“Maybe some other time.” He muttered the cliché as if it were poisoned.
“Yes,” she said, pleased to sound a note of conciliation, however lame. “Ring me first though.”
“I’ll let myself out.”
23
He wandered around for an hour, dodging hordes of schoolchildren returning home, picking fights and noses as they went. There were signs of spring, even here. Nature could scarcely be bountiful in such restraining circumstances, but it did its best. In tiny front gardens, and in window boxes, flowers blossomed; the few saplings that had survived vandalism showed sweet green leaves. If they survived a few more seasons of frost and malice they might grow large enough for birds to nest in. Nothing exotic: brawling starlings at best, probably. But they’d offer shade in high summer, and places for the moon to sit if you looked out your bedroom window one night. He found himself full of such inappropriate thoughts-moon and starlings-like an adolescent first in love. Coming back here had been a mistake; it had been a self-inflicted cruelty that had hurt Charmaine too. Useless to go back and apologize, that would only make matters messier. He’d ring her, as she’d suggested, and ask her out to one farewell dinner. Then he’d tell her, whether it was true or not, that he was ready for them to part permanently, and he hoped he’d see her once in a while, and they’d say goodbye in a civilized fashion, without enmity, and she’d go back to whatever life she was making for herself, and he’d go to his. To Whitehead, to Carys. Yes, to Carys.
And suddenly tears were on him like a fury, tearing him to pieces, and he was standing in the middle of some street he didn’t recognize, blinded by them. Schoolchildren buffeted him as they ran past, some turning, some seeing his anguish and yelling obscenities at him as they went. This is ridiculous, he told himself, but no amount of name-calling would halt the flow. So he wandered, hand to face, into an alley, and stayed there till the bout passed. Part of him felt quite removed from this burst of emotion. It looked down, this untouched part, on his sobbing self, and shook its head in contempt for his weakness and confusion. He hated to see men cry, it embarrassed him; but there was no gainsaying it. He was lost; that was all there was to it, lost and afraid. That was worth crying for.
When the flow stopped he felt better, but shaky. He wiped his face, and stayed in the backwater of the alley until he’d regained his composure.
It was four-forty. He’d already been to Holborn and picked up the strawberries; that was his first duty when he drove into town. Now, with that done, and Charmaine seen, the rest of the night sprawled in front of him, waiting to be pleasured. But he’d lost a lot of his enthusiasm for a night of adventure. In a while the pubs would open, and he could get a couple of whiskies inside him. That would help rid him of the twitches in his stomach. Maybe it would also whet his appetite again, but he doubted it.
To occupy the time before opening, he wandered down to the shopping precinct. It had been opened two years before he was put inside, a soulless warren of white tiles, plastic palms, and flashy, up-market shops. Now, almost a decade after it was built, it looked about ready for demolition. It was scarred with graffiti, its tunnels and stairways filthy, many of its shops closed up, others so bereft of charm or custom surely the only option open to the owners was to fire them one of these nights, collect the insurance and run for the hills. He found a small newsstand manned by a forlorn Pakistani, bought a packet of cigarettes and retraced his steps to The Eclipse.
It was just past opening time, and the pub was almost deserted. A couple of skinheads were playing darts; in the lounge bar somebody was celebrating: an off-key chorus of “Happy Birthday, Dear Maureen,” drifted through. The television had been turned up for the early-evening news, but he couldn’t catch much of it over the noise of the celebrants, and wasn’t that interested anyway. Collecting a whisky from the bar he went to sit down, and began to smoke his way through the pack of cigarettes he’d bought. He felt drained. The liquor, instead of putting some spark into him, only made his limbs more leaden.