Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

All the way there I was thinking, Do we kiss? We did. Walking along the path beside the Underground lines we held hands. OK, I thought. Why not?

Phil’s place was about what I expected. Lots of books, stacks of videos. A TV and a VCR. Desk and computer. Various boxes not yet unpacked. On the wall a large print of William Holman Hunt’s The Lady of Shalott . Brian had used that picture in his lecture on the Pre-Raphaelites. ‘“Out flew the web and floated wide,”’ I quoted. ‘“The mirror crack’d from side to side; / ‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried / The Lady of Shalott.”’

‘The poem doesn’t say what the curse is,’ said Phil. ‘Only that she mustn’t look down to Camelot. Maybe she needn’t have laid herself down in that boat and died.’

‘Did you put that picture up since meeting me?’ I said.

‘No, it’s been up since I moved in eight months ago. Why do you ask?’

‘Mirrors. Why did you choose that picture?’

‘I don’t know — it just spoke to me. She’s “half-sick of shadows” and she’s tangled in her own web. In the cracked mirror is the bright view of all that she can’t have. Her feet are naked, she’s never walked out into the world.’

‘Are you sick of shadows and tangled in your own web with a mirror view of what you can’t have?’

‘Of course. Aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m down there in that river in a boat without a paddle. Not dead but drifting. Shall we order a pizza and watch the film?’

‘OK, Barb,’ said Phil. ‘That’ll be cosy.’

So we did that, and watching the film with beer and pizza was the cosiest thing I’d had in a long time. Kelly, the beaten wife, was so sweet, how could young lawyer Rudy not fall in love with her and want to protect her? I was with them all the way and I was actually shaking with the suspense of waiting for the scene where they finish off that bastard of a husband. Phil was holding me close to him and I knew he was being Rudy in his mind while I was being Kelly.

When it finally happened it was almost too much for me, I could hardly breathe. And when Kelly said to Rudy, ‘Stop, give me the bat and leave. You were not here tonight!’ I came close to spilling my beer. When it was over we hugged and kissed and didn’t say anything for a while. Then we looked at each other and I said, ‘Can I stay here tonight?’

‘Barbara,’ he said. ‘I hope you stay with me for all the nights there are.’

I put my hand on his mouth. ‘Don’t say that. Nobody has all the nights there are.’

He kissed my hand and we went to bed.

The next morning when I heard Bertha/Barbara in the shower I felt as if the world was mine. The domesticity of getting ready for the day as a couple was balm to my soul. At breakfast we didn’t say much but we smiled a lot. When Bertha/Barbara left to go to work she kissed me and said, ‘Always call me Barbara. Have a terrific day.’

I kept on smiling after she left. I didn’t want to make the bed, didn’t want to lose the impression and the smell of her on the sheet and pillow and duvet. I’d have liked to think we really were a couple now but I knew that nothing was that simple or straightforward with Barbara. I played back the evening mentally, saw again the way she’d looked at me when she said, ‘Can I stay here tonight?’ Was it the film that had made it happen, the lovers finishing off the violent husband? Unworthy thought? Still—

Would she spend the night with me again? Not right away, I thought. I knew that she wouldn’t like to be constantly pursued, would need some space. I wanted to send her some kind of a minimal next-morning message so I went to HMV looking for Gustav Holst’s The Planets . I found that on a CD with Elgar’s Enigma Variations , both conducted by Adrian Boult. Enigma Variations was first on the disc, so one had to get through the enigma to reach the planets. Reasonable, I thought. I wrote X, Phil , on a Post-it, put the CD in an envelope, and stuck it through her letterbox.

She rang me up that evening. ‘Neptune, the Mystic, is my favourite,’ she said. ‘It does sound mystical, as if anything might happen, might be possible. It’s open near and it’s open far. I love it.’

‘I thought you might. Did you listen to the Elgar?’

‘Yes indeed — I had to go through the enigma to get to the planets. Here and there it sounded quite Neptuney.’

‘I did a Google search,’ I said, ‘and this is a quote from Elgar: “The enigma I will not explain — its ‘dark saying’ must be left unguessed, and I warn you that the apparent connection between the Variations and the Theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes’, but is not played …” Barbara.’

‘What?’

‘I just wanted to say your name.’

‘“Another and larger theme goes but is not played.” The larger theme can’t really be played, can it? There aren’t the notes for it … But it’s the one that matters. Phil?’

‘What?’

‘Just wanted to say your name. Phil, are you afraid?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of what?’

‘Everything.’

‘Me too.’

‘Want to be afraid together with Chinese takeaway and a film?’

‘OK. I’ll bring the wine. What do you think, red or white?’

‘You decide. Any film preferences?’

‘You decide. See you in a little, Phil.’

‘Till soon, Barb.’ I looked at my DVDs and videos. Thriller, feelgood, western, comedy, romance, what? I decided on The Cooler , with William H. Macy, Maria Bello, and Alec Baldwin. It’s got winning and losing, bad luck, good luck, love and a great ending. I’d already watched it twice.

I rang up Mayflower and ordered won ton soup, spring rolls, sweet and sour pork, special foo yung, and egg fried rice for two, then I closed my eyes, imagining Barbara coming down the North End Road. I saw her smiling face, saw her breath in the air, heard her footsteps against the background noise. The colours of the lights in the crisp dark of the evening, almost I could taste them. Now she’ll be at Ryman, I thought. Now at Waitrose. Now she’s in the Fulham Road. Now at Domino’s Pizza, no — she won’t be there yet because she’s probably getting the wine at Waitrose. But then I didn’t see anything but darkness and I had that dropping sensation you get sometimes when falling asleep. ‘What?’ I said.

I wanted to go out to meet her but the Mayflower delivery was on the way so I waited until it arrived, then I went out to the path along Eel Brook Common and she ran into my arms all breathless and shaking. ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What happened?’

‘Troy,’ she said. ‘I went to Oddbins in Harwood Road, I thought he’d have been at work already but he was just passing as I came out. “Going to a party?” he said. He pulled me around the corner into Effie Road, past El Metro and into the common. Then, with no one to see him do it, he grabbed me by the hair but before he could swing me around I hit him with the Minervois. Knocked him out but I broke the bottle.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Probably still flat on his face on the path.’

‘Is he badly hurt? Should we call an ambulance?’

‘I don’t see why. That’s an occupational hazard in his line of work — he’ll come round by himself or somebody will give him first or second aid, whatever.’

Now I began to see her in a new light as someone to whom violence came easily. If she’d hit Troy hard enough with that bottle to knock him out he might even be dead or at least concussed. In the movies people get sapped with gun butts and all kinds of hard objects and it does them no permanent harm but real life isn’t like that.