8: The Maid
THE NEXT DAY I’m super-prompt, determined not to let Anne scold me again, for this time I’m not sure if I could hold my tongue. I’ve never been good with authority, or at least not the sort of authority where it seems as if somebody is abusing their position for dubious purposes, or to make themselves feel better. That was how it was at school – there was always something a little creepy about Mrs Scholes and the way she looked at me when she reprimanded me about something. She always had a slightly sadistic gleam in her unnerving pale-blue eyes, similar, I suddenly realise, to Anne’s. The things I was being told off for never seemed to me to warrant that kind of reaction, just as they didn’t with Anne yesterday.
Yet it worked – here I am, at one minute to two, outside her study door with one hand raised, ready to knock. But before I can, as if she’s sensed my presence in spite of my silent approach, she opens the door and gestures for me to enter. I step inside. The thought that she knows I would be punctual makes me angry. But it’s the first time I’ve been in her study, and of course, since she is one of my literary heroines, I’m bursting with curiosity about what it’s like, so I suppress my pique.
The first thing I notice is that the curtains are drawn, blocking out what would be a pleasant view over the trees towards the rear of the house. I surmise that she must be one of those writers who brook no distraction by their surroundings, who would find that a pretty vista would get in the way of their internal musings. I guess I can understand that.
On the other hand, the walls are almost covered with things that could distract. One of them has a very large cork pinboard festooned with all kinds of things – postcards, scraps of paper that look like lists, old theatre and gallery tickets, photos of people I don’t recognise. Another wall, the one side-on to Anne’s bulky mahogany desk, is plastered with Stickies of various colours, some of them bearing a scrawl that is illegible from the distance at which I am standing, others bearing a single word, generally one that I’ve never seen or heard before: ‘salsuginous’, ‘ullage’, ‘gadarene’, ‘yapness’.
It’s odd that I see all this before I notice the erotic artwork that adorns the walls, for once I do I become aware that there is a great deal of it. For a moment I just stand looking round, taking it all in – it’s an eclectic mix, ranging from Japanese-style woodblock prints through Renaissance prints of voluptuous bodies to lithographs by Picasso. Although it’s clear that none of them is an original, Anne has quite a collection going here. It looks as if she has put serious time and effort and not an inconsiderable amount of money into pursuing this interest.
Anne is looking at me. ‘Take a seat,’ she says, and there’s a flicker of irony in her voice, as if she’s amused by the attention I’m paying her artworks.
I feel, again, the tug of resistance, the desire to respond to her, to protect myself. Isn’t that what they’re there for, I want to shout at her, to be looked at? It’s as if she’s mocking my appetites, or my discovery of them. There’s something condescending about it all.
But I take a seat, holding my tongue. Beside me is a sturdy wooden bookcase in which I can see an array of Anne’s novels, arranged in chronological order, all the way from her first, Of Angels and Daemons, to her latest, Touching Fire. All are in the original French, but on shelves below there are translations into English and other languages – Italian, Spanish and some others I don’t recognise. Seeing them reminds me how lucky I am to be here, and how much I stand to learn, if only I am brave enough to see this through. To rise to the challenge of whatever is asked of me.
Anne is sitting down now too, looking through a pile of papers. She’s lit a cigarette, which is wedged in the corner of her mouth, sending spirals of smoke up through the still air. Then she takes it out and rests it in the ashtray, turns to me, the papers on her lap, secured by her bony hands.
‘You’re probably wondering,’ she says slowly, ‘what is required of you here.’
I hold her gaze, not knowing what to reply, half dreading where this conversation is going to take us, half relieved to think that I might find some kind of resolution, or replies to at least some of the questions that are bubbling away in my mind, keeping me awake at night.
Seeing that I am not going to reply, she goes on, in the same measured tone: ‘I don’t want you to misunderstand, or to complain that you are here under false pretences. But the work that I require of you is neglible. Perhaps less than I originally thought.’
