Sextet

by Sally Beauman

  ‘Hi. Good evening,’ said a woman’s voice. Court glanced round to see Angelica and this Maria, who was being helped into her coat. Like most of Natasha’s priestesses, she was ugly, Court noted; overweight, cheaply dressed, with greasy hair tied back in an untidy bun, and hideous thick-lensed spectacles. He was making her nervous, he saw, as she glanced at Angelica in a faltering way, and then gave him a shy smile that was not, he supposed, unsweet.

  ‘Your son’s still wide awake,’ she said. ‘We’ve had a lovely time. He’s a really bright little kid. He’s waiting to show you his whale book, Mr Court…’ She glanced again at Angelica. ‘I thought—better avoid the fairy stories tonight. You know, if he’s still having those nightmares…so we just looked at the animal books. He’s so cute. Hey, it’s late…I’d better be off…’

  Tomas Court gave her a curt nod; he listened to the sounds of female conversation and laughter as Angelica showed her out.

  ‘Nightmares?’ he said, when Angelica returned, closing the door behind her. ‘What nightmares? Natasha never mentioned that.’

  ‘He wakes up sometimes.’ She avoided his gaze. ‘It’s been going on for a while now…’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Well, it started around the time of the divorce, then it got better for a bit. Now it’s started up again…’

  ‘He never gets nightmares when he comes out to Montana. He was fine last summer. It’s this place. Cooped up here; his mother out night after night…’

  ‘She has to work. The run’s nearly over anyway. She’ll be leaving the show any day now, then…’

  ‘Well, it can’t be soon enough. I don’t know why she did it in the first place.’ He gave an irritable sigh. ‘I’ll have to talk to her about this. If Jonathan has nightmares, I should be informed. Why wasn’t I?’

  ‘You didn’t ask, I guess.’

  Angelica’s tone was insolent, but then she never bothered to disguise her dislike of him. It was, indeed, more than dislike; Angelica’s hostility to him had always been unwavering and forceful; it was returned in good measure. The best that could be said of their relationship was that they eyed one another with the respect of combatants fighting their own weight.

  In their contests, unceasing since his marriage, Tomas Court had had one supreme advantage: he was male, and he was the husband, with all the husband’s rights. This advantage, as they were both aware, had diminished since the divorce.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Angelica said now, looking him up and down. She always delighted, as Court well knew, in the least evidence of his physical disability. ‘You’re white. You don’t look so good. You had an attack?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He turned away. ‘The pollution’s bad. The traffic was bad. I’m tired. I’ve been working since five-thirty this morning. You can make me some coffee. Bring it through to Jonathan’s room…’

  ‘You want it black?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m going to wait for Natasha—’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that. She’ll be late. She told you, she’s having dinner with that fancy broker of hers after the show, then she has an early start in the morning. The trainer comes at seven. She’s having breakfast with Jules McKechnie, then…’

  ‘Dinner and breakfast? Why’s that necessary?’

  Angelica gave a small gloating smile and a shrug.

  ‘It’s the committee meeting at the Conrad tomorrow, and they have to get the details right. It’s important to Natasha—and she’s nervous. She doesn’t want anything going wrong, and it’s Friday the thirteenth tomorrow—not too auspicious, right?’

  Tomas Court profoundly hoped it would not be auspicious. He might have liked to say this; he might have liked to question Angelica further; he would certainly have liked to know whether Natasha was dining with Jules McKechnie alone, or with others. Just the mention of McKechnie’s name set off those Joseph King whisperings in his head; King, his very own Iago, was always prompt on occasions such as this. Such questions, evidence of weakness, would have delighted Angelica. He looked at her bulk, at the flat hard planes of her face, at her small and malicious black eyes, and an exhaustion close to anguish flooded through him. Sometimes, especially after an asthma attack, he no longer had the energy to fight.

  ‘There’s something you wanted to say to me?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Sure. I want to know some things. About Joseph King. About what happened in Glacier.’ She paused. ‘I know what you told Natasha…’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘And I want the truth.’ She hesitated, the hostility in her face softening a little. ‘I’m here with Jonathan. I’m the one who’s right by his side, day and night. I need to know these things.’

