The Rachel Papers (12 page)

Rachel spoke for me. 'Yes. He could have gone to
a
university but he decided to wait another year and try for Oxford.'

'Just in case,' I put in, not the silk-hatted layabout I seemed.

'Very good,' said Nanny. 'And have ewe been studying hard, my lovely?' She leant forward and slapped Rachel on the thigh.

She, Nanny, wasn't too bad: a red-faced, fat but strong-looking woman of about sixty-five or seventy. A Taff all right.

I sat with Rachel on the sofa, facing the two-bar electric fire. Nanny was on the moist armchair to Rachel's right, her shiny old knees drinking up the heat. As she poured tea and turned animatedly from one of us to the other, Rachel's leg would brush mine. I had, therefore, a painful, half-buckled erection which, in the teenage manner, wouldn't go away. A cup of tea turned stone-cold on the throbbing saucer above my groin without me once daring to raise it to my lips. I wore a smile, one of decent approval of all before me.

The day was going well, particularly in view of the fact that Rachel's first words were:

'Hi. You've got an enormous spot on your chin.'

I laughed with her, in a way relieved that we weren't going to spend every second of the afternoon not mentioning it.

'I know all about it, thank you,' I said. And I did, too. That morning, man and spot had become one, indivisible. Now, it felt like a surgically implanted walnut. But Rachel didn't seem to mind, or was good at seeming not to. I would have minded.

I had read my notes so often that they had long lost any meaning they might once have had. So I tried some extempore stuff. Rachel did a good deal of the talking - by no means all of it nonsense. To save face, therefore, I ran through an edited version of the God
Creating Adam
speech, adapting it to the ghostly lighting effects of the lower gallery, rather than to the pallid flickers of the afternoon sun: with widened eyes and more oracular remoteness of voice. When I finished, Rachel looked up at me and spoke these words:

'See that little boy over by the stairs ? He's got his pyjamas on underneath his trousers.'

We stayed for two hours. On the way out I heart-rendingly bought Rachel a 3p postcard of Blake's Ghost of
a Flea,
offering it to her with boyish diffidence. She (quite rightly) kissed me on the cheek, just missing my spot.

Then she lost her thumb in the grinder at the factory,' Nanny was saying. 'She've got compensation of course, one hundred and forty-five pound. "Unsafe", they said it was. Pity, mind, because they can't employ her now. Lucky to've got the money, but...
pity.'
She beamed at us.

That's
terrible,'
said Rachel. 'She should've got hundreds —'

'No no,' said Nanny, shaking her head with pedantic calm. 'She got good money. I read in the
Post
only Friday, boy lost his right leg in the printing works down the Broadway. They said —'

I looked round the room. There was only the one door off it, and we had come in by that, so it was safe to assume that these four walls (or six: the bedsitter was L-shaped) bounded Nanny's existence - apart from sorties to some rancid bathroom, which would anyway have crap and catatonic Irishmen all over its floor. What happened when they got too aged and fucked-up to climb three flights of stairs every time their awful old bowels gave (surely most unreliable) signs of moving ? In the far corner was a sort of kitchenette unit: a sink, a one-ring electric plate, a tiny Fablon-decked table. There Dora Rees breakfasted on tap-moistened All-Bran, lunched on devilled tea-bags, dined on a mug of hot water into which she had cautiously dipped an Oxo cube. And the spread she had laid on for us. Two kinds of sandwiches, raisin cake, sliced ham, unlimited tea. I noticed that Nan wasn't eating, so, after a couple of sandwiches for politeness' sake, I laid off the food, claiming a heavy lunch whenever she pressed more on me: 'Have some more of next Wednesday's breakfast. Do try tomorrow's dinner.' The garrulous Rachel, however, ate as fast as she talked.

