Cupid's Dart (20 page)

'Dear'. How pitifully inadequate. I might as well go on and describe her body as 'nice'.

'Darling'? 'Dearest'? 'Sweetest'?

I looked round the café, wondering how other people began their love letters, and caught the waiter's eye unintentionally. He hurried over.

'Your bill, sir?'

Fuelled as I later realised by more alcohol than I was used to, I saw this as an implication that I had had enough.

'No,' I said firmly, defiantly. 'Another beer, please.'

'Of course, sir. No problem.'

I was all for them learning English, but I did wish that
didn't include using odious phrases like 'No problem.'

He returned in an instant, even a trice.

'There you go, sir,' he said.

What sort of tutor teaches them 'There you go'? I felt a rising tide of irritation, and I realised that the waiter was right in his unspoken implications, which made me even more irritated.

I took a sip. This beer really was luscious stuff. I fought my irritation, and I won. I wrote:

Darling, dearest, sweetest Ange,
I am sitting here in the Old Town Square of Prague. It is
really very beautiful. On the subject of beauty, I have been
thinking, as I sit here . . .'

Damn. I'd already said I was sitting there. I wanted this letter to be good. I must start again. I crumpled the paper up rather viciously in my irritation, and put it in the ash tray. The waiter removed it immediately.

Darling, dearest, sweetest, most gorgeous of all Anges, I am sitting here in the Old Town Square of Prague. It is so beautiful. In such a beautiful place it is natural to think about beauty and I have been amusing myself by making a list of what I think to be the ten most beautiful things in the world.

One. Your smile. It is the sun rising in the morning, and it is the sun setting in the evening, before a night of love. It is the sparkle on the sea.

Two. Your eyes. Your blue eyes are like a summer's day. They sparkle with life. They shine with goodness.

Two 'sparkle's. Damn. Can't start again, though.

Three. Your skin, so delicate, so subtle, so exquisitely pale, so sweetly scented, so clever of it to cover all of you.

Four. Your genitalia. Suddenly I go all coy. I can't bring myself to write less formal words. I look round the café shyly before I even write this much. Absurd? Of course I am absurd. You have given me the courage to be absurd.

Five. Your mind. When I say that your natural intelligence is wonderfully unsullied by knowledge, I might sound patronising. Darling, I don't mean to be. Some people go through life without having a single original thought – I don't have many myself, as it turns out – but I find your thoughts constantly interesting and surprising. In fact, I ought to rewrite this and put this section higher up the list, but I haven't the energy, and I must finish this before I finish my fourth large beer. (Yes, you'd be proud of me tonight. What a pity you aren't here. I shall never go anywhere without you again, my darling.)

Six. Your lips. They are just so perfect.

Seven. Your legs. I almost faint at the thought of kissing them next week.

Eight. Your sweet nose. I love the little curl of your nostrils. The thought of tracing them with my fingers is driving me frantic here in my Prague café.

Nine. Your breasts. What amazing multi-taskers. What
joy I get from kissing them, and what pleasure our
children will get from drinking your milk.

Ten. Prague.

Being a careful person, I make a habit of never sending any
controversial letters until I have slept on them. Having drunk four large
glasses of strong Czech beer, I was not so careful. I asked the waiter if
he could provide me with an envelope and a stamp. 'No problem,' he said, and
on this occasion I didn't mind the phrase. 'There you go,' he said as he brought
them, and I didn't even mind that.

Suddenly I was wide awake. The room was spinning round and round. I was terrified. Was it an earthquake? Was this what earthquakes were like?

The spinning stopped, and was succeeded by a strong feeling of nausea. I needed to get up, and quickly.

The moment I moved, a sharp pain ran through my head. I was having a stroke.

Then I remembered. I had drunk several pints of Czech beer. I had a hangover.

The relief was enormous. There was no earthquake. I wasn't having a stroke. I wouldn't die or be incapacitated.

The relief lasted several seconds. Then the nausea returned. I just made it to the bathroom, and was horribly sick. I could still taste the goulash. This was how thousands of young people felt every weekend. The world was mad.

I drank some water, wiped my face with a cold flannel, and felt wonderful.

