‘I need to go and visit a man so that I can die tonight.’ He closed his book and stood in a single movement.
‘What will you die of?’ Diana looked up at him.
‘Colours. Too many colours. I feel I may crack open soon and what will come out will destroy the world.’
Alderney, 1993
Elena walked along the stretch of beach, arm in arm with the black-clad figure of her mother. She could see James in the distance by their red-and-yellow-striped windbreak. The long dress that she wore blew open as she walked, the pale grey cotton tangling round her and her mother’s bare legs as they made their slow progress along the sand. Diana had insisted on wearing her heeled espadrilles. ‘Can you walk in them?’ Elena had asked as she knelt before her, winding the black ties round the ankles as smooth and age-spotted as polished walnut. And her mother had stared at her from beneath half-closed eyes. ‘If I can walk the Hindu Kush in them, Elena, I can probably make my way to a beach blanket.’ But now her mother gripped her arm tightly, and Elena had to bend towards her to keep them both from falling. She stopped briefly, pretending an interest in the horizon so as to give Diana a moment to breathe, and when she looked up saw James, standing now, watching them both.
It was strange, she reflected, that he had met her mother first.
She had heard many accounts of the meeting in Ibiza. The way her mother had pulled over in her dust-covered white Mercedes to pick him and his friend up from the side of the road in Es Canar – ‘They looked like a couple of stray dogs, darling. Hungry as anything’ – pushing her sunglasses on top of her head as she settled her blue eyes on them both. They parked in a thorny clifftop clearing and walked down a steep path to a cove where the boat was waiting, its sails slack in the afternoon heat. Elena remembered that she had been sitting with her sister Leonie on the sand, the two of them going round and round in one of their interminable arguments, while Elena stroked the neck of the frail hound she’d adopted. Diana had called loudly to her daughters, causing the people scattered on the small beach to turn towards her as she strode across the sand with the two young men behind her holding their tattered rucksacks. At the sound of their mother’s voice, the girls had dropped whatever was between them and gone forward as one. Leonie, tall and confident, was the first to shake hands, so that Elena had time to watch the boys in silence as her sister spread her light, making everybody laugh. James had told her, many times since, that Elena had looked as shy of human touch as the lean dog she held, and that the way she had looked hard into his eyes as she took his hand in hers had shocked him. A look that neither he nor she, when they thought back to it, had ever been sure was a welcome or a warning.
‘Diana!’ James came forward. ‘Good to see you up and about. What can I get you?’
The old woman slowly folded herself into a waiting beach chair and arranged her shoulders so that she was more comfortable. She arched her back and, indicating the bag now curled at her feet, gave him a smile. ‘You can get me a drink.’
James leaned down and reached into the bag, pulling out a jar full of amber liquid. ‘A Torito for the matador.’ He smiled.
‘I think we can make it a Toro today, if you’ll join me.’
‘You’re always telling me I need to be more of a man,’ James said. ‘How can I possibly refuse.’
‘Bravo, darling,’ Diana laughed.
Bay came up and whispered in her mother’s ear, telling her story in a stream of tears, turning and showing her marked legs.
‘James?’ Elena looked at him with troubled eyes. ‘Have you . . .?’
‘Yes, he’s over there.’
And down by the sea they could just see Tom sitting behind a large rock, his knees tucked to his chest.
Elena took a deep breath and pulling Bay towards her, whispered in her ear.
‘Bay’s going to bring you your drink,’ Elena called, beginning to unload the food from the straw bags she’d packed.
‘Ice. And a glass,’ Diana commanded.
James handed Bay a stacked glass and she watched the ice crack and sigh as it was bathed in the warm liquid.
Her grandmother took the glass, her eyes not leaving Bay’s as she drank.
‘Equal quantities gin and sherry.’ She held up a finger. ‘Always Fino.’
Bay nodded solemnly. Always Fino.
‘Bay, let me put some cream on you. I don’t want you to burn,’ Elena said, pulling the child between her legs.
‘It’s good to get a burn,’ Diana said, watching them. ‘A sun gift.’
