‘Yes, of course.’ Stephen hesitated at the bedside, looking down at the sleeping face; against her ivory skin, to which the day’s sun had not added any colour at all, her black eyelashes lay so flat they could have been drawn on with a pen.
There was an awkward hiatus in which none of them moved, then Stephen turned back and continued as if he had been asked another question. ‘It’s just … well, we’ve been together a long time, you know, and I’ve seen what goes on in her life. There’s no one she can be really close with, not in the family. She’s got this terrible sense of being on her own. Michael has always been away, and when he is around he frightens her with his expectations. And Jane’s sort of washed her hands, now she’s got children of her own. I really think Imi only does this stuff to get attention from Michael and Jane. I mean, I’m sorry to be a sort of drawing-room psychiatrist …’
‘Don’t be. It could be a fair analysis. I saw some scarring on one of her wrists.’
‘She cut herself at Christmas, just at the beginning of lunch.’
‘But that was the only time?’
‘Yes.’ He was thinking that in all their months of separation she could have been doing anything. Certainly, she had made something of a life for herself, full of secrets she kept from him, like the silver things in her rucksack. ‘As far as I know.’
‘There are women who cut themselves habitually, but of course the scarring is much more extensive. Anorexia can be part of the same syndrome.’
‘Imi’s never been anorexic; I mean, she doesn’t eat a lot but she does eat.’
‘You care a great deal for her, don’t you?’
‘Yes. So much. There’s so much potential with her. When nothing’s happening to upset her she can be so sweet and gentle, and there are so many things she can do, she’s got so much talent. She’s absolutely instinctive – she can draw and paint, she writes extraordinary poetry. It’s only having the confidence. She just won’t believe she’s any good.’
‘The parents must be very glad she’s got you in her life.’
It was liberating to hear this neutral description of Michael and Jane; as merely ‘the parents’, not awesome figures cloaked in public glamour, they shrank in Stephen’s mental scheme. He was not as intimidated as he had been. ‘Well, not always. They didn’t like it when I took her to see her mother.’
‘Oh yes, I was told. Second marriage …’
‘There’s no reason you should … it wasn’t anything I planned, we were just travelling together the year after I left school and it happened. And it was what Imi wanted, it was her idea. Michael and Jane acted like it was some kind of betrayal. I’m not keen to bring the bad news again, I’ve got shot before.’ Feeling almost interrogated, he had been walking to and fro at the end of the bed, but now he halted. ‘I thought you … how do you know so much about all this?’ It was a defensive question. The broad, open face had clouded and he was pushing around a corner of the rug with one foot.
‘I see quite a lot of addictive or abusive behaviour. A lot of my patients are users, the adults that is. It’s about half and half. It’s not really my field, I’m interested in the virus itself, but the team I work with at my clinic take a holistic approach. And when you’re looking at patients’histories, compared to most of them, this’ – he glanced at the thin, restless body now wound up in the white sheet – ‘is kindergarten stuff. You read therapists’ notes, pretty soon you pick up on the fact that there’s more than one way to abuse a child. And most of them are legal.’
‘I think – well, I can understand that.’
‘You like looking after her, don’t you?’
‘It’s almost a habit.’ The last word reverberated in a silence precisely engineered by the older man. ‘You’re saying she’s my addiction, is that it? No, you’re not saying anything, are you? I am, I’m saying it.’ He snapped back his shoulders and brushed his hair off his forehead with the palms of his hands. ‘OK. You could be right.’ Turning away from them, he put one hand over his eyes, trying to hide the tears. ‘You are right. But what can I do? I care for her so much. I love her. That’s it, that’s the whole thing. I love her.’ Now he had retreated to the corner of the room, and was looking from one face to the other as if he felt they hemmed him in. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’ll get your bag anyway.’ And abruptly he left, almost blundering into the door frame as he went.
At the bedside Nick fell into his typical posture of thought, a still slump with elbows resting on his knees, eyes fixed on his clasped hands.
