Sextet

by Sally Beauman

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’

  ‘I didn’t realize until just before I saw you together in that doorway.’ Colin sighed. ‘That must seem stupid to you—but it wasn’t stupidity. It wasn’t even that I trusted you, so it never occurred to me you might lie. It was just that I was so happy, I couldn’t see beyond the happiness—I think it was that.’

  ‘Colin, I regret this more than I can say. I want to explain—I’m entirely at fault here…’

  ‘Rowland, you’re my friend.’ He paused. ‘I know you won’t have done this lightly.’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘You had three years, Rowland. You’ve known Lindsay three years. You could have acted at any point in those three years—and you didn’t. Tell me why not. Was it her age?’

  ‘Partly.’ Rowland looked away. ‘Also—’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Colin, I wasn’t in love with her. I looked on her as a companion, a colleague, a friend. I came to love her—and that process, well, it had never happened to me before. I wasn’t sure it was enough. I was very afraid of making a mistake and hurting her. I wasn’t sure of her feelings either. Colin, I’m sorry. I can’t discuss this.’

  ‘So when did it change? In Oxford—that lunch?’

  ‘No, before. When she spoke to you on the telephone in Yorkshire; maybe before that. I thought of her, when I was away in Scotland. Colin; I don’t know…’

  ‘You wouldn’t make her happy, Rowland.’ Colin gave him an anxious look. ‘I think you’d end up making her very unhappy. If I thought you’d make her happy, and go on doing so, I’d walk away from this myself—I promise you that. I’d remove myself from the scene with as much grace as I could muster and I’d go off and lick my wounds in private. I’d hate you for a bit, obviously, but that would wear off.’ He paused, his blue eyes resting on Rowland’s troubled face. ‘But I would do it, Rowland. You see, I love her very much.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Rowland’s expression hardened. ‘And now I’m supposed to act in a similarly noble way, is that the idea?’

  ‘It’s not noble. It’s sensible.’

  ‘Since when has sense had anything to do with love?’

  ‘It’s the right thing to do.’ Colin’s gaze also hardened. ‘I’m asking you, Rowland, to walk away from this. If you won’t…’ He sighed. ‘If you won’t, I’ll fight you every inch of the way, with every weapon at my disposal. But that would be the end of our friendship, and I’d like to avoid that.’

  There was a silence. Rowland turned away, with a sudden dismissive gesture.

  ‘Your request is immaterial, as it happens,’ he said, ‘as Lindsay made very clear to me tonight.’

  As always, Colin thought, he disguised pain and uncertainty with curtness, with coldness; even when making an admission of defeat, Rowland could sound arrogant. The reply, which ought to have given Colin joy, did not. Looking at his friend, his calm and certitude began to ebb away. He could not believe in Rowland’s rejection, he realized. Why would any woman turn Rowland down? In Colin’s experience, no women did—and this had never really surprised him, since he loved his friend, and admired him without reservation himself.

  He looked at Rowland, so gifted in so many ways, not least in his looks, and suddenly he saw the hopelessness of his own case. Whatever Lindsay might have said to Rowland, it seemed inevitable to him that, faced with a choice between the two of them, she would choose the better man. He himself had no weaponry at all, he thought, except love—and now, it seemed, Rowland could also give her that.

  But for how long? Colin thought. Not—and of this he remained utterly certain—not for long enough.

  ‘Rowland,’ he said, ‘please leave her be. Let her love me. I believe she could.’

  ‘Are you totally blind?’ Rowland gave him an angry glance. ‘Use your eyes, Colin. She already does.’

  ‘What?’ Colin said, staring at him, unable to believe his ears, feeling the beginnings of joy, of a most wonderful hope. He felt himself begin to blush—an affliction he had never been able to cure.

  ‘Oh, God, God,’ he heard himself say, discovering he was beginning to pace about. ‘Do you mean that? You really think that’s true? Could it be? Why? Why? Rowland, you can’t possibly be right—what could she see in me?’

  ‘God alone knows,’ Rowland replied, frowning, then beginning to smile, as if despite himself. ‘You’re bloody impossible, but presumably it can’t be that. According to Markov, it’s your hyacinthine hair. Oh, and your Apollonian body. That famous way you have with women…’

  ‘What? What are you talking about? I don’t have a way with women—I never did. What’s an Apollonian body, for God’s sake?’

