On The Yankee Station_ Stories Part 11

He walked sadly back to his room through the afternoon heat. Lizards basked on stones in the sun, idly doing press-ups as he approached, reverting to glazed immobility once more as he walked on by. To his left he saw the tall diving board of the swimming pool, and some asterisks of light flashed off the blue water he could glimpse through the perforated concrete screen that surrounded the pool area. Normally it would be lively with bathers, the bars crowded with sun-reddened guests, the nearby tennis courts resounding to the pock-pock of couples rallying. Where were the other people who were staying here? Morgan wondered. What were they like? He felt like some mad dictator, or eccentric millionaire recluse, alone in an entire multi-bedroom block with only his taciturn guards for company.

His second question was answered that evening when he went down to the restaurant. There was a table of four Syrians or Lebanese men, and an ancient, wrinkled American couple. The Lebanese ignored him; the Americans said, "h.e.l.lo, there," and looked anxious to exchange grumbles about their common predicament. Morgan sat as far away as he could. Pretend nothing has happened, he told himself; as soon as we start behaving like victims of a siege-sharing resources, privations and anecdotes-this enforced stay really will become a nightmare.

He was well into his rather firm avocado when the eighth guest arrived. If he had been asked to speculate, unseen, on his or her ident.i.ty, Morgan-knowing his luck-would have laid long odds on the eighth guest being a nun, an overweight salesman or moustachioed spinster. He was surprised then, and almost enchanted when a young woman entered wearing the dark-blue skirt and white blouse of BOAC. She was quite pretty, too, Morgan a.s.sessed, his avocado untended, as he watched her sway through the empty tables to her seat close to the Americans.

For a minute or so Morgan's heartbeat seemed to echo rather loudly in his chest as, more surrept.i.tiously, he scrutinised the girl. "Girl" was perhaps a little too kind. She looked to be well into her thirties, that short blond hair certainly dyed, a slightly predatory air about her features due to the rather hooked nose, the liberally applied cosmetics, and lines that ran from the corners of her nostrils to the ends of her thin orange lips. She had amazingly long painted nails that matched the colour of her lipstick.

For the first time that day Morgan's spirits were lifted. Something about her-the dark eye-shadow, her tan against the white cotton of her blouse-reminded him of the brisk s.e.xual allure of the helicopter pilot of the year before. He pa.s.sed the rest of the meal in a pleasantly absorbing miasma of s.e.xual fantasy.

Fantasy was all he had to content himself with, however, as the girl appeared to return to her room directly after dinner. Morgan drank a couple of whiskies in the bar but was driven out by the increasingly clamorous garrulity of the four Lebanese, who played bridge with a quite un-English fervour and intensity. The American couple tried to befriend him once again but Morgan repelled their polite "Say, do you have any idea where we can change some dollars?" with a rush of eyebrow-jerking, shoulder-shrugging pseudo French: "Ah, desole desole, haw...euh, je vous ne comprendre, non? Oui? Disdonc je vous ne comprendre, non? Oui? Disdonc, eur, bof, vous savez vous savez haha haha parler pas Anglais parler pas Anglais. Mmm?" They wandered off with an air of baffled resignation.

The next morning, Morgan looked out of his fifth-floor window. From this height he commanded a considerable view of the hotel area. He could see Peter p.i.s.sing into a bush on the edge of the car-park. A military jeep was pulled up in front of the central building. Over to his left and partially obscured by a clump of trees he could see the swimming pool: a static blue slab surrounded by grey concrete and ranks of empty lounging chairs. Then, as he watched, a small figure came into his line of vision. It was the stewardess, wearing what looked like a tiny yellow bikini. She jumped into the pool and swam round. Morgan watched dry-mouthed as she clambered dripping up the steps and fingered free the sodden material of her briefs, which had become wedged in the cleft between her b.u.t.tocks. Morgan turned from the window and rummaged in his suitcase for his swimming trunks.

