At night he sits in the attic looking through a box of old letters from women. There is an abundance of pastoral description. The women sit in cafés drinking good coffee; they eat peaches on the patio; they look at snow. Everyday sensations are raised to the sublime. He wants to be scornful. It is easy to imagine ‘buzzes’ and ‘charges’ as the sole satisfactions. But what gratifies him? It is as if the gears of his life have become disengaged from the mechanisms that drove him forward. When he looks at what other people yearn for, he can’t grasp why they don’t know it isn’t worth wanting. He asks to be returned to the ordinary with new eyes. He wants to play a child’s game: make a list of what you noticed today, adding desires, regrets and contentments, if any, to the list, so that your life doesn’t pass without your having noticed it. And he requires the extraordinary, on Wednesdays.
He lies on his side in her, their mouths are open, her legs holding him. When necessary they move to maintain the level of warm luxury. He can only gauge her mood by the manner of her lovemaking. Sometimes she merely grabs him; or she lies down, offering her neck and throat to be kissed.
He opens his eyes to see her watching him. It has been a long time since anyone has looked at him with such attention. His hope is boosted by a new feeling: curiosity. He thinks of taking their sexuality into the world. He wants to watch others looking at her, to have others see them together, as confirmation. There is so much love he almost attempts conversation.
For several weeks he determines to speak during their love-making, each time telling himself that on this occasion the words will come out. ‘We should talk,’ is the sentence he prepares, which becomes abbreviated to ‘Want to talk?’ and even ‘Talk?’
However his not speaking has clearly gladdened this woman. Who else could he cheer up in this way? Won’t clarity wreck their understanding, and don’t they have an alternative vocabulary of caresses? Words come out bent, but who can bend a kiss? If only he didn’t have to imagine continually that he has to take some action, think that something should happen, as if friendships, like trains, have to go somewhere.
He has begun to think that what goes on in this room is his only hope. Having forgotten what he likes about the world, and thinking of existence as drudgery, she reminds him, finger by finger, of the worthwhile. All his life, it seems, he’s been seeking sex. He isn’t certain why, but he must have gathered that it was an important thing to want. And now he has it, it doesn’t seem sufficient. But what does that matter? As long as there is desire there is a pulse; you are alive; to want is to reach beyond yourself, into the world, finger by finger.
Lately
After Chekhov’s story ‘The Duel’
1
At eight, those who’d stayed up all night, and those who’d just risen, would gather on the beach for a swim. It had been a warm spring and was now a blazing, humid summer, the hottest of recent times, it was said. The sea was deliciously tepid.
When Rocco, a thin dark-haired man of about thirty, strolled down to the sea in his carpet slippers and cut-off Levi’s, he met several people he knew, including Bodger, a local GP who struck most people, at first, as being unpleasant.
Stout, with a large close-cropped head, big nose, no neck and a loud voice, Bodger didn’t appear to be an advertisement for medicine. But after they had met him, people began to think of his face as kind and amiable, even charming. He would greet everyone and discuss their medical and even psychological complaints in the pub or on the street. It was said that people took him their symptoms to give him the pleasure of attempting to cure them. The barbecues he held, at unusual and splendid locations, were famous. But he was ashamed of his own kindness, since it led him into difficulties. He liked to be curt.
‘I’ve got a question for you,’ said Rocco, as they made their way across the mud flats. ‘Suppose you fell in love. You lived with the woman for a couple of years and then — as happens — stopped loving her, and felt your curiosity was exhausted. What would you do?’
‘Get out, I’d say, and move on.’
‘Suppose she was on her own and had nowhere to go, and had no job or money?’
‘I’d give her the money.’
‘You’ve got it, have you?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Remember, this is an intelligent woman we’re talking about.’
‘Which intelligent woman?’ Bodger enquired, although he had already guessed.
Bodger swam vigorously according to his routine; Rocco stood in the waves and then floated on his back.
They dressed at the base of the cliffs, Bodger shaking sand from his shoes. Rocco picked up the papers he’d brought with him, an old copy of the New York Review of Books and the Racing Post.
‘It’s a nightmare living with someone you don’t love, but I wouldn’t worry about it,’ advised the doctor, in his ‘minor ailments’ voice. ‘Suppose you move on to another woman and find she’s the same? Then you’ll feel worse.’
They went to a vegetarian café nearby, where they were regulars. The owner always brought Bodger his own mug and a glass of iced water. Bodger enjoyed his toast, honey and coffee. The swimming gave him an appetite.
Unfortunately, Rocco craved almond croissants, which he’d once had in a café in London; every morning he’d raise his hand and ask the manager to bring him some. Of course, in their town they’d never seen such things, and each request annoyed the manager more. Bodger could see that one day Rocco would get a kick up his arse. He wished he had the nerve to make such enjoyable trouble.
‘I love this view.’ Bodger craned to look past Rocco at the sea. Rocco was rubbing his eyes. ‘Didn’t you sleep?’
‘I must tell someone. Things with Lisa are bad.’ Rocco ignored the fact that Bodger was drumming his fingers on his unopened newspaper. ‘I’ve lived with her two years. I loved her more than my life. And now I don’t. Maybe I never loved her. Maybe I was deluded.Perhaps I am deluded about everything. How can people lead sensible lives while others are a mess? You know what Kierkegaard said? Our lives can only be lived forward and only understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions. Experience overwhelms before it can be processed.’
‘Kierkegaard! I’ve been intending to read him. Is he great?’
‘Perhaps I enjoyed stealing her from her husband. What?’
‘Which book of his should I start with?’
Rocco said, ‘She was always up for sex, and I was always hard. We fucked so often we practically made electricity.’
Bodger leaned forward. ‘What was that like?’
‘We wanted to leave London. The people. The pollution. The expense. We came here … to get a bit of land, grow stuff, you know.’
‘The dope?’
‘Don’t be fatuous. Vegetables. Except we haven’t got them in yet.’
‘It’s a little late.’
‘Maybe you or your friend Vance would have started a business and a family and all that. But this town is getting me down. And Lisa is always … always … about the place. That’s what I’m saying.’
‘I wouldn’t leave a beautiful woman like that.’
‘Even if you didn’t love her?’