Samantha, though shocked, had accepted Stanley’s apologies and forgiven, but perhaps not properly, because on meeting Louis
an element of tit for tat may have encouraged her embraces. At any rate, when these were concluded, Samantha had sat up on
the sofa,
covered her ample breasts with her gauze scarf, the one she had just bought at Liberty’s – one of their peacock prints, yellow
and grey, with the eye a greeny-blue – wept, and said this must not happen again. She was a married woman and had to think
of family and children.
And just then D’Kath burst in upon them and it was obvious what had been happening on the yellow-velvet sofa. Forget that
Samantha, naked beneath the swathe of gauzy scarf, looked like a Lord Leighton painting, crossed with a Klimt, what with the
fabric and the build-up of colour combinations and the way the curls of the patterns blended into the tendrils of her hair,
D’Kath ignored the exquisite setting and reacted as Samantha’s mother had all those many years ago, with a shriek which could
be heard around the building. The couple, shocked, sprang apart hastily.
And now both of them could think only of poor Stuart, the art master, who on finding Louis unfaithful, had hanged himself
in a classroom. It could not be allowed to happen again. They must part. The consequences of illicit love, both knew from
experience, can be terrible. The GCGITS gives with one hand, takes away, often brutally, with the other.
A word about that early disaster. Louis was hardly to be blamed for it. Sheer embarrassment, in the face of the art master’s
protracted advances, his insistence that only through sex could genius flourish, had left Louis with little choice but to
do what Stuart seemed to expect him to do, that is to declare lasting love. Louis had mouthed words without understanding
them. But that had not been how the world had seen it, let alone his mother. It had been very little to do with sex, a great
deal to do with love. In the few dreadful weeks before he left the school for good, he became known as Sexbomb the Murderer.
So it was in a state of considerable upset that Louis let himself into Nopasaran. Forget Scarlet – he had found his loved
one at last only to lose her, on the way meeting a degree of sexual pleasure he had not known existed. More, he could only
conclude from her reaction that his colleague, cousin and partner D’Kath was in love with him, and was a lesbian fellow traveller
only. The D’Thises and D’Thats were a business ploy. Now he had offended her, and in her deluded mind betrayed her, which
could only bode no good for MetaFashion. Without Scarlet to provide him with an alibi, how was he to fend D’Kath off? Supposing
he got to work and found her dangling from the end of a rope? He had construed D’Kath’s occasional embrace and glass of champagne
as no more than friendly. So obsessed had he been by the general assumption that he was gay, he had fallen into the trap of
supposing the same thing of others.
He needed time within these beloved and calming walls to compose himself, to work out what he felt and what had to be done
about Scarlet’s absence. She was hopeless but already he missed her, her irreverence, her delinquency, her ability to move
him to fury. He thought it was good for him; repressing anger gave you cancer, he was convinced. She would probably be back;
she had done this twice before, and he had taken her back; today he was not so sure. It was all too much to take on board.
And he had forgotten about Lola.
He was struck first, as he let himself in through the door, by how orderly everything was. Scarlet’s mess had been tidied
away: there were no odd shoes on the floor any old where: no discarded magazines tossed lightly away, no uncased mascara wands
to be trodden into the original carpeting and so on, no old coffee cups spilled and forgotten. Cushions were plumped. He realised
the artless carelessness which once had seemed so charming in Scarlet had become a source of irritation. But at least today
she had cleared up before she went. It was a nice gesture. He hoped that if Scarlet had indeed gone for good, he would be
able to go on turning up at Robinsdale. He liked Beverley and she liked him; mind you, he was frightened of Cynara, sorry
for Jesper, alarmed by the thought of D’Dora, fascinated by Lola, and even as she came to mind, here she was. Of course, she
was the house guest.
