No Saints or Angels

6

He is lying next to me, naked. His skin is smooth, clean and fresh like Jana's. I wasn't the one who invited him home. I didn't seduce him; he asked me to pay him a call; he was alone at home as his mother was out of town.

He led me to his small room. Two of the walls are lined with bookshelves. Amidst the books an old couch, wide enough for one, maybe wide enough for two to make love, but not wide enough for two to sleep on. He has no pictures. Above the bed there hangs an American Indian totem, a little painted drum and

a mandolin. A computer stands on a small battered table. Alongside the windows there are two black loudspeakers. The window looks out on a yard; I noticed that even though the curtains are drawn.

He promised to show me some old prints. He promised me Beethoven, Chopin and Tchaikovsky and kept telling me I was the most beautiful and interesting woman he'd ever met. I didn't say I knew he had other intentions apart from showing me old prints. I didn't say that although his mother is out of town I'm also a mother, that he was simply looking at the world through some sort of hallucinatory spectacles. All I said was, 'Don't be silly, you can't mean it when you say I'm beautiful.'

He can't mean it seriously, but here he is lying next to me, caressing my breasts. He has long fingers; he could weave spells with them, not just play the mandolin or leaf through documents. His tongue is slightly rough and damp. When we were making love a moment ago he was patient and tender. Dear God, how long is it since a man was patient and tender with me? When was the last time I met a fellow who'd care about what I feel? He told me that he had only ever gone out with younger girls. He didn't add that he also wanted to try it for once with a woman who was old enough to be his mother. He just said, 'I want you to feel good with me.'

'I do feel good with you.' My toyboy put on some music but then forgot to change the CD.

'You're special,' he said.

'Special in what way?'

'As a person.'

'How can you know?'

'It's not a matter of knowing. I feel it. The way I feel you're often sad.'

'I'm not sad now.'

'Yes you are, even now.'

'Yes, maybe I am.'

'Why?'

'Because I feel good with you. Because I know it's only for a moment.' I don't say: I know you'll leave me.

'It won't be just for a moment.'

'Everything is just for a moment. We are all of us here only for a moment.' I don't say that according to my husband we're only here for two blinks of God's eye, then the sea of cosmic time closes over us and we can't even hear its murmur.

'I'd like to spend a lifetime with you.'

'Mine or yours?'

'Ours.'

'But I'll die before you. I'm old.'

He tries to convince me that I'm not old, and anyway none of us knows when we'll die. He then asks me a surprising question: 'Are you in love with anyone?'

'Yes: with you, of course.'

'With someone else, I mean.'

'How can you ask me like that? I wouldn't be here with you otherwise, would I?'

'Forgive me. But you were in love?'

'That's ages ago.'

'Your husband. .'

'Don't talk about him now.'

He goes on caressing me. I rest my head on his chest. It's covered in almost invisibly fine blond hairs — my husband's was covered in a thick, dark growth. I used to tell him he was like a chimpanzee. He hurt me. People mostly hurt those nearest to them, and I fear that this boy will hurt me too one day. I wish I could tell him so, beg him not to hurt me!

I feel like crying. 'Look at me.'

'But I am looking at you.'

'Why don't you say anything to me?'

'I don't want to say the things people always say.'

'But I want to hear them.'

'It's lovely to be with you.'

'You don't regret it?'

I want him to say he loves me, that my age doesn't bother him, that he really doesn't find me old. But his thoughts are elsewhere; he's thinking about how to make love to me again. But it's time I went. It's starting to get dark outside and I have a daughter at home. That's if she's at home and didn't make herself scarce when she discovered her mother was enjoying herself somewhere. He asks, 'What do you fear most in life?'

'Betrayal,' I say; I don't have to think twice.

'No, I meant whether you fear something in particular.'

'Fire, I expect,' I said.

'That's because you're a Pisces.'

'I saw someone on fire,' I tell him. 'It was my aunt. She set herself alight. But I don't want to think about it now. I'd just like to light a cigarette. May I?'

He gets up and runs naked to fetch me an ashtray. At that moment he reminds me of my first love of long ago: the same narrow shoulders. I was in love with Psycho in those days, madly. I wonder if anything like that will ever happen to me again.

He returns. This household does not own such a thing as an ashtray, so he thrusts some kind of saucer at me instead. He asks whether I'm thirsty.

He has narrow wrists; in fact his arms are almost girlish, like my daughter's. Suddenly I see her arm and also the syringe, the needle she punctures it with; my little girl is out gallivanting somewhere while I selfishly lie here having a smoke in a strange bedroom on a strange couch.

'A penny for your thoughts,' he says.

'I have to go.'

'Don't go yet.'

'I have to, my daughter's waiting for me.' I gather up my clothes and make for the bathroom, which is also unfamiliar. There is nothing here of mine; I don't even know which is the hot tap.

'I'll bring you a clean towel,' he calls after me. Then he opens the door a chink and puts a towel into my outstretched hand. I'm glad he didn't have it here ready; he wasn't sure I'd ever come in here.

I have a quick shower and get dressed. I put on a bit of eye make-up. Heavens, what am I doing here?

The roses he bought me are standing in a vase. This time they are red. I take them with me.

He sees me to the metro station. He wants to descend to the depths with me but I tell him he'd better not.

OK, he'll be waiting for me again tomorrow.

'But I've got a long surgery tomorrow.'

'I know.'

'How could you know?'

'I read it on the surgery door.'

'Don't come, I have to be at home in the evening. Because of my daughter.'

'You weren't home this evening.'

'That's the point.'

'And what if I went home with you?'

I can't bring this boy home, can I? Unless I said, Jana, I've brought you a new friend: his name is Jan; he's going to give you some coaching. In what? Everything. The trouble is it's too late for coaching.

He doesn't ask me why I don't want to invite him. He'll wait for me the day after tomorrow, then. He gives me a hug and a quick kiss.

'Thank you,' I say.

'For what?'

'For everything. And these roses.'

On the steps I turn and look back: he's still standing and waving me goodbye. Why didn't I make up my mind to stay there till morning? I could have called Jana; I could have told her I'd be coming a bit later and sent her to bed. No, next time, maybe. It'll be better next time: if there'll be a next time.

I tremble at the thought I might never see him again. It will all end one day; the question is how many days are left before it does. If we didn't anticipate the end how could we value what we still have left?

I unlock the street door and check my mailbox. One letter from goodness knows who, the Journal of the Stomatological Association and — the handwriting gives it away — a letter from my anonymous correspondent. I ought to tear it up and chuck it in the dustbin. But the dustbin is in front of the house and I don't feel like going out again. This time Mr Anon doesn't call me names, he just issues threats. He warns me not to venture outdoors in the evening because the Hour of Reckoning is Nigh.