‘What is that?’ Diana peered at the bottle, frowning.
‘It’s thyme oil. The kind we used to make in Ibiza. I brought it for you last time I came.’ Elena slipped her mother’s nightdress from her shoulders.
‘Lean forward, Mum,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s Mummy.’
Elena poured some oil onto her cold hands and pressed her palms together. She waited a moment and then placed them gently on Diana’s bare freckled back, just able to feel, beneath the slackened skin and curve of bone, the movement of her mother’s heart.
Rue de Lille, 1924
‘What did you do in the war?’
‘Where did you learn that polite little phrase?’ he asked hoarsely, putting down the cage of pigeons he was carrying.
‘I heard someone ask it,’ Diana said, eyes wide.
‘Don’t parrot those people.’
‘But what’s war like?’ she said, trying not to look down as they walked along the edge of the roof.
‘A mess. A great bloody mess full of rats big as little girls and mutilated things that were once men.’
‘What did you do in it?’ She peered over the edge at the street way below.
‘I drove screaming ambulances. Tried to pick up some of the broken pieces.’
‘Did you almost die?’
‘I did die.’
Diana watched him, sunk now on his haunches, undoing the string that kept the cage closed.
‘Ready?’ he asked, and she nodded. And with a single movement he opened the door and the birds shook the cage as they flew free of it, disappearing from the rooftop into the grey of the sky.
‘Never let a moment slip, Rat.’ He turned suddenly to look her in the eye. ‘That’s the sin. Always act.’
Roccasinibalda, 1970
‘Are you ready to continue, Principessa?’ Martin asked with a neat smile.
‘Yes, I feel wonderful today. When these rooms are flooded with sun like this, one’s mood seems to climb out of one’s head and be among the angels.’
Martin waited just enough time before asking, ‘If it’s all right with you, I’d like us to dive straight in where we left off.’
‘You’ll have to remind me where we were, my mind’s been roaming. All of these names lined up together – it feels like some sort of shooting range. All my dear friends in a row, bang bang bang. It’s most unnatural.’
Martin laughed. ‘Your note this morning suggested that we pick up with Ezra Pound in 1930?’
‘Wonderful. Ezra is a very dear friend and my meeting him marked the beginning of a new stage of my life. A gentle expansion that would take me further into the world of art. There was one rather memorable night around the time we met, when I took him to the Boule Blanche where I knew a band of Martinique players would be beating out some hot music. We had a ringside table and Ezra was enthralled by the way they played, less so by the uninspiring dancers. I was in mourning at that time so wasn’t entirely in the mood for dancing, but Ezra was desperate to get on the floor and let them know a thing or two. So as we sat and drank he began a sort of tattoo with his feet that grew in complexity until eventually he leapt onto the floor and, seizing a tiny Martiniquaise vendor of cigarettes, started a voodoo prance with packets flying, the girl quite glued against him. Well, as the music grew hotter, Ezra grew hotter, and one by one the uninspired dancers melted from the floor and formed a ring to watch that Anglo-Savage ecstasy – until with a final crash of cymbals the music came to an end, and Ezra opened his eyes, flicked the poor cigarette girl aside and collapsed into the chair beside me so that the whole room seemed to breathe a collective orgasmic sigh.’
‘Extraordinary to see such unconstrained freedom in those times,’ Martin said earnestly. Caresse gave a bland smile and then, deciding to humour him, nodded.
‘Well, that was the thing about the Surrealists. The broken bonds of society had been talked about by the Modernists, living in the shattered aftermath of that war. But there were still lingering constraints, and the need to cut ourselves loose from all that really was a pressing need. Revolution of the spirit demands a certain severing action. A willingness to leave behind what has been and give rise to the new. I understand the conservative fear of change, but if people only surrendered a little more and stiffened a little less they would see that everything we accept as normal now was avant-garde once. People seem to forget that. Max Ernst was wonderful in that way. He understood, and was terribly serious about the need for absolute freedom in order for the creative spirit to bloom. He did a portrait of me once during the time of my gatherings at our country house, Le Moulin, just outside Ermenonville. It was a lovely house, an old water mill – Rousseau died there, you know.’ Martin shook his head, and made a note. ‘And it was there, week after week, that the Surrealists used to gather around the pool and invent things that hadn’t yet been invented, that most importantly weren’t needed but that we felt should be invented. It was a time that was almost . . . electric with rebellion.’
