Colin Harrison - The Havana Room

Eliza didn't seem happy to see him. She didn't seem anything, really. Discouraged, or tired, actually. She played tennis with a friend on the soft clay court behind her house while he watched. But she wasn't well and in the middle of a point she went to the bushes and vomited matter-of-factly. He was in love with Eliza, and when she told him that she was pregnant he felt shock and a small sudden pride. Are you sure? he asked. Of course, yes, of course I am, she said. Mine? My baby? Yes absolutely, who do you bloody think I am? she said. They kept it secret for several weeks, but her mother, herself a former tall beauty, began to ask questions, and so with Jay present, Eliza told her mother. Instantly the parents were furious. They had plans for their daughter, plans that did not include a penniless, good-looking American who hung over park benches winded after a short walk.

There followed quite a fight, with Eliza defiant of her parents' disapproval yet noncommittal toward Jay himself. She was, after all, from a wealthy family, and had no intention of marrying someone with no money. None whatsoever, end of discussion, no romantic illusions ever suffered for a moment in this house, Mr. Raintree, or what ever your name is! Finally Eliza's mother burst into tears and fled up the stairs, leaving her father to glare coldly upward at Jay. He understood that he was an intruder, and said he'd come for Eliza the next day; when he did, pressing the buzzer on the big green door early in the morning, she was gone. I'm sorry, her mother said, lips pinched in resolution. I shan't discuss it. He called the house almost one hundred times over the next two days and there was no answer, and then a male voice answered and said if he called again they'd have him arrested and deported. They knew where his apartment was, they would make it difficult for him, maybe they would have a go at him- just so that he remembered what's what- Mr. Carmody's bank had security people. Finally, Jay stood outside the house with a small backpack of food for three more days, leaving his station only to use the men's room in a pub half a mile away. At length the maid took mercy on him and came out and told him that the family was overseas, where exactly she wouldn't say. He might as well give up.

He returned to his flat and continued his penniless existence in London. For a few months he helped tend a bar, other times he took the train to the sea, wandered around, and came back. In that year he returned to the big house with black shutters several times a week to check for activity. The grass was being mowed, the bushes clipped, the leaves raked from the gravel driveway. But no Eliza. In his disconsolate and random way, he began to see other girls, English, Irish, French, a new girl every few weeks or months, depending on a lot of things, including how his lungs felt, since they seemed to vary quite a bit, with the pollen in the air and how cold it was, many factors, all making his bronchial tubes unknowably fickle. He wasn't using any medicine with regularity- stupid, he knew, but he was resistant, for once you started you were dependent. At first the girls were understanding but in time they became irritated. He could still screw passably well but there were days he couldn't get out of bed. He arranged to have some inhalers stolen for him and for a time he was better. But the girls came and went. Fifteen years later he did not remember their faces or their names. "I still missed Eliza," Jay said, looking at his ceiling, "it was unfinished."

He continued monitoring her house, riding by several times a week on his bicycle, which he'd started to use to keep his lung capacity up. One day, nearly a year after Eliza had left, a taxi pulled into the driveway. Watching from across the street, he saw her mother emerge holding shopping bags from Harrods and other stores. The next day he called the father's London office and claimed to be a Mr. Williams from Citibank in New York. He made up a number with a 212 area code. The call would be returned within two days, he was told, Mr. Carmody was soon expected in town. And so it seemed the family had returned. When next Jay visited the house, he saw another young man with a flop of fine blond hair and a familiar manner around the yard. The young man stepped up to a porch, said something when inside, and then stepped out again holding a baby in the sun.

The sight of it was shattering.

He began to fall forward in a run across the grass but stopped himself, not yet believing what he already knew was true. The man took the baby inside, and Jay waited until Eliza stepped out of the doorway and saw him coming. "Stop!" she called. "Stop this!"

She hurried to the edge of the yard and, looking over her shoulder anxiously, agreed to meet him in Green Park, on a bench in sight of Buckingham Palace, two days later. He counted the hours and was there early. Eliza appeared along the path and was more composed this time. The baby slept in her pram. They didn't say much, they barely touched. Just fingertips- reluctantly on her part. The matter was simple: Eliza had married one of her old boyfriends, a man named Cowles, a few years older than Jay, much further along in his career, having been both well capitalized by family funds and a prodigy in business school, and they had spent much of the previous year in the south of France. I'm sorry, Eliza told Jay. That's all I can say. There was in her tone the message that she belonged to another man now, that no matter what had once briefly passed between them, that was done and gone, obliterated by four hundred straight days of another man- his eyes and hands, his voice, his cock, his family, his shoes and books and hairbrush. Does this guy know the baby- Sally, I mean- is not his? Jay asked. No, no, Eliza shook her head. That would hurt him too much. He will never know. There was the question of sex, the question of logistics. I don't understand, said Jay. How can he think he's the father if- I saw him once or twice last summer, Eliza interrupted, okay? He came over to visit me in America. You had sex? Yes. After you met me? No, she said firmly. Right before. But the baby is yours. Jay didn't understand. Why? Because I had my period just after. David and I had sex, then I got my period, he left for London, then you and I met and had sex and that was it. I guess I wasn't careful enough. All in about one week or ten days. Are you sure? Yes, Jay. But what about when you returned? Didn't you have sex with him when you got back? I did, she conceded, but not until later. I knew I was pregnant. You did? Yes. That's why I had sex with him as soon as I could when I got back. Because you knew-? How? You can feel it, she said. You feel it in your breasts and everywhere. The timing was close enough, she said, he just thought the baby was a few weeks early. Please don't lie to me, Jay said, please tell me whose baby Sally is.

She's yours, Eliza answered, I swear.

Jay looked at the infant girl. I want to hold her, he said, I've never held a baby. She helped lift the sleeping baby out of the pram and nestled her on Jay's shoulder. So light, so tiny. Sally. After my grandmother, Eliza said. Sally. The tiny eyes and nose, impossibly perfect. He had helped to make this child. He felt the warm weight of her go through him. He settled Sally in his arms and felt himself relax, let his chin fall to the fuzzy head, his own eyes drowsy with love. Eliza watched this and began to cry. After a few minutes, the baby woke, her lips puckering instinctively for a nipple, and Jay handed her to Eliza. She sat on the bench and nursed the baby. He saw Eliza's breast, enormous and full, and desire shot through him. A mother's wet raised nipple somehow was more erotic than usual, leaking life. She's really mine? Oh yes, Eliza said, I can prove it to you. Sally has your little horn. You mean the bump in my ear? She reached out and ran her fingers along the inside edge of the cartilage of Jay's ear, where a point sat hidden on the inner fold. It was more pronounced on his left ear than on his right and so he reached for Sally's left ear, and although it was impossibly soft, it had the same tiny, distinct bump. A horn, just like yours, Eliza smiled. What other proof could possibly be as good as that?