by Edward Docx
She must have arrived at Bristol Gardens around seven. Definitely, she was a little early, because I was still in the bath (with the door to my bedroom propped open so that I could listen to Bach’s D Major suite) when the buzzer sounded. Without rancour, I stood up, dried hastily and made for the hall. The lock popped smoothly below. I went down to wait for her at the bottom of my stairs.
It was the last Friday in September. A week after we had returned from Rome. We were going to a firework display together. Not going all that far. Just down to the garden in fact, for the residents’ association bonfire. (This event is staged annually, in the last week of September. According to the literature that we had both been sent, the purported purpose of this ongoing calendar shift is to assist the local fire service in its aim to ‘spread fire risks traditionally associated with November 5th over the whole year and thus help to ensure a more cost-effective and tailored service for individual fire risk scenarios’.) And yes, I know, I know, I know: the prospect of residents’ associations, of fireworks, of bonfires, of sparklers, of holding hands beneath an amorous garland of stars should have been the cue for frantic bouts of reversed peristalsis all round. But the devil love is a sick little son of a bitch and his last waltz is always the schmaltziest.
I opened my front door in my towel. She smiled and I kissed her. She was, I noticed, dressed more soberly than usual: dark trousers, black lightweight canvas training shoes, a merino wool turtle-neck and a leather jacket that I had not seen before. The weather had relapsed into its customary madness and we had suffered an unusually cold day. I remember the pleasant thought occurred to me that a whole winter of taking even more of her clothes off lay ahead.
‘Sorry,’ I said, stepping back to let her past, ‘I’m still in the bath, but I won’t be long. There’s wine open on the table.’ I pushed the door shut and followed her up the stairs.
‘It’s OK, there’s no massive rush,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘They only just lit the fire. I saw them carrying the paraffin cans from my window.’
‘That means they’ll be getting going with the food and things soon, though. I’ll get a move on.’ But I lingered, watching her from the threshold of my bedroom, stupefied anew by the disregard that beauty pays itself.
She helped herself to a glass from the cupboard and said: ‘The cleaner was early, so I was done by five. I thought I might as well come straight over.’
‘You have a cleaner now?’
‘No, it was just a one-off. A nice guy from this new student company. He did a neat job.’
She came towards me and placed her hand on my chest, fingers spread and tensed so that I could feel her nails. But she kissed me softly.
‘I think I’ll wear my emerald sarong tonight; what do you reckon?’
‘No. Not right at all.’
I considered. ‘You think mauve?’
‘Or something black.’ She left me and went in search of the bottle.
I turned, but just as I got back into the bathroom, the telephone rang.
Madeleine answered it.
She stuck her head through the door: ‘It’s Roy Junior.’
I frowned. Roy only ever called when an order was ready to be collected and I had ordered nothing. ‘What does he want?’
She shrugged.
‘Tell him I’ll call him back.’
I pulled the plug out of the bath and ran the shower to speed things up.
Bach’s harpsichord walked a slow and stately march behind his grief-stricken violin.
We squeezed through the crush of off-road vehicles (mostly parked off the road and on the pavement) and made our way towards the main garden gate. An improvised walkway had been created between the backs of two wooden benches and people had formed a short queue. When we arrived at the front, we handed our red residents’ tickets to the elderly man in charge of admissions. He nodded and looked up. I returned his smile and carelessly allowed my arm to rest lightly around Madeleine’s waist.
The garden had been divided into three. Most people were gathered just beyond the entrance where a number of makeshift tables had been set up. Hot punch, hot potatoes, hot sausage sandwiches, mulled wine and what looked suspiciously like parkin were being dispensed.
Further up was the bonfire itself – actually quite small – and beyond that a roped-off (or, rather, stringed-off) area, which was strictly out of bounds for all but the industrious and responsible few, whose job it was to bustle about in pastel-coloured fleeces and administer the fireworks.
