May We Borrow Your Husband & Other Comedies of the Sexual Life

  So we returned to the hotel, not saying much, and she went to her room and I to mine. It was in the end a comedy and not a tragedy, a farce even, which is why I have given this scrap of reminiscence a farcical title.

  7

  I was woken from my middle-aged siesta by the telephone. For a moment, surprised by the darkness, I couldn’t find the light-switch. Scrambling for it, I knocked over my bedside lamp – the telephone went on ringing, and I tried to pick up the holder and knocked over a tooth-glass in which I had given myself a whisky. The little illuminated dial of my watch gleamed up at me marking 8.30. The telephone continued to ring. I got the receiver off, but this time it was the ashtray which fell over. I couldn’t get the cord to extend up to my ear, so I shouted in the direction of the telephone, ‘Hullo!’

  A tiny sound came up from the floor which I interpreted as ‘Is that William?’

  I shouted, ‘Hold on,’ and now that I was properly awake I realized the light-switch was just over my head (in London it was placed over the bedside table). Little petulant noises came up from the floor as I put on the light, like the creaking of crickets.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I said rather angrily, and then I recognized Tony’s voice.

  ‘William, whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter. Where are you?”

  ‘But there was quite an enormous crash. It hurt my eardrum.’

  ‘An ashtray,’ I said.

  ‘Do you usually hurl ashtrays around?’

  ‘I was asleep.’

  ‘At 8.30? William! William!’

  I said, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘A little bar in what Mrs Clarenty would call Monty.’

  ‘You promised to be back by dinner,’ I said.

  ‘That’s why I’m telephoning you. I’m being, responsible, William. Do you mind telling Poopy that we’ll be a little late? Give her dinner. Talk to her as only you know how. We’ll be back by ten.’

  ‘Has there been an accident?’

  I could hear him chuckling up the phone. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t call it an accident.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Peter call her himself?’

  ‘He says he’s not in the mood.’

  ‘But what shall I tell her?’ The telephone went dead.

  I got out of bed and dressed and then I called her room. She answered very quickly; I think she must have been sitting by the telephone. I relayed the message, asked her to meet me in the bar, and rang off before I had to face answering any questions.

  But I found it was not so difficult as I feared to cover up; she was immensely relieved that somebody had telephoned. She had sat there in her room from half-past seven onwards thinking of all the dangerous turns and ravines on the Grande Corniche, and when I rang she was half afraid that it might be the police or a hospital. Only after she had drunk two dry Martinis and laughed quite a lot at her fears did she say, ‘I wonder why Tony rang you and not Peter me?’

  I said (I had been working the answer out), ‘I gather he suddenly had an urgent appointment – in the loo.’

  It was as though I had said something enormously witty.

  ‘Do you think they are a bit tight?’ she asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Darling Peter,’ she said, ‘he deserved the day off,’ and I couldn’t help wondering in what direction his merit lay.

  ‘Do you want another Martini?’

  ‘I’d better not,’ she said, ‘you’ve made me tight too.’

  I had become tired of the thin cold rosé so we had a bottle of real wine at dinner and she drank her full share and talked about literature. She had, it seemed, a nostalgia for Dornford Yates, had graduated in the sixth form as far as Hugh Walpole, and now she talked respectfully about Sir Charles Snow, who she obviously thought had been knighted, like Sir Hugh, for his services to literature. I must have been deeply in love or I would have found her innocence almost unbearable – or perhaps I was a little tight as well. All the same, it was to interrupt her flow of critical judgements that I asked her what her real name was and she replied, ‘Everyone calls me Poopy.’ I remembered the PT stamped on her bags, but the only real names that I could think of at the moment were Patricia and Prunella. ‘Then I shall simply call you You,’ I said.

