The Pregnant Widow (8 page)

“Yes. And the answer’s no. Put yourself in my position. How would you like to sit here naked with Tarzan?”

He stood up and strolled to the water’s edge. Oona and Amen had independently come and gone—their morning lengths; and Keith was wondering about the unreliable optics of the swimming pool. Its walls and floor were a metallic grey. When the water was still, its surface shone solidly and impenetrably, like a mirror; when the water rippled, or when the light changed (from shadow to dazzle, but also from dazzle to shadow), it became translucent, and you could see the fat plug at the
bottom of the deep end, and even the odd coin or hairclip. He wondered at it, this grey new world of glass and opacity, and not the wobbly, slippery, ribbony blue of the pools of his youth.

“Here she comes.”

Scheherazade was decanting herself downward through the three tiers of the terraced gradient, and now moved through a bower-and-hothouse setting as she neared the water, barefoot but in tennis wear—a quilted skirt of pale green, and a yellow Fred Perry. She twirled off the lower half of it (he thought of an apple being pared) and tugged herself out of the upper; and then she made wings of her long arms and unclipped the upper half of her bikini (and it was gone—with the merest shrug it was gone), saying,

“Here’s another boring thing.”

Of course, this wasn’t boring either. On the other hand, it would have been disgracefully callow and bourgeois (and uncool) to take the slightest notice of what was now on view; so Keith had the difficult task of looking at Lily (in housecoat and flip-flops and still in the shade) while simultaneously communing with an image that was fated, for now, to remain in the loneliest wilderness of his peripheral vision. After thirty seconds or so, to ease the trapped nerves in his trapped neck, Keith stared up and out—at the gold slopes of the massif, echoing in the pale blue. Lily yawned, saying,

“What’s the other boring thing?”

“Well, I have just been informed—”

“No, what was the
other
boring thing?”

Lily was looking at Scheherazade. So Keith did too … And this was the thought, this was the question they awakened in him, Scheherazade’s breasts (the twinned circumferences, interproximate, interchangeable):
Where were the police?
Where on earth were the police? It was a question he was often asking himself, in these uncertain times. Where were they, the police? Scheherazade said,

“Sorry, I’m not with you.”

“I mean, what was the
first
boring thing?”

“The bathroom,” said Keith. “You know. Sharing it. The bell.”

“Ah. Now what’s the
second
boring thing?”

“Let me just get wet.”

Scheherazade stepped forward and kept going and dived … Yes, the
inexpressible tedium of the shared bathroom, where, the previous afternoon, Scheherazade appeared with her bent knees pressed together, and her fists closed tight on the hem of a pink T-shirt, as with short shuffling steps she backed laughingly away … Now she surfaced and climbed out with tensed tendons, covered in bright beads of water. And it was all laid before you. Topless as nature intended. And yet to Keith the spectacle seemed anti-natural—seemed unsound, like a slippage of genre. The cicadas turned their volume up, and the sun glared. She said,

“Just cold enough. I hate it when it’s soupy. You know. Blood-heat.”

Lily said, “Is the second boring thing more boring than the first boring thing?”

“About the same—no, more boring. We’re being
joined
. Oh well. These things are sent to try us. Gloria,” said Scheherazade, lying back with her hands behind her head. “Gloria. Jorquil’s great throb. She’s in disgrace and she’s being packed off to purdah—here. With us. Gloria Beautyman. Beautyman. Spelt like
beauty
, spelt like
man
. She’s older than us. Twenty-two. Or
twenty-three
. Oh well, what can we do? It’s Jorq’s castle.”

Keith had encountered Jorquil, or been in his presence for a minute or two—Jorquil, Scheherazade’s thirty-year-old uncle (it was that kind of family). Now Keith said, “Good
name
. Gloria Beautyman.”

“Yes it is,” said Lily cautiously. “But does she live up to it? Does she carry it off?”

“Sort of. I don’t know. I think she’s an acquired taste. Rather peculiar figure. Jorq’s besotted. He says she’s the best thing out. He calls her Miss Universe. Why is Miss Universe always from Earth? He wants to marry her. I don’t quite get it. Jorq’s normal girls look like film stars.”

“Jorq?”

