Strange Loyalties

SIX
33

Dawn can be a nuisance. It keeps turning up whether you want to see it or not, making noise, repeating a lot of things you know already, breaking your concentration by demanding your attention. Why can’t the world leave lovers alone?

I watched Jan struggle with the phone as if it were a new invention she hadn’t yet got used to. When she had finally worked out which end went where, it didn’t seem to help much.

She said ‘Sorry?’ and ‘What?’ and ‘Who?’ Her voice was hoarse. It made several false starts, tuning up in preparation for another day. As she listened, her eyes wandered blindly round the room, feeling for a familiar object that would remind her of where she was. They came to rest on the Jim Dine print of different-coloured hearts.

‘Who is this again?’ she said and waited. ‘Who?’

She turned round to look at the time on the alarm clock. It was half past eight.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘He’s here.’

She turned towards me and gave the phone across like a piece of evidence that incriminated me. Her eyes were passing bitter judgment.

‘Hullo,’ I said.

‘Jack? Marty Bleasdale.’ The Newcastle accent wore a trace of Scots like a tartan scarf. ‘Sorry about this. Ah don’t seem to be exactly a welcome caller.’

I was aware of Jan lying beside me, communing with the ceiling in disbelief.

‘It’s all right,’ I said neutrally, hoping Jan might think I was talking about my health.

‘The reason Ah’m phonin’ so early. Melanie gets her flight today. Early evenin’. She wants to talk to you. Ah thought from your point of view, the earlier the better.’

‘That’s right, Marty,’ I said.

I had to meet her. It was a chance I couldn’t pass up. It was the surest way I had to come closer to Matt Mason. But at the moment it was also a way to move further from Jan. I felt the assessing stillness of her presence.

‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘Can you and Melanie come to the Grosvenor about ten? That’ll give me time to get there. Shave and stuff. We can talk.’

Jan turned away from me on the bed. I gave him the room number.

‘We’ll be there.’

‘Thanks, Marty. Cheers.’

I put the receiver down but the connection was still there in the room. We had been estranged by the presence of others. I looked at the back of Jan’s head. It was rejecting me as she felt I had rejected her. I was aggrieved that she was aggrieved. But as I leaned across her and replaced the phone on the bedside table, I caught the smell of her hair and touched the gentle warmth of her skin. I started to kiss her neck and stroke her. I was aware of her body relaxing sensuously. But the voice came out cold and precise, a computer in a boudoir.

‘You sure you’ve got time?’

‘Come on, Jan,’ I said, mouthing her arm. ‘I don’t take an hour and a half to wash and shave. That was all part of the subtle plan, give us some time.’

‘You don’t fit me in between appointments.’

‘Jan. Don’t say that. I’ve got to talk to these people. And this is my only chance. I’ve spent a week trying to crack this. I think today maybe I can do it. Just give me this space. I’ll see you tonight.’

‘Which one of you will be coming?’

‘Oh, Jan.’

She didn’t speak. I began to feel the outline of her body under the covers. She went soft and then stiffened. She pushed my hand away with her arm. I lay with my emotions all dressed up and nowhere to go. I tried to touch her again.

‘No way,’ she said.

I looked at the ceiling.

‘Not even position 42?’ I said.

‘Piss off.’

I kissed her hair and got out of bed. As I was putting on my clothes, it started — one of those quarrels that grow out of a triviality, a hairline crack that causes a subsidence.

‘Who was that person?’ she said without looking at me.

‘That person?’

‘That person. The one who makes Cheetah sound cultured.’

I stood with one leg in my trousers. It was not the best posture from which to project righteous indignation. But I’m a natural improviser.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘That’s Marty Bleasdale. As you would know, if you’d paid the politeness of listening to him. He may not have as many plastic cards as Barry Murdoch. But he would make five of him as a person.’

‘Where did Barry come from?’

‘I didn’t know he had left.’

In the pause I managed to get my other leg into my trousers.

‘How did he get this number?’

‘Jan. You know I gave it to him. How the hell else would he get it?’

‘You gave it to him? You gave it to him? So you knew you were going to spend the night here. I didn’t have a choice? I seem to be the last to know. Maybe I should check my engagement diary out with Marty bloody Bleasdale.’

‘It’s not like that,’ I said. ‘You know it. I just hoped I would be here. It’s happened before, you know. In case you’ve forgotten. I gave him the number in case. He obviously phoned the hotel first. Then tried here.’

‘How many other people have you given my number to?’

‘Nobody else. I don’t have to. You’re good enough at doing that without my help.’

That was a mistake, one of jealousy’s blind swipes that connects with nothing and just leaves you vulnerable to the counter-punch. I tried to duck it by buttoning my shirt and looking for my tie.

‘I’ve had enough,’ she said.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I — ’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not that. It’s everything. This isn’t a house to you. It’s an office with a bed in it. And it always will be. There always will be strangers in it. You bring them with you. I don’t want to know about their lives. I’ve got my own to live. I think I better learn to live it without you.’

I had found my tie. Making a knot in it became a very slow process, almost ceremonial. I sensed that perhaps I was dressing for a final departure. This conversation was our relationship in miniature, compressed but exactly detailed. The central motif was the conflict between Jan’s need to live towards ourselves, what was in here, and mine to live towards what was out there. I didn’t see how the conflict could be resolved. The fault was mine. I almost garrotted myself with my tie. The anger was not against Jan. It was against myself and also against something I hadn’t yet located. Perhaps today I would. Then she said a strange thing.

‘Jack. Why does darkness fascinate you so much?’

I put my jacket on and stood there. I tried to answer honestly.

‘Maybe because I see it almost everywhere,’ I said. ‘And a lot of people trying to ignore it.’

She lay and I stood with that statement stretching between us like a terrible distance. I tried to cross it. I went to the bed and bent down and kissed her face. Her cheek was like ice beneath my lips. It didn’t thaw.

‘I’ll see you tonight?’ I said.

‘Will you?’ she said. ‘I don’t know if either of the people we were last night can be there.’

I came out and closed the door and stood a moment on her balcony. It looked like being a nice day. I wished I could have shared it with her.