For the driver who wanted a challenge, no better place than Beirut. The city was a maze of narrow, traffic-jammed, one-way streets, and the only concession to any notion of order was the occasional appearance at street-corners of a frantic, permanently whistle-blowing policeman. Old-timers told the tale of a committee of French experts tasked with designing a new traffic system; after a few days in the city they gave up in despair, advising the authorities not to change anything – by some miracle, the anarchy worked. Cars shot out from any direction – one-way street or not – and in any direction: the Lebanese were just as adept at driving backwards as forwards. By nature, they were fast drivers too, although along the one-mile strip of Hamra Street, where the young blades showed off their wheels and whistled at the girls, pedestrians could race a car and win.
Not all our friends in Beirut had cars. After all, the taxis were reliable, cheap and fun – stopping every hundred yards or so to cram in another passenger. But after we’d been living there for a fortnight we discovered that a car, for us, was a necessity, even though all we could afford was a Volkswagen that would have flunked its road-test back in Britain ten years ago.
The problem was our apartment. It was in the centre of the city, but somehow it didn’t seem to be near any landmarks – like hotels, shopping centres, cinemas, even sandwich shops. In most places this wouldn’t have been a big issue, certainly not a reason for buying a car, but in Beirut it mattered. As far as we could tell, most of the streets were anonymous – nobody had ever bothered to name them. So if you used a taxi, there were only three possible ways to direct the driver home: by mentioning your local landmark, by telling him the name of your apartment block’s owner (remarkably, the drivers always knew them), or by giving instructions in Arabic. Claire and I failed on all three counts – we couldn’t even pronounce, let alone remember, our owner’s name – and consequently we seemed to spend half our time in those first two weeks being driven around an unfamiliar, labyrinthine city in search of our house. In sheer frustration we bought the VW.
By now we were getting familiar with the routes, at least in our corner of the city, and we were soon back at the elusive apartment. We lived on the seventh – and top – floor of a brand-new block surrounded by other brand-new blocks. It was an area that had once known more modest and probably more dignified times: the handful of single-storey Arab-style houses with orange-trees and gardens, nestling between the brash concrete newcomers, were proof of that.
I flicked on the lights and the room glared at us. It was cheap vulgar light, highlighting cracks and bumps in the white plastered walls, smears of cement on the floor-tiles, and awkward angles everywhere. What a contrast from Lawrence’s place! His, for all its eccentricity, was relaxed and comfortable, its character formed by years of habit. Ours was a young upstart: aggressive, unaccommodating, eager to stamp its authority on you before you tried to make anything of it.
And yet, just as Lawrence’s apartment was an extension of his personality, this one reflected ours. Ever since we’d married – four years ago – we’d never been able to settle down. Always in the back of our minds was the feeling that someday soon we were going to travel, because when you’re an English-language teacher, that’s what you do. And so, although we’d stayed in London most of the time, we’d never lived in the same place for more than a year. And we never bought anything for the house – furniture, carpets, curtains, even house-plants – which would make us feel like permanent residents. Even when we decided to come to Beirut, it was on the strict understanding that we wouldn’t stay longer than a year. We kept moving, but it was always the same makeshift chairs and tables, the same bare walls, and the same hard yellow light.
As soon as we got in, Claire fed Jason, then took him through to the bedroom to put him to bed. Jason slept in our room. He had to, because the room adjacent to ours, which you might have expected to be the second bedroom, was an architect’s ingenious attempt to provide a balcony in a flat that shouldn’t have one. On three of its sides it had walls just like an ordinary room, but the fourth, at the front, was open to the elements. There was just an aluminium railing, set at the perfect height for contemplation of the traffic, seven floors below. Claire was terrified Jason would one day fall between the bars, so the room was strictly out of bounds – to all of us.
