First Love, Last Rites

  He was in front of the mirror still when she came into the room suddenly, the same officer’s uniform, her face even harder than last time, she turned him by the shoulders so he faced away from her, then she tied the dress from behind, humming softly beneath her breath. She too combed out the wig, ran her hand up the inside of his leg to feel his underwear, and, satisfied, spun him round to face her so he felt the same immobile fear seeing close to the black heavy lines of her made-up face, the straight rods of greased hair. She leaned over him, pulled him in close, kissing his forehead, ‘You’ll do,’ and led him by the hand downstairs in silence, and this time it was she who poured the drinks, two full glasses of red wine. She bowed, delivered the glass to his hand and clicking her heels and saying in a mock gruff voice, ‘There you are, my dear.’ He held the unusual glass, its long tinted stem was too short for his whole fist, he held it in both hands. On special occasions Mina mixed him shandy, and the rest was always lemonade. Now Mina stood with her back to the fire, shoulders well back, the glass level with her flattened chest, ‘Cheers,’ and swallowed two large mouthfuls, ‘drink up.’ He wet the end of his tongue, held down the shudder of bittersweet, then closing his eyes took in a mouthful, pushing it to the back of his throat quickly with his tongue and this way avoided all the taste but for something furry left behind in his mouth as aftertaste. Mina finished her wine, was waiting now for him to finish his, and took his empty glass to fill at the cabinet, set the wine on the table, and began to fetch the dishes. Dizzy and unreal he helped carry a dish from the hotplate, wondering at Mina’s silence. They sat down, Linda and Henry, Henry and Linda. Through the meal Mina lifted her glass saying, ‘Cheers,’ waiting for him to lift his before drinking, and once she got up to pour more wine. It was sliding from him now, all the things he looked at drifting away from themselves and yet staying at the same time, the space between objects undulated, Mina’s face splintered moved and merged with its images, so he gripped the edge of the table to steady the room and saw Mina see him do this, saw her jagged smile meant to be encouragement, saw her drift heavily away to fetch the coffee pot against the movement of the room haled on its three axes, and if he closed his eyes if you close your eyes you might fall off the edge of the world, it tilts upwards beginning somewhere near your feet. And through all this Mina was saying, Mina was wanting to know something, what about his afternoon, what had he done in the other house, so that to tell her he gathered his tongue from whatever it was, heard his own voice come faintly in on him from the next room, the glue on the roof of his mouth, ‘We and … we took out, she took us …’ till he gave up, submitting to Mina’s braying and barking and laughing, ‘Oh my poor little girl’s had a little too much,’ and as she was saying this was lurching toward him, lifted him under the armpits half carried him half dragged him to the armchair pulling him there on to her lap and turned his body to make his legs hang over the chair’s side, cradled his head in her arms pressed tight hot and all over him like a wrestler, he could not move his arms and legs together to free himself, she had him tight she pressed his face hard between the gap of her unbuttoned tunic, so spinning there in her arms he knew to move suddenly was to be suddenly sick. She seemed to want this girl and pushed his face closer to her breast, for there was nothing beneath the tunic, nothing but Henry’s face against the faintly scented corrugated skin of her limp old dugs and her hand was cupped by the back of his neck, he could not move out of the brown tissue, dared not jerk suddenly, he knew what was in his stomach, could not stir even when she began to sing and her other hand began to wander in the layers of his dress in and around his thigh, she half said, she half sang, ‘A soldier needs a girl, a soldier needs a girl,’ trailing off to the rhythm of her breathing becoming ever sharper ever deeper and Henry rose and fell with it, felt himself pulled closer, opened his eyes into the grey-blue pallor of Mina’s breasts, grey and blue the way he imagined a dead person’s face. ‘Sick,’ he murmured into her body and out of his mouth slid noiselessly a brown-red mess of dinner and wine, colour for the death pallor inside the tunic. He rolled off her no longer held, on to the floor with the wig slipping from his head, red and brown stains streaked the fresh white and pink all tawdry now, he pulled the wig completely clear, ‘I’m Henry,’ said thickly. Mina did not move for a while, sat staring at the wig where it lay on the floor, then getting up she stepped over Henry, upstairs, and from his spinning room he could hear her run the bath water, and just sat where he landed, watched the moving carpet patterns between his fingers, he felt better for being sick, he could not move.

