But he paid the driver, and slammed the car door.
At the house he knew it had been a terrible mistake to come. He was welcomed by Lucy-Rose, Sally hovering in the background, trying to orchestrate his entrance, conducting him through the kindly nodding hordes and into the garden. His coat was removed, and someone brought him a glass of wine. He admired the walls covered in elegant prints, the shelves full of interesting books. He thanked everyone; he was indiscriminate.
*
Standing in the garden he saw them assembled. He wasn’t sure who had rallied them, but here they were, vivid in the dusk. Lucy-Rose was saying, ‘A few people couldn’t come, but they said they had heard good things about your book.’
Michael nodded and then, to change the subject, said, ‘Is that an aspidistra?’ and pointed at the flowerbed.
‘Yes,’ said Lucy-Rose. ‘We have a man who does the garden. He cultivates the most extraordinary flowers.’
‘It’s very fine.’
‘Michael, I have to leave in a second, but I wanted to say a brief hello before I went.’ There was a publisher at his shoulder. Martha Williams. She had once rejected a book of his, but now she was here.
‘I do hope things go well for you,’ she said, briskly. When she rejected his book she had written to Sally: ‘Dear Sally, further to our conversation on the phone I wanted to repeat how sorry we are that we could not accept Michael Stone’s novel. We are happy to take commercial risks if we really believe in the quality of the work but somehow we didn’t believe enough. I wish you and Mr Stone all the best in finding a suitable publisher.’ She had dashed that off in a second or two, to soften the blow, or to avoid offending Sally who had been at Cambridge with her. He had read it once and thrown it away. Still he remembered every word. Now she was speaking, in her brisk and terrifying way, her hands moving, her form shapeless within a billowing coat; but he couldn’t follow her words. He nodded as she said something about how she hadn’t had a chance to read his book but she looked forward to doing so, how she had heard something and something else, and he nodded and said, ‘Yes, it has all been … very … surprising.’
*
She shook his hand suddenly, before he had time to wipe it, said, ‘I wish you the best.’ Then she swept away, silk flowing from her ample shoulders. She had a coat the colour of the moon, he thought.
*
Here were more people he didn’t know. They were different from the lunchtime people, different in their particulars, though they were just as bold and loquacious, just as able to hammer out glinting phrases. To him they seemed perfect, some of them in shirts and slacks, and some wearing suits, recently arrived from their offices. The women well into attractive middle age, elegantly dressed, smelling of perfume. They mingled, the perfumed women with their flowing skirts, and the men in their slacks, and they smiled and kissed each other on the cheeks.
‘More wine?’ said someone, and he held out his glass.
*
‘Michael Stone,’ said someone else. ‘I just wanted to say how much I admire your book. I was trying to review it, but alas they had already sent it out.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Michael. ‘But thank you.’
‘I’m Paul Ardache. I’ve written a few novels.’ And the man held out his hand. Perhaps he was forty, perhaps older. He had thick black hair, but his face was creased and folded. Like a much-used handkerchief. He was lean and he looked as if he smoked. And he was producing a cigarette packet now, offering it to Michael.
‘No thank you.’
‘How disciplined of you,’ said Paul Ardache.
There was a pause while the flame was kindled. Paul Ardache breathed in deeply, exhaled. ‘Ah God, I always chain-smoke my way through the launch of a book. But I lack self-control. Anyway,’ he began again, ‘I liked the way you wrote about this solitary man. Furious that he had been forgotten. Railing against everyone.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And I was moved by the story of those poor women, their sacrifice.’
‘You’re most kind.’
‘Then there were these strange moments, when I felt something else was coming through. Were you conscious of it, I wonder? I am fascinated by the elements we cannot control, the narratorial elements which somehow inveigle their way onto the page, seem inevitable to us but then strike others as peculiar and intriguing. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Well, for example, that ghost-woman Semmelweis saw. Is that documented, did he really see her?’
