I get up, retrieve the champagne bottle from the kitchen, refill our glasses and knock back as much champagne as I can manage
without pausing for breath. Then I say in a remote academic voice worthy of a college professor who’s trying to get through
to an intelligent but obstinate student: ‘Okay. You’re not angry. You just don’t like sex any more. So what? A lot of people
don’t like sex. There’s a whole industry built around people who don’t like sex. People aren’t breaking the law if they don’t
like sex. This is a great big wonderful country, and you don’t have to like sex the way you have to like your mother, the
flag and apple pie. But why don’t you give poor old sex a break for once? Why not give poor old sex another chance? After
all, you’ve got all that first-class equipment for free and it seems a shame not to use it occasionally. Have you ever read
the plays of Middleton?’
I’ve thrown her off balance. ‘Who?’
‘Middleton. He was a contemporary of John Webster and Cyril Tourneur. He wrote about our sort of situation although he laced
it with a lot of seventeenth-century melodrama. The villain pursues the heroine. The heroine repulses him. The villain somehow
gets her to give in and then – surprise! The heroine finds she likes it after all.’ I touch her lightly with my index finger
and she doesn’t draw back. ‘I won’t hurt you, Vicky,’ I say urgently, moving a little closer. She still doesn’t shrink away.
My hand glides to her thigh. My guts must look like full house at the snake-pit. I want to take off my clothes. ‘It’ll be
okay,’ I insist in a low voice. ‘I’m not like Sam. All men are different. No one makes love quite the same way. Like handwriting.’
I’ve got closer. My hand’s on her hip, then on her left breast. I kiss her neck. My blood feels molten, like some new liquid
metal cooking in a surrealist fantasy. ‘I want to make love to
you
, Vicky,’ I say. ‘Not just a female body with the right vital statistics but
you
, the person who listens to Kevin’s plays with me and knows what they mean, the person who knows that Cicero was a philosopher
as well as an orator, the person whose favourite colour is blue and who likes oysters and bright lights reflected on wet sidewalks
and the fountain in front of the Plaza and Frank Sinatra’s singing and Gervase de Peyer on the clarinet. You, you, you.’
She lets me kiss her. She says nothing. I must be sweating at every
pore. I don’t want to take off my clothes with the light on because that might bring back the inhibiting memory of our Romeo
and Juliet scene at Bar Harbor. I unbutton her frock instead. She lets me. My fingers don’t work properly, can’t connect with
my brain. Can’t unhook her bra. Oh hell. Mustn’t be clumsy. Please, please, God, make me be smooth and calm and confident
like Frank Sinatra’s voice, another form of liquid metal, flowing effortlessly out of the phonograph.
I get rid of all the clothes. She never moves, never speaks. I kiss her all over in the hope that she might respond but she
doesn’t and suddenly I realize I just can’t wait any more. Pulling back the bed covers I ease her on to the black satin sheets.
Jesus Christ. I try to turn out the lamp but I knock it over and it goes out by itself. That was dumb. I’ve got to cool off.
But I can’t. Everything’s molten now, not just me but everything, as if I’m in the midst of the white glowing lava which burst
out of Vesuvius to inundate Pompeii in AD79. In the darkness I strip off my clothes and find the satin sheets are like ice;
there ought to be a sizzling sound, white-hot lava streaming into sub-zero water, but no, there’s just Vicky, firm, round,
beautiful, perfect …
There must be a God somewhere, must be, because I’m in heaven. I’m in heaven and still alive. The ultimate triumph.
She screams.
I tell her it’s okay. I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t know anything except that I can’t stop.
She claws my back, tries to push me off.
Maybe she’s afraid she’ll get pregnant, but don’t worry, Vicky, I’m no dumb kid, I know what I’m doing even when I’m almost
out of control, almost, almost – Jesus, that was a close call. But I made it. I got out in time.
Next time I’ll wear a rubber but this time was special. This time it had to be just you and I with nothing between us.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God, I’m so happy.
I lie breathing very fast on the satin sheets but Vicky pulls away from me, runs to the bathroom and locks herself in.
I hear her sobbing. Getting up at once I pound on the bathroom door. My legs feel weak.
‘Vicky, are you okay?’ Dumb question. Obviously she’s not. I rattle the handle. ‘Vicky, let me in, please.’
