Madame Zero

by Sarah Hall

  No, come on, he said, softly. Try to explain, Evie. What’s going on?

  Don’t be angry.

  Then she began to cry. Short rapid bursts, without tears. She sounded almost like a baby. A lump rose in his throat. What was coming? He put his arms round her and held her. The flesh on her stomach was plump and warm. She’d become a baroque version of herself, a decadent. The crying did not last long. She did not wind down, but suddenly sat up, the distress forgotten.

  I tried to get Karl to sleep with me. Then I asked Toby. You weren’t there. I wanted you to be, but you were at work.

  What?

  Will you help me? I have to know how it feels. I can’t stop thinking about it.

  About what?

  Her face was hovering in front of him; open, beguiling, altered.

  You and me and someone else.

  He had known she was going to say it; the scenario had featured too strongly, too mutually in their role-play to be insignificant. But he knew too that there was a line, over which, if they passed, there was no coming back. The dynamic would always be changed; they would be beyond themselves.

  Please. I want to. It would be amazing. Like a sun in us. It tastes like, I can taste it burning.

  She put her hand to her mouth with a sharp intake of breath, as if scalded.

  You say these things, Evie. They don’t make any sense.

  I have to do it. We only live. We only live, Alex. Such a tiny thing. I know how to feel. This is the truth. Do you believe me?

  She moved close to him again. She put her hands on his face. Her eyes. Electrical green, and gold, powering the irises.

  You choose. You choose who. You bring him. I’ll do anything you want.

  In her gaze was something retrograde, pure, unconstructed desire. She was more beautiful than he had seen.

  Why is it the truth?

  I don’t know. It’s a gift.

  *

  He convinced Richard to come out for a few drinks midweek. Richard asked where Evie was.

  Busy. Joining us later, was all he could say.

  Which sounded chary; they never deliberately excluded her. He was drinking quickly, nervously. He knew it had to be spontaneous, natural, Richard would never agree otherwise. He looked at his friend across the table in the pub. He couldn’t imagine it. They’d been roommates at university but he’d never really heard any explicit details about girlfriends from Richard, or witnessed moments of intimacy. Perhaps going with a stranger would have been better, but that seemed reckless. He bought them both another pint and then a whisky.

  Whoa there, slow down, Richard said. I’m going to get hammered. I am hammered.

  Yeah, sorry. Just wanted to cut loose a bit. I tell you what, let’s leave these. Come back to ours and we’ll have a nightcap with Evie?

  I thought she was coming here?

  No. Come on.

  They left the pub and walked back towards the house. They walked without coats. The air was warm. The world seemed looser.

  You and Evie are OK though?

  Really great. Revolutionary!

  Oh. Good. God, I haven’t felt this drunk in a while. Thought you were getting me loaded so you could confess something bad. Like an affair. I’d have killed you.

  No, he said. Just fancied a fun night. We’re not that old yet.

  True.

  The lights were on downstairs when they arrived, but Evie was not around. He called up, saying Richard was here for a drink. He was sure he sounded like a bad actor, overdoing lines, like the hammy utilitarian films Evie had been watching. He didn’t know how she would play it. She’d been so direct, so layerless lately, it was possible she’d scare Richard by moving too quickly. Whatever was in her now used no subtlety. They’d talked about what might happen, what kind of lover Richard might be, how receptive, but the truth was there was no predicting; shock, disgust, willingness. They were gambling.

  She came downstairs wearing a nightgown, her hair wet, as if just washed. She smiled at them both. The room seemed charged. Precognition. It was going to work.

  Richard, she said. She kissed him on both cheeks and then on the mouth, playfully, laughing.

  Richard’s face was flushed, from the beer, the walk, from the pleasure of seeing Evie. She sat down on the couch and began to talk in the way she did now, synaptically, brilliant and baffling. He could see Richard listening, trying to follow, enjoying her. He left them and went into the kitchen and took a bottle from the wine rack. He uncorked it, poured and drank a glass, then brought the glasses and bottle into the lounge.

