Varying Degrees of Hopelessness Page 4

  That was the last thing he remembered before he suddenly registered that she was sitting at his table. ‘So,’ he said, somewhat at a loss. ‘You wanted to discuss paintings?’

  ‘Later,’ said Pol, and kissed him.

  Her kiss gave Syms sensations that were entirely new to him.

  Bolts of lightning coursed through his body as they had never coursed through it before.

  It was a rapture and an ecstasy that exceeded anything he had ever dreamt of as love.

  Never in his life had he felt that he must protect and love a woman as he loved Pol: unselfishly.

  With a flaming desire for her happiness which came not from his body, but from his soul.

  It was so wonderful that nothing else in the world mattered except her and her lips.

  As she kissed him more fiercely, violently, demandingly, he saw stars.

  It was as if they were flying in the sky and the stars were twinkling in their hearts.

  Syms, horrified by his gushing sentiments, hurriedly hauled himself up and hastened home.

  Pol’s Job

  Pol had not always supplemented her grant with belly-dancing. She had only recently become proficient enough at the more complex contortions. Her first job as a student had been conducting a survey of why people travelled by tube. It only called for a few hours of her time, during peak periods.

  ‘Why are you using the Underground today, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  She was amused by their defensiveness, their endless self-justifying answers. As if tube-travel required a moral basis! All she wanted to know was whether or not they were depressed during their journeys on the Underground. If so, money might be allocated for some piped music.

  This fruitless enquiry gave her the idea of applying for her next job, which was choosing the music to accompany the test screen on BBC2. But there was eventually less and less screening of the test screen. She had hoped it might lead to better things, like helping with Mainly for Pleasure on Radio 3, or even reading out the shipping forecasts (‘Portland, Plymouth, Biscay … Faroes and S.E. Iceland …’). But it led nowhere.

  Encounters with Cragshaw

  I tried to keep my encounters with Cragshaw to a minimum.

  So few students took his course in Nature Morte, I was sometimes the only one there.

  I do not like being alone in a room with a man I hardly know.

  I do not even like being alone in a room with a man I do know.

  Especially a man like Dr Cragshaw.

  And a room that smells bad.

  I felt an animosity vibrating from him, as it does from villainous characters in novels.

  I also saw nothing romantic about a load of slides showing tiny areas of a painting.

  It did not seem to me that Chardin appeared at his best in small details taken out of context.

  I had expected something more of the Catafalque Institute, Purport Place.

  After all, my life savings, along with a certain amount of my mother’s competition income, were paying for this.

  And I was hardly ever being allowed to see an entire painting all at once!

  It was not romantic.

  The room was dank.

  Dr Cragshaw seemed sinister.

  He never put ‘This is splendid!’ on my essays.

  He never looked me in the eye.

  He seemed to have no amorous intentions whatsoever.

  But suddenly one day, when I was sitting there feeling these awkward feelings and Dr Cragshaw was showing me some slides of Chardin’s earliest oblong brushstroke, I noticed something familiar.

  The illusionistic painting of a relief sculpture that we were looking at reminded me of a painting my mother had won in a raffle.

  Alan, my step-father, had insisted on buying up most of the 10p raffle tickets.

  The draw included a bottle of Liebfraumilch and a jar of mincemeat, but Alan was only interested in the dirty old painting that had come out of somebody’s grandmother’s garage.

  This was how Alan always won competitions.

  If there was a competition offer on a box of cereal, he would buy fifty boxes.

  He scoured the supermarket to find these opportunities.

  He spent most of his time filling out forms and coupons, inventing slogans, and rubbing silver paint off bonanza cards with a coin.

  As a result of which, the flat was now full of lounge suites, microwave ovens and knick-knacks in questionable taste.

  In the end, much to Alan’s surprise, it was my mother’s single raffle ticket that won the hamper with the painting in it.

  It was a picture of angelic children carved in white stone.

  I mentioned this to Dr Cragshaw.

  It was astonishingly like the Chardin painting he’d shown me.

  Perhaps ours was by the Master himself!

  Dr Cragshaw said it was probably by a nobody.

  Everyone was doing classical relief paintings in those days, and it was not even a genre in which Chardin had been particularly proficient.

  Dr Cragshaw said he was merely showing me the painting as an example of oblong, as opposed to heart-shaped, brushstrokes.

  I didn’t trouble him further.

  But I was determined to bring the painting in so that Dr Cragshaw could look at it.

  Surely he, if anyone, would be able to detect the Master’s hand.

  So it is not surprising that I arrived in Dr Cragshaw’s rooms early the next morning, with the picture under my arm.

  Dr Cragshaw was lying under a table.

  At first I was worried.

  I thought he might have taken a tumble.

  But he said he was just looking for a lost slide.

  As he seemed disinclined to get up from that unusual position, I explained the nature of my mission, and asked if I could leave the picture for him to look at later.

  He said yes.

  I asked him where I should put it.

