by JH Fletcher
There was pain in wounding others, particularly this man whom she had come to love. Let her embrace the pain of inflicting pain. It was that, far more than the pain of loss, that continued in unguarded moments to bring tears to her eyes. Let her surrender herself to it; she deserved no better, because she had permitted hope to carry her away.
Again she smiled at Khieu Pen.
‘Are you saying you’re taking no holiday at all?’
‘A week or two, perhaps. I have no plans.’
Impulse took hold. She heard herself say: ‘I have a farmhouse in the Siena hills. It’s quite large, plenty of space for guests. My mother will be there but if you can bear our company for, say, a week, I should be very happy if you would come and stay with us.’
There was no question of desire, that was certain. He was different, he was interesting and, above all, he was a means of distracting herself from all the might-have-beens that would otherwise have plagued her, turning her holiday into the ashes of lost dreams. You promised you’d write: no letter … Except that he had written and she had not read it.
Khieu Pen looked startled, as well he might. ‘If you are sure I shall be no imposition
So that was settled. Two days later she flew to Verona.
11
In the Verona arena last night, Lucia Visconti scored an undoubted triumph in her performance of the title role in Verdi’s Aïda. God has chosen to lavish great gifts upon this artist. She is a woman of wonderful beauty and artistic composure; she has the dramatic presence of a great classical actress; her voice possesses unparalleled strength, range and agility. Above all, she has tire skill to convey to the audience the passion and nobility of the slave girl who has sacrificed life itself for love — Corriere della Sera
12
She met the plane, as arranged. She drove him back to the farmhouse. On the way she pointed out vistas that she thought of particular charm or beauty: the tender line of the hills, the way the woods cloaked the precipitous slopes, the riding trails disappearing like a succession of promises into the forest.
She stopped a kilometre from the house at a point where it could be seen clearly on the other side of the valley, settled deep into the rock as though part of the mountain.
‘There it is.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It is. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it.’
Again the treacherous word, meaning so much or so little.
‘I wonder you can bear to leave it.’
She laughed. ‘I’ve a job to do. The same as you, the same as everybody. After all, if it wasn’t for the job, I couldn’t afford the house. But I love knowing it’s always here, waiting for me to come back.’
And again that word, as though it held her in its teeth and would not let her go. She wondered, not for the first time, what she was doing here with this man whom she had invited to enter into her peace.
He said: ‘You make it sound like a refuge.’
‘So it is. A refuge from the tribulations of past and present. And a dream for the future.’
They drove on until they reached the house. Carlo the gardener carried his bags upstairs to the room she had given him on the other side of the house from her own. They walked through the house to the terrace. She said: ‘There’s a pool. Swim whenever you like.’
He turned to her, his face bright. ‘This is truly a wonderful place.’
‘I’m glad you think so. But there’s one thing I need to tell you.’
‘And that is?’
She looked at him. His complexion was more lined than she remembered and sallow now rather than brown. Even his hair had lost something of its lustre. He was no longer a young man.
‘We shan’t have the place to ourselves the whole time. Jacqui, I’ve invited my mother and my friend Khieu Pen, the man who conducted me in Geneva, to join us in two weeks’ time.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
1
She had been so determined to cut him out of her life, as she would anyone who had let her down as Jacques had. And now look at her! Thirty-two and behaving like a lovesick child!
She must have known she would open his letter sometime. She had waited until she was at the farmhouse. The applause from the Verona audience had still been echoing, not so much in her ears as her blood. Aïda had never been her favourite opera. Like much of Verdi, it was too grandiose, with little scope for subtlety, yet for that reason it was ideally suited to Verona’s vast arena. Her triumph had been wonderful. She needed the reassurance of the audience’s love, doubted she could live without it, but also understood its danger. Adulation fed her ego, which was the enemy of art. It was one reason why she had been so glad to come home to the peace of La Tranquilla. Except this time it had been like coming home to a desert. The hills were as green as before, in the forests sunlight still played on the silver turmoil of plunging cataracts, but her heart was as dry as stone. She thought of the empty days stretching before her and wondered how she would survive.
She had sat for half an hour with Jacques’ letter in her hand before she could bring herself to open it.
I am more sorry than I can say that I upset you. I had been looking forward so much to the two of us spending time together at your farmhouse in the Siena hills. There is a war coming in Algeria that I have to cover, not only because it is my job but because it is my country, too, and its pain is my pain. But that is not why I have to go now. As I tried to tell you, my father was shot dead two days ago and I have to leave at once for the funeral. By the time you get this letter I should be back in Paris, at least for a while. It would still be possible for me to come to visit you for a week or two, but I shall naturally understand if this doesn’t suit you.
On the phone she had given him no time to explain. She had heard the word Algeria and thought he’d been cancelling their arrangement out of selfishness, when all the time … My father was shot dead.
For this she had banished him. Was it too late to put things right? If she went back to him now, she would be handing him an edge to use against her later, if he chose. She was not a believer in handing anyone an edge.
