Out of Such Darkness (16 page)

Jay is wearing a polo shirt and chinos as he emerges from his room into the suite’s shared living space. He hopes he’s striking the right note. The room is empty and he crosses to the window. The view looks down on an artificial waterway – a shallow canal that winds its way beneath him. A couple is promenading arm in arm on the far bank. This must be the Riverwalk. He visualises Teri and him in their place. What has the evening in store for them?

Don’t think about it. Your shirt isn’t long enough to cover what’s going on down below. What’s she going to think?

The intervention prompts Jay to consider the stalker standing at his shoulder. It doesn’t worry him. He’s managing his wayward thoughts. He knows this; he’s not insane.

A pleasure boat glides along the shallow canal. It’s loaded with women of a certain age in red hats and purple dresses. Two of them are involved in a good-natured tussle and one tosses the other’s hat into the stream. The boat’s crewman wields a long-handled boathook to retrieve it and Jay imagines the women’s ribald observations. He decides that he can jettison the MC as unceremoniously as the woman dispensed with the hat. On the family’s journey home he’ll give him a parachute and order him to jump out of the Jumbo somewhere over the Atlantic.

Hold that thought …

Jay looks at his watch. He turns back to the room seeking further distraction and …

Achtung! She’s coming. Stand up straight.

The door to Teri’s room cracks open and she emerges.

You’re 45. You’ve been ‘round the block’ – a few times. You remember from when you were a teenager: if a girl wears a ‘button-through’ dress on a date it’s a green light. She’s as ripe for it as my lovely Orchestra girls: Heidi, Christina, Mausi …

Small white buttons start at the neckline of Teri’s dress and go all the way to the hem. The top one is undone.

And the others are aching to be free.

It’s a classic ‘Audrey Hepburn look’ – crisp, smooth cotton in dark blue with white spots, sleeveless and nipped at the waist with a narrow white belt. The skirt flares over Teri’s bare legs.

Say something.

He can’t think of what to say. It’s either going to be too forward or too lame. His face is overheating.

Don’t be a schmuck, say something.

‘How do I look?’ She spins with a white clutch purse in her right hand. Her heels are high but she makes the complete turn without a misstep.

Gott im Himmel! Bring that slack jaw under control and say something.

It’s a moment of inspiration but already he thinks it’s misguided. He tries a poor imitation of a Confederate gentleman. ‘Thank heavens you’re not in rags. I’m tired of seeing women in rags!’

She peers at him from behind the fringe. ‘Excuse me?’

Jay!
That film
was at least 30 years old by the time Teri was born. She may not even have heard of it.

‘Sorry. It’s from an ancient film. Way before your time. Sorry.’

‘
Gone with the Wind
! My momma talked about it.’ She shakes her head. ‘Not the kind of film people of colour are likely to use as a reference.’

Blood rushes to his cheeks. ‘Oh God! Sorry! What was I thinking? Look, Teri. I didn’t think.’

Her laugh tinkles like a cat tripping along the right-hand end of a piano keyboard. ‘I only said it to make you squirm. You English!’ She turns to the door. ‘Let’s hit the bar. We have to loosen you up! I’ll fetch my wrap and you’ll need a jacket. The evenings are cool here.’

The manager’s complimentary cocktail reception is a feature of the deal Teri has made with Homewood Suites. It’s crowded but there are still one or two vacant tables. Male heads turn as Jay leads Teri to a place next to an ornamental fountain and asks what she’s drinking.

‘There’s only one choice. You should take one yourself. Long Island Tea – it gives you most alcoholic bang for your buck.’

There’s a crush of bodies at the bar but training from English pubs has sharpened instinctive techniques in Jay that Americans, used to being served at the table, don’t understand. These, plus his accent, do the trick and, abracadabra, two Long Island Teas are delivered over the heads of the people in front of him and into his hands.

This success puts a spring in his step and he places the glasses with a flourish.

‘Oops! Should have told you. You order up double-bubble – saves you going back again.’ She closes her lips – they’re painted in a dark, purplish gloss – around the straw. ‘Mmm! I was watching you. I can see how you got where you are in business. You’re quite an operator.’

Jay takes a sip – nearly poking himself in the eye with the straw. ‘It’s good! It tastes like a cross between cold tea and Pimms.’

