Carnforth's Creation (22 page)

Pale winter light filtered through the windows of a bedroom in Roy’s Hampstead house, it fell upon a thick white carpet, upon a geometrical abstract above the cane headboard of a large bed, and upon the bare skin of two people lying beside one another in a tangle of twisted sheets.

Incredible, thought Roy, rolling over on his side and seeing Eleanor not just close to him but naked and asleep. He grinned a trifle sheepishly as he recalled thinking, only weeks ago, that she would only want it at night or with the curtains closed. How wrong could one be? Groupies apart, he’d never known anyone so uninhibited. Too sure of herself to be self-conscious, bashfulness didn’t exist for her. ‘Let’s try it like this … or like that,’ she’d say, like on a kids’ treasure hunt; and in that upper class accent of hers. ‘Can’t you bend it a bit more? Oh really, Roy, you’re simply
not
trying.’

An odd ache had begun in his stomach; the same feeling whenever she wasn’t around and he thought of her. With everything so open, nothing could seem furtive or awkward. Even her elegance, which he had once put down to high class acting, had turned out to be natural undiluted Elly.

But there were things that worried him. Like where did she really stand with Paul? And how come she never talked about him? At times Roy couldn’t help feeling … not exactly guilty; but whatever cynical motives Paul had started out with, he
couldn’t
have intended the passionate scene he now had going with Elly. More and more Roy had started to dwell on what Eleanor might do if Paul ‘found out’.

Watching her sleeping so calmly beside him, Roy wanted reassurance. She was lying in the position in which she had fallen back after their last climax: legs still parted, a swathe of black hair hiding the side of her face nearest him. He touched this hair gently, lifting it clear of her cheekbone.

‘Elly,’ he whispered a few inches from her ear. She sighed, half-waking; opening her eyes a moment, before closing them again. ‘Elly’, he said louder.

She raised her head a little and let out a long breath, before snuggling up to him.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he told her.

‘Don’t,’ she murmured dreamily.

‘Not that I’m worried about us or anything …’

‘Bad to be worried,’ she agreed, running a lazy hand across his stomach.

‘But have you thought what could maybe spoil things for us?’

‘Too morbid,’ she declared, stroking now between his navel and his groin.

‘Only in case something came up unexpected and sorta caught us out.’

Her hand moved lower, though she had listened solemnly.

‘In case something came up unexpected,’ she repeated thoughtfully.

‘Not
that
kind of thing,’ he gasped, pulling away from her, annoyed to be aroused so easily when desperate to be taken seriously. ‘We can’t go on forever … pretending he doesn’t exist. We gotta talk about him some time.’

‘Not now,’ she breathed, rolling across and straddling him. Roy’s mind still on other matters, there was, thought Eleanor, a relaxed lack of urgency about the touch of his hands on her breasts and back, as if he merely meant to soothe. But the effect was wonderfully unsoothing. She let her head flop forward, brushing his face with her hair. Time was already doing odd things; speeding up madly, then slowing for no good reason. The same with her heart: fluttering fast, then thumping with seismic depth. He reached up and touched her lips with his finger tips. Then his palms cradled her whole face, drawing it down, slowly. As if he were building from single chords, and artless repetitions to the climax of a song … the one that had moved her so at Delvaux a million years ago, when she had imagined him breaking from Paul, but never, never … this. Mine now,
mine, mine. She was pressing down hard on him, almost sobbing; and he was still only kissing the smooth skin of her breasts. She moved impatiently, so the nipple slid between his lips. His tongue moved round it; every touch intense and concentrated now. She reached down and held him jutting between her thighs. ‘Now,’ she moaned, raising herself, guiding, sliding down on him till filled. ‘Oh love, love … my lover.’

Only afterwards, absolved and spent, did she notice his worried eyes, and feel an answering sting in her own.

‘What Paul does,’ she whispered tenderly, ‘is Paul’s worry.’

She turned, and kissed his shoulder. ‘You don’t agree with me?’

