Damage

by Josephine Hart

  ‘I think you’re wrong. If Martyn is in love, he’s still very young to marry.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, he’s twenty-five.’

  ‘Well, it’s quite young.’

  ‘We were married younger than that.’

  ‘All right then. So he’s not too young. It’s just that Anna’s not right for him. I’m certain of that.’

  ‘Well we’re both certain of that. It’s not a happy situation, is it? We don’t like her. Martyn loves her.’

  She looked at me, quizzically.

  ‘Of course, I assume you don’t like her. But come to think of it, you’ve never really voiced an opinion … a serious opinion … have you?’

  I looked her straight in the face.

  ‘I suppose I haven’t thought much about her. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You had better start thinking now, my dear. Or before you know where you are, and perhaps before you’ve made up your mind about her, she’ll be your daughter-in-law.’

  She looked carefully at me. I tried to smile. Surely something must show of the struggle inside? But my face can have betrayed little.

  ‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘I feel you should talk to Martyn soon — man to man. Think about what to say.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Perhaps in between your meetings in Brussels. It’s easier to think things through, away from familiar surroundings.’

  The conversation was over.

  ‘I’ll leave for Hartley on Thursday evening, if that’s all right with you. Sally can get the train on Friday night.’

  ‘Yes. I’m leaving first thing on Friday morning.’

  ‘Let’s have dinner then. No more talk of children and their romances. Let’s plan our summer holiday.’

  FIFTEEN

  THE DESPERATION THAT compelled me to leave Brussels, and to take the night train to Paris, was driven by a terror that I might never see her again. I had to see her. In order to live, I knew I had to see her.

  And yet, did I not plan this? I had tricked Ingrid into giving me the name of their hotel. Was I really consumed by forces beyond my control? Or was I colluding in some needed, longed-for destruction? The wheels of the train, rhythmically grinding the miles from Brussels into oblivion, had the implacability of some great machine of fate.

  Paris seemed to have the morning air of a village that is preparing for a fete. Each person knew how to play his part, and when to begin. I sat in a cafe, and had coffee and croissants. Then, as if drawing a map in my head, I walked around the streets close to L’Hôtel. I watched and waited, carefully noted the time. I swore to myself that I would not phone until nine.

  I remembered Anna saying she would make all the arrangements. So I gambled.

  ‘Madame Barton, s’il-vous-plaît.’

  ‘Un moment. Ne quittez pas.’

  The receptionist put me through.

  ‘Hello. Go to the end of the street. Turn into rue Jacques Callot, just off rue de Seine.’

  ‘Oui, bien. Merci.’

  I put the phone down.

  It had been so simple. I was trembling with joy and longing. Lines from childhood sang in my head, ‘All a-wonder and a wild, wild longing’.

  My maniac’s face as I walked from the booth startled a passer-by. I tried to compose my features. I put my hand to my jaw, and remembered I was unshaven, unwashed. What had been all a-wonder and a wild, wild longing? I felt like something from the wild. And oh, the longing, longing!

  I leaned against a wall, and looked down a side-street for some hiding-place in which to hold her. I must hold her.

  At nine-thirty I saw her head flash for a second, between the laughing faces of a family group. She stepped off the pavement, overtook them, and ran to me. I pulled her down the alleyway and pushed her towards the wall. I threw myself upon her. My arms spreadeagled on the wall, my legs apart so that all my body could grind itself as hard as possible on to hers. My mouth and face bit and scraped her lip, her skin, her eyelids. I licked her hairline. I let a hand drop from the wall, and holding her by her hair, gasped, ‘I have to have you.’ She slipped her skirt up, was naked underneath, and in a second I was inside her. ‘I know, I know,’ she whispered. It was over in minutes. I fell away from her.

  Someone rounded the corner. They moved to the other side of the small alley. I had been lucky again. As we held each other, Anna and I had the appearance of lovers locked in an embrace. In Paris that day, I was forgiven.

  She arranged her dress, smoothing the crumpled skirt. Then from her bag she took her knickers and, smiling a sudden, girlish smile, she slid them on.

