The Things We Do For Love

by Lisa Appignanesi

  The noise had come suddenly, startling stillness: her name distorted on the wind, funnelling round corners, like a hiss. There was a tramping and pounding of boards so that they quivered beneath her feet and threatened to give way. Announcing him. She crouched in her corner, held her breath. But he found her, hoisted her out, shouting, cursing, labelling her at his kindest, ‘dumb bitch’, slapping her, hitting her hard, so that she was no longer a frozen statue, a gargoyle poised on an eave, but someone who screamed, struggled, resisted.

  If only she hadn’t. Tessa swallowed more brandy, felt her throat burn, her stomach heave.

  And then suddenly there had been that second form, glimpsed in the distance, lurching, then racing, butting. Startled, Ted had let go of her arm and she had kneed him, kneed him hard in the groin and he had staggered, swayed.

  And then he was gone.

  Tessa hid her head in her hands, felt the stupid wetness of her face.

  Gone. There was another arm round her shoulders, shielding her from sight, urging her forwards, step by step, lifting her onto the ledge, through the open window, settling her into the sofa in front of that nubile princess with her rosy white robes, lifting the dead telephone, murmuring something to her, going through the door.

  Stephen. She had chased after him. Not to be left alone there in that flat. Stephen, though she wasn’t sure she recognized him, so certain, sure, decisive, his arm round her in that lift, out of that building, down the street. His hand pounding on the door of the bar, still lit from within. The raised voices, chatter. And then the sirens, police, an ambulance, Stephen insisting that she stay there, indoors, a hot mug in her hand.

  But she couldn’t stay. Had to face it. It. Whatever it was. Now. Not later in dream.

  Jan had appeared from nowhere, his kind doctor’s face calming and that woman, Simone, her voice gravelly, assessing her, frowning, taking Tessa’s coat, draping her fur round Tessa’s shoulders, securing it round her neck, saying, ‘yes, they would all go,’ saying, ‘terrible accident’, putting her arm securely through Tessa’s, nodding to Jan, walking with her slowly through the snow, back, back up the street.

  The men were ahead, uniforms greeny brown and white, crowded in the hall. And Stephen, distant, a confident stranger who had happened to her rescue.

  There was no way round, no way out to the yard, save through the barrage of a door. Or keys. Bells pushed, buzzers ringing, pounding. A stout grey-haired man, eyes pouchy from sleep, coming in through the front door, dressing gown over trousers under coat. Shouting. The babble of police. A ring of keys emerging from a pocket. A queue straggling through a door into the dark night of a yard broken by torches. Herself at the threshold, neither out nor in, when she was jostled out of the way. The ambulance men were coming through, the laden stretcher between them. No face. No Ted. Just a grey blanket smooth over a shape.

  She screamed. She didn’t know she was screaming, but the sound reached her from somewhere else, filling the room with shrill sound. Eyes on her. Stephen’s too, his face in front of her, his lips moving, making noises she couldn’t altogether grasp, because of the ringing in her ears. Not at first. Except for the word, ‘Dead.’

  And then they were outside, Stephen manoeuvering her carefully amidst builder’s rubble cloaked by snow, trampled now, crushed, still holding the blurred shape of a body, the fling of an arm. But already snow was filling the crevices, blotting out presence.

  ‘He might have survived, but you see, here. He hit here.’ He brought her hand to the hard jagged edge of a stone slab. Then another and another. ‘Jan reckons it was instantaneous.’

  She was sobbing, though she couldn’t feel the tears on her face. Just cold. ‘Tessa, look.’ Stephen dabbed at her cheeks, held her, but his voice was terse. ‘It’s awful, I know. But think of it this way.’ He met her eyes once, then looked away. ‘It could have been you.’

  ‘Or you.’ Her throat hurt as she said it.

  He shrugged, pressed her shoulder. Then he was gone, Simone at her side instead, explaining that Stephen had to ride with the police. Jan as well. She would go with her. She had a taxi here. A nice man. She babbled, babbled in the cab too, Tessa half-listening. She moved from French to English as if she couldn’t remember what Tessa spoke. Told her it was a shame. Affreux. But he was a cad. Edward Knight was a cad. Charming, ca va sans dire, she thrust Tessa a sidelong glance. But a cad. A blackmailer and a thief. Still, she felt responsible. Partly responsible.

