Sextet

by Sally Beauman

  ‘When did you say your colleague was joining you?’ she asked. ‘Any minute now?’

  Her eyes rested on his for a moment; then, with a glance of perfect understanding, she unfastened the door, and left it ajar.

  She moved a little to the side of it and leaned back against the wall. Court took a step towards her, then another. He came to a halt just in front of her; he could now smell the scent of her body; he could sense the warmth of her skin, and see the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. The desire to touch her deepened and Court’s body stirred. From the landing beyond, through the crack of the opened door, came the sound of the elevator. It whirred into life; the clankings and shiftings of machinery came from its shaft. Going up, or down? Court was unsure. He was almost certain that it would be twenty minutes at least before Colin Lascelles arrived, but since the woman had begun to move about his room time had slowed, so he might have been wrong.

  The possibility of discovery excited him further, and the woman seemed to share that taste, or at least to accept it. An expression of quiet and concentrated complicity had now entered her eyes. Reaching forward, she took his hand and guided it inside her opened blouse. Her breasts had the unnatural jut that betrayed silicone implants; beneath them, he could just feel the thin ridge of the enhancement operation’s scar. This unnatural plasticity, he found, also excited him; the woman gave a small sharp intake of breath that might have indicated pleasure. Court moved his hand up so that it rested against the base of her neck; he exerted a faint pressure downwards. This signal, or suggestion, she responded to at once; she smiled, revealing pretty, perfect teeth, then, with a quick caress from her small pretty hand, and a glance that might have been one of triumph, she obeyed him without speaking, and knelt down in front of him on the floor.

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Colin, darting past his great-aunt Emily, who was intent on waylaying him. ‘Emily, I can’t talk now, I’ll be late. I have to go…’

  He snatched up the pile of photographs and notes for Tomas Court and, dodging furniture, made for the hall.

  ‘Supposing there’s a crisis?’ Emily said, pursuing him. ‘I ought to be able to reach you—in emergencies only, I understand…’

  ‘Crisis? What crisis? Why should there be a crisis?’ Colin cried, in desperate tones. ‘Emily, I’ll be late. Let me go…’

  ‘Anything could happen!’ Emily replied, somewhat dramatically. ‘Supposing I died? Supposing I fell down the stairs? What about a heart attack? I expect a heart attack at any time, and if I had one, I might need to contact you…’

  ‘Christ,’ said Colin, rolling his eyes.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul. I swear I won’t call—unless I am actually dying, obviously…’ Emily paused. Her voice took on a wheedling tone Colin instantly recognized, since he himself used it when necessary, and knew it rarely failed.

  ‘The Pierre? The Plaza? The Carlyle?’

  ‘Give me a break,’ cried Colin, opening the door.

  ‘The Regency? Not the Waldorf, surely?’

  ‘None of them! I’m not telling you and you won’t guess in a thousand years…’ Colin plunged out onto the landing.

  ‘It’s the Plaza, isn’t it? A view of the park! I might have known it! Ah, Colin, what a romantic you are!’

  ‘It is not the Plaza,’ Colin cried, blushing furiously. ‘I’ve gone. I’m out of here…’

  ‘Ah, love. Too charming,’ said Emily smugly, closing the door.

  Ah, love, thought Colin, racing out of the Conrad and leaping into a cab. ‘Drive very fast indeed,’ he said to the driver, pressing dollar bills through the screen and spilling out directions to TriBeCa. The driver spat out of the window and accelerated. Colin looked out upon a transfigured city, a blessed city; he could hear the conversation he would shortly be having with Lindsay very clearly as they drove. He listened attentively to this tender and delightful dialogue for an eternity of intersections; each red stop light was an affront to the universe. Gallop apace, he thought, looking at his watch for the twentieth time. He was still on schedule, he realized; he could make it back to the Plaza by one-fifteen at the latest, provided Tomas Court did not delay him. No sooner had he thought this, however, than the driver swung left on what he claimed was a cut-through; they at once came to a halt. Colin stared ahead with tragic eyes: ahead of them was a huge delivery truck blocking the street. The driver hit his horn fifteen seconds before Colin told him to do so, but the protest was useless—they were now blocked both behind and in front, the delivery truck clearly intended to be there for the next century, and all the traffic was snarled.