‘No, I must confess it isn’t a fact. I imagined he might …’
‘And what was her name again?’
‘Birgit Vogel.’
‘Of course, that’s it, Vogel the bird. A bird of peace, or a bird of prey, one wonders?’
‘I just wanted a German name. And not Busch or Fischer.’
‘Yes, well, that is interesting isn’t it? Still, of all the other names you could have chosen, you chose Vogel. The pecking beak. Like something from a Freudian nightmare, do you not think?’
‘I … I don’t know …’ He was stumbling, he wasn’t sure he liked what the man was saying to him. But Ardache was courteous and insistent.
‘You mean you do not know, or you are not sure this has any relevance to your work?’ he said.
‘I think … perhaps … such questions … these things … should remain unanswered … If we are not to delude ourselves …’
‘Of course, these matters are ultimately beyond our power to comprehend. The mind falters, and so on. I just wondered what you really thought. One thing I felt about your book was that you were a veiled presence. You were holding your cards close to your chest. What does the author actually feel about all of this, I kept thinking. The narrator is a study in irresolution, of course. He mustn’t become an ideological tyrant himself, that would defeat the purpose of your book. Sometimes he gets carried away, but he always tries to check himself. “Professor Wilson, I’m rambling on,” he says, and what he really means is, “I must squash my inner ideologue,” does he not? But what about the author, I thought. I felt you wanted to conceal yourself. You were modest, or like Joyce’s conception of the artist, you were indifferent to your creations. Paring your fingernails.’
‘No … it wasn’t that … I wasn’t aloof … At least, I didn’t intend to be …’ said Michael.
‘Perhaps you were forcing your emotions down,’ said Paul Ardache. ‘As if you thought that, unrestrained, they might carry you off.’ And now he inhaled again. He was not aware of the significance of his words. How he was making Michael want to cry and shake. Ardache was simply trying to find something to say, to show he had read the book, engaged with it. Yet suddenly it was very clear to Michael that his book was tactless, quite appalling – he had not thought carefully enough, had been in such a hurry to finish it – but he had inadvertently revealed the fury that drove him on. Ardache was saying, ‘Anyway, perhaps you are just a Blakean at heart. A Blakean trapped in modernity. The birthing of life – the human form divine. The terrible divinity of nature.’
‘I don’t really think … in the way you are proposing,’ said Michael. He was aiming at a lie, while he tried to calm his nerves, slow his heart. ‘I don’t think very clearly … I am not clear at all … But even then, isn’t it rather that we never really get to the heart of any matter, in the end? We get captured by convenient metaphors, or clichés, by other people’s modes of expression … Our real intentions, or thoughts, are lost …’
‘I don’t agree,’ said Paul Ardache. ‘I think it’s amazing how frequently we do manage to say what we mean, or something roughly commensurate. Somehow our words resonate to others, even though they are inaccurate. Something gets through, for all the static and distortions. I find it quite moving, how people do understand, despite our flawed efforts.’
‘In that case, they know it anyway … they don’t need my rambling prose to tell them.’
‘Ah, so are you the narrator? His r
ambling prose is your rambling prose?’
‘Oh, no, I’m not half as … determined as he is,’ said Michael. He thought he felt better now. When someone poured more wine into his glass, he gulped it down.
‘You mean you are even more rambling?’
‘Quite possibly.’ They were smiling vaguely at each other.
‘Ah, you see, you are an archetype yourself. The humble man,’ said Paul Ardache, flicking the end of his cigarette into a nearby shrub.
‘No, no, but I am not humble … No no, not it at all … I don’t believe … well, no writer is humble, surely.’
‘Well, I know I’m not. But I am handing you the accolade,’ said Paul Ardache.
‘That’s kind of you … But it isn’t true at all.’
They were looking at each other with a kindling of interest; perhaps they might even become friends later, thought Michael. He was wondering if it might be possible, to befriend this interesting man, and then someone else arrived.
