Thomas thought, in a rare moment of clear thinking, that he might have become as anonymous as he was because he was so used to no one listening. Ugly persons listened, yes; people from whom he was buying things, yes: they looked into his eyes and tabulated the amount of attention they would have to give, but nothing even roughly similar to that slavish affection he had received from a beautiful child in a dying village. Someone who did not find ridiculous the aspirations of a plain little man to create, or acquire, things of beauty. The aspirations of the same but half-crippled man to have about himself a woman of beauty would be viewed as obscene. Oh yes, that was another feature of his appearance and diminished ability to make demands on his world. He was not allowed to despise those who were also ugly, or even dislike them: he was supposed to join with them, to play their kind of games and he could not. He was supposed to empathize with Maria and he could not: he was simply bound to her in a barbaric way. He was supposed to adopt, along with the preternaturally ugly, the solace of religion and he despised it in every shape or form. Tore down his parents’ icons instead, slandered Maria’s saints. Bitterness reared with the same old fury.
Oh, Elisabeth, why can’t I talk to you? Listen, all will be well if you will only listen. Slowly, surely, the optimism always latent in him renewed itself. Listen, look at me if you can. All right, I am holding you captive, but there is more to all this. Please let me explain how I do my best and get it wrong. I did want, I do want and can only have … You cannot go yet, not under these misapprehensions, you cannot: you think worse now of me than I could ever have imagined. You cannot go until you begin to understand how I have to live. Suddenly it was easy. Of course she would understand.
Thomas made his toilet. He was in a hurry. The sleep after dawn, when the body finally gives up the tussle with wakefulness, was the harshest, deepest sleep of all: he was late and clumsy. Blood flowed from his chin. Maria would be coming upstairs in a minute. Could he send her away for today? No, he could not. He would promise her church next Sunday, tell her to be quiet and frighten her, which had always worked. Tell her to finish the cleaning, get her to go out for a long, long walk with the dog to underline the point. Then she would be fine while he went out to shop for Elisabeth, set the scene for his confessions. When he shopped, he would leave behind Butler, this foul, snotty, terrible dog he was supposed to love, like he was supposed to love her, this sister, with her blackmailing devotion to their dual, immortal souls.
He mopped the blood from the one-handed shaving, put on a clean shirt, clean trousers, did not have the time it took to manage a tie – dear God, it was nearly eleven o’clock, only minutes to spare. He blundered down the corridor with a swatch of soft toilet paper to his chin, saw the light signalling Maria’s presence outside. Opening the door, he could feel his voice descending to a hiss.
‘Get in there!’ Pointing to the kitchen. ‘Clean up. No, clean up later … Are you all right? Good. Take the dog out sooner rather than later, keep him out for at least an hour, he needs it. He’s bursting and I’m busy, do you hear? I want to shop this afternoon. You can finish the other rooms then. Please do as you’re told.’
She nodded, the radiant, crooked smile fading. Stepped into the kitchen, watched him walk towards the studio room. I do not like this, Maria thought. I know a thing or two, maybe three. Thomas knocked on the door. It had been closed of late, and since dumbness was not new to either of them, he had not intruded. At the moment, cheered that the blood had ceased to flow on his chin, he had a plan, and the one talent he thought he could count on was planning. Planning, the thought of any kind of action, made him high. He had forgotten that the plans took on a life of their own and, like some hermaphrodite, needed no input in order to reproduce other plans, fledgling plots, of which this was one. A special dinner, an occasion for speech (he forgot Elisabeth’s relative lack of interest in food). Thomas did not wait for an invitation before he marched in. On the easel was the madonna, part of her shining with new varnish, part of her dry. The light fell on her, leaving her half obscured. Those major parts, unvarnished, which still did not reflect, were invisible until anyone came close: the light disguised her cunningly.
‘Listen, Elisabeth. Listen, I do not care about finishing the paintings, I do not care, do you hear me? But you can’t go yet.’
He is lying, she thought, it makes his voice loud: he cannot come close and hides the lie by making such a show of not looking, but the light in here hurts his tired eye. Thomas never once turned to the depiction on the easel; he looked only into Elisabeth’s similar face. He had something to say: his face was contorted with the effort.
‘I don’t even care about me, but the least I can do, before you go …’ – he paused for effect – ‘before you go, when you go, soon, I think, is to ask you, oh, I don’t quite know what… ask you, ask … to listen. Someone must. So you must stay, for today. If you please. I’m going to shop for supper. Something delicious. You don’t eat enough. Don’t talk to Maria when she gets back with Butler. She does talk a lot of nonsense, you know, really.’
Despite the pomposity of the ‘if you please’ and the smile which split his pudgy face, his intensity, together with his lack of tie, the blotted remnants of blood on his chin like battered mosquitoes, the aspect of this little man who looked both harried and somehow hideously pleased with himself, was more frightening than all his disarming manners. Once buoyed with the excitement of self-deluding optimism, Thomas could excite neither pity nor guilt. He looked immune; he looked demonic. The demon pixie, planning his errands to buy poison.
