On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory (13 page)

Positively parental still. For the moment it wasn't a bad feeling. Like a father I really hoped my advice was going to be truly the best advice. Like a father I keenly, almost desperately, wanted to help. All in all I might have made a fairly good dad.

“I promise you—I promise you Danny—as God is my witness I promise you—I have no desire whatever just to sleep around. You couldn't want the right man any more than I do. And in you I know I've found the absolutely right man. Don't ask me how I know. I couldn't even begin to tell you but ours would turn out to be one of the happiest of partnerships on record. The almost perfect love affair—I
know
it.”

“Don't,” I said warningly. “Stop it. Can't you hear yourself? You're starting to do it again.”

But anyway I went on stroking his hand to show that this time I wasn't going to let it scare me.

“And while you're about it you've got to rid yourself of one thumping great illusion. You can't go around believing in the almost perfect love affair. Not in this world. You're a fully fledged adult. You're talking like some foolish and romantic kid of twenty-four.”

“Is that your age? Twenty-four?” But he spoke as if the question was wholly immaterial; anything—so long as the conversation just shouldn't be allowed to lapse.

I nodded. “Can't you tell? All those stars in my eyes? Not like that old cynic I'll become by the time I get to be … around forty?”

“Forty-three. Is that too old for you?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Oh God Brad!” I dropped his hand. I hardly knew the guy. “It isn't that you're too old for me. You're just too poor for me. There! Will that do? You'd never have stood the slightest chance—because you've latched on to a shameless little gold-digger! So you needn't worry that you've played this game all wrong; you couldn't possibly have played it right. On the other hand, old friend, you could have been as needy as all get-out, you could have come on just as strong as ever you felt like, if only at the same time you'd had the foresight to be rich!”

This speech was to some degree calculated. It was true but it was calculated. At least it should mean that instead of regretting me—the face in the street which you remember all your life—he might see me go with something like relief, rejoicing at the narrowness of his escape.

I italicized the point, upper-cased it. “You see I'm not at all a kind person. I'm a bastard. Totally self-centred, totally money-orientated, totally on the lookout for some poor old unsuspecting meal ticket. It doesn't sound as though your wife Hélène ever used to nag you. If we'd somehow come together—through sex—and somehow stayed together for a year or two—through sex—I know that me, I'd have become a complete shrew. I'd have nagged you incessantly; made your life pure hell.”

“I don't believe that,” he said. He was looking shocked. He was actually looking a bit white.

“Well there was maybe a
touch
of exaggeration. I'm not sure I'd have nagged you
incessantly
. I might have needed to get some sleep on occasion.”

But he didn't respond in kind if that's what I'd been hoping. I really couldn't see why he appeared so utterly forlorn: merely an hour's encounter. And it wasn't as though I'd said he was too short—or too fat—or had halitosis. I hadn't even criticized his haircut. Nor was he to know that I considered his being poor as blameworthy; it was almost a requisite for an aspiring persevering undiscovered writer to suffer for his art—I hadn't said it but that was the impression which I'd aimed to give: the ennoblement conferred by starving in a garret. I thought that in a way I'd actually been tactful. And yet … he now looked desolate.

“There! Doesn't that make you feel any better? None of it your fault.
You couldn't have changed a bloody thing
.” I picked up his hand again; gave it a quick squeeze. “I think I ought to go.”

But oddly I myself now felt quite drained; couldn't make the effort to get up. “We're a right pair,” I said. “When we came in, perhaps the healthiest-looking couple in the room. But look at us now.”

He appeared to pull himself together a bit. “You need that other drink,” he said. “We both do.” He stood up.

“No. You can't afford it. I was going to get it anyway—don't you remember?—before I forgot.” We both laughed, a little shakily. I too stood up. He pushed me back down.

“But while I'm gone I trust you not to make your getaway.”

“I won't.”

Three minutes later he returned with two more double whiskies. “You'll notice I didn't even glance? You'll notice how much confidence I had that you were going to keep your word?”

