The Censor, page 9
‘And what happens when he gets tired, or the going gets really rough for him?’
‘Will he get tired?’ There was a fragment of dread in her tone, as though she had asked the question many times before and knew the answer though she had never admitted it.
‘Sure he’ll get tired. Or you’ll get tired. And there ain’t no bonds to bind you as the lyricists might put it. Be a realist, baby, there’s grey days a comin’.’
She gave a puffy kind of laugh. ‘Come out and I’ll buy you a meal, he says. Tell me your life story, he says. Then he gets you alone and pulls the old one two with the crystal ball. Your man’s going to run off with a blonde wife and you’re doomed to be left in the cold snow. Roll up folks. Get your comfort and consolation here. Desperate Dave Askelon. Predictions every hour on the hour.’
‘Hey.’ He pulled the wide grin again. ‘I tell you how it is. Remember? Don’t get depressed. I told you before, you’re lucky to be here at this one time doing this one thing. You chose it, so don’t let it push you under.’ He paused, wanting to take her hands in his. ‘I’m handing out the hell of a lot of advice to a girl I hardly know.’
‘I’m not complaining.’
He walked her home and refused an invitation to come in for a nightcap.
‘You want to try a movie tomorrow?’
‘I’d like that. Call me.’
June took The Golden Spin to bed with her but gave up after two pages, her mind obsessed with what had passed. It had been a long time since she had spent an evening alone with a man other than John. It was a shock to realise that she could so easily slip into another relationship. Alone, when John was away or at the office, she thought herself totally concerned with him; attuned to him: his mannerisms, speech patterns, even his topics of conversation. Yet David had carried her so quickly into his world: different words, a sharper focus. She began to wonder how deeply she was joined to John Sutton; how completely she was held ‘in thrall’, silly school-girl expression.
We don’t learn from the past?
Nor from the present ...
That had jolted her. She should know already how easy it was for her to be unfaithful. Bruce had been the first; John Sutton, she maintained, was the one man, the only man, upon whom she was dependent. Yet, tonight there had been an exciting and stimulating edge and she realised that it was easy to forget: a simple thing to blur the memory.
About a month after they had taken the house in Essex Place there had been the one night stand with Vincent. Not really a night. Twenty minutes. She was alone. Saturday with John at the Guildford house. The doorbell rang just after six. Vincent had been passing and he thought he would just call.
Vincent Fox, a personable young actor, not altogether sure of himself with a heavy backlog of insecurity in spite of the fact that he was now being noticed with a small cult forming around him.
John had met him at some party and they had entertained him to dinner a couple of weeks before. Then he had turned up out of the blue looking pale, thin and hungry, the qualities that drew him to the small army of young women who formed the nucleus of his fans.
June had been flattered when he talked to her, showing an interest in her illustrations and not dwelling on his growing image. It seemed churlish to turn him away so they both drank a lot of gin: slowly she found that she was putting all the schmaltzy records on the player and he had come to sit beside her on the settee.
In the end the whole business was blurred and almost unbelievable. She got into a state of being utterly willing but he was too eager: gasping, panting, pulling at her clothes. She had to take him firmly by the hand and lead him upstairs where she calmly undressed to lie down for him. To her surprise he was maladroit and inexpert. She hardly felt him, so small was he in comparison to John who, she always swore, had the biggest prick in Christendom (in turn he always laughed and wanted to know how she knew. On one occasion she smiled pertly and answered ‘Statuary’). Vincent finished everything by crying and telling her he had only fucked one other woman and how wonderful June had been and that he thought he was queer. How different the image, she thought, when she saw him in Crescent Farewell, his last film, romping with one of the latest screen lovelies, silk-skinned, latching to each other’s mouths like a pair of boa-constrictors with the camera picking up each drop of saliva.
She had pushed the incident with Vincent out of mind so that even when it returned, unbidden, as tonight, she viewed it with an objectivity which dismissed the true fact of unfaithfulness to John.
But tonight was different. David’s approach had lighted a battery of lamps within and the very fact of having had Vincent, here on this bed where so much happiness had been shared with John, made her more conscious of the ease with which she could hide even from herself.
