by Barbara Vine
Once you’d said to me that North Americans only know three kinds of wine, the three Ch’s, Champagne, Chablis and Chardonnay. Clever, if not exactly true. ‘Oh, give me anything,’ you said. ‘It doesn’t matter. I haven’t come for drinks.’
There was a bottle of white wine on the table. Meursault, not one of the Ch’s. Kit had had two glasses of it during our meal. He poured a glass for you and said he’d fetch some ice.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ you said. And then you said, ‘I don’t need a bloody drink. Two weeks ago I needed a drink and I had a drink, I had several, but that was two weeks ago and I’ve got over the shock by now. Not the pain,’ you said, ‘I haven’t got over the pain but I’ve got over the shock.’
We didn’t speak, Kit and I. He gave himself more wine. My eyes were fixed on yours until I could bear it no longer and I took my eyes away.
‘My little friend Tim,’ you said and you were looking at Kit but you turned your gaze on me and said, ‘Isabel knows who I mean, my sister knows. She met him in Juneau. While she was visiting her sick friend, while she was Bunburying.’
Kit didn’t know what you meant but I knew. A lot of what you said was to be like that, Kit left out and only you and I having the esoteric knowledge. ‘By the way,’ you said, ‘how is Lynette?’
‘She died.’
For a moment you dropped the sarcasm, the awful dry, scathing tone. ‘I’m sorry,’ you said. ‘I liked her. She was a nice woman.’
You only dropped it for an instant. ‘Yes, my little friend Tim and I. My lover. I’m not in general fond of these superlatives,’ you said, ‘but sometimes one must use them to give meaning to life. One can’t be always stuck in grey areas. I was going to say – I will say – that he was the great love of my life. I loved him, I’m afraid, to distraction. Yes, perhaps in a way neither of you – forgive me if I’m wrong – has ever loved anyone.’
You paused, perhaps for one of us to deny it. I couldn’t help myself. I said, ‘Please, Ivo, don’t go on. I know what you’re going to say and if it has to be said, let me say it.’
Your eyebrows jerked up. They are my eyebrows too and they leap up into our high broad foreheads in the same way. ‘But you don’t know. How could you? I hardly think he has told you.’
‘Where is he?’ I said.
‘God knows. Back in England, I expect. But surely you know where he is.’
‘Please, Ivo,’ I said.
‘Please, Ivo, what? Please, Ivo, tell the rest of it? Of course I will. That’s why I’m here. I’ll tell you what he did. My little friend – or maybe I should call him your little friend – left me alone on an uninhabited island south-west of the Alaskan Panhandle, he left me to die. He took care to knock me out first and when the boat left went with it and told them I’d gone in the other boat.’
‘He did what?’ said Kit, but he only said it in the way people do when they find something amazing, not because they haven’t heard or can’t believe.
I said nothing. Did you realize I was relieved? Could you tell from looking at my face that hearing Tim had tried to murder you was preferable to hearing what I dreaded? I’m ashamed of that, darling, but I can’t change it. We can control what we do and to some extent what we think, but not what we feel.
At least I didn’t put on an expression of shocked horror like Kit’s, though, to be fair to him, I’m sure he was shocked and horrified. Who wouldn’t be? Well, me. Only I was shocked and horrified, by the act and the planning of the act, by who had done it and to whom it was done, but it was just another case of things never being quite so terrible when they aren’t happening to oneself. A terrible thing happening to me had been averted. Or so I thought, in those moments.
You described it in detail, how you’d gone to Chechin Island in two boats, to see the dinosaur footprints, and how you and Tim had found yourselves apart from the others. You fought, you and Tim, and when he hit you you fell backwards, knocking yourself out against a tree trunk.
‘I don’t know how long I was out,’ you said. ‘Probably only a few minutes. When I came to I didn’t know where I was but all that came back quite quickly. It was raining and I don’t think it had been when we fought. There’s a sort of beach where the boats put in. I had a bit of a headache and I had to sit down and reorientate myself. Then I walked down to the beach. The boats were gone. In the far distance I could see the Favonia at anchor, but she wasn’t at anchor for long.’
