Cupid's Dart (13 page)

On this evening, though, I drove faster and more confidently than I had ever done, discovering in the process a location that I had never visited before – the fast lane of the M40. My little Saab groaned once or twice in surprise. This hadn't been an agreed part of my relationship with it. I had bought it off a university couple. It had been her car and so they had called it the Mem Saab. I had thought this silly, but now, after meeting Ange, I found that it amused me.

If I was surprised to discover that I suddenly found silly jokes amusing, I was even more surprised by my unexpected confidence behind the wheel. I had to attribute it to the life force emanating from Ange. Perhaps you are beginning to wonder if I really am starting to go loopy, but what other explanation could there be?

I made it without too much difficulty, even found a parking space, and was at the tube station by 8.25. Now my exhilaration left me and I felt stressed and exhausted.

Also, there were several exits to Oxford Street underground station and I didn't know which one she would come to.

Well, I had to pass the time somehow, and wandering from one exit to another was as good a way as any.

It was 8.38 before I saw her and by that time I had persuaded myself that she wasn't coming. She waved cheerfully, and we fell into each other's arms instinctively before we both realised that our relationship wasn't on that footing. Then we both shrank back in slight embarrassment, and smiled rather shyly. It was beautiful. It was a synchronised greeting.

We went into the nearest pub. It's not easy for me to describe the pub for you, as I had eyes only for Ange, but I do remember that, being near the Palladium, it had signed photos of the stars. I recall thinking that I hoped she wouldn't mention them, because, although they were probably all very famous, I didn't know who any of them were. It must have been fairly full, because she said, 'Quick. Alan. Grab that table', and before I could stop her she was off to the bar and buying pints for us both. I remember too that there were some dirty glasses on the table, and that the ashtray was full, and when she got back she said, 'Scruffy buggers, they wouldn't stand for that down the Black Bull' and cleared the mess away, banging the dirty glasses on the bar counter pointedly.

At last she was sitting there beside me, her skin pale and sweet below her dark hair, her little mouth just waiting to be kissed. Then suddenly she looked so astonished that a shiver of fear ran through me.

'You're wearing jeans.'

'Well, yes, I . . . I thought the old image was just a little . . . well . . . a trifle stuffy, perhaps.'

'Well good old Alan. There's hope yet.'

Hope for me or for us?

'I really wasn't making fun of you at Lawrence's, you know,' I said. 'I was making fun of
them
.'

'They're your friends.' She still wasn't quite sure.

'It's a friendship based solely on mutual interests. I wouldn't care if I never saw either of them again. Ange, there is something I . . . I mean, it's probably not important, but I . . . when I rang your mother she said your name was Clench.'

'Yeah, well, I suppose it is in real life.'

'Is this not real life?'

'Well, yeah, course it is, but you know what I mean. It's not real like being a temp and living in Gallows Corner. It's fun. It's a bit of a giggle.'

Oh, Ange, those innocent words plunged a dagger into my heart. I had felt that your lips, slightly parted, had been inviting a kiss. The warmth of your smile had turned my heart upside down. I had just about persuaded myself that you were falling in love with me. But no, it was just a bit of a giggle.

The pain didn't last. After all, she was there, and she was smiling, and we were friends, and . . . well . . . after all, a bit of a giggle with Ange would be . . . well, at least it would be a bit of a giggle.

'So you call yourself Bedwell.'

'Yes. Naughty.'

'It is rather.'

'Well, would you want to be known as Clench? You wouldn't, would you?'

'No, I must admit that.'

'Besides, it was Dad's name.'

'Meaning?'

'Nothing. Nothing, Alan. Cheers.'

We raised our glasses and drank.

'I felt awful talking to your mother.'

'She's harmless.'

'I felt . . . that she'd think me a dirty old man. I felt uneasy. Because you haven't told her about me.'

'Sorry.'

'Well, I can't blame you. I haven't told
my
mother about
you
.'

'We'll be our secret.'

'Yes, our secret –' I stopped. I had been going to add 'love'.

'Alan,' she said, suddenly serious, her antennae picking up what I hadn't said. 'Don't expect too much.'

I told her how I had found myself using the ridiculous phrase, 'Is Ange in at all?'

