Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  He loved her! So nothing was wrong: on the contrary—everything was right.

  Halfway down the staircase, Lewis stopped. From there, he could see through into the ballroom, where, to the strains of the waltz, men and women circled and spun around the dance floor. For a little while, Lewis stood and watched them: the dresses, as bright as jewels and as delicate as flowers; the men, who seemed to move so surely, the tails of their black coats spinning out like the full skirts of the women’s dresses. Silver and gold, daffodil yellow, scarlet and black, blue as pale as moonlight, rose madder. The feet of the dancing couples seemed not to touch the floor: Lewis thought they circled like planets, they were as lovely and as stately as stars.

  Retrieving his overcoat, he bounded out of the warmth and lights of the house into the cold glitter of a deserted Berkeley Square. He felt he had been granted a vision. He felt he could easily walk the few miles home. And so he did: along Piccadilly, past the shadows of Green Park, through Knightsbridge, then south toward the river. His feet, in their thin patent leather evening shoes, were cold, but Lewis was not conscious of that. He was hardly conscious of walking at all. Normally, that would have meant he was drunk.

  Lewis knew he wasn’t. He was intoxicated, yes, but by means of something far more powerful, much headier, than the best Bollinger he had been drinking that evening. He felt as if the kaleidoscope of his life had been spun, and all the pieces, all the tiny confusing fragments, had shifted miraculously into place—the perfect, the enduring, pattern.

  He let himself into the little house in Chelsea quietly. It was past midnight, and the rooms were in darkness. Lewis pulled off his overcoat, and his scarf, and kicked off his wet shoes. In his socks, quietly, he crept up the narrow stairs. Exultant, and simultaneously terrified, he tried the door of Helen’s room, and found it unlocked.

  He opened it, and crept inside.

  She was sleeping with the curtains open; the light from the moon and the reflected light from the snow made the room bright and shadowy, as silvery as a negative of film. Stealthily, Lewis approached the high wide brass bed, and looked down at her. The long strands of her hair fanned out across the pillows; her lashes shadowed her cheeks; her breathing was soft and regular; one arm lay, loose and relaxed, across the covers. Lewis looked at the milky skin, the soft blue of the veins that ran up from her wrist. The arm, and the shoulder he could just glimpse, were bare. She was not wearing a nightgown.

  Lewis looked at her and wondered at his own former self—at the obstinacy, the fear, the callow stupidity he had allowed to blind him so long. How willful he had been, and how foolish! Now, his hands trembling, he felt for the sheet, and stealthily, gently, drew the covers back.

  The sheets were of pale pink cotton. In this light, they were the color of mother-of-pearl. Helen’s body, its curves, its peaks and its valleys, was bleached by the light to the color of pale sand; the shadows under her breasts and between her thighs were mauve, like wisps of smoke. She stirred a little, as if the cold air on her skin were about to wake her; then she lay still again.

  Lewis shuddered, from cold less than from some ecstasy of spirit. Feeling a little like a worshipper, a little like an intruder, he pulled off the rest of his clothes.

  When he was naked, he climbed into the bed beside her. He lay very still, frightened to let his cold skin brush against hers, but feeling he was not cold, that his body was on fire and that his mind itself burned. He looked at her for a long time; then, very delicately, he allowed his hands to brush over her. They traced the outline of her face, brushed her lashes, brushed the moist slightly parted lips.

  He let them move down, slipping his fingers around the curve of her throat, then they stole farther, to the fullness of her breasts. Her body was still, limp, and warm; its passivity, the silence, the sense of secrecy, inflamed Lewis more and more. He bent his head and pressed his lips against hers; he felt the soft warmth of her breath against his cheeks. He hesitated, then, slipping lower under the sheets, he cupped her breasts in his hands, took the rose-colored nipples between his lips, and sucked on them gently, first the one, then the other. Their softness hardened to twin points, and Lewis moaned softly. Helen did not stir, did not move.