  After dinner I had brandy and she had a kümmel. It was past 10.30 and still the three had not returned, but she didn’t seem to be worrying any more about them. She sat on the floor of the bar beside me and every now and then the waiter looked in to see if he could turn off the lights. She leant against me with her hand on my knee and she said such things as ‘It must be wonderful to be a writer’, and in the glow of brandy and tenderness I didn’t mind them a bit. I even began to tell her again about the Earl of Rochester. What did I care about Dornford Yates, Hugh Walpole or Sir Charles Snow? I was even in the mood to recite to her, hopelessly inapposite to the situation though the lines were:

  Then talk not of Inconstancy,

  False Hearts, and broken Vows;

  If I, by Miracle, can be

  This live-long Minute true to thee,

  ’Tis all that Heav’n allows

  when the noise – what a noise! – of the Sprite approaching brought us both to our feet. It was only too true that all that heaven allowed was the time in the bar at Antibes.

  Tony was singing; we heard him all the way up the Boulevard Général Leclerc; Stephen was driving with the greatest caution, most of the time in second gear, and Peter, as we saw when we came out on to the terrace, was sitting on Tony’s knee – nestling would be a better description – and joining in the refrain. All I could make out was

  ‘Round and white

  On a winter’s night,

  The hope of the Queen’s Navee.’

  If they hadn’t seen us on the steps I think they would have driven past the hotel without noticing.

  ‘You are tight,’ the girl said with pleasure. Tony put his arm round her and ran her up to the top of the steps. ‘Be careful,’ she said, ‘William’s made me tight too.’

  ‘Good old William.’

  Stephen climbed carefully out of the car and sank down on the nearest chair.

  ‘All well?’ I asked, not knowing what I meant.

  ‘The children have been very happy,’ he said, ‘and very, very relaxed.’

  ‘Got to go to the loo,’ Peter said (the cue was in the wrong place), and made for the stairs. The girl gave him a helping hand and I heard him say, ‘Wonderful day. Wonderful scenery. Wonderful . . .’ She turned at the top of the stairs and swept us with her smile, gay, reassured, happy. As on the first night, when they had hesitated about the cocktail, they didn’t come down again. There was a long silence and then Tony chuckled. ‘You seem to have had a wonderful day,’ I said.

  ‘Dear William, we’ve done a very good action. You’ve never seen him so détendu.’

  Stephen sat saying nothing; I had the impression that today hadn’t gone quite so well for him. Can people ever hunt quite equally in couples or is there always a loser? The too-grey waves of hair were as immaculate as ever, there was no contusion on the cheek, but I had the impression that the fear of the future had cast a long shadow.

  ‘I suppose you mean you got him drunk?’

  ‘Not with alcohol,’ Tony said. ‘We aren’t vulgar seducers, are we, Stephen?’ But Stephen made no reply.

  ‘Then what was your good action?’

  ‘Le pauvre petit Pierre. He was in such a state. He had quite convinced himself – or perhaps she had convinced him – that he was impuissant.’

  ‘You seem to be making a lot of progress in French.’

  ‘It sounds more delicate in French.’

  ‘And with your help he found he wasn’t?’

  ‘After a little virginal timidity. Or near virginal. School hadn’t left him quite unmoved. Poor Poopy. She just hadn’t known the right way to go about things. My dear, he has a superb virility. Where are you going, Stephen?’

  ‘I’m going to be
d,’ Stephen said flatly, and went up the steps alone. Tony looked after him, I thought with a kind of tender regret, a very light and superficial sorrow. ‘His rheumatism came back very badly this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Poor Stephen.’

  I thought it was well then to go to bed before I should become ‘Poor William’ too. Tony’s charity tonight was all-embracing.

  8

  It was the first morning for a long time that I found myself alone on the terrace for breakfast. The women in tweed skirts had been gone for some days, and I had never before known ‘the young men’ to be absent. It was easy enough, while I waited for my coffee, to speculate about the likely reasons. There was, for example, the rheumatism . . . though I couldn’t quite picture Tony in the character of a bedside companion. It was even remotely possible that they felt some shame and were unwilling to be confronted by their victim. As for the victim, I wondered sadly what painful revelation the night would certainly have brought. I blamed myself more than ever for not speaking in time. Surely she would have learned the truth more gently from me than from some tipsy uncontrolled outburst of her husband. All the same – such egoists are we in our passions – I was glad to be there in attendance . . . to staunch the tears . . . to take her tenderly in my arms, comfort her . . . oh, I had quite a romantic day-dream on the terrace before she came down the steps and I saw that she had never had less need of a comforter.