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with that. I had intended—’

  ‘I won’t tell Natasha. But I need to know…’

  Across the space of the room, their eyes met. Court turned to the door.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘I’ll explain when I’ve seen Jonathan. Bring the coffee through here instead, Angelica. I won’t be long…’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s way past his bedtime; he should be asleep.’

  ‘I want to show you the bat book now, Daddy,’ Jonathan said, ‘and this one on whales. They talk to each other, bats and whales, they have this special language, look…’

  Court looked at his small son with sadness and with love; he made an effort, fighting fatigue.

  ‘What, the bats talk to the whales? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘No.’ Jonathan laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, Daddy. They talk to each other. Bats talk to bats; whales talk to whales. It’s excellent how they do it. Look—’

  Court bent to the books. His son had a touching didacticism, a longing to educate, and a passion for facts. He looked at the diagrams his son was indicating; these diagrams explained bat radar to him, and the frequencies of bat squeaks; similar diagrams, accompanied by a barrage of information, explained the communication systems of whales. His son chattered on and Court sat quietly, holding his hand from time to time, or stroking his hair, and waiting for this room, and his son’s presence, to bring him the peace it usually did.

  In the recesses of his mind, images stirred; he saw dark leathery shapes flit through a jungle night; he watched lianas coil like pythons, and he saw, rearing up from this terrifying fertility, the hot mouth of some orchid-like flower. ‘Oh, it torments me; Tomas, it torments me,’ his wife’s voice said. The words had been said many years before, when his wife had been six months pregnant with Jonathan, and had discovered that her husband’s infidelities were continuing. Court could not now remember the details of that particular infidelity; he rarely could. It might have been with a man, or with a woman, and it would have been brief, for Court never had prolonged liaisons, and with the exception of his wife, who came into a completely different category, he never had the same sexual partner twice.

  These sexual encounters he could walk away from without rancour or regret; they were a brief sharp need, which he could satisfy as quickly and easily as he could hunger or thirst. His wife knew—he had told her often enough—that they in no way impinged on his love for her; that love, the determining force of his life, and the inspiration for much of his work, was unchanging; it would neither alter nor diminish with time. It was one of the many mysteries of his marriage, he thought, turning a page of his son’s book, that Natasha both believed in and doubted this love. Perhaps also, like him, she preferred the lightning flash of uncertainties to the long, calm summer of faithful married love. He was not sure on that question. During the course of his marriage, he had given Natasha periods of fidelity and periods of infidelity: he had come to believe that the periods of infidelity, with all their attendant pain, insecurity and indeed torment, were the ones when their marriage was most alive to her—though he was less certain of that preference since his divorce.

  ‘Look, Daddy,’ Jonathan said, picking up the whale book again and turning to its photographs. He began to speak of ice floes, of the Arctic, of the unimagi
nable depths to which, with one flick of their vast tails, these wondrous creatures could dive, and, as he spoke, Court became a little more tranquil; into his mind eddied the memory of his wife as she had been on the day he first met her. She had already been famous; he had been unknown; he had sent her a script, and through the offices of a shared friend, she had agreed to meet him. She had come to the small, humid, cramped office he had been renting in downtown Los Angeles. He had known what was going to happen, and he knew she had also, from the moment she quietly entered the room. Her beauty had astonished him; he had been unprepared for it, even though he had seen her many times on a screen. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, her face was without make-up, and she had been wearing—he could still see its every detail—a simple, cotton, Madonna-blue dress.

  ‘Daddy. Daddy.’ Jonathan tugged at his sleeve. ‘You’re not concentrating. I’m telling you about the whales. They sing to one another—it’s like singing. And they can hear one another through the water, from miles away sometimes…’ he smiled. ‘And you’re miles away too, Daddy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. I just drifted away a bit. I’m tired, I expect. I was thinking about the first time I met Mommy, and how beautiful she was…Now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You should be lying down, young man. You should have been asleep hours ago. Down you go. Let me tuck you up.’

