Читать книгу The Amours & Alarums of Eliza MacLean - Annie Warwick - Страница 9

Meeting, parting, and the compensations of love in the afternoon.

The first time Linda Bellamy saw Richard, it was November 1992 and he was teaching his class how to fight on stage, with fists, swords and other implements. There is apparently quite a science to theatre combat, especially with swords, in a confined space, without falling over, injuring someone or being mistaken for a travelling cutlery sharpener. Linda was attracted by the noise, mainly from the onlookers, and she looked in to see what was going on. Being quite close to the stage, she noticed a tall man with longish, dark hair, fit-looking in the manner of someone who cycles and chops wood, rather than a body builder. As he demonstrated a move with a student, the young man zigged when he should have zagged, and so ended up on the floor. Richard, not at all out of breath despite his exertions, laughed sympathetically, and reached out a hand to haul the young man to his feet.

“Well done, Justin,” he said. “You did well with the emotional aspects, and the comic tumble was nicely executed, please take a bow.” The student bowed and everyone cheered. Linda thought that was rather nice of him, to take the sting out of a blunder. She didn’t know yet how acerbic Richard could be at times with his students. At that time what registered with her was his smile, which did something interesting to her heartbeat, and she whistled thoughtfully to herself. His voice was a pleasant baritone, his accent R.P.1 with an echo of something else, an impurity which a linguist would have found difficult to pin down but which only made it interesting. He could emphasise the common or eliminate it at a moment’s notice, in mid-sentence if necessary.

1 Received Pronunciation. Received from whom, one may well ask. Better known as the BBC or Oxford accent. The following website contains a bit of background: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/find-out-more/received-pronunciation/. The site includes the revelation that R.P. used to be known as Public School Pronunciation. It seems to be the province of the privileged classes and, of course, actors, who are awfully good at that sort of thing.

Linda had not been overlooked by the good faerie in charge of physical attractiveness. She was tall and slim. Her auburn hair hung, thick and shining, well past her shoulders. She knew she was a knockout, and she was not silly enough to fawn over this man no matter how much she wanted him. So, holding her art supplies, she stood there until he noticed her, and she was not required to wait overlong. His eyes slid past her, came to a screeching halt, and settled on her again. His eyebrows and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly. That was enough for her, so she held his gaze for a second, then she smiled, just a bit, not enough to make him over-confident. Nodding politely, she turned on her heel and went to her class, knowing that he would watch her walk away until she was out of sight. He’d had enough time to assess her. She reckoned most men decided what they wanted within about five seconds of seeing a woman, and she knew if he wanted her, he would be able to find her.

And find her he did. That same afternoon when classes were over for the day, he had already made enquiries, found out who she was and where she took her class. When she locked the door and turned out the light, she almost ran into him. “Hello,” he said, “I’m Richard.”

This time she noticed his eyes, a surprising shade of dark blue, with an almost violet tinge. Someone writing a review once referred to them as “spooky”, however Richard relished such distinction. Seeing him so soon, at such close quarters and evidently making a move on her, was more nerve-wracking for Linda than she had envisaged. His pheromones were already asking her pheromones to dance, and they were blushing prettily. Her heart started beating fast, and she could feel her cheeks warming up. He was looking at her with such a smile, she felt sure he could read her mind, or see her blood pressure mounting on a little gauge stuck to the side of her head. “Good god,” she said, startled. “I mean, hello there, Richard. I’m Linda.” With an admirable save, she added, “Your class seemed to be having more fun than mine did today.”

He didn’t answer immediately, just a microsecond’s delay, while he looked at her with what amounted to undisguised lust. She was a little taken aback. She wasn’t used to such non-verbal directness after a total acquaintance of about twenty-five seconds. “Would you like to get a coffee?” he asked. “Unless of course you have a husband and twins at home waiting for you.”

“Um, yes. I mean, coffee would be nice, and no, there are no husbands or twins.” This was the second time she had burbled, but there was obviously no point in being coy, because she had started this, after all.

So they went off for a coffee, which became a casual meal, which didn’t end up in sex, that night anyway, in case you’re imagining this raunchy pair to be completely lost to all propriety. Richard had to go home because Eliza would be waiting, and being winter it was dark. She was eight and quite grown up for her age, but she was still a little girl. He bought some dinner for her, and an éclair to soften her mood at his being late. He would have been surprised to know how much she had already guessed from his elated manner, since she had been putting two and two together in that way for a few years now. “Dad, I need a new violin,” she told him, her timing excellent.

