So I went round there
‘So I went round there,’ I told Christopher the next morning (we were in his office on the political floor of the New Statesman; it was not much bigger than a sentry box and known as the Hutch of the Hitch).*2 I continued, ‘Mansion flat in Hereford Road. Sort of traditional but quite flash. In a grown-up way. Like a Harley Street waiting room. Very much not a bedsit.’
‘Or a hippie hell.’
‘Very much not a hippie hell. No. And she answered the door in another business suit. Tea coloured.’
‘Ah. A whole new episode of Peyton Place is opening up before me. What have you gone and done now, Little Keith?’
‘Hang on. Her parlour. No books. Well, a few financial thrillers – oh yeah, including one called The Usurers. She’s not a reader, which is odd, because she sure talks like one. Fluent…A couple of old Economists and a Financial Times on the ottoman. And Phoebe. I began to think that her business suit looked like a uniform. Issued by someone else. I liked it. Uniforms are good.’
‘Erotically good, so they say. Why?’
‘I’m not sure, but they are…The apartment didn’t make you think of the future but Phoebe did, somehow. I kept imagining a kind of air hostess on a spaceship.’
‘A space hostess.’
‘Something weird like that. And the set-up…I really didn’t know what to expect. For a while I thought we were just going to sit there and have a pep talk about careers. Motivation. Office methods. Then she led me to this bar. You’d’ve very much approved of this bar, Hitch. In its own closet – a full bar and a wet bar too. With a sink and a little fridge.’
‘That bar’, he said, ‘fetches my respect. And what did you have, Little Keith?’
‘She advised me to join her in a Campari and soda.’ I shrugged.
‘A business drink.’
‘And a weak one too. Then we went and sat on the balcony and talked about nothing much till she said…all casual and conversational, This flat used to be on indefinite loan. Such a generous old friend. Alas he died rather suddenly just after Christmas. And it’s rented. I’m loth to move out, but as you can imagine it’s a sudden drain on my disposable. Whatever that is. It’s far too big. I won’t force the full tour on you, but you might like to see…And I still thought we’d shortly be having a chat about property values in W2. But then she gave me a different kind of smile.’
Yes, a different kind of smile. It featured the same touch of off-centredness, the mouth mis-angled as if by an overbite. It was not a smile so much as a very interested sneer. And unmistakably vandalous, too: there was a defiant, willed ignorance in it, and a kind of asociality; there was outlawry in it. And again my swamp-dwelling brain was transmitting a sick static, like a Geiger counter.
‘And she said, But perhaps you’d like to have a look at the master suite…Come on then. Bring your drink.’
‘…My dear Little Keith.’*3
—————
And within a matter of seconds Martin heard himself murmur, ‘Phoebe. What a very unexpected figure you have.’
‘I know. That’s what all the men are forever saying. Tits on a stick.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Tits on a wand.’
‘…Thank you, Martin, that’s a clear improvement. Tits on a wand. Plus the decent-sized arse of course.’ She went on dreamily, ‘That’s the second reason why women all hate me.’
‘Well it is a bit much.’
‘Yes it is a bit much.’
‘What’s the first reason? Or are the tits the first reason and the arse the second?’
‘No. The tits plus the arse are the first reason. The second reason’s this. I eat like a pig and never gain an ounce…Okay.’ At this point she had nothing on but her skirt and her shoes, which she now kicked off. As she raised the top sheet she consulted the (digital) bedside clock, and said, ‘No more talking. It’s five forty-five and the table’s booked for nine…Oh yes. Here’s another uh, surprising protuberance. Give me your hand.’
A moment passed. ‘Gawd,’ he said (it was originally gaw, with the d added to seem less juvenile). ‘It’s like a – a fist in a mink mitten.’
‘…Thanks again, Martin. Another improvement. Most men just notice how it sticks out and then say something impossibly vulgar about how gooey it soon gets.’
He said, ‘…It’s your boner.’
‘How extraordinary. That’s what I think of it as. My boner…Right. No more talking, but let me just give you a bit of advice, my young friend. A bit of advice that will stand you in good stead for the rest of your active life.’
—————
‘That’s nice. Your active life. And a timely reminder, Little Keith, of your inevitable…So what was it?’
‘What was what? Oh. Well the advice didn’t sound all that marvellous when she spelled it out…Hitch, have you ever watched a girl climb out of a business suit?’
‘Of course not.’
By now it was late morning, so we were in the Bunghole, the wine bar across the street, drinking hard liquor (screwdrivers for me, double whiskies for him). I said,
‘Or better, much better, have you ever helped a girl climb out of a business suit?’
‘Of course not. Why would I? I have no truck with business suits.’
Christopher was very attractive to women but remained, in my view (considering that this was London, in the mid-1970s), inexplicably unpromiscuous. He was an internationalist and a universalist, but his standard girlfriend was a Marxist and preferably a Trotskyist (and these affairs were durable, dutiful, and, it seemed, grimly dialectical). At first I used to think, Yeah, that’s all fine for now – the girls will win you round…But Christopher was strafed by propositions from various pampered beauties, all in vain. My lovelife he called Peyton Place, intending to evoke a series of coarsely repetitive encounters between members of
