‘She’s well.’
‘That’s good.’ The man looked round vaguely.
‘I’ve worked out the backing, it’s slightly changed,’ said Michael. ‘Let’s get going.’
‘It could end up spot-on – or junk.’
‘It won’t be junk, it’ll be superb. Let’s go.’
‘We’re waiting for the engineer,’ said the man.
‘Oh, Christ, don’t say we’re waiting for the bloody engineer again.’
‘He’s here,’ someone said.
Michael aimed the empty can at the corner, where there was already a pile of them.
‘How’s Jilly?’ he asked the older man.
‘Gone and got herself pregnant again. Can’t for the life of me see bloody how. I think she does it on purpose.’
‘All women do it on purpose,’ said Michael.
‘You know, you’re bloody right there. I’ve just realised. It’s a fucking plot.’
They both laughed, watching the engineer trailing wires everywhere, but a strange little spurt of anger flared in Michael, taking him by surprise. Then he put it out of his mind.
‘We’ll do it straight through,’ he said. ‘No pauses. If it goes wrong we’ll bash straight on. But it’ll not go wrong. It’s going to be great.’
The engineer made a thumbs-up sign through the glass, and Michael cleared his throat and settled into himself. The first piece was a gentle, straightforward love song backed by a very soft rock sound.
‘She opens her eyes like flowers in the morning.
Margaret in her tower, her high hiding place.’
The passion was muted, gentle, like morning mist. It was coming just right.
Michael grinned, pleased, and then looked down, collecting his thoughts, drawing a cloak around him, as it were, a cloak of dark, melancholy cloth, shutting out the world. For the next piece was bitter, and had a cruel cutting edge. He sang these words clear as freezing snow crystals, still quiet, but his words drew blood from the shrivelling heart:
‘She has pierced me with small words, words and kisses
And carried away my joy for ever.
A long way off where I can never find it again’
Watching him, it was as if a shadow passed over his dark features. And that song had been right too. It was going well. The mesmeric backing filled in the pauses between the lyrics. Now he was lost in it, too far to go back.
For the next song was throbbing, full of passion, using his voice to the full.
‘Call me back to the sweet flesh of yours
Which charms and craves me,
Oh, cool and lily flesh of my lover.’
Maisie’s flesh was like that. Suddenly he wanted her. Suddenly he remembered how she would have his child – and something quickened in him, like a hare turning its head all of a sudden, in an open field. He sang the last song on the track, a song of farewell and parting. It was his latest song and he sang it unaccompanied:
‘I do not go my love
for weariness of thee.’
Afterwards they all went to the top room of the Fiddler’s Cat and did some serious drinking.
It was a mistake to go back to Maisie like that. But he needed her that evening. He wanted to get away from everyone. And he felt so tender towards her. She seemed vulnerable, he was seeing her with different eyes. Really, she was a vulnerable woman, not cool, not all those things he had been thinking. He wanted to look after her. Shield her. And the baby she would have.
That was what he was trying to do as he unfastened the heavy lace bed-curtains round her bed, as she lay there roused out of her sleep. Gently he was drawing the curtains round her, shielding her from the world, from all harm.
Maisie was furious. ‘Why come back here,’ she asked tightly, fiercely, pushing back the folds of the lace curtains and fastening them up with shaking hands, ‘like that? You’re drunk. Really drunk.’
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Michael, hurt.
‘Because you can’t walk straight. You’re swaying about. You’re drunk.’
‘Well, I came back because I love you.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Maisie. She was frightened. Not of a drunken man: but that she was pregnant now, trapped, and her lover, the father of her unborn child, was showing himself in his true colours. This man, who had wreaked her new state upon her, was unknown to her. It suddenly terrified her.
Michael wondered if this could be the same woman he had known up till now. White-faced, her fists clenched, kneeling in the middle of the big bed, she looked wild-eyed, slightly crazy. Her sleek, straight, ivory-coloured nightdress was slipping off one shoulder, showing her breast and brownish-pink nipple.