  She was just as I had seen her the first night: shy, excited, gay, with a long and happy future established in her eyes. ‘William,’ she said, ‘can I sit at your table? Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You’ve been so patient with me all the time I was in the doldrums. I’ve talked an awful lot of nonsense to you. I know you told me it was nonsense, but I didn’t believe you and you were right all the time.’

  I couldn’t have interrupted her even if I had tried. She was a Venus at the prow sailing through sparkling seas. She said, ‘Everything’s all right. Everything. Last night – he loves me, William. He really does. He’s not a bit disappointed with me. He was just tired and strained, that’s all. He needed a day off alone – détendu.’ She was even picking up Tony’s French expressions second-hand. ‘I’m afraid of nothing now, nothing at all. Isn’t it strange how black life seemed only two days ago? I really believe if it hadn’t been for you I’d have thrown in my hand. How lucky I was to meet you and the others too. They’re such wonderful friends for Peter. We are all going home next week – and we’ve made a lovely plot together. Tony’s going to come down almost immediately we get back and decorate our house. Yesterday, driving in the country, they had a wonderful discussion about it. You won’t know our house when you see it – oh, I forgot, you never have seen it, have you? You must come down when it’s all finished – with Stephen.’

  ‘Isn’t Stephen going to help?’ I just managed to slip in.

  ‘Oh, he’s too busy at the moment, Tony says, with Mrs Clarenty. Do you like riding? Tony does. He adores horses, but he has so little chance in London. It will be wonderful for Peter – to have someone like that because, after all, I can’t be riding with Peter all day long, there will be a lot of things to do in the house, especially now, when I’m not accustomed. It’s wonderful to think that Peter won’t have to be lonely. He says there are going to be Etruscan murals in the bathroom – whatever Etruscan means; the drawing-room basically will be eggshell green and the dining-room walls Pompeian red. They really did an awful lot of work yesterday afternoon – I mean in their heads, while we were glooming around. I said to Peter, “As things are going now we’d better be prepared for a nursery,” but Peter said Tony was content to leave all that side to me. Then there are the stables: they were an old coach-house once, and Tony feels we could restore a lot of the ancient character and there’s a lamp he bought in St Paul which will just fit . . . it’s endless the things there are to be done – a good six months’ work, so Tony says, but luckily he can leave Mrs Clarenty to Stephen and concentrate on us. Peter asked him about the garden, but he’s not a specialist in gardens. He said, “Everyone to his own métier”, and he’s quite content if I bring in a man who knows all about roses.

  ‘He knows Colin Winstanley too, of course, so there’ll be quite a band of us. It’s a pity the house won’t be all ready for Christmas, but Peter says he’s certain to have wonderful ideas for a really original tree. Peter thinks . . .’

  She went on and on like that; perhaps I ought to have interrupted her even then; perhaps I should have tried to explain to her why her dream wouldn’t last. Instead, I sat there silent, and presently I went to my room and packed – there was still one hotel open in the abandoned fun-fair of Juan between Maxim’s and the boarded-up Striptease.

  If I had stayed . . . who knows whether he could have kept on pretending for a second night? But I was just as bad for her as he was. If he had the wrong hormones, I had the wrong age. I didn’t see any of them again before I left. She and Peter and Tony were out somewhere in the Sprite, and Stephen – so the receptionist told me – was lying late in bed with his rheumatism.

  I planned a note for her, explaining rather feebly my departure, but when I came to write it I realized I had still no other name with which to address her than Poopy.

