by Sam Taylor
The second image I am not sure is even a memory at all. Perhaps it is, I don’t know. It feels too symbolic to be true, and yet it has the vividness of something genuinely seen. If so, it must have occurred at a similar time on a different night. This is what I remember: It is five or six o’clock in the morning, the dark hour before dawn, and Ivan and Angelina have just left his apartment. He is walking her home. Using the wire from a pipe-cleaner, I have unlocked his front door and entered his room, which is familiar to me from my time here as an invalid. The air is warm and smells of her. The sheets on the bed are ravelled. Before I start to search the room for incriminating papers, I walk to the window and look down, to check on the lovers’ progress. And there they are, like a distorted reflection of another memory. The scene is blue, as it was before, and they pass beneath a lamppost, hand in hand, their silhouettes melting into darkness as they exit the penumbra of gaslight. And then, entering the next pool of light . . . she leans her head on his shoulder and he puts his arm around her back. I stand, staring, in disbelief. (Jekyll’s heart breaks in two. Hyde sniggers.) Does she remember, as this happens? Does she think of me, and that moment when we said good evening to the young constable? But no, of course not, for she missed the second part of that memory. She was probably falling asleep, exploring her own private darknesses, or awake and fretting the edges of her guilt, while I walked back the way I had come and the senior police officer moved forward threateningly and the constable placed a hand on his elbow and said, ‘It’s all right, sergeant, I know this gentleman. He’s just walked his fiancée home.’ Of course the memory would mean nothing to Angelina; it probably no longer even existed inside her mind. It was mine alone, and would die with me. (And oh, the bitter sorrow that simple insight provoked in me! Even now, I struggle to comprehend and accept its self-evident truth.)
It was early the next morning that I confronted Ivan. I knocked on his door, certain he would still be abed. I myself was in desperate need of sleep, but I knew it would not come to me until I had seen his face, until I had asked him all those questions, the answers to which I feared I already knew. I banged and banged at his door. Finally he roused himself and opened it. Oh, the joy in his eyes when first he saw me! It was not faked, I am sure of that. His heart was filled, above all, with love for me and happiness at my return. It was only when he noticed that my own face remained closed and clouded that his expression changed; only then that I was able to read in it the emotions I sought: guilt, shame, fear.
‘John! I am so glad to see you. Come in . . . did you just return from Australia? I heard from one of your former colleagues that you had gone. You look well, if somewhat tired. What is it? Are you ill? John, why do you regard me so?’
My voice came as if from icy depths. ‘I have seen you . . . the two of you.’
‘John, I . . .’ The blood had drained from his face by now. ‘Please come in, I . . .’
‘You do not deny it, then?’
‘How can I? But John, it’s not how you imagine.’
‘When did it start?’
‘Before you even knew her, that’s what I mean. Listen, sit down, I will tell you the whole story.’ I remained standing, my face impassive, as he recounted the history of his liaisons with Angelina Vierge. As dearly as I wished to disbelieve him, his story chimed in with that of Gerard Ogilvy to such a degree that either they must have been in cahoots or, more likely, the story was true.
This is, as far as I recall, what Ivan said to me: ‘I didn’t lie to you, before, when I told you that I had loved her, but there was more to it than I mentioned at the time. When I first met Angelina, I was eighteen and she was nineteen. It was at a party, among rich friends. Back then, she was engaged to a Frenchman called Laurent de Silva. He was living in his own country at the time, and they saw one another only occasionally. I was quite an, um, experienced eighteen-year-old and I could see in her eyes that she was not quite the young innocent she appeared to be. There was a sensual hunger in those eyes that belied her name, her bearing, the conventionality of her words. At some point that evening she stared at me unwaveringly for several seconds, her face expressionless, then, without a word, turned on her heel and walked upstairs. I think I was the only one who noticed her go. The people around me were drunk and laughing. I watched her, from the corner of my eye, climb to the first-floor landing and open a door. As she entered, she turned back to look at me - only for a second - and then closed the door behind her. Nothing had been said, not even hinted, and yet I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wished me to follow her. After making some excuse, I went upstairs and joined her in that room. You can guess the rest, I’m sure. Oh John, I’m so sorry. I tried to warn you, all those years ago, do you remember? I told you she was bad for you; that it would be best for you if you forgot her. I’m sorry, I tried, perhaps not hard enough ...’