  He suggested that I put it under the table with him.

  It was all a little strange, but I felt in no position to query his way of doing things.

  From his position under the table, he probably could hardly hear me anyway.

  I hurried off with the customary keen apprehension and anticipation.

  My days at the Catafalque were filled with the glory of love in all its odd manifestations.

  For I never knew when I would see the Splendid Young Man next!

  Nor whose shoulders he might be encircling in a jovial manner.

  There was always the tantalizing possibility that they might yet again, some day, be mine.

  The Rescue of Isabella

  I, Isabel, at thirty-one years of age, had reached a turning-point in my life.

  I was tired of watching my mother’s doomed relationship with Alan, my step-father, at each stage in its inevitable decline.

  Their latest argument was about whether or not they should take a trip to Malta they’d won or sell the tickets.

  They should never have married, I thought, as I listened to the dreadful arguments over Malta.

  My mother wanted to go.

  She seemed to have no shame at all about wearing a swimming-costume.

  The thought of her sunning herself in front of Alan with hardly any clothes on appalled me.

  He would have an excellent opportunity to study all her faults.

  I did not know how she had the nerve.

  In front of a man so much younger than herself!

  Alan clearly had no desire to see my mother in a swimming-costume.

  It was all very unpleasant.

  They should never have married.

  They were not perfectly suited.

  Thus, the time was ripe.

  After devoting myself to my family for thirty-one years or so, it was time for me to spread my wings.

  A girl at the Catafalque had offered me a room in her flat.

  She lived in a Bohemian neighbourhood near King’s Cross.

  I thought it sounde
d romantic.

  I had admired her for some time, on account of the way she dealt with the tutors, especially Splutters.

  I could no longer refer to him as Professor Splutters.

  For, on one unfortunate day that I will never forget, he … ex … posed himself to me.

  I was eating my sandwich on a bench in the Gardens of the Catafalque Institute.

  The pigeons were cooing, the sun beamed, and one might have expected a harmless and delightful hour could have been passed there beneath the trees.

  All at once, I heard someone calling out, ‘Isabella, Isabella’, in a whispery sort of voice.

  Which is not the sort of name or voice I’m accustomed to hearing, but I began to realize it was directed at me, and that it came from above.

  Rather in the hope of seeing God than Man, I looked up.

  And there was Splutters, in a state of semi-undress.

  Of course I covered my face as best I could with my sandwich and rushed inside.

  I did not know who was the more embarrassed, he or I.

  Although there was no sign of it – I mean of his embarrassment – during his class, which I had to attend later that day.

  Afterwards, he was standing by the door like a priest, seeing people out.

  Feeling fragile after our arboreal experience, I was anxious to escape quickly, but found myself delayed by his hand upon my arm.

  He spoke to me of Kant.

  I, who stutter over the names of philosophers.

  I, who cannot pronounce ‘human’ for the Hume in it.

  I, who falter over ‘sartorial’ because of Sartre.

  I, who therefore had always dreaded more than anything the day when I would be required to say something about Kant.

  I, who felt faint with repulsion towards Splutters and his thingy anyway.

  His hand upon my arm.

  His tomatoey tie.

  His dishevelled appearance.

  He, who had obviously reclothed himself with careless haste.

  And yet I felt incapable of escaping his evil grasp.

  Then Pol, a rather big sort of girl, briskly flung me through the door in front of her, and Splutters had to let go.

  I was free!

  Sensing my feminine helplessness and gratitude, Pol dabbed at my eyes with a tissue.

  She offered to give me a few tips on how to deal with such occasions in future.

  I was intrigued.

  And it was thus that I met my future flat-mate.

  She was not as pretty as I.

  In fact she was rather overweight.

  I hoped she would let me help her go on a diet.

  Then I would be able to return the good deed she had done me that day.

  We would both meet the men of our dreams.

  The man of your dreams is worth losing weight for.

  So I informed my mother that I was moving out.

  She made no objection to my plan.

  Alan, my step-father, told me to make the most of my salad days.

  Our Heroine’s New Life

  Pol’s flat was very untidy.

  I managed to make my mark on it right away.

  She was surprised when I got the Hoover out.

  She hadn’t realized there was one.

  The only thing in the fridge was some Stolichnaya vodka, and that was in the freezer compartment.

  The place needed tea and toast in a big way!

  But, despite her obvious faults, Pol was well worth knowing.

  She was a fund of information.

  She knew how to make telephone calls without them appearing on the bill – a trick she had learned from a man.

  She knew a lot about men.

  Once I asked her if it hurt men to shave.

  She uttered a succession of blasphemous phrases, the gist of which was that if men had kept quiet all these years about the suffering they endured whilst shaving, she would forgive them everything.

  I sometimes felt that Pol was rather hard on men.

  Perhaps because, being an overweight person, she hadn’t had much luck with them.

  Of course, I never mentioned this thought.

  In fact, I never used the word ‘fat’ in her presence, in case it hurt her feelings.