Morgan was not proud of the state he had allowed his body to get into. Always what his mother had called "a big lad," he had a.s.siduously developed at university a beer-gut which never disappeared and indeed had since expanded like some soft subcutaneous parasite around the sides of his torso, padding his back and swelling his already considerable b.u.t.tocks and thighs. He could have done something about it once, he supposed as he stood in front of the full-length bathroom mirror; there was nothing he could do about his balding head, but the recent addition of a thick Zapata moustache had effected some positive transformation of his appearance. A straggling line of pale brown hair ran straight down from his throat, between his worryingly plump b.r.e.a.s.t.s, to disappear beneath the waistband of his capacious trunks. "Not a pretty sight," a girlfriend had once remarked on observing him as he stumbled-soap-blind-from the shower, groping for a towel. Well, it was too late now, he concluded, inflating his chest and trying to suck in his stomach. In a suit he fancied he looked merely beefy; but this was another trouble with tropical climes: the terrible exposure that resulted through the regular need to shed as much clothing as possible.

Still, he felt quite good as he strolled down the walkway towards the pool, a carefully slung towel modestly covering his shuddering paps. A few more soldiers lounged by the hotel entrance, and the sun beat down from a perfectly blue sky. The enforced, unreal isolation and the unsettling threat of casually sported arms he found strangely invigorating, as if the deserted hotel complex were infused with a lurking wayward s.e.xuality only waiting to be sprung from cover.

Morgan spread his towel a polite few chairs away from the girl. She was lying on her front, bikini top undipped. He was perturbed to see the Lebanese encamped on the other side of the pool playing bridge. There was a fat one, far fatter than Morgan, in a white s.h.i.+rt and Bermuda shorts. The others wore tiny swimming suits like jock straps: two thin weaselly men-one of whom had a face pitted like a peach stone-and the fourth, gratingly handsome in a lounge-lizard kind of way, with a thin moustache and a thick springy rug of hair over a lean and muscly chest. Morgan worried rather about him; he kept looking over at the girl.

There was a persistent roaring in his head; furious red static grumbled and flushed behind his eyes; slabs of heat burned his thighs and belly. Morgan was sunbathing. It was agony. He sat up, rockets and anti-aircraft sh.e.l.ls pulsating and exploding everywhere he looked, and reached behind him for the bottle of beer he'd ordered and kept in the shade beneath a lounger. The bottle was still cool, the green gla.s.s slippy with beads of condensation. Morgan took great juddering pulls at it, beer spilling from the upended bottle over his chin, dripping onto his chest. His brain seemed to soar and cartwheel with the alcohol. He let out a silent, satisfying belch and stood up ready to plunge into the pool.

The first thing he noticed was the girl's striped towel, occupied only by the damp imprint of her body. Then he heard a ripple of laughter from the shallow end of the pool and he saw her chatting to the hairy Lebanese, who, as Morgan gazed, stood on his hands and walked round with his brown legs waving comically above the water, to the delighted laughter of the girl.

It can only have been this flirtatious display of agility, coupled with the dizzying effects of the cold beer, that drove Morgan to the diving board. As he climbed laboriously to the top he grew increasingly aware of the absurdity of the position he had committed himself to, and of all its hackneyed connotations. He sensed, as he emerged on the highest board, the attention of the others below turn to him. He had only seconds to decide. Beyond the lip of the board he saw the girl looking up at him, and the frank interest of her gaze inspired him and yet was somehow depressing. Depressing to think that he had stooped to these despised macho techniques to gain the girl's absorption, and inspiring to find that they actually worked. He hitched up the waistband of his trunks. He would compromise: he wouldn't dive-he wasn't sure if he could remember how-and he wouldn't climb back down. No, he would jump. He tried to saunter casually to the edge of the board. The pool slowly revealed itself beneath him. He thought: good G.o.d, it seems higher from up here. b.l.o.o.d.y high. Shouldn't there be some kind of legal limit ...? His doubts were cut off in midstream as he realised with a gulp of horror that he had missed his step and clownishly fallen forward off the board, not an elegant vertical jump, but at a gradually diminis.h.i.+ng angle of forty-five degrees to the water. And as the glinting, s.h.i.+mmering surface rushed up to meet him, Morgan spread his arms in a grotesque parody of a swallow-dive and belly-flopped full force with a ghastly echoing smack.

