Boys and Girls (11 page)

‘I expect,' she rushed, ‘I'm being so silly … it's just that – it
hurts
 …!'

And then from one quite pained and helpless eye, the big fat tear, it bloomed and rolled on down. Black leaned quickly across the table and grasped her hand in his, his eyes and eyebrows very busy with concern.

‘My dear! A woman such as yourself! Lonely? That will never do. Won't do at all. Believe me – you shall never be lonely again. I shall personally see to it.'

Still so demure, she nevertheless allowed herself the merest quick peek at him.

‘You will …? You really mean that? You …
promise
?'

Black just smiled with huge and avuncular reassurance – and felt pretty damn good about it until the sheer relentlessness of her gushed-out gratitude and spasms of relief – the breathless gasps of could-be newly let-loose rapture (the Lord knew he was no expert) left him, yes – still just heady with gratification, but also there was the thrum there of uneasiness alive in his ears (still a tinge, though more was lurking). He was on the whole rather saved, now that the waiter was suddenly here and half
bent at the waist, notebook eager, his head keenly cocked as if to eavesdrop upon an insider tip.

‘Ah – Smales, good man. So. The lady is having oysters. Natives I'm assuming, Susie? Six? The dozen? Yes a dozen? Really? Good Lord. Well that then, Smales – and then the whitebait for me, as per. And after, the, um … have we actually decided about mains, Susie? I can't, um …'

‘We're sharing the Chateaubriand.'

‘Are we? Are we really? Oh splendid. Well that suits me very well, I must say. And we decided that, did we? Now the only thing is – I expect you like it rather rare, do you?'

‘Very. Not quite blue, but yes – very rare.'

‘Mm. Yes. Why did I know that. Whereas I, you see, I tend towards medium rare to medium, so we might have a bit of a …'

‘No no, sir, Mr Leather – chef, he can do this.'

‘Really. Well that's very clever, isn't it? Thank you, Smales. And then the usual, I'm assuming? Sauté? Chips, conceivably? Few beans. That sort of thing. Béarnaise, of course. Best bit. What are you laughing at, my dear? Said something, have I …?'

‘I was just thinking,' giggled Susan, ‘that all this will maybe be quite as sublime as the thing you couldn't remember.'

The light and concentration in the glittering smile she now splattered across the waiter was of a force that could render him helpless with love; his eyes tipped down and he was visibly weakened.

‘
Thank
you, Carlo …'

‘Yes,' added Black quite quickly, ‘thank you indeed. And send over the wine chappie, would you? So much.'

Black now tore apart bread.

‘I did know, you know. I hadn't forgotten. That his name was …'

‘Carlo.'

‘Carlo, yes Carlo. I hadn't forgotten. Just so used to old
Smales
being about the place, that's all. Well. This is all very jolly. You're laughing again, Susie … Obviously I am being highly amusing.'

‘That's a bad thing?'

‘It … depends. Depends upon the nature of your delight. Anyway – enough. Tell me – talk to me. Tell me about your life.'

Susan sipped water, and glanced about her. There was a big red bald man, two tables down, laughing as if relieved at having relinquished all of his control: his eyes had retreated into black and fleshy creases and the light from one of the sconces overhead made his skull a luminous pink, and seemingly irradiated. The much younger woman opposite was smiling just tentatively and in sympathy, as if struggling to keep up with an increasingly involved and arcane deconstruction.

‘I have a nice house in Chelsea. I have a little girl.'

‘Ah. Little girl. How lovely. I have one myself. Well – I say little, she's hardly little now. Must be twenty … three. Four. But they're nice when they're little, aren't they? How old is she? What's her name?'

‘Fourteen. Nearly fifteen. Amanda.'

‘Amanda. That's a very nice name. I think. I used to know an Amanda. Pretty sure. Maybe not. Could've been Alison. Fourteen – not a baby, then. If what you read is any guide, they're quite grown up these days, are they? That age? Ah – wine man. Excellent.'

‘Mr Leather. Always a pleasure. You well, sir?'

‘Couldn't be, um … Bottle of the Gruaud, I think. Better. Couldn't be, um …'

‘It is already open for you, sir. Good evening, madam.'