'I mean, you couldn't be partly in, could you? Unless you'd been sawn in half in a magic act that had gone wrong, and one half had been sent to the mortuary for pathology tests, and the other half had been sent home to your mum for sentimental reasons.'

'Alan! I didn't realise you had that sort of imagination.'

Nor did I. I was getting a few surprises about myself. That's not a bad thing to happen at the age of fifty-five.

She linked her arm in mine. Our eyes met, and hers were unusually solemn.

'I have to keep up to the mark with you, Ange. Can't be stuffy old Alan, can I, now?'

I was about to ask her to come back to Oxford with me, when she spoke, as if she could read my mind.

'I wanna make some plans,' she said. 'That may surprise you. You think I'm happy go lucky, right, only thinking of the moment, right?'

'Well, yes, I do, rather.'

'But this is darts.'

'Ah.'

'I've got two tickets for the whole of the final week of the World Darts Championship.'

'Good Lord.'

'They're like . . .' she swallowed her next word hastily, and my antennae realised that she had stopped herself from using the f word. '. . . bleeding gold dust.'

'You . . .' I was going to say 'You amaze me', but then I thought of Jane saying that and how horrid it was and I stopped myself just in time.

'The moment it finishes, I go online and order them for the next year.'

'Two tickets?'

'Yeah. In case.'

'In case of what?

'Anythink. In this case, you.'

'Me?'

'I want you to come with me. Jesus Christ, you're dim sometimes for someone who's supposed to be so clever.'

That observation, echoing the one I had overheard in Pangbourne in the dull old days of Rachel, made me look at my relationship with Ange with sudden, excited incredulity.

'You want me to come with you to the whole of the final week of the World Darts Championships?'

'Yeah. Course I do. It's at the Happy Valley Country Club, near Dangley Bottom.'

'Dangley Bottom?'

'I know. Isn't it a bloody awful name? It sounds like the arsehole of the world. You'd think it was right out in the sticks, but it's only just outside the M25. It's like, I dunno, a small town or big village, I dunno which you'd call it . . . It's nothing much, because posh people don't want an address with Dangley Bottom in it, so the house prices are low. There's this pub, nothing special, but Viv's a hoot. I always book a double room there.'

'Just in case.'

'You've got it. I don't want to be rude, Alan, but you're catching on much quicker than you did when we first met.'

'Thank you.'

'No, I mean it.'

'Let me get this straight. You want me to spend a week with you at the World Darts Championship and come back with you every evening and sleep with you in this pub, where Viv is a hoot?'

'Yeah.'

'What can I say except, "Bleedin' 'ell"?'

She laughed.

'Nice one, Alan.' Then she looked serious. 'Alan, please say "Yes".'

That was a great moment. I think it was the first time she had really truly asked me for something, really truly shown that she wanted me to be with her.

'It's difficult,' I said. 'I have a job, you know. I have supervisions with students. I give lectures. I have to prepare the Ferdinand Brinsley. I'm not a free man.'

'Oh, Alan.'

I couldn't bear to see her looking so disappointed. Well, all right, that was a very small part of it. I dreaded the thought of a week of darts, I dreaded the thought of Viv being a hoot, but I dreaded far more – far, far more – the thought of Ange being there without me.

'Of course I'll come,' I said.

She squealed with delight and kissed me on the lips, and I had a strange and rather sad thought. It was the first time in my life that I'd had real evidence that I'd made somebody happy.

'About the pub,' she said, lowering her voice with a tact that she had never shown me before – maybe we were each having a good effect on the other – 'I don't mind if we don't . . . if you can't . . . you know. I'll just enjoy being with you.'

My heart almost burst.

'I've had a thought,' she said. 'There are one or two of the games where I don't care about the result, like they're players that I couldn't care less whether they win or not. We could piss off back to the pub and I could bring a book . . .'

'With a red cover.'

'Goes without saying. And I could read my book in one corner of the room and you could work on your lecture in the other corner. That would be really cosy.'

I found it immensely reassuring that this young lady thought that being cosy was a nice thing. I was beginning to realise how she was miscast as an Essex girl. I was beginning to hope that . . . that we might have what I had hardly dared to think about – a future.