  Mina returned from her bath in an everyday dress, herself now, and helped him to his feet, led him by the fire where she untied the dress, taking it in the kitchen to soak in a bucket. She gathered up the wig, took his hand, and taught him how to walk the stairs, singsonging each one as for a child, ‘One and two and three and …’ In his bedroom he swayed against her shoulder while she took the rest of his clothes, found his pyjamas while she was talking all the time, the time she got drunk for the first … well the next day she couldn’t remember a thing, and Henry, not sure of what she was saying but the tone was fine, recognized it like her dress, he lay on his back in bed her hand on his forehead to stay the room a little, while Mina sang and spoke the song from downstairs, ‘A soldier needs a girl like a lion needs a mane, To murmur in his ear and kiss away the pain.’ She stroked his hair, and when he woke up the following day the wig was beside him on the pillow, it must have fallen off in the night.

  Waking up he thought of Linda, and the pain behind his eyes, and how there was some feeling in the room it was no longer morning. Downstairs Mina said, ‘Do you want some lunch, I let you sleep it off,’ but he was dressed for school, taking his satchel from its hook, out the door and across the street with Mina calling after him to come back, the damp wind was free in his hair, the night before a confusion but, he was certain, Mina had forfeited something by it that made it easy now to run from her fading voice. To Linda. At the school he made his excuses, a sickness and that was not untrue, he was still white enough this afternoon to be believed. To his desk for the beginning of the afternoon classes, where she was waiting smiling as he came towards, ready to press a note in his hand, a scrap reading, ‘Are you coming Sunday?’ He turned it and wrote yes, in the same spirit he had run free this morning, held it under the table for her to take it with her fingers which came locking into his and did not let go a moment or two, gripped and slid away. In his stomach the pit, in his groin a little blood stirring in a pre-pubertal skin, pushed up like spring flowers, into the folds of his clothes and the note fell unnoticed to the floor.

  Could he tell her of glancing in the mirror, Henry and Linda fused by appearances, how they were one at once and he felt free and did a dance before Mina came in, he wanted to tell her, but all the other explaining too, about Mina; where could you begin, how are games which are not really games explained? Instead he told her of the mask he was to buy that afternoon, a kind of monster, ‘But more to make you laugh than run away,’ and that meant he told her of the party, his name was on the invitation card with Mina’s, all disguised and no one knows who you are, anyone can do what they want because it doesn’t matter. They were in the playground, empty after everyone had left, they made stories about the things you can do when no one knows who you are. Did she want to come? she did, she wanted to very much. Her mother was crossing the playground towards them, she kissed Linda, put her hand on Henry’s shoulder, and they all walked to the car. Linda told her mother of Henry’s mask and Henry’s party, Claire told her she could go, it sounded fun. They said goodbye.

  He was at the shop out of breath, not wanting to be late home again for Mina. The man behind the counter, he had a way with little boys, a jovial unfunny way, ‘Where’s the fire?’ he said when Henry came in his shop, and trying to put over his urgency, Henry told him quickly, ‘I’ve come about the mask.’ The shop man leaned slowly across the counter, his joke quivering about the corner of his lips, he
could hardly wait to say it. ‘S’funny, I thought you had it on,’ and watched Henry’s face, waiting for his laugh to fall in with his own. Henry smiled for him, ‘You said you would keep it for me.’ ‘Let’s see,’ making a great show of tracing the figures on the calendar, ‘if I’m not mistaken,’ he held his breath and drawled out, ‘if I’m not mistaaaken today is Tuesday.’ He beamed at Henry his customer, arched his eyebrows, watching his customer fidget, ‘Have you still got it?’ and still with his eyebrows raised he was pointing one finger in the air, a goon amusing no one, ‘Now that’s the point, have I still got it?’ While Henry began to understand how violence was done he was reaching under the counter, ‘Let me see, what have we here,’ and brought the mask out, Henry’s mask. ‘Can you wrap it for me, you see it has to be kept a secret.’ The man, Henry saw for the first time, was an old man and he felt a little sorry. The man carefully wrapped his mask in two layers of stiff brown paper and found him an old string bag to carry it in. He was silent now, Henry wished he would go on with the bad jokes, at least he could understand those. The only other word he said was ‘There,’ handing the bag to Henry across the counter. Henry called goodbye as he left the shop but the man had gone into the back room, he did not hear him.