“Yes, I know. He’s no Adonis, Jorq, but he is very rich. And very keen. And Gloria … She must have hidden depths. Still. Poor Gloria. After two weeks at death’s door from a
single glass
of champagne, she can almost sit up in bed.”

“What’s she in disgrace for? What kind of disgrace? Do we know?”

“Sexual disgrace,” said Scheherazade with a greedy look as her teeth caught the light. “And I was
there.”

“Oh do tell.”

“Well I did vow not to. I really oughtn’t. No, I can’t.”

“Scheherazade!” said Lily.

“No. I really can’t.”

“Sche
he
razade!”

“Oh all right. But we mustn’t … God, I’ve never seen anything like it. And it was so out of character. She comes across as a bit prim. She’s from Edinburgh. Catholic. Ladylike. And she almost died of shame. Let’s wait for Whittaker. He loves this kind of thing.”

In espadrilles, khaki shorts, and a frazzled straw hat, Whittaker advanced down the path, leaving behind him, among the saplings on the second level, the barely distinguishable but plainly terrified figure of Amen. Keith considered. Obsession—positive, negative. From L.
obsidere
“besiege.” Amen, beleaguered by Scheherazade’s breasts.

“I thought they’d gone to Naples,” said Lily, “to pick up Ruaa. You know. The Blob.”

Scheherazade said, “You’re not to call her the Blob in front of Whittaker. He thinks it’s disrespectful … What’s wrong with Amen, Whittaker? He looks so haunted.”

But Whittaker answered her nothing, and just sighed and sat.

“Sexual disgrace, Whittaker,” said Keith soothingly. “Someone ladylike almost dies of shame.”

“Oh she’s all right, Gloria,” said Scheherazade. “The thing was, she did these paintings for a sex tycoon. And we—”

“No, wait,” said Lily. “How do you mean, a sex tycoon?”

“The one who does sex revues but not
Oh! Calcutta! …
You see, Gloria’s mainly a dancer. Royal Ballet. But she’s also a painter. And she did these little paintings for the sex tycoon. Ballet dancers at it in mid-air.”

“In mid-air?” said Lily, with some impatience. “In
mid-air?”

“Ballet dancers at it in mid-air. And the sex tycoon had a big lunch party in Wiltshire, and Gloria was asked, and we were only sixty miles away, so we went. And she disgraced herself. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Keith sank back. The sun, the cicadas, the breasts, the butterflies, the caustic taste of coffee in his mouth, the fiery treat of his French cigarette, the narrative of sexual disgrace that did not involve his sister … He said,

“Spin this out, Scheherazade, if you wouldn’t mind. Any chance details. Don’t stint us.”

“Well. The first thing she did was almost drown in the indoor pool.
Wait. Jorquil dropped us off. He said,
You be chaperone. And for God’s sake don’t let her drink anything
. Because she doesn’t. She can’t. But she seemed very flustered. And so of course I went to the loo and when I came back she was finishing a huge flute of champagne. I’ve never seen anything like it. She was unrecognisable.”

“Is she little?” said Keith. “That can sometimes happen when they’re little.”

“She’s
quite
little. She’s not
that
little. Afterwards she was violently sick for days and then completely bedridden. We really did. We really did think poor Gloria was going to die of shame.”

“And I suppose the whole place anyway,” said Lily, “was crawling with slags.”

“Not really. I mean, there were a good few hunks and pin-ups round the pool. You know. People who look like they’re made of pale chocolate. But there were rules. No toplessness. No sex. And Gloria wasn’t topless. Not topless. Oh no. She was bottomless. She lost her bikini bottoms just before she nearly drowned. She said they got sucked off by the jacuzzi.”

“… They got sucked off by the jacuzzi,” said Whittaker. “That’s awfully good.”

“Her exact words.
They got sucked off by the jacuzzi
. So the chap, the polo pro, when he fished her out, he had to hold her upside down by the ankles and give her a good shake. That was a sight. Then the minute we got her clothes back on she was off upstairs. And on the dance floor they were swinging her from man to man and feeling her up. And she looked like someone in a dream. And they were feeling her up. I mean
really
feeling her up.”

Keith said, “Really feeling her up how?”

“Well. When I went back in she had her dress round her waist. Not just that—it was tucked into her garter belt. To keep it there. And guess what. The man with his tongue in her ear was stroking her arse with both his hands
inside her pants.”