  ‘I’m not too sure. Maybe it’s your vast wealth. Have you told her about Shute?’

  ‘Yes, yes—but it won’t be that. It has to be something else. No, I think you’ve got it wrong, Rowland…Oh, God, God. I’m going mad. I was just starting to hope…’

  Rowland hesitated. He gave Colin a long and considering look. With a sigh, he put his arm around his shoulders and pushed him towards the door.

  ‘Colin, I shouldn’t keep her waiting any longer if I were you. You’ll find out the answers to your questions in due course, no doubt.’ He paused. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been given them already?’ His voice became dry. ‘As you may imagine, I was paying close attention. I’d have thought you’d been given your answers, Colin—judging from the way Lindsay was looking at you tonight.’

  Colin turned to look at him. Their eyes met, and Colin, who had never felt more grateful to Rowland than he did then, gave him a troubled look.

  ‘I think that sometimes,’ he said, in a quiet voice, ‘sometimes—I have no doubts. She knows that I love her, of course…’

  ‘Colin—’

  ‘And I know that she likes me. Tonight, she said such extraordinary things to me. And I felt so happy—but she said “like”. She was very definite about it. And liking isn’t enough.’

  ‘Colin, listen to me. I know Lindsay very well, and she’s rather more careful with words than she appears to be. If that’s what she said, there will have been a reason. She’s impetuous and hesitant, you know. Give it time, Colin. Trust your instincts. I would…’ He broke off. ‘What am I doing? I appear to be encouraging you. Why I should be doing that, in these circumstances, God alone knows…’

  ‘It’s because we’re friends,’ Colin said. ‘You like me even as a rival, and I like you even as a rival. You know that.’

  ‘I admire your ability to get your own way.’ Rowland gave him a considering look. ‘In fact, I sometimes think you’re the most ruthless man I’ve ever known. As to liking…’ He repressed a smile. ‘Go away, Colin, and don’t push your luck.’

  Colin advanced as far as the door. He stopped and turned back.

  ‘Advice,’ he said. ‘Rowland, I need advice. I mustn’t mess this up. I have to get this right…’

  ‘Dear God, you are unbelievable.’ Rowland gave a groan. ‘You want my advice? Now?’ He paused. ‘Very well, Colin, I’ll give you my advice—and much good it may do you. Bear in mind my own record. Bear in mind the fact that I obviously don’t understand women and never have…’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true, Rowland.’

  ‘Just don’t waste any time, Colin, trying to work out their motivation, that’s all. Don’t assume that they are ever rational—they’re not. Remember, they change their minds every five seconds. Remember, their requirements from a man tend to vary, so one moment they want a tyrant, and the next a Galahad. Remember they’re quite keen on priests, father-substitutes, son-substitutes, brother-substitutes and grandfather-substitutes for all I know. Remember their penchant for princes, and heroes…’

  ‘Hell. Rowland, are you sure about this? That rules me out then…’

  ‘And remember that quite a lot of the time, Colin,’ Rowland cast a suspicious eye upon him, ‘quite a lot of the time, I think they’d just settle for a man who was very
very good in bed…’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Colin said, in a somewhat evasive way. ‘I’m sure you’re wrong there, Rowland.’ He paused delicately. ‘Of course, I admit it would probably help…’

  ‘Who knows?’ Rowland pushed him towards the door again. ‘I most certainly don’t. Nor do I care any more. As of now, I’m giving up the quest. I shall remain celibate. Solitude has always suited me. I shall live like a monk…’

  ‘I slightly doubt that, Rowland…’ Colin had said. He had looked carefully at his friend. Rowland had other ways besides arrogance of disguising pain, he thought. And so, knowing how much it cost Rowland to turn the conversation in this way, and knowing why he did so, he had left.

  Walking beside Lindsay now, with the Plaza in sight, Colin’s heart lifted. He had known Rowland wished them to part without animosity or resentment; he had never seen better evidence of his acting ability, or his generosity, than he had then—and if that generosity came about only as a result of a rejection, well, he could forgive Rowland that. The question was, when Rowland spoke of Lindsay, had he been right?

