Fig and the Flute Player

by Christine Harrison

  3

  SHE thought she might feel nearer to Michael once she was back in London. She was glad to be back. Quietly she put the key in the lock and opened her front door. The smell of warm olive oil wafted from Rose’s room, with the muffled tones of Ella Fitzgerald’s haunting, inexorable voice. Rose had got into the way of playing the record all the time as if she had got it on the brain. The smell and the sound found a connection in Maisie’s mind.

  As she passed Rose’s door she heard voices, but did not stop. She made her way up to her room, her shadow sliding up the wall of the stairway.

  She felt like a shadow-woman without her lover to give her life and blood.

  She wished passionately that she had never met him.

  No, not that she had never met him.

  For she had met him, and now he was her love-shadow, her darker self, she could no more get rid of him than she could her own shadow, and she carried the knowledge of him everywhere.

  This separation from him was like something that had come unhinged in nature. Being back in London did not help at all. Only part of her took off her wet trench-coat, made herself a cup of coffee, opened the window to let in a little fresh air to the still room, pulled a harebell-blue mohair jumper on against the chilly air and started to get out paper, books, writing things. All the while she was doing these things she felt as if she was bleeding from her central nervous system; she felt sore and raw. Separation from him was like a physical wound that weakened her and left her bruised and bleeding. His absence was a palpable thing. A presence. I do not go, my love, for weariness of thee, but every time we say goodbye I die a little.

  She unfastened a portfolio of prints. The draught from the window riffled the heavy paper and she got up to close the window.

  Rose and Glantz were waiting by a taxi, its engine running. Rose got in, and then Glantz. She wondered where they were going. It was good to see Rose going anywhere.

  Maisie went back to her prints. She laid three prints side by side on the table. All of them were of the Virgin of Vladimir, but centuries lay between them. The first was a reproduction of the original and most famous of the ikons – Our Lady of Vladimir. This ikon had been taken from Constantinople to Kiev in the twelfth century, and later to the city of Vladimir so that its miraculous powers might help the town. It had not, like the other two, come from a Russian workshop. In it, the Virgin’s gaze was forward and not on the child, who pressed his cheek against his mother, his arm round her neck.

  Maisie compared it with the second print – this one attributed to Rublev. This Virgin and Child was very different, though derived from the twelfth-century ikon. This was fifteenth-century, and unmistakably Russian. Something had been added to the balance and harmony of the Greek influence of the original.

  Maisie pondered what this difference was. It looked – the Russian Virgin and Child – more of this world, the faith that informed it more human and earthy, more rooted in nature. The colours were deep, full, and spoke of the earth too. It was very tender – the attitude of the child, clinging like any young creature to its mother, the two bonded, the Virgin’s gaze veering more to the child in her arms.

  The third print was of a much later ikon – seventeenth-century. This was more decorative and formal, the heavy use of gold made it glow distinctively. The Virgin looked abstracted in this portrayal. Maisie carefully put these Vladimir Virgins to one side, and went through the other prints one by one.

  A Nativity, in which Mary floated in the centre of the ikon on what looked like a carpet, the exact colour of a scarlet pimpernel, surrounded by the iconography of the Nativity.

  Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.

  The Washing of the Feet.

  Maisie began to write down her observations and reflections on each of these prints. She was not making notes with any particular purpose in view, it was just her habit to write things down. And for a few years now these ikons had gradually taken a hold on her. She was beginning to become addicted to them. She wanted to see them often. They spoke to her.

  With Maisie it was the visual sense that came first, and meant most to her. It was what she looked at. This was how she had fallen in love. She had just looked at Michael. It had been the sight of him.

  Packing the prints away, tying up her portfolio, she longed to see him. If only she could see him now – and she would just be content to look and look. Perhaps that would be enough, just to look at him, all her delight.