There was a pause.

Whittaker said, “That’s also first-rate. Inside her pants.”

“These two great hairy mitts inside her pants … And it was so out of character.”

“In vino veritas,”
said Lily.

“No,” said Keith. But he said nothing more. Truth in wine? Truth in
Special Brew and Southern Comfort, truth in Pink Ladies? So Clarissa Harlowe and Emily Gauntlet, when drugged, were behaving
truthfully?
No. But when the girl raised the potion to her own lips (Gloria, Violet), then you could claim that it was
veritas
. He said uneasily, “You’d think she’d know that about herself. Gloria Beautyman.”

“You would. There’s more. The bathroom upstairs with the polo pro.”

Over the poolside a pensive silence formed.

“Bit of a disappointment, frankly, after all that. Jorquil came, around four, and no one could
find
her. We went upstairs and all the bedrooms were locked. House policy. Then—in the passage. There were these two huge bunnies or pets or playmates. Ex-centrefolds, these huge madams. Incredible creatures. Like retired racehorses. They’d been trying to control her all day. They were banging on the bathroom door saying things like,
Are you
coming,
Gloria? Have you
flushed
yet, Gloria?
Then the door opened and she stumbled out. Followed by the polo pro.”

“… How did Jorquil like that?”

“He stormed off. He didn’t see it.”

They waited.

“Well they were only in there for a couple of minutes. The polo pro said it was all perfectly innocent. You know, a bit of cocaine. I think they just had a snog. There was lipstick on the polo pro’s neck. Not a smear, either. A little smiling mouth. You could even imagine the little smiling teeth …”

Whittaker said, “That
is
disappointing.”

“I know. Still, she cried her heart out in the car. And she’s been suicidal ever since.”

Scheherazade rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, childishly … According to an English novel he had read, men understood why they liked women’s breasts—but they didn’t understand why they liked them
so much
. Keith, who liked them so much, didn’t even know why he liked them. Why? Come on, he told himself: soberly enumerate their strengths and virtues. And yet somehow they directed you towards the ideal. It must be to do with the universe, Keith thought, with planets, with suns and moons.

T
he young are perpetually running a light fever; and it is a mistake easily made by the memory, I think—to suppose that twenty-year-olds are always feeling good. Minutes after the conclusion of Scheherazade’s bedtime story, Keith arose (the simple act of straightening up, sometimes, gave him the bends) and made his excuses. Had he been back at home, in the old days, he would have called out piteously for Sandy, their gentle Alsatian, her coat grained in black and yellow; and Sandy would have joined him on the blanket with her frown, and licked the insides of his wrists … Twenty-year-olds are fighting the weight of gravity, and they suffer decompression, with classic symptoms. Pain in the muscles and joints, cramps, numbness, nausea, paralysis. After a tragic doze in the tower, Keith again straightened up, and went next door and put his head under the tap.

Any minute now, he was sure, he would resume being happy. Where did it come from, the happiness that reshaped his face? Unlike most people, Keith had had to fall in love with his family, and his family had had to fall in love with him. It worked with his mother Tina, it worked with Violet—Violet was easy. But it never really worked with Karl, his father. And, for almost ten years, it didn’t work with Nicholas. When Keith appeared, when he staggered on to the scene, aged eighteen months, the eyes of the five-year-old Nicholas, Tina told him, had the dead light of the betrayed. And Nicholas made a kind of hobby of it, the roughing up, in words or deeds, of his little brother. And Keith accepted this. This was life.

Two weeks after his eleventh birthday, Keith was doing his maths in the breakfast room. A sick wasp was climbing up the window pane, and always dropping down, and climbing up, and dropping down. He felt Nicholas materialise behind him. Things were better now (largely thanks to Violet, with her tearful intercessions); still, he tensed. And Nicholas said,
I’ve decided I like having a younger brother
. Keith nodded without turning, and all the figures on the page swam away and then swilled back again, and he started to be happy.

“I can’t find my gyms. My tennis shoes.”

He was coming down from the tower (having left his headache behind, in the significant bathroom). Scheherazade wore her pale green skirt and her yellow top. And Keith received her penetrating address, and her tone of amused accusation, now, as if, in fact, Keith had hidden them—had hidden Scheherazade’s tennis shoes. He halted one step above. He was six foot two. He said,