‘Perhaps drunks are like that too,’ I said. ‘I mean, they don’t know they’re being watched. They don’t know anything. I don’t know anything.’
‘They’re also not themselves,’ she said, ‘which lessens the pathos.’
‘Yes, I bet it does. You’d better tell me — about the other night. The suspense is killing me.’
‘You really can’t remember? Or do you just pretend you can’t.’
I thought about this, and said, ‘I can’t bear to remember. Maybe I could if I tried. It’s the trying part that’s unbearable. Who was there, for instance?’
‘Same as last time. My only friends. Ossie’s friends are all… The lady from the Tribeca Times. Fenton Akimbo — he’s the Nigerian writer. And Stanwyck Mills, the Blake and Shakespeare man. Ossie wanted to ask him about the two gentlemen of Verona.’
‘Uh?’ What a crew, I thought. ‘Okay. Tell me.’
Then she told me. It wasn’t that bad. I was relieved. Between ourselves, I was even quite impressed. Apparently I had windmilled in at a quarter to ten, with three bottles of champagne, all of which I dropped in one catastrophic juggle. The kitchen floor, Martina said, was like a Jacuzzi. Full of beans, I took my seat at the stalled dinner. Then, for the next twenty-five minutes, I told a joke.
‘Oh Jesus. What sort of joke? How dirty?’
‘I can’t remember it. You couldn’t either. Something about a farmer’s wife? Yes, and a travelling salesman.’
‘Oh Jesus. What then?’
Then I went to sleep. I didn’t simply black out at the table, oh no. I stood up, yawned and stretched, and threw myself on to a nearby sofa. There I snored and whinnied and gnashed for nearly three hours, awaking refreshed and raring to go at a little after one. Everyone had gone. I went too. Then I came back again. Then I went away again.
‘What did I say to Fenton Akimbo? Did I say anything?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, I didn’t call him a black bastard or anything?’
‘Oh no. You only said your joke, and that was about it.’
‘Great.’
‘You said something to me though. As you left, the first time.’
‘What?’
She smiled, rawly, savagely — not a grown-up smile. A tomboy smile. She had easy access to the girl inside her. The girl was always available.
‘What?’ I repeated.
‘You said you loved me.’ And she laughed her laugh, that shocking laugh which turned heads and caused her to blush and put a hand over her naked mouth.
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said … let me think. I said — Don’t be an idiot.’
‘Well, maybe it’s true,’ I said, emboldened. ‘In vino — you know, when you drink you tell the truth, and all that.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Martina.
Yes, she sounds sane, doesn’t she, among all these other people I’m working around? But then she has always had money — she has never not had money. Money is carelessly present in the cut and texture of her clothes, her leathery accoutrements, in rug-brilliance and mouth tone. The long legs have travelled, and not just through time. The clean tongue speaks French, Italian, German. The expectant eyes have seen things, and expect to see more. Even as a girl her lovers were always hand-picked, an elite, far above the usual rabble of irregulars, mercenaries, pressed men. Her smile is knowing, roused and playful, but also innocent, because money makes you innocent when it’s been there all along. How else can you hang out on this planet for thirty years while still remaining free? Martina is not a woman of the world. She is a woman of somewhere else.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘How come you always know when I’m in New York and when I go back?’
She shrugged. ‘Ossie tells me.’
‘How does he know?’
‘He’s back and forth from London all the time. He must know people you know.’
‘I suppose that figures,’ I said.
‘How’s — your girlfriend?’
‘Selina.’
‘Yes. How’s all that? You’re with her. You’re together.’
I considered. Then I said, or perhaps one of my voices Said it for me, ‘I don’t know. I mean — you can be with someone and still be alone.’