Everything was white. White and fizzing as if he were immersed in a gla.s.s of Andrews Liver Salts. He felt strong arms pulling him to the side. He felt his hands on the tiled edge of the pool. He took great gasping mouthfuls of air. His vision cleared. The hairy Lebanese was by his side, an arm protectively round his shoulders. Morgan shrugged him off and looked up. The stewardess crouched on the pool edge above him, concern filling her eyes.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "It made an awful sound."

"Mmmm. Sure," Morgan wheezed. "I'm...fine."

He rested in his room all afternoon. The entire front of his body was flushed and tingling for at least two hours. The girl had gathered up his stuff, draped a towel across his winded shoulders and led him back to his block. He felt as if he had just swum the Channel; his lungs heaved, his body creaked with pain and he could barely gasp replies to the girl's worried solicitations. And when the pain and the agony subsided it was replaced with an equally cruel shame. Morgan writhed with embarra.s.sment on his bed, cursing his ridiculous pretensions, his preposterous life-guard conceit and his absurd gigolo rivalry.

He ate his evening meal as soon as the restaurant opened. Only the Americans accompanied him but they maintained a frosty indifference. He inquired at the desk if there had been any word about the coup or news of the airport opening. The reception clerk told him that there was nothing but martial music on the radio but he planned to listen to the BBC world service news at nine. Perhaps that would give them some reliable information.

Morgan found a dark corner of the bar and flicked through old magazines for a while. No one interrupted him. There was no sign of the stewardess or the Lebanese. He ordered a large whisky. To h.e.l.l with everyone, he thought.

Shortly after nine Morgan went out to look for the receptionist but the desk was empty. He waited for a few minutes and then decided to turn in early. He was walking down the pa.s.sageway that led out to his block when he heard noises coming from behind a door marked GAMES ROOM GAMES ROOM. He stopped. He could hear a man's voice, an indistinct seductive ba.s.s. He then heard some feminine giggles. He was about to walk on when he heard the girl say, "No. Stop it. Come on now." He listened again. She grew more insistent. "Look. Stop Stop it. Really. Come on, it's your serve." She was still giggling but it seemed to Morgan that a worried tone had entered her voice. Then: it. Really. Come on, it's your serve." She was still giggling but it seemed to Morgan that a worried tone had entered her voice. Then: "Ow! "Ow!-Honestly, cut it out! No. Stop it, please."

Morgan pushed open the door. The girl stood there in the hairy Lebanese's arms. He seemed to be biting her shoulder. As Morgan entered they broke apart, and the girl, blus.h.i.+ng, quickly readjusted the strap of her cream dress which had slipped down her arm. Morgan felt supremely foolish for the second time that day. He wasn't at all clear about what one was meant to say in situations like this. The girl smiled; he felt slightly rea.s.sured. She seemed pleased to see him and backed away from the Lebanese. He smiled, too, white and gold teeth beneath his moustache.

"How you feel?" he asked Morgan confidently, tapping his stomach. "The belly. Is good?"

They were standing in front of a Ping-Pong table. Morgan walked over to it and picked up a bat. He swished it menacingly about.

"My turn to serve, I think," he said pointedly, in as clipped and cool a tone as he could summon. "Why don't you push off, Abdul? Eh?"

The Lebanese looked at the girl, who earnestly studied her fingernails. He gave a snort of laughter and pushed past Morgan out of the room, saying something harsh and guttural in Arabic, as if he had a forest of fish bones stuck in his throat. An expressive language, Morgan admitted to himself, hugely relieved.