  ‘No. I am responsible,’ Tessa interrupted her. ‘I was struggling and I made him fall.’

  Simone stared at her for a moment through the gloom. ‘Ah, ma fille. But he put you in the situation. Sometimes one has to hit out. Yes, sometimes it is necessary to hit out. It was an accident. Affreux. But you are not at fault.’

  After a moment of silence, she started to talk again, something about the dreadful symmetry of things, about tragedy and farce, but Tessa couldn’t focus on her words, didn’t focus, not even when the taxi had stopped here, at this hotel where she had already come once this evening. Stephen’s hotel.

  Simone had rung and rung at the door, had reeled out an authoritative stream of language at the man who had opened it so that his expression changed from irritation to obedience. A key was handed over, a tray brought, tea and brandy, a plate of sandwiches, biscuits. And then Simone had filled the bath, water so hot it should have warmed her when she had been ordered into it.

  But when she emerged, too aware of the other woman’s presence to soak, she was still trembling. Simone had pointed to the bed and at her refusal, had wrapped a blanket round her, sat her in the armchair, told her she was to stay put until Stephen arrived. She was off to the police station. She didn’t altogether trust the men to see to things adequately. She had winked at Tessa then and planted a kiss on her cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tessa had said. ‘Thank you for being so kind.’

  She had thought Simone would leave then, but the woman had hesitated. Her coat already on her shoulders, she had surveyed Tessa for a moment. ‘You know, my dear,’ she had said, ‘your husband and I have been friends for a long time. Good friends, even before he met you. He is a little like a son to me. I have chosen him,’ she laughed, ‘because there is something very fine about him, even if… even if sometimes he prefers his invisibility to his successes. If he were French, he might even know how to handle women. As it is…’ She had waved her fingers gracefully in a little trilling gesture. ‘As it is, we must help him.’

  Pausing, she had perched on the bed opposite Tessa. ‘And something else. I have lived a long time, you know, and learned not very much. But one thing I have learned is that we spend our lives searching for ways of making good our incompleteness. Sometimes we are ruined by our insufficiencies. That is tragedy. Comedy comes when we learn to bear them. Even relish them.’

  Her eyes had twinkled and she had laughed again and leapt up and told Tessa that despite all that, she mustn’t think too much. She should eat something instead, even if it tasted foul. It would warm her.

  Tessa looked at the residual tremble of her hands and took another dutiful bite. The food did taste foul, like variations on sawdust which spilled between her fingers. She stared at the billowing curtains and shivered. But she needed the air. It helped her breathe.

  Why should she have breath and not Ted? Even if she had wished him gone? Even if he had so frightened her that she saw her own death looming inches away at the brink of that scaffolding? And then Stephen had rushed to her rescue and Ted had released his grip and then… An accident, Simone had said. A terrible accident.

  If only she could obliterate these last hours. But she knew they would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  And what of that life? What now? What would she and Stephen say to each other when he came back into the room?

  There was the click of the knob now. Tessa stiffened on the armchair, lowered the huddle of the blanket. She must compose herself.

  ‘Tessa. I’m sorry it took
so long. I… Are you all right?’

  He was staring at her from the arch of the entrance hall, his face haggard. As he moved slowly towards her, she nodded. Words wouldn’t come. All she could murmur was, ‘And Ted?’

  He froze in position. ‘Of course. You must be mourning.’ He ran his fingers through his hair, buttoned his coat again slowly, averted his eyes. ‘Look, Tessa, I thought you’d want company. But if you’d rather be alone, I’ll stay over at Jan’s. I’ll leave you the number. If you need anything, just ring.’ He searched in his pocket for a pen, bent to the desk.

  ‘Stephen.’ Her voice was a croak. ‘I didn’t mean…’ She rose on unsteady legs, touched his shoulder. ‘I want you to stay. Please.’

