We sit there and Martha looks at us as if we all know one another. Archie wears a blue jacket, white shirt and yellow corduroys; his face is smooth and well fed. As Florence has chosen to be with him – most of the time – he must, I imagine, have some unusual qualities. Is he completely dissimilar to me, or does he resemble me in ways I cannot see? Perhaps I will learn.
‘How long are you staying?’ I ask.
He puffs on his cigar and says nothing.
Martha says, ‘I could tell you where to go and what to look at, if you want.’
Archie says, ‘Thanks, but I’ve been thinking of getting another country place. I inherited a stately home as they call them these days, with a lot of Japanese photographing me through the windows. Sometimes I feel like sitting there in a dress and tiara. My wife says you can’t sit down without farting into the dust of a dozen centuries. So we might have to drive round … estate agents and all that.’
I say, ‘Does your wife like the country?’
‘London women have fantasies about fields. But she suffers from hay fever. I can’t see the point in going to a place where you know no one. But then I can’t see the point in anything.’
He puts his head back and laughs.
‘Are you depressed?’
‘You know that, do you?’ He sighs. ‘It’s staring everyone in the face, like a slashed throat.’ He says after a time, ‘I’m not going to kill myself. But I could, just as well.’
‘I had it for two years, once.’
He squeezes my arm as Florence sometimes does. ‘Now it’s gone?’
I tap the wooden bar. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s good to hear. You’re a happy little man, are you, now?’
I am about to inform him that it is returning, probably as a result of meeting him. But this is despair, not depression. These distinctions are momentous.
We discuss the emptying out; the fear of living; the creation of a wasteland; the denigration of value and meaning. I tell him melancholy was part of my interior scene and that I considered it to be the way the world was, until I stood against it.
I announce, ‘People make themselves sick when they aren’t leading the lives they should be leading.’
He bangs the bar. ‘How banal, but true.’
By now the place has almost emptied. Martha collects the glasses, sweeps the floor and wipes down the bar. She continues to put out brandies for us.
She watches us and says, ‘There isn’t much intelligent conversation down here.’
‘What do you think of meditation?’ he says. ‘Eastern hogwash or truth?’
‘It helps my concentration,’ I say. ‘I’m an actor.’
‘There’s a lot of actors about. They rather get under one’s feet, talking about “centreing” and all that.’
I say, ‘Do you know any actors? Or actresses?’
‘Do you count ten breaths or only four,’ he says, ‘when meditating?’
‘Four,’ I say. ‘There’s less time to get lost.’
‘Who taught you?’
Your wife, I am about to say.
‘I had a good teacher,’ I say.
‘Where was the class … could you tell me?’
‘The woman who taught me … I met her by chance, one day, in a cinema. She seemed to like me instantly. I liked her liking me. She led me on, you could say.’
‘Really?’ says Martha, leaning across the bar.
‘Only then she took my hand and told me, with some sadness, that she was married. I thought that would suit me. Anyhow, she taught me some things.’
Martha said, ‘She didn’t tell you she was married?’
‘She did, yes. Just before we slept together.’
‘Moments before?’ said Martha. ‘She sounds like an awful person.’
‘Why?’
‘To do that to you! Do you want her to leave her husband?’
‘What for? I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’
Archie laughs. ‘Wait ’til he catches up with you!’
‘I hope I’m not keeping you,’ I say to Archie.
‘My wife will be on her REMs by now. I’ve missed my conjugals for today.’
‘Does she usually go to sleep at this time?’
‘I can’t keep that woman out of bed.’
‘And she reads in bed? Novels?’
‘What are you, a librarian?’
I say, ‘I like basic information about people. The facts, not opinions.’
‘Yes. That’s a basic interest in people. And you still have that?’
‘Don’t you?’
He thinks about it. ‘Perhaps you study people because you’re an actor.’
Martha lights a cigarette. She has become thoughtful. ‘It’s not only that. I know it isn’t. It is an excuse for looking. But looking is the thing.’ She turns to me with a smile.
‘That might be right, my dear,’ Archie says. ‘Things are rarely only one thing.’
For my benefit she shoots him an angry look and I smile at her.