  In his loft at TriBeCa, Tomas Court adjusted his clothing and stepped back from the girl. It was not his practice, in such situations, to waste time once the required act was over. The brief allure the woman had possessed for him had now gone, and he was without further interest in her. His one concern now was to extricate himself as quickly as possible from this formulaic event, and, looking down at her, he was just considering which of his old formulaic devices would ensure her swift departure, when something caught his eye.

  The woman was still kneeling, head bent, face hidden; during the course of her ministrations she had removed her blouse, which now lay beside her on the floor. As she bent forward to pick it up, Court’s eyes rested on her bared back; he had been looking down at the discernible line of her spine as he assessed the best way to get rid of her; as she moved, the strands of dark hair that fell across her shoulders parted, and Court glimpsed—he was not sure what he glimpsed, but he heard himself make a small, disbelieving sound.

  The woman’s face jerked up towards him; she made another quick movement, but Court was too swift for her. Before she could rise, he stepped forward and forced her back down. With a low exclamation of anger and surprise, he parted the thick strands of dark hair, exposing her left shoulder. And no, he had not imagined it: there, in almost precisely the right place, high on the left scapula, was a tattoo—a tattoo of a small, crouching and delicate black spider.

  He jerked away from her and pushed her aside. He stepped back, his face pale. Slowly, the girl straightened up. She wiped her hand across her mouth, met his gaze and frowned.

  ‘I told you I admired your movies,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a foolish way to express admiration. Write a letter next time. I’ll make sure one of the secretaries answers it.’

  ‘Write a letter?’ Colour swept up into her face. ‘That’s what you advise? Mr Court, I’ll remember that.’

  She reached for her blouse, put it back on and began to button it up. Court watched her in silence. When she had put her coat on also, and began to move towards the door, his anxieties eased somewhat. He began to tell himself that he had been lucky, that the risk had been greater than he had realized, but that the risk was over now. In the doorway, however, she paused.

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ she said, resting her yellowish gaze on his, and voicing the question in a quiet tone.

  ‘Remember what?’ Court replied, moving further away.

  ‘The last time we did this.’ She looked slowly around the room; Court frowned.

  ‘You’re mistaken,’ he began. ‘I think it would be better if you went now. I told you—’

  ‘Oh, I’m not mistaken, you are.’ She hesitated, a shy, almost coy note coming into her voice. ‘It’s OK, I don’t blame you. Why would you remember? I was blonde at the time. Quite a lot younger. It was very brief—nothing special, I guess, as far as you were concerned. Why would it be? I was the third that week, after all.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about; we’ve never met. I don’t even know your name…’

  ‘It’s Jackie.’ She gave him a sidelong glance. ‘No? Well, never mind. I understand how it is. I understood then. I mean, you were under a whole lot of pressure, I could see that. The great director! Only the movie wasn’t going too well; you were having technical problems—problems with Natasha too, I think…’

  The use of his wife
’s name startled Court and angered him.

  ‘Whatever problems I was having,’ he said coldly, ‘I wouldn’t have discussed them with you, I’m very sure about that. So—’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’ She gave a low laugh. ‘The way I recall it, you didn’t say too much of anything. You fucked me that time…’ She paused, the tiny frown reappearing on her face. ‘Think about it and you may even remember. On location, outside LA? The Soloist, and it kind of bombed at the box office. We went to your wife’s caravan…You know I always liked that movie? One of your best. It really made me laugh, all those asshole critics eating their words, reappraising it after Dead Heat came out. Boy, are they dumb. I could have told them…’

  ‘Look,’ Court interrupted, hearing a new droning and fanatical note enter her voice, ‘you’re mistaken. I’m sorry, but let’s leave it at that, shall we? For your information, not that it’s any of your business, I was happily married when I made that movie—’

  ‘Oh, yes? You’ve never been happily married.’ Her voice rose. ‘If you were so happily married, how come you did what you did? You fucked me from behind. I was bent double over your wife’s make-up table. I had a picture of your kid right in front of my face; he was only a baby then. It took you less than five minutes, start to finish. Women tend to remember things like that…’

  There was a silence. Court had been listening with the closest attention. He could remember that location well; he could remember the caravan she spoke of, and he could remember very vividly the difficulties he had encountered when making that movie: the groping after solutions, the script rewrites, the elation that accompanied creation, and the despair.