“Yes at least I can say I always keep my word. But I wish you'd let me pay for these. You ought to bear in mind that photocopying.”

“Why would you want to pay for them when obviously there's no way you're going to benefit from it?”

“Oh the exception that proves the rule? And I wouldn't want to leave you thinking as how I'm
all
bad.”

“Why not?”

“Because although you might never guess it I quite like you. In fact I like you quite a lot.”

“Why? When plainly I'm a loser?”

“Dunno,” I said. “And it isn't just the way you look. There's something about your personality. I feel that in happier circumstances—i.e. if you were loaded—we could easily have made a go of it.”

“Me too.”

“You see then: there's a lot we have in common. And incidentally. I never said you were a loser.”

“You didn't have to. Tell me something though. May I be serious again for one minute?”

“Oh God must you?”

I smiled—decided not to mention that if there'd been any marked letup in seriousness then obviously I'd missed it.

“Are you proud of being the way you are?” he asked. “Regarding your attitude to money?”

“No of course not. I'm faintly proud of
recognizing
I'm the way I am. But that's all.”

“Meaning that to be aware of some fault is already half the battle?”

“Not really.” I shrugged then shook my head. Apologetically. “I'm not entering any battle.”

Disbelief. Disbelief and further deflation. “You're telling me you wouldn't want to change?”

“Would I want to change?” Clearly it wasn't bad he should feel yet more disillusioned in me but all the same … “Yes I suppose I would. In a better world. But in this present one it seems to me a completely valid approach. Hold out for all the pleasure you can get. You need to be happy; if in the end you haven't had plenty of sheer enjoyment you must accept the fact you've been a failure. And just so long as you're always careful not to harm anybody …”

“Except yourself. What happens when finally you've got to answer for your own love of money? The love of money that's the root of all evil?”

“Oh come off it Brad. If your talking about judgment—and your quoting from the Bible makes me think that you're a Christian—then shake hands: me as well: I'm a Christian too.” (I almost set those last four words to music; my mother had once been in an amateur production of
Annie Get Your Gun
.) “And because of that or in spite of that I think it's practically my duty to make the most of every minute in every way I can. Which inevitably takes money.”

“But if you're a Christian you have to remember what Jesus himself said on the subject of riches.”

“Yes well Jesus never had to live in a bedsit in Cricklewood. He'd never been to a motor show or leafed through
Homes and Gardens
or dreamed of owning a Harley-Davidson. I bet he'd never heard of Georgio Armani. He wasn't that keen on going to nightclubs or posh restaurants. Or to cinema or theatre.”

He cut me short; dejectedly. “I think you've made your point.”

“Not quite. Even in the Apocrypha it's never recorded that he went to San Francisco or Sydney or Portofino. He lived in the sunshine and life was simple and he was mainly among friends. And I'm the one supposed to nag, not you.”

He ignored that last bit and went back to the sentence before it. “I wonder if he'd recognize how thoroughly easy he had it.”

“At least in the evenings he didn't have to sit round and just twiddle his thumbs when there was nothing worth watching on the box and even going out to the pub was temporarily beyond him.”

“Maybe he went visiting the lonely and the helpless? Made them a little less lonely and a little less helpless? I shouldn't have thought that required a vast financial outlay.”

Two could play at that ignoring game. “Perhaps he was lucky: perhaps he didn't suffer from a low boredom threshold? For me, being bored with life is the ultimate sin but in order not to be bored with life you need to have dosh.”

We stared at one another and I gave him a slow, provocative grin.

“I admit that right now I'm not exactly bored.”

“People say the best things in life are free.” He smiled. Thankfully parody was implied; not condescension. I wanted him to acknowledge that even my present state of non-boredom had cost us the price of several whiskies. I suppose I could have said it myself; I'd forgotten that he had paid for the last lot.

But I repeat: it was such a shame. (Not to mention such a cliché.) When he smiled I felt he could have won me over in just about any foolish argument on earth. (And if we
had
ever got together I would have regarded that as my very first duty: to make sure he smiled a lot—to introduce a regular dosage of leavening and frivolity.)

