The Betrayals

by Bridget Collins

  Chapter 22

  23: Léo

  Something has given him the squits. He’s lucky that the nearest lavatory is a small single one, meant for the Magisters, but all the same he curses as he stumbles between toilet and bed, sweating. The clock, which he’d almost got used to, rings through his dreams, making him dizzy. The servant who banks up his fire brings him water, too, and asks if he wants anything to eat; but the thought of it makes him curl up, knees to his chest, trying to quell the twinges in his gut. Later, when he falls into an uneasy sleep, the same servant’s there in his dreams: only now she’s transformed into the laundress who died years ago, the one who threw herself off the Square Tower when he was in his second year … Carfax is there, too, and Magister Dryden, and his father, and Emile, and Mim, and Chryseïs, and Pirène, and that friend Léo made in the first year of the Party who turned out to be a leftist and got killed in a brawl … All of them, as if everyone he’s ever known is crowding around his bed, sly and reproachful. He can’t bear it. He lights a lamp – striking four matches before he manages to keep one burning – to keep the dark at bay. The mess in his room wavers as the shadows bob and dip: books, dirty clothes on the floor, parcels spilling their contents. There are chocolate bars, packets of tea and cigarettes, shaving soap, some new razor blades … A pile of cheap blue-backed novels, none of them in translation, none of them worth reading. Those were from Emile, keeping him abreast of cultural developments, with a malicious note telling him how much the Party’s new imprint needs a better editor-in-chief. The place looks like a looter’s headquarters. Sometimes he wonders whether he’ll drown in it all, like something out of a cautionary tale. The walls will creep inwards, and the tide of luxuries will rise … No, that’s the fever talking. He drifts, empty and exhausted. The window blazes and dims, the sunlight jumps from one section of the floor to another like a flea, then crawls under the bed and dies. When his mind is clear again the lamp is burning low, and the sky outside is spread thickly with stars. He’s lost track of time: has he been ill for one day or two? At least now he knows perfectly well who he is, and where, and that he’s alone. Alone, and ravenous. Gingerly he gets out of bed, wrinkling his nose at the sharp febrile scent of his sweat. He reaches for his watch, but of course he hasn’t wound it. Is it evening, or night? He might be in time for dinner, if he’s lucky. Soup and a glass of wine. Bread and butter. His mouth fills with saliva. He drags on some trousers and a shirt and jumper. His legs feel spongy, but his stomach gripes have stopped and he’s not giddy any more. He makes it to the door and out into the passage without having to lean against the wall.

  But dinner is over. He isn’t sure where to go. Perhaps the Magister Domus would be able to help; or perhaps – since the Magister Domus takes great pleasure in refusing Léo’s requests – he should go to the kitchens and see if he can scrounge something.

  As he steps out into the courtyard he tilts his face up to the stars. The Milky Way is like butter. He stands there breathing, trying not to think. The clock strikes; he isn’t counting, but it goes on for longer than seems plausible. It must be midnight. The door of the library opens, and two figures come out. One of them is a grey-robed librarian, ushering out a slim figure in white. Magister Dryden. ‘I’m sorry, Magister,’ he’s saying, ‘but the rules are quite straightforward, and I … Next time, if you let me know in advance—’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise,’ she says. Her voice is very clear in the still air.

  ‘It’s just that there must be at least two people in the building at all times.’

  ‘In case someone takes it into his head to burn it down. I know.’

  ‘Not that—’

  ‘It’s fine. Thank you.’ She turns away from him in a whirl of pale wool, and catches sight of Léo. ‘Mr Martin,’ she says. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘no,’ blinking away the lingering image of Carfax. ‘Should there be?’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘but it’s customary to wear shoes, outside.’

  He looks down. ‘Oh. I thought my feet were hurting.’

  She tilts her head to one side. ‘Are you drunk, Martin?’

  ‘I’m a bit light-headed, that’s all. I’ve been ill.’ Her presence – her attention – eases something inside him. He pushes his hands into his pockets, trying to look casual. ‘And how are you, Magister? Working hard?’

