The Pregnant Widow

  He said cautiously, “If it’s the reason I think it is, then I see your point.”

  “What’s the reason you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. Devaluation. Demystification.”

  “Well yes,” she said, and yawned. “You do lose the element of surprise. But it isn’t that.” She gave him a friendly but scornful glance. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. How old are you? ‘Nineteen’?”

  “I’ll be twenty-one in a couple of weeks.”

  “Then perhaps we should wait until you’re of age. Oh all right.” And she gave a cough of polite introduction: “Huh-hm. Some women want to get their breasts brown. And I don’t.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “I want to be able to prove I’m a white woman … I’m not horrible and prejudiced or anything. And of course I’m devoted to Jorq. But when I’m starting up with a new boyfriend, I might want to prove I’m a white woman. You’ll see how dark I get.”

  “You’re already very dark,” he said, and crossed his legs. They were talking about degrees of bodily display, and Gloria was pretty, perhaps very pretty. But she was in purdah (“veil, curtain”), in occultation, and she transmitted no sexual charge. None. He said, “I don’t understand. Gloria, unless you sunbathe naked, you’ll always be able to prove you’re a white woman.”

  “Yes, but I might want to prove it sooner than that. You know. At an earlier stage.”

  They read in silence for half an hour.

  “It’s vulgar,” she said. “It’s just vulgar. And anyway, who told them to?”

  By half past nine he was out on the loveseat of the west terrace, with the transient fireflies (like cigarette butts flicked through the air), and, by his standards, fairly drunkenly reading Mansfield Park. Taking the smoothest route to the reptile house, he thought, might involve a certain amount of medication. He couldn’t drug Scheherazade—but himself he could disorder and anaesthetise. And two whole glasses of wine, perhaps, would lead to the rediscovery of his glorious reptilian heritage … Oona, earlier, had taken a sandwich up to the apartment; and Gloria Beautyman, in a housecoat of brown duffel, wordlessly picked at a bowl of green salad while she stood over the kitchen sink.

  Fiction was kitchen-sink, he was deciding. This was the conclusion he was coming to. Social realism was kitchen-sink. The thing being that some sinks, and some kitchens, were much more expensive than others.

  He heard the gravel scrape, and then the jeep with its moody rumble, he heard the doors open and then gulp shut again, Whittaker’s low tenor, the rattle of gravel. He read on. It seemed most unlikely, at this point, that Henry Crawford would fuck Fanny Price. So far, though, there tended to be one fuck per book. At any rate, one fuck per book was how he expounded it to Lily. But it would be more accurate to say that in every book you heard about a fuck. This never happened to the heroines. Heroines weren’t allowed to do that, Fanny wasn’t allowed to do that. And no one had any drugs …

  Ten minutes later, with an inconvenienced expression on his face, Keith was pacing down the stone staircase. Its damp slate again diffused the cold sweat of late June. In the hallway he could make out the dropped shopping bags, which gleamed with rigid expensiveness, ice-white. He stepped into the courtyard, where the chill, joining a palpable dew, thickened into mist. Would it hold, kitchen-sink—would social realism hold? He was a K in a castle, after all: he had to be ready for change, for category mistakes and shape-shiftings and bodies becoming different bodies …

  For a moment the figure on the far side of the fountain loomed like a large and complicated animal, of uneven mass, and many-limbed. And he had the brief impression that it was feeding, giving or transferring sustenance … It was Lily and Scheherazade in a static but urgent embrace. They weren’t kissing or anything like that. They were crying. He moved forward. Then Lily opened her eyes and closed them again with a shiver of her chin.

  “Why?” he repeated in the dark. “Come on, Lily, this is … How bad can it be? What?”

  By now, Lily was no longer shedding tears; she merely rasped and groaned every few seconds. How bad could it be? What desolation had awaited them in the bijou boutique, in the Ritz?

  “It was the most awful thing ever.”

  Keith was concluding that there must have been an accident: the world reduced to what happens in headlights, the school bus and the express train … He heard a thick gulp, a bubbling sniff, and Lily spoke again. It was a thin, circling sound—the voice of a little girl, helplessly circling her bitterest care.

