Read Online The Act of Love by Howard Jacobson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Howard Jacobson
Ads: Link
met at the Savoy and fornicated some evenings he ’d have been less disgusted.
‘I didn’t ask,’ he said, ‘for you to meet my wife in restaurants some afternoons.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ I conceded.
‘And no judge is going to believe that story anyway.’ ‘No judge?’
‘What – you think I’m not going to name you? You think I’m going to go for irreconcilable differences or whatever they call it now when I’ve got the evidence of her adultery staring me in the face?’
‘We just talk, Freddy.’
Not quite true, but true enough.
‘ Talk . I’ve seen your talk . I’ve got photographs of your talk .’
‘I doubt,’ I said, ‘that photographs of talk will cut much ice with a judge.’
A flippancy I regretted no sooner than I’d spoken it. But I’ve said that being the lover didn’t suit me. It turned me into a person I neither recognised nor liked. A jeerer. I even felt differently inside my own skin, as though I inhabited myself lightly, I a man who had always understood himself as heavy.
The husband burned his eyes into me. He too, perhaps, was playing an unaccustomed role. He lit a cigarette and threw the dead match on the carpet. I bent to pick it up.
‘We ’ll see then, shall we,’ he said. ‘We ’ll see what cuts ice , as you so elegantly put it. No doubt you are more familiar with the divorce courtsthan I am. But my feeling, for what it’s worth, is that what you mean by talk would get you a life sentence in some parts of the world.’
Which parts of the world was he referring to? Saudi Arabia? The Yemen?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think this would be a divorcing matter.’
‘That’s good of you. What would you have done had you thought it was a divorcing matter? Made shorter sentences?’
He was waving his arms about so violently I wondered if he might punch me, inadvertently, after all.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Nothing like as sorry as you will be. Rest assured, Quinn, I will take you for every penny you have.’
He made an operatic gesture with his hand, meaning, I supposed, say goodbye to all this: your shelves of modern first editions, your locked mahogany cupboards of illuminated bibles, your Berliozes, the pampered lifestyle which allows you to go out to restaurants some afternoons with other men’s wives. I even thought I knew the tune. Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso . . .
I shrugged. What else could I do? I had no instinct for being the other man.
‘And I’ll be sending back every book I have ever bought from you, together with every book you seduced my wife into buying for me – buying for me , ha, there ’s a joke I’m glad I was not privy to – for which, for which I give you fair warning, Quinn, I expect to be reimbursed with interest.’
I inclined my head. Something told me that now was not the time to remind him that we operated, as Felix Quinn: Antiquarian Booksellers had always operated, a strict no sale or return policy.
He was done with me. Breathing hard, he ascended the stairs, but before he was at street level he turned to face me. I had seen him negotiate the identical pantomime swivel on television, before delivering one of his famously saltatory pieces to camera. He tossed down what was left of his cigarette. With one hand he made a gesture suggestive of thewildest largesse, casting his five fingers to the wind, with the other he made a sort of sucking sea creature with spidery tentacles, tugging obscenely at the viewer’s attention.
‘I have one more thing to say to you, Quinn,’ he said. ‘A woman who betrays one man will betray another. That is the immutable law of woman. So: you are welcome to her. Enjoy her. Take her to your bed. Wrap her in your arms and talk to her all you like. But never forget this: tomorrow she ’ll be in someone else ’s arms, drinking in his words, abandoning herself to his conversation exactly as she abandoned herself to yours. Words are cheap, Quinn. As you should know.
‘I didn’t ask,’ he said, ‘for you to meet my wife in restaurants some afternoons.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ I conceded.
‘And no judge is going to believe that story anyway.’ ‘No judge?’
‘What – you think I’m not going to name you? You think I’m going to go for irreconcilable differences or whatever they call it now when I’ve got the evidence of her adultery staring me in the face?’
‘We just talk, Freddy.’
Not quite true, but true enough.
‘ Talk . I’ve seen your talk . I’ve got photographs of your talk .’
‘I doubt,’ I said, ‘that photographs of talk will cut much ice with a judge.’
A flippancy I regretted no sooner than I’d spoken it. But I’ve said that being the lover didn’t suit me. It turned me into a person I neither recognised nor liked. A jeerer. I even felt differently inside my own skin, as though I inhabited myself lightly, I a man who had always understood himself as heavy.
The husband burned his eyes into me. He too, perhaps, was playing an unaccustomed role. He lit a cigarette and threw the dead match on the carpet. I bent to pick it up.
‘We ’ll see then, shall we,’ he said. ‘We ’ll see what cuts ice , as you so elegantly put it. No doubt you are more familiar with the divorce courtsthan I am. But my feeling, for what it’s worth, is that what you mean by talk would get you a life sentence in some parts of the world.’
Which parts of the world was he referring to? Saudi Arabia? The Yemen?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think this would be a divorcing matter.’
‘That’s good of you. What would you have done had you thought it was a divorcing matter? Made shorter sentences?’
He was waving his arms about so violently I wondered if he might punch me, inadvertently, after all.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Nothing like as sorry as you will be. Rest assured, Quinn, I will take you for every penny you have.’
He made an operatic gesture with his hand, meaning, I supposed, say goodbye to all this: your shelves of modern first editions, your locked mahogany cupboards of illuminated bibles, your Berliozes, the pampered lifestyle which allows you to go out to restaurants some afternoons with other men’s wives. I even thought I knew the tune. Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso . . .
I shrugged. What else could I do? I had no instinct for being the other man.
‘And I’ll be sending back every book I have ever bought from you, together with every book you seduced my wife into buying for me – buying for me , ha, there ’s a joke I’m glad I was not privy to – for which, for which I give you fair warning, Quinn, I expect to be reimbursed with interest.’
I inclined my head. Something told me that now was not the time to remind him that we operated, as Felix Quinn: Antiquarian Booksellers had always operated, a strict no sale or return policy.
He was done with me. Breathing hard, he ascended the stairs, but before he was at street level he turned to face me. I had seen him negotiate the identical pantomime swivel on television, before delivering one of his famously saltatory pieces to camera. He tossed down what was left of his cigarette. With one hand he made a gesture suggestive of thewildest largesse, casting his five fingers to the wind, with the other he made a sort of sucking sea creature with spidery tentacles, tugging obscenely at the viewer’s attention.
‘I have one more thing to say to you, Quinn,’ he said. ‘A woman who betrays one man will betray another. That is the immutable law of woman. So: you are welcome to her. Enjoy her. Take her to your bed. Wrap her in your arms and talk to her all you like. But never forget this: tomorrow she ’ll be in someone else ’s arms, drinking in his words, abandoning herself to his conversation exactly as she abandoned herself to yours. Words are cheap, Quinn. As you should know.
Similar Books