  He hugged his son tight against him, some emotion he could not define welling up: a rich mixture of love, pain, loss and fear for his son—none of which could be expressed. His son, small for his age, clung to him; he felt so thin, his father thought, and so light and frail. Tears came to his eyes, and he laid his son down in the bed and tucked him in, averting his face.

  ‘Now tell me,’ he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking his son’s hand in his, ‘what’s all this about nightmares? Is something worrying you, darling?’

  ‘A bit.’ His son lowered his eyes and began to pleat the edge of his duvet. ‘It’s Thanksgiving soon. Mommy says we’ll be living in the Conrad by then…’

  ‘It’s possible, darling. It’s not fixed.’

  ‘Will you be coming for Thanksgiving, Daddy? I hoped you might.’

  ‘If you want me there, darling, I’ll be there. I’ll arrange it with Mommy. You know you don’t need to worry about that.’ He paused. ‘And just think, very soon after that, we’ll all be in England together—for three whole months. I’m looking forward to that.’

  ‘I am too.’ His son’s face brightened, then clouded again. ‘It’s just…’

  ‘Tell me, darling.’

  ‘I don’t really like that Conrad building, Daddy. Mommy says I’ll get used to it, but it’s spooky. I’ll have a big room there, Mommy showed me, with all these closets for my toys, and Mommy knows this artist man, and while we’re away in England, she says she’ll get him to paint these animals for me, on the walls. Any animals I like…’

  ‘Well, that sounds good, darling.’ Court looked closely at his son. He had a small, somewhat melancholy face, expressive, with its fears and its joys easily read. He pressed his son’s hand and added, as if it were an afterthought, ‘Which artist man is that?’

  ‘He works at the theatre; he painted some of the sets for Estella. He made that horrible spooky room Miss Havisham has…’ He hesitated. ‘I hated that Miss Havisham. Nasty spooky old witch.’

  ‘Well, you know there’s no reason to be frightened of her,’ Court said gently. ‘That’s just an actress playing her—and Miss Havisham doesn’t exist; she’s just someone made up, for a story…’

  ‘I didn’t like the artist man much either…’ his son continued, in a low voice. ‘I met him one day when Mommy was rehearsing. He looked at me in this funny way. He shook hands, and he had this horrible damp hand…He looked at Mommy too; he stared. She didn’t notice, but I did.’

  Court felt a quickening of alarm then, but controlled it. He would find out the man’s name, he thought wearily, and get him checked out, just as he always did. But Jonathan’s reaction probably meant little; it was not the first time he had expressed feelings of this sort. They were a by-product of the restrictions that encompassed him, of the bodyguards, of the constant, unremitting suspicion of every male who came to this apartment, every male who lingered, or approached on the street. King had imprisoned his son, Court thought, as effectively as he had imprisoned Natasha and himself, and Jonathan’s fear of strange men, exacerbated by Natasha and Angelica, was a legacy he deeply regretted.

  ‘Jonathan, people do stare at Mommy,’ he replied now, in as reassuring a manner as he could. ‘It’s because she’s famous and because she’s beautiful; it doesn’t mean anything. Now I want you to promise me—no worrying about this. I’ll have a word with Mommy. If you don’t like this man, maybe she won’t use him. Besides, remember that these Conrad plans may not work out; the people at the Conrad may decide to let someone else have the apartment…’

  ‘It’s very big, Daddy.’ His son clasped his hand more tightly. ‘There’s all these rooms. I thought, maybe you might come back and live there too. I wish you would…’

  The plea in his eyes and in his voice cut Tomas to the heart. He leaned forward to kiss him, and it was a few minutes before he felt able to trust his voice.

  ‘We’ll have to see, my darling. These things—well, they’re complicated, you know that. Mommy likes this city more than I do, and it’s not very good for my asthma. I expect we’ll sort it all out in the end. Meanwhile, just remember how much I love you and Mommy. Now, lie back and I’ll read to you for a bit…Which book? This one?’