  Let’s have a really good night, he said, too loudly.

  They drank the bottle and opened another. It was fun, it was ridiculous, they played stupid games, Evie flirted with them both, he and Richard conspired. She leant against their legs, against their chests. She dropped the shoulder of her gown and showed Richard a small new tattoo. It began soon after. It began almost unnoticeably, like a season, a regime. It was unreal and then it became serious. The protests – there were only a few from Richard, we should stop now, come on guys, this is madness – were overridden. Evie reassured him. He reassured him. Once she was unveiled, once Richard saw her, allowed her to take his hand and place it, once he began to believe there was nothing prohibitive, even in himself, that there was just love, everything accelerated. The laughter died away. They were clumsy and aroused. Richard was surprisingly confident. There were no condoms; they knew each other. It went on for a few hours, each of them took turns. She always invited the other back in. He wanted to watch from the chair; he watched her being touched, grasped, opened, watched her responding. He began to understand: jealousy was only desire; it was wanting to do what he could see was being done to his wife. They went upstairs and fell asleep. Once he woke to see Richard going down on Evie. It was amazing, more sensual than anything he’d imagined. He reached over. He felt ill and elated. They were still drunk but there was clarity. They slept, woke. He remembered a moment, or he was in a moment, when Evie was bent over in front of him; he was moving behind her, Richard was kneeling in front and she had him in her mouth. The two of them were joined by Evie’s body. They were facing each other. It would be all right afterwards.

  He slept again. The next time he woke it was because Richard was calling his name and hitting him on the shoulder. White dawn light. His head was splitting, his mouth tasted evil, bitter.

  Alex!

  He looked over. Evie was lying on her front on the bed, her legs apart, jerking. She was making long, low sounds, bellows, almost cowlike. There was a smell like offal.

  She just started going, Richard said. I don’t know why. I was on top of her. Help me turn her over.

  He moved to Richard’s side and the two of them rolled her. There was foam across her face and in her hair, the smell of bile and alcohol. He tried to keep her head still but her neck muscles were snapping up and down. Her eyes were white in her skull, her jaw clamped, the spit oozing out.

  What the fuck. Evie! Evie! Call an ambulance. Should we drive her?

  No. I’ll call.

  Richard leapt up and went downstairs. The convulsions in his wife were so strong it felt as if her spine would break. Then they began to ease. Richard came back in. He had trousers on. His face was ghastly.

  They’re coming. Christ, what’s the matter with her. What kind of fucking depraved game is this?

  *

  A junior doctor asked him questions in the family room of A & E. About the fit. About whether she’d had headaches lately, or vomiting, vision or memory loss – he did not think so, he said. And her behaviour: had there been any changes? In what way? Had he been concerned?

  They had ruled out stroke, toxicity. She was sent for a CT scan. The junior was evasive, professional, but the scan was not a good sign, he knew. Richard had followed the ambulance in a taxi, had sat with him on the hard plastic chairs while they’d sedated her and run tests, had fetched coffee. But they did not talk. I didn’t know, he wanted to say, thou
gh no blame had been directed. The silence was blame. The repeated enquiries about his wife’s state that he’d been fielding from his friend for the last few weeks were blame. There was no point in them both waiting. He promised to call Richard with any news.

  A consultant came and found him in the family room. The scan had shown an area of the brain that appeared abnormal, in the prefrontal cortex. They didn’t know yet what it meant. But the appearance was suspicious.

  Do you mean a tumour?

  We need to investigate.

  The same questions were asked, more focused, the chronology of her cravings, her confusion, her promiscuity, the man nodding at the answers, as if already confirming a diagnosis. When they let him see Evie she was asleep. He found her hand under the sheet. She didn’t wake. In the light of the small overhead lamp she looked normal, unextraordinary.