‘Better make a move,’ he says. ‘Better had.’
I want to ask him more. ‘What does your wife do? Did you ever see her act?’
‘Told you she was an actress, did I? Don’t remember that. Don’t usually say that, as it’s not true. Like women, eh?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Saw how you appreciated my wife, on the train.’ He gets down from the stool, and staggers. ‘It’s beautiful when I’m sitting down. Better help us upstairs.’
He finds my shoulder and connects himself to it. He is heavy and I feel like letting him go. I do not like being so close to him.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Martha says. ‘It’s not far. You’re in the next room to one another.’
One on each side, we heave him upstairs. The last few steps he takes with gingerly independence.
At the door he turns. ‘Guide me into the room. Don’t know the layout. Could be pitch dark with only my wife’s teeth for light.’
Martha takes his key and opens the door for him.
‘Goodnight,’ I say.
I am not accompanying him into the bedroom.
‘Hey.’ He falls into the room.
I wave at Martha.
‘Archie,’ says startled Florence from the darkness within. ‘Is that you?’
‘Who else, dammit? Undress me!’
‘Archie –’
‘Wife’s duty!’
I sink down beside the wall like a gargoyle and think of her tearing at the warm mound of him. Now I have seen him, his voice seems clearer.
I hear him say, ‘I was just talking to someone –’
‘Who?’
‘That boy in the next room.’
‘Which boy?’
‘The actor, you fool. He was in the train. Now he’s in the hotel!’
‘Is he? Why?’
‘How do I know?’
He switches the TV on. I would not have done such a thing when she was sleeping. I think of Florence sleeping. I know what her face will be like.
*
Next morning it is silent next door. I walk along the corridor hoping I will not run into Florence and Archie. Maids are starting to clean the rooms. I pass people on the stairs and say ‘Good morning’. The hotel smells of furniture polish and fried food.
At the door to the breakfast room I bump into them. We smile at one another, I slide by and secure a table behind a pillar. I open the newspaper and order haddock, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried potatoes.
Last night I dreamed I had a nervous breakdown; that I was walking around a foreign town incapable of considered thought or action, not knowing who I was or where I was going. I wonder whether I want to incapacitate myself rather than seriously consider what I should do. I need to remind myself that such hopelessness will lead to depression. Better to do something. After breakfast I will get the train back to London.
I am thinking that it is likely that I will never see Florence again, when she rushes around the corner.
‘What are you doing? What are you intending to do? Oh Rob, tell me.’
She is close to me, breathing over me; her hair touches my face, her hand is on mine, and I want her again, but I hate her, and hate myself.
‘What are you intending to do?’ I ask.
‘I will persuade him to leave.’
‘When?’
‘Now. He’ll be on the lunchtime train.’
‘No doubt sitting next to me.’
‘But we can talk and be together! I’ll do anything you want.’ I look at her doubtfully. She says, ‘Don’t go this morning. Don’t do that to me.’
For some reason a man I have never seen before, with a lapel badge saying ‘Manager’, is standing beside the table.
‘Excuse me,’ he says.
Florence does not notice him. ‘I beg you,’ she says. ‘Give me a chance.’ She kisses me. ‘You promise?’
‘Excuse me,’ the hotel manager says. ‘The car you ordered is here, sir.’ I stare at him. He seems to regard us as a couple. ‘The rental car – suitable for a man and a woman, touring.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say.
‘Would you both like to look at it now?’
With a wave, Florence goes. Outside, I gaze at the big, four-door family saloon, chosen in a moment of romantic distraction. I sit in it.
After breakfast I drive into Lyme Regis and walk on the Cobb; later I drive to Charmouth, climb up the side of the cliff and look out to sea. It is beginning to feel like being on holiday with your parents when you are too old for it.
I return to the hotel to say goodbye to Florence again. In the conservatory, reading the papers, is Archie, wearing a suit jacket over a T-shirt, brown shorts and black socks and shoes, looking like someone who has dressed for the office but forgotten to put their trousers on.
As I back away, hoping he has not recognised me, and if he does, that he will not quite recall who I am, he says, ‘Have a good morning?’