  Most important, it was his face. But it was not just the face, she loved beyond sense and reason his innate grace, even the very way his clothes arranged themselves and draped on his body. And yes, she perceived with sudden delight and almost a sense of relief to have hit on it, yes, he had that earthy realism, that immediacy that so appealed to her in Rublev’s work. How near, she thought, were religious and profane love. The thought gave her a sense of delicate joy – and made her laugh, too.

  She longed to see Michael in his own setting, his natural background, in Ireland. It was the first time she had wanted that. But when she went to bed, still seeing pictures with her inner eye, they were of Michael, in a dark red cloak, walking in the Russian steppes.

  She slept.

  When she woke, startled by something, she thought she saw Michael’s shadow self sitting on the bed beside her, so like flesh even in the dim light. It was a split moment of eternity after they had reached out to each other that she knew he was real. They just held each other. A longer time before he spoke; and she was sure.

  ‘Life tasted so thin without you,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay together now.’

  As she felt his human warmth, his sweet breath, life and blood began to quicken in her, and the shadow-world gave way to the dimensions and colours and sounds and smell of a real, urgent, incredibly, vividly present world. She was part of it and knew her place in it.

  She touched his hair, his mouth. Her mouth opened under his lips.

  They lay against each other, touching everywhere they could touch, their whole bodies embracing each other. Unable to get close enough, to feel close enough, wanting to live inside each other, gradually they undressed each other until, with a subtle shock, they were naked.

  ‘Come closer,’ said Maisie.

  And still they were not close enough until he had opened and entered her body. Then, whole and strong, they became that thing – a man-woman. Whole.

  And they kept still for a long time, he hardly moving at all. They were one flesh. Then the man raised himself on his elbows and looked into the woman’s eyes. He saw in them the light of love, and she saw in his eyes the same light.

  And then the man began to move inside the woman. Now his body was strong and powerful like any male animal, like a tiger or an eagle. Only he was more, because he was human, and had a human heart and brain. His powerful loins and hands were human, and his tongue was a man’s tongue.

  And the woman was silk and milk. It was easy; it was right.

  And Christ, with what joy she hurled into the sea all the false glitter of trying to do this or that. She hurled all that away with one easy throw. And loving her, he let go with hungry fierce amazement wanting this or that, or let’s try it this way. They knew each other. It all came easy. And they both came easy.

  Afterwards, feeling his sleepy blood throb through his veins, through his warm body, now almost baby-like in its warm soft limbs and heavy eyelids, like a baby, who has fed on its mother’s milk and is full, Maisie wept a little, and Michael drank her few salty tears.

  ‘Did you have a good journey?’ she whispered, on the edges of sleep.

  ‘That last bit of my journey was the best,’ said Michael. ‘Now I am home.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘You are my home, Maisie.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Even as her whole being was in bliss, she knew it would soon pass. Nothing could be grasped and held. Let it go – but not yet. She folded down the edges into sleep so as not to let it go. And in her little pocket of time
she slept in Michael’s arms. He was already asleep.

  4

  WHEN he woke, he was alone in the bed and red winter sunshine was pouring through the window, lighting up the lace flowers of the bed-curtains.

  The next thing he saw was the Steppes ikon. It lay in a pool of sunlight on the table amidst a pile of straw, newspaper, cloth and corrugated cardboard in which it had been wrapped. It looked as if there was a fire in the straw.

  Maisie was in the kitchen making coffee. She brought a tray of toast and coffee over to the bed.

  ‘We have to go to Walsingham,’ she said. ‘Denisov is dead.’ She nodded towards the ikon. ‘It was delivered by hand this morning.’

  ‘Walsingham?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know it?’

  ‘No. I don’t think I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘It’s a village in Norfolk. A place of pilgrimage connected with the Virgin Mary – in medieval times it was of great importance.’

  ‘And we have to take the ikon there – it seems an out-of-the-way place. I might have known it would be somewhere outlandish.’

  ‘There has been an enclave of Russian monarchists there for years, apparently.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to Walsingham. I want us to stay here and just go out for food sometimes. I don’t want us to leave this bed and go anywhere.’