“A whole new violin, my cherub?” he asked, with the air of one who would have to sell something, possibly his grandmother’s pince-nez, or even his grandmother, to finance this expenditure. In fact he probably had twice the price of the instrument stuffed, forgotten, in his sock drawer, and he had to exercise considerable restraint in order to deny her anything she had her heart set on. Eliza knew all this, but went along with it.

“Yup. My baby one is very small. We can sell it to a baby for half price,” she added. She demonstrated the difficulties of having outgrown her violin, by holding the imaginary tiny bow between finger and thumb and sawing away on a teeny instrument apparently about six inches long, making sound effects appropriate to a pygmy fiddle.

A few days later, Richard arranged for Eliza to stay overnight at a friend’s house, and took Linda out on a real first date, to dinner and a play. Luckily she enjoyed the theatre; too bad if she didn’t. One assumes she had her revenge by hauling him off to an exhibition of abstract sculpture at the earliest opportunity. He took her home to her tiny flat in Camden and kissed her goodnight. He had already told himself he wasn’t going to push his luck so early in the piece, but throughout the evening neither of them had been making much effort to hide their desire for each other, so one chaste kiss led to another, less chaste, kiss and then to another passionate kiss. This naturally led each of them to explore the other’s skin without the inconvenience of clothing and they both chose to lose control. If Linda had known about his track record she probably would have made him wait three months before letting him into her bed, but she didn’t. And if Richard had known how hard he would fall for Linda, he may have run very fast in the opposite direction.

They had an idyllic twelve months together until one day, without warning, Richard made an announcement and an offer: “I have some work in Australia for the next year or so, and Eliza and I are flying out in a few weeks.”

“What?” she said, suspending a hissy fit until she had the whole story.

“And I’d like it very much if you would come with us,” he added.

“You know I’ve just accepted a job offer as a Specialist in the National Gallery. I will never get this chance again. I can’t possibly go anywhere at present.” Her heart was sinking down to her shoes, and fear made her voice sharp.

Richard was somewhat chauvinistic at times, and no more than at present, when he was taken aback by his beloved’s refusal to throw in her career to accompany him to Australia. He had trouble appreciating why other people, especially the women in his life, regarded their work as important. Perhaps if she had been an actress offered the lead role in a Broadway production he would have understood. He was a thrown a little off balance, so he blundered on with less panache. “I would also like it very much if you would marry me,” he said, casually, without commenting on what she had just said. To his surprise this did not have the object of his affection clasping her hands and swooning in delight.

“Bloody hell, Richard,” she said. “I’m not going to give up my career to travel with you, so why do you think I would do it to marry you?” He couldn’t see the logic in this, in fact she seemed to have it the wrong way around. So they proceeded in this way for the next hour or so, resulting in a fight in which things were said and not taken back, and they managed to break up and each blame the other for it.

Richard’s feathers were sorely ruffled; worse than that, his heart was broken. Naturally, instead of trying to stay in touch with her and working things out, which would have been the emotionally intelligent thing to do, he spent the first few months in Australia trying to forget her with work and a variety of romantic interests. Although the feelings were remarkably similar to those attending his break with Maureen, he did not think of drowning himself this time. His insight, perhaps, had improved by a minuscule amount.

Eliza experienced her father as a little distant, emotionally unavailable, for those months. She survived, but was more than usually convinced that no matter what happened, she was going to have to sort it herself. When the unfortunate fight with Angie occurred and notes were sent home, Richard had an epiphany, of the sort our grandparents used to precipitate by slapping us around the head and telling us to stop being self-indulgent.

Linda, after several months of anguish over Richard, decided to cut her losses. She had written letters, as had Richard, and neither had sent them, so each assumed the other was getting on with life. So she started going out with her boss, a Senior Departmental Head, fifteen years her senior, and within a few months they were married. And a few months after that, it all started to go pear-shaped, because she didn’t love her new husband. She had married him because she had lost her belief in love, although the poor bastard was, of course, madly in love with her. She stayed with him because she felt she couldn’t possibly screw up another relationship. So she drank a bit, and thought about having an affair. Both of which, as we all know, helps enormously to solve such a problem.

Fate, having perused the television guide and found nothing worth watching, decided to intervene.