‘Can I come to bed?’ asked Michael, taking off his shoes. He felt he had to lie down very soon.
Maisie hesitated. She really did not know how to take this. She pulled up her shoulder-strap and muttered something Michael couldn’t hear. He decided to take it as an invitation. Half-undressed, he lay down. Maisie got up and put on her robe.
She went into the kitchen and began making tea.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Michael, his eyes closed.
‘Making a cup of tea.’
‘Come here.’
‘Go to hell.’
Michael quietly digested this. Then something like a black cloud of fury began to darken his mind. What did she say to him? Go to hell? Hell? She’d have him go to hell. That dreadful place. There was no peace or rest in any part of it.
He opened his eyes, his head throbbed. ‘What did you say?’
‘Go to hell.’ The small, crisp voice came from the kitchen.
Somehow Michael got off the bed and went into the kitchen. He stood there, swaying slightly.
‘That’s a strong word to use.’ He spoke in a slow, exact way, trying to control the slur in his voice.
‘What – hell?’ She was not looking at him, she laughed.
‘A bad place to send me, Maisie.’
He made to put out his hand, but Maisie shrugged it off.
He reached out to her roughly. Angrily he took her by the shoulders, shook her from side to side. His hands were on her throat.
Without a single thought, acting entirely from instinct, Maisie slid to the floor, feinting like an animal in danger, and lay there quiescent, harmless at his feet.
As Maisie slid through his awkward hands and lay there before his baffled, drunken gaze, he started laughing in a sudden release of feeling, a sense of the ridiculous. What was he doing? he wondered. He wasn’t much good at this sort of thing – he’d certainly make a bit of a hash of trying to strangle a woman. It was so funny. He was on all-fours, bent over her, his head down, laughing and laughing, helpless in the grip of his shaking laughter.
Maisie was still. Somewhere there was a deadness. She was coldly afraid of what had happened. She felt abandoned in some deep, deep sense. And at last Michael saw that although he had not really hurt her, she was in some way badly hurt. He knelt at her side, his laughter all gone.
‘I’m sorry, Maisie,’ he said. ‘What have I done? Be all right, please be all right. Are you all right, Fig?’
He lifted her from the floor, and, cold-sober now, carried her to the bed.
Dreamily, Maisie opened and closed her eyes. She had distanced herself from all rational and intellectual thought and was acting directly from instinct. No thoughts went through her head. Her mind was empty.
Her eyes closed, she felt Michael undress her. He pulled both the shoulder-straps of her nightdress down, and kissed her breasts. Then she felt him pull the sheath of her satin nightdress from her, she felt it as a snake might feel its skin sloughed off. She lay there quiet, half-asleep almost, relaxed, and let him do what he wanted without responding, but without struggle. She lay as if curled in the warm sun under a leafy tree, whose heavy fruit was ready to drop to the ground.
But soon his touch began to shiver through her: how strong nature is and how it subdues everything to its will! Wit
h stronger and stronger insistence, like the undulating waves of childbirth, her whole body became suffused with feelings that sprang directly from the deep wells of nature, and involuntarily, she cried out.
But underneath, or rather beside her, aloof and somewhat cold, some part of her appeared, seeing all this, and thinking, analysing what had happened, and what might follow from it.
6
IRENE was dressed in the fashion for pregnancy – not an attempt to hide it, but rather to show it off. She was wearing a long pink tee-shirt which clung to her ripening, swelling belly, and made the most of it. She wore a string of hand-made beads and no make-up, and her long hair was freshly washed and flowing like a shampoo commercial.
Maisie had previously only glimpsed her. Now Leo introduced them. He did it very nicely. ‘I’m so glad you’ve met each other properly at last. My dear girls.’ And he kissed them both.
Maisie was wearing a short black dress she had often worn before, it suited her, showing off dark-stockinged legs and her pretty red shoes tied with ribbons. She had a small bruise on her throat. She and Irene nodded to each other, their smiles managing to miss each other just slightly.
Rose came up and brushed her lips against her mother’s cheek. ‘Thank you for my present, Mummy.’
