All That Is

9


AFTER THE BALL



Many of the guests had already arrived and others, with him, were on their way upstairs. The invitation had been offhanded, he was giving a costume party, Wiberg said, why don’t you come? Together with Juno in a gold and white mask and a silver Viking in a helmet with great horns, Bowman climbed the wide stairs. The door to the grand apartment was open and within was a crowd of another world, a Crusader in a tunic with a large red cross; some savages dressed in green, with long straw wigs; a few people in evening clothes wearing black masks; and Helen of Troy in a lavender gown with crossed straps in the Grecian way over a very bare back. Bowman’s costume, found at the last minute, was a hussar’s frogged jacket, red and green, over his own pants. Wiberg, in the traditional British idea of the exotic, was dressed as a pasha. On the landing a six-piece orchestra was playing.

It was difficult to move in the crowd. They were not literary people, at least not from their conversation. There were people from the embassies and society, movie people, and people using the night to advantage, a woman sticking her tongue in a man’s mouth and another—Bowman saw her only once—dressed as a carhop in very brief shorts, her legs shining in steel-colored hose, moving between several groups like a bee in clover. Wiberg talked to him only briefly. Bowman knew no one. The music went on. Two angels stood near the orchestra, smoking cigarettes. At midnight, waiters in white jackets began serving supper, oysters and cold beef, sandwiches and pastries. There were figures in beautiful silks. An older woman with a nose as long as an index finger was eating greedily, and the man with her blew his nose in the linen napkin, a gentleman, then. There was also, but only if one knew, the upper-class harlot who’d been dropped from the guest list but had come despite that and as an act of insolence had fellated five of the male guests, one after another, in a bedroom.

Bowman, having run out of things to notice and places to stand, was looking at a collection of photographs in thick silver frames on a table, well-dressed couples or individuals standing in front of their houses or in gardens, some of them inscribed. A voice behind him said, “Bernard likes titles.”

“Yes, I was just looking at them.”

“He likes titles and people that have them.”

It was a woman in a black silk pants-dress with a kind of pirate’s bandanna and gold earrings to go with it. It was a halfhearted costume, it might easily have been her normal wear. She, too, had a long nose, but was beautiful. He was suddenly nervous and with the unmistakable feeling that he would say something foolish.

“Are you from the embassy?” she said.

“The embassy?”

“The American embassy.”

“No, no. Nothing like that. I’m an editor.”

“With Bernard?”

How did she know him? he wondered. But, of course, almost everyone there did.

“No, with an American house, Braden and Baum. You know,” he confessed, “you’re the first person I’ve talked to tonight.”

A waiter was near them.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“No, thank you. I’ve had too much to drink already,” she said.

He could see that then, from her eyes and a certain hesitation in her movements.

“Are you here with someone?” he found himself asking.

“Yes. With my husband.”

“Your husband.”

“As he’s called. What did you say your name was?”

Her name was Enid Armour.

“Mrs.” he said. Mrs. Armour.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“It’s all right. Are you staying in London long?”

“No.”

“Another time,” she said.

“I hope so.”

She appeared to lose interest but pressed the edge of his hand as if in consolation as she moved away. He didn’t see her again in the crowd although there were other lustrous figures. She might have left. He found out her husband’s name from a list on a table near the door. At nearly three in the morning there were fantastic figures, a man dressed as an owl with shreds of cloth for feathers and a woman with a top hat and in black tights, sleeping or passed out on the couches. He went by them in his tunic like a lone figure surviving history.

His hotel was near Queen’s Gate and the room was plain. He lay there wondering if she would remember him. The night, he realized, had been glamorous. It would soon be four o’clock and he was tired. He fell into a profound sleep that ended with the sun coming full through the window and filling the room. Across the street the buildings were blazing in the light.

E. G. Armour was listed. Wanting to call but uncertain, Bowman tried to summon his nerve. He was aware it was a foolhardy thing to do and decided yes and no half a dozen times while dressing. Would it be she who answered? Finally he picked up the phone. He could hear it ringing, where, he did not know. After several rings a man’s voice said, hello.

“Mrs. Armour, please.”

He was sure the man could hear his heart.

“Yes, who is this?”

“Philip Bowman.”

The phone was put down and he heard her being called. His nervousness increased.

“Hallo,” a cool voice said.

“Enid?”

“Yes?”

“Uh, this is Philip Bowman.”

He began to explain who he was, where they had met.

“Yes, of course,” she said though it sounded matter-of-fact.

He asked, because he would not have forgiven himself if he hadn’t, if she could have lunch.

There was a pause.

“Today?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Well, it would have to be on the late side. After one.”

“Yes. Where should we meet?”

