Why is a honeymoon called that? Lune de miel, moon of honey-as if the moon itself is not a cold and airless and barren sphere of pockmarked rock, but soft, golden, luscious-a luminous candied plum, the yellow kind, melting in the mouth and sticky as desire, so achingly sweet it makes your teeth hurt. A warm floodlight floating, not in the sky, but inside your own body.
I know about all of that. I remember it very well. But not from my honeymoon.
The emotion I recall most clearly from that eight weeks-could it have been only eight?-was anxiety. I was worried that Richard was finding the experience of our marriage-by which I meant the part of it that took place in the dark and could not be spoken about-as disappointing as I did. Although this did not appear to be the case: he was affable enough to me at first, at least in daylight. I concealed this anxiety of mine as well as I could, and took frequent baths: 1 felt I was becoming addled inside, like an egg.
After we'd docked at Southampton, Richard and I travelled to London by train, where we stayed at Brown's Hotel. We had breakfast served in the suite, for which I would put on a negligee, one of the three selected for me by Winifred: ashes of roses, bone with dove-grey lace, lilac with aquamarine-pale, watery colours that were easy on the morning face. Each had the satin mules to match, trimmed with dyed fur or swan's-down. I assumed this was what grown-up women wore in the mornings. I'd seen pictures of such ensembles (but where? Could they have been advertisements, for a brand of coffee perhaps?)-the man in suit and tie, his hair combed slickly back, the woman in her negligee looking just as groomed, one hand lifted, holding the silver coffee pot with its curved spout, the two of them smiling woozily at each other across the butter dish.
Laura would have sneered at these outfits. She'd already sneered when she'd seen them being packed. Though it wasn't sneering exactly: Laura was incapable of true sneering. She lacked the necessary cruelty. (The necessary deliberate cruelty, that is. Her cruelties were accidental-by-products of whatever lofty notions may have been going through her head.) Her reaction had been more like amazement-like disbelief. She'd run her hand over the satin with a little shiver, and I'd felt the cold oiliness, the slipperiness of the fabric, in the ends of my own fingers. Like lizard skin. "You're going towear these?" she'd said.
On those summer mornings in London-for it was summer by then-we would eat our breakfasts with the curtains half-drawn against the clarity of the sun. Richard would have two boiled eggs, two thick rashers of bacon and a grilled tomato, with toast and marmalade, the toast brittle, cooled in a toast rack. I would have half a grapefruit. The tea would be dark, tannic, like swamp water. This was the correct, the English way to serve it, said Richard.
Not much would be said, apart from the obligatory "Sleep well, darling?" and "Mmm-you?" Richard would have the newspapers delivered, along with the telegrams. There were always several of these. He would scan the papers, then open the telegrams, read them, fold them carefully once and then again, place them in a pocket. Or else he would rip them into shreds. He never crumpled them up and tossed them into a wastebasket, and if he had done that I might not have dug them out and read them, or not at that period of my life.
I supposed all of them were for him: I had never been sent a telegram, and could think of no reason why I might receive one.
Richard had various engagements during the day. I assumed they were with business associates. He hired a car and driver for me, and. I was taken out to see what in his view ought to be seen. Most of the things I inspected were buildings, others were parks. Others were statues, erected outside the buildings or inside the parks: statesmen with their tummies sucked in and their chests stuck out, the front leg bent, clutching scrolls of paper; military men on horseback. Nelson on his column, Prince Albert on his throne with a quartet of exotic women roiling and wallowing around his feet, spewing out fruit and wheat. These were supposed to be the Continents, over which Prince Albert, though dead, still held sway, but he paid no attention to them; he sat stern and silent under his ornate, gilded cupola, gazing into the distance, his mind on higher things.
"What did you see today?" Richard would ask at dinner, and I would dutifully recite, ticking off one building or park or statue after another: the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Kensington, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament. He did not encourage the visiting of museums, apart from the Natural History Museum. I wonder, now, why it was that he thought the sight of so many large stuffed animals would be conducive to my education? For it had become evident that this is what all of these visits were aimed at-my education. Why should the stuffed animals have been better for me, or better for his idea of what I should become, than a roomful of paintings, for instance? I think I know, but perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the stuffed animals were more or less like a zoo-something you'd take a child to, for an outing.
I did go to the National Gallery, though. The conci ¨rge at the hotel suggested it, once I'd run out of buildings. It wore me out-it was like a department store, so many bodies crowded against the walls, so much dazzle-but at the same time it was exhilarating. I had never seen so many naked women in one place. There were naked men as well, but they were not quite so naked. There was also a lot of fancy dress. Perhaps these are primary categories, like women and men: naked and clothed. Well, God thought so. (Laura, as a child: What does God wear?)
At all of these places the car and driver would wait, and I would walk briskly in, through whatever gate or door, trying to look purposeful; trying not to look so lonely and empty. Then I would stare and stare, so I would have something to say later. But I could not really make sense out of what I was seeing. Buildings are only buildings. There's nothing much to them unless you know about architecture, or else about what once happened there, and I did not know. I lacked the talent for overviews; it was as if my eyes were right up against whatever I was supposed to be looking at, and I would come away only with textures: roughness of brick or stone, smoothness of waxed wooden bannisters, harshness of mangy fur. The striations of horn, the warm gleam of ivory. Glass eyes.
In addition to these educational excursions, Richard encouraged me to go shopping. I found the shop clerks intimidating, and bought little. On other occasions I had my hair done. He did not want me to get it cut or marcelled, and so I didn't. A simple style was best for me, he said. It suited my youth.
Sometimes I would just amble around, or sit on park benches, waiting until it was time to go back. Sometimes a man would sit down beside me, and try to begin a conversation. Then I would leave.
I spent a lot of time changing my costumes. Diddling with straps, with buckles, with the tilt of hats, the seams on stockings. Worrying about the appropriateness of this or that, for this or that hour of the day. No one to hook me up at the neckline or tell me what I looked like from the back and whether I was all tucked in. Reenie used to do that, or Laura. I missed them, and tried not to.
Filing my nails, soaking my feet. Yanking out hairs, or shaving them off: it was necessary to be sleek, devoid of bristles. A topography like wet clay, a surface the hands would glide over.
Honeymoons were said to allow the new couple the time to get to know each other better, but as the days went by I felt I knew Richard less and less. He was effacing himself, or was it concealment? Withdrawal to a vantage point. I myself however was taking shape-the shape intended for me, by him. Each time I looked in the mirror a little more of me had been coloured in.
After London we went to Paris, by channel boat and then by train. The shape of the days in Paris was much the same as those in London, although the breakfasts were different: a hard roll, strawberry jam, coffee with hot milk. The meals were succulent; Richard made quite a fuss over them, and especially over the wines. He kept saying we weren't in Toronto, a fact that was self-evident to me.