by Roger Curtis
Sarah’s thoughts raced. But in her mind the answer had long been prepared and rehearsed. Her response was immediate and mechanical. ‘Naturally, if the arrangements are acceptable I shall be pleased to attend.’ She had no idea what she was asking.
‘Splendid! I have already arranged for a car to pick you up tomorrow evening at seven precisely – that is to say to the second – at your gate. You will find the chauffeur well able to take care of all your requirements. You need do nothing more.’
‘Thank you for your trouble.’
‘No trouble at all. Goodnight, Mrs Preston.’
She stood at the window, thrust back the curtains and raised her arms to the night. She was a caged bird being shown the open door to the sky. She felt a desperate need to tell someone, if not the truth, then at least to convey to them her excitement and gain a response. She thought first of Alice and Brian, yet somehow they were not right. Then Jack Adams, but – my goodness – that would never do. Then it came: Ali.
There were gangs of youths on the street where she parked: white, black, a few Asians; in threes, fours, fives or more. In spite of their coarse banter they were uneasy, with the alertness of game on an African plain, ever mindful of attack. She suspected that each would know where to run, where to hide, when the signal came; and, more ominously, when to make a stand.
She chose her moment carefully, looked all around, and walked swiftly across the pavement to the door. The red brick portico was cavernous and dank – as much a place of danger as of refuge. There had been businesses here, but the brass plates alongside the bell buttons were covered in crude labels; one was a piece of Elastoplast, but whether used or not she could not tell. Ali’s – no surname – was at the top.
His voice crackled from the speaker. ‘Close the door as soon as you’re in. Fourth floor, on the right.’ Then the catch clicked open.
There had once been luxury of a kind: smart offices and waiting rooms with plush furniture and pin boards belonging to long-legged secretaries in tight skirts and high heels. Now paper peeled from the walls under its burden of green mould. Fragments of lino and carpet remained only because they were beyond salvage. Another floor up he was waiting for her.
‘Sarah, you should not have come.’
‘Why?’
He went to the window and pulled back the pieces of sheet that served as a curtain.
‘You see them outside, like pariah dogs.’
‘Yes, I saw.’ Ali was as much a hostage to his surroundings as any of the vagrants he had befriended on the streets.
‘Last week there were two knifings, one white, one black. They always seem to go together. How do you say, tit for tat? The most dangerous are the mixed gangs – they hate everybody.’
He suddenly realised she was still standing and was ashamed. ‘Please, come and sit. Forgive me.’
‘You live alone?’ From his expression she saw that the question had been spurious and unnecessary; but why, she wondered, had it hurt him?
‘I have only one other person, as you know.’
‘Then why are you not with her?’
‘Because I have business here to complete. Then I go.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘Bad business. You wouldn’t be interested.’
‘I might. If you want to tell me.’
He reached across the table for a cigarette packet. Not to take one out but to rap the packet repeatedly on the table top to release some inner tension. It was an effort of will to tell her.
‘It’s simple. I got into debt.’
‘Because of the baby?’
‘The doctors’ bills. That was the beginning. Then, after Jazreel became sick, we couldn’t live off what we earned. Where we lived, it wasn’t difficult to make money. In certain ways.’
‘Drugs?’
‘But then Jazreel found out. In her temper she destroyed what I had without realising its value. It was a lot.’
‘And then?’
‘I owed the dealers. I’ve been paying them ever since. There’s interest, you see.’ He took out a cigarette and lit it. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘Ali, can you tell me how much is involved?’
‘No, Sarah! That’s not what I want!’ He tapped the table again in frustration. ‘Why did you come?’
Sarah smiled at his anger. There was time enough to help without embarrassing him now. But the smile pulled at her lips like little guy ropes. Her face clouded over as in her mind the subject of her attention shifted. Then it became a wry half-smile.
‘First – the easy one – to tell you that I can’t come with you tomorrow. Just a social thing I’m going to. There are so few of them for me these days.’
‘That’s a pity. Hassan was not well today. I was hoping you could look at him. But the next day will do. What’s the other?’
‘That’s more difficult. You told me once that Jazreel hated Edwin – you know, Stricker, the surgeon. Did she ever tell you why?’
‘No. It’s the only thing she will not share.’
Sarah wanted desperately to ask about the baby, but did not dare. ‘Then does she hate me too?’ There was no particular purpose in the question. It was just something to say.
‘No, she was just scared for you.’
‘And you told her she needn’t have been?’
‘I told her about your face.’
Something in his voice alarmed her. It caught her breath and she felt her eyes widen. Why in heaven’s name had he responded with a reference to her face?
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘I’m sure nothing. Please forget it.’
‘Then what made you say it?’
‘At first she thought there might be a connection. I told her no. She doesn’t think so now. It was a silly remark. Please put it from your mind. Do you want to see some photos?’ He took a packet from the mantelpiece and sat on the makeshift sofa. He patted the seat for her to join him. Sarah doubted whether he really wanted to show her; it was probably only a way of changing the subject.
