An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful (11 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Brighton, England
•
1953

From his deckchair at the tip of the West Pier, Edward could just make out the noise from the beach. The laughter and shrieks of children playing in the waves. The musical grind of a merry-
go-round
. Seagulls screeching in delight at the potential for scraps. He closed his eyes and opened them again, the sheer breadth of the horizon forcing his gaze to widen from its usual scope of narrow city streets. The sun bounced off the water, bleaching the Regency facades of the grand hotels along the esplanade. Pleasure boats
ferried
day trippers over to the Palace Pier. The wooden planks scraped rough and sandy under his bare feet, the slats between them the ideal trap for halfpennies dropped from over-excited hands. Aldous sat beside him, sunk deep into the canvas – panama hat, white suit, thin gloves, sunglasses, concealing him mummy-like from the
ageing
glare of the rays. Macy off somewhere to fetch cones of ice cream along with Aldous’ nephew – a twenty-year-old youth from Manchester called Robert. Their joyous little party grateful for the opportunity to escape to Brighton from a London steaming and stifling in the heat.

‘I think it is time
The Londinium
received another
contribution
from you,’ Aldous said, his thin lips oily and pink-white with cream.

‘I have some ideas.’

‘Well, just make sure they don’t amount to some emotional gush. Given your situation with that girl.’

‘Her name’s Macy. As you well know. And my situation with her is perfectly fine.’

‘Well, she seems to have reeled you in very nicely. Running hot and cold as she does.’

‘She makes me very happy,’

‘Then you are very lucky, Edward. The state of happiness is only possible when you are young. It requires a certain innocence. A certain naivety. When you get to my age, one has become too world-weary, too cynical, to experience happiness. Or should I say “a state of happiness”. I may experience a moment of happiness as I do now, in the company of my friend on this noble structure,
jutting
into the ocean like the erect penis of this wonderful town…’

‘Channel. This is the English Channel. Not an ocean.’

‘Please do not interrupt. As I was saying, I may experience
happiness
as I do now, but only for an instant, before the sense of
hopelessness
sinks in and destroys it. Whereas you, Edward, with your heart, belly – and may I add your loins – full of hope, can extend these moments of happiness into a state of being. A state of being that may last days. Weeks even. I envy you.’

‘For God’s sake, Aldous. You’re talking like an old man.’

‘It has nothing to do with age, my boy. It has to do with experience.’

‘And what kind of experience would that be?’

But Macy was back with Robert, their hands filled with
dripping
cones.

‘Little Mo’s won Wimbledon again,’ she reported excitedly. ‘We just heard it on the radio at the kiosk.’

‘Little Mo?’ Aldous grumbled as he tried to receive his cone from Robert without dripping ice cream on to his suit. ‘Who or what is this Little Mow? A miniature lawnmower?’

‘Maureen Connolly,’ Macy informed him. ‘An American tennis player. She’s only seventeen.’

‘See?’ Aldous snorted. ‘The triumphs of the young.’

‘What are you so grumpy about?’ Robert asked. He had stripped off his shirt since going off with Macy. The braces of his trousers looped loosely around his skinny, white torso, already glowing red in patches.

‘Ah, Robbie,’ Aldous sighed. ‘If only you knew.’

In a departure from her usual casual mode, Macy wore a dress. Summery. A simple floral pattern, the light cotton fluttering slightly in the breeze. Bare legs. Edward gazed at those treasonous limbs flaunting their nakedness, exposing to the public what was usually reserved solely for him. She came to kneel beside him, draped an arm over his leg. He let his fingers play over the warmth of her neck as he watched her tongue sworl around her cone.

‘I’m hungry,’ Robert said.

‘You’ve just had an ice cream,’ Aldous said. ‘I thought we might promenade on the esplanade.’

‘That was just a starter,’ Robert continued. ‘I would like some fish and chips. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do, down at the seaside? Have fish and chips. With vinegar and sea salt. Don’t you want to eat something?’

‘I suggest a walk first to build up an appetite,’ Aldous insisted.

‘I’m hungry now.’

Aldous sat up in his deckchair, drew his sunglasses down to the tip of his nose with an index finger. ‘What’s the consensus?’ His blue eyes flashed in the sunlight.

‘Walk,’ Macy said.

‘Edward?’

‘Me, too.’

Aldous looked at Robert who scowled back at him. Aldous sighed then sank back in his chair. ‘Then I am afraid Robbie and I must leave you. We are going to stay overnight in Brighton. I will take this undeserving youth for his fish and chips. Then we will need to look for a guest house. We will allow you young lovers a few hours alone before your train.’

The sun was dipping in the sky but the evening was still warm. The crowds on the beach had eased to leave scattered islands of young couples huddled close in the wait for the sunset. A few bored
parents
watched their tireless children rushing in and out of chases with the tide. Macy had taken off her sandals to walk across the pebbles, letting the waves wash across her bare feet. Edward observed her from behind – her sunburnt shoulders, the way her dress clung to her back, curved tightly over her buttocks, then flowed out to let her legs run free. He could imagine the sea-worn stones rounding into the soles of her feet, massaging pressure points, forcing her toes apart.

She stooped to pick up a shell resting like a jewel within a bed of seaweed, held it to her ear, turned to beckon him towards her. He took her hand and her fingers fell into an easy clasp around his own. Moments like these pleased him so much they hurt.

‘Would you like to stay?’ he suggested, unable to disguise the fearful inflection in his voice. This was what she had done to him, brought him to that point where he felt insecure in anything he wanted from her. He could almost imagine the scared animal look in his eyes as he asked the question. But he didn’t mind. The rewards were too great.

She examined the shell, plucked out a frond, shook it out for loose stones, reapplied it to her ear.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ she complained. ‘Just the sound of my own heartbeat.’

