Constance

by Rosie Thomas

  ‘My name is Roxana.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Cesare Antonelli clinked his glass to hers. He leaned back against the leather seating.

  ‘So, Roxana. Do you do some acting, or modelling perhaps, as well as translating? You look as though you might.’

  Her attention sharpened even further. This could be an opportunity much bigger than making phone calls to Russian caterers.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ she smiled. Her fingers moved on the cool stem of her champagne flute. ‘But I am interested, of course.’

  ‘And you are a good dancer, that is always useful.’

  She stared at him. A flush rose from her throat to her cheeks and Cesare lightly gestured. ‘I was at The Cosmos Club with some Japanese business associates, after a long evening, you know what it can be like, and I saw you dance. You were really very good.’

  Roxana was embarrassed. She had been thinking that Mr Cesare Antonelli recognised her talent, but it was only that he had seen her pole dancing. She was fairly sure she hadn’t done a private dance for him, at least, although she had become quite good by the end at blocking out the men’s faces, even at blocking out the fact that they were people at all.

  Now she would have to make little of The Cosmos and at the same time convince Mr Antonelli that she could easily do whatever acting or modelling work he had in mind.

  She lifted one shoulder. ‘I don’t work at that place any longer,’ she said coolly. Which was turning out to be a blessing. ‘I am concentrating on Oyster Films and my work across the board in the movie and advertising business. Are you going to direct a picture for them, perhaps?’

  He said that he was setting up an Anglo-Italian coproduction deal for a big feature film, which he would be producing and directing, and he had been visiting Oyster Films to see if they might be a suitable partner for the enterprise.

  ‘But they are not really in the big league, you know. They are mostly commercials and small stuff. Nice people, but I don’t think I am going to be able to make it work with them, very unfortunately.’

  In answer to his questions she told him about Noah and, without quite mentioning Connie, about living in her beautiful apartment, making it all sound as though she had lived in London for a long time. She liked talking to Cesare. He was never short of something to say, and yet he paid her the compliment of listening to her.

  Cesare kept looking at his watch. When they had finished the bottle of champagne he said that he was afraid he would have to go and meet an associate to discuss some business over dinner. He hesitated, then added that if Roxana didn’t think that would be too boring, she could perhaps join them? His colleague might be a useful contact for her.

  Roxana was thinking the same thing.

  They took a taxi to a restaurant, another place with rich golden lighting. Some of the women at the tables glanced at her as she passed. Cesare’s associate was waiting at a table for two, but it was quickly re-laid for three. The man was called Philip. He was younger than Cesare and his clothes were scruffier. He had a tiny patch of hair sculpted under his lower lip.

  Roxana waited until the introductions had been made, then she excused herself and went to the cloakroom.

  The lighting was quite dim, but she came up close to the mirror and studied her reflection. The women in the restaurant looked smart, but then they were mostly quite old. She rubbed some more foundation on her face, thickened her mascara and finally stroked her eyebrows into place with a licked fingertip.

  Critically, Roxana met her own gaze.

  Noah constantly told her she was beautiful. She wasn’t sure quite how much she would be telling him about this evening; that would depend on whether it led to a job. But the thought of him made her face soften into a sudden smile. Now, she thought, she looked all right.

  Over dinner she learned that Philip was a photographer. Fashion, glamour, he said airily. He looked round the room as he talked, clicking his lighter to the cigarette he held in the corner of his mouth and inhaling with one eye half-closed against the smoke. An understanding had arisen that Roxana would be doing some as-yet-unspecified work in the area of business that he and Cesare dealt in. Before anything could go ahead, though, she would need to get some shots in her book. He thought he could help her with that. Cesare listened to all this, but without much enthusiasm.

  They encouraged Roxana to order food from the big, tasselled menu.

