There were times when Gilbert Blaskin went into what I came to recognize later in life as a mood of cosmic despair. It seemed to me, nevertheless, only right that an author should subside into this misery, even though it might be self-induced for the benefit of his work — as I sometimes suspected it to be. In order to work himself into it he had first to have an audience which, because they were black days for him, consisted only of me and Pearl. He also needed to say something funny, not necessarily so to him, but he had to see us laugh before he could get really depressed. I told myself I was only staying there to escape the wrath of Moggerhanger when he discovered I’d filched his heirloom, but partly, and maybe even mostly, it was because I couldn’t contain my curiosity regarding the inner life of this weird person. I didn’t like myself for it, either, and said ten times a day that I’d slide out as soon as I’d had my fill.
One night Gilbert Blaskin (who hasn’t heard of him?) was booked for the Royal Court Theatre nearby. He dressed in his best suit and bow-tie because it was a first-night performance, and before leaving he went — all spruced-up as he was — into the kitchen, looking for his lighter, which he found, and put into his pocket. His eyes then caught sight of a full cool bottle of milk, so without thinking he pushed in the top, upended it at his mouth, and began to gurgle it down. I was on the other side of the table cutting into a steak that Pearl had just grilled for me, and saw that half the milk was spilling down Gilbert’s immaculate togs. I was too fascinated by this spoliation to say anything, though I know I should not have been, but ought to have opened my mouth about it at the beginning. By the end he didn’t need to be told, though I did tell him, for he felt his saturated front with horror. Then he shrugged, wiped it with a tea towel, and went out cursing his luck. This depressed him for a start.
I couldn’t stand the flat, so went for a walk towards Victoria, drinking in the drizzle as if it were the best and freshest moisture in the world when it fell against my face. The station held me in its movement, and I drifted along one platform after another, till I wandered on to one from where trains left for Paris and Italy. People were kissing and saying goodbye before setting off towards the coast. It made London seem smaller and less important, and myself less rooted in it, thrilled me to realize that I had enough money in the bank to get on one of those trains whenever I liked, and go a long way, not only there, but even back if I wanted to, or had to. It calmed me, and I walked home through Eaton Square.
It was still early, so I went into the kitchen to make coffee. Pearl hadn’t heard me come in, because she was standing at the stove with only a thin pair of pants on and nothing else, not even carpet slippers. ‘You look marvellous from behind,’ I said, ‘but turn round, love, and let me see the front.’
For the first time her face had an expression on it, of dis-content that was near to tears, so I went over and tried to comfort her, though my eyes weren’t too long on her face. There were scars on her back and sides, as if she’d been stitched up for some good reason or other. When my fingers touched one she shrugged them away pettishly. Then she nestled close and said: ‘Why didn’t he take me with him? I’ve known him for a month but the only time we went anywhere together was to that poetry reading where we met you.’
‘Maybe he’s meeting somebody else,’ I said, kissing her forehead. ‘But don’t let it worry you if he is. He can’t help it. He’s just rotten. He has to be, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to write his books.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘that’s what I keep telling myself. I didn’t expect anything when I first met him, and then when I didn’t get anything I began to expect something. It’s so stupid of me.’
‘It is,’ I had to admit. ‘I don’t really know why people expect things of each other in any case.’
‘Well,’ she said, trying to smile, ‘it’s not as bad as you make it, because I don’t expect anything from you, but you’re being kind and trying to comfort me.’
‘Don’t let that worry you,’ I said. ‘I can’t help it. It’s my nature to be kind to people.’ She was right though. I had no thought of getting her into bed just because she was Blaskin’s mistress. For that’s what she was no matter how he snubbed her. However, she stood a bit too long leaning her naked top into me, and soon I began to kiss her lips, and out of her tears she began to respond.
‘I’ll put you to bed,’ I said, and when she nodded, I walked her into the main bedroom. In case she was feeling cold because of her tears, I filled a hot-water bottle, but she said she didn’t need that sort of heater, so I let it drop and took off my clothes to lie by her side. In fact I found her to be burning like a big hot coal, and of its own accord my piece found its way there, and of its own accord her birdcage welcomed it till my vulture sank its head for joy and flooded her to the brim so that I was also scorching. I was flushed with love, but she wouldn’t let me kiss her lips or touch her on the tenderest spot with my fingers, so after a while I got out of bed and dressed, left her content as far as I could tell, and went into the kitchen to look for something to eat.
While I was chopping off slices of salami she came in wearing a thick sunflower dressing-gown: ‘I’m hungry, too, now that I’ve got over my fit of melancholic jealousy.’ I made her a sandwich, thick with German mustard, and she ate greedily, which put me off her a bit because though I like to see a woman eat (it gives me more of a kick than if she had loosened her own blouse) I don’t like to see one as voracious as Pearl Harby now was. So I turned my back on her and got the coffee. In any case, she was eating so quickly that she reached out for the salami before I could offer her some more, and soon there was none left for me. Never mind, I thought, she’s been disappointed in love, and that explains everything, or is supposed to.
‘My father worked in the railway yards at Swindon,’ she said, sitting herself comfortably on my knee, ‘and one night he was killed by a German landmine that lit up his life beautifully before it blacked him into a thousand pieces. I was six at the time and there was no funeral because he didn’t exist. It must have landed right on the parting of his hair. A year later my mother died of bronchitis, and I was taken to live with an aunt and uncle, who already had a little girl of their own, called Catherine. The man, unlike my father, had got on in the world, as they say, and he was a solicitor in Cowminster, a small Wiltshire market town. He was very respected, but apart from having done what he regarded as his duty by adopting me, he really had no love for me. He was cold towards me, as if he thought I was going to jump into his bed and force him into an unnatural crime, or as if I was going to alienate him from his own daughter. In my bewilderment I was a bit afraid of him, and it took me a good two years not to be, and to adjust to the new situation. He could tell I was afraid of him, and resented it because he thought it meant I didn’t love him as I should for having had the kindness to take me in.
‘Well, he didn’t realize that I was a child, and had no consciousness. I only loved him, for a few minutes, when he was giving me something, and so he resented it too, that I didn’t love him all the time, even though he didn’t really love me. But neither of them knew that for several years I was still grieving for my real parents, and I wasn’t able to tell them this. They spoke about them now and again, but in a very matter-of-fact way, almost as if they were still alive, and as if I were on holiday with them. Of course, they loved Catherine as their true daughter, and nobody could blame them for that or expect it to be any different, but I felt it sharply. To make up in some way for my desolation I fell in love with Catherine, because much of what she got from her parents she gave to me, because she was very kind and sweet. She was two years older, a girl with blonde hair and grey eyes, slightly fat from overfeeding and too much indulgence, but we were good friends, and my life after a year or so became much more settled, and I eventually did get to think more tenderly of my new parents.