The Censor, page 7
Was it then? Or with the countless others in the cunning beds, the backs of cars, once up against a wall on a bleak evening.
Then Humphrey arrived and for some unaccountable reason whisked you off into the dream of a name and security, and, God, you soon found he did not know anything.
It had always been the most important thing. Filling your life, entering every minute of the day. Then, suddenly, there were morning suits and the white wedding dress and smiling faces with Mummy watery eyed. A husband and the wedding night.
I think we should say a prayer, Dorothy. Don’t you? Before. Before we ...
And you standing there trying to look seductive in that ghastly underwear. Lord, Humphrey, you struggled, with your weak little cock. God knows you tried, but I had to help you. How did we ever make two babies?
It was probably then, Humphrey, after Joan was born. You don’t realise it do you? You don’t realise that in the eighteen years since Joan was born you’ve humped me twelve times and six of those because I made you.
Incense and the clinging navy blue school uniforms. The Sunday walks.
But it’s only for starting babies. You only do it for having babies. Grow up Dorothy.
And grow up Humphrey. For you it’s only for having babies and then it’s pretty revolting and the babies have all grown up now but I still need the movement within and the sweat of a man. That’s how it started. When it started. But I’m not telling you.
George Militant arrived looking fresh and clean, with his chin electrically barbered as he sat in the back of his Bentley. It was around six in the morning now. Dorothy had bathed the grime and traces from her body. Ousted the smell of Russell Cook from her with talc by Estee Lauder and felt more composed.
She went down the curved staircase and waited, with black coffee, in the drawing room, the door into the hall open and the muffled sound of voices percolating under the study door.
At one point she heard the telephone ping as it was put down after someone made a call. And the sun was rising. A spring morning. Inside all was dead and she felt corrupted.
A nerve jumped in her shoulder as though someone had tapped her. Russell Cook leaning over and jabbing with his fingers. If they had not met in the American Bar he would still be alive. But for how long?
It was after ten before Humphrey opened the door. He was in full control now. She knew him well enough to sense the poise. Gentle, he beckoned her in.
George Militant rose, extended a hand, and spoke quietly, as though to one recently bereaved.
‘Dorothy, I’m sorry to hear about all this.’
Shame. Was this shame she now experienced? Or was it simply the fury of being caught out?
‘Sit down, Dorothy, and listen to George. Listen very carefully.’
George, dark suited, immaculate, hands hardly moving as he spoke.
‘You’ll want to know what’s happened and what has to happen.’
She nodded. She could not look at his face.
‘They found him at about half-past-six this morning. Apparently there was a little trouble identifying him, I’ve spoken to the police officer in charge. Naturally they’re very anxious to interview Mrs Dorothy Castle.’
She nodded again. Her shoes were wrong with this suit. The Italian ones would be better.
‘The police doctor has confirmed that he died from natural causes. Coronary thrombosis. I’ve explained the situation. He agreed that the widow should be spared as much as possible. The hotel also would prefer no mention of the fact that the man was not in his own room. It is probable that the coroner will agree. In that event, your statement to a police officer should be enough.’
In that event? Pompous. The widow? She had not thought of Mrs Russell Cook. Never once since he had died. Would she see her, black and barbed with grief. No, the coroner would spare them. A tiny segment of the anxiety she had felt slipped away.
Cotterill drove them back to London, the hedges beginning to brim with first buds. The road dusty today.
George met them at the police station. The man in charge was a sombre young inspector who spoke without making moral judgements.
‘It’s put everyone in a compromising position Lady Carmichael, but I don’t for a minute think you will be called at the inquest. Our coroner is a very careful man and I’ve already spoken to him.’
The office was cluttered and he had the look of overwork around his eyes.
An embarrassed constable took down the statement, the inspector leading her carefully in what she should say.
At no time did he mention to me that he had a heart condition.
When it was done, the constable went off to type the statement and they brought tea. The inspector asked Humphrey and George if they would leave Dorothy alone with him.
