She said, ‘Nick, you used my sexual stuff. What I like up my cunt.’
He lowered his voice. ‘The Croatian version of the book has come out. It has been translated into ten languages. Who’s going to recognise your hairy flaps or my broth of a stomach and withered buttocks?’
‘I do. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Who says it’s your cunt? Sometimes a cunt —’
She rubbed her face with her hand. ‘Don’t start. The cunt in the book is called ME — Middle England. Those who enter it, of whom there seem to be an unnecessary number, and pretty grotesque they are too, are known as Middle Englanders. We —’
‘It was always my joke.’
‘Our joke.’
‘All right.’
‘I thought it would stop disturbing me. But it didn’t go away. I feel abused by you, Nick.’
‘That wouldn’t be the origin of that feeling.’
‘No, as you pointed out in the book, when my father was away lecturing, my mother did unwelcome things to me.’
He said, ‘Most of the women I’ve met have been sexually abused. If some women are afraid of men, or hate them, isn’t it going to start there?’
She wasn’t listening. She had plenty to say; he let her continue.
She said, ‘When I saw you the first time I was impressed. Writers are supposed to feel and know. They’re wise, with enough honesty, bravery and conscience for us all. Now I’m upset that you saw me as you did. Upset you wrote it down. Would you say anything, expose anyone, provided it served your purpose? If you only believe in your own advantage you would have to agree that that is a miserable place to have ended up.’ She picked up her cigarettes and threw them down. ‘Why didn’t you make the woman strong?’
‘Who is strong? Hitler? Florence Nightingale? Thatcher? She wishes to be strong, impervious to human perplexity. Wouldn’t that be more accurate?’
He tried to look at her evenly. She had never come at him like this. She had been confused and tolerant and afraid of losing him. They had parted suddenly, abruptly. But for over a year they had spoken on the phone several times a day, and seen one another in the most excessive situations. He had often wondered why they had not been able to continue; he had even considered seeing her again, if she wanted to. They had got along.
If Natasha was clumsy and felt that her elbows protruded; if she walked with her feet turned out, despite having tried to correct this during her childhood, she brought this to his attention. If she was quick and well read, whatever she knew was inadequate. There was always a spot, blemish, new line, sagging eyelid or patch of dry skin on her cheek which it was impossible for her not to draw attention to. She lacked confidence, to say the least, but had attacks of impassioned self-belief, gaiety and determination which she later condemned. After laughing loudly she clapped her hand over her open mouth. But she wouldn’t be suppressed; when she had a fear or phobia, she made a note of it, and fought. Perhaps when she was in her fifties she would reach a cooler equilibrium.
As he looked, her outline seemed to blur. It wasn’t only that past and present were merging to form a new picture of her, it was that a third person was sitting with them. This had happened before. Natasha had seemed to place between them another woman, a fiction, who resembled Natasha but was her denial and her Platonic ideal. This Natasha, the pop star, was cool, certain, smart. Photographed in a different light, in better clothes, good at ballet, cooking and conversation, this figure dragged Natasha along to better things, while undermining and mocking her. They had both fallen in love with this desirable prevailing woman who haunted them as a living presence, but would never let them possess her. Compared with her, Natasha could only fail. They had had to find others — strangers — to witness and worship the ideal Natasha; and, when the illusion failed, like a cinema projector breaking down, they had to get rid of them.
‘You wrote a bit‚’ he said. ‘You know how diverse and complex the sources of inspiration are.’
‘I still write‚’ she said. ‘Despite your laughing at me.’
‘It was justice you were interested in, and how to live. Literature makes no recommendations. It’s not a guidebook but you did learn that the imagination lifts something up and takes it somewhere else, altering it as it flies. The original idea is only an excuse.’
She pretended to choke. ‘The magic carpet of your imagination didn’t fly you very far, baby. Why did you take parts of me and put them in a book? Nick, you were savage about me. I’ve asked people about this.’
‘They agree with you?’ She nodded. He said, ‘What are you doing these days?’
‘I finished my training. Now I work as a therapist. I have credit card debts up to here. They took the car. Once you start sinking you really go fast. You couldn’t —’ She shook her head. ‘No, no. I’m not going to degrade myself.’
‘Not more than you usually like to‚’ he said.
‘No. That’s right. Hey. Look.’
She threw her cigarette down and pushed up her sleeve. Drawing a breath, she pushed. There was an appreciable swelling. ‘I’ve been going to the gym.’
He wondered if she required him to squeeze the muscle. ‘Popeye’s been eating her spinach‚’ he said.
‘It makes me feel good‚’ she said.
‘That’s all that matters.’
‘I’ve got into young men.’
‘Good.’
He noticed that her ears were pierced in several places. Perhaps she had violated herself all over. It would be like going to bed with a cactus. He wouldn’t mention it. The less he said, the sooner it would be over. He saw he was only there to listen. However, something came to him.
‘My mind hasn’t entirely gone‚’ he said. ‘But these days I do’ pick up a book and have no memory of what I read yesterday. However, I was labouring through a seven-hundred-page biography of someone I liked. It bulged with facts. Almost the only part I found irresistible was the subject’s sciatica and slipped disc — you know how it is at our age. In the end I had no idea what the man might be like. Everything personal and human was missing. Then I thought: where else could you get the complexity and detail of inner motion except in fiction? It’s the closest we can get to how we are inside.’
She looked away. ‘I’ve never had a vocation.’
‘Why don’t you go to Spain?’
‘What? Vocation, I said.’
‘Why does a vocation matter?’
‘I want to find something to be good at. One of my patients is a skinhead, sexually abused by his mother and sister. I don’t think he can even read his own tattoos. It is not me he’s hating and sapping as he sits there saying “cunt, cunt, cunt”. Why am I compelled to help this bastard? Nick, you’re omnipotent and self-sufficient in that little room with your special pens that no one’s allowed to touch, the coffee that only you can make, music where you can reach it, postcards of famous paintings pinned in front of you. Is it the same?’
‘Exactly.’
‘You were always retreating to that womb or hiding place. What made me cross was how you placed the madness outside yourself — in me, the half-addicted, promiscuous, self-devouring crazy girl. Isn’t that misogyny?’
He looked startled. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘You made yourself, Nick, you see, before things got … a little mad. You weren’t privileged, like some of those show-off scribblers. I remember you sitting with your favourite novels, underlining sentences. The lists of words pinned up by your shaving mirror — words to learn, words to use. You’d write out the same sentence again and again, in different ways. I can’t imagine a woman being so methodical and will-driven. You want to be highly considered. Only I wish you hadn’t taken a sneaky and spiteful revenge against me.’
He said, ‘It’s never going to be frictionless between men and women as long they want things from one another — and they have to want things, that’s a relationship.’