She suggested San Frediano on the Fulham Road, not far from where she lived. It was there that Bowman, who had been waiting, saw her enter and then move through the tables. She was wearing a gray pullover and a kind of suede jacket, an unapproachable woman who then saw him. He stood up a little clumsily.

She smiled.

“Hallo,” she said.

“Hello.”

It seemed his manhood had suddenly caught up with him, as if it had been waiting somewhere in the wings.

“I was afraid to call you,” he said.

“Really?”

“It was a superhuman act.”

“Why is that?” He didn’t answer.

“Did you finally speak to someone else last night?”

“Only you,” he said. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true.”

“You don’t seem that withdrawn.”

“I’m not. I just didn’t find anyone I felt I could talk to.”

“Yes, all those sultans and Cleopatras.”

“It was a fantastic evening.”

“I imagine it was,” she said. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I’m probably pretty much what you see. I’m thirty-four years old. And as you can probably tell, a bit in awe.”

“You’re married?” she asked casually.

“Yes.”

“As am I.”

“I know. I spoke to your husband, I think.”

“Yes. He’s on his way to Scotland. We’re not on very good terms. I’m afraid I didn’t quite understand the conditions of marriage.”

“What are they?”

“That he would be looking for another woman constantly and I would be trying to prevent it. It’s boring. Are you on good terms with your wife?”

“On a certain level.”

“Which one is that?”

“I don’t mean a particular level. I mean just down to a certain level.”

“I don’t think you ever really know anybody.”

She was originally from Cape Town, it turned out, born on the steps of the hospital there which were as far as her mother got that night, she could never leave a party. But she was completely English; they moved to London when she was a little child. She was damaged though she did not appear to be. Her beauty was unwary. Her husband, in fact, had another woman, a woman who might come into some money, but he was not ready to get a divorce. Wiberg had anyway advised her to not get a divorce, she had no income and was better off as she was, he said. He meant by this nicely situated, from his point of view, to all appearances well-off and very decorative.

“How do you know Wiberg?”

“He’s an amazing man,” she said. “He knows everyone. He’s been very nice to me.”

“How?”

“Oh, in a number of ways. He lets me dress up like a pirate, for example.”

“You mean last night.”

“Um.”

She smiled at him. He could not take his eyes from her, the way her mouth moved when she spoke, the slight, careless gesture of a hand, her scent. She was like another language, nothing like his own.

“Men must be after you in droves.”

“Not in the way you’d like,” she said. “Do you want to know what happened? The most frightening thing.”

She’d been near Northampton and had an accident with the car. A bit shaken, she’d gone to this little hotel and ended up having dinner there and a glass of wine by the fire. She had taken a room and afterwards, at night, she heard two men talking in low voices outside the door as she got ready for bed. Then they tried to get into the room. She saw the door handle moving. Go away! she called. There was no telephone in the room, which they probably knew. They spoke through the door, they just wanted to talk to her, they said.

“Not tonight. I’m very tired,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

The door handle moved again, being tried. Just to talk, they assured her, they knew she would not be there tomorrow.

“Yes, yes. I’ll be here,” she promised.

After a while it was quiet. She listened at the door and then, in great fear, opened it slightly, saw no one and took her things and fled. She drove off in the car with things banging and slept in it through the night near some houses under construction.

“Well, you have luck, don’t you,” he said. He took her hand, which was slender. “Let me look at it,” he said. “This is your life line”—touching it with his finger. “According to this, you’re going to be around for a long time, I’d say into your eighties.”

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to that.”

“Well, you may change your mind. I see some children here, do you have children?”

“No, not yet.”

“I see two or three. It breaks up a little there, it’s hard to be certain.”

He sat holding her hand which for a moment closed affectionately around his. She smiled.

“Would you do me a favor?” she said. “Come with me for a few minutes after lunch, would you? There’s a shop just a few doors down that has a beautiful dress I’ve been looking at. If I tried it on, would you tell me yes or no?”

She tried on not one but two dresses in the small but stylish shop, coming out from behind the curtain and turning slightly from side to side. The white glint of a brassiere strap that she pushed underneath as an afterthought seemed a sign of purity. When she said good-bye, it was like a play ending. It was like the theater and coming out again to the streets. He saw his reflection in many windows as he passed and stopped to take measure of himself. He felt in possession of the city, not the Victorian city with its dark wood interiors and milky marble halls, the tall red buses that lurched by, endless windows and doors, but another city, visible yet unimagined.

She agreed to come to dinner, but she was late and after twenty minutes of feeling more and more conspicuous at the bar, he realized she would not appear. It was perhaps her husband or a change of mind but in any case it excluded him. He was aware of his insignificance, even triviality, and then suddenly it changed as she came in.