‘Mr Stone,’ said this someone else. A boy, not more than twenty-five. Perhaps he was an apprentice, or a prodigy. He was so young, wearing a jacket that looked too big for him, and he said his name was Alistair Madden. ‘I designed the cover for your book. I hope you liked it.’
Michael, who had not particularly liked the cover, smiled and said, ‘I liked it very much. Thank you.’
*
Behind the boy, he saw Paul Ardache grimacing towards him. Michael had a sense that Paul Ardache perceived his discomfort, and his desire to be grateful nonetheless. He didn’t want to look churlish so he said thank you again. And Paul Ardache nodded towards him, and lit another cigarette.
*
It wasn’t much later, but Michael found he was leaning against a wall. He had felt his way towards it, and rested against its solidity. Still he had the stem of a wine glass between his fingers, as if it was attached to his body, the surgical addition of recent days. He was thinking about what Ardache had said, and how he had put his mother in his book, without realising. He had convinced himself he never thought of her and yet she was there, plain for all to view – and he wondered if it could be true, that she was mortal and afraid, that she would die.
‘Are you feeling ill?’ Sally was saying into his ear. He realised he had bowed his head, screwed up his eyes.
‘I think … perhaps … I think I should go.’ If he went now, he could be there in an hour. He could go to her and say …
‘Now? Already? But you’ve hardly arrived.’
‘A taxi,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I could …’ He felt as if a weight was pressing on his lungs.
‘Naturally, if you are ill, I will drive you home,’ said Sally, sternly.
‘Is Michael ill?’ said someone, overhearing and looking concerned.
‘No no, not ill,’ Michael was trying to say. ‘Please, I don’t want to inconvenience anyone … I just need a taxi.’
*
Is Michael going to leave?
The party had heard he was leaving early. After all the rain it was such a beautiful clear evening, with the lovely garden glistening and the daylight ceding to this lustrous moon. Lucy-Rose had just been remarking to herself on the success of her gathering when she received the rumour.
‘Already?’ she said.
‘He’s exhausted, apparently. Looked quite ill, said Maggie.’
‘Poor man,’ said Lucy-Rose, feeling irritated nonetheless.
‘Has no wife or family.’
‘An eternal bachelor, says Sally. Very nervous.’
‘But can’t we persuade him to stay?’ said Lucy-Rose.
*
From his corner, Michael heard the general murmur. He imagined what he could not hear, and anyway phrases kept floating towards him, like petals. The garden was full of drifting petals, and each one was about him. ‘A sudden turn … Too much strain … Impossible … But really … ill? Did someone get a doctor …?’
*
Then Sally was saying, ‘The thing is, Lucy-Rose invited the literary editor of the Observer. And she may be coming. It’s surely worth waiting if you possibly can.’ She was standing very close to him, nearly whispering in his ear. ‘Perhaps – I know it’s a big ask, but these people have gone to a lot of effort. Lucy-Rose has gone to a lot of effort. Perhaps you could lie down in the conservatory for a short while, then you might feel better by the time she arrives. You just need a rest.’
‘But I think it might be better just to go,’ said Michael. ‘Though I don’t want to make a fuss.’
‘Michael,’ Sally whispered. ‘Don’t be absurd. This party is for your benefit. It’s your party. You are quite entitled to make a fuss.’
‘Then I think, much as I appreciate all the …’
‘Perhaps the best thing to do would be to lie down briefly. Take it from me. I’m an old hand at this game. You’ll feel much better when you’ve had a little lie down.’
‘Of course,’ said Lucy-Rose, stricken with relief. She almost put an arm round the author, but she sensed he was one of those who dreaded social touching, however well-intentioned; so she held back and said, ‘You’re welcome to lie anywhere. Anywhere you like. Go into one of the spare rooms, have a sleep. We can wake you in a while.’
‘Just a quick rest in the conservatory,’ Sally was saying. ‘That would be fine.’
