Julian Barnes: Pulse

He suggested his place, but she refused. She said she’d come next time. He spent an anxious few days wondering what it would be like to go to bed with someone different after so long. He drove fifteen miles up the coast to buy condoms where no one knew him. Not that he was ashamed, or embarrassed; just didn’t want anyone knowing, or guessing, his business.

‘This is a nice apartment.’

‘Well, if an estate agent can’t find himself a decent flat, what’s the world coming to?’

She had an overnight bag with her; she took off her clothes in the bathroom and came back in a nightdress. They climbed into bed and he turned out the light. She felt very tense to him. He felt very tense to himself.

‘We could just cuddle,’ he suggested.

‘What is cuddle?’

He demonstrated.

‘So cuddle is not fucking?’

‘No, cuddle is not fucking.’

‘OK, cuddle.’

After that they relaxed, and she soon fell asleep.

The next time, after some kissing, he reacquainted himself with the lubricated struggle of the condom. He knew he was meant to unroll it, but found himself trying to tug it on like a sock, pulling at the rim in a haphazard way. Doing it in the dark didn’t help either. But she didn’t say anything, or cough discouragingly, and eventually he turned towards her. She pulled up her nightie and he climbed on top of her. His mind was half filled with lust and fucking, and half empty, as if wondering what he was up to. He didn’t think about her very much that first time. It was a question of looking out for yourself. Later you could look out for the other person.

‘Was that OK?’ he said after a while.

‘Yes, was OK.’

Vernon laughed in the dark.

‘Are you laughing at me? Was not OK for you?’

‘Andrea,’ he said, ‘everything’s OK. Nobody’s laughing at you. I won’t let anyone laugh at you.’ As she slept, he thought: we’re starting again, both of us. I don’t know what she’s had in her past, but maybe we’re both starting again from the same sort of low point, and that’s OK. Everything’s OK.

The next time she was more relaxed, and gripped him hard with her legs. He couldn’t tell whether she came or not.

‘Gosh you’re strong,’ he said afterwards.

‘Is strong bad?’

‘No, no. Not at all. Strong’s good.’

But the next time he noticed that she didn’t grip him so hard. She didn’t much like him playing with her breasts either. No, that was unfair. She didn’t seem to mind if he did or didn’t. Or rather, if he wanted to, that was fine, but it was for him, not for her. That’s what he understood, anyway. And who said you had to talk about everything in the first week?

He was glad neither of them was any good at flirting: it was a kind of deception. Whereas Andrea was never anything but straight with him. She didn’t talk much, but what she said was what she did. She would meet him where and when he asked, and be standing there, looking out for him, brushing a streak of hair out of her eyes, holding on to her bag more firmly than was necessary in this town.

‘You’re as reliable as a Polish builder,’ he told her one day.

‘Is that good?’

‘That’s very good.’

‘Is English expression?’

‘It is now.’

She asked him to correct her English when she made a mistake. He got her to say, ‘I don’t think so’ instead of ‘I do not think’; but actually, he preferred the way she talked. He always understood her, and those phrases which weren’t quite right seemed part of her. Maybe he didn’t want her talking like an Englishwoman in case she started behaving like an Englishwoman – well, like one in particular. And anyway, he didn’t want to play the teacher.

It was the same in bed. Things are what they are, he said to himself. If she always wore a nightie, perhaps it was a Catholic thing – not that she ever mentioned going to church. If he asked her to do stuff to him, she did it, and seemed to enjoy it; but she didn’t ask him to do stuff back to her – didn’t even seem to like his hand down there much. But this didn’t bother him; she was allowed to be who she was.

She never asked him in. If he dropped her off, she’d be trotting up the concrete path before he’d got the handbrake on; if he picked her up, she’d already be outside, waiting. At first this was fine, then it began to feel a bit odd, so he asked to see where she lived, just for a minute, so he could imagine where she was when she wasn’t with him. They went back into the house – 1930s semi, pebbledash, multi-occupation, metal windowframes rusting up badly – and she opened her door. His professional eye took in the dimensions, furnishings, and probable rental cost; his lover’s eye took in a small dressing table with photos in plastic frames and a picture of the Virgin. There was a single bed, tiny sink, rubbish microwave, small TV, and clothes on hangers clipped precariously to the picture rail. Something in him was touched by seeing her life exposed like that in the minute or so before they stepped outside again. To cover this sudden emotion, Vernon said,

‘You shouldn’t be paying more than fifty-five. Plus services. I can get you somewhere bigger for the same price.’

‘Is OK.’

Now that spring was here, they went for drives into Suffolk and looked at English things: half-timbered houses with no damp courses, thatched roofs which put you in a higher insurance band. They stopped by a village green and he sat down on a bench overlooking a pond, but she didn’t fancy that so they looked at the church instead. He hoped she wouldn’t ask him to explain the difference between Anglicans and Catholics – or the history behind it all. Something about Henry the Eighth wanting to get married again. The king’s knob. All sorts of things came down to sex if you looked at them closely enough. But happily she didn’t ask.

She began to take his arm, and to smile more easily. He gave her the key to his flat; tentatively, she started leaving overnight stuff there. One Sunday, in the dark, he reached across to the bedside drawer and found he was out of condoms. He swore, and had to explain.

‘Is OK.’

‘No, Andrea, is bloody not OK. Last thing I need is you getting pregnant.’

‘I do not think so. Not get pregnant. Is OK.’

He trusted her. Later, as she slept, he wondered what exactly she had meant. That she couldn’t have kids? Or that she was taking something herself, to make doubly sure? If so, what would the Virgin Mary have to say about that? Let’s hope she isn’t relying on the rhythm method, he suddenly thought. Guaranteed to fail on a regular basis and keep the Pope as happy as Larry.

Time passed; she met Gary and Melanie; they took to her. She didn’t tell them what to do; they told her, and she went along with it. They also asked her questions he’d never dared, or cared, to ask.

‘Andrea, are you married?’

‘Can we watch TV as long as we like?’

‘Were you married?’

‘If I ate three would I be sick?’

‘Why aren’t you married?’

‘How old are you?’

‘What team do you support?’

‘You got any children?’

‘Are you and Dad getting married?’

He learnt the answers to some of these questions – like any sensible woman, she wasn’t telling her age. One night, in the dark, after he’d delivered the kids back, and was too upset for sex, as he always was on these occasions, he said, ‘Do you think you could love me?’

‘Yes I think I would love you.’

‘Is that a would or a could?’

‘What is the difference?’

He paused. ‘There’s no difference. I’ll take either. I’ll take both. I’ll take whatever you’ve got to give.’

He didn’t know why it started, the next bit. Because he was beginning to fall in love with her, or because he didn’t really want to? Or wanted to, but was afraid? Or was it that, deep down, he had an urge to fuck everything up? That’s what his wife – ex-wife – had said to him one morning over breakfast. ‘Look, Vernon, I don’t hate you, I really don’t. I just can’t live with you because you always fuck things up.’ Her statement seemed to come out of the blue. True, he snored a bit, and dropped his clothes where he shouldn’t, and watched the normal amount of sport on TV. But he came home on time, loved his kids, didn’t chase other women. In some people’s eyes, that was the same as fucking things up.