CHAPTER X : PERSEVERANCE.
Contrary to the previous occasions, I stood far to the side of the elevator entrance at South Ken station. I wanted to see Diana’s comportment coming out of it. I waited for a good half hour scanning all the time the hordes of humanity which in other circumstances always fascinated me. The western person in the London of the sixties and in the affluent suburbs possessed an individuality that I believed was absent from the east. That is, from the uniformity, say, of the poverty-stricken Chinese or the affluent Japanese. The adequate standard of living afforded him the opportunity to dress, adopt the funniest and most absurd hairstyles, walk, shout, sing, wear necklaces, earrings and bandanas, to behave in as silly a manner as one pleased so long as he did not bother his neighbor. Of course, the apogee of this was in Piccadilly but South Kensington was blessed with relative affluence and foreigners of diverse nationalities and races, a mixture that produced a colorful and heady environment. However, that Tuesday my eyes were glued to the doors of the two elevators that opened and closed alternately every few minutes. She came out slowly and did not see me. She was pushed forward by the precipitous stampede of impatient and exhausted commuters and stood beyond the current looking left and right. Stood a moment, hesitating, and slowly walked towards the street. I was pleased that she did search for me. It was a good sign. I called her name and ran to her relieved happy smile. I kissed her on both cheeks and told her that ordinarily Judas’s tariff for his kiss was sixty gold dinars but I was doing it for free. She laughed and it seemed to me that the deep hurt, the affront she felt, was fading. As we moved automatically towards Sarabia, I enlaced her left arm with my right. She was wearing the same overcoat and scarf but when she removed them inside the coffee bar, the dress was different and wore a necklace was around her neck. We sat down to two cappuccinos and small talk about work, college, her mother, the usual.
As we were about to leave I told her I had two tickets for Pinter’s The Caretaker. Oh George, I don’t know, she said uncertainly. When is it for? Saturday evening, I replied. On Saturday Edgar is taking me to an art exhibition and then for lunch with friends. I don’t know if I can get away early enough for the theatre. I can change them for Friday evening. Will that be all right? I asked. Yes, I suppose so, she said. Though I don’t feel too comfortable two-timing Edgar. You are not two-timing him yet, I laughed. We’re only going to a play. I didn’t like the “yet”, she smiled. Have you longer range plans, or what? If you do you’d better forget them. Why? Is it that serious? I asked. I presume Edgar is the boyfriend you mentioned last Tuesday. Yes, she said, and he is not a ditherer like you. Oh yes? I said. A real man, is he? I felt my ego sinking. She had found my perfect depiction, a ditherer, and it hurt as perhaps it was meant to. Is he the chap that was in the cinema when you ticked me off in front of an audience? Yes, she said. I didn’t get a good look at him under the circumstances. Tell me about him. Oh let me be, George. What do you care? Well, I said, let’s put it this way, the simple fact that I looked you up and spent my Tuesdays waiting for you and apologized for my awful behavior must mean something, mustn’t it? That I do care perhaps? Yes, George, but as I told you before, you missed the train. Again I was put out. I felt slighted. She was getting her own back. There are many frowns of fortune and many train stations in life, Diana. I might have missed the first train but I might well get on the next one. I’m not begging for a remission of sins. I’m hoping to be friends with you again. She looked into my eyes weighing my words and her feelings. Yes, okay, she said, friends we can be but just friends. Fair enough, I said. So we have a date, Friday at eight at the tube station. The play’s on at the Duchess theatre, by the way. I kissed her on the cheeks at the bus stop with a tight hug. She kissed me back but her hands were bent between us obstructing closer contact, ready to push me off. Steady does it, I said to myself.
I didn’t have any tickets to start with. I didn’t go to college directly on Wednesday and at about nine I was at the Duchess box office. Solidly booked for the next two weeks, the girl told me. What am I to do? I said. It’s very important. I promised it to my girl. She smiled. Try at a booking agent on Oxford Street. They usually buy a batch of tickets and sell them well above the normal price to tourists. And yes, hurrah, I found two expensive tickets in the Cumberland Hotel after a few agonizing zig-zags to several ticket agents. I rushed to the university. I had missed the first two lectures and as good as missed the next two thinking of Diana. I could not understand my heart, my brain, my subconscious, whatever it was that caused this anguish. This need for a Diana that I could not abide a few months ago. The word ditherer struck me to the bone. Yes, but that was not it. It was something akin to the passion of unrequited love, or was it simply a crush like the ones that struck me at school, now and then, for different girls at different times and for no reason? But these lasted just a few days. It did not seem unreasonable that had Diana responded ungrudgingly I would not have this heartache.
As I half expected, after Tasos left, Annie fell into Omar’s arms as if this visit was a tiny wobble of no significance in the straight line of her life. Omar, on the other hand, seemed shaken by it and if it was worry or pride or the spurt of passion that comes before separation, I did not know, but his attachment to Annie lost its casualness and intensified. Her room seemed to be locked and out of bounds whenever I went there unannounced and the female traffic at Omar’s room was almost negligible. It seems to me his studies also suffered as a result but with the English universities’ absence of regular monthly tests he managed to limp along. Often he was not at home at night and I suspected he spent it with Annie. During that second year Annie was blooming, constantly in high spirits, gay and smiling and I assumed that the reason was an inordinate happiness. Did she manage to reconcile her present sexual hyperactivity with the thought of a placid future family life? A family life which would get under way in a few months with a serious, likeable person almost the opposite of the self-indulgent Omar? We did not have, despite the mutual affection, the intimacy to discuss such personal matters. She was a sensible girl like the rest of the down-to-earth female sex, and I think she well understood that the London fairy tale had an expiration date. Meanwhile it filled her life, her emotional and physical needs as she had hardly any work to do at home after her morning classes at Hammersmith. It was a better alternative for her than casual encounters in Carol’s style. Whenever Omar was not there she called me on the phone and I joined her for a chat and some television.