‘Do you like them?’
‘They’re lovely – I’m wearing them.’ She fingered the earrings – gold star clusters hanging down from her neat, flat, small-lobed ears. She was wearing a sari with a gold border.
‘Happy birthday, Rose,’ said Michael. He was looking very handsome in his dark way, serious, older. Somehow very correct. A little withdrawn. He was wondering how long it would be before he was offered a drink. He needed one. He still felt a bit shaky.
‘I have to go soon,’ Leo was saying, ‘and meet Evelyn’s train.’
‘Oh, shall I go instead?’ Maisie put her hand over her glass. ‘I haven’t had a drop yet, anyway it’s mostly tonic.’
‘No, I’d like to. Come if you want, Maisie.’
Maisie hesitated, trying to distance herself from Irene’s hostile vibrations. ‘All right. I’ll come with you,’ she said.
They went quickly, before anyone could stop them, or join them.
‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you,’ said Leo, as they drove off.
‘It’s really nice to see you,’ said Maisie, ‘but if you wanted to talk about Rose and Bernard Glantz, I shouldn’t worry. I don’t think it will last.’
‘I very much don’t want it to last,’ said Leo. ‘I am suspicious of that man’s motives.’
‘Motives?’
‘I think he’s making use of her.’
‘Well – I suppose you could say he is, in a way. Don’t we all make use of each other, though, Leo, in one way or another?’
‘Stop being oceanic, Maisie, please. I get enough of that. This is Rose we’re talking about. We don’t want her to make a mess of things.’
‘My view is that at this point in her life almost any relationship is better than none.’
‘I don’t agree. I don’t agree at all.’
‘No,’ said Maisie, ‘but you’re being selfish.’
‘What the devil do you mean?’
‘You know how she feels about you, Leo.’
They were waiting at traffic lights and Maisie turned and saw the look on his face, as reflected lights crossed and recrossed his bland, handsome features. His expression was inscrutable, alarmed, smug, confused and watchful all in one. Maisie sighed and dropped the whole thing.
‘Ma’s got someone with her, I expect you know that.’
‘The Hungarian philosopher chap.’
‘Yes. Thèk.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘An exceptionally nice man.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful. We never get to talk,’ said Leo, glancing briefly at her. ‘How are things, Maisie? Are you happy?’
‘Sometimes. Are you?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Irene looks well.’
‘She’s in fine fettle.’
‘Anyway, don’t worry about Rose – it’s probably on its way out already.’
Leo smiled at her as he parked outside Waterloo Station. The smile was charming, tender. ‘Well, let’s go and collect these two old things,’ he said.
As they made their way into the station, he put his arm round her shoulder. Maisie was wryly, bitterly amused to realise it made her feel safe. Mrs Sharpe and Thèk had seen them and were waving.
‘They look so full of life,’ said Leo. ‘Thèk’s face looks familiar.’
‘Ma said he was in a television series on philosophy – perhaps that’s where you’ve seen him.’
‘Yes, I believe that might have been it,’ said Leo. He threw up his arms in actorish ecstasy and hurried towards them, embracing Evelyn Sharpe and then shaking Thèk’s hand warmly.
‘Oh, this is so lovely,’ said Mrs Sharpe, as they packed into the car. ‘It’s ages since I’ve been up to town.’
‘Shall we stop off at the gin palace and have a quick one before we go back?’ said Leo.
‘Better not, Rose will think the train crashed or something.’ And when they rejoined the party, Rose came up to them and said how long they had been, and Irene gave Leo a rather stony look from eyes that had begun to bulge a little, before she resumed her conversation with Glantz, between sips of orange juice. Glantz was looking earnest but slightly puzzled.
‘And this cheers you up?’ he was murmuring.
‘It gives an experience of wholeness,’ said Irene. ‘Of spiritual wholeness and a realisation of woman’s mythic place in the universe.’
‘Have you never caught cold doing it?’
‘Oh, no, it gets rid of colds.’
