Harvest

by Celia Brayfield

  ‘Imi, you can’t steal things…’

  ‘Well, I am. And don’t tell me I’ll get caught, please. Give me some credit, Stephen. I’ve been at this for months and I don’t get caught. The people I steal from deserve it, they know they deserve it and they don’t give me any hassle. And don’t you give me any hassle either, OK? I’ve had enough in my life.’ Again, she lashed out with an arm and this time was quick enough to snatch the bag from him. ‘Now fuck off, if you can’t give me any peace.’

  He sighed, and sat down on the chair by the table, wondering what strategy he could adopt to get out of the fight. A fight was what she was going to work up to. She always attacked when she was in the wrong, and the rhythm was always the same, a cycle of mounting aggression.

  ‘I’ve got it sorted, Stephen. Everything. We’re gonna go to New Zealand, because that’s the furthest away. Look, I’ve got everything here …’ She grabbed a large envelope off the table and tipped it out on the bed. Travel brochures fell in a lurid pile, shiny pictures of pine trees and beaches. ‘You can do your bloody degree there, look if you don’t believe me, I checked it out…’ She threw something at him, a booklet that had no photographs. It fell short, fluttering its pages to his feet, a university prospectus. ‘I think of you sometimes, you see. This is it. This is our future together.’

  ‘Imi, what is all this? What’s it about …’ Her tone was whining but still aggressive, she was gathering grievances to fuel her attack. He tried to decide whether to believe her. Imi told fantastic lies, and enjoyed them for their own sake. She had that glittery edge she always got when she was lying.

  ‘It’s about us, isn’t it? You and me and what we’re doing with our lives. We’re getting out, that’s what we’re doing. Fucking getting out.’

  ‘You never said … we never talked about this.’

  ‘Why do we have to talk about everything?’ Another serpentine convulsion and she was standing in front of him, prodding his chest with stiff fingers. ‘It’s what we want to do, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Answer me, Stephen, don’t just stand there. You make me crazy just standing there.’

  ‘I …’ The telephone rang. She rolled her eyes in rage, but went to the table to pick up the receiver.

  ‘What?’ she yelled into it, then, ‘Nah. This is me, Dad. Don’t you know my voice?’

  Half-way across the room the characteristic resonance of Michael Knight’s delivery was still recognizable. Imi had her own voice for talking to her father, a low, intimate mumble, and within a few exchanges she fell into it, hiding the mouthpiece behind the fingers of her free hand as if the gesture would keep the conversation secret. Stephen watched her, noticing how the pride in her body drained away and her strident posture collapsed, so that her shoulders started to round and her spine curve and she began to shrink down into a cowed, foetal thing ready to curl up, suck its thumb and die. The covering hand was artificially relaxed, skeletal.

  ‘I know it’s your birthday but I don’t want to come. Don’t ask me for reasons, I haven’t got reasons for you, I just don’t want to, that’s all. I’ve got things to do here.’

  She listened awhile and then replied, almost whispering into the mouthpiece. ‘Nobody’s here, only Stephen.’ Then she held out the receiver to him. ‘He wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Stephen. Good to hear you. Everything all right?’ Brisk, confident, powerful. There was background noise, he was in a public place.

  ‘I think so.’ There was always an impulse to call Michael ‘sir’, out of respect for that national treasure of a voice, but Stephen had some practice in resisting without sounding ill-mannered. He prided himself that although he loathed this man, he always behaved well towards him. In fact, the more generous and chivalrous his actions, the more Stephen felt superior to his enemy.

  ‘Good, good. I’m glad you’re there, Stephen. Imogen is always better when you’re with her. I want her to come down for our little party tomorrow. I think it’s important that she be there. You’ll let me know if you need anything, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I will.’ It was not what he wanted to say.

  ‘Good, good. Will you be taking the train? We must get someone to meet you …’ Now there was no alternative plan, no staying in Paris. The voice had dissolved their options.