‘He did that deliberately?’ Kit said. ‘He left you there on a desert island?’
‘I suppose you could call it a desert island,’ you said. ‘No one lives there, at any rate, not even bears. I suppose I should be thankful for that.’
‘He knew you were there and he just went?’
‘Yes, Kit, I’ve said so. I don’t know what he told the others. There was an historian with us called Fergus MacBride and a naturalist called Nathan Mills. I suppose he told Fergus that I’d gone in Nathan’s boat, having previously told Nathan I’d leave in Fergus’ boat. Something like that. It would have been quite easy. They have a system of tags on these boats to be turned to red when you go out and back to black when you return. One isn’t supposed to turn other people’s tags for them, for obvious reasons, but Tim Cornish is not a man to be much troubled by what one is supposed or supposed not to do.
‘I stood on the beach, wondering whether I could see the Favonia moving. Of course it was hopeless. There was no possibility anyone on board could see me. I was alone on Chechin with old Backbite and a few eagles.’
‘Old who?’ said Kit.
‘Backbite, the 300-million-year-old amphibian, Dacnospondyl. Never mind, he was dead and gone, and for a while I thought I soon would be too.’ You turned to look at me and the dry scornful tone came back. ‘Why don’t you ask me questions, Isabel? Why doesn’t my sister interrogate me?’
I was able to speak then. You see, I thought I’d got away with it. In spite of the way you spoke to me, in spite of the scorn and the contempt, I thought I’d escaped.
‘How did you get away?’ I said.
‘He can be rather stupid, your friend Tim,’ you said. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t understand how small the world has grown or he hasn’t cottoned on to the fact we’re not living in the days of Alexander Selkirk. Yet he’d seen it often enough. He’d seen the big cruise ships waiting at the dockside at Haines and Wrangell. Didn’t he know they all follow practically the same course?
‘I knew someone would put in at Chechin at least by the next day. Of course I didn’t want to spend the night sheltering under the Chimney of Chechin, especially as a storm was coming. But it wouldn’t have killed me. There was rain to drink if nothing to eat. However, I was lucky.’ You laughed again. I feared that laugh of yours when we were children – did I ever tell you that? I feared it even though it was never directed at me. ‘I was lucky,’ you said. ‘The storm came and that wasn’t pleasant, I was afraid lightning might strike the Chimney and I got drenched with rain. When it let up I saw the Northern Princess on the horizon. She’d been following us. She’s a massive vessel, eight decks, two thousand passengers, and her boats are vastly superior to the Favonia’s Zodiacs.
‘I knew there was a chance she’d avoid Chechin because of the storm. I just had to hope. I was like some poor marooned sailor and when I saw a sail I hoped. It was late afternoon when the Princess put two boatloads of sightseers on to Chechin. I’d been there about five hours. The sea was a bit choppy and it was raining, of course it was raining, but the storm was over and the next one hadn’t started. I can’t say I’d ever been really anxious, I was never afraid for my life, I was racked by a lot of emotions in those hours but real fear wasn’t among them. Pain was, and anguish – yes, that’s the word, anguish – and a sort of shocked incredulity, but not fear. Still, it was a relief to see the Princess’s boats coming.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Kit, ‘what did you tell them?’
‘Nothing much,’ you said, and you cooled. You’d cooled to i
ce. ‘While I watched the boats coming I was thinking what I’d say. And I was also thinking that if I wanted, so to speak, to take it further, what I said immediately the boats arrived would be quite important.’
Kit asked you what you meant. I knew.
‘If I was going to tell the police, for instance. He’d tried to kill me, hadn’t he? There aren’t two ways about it. He knocked me out and abandoned me, he hoped I’d die there. My head was bleeding and I was unconscious. Was I going to tell the police? But first, of course, was I going to tell the people who were coming closer and closer to Chechin and would soon land, and then the captain of the Princess? I had about two minutes in which to decide and I decided, no, I wasn’t.’
‘Why not, for God’s sake?’
‘Oh, please. You could say because I didn’t want our relationship, Tim’s and mine, aired in court. It would hardly do me much good in my profession. That’s an obvious reason, but it didn’t occur to me till later. The reason that stopped me saying anything was that I loved him. Absurd, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Kit said.