  A flash of a grimace crosses her face. He remembers that feeling: how long did he struggle before he got the idea for Reflections? He wants to put his arms around her and tell her it’ll come, that she’s an artist, that it always feels like this at first. But of course he won’t. ‘If you want to go back to the library, I can chaperone you,’ he says. He’s not sure if it would be allowed, but the idea of being alone in the library at night, with her, is strangely exciting.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she says. ‘What I really want is a drink. I’ve got some brandy—’ she stumbles on the word, and for a second he remembers standing in her room, a bottle in his hand, the sting of rejection. It was only his brandy she didn’t want, then. She shoots him a look as if she’s read his thoughts. ‘It was a gift from my English cousins. I haven’t opened it, because …’ There’s a tiny pause. Perhaps she notices that she’s on the verge of apologising, because she looks away. ‘I don’t suppose you want to join me?’

  ‘For a drink?’

  ‘No, you’re right. You shouldn’t, if you’ve been ill. And I have a class first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d love to. I mean – I’d kill for a drink. Yes. Please.’ Has she already retracted the offer? He hunches his shoulders in a gesture that’s meant to be boyish and charming. ‘That would be lovely, thank you. By the way, have you seen this month’s Gambit? There was a contribution from Millicent Cairn that made me think of you.’

  ‘Because she’s a woman.’

  ‘No, because she talks about the liberating effect of not having been to a school. I thought perhaps—’

  ‘How can not getting an education be liberating?’ But it doesn’t matter what she’s saying, because he’s distracted her into setting off across the court towards the Magisters’ Entrance, obviously expecting him to accompany her. ‘You think all female players are the same, don’t you, Martin? And yet male players are varied, because they’re not hampered by having to think about being a woman all the time. Is that right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘My word, I’m sick of it. Home, husband and happiness, isn’t that what your Party wants for us? As soon as we were starting to get concessions … Do you realise that thirty years ago a married woman couldn’t have her own library card without her husband’s permission?’

  ‘At least you got the vote.’

  She narrows her eyes at him. ‘Yes, things were getting better. And then there was the Depression, and your lot came along and …’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Never mind. You want some brandy, or not?’

  They go in through the massive oak door and turn towards her rooms. The corridor is quiet and cold, striped with starlight. He hovers in her doorway as she lights a lamp and beckons him to come in. ‘Oh – wait …’ She collects up her papers from the desk and dumps them into a drawer.

  ‘I’m not going to plagiarise,’ he says, stung.

  ‘No – I didn’t think you – of course not,’ she says, but she bundles the last notebook away as if she means the opposite. She crouches down to take the bottle of brandy out of a low cupboard. ‘Wait, let me get a glass from upstairs.’

  She disappears up the stairs. Part of him wants desperately to rifle through her desk and expose whatever she’s hiding: but of course he won’t. He contents himself with turning in a slow circle, looking at the austere shapes of desk and chair and window. What’s it like, to live here? To know that she’s here for ever? A life sentence. Can she possibly be happy?

  ‘Here,’ she says, from the foot of the stairs. ‘I’ll have to drink from the bottle.’ She hands him a tooth-glass and pours some bran
dy into it. He raises it to her, and drinks. It’s good, and fiery, with that dusty, papery scent that makes him think incongruously of old books. It leaves heat on his tongue and seems to fill his empty stomach. He takes another mouthful, and another. She watches him, smiling. Then she bends her head and takes her cap off, flicking it on to the desk like a deflated puffball. Her hair is falling out of its chignon, and in this light – and, he has to admit, with the alcohol already softening his senses – she looks like Carfax at the end of term, when his hair had been uncut for twelve weeks. They always looked like scarecrows, all of them; there was a servant in the infirmary who’d cut your hair on Sundays, but even though people like Emile had valets at home it was de rigueur to pretend you were above asking a servant to touch you. The first thing Dad always said when Léo got home was, ‘Well, I’ll be blowed. For a moment there I thought you were a girl.’ Now, as the Magister raises the bottle in response and drinks from it, it’s the other way round. She could be a young man, especially now that she’s spluttering a little and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. He stares at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t be. Please.’

  ‘It’s been quite a day. I’m so tired. I haven’t slept for ages, thinking about this blasted game. Yes, the Midsummer Game,’ she adds, when he raises his eyebrows. She leans against the desk and pushes the chair towards him. ‘Sit down, please.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. It feels strange to sit while she’s standing.