She looks at me and, when I raise my eyebrows, continues: ‘You have to understand, Genevieve, that I live in what I call a state of creative chaos. I always have. And now that you’re here, potentially to “cure” me, I find myself thrown into panic, wondering if I can live any other way.’
I sit up. ‘Does that mean I’m sacked?’ As I speak I realise that I don’t know whether I want her to say yes or no. Release would bring relief, but perhaps only temporarily. I think of James. I should call him now. I should let him know how I feel and find out if it’s possible for us to see each other without Anne’s mediation.
‘Certainly not,’ she says. ‘But I don’t want you hanging around the house waiting for orders from me. Orders that aren’t going to come.’
‘Never?’
‘Not never. There are things …’ Here she trails off, pauses and stares up at one of the Picasso lithographs thoughtfully, as if she’s never seen it before or properly looked at it. I look at it too. It’s titled Nu couché avec Picasso assis à ses pieds and depicts the artist seated at the feet of one of his models, who is naked and recumbent beside a vase of flowers. She is looking at the flowers, or towards the viewer. His hand is on her arse. It seems very much that she is in control, in her poise and stillness. He looks like a bit of a dirty old man, although he must have been young at the time – the print is dated 1902–03.
‘I do need you,’ she says at last, but she’s not torn her eyes from the Picasso. ‘But in essence your time is your own. What I’m saying is that I don’t want you to waste your time waiting for me to call on you. You want to be a writer, you say?’
‘Y-yes.’
‘Then you must take this opportunity to get out and experience life, find something worth writing about.’
‘But you’re paying me full-time.’
‘So?’
‘What … What’s in it for you?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve made an expensive mistake and that more important for me than the money is honouring my arrangement with you.’
‘But –’
‘Please, Genevieve. It’s not necessary to discuss it any more.’
‘So you’ll tell me in advance, when you have something for me to do, and the rest of the time I’m free?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Well, I don’t know what to say. Except thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Consider yourself my acolyte.’
I look at her. I know the word, and that it can be used in a lay context. But for me it has religious overtones – a whiff of ritual, and candle lighting, and incense swinging. Overtones that make it seem heavier than Anne’s laissez-faire demeanour seems to imply. Heavier, perhaps even burdensome.
Sensing my discomfort, she adds, ‘Or, if you prefer, I am your mentor.’
‘Mentor’, I know from my studies, comes from Greek mythology. Mentor was left in charge of Telemachus when the latter’s father, Mentor’s friend Odysseus, went to fight in the Trojan War. Which makes me a telemachus – more commonly known, in the modern world, as a protégé or apprentice. In the end, it all comes down to the same thing, whatever you choose to call it: I have the chance of a lifetime, and I mustn’t blow it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be living in the house of one of my favourite writers of all time, being paid to learn how to write.
Anne is looking at me contemplatively. ‘Having said all this,’ she says, ‘I would like you to help me out this afternoon.’
‘Help you out?’
She’s re
garding me intently, and there’s something in her eyes that both chills and thrills me.
She jerks her chin towards one corner of the room. I look over and see a decorative shoji screen embellished with cherry blossoms that could, from a distance, be mistaken for vivid splashes of blood. Beneath the spindly tree on which they bloom sit two geishas in traditional dress. I look back at Anne and she merely nods.
I stand up and walk towards it. Part of me feels like a sleepwalker, someone with no power over what they’re doing. But my trembling legs anchor me firmly in the here and now of my physical existence, and the world has an almost hallucinatory clarity, as if everything has become hyperreal.
As I reach the screen, I’m still split in two. There’s the girl who wants to run away, to turn around and throw all of this back in Anne’s face, that undecipherable mask she wears, confounding all attempts to understand her, to get beneath the surface layer of cool. And then there’s the girl, a very different girl to the one I always thought I was, who’s desperate to know what’s behind the screen. And this is the girl who wins out as I step behind it, breath held.
