The Old Man and Me (18 page)

“What time is it now?”

“About one o’clock. Two more hours and we’ll be home.”

Once a young man, a nice ordinary young man, had asked me to go for a spin in the country. “We’ll screw,” he added jokingly, “in every motel along the way.” He was a nice young man, he drove us carefully there and back, his eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel the whole time. But somehow those words had the strangest effect on me. I couldn’t shake them, I kept looking at the motels all along the way. And when I asked him the time and he replied (but how weird—in the same words as C. D.) “About one o’clock. Two more hours and we’ll be home,” and I was reduced to the same jelly of excitement as I was now (later on in the young man’s apartment I thought—if he only knew exactly what had accomplished his seduction!) Only here was the difference: the young man in that car had become more and more my ideal Young Man as we drove along—his profile handsomer, his hands stronger, his hair blonder, pushing me back into some romantic dream of him, while C. D., ever himself, merely became more so, thrusting me forward into reality.

And so we drove, and so we arrived at his house. And there he led me unresisting up the stairs into his bedchamber where, upon his lily-white bed, in the fullness of time he did lay me.

There is a time for asterisks and a time for speaking out. I don’t know—will all this morbid introspection into my terrible itch for that randy old man reveal itself merely as an exercise in self-indulgence, a senseless waste of time? Or will it be that, having put down clearly and to my own satisfaction once and for all precisely what it was like sleeping with foxy grampa, I may finally come to understand what was going on in me? And what was making me go on like that? Maybe not. We must hope for the best. But it’s so hard. I write three words and at the fourth memory seizes me. I waste hours mooning over a situation that play it as I may could only have been resolved by disaster.

Waking Monday morning at Dody’s I sat straight up in bed, my heart pounding. He was old. He was my stepfather. I hated him. And I’d enjoyed myself. Promptly I slid back down again stuffing the pillow over my face. Any combination of two would have been enough to send me under—all four was too much. Besides, I hated him but I loved him too. Yes. I know all about that sort of thing. Christ, I should, I’d heard nothing else my last two years in New York. “They have this terrific love-hate thing going,” everybody said about everybody else. “You watch, it’s going to destroy them—.” But never about
me
. When I took to someone I took to them, and when I took against them ditto. Mostly I felt indifference. Hmm. If you don’t mind I believe I will take this opportunity to apologize for my former fatuousness.

But about C. D. and me. We were oddly matched. We were mis-matched, such different ages, shapes, and sizes; such different worlds. What I could not have foreseen was how I would
love that difference
. How the very effort of bridging the chasm seemed to make me come alive as if for the first time. How getting physically close to C. D. was a kind of triumph, as if my contact with the unlikelihood of Us became my contact with the world, became my only reality. As if before I’d only been a shadow. He made me opaque by constantly bumping up against me, by my constantly bumping up against him. Solid met solid. Boom!

And compared to C. D. all the other men I’d known—all the young men I’d played around with were just that: playmates. My brothers. And they were essentially alike. Not to yawn with boredom, it was all very pleasant, they were fine, they were divine truly, but they were alike. They talked alike, they felt alike, they touched and tasted and smelled alike. They even breathed alike, panting sadly to a standstill. It was always there mixed in with the bliss, this subsiding into melancholy. But I’d wanted to feel happy. “Why are we so sad?” I once asked. “Why do we always feel so sad afterwards?” “Because we both belong to the same generation,” I was told sadly, “and all our same worries come back to us at the same time.” But C. D. was jolly and obscene. With C. D. I felt happy, amused, outraged. C. D. made me feel that I’d been violated and I had survived. C. D. went over the hill with a huge yelp of delight and then, every trace of greed and lust and all those appetites that kept him constantly on the boil finally withdrawn, he fell into an unrousable slumber. And I felt like laughing. And I felt good and I felt tough.