  Mina said nothing of the evening before, she cut slices of cake for him instead and talked a lot and fast, made a quick humorous reference to the way he left the house, she was back to herself. In the kitchen Henry saw the dress in a bucket of water, like a rare dead fish. He spoke with hesitation, ‘This friend of mine, the family has asked me to spend the day with them on Sunday,’ and Mina was distant, ‘Really, have I met your friend, why don’t you ask him to the party?’ ‘I already have and they want me to go there on Sunday,’ why was it important not to mention the sex of his friend? Mina was vague, ‘We’ll see,’ but he was there behind her, following her out to the kitchen, ‘You see I have to let them know tomorrow,’ and by the turn of his voice demanded of the silence which followed, an answer. She smiled, she brushed the hair from his eyes with her hand, friendly and resigned she said, ‘I think not, darling. Now what about the homework you missed last night,’ propelling him gently to the foot of the stairs where he stepped to one side, ‘But they asked me to go, I want to go.’ Mina was cheery, ‘I don’t think so really, darling.’ ‘I want to go.’ She took her hand off his shoulder, she sat on the bottom step, chin on her hands, and she was thinking for a long time, and then, ‘And what am I meant to do on Sunday when you’re off with all your friends?’ This sudden change, he was the giver when before he was the asker, he was standing and she was sitting by his feet, there was nothing to say, he was numb. After a while she said, ‘Well?’ stretching her hands towards him, he moved a little closer till he was where she could take both his hands in hers, and she looked at him over her glasses, she took them off, and he saw then the moisture collecting in her eyes’ rims. That was wrong, that was a terrible thing, a terrible weight on him now he felt, can people be so important? She squeezed his hands tighter, ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll stay.’

  By his arms she tried to bring him closer but he shook his hands free, stepping round her to run upstairs. He took the brown suit from his bed and hung it on the chair, lay on the bed on his back, pushed the image of Linda away, guiltily. Mina came in, she sat by his shoulder staring into his face while he avoided hers, he did not want to see her eyes again, and she just sat playing with the corner of the blanket, pinching it between her finger and thumb. Mina combed his hair with her fingers, he went stiff inside waiting for her to stop, he did not like her fingers near his face, not now. ‘Are you angry with me, dear?’ He shook his head, still not looking in her face. ‘You are angry with me, I can tell.’ She stood by the table picking up from it a piece of rough wood, he was carving it now for months, intended as a swordfish, he could not give it power or sinuosity to its trunk, it was still a piece of wood only, a child’s representation of Fish. Mina turned and turned it in her hand, looking at it, not seeing it. In the ceiling, there was the big stairway which split in two ways half way up and Linda and Claire pillow-fighting in the bedroom, probably Claire wanted to cheer Linda up because it was her first day at school, and the tall man with thick eyebrows, he slept in the same bed as Claire. Mina said, ‘You really want to go, don’t you?’ Henry said, ‘It doesn’t matter, really it’s not that important.’ Mina turned the wood in her hand, ‘You want to go, so you go.’ Henry sat up, he was not quite old enough to know the special games that people might like to play, he was not old enough so he said, ‘All right then, I’ll go.’ Mina left the room, the powerless swordfish in her hand still.

