1982 Janine Read online

  “The sun’s shining, it’s a nice evening.”

  “So you’re determined to hew coal when you grow up?”

  “No. But it’s a nice evening.”

  “Hm!”

  And she would fall silent. Her silences were very heavy. I could never pull myself from under them. I could never leave her alone in one, that would have been cruel. Drearily I would get out the school books and spread them on the kitchen table. She would sit by the fire with a piece of knitting or sewing and we would be busy on opposite sides of the room. The wireless would be playing very quietly (“and now the strains of Kate Dalrymple introduce Jimmy Shand and his band with thirty minutes of Scottish country dance music”). The room would grow lighter. Later she would brew a pot of tea and quietly lay on the table beside me a milked and sweetened cup of it with a chocolate biscuit in the saucer. Without lifting my eyes from the books I would grunt to show that I could not be so easily soothed, but inside I was perfectly happy. My happiest moments were passed with that woman. She kept me indoors but she never interfered with my mind. Between the pages of a book I had a newspaper clipping to carry my thoughts miles and miles away, an advert for The Outlaw – MEAN! MOODY! MAGNIFICENT! above a photograph of Jane Russell, her blouse pulled off both shoulders, leaning back against some straw glaring at me with this inviting defiance. My feelings were more than sexual. I felt grateful. I was amazed by myself. Nobody else, I realized, knew all the rich things I knew. The clean tidy room, the click of my mother’s needles, Jane Russell’s soft shoulders and sulky mouth, the evening sunlight over the town in the bend of the river where the colliers’ sons were guddling trout, a mushroom cloud in the Pacific sky above Bikini atoll, Jimmy Shand’s music and the taste of a chocolate biscuit were precisely held by my mind and by nobody else’s. I was vast. I was sure that one day I would do anything in the world I wanted. I thought it likely that I would marry Jane Russell. I was ten or twelve at the time and believed sex and marriage were nearly the same thing. Now I am almost fiforget that forget that forget that where did I leave Janine?

  10 JANINE NEARING THE COUNTRY CLUB

  In a fast car trying not to be afraid, her vulnerable breasts in a white silk shirt, accessible arse in a leather miniskirt, shapely thighs legs feet in black fishnet stockings and, ah! white open-topped shoes with stiletto heels. Standing up in them Janine is on tiptoe, she must raise and tighten her bum, press back her shoulders, lift her chin. Each shoe is tied on by three slender white thongs with small gold buckles which fasten straight across the toes, diagonally over the arch of the foot, and encircle the ankle so that (how happy I am) if the car slows or stops she can’t slip them off, fling open the door and run. The car does slow, a little, leaving the freeway for a sideroad through a plantation of fir trees which cast a very cold shadow. “Nearly home!” says Max happily. The car stops before a tall gate in a security fence. Through the wires Janine can see a gatehouse and a patch of sunlight where a man in shorts, singlet and peaked cap is dozing in a deckchair. Max sounds his horn. The man stands, peers towards the car, salutes Max and enters the gatehouse.

  “What kind of country-club is this?” asks Janine, staring at a board on the gate. It carries the name of a government district and FORENSIC RESEARCH ASSOCIATION. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. GUARD DOGS. DANGER.

  “The rich kind,” say Max. “Our members are mostly lawyers and policemen, so for tax-avoidance purposes we pretend we are doing something useful.”

  “Neat!” says Janine, smiling for the first time that day.

  The gate clicks and swings inward. The car passes the gatehouse and emerges from the trees on to an unfenced road curving over a golf-course. Tiny figures move on a distant green beside a white building with windows glittering in the afternoon sun. This is all so securely and expensively what Janine wants that she gives a little sigh of relief thinking, ‘I’m an actress so I can’t help imagining things. Max, the lout, is excited, the lout, because I’m sexy, but that’s natural, it needn’t have bothered me. Did I sweat?’ She takes a powder-compact from her handbag, gives her face a straight professional look in the mirror and puts it away thinking: nothing wrong there. Max chuckles.

  11 FEELING REASSURED

  “Admit,” he says, “back there you thought I was a rapist white slaver, right?”