The sun suddenly struck through the open window and Grace went to close the shutters. In the distance she saw the guests’cars bumping slowly away up the hill in a purposeful exodus. ‘The party’s breaking up,’ she said.
‘Come here a minute?’ Grace went to stroke the back of his neck. He pressed his face against her belly.
‘Neurotic. Erotic. For some people it’s almost the same thing. Men especially. You know he reminds me of myself?’
It was comforting to feel his voice vibrating through her body. She said, ‘He’s only young.’
‘I was older when I met my first wife, but it was the same old voodoo. You think all she needs is taking care of, and you’re the only one who can do it. Totally seductive. But you’re wrong. You can’t make her well, no one can until she decides to heal herself. She won’t do that while you’re running around after her picking up and covering up. And you won’t start your own journey while you’re wrapped up in her.’
‘You’re saying he’s got to get out?’ Before, he had never talked about his first marriage in any but the most trivial terms.
‘Absolutely. Only hope for both of them.’ He sat up, trying to shake off introspection. ‘This is a very interesting family. Did you see neither of them responded to her? Both the other kids are in trouble, the little girl and the boy.’
Grace thought of the beaming, round-eyed infants whose photographs were so proudly framed on the wall by Michael’s desk, and the wonderful detailed anecdotes of their childish triumphs that had cut her to the heart. He had told them with a radiant pride; pride not in his children, she now understood, but in his own ability to act out fatherhood. ‘They’re nothing like I imagined,’ was all she said.
‘And Jane. She’s completely different, I can’t believe it. All through lunch I thought she was going to start crying. I found myself talking on and on to try to hold her together. Last week, when we met, she was a different person, totally different. Confident – how I’d imagined her to be. A sturdy Scots lass with floury hands, bright and sparky and full of good advice. Now it’s like someone pressed her mute button. What goes on in this house?’
‘I don’t know.’ Grace glanced at the sleeping girl, wondering if she could hear their conversation.
‘Well, if this is a modern family, I’m glad we haven’t got one.’ He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him, while she recorded his voice in her mind and played it back, straining to hear the notes of regret.
‘You need a clean shirt,’ she said at last. One of her more fruitful habits was never to travel without throwing together an overnight bag.
‘Sure do.’
‘There’s one in the car, I’ll fetch it.’
‘Kiss me before you go.’
High clouds like a band of smoke had gathered at the zenith of the sky. There was blazing blue still to either side of them, but at the western horizon, above the burning yellow of the sunflowers, puffs of white and grey were piling lightly upon each other, feathers from a celestial pillow-fight. The breeze had died down and the heat was suffocating.
It was five in the afternoon; never before had the party ended so early. In previous years Michael’s inner circle had regrouped around the pool, to watch their children cooling off in the water and talk over old times. The last guests had often lingered until nightfall. It was always the most satisfying part of the ceremony. The glow he got from the admiration of old friends was very precious; he had come so far in li
fe, he was afraid that his integrity had been damaged on the journey, and only his old friends could confirm that he was still intact.
A sour atmosphere had settled on the table after Imogen’s removal and he recognized that it was of his own making. He had attached her to himself completely, taken all the decisions on her life, and there she was, a disastrous ruin of a human being, his creation, his monster. His own parents would have been deeply ashamed to have raised such a child.
Amina Bhatia, exquisitely well-mannered to the end, was the last to leave. He walked her to her car and accepted two cool social kisses with her emollient assurances that the day had been a success. He gave her good wishes for her husband, who was at NewsConnect editing the weekend bulletins, then closed her door, she twitching her sari away before it was caught, and waved as she eased the unfamiliar hire car up the road. It was over. The little crowd which had come together so gaily four hours ago had dispersed, the festive camp was being struck, and he was by himself.