‘Pimms?’

‘A very alcoholic drink they serve at Wimbledon with strawberries and cream.’

‘You been to Wimpleton?’

Her pronunciation tickles him and he vows that if they end up in bed he’s going to ask her to name the home of British tennis while they’re doing it. They talk about England and compare the places Teri wants to visit with those he thinks she would like.

Jay repeats the process at the bar and, when they’ve finished their second Long Island Tea, Teri announces that it’s time for her to show him the Riverwalk. It’s cool but not cold in the pedestrian traffic and the walkway, lit by fairy lights and bordered by restaurants, bars and gift shops, has a quality that is no less romantic for being synthetic. Had Jay seen this on TV in England, he would have adopted a superior tone and droned on about the American obsession with the ersatz.

His delight in the surroundings has something to do with the fact that Teri has linked her arm in his and, from time to time as they squeeze through the crowd, hugs close into him. He looks down at her arms where they emerge from the edges of a fine-knit shawl. Her dark skin glows in the lights. It looks smooth and dry – a texture that he anticipates in the tips of his fingers. Her hip is nudging him rhythmically.

‘Crabs!’

‘What?’

‘We’ll go to
Dick’s Last Resort
for crabs. You haven’t tried
Dick’s
before?’ she says.

‘No.’ He can’t stop himself grinning. Teri doesn’t notice. She’s navigating them through the crowd.

Yes. Crabs at Dick’s, Jay. It is what they call humour in Texas.

‘I better warn you. You do it for the experience – absolutely not the food. That’s to say it’s not cordon blue but it is good.’

‘Why? What experience?’

‘You’ll see.’ She hugs hard against him to steer them as a single unit further into the bustle.

He’s unbuttoning the dress. He is, really – this isn’t Jay’s fantasy. His fingers are fumbling. His lips are still wet from the kiss – a kiss that went on and on, where her lips and his tongue had a discussion about penetration and passionate acceptance. She’s holding his head in her hands.

He’s slow, delighting in the sight of her skin as it’s revealed in the opening he’s creating. He can only glimpse the front clasp of her bra but it’s enough to see that it’s white and that the contrast with her skin is stark – exciting. He kneels to complete the task. Her fingers are teasing his hair. Now, only now, does he part the material and his eyes feast on her bare thighs, the white-covered junction, her navel set in a softly padded, hard-ridged belly. He runs his fingertips up the back of her porcelain-smooth legs until he’s able to pull her to him and press his face against her pubic bone. He wants her to know that, for him, nothing is off limits. It will be all for her pleasure.

It was so much easier than he had anticipated. They had finished slurping on crab claws and their glob-covered plastic bibs were thrown aside. He had demonstrated his skills in swapping corrosive banter with the waiting staff. They had drunk their third beer of the night. She had pinioned him with those dark eyes and said. ‘We’ll use your room.’

‘What?’ He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly because of the noise coming from inside the restaurant – they were on the deck outside.

‘You know. It’s a classic “my place or yours” move. I’m telling you it’s yours. You have the king-size bed. My room has two queens.’

The MC giggled.

He shook his head to dispel the laughter. He’d forgotten him. He reminded himself that there was no third person at their table. Teri could have taken his delay the wrong way. ‘You mean–’

‘I
mean –
’ she pronounced it meeyan ‘– it’s your place not mine.’

He decided to play it cool. ‘Okay.’ He took a swig at his empty beer glass. Teri laughed – an extended stifled bray ending with a snort that Jay found weirdly alluring.

They had tumbled into the elevator and had it to themselves. It was she who had reached out so that they were able to come together for an exploratory kiss. Their lips touched and it was like his first kiss ever. She ground her pelvis against him. Their lips parted.

‘Please don’t say anything about guns and being pleased to meet you,’ he said. For once, it was the right thing at the right time. So it seemed natural that they should enter the suite hand in hand and he should lead her to his room where they had sucked at each other’s faces until he helped her out of her dress.

‘You’re going to stay, aren’t you? Tonight, I mean.’ Jay says.

She’s naked, lying in the bend of his arm. ‘Sure. Do you have a cigarette?’

Her hand rests on his belly. He wishes he was in better shape. ‘You don’t smoke.’