His eyes were filled with tears now and he looked suddenly older, more frail than I had ever seen him. I felt no pity.
‘Are you going to marry her?’
‘Marry her?’ He almost laughed then. ‘No . . . no, I am not going to marry her. You see, for a long time, between us, it was . . . only sex. I fell in love with her, but never dared reveal it to her. What she liked in me was my . . . depravity. Any hint of sentiment and I would have been discarded, I felt sure. Her fiancé, De Silva, he was a good, kind, considerate fellow - as was Ogilvy, later - but Angelina didn’t want goodness, kindness or consideration; indeed, at certain times she despised those qualities and longed precisely for their reverse. What she desired in me was badness. It is somewhat different now, that’s true. She thinks she loves me, but I know what she is . . . I mean to say that Angelina’s feelings are somewhat like the wind. They ...’
‘Destroy everything in their path?’
‘ . . . change all the time. Oh John, I am truly sorry. Are you leaving now? Please don’t go. Stay, and let us talk. Our friendship is more important to me than any . . .’
I could listen no more to his lies. I turned around and walked away from him, back to this bare, lonely room, where I did not even undress before collapsing on to the bed and plunging into a black and oceanic sleep.
When I woke that evening, the momentary amnesia came as a blessing. As soon as I remembered, I felt myself falling into the void. The conversation with Ivan Dawes: I had not dreamed it; it was true. He and Angelina had been sleeping together ... for years. Perhaps even during the months of bliss? But no, I could not despoil the only Paradise I had ever known. I could not believe our love had been sullied by that . . . I cannot believe it, even now. The point was, however, that I had lost her. And lost him, too. And, in some deeper sense, lost myself. I was in Hell.
Naturally I sought oblivion. I went out drinking in Soho. Those pubs . . . their names are erased; they exist only as a blur of faces and bodies. I drank so much beer that I could barely even walk. And yet, oblivion remained out of reach. I remembered, in spite of my inebriation. Reeling from the last pub, I threw up in a sidestreet - I recall a woman’s voice scolding me for the mess in her doorway - and, some time later, found myself walking towards the Thames.
The water looked blacker than the night sky, and gave off its usual stench. It is not so much a river as a gigantic chamber pot: all the shit of London flows through it. Corpses too. How many floating suicides and murder victims are dredged, bloated and blue, from its poisoned current? And how many more are never found? Suddenly I was aware of myelf as an insect, a tiny speck, lost in the vast labyrinth of this Babylon, this city of horror; I looked up at the sky, the stars hidden by the ugly pall of smog that we - mankind - have smeared above us, and shivered. Even if God existed, he would not see through that foul cloud. He would long ago have abandoned us to the fates we deserve. It was then that I saw the brute truth: I was alone; no one cared for me; my existence was of no consequence at all. Self-pity rose within me like the tidewater, its surface decorated with scum. What was the point of continuing to exist? I asked myself. I was drunk, it
is true, and yet I was sober enough to think clearly, to see clearly. I do not believe I have ever seen the world so clearly as I did that night.
After some time musing thus, I made the decision to kill myself. That was the core of the idea, I swear: to end my own agony; to exit the labyrinth at last. And yet, even then, in my deepest despair, I could not forget (and certainly not forgive) the two people whose actions had, as I saw it, driven me to this state. Ivan and Angelina. I searched in my pockets and found my old detective’s notebook and a pencil. Ripping a page from its binding, I wrote the note quickly and unthinkingly, almost as if it were being dictated to me. When it was finished, I undressed, leaving the note folded neatly in one of my shoes, and dived into the black water.