I began listening again. With Rachel in the lead, they were taking a roundabout stroll down memory lane, I supposed for my benefit. Rachel talked with volume and great freedom of association; Nanny Rees just stared at her besottedly, directing the odd appreciative glance at my big boy: every now and then she would say something like 'Yes, my beauty,' or 'And don't forget so-and-so, angel, he was —' before Rachel hectically resumed.

'That Sunday on the Heath when those boys from Camden Town wouldn't give me my hoop back and you chased them all the way down to the Vale of Health and one of them shouted —'

That sort of thing. I had to do a hell of a lot of laughing, and had also to maintain a stream of unbelieving
Nos
and
You're kiddings,
but I didn't mind. Rachel was looking so good; what
did
she think she was doing here with me?

'... I think we must be going, Nanny,' said Rachel, this announcement forming the coda of some oily tale about a pet frog Rachel used to have. It had crawled beneath one of the three wheels of a prowling cripple's car, apparently a hit-and-run cripple, too. I stood.

'Give my regards to your mother,' said Nanny, 'and to Mr Seth-Smith.'

'I will. And Mummy says she's going to try to come and see you soon.'

Tell her not to put herself out. Goodbye, Charles, lovely to've met ewe.'

'No, please don't get up,' I said. 'Goodbye, Miss Rees, thank you very much for the delicious tea. It was very nice meeting you, and I hope I see you again soon.'

I turned away, letting them complete a short but intense session of hugs, kisses and promises. Rachel joined me by the door and preceded me out. As I followed I looked back to give Nan a final wave, conceitedly indicating that I, in a mere two hours' acquaintance, had perhaps learned more about this sad indictment of our society than Rachel probably ever would. Nan didn't see me. She had brought her swollen red face back towards the fire, seeming to smile in a strange ripple-featured way. Rachel had her back to me, head bowed over open handbag in an attempt to light a cigarette, having not smoked while she was there. She was oddly stiff, or intent, or something. I took another glance inside. Nanny was still. Nanny rested her head on her left hand and brought her right hand up to her forehead so that the hands nearly touched, face very shiny in the glow from the fire. Perhaps it was sweat, or grease, or sebum - but, you never know, it might have been tears. I liked to think it was.

As I closed the door, Rachel turned in the semi-darkness, cigarette alight in her mouth, and led the way down the gaunt staircase to the hall. The hall smelled of boiling cabbage -or, let's be accurate, it smelled as if someone had eaten six bushels of asparagus, washed them down with as many quarts of Guinness, and pissed over the walls, ceiling and floor.

My tentative plans. A walk along the Embankment, melodious insights on Nanny Rees. Or a showing of
Bicycle Thieves
at a local Classic, after which I would discourse tellingly on the theme of its all being very well for us. Or an unsmiling taxi-ride back to my place, where we'd churn the sheets in locomotive lust.

I didn't feel up to any of these. As we left the house, I said, 'Can we go and have a drink somewhere ?'

'Fine. Where? I can't stay too long. Got to be back at nine.'

The Queen's Elm. It's the other end of the Fulham Road. It'll be open by the time we get there.'

The sky was greying now, and the light shower earlier had brought no warmth to the air. Rachel fastened her coat tightly and did a Walt Disney shiver. I was informed by my viscera that now was the time to put an arm round her shoulders. I ignored them.

'God, it's freezing,' she said, as we walked up to the main road. 'Can we get a taxi ? I'll go halves.'

I felt reluctant to do this. Taxis now seemed vulgar, in bad taste. Puritan guilt after parting the soiled net curtains to Nanny's world? Although I couldn't refuse without seeming mean, I hated my blithe talk on the way about what a marvellous old girl old Nanny was, such resilience and warmth and, well,
goodness.
Mind you, I realized even at that moment how shaky were my claims to any social concern. Like most people, I feel ambiguous guilt for my inferiors, ambiguous envy for my superiors, and mandatory low-spirits about the system itself. Was this better than Rachel's obliviousness ? She didn't use the misery of others to cultivate her own smugness, true, but at least I didn't go about eating all their food.