  “Well, you said this place was just outside town. And well, it just isn’t.”

  “I’m a bad judge of distance because my work demands that I travel a lot.”

  But Janine is not interested in Max and his work. She says,

  “How many members has your club?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Twelve? But … I mean …”

  “Ridiculous isn’t it? Our staff outnumber us nearly five to one. But we like it that way. We can afford it.”

  The thought of such wealth makes Janine feel almost dizzy. The car stops on a bed of granite chips before some wide white steps. Max, quick on his feet, gets out and opens the door on her side wanting to take her arm, but Janine ignores him for now she is pleased with her shoes. Not many women could climb steps with dignity in nine-inch high heels. Janine does it, and when the glass doors at the top open automatically she steps firmly on to the blue carpet of the club foyer feeling she deserves a round of applause. Which is perhaps why the man walking toward her affects her like a round of applause. He is stout (not fat like Max) and soberly and expensively dressed, and he smiles at her, not in a boyish lecherous way (like Max) but with the mature admiration of someone who appreciates her exactly as she appreciates herself. He shakes her hand saying quietly,

  “Miss Janine Crystal.”

  She says, “Mr Hollis?”

  Max laughs loudly and shouts, “Oh no, this is our president, Bill Stroud.”

  Stroud says, “Our recreation officer is not quite ready for you. I would like to discuss your salary and answer questions before you meet Hollis. But first of all, drinks and lunch perhaps? Do you wish to visit a washroom?”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine. And yes, I’d like lunch, if that’s all right. And … wow. I mean wow, this place is something special.”

  12 OPULENT DECOR

  Another glass door has opened and they are crossing stop. Stop. I want rid of Max. Stroud says, “Max, you laugh too loud, you have enjoyed Miss Crystal’s company enough for today. I am sure you can find someone to entertain you in the gymnasium.”

  Max’s face goes expressionless. With a slight nod to Janine he walks quickly away. In the gymnasium Big Momma stands with no no no no no shortcuts. Take the long way round. I may be awake for hours.

  Another glass door has opened and they (Stroud and Janine) are crossing the soft green carpet of a circular room which seems open to the sky, for the glass ceiling is only slightly tinted to soften the glare of the sun. There are low coffee-tables with magazines and armchairs, and to one side some small restaurant tables. A section of wall is a cocktail bar where a man on a high stool chats to a waitress. Elsewhere the room seems walled with palm trees and tall grasses which lean out over the carpet, and when Janine sits down with Stroud at a table set with cutlery for two she notices the door is hidden by greenery. She thinks, ‘This is like a dream. I feel I’m sitting in a jungle.’ Why the hell does Janine need all this interior decoration? I don’t need it. I’m expected to stay in first-class hotels when I travel but I always choose small family places like this. I don’t save money that way, my firm pays the bills, but I feel more at home in small hotels. Years ago in London a client took me for a business lunch in the Athenaeum, or was it the Reform Club? Anyway, there were chandeliers, marble pillars, real leather armchairs, a dome (I think) and waiters in evening dress. I acted perfectly calmly but inside I was hard, watchful, critical. Janine is also acting calmly but inside she has been warmed and softened by this luxury, she really loves it and I despise her for that. No I don’t, but I would like to. She has no right to enjoy things I can’t. She says aloud,

  “This is like a dream. I feel I’m si
tting in a jungle.”

  “A comfortable jungle,” says Stroud handing her a menu.

  “Not all parts of the club are so comfortable.”

  13 MOTHER’S FRIENDS

  The menu is in French. She hands it back saying sweetly, “Please choose for both of us. I like anything that’s nice.”

  Stroud says, “Suppose we begin with–”

  I don’t know French. Why quote what Stroud says? I’m losing interest. Drink. Think.

