Ghosting Read online

  In the early afternoons I would make my way to the studio with my laptop. The studio was some way from the main house, along a private track at the foot of the hillside, in the direction of the swimming pool and the original property. I thought of it as a kind of sanctuary, with its wraparound stillness, broken only by bird-song and the chirp of crickets. It consisted of a small kitchen and bathroom off a large open-plan room with a tiled floor and windows on three sides. The French doors opened to the south, but there was plenty of shade from the trees nearby. The light from the windows was also pleasantly dappled because of the wisteria and jasmine climbing up the outside walls. The creepers extended to the aviary next door, forming a canopy over the mesh construction that was home to dozens of exotic birds—parakeets, canaries, weavers, lovebirds and finches. Tous les oiseaux du monde, said the gardien when he came to feed them.

  To be a writer you have to have something to say. But what did I have to say? Nothing at all. And even if I had things to say, would I know how to say them? Then did I feel anything, I asked myself? Not enough to write about it. And so, in the absence of feeling, I decided that it would have to be an exercise in technique.

  Slowly, painfully, the book took shape.

  Almost the one thing I didn't mind was that it was to be a love story. After all, what else is there? It's only half a life without love. And a novel would be nothing without it. The prospect of writing about love was even faintly appealing. It is one of those eternal themes that can be endlessly reworked. But every silver lining has a cloud: as I had feared it might, love was coming perilously close to denoting sex.

  Tiger was obsessively concerned with its place in the novel. Each day when I returned from the studio he would ask, “Have we done the fucky-fucky yet?” I counselled against it, as anyone in my place would have done, suggesting that discretion was the better part of ardour. But he pooh-poohed and said that a novel by him would be unimaginable without sex.

  “Beloved, we need the jig-jig! Don't you see?”

  He laughed and clapped his hands, willing me to share his enthusiasm. But I didn't want to see.

  I held out for a long time, pointing out that countless authors had believed they could “do” sex in a novel and had ended up falling into a terrible black hole. I reminded him of the Literary Review's Bad Sex Prize, awarded annually by Auberon Waugh, a friend of Tiger's and a man who had made it his mission to discourage the tasteless and perfunctory use of sexual description in the modern novel. Surely he agreed with Bron? I argued that sex in the novel was nearly always bad sex, and that it was best avoided. I said that not even fine writers could manage it without sounding ridiculous or absurd or embarrassing. I argued that Jerry Hall—a woman he admired—was wrong when she claimed that bad sex writing was like bad sex, in that both were better than nothing. They were not better than nothing, I said. Nothing was better by far.

  “You are talking like a nun!” he squealed. “What's got into you? Trust me, beloved, we will do the sex beautifully! It will be very distinguished.”

  Distinguished was one of Tiger's words. It covered a multitude of sins. It was becoming clear that sex was an argument I was not going to win. My reservations, however, were not based on squea-mishness or prudishness. It was a matter of aesthetics. I sincerely believe that descriptions of lovemaking are high-risk for any writer. A lifetime's reading has convinced me that very few writers can manage them. Why should this be? Perhaps it's because the sexual act itself has little to do with words. And when it is put into words the inherent absurdity of trying to capture it is laid bare, in all senses.

  The literary treatment of sex is beset with vexed questions. First there is the problem of getting the characters to take their clothes off—buttons and zips and hooks can be so awkward, and you couldn't ever allow a man to keep his socks on. Then there are the body parts which either have to be named (very unwise) or else replaced with dubious symbolism. And what about the verbs, the doing words? How can you choose to make people enter, writhe, thrash, smoulder, grind, merge, thrust—and still hope to salvage a smidgen of self-respect? Not easily. If you doubt me, try it. The sound effects are even worse—squealing, screaming, the shriek of coitus. (In the event I opted for sobbing, which caused the man in my life to raise an eyebrow and quickly became a matter of regret.) No, the English language does not lend itself to realistic descriptions of sex. We are too used to irony. The alternative is to use metaphors, but metaphors are just asking for more trouble—all that edge of volcano and burning fire stuff. Some people claim that sex sounds better in French, and I'm inclined to agree, but that may be because just about everything sounds better in French.

  What to do? What to do? Then, a sudden flash of brilliance: I knew what to do. Tiger had an abhorrence of bodily fluids—a mark of his Levantine origins, or so people believed. Whatever the reason, the abhorrence was comprehensive. His loathing of people who coughed or sniffed or spluttered was legendary—he once threatened to sack someone for blowing her nose, describing her conduct as “totally unacceptable.” On the streets of London he walked in constant fear of being exposed to hawking and spitting. He did not like it when the office staff used the toilet facilities. And he could not cope with menstruation, not even with the general concept. A frantic look came over him if ever women mentioned their monthly cycles. Perhaps—and this was the stroke of genius— bodily fluids might come to the rescue in this situation. Provided that the sex scenes could be made sufficiently liquid, Tiger might decide to abandon them altogether. Nil desperandum. Bodily fluids would be my deliverance. I set about my purpose with a devil-may-care recklessness.

