But the food, when it came, was fine, with that excessive use of butter and salt that makes restaurant cooking so delicious, and we drank a little more wine than we should have, and enough cognac for me to forget, temporarily, my wife’s desire to move on. In fact, we were positively light-hearted by the time we made it back to the tiny room and, with the mild surprise that tended to accompany the act these days, we made love.
Other people’s sex lives are a little like other people’s holidays: you’re glad that they had fun but you weren’t there and don’t necessarily want to see the photos. At our age too much detail leads to a certain amount of mental whistling and staring at shoes, and there’s also the problem of vocabulary. Scientific terms, though clinically accurate, don’t really convey the heady dark intensity, etc., etc. and I’d like to avoid simile or metaphor — valley, orchid, garden, that kind of thing. Certainly I have no intention of using a whole load of swear words. So I won’t go into detail, except to say that it worked out pretty well for all concerned, with that pleasant sense of self-satisfaction, as if we’d discovered that we were still capable of performing a forward roll. Afterwards we lay in a tangle of limbs.
‘A tangle of limbs’. Where did I get that from? Perhaps one of the novels that Connie encourages me to read.
‘This has always been all right, hasn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘This… side of our relationship.’
‘It has. You know that. Why?’
‘I just realised, one night we’re going to do this for the last time, that’s all.’
‘Oh, Douglas,’ she laughed and pressed her face into the pillow. ‘Well, that’s taken all the fun out of it.’
‘The thought just occurred to me.’
‘Douglas, everyone has that eventually.’
‘I know. But this’ll be a little sooner than anticipated.’
She kissed me, sliding her hand behind my neck in that way she has. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t quite the last time.’
‘Well that’s something, I suppose.’
‘I’ll tell you when it’s the last time. I’ll toll a bell. I’ll wear a shroud and we’ll play a slow funeral march.’ We kissed. ‘I promise, when it’s the last time, you will know.’
The first time we made love was a very different kettle of fish. Again, I won’t get into specifics, but if I had to use a single word to sum it up, the word would be ‘terrific’, and though Connie would undoubtedly find a better word, I like to think she would agree. Which might surprise people, I suppose. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I’ve always been better at that kind of thing than others might expect. I’m keen, for one thing, and at that time I had also been playing a great deal of badminton, so was in pretty good shape. Also, it’s important to remember that Connie was still under the influence of certain artificial stimulants, and I’m prepared to accept that was also a factor. There was Chemistry between us, if you like. I once pointed out to Connie that she wouldn’t have taken me home if she’d been sober. Rather than deny it, she laughed. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘Another reason to Just Say No.’
We arrived at the unassuming terraced house behind Whitechapel Road just before four in the morning. Apparently this area has since become fashionable, and perhaps Connie and her friends planted that seed, but at the time this was uncharted territory for someone like me. We were a long way from the All Bar Ones and Pizza Expresses of Hammersmith, Putney and Battersea, the somewhat suburban boroughs where many of my friends and colleagues lived.
‘It’s mainly Bangladeshi, with a little bit of old East End. I love it. It’s what the city used to be, before the yuppies moved in.’ She opened the door. Was I meant to come in?
‘Well … I’d better be off, I suppose,’ I said with a shrug, and Connie laughed.
‘It’s nearly four!’
‘I thought I’d walk.’
‘Back to Balham? Don’t be daft, come in.’
‘There’ll be a night bus, I’m sure. If I can get to Trafalgar Square, I can change and get the N77 …’
‘For Christ’s sake, Douglas,’ she laughed. ‘For a PhD, you’re extremely dim.’
‘I didn’t want to assume anything.’
‘To assume,’ she said, ‘makes an ass of u and me.’ Then she leant forward, put her hand behind my neck and kissed me with some force. And that — that was terrific too.
The house was an organised mess. ‘Curated’ is the word Connie would use, with every inch of wall covered with reproductions, postcards, posters for bands and clubs, photographs and sketches. The furniture was what might be called ‘eclectic’: a church pew, school chairs, an immense pale leather G Plan sofa partially buried beneath discarded clothes, magazines, books, newspapers. I saw a violin, a bass guitar, a stuffed fox.