When she switched off the light and put her head on the pillow she once more felt the tingle, the tremble, low down in her stomach.
On the Saturday afternoon she went with David to see a movie. They carefully studied the entertainment guide in the Evening Standard first.
‘I want to go to one of those Swedish nude things John will never let me see. All evil and sordid and breasts.’
They picked a likely subject and took a cab into the West End, screeching and sliding through the traffic like a crazed hornet with David hanging on and looking worried.
‘Steve McQueen we have to pick,’ he said as they hurtled out of the Knightsbridge underpass into Piccadilly.
The driver, cutting in front of a bus, leaned back and shouted through the half open partition. ‘Sorry I’m not pushin’ it guy, but it’s a new cab, see? I ‘ave to run it in like.’
The movie was dreadful, carefully posed and unadventurous with no plot.
‘Nothing like the book,’ whispered David.
‘A swindle.’ June said afterwards. ‘I go to observe the male form divine and what do they do? Hide the most important bits behind rocks. Then I just sit there getting jealous of the girls’ boobs.’
‘There’s nothing for you to get jealous about from where I’m sitting.’ He gave her a sidelong look.
‘Oh I’m too small.’
‘Small, round and dripping sweet, like the blossom ends of pears in July.’
‘That’s from The Golden Spin.’
He nodded and she knew that she wanted him but that it must not be now or tomorrow or next week. If at all their time was far away, so far that it might never come.
They ate sausage, eggs and bacon in a Golden Egg.
David chuckled. ‘Now this is more like the book, they only changed the title.’
On Sunday, June got the car out and they drove over to Hampton Court. But David was no rubberneck, so they ended up walking in the wan sunshine under the trees in Bushy Park Gardens.
‘I’m so grateful, David. I’ve promised myself I’d get out more often on a Sunday, but I never seem to do it. It’s the need to be with somebody I suppose.’
‘You get really uptight when he’s away?’
‘Understatement. Sometimes I call the Speaking Clock lust to hear another voice. Oh, John gets me work, illustrations. I do them and it’s fun, but there’s still a terrible lot of time on my hands.’
‘You’ll have to occupy yourself with good works.’
‘Me doing good works? A whore?’
David took her by the shoulders and spun her round. ‘Remember what I told you. That’s the last thing you are.’ He sounded angry.
She pulled away from him. ‘Well, what else? A kept whore.’
‘Does he make you feel that way?’
Her face softened and for a moment he thought she was going to cry. ‘No. No, of course not. Daddy’s the ... Oh Christ.’
‘You call him Daddy?’
‘It slipped out. No, I’ve never called him that. That’s me. Private.’
‘It’s how you think of him?’
‘Some of the time, of course. That’s part of it. He’s twice my age so of course that’s part of it. Didn’t you know that about girls? Why they go for older men? Because it’s the most complete relationship you can have with a man. It’s everything. He’s a father, lover, husband.’
‘Husband’s the one thing he’s not.’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’ She looked like a spoilt child, turning away from him, biting her lip.
They drove back in silence and it was starting to get dark as they entered the square. June parked the car.
‘I’m sorry David.’ Her hand light on his arm. ‘Come in and share an egg or something.’
‘Why don’t I take you out to a proper dinner?’
‘No, honestly, it’s been a super weekend but I’d rather stay in tonight. You’re very welcome.’
‘Okay. But no shop.’
June turned in the act of putting her key in the lock. ‘Oh and I thought you were going to tell me how the sexy parts of Spin do not corrupt.’
There was very little to clink in the house. Eventually June found a bottle. A Medoc which looked as though John had hidden it, ashamed to give it to guests.
‘I don’t suppose it’s at all the right thing with scrambled eggs. Scrambled okay with you?’
‘Fine.’
‘Well you can come and help.’
They both went down into the narrow kitchen. June began to do things with pans, butter and eggs. ‘You can start cutting the bread,’ she told David. ‘It’s in the bin there.’
He opened the little red painted metal bin. ‘What’s this?’ Inside, cellotaped to the lid, was a picture cut from a glossy magazine: a slim girl in a bikini.