  He came to a halt at the corner of the Park and turned Lindsay to face him. He watched the moonlight work its magic upon her face. It made her skin silver; it gave brilliancy and depth to her eyes; tiny crystals of snow clung to her hair and to her lashes. Looking at her, Colin felt a wash of desire and helpless love. Bending down to her, he kissed her lips, which felt warm, and which opened in a sweet, familiar way under his.

  A thousand questions and hopes thronged in his mind, yet the instant he touched her they became immaterial. Who could define or explain love, he felt, looking down at her. If he had to say why he loved her, he could give a million answers, none sufficient and none exact.

  He loved her because she made a day bright; because she made him laugh, and think; because she was truthful. He loved her because she was often muddled and confused, as he was; he loved her because, when he kissed her, her mouth was the way it was.

  Lindsay, looking up at him, wished he would kiss her again, because when he kissed or touched her, she remembered who she was. As they had walked quietly together through the snow, it had come to her that she had taken one decision correctly tonight, and that a second was easily made. Navigating here was less difficult than she imagined; there were reefs, it was true, but there might be a way of avoiding them—a way that had stolen into her mind in this quiet moonlit city as they walked.

  ‘Can you wish on a full moon, or only on a new one, do you think, Colin?’ she said, unfastening her coat and his, then moving inside it, so the warmth of her body was pressed against his.

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ he replied. ‘I’m sure you can wish on the moon at any point in its cycle. It’s a powerful planet.’

  Lindsay wished. She wished a momentous wish—but being practical, as well as superstitious, she had no intention of relying solely on supernatural forces. She rested her head against his chest and—the decision made—found herself at peace.

  ‘I want you to know something,’ she said. ‘I know you saw me in that doorway with Rowland tonight. Did you ask him about that?’

  ‘No. Not directly.’ He hesitated. ‘I would ask you, but I’m afraid to, I think.’

  ‘You have no reason to be afraid. I give you my word, Colin.’

  ‘Then I have no questions; they’re all answered.’

  ‘I was saying goodbye to Rowland, and he to me. We were both leaving behind something that didn’t happen. I can’t explain it any other way. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It was a final goodbye, Colin. Truly.’ Her eyes rested on his, then a glint of amusement came into them. ‘And it was a very quiet goodbye too, you should know. Marked by English understatement and English restraint.’

  Colin’s face lit. ‘I’m very glad about the restraint,’ he said, in a dry way. ‘If it had been unrestrained, I should have found it very hard to bear.’ He paused. ‘Just don’t try saying goodbye to me, because I won’t let you. Are you clear about that?’

  ‘You sound very determined.’

  ‘I am very determined. I’ve learned a lot tonight. Never waste time—you might have very little left. Besides…’ He took her hand and they began walking on again. ‘Don’t forget all those ancestors of mine. English and American. I have centuries of ruthless self-interest in my veins, Lindsay. Never forget that.’

  ‘Ah, yes, those ancestors,’ Lindsay said, as they were about to cross Central Park South. ‘I’d forgotten about them and all those riches of yours. Ah well, I forgive you for them. I can love you despite them, I expect…’

  Colin stopped dead in the middle of the road. He went white.

  ‘What did you just say? What did you just say?’

  ‘I used a four-letter word,’ Lindsay replied. ‘I’m sorry about that…’

  ‘Say it again!’ Colin made a grab at her. ‘Say it again, loudly, at once, without equivocation…’

  ‘I shall whisper it,’ Lindsay said, pulling him towards the hotel entrance. ‘First we have to go upstairs, then I have to call my son, then I have to wash and undress…’

  Colin groaned.

  ‘Then maybe I’ll admit it. I’ll slip it into the conversation…when we’re in bed.’

  They were in their room, and in their bed, with great speed. The call to Oxford was made, but it was brief. There was no conversation—or need for it. Lindsay’s confession, which Colin extracted with some ruthlessness, was made, she later claimed, in extremis—this being a phrase, she added, that she knew Colin would not need her to translate.