Lola was wearing the transparent top with lacy frills which Scarlet occasionally wore to parties with a slip beneath it, just
high enough to hide the nipples. Lola wore the same garment without the slip, together with a thong, and that was all. Her
long legs and feet were bare. She was reaching up with the metal hose to suck up cobwebs and dust from high places. Partly
Louis was delighted that someone was bothering to do it, no matter how they were dressed, and partly he found the sight stirring,
fresh as he was from the feel of Samantha beneath her Liberty gauze scarf with its Pre-Raphaelite undertones. This seemed
to be a Tracey Emin version of the same thing, but valid enough. And it had a cultural context. Had he not once seen a Godard
film of the young Brigitte Bardot doing the housework naked?
‘Your wife is a real pig,’ said Lola. ‘She left me to do all this and has gone off with Jackson Wright the vampire.’
‘I heard as much,’ said Louis, wincing. ‘She is not technically my
wife, only morally, and please don’t talk of your aunt like that. Shouldn’t you cover yourself up a bit?’
‘Why? Do you fancy me?’ asked Lola, disentangling herself from the period vacuum cleaner, neatly coiling its wires by hand
– it was too old even to have spring-loading for the cord – and following him into the kitchen. The dishes which were normally
piled into the sink had been washed and put away. Plates were in size order, saucepans ranged with their handles all pointing
in the same direction.
‘Looks nice, doesn’t it?’ said Lola.
Scarlet had no visual sense, but Lola had. She must have got that from her father Jesper – though of course we must remember
her mother Cynara’s father was Unknown – it said so on her birth certificate, and Alice had refused to speak more on the subject
to anyone. In vain did Beverley beg, and later Cynara plead, and health visitors protest – what about genetic risks and so
forth, and a child had a right to know the identity of both parents, on and on – but Alice wouldn’t tell.
Beverley had always had a suspicion that the child was in fact Winter’s – so had not pressed her daughter too hard. There
was such a thing as too much information. Winter Max was no blood relation of Alice’s, after all, just a stepfather, and Cynara
had turned out a fine healthy child. If you thought about it there was a look of the Maidments about Cynara – the stockier
build, the pig-headedness. Better, then, not to think about it: if you did the generations became too confused – Cynara became
Richie’s half-sister as well as his niece.
But if it was indeed the case, no wonder Alice had fled north: not because of the shock-horror of family history but because
her daughter did not want to be reminded of the horror and confusion that she herself had created in her own generation, sleeping
with her mother’s husband. No wonder in the end she had confirmed her allegiance to Jesus – she could not shake off the need
for ongoing forgiveness. And Winter’s sudden flight had less to do with the struggle, with Bolivia and Che Guevara, than just
getting away from the mess. He had welcomed death, as perhaps Walter had, in his time, as preferable to the disaster that
was life.
‘Invent a medical student,’ implored Beverley when her daughter’s pregnancy became apparent, ‘if you don’t want to tell me
who the father actually is.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want,’ wept Alice. ‘It’s that I can’t. Oh, Mum!’
Was she weeping for herself or Winter? From guilt or grief or distress? What’s a mother to do except not give the matter too
much thought? It was not as if Winter was around any more, to berate. And he had already made sure he had no exclusive demands
on her, Beverley, or she on him, as is the manner of revolutionaries.
‘Or if not a medical student,’ said Beverley, ‘try an officer on leave, who was killed before he could marry you. One hears
that one a lot.’
But Alice felt she had a duty to the truth. And if the truth was not possible, silence was next best.
In the course of her heredity and genetics module at Leeds, she was told that since sex was no longer about reproduction but
recreation, when it happened within the family it was hardly of consequence. It did not feel quite like that to Alice; she
felt the Freudian version was more likely, in which, though the horror and revulsion when it comes to inter-family sexual
relationships were a mere social construct, knowledge of its incestuous begetting would stunt the development of the child’s
superego so that it remained infantile, sadistic, perfectionist, demanding and punishing. Alice did not want her baby’s superego
thus crippled. Better perhaps no baby at all, remembering that every baby you give birth to keeps out the next one, who might
have a better chance in life.
The same advice echoed through the generations. If you don’t know who the father is, invent one. Buy a wedding ring from Woolworth’s,
otherwise it’s Epsom salts from Boots or gin from the pub or both and try lying in a too hot bath. Today’s equivalent being
the morning-after pill, or if you’re still too drunk the morning after, down to the doctor in a week or two, and to the clinic,
and whoosh, baby’s gone. The baby is like the puppy, not just for Christmas, the
baby is for life and a whole string of other lives, and a kehua attached to every one; the trees are alive with the sound
of flapping. No wonder girls get scared.