Elisabeth stood dumbly. She had stood for more than three hours now: the light and the sheen and the smell of the varnish were spinning themselves into sugar before her eyes.
‘Go?’ she said. ‘Can I go?’
‘Not yet,’ he said firmly, the smile stretched over his teeth in a rictus. ‘Not yet. Listen, I have things to do today.’ His mind was busy, his eye registering neither what was on the easel nor the expression on her face. He spied instead the shining cleanliness of her hair, caught up in combs at each side into damp but glorious colour as she retreated before his advance. I was wrong about buying her a dress, he was thinking, completely wrong. Why does she need such things? They give her all the wrong ideas. I shall buy her something else to redeem that mistake and then I shall be able to explain. Something for her hair, less suggestive, shoes, perhaps, or some tool of the trade, a set of brushes, something she will take and use, make her see I would never … His nose wrinkled: there was a strong smell in the room, despite the open windows above their heads, and the strength of the smell distracted him momentarily.
‘Were they any good, those paints I bought you the other day?’ They had come in with the other gifts, or was it before? She could not remember. Maria had played with them. When was that? A long time ago.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘No, but never mind. When can I go?’
He was disappointed. Somehow he had made himself believe that she would be infected with his cheerfulness, but there she was backing away, and she did not even like his paints. No more paints, then: that would not be today’s gift. Something else.
‘Not yet, please listen, you cannot go quite yet, but soon. I’ll leave you in peace now.’ He was planning furiously, talking half to himself. ‘Ye-e-s, let’s see … Maria takes out dog, then I’ll go out, about noon …’
‘No! You cannot let Maria take him out, you can’t do that, Thomas, after what happened. Not after her being bitten, Thomas. Please. I’ll take the dog, if you like.’
She said it without thinking, but Thomas stopped, sorrowed, although not downcast, by the blatant cunning of this ploy. It dampened his enthusiasm, but only for a second. He felt he could afford to overlook it.
‘Maria will be fine,’ he promised stiffly. ‘Please be patient. We’ll eat about six this evening. I’ll call for you.’ He made it sound as if he would be coming from the other end of town. Elisabeth could only nod, feeling the sheer exhaustion of
his presence, weak with hunger, the varnish smell and these sudden changes in his demeanour. Thomas closed the door behind him.
Doors. The only sound which penetrated anywhere, except occasional murmurings of conversation. Doors clicking shut were the only herald of human activity. Elisabeth sat in one of the armchairs and closed her eyes. The light was stronger: opening her eyes, she could see the window ropes swinging in the breeze she had let into the room, the tassels blurred. Maria, she was thinking. I must do something about Maria, cannot let her stay as a tortured servant here, whatever happens to me. I don’t believe a word he says, about me being free to go, free to do anything. She closed her eyes again in a wave of dizzy nausea. With that acuteness of hearing which only came when she was not looking she registered the fact that doors were slamming, an epilogue to raised voices. First the kitchen door, then the outer door, then the softer sound of Thomas’s bedroom door, then silence. Peering into the corridor, she saw that Thomas had retreated. Maria, Butler and his leash were gone. A tiptoe dash into the kitchen, then she was foraging for coffee and a lump of dry, stale bread to still the specks dancing in front of her eyes, hoping that Maria would come back soon, unscathed. How selfish I am: I must not think only of myself, I hope she is safe. And then because it was imperative to finish, she went back to the varnish. The madonna called for her final touch. Whatever else happened today, something had to be achieved.
It might have been two or three o’clock, with pauses and dreamings and long interludes when the applying of the varnish consumed her whole concentration. Careful now, careful: go with the direction of the paint, follow the brushstrokes made by the artist or you do not cover every millimetre of surface. Not working from top to bottom, but from the centre to the outside as the artist had done with his final layers, until all was covered and all was revealed. The last portion was so absorbing, Elisabeth did not hear the further, softer, opening and closing of doors until, with the canvas complete, she stood back from it, adjusting the easel to the light to examine the surface better.
This time there was merely a hint of noise: they had not spoken as one came out and the other in. It was not an empty silence, but a shuffling silence, no human voice, but Butler sniffing at the door and the consciousness of someone else sniffing with an almost pleasurable disgust.
They had returned to their mutual instinct for the other’s comings and goings, Maria and Thomas, so that this time, when she had demanded entry, coming back with the dog, he had been waiting for her, so impatient was he to be gone himself. In the meantime, he had left his room and quietly done his ineffectual best to tidy the living room where he had sat last evening, fiddling with duster and damp cloth the easier to pass time. He read the paper which came in with Maria in the morning, planning, planning, writing list after list of what to do, what to say and how to say it. When the door light showed (and he was checking every minute), he let her in quickly. ‘Late, Maria, late, where have you been, two-thirty, too bad.’ But the voice was very soft as if he were speaking secrets, so she scored no victory in her tardiness. He had one of his sticks and a shopping bag in hand, looked cheerful, held the door open for her, did not say anything else, but slipped outside in the same breath.