‘They’re all mixed up and some are quite old. I’m not a photographer.’
Most were of Jazreel, looking woodenly at the camera, against many different backgrounds: cities, mountains, desert even.
‘She is really beautiful now,’ Sarah said.
‘Yes, yes, beautiful again. And here’s the camp… and the hospital. See how primitive it is! And these are the children… and the patients.
‘Well, at least some of them can smile.’
‘For the camera, I think.’
‘And where’s this? Not the Middle East, surely?’
‘It’s Oxford.’
‘Oxford?’
‘On our last day together in England! I treasure it.’
‘Why Oxford?’
‘She had not been there, she said. We drove through the countryside. The hills and the trees. The real England, here see.’
The print was of a church and, in the background, a hill, dome-like, green with vegetation and bald on top like a monk’s head. Sarah looked at it in disbelief. Then she looked at Ali. But in his face she read only the splendour of a last evening shared by two lovers.
‘Ali, I know this place!’
‘Do you? That’s interesting. Jazreel had a friend there to say goodbye to. Near the church.’
‘Did you see… this friend?’
‘No. I stayed with the car and looked at the church.’
‘Do you know who it was?’
‘No. Just a friend.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘She came back and we drove to London.’ He seemed to be searching his memory. ‘She seemed very tired. Didn’t speak much. She was still not well, you see.’
/>
‘And the next day?’
‘Gone. It was two years before I saw her again.’
Their thighs were firm together on the seat, the warmth flowing between. By chance her damaged face was away from him. She sensed the fierce conflict within that was making his hand tremble, its excursions magnified by the photograph he still held.
She touched his stubbled cheek with the back of her hand, uncertain what to do, knowing that something precious could be shattered by the slightest misjudgement. The urge would have been uncontainable if the prospect of the following evening had not come to her rescue. She was grateful when he spoke.
‘I cannot, Sarah. My feelings do not count against these things that hold me in chains. Just accept it. Please.’
He walked her to the car and she left him on the pavement, looking about him with the feral anxiety affecting all who lived in the squalor of that street.
But it was Jazreel’s association with Peverell Hessett that occupied her mind for the duration of the drive home.
16
Precisely meant just that. Sarah left her room with a minute to spare, ten seconds of which she spent mouthing to Mark, who was arguing on the telephone, that she was going out. She had her usual coat over the white dress she had worn before, with it tucked up around her midriff so he couldn’t see it. It seemed curious that he didn’t know her purpose, but evidently he did not. He was, if nothing else, transparent.
As she stepped into the road the car, sleek and black, glided to her side. She walked with it for a few steps until both were out of sight of the house. The rear door opened automatically and she got in. She wondered if the timing would have been as precise had there been anyone in the road to witness it. Was that, too, just coincidence?
To her surprise the driver neither turned around nor spoke. By the time her seat belt had fastened itself around her – for that too was automatic – they were already travelling at speed. A glass panel separated her from the driver and it seemed pointless to speak. Yet this was no taxi. It was the most opulently furnished car she had ever been in.
The car turned into a narrow lane, unknown to her even though they were still within a mile of the house. It skirted the edge of a field and pulled onto a bare platform of concrete for the temporary holding of root crops and farm waste. The partition descended to reveal a tanned face, with a neatly trimmed black beard and lips held sufficiently apart to show a perfect set of teeth.
‘Mrs Preston. Firstly, my apologies for the brusque manner of the rendezvous. Secondly, may I extend a most hearty welcome on behalf of the Massingham Foundation.’
Sarah began to speak but he silenced her with a slight motion of his hand that suggested a profound capacity for persuasion.
‘Before we go further there is one thing I have to ask. Is your husband in any way aware of your adventure this evening; by that I mean through your own agency?
‘No, I am sure he is not. Why do you ask?’
‘To assure you of a splendid evening uncompromised by thoughts of a… domestic kind. There is no need for him to know, nor will he, I assure you. Now, my name is Pierre, and I shall be at your service whenever you need it, for whatever reason. Or discreetly absent if you do not.’
He passed across the seat a small flat box in fine leather. It contained a simple gold amulet bearing a single ruby. ‘You must wear it all the time. Under the stone is a tiny transmitter. If you need my help simply press it and I will come. But remember that, once in the Tower, until you press it I will not be able to locate you. Like everyone else, you will not be recognisable from your appearance.’
He was about her own age, but with a worldly assurance that suggested greater maturity. The face under the dark hair was malleable, and the goodwill it now radiated seemed of the kind that could be supplanted in an instant by derision or cruelty. There was also charm and power, the latter suggesting that he was an employee only because it was to his advantage. It seemed he was trying hard to disguise a raw Gallic sexuality that had Sarah sitting upright in her seat with her head turned away to hide her disfigurement.