Alice made for the clinic, and would have got there only Beverley hauled her back and made her the offer: ‘You keep the baby,
I’ll take it on.’
The baby was born, and at the age of three weeks christened Mary. It was there at the christening service, in the charming
surroundings of St John’s in Hampstead, moved by the hymns and sunlight gleaming through stained-glass windows, that Alice
began her intense relationship with Jesus. Winter was by that time off to Bolivia, whence he would never return. The baby
was left in the care of Beverley. Alice took the tube down to King’s Cross, and the train back to Leeds and her studies. Beverley
took it on herself to rename the baby Cynara. When Cynara was sixteen, Alice claimed the girl as her own, wrenching her from
her grandmother’s care, renaming her as Mary and taking her back into her own household. Cynara, or Mary, disliked her stepfather
and the dislike quickly developed into a feminism of almost religious intensity.
And now here’s Lola, Winter’s granddaughter and great-granddaughter both, contemplating sex with her uncle, and seeing nothing
wrong in it. The incestuous tendency, after all, has come down to her from both sides of the family. It must be a very aggressive
gene.
Who does and who is done unto? When it comes to sex it can be hard to tell. Lola is young but far more experienced sexually
than Louis, who had had only four loves in his lifetime, and the fourth, earlier in the day, was by far the most explosive
and has emotionally exhausted him. He is just so tired.
‘You look really bad,’ says Lola now to Louis, ‘but you’ll get over
it. It’s not as if you two were married or had any children.’
Louis sits down on the sofa and begins to weep. Lola sits beside him and says, ‘Can I make everything feel better again?’
in the gentlest way, and Louis knows that after a few formal protests this is exactly what he will do. As well be hanged for
a sheep as for a lamb and serve Scarlet right, and serve Samantha right too, for stirring up old emotions and then leaving
him in the shit, and D’Kath for bursting in on them and bringing up memories of disgrace at school, and Lola too, for simply
being there and daring to behave in this outrageous way. Sixteen is not too young for sex; anyway she claimed to be seventeen
for Help the Harmed and if that’s the way she wants it who is he to stand in her way?
He and Samantha had been sixteen when first they met and rolled together on the infirmary’s beds. Louis shuts his eyes and
does as he is told: he lets Lola take most of his clothes off – she has none worth removing – and it is like being a small
child again: she pushes him so he lolls against the back of the sofa, his cock still half erect with memories of Samantha,
takes it in her mouth in the most practised way, and then sits on top of him doing the splits so she has an ankle on both
arms of the sofa, quite the little gymnast, and then bounces up and down with her skinny little thighs, wailing and gasping,
therapeutically stretching her inner leg muscles the while, until she is satisfied. After which she abruptly removes herself
with no thought for his coming at all.
Louis is astonished at the uneroticism of it all; he has not met it before, but then, as he realises, he has met so little
before. He feels quite sorry for her. She is like a housewife, he thinks, who asks a guest for dinner, cooks the meal, and
serves it only to herself. By comparison, Scarlet is generosity itself.
‘I have you in my power now,’ Lola says, looking up from her
mobile, where she is already busy interconnecting with the rest of the world. ‘I can cry rape and I’m bound to win and the
criminal compensation board will give me £20,000 and I can go to Haiti without waiting for Help the Harmed to get their act
together.’
Louis turns pale. He can see it is all too likely. He needs Scarlet. She will know what to do.
‘Don’t worry, Uncle Louis,’ says Lola. ‘Only kidding. I feel a lot better now. Thanks!’
And she goes off to her friends, saying she’s more than paid for her keep by doing the housework. She says Scarlet can keep
the top, she doesn’t need it any more, there’s only a small tear under one of the arms.
Louis says pathetically, ‘But Scarlet has gone.’
And Lola says, ‘Don’t you believe it. It’s on Twitter that Jackson Wright is all washed up; so she’ll be back.’