I hear the hiss of the shower. She’s washing off everything, my kisses, semen, the whole paraphernalia. Question: does she
always do this or is it because I’ve revolted her?
Don’t know. Have to hope for the best. I turn on the light in the bedroom and scramble into my clothes. I don’t want her to
be more
repulsed by seeing me with no clothes on. Then I pour myself another glass of champagne and drink it right away.
I wait.
After a long time she comes out wrapped in a red towel. I want to communicate but I can’t think of the right words.
She’s unnerved by my silence although she needn’t be. Averting her swollen eyes she says: ‘It’s all right. It’s always hell
the first time after childbirth. It doesn’t matter.’
I want to take her in my arms and hold her gently but I know she’d push me away. I’m just a sweating hairy slobbering beast
who hurts her inside. God, what hell women go through sometimes, and what hell men go through when women go through hell.
‘I love you,’ I say at last.
‘Yes,’ she says wearily, but she doesn’t understand.
I haven’t communicated.
I must try and think of something which will fix the pain. If she knows I’m concerned about her pain, I’ll communicate.
‘I’ll buy a lubricant,’ I say.
She doesn’t answer. She’s thinking of something else, or maybe she’s in some kind of shock. She picks up her clothes and goes
back to the bathroom to dress. I hear the lock turn again on the door.
I drink some more champagne. I hate champagne now. It seems like an off-beat lemonade, a perverted 7-Up. Finishing the bottle
I chuck it into the garbage can.
When she leaves the bathroom she looks fresh and tidy but her eyes are still swollen.
‘I want to go home now,’ she says.
‘Okay.’
I take her home.
‘’Night,’ she says when the cab stops.
‘’Night.’
We don’t touch, don’t kiss. I’m alone, she’s alone but we’re both in hell.
I go home to Elsa and pass out with all the drink just as she’s screaming to know where on earth I’ve been.
15 January, 1959. I write Vicky a note because I can’t talk to her. ‘Dear Vicky: I love you very much. I want to make everything
right. Please let me try and fix it. SEBASTIAN. PS I want to see the latest Ingmar Bergman movie
The Seventh Seal
for the third time. Will you come with me? We don’t have to go to bed afterwards. I just want to be with you.’
She calls me at the office. ‘Thanks for the letter.’
‘Okay. How about the movie?’
‘All right. If you want.’
‘Uh-huh. Vicky—’
‘Yes?’
‘—what movie do
you
want to see?’
There’s a pause. Then she says: ‘Elvis Presley in
Jailhouse Rock
.’
‘Right. Let’s go.’
It’s not a new film but Sam said it was junk when it first came out shortly before his death and he refused to take Vicky
to see it. I’ll bet it’s junk too, but I don’t care. If it makes Vicky happy that’s good enough for me, so we set off downtown
to where the movie’s showing in some incredible dump on Avenue B.
I’m right. Sam was right. It’s junk. We’re back in the plastic culture again, stooping to the lowest common denominator, but
that’s okay, it’s a laugh – we both laugh. The only defence against a plastic culture is to enjoy its awfulness or else it’ll
send you completely up the wall. Vicky knows that too and suddenly we’re together again, splitting our sides with mirth as
Presley swivels across an elaborate set and rasps about the party he’s attending in the county jail.
Jailhouse Rock
is in black and white. Chiaroscuro. Exciting.
When I clasp Vicky’s hand she doesn’t pull it away and afterwards she agrees when I suggest we stop for hamburgers and malteds
at a Greenwich Village coffee-shop.
‘Can we go to our apartment, Vicky?’ I dare to say at last. ‘Or don’t you want to?’
‘Okay.’
We get to the apartment, and it’s a wonderful surprise because she’s cleaned it up and there’s a present for me on the table.
I’m so overwhelmed I can’t speak. I unwrap the package clumsily and find an edition of two of Middleton’s plays:
The Changeling
and
Women Beware Women
.
I kiss her and kiss her. Finally we go to bed. I’m in better control this time and I cling to the control for all I’m worth
because I know I’m damned lucky to get a second chance. I don’t push too hard and I’ve got a packet of Trojans and enough
lubricant to polish a ballroom floor.
She doesn’t scream.
I’d like to shower with her but I don’t want her to see me with the light on. Maybe later when I’m more secure. We get dressed
and I have a scotch while she drinks Coke. We sit on the couch in the living-room and look at the lights twinkling beyond
the window. I’m much better. I don’t dare to be happy yet but I think I might be soon.
