out why.
So?
When did the realization really happen?Â
When did the realization really happen? When did it occur to me to leave? I can remember passing the critical point during one of my meandering conversations with Victor in the bar we go to. I thought, looking at all the free people ordering drinks, whatâsto stop me getting out and never coming back? But the idea was too cruel and subversive. Immediately I was filled with self-disgust, and saw myself from the back, running, a picture of all the other cowardly men who had fled.
That was eight or nine months ago. Nina and I would meet hurriedly before I had to be home with Susan. If thereâs nothing more likely to make you feel abandoned, desolate and left out than sexual betrayal, perhaps the only way not to feel it, is to feel nothing for the woman. It seemed a kind of freedom to encourage Nina to see other men, to have her tell me about them and for me to laugh at them.
âHow many have you seen this week? And what did the last one do to you?â
âHe kissed me.â
âAnd you let him?â
âYes.â
âAnd then he puts his hands on you. And you, no doubt, put these hands that Iâm kissing now on him. And ââ
The more she told me, the more beautiful she looked. The more I removed myself, the more I hoped she would pursue me. Yes, I wanted her to followme as I turned away, but I was also afraid of her feeling discouraged.
I have wavered
I have wavered, vacillated and searched myself for a reason to stay. But once the devil voice of temptation had spoken it wouldn’t retract. Yet still I waited! For what? To be absolutely sure. ‘Nothing’s gonna change my world,’ Lennon sang.
At home I made myself powerless and impotent. I could barely walk. What reason was there for putting one foot in front of the other? At night, when Susan was asleep, I couldn’t turn on the lights; in the dark I wore sunglasses and hoped to fall over. Nina saw me shrivelling. If I was powerless I would be innocent. I couldn’t damage anyone; blameless, I couldn’t encourage retribution. I wished to be wishless!
For a year Nina visited me every two or three weeks
For a year Nina visited me every two or three weeks at the flat I was using as an office. It was a roomy place, owned by an actor who was working in America. She was living in Brighton, where all runaways and lost individualists end up, teaching English to foreigners, always a last resort for the directionless. I met her – or picked her up; I was in that kind of moodone Sunday afternoon, feeling magnetic or ‘on’ – in a theatre café in London. It was a place I never normally visited, except that a photographer friend had an exhibition there. She was with another girl and as I looked at them I recalled Casanova’s advice that it is easier to pick up two women at once than one on her own. After many smiles and a few words, I left. She came after me.
‘Join me for tea,’ I said.
‘When?’
‘How about in an hour?’
She stayed all evening. In a hurry for love after all this time, I behaved foolishly and, if I remember rightly, spent some time on my knees. She came back the next day.
She was a girl then, looking for someone to take the pressure off. She had run away from home when her mother’s boyfriend smashed through the glass in the front door with his hands, and she was forced to hide in a cupboard. She was an unhappy and changeable girl, who often lost herself in inexplicable moods. She had never much been cared for, and kept herself apart. She needed to think she could get by without anyone.
When I first met her, she wore cheap, light, hippie clothes, and hadn’t cut her hair. She still blushed and turned away her face. When she spoke it was in a voice so soft I could hardly make her out.
‘What?’
‘What is your situation?’ she said.
‘As regards what?’
‘Everything.’
‘Ah. My situation.’
‘Yes. Will you tell me?’
‘I will
So?
When did the realization really happen?Â
When did the realization really happen? When did it occur to me to leave? I can remember passing the critical point during one of my meandering conversations with Victor in the bar we go to. I thought, looking at all the free people ordering drinks, whatâsto stop me getting out and never coming back? But the idea was too cruel and subversive. Immediately I was filled with self-disgust, and saw myself from the back, running, a picture of all the other cowardly men who had fled.
That was eight or nine months ago. Nina and I would meet hurriedly before I had to be home with Susan. If thereâs nothing more likely to make you feel abandoned, desolate and left out than sexual betrayal, perhaps the only way not to feel it, is to feel nothing for the woman. It seemed a kind of freedom to encourage Nina to see other men, to have her tell me about them and for me to laugh at them.
âHow many have you seen this week? And what did the last one do to you?â
âHe kissed me.â
âAnd you let him?â
âYes.â
âAnd then he puts his hands on you. And you, no doubt, put these hands that Iâm kissing now on him. And ââ
The more she told me, the more beautiful she looked. The more I removed myself, the more I hoped she would pursue me. Yes, I wanted her to followme as I turned away, but I was also afraid of her feeling discouraged.
I have wavered
I have wavered, vacillated and searched myself for a reason to stay. But once the devil voice of temptation had spoken it wouldn’t retract. Yet still I waited! For what? To be absolutely sure. ‘Nothing’s gonna change my world,’ Lennon sang.
At home I made myself powerless and impotent. I could barely walk. What reason was there for putting one foot in front of the other? At night, when Susan was asleep, I couldn’t turn on the lights; in the dark I wore sunglasses and hoped to fall over. Nina saw me shrivelling. If I was powerless I would be innocent. I couldn’t damage anyone; blameless, I couldn’t encourage retribution. I wished to be wishless!
For a year Nina visited me every two or three weeks
For a year Nina visited me every two or three weeks at the flat I was using as an office. It was a roomy place, owned by an actor who was working in America. She was living in Brighton, where all runaways and lost individualists end up, teaching English to foreigners, always a last resort for the directionless. I met her – or picked her up; I was in that kind of moodone Sunday afternoon, feeling magnetic or ‘on’ – in a theatre café in London. It was a place I never normally visited, except that a photographer friend had an exhibition there. She was with another girl and as I looked at them I recalled Casanova’s advice that it is easier to pick up two women at once than one on her own. After many smiles and a few words, I left. She came after me.
‘Join me for tea,’ I said.
‘When?’
‘How about in an hour?’
She stayed all evening. In a hurry for love after all this time, I behaved foolishly and, if I remember rightly, spent some time on my knees. She came back the next day.
She was a girl then, looking for someone to take the pressure off. She had run away from home when her mother’s boyfriend smashed through the glass in the front door with his hands, and she was forced to hide in a cupboard. She was an unhappy and changeable girl, who often lost herself in inexplicable moods. She had never much been cared for, and kept herself apart. She needed to think she could get by without anyone.
When I first met her, she wore cheap, light, hippie clothes, and hadn’t cut her hair. She still blushed and turned away her face. When she spoke it was in a voice so soft I could hardly make her out.
‘What?’
‘What is your situation?’ she said.
‘As regards what?’
‘Everything.’
‘Ah. My situation.’
‘Yes. Will you tell me?’
‘I will
Similar Books