There was quite a crowd, maybe one hundred and fifty people all told. The infants were up on their fathers’ shoulders around the bonfire, or held askew against their attractive mothers’ sides while clutching soggy pieces of cake in their tiny hands. The older children, meanwhile, ran this way and that, threatening to knock over the tables or collide with the elderly or trip on over-lengthy shoelaces headlong into the flames. And, as usual, it was impossible for anyone to tell exactly how old the teenagers were and so a rather arbitrary system of age-assessment seemed to be in operation.at the mulled wine table where two jowly fathers in their fifties dispensed plastic cups to the accompaniment of various embarrassing observations or rebuffs: ‘Take it easy, son, that’s your third’; or ‘Oh ‘ello ‘ello Jonathan, back again, are we? It affects your performance, you know’; or ‘Well, go on then, Louise, but please don’t tell your mother’; or ‘You’ll have to make do with the fruit punch for another couple of years yet Stacey, I’m afraid, there’s plenty of time for alcohol later on.’
It was completely dark now and above us the cranes of the Paddington basin developments loured against the sky like the gruesome overlords of a science-fiction comic. Every few minutes another train could be heard moaning and heaving its way out of the station.
For the first hour or so, we stood around, sampling the fare, exchanging pleasantries, joining in. Madeleine drank both her mulled wine and mine and mine again and some more of hers (I can’t stand the wretched stuff) and I ate an unreflecting jacket potato and a piece of the parkin.
A little while later, we stood by the fire, swapping crabbed sentences with a rueful couple in their early thirties. (Not-so-newly-weds: together for ever but discretely mourning the passing away of their sexiness nevertheless.) Then the word went around that the display was starting and, taking advantage of the diversion, we slipped away to join the people pushing into position for the best view.
There were hisses and bangs and banshee screeches and those quick-fire rat-a-tat explosions that sound so like the gunfire you hear on the news. Showers of light illuminated the inky night – first a bluish glare, then carmine red, next a soft potassium silver, then a hard magnesium white, perse, verdigris, cadmium yellow … Everybody whispered and gasped and pointed, partly for the benefit of the children, but partly because, despite themselves, they were still prone to awe in the presence of what would have once been regarded as magic. (The sharp intake of breath at the wizard’s sparking wand, the sudden quickening of the heart at the sizzle and flash of the weird sisters’ pot as they cast in the lizard’s teeth, the pigeon gizzard …) We stood side-by-side in the small crowd, staring upwards in that wide-eyed, open-mouthed way that the entire human race must forever watch fireworks regardless of age, sex, creed or circumstance.
What kind of mood was I in? Aside from my potato and the colours, I cannot recall much about the first part of the evening. I guess that for once I was not thinking forwards or backwards or even side to side; rather I was living in the moment, enjoying myself. Doubtless, I was looking forward to going to bed. But even in this I was no longer feeling the ache of round-the-clock necessity; Madeleine and I had been together for a good few months by then, and the emotional weather had shifted a few points on the barometer, bringing less fervid seas and a calmer, deeper swell. If I were to go out on a recollective limb, I would say that I was … well, content. I do remember that I had the idea to take Madeleine to Italy for Christmas – after I had finished the last of the poems
.
What kind of mood was she in? Well now, that is the question. What kind of mood was Madeleine Belmont in? I can tell you what kind of mood she seemed to be in: wound down, comfortable, cosy, calm, at ease. I would even go so far as friendly. And I swear she squeezed my hand before she asked if I would come across the lawn with her.
A sidelight cast a sepulchral glow through the lily-white curtains that hung at her new patio doors. I breathed the smoky night air. She took out her keys and turned the locks one by one: click, click, click.
My initial thought was that she must have planned on returning to her flat all along so that we could sleep there for the first time – we never had – a kind of sacramental act. Though still without books or any real evidence of her person, the main room looked as though it was finished. Where previously there had been only twisted or severed wires, now there were brass plugs and dimmer switches, and where I remembered plaster and holes, the walls were now painted in pale cream against the dark stained wood of the sanded and polished floorboards, which, when I took off my shoes, felt smooth and slippery beneath my socks. An artist’s drawing of the lost New York skyline hung near the table.