'Yes,' I said. 'Yes, it would.'

Then she turned serious.

'Next week's the first week of the darts, our week together is the week after,' she said. 'I won't see you before then, Alan.'

I felt devastated.

'Why?'

'Because . . . I don't want to be rude, Alan, but I don't want to.'

'I see.'

'You don't see at all. I want fun, Alan. I told you. I don't do heavy. There's no reason except that. I'm not seeing another man or anythink. I'll work, get some cash, do a few sessions down the Black Bull, go clubbing, have a few drinks, get nicely pissed once or twice, see me sister, cos I have to do that, and spend a bit of time with me mum, cos I have to do that too under the circumstances.'

'What circumstances?'

'Well . . . we aren't a happy family, leave it at that. Alan.'

It was a command, not a suggestion.

I left it at that.

'Besides, I want to work up to our little adventure.'

'Work up to it?'

'Like look forward to it. Like get a bit starved of you so that it's great when I see you, right?'

I didn't know how I would cope with being a bit starved of her, but that was just about the nicest thing that anybody had ever said to me. I don't think anybody had ever felt remotely starved of me before.

'Another pint before I go? Your shout.'

'I'll get you one, but . . . I'm driving.'

'Driving? You drove down?'

'Only way to make sure of getting here on time. Drove faster than my little Saab has ever been driven. Couldn't be late for my bird.'

I daresay the word 'bird' is long out of date, but I felt very bold using it.

Ange looked impressed.

'Bleedin' 'ell,' she said.

I went to the bar, where it took me ages to get served with Ange's pint of lager. I'd had so little practice at it. I didn't buy myself anything. To me, drinking a whole pint was like downing the contents of a water butt. I didn't want to be caught short in my Saab. I usually carry a sample bottle with me, for emergencies, in view of my little weakness, but I'd taken it home to be washed and in the rush I'd forgotten to put it back.

When I returned to her we sat in easy, companionable silence for a few moments, watching the noisy, restless multinational bustle of the pub. It was lovely. It was our very first easy silence together, and I knew that the evening had been a considerable success.

'Why's your lecture called the Ferdinand Brinsley Memorial Lecture?' she asked at last.

'So that we won't forget Ferdinand Brinsley, who he was, what he did.'

'Who was he? What did he do?'

'I've forgotten.'

We laughed. We laughed and laughed and laughed. When we thought that we were about to stop, we laughed again. It was truly a shared laugh. I don't think I had ever been as happy in my life as I was during that laugh.

I was living in suspended animation, waiting for our week together to begin. I found myself getting dressed, making coffee, even giving supervisions and lectures, but I felt detached from it all. I was doing it all from memory, as if I was a computer just following a programme that it had been set. I found it impossible to do any work on the Ferdinand Brinsley. Had I been Descartes, I might have said of myself 'I don't think, therefore I'm not.'

Then I discovered that the World Darts Championship was on the television, not just in little bits but almost the whole thing, on and on and on. And on and on and on. And on and on and on and on. I hadn't even begun to realise how big an event it was. I thought I ought to watch a bit of it, so that I wouldn't seem like a total idiot next week with Ange. So, between supervisions and lectures, there I was, in my rooms in the cloistered calm of the college, with the sound on fairly low so that nobody would know, watching this extraordinary happening.

It seemed to me to be the most boring activity that I had ever witnessed. I didn't know how I could stand a week of it, even with Ange.

The commentators went from banality to absurdity to an enthusiasm which seemed to me at first to be totally false, to be a desperate attempt to breathe life into this deadly dull sport. 'The nation is awash with darts fever.' 'There's a global explosion in the world of darts.' 'He comes from a town called Alpen, so he obviously likes his breakfast.' 'Northern Europe is on fire this week.' 'That was the biggest come-back since Muffin the Mule.' 'The passion is tangible.' 'The crowd are braying for a result.' 'This is World Championship darts. This is the greatest pressure you can feel.'

But as the week wore on – not that I was watching all the time, of course – a far worse interpretation dawned on me.

They meant every word of it.

