The Book Collector

by Alice Thompson

  She went back to her husband’s study. She took down the painting and unlocked the safe door. It was empty. The book had gone. Her utter devastation and anger were beyond all reason. She was seized by panic.

  She found Clara in the laundry room.

  ‘Give me the book.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That book you were carrying under your arm the other day. It was the fairy tale book, wasn’t it? You have stolen it from the safe.’

  ‘You have become delusional, madam. Lord Murray has told me how that book preoccupies you.’

  What was he doing, discussing this with Clara? ‘He is the one obsessed by it. He keeps it in a safe, for God’s sake. And now it’s gone.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about that.’

  Violet looked into Clara’s placid, apparently willing face and found no response in those grey eyes, no flicker of defensiveness or excitement.

  Violet tried to become accustomed to the fact that the book had gone, accept its loss as just another event, but could not. She went around as if part of her heart had been removed.

  The following afternoon Clara came into the drawing room. Violet noticed that Clara was muddy.

  ‘Clara, what have you been doing? You are covered in mud.’

  Clara looked startled.

  ‘Oh, playing with Felix in the woods.’

  Clara looked at Felix in her arms. His baby clothes were spotless and his hands were clean.

  ‘Why isn’t Felix muddy then?’

  Clara gave her a slow smile. ‘Oh, I carried him on my back. I didn’t want him to get muddy, too.’

  ‘That was very nice of you, Clara.’

  Felix looked up and smiled at Clara.

  ‘Did Clara give you a nice piggyback ride in the forest?’

  But before Felix could smile in reply, Clara quickly said, ‘Time for tea, Felix,’ and whisked him away.

  Chapter 22

  VIOLET KNEW VERY little about her husband. She never talked about her own late parents and never asked about his either. It had been enough for her that he suggested by his manner, his culture, his cultivation, that he had a history – had a life of elite university education, sophisticated women and select friendships.

  She went to the bookshelf in the library that contained miscellany. She found a single photograph album in dark crimson leather tucked away on a bottom shelf. She took the album outside into the garden and, sitting on a bench, opened it up at random. There, towards the end of the album, was a photograph of their registry wedding, Archie, her, the witnesses and the minister. And then a photograph of her in their marriage bed, holding the newborn Felix in her arms. Flicking backwards, she found an older photograph of Archie as a young boy. He was standing in front of their house, his parents standing on either side of him, but how alone he seemed, as if he was deliberately keeping himself apart from them.

  She opened the book at random on another page. There was a photograph of a woman, looking as if she were asleep, in the same marriage bed, another newborn baby apparently asleep in her arms. Violet studied her still face. Yes, the bookshop man had been right, she could see a physical similarity to herself in this death picture of Rose and her child.

  A dragonfly hovered about the lawn with its buzzing sound. She hated the way they flew – like machines. Then silence. She looked up. It had landed near her on a wooden chair. How ugly it looked with its thin linear body like an exclamation mark and its black and yellow pattern.

  There was a final photo. A recent one of Archie, she judged, by his imperceptibly aged appearance. Standing next to him was a slightly older voluptuous woman in an over-furnished opulent drawing room. She looked dark and sensual as if a slave to predictable appetites. She wore a heavily brocaded golden and blue dress with a wide sash tied at her unnaturally narrow waist.

  Archie looked different in this photograph, more uncertain and secretive. His face seemed the product of a different kind of situation, standing so near to the older woman. But the look in his eyes was the same, detachedly amused at a private joke. She felt convinced this woman had some kind of power over him. She turned the photograph over. On the back Archie had just scribbled Lavinia.

  What was the private joke, she wondered? She stood up slowly – she would take a walk to the edge of the estate to clear her mind. The sun was beating down on her, in spite of the large-brimmed hat she was wearing. It was so hot, unnaturally hot. The long grasses around her stroked her bare legs. It was even too warm for the birds, except for the occasional brave chirrup. It was nearing noon. It was as if her idyll had been petrified in the heat. Had become a nightmare version of its former self, all still hard lines of a surrealist painting. Even the small fluttering of the tiny black butterflies suddenly looked like batwings.

