Peter Carey - Bliss

When she had finally gone through the agonies of leaving Harry, when she had her own business, she would go to Blakes Hotel in London and sit in the bar there.

She sat at one end of the bar and watched the door with a wonderful sense of expectation as if, at any moment, the most beautiful man might walk through the door, three days' growth on his handsome face, a loose linen jacket thrown over his shoulders, a dark face, sensuous and violent, but an intelligent forehead.

So when Joel came scurrying through at this moment she was, without knowing why, irritated and depressed. She was always disappointed when she saw him: physically he was not quite what she had remembered.

Joel always rushed. He had no cool. Harry had more style than Joel, who almost waddled, and there, there still, were those damn cufflinks he wouldn’t take off.

'Hello, honey.' The bar stool farted when he sat on it. She tried to tell herself it would have happened to anyone. 'I've been getting your husband on to an aeroplane.'

'Do you really have to wear those cufflinks?'

But Joel was ordering a drink. 'He nearly missed the damn plane.'

'If you really want to wear cufflinks why don't you come with me and I'll buy you some.'

'I don't know why in the hell he wants to go down there, we could have done it on the phone. Hey... get your hands off my cufflinks. What are you doing?'

'I'm taking your damn cufflinks off.' Joel sat at the bar with his cuffs flapping at the bottom of his coat sleeves. 'What in the hell do I do now?'

'Pull your sleeves up,' she said and started giggling. 'Did you have a nice day at the office?'

'Hell, honey, that isn't funny.'

Bettina ordered another Sunrise and Joel removed his suit coat, put it fussily over the next bar stool, rolled his shirt sleeves up, and put his coat back on. He sulked for a while and Bettina looked around. In the end he started talking to stop her looking around.

'He's not in a very healthy state of mind?'

'Who, honey?'

'Your husband.'

'Ah,' Bettina waved a ringed hand, 'he's just growing up.'

She liked Harry when she was away from him. He towered over everyone else she knew.

Joel started laughing incredulously, 'Oh that's good, honey, that's really good. Just growing up. He tells me in the car that he is going to be Good. Is that sane ? Because, honey, if that's sane, then I want to be crazy.'

'It's not your style, darling.'

'What isn't?'

'Being crazy isn't your style.'

'What in the goddamn hell do you mean by that?'

His chin was starting to wobble so she changed the subject. 'Who did you take to lunch?'

'I'm taking George Lewis out to lunch next week. I've got a table booked at La Belle Epoque.'

'He said he'd go last week.'

'Well he had to cancel.'

'Why can't we steal someone else's clients? Why do we have to steal Harry's clients?'

'We haven't stolen anyone's clients yet.'

'Damn right we haven't,' said Bettina bitterly, wondering if she had got herself stuck with a schmuck who couldn't even get one account. She had listened to Harry when she shouldn't have, and ignored him when she should have listened.

' You do it then.'

'Alright, fuck you, I just might.' The bastard. He knew she couldn't. He knew it gave her the shits to be unable to do this thing that she wanted to do more than anything else. But how could Harry Joy's wife phone up a prospective client and take him out to lunch.

'Well do,' he said smugly. 'Do it yourself.'

'I just might.'

But he wasn't even threatened by it. In fact it restored his good humour and a little colour crept into his face.

'What I was thinking,' he said, and began to run his chubby finger around the wet rim of his Scotch glass.

Bettina listened. When Joel spoke like this she thought of an ice-skater. Suddenly the little bugger was so damn elegant it was almost unbearable.

'What I was thinking was it might be better and simpler and less disruptive for everyone if we just had him committed.'

He took her breath away. Bettina, literally, could not speak. And when she looked at Joel she saw that he meant it: he had that strange little prim smile on his face and his eyes were wet but how or why they were wet she didn't know. Some emotion moved him. But she smelt no weakness, only a sly satisfaction, a boneless strength.

'Christ,' she said, 'you little creep.' But her eyes were bright with admiration and the smile seemed to stay on Joel's face even while he sipped his Scotch.

That night, in the branches of the fig tree beside his house, Harry would conduct his Final Test.

It had not been easy to get there. Joel had been attentive and kind. He had driven him to the airport and waited for him to board the plane.

'You go, Joel. No point in waiting here.'

'No, no, I'm fine.'

When the plane had finally begun to board Harry had still waited.

'You go,' he said. 'I'll go on in a second. I'll just wait for most of them to get on.'

But still Joel wouldn't go, and Harry found himself both irritated and moved by his kindness. Joel waited to watch him walk down the boarding finger and waved him all the way on to the plane.

He took his seat and stood up again.

'I'm on the wrong plane,' he told the hostess, and smiled wanly. 'Sorry:' She took the ticket from his hand.

'No,' she said, 'you're on the right plane, sir. Please be seated.'

'I want to get off.'

'But this is your plane.'

'I don't care. I don't want to fly on it. I was only pretending to get on it.'

'And you just got carried away?' the hostess said sourly, stepping back into the galley to let him past.

And now he was up the fig tree just as he had planned to be, ready to observe what Actors did when they had no audience. The final test was hardly worth all the effort.

It was not so uncomfortable. He had been in worse situ-ations. For this particular branch he had a good view of his neighbour who was taking advantage of the late summer light to dig a hole. This was quite consistent with his behaviour in all the years before Harry had died and he found it, in a peculiar way, soothing to watch him scurrying and puffing around his garden like a little mole. The neighbour always enjoyed holes and mounds of dirt. The earth in his garden could never lie in peace, always on the move from one corner to another. Just when it was settled in, he would decide to shift it. It had all the senseless motion of a sadistic punishment and yet the man (known affectionately as 'the Miner' by the entire Joy family) looked happy enough as he surveyed his mound of dirt and his hole in the ground.

Harry settled in against the trunk and lit a cigarette just as the Miner was walking across to his back door. He stopped and stared up at the tree. He stood very still.

'Hey you,' he called at last, 'you, in the tree.'

'It's only me,' Harry hissed.

'Who's you?'

'Mr Joy.'

The Miner replied in a similar style, in a piercing whisper: 'What's up?'

'I've lost my key.'

The Miner's wife came and stood on the back step: 'Who is it?'

'Mr Joy, from next door.'

'What's he doing?'

'He's lost his key.'

'The boy is home.'

'Your son is home,' hissed the Miner.

Harry knew that his son was home: he could see yellow light shining through the chink in the heavy curtains three feet above his head.

'I know,' he hissed back.

Down on the back step of their house the Miner and his wife had an anxious little conference.

'He knows,' the Miner said.

'I'm not deaf.'

The Miner took a tentative step towards the fence. 'Do you want me to ring the bell for you?'

'Stupid, stupid,' the wife exploded and went inside and slammed the door.