Crystal Jeans - The Inverts

But it did matter, it really did matter. For years now, he’d been waiting for a moment like this, for something to happen that would knock down the icy wall they’d put up – she’d put up – and force them to hash things out. To bloody well scream at each other, to scratch each other’s eyes out – anything was better than the icy wall. Anything was better than silence. But to what outcome? What did he really want to come out of this? Her apology? Her grovelling, blubbering apology? I was wrong and you were right! Please forgive me, husband! No. He couldn’t have it. ‘I suppose we should wake him up and see what he’s got to say for himself,’ she said. ‘Though he’ll just tell us what we want to hear. “I’ll never tell a soul, I promise!”’

‘So what if he did? It’s just his word. He’s just some disgruntled old butler with a vendetta against his cruel masters. And say he did get in contact with some Hollywood tattler, some Louella Parsons or Hedda Hopper, who’s to say they’d care?’ He laughed, bitterly. ‘I can just imagine the look on Louella’s face. “Who cares about the wife of Bartholomew Dawes? For that matter, who cares about Bartholomew Dawes?” I haven’t made a good film in ten years, Betts. No one will care.’

Bettina had one leg crossed over the other in the man’s style, an ankle resting on a knee, and she was picking mud off her boot. ‘I didn’t want to tell you this at the time, what with things being so bad between us,’ she said, eyes on the boot, ‘but I actually rather liked your last film. In fact, I thought it was your best work.’

The Sins of the Fathers , made in 1940, had been his attempt to break out of the horror mould he’d been poured into. It was a prestige picture set in nineteenth-century Kent, about an aristocratic family mired in various scandals. The film was a flop – ‘a bloated, meandering mess’, according to one critic. It had been hyped as the English Gone with the Wind . But it turned out nobody wanted an English Gone with the Wind , not even the English.

‘You really think so?’ he said.

Her eyes stayed on her boot. ‘Absolutely.’

‘That means a lot to me, actually. Though it would have meant more if you’d said it at the time.’

Her eyes flicked up. ‘Why would I give you praise when you’d had nothing nice to say to me in years?’

‘Well, what about you—’ He raised his hands and closed his eyes. ‘Let’s not do this. You make a fair point. Let’s just…’ He trailed off. Let’s just be friends again, he’d been going to say. Friends? she’d say. Are you serious?

They lapsed into silence. A squirrel jumped from one tree branch to another over their heads, and a leaf fell down, just the one, drifting diagonally in the space between them. A green woodpecker let out its shrill, pulsing call somewhere high up in the trees.

‘Do you want to know something?’ Bettina said. ‘I always imagined it would be you in this situation. Never me. I always thought that one day you’d be caught at it and someone would blackmail you. That’s why – do you remember? – that’s why I was so keen for you to sign with MGM. I knew they looked after their stars when things got hairy.’

She said this – of course – with judgement. She’d never been able to conceal her disdain for his sexual drive. It was hypocrisy. If they’d lived in an alternative reality where the woods were crawling with gorgeous women just dying to get on their knees and – in the immortal words of Roger Stamper – eat pussy, Bettina would spend half her nights creeping from tree to tree, dodging the torchlight of park rangers. Of course she would.

‘We would’ve had to move to the States,’ he said. ‘You’d hate LA.’

‘Maybe I would’ve liked the opportunity to find that out for myself. You never asked me to come with you. There was that film you did with Karloff, the one about the haunted college, and it was shot during the summer holidays when the children were home from school. I remember hoping that you’d ask us to come with you. But you never did.’

‘I didn’t want you to come.’

A cynical hitch of the eyebrows. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Oh, come on. I didn’t want the children there, Betts. It’s a poisonous environment, Hollywood. I met the children of the stars and they were always such horrible little shits. And the child stars! They swallow little pills with breakfast and then swallow little pills to go to sleep. It’s just a gigantic fuck-up factory. Why let Hollywood fuck up our children?’ He paused. ‘That’s our job, surely.’

She laughed. Mouth opening like a split peach, a dirty smoker’s laugh barking out, followed by a coughing fit. She actually laughed! When was the last time he’d… He couldn’t remember. He joined in, a hand half shielding his eyes. His belly felt warm and nervy – how starved he’d been of her laugh. She tossed him another cigarette. He lit it, glancing at the unconscious man a few feet away, almost surprised to find him still there.

‘So what’s she like?’ he asked. ‘Your woman?’

‘Lovely. Lovely. I’ll be honest – I only really went for her because… well, it’s not as though there’s ever an abundance of women for me to choose from, and one gets so… frustrated . Physically, I mean. She was just there . But it turns out she’s a perfect fit and I think I might even be falling in – you know.’ Blushing, she returned her attention to her boot – there was still some mud on it, apparently. ‘What about you? Have you – is there a special someone?’

He shook his head. Thought of Archie, who he was still trying to will himself to desire (he’d even tried to masturbate over him) but it was never going to happen. You liked who you liked. ‘One day though, eh?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Can I ask you something? And I want you to answer honestly.’

‘Of course.’

‘If our situations had been reversed and Henry had caught me and tried to blackmail me, and we were here now, as we are, would you have gloated?’

She looked at him. ‘Oh, yes. Unequivocally. Viciously.’

‘Well. I want you to take note of the fact that I am not gloating. That’s all. I’m not trying to congratulate myself or get one over on you. I just want you to take note.’

She nodded, warily.

‘I suppose this is my way of saying… well, what I’m trying to say…’ He started to fiddle with his earlobe. Just three words. Damnit. ‘I’m trying to make up for past misdeeds.’ He grinned. His face felt like a stupid clacking skull. Now it was her turn. It shouldn’t be this way, but here they were.

She squirmed. Oh God, why were they like this with each other? What was wrong with them? ‘I wish I was drunk,’ she said. And so – it was coming. He was sorry but unable to say it, and she was also sorry and she probably wouldn’t be able to say it either, but just something – give me something.

But then a siren went off in the near distance and they both hopped to their feet.

‘It’s just the lunchtime bell at the factory,’ he said, pressing a hand to his chest. ‘Jesus, that gave me a— Phew.’ He dropped his cigarette in the mud. ‘Shall we attend to the issue at hand?’

They collided as they re-joined the path.

‘Sorry,’ they said at the same time.

They glanced at each other.

Maybe that would count? Couldn’t they just let that be it, and have done with it?

They crouched down by Henry.

‘Can you smell that?’ said Bettina, scrunching up her face.

‘Oh, look at that,’ said Bart, seeing a bulge at the back of the man’s trousers. ‘He’s shat himself.’

‘Oh dear.’ That black humour in her eyes. ‘He’s not going to like that, is he?’