  The heat was making her jump from one hallucinatory image to the next. It was then she saw her, lying outstretched on the field near the edge of a stream, a woman concealed in the long grass. The shadows of the leaves of the trees above were playing delicately on her face. As Violet drew nearer she could see the woman was posed in a shape of a star. Her right arm was missing. It had been cut off below the socket. Blood had soaked the grass around her, as if she had bled to death, and was running into the stream. Iron rings had tethered her to the ground. Blood had also run in intricate rivulets, following the lines of the feathers of a large swan’s wing. The wing had been placed on the ground in place of the missing arm. It looked as if the swan’s wing was sprouting naturally from the empty arm socket.

  The woman’s body had been eviscerated, turned inside out. The entrails were spilling out like so many question marks. Violet resisted the convulsions in her throat, the desire to retch.

  The body had been skinned carefully, all skin removed. It did not look like a human being now, but that is how we all look, she thought, under the skin, below the illusion of our surface. The head remained intact. The pretty face of Betsy looked up, her eyes open, her mouth parted. Grey liquid oozed from the lips. Violet wondered if it were semen.

  She couldn’t believe she was observing this scene with such a sense of detachment, and somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if she were in shock. Who or what had done this to Betsy? Was it a man, or animal? Or someone who was both?

  She looked up. She thought she saw a dark shadow move behind the trees. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. She turned and ran through the fields back into the cool hallway of the house. She felt unable to think clearly. She had to think clearly. Through the hall window she could see Clara with Felix at the far end of the garden playing with a ball. How perfect the scene looked, the trees in full leaf. It was as if she could smell the roses and the herb garden with its strong, pungent scent of sage.

  Perhaps what she had seen was just a return of the delusions. She had to compose herself. She looked at herself in the hall mirror, brushed down her hair and narrowed her widened panic-stricken eyes. She turned and walked slowly out into the garden. Should she approach them? But her appearance might unnerve them.

  ‘Clara!’ she cried out, but the word stuck in her throat. ‘Clara,’ she again shouted hoarsely, but it was no good, Clara couldn’t hear her. She was too far away.

  She walked over the gravel driveway onto the lawn. Her legs felt weak, her whole body was trembling. She had to appear calm. Felix must not see how distressed she was; it was important to protect him. The gravel was dry after so many rainless days. When she was halfway across the lawn, Felix saw her and started to wave. She waved back. Clara looked up and saw her.

  Violet beckoned for her to come over to her. Clara threw the ball for Felix who crawled after it and Clara walked slowly towards her, a gentle smile on her face. She didn’t realise how important this was, Violet thought, and she mustn’t guess now, it must be kept hidden. Felix is a curious and sensitive child; if he sees anything strange it will upset him. As Clara approached, the sun caught her hair.

  ‘What is it, Lady Murray?’ If Clara had not
iced anything strange about Violet, she didn’t reveal it.

  ‘Can you come with me, Clara?’ she said. Clara turned to Felix and shouted out to him, clear as a bell, ‘I’m just going into the house with mummy. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  Felix started throwing the ball straight up in the air.

  The two women walked back to the house. As they reached the entrance, Violet said, ‘Clara, I need to tell you something. I’ve seen a body. A body of a woman from the asylum.’

  Clara turned to her. Her expression had subtly altered, looked watchful rather than concerned.

  ‘Lady Murray, you need to sit down. Have a rest. It’s been hot.’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right. I mean I’m not all right, I’m shocked. But by what I’ve seen. It’s nothing to do with the heat.’

  ‘Lady Murray, you looked flustered. We’ll go into the kitchen. Have a cold drink. Lord Murray will be back soon.’

  They were now in the hall. Violet felt like screaming at her.

  ‘It’s not a delusion. I saw it!’