“Sorry to be late,” she said. “Forgive me. Have you been waiting?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

The minutes of his unhappiness had instantly disappeared.

“I was on the telephone with my husband, having an argument as usual,” she said.

“What were you arguing about?”

“Oh, money, everything.”

She was wearing a suit and a black silk shirt. She looked as if difficulty of any kind was a remote thing. When they sat she was on a banquette against the wall and he was opposite, able to look at her all he liked and aware of the glamour she was bestowing on the two of them.

During dinner, he said,

“Have you ever fallen in love?”

“Fallen in love? Been in love, you mean. Yes, of course.”

“I mean fallen. You never forget it.”

“Funny you should say that.”

She had fallen in love as a young girl, she said.

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen.”

It had been the most extraordinary experience of her life. She’d had a spell cast over her, she said. It was in Siena, she was a student, part of a group of a dozen boys and girls and she was not really aware of the intensity of … There was a Ferris wheel and you went up and up and sometimes stayed there, and that night, high above everything, the boy beside her began saying the most thrilling, impossible things, whispering madly in her ear. And she fell in love. There had never been anything like that night, she said.

Never anything like it. Bowman felt disheartened. Why had she said that?

“You know how it is,” she said, “how incredible.”

It was the past she was talking about, but not only the past—he could not be sure. Her presence was fresh, unspoiled.

“Incredible, yes, I know.”

She had hardly closed the door to her flat before he embraced and kissed her fervently, saying something she did not make out against her cheek.

“What?”

But he did not repeat it. He was opening the catch at the neck of her shirt, she did not stop his hands. In the bedroom she stepped from her skirt. She stood for a moment hugging herself and then slipped off the rest. The glory of her. England stood before him, naked in the darkness. She had been, in fact, lonely, she was ready to be loved. He was never more sure of his knowledge. He kissed her bare shoulders, then her hands and long fingers.

She lay beneath him. He was holding himself back but she showed he need not. They didn’t speak, he was afraid to speak. He touched the tip of his cock to her and almost effortlessly it went in, the head only, the rest held back. He was in possession of his life. He gathered and went in slowly, sinking like a ship, a little cry escaping her, the cry of a hare, as it went to the hilt.

Afterwards they lay until she slid from beneath him.

“My God.”

“What?”

“I’m drenched.”

She reached for something on the night table and lit a cigarette.

“You smoke.”

“Now and again.”

His eyes were now accustomed to the darkness. He knelt on the bed to drink her in. It was no longer preliminary to anything. He was not exhausted. He watched her smoke. After a while they made love again. He pulled her over him by her wrists, like a torn sheet. At the last she began to give a slight cry, and again he came too soon but she collapsed. The sheet was wet and they moved to one side and slept, he lay beside her like a child, in full contentment. It was different than marriage, unsanctioned, but marriage had permitted it. Her husband was off in Scotland. The consent had been without a word.

In the morning she was still sleeping, her lips slightly parted, like a girl in summer with cropped blond hair and a bare neck. He wondered if he should wake her with a touch or caress, but she was awake, perhaps from his gaze, and straightened her legs beneath the sheet. He turned her onto her stomach as if she were a possession, as if they had agreed.

He sat in the tub in the bathroom, a chalky tub of a grand size found in beach resorts, as the water thundered in. His eye fell on a slight pair of white underclothes hung to dry on the towel rack. On the shelves and windowsill were jars and small bottles, her lotions and creams. He gazed at them, his mind adrift, as the warm water rose. He slid further down as it reached his shoulders, in a kind of nirvana not based on freedom from desires but on attainment. He was at the center of the city, of London, it would always be his.

She poured tea in a pale robe that came only to the knee, holding the top of it closed with one hand. It was still early. He was buttoning his shirt.

“I feel like Stanley Ketchel.”

“Who is that?”

“He was a fighter. There was a famous newspaper story about him. Stanley Ketchel, the middleweight champion, was shot and killed yesterday morning by the husband of the woman he was cooking breakfast for.”

“That’s clever. Did you write that?”

“No, it’s just a famous opening. I like openings, they can be important. Ours was. Not easily forgotten. I thought … I’m not sure what I thought but part of it was, impossible.”

“I think that’s been disproven.”

“Yes.”

They sat silent for a moment.

“The thing is, I have to leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she said. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. I can’t be sure. It’s presumably a question of work.”

He added, “I hope you won’t forget me.”

“You can be sure.”

Those were the words he pocketed and ran his fingers over many times, along with images of her that were as distinct as photographs. He wanted a photograph but prevented himself from asking for it. He would take one himself the next time and keep it between the pages of a book in the office with nothing written on it, no name or date. He could imagine someone accidentally coming across it and asking, who is this? He would without a word simply take it from their hand.