‘Do expand.’
‘Le Moulin du Soleil was an extraordinary place set in the middle of a forest filled with deer and wild boar. It was a close friend of mine, Maxime du Tourbin – in fact, he later married my daughter – who introduced us to the mill. It was while walking on his estate that we came across it, then in a state of complete dilapidation. He agreed to rent us the place, and so we wrote him the cheque there and then, on the cuff of my white silk shirt. I think he liked the idea of being in such close proximity to all our goings on and was happy to have the chance to come and slum it and let chaos loose. So it was that we created a home where we could be amongst trees and water, and away from the madness of Paris. The plan only half worked, of course, because as soon as we left Paris, Paris came with us. You’ve never seen so many cars choking that poor forest road. There were two houses, fourteen rooms, five staircases and an enormous garden that tangled into a forest and a cannon on the roof which we would fire ceremonially for various people’s arrivals, and occasionally departures too.’ She smiled. ‘And my, we had a lot of animals. Five donkeys – wonderful for racing – three dogs, a parrot, a slinky little ferret, a rather unpredictable leopard, and the ten or more guests who would arrive unannounced every Friday. It was such fun. Stretching up the stairs was a long whitewashed wall, under which we set up a number of pots of paint. Everyone who came to visit was made to sign and soon it was a living testament to that time . . . And then the many people, that wealth of people – Dalí, Ernst . . .’ Caresse continued, swaying slightly left and right with the rhythm of the names ‘. . . Breton, Cocteau, Cartier-Bresson (I taught him how to use a camera, you know) . . . I love to entertain, and there I was Queen Mistress of my own small realm.’
‘And now you’re Queen Mistress of a new realm: Roccasinibalda.’ Martin smiled. The cameraman winced.
‘Roccasinibalda. Yes,’ Caresse echoed. ‘Now I’ve fixed the roof there really does seem a possibility of turning this place into a world territory. The seed of that idea was given to me by Socrates, you know, when he said, “If they ask you what city you come from, do not answer that you are Athenian or Corinthian, but answer: I am a citizen of the world.” ’ She smiled and shrugged lightly.
‘A very admirable idea,’ said Martin.
‘When I was first here I was engaged in my campaign for Women Against War and so I asked the women and the citizens of the commune of Roccasinibalda to vote whether they would like me to come and make this place known as the Città della Pace. We put together a manifesto stating Le guerre non fanno la pace, i popoli fanno la pace – War does not make peace, people make peace,’ she said. ‘So they all voted and it was an overwhelming majority, and we decided to call it the Città della Pace, without laws and police, just human nature. A place of peace.’
‘And is that the flag that we saw flying above the castle?’
‘Yes, my idea was to create an atmosphere where the poet, the philosopher and the artist might really explore ideas that c
an lead the world to peace and sanity. I believe the national model is outmoded and that the politicians can lead us nowhere. We need men of vision, men of ideas and compassion.’ She gave a shrug that would have let a silken dressing gown slip from one shoulder. ‘It’s a very big idea, but this is a very big place. With three hundred and fifty-two rooms there’s plenty of space and I hope that others will come forward and help keep this idea in motion.’
‘Some might say there’s an innocence, a naïveté, to this whole scheme.’ Martin sat forward and laced his fingers round a sharp knee. Caresse listened with something like a frown. ‘But if anyone has proven a flair for discovering the new and an ability to reflect their times, it’s you.’
