My Tango With Barbara Strozzi Read online

  ‘Barbara,’ he said. ‘I hope you stay with me for all the nights there are.’

  I put my hand on his mouth. ‘Don’t say that. Nobody has all the nights there are.’

  He kissed my hand and we went to bed.

  3

  Phil Ockerman

  The next morning when I heard Bertha/Barbara in the shower I felt as if the world was mine. The domesticity of getting ready for the day as a couple was balm to my soul. At breakfast we didn’t say much but we smiled a lot. When Bertha/Barbara left to go to work she kissed me and said, ‘Always call me Barbara. Have a terrific day.’

  I kept on smiling after she left. I didn’t want to make the bed, didn’t want to lose the impression and the smell of her on the sheet and pillow and duvet. I’d have liked to think we really were a couple now but I knew that nothing was that simple or straightforward with Barbara. I played back the evening mentally, saw again the way she’d looked at me when she said, ‘Can I stay here tonight?’ Was it the film that had made it happen, the lovers finishing off the violent husband? Unworthy thought? Still—

  Would she spend the night with me again? Not right away, I thought. I knew that she wouldn’t like to be constantly pursued, would need some space. I wanted to send her some kind of a minimal next-morning message so I went to HMV looking for Gustav Holst’s The Planets. I found that on a CD with Elgar’s Enigma Variations, both conducted by Adrian Boult. Enigma Variations was first on the disc, so one had to get through the enigma to reach the planets. Reasonable, I thought. I wrote X, Phil, on a Post-it, put the CD in an envelope, and stuck it through her letterbox.

  She rang me up that evening. ‘Neptune, the Mystic, is my favourite,’ she said. ‘It does sound mystical, as if anything might happen, might be possible. It’s open near and it’s open far. I love it.’

  ‘I thought you might. Did you listen to the Elgar?’

  ‘Yes indeed – I had to go through the enigma to get to the planets. Here and there it sounded quite Neptuney.’

  ‘I did a Google search,’ I said, ‘and this is a quote from Elgar: “The enigma I will not explain – its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played …” Barbara.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just wanted to say your name.’

  ‘“Another and larger theme goes but is not played.” The larger theme can’t really be played, can it? There aren’t the notes for it … But it’s the one that matters. Phil?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just wanted to say your name. Phil, are you afraid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Want to be afraid together with Chinese takeaway and a film?’

  ‘OK. I’ll bring the wine. What do you think, red or white?’

  ‘You decide. Any film preferences?’

  ‘You decide. See you in a little, Phil.’

  ‘Till soon, Barb.’ I looked at my DVDs and videos. Thriller, feelgood, western, comedy, romance, what? I decided on The Cooler, with William H. Macy, Maria Bello, and Alec Baldwin. It’s got winning and losing, bad luck, good luck, love and a great ending. I’d already watched it twice.

  I rang up Mayflower and ordered won ton soup, spring rolls, sweet and sour pork, special foo yung, and egg fried rice for two, then I closed my eyes, imagining Barbara coming down the North End Road. I saw her smiling face, saw her breath in the air, heard her footsteps against the background noise. The colours of the lights in the crisp dark of the evening, almost I could taste them. Now she’ll be at Ryman, I thought. Now at Waitrose. Now she’s in the Fulham Road. Now at Domino’s Pizza, no – she won’t be there yet because she’s probably getting the wine at Waitrose. But then I didn’t see anything but darkness and I had that dropping sensation you get sometimes when falling asleep. ‘What?’ I said.

  I wanted to go out to meet her but the Mayflower delivery was on the way so I waited until it arrived, then I went out to the path along Eel Brook Common and she ran into my arms all breathless and shaking. ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Troy,’ she said. ‘I went to Oddbins in Harwood Road, I thought he’d have been at work already but he was just passing as I came out. “Going to a party?” he said. He pulled me around the corner into Effie Road, past El Metro and into the common. Then, with no one to see him do it, he grabbed me by the hair but before he could swing me around I hit him with the Minervois. Knocked him out but I broke the bottle.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Probably still flat on his face on the path.’

  ‘Is he badly hurt? Should we call an ambulance?’

  ‘I don’t see why. That’s an occupational hazard in his line of work – he’ll come round by himself or somebody will give him first or second aid, whatever.’

  Now I began to see her in a new light as someone to whom violence came easily. If she’d hit Troy hard enough with that bottle to knock him out he might even be dead or at least concussed. In the movies people get sapped with gun butts and all kinds of hard objects and it does them no permanent harm but real life isn’t like that.

  ‘The way you’re looking at me you must’ve led a very sheltered life,’ she said, ‘and in the meantime the wine’s gone and the Chinese takeaway’ll be getting cold.’

  ‘Sorry, Barbara. I’ve got a bottle of red at home and the food’s only just been delivered – it’ll be all right. But are you all right?’ I’d have thought she’d be trembling after an encounter like that but she seemed perfectly calm.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine when we settle down with food and drink and a video at your place.’

  ‘I’ve got a great movie for you, The Cooler.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Winning and losing, good luck and bad luck. Love. Mainly it’s a love story.’

