Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

‘The way you’re looking at me you must’ve led a very sheltered life,’ she said, ‘and in the meantime the wine’s gone and the Chinese takeaway’ll be getting cold.’

‘Sorry, Barbara. I’ve got a bottle of red at home and the food’s only just been delivered — it’ll be all right. But are you all right?’ I’d have thought she’d be trembling after an encounter like that but she seemed perfectly calm.

‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine when we settle down with food and drink and a video at your place.’

‘I’ve got a great movie for you, The Cooler .’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Winning and losing, good luck and bad luck. Love. Mainly it’s a love story.’

‘Could we watch The Rainmaker again?’

‘Sure, Barb, anything you like.’ Jesus, I thought, that film really is a turn-on for her.

The food was still warm and the wine was so good that we finished it too quickly and carried on with beer. Barbara was squeezing my arm so hard she left bruises. ‘Let’s get on with it,’ she said to the screen when the legal action and courtroom scenes went on too long. ‘Bastard!’ she said when the husband yelled at Kelly and threw a bowlful of soup on her in the hospital. ‘You’ll get yours, you bloody wife-beater! Just wait!’ When Rudy and Kelly beat him to death she said, ‘Yes!’ and smothered me with kisses. ‘You ever wish you were six inches taller, Phil?’

‘Most of the time. Do you wish I were six inches taller?’

‘Actually, it’s not the size that matters, it’s what you do with it.’

‘What are we talking about, Babs?’

‘You, Phil, the total five foot seven of you.’

‘You’re going to make me very uncomfortable if you keep harping on about my shortness, Babsy.’

A very serious kiss this time. ‘But I can make you very comfortable too, can’t I?’

‘We’ll see about that,’ I said. ‘Are we going to the tango class tomorrow? Or is this tomorrow?’

‘The room’s going round,’ she said. ‘I’ll think about it after I throw up.’

‘This way, please,’ I said, and led her to the bathroom.

When Barbara had finished being sick she said, ‘Would you get my bag for me, please?’ When I gave it to her she took out a toothbrush. I tried to act unsurprised. When she’d cleaned her teeth and washed her face she said, ‘Give me a shirt.’

‘A shirt?’

‘In the movies the woman wakes up wearing a man’s shirt, so give me one and put me to bed.’

‘My pleasure,’ I said. I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

‘Aren’t you coming to bed?’ she said.

‘Not yet. I want to sit at my desk for a while and think about you in my shirt in my bed.’

‘You like to think about me?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s nice. I’ll think about you too.’ She fell asleep immediately. I went into the living room and walked around hugging myself for a while, then I went to my desk. I sat there thinking about Barbara, then I went to my computer and watched the cursor on the word processor flickering like a snake’s tongue. Mimi had said that Hope of a Tree was ‘a put-together thing trying to pass itself off as a novel’, and she was right. It was about a painter whose wife had committed suicide. For a long time after her death he couldn’t work but then he met a new woman etc. Why hadn’t I done better? And why did that come to mind now? I reached for the Bible in the stack by the desk and turned to Job 14:7–9:

For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down,

that it will sprout again, and that the tender

branch thereof will not cease.

8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth,

and the stock thereof die in the ground;

9 Yet through the scent of water it will bud,

and bring forth boughs like a plant.

I put a blank page up on the screen and thought about a title for what might or might not be my next novel. I closed my eyes and saw Barbara asleep in my bed. I opened my eyes and typed The Scent of Water . OK, the scent of water. What about it? I had determined not to use the current events of my life, I wanted to keep Barbara private and separate. So what was The Scent of Water going to be about? No idea. ‘Never mind,’ I said to myself. ‘You’ve got a title and that’s a start.’ Then I got ready for bed and climbed in beside Barbara. She was snoring so loudly that she sounded like a 747 passing very low over the house.

Between her snoring and the deliciousness of her solid warmth I was a long time falling asleep. I lay awake thinking about Troy Wallis and his violence to Barbara. Although actually he might now qualify as a battered husband. Indeed, he might be lying dead on the path by the common. I’d never seen him and the only visible evidence of his violence was the bruising on Barbara’s arms. Did he exist? Here I was falling in love with this woman and I wasn’t even sure whether or not she was lying to me.

Nothing but sleep happened that night, and when Barbara got up in the morning she groaned. All she had for breakfast was coffee, then she kissed me, said, ‘See you,’ and left.

‘When?’ I called after her.

‘Don’t know,’ with a shrug.

I went to my desk and accosted the word machine. It looked at me as if I were a stranger. ‘Don’t give me that,’ I said. ‘Without me you’re nothing.’

Big talk, it snapped back. What have you done for me lately?

I checked my e-mail for the second time, looked in on Ellen MacArthur’s website to see how she was doing in her solo circumnavigation of the globe, and worried with her about the high pressure area ahead. Then I suddenly couldn’t remember where my copy of the lives and times of archy & mehitabel was. Looked for it but no luck, so rather than lose the whole day in a fruitless search I ordered a used copy (the book was out of print) from AbeBooks. By then it was nearly lunchtime so I thought I might as well get some air.

I went out to Eel Brook Common and walked along the path where Barbara had said she’d knocked Troy out with the Minervois. There was no broken glass. The cleaners had already been and would have swept it up. There were some dark stains on the paving that might have been wine or blood or both but I couldn’t be sure. I was disgusted with myself for doubting Barbara but the uncertainty persisted. I recalled what I’d learned about the tango, how the partners have to trust each other, have to be completely tuned in to each other. I remembered our bodies touching all last night and her vulnerable nakedness in my shirt, remembered how it felt to hold her in that beginners’ class: there wasn’t trust but there was openness and a willingness to explore possibilities. If Barbara and I could become really good tango dancers, what might not develop? but I didn’t want to be in a crowd of learners again. Maybe if we went for private tuition?

She didn’t turn up that evening so I phoned her.

‘Barbara,’ I said, ‘it’s me.’

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I was just about to go out.’

‘Oh.’ Go out where? With whom? Mustn’t ask. ‘I thought we might try some private tango tuition.’

‘What for?’

‘So we could concentrate on getting beyond the beginners’ stage.’

‘Why?’ She didn’t sound like the woman who’d slept next to me last night.

‘I think it would feel good to tango well, don’t you?’

‘What does it cost?’ As if she’d never smothered me with kisses and thrown up in my bathroom.

‘Forty pounds an hour.’

‘I can’t spend twenty pounds on a tango lesson.’

‘No, no, this is my treat.’

‘I don’t want you to spend forty pounds on a lesson for us either.’ Her voice was tapping its foot, eager to put down the phone.