Did Eros remember her name? - Page 9

From Griffith REVIEW Edition 26: Stories for Today
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.

Written by Frank Moorhouse

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NEXT DAY THE envy had subsided and she was alive with curiosity about his call to his girlfriend, pointlessly, cruelly half-wishing that the girl had spurned him. She did however wait as long as she could at breakfast before asking him how his call had gone. There was another converse feeling, a vicarious wish for him to succeed with the girl, and like a dazzle ball she turned – now wanting to be the girl, now wanting to be him, now wanting to be the lover of either of them, now wanting to steal their youth.

‘She's involved with a man in London. A Parisian.'

‘It's honourable enough to lose out to a Parisian,' she said, hoping that the pointless relief did not show in her voice. ‘Anyhow it sounded very much like a middle-age-crisis love affair to me.'

A life-phase change like that had landed her in her current marriage. But no, what he was doing could never be dismissed as foolishness – as long as you accepted the less than perfect result, even the devastation. Ah, the devastation – the laying waste of the spirit. All its dangerous pain.

And now, having heard of his defeat, she was still inclined to think of a shipboard romance with him here at the conference. Not a Grand Romance. She could perhaps play the role of the older lover with a younger man, buy him gifts. Become – what was the term – a ‘sugar daddy' – she could become his ‘sugar mam'. Was there such a term? She could buy him an expensive watch. A rare old volume of one of the Faust stories – perfect. She did not know upon which laws of eroticism or psychological theory this romance between them could rest. Perhaps it was one of those murky reversals of nature which carried with it some perverse, scandalous resemblance to passion – some warped erotic symmetry – she being so much older – while he was pining for someone so much younger. Perhaps she could find and bring into play this powerful erotic chemistry – if it existed – cause it to explode within him. Even – she permitted herself to consider it for the first time – even if she came to play the role of the consoling older maternal woman, or even, maybe, the mother. This was a role which had never entered her erotic experience with any man. Now might be the time to let loose its dark madness.

She would have to find the words and poetry and scene and ambience which would make such a perverse passion appealing and accomplishable.

She was pulled from her sexual witchcraft by him saying, ‘I don't see myself as "middle-aged".' He was hurt. ‘I don't think that description has any meaning anymore and certainly doesn't carry a program of behaviour to which we all have to adhere.'

‘I didn't mean to offend.'

So he too was trying to trick age. But if he was seeing himself as somewhat younger than he in fact was, then that would put him even further out of reach. Or would it add yet another perverse piquancy?

He was so right. She had never believed in ‘fixed programs of behaviour' determined by age. Especially in matters of the bed.

He became self-pitying, returning again to the girl. ‘I wanted to do a pilgrimage to the Spanish Civil War sites with her. And to visit anarchist places. I wanted to fit it in after you and I finish up here – we'd planned it for some time.'

She ate her cheese and cold cuts, wary of speaking.

He said, ‘Have you seen the film The Passenger?'

She shook her head.

‘The Antonioni film.'

She shook her head again. ‘Why?'

‘It's about a journalist played by Jack Nicholson who is turning forty and who takes on the identity of a casual acquaintance after the acquaintance dies while they are together in a remote hotel in North Africa. Nicholson decides to abandon his own life and live out the other man's diary appointments. In Barcelona, Nicholson meets a young student – Maria Schneider – who involves herself with him on his drive along the Spanish coast from Barcelona through Almería and Algeciras.'

‘And?'

‘He keeps the final appointment in the Hotel de la Gloria and meets the other man's destiny – he is shot dead in that hotel by the man's enemies.'

‘I don't follow?'

He moved about in his chair, ill at ease. ‘The film is special for me because I was approaching forty when I met this girl.'

‘The girl in London?'

‘She was seventeen years old – I'd been sent to visit the weapons testing facility at Salisbury, you know it. I was very attracted to her. And she to me.'

‘The longest rocket range in the western world.'

He nodded, acknowledging her comment, and then became silent, as if the story of the girl was uncomfortable for him. Embarrassing perhaps. Put him in a bad light. Or maybe there was genuine pain. She remained silent.

He then went on, ‘I had an impulse and asked her to drive with me to Darwin – five thousand kilometres clean across the continent and back again. She said yes. Without hesitation. And we did it. It changed my life forever.'

He pushed his breakfast platter across to her. ‘You have that. I'll just have coffee.' He said that he had an ‘indifferent appetite'.

She smiled at his little affectation. ‘Thank you. But I couldn't eat it.' She examined what he'd left, and thought she probably would eat it.

She made a move, saying, ‘I'd love to see Spain again. I was there many years ago, I hate to admit it – before, just before, the civil war. Yes, I'd like to see Spain again. I knew Ascaso, one of the brilliant minds on the anarchist side. I knew him...well.'

Very well indeed. Ascaso was by far the most dangerous man she'd ever slept with.

She would steal the trip to Spain from the young girl.

He seemed to light up. ‘Did you know Durruti, then?'

‘I would have liked to have known him, but no.'

She began to eat his breakfast leftovers, now aware that she'd impressed him. She could impress him more if she felt like playing all her cards about Spain. She could show him a great, secret Spain. She could show him where she'd watched Ascaso and others dig up buried grenades. She, in her hooded Spanish cape – a capucha, it was called – and her black leather knee boots, had observed the digging: she had not helped. She had been, after all, a neutral officer of the League. Daresay, there were still weapons buried at that spot. She could dig up an anarchist revolver for him wrapped in its brown waxed paper and oilskin. That might cheer him up: win his love.

‘I've abandoned the Spanish plans,' he said, a little irritated. ‘Anyhow, it was sentimental anarchism, a hangover from another part of my life.'

He changed the subject, saying, ‘I should try to sit in on the consultative committee to stop some of the silliness that will come out.'

She changed her tone too. ‘You're hard on the others.' She was even harder. They both shared a contempt for those who thought it all could be reversed – the uranium put back in the ground; the secrets of science locked away in a safe. To run the film backwards.

She leaned over and was about to put her hand on his, but instead took his hand and placed it over hers, concealing her blemished hand, and joked, ‘So far at this conference we have yet to hear the expression "History will prove the cynics wrong".'

Throughout the conference they'd been jokingly compiling a list of Dullard's Conference Wisdom. He now played along, saying, ‘But we have heard "only time will tell" and "crying wolf will lead to dangerous complacency".'

She added, ‘"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" and "history will be the judge".'

They laughed at the last – nuclear weapons were the one matter on which history may, in fact, not survive to judge.

He added, ‘"It will not be accomplished overnight".'

They bonded in a smile and then he looked away and lapsed into silence.

Without looking up she said, ‘If you change your mind about Spain, I would gladly come. But don't expect me to help with the driving. I have had a car with driver for so long I think I'm rather below par – I dare say it's not that much different from back home but I do recall many donkeys and flocks of sheep on the roads of Spain.'

Her proposal was sheer, breathless audacity.

‘Thank you, Edith, but as I've said, I've given up on the Spanish adventure.' His voice was cold.

She found her consoling voice. ‘You poor boy, you make it sound so tragic.'

‘No, I don't,' he said, again irritated with her. ‘It is not tragic at all. It's just something that's passed through my life. Abandoned plans. Acceptable losses. Nothing tragic.'

She wondered if he thought her offer to take the place of the girl was pitiable. Others looking in on her might think her pitiable. She did not see herself as pitiable. There was a certain steeliness now in her behaviour – it was no longer a time for artful reticence. Having served as a handmaiden to Eros in his pursuit of the young girl she could at least ask Eros for a favour back.

Did Eros still have her name on her list?

Did Eros even remember her name?   ♦