  “And it’s so much more terrible for Scheherazade …”

  “Why?”

  “… Because it means she has to now.”

  “Has to what?”

  “… There’s no choice. Everything’s changed with Adriano.”

  He waited.

  Another groan, another gummy, sticky sniff, and then she said miserably, “He’s a martyr. He was born in 1945. So she has to.”

  Late the next morning Keith left behind him a decidedly quietened castle and went past the pool and down the slope to apply to Whittaker.

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  “Where to?”

  “You should get out more, Keith, and breathe some fresh air. Instead of sitting in your room all day reading English novels. Just a stroll.”

  “Yeah but where to? … Begin from the beginning. Imagine I don’t know anything at all.”

  “It was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen … Okay. We did the shopping.”

  They did the shopping. And went to the hotel to be reunited with Adriano. They rode the elevator to the penthouse—Whittaker, and Lily and Scheherazade, with their creels and caskets, their monokini, their gaiety, their youth, in summer dresses. The door slid open and there was Luchino.

  “I don’t know what we were expecting exactly. It’s funny. None of us had given it a moment’s thought. Isn’t that odd. Anyway.”

  Luchino was six foot three. Also present was Adriano’s younger brother, Tybalt. Tybalt was six foot six. Also present, of course, was Adriano. Adriano was four foot ten. Whittaker went on,

  “And you wanted to say, Hi. What the fuck happened to him?”

  “And you couldn’t do that.”

  “You couldn’t do that. It was like a stage set. Or a tableau. Or a dream. I kept expecting to get over it. Or get used to it.”

  “That’s what Lily said.”

  “But none of us did. The tension, the pressure, was beyond anything. You could hear it.”

  “Then the tea.”

  Keith lit a cigarette. They were following the path that encircled the foothills of the opposite mountain, where the valley crashed like a wave against the heights.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Nowhere. We’re walking. The tea was all laid out on the roof—very Anglo-style, like they are. Lace doilies. Cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. And there were tables but no chairs. No chairs. Luchino, Tybalt—both disgustingly handsome. And then you thought how handsome Adriano was too. But he was all the way down there.”

  “And he played his part.”

  “He played his part. A very determined little guy, Adriano. And it was all kind of nuts. Why not talk about it? Find a form of words. Maybe even joke about it. Christ, I don’t know.”

  “Yeah.” Yeah, he thought. Laugh about it: in case Adriano started getting a complex. “Then drinks.”

  “Then drinks. Both girls asked for whisky. Unusual, no? I sat between them on the sofa and I could feel their hearts beating. Both their hearts. Ah. Here are the inamoratos.”

  They came to a halt. The two monks were striding down the narrow trail towards them on sandalled, skirted feet, talking, turning, nodding. Buon giorno. Buon giorno. They moved on through the scrub and the jagged outcrop, concernedly gesturing, but with hidden hands.

  “Ah, they’re so in love. I had ten minutes with Luchino,” said Whittaker. “He gave me a wise smile, and we talked. Or he did.”


  “Adriano was born in 1945.”

  “Yes. The saddest story. Adriano was born in 1945 … On the way back, in the jeep, no one said a word. Except Adriano. The usual stuff. Hang-gliding smash-ups. Rafting spills … Incubo.”

  Which meant nightmare. Whittaker said,

  “He was tremendously precise, Luchino. Very uh, condensed. Not rehearsed exactly. Crystallised. He’d found a form of words.”

  “Can you remember any of it?”

  “Oh yes. He said, If, God forbid, Adriano should die before I do, then at last, in his coffin, my son will be as other men are.”

  “He did, did he.”

  “And this. Not a moment passes without my praying for such episodes of joy as he will ever experience. Moments of love and life. Heaven defend the angels of mercy who grant him as much.”

  “… Did you tell Scheherazade all that?”

  4

  SANE DREAMS

  It was, without any doubt, the saddest story. A story from another genre, another way of doing things. Social realism had failed to hold. And what was the form of words?