She went out into the kitchen where her house servant Gianna was preparing lunch at the wooden table that was probably as old as the house, its surface. scarred with the knife cuts of centuries. She felt the need for the older woman’s company, yet had nothing to say to her. She paced and paced. She went to the window, stared out, turned and paced again.
‘You want coffee?’ Gianna asked.
Lucia knew that coffee had nothing to do with it. Gianna’s voice gave not the slightest hint of her true question — What’s the trouble? — but Lucia heard it, all the same. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
She went into the living room. Sunlight shone through the windows and lay warmly on the flagged floor. In one corner was the piano. She sat down at it. She lifted the lid and began to play, not paying much attention to what she was doing but taking refuge, as always, in the music.
Gianna brought in a tray of coffee and placed it on a side table. ‘For when you make up your mind.’
‘Thanks.’
If she phoned him she would be admitting she’d been stupid. Worse, that she still wanted him enough to acknowledge she’d been wrong.
If she did not …
The days would stretch away, full of pride. And aridity.
She struck a decisive chord. She got up. She went to the phone. Le Travailleur would know if he was back or not.
Yes, the operator said, he was in Paris but not in the office; whether he was in his apartment, she couldn’t say. Lucia broke the connection and redialled. If for any reason he didn’t answer, it would be an omen. If he did …
That would be an omen, too.
She waited while, a country away, the phone rang.
2
Their first day together was quiet, while Lucia thanked God she’d had the courage to phone, that he’d been there to answer, that he had agreed to come. She sat, at peace with
the world, a book lying disregarded in her lap, thinking how wonderful it was that they were together again at last.
Gianna brought them lunch on the terrace. At the airport Lucia had commiserated with Jacques over his father. She had told him he had a lot of talking to do, without spelling out what he should tell her. She wanted to hear about Indochina and what had happened to age him twenty years since she’d seen him last. She wanted him to share with her his childhood and the father he had now lost, to offer himself to her unasked. All these things she wanted but she would not plead. It was for him to tell her when he was ready. In the meantime she would wait. He told her nothing. They chatted about inconsequential things, feeling their way. Perhaps that was how it would have to be; perhaps only the passage of time would enable them to rediscover that place in which they had found each other before. Jacques was tired and went to bed before midnight. Lucia, her body’s clock still set to an opera singer’s hours, sat alone. From the terrace, she could see the lights of scattered farmhouses shining in the darkness. There was no moon and the hills were a velvety shadow under the star-bright sky. Of the forest she could see nothing, but the scent of the pines, fresh and clean, came to her on the breeze.
While she had been waiting for Jacques at the airport, there had been time for her to question her sanity in inviting him here. Now she had no such doubts. In ten days’ time Khieu and her mother would arrive. Until then the two of them would be alone. That, surely, would be time enough for them to work out where, if anywhere, they were going. Eventually she, too, went to bed. She had expected to lie awake for a long time, conscious of Jacques’ presence on the other side of the house, but did not. She turned over and was at once asleep.
3
In the morning she was as far from a solution as ever. There were times when her world of performance and applause wearied her almost beyond bearing, yet she knew she could not turn her back on it. She was thirty-two years old; to walk away from opera would be to walk away from life. Yet Jacques, too, had a life to lead. He would not sacrifice it to her, nor would she respect him if he did. Both of them had to go on with their separate careers. Many couples did, yet she had not known one that had made a success of a shared life that was never truly shared at all. At one time she would have said she would share either everything or nothing with a man, that half-measures were impossible. Now she found herself yearning for a compromise acceptable to them both. Ten days to find a solution. Harvest was in full swing and across the fields moved the distant figures of men and wagons, horse-drawn, working in timeless rhythm. La Tranquilla …
They rode, they picnicked in deep woods where ancient trees overhung gushing streams and the air was bathed in emerald light. They visited the city of Siena on its three hills and explored the elegant buildings rising like picturesque memorials to a still-remembered past. One by one, the days passed. For the first time since Jacques’ arrival, Lucia became aware of shadows. There were occasions when he seemed to go away from her into a place where she could not follow, surrounding himself with a silence that filled her with apprehension.
‘What’s the matter?’
His eyes held the flicker of flame. ‘Nothing’s the matter. Why should there be?’ But there was and she knew it. She thought he might be grieving for his father. She would have comforted him or at least shared his pain, but he told her that, although he had admired his father, they had never been close.
‘He was a Christian, a colonial and proud of it. I’m a Communist. We were always fighting.’
Every night he went to his room and left her to sleep undisturbed in hers.
One by one, the days passed.
4
The sixth evening after his arrival, Lucia saw Jacques descend into what she afterwards thought was madness. It was a time of confusion, incomprehensible and terrifying, lightning striking from a clear sky.