  Lewis lay on his side, daring to let his thigh press along the length of hers. He was erect, hard; he still felt as if he burned, but also as if he were dreaming. He began to stroke her again, very softly, with just the tips of his fingers, like a blind man. Over the gentle curve of her hips, he tangled his fingers in the shadowed triangle of hair in the cleft of her thighs, then slipped his hand between her thighs, where the skin felt as smooth and as soft as silk.

  She stirred then, expelling her breath in a little sigh.

  She moved her body slightly, as sleepers do, turning a little toward him, so her breasts brushed against his chest, and his hard penis pressed against her thighs.

  Lewis’s thoughts spun. He felt as if he were poised somewhere at a great height, ready to dive into deep black water; he touched her once more, his hand shaking, and it seemed he fell, down through the eye of a storm, through the still center of the cyclone of his senses. He felt for her thighs, and parted them.

  It was easy to slip inside her, accomplished in one little movement, an adjustment of the hips, virtually no thrust. He was there; he stayed absolutely still, while his mind whirled and beat. It felt like union; it felt also a little like violation; and the sense, then, that the pure and the impure mixed, excited him terribly. Love and lust, the power of that combination, was not something he had ever experienced before. White blinding light, and a black heat, building: he felt his body pulse, knew he need hardly move. He pushed, very gently, once, lay still.

  One more little push, wings beating in his mind, and he came. It was like a knife through an artery; as if his blood spurted and drained; a little death.

  He felt himself jerk, and tremble; he was wet with sweat. He buried his face between her breasts. He heard a voice, which he supposed was his own. The voice said: Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

  When the pulsing stopped, he pulled out of her, and lay still. His mind swooped toward unconsciousness.

  Hélène waited until she was certain he was asleep. Then she opened her eyes, and quietly put her arms around him. It had had to happen, she told herself, and she was glad she had made it happen like this.

  She touched Lewis’s hair. Not a betrayal, she thought: more like a dream.

  In the morning, Lewis woke first. He slipped out of the bed, crept out of the room and along the landing. In the small icy bathroom, he peed and felt like a god.

  He was excited, terrified, exultant all at once. He returned to the landing and paced up and down naked, unaware of the chill. He felt as if he were transfigured, newborn. The man he had been had died a quick brief death, and in his place was a new man. This man felt as if he could do everything and anything; he was infinitely potent; he had grace; he held the world in the palm of his hand.

  For this new Lewis, everything was easy—he had superhuman strength. He thought then, with a smile, of the heroes of those stolen comic books of his childhood, the heroes he had loved, the heroes who moved mountains, eliminated wickedness and defied gravity. Today he felt like them, and like them, he flew.

  He returned to the little bedroom and climbed back into the bed. When he had drawn the sheets over him, Helen opened her eyes. They looked at each other.

  No questions, Lewis thought. What had happened was so strange and so magical he felt questions would spoil it, and make it vanish away. But—had she slept? The query sped through his mind, and as if he had spoken the words, she heard his thought. Her lips curved into a slow smile.

  “Last night, I dreamed—” she began.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Lewis interrupted eagerly. “You know it wasn’t…”

  “No, I suppose not,” she said, and though she put her arms around him then, Lewis could hear in her voice a note of regret.

  It was all like a dream; the next five days and nigh
ts were like a dream, Lewis thought.

  It seemed to him that they sped past and yet were slow, with a hallucinatory clarity. He knew those five days would haunt him and stay with him all his life, and he was right. Always, afterward, in spite of everything, he would look back to that time and know that, then, life had been right.

  For those five days, with Christmas Day itself falling on the third day, in the center of an arc of happiness, they were totally alone. Lewis took the telephone off the hook, because he did not want Thad’s voice interrupting their idyll. They locked the door; no one knocked, but if anyone had, they had agreed not to answer it. They composed the days as they pleased, eating at odd hours, because they suddenly felt hungry, sleeping in the morning or the afternoon, and staying awake at night. There were no outside rhythms, Lewis felt, only the rhythm of loving and lovemaking.

  On Christmas Eve, in mid-afternoon, suddenly realizing that it was Christmas Eve, they bundled themselves into layers of clothes, and rushed out together, hand in hand, and laughing. Since everything was possible, they went in and out of shops and found everything they needed although it was close to closing time, and Helen had predicted they would find nothing but empty shelves.

