by JH Fletcher
The veins tightened in her head. ‘No,’ she said.
He stared at her; no was not a word to be used to husbands. ‘I forbid it.’
‘I have to go. You agreed —’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
She could not accept it: for the sake of her art, for Katie, for the self-respect that would not tolerate being confined, like a naughty girl. She defied him, scornfully. ‘What will you do? Lock me up?’
Neil had dwelt too long within his father’s shadow to bandy words with a wife. ‘You’re not going, and that’s that.’
Marie was already in bed; unable to lie still another moment, she swung her feet from under the covers. She walked to the window, yanked back the curtain and stared out into the darkness. ‘Someone may see,’ Neil protested behind her.
‘Let them.’
There was no-one out there, but she would not have cared if there had been. She was looking, not at the invisible scenery beyond the window, but at the reflection in the glass upon which her breath bloomed rhythmically. The room, bright and golden in the lamplight; Neil, white shirt front gleaming; the bed and other furniture gathered in a tight island beneath the light. Everything smaller than life, imprisoned within the clenched fist of the house and the future. Watching the diamond-bright reflection, Marie foresaw what her life here would be like: a succession of cosseted days, without strain or anxiety. An infinity of days. A prison.
Revulsion rose within her. She turned from the dark window in which she had read her fate so clearly and flung herself upon the bed, fists clenched, face buried in the pillow. I must leave here, she told herself. But how could she? She could not abandon her child; that would be monstrous.
She turned on her back, arm thrown across her face, heart pounding. Neil was saying something but she paid no attention; for the moment, his opinions were irrelevant.
She saw herself a year from now, changed from the person she was into the person George Otway wished her to be: competent hostess, submissive daughter-in-law, the actual and prospective mother of grandchildren of whom one, at least, would surely be a son. It would happen because he was efficient, patient, implacable. She opened her eyes and looked at her husband. She had been wrong to blame him for submitting to his father’s will. She would do the same, would be sucked dry. Unless …
‘What is it?’
She heard Neil’s voice. She stared at him, as at a stranger. He could not help her; whatever had to be done, she must do alone. Tears welled in her eyes as she remembered the succession of events that had made up their lives together. Their first walk through the echoing city streets. The weeks in the bush, discovering and sharing the landscape, life, each other. The preparations for her first show, with Neil working harder than any of them. The smudge on his pristine shirt: strange how that memory still had the power to move her. Her pregnancy; the wedding; Alice’s birth. Her sense of guilt at her lack of the love that every mother, surely, had for her child. So much that was rich and good. And now?
Her head was pounding, sickeningly. She remembered Eugénie’s words. It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.
Now it was her turn. These are real people, she thought. You cannot treat them like abstractions. Yet Neil had betrayed her. They had dreamed such dreams and had come to this. He had combined with his father to deprive her of the one thing that mattered in her life: the freedom to be herself.
It came down to a choice. Go, and destroy her marriage. Stay, and destroy herself.
I shall sleep on it, she decided. Then I shall know what I have to do.
6
Marie was wrong; several days passed without her reaching a decision. Her head grew steadily worse and she dreaded the nights, fearful that the terrible dream might return.
Neil and his father were away on business; she had the house to herself, with the servants whose eyes she could feel, whose whispers cut holes in her mind. She could sense the tension building, building, inside her head. She remembered the darkness that had engulfed her after the business of Jim Keith; this was similar, but far worse.
She went for a long walk, determined to exhaust herself. When she came back, her head felt swollen with the pressures inside her skull. She went into her studio to hide among the paintings that she hoped might protect her. For a while she stared at nothing while the pressure rose like a shimmering darkness. Her easel and other implements were scattered at her feet. Now she hated them.
I am enslaved by art. She remembered the seascape she had done while they were away. The breakers came roaring out of a gentian sky and her fingers itched with the desire to smash easel and brushes, her feet trembled in their lust to pound the squishy tubes of paint to ruin. How she wished she could rid herself of their menace, to be at peace! But it was no use; to destroy them would rid her of nothing.
She leapt to her feet, went swiftly through the house to her bedroom. She slammed the door behind her, but the shimmering darkness had entered with her; it watched as she flung herself down in a chair beside the bed. Flashes, like lightning, crackled at the edges of her vision. Within seconds she was up again, running to the mirror, staring at her reflection. She traced her features with trembling fingers, watching in horror as her skin hardened into a carapace cutting off air and hope and light. She clawed at her face.
