The Pregnant Widow (26 page)

“Anyone. Not even Scheherazade if she asked you to.”

“Not even Scheherazade. And I want it
official
. I want it in my passport. A special stamp, like a visa. So in the tent tonight, all I’d have to do is open my passport at the Dog. Christ, did you see the size of that bee? I bet that packs a sting … It’s Eden here.”

The roses pouted and simpered, the scents swayed and swooned. They were talking about the birds and the bees. It was Eden. And Keith, who was feeling very fallen, said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I mean Lily. But would she have, d’you think?
Would
she have?”

At noon, from the pool, they saw the Rolls Royce come cruising round the curl in the mountainside. Lily and Keith went to the rampart and looked over: Rita flying up the stone steps while the car made a gruff three-point turn on the gravel. She paused to wave, on tiptoe, and there was the bronzed forearm, lazily brandished.

“He does a beautiful breakfast,” said Rita as she wriggled out of all her clothes. “Served on his balcony. It’s not a castle, where Seb lives. It’s a bloody
town.”

She was now under the poolside shower, with one hand ready on the grip of the tap. But first she had much to impart … There were just the four of them down there, now, and Scheherazade.

“Flowers on the tray. Three kinds of fruit juice. Croissants. Yoghurt and honey. Little herb omelette under a little silver platter. Oh, it was handsome. Except the tea. I couldn’t drink it. I can’t drink that muck, me. I need me Tetley. I should’ve brought along a bag or two. Why
didn’t
I? I must have me Tetley.”

“She travels with it,” said Kenrik. “Her Tetley.”

“I’m no good without me Tetley. Rik. Go on, star, go and make us a mug. Ooh, go on.”

Kenrik climbed to his feet, conversationally saying, “No offence or anything, and don’t answer if you don’t want to, but what was he like? Adriano.”

It was then that Ruaa appeared, beyond, behind, moving sharply round the side of the pool hut, halting, stiffening, tilting back; her sable gown told you only three things about the body there encased: its gender, of course, its height, of course, and, rather more mysteriously, its youth.

“Look at this he gave me,” said Rita, all unaware, as her hands sought her throat: an undulant silver necklet with a solid glint to it.
“My serpent of old Nile …
You know, Schez, I’ve never been made love to like that before. He begins so gentle. And just as you’re swooning with the tenderness of it all, he changes. And you think, Oof, have I ever felt
that
well plugged? I think it must be the girth of him.”

Then she swivelled. And the moment seemed to zoom upward into the gold and the blue: there they were, by a castle on a mountain in Italy, Ruaa and Rita—yes, the Blob in her burkha, the Dog in her birthday suit … Rita shouted out,

“Jesus Christ, love, you must be fucking
frying alive
in there! You want to get that tent off, chick, and come and have a splash with us!”

For lunch there were the leftovers from the (very distant) night before. And then they were gone.

“You know,” said an equable Scheherazade, “she’s better than us.”

“Who is?” said Keith.

“Ruaa.”

Lily said, “Oh, come on. Why? Because she wears an instrument of torture? And why’s it
black?
Black traps the heat. Why not white? Why are they dressed as widows?”

“Well that may be true. But she’s better than us.”

Keith went on staring out, long after the little sports car had
dropped over the slopes of the first foothill. And when he turned away there was no one there, no Scheherazade, no Lily, no one at all, and he felt suddenly empty, suddenly alone under the sky. He stood at the poolside and stared. The water was motionless and for now translucent; he could see the copper coins and a single flipper. Then the light began to change, as a cloud hurried sideways to shield the modesty of the sun, and a shape like a dark starfish came writhing up from the depths. Only to meet its original—a falling leaf—as the surface changed from glass to mirror.

I
t was just the two of them on the terrace before dinner, and Lily said,

“Why aren’t you angry?”

“About you and Kenrik? Because I assume you’re teasing me.
Some men know how to make a woman feel …
You sounded like Rita on Adriano.”

“And you’re like Kenrik listening to her. Utterly indifferent.”

“Because you make it sound implausible.”

“Oh, you don’t believe me. You don’t believe Kenrik tried. Because I’m not attractive enough.”

“No, Lily.”

“What did Kenrik say about it?”

“Well
he
wouldn’t tell me, would he?”