‘Well, I think you are very brave, in this climate, to go through all of that. Making a shelter of sticks and twigs, heating the stones over a little fire, pouring on water to make steam. Crawling inside and then, oh dear, jumping into the freezing water. Where does all this go on?’
‘In our garden,’ she said. ‘We use the swimming pool.’
‘You could go to a sauna.’
Irene looked at him pityingly, and gave a snorting little laugh. ‘How do you think you would learn to work with the inner wisdom of the body in a sauna?’ she said.
‘No, perhaps not,’ said Glantz. He hesitated. ‘But it would be less trouble, more convenient.’
‘Or listen to its subtle messages,’ she added. She took a long sip of orange juice.
‘Another juice, darling?’ asked Leo, taking her glass. He had caught the end of all this.
‘She’s losing her sense of humour, Bernard,’ he said lightly. ‘I expect it’s hormones, don’t you know.’
‘How men patronise us,’ said Irene. ‘What on earth are those marks on your neck, Maisie? Has Michael been trying to throttle you?’
‘Oh – yes. He will keep doing it. I think he’s really a werewolf.’ Maisie touched her neck, and looked at Michael, who was sitting by himself. She went over to him. She longed to touch him, but would not. She spoke lightly. ‘Go and be nice to Rose, she’s got that look – and it’s her birthday. I want her to have a nice party. Go and flirt with her or something.’
‘She’s having some sort of row with Glantz, I think,’ said Michael.
‘Yes, I know, go and talk to her.’
‘What about?’
‘Oh, anything. The Book of Kells. Anything.’
‘Put some music on,’ said Leo in a loud voice. ‘Bring on the dancing girls.’
Rose put on Ella Fitzgerald, and Leo began dancing with her. He was a good dancer, she wasn’t.
‘I’d rather talk to you about the Book of Kells, anyway,’ said Michael. ‘Better than that – we’ll go and see it.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Maisie, sounding absent.
‘I know you would, I know. I want us to get away. Out of all this – London.’
‘To Ireland?’ she said, flippant, almost mocking.
‘Yes. I’ve got the staleships.’
‘Staleships? What a word!’
‘It’s what the gipsies get when it’s time to move on.’
‘Perhaps you want to move on – away from me.’
‘No, I want you with me. Always near me.’
‘What was last night about?’
‘I don’t know, Maisie, I’m a bloody fool. It’s not you – it’s me. I want you to know everything about me.’
‘Is there a lot I don’t know?’
‘Yes – but I want to show you everything – the Irish part, if you like, I want you to know all about me.’
Oh, God, she thought, every look – every gesture – every move he makes. Perhaps they should go to Ireland. She had to give a paper in Dublin some time quite soon; perhaps she could take Michael, though she had intended flying back the same day.
‘Do you still love me?’ he asked, knowing that she did. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.’
‘Love,’ she said, ‘what is it?’
‘It’s what we feel for each other,’ he said, touching her lightly with one finger on the cheek. ‘For better or worse. I’ll go and chat up Rose later on, she’s happy with Leo.’ They watched the two dancing in the middle of the room. Leo caught their glance and steered Rose towards them. He looked at his watch.
‘The restaurant’s booked for nine-thirty,’ he said, ‘but it’s only round the corner, you know, the Indian place – I hope everyone likes Indian food.’
‘You should have a nose jewel,’ said Michael, admiring Rose’s sari.
‘I’ve always wanted one, but I’m too scared to have my nostril pierced.’
‘Put some different music on, something lively, and come and dance with me.’
‘I can only do graceful dancing in this.’
‘Well, unless you want to take it off, we’ll do graceful dancing.’
‘I don’t want to dance,’ said Rose, ‘I want to mope about and be a skeleton at my feast.’
‘Oh, all right then,’ said Michael.
Leo and Maisie were sitting on the settee, and Michael and Rose sat on the floor at their feet. Rose put her head on Leo’s knee, and he stroked her hair.
‘What did Daddy give you?’ asked Maisie.
Fig and the Flute Player Page 14