Extract from ‘Keeping Mum’
One evening, as they lay on the rumpled sheets of his bed, she tried to talk to him about it.
His bedroom had the same antiseptic character as his sitting room. Nothing stood on the bedside cabinet except a box of tissues and a digital alarm clock. Perhaps behind the mirrored doors of the wardrobe lay a jumble of jumpers and trousers, arms and legs tangled together. But on the business side of the mirror, all was neat. A second mirror – above the bed – reflected this. It also reflected the dismaying contrast between their two bodies: her pale spreading acreage next to his neat brown allotment.
‘Why don’t we ever go out together?’ asked Jennifer.
‘What? Many reasons, I think.’
‘Such as?’
‘I am too horny. I could not keep my ‘ands off you body in public.’
‘We could always, err, do it first. Then go out somewhere afterwards.’
‘But where you want go that is better than ‘ere? What is point of meal, drink, pictures and all that shit? When what we really want is what come after?’
She pulled the sheet over her cooling body. ‘The point is to enjoy each other’s company in a different way. They’re showing Il Postino at the Hyde Park next week.’
The Hyde Park was an independent cinema in the student area that had never been modernised. It was splendidly old-fashioned. You sat on hard, torn velour seats, surrounded by ornate Victoriana. An usherette brought ice creams in the interval. Jennifer loved it.
‘It’s an Italian film,’ she said. ‘About a postman. About Pablo Neruda actually.’
He frowned.
‘The poet,’ she added.
He nodded vaguely. His English seemed good, but there were often gaps and misunderstandings about things over which it didn’t seem worth labouring the point.
‘So, shall we go?’ she persisted.
He rolled over to the edge of the bed and sat up. ‘How long is film?’
‘An hour and a half.’
‘And how long the mother stay, at the retirement group?’
‘Oh, two hours. Two and a half, if you count getting there and back. We’d have time. But even if we didn’t, I’m sure it wouldn’t matter just the once.’
He put on his slippers. ‘But the way we make it now, you don’t ‘ave to tell her you going out.’
‘She’s going to find out sooner or later. We can’t skulk about forever.’
‘But is modern way! Is our secret. Is more exciting this way, no?’
‘Well, yes. But…’
‘Also is difficult for me in salon. I no want advertise the private life, there. If you Mama know, maybe she tell other customer.’
Jennifer didn’t see what the problem was.
‘Anyway, is not right,’ Salvatore went on. ‘ Is not right, tell the mother about the sex life.’
‘I wasn’t going to mention sex. Just that we’re, well, going out together.’
It wasn’t the right expression.
‘In my country,’ he said. ‘You tell the mother you are going out together, as you put it, and the next thing she expect, is the wedding bells.’
He reached for his dressing gown. ‘This poet film is important for you, yes?’
‘Well, it’s a good film. But a different film would do.’
‘Ah. Maybe then I get video, DVD? We watch ‘ere.’
She felt disappointed. It wasn’t the same. But on the other hand, at least he was making an effort.
He took her hand. ‘As for the mother, let us not disturb. I not want everything to be spoil.’
He lowered his head, rather gracefully, and touched his lips to her hand. At the same time he looked up into her eyes. His eyes were as dark and soft as she had ever seen them.
She groaned. ‘Well, alright. But if you’re worried that my mother will disapprove, she won’t. She really likes you.’
He shook his head. ‘One thing I know. What a woman like for herself, she not always like for her daughter.’