*
Defeated by them all, a hostage to their kindness, Michael lay in the conservatory, a pitcher of water on the table beside him, and a copy of Dougie Ascherson’s latest collection of verse by his arm. A blanket over his legs, though the evening was still warm. Below he could hear the rise and fall of voices, undulating tones; the drift of petals.
*
‘Naturally reclusive …’
‘Did he leave?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘No, he’s just upstairs, lying down.’
‘Sally says he’ll come back later …’
*
He was in here, as they cast petals on him from the garden. The drowned man in the conservatory, he thought. What came after death by water? He couldn’t think. They would come later, perhaps if the literary editor arrived, and they would fish him out. They would get him on a hook, and then they would reel him in.
*
He should fling open the window and issue a general announcement. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you for everything. But I simply have to go. Goodbye.
There was a bellow of laughter. Staccato hoots. Inside the conservatory it was cool and quiet. In a corner, ivy climbing a trellis. Some gardenias in a long pot. He had always wanted a garden. Or a conservatory. The concrete tower he called his home was one of a formidable series, standing like battlements, defending the north from the south. From his outpost he could see the river like a silver serpent and the miles and miles of sprawl. At the base of his concrete tower was a concrete yard, with space for parking. A wall around it, to repel burglars, then a main road and the Victorian terraces, squat and defeated. No room for a garden.
*
It was important to remember, thought Michael, that no one had begged him to do this. No one had approached him on bended knee, pleading with him to become a writer. No divinity had alighted from a cloud and commanded him to go forth and write. His parents had certainly condemned him – severely, for his own failings and by comparison with his gainfully employed, affluent brother. It seemed absurd now, that he had persisted, all these years, in hating them. He had worked so hard to prove them wrong. And yet now …
*
The moon was shining through the glass. In the moonlit room, Michael knew that it would pass; things – everything – would change and change again. There would be a point when this would be long gone, a past he no longer had to consider.
*
Time passed.
Lucy-Rose, in her serene vitality, would pass.
*
Roger Annais, Peter Kennedy, Arthur Grey, Martha Williams, would all pass. Sally Blanchefleur would pass.
*<
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And the people who had discouraged him, over many years, and those committed people who had been forced – briefly – to consider him; they too would pass. Even these ideas they were debating, their beliefs in a certain sort of world, all this would most likely pass, as so much before had passed and faded altogether. For who worshipped Ishtar any more, or Attis? Who quaked at the thought of Zeus or the judgements of Osiris? Who invoked the virtues of Cybele or Artemis?
*
Yes, it was quite certain Lucy-Rose would pass, and so would her garden. Her garden would stand neglected, the wind ruffling the aspidistras, the sun cultivating weeds in the once-manicured flowerbeds. The walls of her house would crumble though tonight they looked sturdy and imposing, and earlier he had leaned against them.
*
He would pass too. And the mother who had birthed him. Paul Ardache was right: he had untied himself from every knot of obligation or necessity. He would have no wife, no lover, no family. He had fled from so many people who had approached him. Prospective wives, prospective friends, people who simply stopped to pass the time of day; he had fled from them all. He had been left cut off from everything and mistaking this detachment for strength. And what was it he had feared? That someone would need him, that his purpose would be diluted by the demands of others. He had feared all his life that someone would make a claim on him, ask him to live for them as well as for himself.
*
So he had come to despise his parents, perhaps because they offered him complexity, the confusing array of emotions he experienced when he saw them, love and bitterness and even pity sometimes, as they grew older and more shambolic. He had been dutiful but entirely distant and his mother had set herself against him, told him he had failed, that he was wasting his life. Her questioning of his life, her anger at what he had not done, had seemed to him a dreadful liberty, an intrusion on his immaculate retreat. Really he had failed her, not even because he had been rude, not even because he had hated her, but because he rebuffed her every attempt to know him.
The Birth of Love Page 19