* * *

Linda was in the mood for a bit of noise and a bit of weird, and was having drinks with a couple of girlfriends in the Dev, when a group of three young men arrived. One of them caught her attention immediately. He was tall and slim, with broad shoulders, and he was fashionably unshaven. His beard was dark and with a one-day growth it was difficult to guess at his age, but she thought early twenties. He was dressed in a carefully scruffy way, with rings which looked suspiciously like decorative knuckle-dusters, and boots, jeans and leather, all in black. Girls’ necks swivelled on their shoulders when he came in. He ignored them, but he looked over at Linda, glancing away when she caught his eye. A couple of extra years of experience would correct that small sign of gaucheness.

Linda wouldn’t have called him pretty, however he had that gaunt, big-eyed look, which, with the fair skin, was perfect for his current surroundings. A fact well-known in this part of town was that, although his Goth affectation sometimes tempted unenlightened males to try to pick fights with him in the rutting season, a closer look would have informed them he was well able to take care of himself. Linda saw that toughness in him and she found it attractive enough to begin the process of cancelling out the age difference. He was, in short, very sexy for a youngster, and our ancient crone of thirty-one was extremely taken with him, deciding that a toy boy might just make up for the rather average sex she had been having lately, well, since Richard left, actually.

She was wearing a clinging black number, down to her ankles in some parts and nearly up to her knickers in others. The neckline was revealing, her auburn hair sweeping her shoulders, although she stopped short of the black lipstick and chalky makeup of the younger patrons. She excused herself from her friends for a minute, and walked slowly over to the bar where he was ordering, still turned in her direction so he could observe her at his leisure. She seemed to be all red hair and long legs. He caught sight of her and obviously had to make an effort to keep his mouth shut.

“Hello. Aren’t you Dan Conroy?” she said, plucking the name out of thin air while fixing him with her brilliant green-blue eyes.

“Whoa,” muttered one of his friends from the table nearby, and was shushed.

He smiled slowly, because he knew this was a line and because he could hardly believe his luck. “Billy,” he said.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “Now I come to look at you, of course, you’re older. Dan is in his final year of school.”

He apparently decided at that point to brazen it out. “Like me, then,” he said, looking a challenge at her. She didn’t miss a beat. They had a short conversation about the horrors of A levels and the ridiculous amount of study required as a prerequisite to pursue his chosen career which, he felt, owed nothing to mathematics, physics or chemistry. His drinks acquired, he asked her to join them.

“Only for a minute,” she said. “My friends are waiting for their drinks.” She was introduced to his goggling friends and exchanged a few pleasantries. Billy was by far the most sophisticated of the three young men.

“I love the rings,” she said, inspecting the collection of silver on his right hand as an excuse to take his hand in hers, running her fingers along his palm as she did so, and leaning close enough for him to be aware of her perfume. Although he obviously hadn’t shaved that day, he had applied after-shave anyway. Linda was quite familiar with male toiletries, and noted that it was a brand favoured by older young men. At an unconscious level, those primitive structures of Linda’s brain concerned with reproduction interpreted this as a sign of maturity which over-rode any remaining reservations she may have felt.

His friends goggled some more. He had to breathe deeply and think of England to avoid an unbecoming state of arousal. Linda, smiling benignly but watching his expression closely, was in no doubt as to the effect she was having on him. She released his hand, into which she had surreptitiously pressed her card, and then she left him in this state and returned to her friends.

She was an unscrupulous minx, apparently.

“Well,” said Caroline, writhing as usual with envy of Linda, and never one to miss the opportunity to state the bleeding obvious. “That looked like you were coming on to a little boy for a minute, but I’m sure looks can be deceiving.”

“Yeah,” added Skye, lasciviously, “although he is a very, very sexy little boy, isn’t he, Linda?”

Caroline snorted a little, and was not to be discouraged. “You can’t be serious, Linda. For god’s sake. I mean how old is the dear little thing anyway?”

“How old does he look?” asked Linda.

“About twenty or twenty-one,” ventured Skye.

“Then that’s how old he is,” said Linda, and refused to continue talking about it. Later that night she thought about it and felt a little slutty, trampy or harlotty. Or to be exact, she felt like a paedophile. Then her husband came home and made inept and somewhat repulsive love to her, and she felt less guilty about her plans for the young man.

* * *

Billy left it a day or two, perhaps to avoid looking over-eager. “Hi, Linda,” he said. His manner was probably more worldly than he felt. “It’s Billy.”