  What Stephen wanted to do was open his mouth and have an aria of accusation pour out, a huge raging indictment taking in all the years – why did you cheat this child, why have you destroyed her, all this beauty and talent and human worth laid waste, why did you do it? The words were not there. Instead he said, ‘I was thinking of the one that gets in at twelve, or five past.’

  ‘Good, I’ll get something arranged. And Imogen, how do you find her?’

  ‘Much better, I think.’

  ‘Yes, I think so too. She’s been sounding much, much better. I’m really looking forward to seeing you both. Really. Can you put me back to her now, if you please.’

  Imogen took the receiver with a listless flourish of disdain. Another murmuring exchange and then she screamed and hurled the telephone across the room, knocking down the TV aerial and cracking a pane of glass in the window. ‘The shit! The fucking shit!’ The whine of a cut connection sounded from the receiver. She picked up one of her boots and began to batter the apparatus, working up dry sobs and small screams like an infuriated bird. Then she started to cry, and curled up on the floor. He went to kneel beside her and hold her.

  ‘It’s money, all the time, money. It’s all down to money. Now do you see? See why I’ve got to get away from that man? The games he plays with me. With us. We have to leave. I’ll go mad, I know I will.’

  ‘You don’t have to do what he says.’

  ‘I do if I want my rent and my food and next term’s tuition fees…’

  ‘He wouldn’t stop your allowance …’

  ‘He would. He has before, remember? I lived a whole month on what the market people threw away. The landlord wanted me to sleep with him. Little creep. I said I’d rather he threw me out.’

  ‘You told me.’ She told him everything, but so much of it was fantasy.

  ‘I’ve got this money now. I don’t have to be some wanky bit of the Michael Knight PR initiative any more, thank you. You see now, don’t you? The money is for saving our lives.’ Her anger was returning, he could feel it as a positive tension in her body. ‘You do understand, don’t you?’ She was wheedling him, tugging her hair. ‘I know you think it’s like stealing but they’re not innocent men. I’m really, really clever, Stephen. I just get away with it, I do. Most of them have got such big houses, so much stuff in there.’

  ‘Imi, for God’s sake, whatever you’ve been doing, you’ve got to stop it. You know whatever this is, it’s wrong. No more, promise?’

  ‘Well, I can’t do much if we’ve got to go all the way to bloody Gascony tomorrow.’ She smiled up at him, her lashes spidery against her cheeks, and the glory of her clear dark eyes made him shiver. Imogen’s beauty was the frightening kind. She was unreal, she was terrifying. But she was OK, it was going to be all right.

  He had a dream of how their life would be, like a video he could run in his mind. She looked the way she did the summer she got her exam results, that quiet, cat-in-the-sun face she had sometimes. It didn’t suit her, that look, the whole Imi thing was black and smouldering, that’s when he found her extremely beautiful. Ordinary-looking was not for her, when she was happy she looked unexceptional. Her face was unoccupied, animal in a way, because she went inside herself and was OK there. That face was a very clear memory for him, although she was only like that a few days before Michael came back; Michael had not remembered the exams. When she told him he just said the grades were crap and she hadn’t worked hard enough.

  Stephen saw them living in a house he had designed, probably an old building reclaimed. Abroad perhaps. The work he intended to do would take him to the developing world, like Eastern Europe, or even China. Wherever, as long as they were together. He would work
in the home a lot, and Imogen would have a studio. It was always a very light house.

  There was always a lot of green in the picture, plants or a garden. He was sure that when she was well, making things grow would give her real satisfaction. He saw her giving the plants water and stroking their leaves, moving around easily, like she used to do when he first knew her, before her walk acquired its strange, puppet-like stiffness. She wore old clothes, everything splashed with paint; her hair was long and tied up at the nape of her neck with a scarf. Her skin had colour from the sun and she did not wear makeup, she did not need her mask any more.

