When he called her tonight on the phone she would tell him it was over. She did not have the courage to tell him face-to-face. And first thing tomorrow she would make arrangements to go back to South Africa: never to return.
The idea that she might never see Justin again was so distressing; it made her breath leave her body with a desperate, burning sob.
Slowly she let her eyes move through the room: from the jewel colours of the rug; to the accordion folds of the books on the shelves; to the long sweep of the swagged curtains where the glow of the lamp was too weak to reach and the shadows clotted thickly. In the far corner of the room she saw a figure with a defeated slump to its shoulders. She knew it was her own reflection, captured within the elaborately curlicued frame of the tall standing mirror.
The minutes ticked away one by one by one. Tick following tock following tick. She was beginning to feel drowsy once more, so very sleepy. Her head was enormous on her neck. Though she tried, she could not keep her eyelids from sagging.
Blackness.
Blackness and Alette standing next to her bed; placing her finger against her lips. ‘Shh. Don’t wake Mother. You’ve had a bad dream.’
Blackness as Justin’s hand moves over her face; his fingers masking her eyes. The rubbery feel of his thighs and buttocks. His lips sucking the breath from her mouth.
Black crystal reflecting no light: an unblinking eye filled with venom. Sinuous slither and ripple of scales. ‘Isabelle, I’m scared.’
Two black-coloured wooden marriage dolls burning to a fine white dust. Michael’s voice: ‘He’s dangerous. I’m afraid for you.’
And suddenly—black shadows and a white hand emerging from the gloom: Take my hand.
No. Her own hands were clenched into fists. She did not want to take Alette’s hand. In her mind came an echo of the terror she had felt the last time she had touched those pale, outstretched fingers: the prickly sense of horror that had crawled over her body like a million, multiplying insects; the loud beating of her heart. No, she would not take the hand again.
With a movement as swift as a snake’s the hand snatched at her. She looked down to see her wrist encircled by Alette’s hand: the skin on her wrist white where the fingers gripped. She tried to pull free, but was unable to do so. She placed her other hand on top of Alette’s in an attempt to pry away the vice-like fingers. But scarcely had her hand touched Alette’s when the surface of her dream stretched and rippled like a sinewy, organic piece of tissue and the next moment she was hurtling forward, forward, and the speed of it took her breath.
The speedometer needle rising. Headlights burning into the fog. Trees spinning blackly past the window. The sound of a distressed engine.
Terror. Blinding, choking terror.
The phone rang; the sound ripping through her dream. Her eyes flew open and her body jerked so violently that her arm fell off the armrest of the chair.
Justin?
But then she knew. Behind her eyes she could feel trembling nausea and the sound of the phone was strange, flat: curiously off-key. She placed her hand on the receiver and as she did so the slight figure in the mirror opposite her stretched out one hand to the phone while using the other to tuck the strands of long red hair behind her ear.
‘No.’ Isa’s voice was a scream. She placed her hands over her ears to try to block from her mind the atonal sound. She closed her eyes to shut out the image of the red-haired woman looking at her from the mirror.
And then she was running down the stairs, grasping at the front door lock, and running, running through the front garden. She was barefoot and she shuddered at the cold, slippery feel of flagstones under her soles. She yanked open the front gate and did not stop running until she reached the pavement on the far side of the street.
She waited, her eyes fixed on the lighted square of Alette’s living-room window. She could see the edge of a bookcase, the fall of a drape. The phone was still ringing. Even from here she could hear its continuous, drawn-out, monotonous peal.
Then it stopped.
Still she waited. The wind had died down and it was very quiet. Raindrops dripped off the branches. From somewhere farther along the street came the soft rushing sound of an overflowing gutter.
Her face was wet with tears. She turned around and started walking. When she reached the high street there were people and traffic. A woman looked at Isa’s bare feet and giggled nervously. The man at her side placed his arm protectively around her waist.
Now she was facing the red pillar box outside the post office. She took the folded manila envelope from inside her jacket and withdrew the two stamped, envelopes from within, the addresses written in black: Martin Penfield: London Post. Dan Harrison: Financial Times.
Will there be any way in which he can get out?
No. This man is facing disaster. There is no way out.
She placed her hand inside the black maw of the post box, still gripping the letters in her fingers.
He doesn’t care for you. Why do you think he took you to his bed?
She opened her fingers. The letters left her hand and fell to the bottom with a soft plop.
NINETEEN
And every where Erynnis raignes …
An Ode
Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666)
IT WAS A SLOW NEWS DAY, but even so Martin Penfield’s stomach was acting up. He opened the drawer of his desk, his fingers searching for his antacid tablets. Christmas and New Year were murder on his digestive system. Every year he made a promise to pace himself at the dinner table, and every year his resolve vanished in the face of tortellini, cappelletti di Romagna, polastro in tecia, and slabs of tiramisu. His mother-in-law was Italian and cooked like there was no tomorrow. He was going to pay the price for days to come.
He belched just as the door to his office opened and looked up irritably, but it was only the mail boy with the day’s post.