  What did my mother think as we sat on opposite sides of the kitchen, and she knitted and I mixed profit-and-loss arithmetic with a stormy wooing of Jane Russell? I’ve never wondered what happened in her head before. She was a tall, rather quiet woman. All the neighbours trusted her, even those who disliked each other. She had a sharp sense of humour but listened carefully to what they said and seldom passed it on. While I was working and brooding near her my feelings of harmony, of luxury, were sometimes so strong that I am now nearly certain she was deliberately putting dreams into my head, dreams of power and possessions and far-ranging life. She managed her own life perfectly, as far as I could see, but didn’t enjoy it much. Why do I think that? She only spoke to me about my homework and what clothes to wear. Except one Friday afternoon when I came home from school and she was at the door saying cheerful goodbyes to her closest friends, five women I had called “Auntie” when I was younger. They were leaving one of the gossipy little tea-and-biscuit parties women kept giving each other in those days. She was more silent than usual as she cleared away the cups, then suddenly muttered in a low, fierce voice, “I hate bloody women.”

  I was astonished. I said, “Why?”

  “Have you ever heard them talk?”

  I didn’t answer. Since I was a baby I had heard them talk about their children, husbands, recipes, dress patterns and love-stories in the Woman’s Own and People’s Friend. What they said never interested me, but the noise of it was a comforting background music which I liked much more than male talk about sport and politics, which made a snapping, argumentative, menacing noise. But that was the only time I noticed my mother was not completely satisfied, before she oh forget it forget it forget it.

  I know now that what was wrong with her was too much energy and intelligence. Cleaning a room and kitchen, serving a husband and son, entertaining the neighbours did not use her up. I doubt if working in a shop, or as a secretary, would have used her up either. Or travelling around supervising the installation of security systems, like I do. A lot of nonsense is talked nowadays about “job satisfaction”, as if many people could have it. The things which make most jobs bearable (not satisfying – just bearable) are extra, intoxicating ingredients like: pop music on a loudspeaker, a pay-cheque, hope of promotion, hope of a wild night of love. I take straight alcohol, which has started working again. My two heads are beginning to hum to each other, above and below. Good Penis! Good Doggie! Are you awake?

  14 TWO HEADS SELF-HATRED

  – Yes master.

  Will you sit up and beg for meat again?

  – Yes! If you show me something tasty.

  Stroud signals to the waitress at the cocktail bar, a tall blonde who approaches in a languorous amble which emphasises the movement of her hips.

  The tall blonde waitress must amble because her skirt won’t let her walk any other way. It is a button-through white satin (no) white denim (no) white suede (yes) like Janine’s, but longer, and so tight that although half unfastened her knees appear through the slit in front slowly, one after the other, and Janine can hear the soft rasp of her thighs pressing past each other, but it is not the skirt that strikes Janine with confusion. She thinks, “Silk blouse, net stockings, white high heels exactly like mine, yes even her mouth and eyes are made up just like mine, that’s why she’s staring at me that way. God, I hate these frigid bitches who dress like whores and then stare at me as if I was dirt.”

  But now the waitress takes pad and pencil from her waistband and attends completely to Stroud ordering the meal, and in spite of the girl’s height and hair-colour Janine’s feeling that she is watching herself increases, filling her with a numb, dreamy excitement. The excitement has a spice of fear in it but not much. If you wake late for work one morning, spring from bed, dress quickly, then rushing to the front door find it blocked by your car standing in the middle of the living-room, the furniture moved back against the walls; if you discover this you will not feel afraid at first, you will think that you have not really wakened at all. And when a careful examination shows the car as solid as usual, and undoubtedly your own, because your key opens the door, and if you find the room solid too, with the wallpaper pattern undisturbed, making it unlikely that a jocular friend has suddenly become a millionaire and hired a team of expert workmen silently to knock a hole, insert the car, then swiftly reconstruct the wall exactly as it was – if the consistency of things shows you are in a world like the usual, apart from one inexplicable oddity – then only a pessimist will return to bed hoping to fall asleep and wake again in the usual world he understands. I would walk round the car, open the door and adventure out, fearful, of course, like all explorers in a strange world, but hoping for something new and better. I would have to see everything as a child does, letting the things themselves teach me what they were, knowing my grasp of them was secondary and slight. Why am I diluting an enjoyable wicked fantasy with this sort of crap? – like a publisher attaching a brainy little essay by a French critic to The Story of O to make the porn-eaters think they are in first-class intellectual company. How the waitress is dressed gives Janine a queer dreamy feeling, that’s all I meant to say, Janine can’t stop staring and when she ambles away Stroud chuckles and says, “She hates you.”

