St. Urbain's Horseman (7 page)

Drink in hand, Jake trailed after her everywhere, always on the rim of her group. If she so much as ventured an observation on London, or remarked on a play she had seen, he didn't comment, but smirked condescendingly, as if to say, idiot. If she was trapped into conversation with a bore, he condemned her with his eyes for tolerating him, raising his eyebrows, as if to say, only a dolt would have time for him. Loping after her from room to room, he twice made forays into her group. On the first occasion, as a man, whispering in her ear, made her laugh, he barged in, gratuitously rude, and when that failed to demolish him, inquired pointedly after the man's wife and children. On the other occasion, adjudging her too responsive to the flirtations
of a man more handsome, taller, he actually plucked him by the sleeve and called him aside on one pretext or another. Jacob Hersh would not let her out of sight, even to refill his glass, until she was safely in conversation with a homosexual, when he would lurch off grinning widely.

Finally, Nancy thrust her empty glass at him. “Would you mind getting me a drink?”

“Who? Me?”

“Yes. You.”

“WehaventmetmynamesJacobHersh.”

It was then she asked him, Are you a writer, swallowing the too, and he replied, no, I'm the director, which allowed her a chance to smile.

Vengefully, he countered, “Don't tell me you're an actress?”

“No.”

Redeeming her glass, she turned her back on him to chat with somebody else, responding with exaggerated warmth. Then, as she could sense his eyes raking her back, lingering on her bottom, she resisted her first impulse, which was to wiggle it at him, and slid away, her back against the wall, a man between them, so that Jake could not see and judge any of her. And as the man proved a bore, yet another competitor among so many jousting egos, she excused herself abruptly and went to fetch her coat.

“Would you call me a taxi, please, Luke.”

Fumbling hands helped her into her coat. “I've got a car,” Jake insisted.

“I think I'll walk. I could do with some fresh air.”

“Me too,” Jake chipped in cheerily and, without waiting for an invitation, he followed after.

Not a word was said until they started down Haverstock Hill together, Nancy's black hair flowing, her pale oval face bemused.

“What a beautiful girl you are,” Jake allowed angrily.

“Thank you.”

“Well, it's not the first time you've heard it,” he muttered, shrugging.

“No. It isn't.”

“But it's the first time you heard it from me,” he hollered, waving a finger in her face, “and I don't say it to everybody. Like Shapiro. That glib prick.”

“Who's he?”

“The one who was licking the wax out of your ears.”

“Oh, him,” she exclaimed with simulated warmth.

“Are you living in London or just visiting?”

“It depends on whether or not I'll like it.”

“You'll like it,” he assured her.

“It's settled, then?”

“Are you being sarcastic now?”

“I'd have to find a job.”

“Maybe I can help. What do you do?”

“Strip at parties.”

“Seriously, what do you do?”

“What's the difference?”

“You're not, for Chrissake, a social worker?”

“Why are you looking for reasons to dismiss me?”

“Or, God help us, a child psychologist?”

“Guess again.”

“You rich?”

“My father's a shoe salesman.”

“Attention must be paid.”

“Oh, but you are a funny fellow!”

Which brought them to the front door of her flat on Arkwright Road. As she drove the key into the door, he lingered.

“All right. You can come in for a nightcap,” she said, “if you promise not to be awkward.”

He nodded, acquiescing, but she didn't care for his smile.

“So long as it's crystal clear,” she said, “that I'm not inviting you into my bed.”

While she fetched the drinks, she could see him, through the kitchen hatch, lifting up magazines, like a judge sifting evidence. Two years detention for reading
Vogue
. Six months in solitary for
Elle. The Ladies' Home Journal
, off with her head. Next he stooped to scan the bookshelves, probing for bad or modish taste, and snickering with delight to find evidence of both. Enjoying herself, she did not protest that she had sublet the flat. Then Jake stumbled on
The Collected Stories
of Isaac Babel lying on the coffee table and seized it, taken aback. “Are you reading this?” he demanded accusingly.

“No. I hoped I'd be able to bring you back here and I left it out to impress you. Do you recommend it?”

Jake retreated, narrowing his eyes. His manner softened. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“You've been judging me all night. What right have you?”

