The Driver's Seat (4 page)

‘I
carry my diet with me. I never eat in restaurants and hotels unless I have to.
And if I do, I choose very carefully. I go where I can get a little fish,
maybe, and rice, and perhaps a bit of goat’s cheese. Which are Yang. Cream
cheese — in fact butter, milk, anything that comes from the cow — is too Yin.
You become what you eat. Eat cow and you become cow.

A hand,
fluttering a sheet of white paper, intervenes from behind them.

They
turn to see what is being offered. Bill grasps the paper. It is the log of the
plane’s flight, informing the passengers as to the altitude, speed and present
geographical position, and requesting them to read it and pass it on.

Lise
continues to look back, having caught sight of the face behind her. In the
window seat, next to a comfortably plump woman and a young girl in her teens, is
a sick-looking man, his eyes yellow-brown and watery, deep-set in their
sockets, his face pale green. It was he who had handed forward the chart. Lise
stares, her lips parted slightly, and she frowns as if speculating on the man’s
identity. He looks away, first out of the window, then down towards the floor,
embarrassed. The woman does not change her expression, but the young girl,
understanding Lise to be questioning by her stare the man behind, says, ‘It’s
only the flight chart.’ But Lise stares on. The sick-looking man looks at his
companions and then down at his knees, and Lise’s stare does not appear to be
helping his sickness.

A nudge
from Bill composes her so far that she turns and faces forward again. He says, ‘It’s
only the flight chart. Do you want to see it?’ And since she does not reply he
thrusts it forward to bother it about the ears of the people in front until
they receive it from his hand.

Lise
starts to eat her second snack. ‘You know, Bill,’ she says, ‘I think you were
right about that crazy man who moved his seat. He wasn’t my type at all and I
wasn’t his type. Just as a matter of interest, I mean, because I didn’t take
the slightest notice of him and I’m not looking to pick up strangers. But you
mentioned that he wasn’t my type and, of course, let me tell you, if he thought
I was going to make up to him he made a mistake.’

‘I’m
your type,’ Bill says.

She
sips her coffee and looks round, glimpsing through the partition of the seats
the man behind her. He stares ahead with glazed and quite unbalanced eyes,
those eyes far too wide open to signify anything but some sort of mental
distance from reality; he does not see Lise now, as she peers at him, or, if
so, he appears to have taken a quick turn beyond caring and beyond
embarrassment.

Bill says,
‘Look at me, not at him.’

She
turns back to Bill with an agreeable and indulgent smile. The stewardesses come
efficiently collecting the trays, cluttering one upon the other. Bill, when
their trays are collected, puts up first Lise’s table and then his own. He puts
his arm through hers.

‘I’m
your type,’ he says, ‘and you’re mine. Are you planning to stay with friends?’

‘No,
but I have to meet somebody.’

‘No
chance of us meeting some time? How long are you planning to stay in the city?’

‘I have
no definite plans,’ she says. ‘But I could meet you for a drink tonight. Just a
short drink.’

‘I’m
staying at the Metropole,’ he says. ‘Where will you be staying?’

‘Oh,
just a small place. Hotel Tomson.’

‘I don’t
think I know Hotel Tomson.’

‘It’s
quite small. It’s cheap but clean.’

‘Well,
at the Metropole,’ Bill says, ‘they don’t ask any questions.

‘As far
as I’m concerned,’ Lise says, ‘they can ask any questions they like. I’m an
idealist.’

‘That’s
exactly what I am,’ Bill says. ‘An idealist. You’re not offended, are you? I
only meant that if we get acquainted, I think, somehow, I’m your type and you’re
my type.’

‘I don’t
like crank diets,’ Lise says. ‘I don’t need diets. I’m in good form.’

‘Now, I
can’t let that pass, Lise,’ Bill says. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking
about. The macrobiotic system is not just a diet, it’s a way of life.’

She
says, ‘I have somebody to meet some time this afternoon or this evening.’

‘What
for?’ he says. ‘Is it a boy-friend?’