A small lantern flickers in the corner, lit from within by a simple tealight. There are three hangers dangling from the top of the screen. The first, padded in pink silk, holds an underwire bra in a French-maid style. It could be tacky, but even in the low light I can see that the material is of the highest quality. The bra itself is sheer. Two white lace frills run across the top of the cups, and where they meet in the middle is a large black silk bow.
Fingering it, I muse on its significance. Acolyte, I remind myself, derives from the Greek word for servant. Is this what Anne was referring to? Is this a role that I am willing to take on, if it means that I can stay here and benefit from her generous offer? And, if I do, what will be asked of me?
On another hanger is a matching pair of knickers, or rather – I see as I take it down – a thong. The fabric, again, is deliciously sheer; the lace, this time, is on the sides, arching up over the thighs. Lastly, there’s what I recognise to be a suspender belt, although I’ve never worn one, again in sheer black with a white frill.
Holding the bra and knickers, feeling the fabric between my fingertips, I reflect that I’ve never worn underwear of this calibre. Anne has spent a lot of money – a lot of money on me, for the garments are clearly new. I sneak a look at the labels and she’s got the sizes spot on. Clever Anne. Clever, clever Anne. Either she’s guessed correctly or she’s been in my room, checking.
But is she too clever for her own good? Is she really counting on me going along with this little charade? She must have money to burn if she’s willing to take the chance. I think about all the artworks, and then of the books. Has Anne’s writing made her rich, despite her waning reputation? She’s certainly got a taste for life’s more expensive frivolities.
I’m looking at the lingerie in my hand, and for the first time I’m utterly, utterly torn. I’d give anything for five minutes with my diary, my notebook, in order to try to work out what it is that I want, where I should go from here. My problems with authority, my schoolgirl rebelliousness, are bubbling beneath the surface, ready to come spurting out like scalding hot lava. But I don’t want to blow it. Will Anne understand that if I explain?
I’m still deliberating when I hear the creak of the door. Anne’s nipped out, I think, and it occurs to me I might be let off the hook. I could do a runner while she’s gone, and find some way of explaining later – tell her I had a sudden cramp or headache or something, had to go for painkillers or a lie-down. But then I hear the clearing of a throat, indisputably male, and I realise that the sound of the door was someone coming in, not going out.
I freeze. Of course, this is what I should have expected. Anne doesn’t work alone. Anne doesn’t get her hands dirty. Anne’s speciality is getting someone else to do her bidding. Who I am to encounter this time?
A thrill goes up through me as the question poses itself in my mind – a thrill of nervous anticipation. Fearful as I may be, Anne’s provided me with nothing but the highest-quality males so far. I have a feeling she won’t let me down this time either.
‘Are you ready, girl?’ I hear her rasp, and I start.
‘Not … Not yet,’ I stutter.
‘Do hurry up,’ she says. ‘We’re waiting.’
‘OK.’
‘You mean, “Yes, mistress.”’
I pause midway through pulling my top over my head. No, that is not what I meant, I want to say. That is certainly not what I meant. But I don’t. I want to know who is out there, and what I’m going to be doing with him. I’m not going to cheat myself of that – no way.
And so I bite my tongue and carry on stripping off, letting my clothes fall in a heap to the ground, any old how. I feel under pressure now, and it’s adding to my nervousness. My hands shake as I unclasp the bra and bring it to my breasts, wrap it around me. It’s a perfect fit – snug and, despite the flimsy look of the sheer fabric, extremely uplifting. Spying a full-length mirror a few steps away, I turn and admire myself. I look hot.
I step into the panties, which are equally well fitting and flattering, showing my slender, shapely thighs to full advantage. But I pause, again, at the suspender belt. To start with, I don’t know how to wear it. But I baulk at it too. There’s something old-fashioned and submissive about it, something that shrieks: I am here to please and to pleasure you. I suppose it’s because it looks so uncomfortable, such a pain in the arse to get on and to get hooked up to the stockings. Such a palaver, when one could be wearing tights – unsexy, for certain, but practical and fuss free.