'Shouldn't we have helped clear up?'

'Not on your life. She wouldn't of let us.'

Naturally, I paid for the taxi, even though Rachel made a few token rummages in her bag.

'Don't worry,' I needn't have bothered to say.

'Uh, Rachel,' I said, putting the drinks down on the table (a tomato-juice for her,
ergo a
shandy for me). I paused worriedly, gearing her for a heavyweight interlude. 'I'm not trying to be sweaty or anything, but, um — just out of interest - how long have you known DeForest?'

'About a year. Are we going to talk about him now?' She was smiling, so I said:

'Yes. It's Deforest time. It's Deforest hour. Where'd you meet him?'

Rachel lit a cigarette. 'In New York, actually, the end of last summer.' We fell silent as two persons dressed up as milkmen complained about the meanness/crookedness of the saloon bar fruit-machine. 'I was on holiday, staying with a friend of Mummy's. She's a dress designer. On the West Side. Deforest was staying there too. He was her nephew.'

'Does he live in America?' I asked, pleased to hear her refer to Deforest in the imperfect tense.

'Well, yes. He's over here studying. He'll probably be over here for at least four years. He wants to go to Oxford. He's —'

'Which college?'

She said. It wasn't mine.

'What if he doesn't make Oxford ?'

'He will. Anyway London have offered him a place.'

Why did she have so much confidence in him, and why had she planned out everything with him, and why was she so unruffled discussing him with this strange, oddly compelling young man, this Charles Highway ?

I strove for intimacy. 'Was he coming to England in the first place,' I whispered, 'or did that sort of change -'

'No. He was coming anyway.' She puffed on her cigarette, giving nothing away.

This wasn't going well. Her reticence about Deforest could be connected with her refusal to lie to him, part of some insane principle completely unconnected with how she really felt. Or perhaps she loved him and hated me.

But I tried to step back from the situation, to look at it sensibly, structurally, and for once it didn't seem quite the hilarious, whirligig adventure that my self-consciousness would have me believe. This was the fifth occasion on which we had met. Did that mean anything, or did people do it all the time? I wondered what Rachel thought of me and could come up with no answer, not even an opinion. I shrugged.

'What will you do when he goes to Oxford ?'

'God, that's so far ahead. We haven't really —'

'I mean what do you think you'll do?'

'I don't know.'

'How do you feel about him ? Are you going to tell me ?'

Now, to growled obscenities, after much sparring and feinting, one of the milkmen began actually to fight the fruit-machine, rocking it on its base with flat-palmed jabs. Rachel glanced towards the bar, and back again.

We were sitting at right-angles. She was looking at me, I faced straight ahead. It was no accident that my spot was on her blind side. Rachel's eyes dropped to her lap, where she was fondling a ball of stained tissue. Big boy beating like a young man's heart, I hung my head, exhaled a chestful of air, and spoke.

'I feel vaguely ridiculous saying this, it may be quite out of line - I can't tell any more where I stand with people - but listen. I ... well, I just think about you all the time, that's all, and I thought I'd better find out how you feel so that we can see what's best to do.' I waited. 'And because I'd really like to know. I'm getting tired —'

The fruit-machine burped, gave a deep, guttural judder, and, while the milkmen whooped, started to cough out a string of clamorous tokens.

'It's difficult—' Rachel began.

'What ? I can't hear.'

She bit her lip, again, and shook her head.

The machine hawked. The milkmen shrieked.

I patted the hand on her lap. 'Well. Never mind,' I said, relaxing, sinking, drained and battered into my seat. I felt completely hollow, as if I were a child. She could have sneaked away then without me lifting a finger, without me noticing.

'Let's get out of here.'

Rachel said that.

Outside: in the middle of the pavement; my hands on Rachel's upper arms, her hands playing with my jacket button. I could see the line of her centre-parting, and she smelled agreeably of hairdressing salons. I cupped her chin, lifting her face to mine.

'Are you crying?'