"Every relationship I have seems to go the same way: undiluted ecstatic wonderfulness, followed by the tragic realisation of the impossibility of happiness," Ace Cavalier expressed each thought with the emphasis of an upturned palm, while the other hand lifted a pint of unidentified liquid to hover about his mouth.
He continued: "it's mostly down to the kind of girl I go for: [sip] beautiful, vastly intelligent and fucked-up." He grafted his woman from thin air, tracing his hands across the planes of her beauty, conjuring the intelligence with a flick of five fingers, from open into a fist, which opened again in desolate resolution onto the conclusion: "Fucked up."
It had been a strange couple of weeks. Ace had attended a party of some standing at a farm house on the edge of town. It was the sort of party one could leave in the morning and return to in the night, where everyone brought enough for themselves and everyone drank more than they brought; where the witches and the pagans and the microbiologists and the nihilistic atheists and psychologists and satanists and arsonists and musicians all came to sit by a fire and discuss bus timetables and the evolution of consciousness. Ace Cavalier went because of the mead. And the gin. And the vodka. And the possibility that he might meet the girl.
Well: he met the girl.
"Then follows pain. The next unending stage is prolonged suffering, but I don't think I can class myself as quite there yet." Ace's tone became reflective as he squinted up into the middle distance, as though if you asked him then and there he would not know when and where he was.
He thought of hours spent reading poetry aloud with the girl; the psychological text on Narcissism they ploughed through hungrily, finding more and more in common with each other and each other's pains; he thought of Ben Okri's "Astonishing the Gods" which they had read together until he had fallen asleep, which had so sublimely crystalised hours of conversation, and which he desperately wanted to finish with her; he thought of the meadow and the flocks of birds and the river bank which was the gap between the worlds; he thought of the morning she had awoken screaming his name after he had tried to chase her through dream after dream...
He shrugged, and took a deep draw of his drink, which he had concluded was probably some kind of super-strong, super-sweet, flat cider that didn't taste at all of apples.
"Yes, the pain..."
"After all, I've still go two tickets to a jazz recital tonight that are non-refundable. Seriously, one day it's "hey, let's go to this jazz" the very literal next it's "hey, let's never see each other again." And nothing in between, no argument, no conversation, no nothing." Ace's confusion was matched by his voice climbing higher and higher. He became visibly agitated.
"Just what the hell is going on? What about the jazz? I was looking forward to the jazz. Will there be no jazz? You know what: fuck it, I'll go to the damn jazz and there I will free-form on the subject of love and sex and crazy jazz denying women until I am thrown out for free-forming at a respectable jazz recital; Why? because jazz isn't really jazz really, and 'free' is just a four letter word; freedom is seven."
Ace's incomprehension and frustration boiled over into a slew of four-letter word poetry: "Lost jazz, gone jazz, kind jazz, mind jazz, damn jazz, evil jazz, fake jazz, good jazz, hope jazz, fear jazz, doom jazz, boom jazz, love jazz, girl jazz, been jazz, seen jazz, pain jazz, hope jazz, more jazz, PAID jazz. None of it does anything!" He cried, "but eight, seven, two: kindling, booming, go and go and go to the jazz, why not? Can't we go to the jazz? I've already paid and the tickets are non-refundable. God knows I'll probably hate it, rebel, and get thrown out for obscenity and disorder, and they'll be some tuts and titters and mutterings of an oaf madman drunk, but it's done now; it's paid for. I've paid. Can't we go to the jazz?"
His eyes fell on the woman he had been talking to, whom he had accosted completely without warning at this bar on a crisp November afternoon. He suddenly realised he had forgotten her name, if he had ever bothered asking for it at all. He allowed his eyes to turn plaintiff, but not so far as to be pleading, and maintained eye contact for an uncomfortably long period. She began to blush and, as Ace smiled ever so slightly, she returned his smile in spades. Then she said:
"I can't. I'm married, and my husband wouldn't like it." Her eyes told a different story; one of longing for jazz and going to the jazz and hating the jazz for not being free.
"You're married?" Asked Ace, only momentarily pausing to allow her to nod, before he continued; "Is it serious?" They both beamed at one another, she tossing her long black hair from side to side and wrinkling her nose in secret joy, he congratulating himself on another unforgettable pick-up line.
Ace Cavalier drew himself up to his full 6'2" in height and wordlessly motioned the woman towards the door. Hesitantly at first, she span away, then towards him: "my stuff...", she whispered, before disappearing into the back of the busy wine bar to collect her bag and coat and all the other things that would seem like pointless little toys in her hands just for this one moment.
Ace reflected; Ace frowned. There was something he needed to ask.
"My dear," he said as she approached, her face flushed with jazz-based excitement, the arms of her coat a rushed, crumpled mess: "are you a student?"
"I'm a graduate, haven't been a student for seven years..." she talked excitedly about herself for a little while as Ace tuned out completely and stood stationary at the bar, finishing his pint of what was probably cider and nothing like cider. He checked he had everything ready for his escape, then interrupted her: "I'm just popping to the loo" he said.
As he walk away on the street outside, Ace tied his long dirty blond hair up and tucked his chin into his collar; he hunched to look smaller, and his expressive hands were safely holstered in his pockets. His right hand felt for his wallet and his phone, and confirmed their presence; his left hand fingered two tickets to a jazz recital that night: one adult, one concession.
Pained, but determined, he strode into the next bar he came to and ordered a drink he didn't recognise. "I'm sorry, my dear," he said to a woman stood primly at the bar: "are you a student?"
"Post-grad"
"Really? Do you know what this drink is...?"
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