  Henry lifted the heavy knocker and let it fall against the white door. Claire led him down the dark corridor to the kitchen, ‘Linda spends most of Sunday mornings in bed,’ they emerged in the fluorescent light of the kitchen, ‘you can go up and play with her but first you can talk to me and have a hot drink.’ He let her take his coat, he turned round for her to admire his new suit, ‘We must find you some clothes to play in.’ She made him a chocolate drink, she carried him along with her talk, he was not on his guard against sudden surprises. She was pleased he was a friend of Linda’s, she said so, and said how Linda talked about him all the time, ‘She’s made a painting of you and a drawing, but she won’t show them to you, I know.’ She wanted to know about him so he told her about the things he collected from junk shops, the cardboard theatre and all the old books, and then about Mina, how she was good at telling stories because she used to be on the stage, he had never spoken so much in one go before and he was going to tell her everything, the dressing up and the getting drunk, but he held back, he was not sure how to say it and he wanted her to like him, perhaps she wouldn’t if he told her how drunk he was and sick over Mina. She brought him some play clothes, a light-blue sweater and a faded pair of jeans which belonged to Linda, did he mind wearing them, she asked him, and he smiled and said no. She left the kitchen to answer the phone, calling behind her that he should find his own way up to Linda’s room, back down the dark corridor leading to the foot of the stairs, he could not understand why there were no lights except at either end. On the landing he stopped by the massive chest, traced with his finger the figures in the brass, a procession with the rich people up front, perhaps relatives of the married couple, all filling out the street and the pavements with their costumes billowing out behind, all with their backs straight and proud, and then after them the townspeople, just a rabble, each with a wine cup in his hand, tottering and grabbing at his neighbour, drunk and laughing at the ones in front. Near him there was a door open and he looked in, a bedroom, the biggest he had ever seen, a large double bed in the middle not against any wall. Taking a few paces into the room, the bed was unmade, bunched up in the middle, and he could see now there was a man asleep face downwards, he froze, then walked backwards quickly out into the landing closing the door quietly behind. He remembered Linda’s clothes left on the trunk, found them, and ran up the second staircase to Linda’s room.

  She was sitting up in bed making a drawing in black crayon on to white cardboard, she was talking to him as he was coming into the room, ‘Why are you so out of breath?’ Henry sat on the bed, ‘I ran up the stairs, I saw a man asleep in one of the bedrooms, looked as though he was dead.’ Linda let the drawing fall to the floor, she laughed, ‘That’s Theo, didn’t I tell you about him?’ She pulled the sheet up round her chin, ‘I wake up early on Sunday but I don’t get up till it’s lunch.’ He showed her the clothes, ‘Your mother gave me these, where can I get changed?’ ‘In here, of course, there’s a hanger by your foot and you can put your suit in the cupboard.’ She pulled the sheet up farther so that now just her eyes were visible, watching him hang his suit up, come to sit down by her again without his trousers or jacket where he could feel against his bare legs the warmth of her body through the thick rugs, let his weight rest on her feet, stared at the yellow hair spread on the pillow like a fan. They both laughed suddenly at noth
ing, Linda slipped her hand out of the bed, pulled at his elbow. ‘Why don’t you get inside too?’ Henry stood up, ‘All right.’ She ducked under the covers giggling, calling out in a muffled way, ‘But you have to take all your clothes off first.’ He did that, climbed in beside her, his body cooler than Linda’s and making her shiver when he lay down, his chest into her back. She rolled over to face him, in the pink gloom she smelled animal and milky, this was the beginning and end of his Sunday when he came to recall it to himself, his heart thumping from the pillow to his ear, lifting his head once to let her free her hair, and talking, mostly about school, her first week there, the friends they knew and the teachers, it did not seem possible the day was taken with other things, that he put on Linda’s jeans and sweater, ate his lunch and walked with the thousands milling without direction on Hampstead Heath, and let Linda show him the pictures in Kenwood House, cold superior ladies, their unlikely children, and standing a long time in front of the Rembrandt agreeing it was the best there and maybe the best in the world, though Linda did not like the darkness around the figure, she wanted to see his room, then they sat in Samuel Johnson’s summerhouse, sure he was a famous writer but of what and when? and back across the Heath with the hundreds in the winter gloom, he came out of the blankets for air and she leaned her face against his chest then came out herself, lay there with their foreheads touching and dozed for half an hour, did it happen in the half hour he slept, all a kind of extended dream. The real thing was lying down for half an hour or more, that’s how it seemed that night when he was in his own bed, at home.