  ‘All right then. Where is it? I’ll go and see.’ Clara looked determined.

  ‘No! No! You shouldn’t. It’s too shocking. I don’t want you to see it. Wait for Archie.’ Violet grasped her arm.

  Clara took her firmly by the hand and led her into the empty kitchen. Violet sat down on a chair, feeling oddly cold. Clara poured her some water and Violet took the glass gratefully. Violet was gripping the glass so tightly that her fingers were drained of blood.

  ‘Look, when you’ve calmed down, why don’t you take me to it and show me. There will be nothing there. Nothing to fear.’

  ‘No,’ Violet whispered, hoarsely now. ‘I can’t see that again. What about the blood?’

  ‘There will be no blood.’

  ‘How on earth do you know that? I saw the blood.’ Then suddenly she was filled with self-doubt. ‘Don’t tell my husband about this, Clara? Promise.’

  She didn’t want to be put back in the asylum.

  ‘Of course not, Lady Murray. I understand. It is just one of your turns.’

  ‘Because of the heat.’

  ‘Because of the heat. Are you all right now? Because I’d better get back to Felix, he’ll be waiting for me.

  ‘Of course, Clara. Thank you so much for being so understanding.’

  ‘Not at all, Lady Murray.’

  Violet sipped the rest of her drink. It had been a delusion. A mild delusion. Because of the heat.

  Violet saw through the window Clara walking across the lawn, back to Felix who had been playing happily on his own with his ball.

  Chapter 23

  THAT EVENING CLARA gave Violet a strong sedative to help her sleep. Violet woke up in bed in the middle of the night with a throbbing headache. She turned over to see if Archie was lying beside her. The bed was empty. There was just space where he should have been. Her head felt so sore, it was as if someone had struck her there. She didn’t even remember going to bed. Someone, presumably Clara, must have undressed her, put her nightgown on, and laid her in the bed. But how had she got upstairs? Had she been semi-conscious? She couldn’t remember. Clara was not strong enough to have carried her up by herself.

  She looked at her arms for bruises or marks where she might have been accidentally hurt but there were none. She carefully slid out of bed, taking care not to make any sudden movement in case it exacerbated the throbbing in her head. She needed more medication now to ease the pain. The curtains had not been drawn and the moon was shining strangely brightly through the window, giving out an uncanny light. Where was he, she wondered? She padded down the corridor, to the stairs. The soft carpet comforted her as she was feeling increasingly strange and incoherent.

  She heard murmuring from the kitchen. She opened the door.

  Sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table were Archie and Clara, both fully dressed. They appeared to be in deep conversation.

  They looked up, startled, as they heard her come in.

  ‘Violet! What are you doing here, my love?’ Archie asked.

  Putting her on the defensive, she thought.

  ‘I’m looking for a pill for a headache. What are you doing down here with Clara?’

  ‘Oh, discussing Felix.’

  She felt furious at Archie for his patronising manner, as if she was somehow intruding on an important discussion between him and Clara. As if she were the employee, instead of Clara.

  Clara was looking at Violet with a mild, pleasant expression. As if this all had hardly anything to do with her at all. As if she were a dandelion seed blown here on the wind into her kitchen, Violet thought. She felt oddly proprietorial. She felt like an animal. Why? She felt like a cornered animal.

  ‘Get out of my kitchen, Clara. Now. Get out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, madam. We really were just trying to help.’

  She left abruptly.

  Archie was looking at Violet with an expression of astonishment and rage.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing, Violet? Being so rude to Clara. She was just trying to help.’

  Violet felt so angry, tears were pricking her eyes.

  ‘Why are you taking her side? What about me?’

  ‘You’re sounding like a jealous wife.’

  Violet turned, unable to speak.

  ‘And why can’t you discuss things with me?’ she hissed.

  ‘Because we didn’t want to worry you. Clara told me about your seeing a body. She has been worried about you.’

  Horror struck her heart. Her head was pounding. She was beginning to shake. She had confided in Clara, and Clara had betrayed her trust.