  BEAUTY

  * * *

  THE woman wore an orange scarf which she had so twisted around her forehead that it looked like a toque of the twenties, and her voice bulldozed through all opposition – the speech of her two companions, the young motor-cyclist revving outside, even the clatter of soup plates in the kitchen of the small Antibes restaurant which was almost empty now that autumn had truly set in. Her face was familiar to me; I had seen it looking down from the balcony of one of the reconditioned houses on the ramparts, while she called endearments to someone or something invisible below. But I hadn’t seen her since the summer sun had gone, and I thought she had departed with the other foreigners. She said, ‘I’ll be in Vienna for Christmas. I just love it there. Those lovely white horses – and the little boys singing Bach.’

  Her companions were English; the man was struggling still to maintain the appearance of a summer visitor, but he shivered in secret every now and then in his blue cotton sports-shirt. He asked throatily, ‘We won’t see you then in London?’ and his wife, who was much younger than either of them, said, ‘Oh, but you simply must come.’

  ‘There are difficulties,’ she said. ‘But if you two dear people are going to be in Venice in the spring . . .’

  ‘I don’t suppose we’ll have enough money, will we, darling, but we’d love to show you London. Wouldn’t we, darling?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s quite, quite impossible, because of Beauty, you see.’

  I hadn’t noticed Beauty until then because he was so well-behaved. He lay flat on the window-sill as inert as a cream bun on a counter. I think he was the most perfect Pekinese I have ever seen – although I can’t pretend to know the points a judge ought to look for. He would have been as white as milk if a little coffee had not been added, but that was hardly an imperfection – it enhanced his beauty. His eyes from where I sat seemed deep black, like the centre of a flower, and they were completely undisturbed by thought. This was not a dog to respond to the word ‘rat’ or to show a youthful enthusiasm if someone suggested a walk. Nothing less than his own image in a glass would rouse him, I imagined, to a flicker of interest. He was certainly well-fed enough to ignore the meal that the others had left unfinished, though perhaps he was accustomed to something richer than langouste.

  ‘You couldn’t leave him with a friend?’ the younger woman asked.

  ‘Leave Beauty?’ The question didn’t rate a reply. She ran her fingers through the long café-au-lait hair, but the dog made no motion with his tail as a common dog might have done. He gave a kind of grunt like an old man in a club who has been disturbed by the waiter. ‘All these laws of quarantine – why don’t your congressmen do something abou
t them?’

  ‘We call them MPs,’ the man said with what I thought was hidden dislike.

  ‘I don’t care what you call them. They live in the Middle Ages. I can go to Paris, to Vienna, Venice – why, I could go to Moscow if I wanted, but I can’t go to London without leaving Beauty in a horrible prison. With all kinds of undesirable dogs.’

  ‘I think he’d have,’ he hesitated with what I thought was admirable English courtesy as he weighed in the balance the correct term – cell? kennel? – ‘a room of his own.’

  ‘Think of the diseases he might pick up.’ She lifted him from the window-sill as easily as she might have lifted a stole of fur and pressed him resolutely against her left breast; he didn’t even grunt. I had the sense of something completely possessed. A child at least would have rebelled . . . for a time. Poor child. I don’t know why I couldn’t pity the dog. Perhaps he was too beautiful.

  She said, ‘Poor Beauty’s thirsty.’

  ‘I’ll get him some water,’ the man said.

  ‘A half-bottle of Evian if you don’t mind. I don’t trust the tap-water.’

  It was then that I left them, because the cinema in the Place de Gaulle opened at nine.

  It was after eleven that I emerged again, and, since the night was fine, except for a cold wind off the Alps, I made a circuit from the Place and, as the ramparts would be too exposed, I took the narrow dirty streets off the Place Nationale – the Rue de Sade, the Rue des Bains. . . . The dustbins were all out and dogs had made ordure on the pavements and children had urinated in the gutters. A patch of white, which I first took to be a cat, moved stealthily along the house-fronts ahead of me, then paused, and as I approached snaked behind a dustbin. I stood amazed and watched. A pattern of light through the slats of a shutter striped the road in yellow tigerish bars and presently Beauty slid out again and looked at me with his pansy face and black expressionless eyes. I think he expected me to lift him up, and he showed his teeth in warning.