and taken four or five years, with all the permits? If we ever got there at all. Aren't you going to tell me I'm wonderful? Well don't, then. You're just mean. You know who really did tell me this week that I'm simply divine? You won't believe it: an Ethiopian woman. A divorcee. A peach. Didn't you know they get divorced, too? My second time with a black woman. Believe me, that was class. Classic class, if you really want to know. Eventually at three o'clock in the morning she let out such a loud scream the neighbours thought it was an air-raid alarm. Only make sure Linda doesn't find out. She's sure to take it amiss. To cut a long story short, we've got to the moment of truth. We've got to get Theo to say something about the state of the building and so on, and then we have to decide if we're going for the place or letting the dentist have it. If you want my opinion we should go for it. And I'm speaking as a member of the committee now, not as an estate agent, I've already told you that as an estate agent I won't accept a penny. Personally I'm all for a quick grab, as the Cossack said to the gypsy girl. Even if we haven't got the paperwork tied up just yet. What have we got to lose? Let's imagine the worst scenario, suppose we end up not getting planning permission. Suppose the clinic never gets off the ground. We can still say perfectly calmly to lawyer Arbel and mystery man Orvieto that the eighty-five thousand are as good as in a safe deposit: if our venture gets bogged down, I'll undertake to sell the property in six months' time for ninety or ninety-five. I'm even willing to let them have it in writing. Well, what do you think of me? Will you say something sweet?
I said: You're wonderful, because I was suddenly filled with affectionate pity for this middle-aged lamb with his sky-blue shoes, trying hard to be a wolf. A pitiful, vulnerable wolf, or, rather, a tortoise without a shell: with a single hint of scorn any woman could wipe out all the conquests of his thirty years' seduction marathon. In that instant I could see the twelve-year-old he had once been: pudgy, unloved, noisy, joining in the cruel jokes about his six fingers, a tedious, ingratiating child, attaching himself to everybody, striving in vain to amuse the world, and when the world refused to smile lapsing into buffoonery. Always hurrying to fill every gap in every conversation, to prevent a silence that might deny his existence. Constantly responsible for feeding the communal bonfire with twigs of foolish prattle, and when the twigs ran out he would get up and throw his own heart on the bonfire of mockery. A juvenile also-ran.
For almost twenty years he has been a divorced skirt-chaser (though he himself denies chasing skirts, quipping that he only chases what's inside them). He views the entire female sex as a stem tribunal unanimously condemning him to rush around making ritual gestures so as to please it, but it is never pleased. Subconsciously he knows that he can never obtain the desired pardon, despite the bed-points that he is indefatigably clocking up on a score-sheet of achievement that can never be completed. Despite which, he persists, undeterred, Sisyphean, panting from bed to bed as though the next one will bring him at last the coveted distinction, the formal release, the certificate of exemption from further exertion. Every time he tries to beam me a half-serious gesture of everlasting smouldering desire, what I pick up is not desire but a plea for some kind of feminine receipt that he has no idea what to do with. So he staggers on until his strength gives out, from seduction to seduction, from quip to quip, from bedroom scene to bedroom scene, puffing and panting, boasting, constantly threatened by the fear that the women are making fun of him behind his back, the threadbare hero of an Odyssey peopled by lonely divorcees, cheated wives taking vengeance, middle-aged housewives turning sour.
Muki, I said, you're wonderful, and I'm terribly
I said: You're wonderful, because I was suddenly filled with affectionate pity for this middle-aged lamb with his sky-blue shoes, trying hard to be a wolf. A pitiful, vulnerable wolf, or, rather, a tortoise without a shell: with a single hint of scorn any woman could wipe out all the conquests of his thirty years' seduction marathon. In that instant I could see the twelve-year-old he had once been: pudgy, unloved, noisy, joining in the cruel jokes about his six fingers, a tedious, ingratiating child, attaching himself to everybody, striving in vain to amuse the world, and when the world refused to smile lapsing into buffoonery. Always hurrying to fill every gap in every conversation, to prevent a silence that might deny his existence. Constantly responsible for feeding the communal bonfire with twigs of foolish prattle, and when the twigs ran out he would get up and throw his own heart on the bonfire of mockery. A juvenile also-ran.
For almost twenty years he has been a divorced skirt-chaser (though he himself denies chasing skirts, quipping that he only chases what's inside them). He views the entire female sex as a stem tribunal unanimously condemning him to rush around making ritual gestures so as to please it, but it is never pleased. Subconsciously he knows that he can never obtain the desired pardon, despite the bed-points that he is indefatigably clocking up on a score-sheet of achievement that can never be completed. Despite which, he persists, undeterred, Sisyphean, panting from bed to bed as though the next one will bring him at last the coveted distinction, the formal release, the certificate of exemption from further exertion. Every time he tries to beam me a half-serious gesture of everlasting smouldering desire, what I pick up is not desire but a plea for some kind of feminine receipt that he has no idea what to do with. So he staggers on until his strength gives out, from seduction to seduction, from quip to quip, from bedroom scene to bedroom scene, puffing and panting, boasting, constantly threatened by the fear that the women are making fun of him behind his back, the threadbare hero of an Odyssey peopled by lonely divorcees, cheated wives taking vengeance, middle-aged housewives turning sour.
Muki, I said, you're wonderful, and I'm terribly
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