Claire hadn’t reappeared from the bedroom, so I went through to see what she was doing. She was half-undressed, standing in front of the mirror, examining her breasts. This was a twice-weekly ritual ever since she read a magazine article on the importance of regular self-checking for cancer. It was the same article that made her give up smoking – and me too I suppose, because after that, her look of reproach every time I lit up left me feeling like a moral leper. Claire was very good at guilt. In fact I sometimes wondered whether the main reason she did her cancer check in front of me was so I would start looking for lumps too.
– How many this time?
It was my usual joke, and it got the usual response: none.
I sat on the bed and then lay back, luxuriating, marvelling at this lady’s beautiful, non-cancerous breasts and shoulders and, as she turned to me, her face. Still, after four years, I could sometimes hardly believe I’d married the best-looking woman I’d ever met. Before Claire, I’d envied other people their girlfriends. Now I never even noticed other women. Well, not until Monique. Not until Monique. What was so different about her? I hardly knew her. I had to get things into perspective.
Claire sat down in front of the mirror and began another ritual – brushing out her hair. Thick golden hair, hanging long in loose curls. It was the hair I’d noticed that night the first time I saw her at The Cellar. The club was run by some charity organisation in Ladbroke Grove: their idea of charity was to offer a stool, a spotlight and an audience to the aspiring singers and poets of West London – from Paddington to Shepherds Bush they came. As soon as you went in, you could tell more people came to perform than to listen. It was my first time and would probably have been my last, except that two rows in front of me there was a gorgeous blonde. At least, she might be gorgeous: by some curious trick of the light-show her hair seemed to sparkle gold, and that seemed promising. But no matter how far I casually leaned to the side, I couldn’t make out her face, even when she turned to talk to the girl beside her.
Gradually, as the songs and poems began to drone and intone themselves into my brain, I began to lose faith. You couldn’t expect much, not in a place like this. It would be the usual disappointment. But somewhere amidst the evening’s many incantations – perhaps even heavily disguised in the frenzied strumming, manic whoops, and unintentional but deadly accurate spittle of the final performer – there must have been magic. Because when the lights came on she was perfect, and I was already in love.
She brushed past my chair at the end of the row without noticing me.
The next week I went back and there she was again – with the same girl-friend, I quickly observed, not with a man. The next week it was the same, and the same the week after. Each week I was ready with a new plan to meet her. And each week the plan failed because, while the flesh was willing – God, how it was willing! – the spirit clearly preferred to stand and wait outside the Cellar door. Even when once or twice I thought she glanced at me (or was it someone behind? – I didn’t dare look), my mouth wouldn’t smile, although I could tell by the aching in my jaws that the brain was sending all the right messages.
The sixth week I was late. All the seats seemed to be taken and I joined the group around the soft-drinks counter at the back. When I got used to the darkness I saw just one space – next to her! This was the moment. Now I would discover whether I was a man or a mouse.
I was a mouse.
For ten minutes I stood contemplating the empty chair, working out what I would say if I did go to sit there. Then I tried to concentrate on the music. Then I decided to leave. But the chair held me like a magnet.
She turned round and smiled at me.
As I sat down, she was whispering in my ear.
– What took you so long?
– I … er … thought maybe someone was sitting here.
– Every week?
– No. Don’t you have … I mean, aren’t you with someone?
– Yes, he’s six foot eight and he’s waiting outside.
– What’s your name?
Love at first sight!
– Richard, what do you think about what Lawrence was saying?
– What about?
– All the shooting today.
– Doesn’t sound very good, does it?
– It sounds awful. What if there is a war?
– Oh I shouldn’t think it’ll come to that. I get the impression Lawrence is a bit of a sensationalist, don’t you?
– But he knows what’s going on.
– Yes, but you know what journalists are like.
That was the sort of thing you heard people saying in Beirut. As the words came out of my mouth, I felt I was learning the language.
Claire was still working on her hair, holding a strand with one hand and carefully pulling the brush through it with the other, wincing in the mirror as she caught a tangle.
– Do you like them, Rick?
– Lawrence and Monique? Yes, I’ve got a feeling we could get very close.
– I hope Monique’s OK. It’s an awful shock when something like that happens.