  I looked at her, and cried, ‘Oh Anna, Anna. I just had to, I just had to.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered again. ‘I know.’

  I wept. It occurred to me that I could not remember ever crying as an adult. It had simply never happened.

  ‘I must go back now,’ she said to me.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. How did you get out? What did you say?’

  ‘I explained to you once before. Martyn doesn’t question me. I said I wanted to have a little walk. Alone.’ She smiled.

  ‘What power you have!’

  ‘I suppose I do. But you both came to me. I didn’t search you out.’

  ‘Didn’t you? You didn’t stop us either.’

  ‘Could I stop you in this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I must go.’

  ‘I thought you said he never questioned you.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a kind of pact. Maybe even a bargain. I try not to abuse it. Goodbye.’

  ‘Anna. What are you going to do today? Where are you going?’

  ‘I must go now. I really must. Martyn and I will come home on Monday evening. You must not stay in Paris. I know what you will do … you will follow us. Go home. Please.’

  ‘I will. Just tell me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can think of you, and where you are.’

  ‘And who I’m with.’

  ‘Not yet. I have not thought about that yet. I simply can’t see past you.’

  ‘You know, I think you’ve never seen very much at all. Ever.’

  She turned and walked away. She didn’t look back. I slid to the pavement like some drunken vagabond. I crouched there with my head in my hands. At the end of the alleyway I glimpsed the other Paris, now having lost its morning softness, glide elegantly by.

  Our sanity depends essentially on a narrowness of vision — the ability to select the elements vital to survival, while ignoring the great truths. So the individual lives his daily life, without due attention to the fact that he has no guarantee of tomorrow. He hides from himself the knowledge that his life is a unique experience, which will end in the grave; that at every second, lives as unique as his start and end. This blindness allows a pattern of living to hand itself on, and few who challenge this pattern survive. With good reason. All the laws of life and society would seem irrelevant, if each man concentrated daily on the reality of his own death.

  And so, in the great moment of my life, my vision extended only to Anna. What had, as she said, been a life of singular blindness, now necessitated the ruthless obliteration from my vision of Martyn, Ingrid, and Sally. They seemed but shadows.

  Martyn’s reality had been most brutally stamped out. He was a figure in a canvas, over which another had been painted.

  SIXTEEN

  I KEEP ALWAYS READY and packed a bag, with shirt, underpants, socks, extra tie and shaving kit.

  My career, which often demanded sudden overnight departures, made my ‘emergency bag’ a necessity. Oblivious to it on my journey, and in my minutes with Anna, I now picked it up from the gutter. In a men’s lavatory I repaired my outer self.

  As I looked in the mirror, my unshaven face and sunken eyes seemed appropriate to me. This is someone I recognise, I thought. I felt a great joy. As I shaved, I felt my mask less tight upon me. I was certain that someday soon, it would slip away entirely. But not yet.

  I rang L�
��Hôtel.

  ‘Madame Barton s’il-vous-plaît, je pense que c’est chambre …’

  ‘Ah, chambre dix. Madame Barton n’est pas là. Elle est partie.’

  ‘Pour la journée?’

  ‘Non, elle a quitté l’hôtel.’

  It was as I thought.

  She must have left immediately. Anna, woman of action! I smiled.

  I went to a bookshop, and waited for exactly one hour.

  I rang the hotel.

  ‘Oui, L’Hôtel réception …’

  ‘Do you speak English?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘I would like to book a room. Do you have one?’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘I find I must unexpectedly stay in Paris for just one night.’

  ‘Yes, we have a room.’

  ‘Good. I have sentimental memories of your hotel. Do you by any chance have room ten free?’

  ‘Yes, it’s free.’

  ‘Marvellous, I will come after lunch.’

  I gave my name, details of how I would pay, and hung up.

  Will, will. I remembered my father’s old motto. I felt triumphant. I thought of the night’s journey, and of how I had succeeded in seeing Anna. I had undertaken a dangerous endeavour. I had won. I had the will. I had the luck. I remembered Napoleon’s main requirement of his generals — luck.

