Christopher Isherwood - A Single Man

‘Oh, you’re tiresome!’

‘Listen, why not just go back there on a visit? See Nan, if you want to. But, for Christ’s sake, don’t commit yourself.’

‘No – if I go back at all, I’ve got to go back for good.’

‘ Why ?’

‘I can’t stand any more indecision. I’ve got to burn my boats, this time. I thought I’d done that when I came over here with Buddy. But, this time, I’ve got to —’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’

‘I know I’ll find it all changed. I know there’ll be a lot of things I’ll hate. I know I’ll miss all these supermarkets and labour-savers and conveniences. Probably I’ll keep catching one cold after another, after living in this climate. And I expect you’re quite right – I shall be miserable, living with Nan. . . . I can’t help any of that. At least, when I’m there, I shall know where I am .’

‘Never in my born days have I heard such utter drooling masochism!’

‘Oh yes, I know it sounds like that. And perhaps it is! Do you suppose masochism’s our way of being patriotic? Or do I mean that the other way round? What fun! Darling, shouldn’t we have another tiny drink? Let’s drink to the masochism of Old England!’

‘I don’t think so, darling. Time for our beds.’

‘Geo – you’re leaving! ’

‘I must, Charley.’

‘But when shall I see you?’

‘Very soon. That is, unless you’re taking off for England right away.’

‘Oh, don’t tease me! You know perfectly well I’m not! It’d take me ages, just to get ready. . . . Perhaps I never will go, at all. How could I ever face all that packing and the saying goodbye, and the effort ? No – perhaps I never will —’

‘We’ll talk more about it. A lot more. . . . Goodnight, Charley dear.’

She rises as he bends forward to kiss her. They bump awkwardly and very nearly topple over and roll on the floor. He steadies her, unsteadily.

‘I should hate so to leave you, Geo.’

‘Then don’t.’

‘The way you say that! I don’t believe you care if I go or if I stay.’

‘Of course I care!’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly!’

‘Geo?’

‘Yes, Charley?’

‘I don’t think Jim would want me to leave you here alone.’

‘Then don’t leave me.’

‘No – I’m dead serious! You remember when you and I drove up to San Francisco? In September, it must have been, last year, just after you got back from England —’

‘Yes.’

‘Jim couldn’t come up with us, that day. I forget why. He flew up the next day and joined us. . . . Well, anyhow, just as you and I were getting into the car, Jim said something to me. Something I’ve never forgotten. . . . Did I ever tell you this?’

‘I don’t believe so.’ (She has told him at least six times; always when very drunk.)

‘He said to me, you two take care of each other.’

‘He did?’

‘Yes, he did. Those were his exact words. And, Geo, I believe he didn’t just mean, take care. He meant something more —’

‘What did he mean?’

‘That was less than two months, wasn’t it, before he left for Ohio. . . . I believe he said, take care , because he knew —’

Swaying a little, she regards him earnestly but dimly, as though she were peering up at him, fishlike, through all the liquor she has drunk. ‘Do you believe that, Geo?’

‘How can we tell what he knew, Charley? As for our taking care of each other, we can be certain he’d have wanted us to do that.’ George puts his hands on her shoulders. ‘So now let’s both tell each other to get some sleep, shall we?’

‘No, wait —’ She’s like a child, stalling off bedtime with questions. ‘Do you suppose that pub is still for sale?’

‘I expect so. . . . That’s an idea! Why don’t we buy it, Charley? What do you say? We could get drunk and earn money at the same time. ‘That’d be more fun than living with Nan .’

‘Oh, darling, how lovely! Do you suppose we really could buy it? No – you’re not serious, are you? I can see you aren’t. But don’t ever say you aren’t. Let’s make plans about it, like you and Jim used to. He’d like us to make plans, wouldn’t he?’

‘Sure, he would. . . . Good night, Charley.’

‘Good night, Geo, my love —’ As they embrace, she kisses him full on the mouth. And suddenly sticks her tongue right in. She has done this before, often. It’s one of those drunken longshots which just might, at least theoretically, once in ten thousand tries, throw a relationship right out of its orbit and send it whizzing off on another. Do women ever stop trying? No. But, because they never stop, they learn to be good losers. When, after a suitable pause, he begins to draw back, she doesn’t attempt to cling to him. And now she accepts his going with no more resistance. He kisses her on the forehead. She is like a child who has at last submitted to being tucked into her cot.

‘Sleep tight.’

George turns, swings open the house door, takes one stride and – OOPS! – very very nearly falls head first down the steps – all of them – oh, and unthinkably much farther – ten, fifty, one hundred million feet into the bottomless black night. Only his grip on the door handle saves him.

He turns groggily, with a punching heart, to grin back at Charlotte; but, luckily, she has wandered away off somewhere. She hasn’t seen him do this asinine thing. Which is truly providential because, if she had seen him, she would have insisted on his staying the night; which would have meant, well, at the very least, such a late breakfast that it would have been brunch; which would have meant more drinks; which would have meant siesta and supper, and more and more and more drinks to follow. . . . This has actually happened, before now.

But this time he has escaped. And now he closes the house door with the care of a burglar, sits himself down on the top step, takes a deep breath, and gives himself a calm stern talking-to. You are drunk. Oh, you stupid old thing, how dare you get so drunk? Well, now, listen: We are going to walk down those steps very slowly, and when we are at the bottom we are going straight home and upstairs and right into bed, without even brushing our teeth. All right, that’s understood? Now, here we go —

Well and good.

How to explain, then, that, with his foot actually on the bridge over the creek, George suddenly turns, chuckles to himself, and with the movement of a child wriggling free of a grown-up – old guardian Cortex – runs off down the road, laughing, toward the ocean?

As he trots out of Camphor Tree Lane on to Las Ondas, he sees the round green porthole lights of The Starboard Side, down on the corner of the ocean highway across from the beach, shining to welcome him.

The Starboard Side has been here since the earliest days of the colony. Its bar, formerly a lunch-counter, served the neighbours with their first post-prohibition beers; and the mirror behind it was sometimes honoured by the reflection of Tom Mix. But its finest hours came later. That summer of 1945! The War as good as over. The blackout no more than an excuse for keeping the lights out at a gangbang. A sign over the bar said, ‘In case of a direct hit, we close immediately’. Which was meant to be funny, of course. And yet, out across the bay, in deep water under the cliffs of Palos Verdes, lay a real Japanese submarine full of real dead Japanese, depth-bombed after they had sunk two of three ships in sight of the Californian coast.

You pushed aside the blackout curtain and elbowed your way through a jam-packed bar-crowd, scarcely able to breathe or see for smoke. Here, in the complete privacy of the din and the crowd, you and your pick-up yelled the preliminary sex-advances at each other. You could flirt but you couldn’t fight; there wasn’t even room to smack someone’s face. For that, you had to step outside. Oh, the bloody battles and the side-walk vomitings! The punches flying wide, the heads crashing backwards against the fenders of parked cars! Huge diesel-dikes slugging it out, grimmer far than the men. The siren-wailing arrival of the police; the sudden swoopings of the shore patrol. Girls dashing down from their apartments to drag some gorgeous endangered young drunk upstairs to safety and breakfast served next morning in bed like a miracle of joy. Hitch-hiking servicemen delayed at this corner for hours, nights, days; proceeding at last on their journeys with black eyes, crablice, clap, and only the dimmest memory of their hostess or host.