  Even when we had ham and I was trimming it, I just said I was cutting off the ‘white bits’.

  I was also rather worried that she might feel envious of how good I looked in jeans.

  So when I started living with her, I put them away and always wore skirts.

  Pol on Nuts

  She had long pranced across the stunned, disapproving faces of England’s modest hordes. But she had never taken one under her wing. Pol was sometimes so dumbstruck by Isabel’s behaviour that she wondered if there had been a degree of insanity in her offer to Isabel of a room in her flat. But she couldn’t afford to live there alone. And Isabel was fascinated by Pol, which is always pleasing.

  She felt too that Isabel badly needed her help. Something had to be done about Isabel’s perpetual virginity, if only because it was grating increasingly on Pol’s nerves. She was prepared to deflower Isabel herself if necessary – anything to stop the woman talking and washing up for a few minutes. And Pol rather liked the way Isabel looked in jeans. She had a perfect, slightly too fulsome ass.

  But guiding Isabel through all her anxieties was a daunting task. Pol’s wisdom often took the form of a tirade. Isabel once complained that people seemed to treat her differently when they found out she was allergic to nuts.

  ‘OK, so you’re allergic to nuts!’ yelled Pol, attempting to be pleasant about it but failing. ‘You don’t beat people up or steal their pension books, you don’t rape and pillage. You’re just a little awkward about curries and cakes. You’re no good to anyone who likes experimenting with foreign confectionery, this is true. Nuts make you itch. I admit it makes you a lousy dinner guest. But there are people in this world who object to women who wear red lipstick! Compared to that, what’s a little aversion to brazil nuts?’

  Isabel was comforted by this, despite the abrasive tone. In fact, Pol’s headstrong manner often reminded Isabel of the romantic heroines in Babs Cartwheel’s novels.

  One Summer Evening

  The outing was not a success. It had taken place in Brentford. Pol met Chris there for a fourth-century Greek play, made into a musical and staged in a swimming-pool. The props consisted of a great many inflatable toys of every variety. The weather was warm, there was no ventilation in the viewing area above the pool, and the entire audience was fainting from the heat. Pol’s feet had swollen inside her shoe-fetishist high-heels, and trains back to civilization were infrequent.

  She and Chris had not found it an erotically inspiring experience, and they parted glumly at Waterloo in search of different night buses. But by this time, Pol could hardly walk. She hailed a cab: it was to be one of those extremely expensive pleasureless evenings. Perhaps she was tiring of Chris. His conventional home-life and unoriginal though ardent adultery depressed her. She saw it reflected in all the dingy flats she glimpsed through uncurtained windows as she sped home. By the time she arrived, she was lost in ill-humoured reverie. Another sore point was that just ahead of them as they neared her place was the night bus she should have caught.

  ‘That’ll be £3.20,’ said the taxi-driver.

  Pol gave him a five-pound note and, being a good tipper, said, ‘Just give me one.’

  ‘Just GIVE you one?’ he smirked lasciviously. ‘I’d like to give YOU one any time, love.’

  Pol laughed. She was pleased with his emphasis. She was taken with his dirty inflections and his keen eyes. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come in for a moment and we could discuss the matter,’ she said.

  They managed to get inside the door and get the door shut and get more or less beyond the unerotic straw mat (Isabel’s only contribution to the flat so far) before his hands were gripping her ass and her legs encircled his. Their moans were in miniature, through haste and secrecy. They both
wanted it fast. No desire for courtship or condoms. He seemed so big. SHE seemed so big. Two strangers with a shared sense of scale.

  Isabel slept right through this, but she was to become aware of the taxi-driver on a few subsequent occasions. It mystified her that, wherever Pol’s men came from, they always came back. They clamoured, they clambered, for attention, and Pol had to deal severely with them. She had no time for mere repetitions of delicious events.

  The 32-year-old Woman Walks Home

  I decided to walk back to Pol’s place that day.

  It wasn’t far to King’s Cross.

  Especially when one is in love.

  I wondered if he felt the chemistry between us.

  The way I melted when he arrived in the cafeteria.

  His tray next to mine as we searched for something edible.

  It was tantalizing.

  It was cruel.

  It was delightful.

  It was unbearable.

  He was so tall, athletic and aristocratic.

  He was young and splendid, and he liked me!

  I was sure of it.

  On my way home, I noticed a book-shop on a corner.

  Perhaps they would have one of the Splendid Young Man’s books on Impressionism.

  If it was in paperback, I would definitely buy it.

  I felt it was time I read the Splendid Young Man’s books.

  I had enjoyed many exciting afternoons looking for them on the shelves of the Catafalque library, but had never found any.

  When I entered the shop, I was pleased to discover that it specialized in art books.

  I did not dare ask for assistance in my quest.

  I feared I might blush inordinately.

  And not at all becomingly.

  Like some sort of freak, really.

  Yet the shop-keeper already seemed to be looking at me as if I were a little surprising.