Her Lover (94 page)

Behind closed doors once more, they found the dinner left by the waiter on the sitting-room table swathed in blankets and an eiderdown to keep it hot. They would sit down and she would serve him, filling his glass with burgundy, pressing him to a little more meat, discreetly endeavouring to feed her man.

One evening in late September, as she imperiously forked a second hunk of meat on to her lover's plate, he looked away, embarrassed by the attentions which she lavished on him. What would she do next? Rub down his coat with a handful of straw? Polish his hooves? Come to think of it, he mused, she had recently begun to enjoy trimming his nails for him. But he looked at her again, and, seeing her humble and submissive and respectful of his silence, he felt a surge of tenderness. She was his handmaiden, she had sacrificed everything for him without a thought for what people might say, she lived only for him, and in him was all her hope. Suddenly he pictured her lying in her future coffin, white and stiff, and he ached with pity. Whereupon he kissed the hands which served him, her hands, which still lived.

One evening early in October, after dinner, she sat with her legs revealingly crossed and spoke to him of music, then of painting, a subject of which he knew nothing and moreover despised, and on which he was consequently driven to make loud whinnies of sincere but perfunctory approval by means of energetic tossings of his mane. -Saying that she was tired, she turned out the ceiling light, draped a red scarf over the bedside lamp, and stretched out on the bed.

In the semi-darkness, she watched him through half-closed eyes and smiled, and suddenly he was afraid of her smile, for it was a smile from another world, a dark and potent world, was afraid of this woman who lay in wait for him, afraid of her tender eyes, afraid of their unwavering beadiness, afraid of her smile so single-minded in its purpose. Supine and soft in her web of spells, she wore her expectant smile in the dim, diffused red glow, and beckoned silently to him, a loving, terrifying magnet. He got up, and stepped into the world of women.

Impaled beneath his weight, she enveloped him, held him fiercely
with arms and clutching thighs which were thongs to bind his back, and he was afraid to be thus held and harnessed, afraid of this woman beneath him who was a stranger to him, who was bewitched by lust, possessed, an ecstatic prophetess gripped by the holy frenzy of orgasm, who suddenly looked up at him with a beatific, crazed smile, wanting everything, dangerously wanting everything he had to give, wanting his strength to feed on, his air to breathe, offering the kiss of the vampire, wanting to imprison him in her dark world.

Appeased and re-entering the world of human speech, but still keeping him in her, gripping him inside her, she spoke in a voice that was soft and low. 'Darling, together always, loving always, that is what I want,' she said with one of her crazed smiles, and he shuddered, the captive of she who held him fast.

CHAPTER 82

One evening in late October, as he stepped into her room, he was assailed by a voice, a pure lily-white voice, singing Cherubino's aria,
'Voi che sapete che cosa è amor'.
With eyes ashine, she watched as the surprise registered on her lover's face, then she sat down beside him and "they exchanged kisses while via the gramophone.a Viennese soprano told them, courtesy of Mozart, what a thing their love was. When the music died away, she stopped the record. He praised the melody, duly admired Mozart, and said what a clever girl she'd been to buy a gramophone. She breathed deeply, proud to be clever, and then excitedly told him all about it, putting on her good-little-girl face as she always did when he said nice things to her.

'Got the idea in a flash of inspiration, I thought you'd like it, so I rushed off to Saint-Raphaël to buy one. Unfortunately it's the wind-up sort. It was just a little shop and they didn't stock any of those new turntables that work by electricity. It doesn't matter, though, does it? I've already bought twenty records, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. It was a good idea I had, wasn't it?'

'Absolutely first-rate,' he smiled. 'We'll play them all to celebrate our being here for two months.'

She held out her lips to celebrate their sixtieth day of untrammelled love. She then expatiated on the Mozart aria, twice saying that it was adorable. To show an interest, he asked her to play it again. All eagerness, she wound the handle, blew on the record to remove any specks of dust, and carefully lowered the needle. The adorable aria began again, she went back to her place and nuzzled up to Solal's shoulder. Locked in each other's arms, they listened to all twenty double-sided records. She got up at frequent intervals to rewind the spring, then returned to him and gazed into his eyes while the records played on, to share the music, to see if he liked it. She provided a running commentary for each piece and he nodded approvingly. It was '
Voi che sapete che cosa è amor'
which brought the proceedings to a conclusion in the late afternoon of their sixtieth day.