‘I gave up. Now I could use one.’

‘Sorry.’

She slaps her hand down gently. ‘You Brits and apologising.’

‘Sorry.’

She slaps him harder.

‘Ow! Seriously I can think of nothing nicer than waking up with you here with me.’

‘That’s sweet. You’re sweet.’

‘Hmm.’ Should he tell her that he knows she’s way out of his league?

‘You know, Jay. We never really talked about it.’

Oh-oh! ‘Let’s talk about our relationship’ already?

The MC’s right. Surely she’s not going to talk about commitment. ‘What?’

‘9/11. How come you weren’t in the office?’

The ‘relationship’ conversation would have been preferable but saying he’d rather not talk about it would spoil the mood. ‘Simple really. I missed the train.’

‘How?’

‘I dunno. Vanity I suppose.’ He explains in as few words as he can how he had made the decision to stay in his car reading the
Burford Buzz
article.

‘That’s quite a story. Just imagine if the magazine hadn’t been there.’

He shivers. ‘I do imagine it.’

‘The stupid magazine saved your life.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ he says. ‘I carry it round with me like a sort of talisman. It’s in my briefcase now.’

Jackpot! You know what she’s going to ask.

The shaft of realisation stabs him in the kidney. Please don’t ask to see it.

‘Wow! Can I see it?’

Double jackpot!

He shuffles himself down until his face is opposite her breast and he closes his eyes as he nuzzles against it. ‘I was thinking
…
’

She’s not going to fall for that.

She pulls his hair. ‘No, I’d like to see it.’

The MC is skipping around the room clapping his hands beneath his chin.
It’s going to be such fun when she reads about Rachel and Ben.

He gives it one more try. ‘Later?’

‘Now!’ She’s smiling.

The act of walking across the room appals him – she’s able to study his flabby musculature for the first time – but it also excites him so, by the time he returns with the magazine, he’s hopeful she’ll be distracted by his penis which in its erect expectation resembles a begging dog.

Teri wafts a hand in its general direction. ‘Later!’

She starts reading.

Hmmm. The Halprins play happy families.

His heart falls as, over her shoulder, he views the picture of domesticity that Melissa Rosenberg describes.

‘Exclamation marks!’ Teri says.

But Jay’s eyes have strayed to the article below describing the wedding of an old man and an old woman in a White Plains old people’s home. It’s the man’s name, Willy Keel. Cameron Mortimer’s pool boy! This wizened creature. The one and the same.

So now you have it. A connection from Mortimer to the present.

She lowers the magazine. ‘Fascinating!’

But Jay’s mind is still not in the room. If he can find this Willy Keel he can ask him about Mortimer. Will it lead to Isherwood? Would the teacher Costidy and the people of Burford Lakes be interested to learn that he’s connected the town to the great man?

Hey! You’re in bed with a beautiful woman.

What
is
he thinking? ‘Sorry about all the family stuff,’ he says.

‘Don’t be silly! It’s not as if I didn’t know. We’re having fun. What goes on tour stays on tour.’ She’s reaching down. ‘Hey! What’s happened to Mr Pleased-to-see-you? Now what do I gotta do to have him perky all over again?’

If you stopped talking like that it would help.

The room is dimly-lit when Jay half-wakes. He tries to calculate the time based on the height of the sun and the weight of the curtains. He doesn’t have sufficient information and relaxes. It must be too early to get up and risk waking Teri. He’s on the point of closing his eyes when the MC’s chalk-white face appears. He’s asleep and Jay watches him stir into life.

Quite a night last night,
the MC says.

Yes. I’m not sure …

Stop worrying. She called the shots. Blame her.

But …

This is no time for guilt. Listen, Jay; guilt is for the officer class on the back row of the chessboard not the pawns who serve them.

You’re saying I’m just a pawn?

The MC nods and smiles sympathetically. With the greasepaint and the sides of his mouth turned down he resembles a sad clown.
Emotion is futile in a person who is only a bit player in another’s destiny.

Nobody in my life is as important as me, are they?

It’s a point of view.

When Jay is wholly awake nearly three hours later the conversation with the MC is no more than a trace of a memory lurking below the surface. Teri is there beside him and he must focus on negotiating the erotic possibilities and matutinal intimacies that mark their first waking as lovers.