  When it came it was delicious, the most elaborate food she had ever tasted, with layers of little crispy pancakes and soft, glistening meat and small puddles of unctuous sauces. She ate everything and tried hard not to look too greedy. Cesare and Philip had similar dishes but they only took a few mouthfuls. They smoked and talked, and drank wine followed by whisky with a lot of ice in short, chunky glasses. Roxana drank quite a lot too. She sank into a honeyed daze of optimism.

  Of course she could be an actress, or a model.

  After a while, the food and the drinks and the series of espressos that followed were all finished. They were out in the twinkly night, and Cesare hailed a taxi. Both men insisted that they couldn’t let her go home unescorted. Roxana confidently gave the driver the address of Limbeck House. When they reached her building, to her faint dismay they got out and Cesare paid the fare and the cab drove off. They were talking about coming up with her for a final nightcap.

  Roxana hesitated. They had bought her dinner, and she was going to be working with them. She had talked – yes, too much – about her beautiful apartment. They took the lift to the top floor.

  Once they were in the big white room the two men strolled to the window and gazed out at the city.

  ‘Nice place,’ Cesare said.

  ‘Live here on your own, do you?’ Philip wanted to know.

  ‘I…have a flatmate. She is away tonight.’ As soon as she said it, she cursed her stupidity. She should have said she would be back any minute now.

  Philip wanted whisky. Cesare examined the music stacked on the top of Connie’s grand piano.

  ‘Are you a musician, too?’ he smiled.

  ‘No.’ Roxana searched through the cupboards. She knew that Connie kept drink somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where she had seen it. Cesare took pity on her and said that he would like a cup of tea. She filled the kettle and while she was waiting for it to boil she drank a glass of cold water. The room settled into clearer focus, and she realised she very much didn’t like the way Philip was wandering about picking up Connie’s possessions and putting them down again. Cesare was all right, but she didn’t care for this Philip. He saw her watching him and grinned at her. Very casually, he produced a little camera from the pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Now we’re here, shall we take a few pictures? Just some nice informal shots?’

  ‘Perhaps it is too late for that,’ she said.

  ‘It’s early. Isn’t it, Cesare?’

  Roxana closed the door of the last cupboard with a snap. ‘I am sorry that I don’t have whisky.’

  Philip studied her through half-closed eyes. ‘What have you got?’

  A shiver of apprehension passed through her, followed by a dull sense of familiarity, disappointment and absolute recognition.

  Model, indeed. Actress, ha ha.

  She could forgive herself the first mistake of the evening, which was assuming Cesare might be useful to her, instead of the other way round. But now she found herself in the middle of a much bigger mistake.

  ‘Nothing. It’s time for you both to go.’

  Philip came at her. ‘Come on, darling. A nice picture or two. On that lovely sofa, eh?’

  ‘No. If you don’t leave I will have to call for the police.’

  Her hand stretched out to the telephone on the counter. Philip caught her wrist and Roxana squirmed in his grasp, trying to bring her knee into his groin.

  Is this all that is ever going to happen to me? she wondered.

  The answer came at once. Noah had never given her cause to kick him in the balls.

 
; If only he was here now.

  Cesare dashed forwards. He looked genuinely distressed. ‘Now, now. Don’t spoil a beautiful evening. Stop that, Philip. If the lady doesn’t want you to take her picture, you can’t force her.’

  Philip let go, reluctantly. He slicked back his hair with two hands and adjusted his expression.

  ‘There we are. All friends again,’ Cesare smiled. ‘And Roxana is quite right. It’s late, and past everyone’s bedtime.’

  She breathed again. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll just use the bathroom before you throw us out,’ Philip muttered. Roxana silently pointed along the corridor.

  While he was out of the room Cesare apologised for him. He hoped very much that Roxana hadn’t been upset.

  ‘I am all right. Thank you,’ she said stiffly.

  There was no more talk of opportunities in the film business.

  When Philip reappeared his coat was done up and he stood by the front door without coming back into the main room.

  Cesare kissed her on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, Roxana,’ he said.