“Billy!” she said with delight. ‘I was hoping you’d phone. Can we meet? Can you come around to my place on Wednesday? That’s my day off. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

He wasn’t absolutely certain that she meant what he hoped she meant, but he turned up as planned. After the minimum of social chit-chat, and to remove any doubt about what she meant, she reached up and kissed him thoroughly. No point in beating around the bush. He responded enthusiastically. Now that was something he was able to do very well, and she felt encouraged. The first time they made love took place as soon as they could get to the bedroom and tear off their clothes. She admitted he was beautifully groomed – no one-day growth in evidence this time – and smelled lovely: soap, cologne and toothpaste, but his bedroom skills left much to be desired.

Linda was happy to combine sex and tutorials, so threw herself wholeheartedly into the task of turning Billy into a lover of formidable finesse. And, of course, the wonderful thing about young men is that although they may come too soon at times, they are ready to begin again really quickly. Furthermore, when they have had their fill of coming, they tend to go, leaving one in peace.

Refining these skills on Wednesday afternoons, and any other time they could manage, kept them busy at their debauchery for six months, until the traumatic day of the dive through the window, when Billy escaped her husband’s ire, but Linda did not. Ben walked into the bedroom just as she finished stuffing Billy’s things under the mattress, and leapt back into bed, feigning a life-threatening illness – a heart attack or seizure probably wasn’t far from the truth.

He had the infernal cheek to pull back the bedclothes and actually, actually sniff. What a classless thing to do! Where are all the gentlemen these days, she asked herself, where are the men who, finding their wife in bed with another man, say “I’m frightfully sorry, carry on”2 and leave the room, shutting the door behind them, only bringing up the matter, apologetically, at some convenient time down the track over a gin and tonic. Even blasting off the erring spouse’s head with a shotgun would be classier than all this searching and sniffing.

2 Although, as Dave Allen used to say, “and if you can, that’s sophistication!”

Not Ben. He continued ratting around in the bed linen until he found not one but two used condoms and hurled them at her. Then he roughed her up a bit, pushing at her as he bawled her out. “Bloody whore!” he bellowed. “I knew you were up to something. Do you know how embarrassing this is, to be warned by my Senior Specialist that my wife is being unfaithful.” Now how could Thompson possibly have known? she thought, somewhere between being scared and getting angry.

“Get out, you fucking pox-infested tart!” he screamed. “Pack your things and move out. You are not spending another night under this roof!”

Linda shot out of the bed, propelled by her own fury. Naked and magnificent – Richard would have approved of the spectacle – she roughed him up in her turn, poking him hard with her finger in the middle of his chest and causing him to step back involuntarily. “You get out!” she shouted, thoroughly incensed, with eyes flashing, boobies jiggling in agitation and hair swinging dramatically. “Go on, get the fuck out! This is not just your house and I am not moving out. And if embarrassed is all you feel, then you don’t deserve me. And by the way, I may be a whore but you are a boring, boring man with as much sexual finesse as an epileptic hamster, and if I’m pox-infested, then so are you, hah!”

And so, in polite hostility, they shared the house, spending a few jolly sessions at their respective lawyers to sort out the legal issues. After inserting huge sums of money on a regular basis into their lawyers – which funded said lawyers’ holidays, tessellated tile bathroom renovations and a Harley – Linda and Ben eventually sold up and each found a place of their own. Linda quit her job and took a holiday; divorce followed with a relieved look on its face and, eventually, things settled.

Linda did not further her relationship with Billy because he was off to university soon; besides, she felt it had been tainted with trauma. She packaged up his shirt, leather coat, socks and boots, and got a courier to deliver them to his house with a short but loving note of regret. Like most teenage boys in similar circumstances, he was depressed for about a week, then started using his new skills on new women, some of them being several years older than him.

Billy reminded Linda a little of Richard, although in what way she was hard-pressed to identify, and she felt she needed to spend some time just being herself and getting Richard out of her head. So she got a job in New York, took a succession of new lovers, and enjoyed herself tremendously, although she did not marry again. She returned to England for good in 2002. At this time she felt she wanted to be home, because the mood in the U.S. was depressed and angry. Like many people she no longer felt safe anywhere. The British were – as Richard would say – grumblebums as usual, but they were her grumblebums, and home was home.

* * *

By April of 2002, condominium prices in New York were stabilising, and Linda was able to offload her apartment without the price slashing she had anticipated. It was a good time to be going back to England, having a holiday in the countryside and making plans.

