The man who had been her first love introduced her, still in her late twenties, to London, that mesmerising harlot. They lured her - tantalising, decadent, eloquent. Not married? No kids? He scoffed. He wasn't cut out for those sorts of hindrances, affective or otherwise. She was credulous, still in awe of such detachment, still a gull for dark, inscrutable eyes, reserve, and an acute, combative intelligence. But never re-meet your first love. Heedless to the warning of his different smell, she let him, eventually, do unspeakable things with her body. Emotionally dwarfish, ultimately he did nothing categoric for her heart besides administering, as far as men go, a permanent anaesthetic. It is that left unsaid that does for one, when instinct is not confirmed but neither denied.
Careening between the limbo of her amorous life and the splintered corporate world she found the latter did well by her pocket but neither man nor money did anything for her nerves. Since then she has fled the echo of the remark that backs and minds are the two things which, once broken, can never quite be fixed.
Yet, before that anaesthetic took effect, she spent with him delirious nights in Gordon's, drinking port, where her happiness, relief at that opportunity regained and some omen, mixed with that insidious wine, propelled her on to impending disaster. But with this yet to come, in the otherworldy refuge of that candlelit, subterranean cave, she felt something, she neither knew nor cared quite what, throbbing in her veins and listened agog to the philosophy he recounted which she could never quite remember in the morning. She did recall though his repressed chuckle which sometimes forced its way out as a strange laugh, like a dirty secret, caught doing something indecorous and trying hastily to behave well. It was with this laugh he predicted her dismay at the oblivion of the following day. In the heart of the capital he lived on a ridge, an eyrie, a place not quite of cruelty, but neither of compassion. His curiosity was detached, his mind well-informed, insightful, intellectually fearless. At the time, that seemed to be the main thing. His accent was civilised. He had an air that raised one's guard as if against arrogance or a potential ruthlessness. The consternation of others, that dropping of the mask, appealed to his sense of the absurd and, witnessing it, provoking it even, he employed his own tsking false censure. He might have enjoyed that philosophical mix-up.
Yet, before that anaesthetic took effect, she spent with him delirious nights in Gordon's, drinking port, where her happiness, relief at that opportunity regained and some omen, mixed with that insidious wine, propelled her on to impending disaster. But with this yet to come, in the otherworldy refuge of that candlelit, subterranean cave, she felt something, she neither knew nor cared quite what, throbbing in her veins and listened agog to the philosophy he recounted which she could never quite remember in the morning. She did recall though his repressed chuckle which sometimes forced its way out as a strange laugh, like a dirty secret, caught doing something indecorous and trying hastily to behave well. It was with this laugh he predicted her dismay at the oblivion of the following day. In the heart of the capital he lived on a ridge, an eyrie, a place not quite of cruelty, but neither of compassion. His curiosity was detached, his mind well-informed, insightful, intellectually fearless. At the time, that seemed to be the main thing. His accent was civilised. He had an air that raised one's guard as if against arrogance or a potential ruthlessness. The consternation of others, that dropping of the mask, appealed to his sense of the absurd and, witnessing it, provoking it even, he employed his own tsking false censure. He might have enjoyed that philosophical mix-up.
The loss when it arrived did not reveal itself with any suddenness but as a creeping dismay, a repressed sickening sense, never properly acknowledged, accepted, overcome, but instead, drip by drip, absorbed over the years. And then some. A tortuous way to go about things, but quiet, at least. It was in a way fortunate that his own deadening, emotional numbness had already infiltrated her and begun to grow and spread. It was not all bad, leading as it did, vertiginously to a dress size 8, never again quite recovered. He never knew, being on to something, well, alright someone else. The months of silence said. By the time of that summer, of rowing, biking and swimming, the summer of the tiny, halterneck, fitted, pink, linen dress, she felt worthy, certainly stronger but he had disappeared. She moved on, apparently with ease and wore it for a very English rower instead, with a ridiculous name like a teddy bear, Algernon, Aloysius, Alpheus. She ruined her pink, kitten heels, walking over the grass to his flat, on Kew Green. It was a very short-lived affair.
Later - at size 10 - he appeared for a brief resumption, occasionally after Sunday lunch at the Royal Oak, but it was never the same. Things were effortful. There was as supposedly mutual and unspoken an agreement of normality, of mere function, of emotion and intimate things easily dismissed, as those two tedious, hopeful monsters could muster. Most importantly again, there was no fuss.
Later - at size 10 - he appeared for a brief resumption, occasionally after Sunday lunch at the Royal Oak, but it was never the same. Things were effortful. There was as supposedly mutual and unspoken an agreement of normality, of mere function, of emotion and intimate things easily dismissed, as those two tedious, hopeful monsters could muster. Most importantly again, there was no fuss.
At thirty-four, biology knocking at the door, she was soon re-partnered, expecting her first child. This news was delivered, fittingly, though by no design, on one of the bridges, Blackfriars, perhaps. She grew, ungainly, elefantine. He introduced the girl to whom he had moved on. They came round, giggling, hot from sex, embarrassingly smug. She was the one he would marry, sweet, gauche, also ungainly but a skeletal size 6.