  Roxana locked the door after them, and slid the chain into place. She let her head fall against the heavy door, her shoulders sagging in relief. Then she walked down the corridor, past the cloakroom door and glanced into Connie’s bedroom. In the shaft of light falling from behind her, the room seemed undisturbed.

  In the morning, even though the girl was so unfriendly, Roxana casually asked the boss’s PA about Mr Cesare Antonelli.

  ‘Him? Oh, turns out he’s just a bullshitter. Max checked him out, then told me not to set up another meeting. Why?’

  Roxana only shrugged. ‘I wondered.’

  ‘You get all sorts,’ the PA said, as if Roxana might not have noticed this fact.

  Jeanette slept better than she had done for months. She explained to Bill and Connie that the heat was soporific. It drew some of the pain out of her.

  The pace of the village matched her invalid rhythms. Dewi would come to call, and sit drinking tea for an hour at a time with her baby shawled against her chest while Jeanette rocked in her chair. Sometimes Jeanette would make a slow walk to the market with Connie, and sit on a stallholder’s plastic stool while Connie tested the mangoes for ripeness.

  ‘Selamat pagi,’ Kadek and the other shopkeepers greeted them both.

  Jeanette went with Dayu once or twice to the village temple with an offering, and came back with the symbolic grains of rice pressed to her temples. She said that for almost the first time since she had fallen ill, she didn’t feel that the whole world was racing ahead and leaving her like a piece of broken machinery at the side of the road.

  Bill and Connie dovetailed their days around her. When she was awake and wanted to talk or just to look out at the view they sat beside her, and when she was asleep they stepped quietly through the house and spoke to each other in low voices.

  The wet weather persisted. One afternoon Connie looked into the bedroom while Jeanette was taking a rest. Rain rustled in the palm thatch and dripped from the water spouts outside the shutters, until the whole house seemed enveloped in a thick cocoon of damp that furred all the cushions in the house with a silvery nap and tried to embroider their leather shoes with mossy green patches. Jeanette was fast asleep, lying on her back with her mouth slightly open and her hands, palm up, defencelessly uncurled. Connie thought she could see daylight between her ring finger and the wedding band.

  Bill had come from the opposite direction with the same intention. He stood close behind Connie, looking over her shoulder as if they were a mother and father checking on a sleeping child. It was as if with the progression of the disease they had become Jeanette’s parents, Connie thought. They fed her, and encouraged her with affectionate words, and watched over her. Only they weren’t proudly watching her grow up. They were bringing her towards death.

  She turned abruptly, almost colliding with Bill. As always, her skin felt minutely sensitive to his nearness. They were only six inches apart.

  Gently, he cupped her face in his hands. He kissed her forehead and then involuntarily they folded together, listening to one another’s breathing and the steady drumming of the rain.

  Connie wondered how it was that you could love one person so much, for so many years, and yet have so few shared memories. So little to sustain you, and no hope left at the end. Except for those few months when neither of them had been able to stop themselves, everything between them – chains of days, months and years – had been made up of absence.

  Bill traced the line of her cheekbones. The palms of his hands were very warm. She thought how much she wanted to kiss him. She wanted it so badly that she felt dizzy, and now she asked herself how desire could sprout so nakedly and unashamedly out of the desert of Jeanette’s illness.

  Tears gathered and ran out of the corners of her eyes. Bill trapped them with his thumbs and then touched his mouth to her wet skin.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear it if you cry.’

  Connie made a sound in her throat that wasn’t a word or – not quite – a murmur of pure pain. She turned her head to escape his scrutiny, then pulled herself out of his arms.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she managed to say. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

  She pulled on a nylon jacket and ran into the rain. Outside Wayan’s house was a row of scooters and bicycles belonging to the relatives who had come for the last flurry of preparations. Tomorrow was the day of the cremation.