Morgan and the stewardess went to the bar and had a quiet, mature laugh about it all. There had been no real problem, the girl insisted. He was just getting a little fresh. Still, she was glad Morgan had walked in. They had a few drinks. The stewardess said her name was Jayne Darnley. She'd come down with a touch of upset tummy and had to be left behind when the last plane took off. Morgan bought some more drinks. She was wearing a loose satin dress and Morgan admired the roll of her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s beneath the bodice as she reached down into her bag for a menthol cigarette. They got on famously; Morgan even laughed about his ill-fated dive. "It was terribly brave of you," stated Jayne. She came, it transpired, from Tottenham and had worked on "promotions" before becoming a stewardess. The whisky made Morgan feel virile and capable; he could smell the pungent scent she used, and the click of the sentry's boots in the foyer lent a frisson of exotic danger to the atmosphere. He started to lie grandly. Yes, he admitted, he was leaving this country for a new posting: Paris. He was going to be defence attache at the Paris emba.s.sy. "Ooh, Paree," enthused Jayne. "I love love Paris." And from there, Morgan confided, a spot of work at the UN perhaps. After that, who knows? Although his first loyalty had always been to the service, he'd always had a secret yearning for the cut and thrust of political life, and with his experience, maybe.... Morgan went on to conjure up a large, interesting and cultured family, a trendy public school, a starred first. He created a modest private income, a chic Paris." And from there, Morgan confided, a spot of work at the UN perhaps. After that, who knows? Although his first loyalty had always been to the service, he'd always had a secret yearning for the cut and thrust of political life, and with his experience, maybe.... Morgan went on to conjure up a large, interesting and cultured family, a trendy public school, a starred first. He created a modest private income, a chic pied-a-terre pied-a-terre in Chelsea; he fabricated costly hobbies and recondite enthusiasms, and spoke knowingly of half-famous intellectuals, minor royalty, television-show comperes. As the whisky and his rising s.e.xual excitement fuelled his imagination, so Jayne grew more entranced, edging forward on her chair, lips set apart in a ready smile of antic.i.p.ation. Her eyes gleamed; what a good time she was having. Morgan concurred, and called for another Pernod and blackcurrant. in Chelsea; he fabricated costly hobbies and recondite enthusiasms, and spoke knowingly of half-famous intellectuals, minor royalty, television-show comperes. As the whisky and his rising s.e.xual excitement fuelled his imagination, so Jayne grew more entranced, edging forward on her chair, lips set apart in a ready smile of antic.i.p.ation. Her eyes gleamed; what a good time she was having. Morgan concurred, and called for another Pernod and blackcurrant.

At midnight, both a little unsteady on their feet, they walked arm in arm up the pathway towards the residential blocks. Crickets telephoned endlessly all around. The path bifurcated. "Well," Jayne sighed, raising her face to his, "I go this way."

Morgan was quite satisfied with their love-making. It hadn't exactly made the earth move for him but Jayne had produced a flattering tocsin of appreciative yips and mews as he had humped away in the dark heat of the room. He lay back now, his chest and belly heaving, and thought how perhaps events had not turned out so badly.

Jayne smoked a cigarette and whispered compliments to him. Then she propped herself on one elbow and gazed down at his face, tracing its contours with a sharp red fingernail.

"I can't believe my luck," she confided softly. "To...well, to meet you like this." Her thin lips pecked at his face like a dabbing fish. "I'd just never have thought it possible. Someone like you. You know?"

Morgan wasn't sure that he did, and for the first time he found the ambiguity somewhat unsettling.

Jayne still maintained the same vein of ingenuous lyricism in the morning before she returned to her own room. Strangely, and against his better judgement, she elicited similar vague responses from Morgan. He was half-asleep and unused to finding a warm naked woman in his bed on waking up. The a.s.sociated sensations of comfort and cosy eroticism were agreeably complementary. They admitted that, yes, they both really liked each other; and it was funny how people like them-from such different backgrounds-got along so tremendously easily. It was almost, almost like fate really, wasn't it? What with her illness, his puncture and, of course, the coup. Didn't he think so? Jayne prompted, searching beneath the sheet. A squirming Morgan felt bound to agree, suggesting, almost before he realised what he was saying, that once this thing was over they really ought to see some more of each other. Miraculously, it seemed, Jayne had two weeks of leave coming up and nothing in particular planned for them. If Morgan had some time to spare before his Paris posting came through, it would be fun to see each other in London. Of course, Morgan whispered, nuzzling her neck, of course.

But then Jayne was out of bed and swiftly into her cream dress, patting her face with powder and applying fresh lipstick. She kissed him on the cheek.

"See you downstairs," she said. "Let's go to the pool again."

Alone, Morgan dressed slowly. Post-coital tristesse, not an ailment he was usually afflicted with, weighed heavy on him today. He moved like a man deep in thought, like a hasty investor who's just had the dubious ramifications of his latest deal explained. His early swaggering confidence, his locker-room bravado, his smug self-congratulation had mysteriously dissipated, leaving a querulous, nagging tone of rebuke and stale second thoughts.

