‘With ninety-nine per cent of religious chicks, sex comes at them like a horror film. Saturated in dread. Then time passes, and they slowly ease into it, getting less religious along the way. But this little minority, Hitch, this one per cent, they find out very early on that they’ve got a real appetite for it, and a real talent for it too. So of course they start putting themselves about. And guess what. Along the way they get more religious.’
‘As a means of…extenuation? And what’s the result? I mean in the bedroom?’
‘Well. It’s not like the usual Home Counties fuck, I can tell you that. You know, when they, where you…’
‘Where you both bounce around for a bit, then it’s over, and she makes a joke.’
‘Yeah. It’s not like that. It’s no joke for a start. It’s…’
I turned and looked out – through the diagonal rivulets slowly jolting their way down the glass. Beyond, the east of the city crept past (always in my memory under a wet blanket of ashen grey, whatever the season); and then the stops would glide towards us in their turn, Manor Park, London Fields, Seven Kings…
‘It’s like this. As well as being tremendously carnal and dirty and everything, it’s suddenly got all hushed and eye to eye, and glazed, and hypnotic. With an edge of doom to it.’
Christopher said, ‘That sounds…absorbing.’
‘Oh it is. But see, Hitch, and this is the difficult thing to imagine. She doesn’t just think it, she knows it – she knows for a fact she’s going to Hell. Father Gabriel said so. And it’s like the Fall, every time she does it. Full of woe. All our woe.’
‘Mm. Correct me if I’m wrong, Mart, but this must involve her in some strain.’
‘Oh a great deal of strain. It’s all right for me. I don’t think I’m going to Hell.’
‘You don’t think you’ll be scorched and peed on for eternity.’
‘…Eternity’s weird, don’t you find, as an idea? It’s not that it never ends – it never even begins.’
‘No. A trillion years into it and it’s not a heartbeat nearer to being over.’ We lit fresh cigarettes and he went on, ‘When faced with eternal torture, it’s very hard to look on the bright side. And if she really believes it, as billions do…Maybe that’s why she needs her rests. All her poor little purdahs. If it scours her out like that.’
‘That’s exactly what I used to whimper to myself – during purdahs. Anyway. It’s suddenly getting critical. And crises can’t go on being crises. They’re finite.’
‘And this one’s whisking itself to the boil.’
‘Yeah, and bubbling over. You should see her at the parties she drags me to. Flirting’s a fucking useless word for it.*1 Any old arbitrageur, any old ski bum, and her gaze fills with – as if she’s never even imagined there could ever be anyone quite so heavenly.’
‘…Aw, terrible she’ve been.’
‘Yes, terrible she’ve been. Terrible. You know, she’s always had a grievance. Before I came along. And now it’s all directed at me, because I’m nearest. So what do I get? Torture. What kind of torture? The sexual kind. I’ve had my cock teased in the past, but I’ve –’
‘You’ve had it teased clean off. That Melinda.’
‘Compared to Phoebe, Melinda was a wallflower. Melinda teased it – she never taunted it. Let me try and give you some idea.’
The cold sea mist – the brume, the haar – of Southend was drooling all over the train by the time Christopher said, ‘…It pains me, Mart, but I have to ask whether you think she’s trying to make you – lose heart. Lose heart and retreat.’
‘Mm, well that’s always been her style. More or less from the first date. Why are you still here? And now suddenly it’s a good question.’
‘And what would be your answer?’
‘…I suppose I’m just hanging on for the odd religious fuck, but part of it’s plain vulgar curiosity. No – plain human interest. She’s like a character in a novel where you want to skip ahead and see how they turned out. Anyway. I can’t give up now.’
‘Having come this far, and so near the end?’
‘There’s that. But I can’t give up when she’s all raw like this. Jesus, it’s like having the care of a toddler. What if she hurts herself on my watch? Who can I entrust her to?’ We started gathering our things. ‘On the way back I want you to tell me all you’ve ever learnt about mad chicks.’
‘Oh. I’m supposed to know a thing or two about mad chicks am I?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, mad chicks flock to the Hitch. I don’t mean the ones you end up with, I mean the ones you spurn. The crazed beauties who lash your grim rock. Tell me about mad chicks.’
‘All right. What about them?’
The train was now slaked of motion. We stood and I said, ‘Christ, I hate crazy people. They make me crazy. They do. I’m nuts too now. I am.’ And I reached up and scratched my scalp with both hands. ‘She’s scaring me, Hitch.’
Solzhenitskin
Some dates might be useful (this was a dislocating time).
The night of shame, with all its unwelcome wonders, would unfold on July 15/16, 1978 (a Saturday, a Sunday). That particular ride to Southend with Christopher was back in late March. And in early June Phoebe’s postal address changed – from The Hereford, Apartment One, Hereford Road,
