scarcely slept but had taken a sleeping pill in the early hours and at last felt sleepy, would she wake him later, say at eleven? ‘After all, I don’t really have to see this American chap, do I?’ ‘We thought you’d like to know your fellow sponsor.’ ‘I am sure I would, but
another time, Sarah.’

  She dressed carefully. Women of a certain age (and older) have to do this. What she wore became her, certainly. In the glass she saw a handsome woman in white linen who had about her a dewy look far from the competent asperities appropriate to her real age. This was because of the elixirs romping in her blood. Her whole body ached, but this did not show. ‘Amazing,’ she said aloud, and descended the stairs at a brisk rate, because her condition made it impossible for her to move slowly. Henry was in the foyer. He gave her a glance, but his eyes returned to her for a slow look, all approval. They exchanged the smiles of comrades-in-arms: if thoughts of Bill were shame, anger, and poison, then Henry and the healthful complicities of being with him were their antidote. He watched her walk out: she could feel his eyes on her.

  Benjamin was waiting for her at the café table. She sat, making apologies for Stephen. She was amused that everything about this agreeable man, who was good-looking in a calm and sensible way, repudiated the casual ways of the theatre, and even the holiday airs of Belle-Rivières. He wore expensive white trousers and a white linen shirt, and filled them accurately, in the way that says, This one has to watch what he eats. His hair—greying, he must be fifty—was appropriate to his sober station in life. There was not a hint about that immaculate personage of the sartorial eccentricities allowable in Europe, and particularly in Britain. He sat at his ease, aware of everything going on around them: not much yet, for there were still only a few people on the café pavement. One was Andrew, apparently contemplating the cars already creeping around the square looking for crevices to fit themselves into. His pale blue jeans and shirt were no different from what any other member of the company might wear, but on him they suggested horizons. He was a lonely and austere figure: as she thought this he was brought a great plate of ham and eggs, and he began eating with gusto. He had not seen her and Benjamin, or did not want to see them. If it is interesting, who sits next to whom in a company of people working together, then even more so are the moments when one of them chooses solitude. As she turned her attention back to Benjamin, Andrew raised his hand in greeting, without looking at her.

  She was determined not to raise her eyes to the balcony where she might see Bill: even the possibility he was there was enough to exert a gravitational pull down that side of her body, while her back had become a separate sensory zone. Over Benjamin’s shoulder she saw Andrew turn his chair: now he was looking straight at her. Did he want to be asked to join them? But it was unlikely that he wanted to court this rich patron. For one thing, it was not his style, which was independent to the point of bellicosity, and for another, he did not need to. Integrity is so often the fruit of success.

  Benjamin was telling her that his bank, or chain of banks, was putting money into six plays or, as he put it, theatrical enterprises. ‘We have undertaken to finance six theatrical enterprises. I have to confess it was our chairman’s wife who suggested it. She is interested in the arts. And we did not respond at first as generously as we should. But she kept hammering away at us, and soon the idea began to take hold. At least, it did not take very much effort on my part to talk the board into it. We don’t expect to make much money, but that is not the main consideration.’

  ‘I hope you are not going to lose money on our play.’

  ‘After all, we do sometimes lose money on a risk, so why not on a good cause? That is how we have come to see it. Anyway, I spend my time financing new enterprises, and this isn’t really so very different. And it gets me to travel to pretty places and to meet pretty people.’ Here he slightly but firmly nodded, in the American manner, like a conductor’s baton: You come in here. In this case he was emphasizing that the compliment was for her. She acknowledged it with a smile. She was in fact enjoying the morning and able to forget her condition. She was also intrigued. This man in her own country was referred to as a ‘businessman’, nearly always with faint disapprobation. If he had been British, and needing to defend himself against the genteel prejudices of his nation, he would have confessed to his occupation but by now would be talking about his hobby, growing roses or collecting fine wines, insisting that was where his heart was. Having no need to feel deficient, he was talking with energy and pleasure about his work. ‘I don’t sit in an office, I am glad to say; I don’t want you to believe that….’ Nine-tenths of his time he was involved in the day-by-day struggles of new businesses, some of them risky. ‘I’ve been doing this for ten years now, so I can offer you quite a selection, and some of them I’m proud to have godfathered.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she invited, for as long as he talked, the splendours and miseries of her preoccupation were kept at bay.

