Paul Theroux - My Secret History

Rosamond said, “Andy lives in Africa.”

It was as though she were explaining why I was so silent.

I had run away, but I had run so far it was interesting.

Jeremy said, “There’s an enormous future for tourism there. Especially in Kenya.”

Was there? I lived not far away and I did not know that.

Rosamond said, “Andy’s a writer.”

Hearing her say that made me think that she was proud of me, and I felt a pang of love for her.

“We were just making cocoa,” Philippa said. “Would you like some? We’ve made masses — I used all the milk, I’m afraid.”

Rosamond and I were pleasantly drunk and wanted the feeling to last. We said no to the cocoa, and locked ourselves in her bedroom. We undressed each other impatiently.

“The better you know someone the less you’re interested in their clothes,” I said, and unhooked her black bra.

“You’re drunk,” Rosamond said, in a drunken way, and pulled me to the floor, and wrapped her legs around me.

“They’re going to get married after Christmas,” she said after we made love. We were stuck together, still on the floor. “In a beautiful little church in the Cotswolds. They never go out. They’re saving all their money for a deposit on a flat.”

It seemed such a pleasure to be married. I thought of Prasad and his wife in their house in south London. Sarah fussed over him and poked fun at him. But she also helped him. She read his proofs, she cooked, she ran the house. They seemed very close, as though they had formed their own intimate little society. That was the reason he seldom went out, and it was why they did not mind my staying away these nights with Rosamond: Raj and Sarah had a private life to which I could not be admitted. It seemed to me that nothing was more exclusive or unknowable than a happy marriage. It was the rarest friendship in the world, I felt.

“It would be nice to be married,” I said.

Rosamond said nothing and then she giggled in the darkness and said, “What are you saying to me?”

“Would you like to get married?”

“I don’t know,” she said. She tossed her hair. “I’ve never given it any thought.”

But when we made love again shortly afterwards she whimpered and began to cry. Her face was wet with tears. She said, “I’m happy,” and held me close to her. She hugged me. She said, “I won’t let you go. I’m going to keep you prisoner.”

When I struggled to get free, she laughed, and became aroused once more.

I was haggard when I arrived back at Prasad’s that early morning: I clucked, seeing my face in the hall mirror.

Prasad opened his study door and said, “I think you like this girl.”

He was in his pajamas. The man never slept.

“She’s very nice,” I said, and heard her saying through clenched teeth Bite me — I’m a whore . I had to repeat to myself, Yes, she is very nice.

“Where do her people live?”

“Her, um, people live in a place called Walton.”

“Oh, God,” Prasad said. He made his disgusted face, but it was worse than usual. “Walton-on-Thames.”

“You know the place?”

“My heart sinks at the thought of places like that.”

I knew where she lived, because that very morning, before I left her apartment, she asked whether I would go home with her for Christmas dinner. I had asked her where.

“It’s one of these nightmare places,” Prasad said. “England’s full of them.”

“He’s just being silly,” Sarah said, later that day. “It’s lovely. It’s on the river. You’ll have a wonderful time. Much better than our dull old vegetarian Christmas.”

“We will celebrate in our usual style,” Prasad said. “Very quietly, I’m afraid. My bingeing days are over.”

Then he laughed, and so did Sarah. I envied them the way they had each other.

Christmas morning was dry and bright, the blue sky mirrored on the upper windows of old buildings, and the city was very still, as on the day after a great event. There were few people about, no buses, hardly any traffic, and every shop was shut. Near the station, which was closed, there were pools of vomit on the curb, still fresh, like messes of spilled soup. A peaceful silence lay over the city, and the occasional burst of church bells made this silence more emphatic.

This sunlight and emptiness was perfect for our meeting: Rosamond was waiting in her long cossack coat and fur hat on the steps of Waterloo Station. It was as though we were the only people awake this morning — we had a purpose in the deserted city. Christmas itself made me feel innocently happy, and I kissed Rosamond with such energy and hope that she shrieked. And I gave her a present, a silk scarf from Liberty’s with the date of the New Year on it, 1968 .

“I’m going to wear it,” she said, and tied it loosely around her neck. “It’s beautiful.”

I saw her glance at herself as we passed a shop window in the station. She looked pleased as she turned away.

After we boarded the train, she gave me a present — a leather wallet. I said it was just what I needed, and I showed her my old one to prove it. Then we sat holding hands, saying nothing, traveling in the empty rattling train that smelled of stale smoke and the mingled odors of last night’s homeward-bound partygoers — perfume, cigarettes, beer, whiskey, fried food. There were shreds of gift wrapping and twisted ribbon among the trampled newspapers. I began to feel sad when I thought about our presents: they were the sort of gifts that people exchanged when they did not know each other well. Sitting there silently — but wanting to speak — I felt Rosamond was a stranger, and I was apprehensive about meeting her family.

It was not a long trip — much less than the hour she said it would take. England seemed such a small place, in spite of many names. It was all names, and they were impressive, but they were signs on stations, no more than that; a brief stop, no one got on or off, we moved on. The distances were slight and the places disappointing. In Africa for hundreds of miles there were hills and valleys and forests, and nothing had a name.

Walton was just small houses and roofs. Where was the river? I felt cheated by these London names. There was no green at Bethnal Green — only a street and traffic; and Shepherd’s Bush was a dangerous intersection. The slum at Elephant and Castle was the worst cheat of all.

“You must be Andrew,” Rosamond’s father said. He said nothing more. He did not shake my hand. He did not tell me that his name was James Graves — I had to ask Rosamond that. I had been feeling cheery, but this English obliqueness sobered me by making me attentive.

We got into his small car and drove, but not far, to a house I first took to be large until I realized that it was half the building, semidetached, though it too had a name, Rosedene . It was two textures, stucco and brick, with a tile roof, and it lay behind thick hedges. In its small and fussy front yard there were four dusty rosebushes and a birdbath and rectangular patches of grass that looked like upturned scrubbing brushes. Everything was a tight fit — the railway line, the station, the street, Mr. Graves’s car, this house, and even the guests, seated close together in the parlor drinking Christmas sherry. The sun streamed through the windows and warmed the Christmas tree and released a fragrance of pine.

Mr. Graves wore a thick suit and heavy shoes, and his wife an apron — she was just doing the roast potatoes, she said. There was Rosamond’s younger sister, who was also pretty; her name was Janey and she had a ringing laugh that made Mr. Fry, who sat next to her, squint in an exaggerated way. Dave and Jill shared a big chair — she sat on the arm. Dave was a red-faced man in a yellowish suit, and Jill a plump woman who, under the pretense of restraining her husband, actually encouraged him.