April 12th 1975
Claire is lucky, she makes friends easily. I’ve always envied beautiful women that – their ability to captivate people without even trying. And not just men either. So many times with Claire, when we’ve just been walking down the street, I’ve noticed that the women passing can’t take their eyes off her. Usually not even a glance at me.
So meeting people at our first party in Beirut was no problem.
– John, have you met Claire and Richard Devine? They’re just in from London.
– Hi. John MacAllister. CBS. I take it you’re Claire …
She smiled.
– … and Richard, good to meet you. What brings you to sunny Beirut?
– Teaching, actually.
– Ah, so you’re a teacher. I used to hate teachers when I was at school. Don’t you hate teachers, Claire?
– No. He’s a lovely teacher.
– God, you’re not one too, are you?
– Not me. I’m just a dumb blonde.
– I thought they didn’t make teachers like you when I was at school. What do you do?
– I model … a bit. Well, I did back in London anyway.
– A London model!
– Well, I wouldn’t really put it like that …
– Why not? This is Beirut. You can put it any way you want. Hey, you’ve got to meet Sam. You know Sam?
– No, we don’t know anyone yet. Who’s Sam?
– Sam Fannous. Owner of La Mode, the city’s hottest fashion boutique. He says he wants to recreate Paris in Beirut and he’s always putting on big shows. I’m sure he could use you … no, you know what I mean. I saw him here somewhere …
Sam wasn’t there. But Lawrence was. I first met Lawrence when I went over to the table in the corner to help myself to another plateful of savoury goodies. I was tempted by the dips, lingered over the cheeses, but finally plumped for the prawn canapés and reached across for them.
– Hey!!
The muffled protest came from somewhere down below, down there behind the overhanging tablecloth, where my foot had connected with something soft but unyielding.
– Go play ball if you want, but this is out of bounds.
– I’m sorry.
I moved back a step and cautiously lifted the tablecloth. As I bent down to look, I met a straw-thatch of hair, an ice-cold pair of blue eyes and a giant walrus moustache. A Viking, and an angry one!
– What are you doing down here?
– I should have thought it was obvious.
As I peered deeper into his lair, I saw that it was indeed obvious. There in the shadows behind him was another dim figure, which an unbuttoned shirt revealed to be female.
I smiled, feeling a fool.
He smiled too. He positively beamed, to let me know his fierceness had been a total sham. And after all, now I thought about it, he sounded like an American, not a Viking.
– Hi. I’m Lawrence Anderson.
– I’m Richard. Richard Devine.
He lifted his hand out for me to shake it.
– Good to meet you, Richard. This is Monique.
– Hi.
– Hello.
Later that evening we were standing outside, Claire and I. It was one of those large expensive apartment buildings on the brow of the hill in Sioufi. The balcony was like a garden, and the view we had from there on the fifth floor was magical. Down in the valley below, the lights of the eastern suburbs jostled against one another, shimmering like a phosphorescent sea. We lifted our eyes to the villages – little bands of light encamped on the mountain-side above the city. Higher still, scattered twinkling pin-points suggested solitary climbers – or perhaps some of them were stars. The moon had not risen and the night was velvet, soft and warm and dense and black: there was no telling where the world ended and heaven began.
We stood close together up against the railings, alone. So much life down there in the city, so many thousands of people this Saturday evening; so much movement and noise; so many bodies and faces and voices. Yet all somehow mystically suffused in a soft murmuring glow – the light of life. Directly below a taxi blared past, footsteps clattered briskly round a corner and were gone again, sucked back into the hum of the city. Even the party was muted. In a back room somewhere, a guitarist was strumming through his repertoire, and the air wafted familiar tunes and words to us, when we chose to listen. Now and again a voice distinguished itself or the refrigerator door slammed closed. Someone laughed. There was jasmine, hanging sweet and steady in the darkness, laced momentarily with a sharper, acrid aroma: Lebanese Gold.
The whole city was insubstantial, distant. It made Claire especially close. Her hand in mine was delicate and cool. Her eyes, half-turned, were large and dark and serious. We spoke soft words for one another, exchanging pretty similes, trying to cap one another in feeling. Moments like these shared, we said, cemented us as a couple, would last longer than the stars, joined us closer than sex … It was the game we always played when we were in love.