My God, it was cold! Instantly the current took me. I am not a particularly strong swimmer, and I knew it would not have been long before the river’s monstrous mouth swallowed me under as it had swallowed so many other poor souls. All I had to do was remain in its centre, out of reach of either bank, and the success of my suicide would be guaranteed. But, oh, I was a coward! At the crucial moment, when I felt the inevitable pull towards nothingness, some animal instinct rose up in me and cried out ‘No!’ Like a frantic child, I swam as hard as I could towards the northern shore.
When I reached land, naked and shivering, I felt no relief; only the same blank despair I had felt before. And yet I knew now that I could not do it. I was not man enough to choose oblivion, no matter how fervently I wished for it. It was in those dark moments, climbing the embankment and wondering where I was and how I could get home without being seen, that I remembered my clothes. They were miles away now, I calculated. It would be quicker and easier to go straight home. And I was exhausted and ... and yes, a part of me (you know which part) saw in this chance circumstance the possibility of revenge. As far as the world knew, I was now dead. When they found my clothes and that note the next morning, what other conclusion would they draw? The police would have no choice but to interview Ivan and Angelina; thus the lovers would discover my death, and their part in it. What torments would they suffer then? What remorse, regret, what agony! And, sweetest of all, I would no longer be John Price. That worm, that sad fool, he was dead now, and I could assume whatever identity I wished: I could be a new man.
Thus it was, on that freezing, frightened return to my room, that I was born for the second time. The name I took by chance: I was passing a row of terraced houses somewhere in Farringdon when I noticed a letter protruding from a letterbox. I pulled it out and glanced at the addressee: Martin Thwaite.
For a couple of days I was ill and could not leave my bed. By the time I was well enough to haunt my enemies, they already knew the ‘truth’. I could see it in the sadness of their bearing, the absence of laughter, the solemn expressions. With what satisfaction I watched them mourn me; each flicker of regret in their eyes was like an explosion of happiness in my heart. I was disguised, of course, as I haunted them. Sometimes I was able to stand so close - as they ate dinner in a restaurant, or walked in a park - that I could hear the words they spoke. True, I never actually heard them mention my name, but I felt sure I could detect the undertow of guilt, of sadness, in those brief, enigmatic conversations.
Soon, however, monstrously soon, they returned to normal. They began to laugh again, to smile, to hold hands and kiss. Barely a fortnight had passed since my tragic demise, and already they were over me. They had put it behind them. They had forgotten. I could not believe their callousness. Was that all my life had been worth to them? My first love and my closest friend. I had killed myself because of them, and yet twelve days later they could go to a tavern, tell jokes, enjoy their meal, make love, sleep? Outraged, I began to plot my revenge.
Thus it was that on the evening of the first of June 1893 I removed my disguise, dressed in my own clothes, powdered my face and hair so that they gave off a kind of dusty white glow, and walked to Ivan’s apartment. Silently I entered. I walked past Angelina, lounging on the sofa; she did not even look up as I moved behind her. In the kitchen Ivan was pouring whisky into two glasses and muttering to himself. I stood still and watched him. He was only three feet away from me. I did not make a sound. By chance he turned towards the window and there, reflected in the glass, he saw the ghost of his friend John Price. Oh the scream that parted his lips! The sweet music of breaking glass! As Angelina ran towards him, begging to know what was the matter, I slipped away, unseen. My work there was done for the night, I thought. The next evening I would surprise him in the park, or as a distant face at the theatre . . . I could haunt him for years like this. I could be his Banquo.