‘No.’ Bay shook her head, looking over. ‘My skin is too tight when it’s burned.’
‘Enjoy it while it lasts, Bay. You’ll pay good money for that feeling one day.’
Elena gently pulled the straps of Bay’s swimming costume off her shoulders. She stared at the golden down that ran from the nape of her daughter’s neck into the low line of her costume. She ran a finger down it and saw a shiver roll through the small body.
‘You know the Egyptians thought the Sun was actually the eye of a great cat opening in the morning and closing at night,’ Diana said to Bay.
Bay turned her head sharply to look up at the burning whiteness, but her eyes were forced closed.
‘Tell your grandmother what you did this morning,’ her mother said steadily, shaking the blue plastic bottle in her hand so that it gave up its cream in a thin squirt that Bay felt, with another shiver, on the back of her neck. She twisted round to look up at her mother as the cream was rubbed in. She could see inside the curve of her slender nostrils to the dark space edged with very fine golden hairs. Her mother raised her eyebrows in question. Bay stared at her a second longer, and then closed her eyes. She did not want to turn her thoughts inside out today.
‘Okay then, off you go. All done. Go and look at your rock pools.’
Bay nodded and dragged her bucket behind her until she got to a point where the sand became dark and mud-wet. Kneeling, she ran her fingers over its waved contours, feeling the warm water they held. She could just hear her mother’s voice carried by the wind. But as she scooped up the sand, the sensation of its satisfying weight absorbed her thoughts.
‘I’ve never liked those stories,’ Elena said.
‘What stories?’ Diana said sharply.
‘Those stories you tell about the sun. They give me the creeps. Always have.’
‘Everything gives you the creeps,’ Diana replied. ‘You can hardly hear a dirty joke without entering a state of nervous collapse. Your sister’s the same. I obviously failed to give either of you a sense of humour.’
Shielding her eyes, Elena watched as Bay made her way down towards where the boys were playing. ‘You can hardly blame us. We had to swallow an awful lot of tawdry humour over the years.’
‘Sex shouldn’t be kept in the dark, Elena. That’s where it becomes monstrous,’ Diana said.
‘Nor should it be draped across the hall, up the stairs, in the cupboards . . .’
‘Fabulous.’
‘I don’t want them to be . . . exposed.’
‘It happens sooner or later.’
‘So let it be later. I don’t want you putting ideas into their heads.’
‘Balls. You just want to fill their heads with your ideas. Ideas are like the wind, Elena, they fly where they will.’
‘I think it’s understandable to want to change the narrative a little,’ she murmured.
‘Change is overrated. Nothing’s ever that different. I once saw a church in Mexico City that the conquistadors built with the stones from an Aztec temple. One for another. All the same. Like men. One after another, one way or another.’ Her rings clanked against the glass as she tipped its contents back into her throat. ‘All the same,’ she repeated. ‘One way or another.’
‘They’re not all the same,’ Elena said. ‘We are not all the same.’ The words were a flag, quietly unfurled.
‘How so? How are you different?’
‘I don’t . . . you don’t have t
o break things.’
‘Don’t be so sure.’ Diana looked pointedly at her daughter’s lap. ‘Breaking things is how it all begins.’
Down by the shore, Bay watched her brothers at work, kneeling and patting wet sand into a wall that they had built and lined with rocks.
‘Go away, Bay.’
‘Why?’ she asked, hands on hips.
‘Because you told,’ said Tom.
‘But you hit me.’ Indignant, she pointed out the mark, tears coming easily.
He refused to look at her, arms folded, his own mouth beginning to tremble.
‘Drop it, you two,’ Jake interrupted, tall and capable. ‘Just ignore her, Tom.’
Bay felt tears begin to rise in earnest. ‘But Daddy said . . .’
Her eldest brother turned to Bay. ‘Just lie low, Bay,’ he advised. ‘You can watch for the waves.’
Shoulders slumped, she moved away to a safe distance. She always had to watch for the waves.