'You who know what love is,' she translated in a whisper, and her cheek reached for the cheek of her love.

At seven forty she unveiled a second surprise. For that evening, she had ordered a special dinner, a semi-gourmet menu, which would be served at eight. There would be Russian hors-d'oeuvres, then lobster
a l'americaine,
followed by all sorts of other goodies. And dry champagne! He told her all over again how clever she was. She demanded a kiss as a reward, said 'Thank you, kind sir' when she got it, explained that when she'd returned from Saint-Raphaël she'd made a point of having a personal word with the chef to make absolutely sure that everything would be just right and that there'd be no stinting on the hors-d'oeuvres, because he was so fond of them. Such a nice man, the chef, so obliging. Besides, he loved cats, always a good sign.

The following day, which was the twenty-seventh of October, there was yet another surprise. For dinner she wore a marvellous, boldly plunging evening dress which revealed the small of her back. She had bought it secredy in Cannes that very morning. At midnight, when the twenty double-sided records had been played, he said that he was tired and took his loving leave. She asked him to promise he wouldn't laugh, but she had this urge to wash him all over in his bath. Say I can? You will let me? And so it came to pass, and she bathed him with handmaidenly ritual. After which she undressed and asked his permission to join him in the tub.

During the evenings which followed, they were served in their rooms with fine dinners specially ordered by Ariane, whose heart was gladdened by his evident pleasure. After coffee, Mozart's sublime aria swelled regularly round them, while noble words and deeds of tenderness passed between them and were interrupted on occasions by the grating cackle of jazz music to which commoner souls downstairs were dancing. When this happened, she pulled free of him and waited for the vulgar music to end.

One evening in early November, as she put down the book from which she had been reading aloud, she suggested a walk. He refused with a brief squinting blink of an eye and said it was raining outside. Then she said she would show him the family photograph album, which she happened to have brought with her. It had photos of her father, her mother, Aunt Valérie, Uncle Agrippa, Éliane, various grandparents and assorted great-grandparents. He made comments and admiring noises, and when she closed the album he suggested a trip to Italy - Venice, Pisa, Florence. They could leave tomorrow, catch the morning train. She got to her feet, clapped her hands, and said she'd start packing her cases that very minute.

CHAPTER 83

That day, after lunch in their sitting-room, they repaired severally to their rooms, undressed and got ready. Naked under a white silk dress, she completed her ablutions and titivations by spraying perfume here and there. Meanwhile he, naked under his red dressing-gown, shamefacedly scrubbed his nails. After a few moments the Mozart aria struck up and he gave a start. It was the summons. For she no longer phoned now, she put a record on instead. It was more romantic.

Yes, the summons. He was to report at once for love. She-to-Whom-Great-Debt-Was-Owed had sent for him, was summoning him to make her happy. Come now, prove to me that I was right to choose a life of solitude with you, she would say under cover of 'You who know what love is\ Today was November the twenty-sixth. Three months had already passed since they'd left Geneva, three months of chemically pure love. Agay first, then Venice, Florence and Pisa, and now Agay again, where they'd been for a week. If she noticed that today was November the twenty-sixth, there was a danger that the twenty-sixth of August would have to be commemorated with romantic effusions and de-luxe coition.

He put down the nailbrush and the soap and peered at himself, close-shaven and disgustingly clean in his dressing-gown. So this was to be his life from now on: to.be a daily object of desire, to display for sexual purposes. She had changed him into a peacock. Not to put too fine a point on it, both he and she lived like animals. But at least animals had seasons for pairing and mating. Not them: they were at it all the time. Constantly scrubbing himself, shaving twice a day, being handsome all the time, such had been his sole purpose in life for three months.

'Yes, all right, I'm on my way, I'm coming,' he told the Mozart aria, which, as he knew it would, was being encored.

Two o'clock. Outside a bitter wind was blowing. This meant he was sentenced to be confined to the love-nest. What on earth were they to do until it was time for dinner? What could he think up? These last few days there'd been scenes which had livened things up a bit and given them something to think about, but it had taken too much out of her. So he was going to have to find something else.

