The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [112]
“When you say ‘love,’ you mean ‘have sex with.’ But why hundreds? Why so many?”
“Because the best moments of a relationship occur at the beginning, when you’re deluded by infinite possibilities. The middle and end is a lemming-walk.”
“But have you ever even reached the middle?”
Norval waved the question away with his cigarette, obscuring it in a cloud of smoke. “And because there comes a time in everyone’s life when some serious arithmetic has to be done—comparing the sum of pleasures life has left to offer versus the sum of pain. And this comparison leads, at a certain age, for those that have the guts, to suicide. So before I get there I’ll do the one thing that gives pleasure, while I still can.”
Noel shook his head. He’d heard this sophistry before. “But it must be so … unsatisfying. Not to get to that final stage. To commitment, marriage, a happy ending …”
“Happy ending? Have you been paying attention? It’s happy for me when the beginning and end are rolled up in the first encounter.”
“… and the whole thrilling process of falling in love. Which is the closest most of us will come to glimpsing utopia.”
“Oh, please. Sex and drugs give much better glimpses. Noel, you’re a spectacularly easy faller-in-love, and what good has it done you? Let’s put this romantic crap to bed. The world is not like Romeo and Juliet, with random arrows flung by Cupid. Romantic love is a Darwinian trick that blinds us to each other’s flaws. Falling in love. Falling implies that you were once at a stable position, at a higher point than before. I prefer the stabler, higher position.”
“But didn’t you say—at JJ’s party—that you enjoyed falling? ‘Savouring the aesthetics of descent’ and all that?”
Norval arched an eyebrow while tapping redundantly on his cigarette. He was unused to logical ambush and surprised by its incidence. “I was … we’re talking about two different metaphors.”
Noel smiled. “Maybe you’ve just been unlucky, Nor, the right dart hasn’t hit you. Cupid shoots darts of lead and gold, remember, for false and true love. You’ve been getting lead, that’s all. Don’t give up hope.”
Norval rolled his eyes. “Another hope fiend. The hope of true love is haunted by mortality.”
“Children help you get around that.”
“Children? Children are instruments of torture. I share Byron’s view: ‘No virtue yet, except starvation, could stop that worst of vices— propagation.’”
Noel had tuned out completely; he was thinking of Samira, of what it would be like to have a child with her …
“Have you flown recently?” Norval continued. “Babies should not be allowed on board. Can’t they be Fed-Exed? Or doped and put in cages with the pets? Noel? Are you with me?”
Noel was not. “Yes, I … I was just thinking.” The idea of fathering Samira’s child was not the only thing that held his thoughts; he had a burning question for Norval, one that he’d been planning to ask since he first sat down. How best to phrase it? He had asked the same question of JJ, who had answered no; he had asked a similar question of Sam, who had also answered no. How would Norval respond? Seconds passed before his lips stopped moving. “Norval, what letter … are you … in love with Samira?” At least this was what he intended to say, more or less. The first part of the question was faint and garbled, the last spoken at quadruple speed. Sweat surged from all pores and red fire burned on his cheeks.
“Was that English? Are you all right, Noel? In violent fevers, I’m told, people have been known to talk in ancient tongues.”
“Are you in love with Samira?”
Norval held a freshly lit cigarette over an ashtray, seemed to examine the bent butts left by his predecessors. He then noticed his friend’s expression and for a second softened. “No, I’m not.”
Noel heard the words over the thundering of his heart. And yet felt not an ounce of relief! What difference does it make whether he is or not? What difference does it make to me? A pawn in love with a queen. Tin in love with Iridium. She probably has enough suitors to fill an iPod. “But what I don’t … you know, understand