  Jonathan nodded. The book, one with which Tomas Court was not familiar, was The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. His son found the chapter he wanted and the section he wanted. The story took place in Yorkshire, he said, which was where they would all be going shortly; Court agreed that this was so. It took place in a large house, Jonathan went on; there was a little orphan girl called Mary, who was plain and sour, but got nicer as the book went on; and there was a little boy, called Colin. Colin was ill, his son explained, pointing to the paragraph where his father was to begin reading, and this section here was Jonathan’s favourite. Court could see why that might be so, as soon as he began reading. Like Jonathan, the boy in this story was isolated and troubled; the chosen chapter concerned Mary’s reaction when she awoke to the sound of Colin’s cries in a strange house at night. The girl went in search of him, Court noted, and—he found the tone sentimental—they began on a mutual process of healing.

  ‘I need the facts,’ Angelica said, pouring coffee. ‘Tell me the things you left out when you spoke to Natasha.’ She gave him one of her black-eyed, scornful glances. ‘I know your techniques. You never tell a story straight; you fast forward past the awkward facts; you back track; you throw in these diversions—well, that won’t work with me. I’ve seen you do it too many times. You do it all the time in your movies.’

  ‘Yes, well you’re not too likely to understand my movies.’ Taking his coffee and moving away from her, Court gave her a dismissive glance. ‘Stick to your women’s magazines if you want a simple story.’

  ‘Romance, crime; that’s what I like.’ She gave him an unapologetic stare. ‘I like true love. I like a mystery solved. I like happy endings.’

  ‘You surprise me. And life isn’t like that unfortunately, so, no romance, no ending yet—happy or otherwise. I fear this mystery may not be solved, but I’ll give you the facts, such as they are, including the ones I didn’t tell Natasha, and you can play detective.’

  Angelica gave him a look of sour amusement. She sat down heavily and spread her hands on her thighs, turning her slab of a face towards him.

  ‘So why didn’t you tell Natasha the whole story?’

  ‘Because I want to protect her. I don’t want her to worry any more than she needs…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, all right, the more worried about King she is, the more convinced she is that he could still be alive, the likelier she
is to make this move to the Conrad. I don’t want her going there.’

  ‘I don’t like it there either,’ Angelica said, surprising him. ‘No point in saying so. The more you argue with her, the more she digs her toes in. I figured—keep my mouth shut. They probably won’t let her take that apartment anyway.’

  ‘Jonathan’s afraid of it. Does Natasha know that?’

  ‘She knows and she doesn’t know. I guess she thinks he’ll come round to it.’ She paused. ‘And it is secure; it’s a real secure building. Famous for it. Keep anybody out, that building would. I guess that’s why she chose it.’

  Court gave her a pale glance. The taunt under her words was obvious enough, and she made little attempt to disguise it.

  ‘Well, it won’t keep me out,’ he replied quietly, ‘not as long as my son’s there, and Natasha would do well to remember that.’ He turned away. ‘Now, do you want these facts, or don’t you?’

  ‘Sure I do.’ She paused. ‘What Natasha told me, I couldn’t really understand. Why all these tests and checks? It seems pretty clear to me—I mean, they found the body…’

  She continued speaking for some while, and Court listened, interested to see just how accurately his explanation to his wife had been reported back. As he had expected, few details had been left out—but then Natasha had always confided in Angelica minutely. He had never had any privacy in this marriage, he thought with a flare of anger. Natasha ran to Angelica the way a good Catholic ran to the confessional; he was certain that Angelica knew Natasha’s version of every one of his infidelities.

  It had always seemed to him that Angelica would find them undisturbing, and just what she would expect from a member of the male sex. Angelica did not judge, he sometimes felt, she just watched, and very little either surprised or shocked her. He wondered now, watching her as she spoke without emotion of violent death and the details of that body in Glacier, whether Angelica knew of, and understood, the final paradox: that it was the advent of Joseph King that had cured him of the need for adulteries.