  ‘Could we watch The Rainmaker again?’

  ‘Sure, Barb, anything you like.’ Jesus, I thought, that film really is a turn-on for her.

  The food was still warm and the wine was so good that we finished it too quickly and carried on with beer. Barbara was squeezing my arm so hard she left bruises. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ she said to the screen when the legal action and courtroom scenes went on too long. ‘Bastard!’ she said when the husband yelled at Kelly and threw a bowlful of soup on her in the hospital. ‘You’ll get yours, you bloody wife-beater! Just wait!’ When Rudy and Kelly beat him to death she said, ‘Yes!’ and smothered me with kisses. ‘You ever wish you were six inches taller, Phil?’

  ‘Most of the time. Do you wish I were six inches taller?’

  ‘Actually, it’s not the size that matters, it’s what you do with it.’

  ‘What are we talking about, Babs?’

  ‘You, Phil, the total five foot seven of you.’

  ‘You’re going to make me very uncomfortable if you keep harping on about my shortness, Babsy.’

  A very serious kiss this time. ‘But I can make you very comfortable too, can’t I?’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ I said. ‘Are we going to the tango class tomorrow? Or is this tomorrow?’

  ‘The room’s going round,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about it after I throw up.’

  ‘This way, please,’ I said, and led her to the bathroom.

  When Barbara had finished being sick she said, ‘Would you get my bag for me, please?’ When I gave it to her she took out a toothbrush. I tried to act unsurprised. When she’d cleaned her teeth and washed her face she said, ‘Give me a shirt.’

  ‘A shirt?’

  ‘In the movies the woman wakes up wearing a man’s shirt, so give me one and put me to bed.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ I said. I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

  ‘Aren’t you coming to bed?�
� she said.

  ‘Not yet. I want to sit at my desk for a while and think about you in my shirt in my bed.’

  ‘You like to think about me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s nice. I’ll think about you too.’ She fell asleep immediately. I went into the living room and walked around hugging myself for a while, then I went to my desk. I sat there thinking about Barbara, then I went to my computer and watched the cursor on the word processor flickering like a snake’s tongue. Mimi had said that Hope of a Tree was ‘a put-together thing trying to pass itself off as a novel’, and she was right. It was about a painter whose wife had committed suicide. For a long time after her death he couldn’t work but then he met a new woman etc. Why hadn’t I done better? And why did that come to mind now? I reached for the Bible in the stack by the desk and turned to Job 14:7-9:

  For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down,

  that it will sprout again, and that the tender

  branch thereof will not cease.

  8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,

  and the stock thereof die in the ground;

  9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud,

  and bring forth boughs like a plant.

  I put a blank page up on the screen and thought about a title for what might or might not be my next novel. I closed my eyes and saw Barbara asleep in my bed. I opened my eyes and typed The Scent of Water. OK, the scent of water. What about it? I had determined not to use the current events of my life, I wanted to keep Barbara private and separate. So what was The Scent of Water going to be about? No idea. ‘Never mind,’ I said to myself. ‘You’ve got a title and that’s a start.’ Then I got ready for bed and climbed in beside Barbara. She was snoring so loudly that she sounded like a 747 passing very low over the house.

  Between her snoring and the deliciousness of her solid warmth I was a long time falling asleep. I lay awake thinking about Troy Wallis and his violence to Barbara. Although actually he might now qualify as a battered husband. Indeed, he might be lying dead on the path by the common. I’d never seen him and the only visible evidence of his violence was the bruising on Barbara’s arms. Did he exist? Here I was falling in love with this woman and I wasn’t even sure whether or not she was lying to me.

  Nothing but sleep happened that night, and when Barbara got up in the morning she groaned. All she had for breakfast was coffee, then she kissed me, said, ‘See you,’ and left.

  ‘When?’ I called after her.

  ‘Don’t know,’ with a shrug.

  I went to my desk and accosted the word machine. It looked at me as if I were a stranger. ‘Don’t give me that,’ I said. ‘Without me you’re nothing.’

  Big talk, it snapped back. What have you done for me lately?

  I checked my e-mail for the second time, looked in on Ellen MacArthur’s website to see how she was doing in her solo circumnavigation of the globe, and worried with her about the high pressure area ahead. Then I suddenly couldn’t remember where my copy of the lives and times of archy & mehitabel was. Looked for it but no luck, so rather than lose the whole day in a fruitless search I ordered a used copy (the book was out of print) from AbeBooks. By then it was nearly lunchtime so I thought I might as well get some air.

  I went out to Eel Brook Common and walked along the path where Barbara had said she’d knocked Troy out with the Minervois. There was no broken glass. The cleaners had already been and would have swept it up. There were some dark stains on the paving that might have been wine or blood or both but I couldn’t be sure. I was disgusted with myself for doubting Barbara but the uncertainty persisted. I recalled what I’d learned about the tango, how the partners have to trust each other, have to be completely tuned in to each other. I remembered our bodies touching all last night and her vulnerable nakedness in my shirt, remembered how it felt to hold her in that beginners’ class: there wasn’t trust but there was openness and a willingness to explore possibilities. If Barbara and I could become really good tango dancers, what might not develop? but I didn’t want to be in a crowd of learners again. Maybe if we went for private tuition?