‘As long as my client has no objection.’ George gave her a look which she could not interpret.
‘I don’t mind at all.’
When they had gone, he began nervously. ‘Lady Carmichael, I just want to give you some advice.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s difficult for me. I don’t want to sound objectionable or be misunderstood.’
‘Go on, I’ll hold nothing against you.’
He studied his fingernails. ‘I shouldn’t go to The Palace Hotel again. I wouldn’t stay there again.’
‘No. I realise that.’
‘And, please, Lady Carmichael, please be discreet. Things could be misinterpreted and I don’t want to walk in here one evening and find you being charged for soliciting.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t say that.’
For the first time since it happened she was with a friend. A person who took human frailty for granted.
She signed the statement and they left.
As she said goodbye and thank you to George he looked across at Humphrey and said. ‘I’ll let you know the name of the best man tomorrow.’
In the car she asked. ‘What was all that about the name of the best man?’
Humphrey coughed. ‘I feel it would be to your advantage to see a doctor.’
‘A doctor. Shouldn’t you be thinking about divorce?’
He barely looked at her. ‘Impossible.’
The long sigh bubbled from her, the outward sign of fear, frustration, anger and resentment. There would be no freedom now.
VII
JUNE RABEL CURLED comfortably onto the settee and closed her eyes, telling herself that Friday evening was always the worst part of the weekend. From the stereo speakers Herbie Mann poured out the sweet blue liquid of his flute, as though ad-libbing Please Send Me Someone To Love. Now he was not just talking to the bass or the rest of the strings: he spoke directly to June; swaying, curving and faultlessly fluttering.
She spread her arms wide in a mock dramatic pose and spoke aloud. ‘A Pied Piper’s call to all the lonely. I ought to write blurbs for disc sleeves.’
The telephone clashed, raucous, against the clean, sure sound. June turned down the volume and picked up the receiver.
‘Hallo.’ John had taught her never to answer a telephone and give the number.
‘Hallo? Mrs Sutton?’
She knew the voice but could not place it and there was a pinch of panic low in her stomach at the ‘Mrs Sutton?’ But she knew how to deal with that one.
‘Who’s calling?’
‘It’s David. David Askelon. Is that June?’
Now she fitted everything to the voice: face, physical presence, the look held too long across the table. The panic feeling turned to something else. A tremble she had not felt in her voice as she replied.
‘Yes it’s June. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise your vocal vibrations and you look different disguised as this plastic dumbell.’
He laughed. ‘Is John with you?’
‘No. He’s away for the weekend.’
‘Oh.’ There was a note of disappointment.
‘If you want him urgently I can give you a number.’
‘No. No, really. I just called on the off chance that you were both free. I thought we could have dinner together or something.’
She was conscious of the damp patch developing where her hand held the phone. ‘I would have thought you’d have seen enough of John during the week. I gather you’ve been inseparable.’
‘Yes, it’s kind of been that way. Ah well, Freddy’s out of town and I thought it would be nice to see you again and …’
‘I’m free.’ It came out unheeded. There was a silence and a slight crackle on the line.
‘Hey, that’s great. You sure John wouldn’t mind?’
‘Why should he? I’m not married to him David.’ She stuck her tongue in her cheek and waited for the reaction.
Another pause. ‘I thought ... Well ... Great ... Where can I pick you up?’
‘Come over here. Eighteen Essex Place.’ She explained how to get there.
‘I’d never find it on my own, I’ll take a cab anyway. Where would you like to go?’
‘Let’s see when you get here. You may just want to sit down, relax, drink and listen to records like we all did in the dark years of our teens. What’s your music?’
‘Anything. The controlled catholic taste.’
‘Well we’ve got a store full here, guaranteed to kill depression, bring on depression, or make you swing: in the nicest possible way of course.’
‘I’ll be right over.’