‘What he’s up to … he thinks if he sits tight long enough, you’ll get worried. Not like Paul to hide his light, right? So he thinks you’ll start feeling bad.’

She frowned. ‘Doesn’t sound very worrying to me.’

‘Okay, so what gives when he finds out it’s not gonna blow for him? When he knows you’ve got another bloke, he won’t stay outer the picture.’

‘He’s more arrogant than you’d think possible. He’d think I was putting on a show for his benefit.’

‘Yeah, but that’s guessing.’

Eleanor hesitated a moment before saying, ‘I saw him, Roy.’ She felt his arm tense. ‘I didn’t mention you …’

‘D’you have any idea how fuckin’ scaring you are? What did you say?’

She parted the hairs on his chest and shrugged. ‘That I was going to have an affair.’

*

He stared open-mouthed; at last a whispered shout, ‘Chrrrist Almighty! You told him …
told
him
.’ He started
pummelling
at his pillow like a boxer. ‘You’re out of your mind, you know that?’ But then, as quickly as it had kindled, his anger spluttered out. ‘Why d’you do it?’ he croaked, ‘Why?’

Shaken by his reaction, she told him she disliked lying,
was bad at it. She paused. ‘I also needed to know where I stood.’

‘You found out?’

His anxiety depressed her as his anger had not. ‘No more than I told you.’ He gazed at her searchingly.

‘Said you were out to get even with him?’ She nodded. Roy held his head and pressed his temples. ‘Clever sod,’ he muttered. ‘Out to undermine yer, see. Tells yer nothing reaches him. Reckons that’ll stop yer wanting to …

Eleanor said angrily, ‘I made it very clear I wasn’t interested in punishing him.’

He grinned ruefully. ‘Not at all?’

‘Perhaps to start with; but now I couldn’t care less.’ He didn’t answer, but flopped back and stared at the ceiling. She pushed at his arm. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

A sudden shift to mistrust, his eyes avoiding hers. ‘You tell ’im you’re gonna have this affair. So what does he do, beat yer?’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘Not him … he gives out the right kinda guff … hurts him like hell blah blah; except you don’t believe it, cos you know he’s really saying: “Affairs are okay if you hold down the lid.” He let his breath out slowly. ‘So you start thinking: to hell with punishing him, instead I’ll get in really deep with some guy …’ His voice was steadily rising. ‘Have meself a fantastic love-scene. And why? Cos the other didn’t touch him … only you
kid
yourself
that
was what yer wanted all along.’

She slapped him far harder than she’d meant; making his lower lip bleed. He didn’t make a sound. Eleanor watched beads of blood form. She was trembling as if chilled to the bone. So Roy
still
believed Paul exercised remote control. She remembered their parting; how Paul had waited till she couldn’t turn back (had known she wouldn’t), and only then shouted he loved her. Then that derisive roar that had turned every head on the platform.

Her hand itching to slap again, she whispered, ‘You think I thought of
him
… when we were …’

He suddenly launched himself, arms drawing her close, lips pressed hard against hers, so she tasted the saltiness of
his blood. ‘I love yer; no schmaltz; no kids’ stuff …’ He held her face. ‘I gotta say things you don’ wanna hear, cos if I don’t, I lose out for sure.’ His hands slipped to her shoulders. ‘Could say, “Paul’s nothing, let’s keep swingin’.” But one o’ these days “nothing’s”’ gonna turn round and say: “Come back now or all your castles are gonna be in the air.”’

‘You’re wrong,’ she burst out vehemently. ‘Threats wouldn’t give him what he wants.’

‘Which is?’

‘Me to do it all for him.’

Roy considered. ‘Get you creeping home before he has to blow the whistle?’ He turned away. ‘So you’re gonna force him to?’ His voice growing leaden. ‘Chuck enough balls inter his court and someday he’s gonna hit one back. Well I’m not setting meself up for that kinda game.’

‘The point is I’m
not
chucking anything.’

‘Sayin’ nothin’ can pack plenty o’ punch.’ He gazed imploringly. ‘Forget about Agincourt, huh. You wanna keep on with me, you’re gonna have to use your nouse and not your fuckin’ battle-axe.’