“Yeah,” I said. “You're right. The best things in life are free. The flowers belong to everyone. So do the stars that shine. Let's add the public libraries and some few of the museums and art galleries. Well hallelujah! In fact a great many of the flowers
don't
but heaven forbid I'd ever choose to quibble. What, me?”

“Oh Danny,” he said. The smile was entirely gone. He could have been about to cry.

I clearly had a nutcase on my hands. But one I thought I might have grown fond of—perhaps extremely fond of. Though again I'm doing nothing here but repeat myself.

I felt very glad he didn't cry.

“Don't be sad. You've got everything in life to look forward to. I take it you can't have forgotten
A Hundred Years Hence
, your very best work up until this present time: that masterpiece just waiting to be pounced upon?”

He shook his head, wretchedly. This wasn't to tell me that he hadn't forgotten it. This was simply to tell me that he'd given up hope.

“Oh Brad. Brad Brad Brad. What in heaven's name are we to do with you?”

He didn't answer. I stroked his hand again. It wasn't the right move. His eyes now definitely grew swimmy. (Quite stupidly mine did as well.)

“Hey!” I said. “What ever happened to all that confidence? That certainty; defiance? That grand reaffirmation of faith?”

He looked at me. He downed the rest of his drink. A tear slipped over one eye-rim but he brushed it away with abrupt resolution. “Come on. I want to buy you supper.” He seemed a creature of seriously fast-changing moods.

“I've already had a sandwich.”

“Tough! I'm going to buy you supper.”

I swallowed the remainder of my own drink.

“You can't afford it,” I told him. “For Christ's sake you've got to be single-minded: think photocopying! Photocopying! But I'll tell you what. I'll treat us both to a McDonald's. I'll come with you if you'll settle for that.”

In fact I wasn't absolutely certain I had enough money but I thought oh well loaves and fishes—it
is
in a good cause. Or there again, if Jesus didn't seem totally convinced of this, then Brad himself might have to help out. But patently I hoped not.

“Okay,” he said. “Thank you.” He said it so simply and gratefully that I somehow felt impelled to take his hand and anyone watching us leave the pub—as indeed, I noticed, several people were—would have thought we were a couple, or at the very least heading for a night of rampant sex. I noticed it with a sensation that bordered on proprietorial pride.

But I hadn't been thinking. In the street I hastily released his hand.

The rain had stopped. We turned into Edgware Road. Neither of us said much; for the moment none too surprisingly we seemed to have talked ourselves out. But it felt companionable. We walked close without touching but again I very much wanted to touch—I should have liked for instance to place my arm around his shoulder or less obtrusively perhaps yet even more intimately slip my hand into his off-side back pocket. But this wouldn't have been at all fair since undoubtedly it would have raised his hopes; I'd already erred in that direction. Nevertheless I really had to discipline myself. And unexpectedly too I felt—well not precisely happy but—yes I shall always remember this evening I thought. I shall always remember this man.

We went on therefore, mute but companionable, for maybe something over five minutes. We came to a crossing called George Street. He turned to me and said, “Danny…?” He somehow managed to inject into those two weak syllables (of which I'd never been immensely fond) so great a wealth of feeling that I might have imagined there was unalterable affection there, love and forgiveness and understanding, a huge undercurrent of need and an all-consuming plea; whatever he was about to say or ask or beseech could in no way have matched that initial astonishing intensity. He was obviously putting everything he had into the formulation of the sentence that would follow; was laying his very heart and soul on the line—his whole life (to continue in this current understated mode). It was the language of two people who were lovers and had got to know each other well; by no means the language of strangers who had just met. I could scarcely help but feel touched—a little paradoxically perhaps—and yet I was about to tell him, “Don't …” In fact I was about to tell him, “Don't … you don't have to do this,” not even fully comprehending what I meant by that. But I didn't tell him. In his preoccupation he had stepped off the pavement and right into the path of a taxi.