‘Too bad,’ you said. ‘I told you it was absurd. They took me back to the Princess. I said the mistake was mine for telling Fergus MacBride I’d be returning with Nathan and letting Nathan take it for granted I’d be going back in Fergus’s boat in which I’d come. We radioed the Favonia. They were astonished, of course. They thought I was on board. Tim, who must have worn two life-jackets to leave Chechin, had turned my tag to black. I spoke to Fergus. In the storm the Favonia tossed about like a cockleshell – that’s the phrase he used and I can’t think of another. He said three-quarters of the passengers had been in their cabins being seasick and because he hadn’t seen me he’d thought I was.
‘Fergus knew. He never said, he never gave a hint, but he knew. Someone must have turned my tag and carried my life-jacket. He was observant, he knew. Without my asking, he said he’d tell Louise and the captain and leave it at that. After all, we’d all be in Prince Rupert next morning. I don’t think anyone else suspected a thing. Another storm blew up and I spent the night on the Northern Princess. She put in at Prince Rupert a couple of hours before the Favonia arrived.
‘I knew where Tim would go,’ you said, ‘but for some reason I’d no inclination to follow him. I felt sick with despair. I didn’t need to go aboard the Favonia. He’d seen to it my bags with all my stuff in were waiting on the dockside. I went through them and found what else he’d done.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘What do you mean, what else he’d done?’
‘Going to an island in a Zodiac you don’t need money or credit cards. I’d left mine in my cabin, a cabin with a door that didn’t lock. Unwise, wasn’t it? And not much use saying that I always do it. I could have used the ship’s safe but I didn’t, I never did. Our passengers were respectable citizens, not thieves. Tim left me the American Express but took the Visa. It’s more versatile, the Visa. He left me my travellers’ cheques but took my cash, a bit less than $700.
‘Then he packed my bags, all ready for the steward to take them up on deck next morning. I’d never have believed him so well-organized. I went down to my cabin and it was empty, stripped clean.’
‘Where have you been since all this happened?’ Kit said.
You said very casually, ‘Doing my job. I had another fortnight’s duty ahead of me. Then I took on some extra work. There didn’t seem any reason not to.’
‘You mean you got back on that goddamned ship and gave your lectures?’
‘Yes, Kit,’ you said. ‘As a matter of fact, in the circumstances, I needed the money. But it wasn’t just that. I thought of going after him, I knew where he’d go.’ You looked at me. ‘But I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t face him. D’you know, I was actually embarrassed. I thought, I don’t think I can go up to him and say, You tried to kill me. Why did you? I didn’t think I could do that. It seemed sort of unlike me. I thought, I’ll go with the boat when she goes tomorrow and I’ll do my stuff and I’ll think what to do. So I did and I thought, when we’re back here in two weeks’ time I’ll get on a plane and go to Seattle to see Isabel.’
The sarcasm was thick in your voice. It was almost a parody of sarcasm. But Kit didn’t notice. I thought, what’s coming now, what’s coming, I can’t bear it, and Kit said,
‘You said you thought of asking him why he tried to kill you. Why did he? Why do you think he did?’
The silence was engineered by you, contrived by you. You created this eloquent silence by maintaining it yourself and by catching and holding first Kit’s eye, then mine. You looked from one to the other of us and then, somehow, at both of us, holding us as if your gaze were a net and we two birds swept together by it and held fluttering. The silence was enormous, thick, heavy, controlled by you. It was like the deep hush in a concert hall before the conductor raises his baton and the orchestra stirs into music.
But there was no music, only silence, and the silence was of your making and your keeping. You lifted your hands, as that conductor might have, though you had no baton. You brought up your hands and leaned back, casting up your eyes. It was disgracefully theatrical, I wouldn’t have believed you capable of it. Tim, yes, but not you. At the time, though, I thought none of this. I felt only an increasing terror. For I knew that I hadn’t escaped, I hadn’t even yet begun to be ensnared, I was in the net, I wasn’t yet in the cage, it was all still before me, all to come. You bowed your head and dropped your hands. It was so ridiculous. If it had been happening to someone else it would have been funny.