  She takes a deep breath, tapping her fingernails against the neck of the bottle. Then, suddenly, she says, ‘I haven’t got anything. You understand? I’ve got to perform the Midsummer Game in two months, and I haven’t got anything. Not an idea. Not a title. A blank page. I’m terrified.’

  There’s a silence. He bows his head, turns his glass between his hands, watching the lamplight roll through the liquid. ‘I see,’ he says, almost under his breath.

  ‘I have to write it. But I – oh, if I—’ Her voice cracks. He glances up, confused. She’s staring at the window, at her own reflection, with an expression of … what is it? Longing, he thinks, but it doesn’t make any sense.

  He says, ‘Have you ever written a joint game?’ Somehow he doesn’t think she’d be a natural: she’s too rigid, too prickly, too passionate. She’d be worse than Carfax. He takes a mouthful of brandy, so big that he has to concentrate to swallow. He doesn’t want to think about Carfax. Certainly not now, when he’s here with her. With the Magister. Ha. How absurd, that even in his head he calls her that. Surely by now he should be calling her by her name. Claire.

  She raises the bottle to her lips, but she doesn’t tilt it to drink. She breathes out, and the air rings hollowly across the glass. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No.’

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ he says. ‘I mean … I could help. If you wanted.’

  ‘You?’ The edge in her voice flicks him on the raw. Perhaps he is being vain to imagine that he has anything worth contributing, but she could at least pretend to be grateful.

  ‘It would still be your game,’ he says. ‘I know that.’

  ‘How humble of you.’ She flicks him a glance. ‘Would it give you a thrill, to know that there’s a Midsummer Game that you’d partly written?’

  He’s about to demur, as if it’s the sort of thing that might happen to him every day; then the words suddenly come into focus. A Midsummer Game that he’d partly written. He wouldn’t be standing up himself, as Magister Ludi, but it would be the next best thing. He imagines sitting there, heart beating in his mouth and fingertips, and the joy of seeing his own ideas come into being. Feeling the silence and attention – a whole hall of the finest minds of the grand jeu – form a game out of the Magister’s gestures, like hands in clay. Collective worship, centred on something he’d made. And at the centre of it all, Claire.

  He blows out his breath. There’s no point pretending. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘My God, yes.’

  She grins. He grins back. As if it’s a joke, that he’s being honest. That she’s right. He wants to laugh. He laughs, and she joins in. He’s been trying to forget the wave of desire that caught him off guard, weeks ago – he told himself it was nothing, a mere brainstorm – but now it’s back, stronger than ever; not that he would ever do anything about it, but it sweeps through him, fierce and heady as the brandy. This is how it felt with Carfax, on the good days: as though they had made their own language. All the words in the world falling into place. It shouldn’t take him by surprise; but it does, it still does.

  ‘Let me help you,’ he says. ‘Please.’ He hadn’t realised how long he’s been longing to say it: but now the words are out, he knows that they’ve been brewing for weeks. About a month ago she took an old-fashioned partition out of its file in the archive, spreading out the fragile paper on a desk to show him the eighteenth-century notation, and they bent over it together, their heads hardly an inch apart. He can remember the brush of her gown against his sleeve and the soft wisp of hair clinging to a tiny scar below her ear. She was so close he couldn’t concentrate on what she was explaining to him. It was only when she stood up straight and rolled her neck that he noticed how tired she looked, and heard the pauses as she searched for the right words. At that moment he wanted to smooth out the line between her eyebrows with his thumb; he wanted to present her with her own Midsummer Game, neatly written out, just missing a few diacritics. Perfume was all very well, but he wanted to give her a miracle. He wants one back.

  ‘I’m Magister Ludi. I have to write it myself.’

  ‘I know. I’m not suggesting … I only want to help.’ He knocks back the last of his brandy, and holds out his glass. She smiles as she fills it up again, but her eyes are still on his face, and still serious. ‘Trust me,’ he says. ‘I promise it’ll be all right.’

  ‘I don’t need a knight in shining armour.’