‘Sit down, Jasper,’ she said, indicating an unashamedly new, calico-covered futon that faced her windows. I did as I was told, taking her serious tone for play. She crossed over towards her kitchen area.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Online. Would you like a drink?’
‘What are you having?’
‘I’m having water.’
‘OK. That’s fine.’ I sat back. ‘Hey, you know, as futons go, this is really quite comfortable. I can never work out how to make them flat.’
She didn’t answer. Still I thought that she was building up to some minor surprise – new clothes, a present, the new bed. I looked over to where she was standing with her back to me, cracking ice cubes. The clock on her oven said ten thirty-five.
She came back with the two glasses of water and set them down without looking at me.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘The flat looks amazing. I can’t believe the difference.’
‘You haven’t been here for a while, that’s all.’ She left her drink and walked behind me, towards the hall. ‘It’s finished.’
I heard the sound of running taps in the bathroom. I sipped my water. She had put a slice of lime in with the ice, just as I liked. I thought about putting some music on and looked around for her little portable disc-player. No sign.
When, a minute or two later, she returned, I was mildly surprised that she hadn’t changed. She threw a coat over the back of one of her dining chairs and moved another one round so that she could sit opposite me. Her back was to the side-lamp. She reached across for the ashtray on the dining table and placed it on the floor in front of her. Her expression was impassive. But her skin had a sort of lustre. She had, I realized, just washed her face.
She said nothing for a long time but looked at me instead with an eerie blankness – eyes still, mouth tight shut, running her tongue back and forth over her teeth. At first I too sat still. But after a while, I reached forward to touch the side of her face and ask her what was wrong. Calmly, she took hold of my wrist and moved my hand away.
And then, in a measured voice, she began. ‘Jasper, I want to talk to you about Lucy.’
‘Lucy?’
‘Yes. Lucy.’
‘Lucy who?’
‘The Lucy you were with before me, Jasper. The Lucy who came to find you at the ball – when I was getting stuff to clean you up. Lucy Giddings.’
‘Lucy who I used to go out with?’
‘Lucy who you said you were going to marry.’
‘I never said …’ And now, at last, I saw it.
Madeleine spoke quietly: ‘Lucy is my sister.’
25. The Curse
The venom of all stepdames, gamesters’ gall,
What tyrants, and their subjects interwish,
What plants, mines, beasts, fowl, fish,
Can contribute, all ill which all
Prophets, or poets spake; and all which shall
Be annexed in schedules unto this by me,
Fall on that man; for if it be a she
Nature beforehand hath out-cursed me.
My head felt like it was swelling, overheated, humming with cross-wired currents of panic and anger and confusion and guilt; the sudden shame-fever of a child who has been caught in some terrible act.
‘Jasper, listen, we don’t have long. I probably should have left more time …’ She sat forward, her elbows on her knees, shoulders slightly hunched and her hands loosely joined.
My voice was thin and sounded strange even to my own ears: ‘Your sister? I don’t understand.’
‘Same father,’ Madeleine said, softly. She lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the ashtray. ‘There’s no good way of doing this. So I’m just going to give it you straight: Lucy and I planned everything, Jasper, even down to the number of lunchtimes I made you wait at Danilo’s. Shepherd’s Bush, that fucked-up dinner party with those two idiots I conjured up – Christ that was boring, and you have no idea how rude I have had to be to get them out my life – the sunbathing, that sun dress, which days I went out there’ – she jerked her thumb to indicate the garden behind her – ‘and for how long. We planned everything. We knew that you would see me from your studio. We knew that you wouldn’t be able to help yourself. We knew you would take the bait.’ She half-smiled. ‘We even guessed where you’d take me for dinner. The only thing that surprised us was how careful you were, how long you took … Anyhow, the point is: we planned everything – or nearly everything. The umbrella wasn’t our idea.’ She stuck out her lower lip and blew her smoke up towards the ceiling away from me. ‘Sorry. But you deserved it.’