  ‘I made a promise,’ said Maisie. ‘We must go today.’

  ‘May I have some toast first?’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘Is there an egg or something? I don’t see myself going on this pilgrimage fasting.’

  Maisie made him two poached eggs and brought them to him on a butler’s tray.

  ‘When you’ve had this you must get up,’ she said. She kissed him but slipped quickly away.

  Michael drank his coffee and ate his eggs, looking at the straw which looked as if it had caught alight in the sunshine.

  ‘We must go,’ said Maisie.

  ‘Come back to bed.’

  ‘I want to start now – I love London in the early morning before the traffic really gets going.’

  ‘How are we supposed to get there? Horseback?’ He flung back the bed-cover and lay there spreadeagled and naked.

  ‘I’ve hired a car,’ she said. ‘It’s outside the house.’

  Michael got up and looked out of the window.

  ‘Oh, good,’ he said, ‘it’s a Merc.’ He dressed quickly then and grinned at her cheerfully.

  ‘I’ll drive,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll take turns,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll drive first,’ he said.

  Maisie laughed. She was wrapping the ikon in its straw, pages of Le Monde and blue cloth, and then binding the thin wire round the corrugated cardboard.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said, putting the swaddled ikon into Michael’s arms. ‘It’s all yours,’ she said. Downstairs, she ripped open a brown envelope and shook out the car keys.

  The silver Mercedes was waiting for them, its windscreen flaming red. Maisie locked the ikon in the boot of the car and gave the keys to Michael.

  ‘All yours,’ she said again.

  Michael took off his jacket and threw it on the back seat. He looked different. He was wearing a simple dark sweater, the sort worn by merchant seamen; he pushed up the sleeves as he turned on the ignition.

  As they drove through early-morning London, laid out calmly in the morning sun, Maisie asked him, ‘Are you the same man I met at Paddington that day?’

  ‘No, I am much changed,’ said Michael. ‘You have changed me. Knowing you.’

  ‘I want you to be the same man I met then.’

  ‘We can’t stay the same. We affect each other, change each other. Nothing stays the same – life is all flux.’

  ‘But I fell in love with that particular man.’

  ‘Oh, Maisie, I’m sorry. I’m not that man.’

  ‘Take the Cambridge Road, I have to stop there briefly.’

  ‘We could have lunch there.’

  ‘Yes, we could. Tell me about Kiev,’ she said. ‘I mean, after I had gone.’

  ‘It’s all a bit of a haze.’

  ‘You did the recording?’

  ‘I think I did.’

  ‘Did they try to make you stay?’

  ‘Well – yes. I may go back one day. With you.’

  Unsaid things began to travel with them as the Mercedes slid out on to the motorway, and Michael switched on the radio to disperse them. Then switched it off again.

  They were beginning to travel very fast.

  ‘We’ll be in Cambridge before you know it,’ said Michael. ‘This car will make short work of the journey. Who have you got to see there?’

  ‘I just want to pick up a book.’

  ‘Did you go to university there?’

  ‘No. Rose did – Fine Arts.’

  ‘Does she paint?’

  ‘She’s very good, but she never does any.’

  When they got to Cambridge the town looked as if it had been carved sharply against a now sunless sky. There was a raw wind. The leafless trees shivered over the Cam. They found a dark warm pub and had coffee and sandwiches, and Maisie left Michael guarding their precious parcel while she went off on her errand.

  When she came back, he was reading the paper and drinking beer. He handed her the newspaper.

  ‘Some poor sods have tried to blow up the Kremlin. Sort of Guy Fawkes stuff. Got caught. Do you think they can be some of Denisov’s lot?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Maisie frowned as she read. ‘They’re all so high-minded. I don’t think murder comes into their scheme of things. It is a religious quest.’

  ‘Religion never stopped people killing before. I don’t think we should get mixed up in it all.’

  ‘I’m not getting mixed up in it. I’m just delivering something for a client.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so. A client who happens to be dead. It’s heady stuff.’