I slept well that night. The next day, curious to see what impression my prank had made on the conscience of my former friend, I walked to his apartment. As there was nobody there, I then took the familiar route to Luff Street. It was early afternoon and the day was hot and cloudless; I could feel sweat streaking the powder on my face. From the pavement outside number 21 I heard the pop of a champagne cork. I crept around the side of the house, through the unlocked gate, and into the sun-dazzled garden. And there they were: Angelina and her silver-spoon cronies, sitting on the grass around a blanket, eating and drinking and laughing. They were having a picnic, those monsters! This threw me into such a rage that I almost revealed myself there and then, but something made me hesitate, and in that moment I had time to remark the fact that Ivan was not part of the company. Angelina, I noticed, kept looking up, somewhat distractedly, at the attic window. I looked up myself and saw that it was open. Thus I guessed where Ivan must be. I myself had slept several times in that attic room: it was a guest room, rarely used, and Angelina used to sneak me up there occasionally when there were servants around. What he was doing up there now, in the middle of the day, I had no idea, but it seemed a good opportunity for a haunting, so I entered the house through an open ground-floor window and began to climb the back stairs.
I have such a strangely vivid memory of climbing that staircase; in my mind it is intimately connected to the staircase in that house of ill repute, the first night I ever saw Angelina unclothed: the sights, the sounds, the sudden dizziness, the way I had to stop for a moment and blink, confused to when and where this was occurring. What I was experiencing as I climbed up to the attic was undoubtedly a flash of déjà vu - a sudden, unwilled reminder of the moment this whole dark adventure had begun - though I find it difficult not to believe, in retrospect, that it was-n’t also a kind of premonition. My chest was filled with fear as I ascended. You, o reader, more rational perhaps than I, may counter that such visions, such glimpses into the future, are no more than misremembered emotions, and in the cold light of logic I cannot argue with you. But how, then, do we explain the corresponding sense of déjà vu I experienced that first time, on my way to the naked Angelina? How explain the sense of doom in my young chest then, if not by speculating that, somehow, the labyrinth of time had, by some wild chance, closed in on itself and I had seen through to another moment of my life - this moment - that I had sensed the end as I embarked at the beginning?
At any rate, after a dizzy spell when I had to stop and breathe deeply before remembering where I was and what I was doing, I climbed the remainder of the staircase. At the door I stood still and listened. Silence. He must be asleep, I told myself. I tried the door and, finding it open, I entered.
Ivan was sitting at the desk by the window, his face side on to me, writing something in a black notebook. His expression, in contrast to the picnickers outside, was sombre and concentrated. The air in the attic room was hot, motionless, heavy, and Ivan wore only his underwear as he sat there, writing what, though neither of us knew it at the time, was his suicide note. I did not say a word or make a sound. I only stood still, in the shadowed doorway, and watched. A minute or so later, he sighed, and leaned back in his chair, fountain pen still held between his fingers, and it must have been then, from the corner of his eye, that he saw me. He did not turn to look at me, only groaned and held his face
in his hands. It was enough, I decided. The last thing I wanted was for him to realise that this ghost was nothing of the kind, but a corporeal being. Swiftly, silently, I departed the room and tiptoed down the stairs. To my satisfaction, as I descended, I heard Ivan weeping and repeating my name.
I reached the ground floor and escaped through the open window without being seen, and it was only as I stood outside the house’s stern façade, wiping the damp powder from my face with a handkerchief, that I heard that indescribable sound. Indescribable, I suppose, because it was not so much the sound I noticed - was there a sound, or is that merely my ghoulish imagination filling in the blanks in memory? - as the silence that followed. It was during that long and awful silence, before the inevitable screams and moans, that I began to flee, knowing in my heart the truth whose verification, in black and white, I was to discover the next day, when I saw the announcement in a newspaper.
The truth: that Ivan Dawes had called my bluff. That, in the game of human whist we had been playing, he had trumped me. That, while I had only pretended to kill myself, he had truly done so.
The days that followed have left no trace. In the main, I suppose, I slept and drank: in my room, the curtains drawn, the lights extinguished. Anything to blank out what had happened. And yet, it always came back to me. The word ‘guilt’ is so small, so meaningless; it cannot possibly sum up what I felt, which was enormous, devouring. Oh, it is pointless even to try and express all this! I know what I went through; I know also how richly I deserved it. No punishment could ever be enough.