He walked distractedly into the hotel lobby, his mind preoccupied, and was surprised to find it full of the guests, their luggage and the same fl.u.s.tered BOAC official who had met him at the airport gates two days previously.

"Ah, Mr. Leafy," he said to Morgan. "Here at last. You'll be glad to know that the airport has reopened, diplomatic relations have been established, and you're flying out on"-he consulted his clipboard-"the third plane. Eleven forty-five this morning. We're getting you all along to the airport as quickly as possible, as things are a bit chaotic, to put it mildly. If you could report back to me here in fifteen minutes?" He turned to answer a phone ringing on the reception desk.

Jayne came up to Morgan. She was wearing a lurid print dress and large round sungla.s.ses.

"We're on the same plane," she said. "Isn't that a stroke of luck? Don't worry, I'll see we get sitting beside each other. I've a friend at the airport."

Morgan smiled wanly, muttered something about having to pack, and returned to his room.

As he laid his clothes in his suitcase he felt unfamiliar symptoms of panic sweep over him, as if he were some inefficient refugee too late to flee the advance of an invading army. He felt like a c.r.a.pulous sailor who's overstayed his sh.o.r.e leave, watching his s.h.i.+p steam out of harbour. Things were moving far too quickly, he realised; he no longer felt in control. Suddenly they were leaving for home and he found himself teamed up with this Jayne, thinking of themselves as a couple, without really understanding how it had all come about. He felt mystified, bemused. Who was this woman? Why was she making a.s.sumptions about him, organising his life?

The minibus that was to take them to the airport contained only two of the Lebanese and Jayne, who had kept Morgan a seat. As he settled in beside her, studiously avoiding the hostile looks of the others, she squeezed his hand and smiled at him. Morgan felt sick, queasy, like a man on a tossing s.h.i.+p who realises he should have refused those second helpings. G.o.d, he hadn't envisaged anything like this at all all, he reflected, as Jayne explained about her friend at the airport. No, by Christ, it was getting terribly out of hand. Why had he lied so convincingly; as if he were short-listed for foreign secretary? Why hadn't he been callous and knowing, taken his pleasure like the chance acquaintances they were? Then he felt foolish and sad as he reasoned that it had only been the lies and false grandeur that had attracted the woman to him at all, and that without the fake glitter and borrowed glory, Morgan Leafy was of little consequence as a person, a minor district official leaving for a boring desk job in central London; and that without the stories and the make-believe, he could have stared and l.u.s.ted at the side of the pool or fantasised in the bar for days and she would probably never have noticed he was there.

The low prefab shacks of the airport building heaved and pulsed with hot, irate travellers like some immense festering yeast culture. Queues intertwined and doubled back on themselves before makes.h.i.+ft desks, where airline clerks mindlessly flipped through damp sheets of pa.s.senger manifests and ticket counterfoils in a futile attempt to match names to seats, and parties to destinations. Beyond customs control, gangs of green-suited porters hurled bags onto lorries, and starched, impa.s.sive military police forced everyone to hand over their local currency.

After a two-hour struggle, Morgan and Jayne arrived in the departure lounge, their clothes mussed and sticky with perspiration, clutching handfuls of official departure forms and exchange-control declarations to be filled out in triplicate. Normally the blatant inefficiency and wanton lack of automation fixed Morgan in a towering rage, but today he was merely sullen and leaden-hearted. Jayne had clung to his arm throughout the obstacle course of the check-in and, das.h.i.+ng his last faint hope, had successfully arranged with her friend behind the desk for the two of them to have adjacent seats.

As she went up to the bar, Morgan gazed blindly at the ancient photographs of long-out-of-commission aircraft and thought of the appalling chain of events the coup had unwittingly set in motion. He mentally compared his parents' semi-detached in Pinner, where he would be staying, with the Chelsea mews flat he had described to Jayne in such detail. He anguishedly contrasted his menial job off Whitehall, in a grimy office block, with the post of defence attache at the Paris emba.s.sy. He sighed in frustration as he considered how he had meekly accepted Jayne's invitation to meet her Mum and Dad the following Sunday. It was pathetic. He felt like weeping.

Jayne returned with two warm bottles of Fanta orange. "All they had," she explained. "Come on, dear, move up. Make room for little me."