  ‘You’re not very adventurous.’

  ‘I’ve learned to keep out of things.’

  ‘Oh – yes. You never talk much about Ireland.’

  ‘I’ll take you there, Maisie. We’ll go soon – you’ll like it. I think you’ll love it.’

  ‘I’d like to go there. See where you come from. Your home.’

  ‘You’re my home, I told you.’

  Maisie touched his face and he kissed her fingers.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  This time Maisie drove – more sedately, they had time to notice the countryside. Dark rushes shredding in the wind and wide, pale skies, grey and turquoise.

  She wished the journey would last for ever. They were as if encapsulated; time and space became eternity and infinity, as they travelled through it. She tasted joy like a good wine, it sang through her veins. Her mind and heart lay down with each other, she did not know one from the other.

  Seeing some wild duck fiying over, Maisie stopped the car to get out and watch them. They flew fast, and were soon overhead.

  ‘Teal,’ said Michael.

  ‘I love the way they stretch out their necks as if they really mean to get where they’re going,’ said Maisie.

  The raw wind whipped round them as they stood.

  ‘That wind comes straight from Russia.’

  Maisie smiled at him. ‘It’s always cold on this side of England,’ she said, ‘but I love it. I think it’s my favourite part.’

  ‘I haven’t kissed you properly for two and a half hours,’ said Michael, and he kissed her properly standing there, the sound of the wild duck in the sky, the sharp little wind, cars whipping past them. Someone sounded a horn in appreciation.

  ‘Doesn’t take much to make you blush,’ said Michael. ‘Come on, let’s stop making a spectacle.’

  Back in the car he got out the map and put on his glasses. ‘Which way now?’

  ‘All roads lead to Walsingham,’ said Maisie, starting up the engine.

  ‘As ye came from the holy land

  Of Walsingham


  Met you not with my true love

  By the way as you came?’

  ‘That’s nice. By the way – is the ikon insured?’

  ‘In a way it is uninsurable – but yes, it is insured.’

  ‘For a lot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They didn’t trust to its miracle-working properties?’

  ‘It was doubtless insured for more because of them.’

  ‘God and Mammon get awfully mixed up sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve noticed it.’

  She switched on the radio and found some going-to-Walsingham music.

  ‘Going-to-Walsingham music,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly right,’ he said.

  Maisie was enjoying driving the car – it was a while since she had driven, it didn’t seem worth having a car in London. She felt that everything was in its right place, she felt young and a bit wild and full of splendid courage. She felt pleased with her strong, young-feeling limbs and steady heartbeat, and amazed at the beauty of the man who was her companion and lover.

  Up ahead an odd-looking hitch-hiker lunged forward. He had a notice which said ‘Swaffham’.

  ‘You’re not going to stop?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Maisie, slowing down. She was not reluctant to stop.

  ‘Well – why? Stop worrying about people.’

  ‘He is a fellow pilgrim, perhaps,’ said Maisie.

  ‘He’ll pinch the ikon and then we’ll have to spend the rest of our lives looking for it.’

  ‘It’s cold out there.’ She stopped the car beside the hitch-hiker. The man was probably in his forties, he was dressed in a once-good tweed jacket which had belonged to someone a couple of sizes bigger, his collarless shirt was ragged, his hat shapeless, its band stiff with dirt.

  ‘Chuck your notice over the hedge,’ said Michael, somewhat unreasonably. The man took no notice, and with some difficulty wedged it in the back of the car with him.

  ‘Perhaps he’s deaf,’ Michael spoke under his breath.

  Maisie frowned and turned to her new passenger. ‘There’s a seat belt,’ she said, smiling at him.

  The man had one of those faces that have gone down the centuries. His heavy eyelids hooded eyes either stupid or shrewd, you couldn’t tell, he had large coarse ears, and a slightly dopey-looking half-smile which said God knows what. He looked equally capable of good or evil. He stank a bit of rotting sacks. He made no attempt to fasten his seat belt.