Diana was silent.
‘Do you think you’ll finally settle there now? In Ibiza?’ Caresse decided to keep the mood light.
‘Yes. Provided Anthony signs the papers Ivan has drawn up. The whole thing’s going to cost much more than I thought.’
‘But he won’t take the house?’
‘No. Elena tells me he’s dragging his little wife back to the family pile in Kent, so he’ll have his hands full for quite some time. I remember when he took me there to stay with his parents. It’s the only time I’ve ever had to wear clothes in bed. Those awful English country houses.’ She shivered. ‘Though this tomb’s not much better when the temperature dips.’
‘Big places are where big things happen.’
‘Big mistakes, certainly. Ivan says most big houses are good for tax and nothing else, and I agree with him.’
‘Who is this Ivan?’
‘My marvellous new lawyer. Knows tax law inside out.’
Caresse laughed. ‘You’ve always been very clever with all that. I just pay.’
‘Your pot’s rather deeper than mine.’
‘You will say if you need money, won’t you? You can always write to the relations in Boston.’
Diana shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yes, perhaps.’
‘Are the goblins guarding the vault? Lord, they get wild about being overdrawn. Permanent terror of the well running dry.’
‘I think mine actually might have.’
‘Oh. Well, you’ll have to go and see them.’
Diana bit her lip.
‘I think they’re a little more forgiving of all that now. When I was young, becoming overdrawn was a more grievous Bostonian sin than being homosexual.’
‘Yes, you’ve said,’ Diana replied.
‘I do think you might have kept the place in St Lucia anyway,’ Caresse said thoughtfully. ‘For the girls or something.’
‘I should have kept it so I could sell it. I could do with the cash now. But anyway,’ Diana said with a proud shake of her head, ‘I prefer not to have anything of Anthony’s. A child is quite enough.’
‘Yes, I understand that. You can’t put a price on being able to start over.’
Diana nodded and looked out the window and they sat in silence. ‘Do you remember when I was sent home from school because I ate all those aspirin?’ Caresse looked at her in surprise. Diana rarely did this before lunch. ‘It was just before you both sailed to New York—’
‘Is there a point to this one, Diana?’
‘I remember woozing down that wide corridor beneath the heavy gold chandelier, the mirror below it stained in one corner with a spray of black.’ Caresse nodded and gathered her wrap a little tighter. ‘And you and Harry were inside your bedroom and he was sitting on the bed drinking out of an enormous vase.’
Caresse didn’t take the bait and remained looking at her levelly, only her chest rising and falling.
‘You were crying, but you didn’t shout at me to go downstairs. You just stared at us both and said, “I want this one out, Harry. She’s hurting us . . .” And he said nothing at all, just went on watching you. And then you told me to come to you, even though he was in the room . . .’
Caresse was silent for a moment and then spoke with purpose. ‘He was drinking a gimlet out of that vase. We both thought we’d hit on the perfect “one-drink-a-day” solution.’ She laughed and then stopped as though she’d just seen the joke die.
‘Who were you talking about?’ Diana said.
‘You know who we were talking about.’ Caresse looked at Diana from beneath heavy lids. ‘She was quite insane.’ Caresse pricked the words with precision. ‘And, from start to finish, refused to understand the game.’
‘Was it very hard to read what he wrote about her at the end?’
‘Not at all.’ Caresse picked up some of her papers and put them on the table beside her. ‘She was just like all the others. No substance to any of them. There were always others, Diana, it was accepted.’ Caresse’s expression was calm. ‘That was the game.’
Diana returned her mother’s gaze, waiting.
‘But that woman was just determined . . . Oh, I won’t bring her in here.’ She raised her hands. ‘She doesn’t have a place.’
‘Is that why you cut so much out at the end?’
‘I cut nothing. I edited the diaries as I’ve edited all the books I’ve published. He only left a very rough copy for me to work with.’
‘But it ends as you sail for New York. The last month is missing.’