  They bought a little Christmas tree, and colored baubles, and necklaces of tinsel. They bought dates and apples and grapes, chestnuts, and preserved plums in the most beautiful boxes. A turkey that would have fed twenty, and which would have to be squashed into an oven that was far too small for it. Wrapping paper, candles, a Bethlehem star, a tin of caviar, a box of red and gold crackers with mottos. And presents. Such presents! Lewis took them to Harrods in a taxi, and they found it emptying. They walked through the great halls glittering with decorations, and Lewis wanted to buy her everything in sight. He made her stand by the elevators, and stare at the wall while he rushed from department to department. A flagon of scent, in a bottle like milky rock crystal. An armful of holly and mistletoe, a bouquet of spring flowers. More armfuls of lingerie, boxes of silk and satin and handmade lace. A long necklace of pearls with a diamond clasp. A box of exquisite French soap, shaped like shells. Lewis juggled his parcels, dropped them, laughed, picked them up, and dropped them again. He felt no uncertainty now, none of the inhibition he had experienced in Rome: his taste was sure, unerring, and the cost was immaterial. When he bought a nightgown he had no idea of size, so he described Helen at length, very eloquently, waving his arms, smiling like a man possessed. The woman serving him smiled: Lewis, flushed, tousled, looked particularly handsome; she recognized a young man in the throes of love, and was patient. Black or white—the innocent, or the frankly erotic? Lewis did not care; once sure of the size, he took them both.

  When he returned to the elevator area, hardly able to see above the pile of parcels in his arms, Helen was gone. He stopped dead; his heart seemed to stop with pure terror.

  Then, the next second, he saw her again, coming toward him, her face also flushed, her arms also full of packages. The relief was so total that he ran to her, and—unable to take her into his arms without dropping everything—just stood there, in the middle of Harrods, while a discreet elevator man averted his gaze, saying, Oh, my darling. Oh, my darling…

  That night, they decorated the little tree. They tied it with ribbons, strung it with tinsel, hung the pretty baubles from its branches. They had closed the curtains, and lit the fire, turned on only one lamp.

  In the soft warm light, the little room looked charming with its red velvet chairs, and its soft worn rugs. Lewis no longer thought of it as shabby—he no longer cared. It was not Anne Kneale’s room anymore: it was theirs.

  They had forgotten to buy any other food except the turkey, so they feasted on toast and caviar in front of the fire, and looked at the tree, and held hands, and talked.

  Lewis knew words were inadequate, but he tried very hard to explain to her how he felt: how, all his life, he had been frightened of failing, and trying to find an alternative route. How he had tried to be what his parents wanted, and then what he wanted, and then what his friends wanted, and finally, what Thad wanted. And now, suddenly, all that was unimportant, because now he could be himself.

  “I love you,” Lewis said. He buried his face in her lap. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  She bent her head, and kissed his hair. She stroked him gently, like a mother comforting a child. And Lewis felt guilty. He felt he had to confess to her. He poured it all out, the horrible person he had been. The wine, the women, the parties, the confusion. How he had hated it and pretended he liked it, and how he now wished that it had never happened, because he wasn’t good enough for her, and he wanted to be.

  “That’s not true, Lewis,” she said. “Please don’t believe it. Please don’t think it. Lewis—come to bed.”

  The next day they spent a great many hours cooking that monster of a turkey. Since they had forgotten to buy potatoes, or any other vegetables, they ate it with sweet corn, a can of which they discovered in a cupboard. It tasted delicious. They drank a bottle and a half of a fine Burgundy—Lewis had not forgotten that—and then, feeling a little tipsy, they went for a walk, through deserted streets and along the side of the smooth-flowing river. Sweet Thames, Lewis murmured, fragments of that expensive education remaining with him. He caught her hand, and swung it.