She cradled the telephone: there was a tiny undertow of guilt as she turned up the sound on the stereo. Herbie was now making a lot of sense out of A Very Good Year. Why feel guilty? You’re not going to sleep with him. John often told her she should get out at weekends. He never saw the difficulties. When you were John Sutton you trod delicately so mutual friends were scarce. John grabbed the weekends out of her life while she stayed home, faithful and in tunnelled gloom for three days. If David wanted to take her around why not?
She continued to rationalise as she changed, touched up her face and did her hair. She knew why the guilt was forcing her into making a logical argument of it. It was because of the look exchanged over the table in the Rib Room and the trembling of her stomach when he spoke on the telephone. She knew the feeling, the premonition, the stupidity: all the symptoms they described in those True Romance tales.
She had felt it for the first time at the age of seventeen. Even that was traditional. Bruce. In her first job as a girl reporter on the local weekly because her parents could not afford to send her to Art School. Paperclips; the battered Imperial typewriter; drawing pins in a jar and one small smoky office for three people. Bruce, shaggily attractive in a seedy and shopsoiled kind of way made deep inroads into the part of her that was experiencing the call of motherhood. He, the Chief Reporter, was never likely to make Editor even of that weekly: ten years her senior and already turning to the pompousness that is the hall mark of small town small fish.
You want to be a journalist for real or are you going to be snapped up into the marriage market by the time you’re twenty-one?
I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up my mind.
Better make up your mind and lie on it. It’s a competitive profession. A girl can go .far.
June Rabel, Girl Reporter, had gone far. Straight up the stairs to his grubby little flat and onto her back in front of the fire, exultantly fuddled from the Christmas Eve office party while his wife was out getting the turkey. An endless cloud of pain as she was stretched, rent, her virginity roughly removed without the benefit of a decent anaesthetic like tenderness: the process seared onto her memory bank for all time. The sweet smell of him mixed with the taste of gin, at a distance two tiny voices carolling of comfort and joy, the fire’s heat and the discomfort, on the ceiling a long brown stain.
She gained no pleasure, not then, not afterwards, thinking that she would feel different, glorious, when she met him again on the Tuesday morning after the holidays. Just the ragged hurt and a curt nod. Yet she had allowed him to return to her again and again as though in search of some satisfaction. It did not materialise with Bruce.
She might sometimes sentimentalise the loss of her virginity in that manner, but she could never romanticise it.
David Askelon paid off the cab and looked around him. The square was remote from the city. A private place, isolated behind the large office blocks. A small space bordered by three and a half rows of neat and pretty houses: elegant, rising three storeys, fresh with window boxes that would bloom in summer. In the centre, a pair of laburnums rose from a circular bed: green and flecked with the gold of their first buds. Even though a chill shivered in the night air, the striving of spring sang softly in this place.
He pressed the bell of number eighteen, cream fronted with black woodwork, and June opened the door. She wore a black, totally smart, trouser suit, dreamed up and created by someone expensive; buckled shoes; a heavy chain around the neck; a picture dressed and tinted with infinite care. The innate sensuality seemed to surround her like a halo.
She ushered him through the tiny lobby into a long low room. A repetition of the black and white decor. Wall units; books, leather bound calling you to touch; a pair of brass shaded lamps; a large oblong gold, black and white collage done in wood and oils.
Bacharach in unmistakably romantic mood oozed from the hidden speakers among the books.
She sat him down and provided a large whisky while he made the right, and accurate, noises about what a charming square it was and what a lovely house. June smiled knowingly. She had heard it all before.
‘Well.’ Clasping a large vodka and tonic in a chunky cut glass she sat down on the settee, tucking her legs under her in her most comfortable pose. ‘What’s it going to be? We either eat here with whatever happens to be in the fridge, or you take me out to some sumptuous trough which will cost a small fortune. Your small fortune.’ A tip of pink tongue sliding smoothly along the upper lip.