  The child was conceived in May, 1944. And for all but the first and last few days of her pregnancy Adriano’s mother was in prison. The crime she was guilty of was being married to her husband. Luchino had been drafted into what they were calling the New Army, Mussolini’s New Army; and Luchino evaded it, this draft, with his wife’s blessing; they both feared, with good reason (according to Whittaker), that Luchino would sooner or later be trucked off to a labour camp in the Reich. Lucia was adamant, said Luchino. We knew—everyone knew—that the worst possible prison was less lethal than the best possible camp. What we didn’t know was that Adriano was alive inside her. Tybalt was born in 1950. And Lucia died in 1957, when Adriano was twelve.

  So Keith was sad about that. To give him some credit (which he will soon be needing), I can say that Keith was duly harrowed by his imaginings of the enwombed Adriano. Fully fifteen years later, in 1984, when he saw his first child on the paediatrician’s monitor, delightedly busying itself like a newt in a millpond, all ashiver with festive and apparently humorous curiosity, Keith’s first thought was of Adriano and his hunger: the hunger of the enwombed Adriano. The tiny ghost and his face of pain. And this pain would clothe him for the rest of his life. Four foot ten. Five foot six could make a semi-educated guess at four foot ten. And how near the war was …

  So Keith understood why the girls cried. But now the rules had been rewritten, and the generic proprieties no longer obtained. The question had to be asked again. What were heroines allowed to do?

  You’re very gloomy. Come on, you should be happy to oblige.”

  With gloomy couples, in gloomy weather, whole days pass like this. With gaps, mugs of coffee, silences, brief disappearances, cups of tea, yawns, vacancies … Later on, Lily and Keith would have to go down to the village and represent the castello: Oona had signed them up for some ceremonial jumble sale at Santa Maria.

  “I don’t mind that,” he said. “Except it means going to church. No, I’m depressed about Tom Thumb.”

  “Don’t call him Tom Thumb.”

  “Okay. I’m depressed about Adriano. Were you expecting his dad to be a—to be a bit on the short side?”

  “I expected, I don’t know, someone below average. A titch. Like you. Not a giant. And then the giant brother. That’s when she melted. You know how soft-hearted she is.”

  Like a dream, said Whittaker. All this is like a dream. He said, “Will she, d’you think?”

  “Well. Two birds with one stone. A lovely boost for him, and it’ll stop her being desperate. She’ll feel her way into it.”

  Keith lay on the bed—he lay on the bed with Emma. Lily was undressing for the shower: not a lengthy operation. She leant towards him and slid down her bikini bottoms with her thumbs. Over the weeks, the parent star was daubing Lily to its taste, the flesh browner, the hair blonder, the teeth whiter, the eyes bluer. She kicked off her flip-flops and said abruptly,

  “Who fucks Fanny?”

  “What? No one fucks Fanny.” They were resuming their discussion of Mansfield Park. Keith tried to concentrate—to concentrate on the world he knew. With a show of liveliness (talking was better than thinking), he said, “She’s a heroine, Lily, and heroines aren’t allowed to do that. Anyway. Who’d want to fuck Fanny?”

  “The hero. Edmund.”

  “Well, Edmund, I suppose. He marries her, after all. I suppose he gets round to it in the end. He is the hero.”

  In her green satin housecoat, Lily sat herself at the dressing table with her back to the three mirrors. She took up a cardboard nail file and said, “So you don’t fancy Fanny.”

  “No. Mary Crawford’s more the thing. She’s a goer too.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “There are ways, Lily. Mary’s talking about admirals, and she makes a joke about vices and rears. In Jane Austen … But Mansfield Park’s not like the others. The villains are Visions and the goodies are Duds. Resurgence of old values. Jane becomes anti-charm. It’s a very confused novel.”

  “And there aren’t any fucks.”

  “No. There are. Mansfield Park’s got two fucks. Henry Crawford fucks Maria Bertram. And Mr. Yates fucks her sister Julia. And he’s an Honourable.”

  “What were they drugged with?”

  “That’s a good question. I don’t know. Unloving parents. Boredom.”

  “Scheherazade’s drugging herself with pity.”

  He thought this was true. The Adriano project had become a form of social work or community service. “Sex as a good deed. Yeah. Tell that to Jane Austen.”