  He turned back to her. His eyes beneath the glasses glimmered yellow for a moment, then he moved round her, rubbed his chin where she could now see the blue of a welt, a bruise.

  ‘I didn’t like Ted much, Tessa. You must realise that. I had two rather major things against him. You know one of them. So though I hardly wanted him dead, I… my grief isn’t as acute as it might be.’

  She stood very still. ‘You knew. About us?’

  He shrugged. ‘I could hardly help but know. Jan. Simone.’

  She nodded.

  He had taken off his glasses and moved to stand by the window, his coat still on, as if he was poised to go. ‘I don’t blame you, Tessa. It’s not that. We were hardly…’

  ‘And the second thing?’ She cut him off.

  ‘Oh, the second thing.’ He hesitated.

  She poured him a brandy, placed the glass in his hand. ‘The second thing?’

  He met her eyes for a flicker of a moment, then started to pace. ‘The second thing was that Ted was committing the cardinal crime in the scientific world. No, not cheating or fudging results. But spying. Stealing. I’d come up with something pretty good.’ He gestured into vagueness. ‘Chrombindin. A protein that mops up certain cancer cells.’

  ‘And?’ Tessa urged him on.

  ‘Well, he paid this woman, this friend of mine, to copy it for him.’ He turned towards the window again.

  ‘Ariane?’

  ‘He told you?’

  ‘Not quite like that.’ A smile edged onto her face, rueful, musing. ‘But he told me.’

  ‘So you know?’ He was staring at her now, looking at her as he had never quite looked at her before. ‘I’m…’

  Tessa put a finger to her lips.

  They were standing at opposite ends of the room, their eyes locked. The silence between them was thick with the unspoken, swift currents of meaning unframed by words. A mutual fear of the rapids of spoken honesty. At last he plunged.

  ‘You’ve become unpredictable, Tessa.’

  ‘I could say the same.’ She could feel him struggling, so she added. ‘The question is, is it a good?’

  She wasn’t sure who took the first step, but suddenly his arms were around her and she was burrowing against his chest.

  ‘I guess it all depends what we make of it.’ Stephen searched her face, touched her cheek, as if looking didn’t tell him enough. It came to him that he was afraid he might lose the enigma she had become. ‘Do you really want me to stay, Tessa?’

  She nodded. ‘I tried to find you. Before. Earlier today, yesterday, I mean. And tried before that.’ She floundered. ‘I came to Paris to try to find you. You were so grand up there on the platform. So distant. And then, well, everything happened so quickly.’

  The stirring took him by surprise. He kissed her, her hair, her eyes, her mouth. He didn’t remember the texture of her mouth, the conversation of sense it elicited from him, the cool smoothness of her skin. Maybe he had never fathomed it.

  With a passionate ferocity he didn’t know he possessed, he pulled her onto the bed, hunted down Ted’s shadow, chased away his sperm, held her eyes so that they would both understand.

  Tessa understood. She clutched at him with a dense knowledge of that other slipping away, that ultimate disappearance which made triviality of everyday plaints. She tasted skin and tears and tenderness, rediscovered the familiar in its unfamiliarity, kept mortality at bay.

  Afterwards, they lay in a silence which had a little awe in it. It had been so long. He was pleased that she posed no questions and he stroked her hair gently, wondering if she had fallen asleep there on that nestling place she had found on his chest. But when some moments had passed, she looked up with her clear gaze. ‘You’ve led me a consummate masquerade all these years, Stephen Caldwell. Admirable, really.’

  He didn’t mistake her irony. Yet she felt hospitable. Even to his secrets. Maybe, he thought, it was because he recognized she had her own. Somehow that fact didn’t make him afraid.

  He found himself telling her then, he didn’t know quite why, about Sonya, all those years ago, before her. About her death. And in a rambling, jumbled way about those days of a more necessary secrecy. About Jan and what he felt for him. The debt. About Chrombindin which was in part an answer to it, but which Jan refused to have attributed to him. About Eva, too, who reminded him just a little of Sonya, and who wanted to visit them in England.

  He stopped then, realising it was a question which asked far more than it seemed. He sought out her eyes. They were sparkling, but he couldn’t quite read them.