Maria was startlingly, alarmingly angry. Her ankles hurt after the walk with the docile dog, a dull ache like a forgotten bruise knocked into life. She had guessed what went on, became more sure, but still looked for confirmation. There was his behaviour when she had arrived this morning, ordering her into the kitchen while he talked in secret to Elisabeth; the same dismissive cheerfulness of him now, the antics of a boy who had just been given a prize, the benign and smug face he wore when he was naughty. She paddled down the corridor, dropping Butler’s lead, poked her head, lizardlike, into the living room and stopped. So, cleared up in here, had he? Taken away glasses, messes, sticky things which suggested drink and no food, straightened rumpled rugs, taken trouble to hide some orgy? The level in the decanters was low, there was stickiness on the floor like a snail trail. Maria moved out of there quickly, hurried to Thomas’s room. The same tidiness, the bed carefully made, the breeze running strong from the window, disturbing the fanlike collar of a brilliant silk robe which lay on the end of the bed. Maria moved slowly towards the garment.
Brilliant, virginal blue, like the robe on the madonna, the pristine and pure blues which always decked her little pictures of the mother of God, Mary with the roses round her feet, with her blues cascading from her shoulders as her arms were held forth in blessing, revealing the innocence of the white robe underneath. Maria touched the material, instantly warm as if it had just come from contact with skin. Then she held it aloft. There were moisture stains on the front: the unbuttoned bodice was torn, partially ripped in several places as if by fingernails. Maria remembered the care Thomas took with his hands, could almost hear the small sounds of fine fabric tearing. She did not drop the garment as the truth burst, but flung it from her as a thing diseased, watched it land with arms outspread on the pillow of the bed. The bodice was covered, as if ashamed. She stood and looked, expecting the thing to move. From a great distance, she heard her name called.
‘Maria! Are you there? Maria, where are you? Are you all right?’ Maria darted from bed to door. Elisabeth was running towards her with arms outstretched, ready for an embrace, the voice light with welcome and a wrapping of relief. For a moment Maria wanted to smile, feel arms around her in that rare luxury of being touched, but she remembered where those arms had been, what sins of the flesh they contained along with their blood and bones. She could not ever receive that offered warmth, flying towards where she stood with her fists clenched.
‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘Get away from me! Get away!’ Elisabeth’s hands were on Maria’s shoulders. Maria pulled them away, stepped back.
‘Maria? Are you all right? Are you hurt? What’s the matter? Maria, look at me, look at me …’
But Maria was twisting her head away to avoid the contamination of a glance. A stain of bright red colour rose through her face. Her hands were clenched white.
‘What is it? Maria, look at me, please,’ Elisabeth repeated. ‘Please.’
‘No.’ Then, with a cunning which surprised herself, Maria forced a kind of gentler resignation into her voice. It was a slurred voice, difficult to follow.
‘No Not today. Thomas says you must work today, and so must I. Be good, Miss Elisabeth. We must be good for today.’ Elaborately, Maria put her fingers to her lips. It took a little time to say all this. Maria was proud of herself, but Elisabeth turned paler, her olive skin a shiny sallow. She dropped her arms and let Maria stalk past her without ever once catching her eye. Butler followed after her. Elisabeth hesitated, fought the desire to go after her, to say, Look, we are both in the same boat, you must trust me. She thought of what harm she might do if she won her plea for a return to their friendlier conspiracy, the partnership which had seemed to exist. She sensed that Maria had been threatened: if she were to make her go against some explicit order of Thomas, delivered in a raised voice that morning, might she not detach the woman from her small supply of survival instinct? Might she not cause, as she had before, more bites, more dangers? Elisabeth felt she owed Maria more than that, and, besides, the defection of her one and only ally, the one source of hope and simple affection, hurt with a winding pain. It doubled her like a punch: the coffee and dry bread rose like a sluggish, dirty tide. Hand over mouth, she rushed through Thomas’s room into the en suite bathroom, leaned over his basin, heaving.
Weak, very, weak, the sweet taste of sherry suddenly foremost. She sat in there for what seemed a long time, holding down the rising threat of panic. Minutes ticked by with the specking in front of her eyes, while she wished Maria would come back, if only to tell her to keep to her own quarters, anything for the comfort of conversation. Speak to me, whatever the words. Look at me, look at me as if I were not alien, please, I care for you. Then thinking with the crystal clarity which came with the cold in here, she lifted
her head and went back to his bedroom.
Dully, she looked at the ultramarine robe flung to the top of the bed, saw it without shock, but the same onset of panic which had paralysed her before. She sat on the bed and touched the robe, turning it over and seeing the marks of claws. Oh, Thomas, destructive Thomas, he could not even leave a dress alone. Was the perfection of the inanimate always too much for him? How long would the madonna have, or herself, unless she were somehow scarred? Then clarity returned in its strange snatches and, staggering like a drunk, she moved over to the dressing room. There was a series of fast-moving thoughts: he might have hidden the telephone, the bathroom, look there; it must be somewhere, it was here once, by his bed, I must phone; he cannot have thrown it away. Then she felt the mesmerizing draw of those paintings without eyes, as if only the sight of paintings could give her courage. She knew by instinct she was right about the bathroom, but she still delayed and stayed by the cupboard.
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