It annoyed him that Jane was not with him. It would mitigate the disaster a little if she was at his side to say goodbye. All day she had been remote from him, contained within herself, a peculiar mood he had never felt before. Now her absence emphasized his responsibility for the failure of the event; he had actually asked her to come with him, but she had refused sweetly, for some reason wanting to supervise the caterers as they cleared away.
Solitude was intolerable to him. Since the terrifying melancholy of his adolescence, his life had seemed like a walk in the shadow of a hungry despair. Each year, as his achievements piled up and the world awarded him higher status, the shadow behind him was deeper, and the temptation to give up, stop running and let that darkness swallow him became stronger. All the time, he needed to feel that he was advancing, staying ahead of the shadow, and when he had no work distraction was the only way to feel safe. People, ideas and above all action were what kept him ahead. At that moment, they were all unavailable.
Rapidly, he reviewed his options. Jane, in her present bizarre mood, could be dangerous. His secretary might be at home, he could discuss his schedule for the next day with her. At NewsConnect, the editor of the day could update him. And he could call Serena. Her distraction this morning was only one of the reverses of the past twenty-four hours, but it was a thorn in his side. She was deserting him – he thought of it in those terms, having already painted her into his picture.
In the house, at least, it was cooler. His office, which he seldom used, was reached through the drawing room. An immense window, framed in a stone arch which had once been a barn doorway, brought into the room the spectacular view over the pool to the wood and the valley. This window had a single red curtain draped from a high pole and held back with red and gold ropes. The arrangement was so elaborate and the view so good that the curtain was seldom released, but someone had boldly loosened it and half the room was in shadow.
As he walked past, there was a disturbance in the depth of a sofa. ‘Michael! I must have dozed off! Oh, what a heavenly day!’ A pair of deep red Chesterfields stood either side of the colossal stone fireplace, the nearest one with its back to him. Louisa reared up from its seat, her jacket slithering around her curves, stretching extravagantly. Today she was in a dusty pink cocktail suit with a gold double-heart choker. He found adult women wearing little-girl outfits unattractive.
‘I have had such a wonderful time. What about you? You looked so relaxed. I can never enjoy my own parties, I worry too much.’
The nectar of praise drew him towards her, stepping around her stiletto sandals, which she had discarded some distance away across the dark floorboards. She swept her legs off the cushions and patted a place for him to sit. ‘You’re not worrying about Berenice, are you?’
‘That was – embarrassing. I don’t know what came over Imogen …’
‘Oh, Berenice was laughing about the whole thing by the time we got inside. Everyone understands about problem children, don’t they? Haven’t the Sterns got some of their own? Little moments of comedy like that are part of a great occasion, they lift the whole atmosphere, don’t you think?’ Somehow every question cued a flirtatious flash of her eyes. Louisa was lolling back, fluffing up her hair and pulling pins from it, letting her breasts strain against her tight jacket while she considered where her duty to Jane might lie in this situation.
People described Louisa variously as aggressive, demanding or courageous. Something in her upbringing had clearly left her with the impression that she was not tied by the good manners which, as she saw it, restrained other people ridiculously. No thought was too unpalatable for Louisa to voice, no argument too intrusive for her to advance – particularly in the cause of a friend. And for once she had captured Michael’s interest.
‘Berenice really was laughing?’
‘Oh yes. She’s quite an amusing woman, isn’t she?’
‘Is she?’ Michael seldom registered the qualities of his associates’ wives. As a consort, he rated Berenice as impressive if somewhat low on integrity for a man of Stern’s muscular morals.
‘Oh yes. I’ve known Berenice forever, we were at school together – just. She’s older, of course. She can be quite witty when she’s not clamped on to Alan like a barnacle. I’m surprised she hasn’t sparkled in your direction before. She’s got a great eye for the men, has Berenice.’
There was a sudden contraction of distaste from Michael – not the reaction she had envisaged. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know women find you attractive.’ On the pretext of putting the hairpins on the table, she leaned towards him and in sitting up again, needed to put her hand on his knee.
