Rachel Cusk - The Temporary

He had seen Stephen recently, for the first time in weeks, and his familiarity had made an exhibition of Ralph’s secret changes, retrieving them from the obscurity of his suffocating heart and putting them on prominent display. They had met in a pub near Stephen’s flat in Notting Hill Gate with the intention of having Sunday lunch; an arrangement which Stephen always suggested, making it sound so appealing, so proper, but for which history could make hazardous claims, coming as it did so soon after the night which traditionally saw the eruption of Stephen’s worst excesses. Ralph had often sat for half an hour in the pub waiting for him to appear, and would berate himself for remembering the last such interlude, and the resolutions he had made during it, only when immersed in the next. He supposed that in other circumstances he might have been pricked to deny his company to someone so careless of it, but he knew that it was not awe or even ineffectualness which delivered him time and again to Stephen’s rudeness. Rather, he saw in Stephen’s recurrent request for the assignation a need for someone to be waiting for him on a Sunday afternoon, a forecast of continuation which, when he awoke on Sunday morning, he could use to ward off whatever obsolescence lingered from the night before. That was Ralph’s suspicion, in any case, although whether the person equally needed to be him was less a matter for certainty. These days Ralph brought the newspapers to the pub and read them almost contentedly until Stephen turned up.

It had come as a surprise, then, to be met on his arrival by the sight of Stephen sitting on a stool at the bar reading a book. He looked almost dapper, in an old-fashioned tweed jacket with a pale shirt undone at the collar beneath and loose trousers of some soft material. Ralph glimpsed the back of his neck bent over his book as he approached. It was pale and more slender than he remembered, a bare stalk which embarrassed him but which for a moment he almost wanted to touch.

‘Good God,’ he said humorously, standing next to Stephen’s stool. An inappropriate feeling of love lodged fluttering in his throat.

Stephen’s eyes stayed on his book for a second too long, and Ralph remembered how he had used to read like that when they were at school, striking a contemplative pose and ignoring anyone who approached him, including teachers, until he had finished a particular page or chapter. His bouts of reading usually occurred directly after the execution of some misdemeanour or other, and Ralph had come to suspect that Stephen’s erudition was merely a dramatic device for the production of high contrast, a baroque detail of the measured eclecticism with which he created himself

‘Afternoon,’ he said finally, snapping the book closed without, Ralph noticed, marking the page. ‘You’re looking very chipper.’

‘Likewise,’ said Ralph. ‘I hardly recognized you when I came in. What’s going on?’

‘I will brook no interrogations,’ said Stephen briskly. ‘Your absence has been noted.’

‘Sorry. I’ve been busy.’

‘I know. ’

‘What do you mean?’ Ralph’s voice sounded fluting and nervous, like a girl’s.

‘Oh, calm down.’ Stephen cackled with laughter. ‘I’m merely — surmising from your failure to return my calls and your shining pelt that you’ve been—’

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘—hard at it. Right you are.’

Stephen raised his eyebrows and smiled. Ralph turned to the bar and fumbled in his pockets for money. For a moment his thoughts were in darkness, but he could feel their predatory movements.

‘What’ve you been up to?’ he said. He kept his face turned away, his eyes following the ministry of the barman. He could feel the heat of Stephen’s examination beside him.

‘Oh, working, same old crap. The magazine menstruates monthly. And I’m being punished for a little — cock-up from last month.’ He seemed willing to offer an explanation but Ralph, shying from involvement with his complications, didn’t ask him for one. ‘So this month it’s cars of all things, talking to morons about the potency of their Porsches. Loaded, every last one of them. Sticks in my craw, old boy.’ He sighed and then laughed. ‘I’ve got a good one for you, though. This bloke, this real Home Counties Kev, said to me, you’ll love this, he says, “Look, mate—”’ Stephen lowered his voice in imitation, gruffly conspiratorial. ‘“Look, mate, I know it cost a lot, but it’s paid for itself in twat, see?” In twat! Glorious!’

‘That’s funny,’ said Ralph. He turned to give Stephen his drink and met his eye.

‘And yourself?’ said Stephen.

The pub was filling up, and in the warm, rising clamour of voices, the furniture of bodies from whose mouths brazen laughter burst in white plumes of cigarette smoke, Ralph felt his painful singularity begin mildly to disperse. He knew he shouldn’t discuss Francine, but Stephen’s almost involuntary skill at interrogation meant that only physical escape would make a certainty of his intentions. From the bruised and tender distance of Ralph’s curtained intimacies, Stephen seemed more abrasive than ever, and although the sight of his friend pressed upon him a chilly consciousness of his recent loneliness, he feared the confessional impulse which was every moment mounting within him.

‘Oh, not much. Work, I suppose. Nothing much, really.’

Stephen’s face betrayed a fleeting impatience and he jigged slightly on his stool as if in encouragement of social momentum.

‘Met anyone new?’ he chirped hopefully.

The unexpected appearance of Roz’s terrible question filled Ralph with a sudden private mirth, and before he could stop himself he heard a ghastly laugh rush from his lips. Stephen looked at him in surprise, and, really only to cover his moment of awkwardness, Ralph suddenly found himself prepared to admit everything.

‘I’ve been seeing Francine,’ he said loudly, turning to face the room. ‘Shall we sit down?’

‘Who?’ said Stephen. He picked up his glass and followed Ralph to a table, hovering avidly behind him like a reporter.

‘Francine.’ Ralph felt his brief flash of euphoria subside. ‘The girl we met at Alf’s.’

‘The secretary?’ Stephen sat down, as if in shock. His face was a cartoon of astonishment. He began to laugh, shaking his head. ‘You’re joking. I don’t believe it.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t believe it.’ Stephen paused for a moment and then yelped again with laughter. One or two people turned their heads. ‘I just don’t believe it.’

‘Well, it’s true.’

‘Francine!’ His disbelief dissipated into a wide smile. ‘You’re a bloody quiet one. I wouldn’t have thought she was your tipple, not in a million years.’

‘I’d rather not talk about it.’ Ralph picked up his glass. His hand was shaking.

‘What’s she like?’ said Stephen, grinning.

‘What do you mean, what’s she like ? Is that all you think it is?’

‘Well, what is it, then? She’s a—’ He gestured mountainously from his chest with his hands and then looked exaggeratedly contrite. ‘She’s a nice girl.’

‘She’s not stupid, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Of course she’s not.’

Stephen leaned forward and fixed him with a serious look, his eyebrows mockingly furrowed. Ralph shrugged and stared at his hands. They lay on the table, waxy and nerveless, instruments of indifference. The articulation of his secret had illuminated in its very first hateful exposure a veiled background of half-denied truths. In that moment Ralph knew his own misery, recognized it beyond doubt.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ he said dully. ‘I can’t seem to get out of it.’