Black was watching him swagger away.

‘Good fellow, that. Been here for ever.'

‘Not
Smales
, is it …?'

‘No no!
That
's not … Ah I see. We're having a little joke at Mr Leather's expense. Well well. Highly amusing.
Must
be, apparently – you're laughing again, anyway …'

‘I'm not – I'm not laughing, Black. Honestly. I'm just enjoying the evening. What's that you're taking?'

‘Mm? Oh. Pill. Take it before eating, this one.'

‘What's it for?'

‘What's it for? Oh, something allied to what they're all for, I imagine. Or else to counteract some or other ghastly side effect of what one of the others goes and does to me, I really couldn't tell you. Just swallow them, you know …'

‘The thing is – she needs a father. Amanda.'

‘Really? Oh so you're not, um … There isn't a, er …?'

‘Guidance. She's at the age she needs stability and guidance. I mean, me, I do what I can of course, but one always feels it's never quite enough. I think, Black … the man is waiting for you to taste the, er …'

‘What? Ah. Yes – hello. Didn't see you standing there. Well look I shan't trouble with a taste – and shall I tell you why, Susie? Shall I tell you why? Because he will already have done so – am I right? Am I? I thought so. Yes yes. They think of everything here. Pour on then, Smales. Oh no – you're
not
, are you …?'

‘Chester, sir. Wine for you, madam?'

‘Chester, Chester, yes of course. I knew that. So where were
we? Ah yes – your little Alison. No other children? I have a son. Tim. Told you that, have I? Grown man. Thirty whatever. Got a son himself. And yes I
do
know what that makes me, thank you very much.'

‘You're very lucky. The wine is divine.'

‘Is it? Haven't tasted it. Am I? Suppose I am. Some ways.'

Susan's face was now a spotlight, white and narrow, and it had him between the eyes. As he felt its bore – flinching, eyes flickering to pin down its source – she cranked it up full into a flood, and he was quite now in a dazzle.

‘Black. There's something I want to ask you. Put to you. Look at me, Black. It's really so important. I feel with you … a bond. Yes I do. I would not say this to any other man alive.'

Black's eyes were wide. He gulped some wine. Swallowed it down.

‘Uh-huh …' he said, as if on tiptoe.

‘Are you … all right? Black? What's wrong with you? Why are you—?'

‘Perfectly. Quite all right, thank you.'

‘—
squirming
like that? What on earth's wrong with you?'

‘Nothing whatever.'

‘Well then why are you—?'

‘I just have to go to the lavatory, that's all. Comes upon me rather of a sudden. Nature. Not a lot to be done about it. Apart from the obvious, obviously. Anyway – carry on. Something important, you said.'

Susan bit her lip and sighed; the lamp was fizzing, growing dim now.

‘No, Black. You go.'

‘No honestly, Susie. You say whatever it is you have to say. I'm perfectly fine. Well – minute or two, anyway …'

‘No, Black. Go. It'll keep. I'll tell you when you come back.'

‘No, Susie – I wouldn't hear of it. You get it off your chest. All ears, promise.'

The light was dead: it cut dead into darkness.

‘No, Black … It's not … no. You go.'

‘No
really
, Susie, I'm—'

‘Fuck's sake
go
, will you, or I might have to bloody
kill
you.'