‘I don’t really think about things like that.’
‘Oh come on, everybody thinks about things like that. Especially with you. Although – forgive me for saying this, Michael, but I am an old friend – I would have thought that a man in your position would want to take perhaps a little more care. Isn’t it funny, nowadays it’s almost easier for a man to get a bad reputation than a woman?’
‘Louisa, I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.’ Was this a round-about way of making a pass? Women could be maddeningly indirect.
‘What I mean is, people are so sensitive about things like sexual harassment nowadays, and there are so many of these new puritans – like Stern, for example – it must be rather undesirable for a man in your position to have so many affairs.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ He spoke quite lightly, relieved to discover a familiar agenda. He prepared once more to brush off the challenge. ‘I don’t have affairs.’
It was at this point that Grace, coming downstairs, heard his voice through the half-open door and hesitated.
‘Michael, everybody knows.’ Louisa put her hand on his arm, partly to emphasize her argument, partly because he was looking rumpled and vulnerable and, unexpectedly, she found him attractive.
‘They can’t possibly know, because there is nothing to know. In my business there is a world of difference between gossip and reality.’ His tone was chilling. Had Jane confided in this woman? A very unwise choice. She was a loose cannon, liable to cause damage with her bizarre ideas.
‘How can you possibly say that?’ Louisa’s inflection was almost operatic. ‘You’ve been unfaithful to Jane ever since I’ve known you, ever since you were married almost. There must have been at least three women here today who you’ve had affairs with.’ Frozen at the bottom of the staircase, Grace dismissed the immorality of eaves-dropping in the face of a greater evil. Through the half-open door she could see nothing but the unoccupied corner of the sofa.
‘That is the most absurd assertion I have ever heard. Louisa, is this some kind of seduction routine? Because it isn’t working. If you thought I’d be flattered by …’
A rich chuckle rose from her throat. ‘You are, though, aren’t you? Flattered? Eh? Just a tiny bit? Go on, you can admit it …’
Michael felt himself running out of control. She was correct, he was flattered by his reput
ation; in fact, he was not nearly as discreet as he ought to be, because he revelled in the knowing glances and the envious snipes of his associates. In cold fact, he thought, he was a hell of a guy – only it was essential that no one else knew that. He searched for the argument that would end the conversation.
‘I’m not condemning it,’ Louisa continued in a contented tone. ‘I’m just remarking on it, if you like. And wondering why, when in every other way you’re so anxious to present a really contemporary image, you don’t clean your act up a little. Infidelity is for men who’re still wearing flared trousers, didn’t you know that? Of course, power is an aphrodisiac, and people do condone extraordinary behaviour in a man in your position in the world …’
‘Then they’re wrong.’ Michael stood up and Grace soundlessly retreated a few steps up the stairs, out of his sight. ‘Look, let me explain how it is for a man in my position in the world, as you call it.’ He took up a position in front of the fireplace and delivered his speech. ‘You’re the subject of all kinds of speculation. That’s only natural. Sometimes it’s accurate. Sometimes it’s not. This time, it’s not. I am very much a married man, Louisa. And married to Jane, who I know counts you as one of her closest friends. At times I’ve been quite envious of what you share with her, you know? But you really are mistaken here. I have never, ever been unfaithful to Jane. And I never intend to be.’
Grace felt weak. Michael had negated her in a few easy words, delivered in the resonant, authoritative tone he used to announce global disasters. Afraid of falling, she sat on the steps and found herself covering her heart with her hands as if to protect it from another blow. Her heartbeat was wild and irregular.
Below, in the drawing room, the sofa creaked as Louisa quit it. She was annoyed now, and determined to be revenged, and also intrigued by the erotic mastery which Jane had described to her. She advanced on him, brushing down her skirt with gestures that were intended to be sensuous. ‘And anyway, this would hardly be infidelity. Since I am so close to Jane. Almost a family affair, I think.’
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