Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  She walked through the rooms, touching objects as she went; it was as if she were seeing the house clearly for the first time. Each piece of furniture, each object, so beautiful, so perfect of its kind, and chosen and arranged with such care. The Coromandel screens; the deep couches covered in cream silk; the rugs, with their softly faded garlands of flowers; the chairs; the pier glasses; the tall Chinese vases filled with the armfuls of lilies. She saw now that all these things had been chosen and assembled for Edouard; she had furnished this room for him, for a man who would never see it, never stand in it.

  Quietly, she sat down in a chair, and looked across the room. Such perfectionism, and all of it a substitute for joy. She let herself think then, about the past; each action, each lie, each evasion, each untruth: a secretive little girl, who had grown up into a secretive woman, deceiving others so effectively that it was comparatively easy to deceive herself. She thought of the people who had been harmed by that deceit: Edouard, above all; but also Lewis; also Cat; also herself. She thought of Billy, and the shrine of lies she had erected around his memory, and thought how much he would have hated them. She thought of her mother, and how passionately Violet had clung to the little deceptions that shored up her life; the deceptions seemed tiny beside her own. To have lied to herself about Cat’s father—how could she have done such a thing? Violet, for all her wish to prevaricate, had never lied so willfully and so insanely as that.

  She shut her eyes, and then opened them again. The room, elegant and restful, remained the same, but she saw it now as vacant and empty, a stage set, no more. She was free of it; she was free of the woman who had created it. She felt a queer, light-headed detachment; how ironic, she thought, that of all people, Ned Calvert should give her something she had not acknowledged she had lost: the knowledge of who she was.

  She stood up, and leaving the lights on, she went upstairs to Cat’s room. The shades were lowered, but there was a full moon outside, and its radiance silvered their edges and striped the floor with bands of bright light.

  Cat was asleep, her eyes tight shut. One small hand clenched in a fist was curled across her pillow. Her black hair fanned out, and her breathing was soft and regular. Hélène sat down quietly at the foot of her bed, and looked at her daughter. Lovingly, her eyes traced the line of Cat’s face, so like Edouard’s. The features were still soft and unformed, but the resemblance was strong, even when her eyes were shut. The likeness she had shied away from; now she rejoiced in it.

  She would have to tell Edouard, she thought. He must know. At that, her heart began to beat faster, and she felt a little afraid. Then she pushed the fear aside. No matter what his reaction might be, and no matter what pain it might cause her, he must know, and she must tell him.

  She sat there, very still, until her agitation gradually calmed. She looked at the room, at the books on the bookshelves, the drawings pinned to the walls, the line of white rabbits that processed across the material of the shades. She looked at Cat again; her eyelids flickered slightly, and Hélène knew she dreamed. She reached out and held her hand, and after a while, quite suddenly, Cat woke.

  “You’re back.”

  She smiled up at Hélène, sleepily. Hélène moved closer to her, and Cat snuggled deeper under her covers, curling herself in a warm ball, so she rested against her mother.

  “I was dreaming. A nice dream. I’ve forgotten it now.” She gave a little yawn. “I do that sometimes. I dream, and then I wake up. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Do you want me to stay?” Hélène bent over her.

  “Mmmm. Yes.” Cat reached out one warm hand, and took hers. “Tell me a story.”

  “All right. What shall it be about?”

  “Tell me about you. When you were little…” Cat’s eyes flicked open, peeped up at her, then closed again. Hélène sighed. This was a request Cat had begun to make often, ever since she had been old enough to delight in the idea of her mother as a child. Hélène had always evaded the subject, or spoken vaguely of small unimportant incidents; not now.

  “Very well.” She paused, then began in a low voice: “Well, when I was little, I didn’t sleep in a big room like this. I slept in a little room, a very tiny one. It was in a trailer—you know, you’ve seen them. Sometimes they have bunks, but this one was like a house, and it had beds. Two beds. One for my mother, and one for me.”

  “You mean you lived in it all the time?” Cat’s eyes flew open again. “Not just on vacations? Not like camping?”