And during the silence, Black could easily have gaped at her for a much longer time, but what with things being the way they were, he just simply had to
go
(fuck's sake). And it's no sort of a picnic, please let me assure you, this whole business of going to the sodding lavatory, Lord no, not in the state I'm in. Particularly as now when it's been left just that smidgen too long – all the bloody argy-bargy with Susie there, doing my best to be bloody polite – and so I'm blundering past the tables (although I'm only small, this always makes me feel like a runaway bison, can't explain it) – and at least one bread roll I'm aware of has gone skittering away into the unknown and I'm snapping on my instant and elastic smile at the vaguely familiar darkish waiters who are cringing away from the full-rigged bluster of this vast and lumbering approach (no doubt a blend of dinned-in deference and a deeply comprehensible and full-throated revulsion) and finally into the blasted Gents, a place I belong, and only momentarily aware that on my way back out I'll have to chuck a lump of money at the black chap there with all the white hair in an effort to stop him annoying me with brushes and cologne – and now I'm bundling a good deal of myself into one of the airless and quite ridiculously cramped cubicles (hauling in the rest of me by the clammy sweaty handful) and now there's the jacket and the waistcoat and the braces and the corset (oh Christ yes, the corset – sit on the
pan, blow out your cheeks and put your back into the charged and mighty burden of evacuation and the whole contraption is liable to be ripped asunder and hit the opposite wall, if you don't undo the bloody laces) … and then after it all falls out of me, the weight of the world, with just so disgusting a slither, thud and then attendant spatter, there's the truly foul aspect of a rudimentary clean-up to be attended to now – and more and more, you know, I am so really revolted by this, the wiping, the wiping, but look, let's face it: who else is going to do it for me, eh? You just answer me that. And now I'm as done as I ever will be (the one side effect of a drug that forces me to gallop in a panic is soon overcome by that of another, which seals me up with a trowelful of mortar) I have to bang my elbows and huff like a bull in the wrestle to grapple it all together again, and Jesus I'm tempted to let the corset go hang, but if I do that I've lost all hope of getting the waistcoat buttoned up and then the bloody stomach is going to go flopping out all over my waistband and everyone will remark upon this singular vision of the red-faced old man soon to be delivered of triplets … and now I'm trussed up and sort of prepared for my evil-tempered and blood-hot exit, so light up a fag now, suck on it as if I'm being paid to – revel in the hit and suck on it again – hear it sizzle in the bowl as I barge my way out and I chuck a lump of money at the black man there with all the white hair and I bat away the brush and nearly evade the squirt – though the corner of my left eye caught the hissy dregs of it, I can feel the wince, and now the bite (don't want to wash – you only get germs) … and bingo! Here I am now back in the gravy-scented hubbub of the restaurant's guts and thundering back over to what I'm nearly quite positive is my regular table and I collapse like a spavined old carthorse into my chair, sending just the
one dessert fork up and over into an arching somersault and clattered descent, and there is a frankly startled Susie, oh what joy – and so now we can resume at the point whereat we left off, although I'm damned, but of course, if I can recall what it was. Woof. On the whole though, I think, that went not too badly.

Susan blinked, and poured more claret into her glass.

‘All right? Yes? Everything …?'

‘Mm? Oh yes. Course. Tip-top. Never better.'

Yeah well: you bloody don't look it. I've had a little time to think, and I really do hate that, once I've made a decision. Once the die is … you know. It's just that I can't help thinking … he's not young, is he? Leather. Not in the first full flush, shall we say. Yes: laughably, let's say that. And I know, I know – of course I know (it's my plan, isn't it?) – of course I know that youth and beauty are not of the essence. Not in this particular case. I just sometimes cannot help but wish … that they were. Then I could go and marry Carlo, who I'm sure now would quite gladly lie down and die for me. His eyelashes are like those of some long-eyelashed thing, you've seen the pictures, I don't recall the names of them. Maybe camels or giraffes, but they're both stupid-looking, and Carlo, he isn't. A firm strong chest and the sleeves of his jacket are so well-filled. But alas, it is not a waiter I need (although every man on earth, to a larger or lesser degree, is certainly one of those … and if he isn't, one can easily train him to be). But how very wonderful to have a young and beautiful husband who is not just rich and talented … but one could actually
respect
him. Just think of that:
respect
him (up to, of course, a point). And look at Carlo's hair in the lamplight – thick chestnut, with an elegant wave. I know just how it would feel – my fingertips ache and tingle with the certain knowledge: I know this, oh yes, because I am a sensualist. Black's hair,
though – oh God. It looks as if his pale and gluey scalp has been bombarded by the matted evisceration of an old and fetid mattress, the resultant unlikelihood having then been given a thorough going-over with a ragful of blacking. But the point is, he has the money, and he can be formed. Carlo, for all his loveliness, is, by definition, a loser. And if it's a loser I was wanting … well, I can get that at home.

Carlo was smiling wildly at Susan as he told Mr Leather that his whitebait was cold.