Now she hesitated, as if waiting for me to speak, but a cold was crawling in the marrow of my bones and I was paralysed and dumb.
So she went on. ‘I lied about my name. Nobody who actually knows me calls me Madeleine. Everybody calls me Bella. It’s from my middle name. I think I’ve been Bella ever since my mother died … so, obviously, it was me living with Lucy when you were … when you were with her. I was her flatmate. I am Bella.’ She looked at me steadily. ‘Lucy calls me Bella like everyone else. I use my real name for the newspapers and my book, but only my father calls me Madeleine to my face. And now you.’
Again she hesitated.
‘You realize … you understand that Lucy has been very ill? Because of you. Directly because of your behaviour.’ Her anger surged suddenly – as if the fearsome amount of energy required to withhold her real feelings for so long was now coursing violently into their expression. ‘You damaged her way more than you could ever even guess. She found out about Selina of course and she was already forgiving you for that; but it was all the others. Christ, you must have thought she was an idiot. And then – when she’s already in pieces – you go and write her a letter, boasting about how you’ve been fucking around.’
‘I know.’ My throat was dry. ‘I know it –’
‘No. You. Don’t. Know.’ She leant forward towards me – close – and I thought she was going to strike me or push her cigarette into my face. ‘When I came back, the day after you helped her move, she was a mess. She wouldn’t go to work. She could barely talk. Then you inform her not to worry because – oh – actually it is much worse than she thought and –’
‘I wish that –’
‘Let me finish. As a direct result of what happened … of what you inflicted, my sister had a breakdown. You fucked her up. You did that to her. She wasn’t stupid or overly possessive or ruining your life or anything, she wasn’t asking you to go out of your way for her. She might even have been OK if you’d just told her the truth. But instead you treated her like she was – like she was nothing. Like a piece of shit that you just had to manage. Jasper, she cared about you. She would have done anything for you. Nobody deserves to be treated so badly. No woman. No human being.’
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Guilt ground in my stomach like blood and broken teeth.
She dropped her eyes from mine, then glanced at the oven clock. Her voice regained its self-control. ‘Lucy told me all about you. In fact, she talked about you a lot. She was – I suppose this is true – she was in love with you. And not stupidly or blindly or girlishly or whatever … she thought you were going to marry her.’
‘I never ever said that.’
Madeleine ignored me. ‘We had the idea when she was in for treatment. I suppose it started out as a sort of therapy for her. I didn’t know you and I hated you anyway.
‘I don’t understand.’ Through the shock, I could feel my own anger surfacing. There were questions. ‘You mean, you bought this flat just to—’
‘No, of course not. I bought this flat because it was a good place to buy: cheap for where it is and fixable for a profit. But, obviously, Lucy was the one who told me about it in the first place. She nearly bought it herself. I hadn’t been able to look because I had been in the States. I needed somewhere fast and I took her word for it. No point scouring London since she’d already done the job for me. You can usually trust a sister’s judgement.’ Her matter-of-fact tone was just as hostile as her raw anger – the poison starting its work on the blood just as the fangs withdraw. ‘But then, naturally, when the sale went through … well, it just seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. I kind of owed Lucy for saving me from getting married to that arsehole in Buenos Aires when I was younger. I had a few months set aside to do this place up … and, you know, we were just going to see how far we could go, to get at you, to make you suffer. It was a summer project. And I guess I kind of liked the idea of fucking you up. It’s true – we were worried because Lucy had told you quite a lot about me – working for the newspapers and all that – but you never figured it out. Even at that ball, when she insisted on coming to see you after that guy hit you – that was a mistake, by the way.’