  Strong and gentle as the waves, he swells and moves towards her like the sea to the shore. He dips and dives, eagerly but hesitantly, still fearing rebuff, until that moment of absolute clarification, when her ardour too is confirmed beyond doubt. Her lissom limbs quiver and enfold him into the sticky deliciousness of her sex.

  Of course, one thing led to another, and it was hard not to get carried away. Tiger, far from feeling squeamish, seemed relieved that at last the lovers had got down to the business. I pressed on, telling myself it was a means to an end. He would soon change his mind.

  He probes at her soft folds, innocent and beautiful beyond imagination. Everything is liquid and loosened. Droplets of moisture sit on her copper fleece like morning dew on a resplendent frond. In the moment before they connect and surrender he sees his soul's desire reflected in her dark bright eyes. In a spasm of ecstasy he slips and slides and sinks into the silken gulf. Fire within fire. The beat inside her rises and quickens, impelling them both to the edge of the world. A honeyed fusion of bodies and spirits, a melody of sweet abandonment, and the whole hillside begins to sing in chorus as he sobs his ejaculation.

  Oh, Jesus. Every new splash or splosh was a fresh hell. But still Tiger held out. There was no capitulation. In fact he was exultant. He opened a bottle of Château Margaux and we drank to sex. “Bravo!” he said, his highest accolade. This wasn't working out as planned. I would try one more act of sabotage. I had to make certain this time. Go for broke.

  He traces the contours of her soft body with the tip of his finger. He slides over her moist skin, through the sweet damp valley between her breasts, around the slight swell of her stomach, pausing for a brief moment in the dip of her navel. Then down, down, down, across the symmetry of her loins.

  They play with each other like wet seal pups, their bodies making succulent, slipping sounds. With his tongue he caresses her and spins a silver spider's web from the threads of her wetness. The pathway to heaven pouts like the calyx of a flower turned to the sun, the inner petals drenched in nectar. Her beautiful mound rises and falls as she rubs herself against his chin.

  As she trembles and gasps and comes, he feels a surge of happiness and an infusion of supreme power. Her juices trickle down like a cluster of stars from the firmament. He can do anything now. He is God in one of his incarnations, spreading love and joy. Her amber thighs rear on eit
her side like the waters parted for Moses. He rises and enters her.

  At least four things happened as a result of all this incontinence. Tiger was overjoyed; he raised my salary; the Sunday Times described the novel as “a strong contender” for the Literary Review's Bad Sex Prize; and my teenaged children were mortified.

  The novel was launched in the spring of 1995. It was a glittering occasion with all the usual suspects, beautiful creatures plucked from London's fashionable set. Tiger had a well-deserved reputation for throwing the best parties in town. Lots of glamour and glitz and permanent tans. People asked if I knew Tiger and if I had read his novel. Afterwards I returned to Scotland and waited for the patter of tiny reviews. On the whole, the critics were kind; there was scarcely any venom, and derision was reserved for the sex scenes. According to the TLS reviewer, “It is only in these scenes that the author comes close to losing control of his spare, precise prose.” The Sunday Telegraph reviewer wrote, “I prefer to forget those brief, explicit embarrassments,” while another review was entitled simply: “Less Sex Please.”

  By and large, people see what they expect to see. The reviewer in the Telegraph decided:

  This book is recognisably the product of a European Catholic sensibility, more a meditative treatise than a novel.

  The reviewer from the Oldie agreed:

  Themes of love, death, sex and time are dealt with here in a fashion that is essentially the product of a Mediterranean Catholic mind, the same climate that shaped the stance of Lorca and Pasolini.

  And this was the editor of the Catholic Herald:

  The love story provides a sensual leitmotif to the novel's cerebral and spiritual preoccupation with Everyman's burden: our ability to make sense of an existence which places our infinite spirit in a finite world … perhaps it should come as no surprise that the author, whose book of interviews with women was hailed for its perceptive portraits, should depict Petra as an articulate, passionate life force who overshadows the rather less interesting Carlo. Petra emerges as the focus of the novel, and it is her self-sacrifice that provides its most eloquent passage.

  The reviewer in question cannot have known the trouble she would cause by writing that phrase “the rather less interesting Carlo.” Tiger was in a huff for days. He had a soft spot for her— she was on his party list and he believed they both occupied the same Catholic intellectual plane—but he was hurt and offended that she had found Petra more interesting.

  “How could she write such rubbish!” he said. “Petra is nothing compared to Carlo!”

  Relieved that he didn't seem to suspect sleight of hand on my part, I said what I could by way of comfort: that he shouldn't take any notice, that reviewers had to work to deadlines and were sometimes hasty or careless in their judgements, and that in any case she had intended her remark as a compliment, a tribute to his sensitive portrayal of the female character.

  “So she is not attacking me?” he asked, looking for reassurance.

  “No, not at all,” I said, happy to give it.

  “But we should write to her, tell her she got it wrong, isn't it?”

  “No,” I said, “I think that would be a mistake.”