‘Frightens you, doesn’t he?’

‘Honey, I’ll get on me white charger any day o’ the week, but I’m not ridin’ the bugger through a mine-field. You got this romantic notion he’s some arrogant asshole like the cat who wouldn’t blow his horn. Lemme tellyer he’s not inter crap like that. One fine day he’s gonna wheel up a mean gun and say …’

‘Then let’s wait till he does, instead of helping him.’

‘Can’t you understand?’ he shouted. ‘It’s better to stop ’im
first.
Tie him up with his own tricks … “separate identities in marriage”, and all that can o’ cowshit he fed yer. Smokescreen him; tell ’im he was right from day one. That’s the way to duff him up … sweet-talk not hara-kiri.’

She stared at him in stupefaction. ‘You think I’d stoop that low.’ Her head had lolled forward. He jerked up her chin, and met her eyes.

‘I’d stoop lower than a squashed slug to keep our scene going, cos that’s all that matters to
me
.’ His eyes held hers a
moment longer, until he swung away and began to dress.

‘Cheapen ourselves like that, and I wouldn’t give us a week.’

He was over by the washbasin dabbing at his lip. ‘Where I came from, “cheap” wasn’t any kind of insult.’

‘Roy,’ she sobbed, ‘love, oh lover … all I know is, we can only rely on conviction.’ She held him tightly. ‘Hide-
and-seek’s
beyond me … leading two lives at once; I couldn’t, just couldn’t.’

He stepped back from her and said steadily, ‘Then that’s the way it is. I’m yours while you need me.’

Not a lot later, she told him Paul had written asking if she’d like to spend a few weeks at Delvaux; because he wouldn’t mind a couple in London. She’d written back saying ‘all right’.

‘So I don’ see yer for a while?’

‘Why on earth not? You must come and stay.’

‘I wonder why,’ he murmured.

‘But darling,’ she soothed him tenderly, ‘he’s going to have to know sooner or later. I can’t let him think I’m ashamed.’

He gazed at her open-mouthed, not knowing whether to cover her with blows or kisses.

Eager to avoid the fate of those heavy-handed husbands whose jealousy injected new life into flagging affairs, Paul refused Eleanor’s next invitation to meet – coupled, as it was, with hints that she meant to ‘tell all’. But as days passed, he began to waver. Better to risk the ugliest of scenes than let her mistake for indifference his desire to hold back until she came to her senses voluntarily.

Since Eleanor was adamant about not wanting to be ‘penned in’ with him at Wilton Crescent, they agreed to meet by the Achilles statue in Hyde Park.

A pleasant afternoon full of summer promise, and high white clouds. Good weather for airing cotton dresses and winter-white skin. Beneath the statue’s bronze limbs and well-filled fig leaf, Paul waited for his wife. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, he fell victim to one of the
unfamiliar
sensations that had plagued him since Eleanor’s
transformation
; a tendency to see sex everywhere, usually when he would rather not. Strolling lovers and girls in flimsy dresses never failed to activate a sickening compound of jealousy and loss; not palliated by the thought that, if Elly had really flung away the principles she had claimed to live by, he was being troubled by the ghost of a girl, rather than the woman on her way to meet him.

Ten minutes later, walking beside the Serpentine, next to an Eleanor in mannerisms and appearance identical with the one he had always known, Paul listened warily as she spoke of past ‘mistakes’. How she had tied herself too closely to him and failed to accept that single-handed she could never have satisfied all his needs. He looked for signs of deliberate irony. Poetic justice indeed, that she should be convinced by his old arguments, only when he had abandoned them.

His eyes were on the antics of a West Indian family in a rowing boat, when she told him about Roy. The water could have turned to blood and still not shocked him as much. Not just to have misunderstood her so overwhelmingly, nor even to have been betrayed by the one person he would have thought incapable of such murderous ingratitude. What dazed him was the perfection of her revenge. To have used Roy – his creature, as she thought of him – as her chosen weapon, took cold-blooded deliberation beyond the reach of his dazed imagination.