I imagined Kant and Spinoza sitting watching the darts, hearing the Master of Ceremonies yell out at the top of his voice, 'Let's play darts', at which the crowd . . . well, they did what you learn that crowds always do when you watch sport on television – they erupted.

The maximum score you can get on a darts board is one hundred and eighty. Every time this happened – and it happened amazingly often – the score was yelled out – 'One Hundred and Eighteeee' – and large numbers of boards with 180 on them were held up amid wild cheering. The room in which the matches were played was huge, and filled with tables of casually dressed, mainly young people drinking pints of lager. There was lager as far as the eye could see. I would be there next week, feeling a real fish out of water, but with Ange.

'Pint of lager, Spinoza?' 'Thank you, Immanuel – you don't mind my calling you Immanuel, do you? – I thought
Critique of Pure Reasoning
was wonderful.' 'S'ssh, Spinoza, he's got a three-dart finish.'

How could anyone with even half a brain go to darts and enjoy it? Playing it was bad enough, but watching it . . . I'd rather sit with my mother.

I couldn't believe it. They showed action replays. A dart flew through the air on to the board, and they showed a replay of it in slow motion. The linguist in me felt offended at the term action replay in connection with the replaying of an incident that had contained nothing that I would describe as action in the first place.

I learnt that a match consisted of five sets, and a set consisted of five legs, and each leg began at 501 and the score moved down until you got a final double. That seemed like an awful lot of match to me. I was going to be bored stiff. Then, to my horror, I discovered, from something one of the commentators said, that the matches got even longer with each round – seven sets, nine sets, eleven sets.

Then suddenly there he was, on my screen, invading the privacy of my rooms. Tons Thomas. He was burly and sweaty and had a beer belly. How on earth could she fancy him? I noticed that they didn't call him Tons, they called him Geraint. I was shocked to find how much I wanted him to lose. I discovered that he was expected to lose, he was an outsider, a long shot, a qualifier. But he won that first match. I had to admit, though, that he had a captivating, good-natured Celtic smile, and not many gaps between his teeth, and that he was gracious and modest in victory.

And then there was Nineteens Normanton, as large as life. No, larger. He was burly and sweaty but he did not have a beer belly. He was all muscle. He looked as if he'd been quarried rather than born. How on earth could she fancy
him
? I noticed that they didn't call him Nineteens, they called him Craig. He was expected to struggle in his first match against a very promising player from Holland – 'They're breeding darts players instead of tulips now' – but he won too. I wasn't pleased. I felt jealous of him. I had to admit, though, that he was an impressive figure, in the way that Ben Nevis is impressive, and that, although barely articulate, he too was modest in victory.

I had realised by now that it was inevitable that I would also see Shanghai Sorensen, and that I would want him to lose, and that he would win, and so it proved. He was tall and relatively slim and he definitely didn't have a beer belly. I had no difficulty, unfortunately, in believing that she had fancied him. I noticed that they didn't call him Shanghai. They called him Bent, which is a rather unfortunate name that Danes sometimes call their children. 'You were wrong, Shakespeare,' thundered the commentator, as Bent Sorensen scored a maximum. 'There's nothing rotten in the state of Denmark after all.'

I wondered if I would be able to contain my jealousy and remain pleasant to Ange.

I had to. There was no other way.

'This event is the jewel in the crown.' 'Everyone wants to feel part of the party.' 'If you could bottle this atmosphere and sell it, you'd be a millionaire.' 'We're not down the Dog and Duck now, I can promise you.' 'Let's play darts.' 'Game on.'

I was going to have to dredge up some enthusiasm from somewhere. My life depended on it – literally.

No. That was what one of the commentators had said 'He has to finish with these three darts. His life depends on it – literally.'

My life did depend on it metaphorically, though. My life with
Ange might even depend on it literally. Without Ange I would have no life.
So, yes, on reflection, my life did depend on it – literally.

Horrified though I was, I found it difficult to switch the darts off. It was quite a relief, therefore, to have to, in order to go and buy a cake, and visit my mother.

The Saab seemed very sluggish that Wednesday afternoon, as if it shared my reluctance to arrive at the Home.

I took refuge in fantasy once again as the tension in my stomach increased. Again I was utterly unconscious of passing through several roundabouts as I imagined my conversation with my mother.