– Oh she’ll be all right I should think. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was upset by all that Palestinian business too. After all, she is a Palestinian.
– Yes but she’s not one of those Palestinians. I mean her family’s very respectable, her father’s a banker, isn’t he? She’s very attractive Richard, don’t you think?
That was difficult to answer. I knew what I felt, but what could I say?
– Yes, she is pretty, I suppose – but don’t worry, she hasn’t got a thing on you.
It was an ugly sensation, lying to Claire. It was as if the words had curdled in my mouth; there was a sour aftertaste. She put down her brush and swivelled round on the stool to face me. Wearing only her skirt and her shoes she looked vulnerable, and a shadow of accusation crossed her face. For a second I was terrified those deep blue eyes had penetrated my soul.
– Richard, I was a bit surprised at you this evening.
– Why?
– Well, after the explosion, you went rushing straight in to help Monique and you didn’t give a second thought to Jason.
– Yes but it was Monique who was hurt.
– I know, but Jason is our son, Richard. I really think you might have given him a bit more thought …
– But he was all right.
– Yes he was, thank goodness, but you weren’t to know that at the time, were you? None of us knew what had happened.
This was getting dangerous. Somehow I had to change the course of the conversation.
– I’m sorry, love. Anyway, what do you think of Lawrence?
– Lawrence? Oh he’s a darling.
– I see, so he’s a darling, is he? And where does that leave me?
– A close second, darling. Darling, let’s go to bed.
– Already? It’s only nine-thirty.
– Uh-huh. And tonight nine-thirty is a perfect time to go to bed. Don’t you want to?
It wasn’t that I was reluctant to go to bed with Claire, just surprised she should have made the suggestion. Claire was always the one who didn’t want to go to bed yet.
– This is a change!
– Darling, don’t make fun of me. You’re always complaining that you always have to ask me and that I never take the initiative. Well tonight I want to go to bed and I want to make love with my husband, if that’s all right with you.
– You should know by now you don’t have to ask me.
In ten seconds flat I was undressed, but Claire was even faster, waiting for me on the bed.
– I’se a-waitin’ for yuh, baby.
– I’se a comin’, I’se a comin’.
Claire had smooth, taut-muscled skin, and I loved to take my time with her, running my fingers down from her shoulders, slowly across her breasts, along the ribs pressed up tight against the flesh, then down to her stomach …
But Claire had other ideas. She was in a hurry.
– Come inside me, darling. I want you inside me.
She had never liked me to touch her. To make me feel better, to assure me it wasn’t my fault, she used to tell me it was because of the training she’d had from her father. When she was a little girl he taught her to play a game: he put his hand on her knee and she was supposed to slap him. The habit had persisted, as her first boyfriends had discovered to their cost; one false move and they got it in the face. Even now, for Claire, sex was the serious business of intercourse and she hated what she called fooling around.
She flinched as I fumbled and flailed toward the entrance. In exasperation she took me in her hand and guided me there. But it was too soon. She was too tight. As usual.
She gasped as I thrust deeper inside her, then clutched my shoulders and pressed me harder down onto her. She blew lightly across my ear, a trick I’d taught her.
– I love you, Richard Devine.
– And I love you.
But at that moment it was only my mouth saying the words. My mind was saying: Why can’t it be easier? Why does it always have to be such a struggle? So conventional, so rehearsed, so restrained? I wanted to stroke her, to let my hands wander across her – but they were pinned down between us, useless beneath her body. In fact, my left arm was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. Time to remember mother’s advice: a gentleman takes the weight on his elbows. I raised myself and extricated my arms.
Claire stiffened.
– What’s wrong? Am I hurting?
– My hair. You’re lying on my hair.
– I’m sorry, darling.
I lifted first one elbow, then the other, and Claire tucked invisible wisps of hair behind her head, out of danger.
– Got it all?
– I’m sorry, Richard. It’s just that it hurt. But you’re feeling very good to me tonight.