  ‘So that’s what you were discussing with Clara! You think I’m losing my mind again!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Violet. We know you’re fully recovered. The asylum has cured you. You would never harm Felix again.’

  Why did she feel Archie was threatening her rather than reassuring her? That moon was still shining into the kitchen, covering everything in its silvery sheen, making everything look out of a fairy tale. But what fairy tale, she thought, trying to grasp for the answer. I’ve got to work out which fairy tale it is. She lost consciousness and slid to the floor, blackness engulfing her.

  Chapter 24

  OVER THE NEXT few days, as the weather cooled, Violet realised how foolish she was being. Archie and Clara were just trying to protect her. Was what had happened connected to her own inner darkness? The skies were no longer a hectic blue but a peaceful balmy grey. It grew thunderous, with a noticeable pressure in the air, but she still felt better than in the arid heat with the sun burning down, turning the grass to the colour of beaten yellow straw.

  One afternoon in the village she saw Clara walking down the street. Archie was walking by her side. Her pale skin and rosy lips were like a young child’s, Violet thought. She became overtaken by Clara’s lustrous and sensual anima. As if who Violet was, her own sense of sensuality, was disappearing. The incarnation of Clara, all flesh, was reducing Violet to an ethereal spirit. Ah, the twists and turns of relationships, the inconsistencies, the realisation that nothing was certain, no one wholly dependable. But Archie was. Archie gave her that certainty that she could trust him. Violet had only just managed to collect herself, when Clara and Archie disappeared from sight.

  The next morning, as Felix played with a jigsaw of a few large wooden pieces on the drawing room floor, Violet knelt down beside him. She looked at Felix, enjoying the shape of his head, the outline of him. It was so peaceful, that absolute love for him. Different from the romantic feelings she had for men, which were edgy and electric. This love for her child consumed her for that moment. It was hardly to do with him or her. It seemed to exist apart from them both. She would never forget this feeling, she thought, as she watched him play.

  She turned her attention to the jigsaw. It was a jigsaw she had never seen before and she wondered if Archie or Clara had bought it for him. It depicted three scenes from fairy stories. One s
cene showed Elise throwing her eleven nettle shirts over her eleven brothers in ‘The Wild Swans’, to transform the princes from swans back into men. Violet could clearly see the youngest brother still brandishing one wing for an arm. The scene from ‘The Little Mermaid’ showed the mermaid, having had her tail transformed into legs by the witch, dancing with the prince, but feeling as if she were walking on the sharp edge of swords. Violet could see the blood flowing from the mermaid’s legs. The third scene was from ‘The Red Shoes’. Here the headsman was cutting off the dancer’s feet imprisoned in the red shoes, so that she could finally stop her relentless dancing. Violet quickly cleared the floor of the jigsaw as Felix started to cry.

  ‘It’s not right for you,’ she said and swept him up in her arms.

  Just then, Clara came into the drawing room. ‘There is a visitor for you,’ Clara announced and firmly took the crying Felix from Violet’s arms and left the room. A moment later, a man walked in, strangely, a bit like a marionette, as if his legs were slightly out of control. It was oddly endearing.

  ‘Good morning. Lady Murray?’

  She looked at him. He was tall and thin. Rarefied. Unsmiling. He seemed so spiky, like a skeleton was popping out of his skin, long, thin limbs, knobbly joints. Even his hands looked long and thin, like a sketcher’s lines, delineated rather than fleshed out. His eyes were high up in his face, like an Egyptian god, but it was his intelligence that radiated out, quietly and insistently. He was probably younger than he looked, but marked out by what he had seen.

  ‘I’m Detective Benedict. I wonder if you would mind answering some questions?’

  She could tell by his overly polite manner that he probably thought little of her. She was just another privileged, kept woman on a country estate with a self-entitled husband. Loneliness was the price she paid for all this luxury and beauty. She was the absolute sum of her parts. She could see it all in his insolent blue eyes.