‘It was a mess. He was a mess. He would never have wanted his words to be published like that.’
‘You didn’t include the last time we all went away together. The weekend when I had to sit up front beside him in the car and all the rest of you were behind. You didn’t include what he said about that.’
‘There was nothing of interest.’ Caresse smiled. ‘A few general remarks. Nothing of any lasting interest. I know you like to scour every page and photograph for your reflection, Diana – yes, I’ve noticed – but this is one you’ll have to let go of.’
‘Why can’t I see the originals? It . . . it would help me. Being here’s churning it all up for some reason and I think it would help me to lay it down somehow. I thought I might write about it so that I—’
‘Diana.’ Caresse did not open her eyes. ‘I have told you already. There is nothing here.’
‘Then where are they? Did you burn everything?’
‘Of course I didn’t. If you must know, I sold them.’
‘You what?’ Diana stared at her mother.
‘I sold his papers and books.’ Caresse shrugged. ‘A great clearing out of all that has been. You can go and see them in the University Library of Southern Illinois.’
‘Southern Illinois?’
Caresse shifted in her seat. ‘It’s a very progressive university. And something had to pay for the roof. So now you know. Whatever it is that you might want is available for all to read in the new Crosby Archive in their university library. I agree that it’s in the public’s interest to have these things, and they will remain there for posterity. So now you can stop digging about, put those claws away.’ She folded Diana’s outstretched hands.
‘But some of it’s . . . private.’
‘That, my dear, is an opinion.’
‘You sold his books.’
‘Not all.’
‘For this roof?’
‘Yes.’
Diana stood up.
‘You didn’t love him enough.’
‘Diana. We will not do this again.’
‘You left him.’
‘Left him? He left me. He left us!’
‘No.’ Diana shook her head. ‘You left him with no choice. You knew what he was like. Why didn’t you do what you were supposed to? You’d planned it. All those walks in the cimetière, choosing the right spot, that awful crone mumbling. Your real burying place. What was all that? Talk? Was it all just talk?’
‘Mothers don’t leave.’ The unexpected vehemence of Caresse’s voice silenced Diana for a moment.
But then Diana spoke, her voice very low. ‘That’s not why you stayed.’
‘Always so certain. Always so sure. It might do you good, Diana, to admit that there are some things it is impossible to know.’
‘I’d give my right eye not to know half the things I know.’
‘But you don’t have to believe in any of them! That’s the whole point. Freedom! That’s what you’ve been given.’
‘But what about sticking to your guns? What about your beloved word?’
‘If you want to traipse about feeling like hell wearing concrete boots of morality then be my guest. Although you probably wouldn’t be my guest, as people like that tend to be continually morose and steeped in regret.’
‘All I know is that you had the chance to do something . . . something true, and you . . . clung.’ Diana gave her mother back her own phrase triumphantly. ‘Yes, you clung!’
&nbs
p; ‘I did not cling,’ Caresse said, drawing back. ‘What good would it have done, Diana?’ She leaned forward now, on the attack. ‘Hmm? Tell me that. More ugliness, more pain. More war.’ She thrust her arms out. ‘This would never have happened.’ They stared at each other. ‘I wasn’t ready, Diana. I had too much to give. Too much to live. I wanted to get ready and go to the party Hart was throwing for us to celebrate finishing his poem. I wanted to eat a vast meal and then come home and be undressed and made love to, and then do it again and again and again for the rest of my life. Yes, to life, yes to life! I followed him as far as I could go. As far as I wanted to go. And that was our deal. Each to his own. You don’t force your desire on anyone else.’
Diana was silent and then said, ‘Didn’t you?’
They were both silent for a moment.
‘Don’t hate me for it,’ her mother said quietly. ‘But I was also your mother. I couldn’t do that.’
‘But you didn’t do it for me. None of it was for me. Don’t try and make me grateful for it. It was your life you loved, Caresse, not mine.’