Then I say to myself: Fuck it, my role here is to please, to submit. If I don’t accept that, then I must leave immediately, and leave Anne’s house too for good. This is what is asked of me, what her money and generosity and hospitality are all about. This is what I am here for.
I take a deep breath, wrap the wide belt around my waist and hips and fasten it in the small of my back, watching myself in the mirror. In spite of my misgivings, it looks and feels good. I am increasingly horny, wet at the prospect of meeting the man who awaits me, doing his bidding. Suddenly the thought of being bossed around arouses me rather than irritates me.
I pick up the stockings, unfurl them, then raise one leg onto a chair and slip it inside. My skin prickles deliciously at the contact with the material. I slip on the other one, then turn and look at myself from behind. The stockings are back-seamed, with subtle heart motifs on the base of the garters. Above them my bare arse cheeks, cut by the thin white-lace sliver of the thong, form an attractive heart shape too.
I turn around again. Though this is clichéd territory, a stereotype of naughtiness available in every Soho sex emporium, the overall look here is classy, rather than tacky. I don’t feel diminished by it but empowered in some sense. And now that I have embraced my role, I am ready to play.
I reach one hand round the screen, grasp it before making my entry. Pausing, I feel like an actress about to make her debut on stage, filled with a kind of intoxicating giddiness.
‘She’s ready,’ breathes Anne, dragging forcefully on the cigarette I heard her light a few minutes ago. She’s excited, I think: her face won’t show it, but this simple sound has betrayed her. I wonder if her companion has sensed that too. Already, I think, I am beginning to know her, despite the barricades that she has erected, the mental screen she tries to hide behind.
I step forwards, pause again: time to give them a tempting view of one calf in its black-stockinged loveliness. There’s silence now, and I sense that the two people awaiting me are holding their breath too. I revel in being able to make an effect like this, in the theatricality of it all. I never knew that make-believe could be such fun.
Then Anne, perhaps feeling that I am too much in control, says sharply, ‘Tell her. Tell her to come out. Here – summon her.’
A throat clears again, and there’s the tinkle of a little bell. ‘Come out,’ comes a voice, a little uncertainl
y.
My hand clutches at the screen. It’s James, I’ve realised in a flash. James is back, and it’s James to whom I will submit. The roles have been reversed: where I spanked him last time we met, now it is he who gets to call the shots.
Only it’s not, of course. Just as last time it wasn’t I who was calling the shots but Anne, this time it’s again my boss, my mentor, who is leading proceedings. Like a film director, or the novelist that she is, Anne is guiding us, taking us where she wants us to go. We are merely the actors in the drama that she is creating.
‘Girl,’ says Anne, and this time I step out, wondering if my displeasure is evident on my face. I loathe it when she says that word.
I am not your toy, I want to say, but I gag on the words, can’t get them out. And anyway, I’ve caught sight of James’s face, that face I thought I might never see again in the flesh, and my happiness at being in his presence defuses my anger, makes it as insubstantial as the smoke spiralling up from the cigarette in Anne’s hand.
‘At last,’ says Anne, impatiently. She’s so good at this, so convincing, that I wonder that she didn’t become an actress, rather than a writer. She’s so totally in role that not a chink of her shows through. She looks at James.
He, too, is slow in coming up to the mark. It must be frustrating for her, this failure for us to follow her directions without a time-lag, the space to think and to react. We need to get it together, I tell myself. Otherwise she’ll get bored of us, and then it will be over.
I stand in front of them, but where my hands previously rested on my hips, defiant, now they are hanging down in front of me, crossed at the wrists, and my head is bowed.
‘Madam called?’ I say.
Anne rolls her eyes, exhales a long plume of smoke. She looks impatiently at James.
He takes up the baton, seeming a little more sure now that I have settled into my own role. ‘Come here,’ he says authoritatively, gesturing with one finger. ‘Why so slow?’
The Apprentice Page 11