‘Macy?’

She let go his hand, skipped ahead of him, her dress rising above her knees in her crunching dance over the pebbles.

‘Yes,’ she sang. ‘Yes. Let’s do it.’

‘We’ll need to find a guest house.’

‘A seedy, sleazy hotel. Just like Robbie and Aldous.’

‘Yes. Just like them.’

She had moved back to him now, grasped his arm, her body hot from the day. ‘Robbie’s not his nephew,’ she said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

They eventually found a guest house in a Regency square just opposite the West Pier. Two previous establishments had refused them for the lack of a ring on Macy’s finger. The manager of the third might have thrown them out too had it not been for a
cancellation
just before they turned up.

‘No luggage then?’ the manager asked as Edward signed the register under the name of Mr and Mrs Pollock.

‘No luggage,’ he replied, thinking that given the tremor in his voice he might as well have just said, ‘Not married.’

The room had a salty dampness about it that clung to the quilt, the curtains, the carpet. Macy flung open the windows and he
followed
her as she stepped over the sill on to a small balcony
littered
with pots of red hydrangea. Starlings swooped over the pier as dusk began to creep in. The town seemed to be sighing as the heat finally gave out and the crowds began to trip home. He ran his finger down the bareness of her back and she shivered. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy.

They went back inside, stretched out side by side on the bed. Her body was hot and sticky, he could taste the salt on her skin. The air, the sun, the feeling of youthful power all contributed to the vigour pumping in his blood, ready to burst. He moved into her. And his world became liquid. A sea of saliva, sweat, semen and her own sexual juices. It was over too quickly.

He turned over on to his back. The silk of the quilt clung to his skin. Voices in the street below the open window. Gulls squawking. Seaside tang. His heavy breathing subsiding.

‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ he said dreamily.

‘Yeah?’

‘I love you.’

She broke away from his side, raised herself on an elbow. Her breasts hung white under the reddened yoke of her skin, freckled from the exposure to the sun. ‘No, you don’t.’ She laughed, and he felt that part of himself momentarily opened, cruelly close down.

‘I said, “I love you”.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘You can’t tell me how I feel.’

‘Oh, yes I can. This is not love, Eddie. This is just lustful play. Just be clear of that. You just want this.’ Her hand strayed from her breasts to between her legs where her pubic hair was matted by their lovemaking. ‘And it’s only because I won’t let you have me when you want me that’s driving you mad with desire. Or with what you sweetly misinterpret as love.’

‘That’s just not true. It’s more than that. Much more than that.’

‘Well, what do you really know about me, about what’s inside here?’ She tapped the hollow between her breasts with her fist. ‘This you don’t know. So how can you love me?’

‘I’ve seen your paintings.’

She calmed for an instant. ‘Those are just one part of me,’ she conceded.

‘I only know that I love you. Why can’t you believe that?’

‘Then we have a different idea of love.’ She twisted away from him, reached over for a cigarette pack on the bedside table. ‘Damn.’ She crumpled the empty packet, let it drop onto the carpet.

‘Forget about the bloody cigarettes,’ he snapped. ‘What are your feelings for me?’

She smiled. ‘Of course, I care about you,’ she said, patting his thigh. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I just don’t have any illusions about my feelings. I know why I’m involved in this affair.’

‘Is that all this is then? A dirty weekend down in Brighton?’

‘Poor Eddie,’ she teased. ‘So very British, aren’t you?’ She sat up on her side of the bed, bent over in a search for her discarded clothes. The ridge of her spine noduled the pale skin of her back. He wanted to pull her back down beside him, penetrate her again, lose his anger inside her. Instead, he swung his feet off the bed, stood up, walked over to the small sink and ran the rusty tap. In the mirror, he saw his cheeks red – whether from the sun, his anger or the after-flush of sex he did not know. He leaned over the bowl, splashed cold water on to his face.

‘So British?’ he said to his reflection. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh, you know. So constricted. So serious. So serious about love. No wonder you like the Japanese. They’re just the same.’ She
had slipped on her sundress and was moving towards him. ‘Now, button me up,’ she said. ‘I need to go out for some cigarettes.’

He had only meant it to be a slap. Even that would have been a surprise to him. Surely it wasn’t a clenched fist? More like a playful punch. But his knuckles had definitely come into contact with her face, just above her cheekbone, he could feel that now as he bit down on to his fingers, not quite believing what he had done. Her head had spun sideways from the blow, and she had staggered
backwards
until she could sit back down on the sheet-crumpled bed, her skirt drawn way up her thighs. He half-expected her to scream, but she just sat there, rubbing her face with the back of her hand,
glowering
at him, the bruise already beginning to swell on her cheek.

‘God, I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry.’

She reached down for her handbag, picked it up off the floor, then raised herself off the bed. ‘You bastard,’ she said as she strode past him.

He grabbed her by her bare shoulder, turned her round to face him. ‘Don’t leave.’

‘Go on, go on,’ she goaded. ‘Hit me again. Yes, yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ She tried to wriggle herself away from his grip. ‘You’re hurting me.’

He raised his other arm but then let it drop, released his clutch of her shoulder. He saw the blood-red marks left by his fingernails. And she was gone.

He didn’t stay at the hotel. Instead, he took the last train back to London. The carriage was full of cosy, snuggled-up couples, their whispered intimacy only aggravating his own plight even more. He watched the lights of the south coast disappear as the train steamed comfortably into the darkness of the Sussex countryside. He stared at his own reflection in the window, this cruel stranger capable of an anger and a violence he never knew he possessed. ‘Is this what she has turned me into?’ he thought. ‘Or is this who I really am?’ Then he remembered what Aldous had told him only a few hours previously. That happiness was such a fleeting thing.