Russell Hoban - My Tango With Barbara Strozzi

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,

I’m wishin’, Lord, that I was stone,

’Cause there’s somethin’ in a Sunday

That makes a body feel alone …

That song was in my head on a Friday evening when I was in Earls Court Road going home. Feeling perfectly safe when all of a sudden I was dragged into a side street. With all those people around! There were two of them, both white, and I didn’t know if it was a mugging or rape they had in mind. I fought like a wildcat, and this time I really tried to stick my thumb in somebody’s eye but I wasn’t doing all that well when — it was like magic — the one holding me from behind wasn’t there any more. Next, somebody big got between me and the one in front and he laid that one out with a kick to the chin. Very impressive.

‘Thank you,’ I said. He was well over six feet. Square-jawed martial-arts hero type.

‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Will you let me walk you home?’

‘Yes, I will, but what about him?’ The one he’d kicked was still out cold and I think he had a broken jaw. The other one had run off.

‘What about him?’ he said. ‘That’s an occupational hazard in his line of work.’

‘Maybe we should call an ambulance.’

‘Call one if you want but I won’t wait around for it. The paramedics will give the police a bell and there’ll be paperwork and I’ll probably get done for GBH.’

‘OK, I’ll just tell the ambulance where to find him and we’ll go.’ I dialled 999 on my mobile, made my call, and we walked away.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked my new friend.

‘Troy Wallis.’

‘Unusual name.’

‘I’m an unusual guy. And your name?’

‘Bertha Strunk.’ He smiled a little smile when I said it. ‘The boys at school used to make jokes about Bertha’s trunk,’ I said, ‘and I gave them more than one bloody nose. Are you going to make a joke?’

‘No. You’re very physical, aren’t you.’

‘I don’t know. More than some, less than others, I guess.’

He grabbed me and kissed me, a really serious kiss with a lot of tongue action. I could have kept my mouth closed but I didn’t. He moved both hands down to get a good grip on my bottom and we stood like that for a while.

‘You’re pretty physical yourself,’ I said when I got my mouth back. He was still in charge of my bottom.

‘I’m a very simple guy — when I see what I want I go for it.’

‘Are you going to walk me home or are we just going to stand here and make a pair of spectacles of ourselves?’

‘Sorry, kissing you made me lose track of time.’ He gave me his arm and we walked.

I guess I’m a very shallow person, really, but it felt good to be with a big strong man who wanted to look after me. That might not be a good enough reason to marry somebody but three months later I was Mrs Troy Wallis. I’ve just written how it happened but even now I ask myself how in the world it did happen.

He was a bouncer at Jimmy Maloney’s in the Fulham Road. He worked nights and I worked days so we didn’t see a lot of each other and living with Mr Muscles was pretty boring. We didn’t have much to talk about and it’s just as well that I’m not in the habit of writing home because the sex was nothing to write home about. It was about a month before he started bouncing me around. I was living in his flat in Harwood Road by then. It happened one evening when I gave him his tea before he left for work. Bangers and mash. No veg, he didn’t care much for veg. He looked at it and said, ‘What kind of rubbish is this?’

I said, ‘Banger rubbish and mash rubbish.’

He said, ‘Don’t you come it with me, I’m not in the mood.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it, I know how sensitive you are.’

‘And none of your sarcasm either.’

‘Not even a little?’

Wham! He gave me a backhander that broke my nose and sent me flying across the room. ‘That’s pretty good,’ I said. ‘How’s your forehand?’

‘I’m warning you! Watch your mouth before I get mad and knock your teeth down your throat.’ With that he threw the bangers and mash on the floor and stomped out.

That was the last evening I spent under Troy Wallis’s roof. I packed a bag and went to Chelsea & Westminster Hospital where, after waiting about an hour, I had my nose fixed by a young doctor who wanted to know who’d done that to me. I told him I’d walked into a glass door. I crashed at the Lichtheim studio that night, and the next day I found this flatshare. Troy hassles me in the street sometimes but so far he hasn’t turned up here or at work. I think he doesn’t want to interfere with my earning capability in case he should need it. I looked in the yellow pages and there was an ad for flat fee uncontested divorce for £500 but I didn’t have the money and I hated the idea of all the bother. I’ll take care of it sometime. Maybe I’ll get lucky and Troy will get run over by a bus or something.

In the meantime all I wanted was to pull myself together and not do anything foolish for a while. Right, so I had to go to that tango class. It didn’t seem a bad idea at the time but now I’m entangled with this five-foot-seven-inch Phil. At least I can’t marry him but that still leaves a lot of margin for error.

He wanted to see me again this week but I said I needed a little time to think about things. So he sent me my horoscope. Astrology, that’s all I need. Another thing to worry about. This Catriona person says that Phil and I ‘somehow mirror each other and mirror each other’s capacity to mirror, and may both feel attracted and annoyed by qualities in the other you dislike in yourselves. You have both been badly treated — with violence or contempt — by your exes, and the suns of both of you are squared by Neptune.’ Of course I’m the kind of person that, if I read about a disease, immediately I have all the symptoms. Suggestible is what I am. Very. I believed everything Catriona said and I sent my mind back to the Saturday of the tango class. Had I felt anything pulling me? Had I felt Neptune squaring my sun? I think maybe I did. ‘Your Marses (libido, will power, assertiveness) are in square — a difficult challenging irritating aspect, and a strong trigger. Exciting but dangerous. Arousal and alertness.’ There was more, but that was all I could take in just then. I wasn’t understanding all of it, particularly that part about mirrors and the capacity to mirror. What is there in Phil that mirrors me? He said that his wife left him because he was a failure. I guess he feels like a failure. I certainly do. Whatever I’ve done has turned to shit. Except the artificial eyes. I don’t seem to be doing any harm there.

I tried to understand what it is that’s between Phil and me. If anything. No, I can feel something . Mirrors. Planets. Are we like two planets circling each other? No, one would be in orbit around the other. The smaller one. Is Phil in orbit around me? Neptune squaring my sun. At work I googled for Neptune. There were pictures of it, all blue and cold and far-away-looking. It used to have a Great Dark Spot but in 1994 it wasn’t there any more. Phil and I both have dark spots.

He rang me up on the Thursday after we met at the tango class. ‘Hi Barbara,’ he said.

I liked how that sounded. ‘Hi Phil.’

‘Are we going to the tango class this Saturday?’ he said.

‘I’m thinking about it. Have you got a VCR?’

‘Wouldn’t be without one. Why?’

‘If I rent a copy of The Rainmaker from Blockbuster, can we watch it at your place?’

‘You don’t have to rent one — I’ve got it. When do you want to come over?’

‘Half hour?’

‘Great. I’ll meet you at Domino’s Pizza so you don’t get lost.’