The wind was getting up. Trembling with cold, Bay picked her way along the tops of the sharp rocks, looking into the little mirrored bowls of sea. She crouched over and was about to mar the surface of one with her finger, when she saw her face reflected back at her, the sky above and behind, and she turned her head side to side, jolie and laide, jolie and laide, jolie and laide.
‘Where is the photograph that was hanging in Bay’s bedroom?’
Elena, who had been watching Bay by the rock pools at the water’s edge, turned her attention reluctantly back towards her mother.
‘I moved it.’
‘Why?’
I don’t think it’s . . . helpful.’
‘Helpful?’
‘It’s a naked woman with her legs open.’
‘Where exactly do you want those children to believe they came from?’
‘A place of wholeness,’ Elena said defiantly.
‘Wholeness?’ her mother laughed. ‘That sounds like something from one of your self-help books.’
‘Yes, wholeness,’ Elena insisted. ‘Rather than all that . . . muck.’
‘Muck!’ Diana laughed.
‘There’s a difference between biology and pornography, Diana.’
‘It’s art.’
‘It’s disturbing.’
‘It’s a fucking Man Ray.’
‘I’ll put it in your room as soon as I get home.’
‘You’ll put it back where you found it. I won’t have all this prissiness. What is this sudden mania for innocence? Leonie was exactly the same. It’s quite impossible to be around.’
‘I don’t see what trying to keep my children from harm has to do with any belief of mine.’
‘Harm?’ Diana raised her eyebrows. ‘Harm, in a Man Ray. What next, demonic signals in Picasso?’
‘I wouldn’t know, you sold them all.’
‘Your grandmother lost them all. Or, more precisely, her crooked fairy of a lawyer lost them all.’
‘I don’t want to do this,’ Elena said in a single loud tone.
Diana brooded for a moment. ‘Harm in a Man Ray.’ She shook her head. ‘Good grief.’ She held out her glass and Elena refilled it with minimal grace. After a pause, Diana spoke: ‘He was a character, I always liked him. Had those very sharp black eyes that seemed to cut you out so that he could stick you somewhere else in his mind.’
‘I remember Caresse saying he was a bit dotty.’
‘Dotty? Elena, what the hell has happened to your turn of phrase? He was crazy as a fucking quilt.’
Elena closed her eyes and pushed her toes blindly into the cold sand. She waited a few moments before opening them and avoided looking at her mother. Bay was walking slowly back towards them, shoulders hunched against the cold wind that had begun to blow the length of the long beach.
Diana swung her head round and observed the child. ‘Like a little jazz girl with those small-boy buttocks.’
Elena looked over. Bay seemed terribly exposed on the wide stretch of beach. ‘Please don’t tell her that,’ she said, almost to herself.
‘Discovering your body can be an exciting time. All those feelings. It’s most pleasing.’
Elena’s eyes darted back and forth along the horizon. ‘I’m taking her to have her hair cut tomorrow. I want it to be short like mine. So much easier.’
‘You used to have very good hair. Why did you cut it off?’
Elena shrugged. She did not want to share with her mother the feeling of cutting through the thick dark hair until it sat just below her ears, revealing the length of her neck. She had turned her head left and right as she pulled the towel from her shoulders and then cautiously opened the door to show James.
‘Well, you can just about carry it off. Gamine,’ said Diana.
Reflexively, Elena clasped the back of her neck, waiting for the sting. But none came.
‘I think it will suit Bay too.’
Diana dragged her eyes over. ‘How old is she?’
‘Six.’
Diana nodded. ‘I had a little crop when I was six. I looked very sweet. Around the time I first fell in love.’
‘Love?’ Elena said.
‘Yes,’ her mother replied. ‘Love at first sight.’
‘That wasn’t love.’ She shook her head.
‘It was my first great love.’
‘You were too young to know any better.’ Elena shielded her eyes as she looked at the approaching children. ‘Hello, boys.’ They pushed themselves into her and she received them with open arms, gasping at the strength of their young thin bodies.