Perhaps they might slip away to Italy again? He hadn't the heart for it. Besides, even if they went to Venice they'd still be the same people when they got there. Moreover, at every train journey's end her nose was silted up with smoke. He did his best not to stare, but he couldn't help it, for his eyes were drawn to the grisly sight of her blackened nostrils. Of course when they checked into the hotel she washed them clean along with the rest of her, but those last few hours in the train, when the poor innocent girl, smiling nobly, displayed her sooty nostrils, were more than he could bear. He felt a crazy urge to take his handkerchief and give her nose a thorough clear-out. Really, she must have special nostrils which attracted every sooty particle that passed by, and he was allergic to smoke-attracting nostrils.

'Come on, chaps, over the top.'

Enter the peacock, he said to himself as he opened the door to the love-nest, where, immaculate in the dress which she had just ironed herself, she greeted him with a heavenly smile which she immediately followed up by dropping a kiss on his hand. The gesture was now merely part of the ritual, he thought. But, oh, the sacred brush of her lips on his hand that night at the Ritz had been the willing gift of her soul.

'A little music?' she suggested.

Touched by her clumsy but evident eagerness to please, he said he'd like that. So she rewound the gramophone and minced Solal's heart. Another Mozart aria filled the room and she slowly drew near, a priestess of such grave demeanour that he felt afraid and retreated imperceptibly before her advance, while at the same time he checked a nervous urge to laugh prompted by the ceremonial flexing of her masseters. For these days whenever she came near him with Intentions, as a way of showing her love or signalling her desire she invariably clenched her teeth as though she were about to bite. This made the muscles of her jaws stand out and brought on an attack of incipient giggles, which he controlled as best he could. Inspired by Mozart, she held out her lips, on which he immediately fastened, only too happy to avoid the looming paroxysm of nervous laughter and, like her, giving an imitation of the keenest pleasure. But she was not aware that she was imitating anything. All through the kiss, which he prolonged because he could not come up with anything to say, he was thinking that in the Geneva days the idea of having music as an accompaniment to kissing had not been deemed necessary. Then their love had made music enough.

When the peculiar suction which glues male and female together was finished, he turned on the wireless, hoping against hope for a play or a talk. But immediately a brainless, drooping female crooner begged him to speak to her of love, to say old words of tenderness. He switched her off and made up his mind that he would have this one, who was there. It would use up an hour, because once he'd given her the reassurance she wanted he could pretend to go to sleep. So get on with it. Take off her damned dress and make a start on the preliminaries.

At two thirty-five, having received due homage, she was stroking his naked shoulder. He raised his eyebrows in resignation, like a victim whose sufferings go unnoticed. Now it was time for the ritual, the ritual enactment which followed the gymnastic display, to which women attached such curious importance. This mania they had, once the loving convulsions were over, for switching to Sentiment by means of the tender charade of running their fingers lightly over the neck of their stallion. That was it exactly. She was stroking his withers, rubbing his coat, so to speak, patting him as a way of saying thanks very much for giving her such an exhilarating ride. Poor misguided girl, who thought she could bind him in her coils with such romantic chivvying! Actually her sweet post-coital attentions were torture. Moreover, she was lying far too close for comfort, and he could feel her skin moist and sticky. He backed away, and as their bodies separated there was a faint sound as of a cupping-glass released.

But now she was clinging to him once more. Clinging for love, of course. To draw away again would be ungracious. So make the best of it, suffer it, be a limpet, be kind, love this neighbour who was decidedly too neighbourly. I am odious, he thought, oh yes, odious, for this transition from sex to sentiment is a beautiful thing and I should respect her for it, but I am a brute. Yesterday, for fun and because he thought she'd like it, he had chased her along the deserted beach, and she had screamed shrilly like a frightened little girl, she'd run around and skipped in that silly way of hers, waving her arms about like dislocated wings, beating them clumsily, and suddenly she had turned hysterical and strangely gangling, suddenly she was a tall girl at the awkward age, and the sight had sickened and repelled him, he had felt degraded, diminished, he had had the impression that he was chasing a large female canary. Oh yes, I'm a brute. Yet I love her as I have never loved anyone before, and I feel such aching tenderness for her when I see signs of youth passing from her face, the portents of old age to come, of old age which will inevitably come, and I shall not be there to watch over her, over you, my love, my precious love, and, just like you, when I'm in the bath I find myself unconsciously whispering 'my treasure', and that means you, my love, my poor love.