Christopher Isherwood - A Single Man

Their walk home sobers George quite a lot. By the time they reach the house, he no longer sees the two of them as wild water-creatures but as an elderly professor with wet hair bringing home an exceedingly wet student in the middle of the night. George becomes self-conscious and almost curt. ‘The bathroom’s upstairs. I’ll get you some towels —’

Kenny reacts to the formality at once. ‘Aren’t you taking a shower too, Sir?’ he asks, in a deferential, slightly disappointed tone.

‘I can do that later. . . . I wish I had some clothes your size to lend you. You’ll have to wrap up in a blanket, while we dry your things on the heater. It’s rather a slow process, I’m afraid, but that’s the best we can do —’

‘Look, Sir – I don’t want to be a nuisance. Why don’t I go now?’

‘Don’t be an idiot. You’d get pneumonia.’

‘My clothes’ll dry on me. I’ll be all right.’

‘Nonsense! Come on up and I’ll show you where everything is.’

George’s refusal to let him leave appears to have pleased Kenny. At any rate, he makes a terrific noise in the shower, not so much singing as a series of shouts. He is probably waking up the neighbours, George thinks, but who cares? George’s spirits are up again; he feels excited, amused, alive. In his bedroom, he undresses quickly, gets into his thick white terrycloth bathrobe, hurries downstairs again, puts on the kettle and fixes some tuna fish and tomato sandwiches on rye. They are all ready set out on a tray in the living-room when Kenny comes down, wearing the blanket awkwardly, saved-from-shipwreck style.

Kenny doesn’t want coffee or tea; he would rather have beer, he says. So George gets him a can from the icebox, and unwisely pours himself a biggish Scotch. He returns to find Kenny looking around the room as though it fascinates him.

‘You live here all by yourself, Sir?’

‘Yes,’ says George; and adds with a shade of irony, ‘Does that surprise you?’

‘No. One of the kids said he thought you did.’

‘As a matter of fact, I used to share this place with a friend.’

But Kenny shows no curiosity about the friend. ‘You don’t even have a cat or a dog or anything?’

‘You think I should?’ George asks, a bit aggressive. The poor old guy doesn’t have anything to love, he thinks Kenny is thinking.

‘Hell, no! Didn’t Baudelaire say they’re liable to turn into demons and take over your life?’

‘Something like that. . . . This friend of mine had lots of animals, though, and they didn’t seem to take us over. . . . Of course, it’s different when there’s two of you. We often used to agree that neither one of, us would want to keep on the animals if the other wasn’t there —’

No. Kenny is absolutely not curious about any of this. Indeed, he is concentrating on taking a huge bite out of his sandwich. So George asks him, ‘Is it all right?’

‘I’ll say!’ He grins at George with his mouth full, then swallows and adds, ‘You know something, Sir? I believe you’ve discovered the secret of the perfect life!’

‘I have?’ George has just gulped nearly a quarter of his Scotch, to drown out a spasm which started when he talked about Jim and the animals. Now he feels the alcohol coming back on him with a rush. It is exhilarating, but it is coming much too fast.

‘You don’t realise how many kids my age just dream about the kind of set-up you’ve got here. I mean, what more can you want? I mean, you don’t have to take orders from anybody. You can do any crazy thing that comes into your head.’

‘And that’s your idea of the perfect life?’

‘Sure it is!’

‘Honestly?’

‘What’s the matter, Sir? Don’t you believe me?’

‘What I don’t quite understand is, if you’re so keen on living alone – how does Lois fit in?’

‘Lois? What’s she got to do with it?’

‘Now, look, Kenny – I don’t mean to be nosey – but, rightly or wrongly, I got the idea that you and she might be, well, considering —’

‘Getting married? No. That’s out.’

‘Oh —?’

‘She says she won’t marry a Caucasian. She says she can’t take people in this country seriously. She doesn’t feel anything we do here means anything. She wants to go back to Japan and teach.’

‘She’s an American citizen, isn’t she?’

‘Oh, sure. She’s a Nisei. But, just the same, she and her whole family got shipped up to one of those internment camps in the sierras, right after the War began. Her father had to sell his business for peanuts, give it away practically, to some sharks who were grabbing all the Japanese property, and talking big about avenging Pearl Harbor! Lois was only a small kid, then, but you can’t expect anyone to forget a thing like that. She says they were all treated as enemy aliens; no one even gave a damn which side they were on. She says the Negroes were the only ones who acted decently to them. And a few pacifists. Christ, she certainly has the right to hate our guts! Not that she does, actually. She always seems to be able to see the funny side of things —’

‘And how do you feel about her?’

‘Oh, I like her a lot.’

‘And she likes you, doesn’t she?’

‘I guess so. Yes, she does. A lot.’

‘But don’t you want to marry her?’

‘Oh sure. I guess so. If she were to change her attitude. But I doubt if she will. And, anyhow, I’m in no rush about marrying anyone. There’s a lot of things I want to do, first —’ Kenny pauses, regarding George with his most teasing, penetrating grin. ‘You know what I think, Sir?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t believe you’re that much interested, whether I marry Lois or not. I think you want to ask me something different. Only you’re not sure how I’ll take it —’

‘What do I want to ask you?’

This is getting positively flirty, on both sides. Kenny’s blanket, under the relaxing influence of the talk and beer, has slipped, baring an arm and a shoulder and turning itself into a classical Greek garment, the chlamys worn by a young disciple – the favourite, surely – of some philosopher. At this moment, he is utterly, dangerously charming.

‘You want to know if Lois and I – if we make out together.’

‘Well, do you?’

Kenny laughs triumphantly. ‘So I was right!’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. . . . Do you?’

‘We did, once.’

‘Why only once?’

‘It wasn’t so long ago. We went to a motel. It’s down the beach, as a matter of fact, quite near here.’

‘Is that why you drove out here tonight?’

‘Yes – partly. I was trying to talk her into going there again.’

‘And that’s what the argument was about?’

‘Who says we had an argument?’

‘You left her to drive home alone, didn’t you?’

‘Oh well, that was because. . . . No, you’re right – she didn’t want to – she hated that motel the first time, and I don’t blame her. The office and the desk-clerk and the register; all that stuff they put you through. And of course they know damn well what the score is. . . . It all makes the thing much too important, and corny, like some big sin or something. And the way they look at you! Girls mind all that much more than we do —’

‘So now she’s called the whole thing off?’

‘Hell, no, it’s not that bad! It’s not that she’s against it, you understand. Not on principle. In fact, she’s definitely – well, anyhow. . . . I guess we can work something out. We’ll have to see —’

‘You mean, maybe you can find some place that isn’t so public and embarrassing?’

‘That’d be a big help, certainly —’ Kenny grins, yawns, stretches himself. The chlamys slips off his other shoulder. He pulls it back over both shoulders as he rises, turning it into a blanket again and himself into a gawky twentieth-century American boy comically stranded without his clothes. ‘Look, Sir, it’s getting as late as all hell. I have to be going.’