‘Save me —’
Desperately she tried to deflect her thoughts, but it was no use. Again she fled, this time to her final refuge: her dressing room, curtained and dark. Again she slammed the door, stood panting.
I stand in blackness, my eyes tightly clenched. I feel the clawing fingers of the light tear my eyelids, the anguished rupture of the skin. I drive my fists into my eyes, turning the blackness to blood. I try to prevent the light from reaching me, but cannot. Its blues and golds, the brilliant blaze of sunlight, scald the lining of my head. The colours drive me to my knees.
The next morning she discovered herself again. She was crouched in a corner of the dressing room, legs drawn tight beneath her, arms wrapped tight about her body. She got slowly to her feet. Exhausted, she had a bath. It helped, but only a little. She had seen the cataclysm. It was no use pretending that it was a dream; it was a demon from hell come to torment her, and she could deny it no more than she could deny her need for breath. Worse, the pressure inside her head had diminished, but not gone. There remained terror: of what had passed, of what was to come.
7
On the day before Marie’s thirtieth birthday, the weather turned hot. The stagnant air pressed close about her; she found it hard even to breathe. She wandered around the studio but could not concentrate. It was too hot to walk. She went to her bedroom, lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. She told herself she should enjoy being lazy for once in her life, but did not. She felt wretched and confused. And the pressures in her head remained: quiescent for the moment, but there.
The maid put her head around the door. ‘Someone to see you.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Your sister, mum.’
Marie put on her gown and ran to greet her unexpected visitor. Her immediate response had been delight; hugging Aline gave space for doubt. Had she been brought to check up on her? She told herself not to be ridiculous and led the way to a shaded veranda at the back of the house. The maid brought lemonade and glasses on a silver tray. They drank, smiling cautiously at each other. Marie saw that Aline was wondering whether she was truly welcome; she also doubted, but was determined to make the best of things.
‘What brings you here?’
‘Neil thought you were depressed, so he wrote and asked me to come and cheer you up.’
‘He never mentioned it.’
‘It was meant to be a surprise.’
‘It certainly is. A very pleasant surprise.’
Although doubts remained. Marie thought, She will believe that, in my case, too, art has taken second place to marriage and a family. She gathered the tatters of her will about her. In which case she will be wrong, she told
herself defiantly.
‘Still painting?’ Aline asked presently, after the routine exchanges about husbands and children, the iniquities of maids. ‘Can you find the time?’
‘Come and see.’
She showed her the studio, the paintings in stacks around the walls.
Aline looked at them, and at her. Marie waited for her to say that the recent paintings were not as good as her earlier ones. She did not; there was no need.
‘Are you happy?’ Aline asked.
Marie had been dreading the question. Yes, I am would mean she had come to terms with her present life. No, I am not would lead to the next and fatal question: what do you plan to do about it?
She feared that most of all, because she did not know the answer.
‘Happy enough.’ It was the best she could do.
‘What about your agent? Is he also happy?’
‘Not entirely.’
Stanford Harris was very unhappy, indeed, and not shy to say so: More than disappointment. Betrayal, of yourself and art.
They were words she could not forget, or bring herself to repeat. She thought, It was kind of Neil to invite her but, oh, how I wish he had not.
Aline stayed three days, joking that it gave her a break from the two men in her life, but Marie saw that she was reconciled to her existence, with none of the discontent of the past. So are we all conditioned, she told herself, like prisoners grown accustomed to their cells. That was what the Hunter Valley had become: comfortable and luxurious, but a cell, all the same.
Aline left Marie more confused than ever. She could not stay. It was wrong even to think of going, yet she did so all the time. If she defied Neil and went to Sydney, he would never take her back: nothing was more unforgiving than a weak man. Yet that was not why she hesitated; it seemed to her that to abandon husband and child was such a damnable thing to do. She could not hide from herself how badly Neil would be hurt, while, for Alice, the effects would be incalculable. Yet, if she stayed, she would destroy herself. Images swung, mockingly.
Stanford Harris, bristling and indignant, close to washing his hands of the whole relationship: Betrayal. Of yourself and art.
Katie, in the early days: Great art does not come out of luxury.
Alice, laughing.
Neil, making love tenderly.
Whatever I do, she thought, I shall be wrong.
8
That night, back from his business trip, Neil was once again tender. She knew he wanted to make things right for her. He stroked her hair, her shoulders. ‘All I want is your happiness.’