‘I think you’ll have to make that choice. I’ll gladly spend a fortune. It looked like being a very lonely evening and now ...’ He spread his arms wide, ‘... what else could a man ask for?’
‘Quite a lot probably. Let’s have this drink and then I’ll decide. It’s delicious to hold the whole course of an evening in your hand. Oh, and thank you for keeping me company. Weekends are always hell.’
It was an open invitation for Askelon to probe the domestic situation. He did not respond so she asked, ‘How are things going? Between you and John I mean.’
‘I talk a lot and he listens. Then he talks and I listen. Trouble is there’s no half way house. You see we cut a lot of the book before it got into final draft in the States. As far as I’m concerned there just isn’t any more to be removed.’
‘Just say that you had to defend it, within the context of our laws, how would you go about it?’
‘Well it wouldn’t be me doing the defending, but, hell, defend it against what? Against being called a corrupting influence?’
She quietly nodded. ‘Probably.’
‘That would mean that they would be saying The Golden Spin is a sexually corrupting influence, but I don’t believe sex is at the heart of the book. It’s there alright, sure, and it’s sold a bundle of copies because of it. That’s the image and that image always sells. Any book with four hundred pages, forty-nine sexual descriptions, half a plot and all the dirty words can be pushed and sold by the boat load in its erotic value alone. If they were out to get me I suppose they’d go for the explicitness in descriptions. They’d say it wasn’t just erotic. They’d say the descriptions went further than necessary and produced an evil influence. Vile and degrading.’ He took a gulp of whisky and laughed. ‘Hell, one time they’d hammer you for dirty talk in a book. Now you can use all the talk but they say for god’s sake spare us the smell and the sensation and the vomit and the violence, blood, anger, truth of it all. I prefer to tell it as it is, pain, warts and all.’
‘Are you really telling it as it is? Or is that simply a golden gimmick for The Golden Spin?’
He leaned back in the armchair and gave her a quizzical look: the brow furrowed, eyes amused. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Because it comes out pat; sharp as if you’d learned it by heart.’
‘Conned by rote as the Elizabethans used to say.’
‘Well is it?’
‘Conned by rote? More or less. But it’s me talking. June, I’m not a very lucid person. I have to think a lot before I speak. The Golden Spin wasn’t an organised book. It happened. I was searching for material and it just formed in my mind and I sat down and wrote it. When I heard John wanted to hack bits out I had to really think about the book for the first time. I thought and I capsuled bits of my thinking: I had to arrange and hold them so that I could pop them out when the questions were asked.’
‘And that first bit was the prologue?’
‘You might say that.’
‘How does it go on?’
He gave her the amused look again.
‘No, I really mean it. I’m interested.’
‘Okay. I’ve always reckoned that if you’re writing for a living then your job is to entertain, on what level you choose. You’re telling a story. One way you can do it is to tell the story in a vacuum.’
‘The kind of stories girls dream up about marriage?’
‘That’s roughly it. You tell it: boy meets girl; they talk, walk, kiss, fall in love. Girl’s father doesn’t get on with boy. Boy tells girl let’s get you pregnant and your folks will have to say yes. Girl gets pregnant. Pop chases them with shot-gun. Big scene in the motel with pop turning up. Emotion takes over and everyone lives happily ever after.’
‘And they have a nice house in a nice neighbourhood with blue lace curtains in the bedroom and …’
‘The latest fridge, washing machine, deep freeze, three cars and nice kids. Yes. Now you can laugh, but the bare bones of that story are okay. You can do one of three things with the bones. You can write it flip and brilliantly, with sharp expert dialogue and they’ll make it into a movie and the reviewers will call it ‘beautifully observed’. You can write it in a vacuum where nobody exists outside the characters: nothing goes on in the great big world because the action and characters are cushioned against issues. The girl gets pregnant, but you don’t see it happen. Pop has a shot-gun but everybody knows he ain’t gonna use it so you don’t have to worry about violence.’