  I was lucky now.

  Suddenly, I felt ravenously hungry. Appetite and sensuality flooded through me. I made a reservation at Laurent and, having been ushered to a quiet table overlooking the garden, I ordered lunch. ‘Mille-feuille de saumon, followed by … poulet façon maison.’ I ordered a bottle of Meursault. I ate with a kind of rapture. The wine looked and tasted like liquid gold. The pastry seemed to explode gently in my mouth, as the salmon slipped from its crevices. It was as though I were eating for the first time. I was glad I was alone. I needed time, and distance from Anna, so that I could lose myself in memories of the morning.

  Pale honey slices of chicken, in an amber-coloured sauce; a salad of whitened green that gleamed; creamy-coloured cheese; the deep red of port; colours so intense, and shades so subtle. I slipped softly into the world of senses. A body that could stretch out fully to imprison, release, restrain, or devour its prey, could now also eat food the way food should be eaten.

  I was sick with pleasure when I entered the room Anna and Martyn had so swiftly vacated that morning.

  I had been led quietly up the strange curve of the staircase, where circular floors and secret rooms ascended to a magnificent dome.

  I had no sentimental knowledge of L’Hôtel. I had heard of it, of course. But the room shocked me. It had a heavy air of sensuality. Anna’s choice was a room for lovers. Blue and gold brocade curtains, a chaise-longue of red velvet, dark golden mirrors, a circular bathroom, small, windowless.

  Anna had chosen this hotel for Martyn and herself. I closed, then locked the door.

  Lust and rage engulfed me. I lay on their bed. Now in its pristine perfection, it denied any other occupant but me. The chaise-longue obsessed me. Maybe there, I thought. Maybe there. She doesn’t like bed. No. No, it’s you who doesn’t like bed. You don’t know her. She answered your needs, that’s all. When have you really talked to her, you fool? I became naked, throwing clothes on floor and chairs. In a rage, I lay on the wine velvet chaise-longue and slowly, methodically, and with little pleasure I sent spurts of semen into its blood-coloured beauty.

  Then, as this strange day of triumph and defeat drew to a close, from the evening shadows Paris the magnificent arose. Powerful and implacable, its majesty seemed to underscore my own frailty and weakness.

  I moved on all fours like some heavy animal from my velvet world, and fell on to the bed. In a dreamfall of colours — the green of Anna’s dress, the flash of black as she slipped on her knickers, the liquid gold of the wine, and the sunlit pales of the mille-feuille and salmon, the violent blood-red of the chaise-longue, and the sombre darkness of the blue brocade curtains — the day slipped away. And with it departed the man I used to be. He seemed, as I fell further down this kaleidoscope of the day’s colours, to slip into the Paris night, like a black shadow, or a ghost.

  I closed my eyes. A childhood terror came back to me. When you fall in dreams, you die. If you hit the ground.

  SEVENTEEN

  IT TOOK A WHILE for L’Hôtel switchboard to connect me to Hartley.

  ‘Hello, Edward. How are you?’

  ‘Marvellous, my dear boy. It’s such a pleasure to have Ingrid and Sally here. They don’t come to Hartley often enough. Neither do you, I may say.’

  ‘I know, I know. I miss it.’

  ‘Well, you’ve very busy. Sally’s new young man Jonathan, is here. Nick Robinson’s boy, you know. Only Labour chap I can take to.’

  I thought this might have been because Nick Robinson was one of the few Labour ‘chaps’ with a public school background, and an impeccable Shire heritage.

  ‘I knew Nick’s mother, you know. Could never understand Jesse Robinson’s son becoming a Labour MP. Ah, well. You want to talk to Ingrid I expect?’

  ‘Yes. If she’s around.’

  ‘She’s in the garden. Hold on a moment.’

  ‘Hello, darling. How’s Brussels?’

  ‘Deadly. Actually I had to dash to Paris for a morning meeting. I’m catching a plane back tonight.’

  ‘No chance of seeing Martyn and Anna then?’

  ‘No.’ I paused. ‘I thought of calling them to invite them for a slap-up meal, but there isn’t time. I just won’t bother them at all.’