“Wouldn’t he? … Anyway. He didn’t. He was very sweet, and we had a kiss and a cuddle. But he didn’t try and take it further. That was all.”

“Ah, but would you have? That’s the point. Would
you
have?”

“What, so you can … No. I wouldn’t have. Listen. You and I made a vow. We swore. Remember? That we might break up, but we’d never do that to each other. Never be underhand. Never deceive.”

He admitted the truth of this.

“… I don’t know quite what you had in mind, but I’ve been thinking. Is there an animal between a dog and a fox? Because that’s what we are. We’re not tree rats and we’re not red squirrels. We’re the grey. You know, it’s not the rich who’re really different from us. It’s the beautiful. You don’t get Visions. I
can
, sometimes, because I’m a girl. But it’s never on equal terms. And it always hurts. We’re Possibles, you and me. We’re still quite cute, and we make each other happy. Look, we can’t break up
here
, can we. I love you enough for now. And you should love me back.”

He coughed, and went on coughing. When you’re a smoker, you sometimes have the chance to get rid of the other stuff that’s choking you. She knew everything, he felt. So he came out with it. “I can’t believe I said that.
Would you have?
Please forget I ever did. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“
Love Story
. The one we hated. Remember? Hysterical sex means never having to say you’re sorry.”

“Good, Lily. That’s your first proper one.” It would in fact take him not very long to see how completely useless this was, as an axiom. The truth of it being that love meant
always
having to say you’re sorry. “I’m sorry, Lily. And yes to everything. I’m sorry, Lily. I’m sorry.”

At dinner in the kitchen, with Scheherazade and Gloria, he kept his head down, and told himself, Well at least, now, the bad dreams will stop—the dreams of Lily. There were variations along the way, but these dreams inevitably came to the point where she was crying and he was laughing. These dreams always gave Keith enough power to wake himself up from them. So even in the mad universe of sleep—you passionately wanted something, and it came about, it came true. You woke up. And it was the only time it ever really happened (he thought): it was in this sense and in this sense only that your dreams ever really came true.

That night it was a little better, the indescribable act. You could even say that Jupiter made love to Juno. It was Jovian, it befitted the King of Heaven, in that Juno was not only his sister but also his wife.

“I wish Timmy would come.”

“I do too.”

“That would be simplest for everybody. Especially for her. So she can stop …”

Being desperate, he thought. And then he gave it up.

F
or now Adriano held back. And, the next morning, it wasn’t Timmy’s name that was on everyone’s lips. No, the advent of Jorquil, long-rumoured, had hardened into a date, perceptibly adding to the prestige and legitimacy of Gloria Beautyman. Jorq, after all, was speeding to her side—while Timmy fecklessly tarried in Jerusalem. Now power changed.

At lunch, fanning herself with the confirmatory telegram, Gloria asked Scheherazade if she would need any help moving her stuff out of the apartment, adding,

“You can’t do it all by yourself, and there’s no Eugenio—or Timmy … We can leave it till Tuesday. Of course, I’d be perfectly happy in the tower. But you know Jorq.”

“I know Jorq. Fine. God, it’s his castle.”

“And the apartment’s awfully big for just one person, isn’t it.”

“Yes.”

“And there’s no sign of Timmy, is there.”

“No.”

“I mean, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of Timmy, have we.”

“No.”

“Well, you’ve got—what?—another five nights all alone up there.”

And this.

Keith was grimly transcribing some notes in one of the anterooms (he was tidying up, in readiness for Dickens and George Eliot) when Gloria passed by with her sewing (she was making a patchwork quilt, patch by patch). And she said,

“I expect you’re terribly pleased about Jorquil.”

“… Why d’you expect that?”

“Because it means the servants’ll be back. This place is turning into an ashtray, don’t you think? Haven’t you finished with that yet?”

She meant
Pride and Prejudice
. “I nearly have.” He was jotting down the details of Charlotte Lucas’s
prudential marriage
to the Reverend Collins. “Why d’you ask?”

“I thought I might have a read of it. If you’d be so kind. Or are you the sort of swot who’s ‘funny’ about his books? His uh, Signet paperbacks.”

“Wait.” He looked at her, and she looked the same—clumping sandals, dull dun smock, tufted black hair. “Does that mean you’ve already polished off
Joan of Arc?”

