The Watchers on the Shore (28 page)

'Shut up,' she says. 'I shan't be able to drive.'

'I suppose I can sneak in without anybody seeing me,' I say as
the car moves off.

Darling, you can't go home like that. You must come back with me and get the worst of it off.'

Which doesn't prove all that easy as we find when we get to the
flat and Donna attacks my trousers with a brush in the kitchen
while I wash my feet in the bathroom. She comes in with the pants
over her arm as I'm standing with one foot up in the washbasin.

'I wish I had a camera.'

'I wish I'd a clean pair of socks.'

'Do you want me to wash those through for you?'

'They'll never be dry in time for me to put them on.'

'Your trousers will do for now, but they'll have to go to the
cleaners.'

'What the hell do you suppose it was doing there?'

'It was put there for the express purpose of catching Vic Brown,
of course.'

I have to laugh.'All right.. .Have you got any talcum powder?*

'In the cabinet.'

I open the cabinet and look at the bottles and jars. Her things. I
think then of her moving about with her record-player, books and
picture to wherever the work is, independent, a real person, and
I'm suddenly very touched. A great tenderness for her comes over me. When I go into the living-room she's got coffee waiting and a
record on the gramophone. We sit together on the sofa.

'You know, this relationship's all the wrong way round,' I tell
her.

'Why is that?'

Well, you've got the interesting career, the car and the flat, and you even put the seductive music on the gramophone.'

'Do you find Frank Sinatra seductive?'

'I'd find
God Save the Queen
seductive if I heard it with you.'

I'm watching a little pulse beat in her throat above the neck of
her jumper. I reach out and touch it, then slide my hand round the
back of her head and gently pull her nearer. I want her -now. And
she knows it. She's not laughing now as she looks at me.

It can't be true. It's not me who's there with her, holding her
close, feeling the warm flutter of her
breath on my cheek and the
sheen of her skin under my hands. No ...

But it's me a few moments later, spent and sagging before I've hardly touched her, who's apologizing wretchedly, 'Oh, Donna,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' Her fingers are in the hair in the back of my
neck, reassuring in their movement. 'Never mind, never mind.'

'It's just not my night, love.'

'It doesn't matter.'

No, perhaps it doesn't. But we've crossed another bridge and I know that things can never be quite the same again.

Part Three

15

The hotel corridor seems endless, twisting and turning past bogs, bathrooms, linen cupboards and doors marked Staff', with the room numbers on plaques which are confusing enough to suggest that the bloke who had put them up didn't start his counting from where I set off; 260 is on the floor below me and, I find eventually, at the very end of the corridor. It occurs to me that I might find a quicker way to it. It doesn't matter now, in the middle of the evening, but I shall feel conspicuous later on. I'm very green at this kind of thing.

At least I know she's here because her name was written three
lines above where I signed mine in the register, which stopped me
from having to ask for her room number and drawing any more
attention to what I'm positive is the general air I'm carrying of being a bloke on what's commonly known as a dirty week-end.

She opens the door to my tap and lets me in. Her hair is all awry
as though she's been giving it an intensive brushing but hasn't put it in place yet. She smells warm and sweetly clean under the blue
dressing-gown as I give her a hug and a kiss. For a moment we look into each other's eyes and smile with something like quiet
glee - like kids who've set up a joke that's just about to come off.

Did you have a good journey?'

'Yes. I missed the tail end of the rush hour.'

'How long have you been here?'

'About an hour and a half.'

'Eager beaver!'

'Mmm.' She tosses her head in a teasing way.

I haven't been here long. Just enough to have a wash and change my shirt.'

'You're ready to go out, then?'

'Yep.'

'I shan't be long now. I thought I'd have a bath while I was
waiting for you.'

She's across the room now, picking underclothes out of her case.
She puts on her suspender belt
and briefs under cover of her open
dressing-gown with her back to me. Then, still turned away, she
slips the gown off and, like all women seem to do,leans into her bra,
giving me a leisurely view of her back and, in the dressing-table
mirror, a glimpse of her breasts, the shadows in the room with
only the bedside light lit, throwing their spacing into dusky relief.
I'm revelling in the mixture of modesty and intimacy in the per
formance while I'm wondering if she realizes the effect it's having
on me, and that it's not the best way to get me out for the next hour
or two. When she's pulled her frock down over her head and shaken
her hair free she asks me to do her up.