‘They were the same thing!’ Caresse held her hands out. ‘Haven’t you seen that by now?’
Diana shook her head. ‘Elena and Leonie are entirely different to me.’
‘It’s not difference, Diana. It’s distance. We have to keep our children close, at least at first. I went, you went; it was as simple as that.’
‘And now?’
‘Now.’ Caresse looked away, and her eyes shone. ‘Now is a different story.’
Diana was quiet and then moved a little closer. ‘I suppose we were in it together.’ She picked up her mother’s hand and gave her a half smile.
The words seemed to drain the last of Caresse’s energy and her hand was lifeless in Diana’s grasp.
‘He loved us differently, I know that,’ Diana went on, her voice soft. ‘I know you were far more important—’
‘He loved you because you were my daughter.’ Caresse spoke in a low, final tone.
Diana shook her head. She knew she should stop, but she couldn’t.
‘It was my first love. My great love—’
‘Oh, will you never get over that silly infatuation!’
‘He loved me because I was like a smooth sweep of sand and he like a—’
‘You were a child! You were only ever my child.’
‘Yes. I was a child,’ Diana said, trying to still the trembling in her hands.
‘You’re an ageing woman, Diana. You must move on.’
Diana looked at her mother, stricken.
‘And I was your first love, Diana. That’s what you forget. And you, an echo of mine. He couldn’t stand that. It was about me, Diana.’ Caresse shook her head. ‘He wanted all of me to himself. I’m sorry if that misled you. If you misconstrued his nursery games as something more.’
‘It was not a game. You just can’t bear to admit it.’ Diana laughed suddenly. ‘You’re smothering pride. Look at it head on – I dare you.’
‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about.’ Caresse closed her eyes.
‘Admit it.’
‘Admit what?’
‘You can deny it all you like but you cared enough to burn every letter. I know what I won’t find in Southern Illinois.’
The bells began again outside the window. The sound reverberated in the room.
‘I was misused,’ Diana said eventually in a low voice.
‘Oh, Diana,’ said Caresse softly. ‘Who of us hasn’t been?’
‘You should have left me in Boston.’ Diana stood up. ‘Better a blind drunk than a blind visionary. I should have stayed on that boat. I should have jumped off that boat.’
‘Oh move on, Diana! Move on. You mustn’t do this to yourself any more. It’s gone. Take his example, if you must. But do not feast on the past. It is death. Utter death.’
‘Release me then,’ Diana said simply.
‘That, Diana, is beyond me. Whatever it is that troubles you is between you and your god.’
Roberto made his way across the courtyard, surprisingly empty and still in the midday heat. There was usually a woman of some sort dancing alone through the strict shadows or a man sleeping beneath a table, unwilling to be kept indoors. They all came to the meals, of course, but some liked to keep up the appearance of spontaneity. He looked up to Caresse’s rooms and could hear Diana’s voice. There was a sound of brisk footsteps, and then the distant groan of a door being closed. He stepped beneath the protection of a shaded arch and waited, the small package of sun-stamped books, which he had carefully wrapped in paper of cerulean blue in his study that morning, held loosely at his side. As he stood looking up at the brilliant sky he began to hum a low song that his father used to sing on hunting trips. He glanced at his watch and then up to the still shuttered windows of Caresse’s rooms. She would not wake up for some time yet. Roberto made his way towards his study. He would put these out of the way and then continue with his paperwork before bringing the Principessa her evening soup.
Alderney, 1993
James climbed the stairs, switching off the lights as he went. Opening his bedroom door, he stood for a moment, looking at the bed.
Elena was sitting up, her eyes closed, and he watched her in her stillness, tracing the almost translucent lids with his gaze, noting the bruised tiredness beneath her eyes.
‘Do you think the baby will look like me?’ she said, opening her eyes unexpectedly.
He smiled tiredly as he undid his shirt. ‘She’ll be a lucky girl if she does.’
Elena placed an arm over her stomach, and closed her eyes again.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘I mean, after . . .’