Lawrence and Monique emerged from inside. My first thought was that Lawrence horizontal had cut a more impressive figure than Lawrence vertical. Under the table he had been a savage noble in his den, but now he was … well, ordinary. He was shorter than me and his clothes were too wide for him. But Monique, Monique whose face I now saw for the first time, was sensational. Earlier, when she had been invisible from the shoulders upward, she could have been anyone – or any female, at least. But now, with her long, silky black hair, the humour in her eyes and on her lips, the sculptured high cheekbones, and the rich tan that glowed even in the half-light, she was a princess of the night. It wasn’t Claire’s conventional magazine-cover beauty, but it was a face bright with energy, mischief and adventure. Every feature told me that whichever side of the mountains her fathers came from – surely it must have been east of the Caucasus – it was the hot-blooded side.
And as I stared, I realised that Monique was smiling at me. Not just smiling a greeting or smiling at a time when I happened to be around, but smiling directly and deliberately at me. It was like a frank, open invitation.
I felt the colour rising to my face and I was fumbling with my words.
– Claire, this is … er … Lawrence and, um, Monique … you know, I told you, under the table … when I was …
But it didn’t matter because Lawrence was already bending to kiss Claire’s outstretched hand.
– … and this is my wife, Claire.
– Enchanté.
The single word made Lawrence polished and correct.
Formalities over, we sat around a patio table and Lawrence proceeded to tell us the story of his life, then Monique’s, then their life together. He had the American flair for outrageous monologue, investing the smallest incident with humour and drama. By comparison, anything I contributed seemed contrived and inconsequential, but Lawrence made me feel better by finding everything fascinating or amazing. Claire and Monique said less and smiled a lot. Monique’s monosyllables were soft and sounded almost American.
But she was not American. Lawrence told us that her father, old Antoun, was a Christian Palestinian millionaire banker, whose sole remaining objective in life was to make sure his daughter did not get hitched to one of those scumbag Arabs. Which was why he had so frequently encouraged Lawrence – jokingly and allusively of course – to take his daughter’s virginity. Little knowing it was far too late for that. (Monique, listening, simply nodded.) Old Antoun was a man of honour and, in his eyes, the breaking of one bond would automatically lead to the sealing of another.
Lawrence was Californian, in his early thirties. He’d avoided Vietnam by wearing plastic bags on his feet for so long that doctors wouldn’t even let him get near them for his medical, and for the last eight years he’d been living – temporarily – in Beirut. He made a living selling other people’s gossip to the local English-language newspaper. The Daily Slur, he called it. Monique worked there too. Two years ago she had walked into the office looking for a job as a receptionist. Well, first she got the job, then a week later she got Lawrence. Since then they had been together, living sometimes in sin but more often not because with old Antoun scenting blood, Lawrence preferred to keep up appearances. He strongly believed a fellow should be free to marry at leisure.
And of course we would come and have dinner at his place tomorrow, wouldn’t we? Monique was a superb cook …
Instinctively the four of us were friends. How we all knew it, I don’t know. Was it physical attraction that drew us to one another so quickly, or mental connection? Or was there some sort of alchemy at work? It was Lawrence who expressed what we were all feeling.
– You know, we don’t know a thing about you two – you could be Baader and Meinhof for all I know – but I don’t really care. I like you, no matter how evil you both are.
We sat there grinning at one another, not speaking, like children who have just sworn allegiance to a new gang. And then again I was thrown off-balance as Monique’s eyes caught and held mine. Surely they were offering something beyond friendship. She hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words since we met, yet I seemed to be able to read her thoughts and feelings so clearly. Although I wasn’t sure I fully understood her language.
Lawrence and I went to get more drinks. I followed him through the smokers’ room, stepping across dim shapes too far gone to notice us, and into the kitchen. A few people were hanging around the makeshift bar.
As Lawrence was pouring a gin and tonic into one of my glasses, he asked casually:
– Did you ever have an affair since you were married?
His head was bent over the glasses. I thought this was more of his party banter.
– No. Why? Have you? Since you met Monique, I mean?
He turned his pale blue eyes up to me, very serious and very sincere.
– I don’t think I could ever be unfaithful to Monique. I really care for her.
– We’re very close too. We’re lucky because I don’t really believe in marriage – not marriage in the abstract, if you see what I mean, but …
– Take care of Claire. She’s a good lady.
– I know. I do.
– But take care, right?
He’d finished pouring and led the way back outside. As I followed, I was filled with a warm, grateful feeling. Lawrence had unlocked the door that opened into our deepest, most private selves. I suddenly realised that from the time I got married to Claire, I’d been losing touch with the guys I knew. I’d forgotten how good male companionship felt.
