13 Wind shudders the telephone poles, the cold churches. I pick up Lydia and we walk over to Max and Daphne’s Valentine’s party. Oliver in his speckled bow tie, his ginger-grey curly hair, and Wilf Jardine in that wool jacket and jeans discussing Spinoza. We try putting Oliver in the fridge as he’s fetching a beer, but Maisie saves him. Or she’s saving the fridge from injury. Part of Oliver wants to go in the fridge. But then he decides on two Jockey Club in one hand and a bottle of red Chianti in the other. His breath hot with alcohol.
Oliver: Show us your tits, Alex.
Alex leans back and flashes her tits at us. Just long enough for her nipples to register on the retina.
Oliver: What a gorgeous girl you are.
Max walks in with two dozen fresh ones. The tips of his ears red. Generous Max.
Max says, Oliver tries to be sophisticated. But I once saw him make instant coffee with hot water from a tap.
Daphne stands behind Max. She will use Max as a shield to get through this night.
Oliver: Those were my years in the wilderness.
Max: Sure, youre only at an oasis. And youre some vain with your ginger hair.
Oliver: At least I have hair.
Max: You seem to have more hair now than you did then. Oliver: Back then. When I was with a Hobbesian woman: nasty, brutish, and short.
Alex, to me: How do you prepare oysters?
The oysters lie fiercely shut on a plate and I take them to the sink and ask Daphne for a strong, small knife.
Alex makes her way over. She is flagrant and I am drawn. She tells me of her short infatuation with Wilf Jardine. Wilf is showing Lydia the chords to his song. They talked on a bird count. Wilf wrote Alex a letter. She found herself watching him play guitar down at the Spur. He sang his one good song. Then, during a break, he sat in front of her and she studied the back of his neck, the grizzled white hair. She bought him a beer. He said, Alex. But in a frozen way. She knew then it was a mistake, but she slept with him. Sleeping with him got him out of her system.
Me: And he was your age when you were born.
Alex: He’s just a sexy guy. Or he had a moment of sexiness. I am prying at the crimped, ceramic mouth.
What was the moment when Wilf became human?
When he got irritated, she says. We were driving through town in his old Valiant and I suggested we take a route and he was irritated.
I sever the muscle, wring a lemon. The lemon spurts over my hand. I lick the crevices of my hand. I hand Alex the opened oyster. She lays its ceramic mouth on her bottom lip. She leans back. I watch her white throat swallow. Her nipples, in the periphery, just show through her top. Then she stares straight into my eye. She says, Theyre delicious.
14 We’re at an erotic reading in a room above the St John’s curling club. Both Maisie and I are reading. When you go to the bar you can watch the curlers sweep down the rink. Wilf Jardine, at one point, leans to me and says, I think she likes you. Meaning Alex Fleming. And then he says, I wouldnt mind finding a blonde here tonight one with a great set of assets.
Wilf leans back and straightens his grey wool jacket lapels. Sometimes his face relaxes and you see that he is fifty-two. He has large eyes and a broad face. One of those faces that has got thicker over the years. He stares at the helium balloons framing the room-wide window that looks down on six lanes of curlers casting rocks. The tray of desserts being wheeled out, like a sweet patient.
Wilf: I like this set-up because you know you won’t be talking to a load of drunks.
Lydia: Unlike last night.
It’s hard to feel anything erotic as the poets whisper up their attempts at arousal. When it’s my turn I realize the problem: eroticism rests on intimacy, and a roomful of people destroys this intimacy.