  ‘Well now, how do you like the notion of a glass factory making exact copies of the masterpieces of the past? Using some old techniques and some new ones? “Masterpieces of the Past”, we call it. I tell you, when you see one of those things, you want to own it, but they are too expensive for anything but a glass case in a museum. Museums are buying them—colleges, schools. Millionaires…Does that strike you as too rarefied? Here’s the other extreme. We have a factory making a certain component. It is about a millimetre square, but it revolutionizes a whole sequence of processes in computer technology…not as exciting, I must confess.’ In fact she found it exciting, but this was not how he wanted to see her. Artists are not expected to be interested in technology. ‘How do you like the idea of buying a house all furnished and complete? The garden too—everything from a cactus garden to a Japanese garden. Or French formality. An English cottage garden…you order it, and there it is. I confess you have to be pretty well-heeled for some of our gardens.’ He offered her these ideas and then some more, as he sat taking quick mouthfuls of coffee from a cup held at the ready in his hand, as if getting enough caffeine into him was the most important item on his agenda. Meanwhile he watched her face and was pleased when he saw she was interested. He liked her, it was clear. Well, she liked him—banal words for mysterious processes. It became a game. He offered her descriptions of this or that idea financed by his bank, and she indicated the degree to which it appealed to her, not necessarily truthfully but to match his picture of her. If you go along with how a person sees you, then you learn a great deal about that person. Soon they were laughing much more than this factual and sober exchange warranted, partly because she was prescribing laughter for herself as a therapy, and partly because all her emotions were sloshing about like a strong tide in a small rock pool. As for him, the gaiety of the theatre, the charm, had taken him over and he was inside Julie’s spell. Now all the chairs around them were filling, mostly with the company, and they were smiling at this satisfactory scene, their Croesus having such a good time with Sarah. Andrew’s smile, dry, appreciative, seemed to have become stuck there, as he frankly watched the two of them.

  Then just as Sarah was telling Benjamin how pleased he was going to be with what he would see tomorrow, for there was no way he could imagine the effect of the music when it fitted the action, there was a check, a snag: he had booked to fly to London that night. This meant he would not have seen Julie Vairon. He had thought there was a rehearsal that afternoon, but she explained it was a technical rehearsal and they would be merely walking through their parts. ‘So you won’t have seen it.’

  His face indicated that he did not regard this as the total disaster it seemed she did. He even remarked that he trusted them all to get it right—a joke, but she did not laugh. It did occur to her that she might be getting things a little out of proportion. She saw Jean-Pierre on the other side of the square, going to his office. She excused herself and begged him to stay exactly where he was, for he certainly should meet the French side of the production. She walked quickly through the dust under the pine tree and then the plane tree, dry again although the square had been thoroughly watered the evening before. The trees seemed to be accommodating a hundred cicadas, all in full voice. She caught up with Jean-Pierre, to whom she explained it was out of the question that the American s
ponsor, who was providing so much of the money, should not experience a real performance. She begged him to think of something to keep Benjamin here. Then she walked fast, full of the energy she did not command when not in love, back to her hotel, for it was time to wake Stephen.

  On the balcony above the crowd on the pavement outside Les Collines Rouges, a young god, knowing he was one, all sleek warm sun-browned flesh, with glistening dark hair, melting gaze, stood among the oleanders watching Sarah’s progress and waiting for her to see him. As luck would have it, she saw him only at the last moment, and her wave was perfunctory. His hand, which had been held out to her, palm forward, bestowing sensual blessings, sank to his side, rejected. He was genuinely hurt.

  She went to her room and telephoned Stephen’s. He was just awake and suggested she should come up. Up she went. Stephen departed to the bathroom and she sat on a fat little sofa, covered with a country cretonne, to match the nostalgic flowered wallpaper, and ordered coffee. She was lighthearted, her miseries in another country—night country.