  Of the event she described, he had no recollection at all—but that did not mean she was lying; it simply meant that she had been useful, and having been useful, had been erased.

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ he said quietly, after a long pause. ‘Is that why you’re here today? What do you want? Some form of revenge? An apology? If you’re waiting for an apology, you’ll wait a long time.’

  ‘An apology?’ She gave him a blank look. ‘No, I came here…I guess I came to see if you’d changed. You might have been different now. I thought…’ She hesitated. ‘You’re older now; you’re divorced. People say you’re pretty ill—I guess I thought you might be—kinder, you know.’

  ‘And do you find me altered?’ Court asked, watching her closely.

  ‘Oh no.’ She glanced away. ‘You’re exactly the same. I never quite got you out of my head, you see—so I guess I wanted to be sure…’

  ‘Maybe we should meet again,’ he said, with care. ‘You might revise your views. Do you have an address? A phone number? You live here in New York? I’m going to be in the city for a few more days…’

  A small derisive smile flickered across her features. ‘I have to go now,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’ll run into each other—you never know…’

  And with that, before he could prevent her, she was out of the door. She left it ajar; Court, knowing there were better methods of pursuit, did not attempt to follow her. He could still hear her footsteps on the stairs as he reached for the telephone and began dialling. Then another idea came to him. He replaced the receiver and picked up the videotape she had brought with her. His hands a little unsteady and his breathing tightening, he inserted it in his machine.

  He had expected some message, some revelation, some clue. The tape was blank; discovering this, he reached again for the phone.

  ‘Now,’ Colin heard, through the door, as he reached Tomas Court’s landing. ‘I’m not interested—just find the records; they must be on file. I want to know her name and who hired her…I told you, The Soloist—that’s five and a half years ago. You check the payroll records. What? No, I don’t know. Try Wardrobe, Continuity, Make-Up…You think I don’t realize that? Goddamn it, I know it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow. I don’t give a fuck if it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas and your son’s bar mitzvah all rolled into one. You get me that information and you get it now…’

  Colin hesitated, tapped on the door, then pushed it open. Court swung around, as if startled; then, seeing it was Colin, waved him towards a chair and continued speaking. Colin ignored the chair; he looked at his watch, placed the file of photographs on Court’s black work table and edged back towards the door.

  ‘How long to run those checks?’ Court was now saying. ‘Yes, but she could be using several names. What? Everything—credit cards, licence registration, sure, sure. Then cross-check with that LA photography lab—you still have their employee records? Fine. Then try UCLA—she could have studied there. Try student records for their Literature courses—never mind why, just do it. And any courses that they ran on movies. What? I don’t know; it’s difficult to say: twenty-five, maybe twenty-seven, no older than that. Go back over the past decade and that should do it…’ He hesitated, glancing towards Colin. ‘And she mentioned a boyfriend…What? Just in passing, never mind how it came up, but you do see? Yes. Yes, precisely. I know a man has to be involved, goddammit; you don’t need to spell out the obvious…What? I don’t know. She just said he was some kind of an artist—I hadn’t realized it could be important then. No, I was only half listening, I had my mind on other things…What? No, an artist, that’s all she said, and she was probably lying…’

  He paused; Colin, impatient to leave, edged towards the door again. He considered interrupting, then, seeing Court’s expression, thought better of it. When Court’s gaze moved in his direction, he embarked on some complicated semaphore. He pointed at his watch, then pointed at the door; he mouthed the words, ‘cab waiting’, and when this had no effect—Court indeed seemed blind to him—he gave a small dance of agitation and mouthed the words, ‘Late—have to go’.

  Court gave no sign of receiving this message either; he had begun speaking again. Stealthily, Colin edged into the doorway. He was about to turn and flee when, after a pause Court said, ‘Ah, God, yes,’ and replaced the phone.