'I've brought a cake for you, Mother.'

'Thank you. You're a good boy'

'I'm not a boy, mother, I'm fifty-five, a man, a lover.'

'What???'

'Well, not literally. I haven't even fucked her yet.'

'Alan!!!!'

'I've only known her for just over a fortnight, mother. She calls herself Ange Bedwell.'

'Oh, Alan, stop it.'

'But it isn't her real name. Her real name is Angela Clench – she's one of the Gallows Corner Clenches.'

'No. Stop it.'

'No, mother, this is a girl who has slept with lots of the top darts players, so it's quite a feather in my cap. She's been fucked by Tons Thomas and Nineteens Normanton, so I feel pretty privileged.'

'I don't feel well.'

'She works as a temp in the office of a skip-hire firm in Romford. She's an Essex girl.'

'I can't breathe.'

'I won't be able to see you next week, I'm afraid. I'm neglecting my work on some excuse or other – this could cost me what's left of my career, but who cares? – and I'm spending the week with her at the World Darts Championship, and sleeping with her in a pub where a woman called Viv is apparently a hoot.'

'Aaaaargh!!'

'Help! Help! I think my mother's had a heart attack.'

The Home's car park is unnecessarily large, a constant rebuke to uncaring relatives and friends for not going to visit the elderly people within as often as the planners had calculated. As I parked I felt shocked by my realisation of the sharp moral decline that had developed in my fantasies in only five days.

It was so tempting. It wouldn't be wicked. It would be a mercy killing. She got no pleasure out of life now. I don't know that she ever had got much pleasure, but now she got none. Only a couple of weeks ago, when I had told her that I hadn't wanted to give her food poisoning because it might kill her, she had said, 'Why should you think that would upset me? What sort of a life do I lead?'

I put the carrier bag on the table.

'It's lemon drizzle this week, Mother.'

It was undeniable that it would be convenient for me. I loathed these weekly visits. I was going to loathe them even more as my life with Ange developed.

'M'mm.'

I was utterly tired of not being properly thanked by this graceless old woman. She didn't deserve to live.

What was I thinking about? It had just been a private joke, a wicked little thought.

I had to tell her that I couldn't come next week, because of the darts. I couldn't tell her that, of course. I almost couldn't tell her at all. It never crossed her selfish mind that I might have a life, that I might have things to do. I felt even more claustrophobic than usual in her room that afternoon, more claustrophobic even than in the tiny, windowless room in which I am writing this.

I screwed up my nerve. This was so difficult.

'I . . . I'm afraid I won't be able to come and see you next week, Mother.'

Would it work? Would it kill her if I told her about Ange? No. She was tougher than that.

'But you always come and see me.'

It was true. I hadn't had a holiday longer than six days for nine years because of our Wednesdays. Nine years of bloody Wednesdays. Even if it didn't kill her, surely it would shorten her life? No. It would lengthen it. She would thrive on the disapproval. In any case, if I told her and she didn't die, I would have to visit her when she knew about Ange, and I couldn't face that.

'Yes, well, next week I can't. I'm sorry.'

I was disappointed with myself for saying that I was sorry. I ought to be above such petty lies, especially when I had to tell such big lies.

'I . . . er . . . the fact is, Mother, I . . . I'm going to a big conference in Prague.'

I wished I hadn't used the Prague excuse. It was foolish of me. I was actually going to a big conference in Prague in a month's time, and I would have to think of a new excuse then. I was going to have to tell more and more lies in the weeks and months to come. Oh God.

'Oh, well, that'll be fun for you. They say Prague's very beautiful. Think of me, won't you, stuck here?'

No, if I wanted to kill my mother, I would have to murder her.

That was ridiculous. It shocked me that I could even think such a thing. I banished the dreadful thought from my mind, and took refuge in my first safe subject.

'So, what did you have for lunch?'

'Some kind of meat. I don't know what. I'm losing my sense of taste, Alan.'

All my mother's few pleasures were being taken from her, one by one. It would be a mercy killing.

No!!

I broke out into a light sweat all over my body. How could I get through another ninety-four minutes? There were no safe subjects any more.