  Everything after was the penalty for some unknown crime. The MRI pictures. The whitened shape. She was lucky and unlucky, they said. The mass, though probably benign, was big. He couldn’t remember the word after the meeting and had to look it up. Meningioma. It was not in the important tissues – he did not really understand what could be unimportant inside the brain – but pressure was swelling the surrounding area, interfering with her functions, her cognition, her self. Over the next few weeks she had more fits. The second broke her wrist. She choked on her vomit and infected a lung.

  She was given drugs to control the seizures. They began radiotherapy. The operation was scheduled. He could barely stand to think about the procedure – the position was difficult, she was ineligible for Gamma Knife or endonasal surgery, she needed a craniotomy. He looked online. The pictures were medieval. Rent-open heads. Pinned-back scalp. Lilac membranes and manes, so horribly wet and delicate. In one video a surgeon described the sound of cracking the skull, like opening a can of Coke. They would try to keep the incisions behind her hairline, but plastics might be required. The risks were extensive; leaks, aneurysms, coma.

  She still wanted sex. She still strung wrong words together, talked like a charismatic, her mind slipped and was instinctive. But she knew what it was now. She was self-conscious, and fought for rationality; she contained it. When they were in the act she would claw away and start to howl and they would stop.

  This isn’t me, she’d say. I don’t know if it’s me.

  She was not afraid. She knew she would live. Recovery would be tough, unpredictable, relearning; she might not be or feel exactly like the same person, ever again, but she would live. He didn’t know if it was her, believing, or the lambency, the mania of the illness. It was an illness now. It had a name.

  They had told Richard soon after the final diagnosis, convincing him to come over for dinner, saying that the meeting was vital, not a set-up. He had wept. Evie had looked at him, expressionless, and left the room.

  Jesus Christ, Alex. Why her?

  She’ll be OK, he said. She’s tough.

  Richard shook his head.

  You fool. Do you not understand? What don’t you understand?

  They sat without speaking, sipping their drinks, until the evening dissolved.

  Richard phoned the morning of the surgery but did not come to the hospital. He phoned regularly afterwards, but did not visit. The decision to withdraw was obvious, even gracious. It was difficult, but he didn’t mind. He was glad that it wasn’t completely broken off. On the phone they talked about things of no consequence. Work, weather, the past. They never talked about that night, though he thought of it, often, more often than he should.

  · Acknowledgements ·

  Versions of these stories have appeared in the following: The Guardian, the New Statesman, BBC Radio 4, Reader I Married Him, Royal Academy Magazine, and Vice.

  ‘Mrs Fox’ won the BBC National Short Story Prize, 2013.

  ‘Evie’ was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, 2013.

  Thanks to the following people for reading, editing and commenting on versions of these stories, and for artistic, medical and general feedback: Lee Brackstone, Kate Nintzel, Peter Hobbs, Jon McGregor, Damon Galgut, Clare Conville, Jane Kotapish, Dr Richard Thwaites, Tom Gatti, Dr Ben Irvine, Rebecca Watts, Dr James Garvey, Dr Frances Brooke and Lucy Ashton-Geering.

  About the Author

  Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She is the prize-winning author of five novels – Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army, How to Paint a Dead Man and The Wolf Border – as well as The Beautiful Indifference, a collection of short stories, which won the Portico Prize and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. The first story in the collection, ‘Butchers Perfume’, was also shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award – a prize Hall won in 2013 with ‘Mrs Fox’.

  By the Same Author

  HAWESWATER

  THE ELECTRIC MICHELANGELO

  THE CARHULLAN ARMY

  HOW TO PAINT A DEAD MAN

  THE BEAUTIFUL INDIFFERENCE

  THE WOLF BORDER

  as co-editor

  SEX AND DEATH

  Copyright

  First published in 2017

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2017

  All rights reserved

  © Sarah Hall, 2017

  Cover design by Faber

  Cover photo © Oladios

  Quotation from A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter, copyright © James Salter, 1967; reproduced with permission of Pan Macmillan via PLSclear

  The right of Sarah Hall to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–29003–1