‘Of course.’ She reached out and patted his hand. She wasn’t angry with him. In fact, she was probably being a hypocrite about the whole thing. ‘I’d like you to drop me off at the Chelsea. I want to visit a friend.’
He nodded, cigarette wobbling in his mouth, and then leaned over to instruct his driver. His buttocks were divine. But then, so were sunsets and thunderstorms and Debussy’s nocturnes.
‘Little cleft in his chin?’ said Bart, pointing to his own chin.
‘Yes.’
‘I know of him. Been to a few of the same parties. Tragically good-looking, you’re not wrong there.’
Bettina opened the window (the room was smelly). The stars and moon were concealed by fog. London was horrible, actually. Down below, a hatless woman covered in sores was sitting on a bench, loudly sobbing and kissing what looked like a photograph. There – horrible. She blew smoke out of the window, watching the breeze snatch it away. ‘Quite charming too, Barty. He knew exactly what he was doing.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt it.’ Bart came over and handed her a drink. He was unshaven and sleepy-eyed. He kept yawning and his tongue was crusted yellow. ‘Well done you for thwarting his advances.’
‘Well, it wasn’t that difficult. My heart wasn’t in it.’
‘No?’
She shook her head, sipping at her drink. ‘I won’t lie, my body responded. Somewhat. I mean, I think I could have gone through with it and it wouldn’t have been entirely disgusting.’
Bart went over to the gramophone and set the needle over the record already in place – his current favourite, ‘Crazy Blues’ by Mamie Smith. He was forever playing it – a cry for help probably. ‘The thing is,’ she continued, ‘there was something missing. Know what I mean? No frisson, no passion. I felt… clinical.’ Clinical yet wet, she wanted to say.
Bart sat in his armchair, draping a long pyjama’d leg over the other, and held his drink with both hands. ‘You don’t need me to tell you why, do you?’
A melancholy, dead-eyed shrug. ‘He was so handsome.’
‘And yet…?’
‘And yet.’ She sat on the floor by his feet, resting her head against his thigh and closing her eyes. Half-listening to the woman sing about her horrible life and horrible man. He ran his hands through her hair, his fingers grazing her scalp. ‘How are you feeling, my lovely boy?’ she said.
He sighed. ‘A bit down, actually.’
‘Oh? I had no idea. You’ve been such a joy.’ She got up and climbed into his slippery lap (his pyjamas were silk). ‘You can tell me anything, you know,’ she said, running her finger along the small scar just over his right ear.
‘I can’t.’
‘I tell you everything.’
‘Nobody tells anybody everything.’
‘Oh, shut up. I tell you as much as I’ll ever tell anyone.’
He stared at her. His eyes were glassy and the skin around his nose was tightening and wrinkling, as if he was suppressing tears. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ she said, gently. ‘But I bet that if you do, I’ll be the most understanding person ever, literally ever, in the whole wide world. And I’ll bet you something else…’
‘What?’
‘I bet I already know what’s wrong. It doesn’t take a genius.’
‘Bet you anything you don’t.’
She rolled her eyes. How boring. ‘Will he tell me, will he not tell me, when will he bloody tell me?’ She grabbed his face and twisted it so that he couldn’t look away. ‘You like men.’
He stared at her, his eyes fierce, his cheeks squished between her hands. She wanted to laugh – those fierce eyes coupled with the puffed cheeks and his lips like a sausagey figure eight. But this was a serious moment. What if he grew angry and denied everything? Perhaps she’d got it wrong after all; perhaps she was trying to make him the same as her so that she’d feel less… yucky; perhaps, these last couple of months, she’d built up this convenient, neat narrative, romantic in its way, with the two friends fantastically mirroring each other’s persuasions, two best friends, the same all along, the same since childhood, when in actual fact, Bart was simply in love with a married woman or anxious about finances or dissatisfied with his career. How disgustingly alone she would feel.
‘Marry me,’ he said.
She let go of his cheeks. ‘What?’
‘Marry me.’
‘Jesus, Bart. What are you trying to prove?’
He sat up straighter and again stared into her face, but this time with urgency. ‘Nothing. You’re right – I like men. I do, I fucking well do! And you like women. Let’s get married. We love each other, don’t we?’
She climbed off his lap, dazed, and headed straight for the drinks table. She poured wine into a fresh glass and downed it. Bart had followed her over and was standing next to her. ‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘Take as long as you like.’
‘You’re genuinely serious?’ she said, lighting a cigarette with shaking hands.
‘Oh, I’m deadly serious! I think this might be the best idea I’ve ever had. Think about it, Betts: we live together, as friends. Perhaps we have children,’ he waved a hand, ‘some way or other, I don’t know. We have people over for dinner, we behave like we always do, we have parties, we have fun, we go for long walks and have lovely darling picnics. If you meet a girl you like, I look away, if I meet a boy I like, you look away. No judgement, no shame, no secrets.’
‘Us, have children? Are you joking?’
‘Pretend I didn’t say that bit. But the rest… can’t you see?’ He went over to the gramophone and put a new record on, a lively jazz number. He was smiling and tapping his slippered foot. ‘Don’t you see how lucky we are? Two good friends with the exact same – with the same problem and the means to help each other out? Don’t you see how – look, just… it’s almost as if… it’s almost as if… no, I won’t bring God into this. But it does whiff of fate. Something like that.’ He looked at her with his hands spread out. ‘Look. Imagine this: you marry a man. You have to sleep with him most nights. Maybe he’s gorgeous like Francis and you tolerate it. By the way, I’m exceedingly attracted to Francis. I can say that now.’ He laughed, almost manically. ‘Oh my God, I’m so fucking relieved! You’re married to this man, Betts, and let’s say you grow fond of him. Like – he’s like a Labrador who follows you around all the time. But after a year of this? Two years, ten years? You pretend to have a headache some nights, but you can’t have a headache that lasts forty years. Are you seeing this? Do you want this?’
‘Of course not! But it might not go that way! Some people are just very picky. And there was… I might just be very picky.’ And there was that wetness – that’s what she’d been about to say.
He gave her a look of mildly disgusted impatience, the sort her father excelled at. ‘Horseshit. It’s horseshit. I know you. Marry me, Bettina. Don’t you see how perfect this is? We always said we’d get married, as children, don’t you remember?’ He was pacing now, his cigarette going from mouth to hip, mouth to hip, little blasts of smoke jettisoning from the side of his mouth. ‘You’ve always considered yourself a rebel, Betts, always sneered at the common arrangements, the stale institutions and all that, and now, well, here’s your chance to show you’re not all talk, like your parents.’ He was packaging this for her in a way he knew would entice, just like that time he’d made her eat the worm – only the bravest, boldest girl would dare eat a worm. Only the rarest trailblazer would sham-marry her queer best friend. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, Betts: I would mean my vows. Honest to God, I would. Well, except the fidelity bit.’