  “No, we lived in it all the time. It wasn’t very big. Just two little rooms, and there were steps down from it into a yard, with a white fence. It was painted green inside…”

  “How lovely. I’d like that. I’d like to live in a trailer.” Cat wriggled closer, and Hélène smiled.

  “It was a very old trailer,” she said. “Very shabby. And it was in the South, in a place called Alabama. So, in the summer, it got very very hot, and the trailer got hot, and stuffy. When I was little, just about the age you are now—maybe a little bit older—I used to lie in bed at night, and I’d put my hands out, and touch the walls, and they were still hot, like an iron, even when it was dark outside…”

  “Didn’t you have air-conditioning?” Cat looked puzzled.

  “No, we didn’t have that.”

  “Did you have a pool, so you could go swimming if you got hot?”

  “No, we didn’t have a pool. Not like the pools here. And we didn’t need a pool, not really. When I wanted to go swimming, I used to go down to a little creek, and swim in the river water. I had a friend then, his name was Billy, and he taught me to swim…”

  “Oh, I want to know.” Cat wriggled closer. “Tell me about Billy.” Hélène paused, and then she began to speak, slowly at first, and then more quickly. As she spoke, she found it all came back, every tiny detail, things she had not thought of for years and years; it was all there, she could see it and smell it and feel it, where each chair stood, the colors of the plates and the cups, the sound of her mother’s voice, Billy, standing in the yard in his bare feet, kicking at the dust, and smiling at her, his head a little on one side, his eyes looking slightly puzzled, as if something were happening to him, and he didn’t understand it.

  She talked for what seemed a long time. Sometimes Cat interjected a question, but gradually she grew drowsy, and the questions grew fewer. Her eyes closed, and her head grew heavy. She slept, falling asleep abruptly with a little sigh, as children and animals do. Hélène stroked her hair, and fell silent. She went on sitting there, feeling a great sense of release and of contentment, aware that she was getting cold, and stiff, but not caring.

  At four, or perhaps five, in the morning, the light that edged the shades grew warmer, and she heard the first birds begin to sing. It was then, and with a terrifying suddenness, that the noise began. One moment the room and the house were quiet and still, the next the air vibrated with a terrible clamor.

  Hélène started; her heart seemed to stop and then to pound; it was as if the noise were inside her head, it was so loud, and for a moment, in confusion and fright, she felt as if she herself had triggered the alarm. She froze for an instant, and then sprang to her feet. Beside her, Cat’s eyes flew open, and she gave a cry of fear.

  “Mother. What is it? What is it?”

  Hélène reached for her, and held her tight.

  “It’s all right. It’s the alarms—it’s just the alarms, Cat, something’s triggered them…”

  “I’m frightened…”

  “Darling, it’s all right. You remember. It’s happened before. It’s an animal probably, or a bird—wait…”

  She crossed to the window and pulled up one of the shades. Behind her, Cat huddled under the bedclothes, her little face pale and scared. Hélène covered her ears with her hands and looked out over the garden.

  It was lit not with the soft dawn light, but with the cold unearthly glare of halogen lamps, a light brighter than noon, that bleached the trees and grass of color. In the
garden, nothing moved, there was no sign of any intruder, either innocent or sinister.

  Hélène stared out across the grass. A horrible sick sense of foreboding rose in her stomach; she stared in the direction of the drive, toward the gates which, from here, were invisible. From inside the house came the sound of running footsteps, the voices of Madeleine and Cassie.

  “Mother. What is it? What is it?”

  Hélène turned away from the window.

  “I don’t know.” She reached for Cat’s hand. “I don’t know.” In the hills beyond the house, sirens began to wail.

  But she did know then, when she heard the sirens—or so she thought afterward. Knew then, knew when she took the call from the station later that morning, knew when, with Cassie protesting at her side, she walked into the police morgue to make the identification.

  Blue light; cold air; white tiles; the drip of sluices. One wall, banked with steel drawers, like safety deposit boxes, only larger.

  Cassie caught one glimpse, and hung back. She plucked at Hélène’s arm.