Before even opening it, Penfield knew what it was he held in his hands. There was no mistaking the handwriting on the envelope; the strong yet delicate penmanship, that deliciously extravagant loop to the P of Penfield. Another missive from his mysterious lady. Although it could be a man, he supposed. He looked closely at the handwriting once more. No, it was a woman, no doubt about it.
For a moment he sat quietly, tugging at his upper lip. There was something very odd going on here. And though he had never considered himself squeamish, there was a relentlessness to the systematic dismantling of Justin Temple’s business that was quite disturbing. Impressive, but disturbing. He wondered what the poor bastard had done to her.
Still, he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and so far the information they had received from their anonymous source had been spot-on. He turned the letter around and speared the flap of the envelope with the hideous chrome letter opener he had received as a Christmas gift from his secretary.
The letter was much longer than the previous letters she had sent him, and it took a while before the full implication of what he was reading sank in. For a moment he sat perfectly still. Then, with a sudden movement, he picked up the receiver and spoke to his secretary.
‘Gail, find Daphne for me and call John Page in legal. Tell him I need him in my office right away.’
Penfield slammed the receiver back in its cradle. He almost felt like rubbing his hands. It was going to be a hectic day after all.
TWENTY
The Pestilence of Love does heat.
Dialogue between the Soul and Body
Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
THERE WAS A CRACK in the ceiling. A tiny crack but it spread right across the entire expanse of white before disappearing into the egg-and-dart cornicing. It bothered her: this crack. It irritated her subconscious.
Isa stared at the ceiling. As she had done an hour before. As she had done yesterday, and the day before. And the day before that.
Since mailing the letters to the newspapers she had stayed indoors. She wasn’t answering the phone. She had
closed the curtains. Twice someone had rung the doorbell and then hammered at the door. She hadn’t even gone to the trouble to look out of the window to see who it was. Justin; Michael: she did not care. As far as she was concerned, she might just stay in the house forever. Since mailing those letters, the house no longer felt strange or hostile. It was as though she had done what was expected of her and now the house was ready to accept her back again.
In all this time she had been outside only once. Late last night she had felt ravenously hungry and there was nothing in the kitchen to eat. She had walked to the all-night Tesco store five blocks away: blindly picking cheese straws and milk and a box of cereal from the shelves. As she left the store her eyes had been caught by an Evening Standard poster trumpeting the day’s headline news event: MELTDOWN: NEW CRISIS FOR TEMPLE SULLIVAN.
Such a tiny crack—thin as thread—hardly noticeable in that perfectly decorated ceiling, but somehow managing to spoil the entire effect. It reminded her of something else, but what? A perfect facade marred by something tiny, offbeat: hinting that all was not as it appeared to be. For days now something had been scratching at the back of her mind: mental poison ivy.
She pulled the blanket closer around her body, and as she did so, she noticed again the chain of blue bruises around her wrist. The imprint of the thumb was particularly strong. Isa touched her wrist gingerly.
She thought of a shining white hand darting at her from dream shadows. She thought of the reflection in the mirror of a woman with long red hair and delicate bones. She thought of Michael’s warning: ‘Lucid dreamers may find their dreams taking possession of them and they end up literally unable to find their own self again.’
Possession. The word carried with it a whiff of exorcism: clergymen dressed in swishing black robes, doleful chants, violent rites. Was that what it was? Was she becoming possessed by Alette? Crazy lady, she thought. Crazy lady, that’s me, to even consider such a thing. But her eyes returned once more to the delicate imprint of bruises around her wrist.
Turning her head sideways, her gaze moved on to the pictures on the nightstand next to the bed. She looked into Siena’s slitted eyes. She was suddenly gripped by an intense longing for the old woman. But Siena was dead; almost fifteen years now. Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. Just like Alette. Alette who was cremated along with two wooden African dolls, given to her by Siena, the person she had loved the most.
Isa hadn’t seen those marriage dolls in years, but she could still remember exactly the way they looked. The male figure was slender, almost adolescent looking, whereas the female figure was that of a mature woman: wide-hipped, with pendulous breasts and heavy thighs. They were carved from stinkwood: a black, very hard wood, not really suitable for carving. Maybe that explained why the expressions on the faces of the dolls were so enigmatic and strangely twin-like: the eyeballs large and protruding; the lips a straight line except at the ends, where the corners curled upward only slightly, as though the two dolls were smiling over a secret known to them alone. The dolls were old. Oils from the palms of other, unknown owners many years in the past had bestowed on them a fine sheen.
Isa had been jealous of this gift, she remembered it well. And she had once asked Alette if she could keep one of the dolls in her own bedroom. But Alette, usually so generous, had refused. ‘These two dolls must never be parted. They are spirit marriage partners. If you part one from the other, the union would be forever broken. As long as they are together, love endures. Love is still alive.’
Love is still alive.