  She didn’t turn up that evening so I phoned her.

  ‘Barbara,’ I said, ‘it’s me.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I was just about to go out.’

  ‘Oh.’ Go out where? With whom? Mustn’t ask. ‘I thought we might try some private tango tuition.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘So we could concentrate on getting beyond the beginners’ stage.’

  ‘Why?’ She didn’t sound like the woman who’d slept next to me last night.

  ‘I think it would feel good to tango well, don’t you?’

  ‘What does it cost?’ As if she’d never smothered me with kisses and thrown up in my bathroom.

  ‘Forty pounds an hour.’

  ‘I can’t spend twenty pounds on a tango lesson.’

  ‘No, no, this is my treat.’

  ‘I don’t want you to spend forty pounds on a lesson for us either.’ Her voice was tapping its foot, eager to put down the phone.

  ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘It’s no big deal, it’s less than dinner for two at any decent restaurant.’

  ‘It’s not the same thing and you know it. Listen, I have to go.’

  I could hear in her voice that I wasn’t going to see her for a while. Was mine the sensitivity of a natural loser? I had an upcoming workshop to do at Morley College so I moved my mind to that and made my Barbara thoughts wait until I could give them my full attention. Of course they kept hammering on the door but I told myself I’d have to get used to that.

  4

  Bertha Strunk

  I wasn’t surprised when Brian Adderley turned up at the Lichtheim studio for a check-up; that was a regular thing with their clients. Sometimes I used to wonder what I’d say when I saw him again. The time we’d spent together wasn’t the kind of thing you forget, and lying in bed beside Troy I’d find myself remembering nights with Brian.

  So there he was. He looked very well and very prosperous. Not that he was fashionably dressed – he was as scruffy as ever – but he looked as if he could buy anything without asking the price first. ‘You look to be in good shape,’ he said, and kissed me on the cheeks.

  ‘So do you,’ I said, and after Karl did the check-up Brian and I went to The Blue Posts and sank a couple of pints. ‘I still owe you some Dubai money,’ he said.

  ‘No, you don’t. I didn’t mind posing for the paintings but I really couldn’t square it with Artemisia if I took money for it.’

  ‘You’ve got fancy scruples,’ he said.

  ‘Everybody draws the line somewhere, I think.’

  ‘Even I. Would you believe that since you left I haven’t been with any other woman?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘All right, I didn’t actually go cold turkey but it was like being alone. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Almost. At least it’s a nice compliment.’

  ‘So are you with anyone now?’

  ‘I’m married but I’m not with my husband any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘One beating was enough.’

  ‘How could you marry a man stupid enough to beat you?’

  ‘I’m not very clever myself. You may have noticed.’

  ‘You’ve got someone else?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s too soon to say.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘No one you know. He’s a writer.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Phil Ockerman.’

  ‘The guy who wrote Hope of a Tree?’

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Yes, and it was real crap. He uses words well enough but it was really just a put-together thing trying to pass for a novel. Have you read it?’

  ‘No. How are things between you and your wife?’

  ‘We’re divorced. She’s got the house and the kids and a lot of money and I’ve moved here. I’ve got a house in
Cheyne Walk.’

  ‘You must have struck it rich.’

  ‘Von Augenblick doesn’t only have contacts in Dubai, he’s got the whole Middle East pretty well covered, and Judith & Co. go down a bomb with his clientele.’

  We were quiet for a while, then a white-haired woman nearby leaned our way and said, ‘Actually, Hope of a Tree had quite a few good things in it. You can’t expect strong plots from Ockerman, his novels are mainly character-driven.’ Her face might not have been beautiful when she was young but looked very classy now and there was something in her voice – it was low and husky – that made me think she must have had an exciting past and a lot of lovers. I’d noticed her when she came in; she was taller than I and had a long slim black velvet bag slung from her shoulder. It knocked against the table when she sat down and it didn’t sound like an umbrella. She saw me looking at it and slid it partly out of the bag. It was a baseball bat. I thought of The Rainmaker and I couldn’t help smiling. Sometimes it’s nothing but baseball bats. A sign?

  ‘A Louisville Slugger,’ she said. ‘His name is Irv.’

  ‘“His”, not “Its”,’ said Brian. ‘Has that bat got a history?’

  ‘It has,’ she said. ‘But you wouldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I didn’t know that form and emptiness are the same.’

  ‘Not a lot of people know that,’ Brian said. ‘What’re you drinking? You need a refill.’

  ‘Directors,’ she said. ‘But just a half please. Vodka used to be my tipple but the ravages of time forced me to switch to beer, and even that puts me to sleep if I’m not careful.’

  Brian went to the bar and got refills for all of us, then he said to the woman with the baseball bat, ‘Tell us the story, please. I’m Brian Adderley. This is Bertha Strunk.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘My name is Grace Kowalski. The bat is named after a friend who’s no longer with us. Some years back he and I and a few others were involved in some very strange goings-on. Do you believe in ghosts?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brian.