‘What?’
‘The bird in the bikini.’
‘It’s my diet. There’s one up here over the stove. One in the store cupboard and one in the fridge. I cut out pictures of skinny ladies and stick them up in strategic positions. It’s a great diet. Works wonders. Jogs the memory when I want to pick or pig it.’
He looked at her, appraising the small thrusting line of her breasts, the neat hips and the tight little buttocks straining at the jeans that she wore.
‘I wouldn’t have thought you had a weight problem.’
‘Mr Askelon you do flatter a girl.’ She broke her wrist at him. ‘I’m laced up tight as a drum. Weight problem. I’ve got all the problems.’
They ate their eggs, half watching television. Around ten-thirty David said he should go.
‘With the risk of touching sore spots can I make a couple of comments?’ he asked.
She was silent for a moment, then nodded.
‘Look, I don’t know you well, June, but like you said, you’ve got problems. Bags. Hang ups.’
‘Play it again Sam.’
‘How long have you been walled up here?’
‘Two years.’
‘A long time. Time to brood. And you’re brooding with prejudice. You’re frightened of ghosts.’
‘Ghosts?’
‘The father figure for one. Be good to John Sutton and it’s like being good to Dad whom you let down. Guilt is the real answer and who needs guilt? You know why there are nice middle class prudes? Guilt. The titbits of erotica in The Golden Spin, the pieces they want to remove, you know why they’re there? For what the trade calls the masturbators’ market. Guilt calls out for stuff like that and another form of the same guilt wants it hidden away. Erased. And you’re stuffed full of guilt. Sorry, but that’s the truth. What in hell does it matter if John Sutton’s got three wives and sixty-four children if he can afford them? So what does it matter if he’s keeping you in this pretty house as long as you’re happy when you’re together and the laying is good? There are some buttons I touch and you sound off like a grand opera score. “I’m a whore. A kept woman.” Junie, baby, your problem is that you make it sound important and it isn’t.’
‘It is to me.’
‘Sure, but who’s you? It’s stopping you from living your own life. From being a complete person. All the drama you gave me about the newspapers getting on to it and calling this place a Publisher’s Love Nest. Who needs it? Who’s interested? You are you, and he is J. Sutton and you’re together when you’re here. Just don’t get to rely on him like a junkie relies on a fix.’
‘But I love him, David.’
‘Love’s a word, baby.’
‘Oh come on. You’ve been through it. Love’s one hell of an emotion.’
‘Yes, but it’s still only a word, and when it’s an emotion what is it really? Is it until death us do part? Undying? Through fire, ice, flood and shit? Look at it. Look around you. Look at the middle aged and the old couples. They’re the end product of love. “Never a cross word in fifty years.” Balls. Because we’ve been taught to believe in the lifetime twosome we see it through a distorted mirror. Love’s a con. A beautiful, jagged, bruising experience. It gives in paradoxes. Happiness and anxiety. Hope and despair. It’s balm and bruises. It’s an experience, and like all experiences it’s impermanent.
‘Love? The old people in the park. The senior citizens. Most of them have spent their lives clinging to the word, to a lie. They’ve gone through the frustrations, shot to pieces, hanging on to a withered relationship in order to survive. That’s the hypocrisy of the system, and is that any way to live? Keep what you have, June. Treasure it. But it’s not for ever and a day like in the story books. It changes and it dies. And when it goes, don’t hang on. Hitch up your skirt and run. For Christ’s sake run.’
She was in bed before midnight, troubled, disturbed but propped up, engrossed now in her second reading of The Golden Spin. At twelve-eleven the telephone rang.
‘Hi. Put down my book.’
‘How did you know ...?’ she began.
‘I know everything,’ said David Askelon. ‘I’m a hard, selfish bastard. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
‘I knew you were reading Spin because you would want to study my parting speech again. Anyway, I just called to say thank you for the weekend and to bless your dreams.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And to tell you that I’m not waiting until Tuesday, until we’ve talked to John’s lawyer. First thing tomorrow I’m calling Freddy Cadogan to ask if he can find me an apartment. From where I’m sitting it looks like a long stay is London.’