  The way in which he spoke halted Colin. There was a note of extremity in his voice which Colin had never heard before, and which awoke an instant anxiety. He began to realize that this was not an ordinary conversation, and that Court was in the grip of some strong emotion. Forgetting his cab and his haste for a moment, Colin saw that Court’s face was blanched of colour, and that he was now breathing with difficulty. As Colin turned back to him, he leaned against the table as if to steady himself, and stood there in silence, head bowed.

  ‘Tomas, are you all right?’ Colin began, moving towards him. ‘What’s happened? Here, sit down…’

  He reached for a chair, but Court, straightening up and steadying his breathing, waved it aside.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ His pale gaze rested on Colin’s for an instant. ‘Some problem’s come up—casting, nothing for you to worry about; not your concern. Those are the pictures I wanted? Thank you…’

  ‘Tomas, you don’t look well…’ Colin hesitated, fighting his conscience. He thought of his late-night conversation with Court at the ranch, a few days before. He thought of the candour and bleakness with which Court had spoken of his love for his wife and his continuing hopes for a reconciliation. Colin had sensed it was the first time he had ever discussed this with anyone. He had pitied him then, and looking at Court’s drawn face, he pitied him now.

  ‘Let me call someone, Tomas,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be alone. Maybe I should call that doctor of yours, just to check you’re all right…’ He hesitated again, then submitted to his conscience. ‘I can stay,’ he continued, ‘if it would help. I can stay for a while…’

  ‘I think not.’ A flash of dour amusement came into Court’s eyes. ‘I appreciate the generosity of the offer, but you mustn’t keep this Lindsay of yours waiting. I promised you you’d be on time—I don’t want to break my word.’

  ‘I can call her,’ Colin began, trying hard to hide misery. ‘Really, Tomas, she’ll understand. You look ill—you’re terribly pale.’

  ‘It’s nothi
ng. It’s passed. Off you go…’ He gave a dry smile. ‘And I hope you’ve remembered a present. It is Thanksgiving, after all.’

  Colin felt a rush of gratitude and liking. He thought of the elegant pale-blue Tiffany’s box safely stowed in his bags.

  ‘I have. I bought it in New York, the morning before I left for the ranch. Just in case I couldn’t find anything in Montana…’

  ‘Very wise. What one finds in Montana doesn’t take too portable a form.’ Court paused, then added, somewhat awkwardly, ‘I hope you liked the ranch.’

  ‘I did,’ Colin replied.

  ‘It’s isolated, of course. My son loves it. Ah well.’ He gave a sigh, held out his hand and clasped Colin’s.

  ‘Enjoy your Thanksgiving. I’ll be speaking to you on Monday, in England, as arranged. And you can relax—it won’t be before.’

  Colin hesitated still, alarmed by something in his manner, by a note of resignation or fatigue he had not heard in Court’s voice before. With another dry smile, Court turned away from him and took out the photographs he had requested. He waved Colin away and Colin, moving towards the door, watched him blend over these images of a bleak northern landscape. He thought of Thalia’s assertion that Tomas Court was without friends. He could believe that. Court seemed to him to be a man inexperienced at intimacy, slow to trust, and awkward at indicating regard. His attempts to convey liking, both at the ranch and now, touched Colin. He wished Court goodbye, unease and affection tugging at his heart.

  Then he remembered Lindsay; his spirits rising at once, he sprinted down the stairs and out to his cab. He told the driver to get him uptown to the Plaza by the best route, and to break every record when doing so. The driver, amused by this demented Englishman, duly did so. Half an hour later, all thoughts of Tomas Court forgotten, Colin was walking into the lobby at the Plaza, his heart beating hard.

  He was five minutes late. Meeting Lindsay, who was waiting for him, and who sprang to her feet as soon as he entered, he saw that she was even more nervous than he was. He took her hand, which felt small and cold, in his own. He watched colour come and go in her face; her eyes rested on his, their expression dazed and a little afraid. Colin, who had planned an amusing speech, found he was struck dumb; he could say nothing at all.