Dear! Morgan's spirit finally collapsed. He felt he couldn't simply tell her to go away, as he himself had so deliberately contrived to deceive her. Perhaps when she found out the truth she'd reject him. But he looked at the tight lips sucking on a straw, the shrewd eyes with their delta of discreet lines, the coruscating talons gripping the Fanta bottle, and he thought, no, Jayne was running out of time, and there wasn't much hope of that. Morgan's spirit finally collapsed. He felt he couldn't simply tell her to go away, as he himself had so deliberately contrived to deceive her. Perhaps when she found out the truth she'd reject him. But he looked at the tight lips sucking on a straw, the shrewd eyes with their delta of discreet lines, the coruscating talons gripping the Fanta bottle, and he thought, no, Jayne was running out of time, and there wasn't much hope of that.

At eleven o'clock their plane was called and they a.s.sembled at the departure-lounge door. None of the airport buses was functioning and they had to walk across the s.h.i.+mmering ap.r.o.n to the plane. Morgan plodded across the hot tarmac, his eyes on the heels of the couple in front of him. The sun beat down on his exposed head, causing runnels of perspiration to drip from his brow. Jayne's hand was latched firmly in the crook of his elbow.

They paused at the foot of the steps. Morgan looked up. Stewardesses beamed at the entrance to the plane. He'd never trust those smiles again. He felt he was about to climb the gallows. He looked at Jayne. Her eyes were invisible behind the opaque lenses of her sungla.s.ses. She squeezed his arm and smiled, revealing patches of orange on her teeth that had smudged from her lips.

"Oh, look," she said, gesturing beyond Morgan's shoulder. "Must be someone important. Bet he tries to barge the queue."

Morgan turned and saw an olive-green Mercedes driving across the tarmac from the airport buildings at some speed. A pennant cracked above the radiator grille. The car stopped and a young man got out. He held a piece of paper in his hand. He was tall and sunburnt and wore a well-pressed white tropical suit similar to the one Morgan had on. He was like the Platonic incarnation of everything Morgan had tried to create in his conversations with Jayne. And for Jayne, he was the misty image, the vague ideal of the man she fancied she had met in the airport hotel. They both stared uncomfortably at him for a brief moment, then simultaneously turned away, for his presence made reality a little hard to bear.

The young man walked up the line of waiting pa.s.sengers.

"Mr. Leafy?" he called in a surprisingly high, piping voice. "Is there a Mr. Morgan Leafy here?"

At first, absurdly, Morgan didn't react to the sound of his own name. What could this vision want with him? Then he put up his hand like a school-kid who's been asked to own up.

"Telex," the young man said, handing Morgan the piece of paper. "I'm from the emba.s.sy here," he added. "Frightfully sorry we didn't get to you before this. Hope it wasn't too bad in the hotel..." He went on, but Morgan was reading the telex.

"LEAFY," he read, "RETURN SOONEST NKONGSAMBA. YOU ARE URGENTLY REQD. RE LIAISING WITH NEW MILITARY GOVT. ALL CLEAR LONDON. CARTWRIGHT."

Cartwright was the High Commissioner at Nkongsamba. Morgan looked at the young man. He couldn't speak, his throat was choked with emotion. He handed the Telex to Jayne, She frowned with incomprehension.

"What does this mean?" she asked harshly, the poise cracking for an instant as Morgan stepped out of the queue.

"Duty calls, darling." There seemed to be waves cras.h.i.+ng and surging behind his rib cage. He felt dazed, abstracted from events. He waved his hands about meaninglessly, like a demented conductor. "Absolutely nothing I can do." He had reached the Mercedes; the young man held the back door open for him. The embarking pa.s.sengers looked on curiously. He saw the Americans. "Heyl" the woman shouted angrily, "you're Britis.h.!.+" He suppressed a whoop of gleeful laughter. "Sorry, darling," he called again to Jayne, trying desperately to keep the elation from his voice. "I'll write soon. I'll explain everything." A final shrug of his shoulders and he ducked into the car. It was deliciously cool; the air-conditioning whirred softly.

"I'll come as far as the airport buildings," the young man said deferentially. "Then this'll take you straight back up the road to Nkongsamba if that's okay with you."