  15 MIRACULOUS MOTOR-CAR

  “Why?”

  “Jealousy. You’re dressed like one of the staff but she’s got to serve you as if you were a member.”

  “My agent told me to dress like this.”

  “He did? A pity. I thought you were delicately indicating that you wished to work here. I was pleased.”

  Janine notices a small plump quick waitress serving a man at a nearby table. The waitress can move quickly because her skirt is unbuttoned almost to the waistband. Stroud says,

  “All our waitresses and new girls dress like that. Hollis is something of a button-freak.”

  “Do Mr Hollis’s preferences have to interest me?”

  Stroud takes an envelope from his pocket and lays it on the table between them. He says, “Perhaps the time has come to talk about money. Would you open this and count what’s inside? If you join us it will be your first week’s salary. If you decide to leave now it will be compensation for your trouble.”

  16 JANINE TAKES THE BAIT

  Janine hesitates then takes from the envelope a flat wad of clean new notes and counts them. The money is more than her agent suggested, more than Janine imagined possible. She knows Stroud is watching her closely. She thinks, ‘If I was a cat I would lick my lips, but I’m an actress, and smart. There must be several millionaires in this club if they’ll pay this money to get a girl like me on their books.’

  She puts the notes back in the envelope and snaps it into her handbag saying, “I don’t mind taking a friendly interest in Mr Hollis’s preferences, if that’s what you want.”

  Stroud smiles and says, “Then he’ll be glad to see you any time.”

  And I have placed this last bit of dialogue very carefully. Later, when Janine is trapped and trying to escape, she will remember that she was given a chance to leave and refused because of money. We all have a moment when the road forks and we take the wrong turning. Mine was when Helen told me she was pregnant and I said I needed a week and later the doorbell rang and, forget it, I opened the door and Mr Hume and his two sons walked straight past me and, forget it, stood in the middle of my own room, yes, my own room and FORGET IT. FORGET IT.

  “Do Mr Hollis’s preferences need to interest me?”

  The money. Count. Hide lickl
ip. Look cool.

  “I’ll be glad to take a friendly interest in Mr Hollis’s preferences, if that’s what you want.”

  The meal, then audition time, and Stroud is ushering her along a softly lit brown-carpeted corridor to a door marked recreation room which he opens, standing aside to let her through, and entering she is dazzled by lights from low down shining straight into her face. She senses a wide dim space on each side, a desk ahead with one or two people silhouetted against the white sources of the light, a continuous purring noise, perhaps a film projector? She looks back to the door as it shuts with a double click. No Stroud. A voice cries, “Come on in, Miss Crystal, show us how you can walk.”

  17 THE TRAP SHUTS TIGHT

  Heart thudding, eyes narrowed to slits against the glare she walks slowly toward the light thinking, ‘Act calm. I felt like this in the car with Max, and with Stroud when I saw the waitress, but I acted calm and it was all right.’

  She hears two unfastened studs of her skirt click with each step she takes.

  “That’s a sexy sound,” the voice says, and giggles.

  ‘Keep cool,’ thinks Janine. ‘Pretend this is an ordinary audition.’

  End of first part.

  2:

  THIS IS SPLENDID.

  I have never before enjoyed such perfect control. I have abandoned Janine at the exact moment when I nearly got too excited, and I have remembered nobody real except my mother who never spoils my dramas by making me ashamed of them. Why? Because I am now exactly the man she wanted me to be – heavily insured with a company car when I require one, expense account, index-linked pension and no connection atall with the real women she would have despised: Helen, and Sontag, and the editor, and the whore under the bridge, and my first of all girlfriend o, forget her. I have total security at last, security until death. If there is not a revolution first. And there won’t be. We will go to war before we have that so there is plenty of time (if I am careful and keep perfect control) plenty of time to order and taste all the imaginary women on my mental menu. An astounding achievement, if I manage it. A secret miracle known to only me.