  ‘Of course. Of course not.’ He reaches out and takes hold of her wrist. She freezes. They both look down at his fingers on her skin. ‘Your brother,’ he says, suddenly breathless, ‘your brother would tell you to say yes. If he were you, he’d let me help.’

  She blinks, twice. ‘Would he,’ she says, but it isn’t a question. ‘I wish I could be so sure.’

  She looks calm, but her pulse is beating hard against his hand. He can’t remember the last time he was so conscious of being made of flesh, of being nothing but a collection of chemicals and nerves and electricity.

  He kisses her.

  It’s as though he has split into two men: one of them is surprised. One of them would advise caution if it weren’t too late; one of them knows that it’s useless, messy, that it can only lead to trouble. One of them has known for weeks that he wants her, and has ignored it – has shut down every dreamy night-thought, every fantasy, smothering the heat. He’s the one who, as he leans in, has the time to notice the complex agate-brown of her eyes, the short lashes, the fine freckles on the curve between her cheek and nose; whose throat tightens at her resemblance to Carfax, who is lifted on a tide of memory … But the other Léo is living too quickly to pay attention: he has jumped from one heartbeat to the next like a broken record. One moment he is holding her wrist, looking at her, and the next he is mouth-to-mouth, tasting alcoholic sweetness on their combined breaths.

  And the next, he is stumbling backwards, his face blazing.

  For a moment he is blinded, deafened by his own humiliation; he can’t hear what she’s saying, or take in her expression. All he knows is that she thrust him away. What was he thinking? It’s not as if she’s a proper woman anyway, it’s not as if he really wanted … Oh, but he did. He has done, for a long time. It’s too late to lie to himself. ‘I apologise,’ he says, ‘I don’t know what—’

  ‘Please go.’

  ‘The brandy—’

  ‘Yes, you’re drunk. Is that your excuse?’ She rakes her hands through her hair until hanks of it stand out from her head. ‘You think, because I’m a woman, I must want you? Or becaus
e I should be grateful for the offer of help? Is that what you want, a gratitude fuck?’

  ‘I never—’

  ‘Get out.’ She’s gone pale.

  The jumping lamplight and his doubling vision are making him feel queasy; he closes his eyes. Really, it was only the slightest, clumsiest brush of his lips. Anyone would think he’d shown her his cock. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I misread—’

  ‘Misread what? Me? For goodness’ sake, you’ve never paid attention to anyone, in your whole life! You didn’t misread me, you’ve never looked at me. Not properly. If you had …’ She stops. She’s breathing hoarsely, as if his mouth on hers was his hands round her neck. ‘Now get out.’

  He nods. He makes his way into the corridor. His eyes are stinging; the lamp must have started to smoke. He’s still holding her glass. He puts it down on the nearest windowsill. A few steps later it occurs to him that he could have thrown it against the wall.

  He goes out into the courtyard. A damp breeze is blowing; clouds are building up on the horizon and creeping like mould over the stars. He fumbles in his pocket for cigarettes, but all he finds is a single match rattling in a bent matchbox. He strikes it, and the wind blows the flame out immediately, leaving a scratch of purple on his vision. He flicks the matchstick away.

  What a fool. What a blind, reckless, stupid … He should have known better. He did know better. As if she would let him … But – for a moment he thought … perhaps he was imagining it, perhaps it was the brandy, or her shock, there’s no reason to suppose that there was a split second before she pushed him away, an instant when her mouth responded to his. He shuts his eyes and tries to remember, and it makes something swell behind his breastbone, a crazy impulse of joy. And then she pushed him away.

  He knows this feeling. All at once he’s back in the scholars’ corridor, ten years ago. He blinks, hard, as if the memory is a smarting speck of dust, but the dark behind his eyelids is hardly distinguishable from the looming shadows of the courtyard. He can see it like a photograph – no, clearer even than a photograph, in full colour – eyes open or closed: the corridor dim, distant voices and laughter in the courtyard, the blue sky paling in the windows as the summer sun climbed the far slopes of the mountains. Himself, dizzy with fatigue and dread, on his way to find Carfax. Hurrying as though he knew that it was too late. Passing his own cell, and finding the door ajar.