  Connie began walking. The raindrops landing on her face and lips felt warmer than blood temperature. The dirt road was reduced to a muddy ribbon threading through khaki puddles. Ahead of her a young woman hitched up her skirt and ran with her black umbrella bobbing over her head. Under all the awnings and shelters families were gathered, white-robed grandmothers and men in sweat-ringed T-shirts, mothers and impassive toddlers, sitting and staring out at the downpour. Even the dogs had crawled away to find cover.

  She walked a circle round the outskirts of the village and came to the entrance to the monkey forest. The peanut vendors had withdrawn under the canopy of leaves, and only a small handful of tourists shrouded in plastic rain capes hesitated and discussed whether to abandon their itinerary for the nearest cappuccino bar.

  Under the trees inside the forest enclosure, though, only occasional drips fell from the interlaced leaves to spatter the grey dust with percussive insistence. The macaques were drawn up in size order on the temple walls, tails dangling like inverted question marks. Connie squeezed some of the water out of her hair and strolled down the nearest path. The light was greenish, subaqueous.

  Her intention had been to shut out all the thoughts of Bill, hurrying away from him yet again and closing up her mind as if she were preparing the defences against a tidal wave. But the wave smashed through the barriers and swept her away.

  She was submerged in memories.

  Bill and Connie saw each other at Christmases and birthdays, marking the milestones of the years. Without ever speaking of it, they had tacitly agreed never to hug each other like a brother- and sister-in-law, because they knew such an embrace would never be fraternal. They never even allowed their hands to touch.

  Then came Noah’s tenth birthday. There was a football party, with Bill acting as referee for twenty boys who ran up and down the Surrey garden.

  In the kitchen, Connie (‘I’ve only dropped in for an hour, just to bring Noah his present, I’ve got to go back to London for a screening tonight’) helped Hilda to lay out plates of sausages and bowls of crisps.

  At the end of the game the pack of boys chased into the house. These days Jeanette didn’t enjoy parties or crowds, and she was white in the face with the strain of communicating with children who didn’t understand her signs and who tried not to giggle at her blurted words. Her jaw and back were rigid with determination to make her boy’s party a success. Noah was flushed and boisterous and he pushed past his mother to get to the table. In doing so, he knocked a big bowl of
sliced fruit off the counter and onto the tiled floor. Chunks of pineapple and chips of broken china flew up into the air. Jeanette swung round in mute, boiling anger. Up to her ankles in fruit and unable or unwilling to strike out at Noah, she raised her hand at Bill as if to hit him.

  A flash of loathing passed between them.

  Connie saw it. A terrible, wild excitement shot through her.

  Bill caught his wife by the wrist and gently steered her away from the mess. Hilda dashed forwards with a cloth and a bucket and the boys cheered and began like a multiheaded monster to stuff food into its many mouths. A minute later Bill was telling knock-knock jokes and Jeanette was triumphantly bearing the birthday cake to Noah at the head of the table.

  Connie waited just long enough to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and then hurried away.

  All marriages go through dark patches, she told herself.

  Jeanette was by then studying plant taxonomy in the spare hours that were not devoted to Noah. She was a committed mother. Everything that was done for and by Noah Bunting had to be the best.

  Perhaps Jeanette the perfectionist, Jeanette who loved her husband so much, who had never thought or dreamed of any man but Bill, had not left quite enough room in her arrangements for the awkward reality of Bill himself, the man and not the ideal.

  Connie told herself that in any case whatever was happening between the two of them did not, must not, mean anything to her.

  Then, a month later, she went to the party given by the agency in Docklands.

  Bill was there and she walked towards him, knowing that she should turn and run, because if she didn’t it would be too late.

  But that night, the will and the determination to keep on running finally deserted her.

  Bill was waiting. He knew as surely as Connie did that they had reached the point of no return. He had been drinking, but he was clear in his mind. His marriage was a shaky edifice and the woman who came towards him was solid reality. She was light and warmth and food and water to him. To hold her at arm’s length tonight would have been to ask his heart to stop beating.