Looking down at disintegrating cigarette packs and
bobbing
ice-cream tubs at the water’s edge, grotesque images wobbled into focus: Elly kneeling on all fours as Roy approached, twitching, from behind. ‘Fantastic, baby, wow
what tits, what a wild pussy …’ Gracious Elly, gardening Elly, hunting Elly, the county hostess. Where was she? Shattered cameos on a broken vase. And Elly, who had made love as if a stranger had kindly taken possession of her body, absolving her from direct involvement?

Two laughing boys on roller-skates zipped between them. She was looking at him as if awaiting the attack which would cue her well-prepared defence. Her expression was
compassionate
.

He said, ‘Get on with it.’

Her eyes wide with astonishment. ‘With what?’

‘Whatever you want to say.’ His voice sounded scratched, and shivery.

Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘You’d never understand the relief of being with a man without preconceived ideas … who accepts what one is and never expects anything else.’

Paul gazed at the gravel and shook his head. ‘No
preconceived
ideas …
Roy
?’

‘None that matter … he’s hardly the type to suck in stuff in “society” papers.’

He felt a lurch of nausea. ‘Must be fun though … the ordinary lad fucking his way to victory in the class war.’

‘I love him, Paul. I didn’t set out to, but …’

‘Love kinda caughtya unawares … Jeez, baby.’

She looked away. ‘That’s right. It’s very easy to score off the silly sub-American way he talks, but it never hides his feelings.’

‘Which are naturally the noblest a man can …’ He broke off; observing delicate pity on her face. ‘If ever anyone deserved loyalty …’ He stopped, suddenly outraged by the normality of the artificial lake, the oarsmen, passing people – a nanny wheeling a pram, a child with a hula hoop. Had she chosen this public place to prevent an undignified eruption of those very feelings she affected to think he lacked?

‘Are you all right?’ he heard her ask, holding out a consoling hand. He took it in silence, then, suddenly past caring, pulled with all his weight and sent her staggering into the green-brown water.

An old codger, patriarchally bearded and watch-chained, confronted him, ready to die for Edwardian chivalry. Paul side-stepped with ease and walked away at an even pace across the grass.

*

And so to see the cuckoo in the nest, who had not only rejected his adoptive parent but stolen his mate. Feeling calmer after his taxi ride to Hampstead, Paul detected unease if not open apprehension in Roy’s face, as he ushered him into the principal room. The furniture was strewn with improbable clothing: velvet capes, a yellow overall, a brown top hat, a coat of many gold and silver patches, and boots to match.

‘Dig my Fred Astaire suit?’ laughed Roy, holding up a black lurex garment, shot through with silver threads. He tossed it aside. ‘Theatricality’s the big word now. Prussian helmets, dwarfs in dayglow tights, girls tossin’ glitter.’

Though not expecting Paul on any particular day, Roy had known the visit would come at last. He watched Paul scoop up a pile of clothes and sit down. Without any idea how he might behave, Roy glanced anxiously at objects near Paul’s chair: the Indian table lamps had heavy bases, the
steel-framed
table was light, but if thrown … No point
anticipating
, just sit tight; wait; concentrate.

Paul stretched out his legs. ‘Just seen Elly.’ He pulled a ‘who’d’ve thought it’ face. ‘Really got to hand it to you, Roy. I honestly wouldn’t have thought it possible.’

Not sure whether this was sarcasm, or worse, Roy did his best to look unconcerned, while his heart thumped.

Paul laughed. ‘No way she’ll ever nail
me
again for being the only degenerate on the strength.’ He looked suddenly more serious, but no less affable. ‘How on earth did you persuade her you were sincere?’

‘Just trusted me instincts,’ murmured Roy, feeling
ominous
tremors.

‘They obviously worked a treat.’ Paul stared awkwardly at the floor. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I
know
you didn’t intend it, but it looks as though she may have gone in a bit further than
you realize.’ He paused, and frowned. ‘So how to let her down gently? What we have to avoid is any suspicion that I put you up to it.’