  As Colin and Lindsay, that morning, finally slept, Jippy got up. He tiptoed out of the bedroom, where Markov lay dreaming, and crept into the living-room beyond. He had spent a night without sleep, watching the flux of future events. This process, Jippy felt, was akin to the processing of photographs. When he helped Markov develop his films, and in particular when he worked with the delicate techniques needed for silver prints, it delighted him that an image could be stored, invisible to the human eye, on paper. He loved to watch the pictures-to-be as they lay in the baths of developing fluid. He loved watching them slowly emerge, as mere shapes and outlines at first, then, gradually, as shapes that had content and could be read.

  Sometimes, if errors had been made, this process remained incomplete—and sometimes Jippy would deliberately lift the picture from the developing fluid too soon, because he liked suggestions and hints better than exactitude. To glimpse the future, he felt, was like this. He was rarely, virtually never, shown a clear image—although, in the Plaza the previous night, he had been shown just that.

  For this Jippy was grateful. To see the future, even a suggestion of the future, was terrifying. It filled Jippy with misery and fear and bewilderment. Few could live their lives with any tranquillity, he believed, if they could see what lay ahead.

  Today, seeing the possible future and hating it, he had decided on a spell. Jippy had only intermittent faith in his spells, most of which had been taught him as a child by his Armenian grandmother. He suspected she had muddled the spells in the first place, and that his own memory of them was imperfect at best. Nevertheless, he intended to try. For Pascal Lamartine, he could do nothing; for Lindsay, whom he knew well, intervention might be possible, and since he loved Lindsay, and could see the urgency of intervention, he had decided to do the spell now, at dawn—a powerful moment, his grandmother always said.

  He decided to do it on the kitchen table, which was next to a window facing east. On the empty surface of this wooden table, he assembled the objects he needed. He laid down a hair, which he had removed from Lindsay’s coat when he kissed her goodbye the previous night. Next to the hair, and for want of anything else, he placed a postcard Lindsay had sent him some time before, when she and Markov were away in Thailand on a fashion shoot. The postcard showed a glittery pagoda, and the message was brief: ‘Today Markov and I came here and were given a lotus flower. It is like an artichoke,
only prettier. Markov is missing you badly. I send love’.

  This, if characteristic, was less than ideal, but it would have to suffice. He rummaged around in the food cupboards, and eventually settled for a packet of muesli—again, less than ideal, but it contained nuts and grains, and they had some powers, of course. Jippy sprinkled the muesli in a lopsided circle, centred the hair and the postcard inside it, and then, after further consideration, placed next to them an orange and an egg. The egg kept rolling around, so eventually he put it in an eggcup and surveyed his handiwork. It was not impressive, and its lack of symmetry offended him. He decided to add a second egg, also in an eggcup, and resisted the impulse to arrange these objects in the vague shape of a face.

  He glanced towards the window; the sky was lightening and he knew he had to be quick. The orange kept rolling around in an unstable way, and this made his hands start to shake. ‘Stay s-s-still,’ he whispered, as the orange threatened to roll out of the circle. The orange obeyed and Jippy felt a little happier at this.

  From the pocket of his neat striped pyjamas, he took out the small bent coin his grandmother had once given him—a rare coin, this—and placed it in the circle, between the orange and the eggs.

  Then he knelt down, rested his forehead against the edge of the table and waited. He muttered under his breath. He watched thin sharp winter sun strike the edge of the window-frame and the edge of the sink. As it slowly began to reach the table, and his circle of objects grew bright, Jippy began on his special prayer of benevolence, to those forces his grandmother had taught him dispensed benevolence—although only when they were propitiated, or in the right mood, she said.

  Jippy prayed this prayer with absolute concentration. He gave it every ounce of his energy. When he was on line, the sweat began to run down his body, and his feet and hands began to twitch like a dog dreaming. Halfway through the spell, finding he was afraid, he left out one vital phrase and had to go back. He asked the spirits—politely, his grandmother had always emphasized the importance of this—to avoid the certain evil he had glimpsed the previous night; to make the unlikely, likely; to bend, twist, distort and reassemble events, and having done so, to reorganize them so they were sweet to the eye and the heart. Jippy knew this was well within the powers of these spirits; they did that sort of thing a hundred times a day, on a whim, on a flick of the wrist.