In this case, not only had the black-haired woman passed by a number of empty seats, she had sat down right beside Redpath, so close that their elbows were almost touching. And in Calbridge, even a prostitute—except for perhaps the most case-hardened—would be more circumspect than that. He glanced at the woman with some interest. Her face was swarthy and handsome, with heavy-lidded dark eyes and pouting, plum-coloured lips. It was the face, Redpath thought, of a gypsy queen—one whose people had known hard times, judging by her expression of rueful resignation. More than anything else, it was that expression which had led him to place her age at forty, for she had the ripe, full-busted body of a young woman who was just reaching the point at which she would have to start cutting down on her food. She was wearing a blue velvet jacket over a crimson T-shirt, faded Levis and dusty brown sandals.
“I’m dying for a smoke,” she said casually. “Got a fag, love?”
Redpath, who had almost convinced himself of the woman’s Romany origins, was surprised to hear the Nottinghamshire accent of his home town. “I’m sorry—I don’t smoke.”
She looked at him with raised eyebrows, smiling as though he had confessed to some shameful eccentricity she was prepared to forgive. “I’ll just have to use my own then.” She brought out a packet, extracted the last cigarette from it and flipped the packet into the centre of the path.
“That could cost you a hundred quid,” Redpath said.
“It would be a good’un that got a hundred quid out of me, love.” She lit the cigarette with a cheap Continental-style lighter and inhaled deeply.
Redpath noticed that her fingernails were grubby and that they had been lacquered in a nacreous brown which contrasted with the redness of her toenails. A trick of memory gave him an unexpected mental picture of a high school classmate of puritanical upbringing who had established a reputation as a rake by periodically declaiming, “I’m a great man for the slut.” At the same time, and more unexpectedly, he experienced a powerful sexual attraction towards the woman, who appeared to be the opposite of Leila Mostyn in every way.
Hold on, John, he thought, alarmed. You don’t go in for all that crap about rebounds. You always said you were a human being, not a ping-pong ball. Remember?
“What’s wrong? you’re not at work?” the woman said. “On your holidays?”
“No, I decided to have the day off.”
“Just like that? It’s well for some.”
“I needed the break,” Redpath said, wondering how long the oddly stilted conversation would go on.
The woman sighed. “I could do with a break. Seven days a week I work.”
“Oh? What do you do?”
“I’m a landlady, would you believe.” She gave a self-deprecatory laugh. “I run a boarding house.”
“That’s funny—I’m looking for a new place.” The words had slipped out before Redpath had time to weigh the consequences. He stared down at his hands with an unaccountable feeling of nervousness.
“Is that a fact? I’ve got just the place for you. What’s your name?”
“John.” He resisted a weird juvenile impulse to give a false name. “John Redpath.”
“I’m Betty York.” The woman put her hand on his arm. “I’ve got just the place for you, John.”
“I…” Redpath tried to force his brain into action. He had a firm conviction that Betty York’s establishment would not be to his taste, but he had difficulty in finding a suitable way to turn down the proposal. “I was thinking of a self-contained flat.”
“That’s no use for you, love. All that expense and…” Her fingers squeezed his arm. “…no home comforts.”
“I’m used to looking after myself.”
“Ah, but it’s not the same thing, is it?” She nudged him with her hip to make the message clear.
Redpath felt a guilty thrill. He needed a break, a holiday from the onerous task of being John Redpath; he also needed to revenge himself on Leila—and here, it seemed, was an opportunity to achieve both objectives at once. Everything with Leila, especially sex, had to be suffused with the white light of rationality, made aseptic, purged of any element which might give rise to archaisms such as obsessions, shame, anger, lust, jealousy, hatred, disgust, guilt—all those bitter leavenings which could turn the wine of love into a dark and dangerous brew, thus making it infinitely more satisfying. He could imagine the expression on her face if he let her know that he preferred being with a woman like Betty York, found pleasure in her coarseness and crude innuendos, her flaking nail polish and Lawrencian slum-dwellers’ creed that sex is dirty and all the more enjoyable for it. Leila would be repelled when he told her, but at least he would know that the reaction was centred on him alone. He would know where he was. There would be no question of his having to stand by meekly while she found other men repugnant one night a week…
“Nice big room I’ve got for you,” Betty said. “You could live there in style for only twenty a week, everything thrown in.”
“Everything?” Redpath did his imitation of Groucho Marx, defiantly repressing a small twinge of sadness.
“Cheeky!” She moved away from him a short distance, reassured now that he had started behaving in accordance with a recognisable norm.
Why isn’t Boswell here to record this stuff for posterity? Redpath looked around the park, battling with a sense of unreality, his eyes taking in the islands of shrubbery, the young matrons with their baby carriages, the perimeter of terraced houses in the middle distance. He froze as his gaze steadied on the figure of a man who was standing in the shade of some bushes not twenty paces away. The man, who was wearing a brown boiler suit, had thick sloping shoulders and an abnormally large jutting chin. He was regarding Redpath and Betty York with a fixed, eager smile which somehow gave him the appearance of being subnormal.
“Don’t look now, but I’d like your honest opinion,” Redpath whispered, lowering his eyes. “Is that Igor or Quasimodo?”
As often happens when a person is told not to look around, Betty immediately turned her head. “What are you on about, love?”
Redpath looked again and was surprised to see that the odd-looking man was no longer in sight. The bushes were hardly thick enough to provide cover and he had to conclude that the man, anxious to avoid being seen, had sprinted to the cover of a tree.
Christ, I wonder is this place like this all the time? If it is, I’m going to come back with a movie camera and make the wildlife film to end all wildlife films.
“I thought we’d picked up a peeping Tom,” he said.
“That’s your guilty conscience.” Betty exhaled a stream of smoke in his direction. “Have you got a guilty conscience, John?”
“Not yet, but I’m in the market for one.”
Betty threw away her half-finished cigarette with an air of finality which caused a lurching sensation in his chest. “You’d best come and look at the room. Before you make up your mind, like. How about it?”
“Is it far?”
“Not far. Woodstock Road.”
“It’s far enough,” Redpath said, making a token effort to draw back from the edge of the precipice. “I mean…”
“I can drive you there in ten minutes. Drop you in town again afterwards.” Betty stood up, seemingly aiming her torso at him. The assemblage of strongly jutting breasts, low-waisted denims, leather belt and copper rivets made her look like a rodeo performer. Her black hair was deeply waved, heavy with natural oils and reached far below her shoulders.