  ‘A consummate masquerade,’ she repeated. She snuggled against him, closed her eyes. ‘The things we do for love,’ she murmured.

  They slept then, curled round each other, and for some reason he dreamt the shape of a double helix, shifting, multiple, its bases still enigmatic, an excitement of regions to be discovered.

  When he opened his eyes, pale sunlight glinted through the mesh of curtains. She was standing, already fully dressed, at the small mirror and pulling her hat down over her hair. He watched her sleepily for a moment. In the mirror he could see a lazy half-smile on her lips. The smile roused him into wakefulness.

  ‘Tessa!’ He leapt up forgetting his nakedness. ‘You’re not planning on going without me, are you?’ His tongue tasted grit and ashes.

  She looked at him with a look that made him flush. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know, Stephen.’

  ‘I know.’ He reached for his trousers. ‘I’ll be ready in a jiffy.’

  She didn’t move or speak as she watched him. Only when he had finished tucking his shirt into his trousers and turned back to her, did she begin.

  ‘You see, Stephen,’ she said softly, her tone as unemphatic as it was certain. ‘I have this obsession. It hasn’t done us any good. I realise that. It may even have wrecked things. But it needs to be spoken. Again. Afresh. I want a child, Stephen. I’ve even found one whom I will adopt, if things work out. A little girl.’ She paused. ‘I would prefer if it were with you.’

  Her eyes moved away from him, wandered to her hands. She was lacing some invisible thread. ‘But there’s something else.’ She touched her stomach lightly. ‘There might be another. Ted’s perhaps. Yours. Though given my record, all that’s highly unlikely. Nonetheless you should be aware. I couldn’t guarantee the genes.’

  She laughed oddly and he gripped her hand. His voice felt gruff. ‘Tessa, I… That’s not how…’

  ‘No, wait, let me finish. You see, we’ve left everything so late. So very late. Years of asides. And I feel time running out on me.’ She met his eyes again. ‘I think you would make a good father, Stephen. But if that’s not what you want, much as I care for you…’ She shrugged, waved her arm, gently unfurled her hand from his.

  He didn’t abandon her gaze. He couldn’t have, even if he had tried. And he found himself thinking not of cells dividing or the regulation of chromosomes or genetic hazards, but of the child playing in the puddle beneath the lab and Eva and Jan and Simone and his father whose stern distance needed to be made good. And Tessa. This new composed Tessa.

  ‘I do, Tessa. I do.’ He took off his glasses so her face grew mysterious and secret and kissed her so hard that they found themselves on the bed again. Her smile was ra
diant. He wondered he hadn’t given both of them the present of it before.

  But after a moment, she pushed him gently aside. ‘Much as I want to, Stephen, I have to go to church.’ She laughed that new enigmatic laugh.

  ‘Church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But we’re already married.’

  ‘A different kind of rendezvous.’

  She got up, smoothed her shirt, stretched out her hand to him. ‘You can come with me, if you like. You see, there was this child who was handed to me in a church. A gift. Like magic. A little like your Chrombindin really. I’ll explain on the way.’

  PART FOUR

  -23-

  _____________

  Thick bands of white foam rose in the ship’s wake separating the murky grey of the waters. Above, the gulls hovered, their wings motionless, until with a shriek they swooped to savour an invisible morsel. Beyond the foam and the gulls, the world vanished into mist.

  Stephen stood on the deck, enveloped in a dampness which was only part drizzle, his legs firmly planted against the boat’s roll.

  Last night they had dined with Simone in Paris. Simone who had embraced Tessa as if she had always known her. And Tessa, who in that stunning black sheath of a dress he had never seen, had been almost as grand as Simone and somehow provocative, so different from the woman he had left behind in England that he had wiped his glasses to take a better look.

  Stephen laughed at his own foolishness. It had been a good evening. A pre-Christmas Christmas, Simone had called it. Simone who was lighter and merrier than she had been for weeks. To celebrate this new child, this Amy, who would soon be in their midst. If not quite a Messiah she had quipped, then at least ardently wanted. And she knew how ardently, for Tessa must have told her. The two women had become fast friends.