‘Mind
your own business,’ she says.. ‘Stick to your yin and your yang.’

‘Yin
and Yang,’ he says, ‘is something that you’ve got to understand. If we could
have a little time together, a little peaceful time, in a room, just talking, I
could give you some idea of how it works. It’s an idealist’s way of life. I’m hoping
to get the young people of Naples interested in it. I should think there would
be many young people of Naples interested. We’re opening a macrobiotic
restaurant there, you know.’

Lise
peers behind her again at the staring, sickly man. ‘A strange type,’ she says.

‘With a
room behind the public dining hall, a room for strict observers who are on
Regime Seven. Regime Seven is cereals only, very little liquid. You take such a
very little liquid that you can pee only three times a day if you’re a man, two
if you’re a woman. Regime Seven is a very elevated regime in macrobiotics. You
become like a tree. People become what they eat.’

‘Do you
become a goat when you eat goat’s cheese?’

‘Yes,
you become lean and stringy like a goat. Look at me, I haven’t a spare piece of
fat on my body. I’m not an Enlightenment Leader for nothing.’

‘You
must have been eating goat’s cheese,’ she says. ‘This man back here is like a
tree, have you seen him?’

‘Behind
the private room for observers of Regime Seven,’ Bill says, ‘there will be
another little room for tranquillity and quiet. It should do well in Naples
once we get the youth movement started. It’s to be called the Yin-Yang Young.
It does well in Denmark. But middle-aged people take the diet too. In the
States many senior citizens are on macrobiotics.’

‘The
men in Naples are sexy.’

‘On
this diet the Regional Master for Northern Europe recommends one orgasm a day.
At least. In the Mediterranean countries we are still researching that aspect.’

‘He’s
afraid of me,’ Lise whispers, indicating with a jerk of her head the man behind
her. ‘Why is everybody afraid of me?’

‘What
do you mean? I’m not afraid of you.’ Bill looks round, impatiently, and as if
only to oblige her. He looks away again. ‘Don’t bother with him,’ he says. ‘He’s
a mess.

Lise
gets up. ‘Excuse me,’ she says, ‘I have to go and wash.’

‘See
you come back,’ he says.

She
passes across him to the aisle, holding in her hand both her hand-bag and the
paperback book she bought at the airport, and as she does so she takes the
opportunity to look carefully at the three people in the row behind, the
ill-looking man, the plump woman and the young girl, who sit without
conversing, as it seems unconnected with each other. Lise stands for a moment
in the aisle, raising the arm on which the hand-bag is slung from the wrist, so
that the paperback, now held between finger and thumb, is visible. She seems to
display it deliberately, as if she is one of those spies one reads about who
effect recognition by pre-arranged signals and who verify their contact with
another agent by holding a certain paper in a special way.

Bill
looks up at her and says, ‘What’s the matter?’

She
starts moving forward, at the same time answering Bill: ‘The matter?’

‘You
won’t need that book,’ Bill says.

She looks
at the book in her hand as if wondering where it came from and with a little
laugh hesitates by his side long enough to toss it on to her seat before she
goes up the plane towards the toilets.

Two
people are waiting in line ahead of her. She takes her place abstractedly,
standing in fact almost even with the row where her first neighbour, the
business man, is sitting. But she does not seem to be aware of him or to care
in the slightest that he glances up at her twice, three times, at first
apprehensively and then, as she continues to ignore him, less so. He turns a
page of his newspaper and folds it conveniently for reading, and reads it
without looking at her again, settling further into his seat with the slight
sigh of one whose visitor has left and who is at last alone.

It has turned out that the
sick-looking man is after all connected with the plump woman and the young girl
who sat beside him on the plane. He is coming out of the airport building, now,
not infirmly but with an air of serious exhaustion, accompanied by the woman
and the girl.

Lise
stands a few yards away. By her side is Bill; their luggage is on the pavement
beside them. She says, ‘Oh there he is!’ and leaves Bill’s side, running up to
the sick-eyed man. ‘Excuse me!’ she says.