“None. Come to dinner with me tomorrow night.”

But she already had tickets for
Hedda Gabler
.

“It's a terrible production,” Jake exploded. “An abortion. That bastard couldn't direct traffic,” and he carried on to denounce Binky Beaumont, The Royal Court Theatre, Donald Albery, J. Arthur Rank, Granada, and the BBC. Until finally, she said: “I'm very, very tired. I only arrived yesterday, you know.”

Leaping up, Jake emptied his glass. “I didn't make a pass, because you said – Maybe I should try. Maybe you didn't really mean, it.”

“I meant it. Honestly.”

But he attempted to kiss her anyway. She did not respond. “O.K., O.K., you meant it. Can I pick you up at the theater and take you to dinner after the play?”

“I'm going with someone.”

“You are. Who?”

“Is it your affair?”

“You're not ashamed, are you?”

And so she told him who.

“Him. Oh my God,” he exclaimed, clapping a hand to his forehead, “you poor child. He's a hopeless prick.”

“Like Shapiro?”

“Worse. He's one of the biggest phonies in town. He'll call you darling and send back the wine and flatter the hell out of you. Why are you going out with him?”

“If you don't mind –”

“What about Thursday night?”

“Luke's taking me out.”

Which seemed, quite abruptly, to crush him. He didn't protest. He wasn't rude. He turned to go.

“I'm free Friday night,” she said.

“All right. Friday night.”

But, on Thursday, only ten minutes before Luke was to arrive, Nancy's phone rang.

“I'm in my bedroom,” Luke said, “and I've got to talk quickly. Jake Hersh is here. Remember him?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“He came by to invite me to dinner. It's awkward. He's in a truculent mood. I told him I had a date, but he said we could both come. Would you mind, terribly?”

Within minutes, Jake sat beaming on her sofa. Luke, agitated, was flicking his thumbnail against his teeth. Nancy poured drinks.

“I'll get the ice,” Jake said, jumping up. “Don't you bother, Nancy. I know where it is.”

“I will get the ice,” Nancy said evenly.

“My God, I hope I'm not intruding.”

But, once at Chez Luba, it was Nancy who began to feel curiously redundant. As the two friends vied for her approval, flicking stories off each other like beach boys with towels, ostensibly in fun, but
stinging each time, she was, at once, immensely entertained but hardly ever allowed to get a word in herself. Luke told amusing anecdotes about the actors in his play, evoking her laughter, Jake's bile.

“Tell her about the New York producer,” Jake said, glaring over the rim of his wine glass. “You know, and the girl who was there especially for you to –”

“Jake never betrays a confidence,” Luke interrupted.

Then Jake told her about the time he had directed a play, for Granada TV, and one of the leading actors had died of a heart attack during transmission, and how from there on in he had had to improvise with his cameras.

Luke invited her to spend an afternoon watching them shoot at Pinewood Studios and Jake asked her to see a television play from the control booth.

On and on they volleyed, slamming at each other, and Nancy, exhausted, was grateful when it was finally time to go, Jake seizing the bill.

“We'll take a taxi,” Luke said, taking Nancy's arm.

But Jake, betting on Luke's stinginess overriding all, said, “No, I'll drive you. It's on my way home.”

Jake held the front door of his car open for Nancy, but she slid gracefully into the back seat, close to Luke. Bitch, whore. “Who shall I drop off first?” Jake sang out.

“We're going to Nancy's place.”

She didn't invite Jake in for a nightcap when he braked hard outside her front door. “Shall I wait for you here?” he asked Luke.

“Good night,” he said, whacking the door shut, “and thanks for dinner.”

Ungrateful bastard. Second-rate talent. Jake swung around the block, waiting out a red light and obliged to make a short detour to avoid a one-way stream, before he pulled up on the other side of the road and doused his lights to wait.
Adonoi, Adonoi
, Jake prayed, let
this be her time of month. Make her bleed.
Not that he'd mind, the filthy goy bastard
.

A half hour passed. The living room lights went off and the bedroom curtains were drawn.

– Oooo, she moans, oooo, your hands are driving me crazy. Please come inside me now.

