When the doorbell interrupted my conversation with Benji on my first evening at Hereford Road, the visitor was Monique’s new boyfriend. She had rested her arm around his shoulder—he was several inches shorter than she was, as well as twenty years older—and loudly announced to us all, “This is Adnam. He’s got a Rolls.”
Graciously, Adnam managed to simultaneously offer Monique an indulgent smile and the rest of us a self- deprecating shrug. “I’ve been trying to impress Monique,” he confided.
“I’m sorry for you then,” said Gabrielle. “Come and sit down.”
I noticed, over the years, that something happened to the geometry of a room whenever Adnam arrived in it. Everything turned until it was aligned towards him. On the first night, he refused the room’s only armchair, but we all insisted that he take it; he was too immaculate for the floor or couch, though he argued that he would be quite at home on the floor, perhaps more so than the rest of us given his background. Kamara was the one to take the cue and ask where that might be. “Oh, I grew up mainly in the Lebanon, though my family is Turkish of course.”
In spite of his protest we found ourselves sitting at his feet, except for Monique who perched on the arm of his chair and rummaged through his perfect grey hair. The lines of conversation all went towards him. Even Kamara, who came to profess intense disapproval on political grounds, looked to him first to see the effect of his pronouncements. It was impossible to make Adnam responsible for this. He was polite, good-humoured and said little. Each of us felt we had his attention and that he was sympathetic to our situation. He seemed to adore Monique, the only one apparently immune to this magnetism. “Darling,” she announced from her vantage point, “you have a little bald spot under here.”
From that evening I have installed in my mind a picture of Benji that must have registered at the time as somehow troubling. We are all laughing. Monique’s swan’s-neck arm is gesticulating above Adnam’s head. Gabrielle looks relaxed, her legs folded under her on the couch, Kamara sprawls on the floor, but Benji is intent, determined to prove that he properly appreciates Adnam’s status. He is leaning over Adnam, murmuring something into his ear, much as a sultan’s vizier might posture deference yet also emphasise his own importance. Adnam has inclined half an ear to Benji while smiling happily at the warm commotion around him. I think that Benji is about to remove the untouched glass of cheap red wine by Adnam’s elbow and replace it with one of expensive Scotch whiskey.
The memory makes me shiver. It is a moment when Benji is without playfulness, and his seriousness always seemed false to me, a dangerous act. What he admired in Adnam was the part of himself he secretly treasured and that I feared most. It makes perfect sense that if Benji is lost, it should be Adnam who is able to find him.
With the spring thaw and mud has come the first date of my life. It’s with Ron, the anglophile professor of English who likes my accent. I’ve weakened. It’s my first date because I have never before had a meeting with a man that was called a date.
“If I go on a date, aren’t I dating?” I asked Julia, who was of the opinion that this did not follow.
“No, this is just a first date. You won’t be dating Professor Murdoch until you’ve had several dates. Or you could have dates with a number of people and then you’d be dating too, but not dating a particular person. You’d just be dating.”
What I know of dating comes from watching Love Connection on TV. When the Family Feuds started coming round for the second time, I looked for other sociologically informative programmes to fill my siesta and found Love Connection and The People’s Court. Apparently in the United States it doesn’t matter how old you are, you follow the same system. I’m pushing forty and Ron is probably older, but we should act the same way as teenagers. The point here seems to be that it’s good to be like teenagers. According to the Love Connectionconsensus, the man should collect the woman in a car, should be on time, should bring flowers, should have an evening planned and should pay. The make of car seems to be important too.
By these standards Ron did not do badly, except he forgot about the flowers. Thank goodness. We drove to Brattleboro for dinner and he paid me compliments, another point to watch for.
“That’s a pretty frock,” he said of a modest knitted number. “That’s what they say in England, isn’t it, frock?”
I thought about it. “I think we said dress.” He looked disappointed so I told him that frock was all right too and, in any case, my England was hardly typical since few of its inhabitants were English.
“Frocks,” he repeated. “Frocks and knickers. I love England. This jacket is Harris tweed. I went to London last summer. Reread Dickens, wandered around his old haunts.”
“Oh, I love Dickens! David Copperfield saved my life when I first arrived in England.”
“Yes, I think that has to be his best. Closest to his life. We’ve got a lot in common, Marcella. There’s a sort of formality, a gentleness and honour, you find in England that doesn’t