VIII
AT THE AGE of fifty-one Gerald Price had written three heavy clinical tomes, Phenomena Surrounding Personality Changes; The Treatment of Melancholia; and The Normality of the Abnormal in Sexual Deviation. All three were considered standard works of reference within the profession.
Price was also Consultant Psychiatrist to three of the larger London hospitals; he ran his own small and efficient nursing home near Harrow, and his Wimpole Street consulting rooms were rarely idle on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days when he was regularly in residence.
George Militant, Humphrey Carmichael’s solicitor, had known Price on a purely social basis for a number of years. But it was his name that had leaped into Militant’s mind on the Saturday morning of Dorothy’s sexual revelations.
Over the remainder of the weekend, George Militant made discreet enquiries. He was a man of great loyalty and pains, considering it part of his duty to protect a client’s good name by the best and most socially acceptable means at his disposal. He was also a simple man when it came to matters of emotional, sexual or domestic crisis. Dorothy Carmichael had committed a grave social and moral misdemeanour. Militant’s logic told him that no woman in her position, wife of a Member of Parliament noted for his crusading habits against vice, would willingly put herself or her husband in such a situation. The answer was, to him, plain and easy. Dorothy Carmichael suffered from some grave and sudden mental disorder: a kind of sexual polio over which neither she nor Humphrey had any control. Sadly his professional life had taught him nothing about the world at large.
Price appeared to be a man of unblemished record. The man to administer whatever pill or surgery was required.
George Militant telephoned him on the Sunday evening and found the psychiatrist willing to assist, if a trifle stiff at the unethical idea of being called at his private house by a solicitor wanting to discuss a new patient. Without details, Militant told him the problem was of a sexual nature and, in his opinion, Price should have a word with Sir Humphrey before seeing Lady Carmichael.
The psychiatrist did not take kindly to the advice on how to run his practice, but finally settled the matter by making an appointment to see Humphrey on Monday afternoon, with a tentative hour for Dorothy Carmichael at five on Tuesday.
Humphrey duly presented himself at Wimpole street with its frowning facades. The houses, he felt, were as haughty as the young women whom their owners employed as receptionists.
He spent an hour and a half with Price and came away satisfied that he had done his duty by Dorothy and himself. Humphrey did not really approve of psychiatrists. There was a certain mumbo-jumbo about the breed which, instead of helping society, made it more complicated. For all his brilliance in business and expertise in rhetoric, Humphrey Carmichael was of the same mould as George Militant. In a sense this was his danger point. To him, psychiatrists made difficulties where no difficulties existed. If a child was naughty you beat it; if someone broke the law he had to pay. The law was the law, spiritual, moral and criminal. That was that. Black and white. Psychiatrists presented whole rainbows of colour between.
He was, however, willing to put up with a man like Price if there was any possibility that he could do something about Dorothy whom he had never really understood. Price seemed a decent enough, good, professional man, even though some of his questions were strange and embarrassing.
Gerald Price was concerned. He always suffered a tiny anxiety pattern before seeing a new patient, but this was something he knew about and could cope with. Somehow the concern today, before Dorothy Carmichael’s arrival, was more than usual. His four o’clock appointment had not materialised, but that was only a minor aggravation, Price’s infinite patience was rarely pushed to its limit. He sat at his desk and tried to trace the source of concern. The interview with Humphrey Carmichael had disturbed him on the previous afternoon. If the facts of Sir Humphrey’s story were correct, or even only accurate in part, then. Dorothy Carmichael needed a great deal of help. Yet Sir Humphrey’s attitude bothered him. The man seemed to have no idea of the gravity of the situation. His only concern was that a blanket of silence should cover the affair and he did not seem even remotely concerned as to the outcome for Dorothy. The man also had blind spots of enormous proportions. For instance he had said that he and Lady Dorothy had lived a ‘full and refreshing married life together’, then gone on to draw a picture of a marriage in which both partners seemed to have gone their separate ways from the start, meeting only when Sir Humphrey’s position demanded it, or, as in most cases, by accident. Their mutual sharing in marriage seemed to be reduced to living under the same roof.