Trembling with excitement, Jake lit one cigarette off another.

– But why are you still small?

Heh heh. Jake laughed out loud, slapping his, knee. Second-rate talent, a miser, and can't get it up, either.

– Let me eat you, then.

Oh, no. Don't, Nancy. He's got trench mouth
.

An hour. The bedroom lights out. Come to think of it, Jake decided, she's not that bright. Or beautiful. Her teeth are uneven.

Two hours. And Jake, loathing her, enraged with himself for sitting there in the dark like a moonstruck teenager, reflected, if I die before I wake, and the Lord my soul does take, I will be buried without ever having directed Olivier, had a black girl, seen Jerusalem, delivered my speech turning down the Academy Award, tried heroin, fought for a cause, owned a cabin cruiser, had a son, been a prime minister, given up smoking, met Mao, had a homosexual experience, made a film of the Benye Krick stories, rejected a knighthood, had two ravishing girls in my bed at the same time, killed a Nazi, brought Hanna to London, sailed first class on the
Île de France
, cast Lauren Bacall in a thriller, met Evelyn Waugh, read Proust, come four times in a night (do they, really?) or had a season of my films presented at the National Film Theatre.

At your age, Orson Welles was famous. Dostoevski had written
Crime and Punishment
. Mozart had done his best work. Shelley, dead.

Ineffably depressed, Jake started the car and drove off. Swinging around a corner, past Luke's flat, glancing up at the windows automatically, his heart leaped with sudden joy to see the bedroom light on.

Luke came to the door in his dressing gown.

“What are you doing here?” Jake demanded.

“I live here.”

It was four a.m.

“And what, if I may be so bold as to ask, are you doing here?”

“I couldn't sleep.”

“Me neither. Would you care for a drink?”

They talked about Luke's play transferring, a script Jake was considering, Senator John Kennedy's chances, and whether, futile as it seemed, they should squat in Trafalgar Square with the others next time. They talked about everything but Nancy. Finally, Jake asked, “You didn't stay with her very long, did you?”

“Left almost immediately. She had a headache.”

“Too bad.”

“Yeah. What did you think of her?”

“Not much. You?”

Which, over the years, evolved into a private joke between the three of them. One of the moments that bound them together.

The next evening, Nancy remembered, Jake arrived early, early and contrite, expecting to find her in a temper.

They flew to Paris together in the morning and only there, as she lay in his arms, did Jake reveal that if she had reprimanded him for ruining her evening with Luke, or threatened to send him away, he had planned to pretend to slip his disc.

“Then I would have stayed a week – helpless in your bed – unable to resist your most perverse designs on my loins.”

Remembering, Nancy smiled to herself in the taxi.

1959 it was.

Now there was Sammy. Molly. Ben. Eight years swallowed whole.

Oh, Jake, Jake, my darling, why did you have to go and make such a fool of yourself? And me.

As Luke swept into the Duke of Wellington, late and breathless, his head bobbing over the other drinkers, it was an instant before he espied Nancy, and in that instant she saw him through Jake's jaundiced eyes. Luke's once oblong head rounder and wrinkled, fleshy, thinning flaxen hair buttressed by sideboards and a Fu Manchu mustache. Luke wore a yellow turtleneck sweater, a brown suede jacket, and punishingly slender hipsters with patch pockets that could only have been tailored by Doug Hayward. Our friend, the Trendy, Jake would say.

Well, why not, Nancy objected, resisting Jake's opprobrium, resentful that after eight years his prejudices should impinge first of all, even in his absence. Luke, she argued with herself, was still a delight, he likes me and always remembers my name, unlike so many of the others. Besides, they're all fighting forty now.

Luke gathered Nancy to him. “How did it go yesterday?”

“Let's not talk about it yet. How was Canada? Were you lionized everywhere?”

No, not everywhere. But all their old friends in Toronto, he said, had wanted to know about Jake's trouble, oozing sympathy but hungering for dirt. “Now look,” he added hastily, “there's something I want to make clear. I don't think for a minute Jake is going to be sentenced to anything more than an embarrassing reprimand; but you are not to worry about money. I can tide you over without even feeling it.”