Outside on the balcony Lawrence turned on his party act again, for the benefit of the ladies, it seemed. It was as if our conversation had never taken place. Claire was saying that Jason, our little boy, was coming out with his first words:
– … and then anyway yesterday he said something that sounded like bicycle, really clearly – bicycle.
– Not bad for a beginner.
– The funny thing is I don’t know how he could have learnt it. I haven’t got a bicycle and Richard hasn’t got one – we never have – and even if we’d had one, I’d have called it a bike.
– Hey, maybe it’s not bicycle. Maybe he’s just telling you his preferences – it’s bisexual.
Their voices receded as I returned to Lawrence’s warning in the kitchen. The more I thought about it, the more bizarre it was. Take care of Claire – what was that supposed to mean? He hardly even knew us. Care … Claire … Claire … Care …
– Richard.
Monique’s voice – I was startled. Little more than a whisper, but she was suddenly so close that her breath touched my cheek as she spoke.
– Would you like to hear a rooster crow?
– I’m sorry?
Whether it was my unfamiliarity with the American word rooster or because I was half asleep I don’t know, but Monique’s words didn’t make any sense.
– Would you like to hear a rooster crow?
– Oh … well … I suppose so … yes.
What could I say? Somehow it was a very insistent offer.
– Come on then. Yalla.
Monique was already on her feet. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it, then pulled me up out of my chair. Claire was still busy talking to Lawrence, but she shot over an enquiring glance.
– Monique’s taking me to hear a rooster crow.
It sounded stupid.
– Fine.
Claire smiled. She was having a good time. I was astonished neither she nor Lawrence questioned my explanation.
And now Monique was leading me across the balcony to the far side. Her hand was still guiding me, and I was acutely aware of it, larger than Claire’s, stronger, warmer. Outside of sport, we British men have a natural reserve when it comes to body contact; but in inverse proportion to our reserve, a heightened sensitivity to touch. The welcoming kiss from a foreign friend, or even an accidental brush against a stranger in a crowd never fails to alarm or arouse us, though we are at pains never to show it. I wondered if Monique knew this.
The balcony stretched around all four sides of the apartment. At the front, where we’d been sitting, it was spacious and well-lit. But as Monique led me around the corner and along the side of the building, it grew narrow and darker. She ducked below the lighted kitchen window and motioned me to do the same. I did. Then at the back corner, she paused and pulled me close behind her. God, what was that perfume she was wearing? She turned to me, put one finger to her lips, and smiled wickedly. I was totally in her power. Cautiously, she peered around the corner. Then she was ready to go forward again. I followed.
The back balcony wasn’t just dark, it was black. Like Monique, the light from the party seemed to have crept along the side of the building and then stopped. Across the street a massive unfinished apartment block loomed above us. The street lights, as if deliberately, were out. Faintly the guitarist was singing Wooden Heart. Now, as my eyes grew accustomed to the night, I was able to make out Monique – in silhouette – a few large pot-plants, and in the middle of the balcony – God forbid! – a bed.
My heart stopped – no it was throbbing like a motor.
Quickly, think! What do you say at a moment like this? What would a Valentino say? No dumb – he was silent movies. Bogart then?
– What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?
Oh God, no, did I really say that? And was that really my voice, that reedy, cracked thing?
– Sorry?
She sounded puzzled. Not being a native-speaker, she’d probably never heard the cliché before, thank goodness.
– No, nothing.
– Would you like to hear the rooster crow now?
I understood her either too well or not at all.
– Well yes … when you’re ready.
– Good. Then come here.
She took my hand again and gently drew me toward her. I tried hard not to look at the bed in front of me.
– Are you ready?
I could only nod.
She let out a piercing, blood-curdling crow. Five seconds of pure rooster, which threatened to break windows and perforate my ear-drums. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sun had suddenly risen.
Silence.
Wooden Heart continued.
– Well? How was it?
– Great … it was great. It must, er … take a lot of practice.
– Oh yes, a lot. But before I haven’t done it with … other people. Just at home.
From somewhere down below came an answering crow.
– Listen! He knows me!
– Yes. You fooled him all right.
Triumphantly she led me back into the light. Now there was no need for caution, no ducking beneath the kitchen window. We were still holding hands, but now the crisis had passed, I began to relax. Since meeting Claire I had never found myself in such a compromising situation with another woman. But no matter how much I wanted Monique on that back balcony (and there was no denying I did), I knew Claire was my woman.