By the time Linda actually arrived at her holiday cottage in Cumbria, she was worn out and in need of about a hundred years of sleep, and she really didn’t care if a handsome prince was going to be around to wake her up. But the human body being what it is, robust and self-repairing if fed well, she woke up next morning to the sound of birds and the smell of, what was that strange smell … oh yes, fresh air. Wrapped in an eiderdown, she absorbed the scene before her: grass, bright green, several acres, flowing into woodland which in turn bordered Coniston Water. When she went for a walk later, she found that Cumbria Way was nearby and she could walk until she dropped, if she wanted. Few people were in evidence as Easter was over by this time, and she felt her vitality start to return.

But with remoteness and solitude comes thinking. The Curse of Homo sapiens sapiens (cogito ergo sum really miserable), which most of us try to avoid unless it is happy thinking. She thought of Richard. No-one she had been with in the U.S., nice as they were, sexy as they could be, had come close to him. Was that because she couldn’t have him? Linda didn’t regret her reaction to his misguided proposal, but she was starting to feel she needed to see him again, or at least find out what he was doing. So she found herself at the local library, online, and trying, somewhat guiltily, to spy on his life.

She tried a biography: nothing there except the more recent additions and the information that he was back in Australia. She found some photos, and her heart started thumping uncomfortably. Then she thought of his teaching work, and tried NIDA, and the universities which ran drama-related courses, and there he was, included on the staff listings of one of the universities, and with a departmental phone number and email. There might be someone on the end of it who was disposed to pass a message onto him. She logged out quickly before she did something stupid. Her heart by now was beating in her throat and threatening to jump out on the floor and run off and find him itself. Eventually, once she had caught her heart and returned it to her chest with a stern admonition to behave itself in future, the following email was forwarded onto Richard’s private email address by the Departmental Administrative Officer.

Subject: Just Hello to Richard MacLean

Thank you for forwarding this message.

Hi Richard

This is from Linda. You know, reddish hair, bad temper, arty? I hope the kind person forwarding this on doesn’t think I am a fan. Well, I am, but not that sort of fan.

I am writing this from Ulverstone. I’m having a two week break in Cumbria. I have recently returned from a six year stint in New York and I must say I’m strangely glad to be back with the grumbly old British.

I would love to know what you are up to, I won’t write any more now but if you want to email you have the address, and if you want to phone me here is the number.

Cheers Linda

Richard sat with the email for a while, and then quickly turned off the mail program. Then just as quickly he turned it on again and read the email again. Like Miss Elizabeth Bennett with her letter from Darcy, he had to keep reading it, over and over. He eventually started writing.

Dear Linda

It was great to hear from you. I don’t know what to write to you. I start typing stilted, formal phrases and thank god for the backspace key. Can you imagine writing letters with quill and parchment? The frustration of knowing you could have phrased it better but had run out of time, paper or ink.

You know I’m not into bullshit. And that I am, naturally, a bit of a drama queen. So I have questions for you.

1. Are you writing because you are married and bored? Because if so I have to tell you I’m still not so blasé about you that I want to buy into that.

2. Are you writing because you are single and lonely?

3. Or are you writing because you miss me, and us, and you find yourself wishing that we could start again, sedately, and see where it leads us this time?

Sorry to be so blunt, but I don’t feel I have the time to fart around, these days, hence I am coming to the point.

I’ve grown up a bit in the last few years. Eliza is now eighteen and spends her time playing fiddle in a band, Bluegrass and Irish, if you can believe it, and studying Psychology. Oh, and going out with young men. One begins to feel rather de trop. But Eliza has given me a bit of instruction in how to be a modern male. She says I’m still a bit MCP, and that women are not going to put up with that anymore. I could have told her that nine years ago once I had the leisure to think about my stupidity.

If you are writing because of Possibility Number Two, I would suggest you find yourself a new lover.

But if you are writing because of Number Three, I would feel like hopping on a plane and joining you in Cumbria. Or, at the very least, talking to you on the phone.

Richard

Linda opened her emails and read Richard’s, smiling at his familiar honesty. Her mouth twisted a little, and tears ran down her cheeks. Was this sentiment, or love? she wondered, and decided she didn’t really care which, so she wrote back immediately with what was in her heart. She confirmed that number three was her motivation, that going to the library to get her emails involved an unwelcome delay, and that she would be waiting for his call.

He called her at some ungodly hour London time, without reference to the World Clock, because he couldn’t wait, and she was awake and ready for his call, despite the hour, because she couldn’t sleep.