‘How’s Postumus?’ I say after a long silence, but Vicky seems to accept my silences at last so I don’t have to worry about
them.
‘Postumus is sweet. He smiles beautifully now.’
‘I like Postumus,’ I say. ‘Sometimes I feel as if he’s mine.’
Vicky considers this. ‘Because you stood up for me about calling him Benjamin?’
‘Uh-huh. And because after he was born you asked me for help. Because I loved you all the while you were pregnant and afterwards.
Because there was no Sam around to remind me Postumus isn’t mine after all.’
She asks if Elsa wants more children.
‘She can’t have any more. Pity. Still, we’ve got Alfred.’
‘Sebastian … What exactly
is
the situation with Elsa?’
I explain my concept of the liaison. ‘You’re not interested in marriage, are you, Vicky?’ I add, just to make sure.
‘No,’ she says automatically but adds with great haste: ‘I mean, not at the moment. Of course I know I should get married
again some day for the children’s sake.’
‘And what about your sake, Vicky?’
‘Oh, that too, of course! There’s no other acceptable alternative.’
‘There’s the alternative we’ve got going for us right now.’
‘Yes, but marriage is—’
‘Marriage is just a code-word for society’s attempt to make order out of the chaos between the sexes. It’s like philosophers
talking of the Absolute and the One in their attempts to make order out of a chaotic universe. But you can philosophize without
referring to the Absolute and you can love someone without referring to marriage.’
‘You talk as if there’s no such thing as morality. This liaison of ours may suit us very well, but what about poor Elsa? How
can you morally justify your behaviour with me when you’re going to make her unhappy?’
‘She won’t be unhappy! It takes very little to keep Elsa happy, just a nice home and the right charge accounts and Alfred
and a bit of bed now and then … Uh, you don’t mind if I still sleep with Elsa sometimes to keep her happy, do you, Vicky?’
‘Yes, I do mind. Very much.’
My jaw sags. I quickly clamp my mouth shut but I’m speechless.
‘I think it’s wrong to run two women at once,’ says Vicky strongly. ‘The Moslems get away with it, but look at their women!
Anonymous bundles in yashmaks! But women aren’t just anonymous objects, Sebastian! They’re people who can get hurt.’
‘Christ, Vicky, you don’t have to tell me that! Other men may think of women as a load of cattle, but I could never be that
dumb!’
‘Then why can’t you see that Elsa’s an individual, not some anonymous lump labelled WIFE? She has feelings, just like anyone
else.’
‘And I’m respecting them!’ I protest. Vicky’s picking up her coat and I’m moving after her rapidly to the door. ‘I’m going
to go on taking care of her!’
‘You’re going to humiliate her!’ Vicky’s now very angry. We leave the apartment and I follow her as she sweeps down the corridor
to the elevator.
‘Look, Vicky—’
‘Okay, go ahead! Humiliate her! Your marriage is none of my business!’
‘Say, you sound as if you’re jealous!’ I say, knowing she’s not but trying to neutralize the anger in the conversation with
a dash of humour.
She gives me a scornful look as the elevator hits the lobby. ‘Good night, Sebastian. I’ll go home by myself, thank you.’
I put her in a cab and watch it drive away.
Oh hell. Oh damn. Oh
shit
.
15 March, 1959. Alfred looks at me with pale pleased eyes and says satisfied: ‘Daddy!’
Smart little kid. He knows who understands him. I pick him up and he cuffs me around the ear. Don’t be sentimental, you big
bastard, he thinks, don’t be stupid. As if I don’t have enough of that kind of junk already.
I put him back in his playpen. I watch him play. He has a little xylophone which he bashes, and I watch his face, tense with
concentration, as he tried to figure out which keys to hit.
A shadow falls across the sunlit nursery. Elsa.
‘Alfred, my precious, my angel—’ She scoops him up, tears him away from the xylophone and bombards him with baby-talk. Alfred
screams with rage.
‘Put him down, Elsa, for God’s sake!’
She glares at me with her father’s icy blue eyes. ‘I want to talk to you.’
Alfred is dumped back in his playpen, but he’s upset. He still screams in indignation. Nurse scampers in and picks him up
again. More screams. Poor Alfred. Only one person understands.
Elsa and I go to our bedroom and Elsa slams the door.
‘You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?’ she says.