"Oh, that's fine," said Morgan, loosening his tie and waving to Jayne as the car moved off. "Oh, yes. That's absolutely fine."

Long Story Short

PART ONE.

Louella and I stood alone in the darkening garden. There was the first hint of autumn frost in the evening. The soft light from the drawing-room windows set s.h.i.+mmers glowing in her thick auburn hair. Louella hugged herself, crus.h.i.+ng her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her forearms. I felt an almost physical pain of love and desire in my gut.

"I think they're lovely," she said, turning to face the house.

"So do I...oh, you mean Ma and Pa?"

"Of course. I'm glad I've met them."

"They like you, too, you know, very much." I moved beside her and put my arm round her slim waist. I rested my forehead on hers. "I like you too," I said whimsically. She laughed, showing her pale throat, and we hugged each other. I stared past her at the trees and bushes slowly relinquis.h.i.+ng their forms to the night. Then I felt her posture change slightly.

"Well, h.e.l.lo, little brother," came a deep, sardonic voice. "What have we got here?"

It was Gareth. And somehow I knew everything would be spoilt.

Actually it wasn't Gareth at all. It was Frank. G.o.d, I'm tired of this relentless artifice. Let's start again, shall we?

PART TWO.

Louella and William stood alone in the darkening garden. There was the first hint of autumn frost in the evening.... drawing-room windows, yes,...crus.h.i.+ng her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, etc.,... almost physical pain and so on.

"I don't see why you're so upset," Louella said. "I mean, he is your brother. If I'm going to be one of the family I might as well meet him."

"But he's such a s.h.i.+t. A fat, smarmy s.h.i.+t and a mean little sod to boot. I know you won't like him. He's just not our type," William said petulantly, conscious of the fact that he was only stimulating Louella's interest.

They heard the sound of a car in the drive. William felt his throat tighten. Louella tried to appear nonchalant-with only partial success.

Frank opened the drawing-room windows and sauntered into the garden to join them. He was wearing a maroon cord suit with unfas.h.i.+onably flared trousers and a yellow nylon s.h.i.+rt. A heavy gold ingot swung at his throat. His once-even features, William noticed, had become thickened and distorted with fat. He was almost completely bald now.

No, it's no good. It keeps getting in the way, this dreadful compulsion to tell lies. (You write fiction and what are you doing? You're telling lies, pal, that's all.) And besides, it's very unfair to Frank, who was very good-looking, exceptionally well dressed and had as thick and glossy a head of hair as Louella in Part One. Louella-the real Louella-in fact had dyed blond hair, but I've always had a hankering for auburn. (Come to that, she doesn't have full b.r.e.a.s.t.s either.) To get rid of the fiction element, perhaps I should begin by distinguis.h.i.+ng myself from the "I" in Part One. I-now-am the author (you know my name-check it out). The "I" in Part One is fictional, not not me. Neither is the "William" in Part Two. It's just a device. No doubt, in any case, you thought to yourself, "hold on a second," as you read Part Two. "Little bit odd, this," you probably thought: "Character's got the same name as the author. Something fishy here." But you must watch out for that sort of thing; it's an error readers are p.r.o.ne to fall into. There are a lot of Williams about. Lots. It doesn't need to be me. me. Neither is the "William" in Part Two. It's just a device. No doubt, in any case, you thought to yourself, "hold on a second," as you read Part Two. "Little bit odd, this," you probably thought: "Character's got the same name as the author. Something fishy here." But you must watch out for that sort of thing; it's an error readers are p.r.o.ne to fall into. There are a lot of Williams about. Lots. It doesn't need to be me.

But now, having got rid of all this obfuscation, I am speaking to you directly. The author talking to the reader-whoever you are. Imagine me as a voice in your ear, unmediated by any notions or theories you may have heard about books and stories, textuality and reading, that sort of thing. I was, as it so happens, in actual fact, really engaged to a girl called Louella once, and I did have a brother called Frank. And certain factual events to do with the three of us inspired, were at the back of, the two beginnings I attempted. Louella was an American girl. I'd met her in New York, fallen in love, got engaged and had brought her back to England to meet my parents. She also met Frank.