Kit said it again. ‘Why did he want to kill you?’
To get me out of the way,’ you said in your coldest voice. ‘To get me out of the way to resume his love affair with my sister.’
I’d known by that time it was coming. It was still a shock. I wanted to put up my hands and cover my face but I stopped myself doing that. I was beginning to feel unreal, not flesh and blood, a stone woman.
Kit made it worse. He honestly hadn’t understood. ‘What d’you mean, your sister? You haven’t got any sisters but Isabel, have you?’
‘That’s right, Kit,’ you said. ‘Think about it.’
I don’t know what Kit thought about it. I didn’t look at him. I looked at you. ‘Did you set out to seduce him from the first?’ you said. ‘I suppose you were bored,’ you said. ‘What happened? Did you try it on with that fellow – what’s his name, Rob Case? – did you try it on with him first? But going with you while his wife was dying was too much for even a wimp like him to stomach, was it? There’s just one thing I’d like to know – well, no, I wouldn’t like to know it, I wouldn’t like to know it at all, but I do have to know it, I really do. Did he read you the letters I wrote him? Come to that, did he let you read my letters?’
I forgot Kit was there. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ I said. ‘How could you think I’d do that?’
‘Please,’ you said. ‘Christ only knows what you’d do. I don’t know you any more. I thought I did but I don’t. I suppose I never did and I never will now, I shan’t have the opportunity.’
I think that frightened me more than anything you’d said. I cried out, ‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’
You didn’t answer. Not directly. You got up and said it was time you went. You’d said everything, you’d made your position clear and nothing remained but for you to go. One thing, you’d appreciate it if we said nothing of this to anyone.
‘And that includes Tim Cornish,’ you said.
‘You don’t suppose I’m in touch with him, do you?’ I said. ‘I don’t know where he is. I haven’t set eyes on him since I left Juneau.’
You smiled. I’ve never before seen such a smile of thinly covered disbelief. You had a rented car outside, you said. It seemed more convenient than bothering with cabs. You were staying at the Westin but only till tomorrow. Your flight home was overnight tomorrow, at eight in the evening, you thought it was, that your plane left.
All the
time our eyes were fixed burningly upon each other’s. I had forgotten Kit and I think you had too. But I did remember something he’d said. I remember how in a jealous rage he’d accused us of incest. When you were standing there, killing me with your eyes, I thought, now I could, if you’d said to me, let’s do it, why not, I’d have gone with you and loved you any way you’d wanted.
You said, ‘Goodbye. Good-night. Whatever one is supposed to say,’ and then you said, ‘Well, good-night’ and you went out into the hallway and to the front door. We didn’t move, we just sat there. I heard you open the door and close it, not with a slam, but quite softly.
I thought, I shall sit here for ever and nothing will ever happen to me as long as I live. I shall just sit here because there is nothing else. Of course I was wrong. I heard Kit move before I saw him. Then I saw him and I was aware what a big man he is. Not thin like you or slim like Tim, and not fat either, but heavily built, muscular, strong. Burly is probably the word. I watched Kit come slowly across the room to me and I thought that word. Burly, I said to myself, burly, and I repeated it over and over until it meant nothing. And all the time I was looking at Kit. When he was standing over me he spoke.
‘All that was true, was it?’
I said nothing. ‘I don’t mean about putting him on that island, that’s something else, that’s his problem. This guy Tim, you and him, that’s what I mean.’
Of course it was true, I said. But he’d left me, he was living with Cathy, then he’d wanted to marry Cathy – but it doesn’t matter what I said because in this situation what people say is always the same. It’s as if there’s a requisite scenario you have to learn at a certain stage in your life so that you’ve got it by heart when you need it. You don’t even have to adapt it to the cues because they are always the same too. So I said those things and he said them and then he said,
‘You were still my wife,’ and he swung back his arm and struck me across the face.
I’ve said he’d never been physically violent to me. He never had. Yet I always knew the potential was there. I’d never given him cause before, you see. For men like Kit there’s only one cause.