Blast From the Past (10 page)

Jack did not want to talk about this at all. He never did want to talk about it, because deep inside he knew that they were not going anywhere.

‘You know why people smoke after sex?’ he said, dragging at his cigarette. ‘It’s an etiquette thing. It means you don’t have to talk.’

‘What?’

‘People smoke after sex to avoid conversation. I mean, in general post-coital is a socially barren zone. Particularly that difficult first time. You’ve known somebody five minutes and suddenly you’re removing your horribly diminished dick from inside of their body. What do you say?’

Sometimes Polly found Jack’s crude, abrasive style sexy and exhilarating. Other times she just found it crude and abrasive.

‘We didn’t say anything after our first attempt, did we? Because we were hiding in a field trying to avoid large insects and the police.’

‘Yeah, well let me tell you, it saved us a lot of embarrassment. Any diversion is welcome in such a situation. Even the cops. Think about it. You’re naked with a stranger. What do you say?’

‘A stranger?’

‘Sure, a stranger. The first time you sleep with
someone
ten to one they’re going to be a stranger. How many times do you have sex with someone for the first time whom you’ve known more than a few hours?’

‘Well, there’s not much point asking me, is there?’

‘Yeah, well take my word for it, babe.’ Jack did not like to be reminded of Polly’s lack of sexual experience. It made him feel even more responsible for her than he already did.

‘The first time you screw a person all you’ve been thinking about since you met them is screwing them. Then suddenly it’s over and you don’t have that agenda any more. What can a guy say? “That was fun.”? “That was nice.”? It’s so weak, so dismissive, like the girl’s body was a cupcake and you took a nibble. On the other hand, “That was awesome,” is too much. She knows you’re bullshitting. “Oh yeah, so awesome it lasted two whole minutes and you shouted out some other girl’s name.”’

Jack took another long drag on his cigarette and developed his thesis.

‘So people smoke. The human psyche is so pathetically insecure that we would rather die of lung cancer than confront an uncomfortable situation. I don’t know what will happen now everybody’s giving up. Maybe they’ll share a small tray of canapés.’

‘I thought “How was it for you?” was considered the correct inquiry.’

‘Nobody ever asked that. That question is a myth. How could you ever ask, “How was it for you?”? No answer would be good enough.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, just now, for instance, when we made love. How was it?’

Jack had caught Polly off her guard.

‘Well, it was fine … great, in fact, really great.’

‘You see,’ said Jack, as though his point were proved. ‘Already I’m thinking, “fine”? “great”? Why doesn’t she just come right out and say “pathetic”? That’s what she means. Why doesn’t she just say, “Your dick is a cocktail sausage. I get more satisfaction when I ride my bicycle over a speed hump.”’

‘Oh well, if we’re taking puerile macho paranoia into account …’

‘Got to, babe, it’s what makes the world go around.’

Polly took another cigarette and lit it from her previous one.

‘Well, I’m definitely giving up soon. Tomorrow, in fact; certainly this month or by the end of the year.’

They smoked in silence for a while. Outside, the sun was setting. When it was dark they would leave, Polly knew that. Jack rarely consented to spend a whole night with her. She got out of bed and began to search for her clothes.

Polly never ceased to be amazed at the way her clothes disappeared while she was making love. Particularly her bra and knickers. It was a side of sex that had come as a complete surprise to her. It wasn’t as if she hid them or anything. She did not deliberately secrete them behind the washbasin in the bathroom or between the sheet and the mattress, or hang them from
the
picture rail. None the less after lengthy searching it was in such places that they would be discovered. On this particular occasion she eventually found her knickers wedged inside the Corby trouserpress.

This was Jack’s favourite part of Polly’s dressing process. He loved her naked, of course, he worshipped her naked, but somehow near nakedness was even more endearing. There was something he found particularly moving about Polly wearing only her knickers. Polly said that it was because like all men he was subconsciously afraid of vaginas and preferred to see them sanitized with a neat cotton cover, which Jack thought was quite literally the stupidest thing he had ever heard anybody say in his entire life.