Isa sat bolt upright. As if wiping a clean cloth over a dirty window, allowing the light to pour in, she suddenly knew. She knew what it was that had been nudging at her mind: tugging at her unconscious so insistently. Looking back, she realized it had bothered her ever since Lionel Darling had told her about the specific instructions Alette had left for her cremation. Alette had stipulated that the marriage dolls be cremated along with her own remains and Isa had sensed that something about this request was peculiar. She had even asked Michael about it: hoping that he could still the nagging feeling within her.
Alette had given these idols to Justin as a wedding present. Presumably, after such a disastrous marriage, the idols would have lost their meaning for Alette. Why, then, would she want to take them with her into death? Why take with her these symbols of perfect unity? They were tokens of the enduring love a woman experiences only once in her life for a man: her true mate. The person she would most want to be with for all eternity.
Not the person who had made her life a nightmare.
Isa threw the blanket off her. On the Regency writing desk below the window stood her handbag. She pushed her hand into the zippered side pocket and her fingers closed around the letters she had taken from the walnut table in Justin’s living room. She had completely forgotten about them.
She pulled a sheet of pink notepaper from one of the jagged-edged envelopes.
Dear Justin,
We have to talk. We cannot go on like this.
You’ve changed your phone number again. And again it is unlisted. Why? Why can’t you just talk to me? Why do you insist on shutting me out of your life? You know you will not succeed in doing so. We are linked, you and I—not just in this life, but also in the next.
Last night I stood in the square and looked up at your window, hoping to see your shadow on the blind. I stood waiting for hours.
The light was on but there was no movement. And then, without warning, the light went off and I was left staring at darkness and my heart ached for you so.
I long for things to be the way they used to be; your arms around me, my body touching yours. Your lips seducing me, and in your eyes images of what you were, what you will become.
Before I met you, I had searched, but could not connect with any man. It is my fault, I thought. I have sabotaged my own chances by giving too freely of myself. I have indulged myself too much, with too many lovers, too many times. Maybe those who have known but one lover only are the ones destined to feel intensely and strongly: their love undiluted by memories of other loves and other moments of passion. By sharing myself with so many, maybe I had tranquillized my senses and blunted my capacity to feel completely.
But then I met you. And now I can say that I have known many men but only one love. You are my life. Don’t take away my life. Don’t leave me lonely.
I suck the oxygen from the air, you say. I am too needy. My love smothers you. My jealousy wearies you.
Tell me what to do and I will do it. All I ask is that you allow me back into your life. Open the door, just a little.
Please.
The word ‘please’ was written in blue: a different pen, clearly, from the black one that had been used to write the rest of the letter. It seemed indescribably poignant; as though Alette had mulled over what she had written and then, much later, had added that one, last, impassioned plea as a desperate afterthought.
The other letters were written in the same vein.
Love and death go hand in hand. By loving utterly, we experience the same obliteration of the self as when we face death’s embrace. I have always realized this, I suppose, and have shied away from loving so extravagantly. Then you came. And I gave myself to you with no attempt to save myself from losing myself. But you rejected me.
One letter consisted of threats of the most obscene nature. Isa could not believe what she was reading. The handwriting was Alette’s, but the words were alien. This could not be Alette: so fastidious; so careful of investing herself emotionally; it could not be Alette who wrote these shrewish sentences that were acid with hate and spite.
Some letters were piteous. On a lined piece of paper, which looked as though it had been ripped from a scrapbook, Alette had written:
Dear Justin. May I ask you three questions only:
Why don’t you love me?
Have you ever loved me?
What can I do to make you love me?
Please answer.
Th
anking you in advance, your former wife,
Alette Temple.
The letters had been written over a period of three years. The last letter was dated three months before Alette’s death. Around the time Alette had visited Mr Darling, Isa thought. Around the time Alette had drawn up her will, had sold her shares in Temple Sullivan. The letter consisted of one sentence only: Do not make me give up on you.
Stiff as a mechanical puppet, Isa folded the pages with exaggerated precision along the original creases and pushed them away from her to the far side of the table. The surface was dusty and the letters left a shiny mark. She really should clean the place up. Alette would have been disgusted at the way she had let the house go: dust collecting in the corners, the bed unmade, an airless smell in the rooms. On the table stood the glass vase with the lilies that Justin had given her. The petals had long since browned and the long stems were slimy. A dank smell came from the green water.
Michael had told her Alette had been terrorized by Justin: that she had been his captive. She had been his captive, but not in the sense Michael had thought. Alette had deceived Michael. Just as she had deceived her, Isa. Alette had been the one unable to handle rejection.
The most frightening thing was that Alette had clearly convinced herself that she, not Justin, was the victim here. ‘The mind is already such a cunning, cunning thing. It’s programmed to be dishonest, to lie to us. Throughout our lives we train it to become even more deceitful.’
Michael’s words. He was right.
How surprising that she should feel so calm. She had been duped into playing a destructive game, the rules written by a deeply distressed woman. But she wasn’t hysterical. She wasn’t weeping. Even though she herself had destroyed her chance at happiness. Even though she herself had destroyed Justin.
The Midnight Side Page 21