  “You don’t have to do this. There’s no call. So what if it’s the same man? Lewis should be doing this, not you. You should call Lewis…”

  “I saw him too. I’m going to do it.”

  “But why? This is a horrible place.”

  “I feel I ought to, that’s all.”

  “Stubborn!” Cassie’s chin tilted. “You was always that way. Well, if you’re going in, I’m going with you.”

  The lieutenant in charge of the case was waiting; he held a clipboard, and looked impatient and ill at ease. He had hardly glanced at Cassie, but he stared at Hélène as if trying to convince himself that she was real. Beside him stood an attendant in a white coat. As the women advanced, the two men glanced at each other. The lieutenant shifted from foot to foot.

  “Found him dead in his cell around nine. Inhalation of vomit,” he said finally. “Happens all the time.”

  As if this were his cue, the attendant reached forward; the drawer next to them slid forward soundlessly on casters. The body was covered with a heavy plastic sheet; a label like a luggage label was attached with a loop of string to one big toe.

  “The bruising was caused by his fall. Those walls at your place are fifteen feet. The guy must have been crazy.”

  The lieutenant reached for the sheet.

  “He wasn’t unconscious when they brought him in. He was okay. Came as quiet as a lamb. The bruising’s not as bad as it looks. We had the surgeon examine him…”

  He sounded aggrieved, as if the man’s subsequent death were a reproach to his own efficiency. He hesitated, then tweaked the sheet aside.

  “Miss Harte?” He glanced over his shoulder at Cassie. “Lady. This the same guy? Either of you recognize him?”

  Hélène looked. The man’s eyes were open. They were a pale bleached-out blue, and bore an expression of faint surprise, as if the fact of his own mortality had been puzzling, and unexpected. He had thin sandy hair, and the stubble of a reddish beard. A tall man, heavily boned. She hesitated.

  Cassie stepped forward, looked, and stepped back. She turned away quickly.

  “That’s him for sure. I saw him close up. I recognize him.”

  “Miss Harte?”

  Hélène stared at the man. Above the sheet, his chest was bare, and thickly matted with red hair. One hand was just visible. It looked too large for the thin wrist; it was square-palmed, and the fingers were callused. She thought of the night of the party, of standing on the driveway, and looking back at the gates; she thought of the odd sense of kinship she had felt then. She reached out her hand, touched the soft fuzz of hair on the man’s arm, and then drew back.

  “I’m not sure. It was dark when I saw him. I can’t be certain.”

  Again the lieutenant and the attendant exchanged glances. The drawer on its smooth casters was pushed back. A sluice gurgled, and the lieutenant made a small note on his clipboard.

  “Lady—you’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Cassie’s voice was grim. She was already walking away.

  He shrugged.

  “It’ll be him. Once these guys get a fixation on someone, they stick with it. I’m sorry, Miss Harte. He won’t be troubling you again—that’s one way of looking at it…”

  He turned away. He was just beginning to wonder at what point it would be decent to ask for Hélène Harte’s autograph—when they’d gotten the hell out of the morgue, obviously—when he realized that she wasn’t following him out. He stopped. She was still standing in exactly the same place, staring at the banks of drawers, and the numbers on them.

  “Do you know his name?”

  She spoke quite suddenly, in that low cool voice of hers. The lieutenant jumped. He hesitated, looking down at the clipboard. Hélène did not turn her head; she did not move. The second seemed to her to lengthen, the room to grow colder and then brighter; she waited, knowing what he was about to say.

  “He had a driver’s license on him. No other ID. License gives his name as Craig. Gary Craig. License was issued—where is it, someplace in the South…”

  He was scrabbling at his notes, as if her silence and stillness unnerved him.

  “Louisiana,” she said.

  “That’s right. Louisiana.” He found the entry on his clipboard. He looked up with a frown. Behind him, he was aware that the other woman had reacted. She gave an exclamation, quickly cut off, and started back to them. Hélène Harte had not moved, but the other woman had gone as white as a sheet. She was coming forward, arms outstretched, like a tigress about to defend her cub.

  “Hélène, honey—wait a second now…”

  “It’s all right, Cassie. Really. It’s all right.”