“Oh, irony again. I’d forgotten how ironical you are.”

“There’s a much fancier set in the library. Leatherbound. Illustrated.”

“No, I’ll use yours, if I may. Then I can be as grubby as I like. Is it my kind of thing?”

Keith thought of Jorquil, the heavy blond shape under the top hat in the rural marquee. He said (he paraphrased), “It’s a novel about the
amorous effects of money. Young women of the middle class—revealing with such sobriety—the economic basis of society.”

“… You clever young men. And it’s hilarious, really, because you don’t know
anything.”

The heat persisted, and there was now something wholly disgraceful in the way it uncurled and revealed itself each morning. They woke up and it was already there, uncurling and revealing itself, like a beast. The kitchen smelled of cabbage and drains. The milk went off. The pool was ninety-eight point four. I will never tire, the sun was saying. I am like the sea. You will tire. But I will never tire.

“Oh come on, Lily. What d’you mean,
keeps
having handjobs?”

“She does. She keeps having handjobs. At least two a day.”

“Two a day?” And Keith wasn’t sure that girls even
had
handjobs. “Where?”

“In the bathroom. With the showerhead in the tub that’s like a mad snake when you turn it on full. She says the one in the apartment isn’t quite as good. Less pressure.”

“… How long does it take?”

“It’s all over in a couple of minutes. Especially if she rubs her tits. Now they’re so tickly and throbby. Guess what she calls the showerhead? She calls it the Rain God.”

He said in the dark, “Does she know you pass on all this stuff?”

“I told you. She’d kill me.”

“Do you tell her stuff about us?”

“No. Well. A bit.”

A
driano, as already noted, hung back. And when he did resume his visits (and his faithful use of diving board, exercise bar, and trampoline), it was with neither a diffident nor a triumphal air. And he brought company with him … Keith had
Oliver Twist
unopened on his lap, in the library, when Adriano boldly approached and said,

“Please kiss Feliciana on either cheek … She has no English, so we may speak
uomo a uomo
. I hope and trust your friend Kenrik was not unduly put out?”

Keith, who had just kissed her on either cheek, supposed that Feliciana
could be thought of as merely very petite. Barefoot (and in a pink cotton dress), she was close to Adriano in height—close enough for Keith to recall the sequence in
The Incredible Shrinking Man
when the hero has the strange flirtation with the girl from the travelling circus. Otherwise she resembled the notoriously depraved little sister of, say, Sophia Loren or even Gina Lollobrigida—much littler, but not that much younger. In later life he would recognise it, the sheeny, masklike look some women get, when they realise that time has started to happen.

“Put out about Rita?” Keith told him no. “Not unduly. In fact, Adriano,” he said, “I think it worked out pretty well. From your point of view.”

“I believe it did. What with her going away for ever the next morning. But I’m not proud of myself. And obviously this calls for a change of strategy. As regards Scheherazade. I can tell you this because you’re impartial. You have absolutely no interest in the outcome.”

Feliciana, meanwhile, flowed with condensed allure around the room, admiring the furniture, the spines of books, the view. Once, twice, she moved inward on Adriano, to stroke his shoulder or brush her lips against his jaw. This vexed him, and he seemed to tell her as much (Keith thought he caught the word
superfluo)
. Adriano then continued,

“Women, Keach, even unawakened women, as I take Scheherazade to be, despite this
Timmy
, are sometimes excited by the thought of intense sexual activity elsewhere.”

With a silent sigh (he feared it might come to this), Keith resolved to step up his attentions to Lily. He said, “You reckon?”

“Sometimes. I gave Rita every encouragement to describe our night together. Did she oblige?”

“Uh, yeah. In her own way.”

He nodded. “And as you see, Feliciana hardly suffers from neglect. Scheherazade is of course a different type. That becoming modesty. Pure in word and thought. But she has her needs. Needs which I happen to know are now pressing. Time will tell. Are you coming to the pool? I recommend the spectacle of Feliciana’s physique.”

Lily was undressing herself in the runny candlelight. She said,

“Did you notice how different she was at dinner?”

This was with reference to Scheherazade. Keith said, “I just wondered
why she went up to bed in the middle of it. Did Tom Thumb rub her up the wrong way?”