‘When we get to the Tower – that is to say park beneath it – I will direct you to your personal dressing room where you will find a variety of forms of attire. It is for you to choose. There is one rule only: under no circumstances must your mask be removed. It is this rule that ensures enjoyment for everyone. I know you already understand that. Then you may enjoy the evening in whatever way you wish. When you want to be taken home return to your dressing room, press the stone and I will be waiting by the car within five minutes. Is all that clear?’
‘Perfectly. Thank you.’
‘Then we’ll drive on. I shall not speak again, so as not to be guilty of spoiling your enjoyment.’ He brushed aside her protest with the now familiar twist of the hand. ‘There is a switch in front of you, if you would like to be occupied during the journey.’
No passenger could have resisted that simple gold switch, which Sarah saw was in the form of a butterfly. She pressed the uppermost segment and a screen that until then she had not noticed burst into vibrant colour. At first the images were blurred, beautiful only because of the motion of their abstract shapes. But as she watched there appeared recognisable forms that had meaning, expressing themselves for a moment only before becoming lost in the swirling cavalcade. The effect was to intrigue and fascinate and she began to search in the screen for greater clarity of understanding. Gradually, she became aware that what she was seeing were images of the most erotic and suggestive kind, so discreet that it was impossible to be offended, though at the same time so powerful and sensuous that she felt her body begin to writhe in pleasure and sympathy. And the whole was ever-changing, devoid of the numbing of the senses of even the most subtle of the few erotic films she had seen. This was pornography turned upon itself in the hands of a master film-maker.
Then – oh my God, could that possibly be? – she was in the picture herself, with the most intimate parts of her own face and figure in juxtaposition, heightening the sensations that gripped her body. How was that possible? Who had filmed her? And when? But it had been done with such consummate taste that offence was far from her mind.
She did not notice when the car entered the tunnel. Once in darkness Pierre switched on the interior lights. For a moment it seemed that there was a second person sitting in the passenger seat beside him. Then he twisted his arm and she realised he had been holding up, like a monstrous glove puppet, a mask in the form of a bull’s head. Then the light was off again. Had he allowed her to see – she suspected against his instructions – how she might identify him?
When he opened her door she was relieved that he did not fall short of the promise of his face and demeanour. The only thing to set against him was that he was not particularly tall. Such a point of detail might once have mattered; it didn’t count now.
He pressed a numbered disc into her hand and motioned her through a door next to the car. Concrete, glass, the Massingham monogram faded almost beyond recognition; she was momentarily disappointed. Then she realised they were still in the world of the uninitiated, the drabness of the barrier intentional. The door closed immediately. She found herself in an upholstered cell which, from its slight vibration, was clearly an elevator. The door opened again and she was in a carpeted gallery with doors each with a unique pattern in inlaid wood. She chose the one bearing her number and went inside.
To this point she had not seen another person. Later she would learn that the lift door would only open when the gallery was empty.
The closest it came was to a first class cabin of an ocean liner. There were flowers and baskets of exotic fruits, some she did not recognise; and on one wall a large screen that reminded her of the source of her fascination in the car. It would be possible, she thought, to spend a whole evening here without going a step further. Perhaps some companions did just that. That
was not why she had come.
It amused her to find a white gown similar to the one she was shedding, but of finer quality. In the mirror she could just make out the detail of her own body, but over the breasts and pubis the material was imperceptibly more dense, so that the effect was tantalising rather than obvious. Even if she had wanted to, there was no chance of wearing anything underneath. Of the choice of masks, that of a faun seemed the most benign.
A watch seemed inappropriate and she left it behind. The cautionary red light of her amulet was a reassuring substitute. Then and throughout the evening she could not stop herself looking at it.
The first surprise came as she passed from the gallery linking the personal rooms to the dome. Before, in spite of the absurd extravagance of the setting, there had been conventional elements: in the decor, the music, the conversation even. And light: enough, at least, to put a brake on the more extreme forms of self-abandonment. It had been a wild party, but one conducted within an envelope of sobriety and decorum.
Now, there was purple-blackness under the vast dome.
She heard the lapping of water around the quaint quays and inlets before they became visible. A network of faintly luminous paths within the vegetation encompassing the lagoon had the form – yet, strangely, not the menace – of a coiled serpent. She weaved her way to the water’s edge to take stock. There was no hurry to go where the guests were more densely clustered.
So fine was the construction of her mask that she was scarcely aware of it. For the first time since the attack she felt whole again – yes, that was the word that kept circulating in her head – and at... at peace? No, not peace, because the carnal stirrings that had been suppressed with such difficulty during all these weeks had been re-awakened by the stimulus of her journey and the suave attentiveness of Pierre.
She stared across the dimly lit space beneath the dome. Where before there had been a wall of limestone there was now continuity with a greater darkness beyond. She looked instinctively for her watch to scale her progress, but the red eye of the amulet returned the message that time here had no meaning. The evening would end when she was replete, or exhausted.