The gathering gloom within the room was making Polly feel sombre. When the sun was shining and Jack and she were making love she could forget the circumstances of their relationship. Forget that he was a killer and she was a traitor. Forget the police and the soldiers. The razorwire and the searchlights. Forget her life in the camp. Forget the Cold War. Then night would fall and Polly would remember that it was life with Jack that was the dream. Outside was the deadly reality.

‘It would be so lovely to be normal,’ she said, rescuing her bra from inside the hotel kettle (the lid of which she’d have sworn had not been removed even once since they had entered the room). ‘To be able to walk down a street together, go to the pub.’

‘Don’t even think about it.’ Jack shivered at the very thought.

‘I was arrested again yesterday,’ said Polly. She and her comrades had been attempting to prevent the missile transporters from leaving the camp. In the event of war the strategic plan for the missiles was that they would be bussed about to various parts of the county on mobile launchers, making them less of a target for the enemy. Every now and then the army practised this deployment, using empty transporters. It was to one of these that Polly had been attached when the police arrived.

‘Arrested?’ said Jack casually. ‘You didn’t say. How’d it go?’

Jack always tried to act as if things were not important.

‘Not great. You know the good cop, bad cop thing? I think there must have been an administrative cock-up. I got bad cop, bad cop. No fags, no cups of tea, just a lot of abuse.’

‘That’s cops.’

The police, who for a while had been friendly, had begun to tire of the Greenham women’s disruption and vandalism and had started to get tough.

‘I was thinking while they were both shouting at me that perhaps down the corridor someone else had got good cop, good cop. Constant tea, endless cigarettes, keep the coupons …’

The sun was nearly gone. Inside, the room was almost completely dark.

‘Polly, are you sure you’ve never told anybody about us?’

‘Jack, you always ask that.’

Jack got out of bed and went to the toilet. He left the bathroom door open, which Polly hated. She liked to keep a little mystery in a relationship where possible. Having a toilet door was such a luxury for her that it seemed deeply decadent not even to bother using it.

‘You’ve told nobody?’

Jack raised his voice above the tinkling and flushing. His tone was firmer, as well it might have been, since the whole course of his life depended on Polly’s discretion. He returned to the room, as always utterly unselfconscious about his jiggling, dangling, bollock-hanging nakedness. This was a side of male bedroom manners that Polly would never get used to.

‘Of course I haven’t told anybody,’ said Polly. ‘I know the rules. I love you …’

Polly waited, as countless women had waited before her, for the echo of that phrase, and, like the vast majority of those women, she was eventually forced to ask for it.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ said Jack, lighting another two cigarettes.

‘Well, do you love me too?’

Jack rolled his eyes ceilingwards. ‘Of course I love you, Polly, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Well say it properly, then.’

‘I just did!’

‘No, you didn’t. I made you. Say it nicely.’

‘OK, OK!’

Jack assumed an expression of quiet sincerity. ‘I love you Polly. I really love you.’

There was a pause.

‘But really really? Do you really really love me? I mean really.’

This is, of course, the reason why so many men don’t like to get into the ‘I love you’ conversation, because it is open-ended. Very quickly degenerating into the ‘How much do you love me?’ conversation, the ‘I don’t believe you mean it,’ conversation and finally the dreaded ‘Yes, and I’m sure you said the same thing to that bitch you were going out with when I first met you,’ conversation.

‘Yes, Polly. I really really love you,’ Jack said in a tone that suggested he would have said he loved baboon shit on toast if it would keep the peace.

‘Good,’ said Polly. ‘Because if I thought you were lying I think I’d kill myself …’

The room was now almost pitch black save for the glowing ends of their cigarettes.

‘Or you.’

18

WHEN JACK GOT
back to the base that night he went straight to the bar and ordered beer with a bourbon chaser. The room was empty save for Captain Schultz, who was alone as usual, playing on the space invaders machine. Poor Schultz. He hated the army as much as Jack loved it, not that he would ever have admitted it to anybody, even himself. Schultz tried not to have strong opinions about anything, in order to avoid unpleasant arguments. He had joined the army because that was what the men (and some of the women) of his family had always done. The fact that he was entirely unsuited for military command, being incapable of making a decision, was irrelevant. There had never been any choice for Schultz.