He
hesitates, and makes an awkward withdrawal: two steps backward, and with the
steps he seems to withdraw even more his chest, shoulders, legs and face. The
plump woman looks at Lise inquiringly while the girl just stands and looks.

Lise
addresses the man in English. She says, ‘Excuse me, but I wondered if you
wanted to share a limousine to the centre. It works out cheaper than a taxi, if
the passengers agree to share, and it’s quicker than the bus, of course.’

The man
looks at the pavement as if inwardly going through a ghastly experience. The
plump woman says, ‘No, thank you. We’re being met.’ And touching the man on the
arm, moves on. He follows, as if bound for the scaffold while the girl stares
blankly at Lise before walking round and past her. But Lise quickly moves with
the group, and once again confronts the man. ‘I’m sure we’ve met somewhere
before,’ she says. The man rolls his head slightly as if he has toothache or a
headache. ‘I would be so grateful,’ Lise says, ‘for a lift.’

‘I’m
afraid—’ says the woman. And just then a man in a chauffeur’s uniform comes up.
‘Good morning, m’ lord,’ he says. ‘We’re parked over there. Did you have a good
trip?’

The man
has opened his mouth wide but without making a sound; now he closes his lips
tight.

‘Come
along,’ says the plump woman, while the girl turns in an unconcerned way. The
plump woman says sweetly to Lise, while brushing past her, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t
stop at the moment. The car’s waiting and we have no extra room.

Lise
shouts, ‘But your luggage — you’ve forgotten your luggage.’

The
chauffeur turns cheerily and says over his shoulder, ‘No luggage, Miss, they
don’t bring luggage. Got all they need at the villa.’ He winks and breezes
about his business.

The
three follow him across the street to the rows of waiting cars and are followed
by other travellers who stream out of the airport building.

Lise
runs back to Bill. He says, ‘What are you up to?’

‘I
thought I knew him,’ Lise says. She is crying, her tears fall heavily. She
says, ‘I was sure he was the right one. I’ve got to meet someone.

Bill
says, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, people are looking. What’s the matter? I don’t get
it.’ At the same time he grins with his wide mouth as if to affirm that the
incomprehensible needs must be a joke. ‘I don’t get it,’ he says, pulling out
of his pocket two men‘s-size paper handkerchiefs, and, selecting one, handing
it to Lise. ‘Who did you think he was?’

Lise
wipes her eyes and blows her nose. She clutches the paper handkerchief in her
fist. She says, ‘It’s a disappointing start to my holidays. I was sure.

‘You’ve
got me for the next few days if you like,’ Bill says. ‘Don’t you want to see me
again? Come on, we’ll get a taxi, you’ll feel better in a taxi. You can’t go on
the bus, crying like that. I don’t get it. I can give you what you want, wait
and see.’

On the
pavement, further up, among a cluster of people waiting for a taxi is the
sturdy young man in his business suit, holding his briefcase. Lise looks
listlessly at Bill, then beyond Bill, and just as listlessly takes in the man
whose rosy face is turned towards her. He lifts his suitcase immediately he
catches sight of her and crosses the road amongst the traffic, moving quickly
away and away. But Lise is not watching him any more, she does not even seem to
have remembered him.

In the
taxi she laughs harshly when Bill tries to kiss her. Then she lets him kiss
her, emerging from the contact with raised eyebrows as who should say, ‘What
next?’ ‘I’m your type,’ Bill says.

The
taxi stops at the grey stone downtown Hotel Tomson. She says, ‘What’s all that
on the floor?’ and points to a scatter of small seeds. Bill looks at them
closely and then at his zipper-bag which has come unzipped by a small fraction.

‘Rice,’
he says. ‘One of my sample packs must have burst and this bag isn’t closed
properly.’ He zips up the bag and says, ‘Never mind.’

He
takes her to the narrow swing doors and hands her suitcase to the porter. ‘I’ll
look for you at seven in the hall of the Metropole,’ he says. He kisses her on
the cheek and again she raises her eyebrows. She pushes the swing door and goes
with it, not looking back.