Compared with the slim hard-bodied young men his figure was a joke—round, tubby, pillow-paunchy, it had the consistency of foam rubber; rolling around with him was like rolling around with some big beach toy. But he flung himself into it with a devotion that was disarming. A tyrant on his feet, he turned out to be a real woman-worshipper in the sack. And subtle too. And full of tricks. He knew a trick or two, that one. And then it turned out I knew a trick or two I didn’t even know I knew. He could play a whole jazz concert on me. When we were finished we were covered, absolutely covered with each other. And yet I was never surprised at finding myself, six or seven hours later and in my own bed, in real trouble, seized with a shuddery revulsion of shame and disgust. How could I have? All those things. And with that fat old monster? And on top of everything—who was using whom? The original idea had been to enslave him for ever with my womanly wiles but rather the opposite seemed to be happening. For in spite of those sixth- and seventh-hour shudderings at the ghastly unnaturalness of the liaison, in spite of the painfully sharp recollections of my slender, delicate, gloriously young body stretched out alongside his vast old bulk—I am still at a loss to explain it—but in spite of all this—not once was I able to resist him in the flesh.

Enough of fruitless excavations. That afternoon, that first time, there was a bowl of fruit by his bed-table. When he awoke he selected two peaches, offering me one and biting into his as he might into my own flesh. “Well,” he said, “take you home now, shall I?,” patting me patronisingly on my butt, heaving himself heavily out of bed and into his clothes as if my surrender was an everyday occurrence to him, the most natural thing in the world.

“Hey—not so fast! I haven’t had a square meal all day. Remember?”

“My dear. Of course. How unfortunate. I told my couple they could have the weekend off so I don’t suppose there’s a thing in the house. Still, if you’d like to forage.”

“No I would not,” I said firmly. “I mean I know English Sundays are hell and all that but there must be some place open for dinner.”

He looked doubtful. “Let’s see...Air terminals...Railway stations.”

“I don’t want to be difficult but I feel I must tell you that I am very hungry and I do want to eat and I have no intention of doing so either in your kitchen or an air terminal or a railway station so let’s not be silly. Take me to the Ritz. You do have a Ritz here, I’ve seen it several times.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Well yes but look—what is it? You all pooped out? Sorry it’s been so exhausting. I had no idea. I’m ready to dine and I have the feeling some of my friends would be only too glad to oblige,
cheri
—” I’d had my back to him combing my hair—the post-lay sight of myself in the mirror soft-eyed and full-cheeked was pleasantly reassuring. I turned around now and faced him, “—so can I use your telephone for one little minute?” I added spiritedly. “And would you mind clearing out while I do?”

I stood with one hand on my hip, the other with the comb in it indicating the door.

The Buddha smiled and then he sighed. “How expensive you look when you’re angry! Like some gangster’s moll. It’s that rich man’s darling all over again.” He heaved himself out of his chair. “Righto. To the Ritz then,” he conceded.

His measured tread was slow and heavy behind me on the staircase. I didn’t care. I didn’t care whether his reluctance was made up of boredom, exhaustion, the desire to be rid of me, or all three. The only thing I cared about—and now at last I confessed it openly to myself—was that whenever there was a clash of wills between us I
win
. But through my grim determination had come my first chill indication that one Lay was not going to make a Lawn (no,
you
ungarble that). The second one came at my doorstep.

“I may be very busy this week. I’ll telephone you first chance I get,” he had the interesting idea of saying to me, kissing me goodnight on the cheek.

“Gosh—hope I’m still here,” I had the presence of mind to reply.

“You’re not thinking of leaving?” He gave me a sort of
unstrung look that seemed to indicate those appetites of his might be stirring again.

“Some of my friends want me to go to Paris with them,” I threw off idly.

“Don’t dream of it.”

“Well, but if you’re going to be so busy.”

“I’ll be around for you tomorrow evening.”

“Okie dokes. See you then.”

Kiss.

Kiss.

G’night.

And so back again to waking on Monday morning at Dody’s. Finally I pulled aside the curtains. The English sun all shy and dewy-eyed softly illuminated the street below. How sweet was my little London street sitting in the sun. How English everyone striding to and fro upon it. How bowler hat, little toy brown felt hat balancing on the tip of their noses. Those sharp noses. Those scrubbed pink skins. Those white collars. Those Savile Row clothes. Those Rolls, those Jags, those black square taxis. To the east: Berkeley Square. To the north: Grosvenor Square. Next door: Farm Street Square. London: City of Squares.

I knocked on Dody’s door. Oh, but of course—she was off to Art School by now. I went into the kitchen and made myself a pot of coffee and began to feel quite wonderful. I wandered about the flat. Hadn’t I the right to crow? I stared awhile at the solitary killer goldfish in his threadbare golden armour. This flat, mellowing in the sun, was full of delights. The round polished black table in the living-room. The wooden bowl of fruit set in its centre—oranges and grapefruit glowing rich and golden against the shiny black. And the books and the pictures and the gramophone records. And how nearly it had all come to not happening: two weeks ago I was desperate in a dark little hotel room full of ugly shin-barking furniture. And now a pink carpet covered my bedroom floor and voluptuous roses bloomed upon my wallpaper.