  He pictured her standing back from her easel, looking at something she had done from a distance. One of the most exciting things about her work was that it was instinctive; she would paint something working a normal distance away, and then have to step back to see what it was. He thought of himself as Mr Precision, the measured drawing king. What you saw was what you got, with him; with Imi, you got everything you didn’t know was there until she showed it to you. She would be incredibly successful, several galleries after her, but she would hesitate, and not decide who to go with until she had a whole exhibition finished. It was important to her to be understood.

  Sometimes there was a baby in the picture, but most often they were waiting a few more years. She would get the sex thing together; it would take time but he had no problem there. Things were getting settled and they would be happy being together.

  He did not kid himself it would be good all the time. She would have setbacks, people would upset her. You can’t divorce your family, can you? They would just work it out. He would support her, of course, but she would do it, she would keep it together. She had the strength. He told himself that each time he thought of the future.

  ‘Jane?’ Grace had once picked him up on that. Married all those years and you don’t recognize your wife’s voice? That quality in her speech, true words spoken in jest, tart words sprinkled with sugar, sent shivers down his spine. Who else do you expect to answer the telephone in your own home? In Grace’s time his home had not been such an institution. Now it seemed there were always several females there to answer his call. The fact was that Jane answered, always. He did wonder about that.

  ‘Michael.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘Good, good. I’m at the airport.’

  ‘Yes, I can hear that.’

  ‘I’ve missed the 10.40. We were editing this morning. I’m OK for the 2.15.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you this evening then.’

  ‘Yes. I’ve spoken to Imogen, Stephen’s bringing her. Everything with you all right?’

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine. It’s hot now, not a cloud in the sky. Emma’s taken Xanthe off to catch frogs. I’ve been to the market in Saint-Victor with Louisa. We’re all set for tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. Everything’s under control then?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. See you later.’

  In the dullness of the exchange and the lack of incident reported, he pictured the harmonious landscape of his home. In his mind he stood before his family establishment like a Gainsborough nobleman before his rolling acres; wife and children, the two houses, the neighbours, friends, and relatives, the furniture and his quite celebrated collection of reportage photography were all details blended into the painted background that signified his status. He had introduced a new figure to perfect the composition. There was the space for her in the middle distance; Serena would be a slender maid with a muslin fichu and shyly inclined head stepping forward into the frame. Her leading foot would be accomplished in one tiny brushstroke, whole, pure and perfect, just like her.

  A hostess brought him coffee; lesser business-class passengers, those who were not household faces, had to get their own. Michael relaxed a little. Tomorrow was his birthday, the day in each year when a man would judge his own portrait; tomorrow he would regard himself and wish he was a better man.

  He had never intended to become what he was. He had left his mother’s house with his university scholarship, emotionally if not technically a virgin, aspiring only to a plain life of hard work and monogamy. (Curious that he always referred to it as his mother’s house. His father lived there still, but he felt no connection with the man except duty.)

  Immediately accidents of fate had piled on each other; first Pia, then their children, then her problems, then her leaving – that had cut him to the heart, he could not recover from her leaving. The emotions were devastating, he fought desperately for control of his life. Jane had saved him and imprisoned him at the same time. Affairs became a habit, a way to restore his independence. Grace had given him hope of breaking the pattern, but he had driven her away, then after her another, and another, every regretful parting increasing his loneliness. Now his life was packed with women – warm, affectionate, forgiving but leaving. His wounds grew deeper each year and he had surrendered all hope of healing. At least now there was Serena.

  Equilibrium returning, he drew a deep breath. The Imogen thing was all right, really. She had been in a bad mood, maybe that boy had upset her. Michael’s blood raced whenever the heavy, shock-haired figure of Stephen appeared in his daughter’s life. Jane might describe him as kind, or even caring, but for Michael the right word was weak. Was he really such a good thing? He took Imogen off their hands, she obviously liked him, in as much as Imogen was capable of such a positive emotion as liking, but look at the record: Stephen had been on the scene since the two of them were kids, and the fact was that in all that time she’d been a nightmare. Stephen gave her too much ground. Imogen needed a man who could stand up to her, not take any shit from her.