‘Aw come on,’ cried Roy. ‘That stuff about you wanting her laid … that was just for sick laughs. You never thought I’d get through the door.’

‘I certainly didn’t hold out much hope. But luckily I was wrong.’ He brought his hands together. ‘The problem now is how you quit without Elly getting cut up.’

Paul had spoken coolly, but, as Roy sensed his hidden anger, his own flared in answer. ‘“The problem now is”,’ he mimicked. ‘I’ll tellya what the problem now is: I love her, man. And I’m not shoving over to let you in now you’ve finally got around to showing an interest.’

Roy’s hands shook as he studied Paul’s face for signs of the fury he dreaded, yet longed to see. But Paul said mildly, ‘Considering my interest in
you
was largely responsible for her lack of interest in
me,
I think that’s rather less than fair.’

‘Fair?’ gasped Roy. ‘You’ve gotta get hold of this, I’m crazy about your wife and she’s crazy about me.’

Paul sighed, ‘I hope you’re wrong about that last bit, Roy.’ During the silence that followed, Roy felt a peculiar sense of let-down. He had said what he had to; faced Paul with the facts; but Paul
wasn’t
facing them. Suddenly he flashed Roy one of those warm smiles that had always wiped out mistrust in the past. ‘I’m sure you feel bad,’ he remarked pleasantly, ‘but you really can’t expect me to rant and rave simply so you can feel better. I mean, great for you to go limping off to Elly with a black eye and say, “Paul dropped in.”’ He made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘It’s strictly kid-glove time.’

You cool bastard, thought Roy. But then felt less sure. He didn’t
look
any too happy; in fact like he was suffering plenty inside.

‘I want yer to know,’ Roy began haltingly, ‘know that … I didn’t plan it out, Paul. When I went round to her place the first time, I wanted to straighten things out for you.’ He felt his cheeks glowing. ‘Hey, you know how it is. You’ve been in love.’

Paul picked up the brown top hat from the chair next to him, and ran a hand over its crown. ‘I think Eleanor’s motives are going to be a bit different from yours, Roy.’ He put the hat on absently and tipped the brim forward. ‘The fact is she’s a very straight girl, which won’t help you long term. Great mistake to underestimate convention.’

‘She’s fed up to the teeth with that whole scene,’ cried Roy, stung at last by the man’s self-confidence.

‘I can see why you’d like to think that, but, uh … the evidence does seem to point the other way.’ Paul paused, then added quietly, ‘Wouldn’t you say?’ He tilted the hat to one side. ‘There’s nothing very novel about milady’s
working
class stud: the gamekeeper, the lad at the garage,
hired-hand
on hubby’s yacht. Most weeks in
The
News
of
the
World
… all its own conventions – the big one being, milady doesn’t run off in the end, unless milord gives her the push.’

‘Fuck all that,’ gasped Roy, swept on a foaming breaker of rage. ‘You wanna
know
why she’s through with all that hypocritical shit? She reckons it bitched her old woman’s life. Big cheese politician for ’er husband … and what does he do? Pays some geezer to let him screw his wife.’

‘Eleanor
told
you
that?
’ For the first time Paul seemed to have caught on that it went deeper than a grope with the chauffeur. But then Roy felt scared. The way Paul was still staring; waiting for an answer. And now Roy realized he couldn’t tell him she’d told him direct. Paul would be sure to think she would’ve asked him to keep it quiet.

‘Picked up the phone when she was on to her old woman,’ he said lightly. ‘Extensions all over the ’ouse. Shoulda put the bleeder straight down …’ He looked straight at Paul. ‘Yer know how it is … human nature to be curious.’

Still those blue eyes probing him. ‘I know how it is,’ murmured Paul. He took off the hat and drummed his fingers on the crown. ‘So where to? Keep on going, will you, and too bad who gets hurt?’

‘Got no choice. Like if I had five minutes left on earth, I’d stay with her till the last second.’

Paul walked briskly to the door, and tossed away the hat. ‘That’s a pity, Roy. A big big pity.’