‘Hello, I’m Marianne Davenport.’
‘Larry. Larry Anderson. Cultural attaché. Are you enjoying the party?’
‘Yes… well, actually I’ve only just arrived. I don’t know anyone here.’
‘Well, as one of the hosts I must look after you. Is this your first time at an embassy party?’
‘First and last, I expect. Why have I been invited?’
‘We like to rope in as many as we can of our citizens who find themselves here in Moscow. You’re at the university, aren’t you?’
‘How did you know?’
‘I remember from the guest list. Actually, I was partly responsible for drawing up the list. I remember thinking your name sounded French.’
‘My mother grew up in France – that’s the Marianne; Davenport is my husband’s name. So why didn’t you invite my husband?’
‘Oh dear. That was a blunder. I don’t think we had you down as married.’
‘I didn’t know you had me down at all, but married I certainly am, and to an Englishman, so perhaps that disqualifies him from getting an invitation.’
‘Of course not – not as your spouse – although as you can see we do have quite a crowd this evening.’
Larry talked to her about life in Moscow and his work at the embassy but all the time she couldn’t stop thinking of Daniel. Larry had such an old-fashioned look about him, he could easily have been Daniel a dozen years older. The same generous lips and questioning smile. While most men were now wearing their hair fashionably long, and some were sprouting lavish horseshoe moustaches, Larry was more short-back-and-sides, and although there was no quiff as such, his hair tended to a natural curl at the front which lifted it off his forehead. Then there were the glasses. No thin gold frames for him, but authentic, thick Buddy Holly rims which seemed a perfect match for his unfashionably narrow tie. It was as if the 1960s had passed him by and left no trace on his cosmetic or sartorial choices.
No, it wasn’t only the music; the look was so like Daniel that goose bumps broke out down Marianne’s arms and she felt disorientated and unable to concentrate on what he was telling her. And what had happened to the music now? The couples on the dance floor had moved together, the music had gone slow. Oh God, she remembered it: ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’.
‘Who chose the music?’ she asked, interrupting the flow of his conversation.
‘Don’t you like it? I can ask him to play something more up to date…’
‘No, no – I do like it, it’s just – some of these numbers I haven’t heard for years…’
‘It’s the music of our teens – at least mine – perhaps you are too young.’
‘Hardly.’
‘Those wild, reckless days…’
‘In the fifties? Come on. Anyway, you don’t look as if you were ever wild or reckless.’
‘Don’t I? You’ve rumbled me already. But we can invent, can’t we? Once we are over thirty we can invent for ourselves a tempestuous and irresponsible youth…’
Tempestuous, she thought, yes that’s a good way to describe my early teens, even if I strove to contain my own inner tempest. When my parents agreed to my going on holiday with Betsy’s family, they would never have conceived any danger to their fourteen-year-old daughter from a young man who would shortly be starting his senior year at college.
Sitting alone at a small table while Larry went to get her another drink and the music throbbed around her, Marianne let her mind drift back. She is squeezed into the family Dodge between Betsy and her brother Daniel as they drive to the house in Ogunquit, which Betsy’s family rent every year for their summer vacation. A grey clapboard house with white shutters, it is just possible to glimpse the ocean through the large trees which provide a screen of privacy. From the house a rough track leads down to the coastal path which continues around the rocky shoreline to a small cove.
It starts that first evening. She and Betsy wander into Daniel’s room to listen to the music he is playing. Daniel is remarkably tolerant of his younger sister and her friend, greeting their arrival with a weary smile while he continues to lie on his bed reading. After a while Betsy ambles over and grabs the book he is holding: ‘Tropic of Cancer – what’s this about? “Not to be imported into Great Britain or the USA”,’ she reads.
‘Hey, don’t be so goddamn stupid. Give it back. That’s a valuable book.’
‘How come you’re reading it if it can’t be imported into the US?’
‘Because I am borrowing it from a friend who bought it in Paris.’
‘Why can’t it be sold here?’ says Betsy, opening the book and peering at the text. Daniel just smiles as he grabs the book and puts it under his pillow. ‘Can I read it after you?’ she says, changing her tune.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘In which case, I will tell Mom and Dad you’re reading an illegal book…’
‘I wouldn’t recommend it if you know what’s good for you.’ The brother-sister banter carries on for a while as Marianne looks on, fascinated – the dynamics of Betsy’s relationship with her elder brother are quite outside Marianne’s experience, which is limited to bossing her five-year-old sister Claire.
‘Why don’t you come and dance?’ asks Betsy, trying unsuccessfully to drag Daniel off his bed. ‘OK, if you won’t, Marianne and I will practise our rock ’n’ roll.’
Marianne and Betsy go through some of their regular dance routines, while Daniel watches; his book remaining under his pillow. As she gyrates around the room with Betsy, Marianne feels more and more self-conscious under Daniel’s intense gaze. It somehow doesn’t surprise her when Daniel eventually gets off his bed, takes her hand and says: ‘Let me dance with Marianne now.’ Marianne is aware that she is probably a better dancer than Betsy, being both slimmer and having a better ear for the music, but she senses now that this isn’t just about dancing. There is an urgency, almost a violence, about the way Daniel is throwing her around which both alarms and excites her. Knowing her passion for Buddy Holly he has chosen ‘Oh Boy’ and then ‘Rave On’, with the volume turned up full, until the door of the bedroom is flung open and Mrs Morgan strides in:
‘Really, this is too much noise. What’s going on in here?’
‘Sorry, Mom,’ says Daniel, turning down the volume. ‘The girls wanted to practise their rock ’n’ roll.’
‘Well, enough of that, I think. A little quiet music, and then you girls back to your room please.’ His mother leaves and Daniel smiles at Marianne, takes a new single out of its sleeve and puts it on the record player. He then bows formally to her with a look that is all of a sudden more serious and less ironic, takes her hand and pulls her towards him as the deep tones of Elvis singing ‘Love Me Tender’ fill the room; he holds her tight to his body, pressing her hard against his chest, as they move together in time to the slow rhythm of the music.
All these memories returned to Marianne in a series of brief pulsating flashes – the feeling of Daniel’s hand caressing her hair, the sense of something happening to his body which she is loath to acknowledge or identify, the awareness of Betsy’s eyes boring into her back with shock and disapproval and then the strained tone in which Betsy says, ‘Marianne, Mom wanted us to go back to our room,’ when the record finally comes to an end.
Marianne realised with a start that Larry had returned and was talking to her – indeed he seemed to be giving her an invitation. She tried to concentrate.
‘…dinner a week Friday – a few Moscow neophytes you might like to meet – I’d appreciate it if you and your husband could come.’
‘Um… thank you. I mean I’ll have to check with my husband, with Edward, if we’re…’
‘Yes, of course. Anyhow, I’ll mail you an invitation, but in case you haven’t received it in a few days, give me a call. Here’s my card.’