Jake pushed the hardest, and with a single arm holding Tom back, showed her the small fish held on the flat of his palm. The slender silvery body had stopped flipping this way and that, and now lay, barely quivering, its round gold eye staring up at the sky.
‘We caught it,’ he said breathlessly.
‘It was my idea,’ Tom called over his brother’s shoulder, arms flailing, and then in a mutter that only Bay heard, ‘and my net.’
‘Aren’t both of you clever. Now, I think you’d better put it back, don’t you? There’s no use keeping him, he’s too small to eat.’
Jake gently prodded its pale belly with a single finger but, seeing the truth of her words, handed it to Tom.
Tom took the fish eagerly, but registering the ease with which his brother passed it to him and its consequent loss of value, tossed it into a bucket. ‘Take it back.’ He passed it clumsily to Bay. She took it, her heart full, and turned towards the sea, the bucket thumping against her legs.
‘Go and get your father. It’s time for lunch.’ The two boys set off running, their shouts ringing out across the beach.
‘Why don’t you get a nanny?’ Diana had taken in the entire scene without changing her slumped position. ‘They’re practically feral.’
‘Because we can’t afford one,’ Elena said mildly. ‘And, more to the point, I don’t want them to be looked after by people that are going to cut in and out of their lives with no rhythm, no warning.’
‘But you’ve always said that you would have died if it weren’t for Inés.’
‘Inés was more than a nanny,’ Elena replied.
‘You could afford one if James got a proper job. Your father made him a generous offer. And a little bookshop is hardly enough to keep Noah’s Ark afloat.’
‘I would only need a nanny if James had taken that job. As it is, we do it together.’
‘Well, that’s abundantly clear. Sorry, sorry.’ Diana held up her hands. ‘But in all seriousness, you can’t find it attractive, Elena. Your man, knee-deep in nappies.’
‘It means I see him,’ Elena said. ‘It rather helps with marriage, that.’ She stood without waiting for her mother’s reply. ‘Now, I want to go and swim. The baby’s getting so heavy.’
Diana ran her eyes over her daughter.
‘Your arms are far too thin.’
Elena glanced down. ‘Perhaps.’
Diana looked over to where her granddaughter was kneeling in t
he shallows, trying to make the fish swim again.
‘I think Bay’s more like me. She’ll have my figure, I’m sure of it.’
Rue de Lille, 1926
‘I visited a place last night called the House of All Nations.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘Where people go to buy love. And pain, of course. There’s a Persian room, a Russian room, Turkish, Japanese, Spanish – not to mention the room King Edward used to use, and a bathroom with mirrored walls and mirrored ceilings.’
‘Why are they mirrored?’
‘So you can keep an eye on things. I talked to the Madame and caught a glimpse of the thirty harlots waiting in the salon. There was a very lost-looking blonde hugging her knees. And there was a flogging post where men come to whip young girls . . .’
‘Why?’
‘Because love hurts.’
‘Is the Madame married?’
‘To half of Paris.’
‘What questions did you ask her?’
‘How many men a day? Average one hundred and fifty.’
‘How much does it cost to love there?’
‘Fifty francs for ten minutes, one hundred for an hour, three hundred for all night.’
‘Do they really whip the girls, Harry?’
‘Half to death, Rat.’
Roccasinibalda, 1970
‘I’m thrilled you could all come. Thank you, Roberto, for organising this little get-together. Now I know we have some wonderful ideas beating about, and I can’t wait to hear them all. Why don’t we discuss what needs to be discussed and then let our imagination out the sack, how does that sound?’
The ten or so heads gathered on the terrace nodded seriously.
‘Let’s all have some wine. Maria, thank you.’ The wine was poured and enormous platters of meat set down on the low table. A few cautious hands reached out and took a small slice or handful.
‘Don’t be shy.’ Caresse, seated in a wicker chair whose back rose above her like a wing in flight, brought her hands together in a light clap. ‘The joy of a party starts in its conception and should not finish until . . . well, it should not finish at all, but live on in the mind’s eye, to be returned to many times over the years.’
The Heart Is a Burial Ground Page 13