In the King's Arms (3 page)

“Flora! She’s just—she’s not even a possibility. I’ve known Flora for ages. Centuries. I grew up with Flora. I played doctor with her. I have seen her prepubescent vagina. I saw it at five. I saw it at ten. I couldn’t bear to see it again. God, it must be
huge
now.”

“Well, you won’t see mine now either,” said Lily, defiant, laughing.

“Oh, hell!” he said, “I’ve seen a million twats.”

“Besides, I don’t believe a word you say. You don’t make out in an alley with a childhood friend.”

“I do!” He screeched. “And there’s an end to it!”

He took down a straw hat from the cupboard and put it on his head. It was a Mexican hat, the sort with bobbling tassel-balls.

“My dad thinks I’m bent, anyway. Got this on your backwards continent. City called Acapulco. Shat all day, under this very hat.”

“I don’t think you’re bent.”

“Thanks, acorn.”

“Crazed, yes, but not bent.”

“You’re darling.”

They got to be good friends. The next morning, when Lily sat down for breakfast in her usual seat, amongst the dullest young people she’d ever known, Peter (who’d apparently spent the night with Flora) came to her rescue again. A thick-nosed Scot had turned his huge head to her, explaining some of the chemical and physical properties of eggs. His spectacles kept sliding down, and he kept patiently bringing them back up. Luckily, this gave Lily something upon which to fix her attention as she pretended to listen. He seemed to have a little crush on her.

“You take yourrr scrambled,” he burred into her face. “Yourrr harrrd-cooked. Yourrr thrrrree-minute egg. It’s all the same prrrin-ciple, lass!”

“Oh, is it?” she asked, trying to be pleasant.

The “Pseuds” (Peter’s group), had they heard the exchange, would have laughed heartily. Their laughter was rich and unchained. Peter’s arms were spanning the air like Nijinsky’s. His long unbuttoned cuffs trailed theatrically behind the gesture, into his oatmeal. He caught Lily’s eye, stared at her tablemates, and gestured, “Why them?” with a gorgeous grimace of sympathy. She excused herself and took her teacup over to Peter’s table.

The conversations she heard there were hard-hearted, Nietz-chean. They shocked and delighted her. Poets laureate and doddering dons got no pity. Everyone was laughable: the very poor, the very rich, the very clever, the very dim. Everything was ludicrous; everyone had a filthy little secret. What did Peter’s tender yellow gloves conceal? Nicotine stains, those dirty nails, or the ink of his own secret poetic efforts? He never admitted being a dandy or a scribbler, but he smoked with an ivory holder between his dingy teeth, and hinted of folios.

Lily enjoyed these snide deductions. They were a relief from her own sympathies, which had sworn that the knowable world was worth knowing and good. It was a relief from the Judaic tyranny of logic, law and fairness.

The Pseuds seemed to like her. The best thing about her was her accent. New Yorkers were tough, like Jimmy Cagney. They said “gimme” and “yeah” and “gonna” and “gotta;” they could dance. As though Lily weren’t milk-fed. As though she belonged to a gang that wore lead-lined berets and shouted at “cops.” Michael, Peter’s boy-Friday, was a lover of movies (he spoke of “the Coast” with a deep and innocent longing). He asked Lily about Lenny Bruce as though she had nodded in hazy dives for decades.

Peter observed her kiddingly bluff her way. He found her enormously sweet.

L
ILY CONTRACTED MONONUCLEOSIS during the second week of term. (The English called it “glandular fever,” as though to comment on the unchecked, yearning humors of the afflicted.) At first, it had offered an opportunity for understanding the strange new world at a distance. Nothing was demanded, tutors sent good wishes, and Peter and his friends came bearing gingerbread men and anemones. She slowly improved, rising into the midst of enterprises she had never consciously begun. Where was she? England? Were these her friends? Was she truly expected to know anything about Alexandrine verse? Then, of necessity, she adapted. These were her chums, these English kids, whose verses, whose cultural history, she knew so much about. Sure.

Mononucleosis, or “glandular fever,” struck Lily as largely a psychogenic disease. It fed for a long time on her mind. Lily wondered at herself when relapses recurred and recurred. Her body felt defeated just when her mind seemed bent on doing well. Everyone advised her to “breathe deeply,” that fatigue would vanish if only one breathed deeply, but each time Lily breathed deeply, she seemed to draw inside herself a large filthy bag of vapors that weighed her down like ballast.

Mrs. Dancer brought her breakfast on the worst days. She seemed to know when Lily was feeling wretched. She’d sit on the edge of her bed and chat as Lily chewed.