Then I remembered the letter. I had written a love letter to Ange. The memory hit me like . . . like a ton of copies of 'Germanic Thought from Kant to Wittgenstein'.

It had been a rather nice letter. I had listed the ten most beautiful things in the world, with the first nine relating to Ange and the tenth being Prague. What a lovely compliment. She would be so . . .

I had called her breasts 'multi-taskers'. Oh my God. My words flooded over me like nausea. 'Your smile is the sparkle on the sea.' Alan, you prat.

No, it wasn't too bad. A bit soppy, perhaps. My dad wouldn't have liked that.

Don't be soppy, boy. Sorry, Father, whom I didn't dare call Dad after I was eight, I've been soppy. But Ange wouldn't . . .

I had referred to her private parts as genitalia. What a phrase to read over your cornflakes. Did they have cornflakes in Gallows Corner?

It was ridiculous, yes, but Ange was used to me being ridiculous. It didn't really . . .

Our children. Dear God, I had mentioned our children. How drunk had I been? What a way to make such a momentous and absurdly premature suggestion.

I was sick again. I held my head over the bowl of the lavatory, and thought of Ange, in Gallows Corner, ripping open the post and reading that. She'd run a mile. I wouldn't blame her.

I drank three glasses of water, leaning against the washbasin, not yet able to stand upright.

Maybe I hadn't posted the letter.

I
had
posted the letter. I could see myself doing it. I had kissed the letter box after the letter had disappeared. I had kissed the letter box? I'd only had four beers, hadn't I? But of course I wasn't used to the stuff.

What bugs would even now be germinating on my tongue? I stuck my tongue out and examined it in the mirror. It was a greeny blue. I didn't think I had ever seen anything so revolting.

I would tell her that I had been drunk when I wrote the letter. My first binge. She'd understand. What laughs we would have about it.

And then a most dreadful thought struck me. I had addressed the letter to Ms A. Clench, believing that she might prefer Ms to Miss, which sounded so old-fashioned and spinsterish. But I didn't know her mother's Christian name. That might begin with A. Her mother might have discarded the title 'Mrs' in the bitterness of her abandonment. She might think it was for her and open it by mistake. She might even open it by mistake deliberately. I'm sure my mother steamed open my letters when I was young. There wouldn't be many letters arriving at the Clench household, and certainly not many from Prague. Her mother would be intrigued. It was only human.

If only I hadn't persuaded Ange to give me her address. 'Why do you want it?' she had asked, which had upset me rather at the time. 'To send you a card from Prague.' 'A card,' she had said. 'I don't know how long it is since I had a card.'

Oh God. Why had the waiter said, 'There you go.' Why had he not said to me, as any waiter with even the faintest sense of responsibility would have done, 'Sir, may I offer you a piece of advice gleaned from my vast experience of tourists drinking Czech beer and beg you not to send this letter until you have slept on it? I will not give you a stamp, and you will thank me.'

I began to feel slightly better. Then I recalled that at eleven o'clock I had to give a lecture. 'Climate and Conceptual Thought – How Much Has the Weather Influenced the Propagation of European Philosophical Ideas?' I held my head over the bowl again.

I awoke late, still feeling full of sleep, and of anxiety too. Was I still in Prague? Did I have another hangover?

I have to admit that the anxiety was fairly normal. Life is brief, and it is a privilege; and to have been born British and too young to have to fight in a world war, and to be old enough to have a chance of avoiding the worst effects of global warming, has been extraordinarily fortunate; I know that when I wake up every morning I should throw back the blankets and sheets and think, 'Hurrah! Another day. Yet again, I haven't died in the night.' But I don't. I crawl into consciousness and think, 'Something's wrong. I can sense it.'

I wasn't in Prague. I raised my body cautiously. I didn't have a hangover. I realised why I felt so anxious. It was Ange's twenty-fifth birthday, and she was coming up to Oxford to celebrate it with me, but – after a difficult lecture which had almost sent
me
to sleep, let alone my audience, and after the usual airport delays – I had arrived home after midnight to find no letter or phone message from her, no indication of her time of arrival, of which train to meet.