  She stopped, and looked down at the water. She wondered if what she was doing was wrong, but the thought seemed to her to have no reality. Things happened; you could only control them so much. The wine she had drunk seemed to flow through her mind, lulling it; the slow movement of the river itself was hypnotic. She fixed her eyes on one twig, watched it being carried downriver. The tidal pull was very strong, and she found that comforting.

  “I lived near a river once.” She pressed Lewis’s hand. “It’s cold. Let’s go home.”

  They went home. Lit the fire, closed the curtains, locked the door. A make-believe world, Lewis thought, and smiled, liking the idea. They made it, and they believed in it. Nothing else mattered.

  They opened their presents in front of the fire. She had bought him a tie, and a scarf, a black leather billfold, a box of linen handkerchiefs, a silk shirt that was the right collar size, and a bottle of Armagnac. She tipped these presents into Lewis’s lap, her eyes wide and nervous, as if she were terrified he would scorn them or find them inadequate.

  Lewis, who knew she had had no money in Paris, and that the amount she had been paid so far for the film was very little, was deeply touched. He unwrapped each one, slowly and carefully, and she watched him like an anxious child, her hands darting out occasionally to touch a box, to pull at a piece of stubborn wrapping paper. When all the presents had been opened, they knelt, looking at each other. Their laps, and the rug, were strewn with lace and silk and torn paper and shiny ribbons.

  “Do you like them? Are they all right? Oh, Lewis. It’s hard to buy a man presents…” She glanced at him shyly, stroked the things that lay on her lap. “These are so beautiful, and what I chose is so dull. I would have liked—”

  She broke off, and Lewis reached across and took her hand. He wanted to say that only one gift mattered to him then—that if she said she loved him, too, he would have everything he wanted in life. But it seemed wrong, and ungracious, almost unnecessary anyway. He thought, looking into her wide eyes, that she understood.

  “My darling.” He bent and pressed his lips into the soft palm of her hand. “My darling.”

  Later, he persuaded her to dress up in some of the things he had chosen. They drank some of the Armagnac, and it became like a marvelous, and for Lewis, arousing game. Palest pink silk shimmering against her skin. Lace that revealed the creamy curves of her breasts. The pearls wound around her throat. A white nightgown of silk through which he could glimpse the darkness of her nipples, the shadowed triangle of her pubic hair. Lewis’s body hardened and stirred; he lay back, watching her. She slipped the white nightgown off, and pulled on the black one.

  It transformed her; but, he saw, sh
e had also the power to transform herself. She changed, too, with her costumes. The planes of her face seemed to Lewis to alter, so that, a young girl a moment before, she now looked older, a woman. He stared at her, mesmerized: her lips seemed to him fuller, her eyes darker and wider, almost black; she seemed not to move at all, and yet her very stance altered; there was a new erotic jut to her breasts. She looked down at him; Lewis knew the thrust of his erection was obvious; she smiled. She knelt down and began to whisper to him, and as she did so, she changed her voice. Lewis listened in astonishment; her eyes were amused, and he knew she was teasing him, that somewhere, inside, she was the same woman, the same Helen. But just for a moment he could not believe it; she changed herself before his eyes, and he found it almost unbearably erotic, as if he were being tempted, not by one woman, but by many. It aroused him, and it also frightened him a little. He touched her face, held it between his hands, and drew it around so he could look into her eyes.

  “Helen? How do you do that? I didn’t know you could…”

  She smiled. “It’s a trick I have. I have lots of voices. I have a good ear, that’s all.” She paused. “I can have an English voice—several English voices. A French one. An Italian one. American ones…” She glanced down, her lashes brushing her cheeks. “I can have a southern voice—I can have your voice, I think.”

  Lewis laughed. “Mine? I don’t believe it.”

  “Listen.” She frowned, concentrating. Then she said a few sentences, and Lewis listened, amazed, to Helen speaking his tongue. The clipped Bostonian vowels, a slightly arrogant nasal flatness. Lewis gripped her arms, and gave her a gentle shake. “Stop that. You’ve convinced me. You’re seducing me in my own voice, and I don’t like it. It’s disturbing.”

  She stopped instantly. Her color rose, and she looked up at him. When she next spoke, it was with her own voice.