'What good is it having a man around and doing up your own
zips?' she says, smiling at me through the mirror as I close the
back of the dress from waist to neck. I slide my arms round her
from behind and snuggle my cheek against hers.

'Is that all this man's good for?'

'At the moment.'

'You shouldn't do these reverse stripteases if you don't want interfering with.'

She laughs. '"Interfered with." I always think that's a marvel
lous expression.'

'Don't evade the issue.'

She turns to me. 'We are going out, though, aren't we?'

'Yes.'

'I mean, it'll be better later.'

'Yes. We don't want another fiasco.'

'You should forget about that.'

'I can't. It was so bloody humiliating.'

'Nevermind.'

You know, I'm not like that really. I'm actually pretty good, if I do say so myself.'

'Yes, darling, I
know.
You
told me.'

'It's just that I love you so much I can't believe such a bloody
marvellous thing can really happen.'

She shushes me with her forefinger lightly on my lips.

'It'll be all right. You'll see.'

She replaces her ringer with her mouth for a second, then moves
away and starts to put on her stockings.

Where would you like to eat?'

'Anywhere. You tell me. This is your town.'

'We could go up into Soho.'

'Have you put the car away?'

'Yes, I have, actually. It's in the garage.'

'Well, let's go somewhere within walking distance.'

'There's Earls Court. That's not far and there are one or two
decent places there.'

'Okay, Earls Court it is. We'll stroll down, call in the first nice pub we come to for a sneck-lifter -'

She swings round, her mouth open with delighted surprise.

'A what?'

'A sneck-lifter.'

'But what on-'

'You know the old-fashioned iron latches on cottage doors?
Well we call them snecks in Yorkshire.'

'And what's a sneck-lifter?'

I use it for the first drink but I think it really means a couple of bob to get you out of the house.'

'Oh.'

Well, and then we'll find a restaurant and have a good nosh-up and a bottle of bowjolly, then stroll back.'

'And what then?'

'A nice early night with a good read in bed - you in your small
corner and I in mine.'

'It sounds dull, the last part.'

'Oh, we'll probably think of something else as the evening goes
on.'

Will I be able to think of
anything
else, though? I'm wondering. It'll hover over the next few hours like a promise. And Oh God, don't let me balls it up again. How to combine restraint with so much delight. It's unbearable. I help her into her coat and we go out and along the corridor to the lift. The dining-room's busy but the lobby's quiet with the sound of a man laughing in the cocktail bar the only thing that breaks through. We drop our keys on to the
desk and go through the heavy glass doors, out of the central
heating into the cold of the street. As we step smartly out along the
pavement, our heels clicking in the crisp air, I'm suddenly visited
by a feeling of the great anonymous mass of London sprawling
round us on every side and I'm hit by an enormous happiness that
almost takes my breath away. My legs - my whole body, in fact -
seem to tingle with the electricity of it, and I know why people dance
for joy.

The restaurant we wind up in is a little Italian place with dim
lights, soft music coming through off a tape, a corner table for
two, and a menu that Donna has to interpret for me. When we've ordered we light cigarettes and exchange little looks and smiles
again.

Here we are, then.'

'Yes.'

'You had no trouble getting away?'

'No. I thought at one time that Fleur was going to wish herself
on to me, but I said I was staying with friends. What about
you?'

It's not a week-end when I should have been going home, anyway. Albert has a pretty good idea what's going on but a nod's as good as a wink to him.'

'I suppose he's got to know.'

'Well, we live on top of each other. We established a pattern
pretty quickly after I got down here and I can't really ever see you
in Longford without him knowing. I mean, in a way he covers up
for
us with your friends.'

'Somebody there's going to realize before very long. It's
inevitable.'

'Will it matter?'

'No, I don't think so. Actors are like old women sometimes, the way they like to gossip. But there are things they keep their own
counsel about. Besides, they wouldn't think it a staggering scandal.
They've seen it all before.'

'It's different in the theatre.'

She smiles a little. 'I don't mean we spend all our time playing
musical beds. There are people who are promiscuous and those who
aren't. But it's not a world-shaking act when two people do go to
bed with each other. They can do it simply because they're lonely
and want to give each other a little warmth.'

Her gaze is down on where she's rolling the lighted end of her
cigarette on the rim of the ash-tray.