  In truth I was puzzled by her review. Petra had been cobbled together in a great hurry. She was never “real,” not even to me. She is an academic, a woman of prodigious sexual appetite, and hardly the sort of person you would bump into in church—which is where Carlo meets her. In the novel's religious setting she is a subversive force, created largely out of a sense of mischief and cussed-ness, an agent for my own irreverent views. She is certainly not good Catholic Herald material. For example:

  She [Petra] herself has always thought of sexual congress as the most innocent of activities. She likes to think that God, whom she worships, might also regard it in this light. It pleases her to imagine that it is only a question of time and God's judgement before the link between divine love and sexual love is revealed. But it is a sophisticated notion and God has to wait until his people are ready to receive it.

  The next excerpt discharges yet more bodily fluids and strikes me now as an act of delinquency, an experiment to see how far I could go and still get it past the censor.

  … Although she loves her Church she deplores the tortuous attitudes to sex which have dominated its teaching since earliest times … One of the consequences for the faithful is that at many points throughout history, salvation has depended on chastity, and damnation has been inextricably linked with female licentiousness … It is not that Petra feels especially persecuted as a woman. She knows perfectly well that men have also been subject to the moral guardianship of the church. The fundamental view throughout the ages that sexual relations are somehow “unclean” has affected men no less than women. In the course of her studies of celibacy, for example, Petra has waded through many volumes of moral theology devoted to the problem of what are delicately called “nocturnal emissions.” The theology is based on the so-called pollution theory, whereby any priest who experienced such an emission in his sleep would not be in a state of purity to celebrate the Eucharist the following day. (It was later decreed that an emission would not be morally polluting provided the priest did not wake up and enjoy it.) This issue seems to have caused much the same amount of highly charged—and, Petra thinks, largely hysterical—debate as the more recent furore in England over women priests.

  Although she is well aware of the multiplicity of theological arguments against the ordination of women priests, she cannot help thinking that the main objection rests on another taboo: menstruation…. Petra knows from private discussions with many of the Catholic clergy that the thought of receiving the sacrament from a menstruating woman would be more than their sensibilities could bear. Of course it suits the purpose of those opposed to women priests to appeal to scripture and the undeniable fact that God was made incarnate only as man. But actually it is the idea of a priest with a period which is unthinkable.

  And so on. And so on. Looking back now, these passages seem to be the outpourings of a smarty-pants, an act of defiance, mischievous in their purpose. They really had no place in Tiger's novel. I was wholly aware of his irrational dread of what is delicately referred to as “the time of the month.” He surrounded himself with young, beautiful well-connected women, but he simply could not cope if any of them complained of period pains or mentioned pre-menstrual tension. He regarded even the most oblique reference to anything ofthat sort as an outrage, a personal affront. “Please! Please!” he would cry out, if ever the conversation seemed to be going in the direction of monthly discharges, and the “please” was always expelled with a great whoosh—PAH-LEEZE—like a whale spouting. Once, to his extreme horror, he discovered a tampon floating in the lavatory bowl of his own private emperor's bathroom. The premises were protected, inside and out, by closed circuit cameras. Over several days, and with the patience and thoroughness of a forensic scientist, he examined each frame of the security videotape, looking for the culprit. While he searched, he told me earnestly that, until the offender was found, everyone was under suspicion.

  “What, the men too?” I said, hoping to lighten what had turned into a very sombre investigation. But he just glowered. In these matters there was no room for levity.

  I was therefore completely alive to the possible repercussions of linking Catholicism with emissions of one kind or another. But at the time it brightened up the task in hand, reflecting at the same time my own weariness with the fiddle-faddle of institutionalised religion.

  * Part of the collection was later published as La Belle Époque, Quartet Books, 1999.

  In the summer of 1995, just a few months after the publication of Tiger's first novel, we were back in France once again. By now the routine was quite familiar—going to markets, feeding the dogs, swimming in the pool, dining out at the best restaurants, visiting the antiquaire to acquire ever more splendid objets for the house and yet more paintings of an explicit nature.

  And writing.

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nbsp; This time there was a particular sense of déjà vu because we were there to begin another novel. It was difficult to feel cheerful about the prospect. Indeed I could scarcely bear the idea of going through the whole process again. But Tiger had other ideas. We had had one of those “repetitive strain” conversations in which Tiger did a lot of repetition and I took the strain.

  “If we do just one, nobody will bloody believe us,” he said.

  “What do you mean exactly?” (I often asked this.)

  “What do I mean?”

  “Well, what is it that nobody will believe?”

  “What is it that nobody will believe?”

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “What is it? I'll tell you exactly what it is. I'll tell you exactly what nobody will believe. Nobody will ever believe we can do another one. Isn't it?”

  “Well, is that really so important?”

  “Is it important? Is it important? Darling, what's the matter with you? What's got into you?”

  “Well, is it important? What people think, I mean.”

  “I don't believe I'm hearing this! Of course it's important. They won't take us seriously! Don't you see? They will think the first one was a fluke!”

  One difficulty for me during these exchanges was in determining how much to cavil. Was it worth saying that no novel—not even a ghosted one—was a “fluke”? Probably not. Experience had taught me that if I went too far in raising objections, it could rebound very badly, good sense notwithstanding. It could mean huffs and pique, or even a spell in the wilderness. But the danger of not voicing misgivings was just as great.