  “What is this?” The lieutenant looked from face to face. “That name mean something to you—is that it? You knew him? There some connection here I should know about?”

  She turned, and the clear gray-blue eyes met his. The other woman seemed to be trying to stop her speaking, but Hélène Harte paid her no heed. When she spoke, she did so in a quiet steady voice, and he stared at her, thinking he was hearing wrong, thinking he was going crazy. She said, “I never knew him. He was my father.”

  There was a silence. Then the woman beside her gave a little moan, as if it would have been better had that admission not been made. The attendant cleared his throat, and turned away, and the lieutenant, when his mind came out of deep freeze and started working again, thought: the press. Oh, Jesus.

  “That’s the wording I want used. Exactly that. No—I don’t want it altered in any way. No—I don’t intend to amplify on it. Beyond that I have no comment to make…”

  Hélène’s voice sounded firm, and slightly weary. She was on the telephone to her press agent, Bernie Alberg, who was not taking the news well. Hélène’s side of the conversation had been brief and to the point; in her hand she held a small piece of paper on which she had written out the statement she had just dictated to him. Cassie, who had been asked to stay while Hélène made the call, watched her with a frown. The statement was unequivocal, and Cassie was not sure if it was wise. Bernie Alberg thought it not merely unwise, but disastrous; Cassie could hear his voice squawking into the receiver; he was an excitable man at the best of times; now he sounded apoplectic.

  Hélène held the receiver slightly away from her ear, and gave Cassie a small resigned smile. Cassie made a face. She knew Hélène could be immovable when she had decided on something, and she supposed Bernie Alberg would know it too—he was no fool. However, he clearly thought there was some possibility of changing her mind; some of the agonized squawks were now comprehensible.

  “The timing’s disastrous. There’s your Oscar nomination to consider. They’ll be voting soon. We have to keep this under wraps. There’s no need for a statement. Look, listen a moment, will you? Who heard? Two guys. This isn’t a problem. Just give me the lieutenant’s name, will you? I’ll get on to him right away…None of this need come out—you hear me? None of it
. Okay, so it’ll cost a bit. So what else is new? There may be rumors—so we deny them. That’s cool. Rumors die. Statements don’t. Look, I’m coming over. I’m coming over right now…”

  “No, Bernie. You’re not.” Hélène cut him off in mid-flow. “We’re not discussing this. There’s nothing to discuss. Those are the facts. Any queries, and you put out that statement—”

  There were some more squawks, and Hélène frowned.

  “Bernie.” She cut him off again. “Either you do it, or I get another press agent to do it. It’s as simple as that.”

  There was a silence at the other end of the line. A few more remarks, inaudible to Cassie, and obviously made in a quieter tone of voice.

  “Thank you, Bernie,” Hélène said finally, and hung up.

  She turned away to a window of the living room, and looked out at the garden. The afternoon sun struck the pale gold of her hair, and the calm oval of her face, and Cassie, looking at her, wondered at that calm. She wondered sometimes what it cost Hélène, that calm—and also what it would take to shatter it.

  “He’s agreed?”

  “But of course.”

  Hélène did not look around, and Cassie’s voice became gruff, as it always did when she tried to disguise her concern.

  “You sure you’re doing the right thing?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “It’s just that…” Cassie hesitated.

  She was proud of Hélène’s success, and kept a scrapbook of her clippings. She was well aware that Hélène never spoke of her past in interviews; she was also aware of how journalists, facing a wall of silence, had embroidered and invented and—possibly encouraged by Bernie Alberg—had trailed hints of a background that bore no relationship to the truth.

  “People think of you different,” she burst out at last. “That’s all. Right or wrong, that’s what they think. They built up a picture of you in their minds. And Gary Craig—he don’t fit into it, honey. He just don’t. A father like that. A down-and-out. A lush. Maybe…”

  “He was my father, Cassie.” Hélène turned around.

  “Yes, but he don’t fit. And he wasn’t like your father, not really. You never knew him even. What did he ever do for you? What did he care? Why’d he want to come around here, anyway, hanging out by those gates? He must’ve been crazy…”