In front of him is a half-empty bottle of wine. His face is covered in a fine glacé of sweat.
I tell him where I’ve been.
‘Busy boy,’ he says.
‘And you? You’re still around … here?’
‘We’ve walked and even read books. I’m terribly, terribly glad I came.’
He pours a glass of wine and hands it to me.
I say, ‘Think you might stay a bit longer?’
‘Only if it’s going to annoy you.’
His wife comes to the other door. She blinks several times, her mouth opens, and then she seems to yawn.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ asks her husband.
‘Tired,’ she whispers. ‘Think I’ll lie down.’
He winks at me. ‘Is that an invitation?’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she says.
‘Why the hell are you apologising? Get a grip, Florrie. I spoke to this young man last night.’ He jabs his finger at me. ‘You said this thing …’ He looks into the distance and massages his temples. ‘You said … if you experienced the desires, the impulses, within you, you would break up what you had created, and live anew. But there would be serious consequences. The word was in my head all night. Consequences. I haven’t been able to live out those things. I have tried to put them away, but can’t. I’ve got this image … of stuffing a lot of things in a suitcase that can’t be closed, that is too small. That is my life. If I lived what I thought … it would all blow down …’
I realise Florence and I have been looking at one another. Sometimes you look at someone instead of touching them.
He regards me curiously. ‘What’s going on? Have you met my wife?’
‘Not really.’
My lover and I shake hands.
Archie says, ‘Florrie, he’s been unhappy in love. Married woman and all that. We must cheer him up.’
‘Is he unhappy?’ she says. ‘Are you sure? People should cheer themselves up. Don’t you think, Rob?’
She crooks her finger at me and goes. Her husband ponders his untrue life. As soon as his head re-enters his hands, I am away, racing up the stairs.
My love is lingering in the corridor.
‘Come.’
She pulls my arm; with shaking hands I unlock my door; she hurries me through my room and into the bathroom. She turns on the shower and the taps, flushes the toilet, and falls into my arms, kissing my face and neck and hair.
I am about to ask her to leave with me. We could collect our things, jump in the car and be on the road before Archie has lifted his head and wiped his eyes. The idea burns in me; if I speak, our lives could change.
‘Archie knows.’
I pull back so I can see her. ‘About our exact relation to one another?’
She nods. ‘He’s watching us. Just observing us.’
‘Why?’
‘He wants to be sure, before he makes his move.’
‘What move?’
‘Before he gets us.’
‘Gets us? How?’
‘I don’t know. It’s torture, Rob.’
This thing has indeed made her mad; such paranoia I find abhorrent. Reality, whatever it is, is the right anchor. Nevertheless, I have been considering the same idea myself. I do not believe it, and yet I do.
‘I don’t care if he knows,’ I say. ‘I’m sick of it.’
‘But we mustn’t give up!’
‘What? Why not?’
‘There is something between us … which is worthwhile.’
‘I don’t know any more, Florrie. Florence.’
She looks at me and says, ‘I love you, Rob.’
She has never said this before. We kiss for a long time.
I turn off the taps and go through into the bedroom. She follows me and somehow we fall onto the bed. I pull up her skirt; soon she is on me. Our howls would be known to the county. When I wake up she is gone.
*
I walk on the beach; there is a strong wind. I put my head back: it is raining into my eyes. I think of Los Angeles, my work, and of what will happen in the next few months. A part of my life seems to be over, and I am waiting for the new.
After supper I am standing in the garden outside the dining room, smoking weed, and breathing in the damp air. I have decided it is too late to return to London tonight. Since waking up I have not spoken to Florence, only glanced into the dining room where she and her husband are seated at a table in the middle. Tonight she is wearing a long purple dress. She has started to look insistent and powerful again, a little diva, with the staff, like ants, moving around only her because they cannot resist. One more night and she will bring the room down with a wave and stride out towards the sea. I know she is going to join me later. It is only a wish, of course, but won’t she be wishing too? It is probably our last chance. What will happen then? I have prepared my things and turned the car around.
There is a movement behind me.
‘That’s nice,’ she says, breathing in.
I put out my arms and Martha holds me a moment. I offer her the joint. She inhales and hands it back.