Jack had known him at West Point where Schultz had just scraped through with a combination of family connections and very hard work. Not too long afterwards, while billeted at the US base in Iceland, he had been made captain virtually by default. Schultz’s superior had found the posting rather cold and had attempted to warm himself up by trying to seduce every young woman in Reykjavik. After one too many
dishonourable
discharges the man was dishonourably discharged and Schultz found himself achieving early command. Jack had found it an interesting circumstance that he, the most successful student in his year at military academy, and Schultz, the least successful, should be advancing at much the same pace. Jack’s rise was due to his own excellence, Schultz’s to the frailty of others, but they were destined to shadow each other throughout their whole careers.

That night in the bar Jack wanted someone to talk to. He was still thinking about the conversation he’d had with Polly and was in a rare communicative mood. He wished that Harry was there so that he could talk to him about the painful mixed emotions he was experiencing. But Harry was thousands of miles away in Ohio. There was only Schultz. Jack stood by the space invaders machine and watched Schultz lose all his defenders in a very short space of time.

‘Jesus, Schultz,’ said Jack. ‘That must be the worst score anybody ever got on that machine.’

‘Oh no,’ Schultz replied, giving up the game. ‘I’ve had much worse.’

‘What the hell are you like with a gun?’

‘As far as possible I try not to use one,’ Schultz said, sipping at his soda.

‘Tell me something, Schultz,’ Jack enquired. ‘Did you ever really really want something you couldn’t have?’

Schultz considered for a moment. ‘Sure I did, Kent. Why, only tonight in the refectory I absolutely set my mind on the profiteroles and then they told me they just
sold
the last portion. I hate that. They should cross it off the board. Why do you ask?’

‘Forget it.’

Jack finished his drink and returned to his neat little army cell.

‘
Dear Harry
,’ he wrote. ‘
What the hell is wrong with me? I’m in pain here and nobody hit me. When I started this thing with Polly I thought I could handle it. You know, I thought I could have some laughs, get my rocks off and walk away when I felt like it. Except now I don’t want to walk away. Even thinking about ending it makes me want to go and punch someone. This is ridiculous, Harry. I mean, what am I? Some kind of soppy dick like you that lets himself get stupid over a girl? Never in my life did I get stupid over a girl. Suddenly I’m risking my career for one! I’m sneaking out of the camp with my collar turned up and my hat pulled down just so I can be with her! I must be out of my mind. In fact, I am out of my mind, because she’s in it! All day this woman is inside my head! I can’t do my job, I’m a safety hazard. I’m trying to monitor the arrival of nuclear warheads and I’m daydreaming about being in bed with Polly! Did you feel this way about Debbie? Of course you did. You still do, you lucky fuck. You and Debbie were made for each other. You fit, like one of those horrible kissing chairs you make. You’re allowed to love each other. Nobody ever said ‘A furniture maker can’t fall in love with a fire woman.’ But me! Jesus, my colonel would probably prefer it if I told him I was sleeping with the corpse of Leonid Brezhnev
.’

19

THEIR EMBRACE ENDED
as suddenly as it had begun.

Polly broke away. ‘I shouldn’t be hugging you, Jack. I shouldn’t be hugging you at all.’

So much of her longed to continue, but a larger part remembered the hurt that this man had caused her.

Jack stepped back too. He had not expected their embrace. It had confused him.

‘Yeah, well, like I said, it’s good to see you.’

Polly wanted to look at Jack properly. She turned on the lamp on her desk. The extra light further illuminated her dowdy room and she regretted switching it on.

‘I’ve often wondered what your stuff would be like,’ said Jack, looking around.

Things were not at their tidiest. As a matter of fact, they never were. Things had only once been at their tidiest in Polly’s flat, for a single afternoon, shortly after Polly had moved in and her mother had come to inspect. In preparation for that visit Polly had tidied and cleared and cleared and tidied and polished and buffed and tidied again.

Her mother had thought the place was a mess.

She also thought that the plates should be in the pan
cupboard
, the pans should be where the mugs were and the mugs should go on little hooks of which there were none, but nice ones could be got at Habitat. Polly’s mother then set about effecting all of these changes with the exception of the mugs, because she did not have the hooks. The mugs she left on the draining board to await Polly’s DIY efforts and there they had remained (sometimes clean, more often dirty) ever since.