Frank. Frank was the sort of older brother n.o.body needs. Tall, socially at ease, rich, good job (journalist on an up-market Sunday). Very attractive too. He had a polished superficial charm which, to my surprise, managed to take in one h.e.l.l of a lot of people. But he was a smug, self-satisfied b.a.s.t.a.r.d and we never really liked each other. He always needed to feel superior to me.

"Pleased to meet you," Frank said to Louella, holding on to her hand far longer than William thought necessary.

"Hi," said Louella. "William's told me so much about you."

Frank laughed. "Listen," he said. "You don't want to believe anything he says."

He didn't say that, in fact. But it's typical of the sort of thing I can imagine him saying. Anyway, I only did that just to show you how easy it is-and how different. I can make Frank bald, add four inches to Louella's bust, supply William with a flat in Belgravia. But it's not going to solve anything. Because-to cut a long story short (quite a good t.i.tle, yes?)-I really did love Louella (we'll still call her that, if you don't mind-saves possible embarra.s.sment). I wanted to marry her. And that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Frank steadily and deliberately took her away from me.

At the time we were staying with my parents. We hadn't fixed a date for the wedding, as we were waiting until we had a house first. However, plans were being made; Louella's mother was going to fly over; a guest list was being drawn up. Frank was very subtle. He contented himself with being incredibly nice nice. He was around a lot and spent a great deal of time with Louella-just chatting. I was away in London (my parents live near Witney, Oxfords.h.i.+re) trying to get a job. I can still remember-quite vividly-sitting on the London train, rigid with a kind of frustrated rage. I knew exactly what was happening. I could sense Louella's increasing fascination with Frank but there was nothing I could do about it, no accusation I could level, without being accused in turn of chronic paranoia. Nothing physical had happened between Louella and Frank, yet in a way she was more intimate with him than she'd ever been with me.

I couldn't stand it any longer. The house seemed to brim with their complicity. I felt pinioned by their innuendoes, webbed in by their covert glances. It was impossible. Yet the whole relations.h.i.+p was occurring at such a subliminal, cerebral level that any apportioning of blame on my part would look like an act of near insanity. So I went away. I said I had to be in London for an entire week job-hunting and having interviews. I entrusted Louella to my parents' care, but I knew Frank wouldn't be far away.

I took up an uncomfortable post in the wood behind my parents' house, armed with a pair of powerful binoculars, and watched the comings and goings. I saw Frank arrive the next day, homing in unerringly. Saw them walk in the garden, go out for drives. Saw Frank take my place at the family dinner table, pouring wine, recounting anecdotes that I should have been telling.

In fact, William hated Frank with all the energy he could summon. Hated his lean, permanently tanned face, his fake self-deprecating smile. Despised his short fingernails, his modishly scruffy clothes. Loathed his intimate knowledge of current affairs, his casual travelogues. And he ached when Louella touched his arm in admiring disbelief as Official Secrets were dropped, off-the-record confidences disclosed. Suffered when she showed her pale pulsing throat as she laughed at his smart in-jokes.

Sorry. Sorry. It's a lapse, I know. I promised. But fiction is so safe, so easy to hide behind. It won't happen again.

It was a Sunday afternoon when I became really alarmed. My vigil in the wood had lasted three days (sleeping in my car: extremely uncomfortable) and I was beginning to wonder if I'd overdramatised things rather. Mother and Father had gone out on some interminable Sunday ramble in the car. (I sense that I haven't really done my parents justice-not that they're all that interesting really-but they play no significant part in the following events.) Then Frank came round in his car-a Triumph Stag: pure Frank, that. There was some activity in the house. Frank appeared briefly in the sitting room with two suitcases. I scampered through the garden and peered round the corner of the house. Frank was rearranging luggage in the boot. I saw him take out a fis.h.i.+ng rod and repack it. Then Louella appeared. She seemed quite calm. She said, "Have you left a note for them?"

Frank: "Yes, on the hall table."

Louella: "What about William?"

Frank: "Oh, don't worry about him. Ma and Pa will break the news."

Reader, imagine how I felt.

They drove off. I knew where they were going. I went inside and read the note Frank had written to my parents. It went something like this.

Louella and I have gone away for a few days. We have fallen very much in love and want to think things over. Please break this to William as gently as possible. Back sometime next week.Love, Frank.