They’d had supper and he had gone out onto the terrace. She had been reading, the light from the lamp a golden pool about her feet, when she heard the sound of his heels striking the stone terrace in increasing tempo, his voice arguing in mounting frenzy with the night. It sounded wrong, scary. She put down her book and went outside. She saw Jacques, silhouette dark amid the moon-patched blackness, gesticulating at the stars while his voice ran on. He was speaking so fast she could hear only a jumble of sounds through which individual words stuck out like teeth: Why? and How? and When? Repeated again and again, the French words lamenting like tears endlessly falling. Without thought she ran to him, taking him in her arms. For an instant he fought against her. She thought he was going to fling her from him and clung tighter still, using all her strength to quieten him, telling him all was well. Suddenly he slumped so that she was bearing his full weight. They staggered and nearly fell but at the last she managed to regain her balance. His body was burning with fever. He was shaking, his eyes a brilliant glare, blind to her, conscious only of whatever demons were raging inside his head.
Somehow she got him indoors. He was docile now. She fetched him a drink, the whisky an amber flame within the glass. His teeth rattled on the rim. He gulped it without stopping and collapsed gasping into a chair, eyes full of tears.
‘My God, I needed that.’ He closed his eyes and leaned back, seeming to melt into the cushions. Slowly his breath grew soft. She watched him, her hand resting on his arm. For a few moments he lay still, then opened his eyes. Confusion was a dark shadow within them. ‘Was I shouting?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t remember.’ And again he closed his eyes.
Later he told her: ‘Something happened while I was away. I can’t talk about it.’ He said no more. He got himself to bed, walking like an old man, and the next day it was as though none of it had happened.
5
The next evening, prompted by Jacques, she accompanied herself as she sang. Songs by Schumann and Sibelius, the fountain song from Lucia di Lammermoor that she told him had special significance for her, and Isolde’s death song.
She had sung Isolde a dozen times in opera houses across the world. It had been one of the greatest triumphs of her recent American tour. She sang it now, looking through the open windows at the hills submerged in darkness. Lights gleamed from the distant farms, the stars shone and the slopes below the house were a blaze of fireflies.
The ecstatic music took shape amid the ethereal light. Now, surely, Jacques would turn to her, wanting to re-establish the relationship they’d had in the past. Yet still he did not. She went to her room and lay waiting, ears straining to hear the fall of footsteps in the corridor. She heard nothing. Something had to be wrong but she had no idea what it was. Again she felt tears upon her face. Whatever had happened to him in Indochina, the traumatic events of which he could not bring himself to speak had damaged him in ways beyond her understanding.
The next afternoon she came out of the house onto the terrace. Jacques was lying by the pool. She went to join him but his eyes were shut and she thought he was asleep. She slipped into the water and swam two lengths before looking at him again. He was watching her and she called to him.
‘Come and join me.’
Though his face had aged, his body was as lean and hard as ever. She felt a quiver in her belly as she watched him. He swam away from her to the end of the pool, stroking powerfully, then turned and came back. He reached her and put his arms around her and she felt her bones dissolve. Perhaps now …
He kissed her eyelids, the side of her throat and finally her lips. His hands cupped her shoulders, and her breasts ached with longing. She raised her feet and hooked them around the back of his knees. He released her shoulders and she sank, to come up again spluttering and laughing.
‘Are you trying to drown me?’
Jacques did not laugh but stared soberly at her. ‘That might solve all our problems.’ He dashed the water from his eyes and stared out at the hills before turning to her again. ‘What are we going to do, Lucy?’
His renewed use of her Australian name pier
ced her. For so much of her life she had been Lucia Visconti, yet there were times when it seemed a sham. Who was Lucia Visconti? She was Lucy Fisher, as she had always been. All else was a mask concealing the truth. Yet the singer standing before the audiences of the world was also real, as was the arch of emotion joining her to those who watched. Truth was the purpose and soul of art. The artist’s business, therefore, was with truth and only truth. And the truth was …
‘I know, when you’re ready, you’ll tell me what happened. I can wait. I’m not saying it’s not important but it doesn’t affect how I feel about you. I love you. That’s what matters. We are together now. And that is what matters. What happened to you in the past I don’t know. What is going to happen when we leave here I don’t know. But I know this: if we deny what we both feel because of what has happened or out of fear for the future, we shall be denying what is true and valuable and I’m not going to do it. From the moment I saw you at the airport I knew I wanted you as much as ever. I want you in my body as you are already in my heart. That is all I know. And, for the moment, that is all I care.’
She watched him, knowing that her words, spoken with such difficulty, had placed her in the hands of this man who might treasure or destroy her.
Drops of water gleamed on his face as he studied her sombrely. Once again his eyes were aflame, fierce and blue. She sensed he was poised upon the lip of surrender, yet still he did not move.
‘Please …’
It was not a word with which she was overly familiar, yet she was determined to seize his courage and raise it to match her own. She took his hands and raised them to her breasts, pressed them hard against her. ‘Please …’