"So what does he do, the creep?"
"Nothing. He stares at you with his deep and passionate eyes, challenging you to speak. You may think him arrogant, you may think him romantic, but he is not ordinary and he is certainly not apologetic or bashful. He has come to claim you. He is young, cosmopolitan, well dressed. A man of movement and money, and lacking any sign of self-consciousness. So." He switched to the first person: "You walk towards me down the aisle, realising already that the scene is not unfolding in the way you expected. It is you, not I, apparently, who must provide the explanations. You take the bracelet from your pocket. You offer it to me. I make no move. The rain is dripping from you becomingly."
The road was leading them up a winding hill. His commanding voice, coupled to the mesmeric rhythm of successive bends, forced her mind further and further into the labyrinth of his story.
"You say something. What do you say?" Obtaining no answer from her, he supplied his own. " ‘I do not know you. Thank you, Michel, I am flattered. But I do not know you and I cannot accept this gift.' Would you say that? Yes, you would. But better, perhaps."
She barely heard him. She was standing before him in the auditorium, holding out the box to him, gazing into his dark eyes. And my new boots, she thought; the long brown ones I bought myself for Christmas. Ruined by the rain, but who cares?
Joseph was continuing his fairy tale. "Still I speak not one word. You will know from your theatrical experience that there is nothing like silence to establish communication. If the wretched fellow won't speak, what can you do? You are obliged to speak again yourself. Tell me what you say to me this time."
An unwanted shyness struggled with her burgeoning imagination. "I ask him who he is."
"My name is Michel."
"I know that part. Michel who?"
"No answer."
"I ask you what you are doing in Nottingham."
"Falling in love with you. Go on."
"Christ--Jose--"
"Go on!"
"He can't say that to me!"
"Then tell him!"
"I reason with him. Appeal to him."
"Then let's hear you do it--he's waiting for you, Charlie! Speak to him!"
"I'd say..."
"Yes?"
" ‘Look, Michel... it's nice of you... I'm very flattered. But sorry--it's too much.' ‘
He was disappointed. "Charlie, you must do better than that," he reproved her austerely. "He's an Arab--even if you don't know that yet, you may suspect it--you are refusing his gift. You must try harder."
"It's not fair to you, Michel. People often get fixations about actresses... and actors... happens every day. That's no reason to go ruining yourself... just for a kind of... illusion.' "
"Good. Continue."
It was coming more easily to her. She hated his browbeating of her, as she hated any producer's, but she could not deny its effect. " That's what acting's all about, Michel. Illusion. The audience sits down here hoping to be enchanted. The actors stand up there hoping to enchant you. We succeeded. But I can't accept this. It's beautiful.' " She meant the bracelet. " ‘Too beautiful. I can't accept anything. We've fooled you. That's all that's happened. Theatre's a con trick, Michel. Do you know what that means? Con trick? You've been deceived.' ‘
"I still don't speak."
"Well, make him!"
"Why? Are you running out of conviction already? Don't you feel responsible for me? A young boy like this--so handsome--throwing away my money on orchids and expensive jewels?"
"Of course I do! I've told you!"
"Then protect me," he insisted, in an impatient tone. "Save me from my infatuation."
"I'm trying!"
"That bracelet cost me hundreds of pounds--even you can guess that. For all you know, thousands. I might have stolen it for you. Killed. Pawned my inheritance. All for you. I am besotted, Charlie! Be charitable! Exercise your power!"
In her imagination's eye, Charlie had sat herself beside Michel in the next seat. Her hands clasped on her lap, she was leaning forward earnestly to reason with him. She was a nurse to him, a mother. A friend.
"I tell him he would be disappointed if he knew me in reality."
"The exact words, please."
She took a deep breath and plunged: " ‘Listen, Michel, I'm just an ordinary girl. I've got torn tights, and an overdraft, and I'm certainly no Joan of Arc, believe me. I'm no virgin, and no soldier, and God and I haven't exchanged a word since I was chucked out of school for'--I'm not going to say that bit--‘I'm Charlie, a feckless Western slut.' ‘
"Excellent. Go on."
" ‘Michel, you've got to snap out of this. I mean I'm doing what I can to help, okay? So here, take this back, keep your money and your illusions--and thanks. Thanks, truly. Really thanks. Over and out.' ‘
"But you don't want him to keep his illusions," Joseph objected aridly. "Or do you?"
"All right, give up his bloody illusions!"
"So how does it end?"
"It just did. I put the bracelet on the seat beside him and walked out. Thanks, world, and bye-bye. If I hurry to the bus-stop, I'll be just in time for rubber chicken at the Astral."
Joseph was appalled. His face said so, and his hand left the wheel in a rare, if limited, gesture of supplication.
"But Charlie, how can you do this? Do you not know you are leaving me to commit suicide perhaps? To roam the rain swept streets of Nottingham all night? Alone? While you lie beside my orchids and my note in the warmth of your elegant hotel."
"Elegant! Christ, the bloody fleas are damp!"
"Do you have no sense of responsibility? You of all people, champion of the underdog--for a boy you have ensnared with your beauty and your talents and your revolutionary passion?"
She tried to bridle but he gave her no opportunity.
"You have a warm heart, Charlie. Others might think of Michel at that moment as some kind of refined seducer. Not you. You believe in people. And that is how you are tonight, with Michel. Without thought for yourself, you are sincerely affected by him."
On the skyline ahead of them a crumbling village marked a small peak in their ascent. She saw the lights of a taverna strung along the roadside.
"Anyway, your response at this moment is irrelevant because Michel finally decides to speak to you," Joseph resumed, with a swift, measuring glance at her. "In a soft and appealing foreign accent, part French, part something else, he addresses you without shyness or inhibition. He is not interested in arguments, he says, you are everything he has ever dreamed of, he wishes to become your lover, preferably tonight, and he calls you Joan although you tell him you are Charlie. If you will go out with him to dinner, and after dinner you still do not want him any more, he will consider taking back the bracelet. No, you say, he must take it back now; you already have a lover, and besides, don't be ridiculous, where is dinner in Nottingham at half past ten on a pouring wet Saturday night?... You would say this? Is it true?"
"It's a dump," she admitted, refusing to look at him.
"And dinner--you would say specifically that dinner is an impossible dream?"
"It's Chinese or fish and chips."
"Nevertheless, you have made a dangerous concession to him."
"How?" she demanded, stung.