  ‘Probably right,’ said Ingrid. ‘A weekend in Paris is for romance, I suppose. Fathers are not the most welcome of dinner companions for young lovers.’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’

  ‘Such a pity. I’d be quite pleased to see Martyn in love. If only it wasn’t with Anna. Anyway, enough of that.’

  ‘You having a lovely time there? Weather good?’

  ‘Just lovely. Every time I come back to Hartley, I seem to love it more and more. I thought of Mother a lot today. Walking with Sally reminded me so much of my walks with her. I suppose we were never really that close. But yesterday I missed her, rather badly. I wish you’d been here.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course.’

  ‘Jonathan is a rather nice young man.’

  ‘So Edward says.’

  ‘Safe journey, darling. Would you like me to come back earlier?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. You enjoy your few days at Hartley. I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

  ‘Bye, darling.’

  ‘Bye-bye.’

  It’s so hideously easy, I thought. To tell her I was in Paris was risky, I could easily have concealed it. The new and strange shape I was assuming was hardening each day. The facile liar, the violent lover, the betrayer, would allow no return journey. My path was clear. I knew I was on a headlong rush to destruction. But I was certain I could control and plan each step of the way — with a mixture of restrained joy and cold deception that I began to find intoxicating. I felt not a shred of pity for anyone. That was the essence of my power.

  I bathed and changed. I brushed a flaking mosaic of semen from the chaise-longue. Having paid the bill I left for Charles de Gaulle. I wondered what I would say if I came across Anna and Martyn? Anna could be relied upon to dissemble. Could I deliver a perfect performance? Would she despise me if I failed? My love token is a garland of lies, I thought. She has crowned me with lies since the day I met her. But in the centre of my crown, like a diamond, rests the only truth that matters to me: Anna.

  Luck stayed with me, clearing my path. With an almost delicate ease, I left Paris in a triumph of moral degradation.

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘yOUR SON IS on the line, sir.’

  ‘Put him through.’

  ‘Hello, Dad. Sorry to disturb you in your office.’

  ‘Martyn, how are you?’

 
‘Great. We’ve just got back from Paris.’

  ‘Nice time?’

  ‘Well, yes. Anna was a little unwell, so we came back early.’

  ‘Unwell?’

  ‘Yes. Stomach cramps, violent headache. She went to see her old doctor. Then we left.’

  ‘How is she now?’

  ‘Oh, she’s fully recovered. Thanks for asking. I rather appreciate you always being so … sensitive … about her. Mum doesn’t really like Anna.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she does. Anna is an interesting girl.’

  ‘I think that’s what Mum doesn’t like. She’d like me to be with another version of Sally, I suppose. You know, twenty-two, very English, et cetera, et cetera …’

  ‘Not very flattering to your sister, all this.’

  ‘Oh, Dad, I love Sally. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes. Yes I do.’

  ‘I know you’re busy, Dad, but I just wanted to tell you I’ve been offered a job on the Sunday — ’ He mentioned one of the country’s leading newspapers. ‘I’m Deputy Political Editor.’

  ‘I’m impressed. Congratulations.’

  ‘I’d rather like to take you and Mum out to dinner. To celebrate. Thursday possible?’

  I hesitated. ‘Yes probably. I may have to leave early to get back to the House.’

  ‘That’s fine. So Thursday at Luigi’s. I’m inviting Sally too. And that new chap of hers. So you see, brotherly feelings are still strong!’

  He laughed, and rang off.

  ‘Alistair Stratton on the line, sir.’

  ‘Just hold him a moment, can you, Jane?’

  I needed to recover. Not only from the sudden shock of talking to Martyn, but from the conversation itself, which had disturbed me. I was not the only person who was changing. Martyn the man was emerging more strongly.

  ‘Put Alistair through,’ I sighed. The day then trapped me in its iron bars of phone calls and meetings, letters to read, letters to write, decisions to make, promises to break. And underneath its structure lay a growing sense of alarm, and a sudden gnawing fear of Martyn.