Caresse smiled, mollified, and spread her hands. ‘I’ve never understood people who get caught in the past. Times change, that should be obvious enough, but people do seem to get stuck. I haven’t read the Bible for quite some time, but I’ve always remembered the story of Lot’s wife fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah. They were told never to look back, and my but she paid for that glance.’
Rue de Lille, 1924
‘The art is knowing when to let go.’
‘When?’ Her hands and voice shook as she held the pendulous, beer-filled balloon out of his top-floor study window. The woman below was approaching, her dog waving a nosy line as it trotted in front of her.
‘You have to decide that for yourself.’
‘Will it be now?’ she cried, her voice rising in an anxious curve.
‘You tell me, Rat.’
There was a scream from way down below in the street, and then bark bark bark, bark bark bark.
Alderney, 1993
‘Let go, Bay.’
Her fingers were prised from the sides. Water entered her ears, a thick feeling that went in too fast, and her body rolled with a shudder as she was brought up again, hair lying flat and shiny against her scalp. She could feel the gritty underside of the bath’s rim. It was different from their bath at home which was surrounded by pale tiles edged in thick glue that meant no water could escape. Here it slopped over the sides and made the ceiling of the kitchen go a sickly brown. She looked about at the mirrored tiles that ran round the room, her face given back to her too many times to count. Gloved with soap, she saw her father’s hands coming for her and she squinted as they rubbed quickly, first this way, then that.
‘Found what you’re looking for?’ She saw her father’s eyes smiling behind her.
‘Am I a beauty?’ she asked hopefully.
‘You’re perfect. Now, back you go.’
‘But am I a beauty like Mummy?’ Gripping either side of the bath, neck rigid, she held herself upright against his tipping motion.
Her father smiled down at her. ‘You look more like your grandmother, funnily enough. Now back you go, my baby Narcissus.’ His face swam over hers, hair falling over his eyes. ‘Your face isn’t as symmetrical, so perhaps not classically beautiful. More interesting. I think you’re going to be what’s called jolie-laide.’
‘What does that mean?’ Bay asked.
‘It means you are beautiful and not-beautiful all at once. The most beautiful women always have something imperfect about them.’
Jolie-laide. She was set right and caught her image again in the mirrored tiles.
‘Come on,’ he said gently. And she was helped from the bath into the warm towel.
‘Make me like Aunt Leo,’ she whispered and her father draped a small towel over the back of her head and then quickly twisted and turned it back on itself. Bay carefully stood straight, and holding herself like a full glass turned to face the mirror, her hair hidden inside the white towel.
She half closed her eyes and pressed her hands together.
‘Do I look holy?’ she asked.
‘Wholly,’ he replied. ‘And your neck is a thing of almost unbearable tenderness.’
Bay smiled and looked up at the picture that hung on the black wall. The steam from the bath had misted the glass inside the frame, but slowly it began to clear, revealing a black-and-white photo of a castle that seemed to grow out of the mountain it stood on. Its name was written beneath it in white stamped letters.
‘Roc-Ca-Si-Ni-Bal-Da,’ she spelled it out. Pulling her onto his lap, her father repeated the word properly so that it rolled like the hills behind it.
Bay leaned back against him and they regarded the picture in silence.
‘Your silly grandmother sold it for nothing.’
‘Why?’ said Bay.
‘Why indeed, Bay.’
‘Is Mummy sad we can’t live there?’
‘No, she’s not.’
She searched the photo. ‘I would have liked to live there.’
‘Yes,’ her father said, in his thinking voice. ‘I would have too.’
Rue de Lille, 1924
‘You wanted to see me, Caresse?’ Diana squinted through the steam.
‘Yes, I did.’
She tried not to stare at her mother where she lay in the enormous tub. The water was as creamy as milk and her mother’s breasts rose from it, nipples like dark islands, and appearing occasionally was the darkness between her legs. The dove-grey bathroom was hot, and though it was midday a fire burned in the grate. Diana sat on a footstool by the sofa on which her mother’s dressing gown was strewn. She no longer wore the flower-sprigged white cotton one that Diana liked. This one was made of a rough gold material that crunched underneath her hand.