‘Of course.’ She attempted a reassuring smile. ‘I don’t let them in, remember.’ Her smile faltered.
‘Your bloody family.’ He shook his head.
She looked suddenly nauseous and frowned, concentrating.
‘What is it?’ He looked at her.
‘It’s nothing, it’s . . .’
He came and sat beside her, one shoe still in his hands. ‘I think we should leave.’
‘I think you should leave,’ she said quietly.
‘Elena, what do you mean?’
Elena felt the patter of guilt begin to fall in her mind like a fine rain.
Her eyes filling with tears, she said, ‘You should leave. Be free of all . . . this. I’m keeping us low, James.’ She looked at him. ‘I can feel it coming. You don’t need to go through all that again. Not again.’
‘You can say it as much as you like, for the rest of our lives if you will, but I’m not going to leave you. I’m never going to leave you,’ he said simply.
‘But how can you bear it?’ She covered her face, unable to look at him. She was pressing too hard, he could see her fingers digging into the spaces beneath her eyes, and holding her wrists he gently pulled her hands away.
‘Don’t let this ruin all you’ve done. All those hours of work . . . You’ve escaped all that.’
She nodded and it was a lid closing on something.
He looked at her, taking her in slowly, bit by bit, his eyes moving from her tanned shoulder, along her collarbone, up the long neck. He took in her still surprisingly short hair, falling over one eye, the lovely slender face, as finely drawn as one of the Beardsley etchings whose sensuous lines and rutting figures she disliked so much.
‘Bay seems to be curling into a smaller ball every night,’ she said anxiously.
‘She’s fine, Elena. She’s a child. She’s fine.’
‘She’s always ill,’ she said quietly.
‘She exaggerates.’
‘She’s the same age I was when . . .’ Her voice faltered.
‘Elena, she’s fine.’ Something in James’s voice made her stop. Elena stared at her hands. Her words were ill-fitting, both revealing too much and concealing nothing . . .
She got up, went to the night-filled window and looked out at the yellow moon that was being conceal
ed by a ragged blanket of cloud.
‘Diana said it was excessive to have more children . . .’ She half-turned towards him so that she was in pale profile against the dark sky outside.
‘Your mother is vicious.’ He shrugged.
‘Doing it all again after all these years.’ She gazed at the mellow round of the disappearing moon. ‘The long nights.’ She turned and looked at him with worried eyes. ‘What if I can’t do it?’
‘Elena, you were born to be a mother. And while not sleeping for the next year is not exactly a joyous prospect, she will be. New life, Elena!’
‘Can we even afford it?’
James looked at her ironically, and she ducked her gaze. ‘My mother always said that once you had three, you might as well have six.’
‘Please don’t bring your mother in here.’
‘It’s life and it’s beautiful,’ James said firmly. ‘As you always tell me, we’ve been given a gift.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded, head bowed, battling in her mind as she was stretched taut between gratitude and a cold-burning rage. She looked up, ready for one more try, wanting him to protect her from the jagged thoughts.
‘But perhaps we should have been more careful.’
‘No, Elena. No.’ There was a resistance in James’s voice that silenced her and, trying to keep the serrated thoughts from touching the raw sides of her mind, she lay down and gently returned her hands to her stomach; becoming very still as she stared out at the clouded indigo of the night sky.
Paris, 1929
‘Now look at that, Rat.’
She looked eagerly to where a woman was walking hand in hand with a small boy. Diana took in the hug of the skirt against her buttocks and the way the child pulled at his mother’s hand.
‘Those who cling are taken unwilling.’ He picked up an oyster from the tray between them and held it out to her. ‘I bet this little oyster thought he’d picked a good safe rock under the sea. Do you think he ever dreamt, Rat, listening to the wash of the water and with the moon spilling over him, of the twin horror of hand and knife?’ He levered open the shell and revealed the translucent flesh.
The Heart Is a Burial Ground Page 19