And all for free.

I sipped my coffee, contentedly thinking about C. D. It would be a fight to the finish but I would win. The telephone was ringing. Lazily I lifted the receiver. It would be my lover calling to pass the time of day. It was. Only he was calling to say, in the chilling tones of a man with other things on his mind, that as he had feared he was going to be too busy to see me until Wednesday. Was Wednesday all right for me? And do you know I was scared, literally scared to death to say no?

Droopingly I trailed back to my room. I decided against a bath, listlessly registering that it was probably the first time in my life I’d ever voluntarily skipped it. Because I wasn’t going to see him? Or was it the English climate? It was said to be debilitating if you weren’t used to it. I looked out of the window again at the damp dulcet sun and suddenly I longed for the raw healthy blaze of my own native one. I went over to the chest of drawers to get out some fresh underwear when my eyes fell upon the two bottles of pills I’d stolen from C. D.’s medicine chest the first time I’d been there. I picked them up and turned them round in my hand.
One capsule when necessary
, said the first one unhelpfully.
Two tablets as directed
, said the second. And the date. And the prescription number. And the name and address of the chemist.

“Could you please tell me what’s in these,” I asked the man at the prescription counter. “I know it’s stupid of me but I haven’t used them for so long I’ve clean forgotten what they are.”

“Pleasure, Miss. Bit chancy leaving unidentified medicines about, eh?”

“One thing we know,” he said returning. “They’re certainly not for you, are they?”

“What? Oh—aren’t they? Oh. Wait a minute. They’re my husband’s. Yes, of course.”

“He still much overweight?”

“I’m afraid he is. But tell me again exactly what they are.”

“This one’s preludin and these are thyroid tablets.”

“I know I’m awfully stupid, but would you tell me again exactly what they do? It’s been so long.”

“Appetite depressers. But see here, he wasn’t taking the two of them together?”

“Oh no. I mean I can’t remember. Why, would that be bad?”

“It would indeed. Most dangerous. Strain on the heart. Strain on the nervous system. One or the other is quite sufficient.”

“Yes—it’s coming back to me now,” I said putting the pill bottles back into my bag. “Well, lucky I checked. Cleaning out the cabinet and stuff. Thank you very much.” And I was off.

So all I had to do was to keep dropping one of each together in his coffee whenever I could and hope for the best
. I began walking fast. I’d gone all the way to Chelsea to the chemists yet almost before I knew it I found myself back in Grosvenor Square. I sat down under the statue of Roosevelt and stared at one of the fish ponds, trying to collect myself. A shrugging fountain flung out its watery shroud in a crazy ghost dance, spraying me with every third bump. I consulted myself seriously, pleading with myself to let me in on what I was really up to. I threatened myself I couldn’t be nutty enough actually to be thinking of doing him in because he had broken a date with me. I tried frightening myself with the consequence of such an act. Getting caught. The trial. The sentence. The death. They hanged you over here. And all this time other thoughts were racing along. The sublime thing about these pills was that even if an autopsy should be performed and they showed up, they just weren’t the sort of pills you ever associated with murder—they were strictly in the self-administered accident category.

But what about the man behind the prescription counter? Would he suddenly read about it in the paper, remember me and come forward? Well, but I’d be safely in America by then and under my rightful name collecting my rightful loot. Still, it was a risk. In fact, face it—that man remembering our exchange over the counter was just the sort of unlikely but dead sure thing to lead slowly and inevitably to criminal charges against me. The wheels of fate could make mincemeat out of me. On the other hand, suppose I didn’t kill him outright with these pills but just used them to contribute to the general disorder. Yeah—and then weaken him in ways like—No. Stop! This was impossible. I suddenly found myself laughing out loud. Pills in his coffee! Young American girls still in their college skirts and sweaters and polo coats didn’t sit under the statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Grosvenor Square in the middle of a sunny day plotting the murder of middle-aged Englishmen. It was some crazy game I was playing to pass the time of day. I shrugged the whole thing off like the fountain’s shrugging dance.