I can’t imagine him with other women. I never had to, you see; Christopher never made me jealous…
Can that be true? It can’t be true. For milliseconds, maybe, in the distant past. Something drifts back, the smallest flotsam. Occasionally, before we left home, though it was ludicrous, I felt the slightest bit jealous of Mary Brown. Mary Brown, of all people. One of the plainest women you ever met. Because she was good, there’s no other word for it, and Christopher liked her — motherliness. She was always very good with the children. That made me jealous, God knows why. Maybe he loved her, in a way. But not sexually, of course. You couldn’t feel romantic about Mary Brown. I don’t think she knew how children are made. So there was no sense in my being jealous.
What does it matter, in any case, now none of us care about each other any more — (how is that possible?) — except Mary, still doggedly writing letters. It must be a sign of an empty life.
That phrase has an unpleasant ring. It echoes in this empty night.
— If only I could go back again.
— If only I were young enough to make amends.
If only we were all still here, and young, in garlanded Toledo.
Ah, there’s Benjamin, stumbling on the stairs. Humming as he comes, the great buffoon… but my heart quickens, all the same. A hotel room can feel very lonely.
I shall keep my temper, but I wish he’d stop humming… I don’t know the tunes that Benjy hums. Younger people know different tunes.
I wonder if I shall ever go home.
10. Christopher: Venice, 2005
Today I thought of Mary Brown. After a gap of decades, I thought of her. But first things first, the great news first. Today I have been bad again. Good, good, bad again!
Her name was Caterina. But that’s probably her trading name. I spotted her by chance as I walked down the Piazetta dei Leoncini in the five o’clock sunlight. She stood by the fountain, pulling her thin yellow skirt against the curve of her buttocks, heavy buttocks above slender legs, pausing for a long glance over her shoulder… this certainly wasn’t an innocent Venetian girl early for the passegiata.
Her brows and eyes were black as soot. She trotted beside me like a little pony, black fringe bobbing, rouged mouth smiling.
Inside I offered her a glass of wine. I amused myself by offering this rough child a glass of exquisitely round Barolo. I am no fool, I had one too. She drank hers down in two or three gulps and grimaced slightly. Soon I should have her! I rolled the rich red around my mouth.
‘I like sweet wine,’ she pouted.
‘I have something here I hope you will like.’
We played together for over an hour in the dark bedroom twelve feet above the spotless kitchen where Lucia was working, singing to herself, cursing the cat. Had she known, she’d have worried about my heart; too pure to worry about AIDS, and I am too greedy, and long past caring.
Lucia, I didn’t strain my heart. I was a grand seigneur all afternoon, lordly and idle, sitting there groaning with pleasure as her small mouth took me.
I paid her extra for being quite naked. Thump, thump in the kitchen below, Lucia’s great bare golden arms beating the sirloin water-thin. There would be olives, white butter, bread…
Somehow the image of my stately and virtuous cook got confused with my naughty girl. At the moment of exploding for the second time — the second, hear that! At seventy! Notice I use the verb ‘exploding’! So much sperm, it must be full of babies, Alex was wrong to despair of me — at the end of my second orgasm I was suddenly intensely sad. Below me, cutlery clinked like bells. In the distance, a real bell rang for the faithful.
Knives and forks and good fresh bread.
Who said that women should be good like bread?
Women should sit with you at table; love you, feed you, stay with you. I must have been thinking about my mother. Neither of my wives has ever done that.
– ‘Cover yourself,’ I said. I paid the girl double and she slipped away, suddenly ugly, obsequious.
Alex was never good like bread. She was good like shellfish or langues de chat or perfectly cold champagne in summer. I thought of Mary Brown. I suddenly thought of Mary Brown. Mary Brown was good like bread. A good wife, a good mother…
As I washed myself and applied cologne and smoothed my actor’s silver hair I started to think quite differently. A good woman can also be bad… I found it unimaginably exciting, conjuring up sweet Mary Brown, her frank pale eyes and thick pale skin and ample, accommodating body… I confess I defiled her memory.
(Three, I tell you! Don’t be depressed! It was my highest score in three times as many years, and tomorrow I quite expect a reaction. I shall be fragile, an invalid, and my good Lucia will bring me broth and offer to say a prayer for me. I shall nod, benign. I need to be shriven.)
Mary Brown. Not the one in my spasm. Mary Brown, the real live woman… at least, I hope she’s still alive. Ruth’s letter just said Matthew was ill.
Perhaps I should write to them. I recall that Mary was keen on letters, firing them off at my selfish wife, who probably never bothered to read them.
Oddly enough I did. So Mary didn’t waste her time. She wrote a good letter, an excellent letter. Good sort, good woman, good friend.
If it’s not too late, I’ll write.
Perhaps my money would help them. Did they have any money? I can’t remember. It takes a lot of money to help you die. It takes a lot of money to speed the passing — ease the passing, I must mean.
Matthew might already be dead, of course. I could offer her my sympathy. Later we would play at widow and widower…
No, don’t think me cynical. I’m just high-spirited, because of my score. The truth is, sometimes I get lonely. I’ve drinking partners, I’ve sexual partners, but sometimes I long to have — a friend.
Besides, I could talk to her about Alex.
Excellent. That’s the dinner-bell.
For a man like me, a whole clove of garlic, a side of sirloin, a bushel of peas, a ransacked glasshouse of fat tomatoes…
Open the second bottle, Lucia. A tired athlete needs his wine.
Good. I have been bad again.
Part Two
11. Alexandra: Esperanza, Bolivia, 2005
Look on the bright side, at least we’re going, at least we’re getting out of this shithole!
Down below it’s pandemonium, the manager screaming at the maids, the cook raging at all of them because yesterday her mangy cat gave birth and she doesn’t want quarrels to upset the kittens — all seven of them billeted in the kitchen. Blind, disgusting, I know what they’re like, somebody ought to wring their necks, kill all babies before they’re born, strangle their mothers before they have them!
Everyone’s angry because we’re going. They hoped the rich gringos would be here for months, paying through the nose for dubious meat and rice in virulent pepper sauce — probably cat, that’s why the cook’s so protective — and telephone bills and taxi rides from the manager in his rattle-trap Daihatsu jeep. But no, it has all gone wrong, we’re going.
We thought everything was fixed at last. We had met the family recommended to us by the crippled miner in Concepción, their cousin, he said, as he asked us for money, this part of the world is riddled with cousins. The mother was pregnant and spoke only Quechua, or else she pretended, the cunning cow, but the father spoke Spanish fluently and he seemed to like us OK. No wonder he liked us, we’d paid him thousands of dollars in bribes to prove we were ‘serious’ — thousands of dollars for fucking nothing, for the bitch of a mother has changed her mind!