There was not necessarily anything sinister in that. She could be very careless about communicating. It was quite possible, perhaps even probable, that she would just turn up, as a surprise, lighting up my drab rooms with her pale blue eyes and her dimple and her smile.

I hadn't slept well. In fact I had still been awake to hear the dawn chorus (a touch of poetic licence; there isn't actually much of a dawn chorus in the college, more a brief solo from one academically inclined blackbird). I had heard people moving about, and had thought that I too would get up, and I had then fallen into an excessively deep sleep.

I realised, as I crawled wearily out of bed, that I had to act on the assumption that Ange would come. After all, I had no firm indication that she wouldn't. And it would be very like her just to turn up, unannounced, cheerfully saying, 'You didn't think I wasn't coming, did yer?' It might even be a test, a test that I would fail if I doubted her. Even if it wasn't a test it would be fatal to show her that I was worried. She had me in her power.

I ate my breakfast in my dressing gown. I had two slices of toast, as I did every day when I was at home. On the first slice I put butter and honey on one half and butter alone on the other, and on the second slice I put butter and marmalade on one half and butter alone on the other, as I did every day when I was at home. Sometimes I used orange marmalade and sometimes three-fruit marmalade. I wouldn't want you to think I was a creature of habit. On that particular day the marmalade was . . . either orange or three-fruit, I honestly can't remember after all this time.

Then I had a bath, but I couldn't relax. I was ready, at any moment, to leap up and answer the telephone.

The telephone didn't ring.

I hunted for something nice enough to wear, should Ange come. There wasn't anything.

I picked up my mail. Nothing from her. Somehow I hadn't expected there to be. There was only one item, a card from Lawrence and Jane. No mention of the projected sabbatical, but some wonderful news. 'Just a line to hope that Prague went well. Didn't have time to tell you before you left, but, unfortunately, young Mallard made a balls of the Ferdinand Brinsley.'

A dreadful thought struck me. I hadn't bought her a present. I hadn't even got her a birthday card. What a hopeless man I was. How dysfunctional I had become over the years. I hurried out, striding briskly across the quad. It was an unreasonably, tactlessly lovely day. The lawns were still immaculate, despite the dry weather.

I went into a shop, and looked for a card that featured darts. There weren't any, and afterwards I was glad. She was probably swamped by cards with darts on them. I stared at the shelves, and the more I looked the less I saw. I wondered about a humorous one, but I was not of a generation that found it easy to give humorous cards, and they all seemed very vulgar anyway. In the end I chose one with a red rose on it and the words 'For My Darling'. I thought it hopelessly old-fashioned and florid, but it was the best I could do.

I looked at the shops of Oxford and I quailed. I have never been any good at shopping, and I don't think I have ever bought an interesting present in my life. Oh God. I felt a wave of depression and self-disgust. I walked up and down Cornmarket, a street I had always avoided, a street devoid of any academic atmosphere. I was lost there. I didn't think it was entirely my fault. I found it undistinguished at best, tacky at worst. I thought of Rome's shops, and felt ashamed of my country as well as of myself.

I stared at clothes shops. Lingerie? I wouldn't know where to start. I looked in a jeweller's window and was blinded by the choice. Oh how I longed to be a man who knew what to buy a girl on her twenty-fifth birthday.

I took the easy way out. I decided that it would be fun to stroll round Oxford with her next morning, and choose something together.

I walked back to my rooms, trying not to rush, trying not to hope for a message on my answerphone.

Then a great thought struck me. When Lawrence wrote his card, they couldn't have received my card from Prague. Cards from abroad took ages to arrive. It was very probable that Ange hadn't received my letter yet. In fact it was almost certain that she hadn't. A great wave of relief swept over me. Suddenly I felt altogether more hopeful. She would turn up unannounced. I would be able to warn her that a letter was coming and that I had been drunk when I wrote it.

I had sent cards from Prague to all my friends, feeling somewhat ashamed of my vanity as I had written them. My friends often sent cards from abroad, and I so rarely went abroad. This had been my pathetic chance to impress. 'I'm here for a big philosophy shindig. What a beautiful place.' 'The building on the right is where we're having our pan-European conference.'