“It’s no wonder to me that you’re poorly, Lee-lah,” she’d say. (Lily liked this novel pronunciation of her name; it was like a pet name for her; only Mrs. Dancer had “discovered” it). “You been travelin’ far. You be homesick now.”

Lily was too tired to agree; she thought she might cry if she did. Looking into that open, kindly face (so unlike her mother’s, so motherly) filled her with childish longings. That and eating lumpy porridge while wearing smelly flannels.

When Mrs. Dancer left her to clean other rooms, Lily would feel pinned to her bed, like a brooch in cotton. She could be found just lying there, mid-morning, half-asleep, suspended. On one such day, she jogged herself harshly and marched over to The King’s Arms for lunch. That pub, she reasoned, could rouse the dead. The King’s Arms was in fact a jolly, sprawling, lively pub. It was the epicenter of Oxford. Perhaps Peter would be there.

At first, she didn’t see him. She ordered a half-pint of lager (disobeying doctor’s orders) and sat down in one of the noisy smoky rooms, eavesdropping and making concentric rings on the wooden table with her glass. The weather was still warm, and people spilled out onto the street, like bubbles from a pipe.

She got up and took a walk herself, down Broad Street, stared up at the gargantuan stone noggins surrounding the Sheldonian, and enjoyed feeling tipsy and small and idiotic. As she turned to go back to the pub for a refill, she saw the most incredible looking Boy.

Incredible: black hair shining in lazy waves, throat covered by a faded, brick-red Indian cotton scarf, white shirt billowing, Hamlet-like, dissolving into soft, slate corduroy trousers. His jacket, voluminous and tweedy, trailed the heady smell of French tobacco. He noticed her, too: his eyed were brilliant, alert. A shade of blue. She
followed him into The King’s Arms, and stood near him inside, by the bar, transfixed as Titania. Oh Boy!

A Moorish ingénue begged him for one of “those delicious Gauloises,” and he lit it for her. She told him her name: “Sabina.” Lily wanted to rush up and tell him hers: “Lily.”

“Sabina,” he acknowledged distractedly, craning his lovely neck. Sabina looked at him through half-closed eyes, as though smoke had gotten into them. He asked her a question.

“Yes, a bit,” she replied, silkily. Her head, tilted back. Appraising.

Sabina had a long brown body and thick dark hair to the waist, rough horse hair. Her eyes were amber-colored and slightly crossed, as though sexually dazed. An electric current razzled palpably through her limbs. Perhaps that was what made her hair so wild and her eyes split tracks.

“A bit?” he said. “What’s that?”

“A bit,” said Sabina, licking her lips as she thought, smiling, of a retort, “is what they put into the mouth of a horse so that he won’t bolt, isn’t it?”

Wow, thought Lily. Take that, you fine Boy.

He looked directly at Sabina. “Hmm,” he said, “what are you, an Arab?”

“An Arabian stallion. Prize.”

“La mare.” He touched her horse hair.

“La fille.”

“La filly?” He had his finger between her teeth.

“La filly mignon.”

“I shall have you for dinner, then,” he said.

Good God! They sat down at a nearby table, and Lily sat right by them, ears cocked.

“Oh, yes,” she heard Sabina say. “I’m reading metallurgy. Ask me about alloys. Smelting. Welding. What college are you in, Julian?”

Julian. A lilting, faraway sound. The Boy was named “Julian.” If she said the name, he’d turn his head.

“And what are you studying?” There was nothing arch in Sabina’s voice now. That puzzled Lily. Now that they’d moved a bit in on each other, would she be all frank and open? That would bore him, doubtless. Metallurgy, of all things. Perhaps this Sabina-woman was a bit of a twerp. Lily took a seasoned look at her. No; she wasn’t.

“Actually, I’m Ethiopian,” she was saying. She was wonderfully mannered at moments, actressy; she seemed to accommodate Julian’s hard gazes with an array of poses. In the way that a kneaded muscle yields luxuriously to the hand, in the way that a neck caressed curls vine-like, or a cat’s stroked belly yearns its length across the floor, Sabina surrendered to Julian’s eye with an exercise of parts beheld. He took in her hair: she hung her head sideways, and locks of the stuff dripped coolly on his arm (looking for a hairgrip she’d dropped, she said). He looked at her puff-lips: she placed a nut in her mouth, chewed it thoughtfully, licked salt off the tip of her thumb. Her waist (as she stood at the bar to get the next round) was long and sinuous; she leaned on one leg, then swung to the other, then back. A sort of hula. And when he stared at her eyes with his handsome eyes, hers widened, as though with pleasure or fear. She towered over him, holding their drinks, and then sidled over, sitting closer than before.

