Edward Aubyn - On the Edge

‘Well, you know, I thought it was real dynamic,’ said Martha, her fists racing about aimlessly in the air. ‘The energy was really moving around the room,’ she boasted. ‘And when Stan shared with the group about his impotence — that was one of the high points, for me personally.’

‘It was really an important moment for me also,’ said Karen. ‘I was sort of embarrassed at first, and then I broke through to another level.’

‘You should be proud of him.’

‘He should be proud of himself.’

‘I’m sure he is, dear,’ said Martha, closing the back door and hoisting herself into the passenger seat.

Carlos came striding up the hill, his suitcase swinging lightly by his side. ‘The patent has been processed,’ he declared. ‘The Auricular Acupunture Massage Muffler is now official.’

‘Oh, I … that is so … we were…’ Karen didn’t know where to begin. ‘When you get the Nobel Prize don’t forget that we were praying for you,’ she finally said.

‘I’ll be sure to mention that,’ said Carlos suavely.

* * *

Peter wondered if it could all be true. Not just the miracle — how easily that word now slipped from his lips — of meeting Crystal, but the paradoxes — how indispensable that word had become — which emerged from his brief experience of meditating and listening to the question-and-answer sessions in the evening. Meditation appeared to be a mad game of hide-and-seek in which the seeker stubbornly overlooked the hidden and the hidden longed to be found, while an audience of giggling lamas shouted, ‘Look behind you!’ ‘Look within you!’ ‘Look beyond you!’ ‘Look around you!’ like children at a Christmas pantomime. If you took any of these propositions seriously, there was always someone ready to bash language, and say that teachings were just a ‘finger pointing at the moon’.

The time had come to change rooms. He was going to share a room with Crystal for the weekend. It was strange, they hadn’t made love yet and that evening they would be starting the Tantric workshop together.

Peter came to an abrupt halt. Here was something really unbelievable. A few yards away from him stood Jerome, the appalling man he had met in LA, stretching out his arms and arching his back after taking some suitcases out of the boot of a car. Jerome looked round at him and nodded vaguely.

‘Hello, Jerome,’ said Peter icily.

‘Hi,’ said Jerome. ‘Do I know you?’

‘You seem to have a lot of trouble working out who you know,’ said Peter. ‘The last time we met you thought you knew Sabine but she, or he, turned to be Shalene.’

‘Peter!’ said Jerome. ‘Peter, my friend. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.’ Jerome stood back and looked at Peter discerningly. ‘You’ve been going through some changes.’

‘Not as many as Shalene, I’m pleased to say,’ said Peter. ‘Has she had the full operation yet?’

‘I know I don’t know Shalene,’ said Jerome.

‘She was the little charmer you introduced me to in 222.’

‘Oh, Shalene, sure I know her,’ Jerome corrected himself. ‘I guess maybe you’re mad at me about that evening, huh? That’s what we call crazy wisdom, Peter, kinda shocks you into a realization. That’s me, the Jester, the Trickster. When the crazy wisdom gets going, even I don’t know how crazy it’s going to get.’ Jerome pranced around in front of Peter, shifting convulsively from leg to leg. ‘You know, Sabine is going to be very happy to see you again.’

‘You’re still claiming to know her?’ said Peter wearily.

‘Claiming? We’re here for a Tantric workshop.’

‘You’re not serious?’

‘Couldn’t be more serious,’ said Jerome seriously.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Peter.

‘We just arrived. Sabine had to go to the bathroom. She’ll be back.’

‘So likely.’

‘Here she is right now!’ Jerome exclaimed, spreading his hands copiously in the direction of the sea.

Walking across the lozenge of lawn that separated the office from Jools’s car, a hippie harlequin in baggy trousers of emerald and beetroot velvet, Sabine billowed into view.

Peter was startled into a moment of detachment. He saw the walk of a model who has been told to look preoccupied, the vigorously insipid expression of a woman who is doomed to be stared at, and the devouring sexual confidence, as easy as a panther’s stride. As she came closer, though, he was engulfed by his old longing, and its vast entourage of panic and frustration and unreality.

‘Hey, Peter!’ said Sabine in her husky German voice, throwing her long arms around him and kissing him on the mouth.

Peter stood there as if a bucket of water had just been emptied over his head.

‘It’s great to see you guys get together,’ said Jerome, placing an avuncular hand on each of their shoulders.

‘You realize that I tried to get hold of you in LA and this man stopped us from meeting?’ asked Peter.

‘Yeah,’ said Sabine, laughing. ‘He’s so naughty, huh?’ She looked at Jerome with mock reproach, at the same time draping an arm around his neck and biting his ear. ‘You shouldn’t have dumped Peter at that stupid club.’

‘I knew why you wanted to see Sabine,’ said Jerome, ‘but she’s my Tantric consort.’

‘She could have told me that herself.’

‘What we had in Germany was very sweet,’ Sabine explained, ‘but then the universe gave me Jerome.’

‘Clever old universe,’ said Peter, suddenly sounding to himself like Gavin.

‘He’s a crazy and stupid man,’ said Sabine, playfully slapping Jerome and then biting his ear again. ‘But the energy between us is something incredible,’ she gasped.

‘It certainly is,’ said Peter. ‘He’s lucky to have any ears left.’

‘She can have my ears,’ said Jerome, crucifying himself against the side of his car. ‘She can have all of me.’

‘Yummy, yummy,’ growled Sabine.

I want to throw up, thought Peter.

‘So did you just quit a workshop, or are you going into one?’ asked Sabine.

‘Both. I’m doing the same one as you.’

‘Hey, cool,’ said Sabine, moving over to Peter’s side. ‘Maybe I go with him instead,’ she taunted Jerome.

‘And maybe I’ll go with him too,’ Jerome threatened.

‘Sorry, I’m already booked,’ said Peter. ‘I’m sure you could get Shalene biked up for the weekend. Listen, I’ve got to move rooms. We’re bound to see each other very soon.’

‘ Hasta luego ,’ said Jerome.

‘ Ciao , Peter,’ said Sabine, kissing him on the mouth again.

What an appalling woman, thought Peter, wishing he could fuck her one more time. How could he have turned her into an emblem of depth and mystery? He wandered towards his new room in a state of turmoil which centred, if anywhere, on the facile consolation of thinking that if he hadn’t pursued Sabine he never would have met Crystal. If he started thinking like that, he might as well get a set of beads and start circle dancing.

‘I can’t get over Sabine turning up here,’ said Peter, ‘with that unbelievable jerk I met in LA — the one I told you about who dumped me at the transsexual club. She seems so ghastly, I’m embarrassed to have given up so much time looking for her. I suppose I was really looking for you, or enlightenment, or a long holiday, or something. How do you feel about it? It must be strange for you too.’

‘It’s perfect,’ said Crystal. ‘It’s better that she should be here disappointing you, or delighting you, than not here, haunting you.’

‘You’re so grown-up,’ said Peter.

‘I’m grown-up when I’m grown-up, the rest of the time…’