  “She thinks about him growing up with Tybalt. And then Tybalt overtaking him. Tybalt growing. Swelling into this great towering god. She wishes …”

  In fact they could hear her in the intervening bathroom—the taps, the quick tread.

  “If only she’d met Tybalt first. She could fuck him. But she can’t. She’s got to fuck Tom Thumb instead. And she thinks she’s found a way.”

  So Lily whispered, and stared. And was gone, out of the door and down the steps in her robe.

  And Keith attempted to return to Emma, and Miss Bates, and the life-altering picnic on Box Hill.

  “You know what they looked like?” said Lily, reappearing with one towel swathed around her and another twirled up in a cone on her head. “Tybalt and Adriano? When they stood there at the bar side by side? They looked like a bottle of Scotch and a miniature. The same brand and the same label. The bottle and the miniature.”

  Lily was now getting dressed. All was familiar to him. Familiar, and irrational, like the thoughts that bracket sleep. Was her flesh just the clothing of her blood, her bones? Then she sat at the table before the three mirrors, to dress her face, the eyes in violet, the cheeks in rouge, the lips in pink. He said,

  “Should you tong your hair when it’s wet? Are you sure? … Tybalt would be six foot six, wouldn’t he. Not five foot eleven or anything like that.”

  “Actually I admire Scheherazade’s attitude. She’s trying her best to be positive. She thinks she can see her way to some sort of dirty weekend. The kind where you never go out. Or even get up. So they’re never perpendicular at the same time.”

  “All right, Lily. Describe the horizontal weekend.”

  Keith listened with a wandering mind … Adriano would drive her to the capital and park near—or preferably under—one of its premier hotels; adducing discretion, Scheherazade would proceed alone to the booked suite; there she would bathe, and perfume and moisten herself, and lay her long body, coated in some deliquescent negligee, on the white sheets—for him! for Adriano! The man himself would then dramatically appear; standing before the bed, perhaps, he would reach with lingering fingers for the furled bow that secured his white slacks, and, with a stern smile …

  “After that,” said Lily, “you just use room service. Nothing in public, where they’re both standing up. It’s that that makes her die of self-conscious
ness. She’s ashamed of herself, but there it is. She keeps thinking about what he’s thinking about. And she gets the creeps.”

  Keith agreed that it wouldn’t be any good if she got the creeps.

  “Her attitude’s this. If she fancies Tybalt so much, then she must fancy Adriano. Sort of. And anyway. She’s getting more and more desperate.” Lily rose to her feet and smoothed her hands floorward. “Come on. It’s time.”

  And he thought suddenly, This is the world I know, this is my place, among the wide-awake—with her. He rolled off the bed saying, “I’ve been meaning to tell you. You look really lovely, Lily. And we won’t break up. We’ll stay together. You and me.”

  “Mm. Mm. I suppose you’re in love with her now.”

  “Who?”

  “Emma.”

  “Oh, definitely. She’s a bit flash, Emma, but I fancy her, I admit. Clever, handsome, and rich. It’s a start.”

  “Ah, but has she got big tits? … Does Jane Austen say if they’ve got big tits?”

  “Not in so many words. Or not yet. Any moment now she’ll probably say, Emma Woodhouse had big tits. But not yet.”

  “You said, you said Lydia Bennet had big tits. The one that runs off with the soldier.”

  “Well she has. Or a big arse anyway. Catherine Morland has big tits. Jane Austen more or less tells you that. It’s in code. See, Lydia’s the tallest and youngest sister—and she’s stout. That’s code for a big arse.”

  “And what’s code for big tits?”

  “Consequence. When Catherine’s growing up she gets plumper and her figure gains consequence. Consequence—that’s code for big tits.”

  “Maybe it’s simpler than that. The code. Maybe plump is tits and stout is arse.”

  Keith said that she could very well be right.

  “So Scheherazade’s plump, and Gloria’s stout. But you wouldn’t call Junglebum stout exactly, would you.”

  “Junglebum? No. But words change, Lily. Arses change.”

  “Listen to him. First it was all moral patterning. And felt life. Then it was all drugs and fucks. Now it’s all tits and arses. Hang on. I’ve got one. Hysterical Sex and the Single Girl. With Natalie Wood. That’s a proper one.”