“
She’s
been staring at me,” said Julian abruptly, pointing to Lily. Lily spun her head away, burning with self-consciousness. Sabina turned around to see her. She burst out in peals of laughter. Very funny. She arched her head back so that her throat could be seen.

“Do you know her?” she asked. Julian didn’t choose to answer
for a drawn-out instant. Lily felt his eyes crawl all over her. They were absorbed, and insolent.

“Yes. She’s my lover,” he finally replied. “And Lord, what a dainty dish she is to set before a King.”

Lily thought perhaps she’d better leave. And then Sabina stood up angrily.

“You’re joking!” she said. “Aren’t you?” Now there was a sad stupidity in her tone.

“Oh, goodness, no. I’m serious. I couldn’t joke about a fuck like that. Be like denying the Godhead.”

The words were arch, but his voice sounded sincere. Lily puzzled this for a moment. And then Sabina flew out of The King’s Arms; she was passionately fast. A moment later, Julian left the pub. Lily imagined him chasing Sabina, eyes glued to her ass. She rolled it as she walked. He must have thought it was built for his pleasure. But then she turned the corner sharply, and Julian did not.

He stood still in the street, then returned to the pub. He sat down next to Lily. As he opened his mouth to speak, she felt woozy. She felt he might say anything, and she might listen to it. And just then, Peter entered into The King’s Arms.

“
Mon semblable, mon frère
!” he roared happily.

“So that’s where you’ve been!” To Lily, he said, “I see you’ve met my little brother. I hope he hasn’t behaved naughtily.”

“He . . . yes, he has,” said Lily, after a moment. She looked at Peter with wonder, then regained her pace. “He’s a flirt, a venereal flirt, and I was just about to tell him off.”

“Oh, yes,” said Peter. “Many’s the time he’s climbed Mons Veneris. Scaled the peaks, where the air’s thin.”

Julian laughed, avoiding Lily’s eyes. She was having great difficulty avoiding his. Finally she rose, and said, “I’ve got an essay to
write on the effect of the Middle Ages on the poetry of Coleridge. I’d better go.”

“Which poem?” said Peter.

“Oh . . . ‘Kubla Khan,’ or ‘A Vision in a Dream.’”

This struck her as funny even as she said it, and she began laughing helplessly. Julian laughed too, drowning her out, so that she nearly forgot the sound of her own laughter, or whether she’d been laughing at all.

Peter became a trifle crusty. “What’s so bloody funny, you imbeciles?” They couldn’t honestly say.

“Is it me?” he went on worriedly. “Is there something in my tooth? I’ve just had spinach and mushroom quiche.”

Peter was quite endearing at times. Lily kissed him on the nose and left, thinking how strange it was that she’d put her mouth on the nose of the brother of the magnificent Boy. As soon as she was on the street she realized she might not see Julian again. She fought off this disturbing notion, raced back to college, and tossed off a killer essay on Coleridge and fantasy.

A
FEW WEEKS LATER, Peter invited Lily to a party given by “OUDS,” the Oxford University Dramatic Society. He was showing off for her. This wasn’t a mere gaggle of snot-nosed intellects. This was the poseurs’ very throne-room. Outlined lips and eyes were
de rigeur
for either sex, as were boas of fur or feather. Males were either slim-hipped serpents (nipping their iced vodkas) or triple-chinned Falstaffs (swigging mead). Women, either sepulchral ravens (with pointed, spasmodically gripped talons), or lush vamps, teetering on spiked hoof.

Cocktails were chugged down with snorts and wheezes of self-mocking pleasure. As though this were the roaring twenties, redux. Yips and titters applauded the diverting names: “Sloe comfortable screw?” Tee-hee!

“Pink Lady?” Hoorroar!! “Black Russian?” Ho! Ho! Marf! Marf! These interpreters of the word knew how to applaud an apt one. What these drinks actually tasted like could hardly concern those who on the stage took water for wine. The fancy of the names themselves was theatre to them. Indeed, it seemed to Lily that many had been dubbed at birth to thespian knighthood with names that would read well on the program: Roland, Cordelia, Ivor, Cressida, Tristan, Rupert, Maeve.

Peter ignored Lily from the moment they arrived. He was captivated
by this scene, to which he had not fully been admitted. He was still, to be blunt, small beans. His first attempts at acting had not all been successful. He was recalcitrant until he saw that he was appreciated, but he was not immediately appreciated, because of his recalcitrance. He had some native talent, though, which shone through everything he did, from the moment he received the script, brushed his straying hairs from his face, and stared silently into the eyes of his auditioners, to the moment his voice attacked the air. The only problem was that this confidence did not last. He could make the lines scan, but the emotions he was called upon to produce seemed to hang back within him.