And in an effort to prove it, she ran her finger-nails lightly down my back, then set about her love-making with redoubled vigour and determination.
Why was it that sex with Claire always made me feel like a schoolboy? A gauche, incompetent novice? Was it my fault or hers? In every other respect, life with Claire was uncomplicated, natural and right – much more right than most other relationships I’d seen. Only when it came to sex were we unable to satisfy one another. Why, Claire never even seemed to climax. She never complained, but it was an affront to me, a question-mark against my virility. To make it worse, tonight I wasn’t having much better success either.
There was no music in this pushing and heaving, straining and grunting. Our bodies were grimy with sweat. The sheet below us felt like a damp greasy rag. The whole exercise had become a test of physical endurance.
– I’m sorry I’m so long. Are you sore?
– No, I’m OK. I’m enjoying it.
Enjoying it? How could she be enjoying this mockery of the sexual act? Was she just saying it to please me, because she thought I was enjoying it? My mind focused fiercely, front and centre. Ignore the pain that flares each time I thrust forward. Forget that the skin feels as if it’s being torn from my body. Push … push … push. Dear Lord, if You love me, let me come and put an end to this torment. Strengthen me and make me not flaccid.
Now I could feel it coming.
A little more!
But Jason was awake and whimpering at the other side of the room. Claire tensed, then stopped.
– Oh please darling, just a little longer!
It was no good. Jason was howling, terrified perhaps that his parents were inflicting such bestiality upon one another. Claire pushed upward on my chest.
– Richard, I’m sorry. We must see to him. Perhaps we can finish in a minute.
I moaned and rolled off her. It was already too late. I was already dead, drained of sexual energy and interest. The time would not come again – not tonight.
Claire was naked next to the cot, rocking Jason gently in her arms, sometimes tickling him under the chin or on the stomach. Slowly the screaming subsided to a gurgling and chuckling, a counterpoint to Claire’s soft words of comfort.
– Jason, Jason, it’s Mummy. Yes. It’s all right. Were you having a bad dream then? Did you want to see your Mummy?
How I hated my son sometimes. What right had he to dominate our private life? Why should he get his gratification instantly and deny me mine?
But as I cooled down, a darker, more sombre mood flowed across me, gathering like a black stain on my mind, blotting out my future with Claire. No, it wasn’t Jason’s fault. In fact, he’d probably saved us from total corruption. Wasn’t sex supposed to be holy? The body is a temple, and all that? A sanctified expression of love? What we’d just performed was an act of animal nature – mating, coupling, copulation, call it what you like – it had nothing to do with love. I might as well have masturbated. And this was with Claire, the woman I’d adored for years!
– He’s fast asleep. Do you want to try again, darling?
Could she really be serious? Was she so completely unaware of our degradation? Or did she perhaps feel this was a wifely duty she should perform for me? I loved her for her devotion, hated her for her lack of understanding.
– No, I can’t. Not tonight.
– Well, never mind. Perhaps it’ll be better next time.
But she didn’t sound convinced and, after leaning over to switch out the bedside light, she stayed at the far side of the bed, facing away from me. I was certainly not convinced. There had been nights like this before, lots of them, now I thought about it. What was different about tonight was my detachment, the cold realisation of how bad things had really become.
Before, I was a child, I hardly knew myself. Now I had knowledge. And the Tree of Knowledge was where evil began, wasn’t that right? Strange how my thoughts were suddenly so biblical. From the Devil proceedeth Knowledge … was that from the Bible or something I’d just invented? And where had my Knowledge come from? From Monique. Then Monique was the Devil. Or Monique was my Eve, my natural mate, woman before all women. Perfect. But fallen, and tempting me to fall. Together we were destined to eternal sin for our weakness of choice and our strength to choose. I was exiled from Paradise, and my understanding strode on and on through the Garden, trampling down the undergrowth, snapping past twigs and tendrils. A sinner is free to do so much damage. Outside, Monique was waiting for me; and if Paradise was now my Hell, who could say that Hell might not be my Paradise…?