‘I’ve had to tell you once already, and you know how I hate doing the same thing twice: Harry is terribly sensitive to sound, he’s already struggling with Mette’s incessant droning, and the way you run up and down those stairs makes a racket that simply can’t be borne.’
‘It’s not running, it’s skipping. And Mette’s not droning, she’s singing.’
‘Well, skipping is fine and dandy in the garden of life, but those stairs are an echo chamber.’
‘I know. I hear you going up and down all night.’
‘Then you quite understand.’ Her mother disappeared under the water and stayed down for a long time. Diana stood up, hardly breathing. She was about to reach her hand in when Caresse sat up and took a deep breath, pushing the water from her face. ‘Well!’ She smiled at her daughter, water in her eyelashes. ‘A minute! Practically a Nereid.’
Diana was impressed, but said nothing.
Caresse shrugged and took hold of an enormous square of soap. She smelled it until her lungs were full. ‘My God I could consume jasmine. Oh to be a bee and actually get inside it.’ She began to lather the soap between her hands. ‘So it’s shoes off, dearest. You must learn to get about like a samurai. Silent and deadly.’ She paused. ‘Now tell me what you and Harry have been up to? I’m glad you’re becoming pals.’
Diana fixed her eyes on the soap, now swimming scummily in the dish.
Her mother watched her. ‘You know he and I will be gone to Egypt for a month or so.’
Diana nodded, still staring at the soap.
‘Would you like to get in?’
Diana looked up in surprise and then uncertainly at the door.
‘We’ve the house to ourselves.’ She gave Diana a long look. ‘Anyway, I’m getting out now.’ Caresse stood, water streaming from her body, and wrapped a fine Turkish towel round her waist. She put out a hand. ‘In you get.’
‘Can I keep my clothes on?’
‘Modesty is not a virtue, Diana, but yes . . . why not.’
Alderney, 1993
‘Are the children okay?’ Elena turned towards James. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘That you were resting.’
Elena nodded and pressed her hands in between her legs where she sat on the bed.
‘Elena, I think this might have been a mistake . . .’
‘In what way?’
‘Let me count the ways . . .’
‘It can be what we make it . . .’
‘Previous experience would suggest it will be what she makes of you.’ James
looked at his wife, his eyes lingering where her short hair revealed the length of her neck.
Elena looked up and, seeing his gentle gaze, ducked her head. She could still feel her conversation with her mother drumming through her head, and even though she’d just washed them, there was a residue of oil on her hands that made her feel queasy. She stood up to wash them again, turning her body away from James as she went past into the bathroom.
‘If it’s too much, Ele, we can leave, like we planned,’ he said as she went past.
She turned on the taps and watched the water pour over her outstretched hands. She clenched them into two fists and in the mirror behind her saw the bath that she’d washed that morning. A dark snarl of hair pulled from the plughole and then flushed quickly away. She went closer and, peering at the smooth white enamel, saw that a single dark hair remained curled on the side of the tub. She fished it out and flicked it into the bin.
As she came back into the bedroom, James said, ‘You only ever agree with me that easily when you’ve decided to do the opposite.’ He looked at her seriously. ‘I just don’t want you getting . . . overtired.’ The word swam flimsily between them. ‘Not after last time.’
She stretched out on the bed with a sigh, closed her eyes and her mother’s words came back to her. ‘If you’re going to be sick, Elena, then at least give it a name.’ And her grandmother had interjected from beneath her parasol, her wide red mouth spreading around the words. ‘Oh, Diana, you’re obsessed with knowing the name of everything. Nessuno sa niente, e niente è reale, and that is the only truth worth parking your car by.’
She smiled at the memory of that drawling voice, and seeing the change in her expression James smiled too.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
But she shook her head, unwilling to share, and the image dispersed.
The Heart Is a Burial Ground Page 7