  He was jealous, of course. He could name that demon. ‘I don’t dislike the boy really, I’m just an old stag seeing a young buck stalking his herd,’ he would say. ‘I want to get down and clash antlers with him, that’s all it is.’ Thus he claimed to have tamed the animal in himself, the animal which in truth had tamed him. There was a darker element too. He did not understand the boy. Stephen lived with moral certainty. Michael craved that like an atheist craving faith. Stephen had always given the impression of being outside his control, of playing under a different set of rules. Under Stephen’s rules, Michael knew he was not acknowledged, as a superior being.

  Cued automatically by his empty cup, the hostess poured more coffee and informed him that the incoming flight from Toulouse had just arrived on time. She had a faint accent and a corn-fed country complexion. Her blonde hair lay obediently under its clips and she walked with an energetic motion which made her pleated skirt dance around her knees. It was a new uniform; he remembered the rewards of charm and complimented her on it. The thought of Stephen faded, his anger subsided to an irritable shadow.

  Outside there was glaring sunlight; the window framed shining ugliness, a utilitarian geometry of lurid aircraft and drab buildings. He felt his tender recollections of the morning withering in the light. Serena would have dressed by now, perhaps she would be outside, with the sun shining down on her head, drying up her indulgence, hardening the soft instincts which had admitted him to her heart. Her telephone number was on his memo pad. It rang a long time; he was about to abandon the call when her voice answered, breathless.

  ‘It’s me. I thought you would be out by now.’ What did she do on Saturdays? Dinners at which her friends matched her with other men, games of tennis, expeditions to the cinema, parties, weddings, trips to the country, with other men? If there was one day in the week inherently dangerous for an unguarded woman, this was it.

  ‘I was out, almost.’

  He wanted information. ‘I don’t want to keep you if you’ve got things to do…’

  ‘Only shopping. The library. There’s plenty of time.’ Beautiful honest woman; he needed to know that she was all his.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you. Are you all right?’ His voiced was infused with intimacy.

  ‘I feel strange. You … I … this … things l
ike this … I don’t know, I don’t know what I feel. Different. Something’s happened.’

  Now he was anxious. Could she be slipping away? ‘I feel it, too. We’ve travelled, haven’t we? We are in another place now, both of us. Our country. Can’t go back. Don’t know what’s ahead. It’s new, strange, frightening. I don’t regret anything.’ He left the statement floating in the air, waiting for her response, but all that came was a soft, swallowing noise. Was she crying? ‘Serena?’

  ‘I’m here. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Oh God, I’ve hurt you. Oh God. If there’s one thing I’d never have wished …’ His mind computed the possibility of a desperate run back to secure her, but there was no time and he was already on the last flight. As if to confirm the inevitability of it, the information monitor flashed up the call for his departure. ‘Talk to me, please, my love, please, I don’t mind what you say, I want to hear your voice.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why I feel like this. I’ve just run up the stairs, I can’t get my breath. It’s nothing, just a mood, it’ll go away.’

  ‘My love. I wish I was with you.’

  ‘Your family are waiting for you.’ Ominous, mechanical delivery. She was trying to talk him out of it.

  ‘Yes, they will be soon; but I wish I was with you, now. It feels so bad to have to leave you like that. I felt so connected while we were together, so alive. You must have felt the same – didn’t you?’ And there he let his voice falter. The earth gaped, the veil of the temple tore, Michael Knight’s voice cracked.

  ‘Yes.’ It was almost a whisper.

  ‘I’m so relieved you said that, so relieved. If you could hear my heart beating now …’

  All at once her tone was calm and light. ‘Where are you? Aren’t people listening?’

  ‘No. I’m by myself. They’ve called my flight, everyone else has gone down to the gate.’

  ‘You must go too, then.’

  ‘I had to speak to you. I just had to. But you’re right, I must go in a second. What about tomorrow? I mean, if I can get away to call you at some point – where will you be?’