It occurred to me now that I could check up on whether my cards – posted earlier in the day on which I had written to Ange, and therefore setting off on their journey from Prague a day earlier than my letter – had arrived.

'Hello, Ashley, just ringing to see how you are. It's such a long time since we talked . . . No holiday, no, but I've just been in Prague, showing the philosophical flag. No doubt you got my card . . . Oh, really?'

The Pettifers in Chipping Camden hadn't got my card either, nor had Gordon Wenlock in Iffley. My spirits rose. I was safe . . . for the time being, at any rate.

I grew more confident. I persuaded myself yet again that Ange was not the sort of woman who would feel that she needed to let me know that she was coming.

Never had an afternoon passed so slowly, never had the Oxford sun shone more gloriously, but I was trapped in my rooms, waiting for a phone call that didn't come. Again I persuaded myself that it was unlikely that she would phone. It would be more in her style to just turn up, smiling. However many times I persuaded myself of this, I had to persuade myself all over again.

I cleaned my teeth for the third time. Ange was a bit of a tease. I persuaded myself that she would delay her arrival until the last moment. It might even be the final part of that test. 'You didn't panic, did yer?'

Our table was booked for eight o'clock. At eight fifteen I rang the Lemon Tree.

'Oh, hello. It's Alan Calcutt here. I have a table booked for eight o'clock . . . Yes, for two. My . . . er . . . companion hasn't turned up and I was just wondering whether perhaps there has been a misunderstanding and she is . . . er . . . waiting for me there . . . Yes, a young lady, dark hair, pale blue eyes, dimple on her chin . . . No young ladies on their own at all, dimpled or undimpled. Thank you.'

At twenty-five minutes past eight I rang the station to ask if there were any difficulties with the trains. After an interminably long time the phone was answered and a man said, 'I'm glad to say the service is running very smoothly tonight.'

'Thank you,' I said, not sharing his gladness.

At twenty to nine I telephoned the restaurant and cancelled my table.

'Thank you for letting us know,' said a female with a very pleasant voice and only the faintest touch of sarcasm.

'No problem,' I said.

Even in my despair I was shocked to hear myself using that phrase.

At five to nine I lifted my hands from my head and stood up. I went to what I laughably call my kitchen, got some tissues, wiped my face and blew my nose.

At two minutes past nine I kicked the table. This was a foolish thing to do as I hurt my foot and the table didn't care. I had a sudden memory of Ange saying how funny it would be if things could think and speak. I thought of the table saying. 'I don't think, therefore I'm not.' I don't know why, but that broke my resolve, and I cried and cried.

At half past nine . . . these times are estimates, I didn't keep looking at the clock . . . it suddenly occurred to me that Ange could be dead. She could have been killed crossing the road. She could have had a heart attack. Young people sometimes did. She could have had a stroke, and be unable to speak. She could be trapped, unable to contact me, feeling that she was letting me down.

I could always ring her home. In fact I had to ring her home.

I picked up the phone, but after two rings I put it down again hurriedly. This was not the right time. I was in no state to conduct an important conversation.

I opened a bottle of red wine, poured some, rolled it round the glass, sniffed it, and settled down with it as my companion on what might be a long night.

Round about ten o'clock I decided that there was a much simpler explanation. In the end she had found it impossible not to spend her birthday with her family. Her mother had begged her, burst into tears at the thought of the husband who had abandoned her, and she had felt, warm-hearted girl that she was, that she must stay.

But why hadn't she phoned me? That explanation didn't really hold water. It might have been difficult to phone, but she would have done it.

I pulled myself together and decided that I must do something positive. This was a test of my strength. I mustn't be weedy. That was another of my father's favourite adjectives. Mustn't be weedy, boy. Sorry, Father.

I poured the wine back into the bottle. There was no solace to be had from it.

I settled myself at my desk, made a couple of finicky adjustments to the light, and settled down to work on my manuscript. How neglected it looked.

'When Nietzsche said that there are no truths, he must have realised that, if there are no truths, his statement that there are no truths cannot be a truth. The fundamental dilemma at the heart of . . .'

My eyes closed. The tension of the day had caught up with me. I slept for seven hours, with my head lolling on page 528.