You didn’t kiss him because you didn’t want to, I announced. You don’t have to have sex with people to stop them committing suicide. And then you didn’t kiss him because you spent most of the evening screwing Georg.
I had spoken rather more loudly than I need have. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps the effect of having her knee against my thigh as she expressed remorse for not having cuddled Vikram Griffiths.
Were you screwing Georg because he would have committed suicide if you’d refused? I demanded, far more loudly than I need have. Because the mother of his child was dying again? The situation around the four small bistro tables was cramped and intimate.
Would you fuck me, I demanded, if you believed I would commit suicide if you didn’t? Colin said, Jerry, please.
Vikram was just one of life’s victims, I announced, setting down my knife and fork beside the lamb. He was a victim of circumstance and his own psychology. There will always be people like that, I said very loudly. None of us could have helped him, I said. I pushed my chair back. His analyst didn’t help him at all, I said. Just gave him fancy explanations for his state of mind. Vikram Griffiths was on another planet, I said. You all heard him tell his life-story. He was looking to be voted out, I told the party at the four small bistro tables. Otherwise why would he have been drinking so much at ten in the morning? Why did he need to trail his dog around everywhere? I stood up. It’s absurd our baring our hearts like this. Vikram was mad, I said. Likeable, but mad. I liked him, I said, but he was crazy. I walked out. And walking out I was acutely aware that I had been describing myself. You too, I thought, are in a vicious circle of psychology and circumstance. I had described myself perfectly. You too are beyond their help, I told myself. Vikram Griffiths’ death was your own future death, I thought. Perhaps. Perhaps he did kill his fiancee, I thought. After all, I could hardly believe I’d hit her sometimes. Vikram Griffiths was more likeable than myself, though. More the clown. More charismatic. And I told myself, You must change. If the world has changed, if she has changed, then you must change too. You must not go back on the coach, I told myself. That would be fatal. You must not go back to Milan with them.
She was calling my name. The night was blowy, but not raining. Dark. I was walking at random. She caught up with me. Her arms round me. Her cheek against mine. I wasn’t with Georg last night, she said. She started to kiss me. She would never have gone with Georg last night. I asked why not. Spend the night with me, she said, and I’ll explain. Please, she said. I thought: The Rheims routine. I’ll explain, she laughed. She insisted, Of course I wasn’t with Georg last night. How could you think that? I notice at least you’re admitting you have been with him, I said. This conversation in French perhaps, perhaps in Italian, though I remember it here in the Meditation Room in English. When we kiss, it is so wonderful, I thought, and yet my resistance is enormous. Why wouldn’t you go with him again? I said. After all, it’s none of my business. Or Vikram’s. However suicidal we may be. For old times’ sake, she said, spend the night with me. I’ll explain. Something’s happened. All this on some blowy suburban street in Strasbourg, France. Very little recollection of the surroundings. We can find another hotel, she said. You are not going back to Milan-on that coach, I told myself. She had a smart velvet jacket, the black dress, the soft glow of her neck and cleavage. I love a woman who loves to be a woman. To play the woman, I thought. I love the things that are dangerous about her. And there was the smell of her breath and the old old cocktail of scent and skin. For old times’ sake, Jerry, she said. Watching pornography, when the knickers come down, Colin invariably says, I can already see my bald spot. Please let’s not let it end so badly. She pulled me into a kiss again. And what he means is, between those legs. Rheims. Please. I can already see my bald spot, he says. He laughs. All whoring surfs on an undertow of melancholy, I thought. On memories of Rheims. We found another hotel. Exactly similar to our own. Small modern rooms with over-size beds. But spared the reproductions of the great painters of our time. Spared Picasso. Mass-produced. Spared Klimt. She showered. Tell me first, I demanded. Why are you doing this? Because I like you. It was you left me, she said. Retrospective jealousy is mad, she told me. Tell me about Georg, about something’s having happened, I said. Tell me first. I showered. She spoke again about not wanting it to end badly. Which were more words taken from myself. My phone-calls, my attempts to arrange happy valedictories that were really new beginnings. But everything is taken from somewhere else, I thought. Tell me, I demanded, between kisses. If you must, she said. It was you said something had happened, I said. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. She broke off. Pulling herself back to sit against the pillows, she fished for her handbag, lit a cigarette, looked at me down its narrow length, inhaled, exhaled. So theatrically, I thought. The big dark eyes. So naturally theatrical. Whereas I just don’t seem able. Except that speech perhaps. What a theatrical gesture it was on Vikram’s part, I thought, to hang himself in the European Parliament. He saw the mise en scene and then just couldn’t get it out of his mind. A sense of destiny IVe made a sensible decision, she said, leaning back on the pillows. I also took a cigarette, and here in the Meditation Room it occurs to me now that one sign of when things have truly changed, when I will have truly changed, will be when I stop taking other people’s cigarettes. For taking it I saw myself taking cigarettes on a thousand other occasions. From drinking companions, from tottie. Whereas before I met her I hadn’t smoked for years. I hadn’t smoked for years before we became lovers. Smoking reminds me of her, that’s the truth. Smoking reminds me of my addiction to her. I must stop taking cigarettes, I thought. She was naked against the pillows. I’ve decided to go back to my husband, she said. I want to have another child. Before it’s too late. It’s the sensible thing to do. Emotionally and economically. Sometimes I can’t understand why we ever split up.