Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

‘Another dark chamber?’ says Cynthia as they start taking their clothes off at Sam’s place on page 17. They get through the sex pretty quickly because that part is only foreplay for a whole lot of talk about books and music and painting and movies. With quotes from here and there in italics. Italics always tire me out. I had a second Americano because I was getting sleepy. Then I got up and walked down to the New King’s Road and over to the river. I found myself a bench in Bishop’s Park and sat there in the sunshine watching a crew rowing down the river with the cox yelling at them. For a while I just sat there trying to let my mind go blank but the book was in my hands and I kept thinking, Am I this guy’s girlfriend ? It’s always a bad sign when you start thinking in italics. I read a little more but by then I knew I wasn’t sure I could finish the book, it was too boring.

So where are we then? I thought. Am I his girlfriend because I feel that he needs me? Women who try to save drunks or gays hardly ever straighten them out. Was I going to be a boring-writer-saver? Phil’s wife told him he was a failure when she divorced him. I pictured her saying that, sneerer that she was. Maybe she brought out the failure in him — that could happen with a guy like Phil. Could I bring out the non-failure? Did I even want to? I spun around a couple of times deciding whether to head for Phil’s place or mine, then I shook my head and went home.

Back at the flat I breathed in the stale air and saw Hilary’s Bible on the coffee table in the living room. I picked it up and it fell open to John, 11. My eye went to Verse 43:

And when he thus had spoken, he

cried with a loud voice, Lazarus,

come forth.

‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘gimme a break.’ Then I thought I’d better check Phil’s novel again to see if there were signs of life. I made myself a coffee, put on The Essential Billie Holiday , and settled down to carry on with Cynthia and Sam.

Cynthia is tall and blonde; Sam is short and dark. No surprises there. Cynthia is an assistant editor at the Raven Press; Sam is a painter. Cynthia’s contemplating suicide because she’s been dumped by the man she’s been with for two years and Sam is still emotionally entangled with his wife who killed herself three years ago. Of course Sam talks her down off the bridge and pretty soon they’re sleeping together regularly but they don’t enjoy it all that much — they’re both holding on to the past and they can’t let go of the bad experiences they’ve had. The story drags along with a lot of moaning and groaning on both sides until finally the two of them are on Clifton Bridge again looking down into the Avon Gorge but they don’t jump. They decide to go their separate ways and search for new roots elsewhere. I wished they had jumped. So there I was back at the question of whether or not I wanted to be a boring-writer-saver. He wasn’t boring to talk to and he wasn’t a boring lover but still … Come to think of it, Brian was a better painter now than he’d been before he took up with me.

I needed a holiday from thoughts about Phil. If I went to Cheyne Walk Brian would be glad to see me and I was sure he’d put Cheryl on hold for as long as I stayed. So I left the flat, went to Fulham Broadway, caught an 11 bus, then walked from the King’s Road.

I rang the bell, Brian buzzed me in and I went up to the studio. The floor was littered with Conté crayon sketches of Cheryl and she was on the model stand when I came into the room. ‘Hi,’ said Brian. To Cheryl he said, ‘That’s it for today. I’m not sure how I’m fixed for next week — I’ll call you.’ Cheryl nodded, got dressed, kissed him goodbye, and left. ‘Old friends are the best friends,’ said Brian as he grabbed my arse.

Later, with our clothes scattered on the floor, we sat in the studio without turning on the lights and watched the evening on the river. The lights on the Albert Bridge, the lights on passing boats and the look of the darkening sky all seemed as if I’d seen them before from this window. ‘“ Some things that happen for the first time, Seem to be happening again …”’ I sang softly.

Brian took my hand and kissed it, then he ordered up pizza and we drank almost two bottles of Chianti and fell asleep feeling well satisfied. No heavy thinking, just good clean fun.

Sunday, after a late breakfast and a lazy time with the papers, Brian got me out of my clothes again for some serious work. He tore off a large sheet from a big roll of brown wrapping paper and pinned it to a cork board which he put up on the easel.

‘I haven’t seen that before,’ I said.

‘I’m going to work with brush and ink and casein paint,’ he said. ‘It helps me to loosen up.’

I did twenty-minute poses and we worked for an hour before I rested. Brian had put up a new sheet of brown paper for each pose, so there were three of them lying on the floor. They were nothing like the Conté sketches he’d done of Cheryl; they were big and free but at the same time quite delicate. Full of tenderness, really, and the most sensitive nudes he’d ever done. ‘These are beautiful,’ I said. ‘They’re so different from your drawings of Cheryl.’

‘Are you surprised?’ he said, looking at me with his good eye foremost. Hearing what was in his voice I backed away a little and said, ‘Better not.’

‘Better not what?’ he said.

‘Get serious.’

‘Why not? My feelings can’t be that much of a surprise to you.’

Those were almost the same words he’d used when he’d tried to rape me the first time I posed for him. ‘Stop right there,’ I said. ‘Put your heart back in your pants or I’m out of here.’

Brian found it hard to believe that I was rejecting his love. ‘Can you do better?’ he said. Always the pragmatist.

‘Maybe I already have,’ I said. I gathered up my clothes, got dressed and left.

I hadn’t done anything but talk to Constanze — although I’d have liked to do more — and I’d no reason at all to feel guilty; in any case Barbara was shacked up with another man and for all I knew I might never see her again. But I did feel guilty, I felt that I had betrayed my density woman. Destiny woman. Both words are formed with the same letters and density is a big part of destiny. Your mind takes hold of something and it can feel whether the fabric is dense or thin: books, movies, music — anything. People.

Troy Wallis was much in my mind. In my youth I’d walked away from more fights than I’d taken on but I couldn’t walk away from this one indefinitely. There was the Louisville Slugger leaning in the corner, tangible proof of my commitment — to myself as much as to Barbara. What if I’d never see her again? It seems I didn’t really believe that. Courage was wanted from me, heroism even. Had I ever in my life done anything heroic? I’d once confronted three teenage louts who were making very noisy lewd remarks in the Chelsea Odeon while Mimi and I were there to see Interview with the Vampire . When I told them they were spoiling the film for the rest of us I got a blast of four-letter words and threats. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘You’re so tough, let me have your names so I’ll know who you are.’

More verbal abuse followed this. ‘We’ll see you outside later,’ said the senior lout. But they were quiet after that and they left before the end of the film. ‘What are you going to do if they’re waiting out there?’ said Mimi as we left. ‘I’ll try to look like a figure of authority,’ I said. But they weren’t waiting. My bluff had apparently convinced them that I was a figure of authority. But that wasn’t real heroism. I’d been reading about Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar and I imagined those great wind-driven wooden fortresses coming slowly downwind through the French line: HMS Victory, Temeraire, Royal Sovereign and the others moving towards the moment when the marksman in the mizzen top of the Redoutable would aim for the stars on Nelson’s coat. Nelson had to display himself in full regalia on the quarterdeck when the battle was at its height — that was part of what made him an inspiration to his men. At the age of eleven, considering his career prospects and the lack of any useful connections, he had written, ‘Well then, I will be a hero, and confiding in Providence I will brave every danger.’ But his crew above and below decks, men with no stars on their coats, many of them shirtless as they served their guns — they were too busy for displays; it was simply their job to be heroic, even the powder monkeys who might never reach puberty: there was nothing else to be, and in the heat of battle they were hooked up with the necessary violence in them, that practical violence that I’d never reached in myself.