It was not so. He wanted what his father wanted, for her to be happy doing the things they thought she should. He had travelled so far from the man she had first met that there was now no way she could explain her discontent, but he meant well. She would have given anything to dismiss art from her life and settle down, like Aline, to the domestic life that gave most women the satisfaction they needed. His fingers moved upon her; she closed her eyes, wishing passionately that things might still come right between them.
It was impossible. In the morning, despite the headache that still tormented her, no doubts remained. The closeness that had caused her such doubt the previous night had brought things to a head. Her mind was made up. She spent the day thinking how she was doing everything for the last time, how by this time tomorrow she would be gone. She could change her mind, even now, but would not; the decision had been made.
By evening, her headache was worse. There were birds clinging to the inside of her head. She could feel their talons tearing at her brain, their wings beat deafeningly in her ears. Darkness circled, hovering at the edges of her vision.
I am doing this because I must, but it is inexcusable. I shall not be forgiven: by my husband or my child, least of all by myself.
That night she sat at the dinner table, listening to the conversation of her husband, her father-in-law. She had nothing to say to either of them; their voices echoed meaninglessly within her head. She was empty and alone, insulated by the gathering darkness. Which would fall upon her, she knew, as soon as she left the shelter of this place.
I had thought that first attack had been an isolated occurrence that would never return; now I know that in that, too, I was wrong. It is a demon sent to punish me.
She went to pick up her glass, to drink the red wine it contained, the red liquid, the blood-red, the blood —
With the glass halfway to her lips, she found she could neither lift it nor put it down. Could not move. Rigid, eyes wide and staring, she sat. God will punish me. He will send demons to tear the bad thoughts from my head. He will destroy me.
And still she could not move.
For a moment neither of the men noticed. Then George Otway frowned. ‘You all right?’
She tried to say she was fine, but found she could not do even that. Tears were streaming down her face, but she could neither move nor speak, while her eyes continued to stare at meaningless images.
Neil, alarmed, eased the glass from her fingers. The touch of his hand unlocked whatever mechanism had seized within her. She smiled at them and sat back in her chair, sweating beneath her gown, murmuring something about cramp. While the gathering darkness howled.
It was an excuse that no-one could be expected to believe, but she stuck to it. She even managed to smile, tolerantly, at Neil’s concern.
‘I’m fine now. Honestly. I don’t know what it was, but there’s nothing wrong.’
‘You’re overwrought,’ said her father-in-law, a man tolerant of the weaknesses of women and artists, from whom he expected no better. ‘You should rest.’
‘Perhaps I shall. After dinner.’
She was determined to finish the meal, and the wine, to prove to herself that she could. She said goodnight. She went to check on Alice. The child was sleeping, her face flushed. Marie straightened the coverlet, bent and kissed the warm forehead. The last time, she thought. She waited to feel the pang that she should feel, but did not. That itself gave a pang.
She went into the bedroom; undressed; got into bed. Every step of her routine was the last in this place, but she would not permit herself to dwell on it. I shall sleep, she told herself. I shall be whole.
And slept, indeed. But whole? Out of the darkness came figures. Leather-skinned, with beaks of steel, they pursued her, screeching, down the canyons of the night. She saw cliffs of dragons, foul-breathed, a coastline where the rocks quaked beneath the smash and swirl of the surf. Hands of bone reached for her from the curdled water, crawling over legs and arms, sealing every aperture of her face and body, suffocating, suffocating.
A cacophony of screaming. The image of a small child pursued by a naked woman, fleeing into the night. A sense of overwhelming loss, a well of endless tears.
And so to the day, and terror. The circle of darkness still swirled about her, the blood thundered in her head, her thoughts echoed painfully. She was exhausted, but determined not to put off any longer what must be done. She was cold in her determination that today was the day, that whatever awaited her, life or madness, must be faced.
She got up. She washed, dressed. She packed a small bag, aware of eyes spying over her shoulder, the feral stench of breath upon her neck. She turned sharply, hoping to catch them, but there was only emptiness, an echo of mocking laughter. She went down the stairs and out of the house. She walked along the dusty lane to the station and took the train to Sydney.
9
She sat in the empty compartment, conscious of the countryside speeding past the window, and looked down at her boots, on which dust from the lane lay as thick as cream.
Would Neil come after her? She doubted it. Why should he? He would probably think himself well rid of her. She had wronged him, and their daughter.
She was not fit to be a mother, a wife. The accusation beat in her ears. She tried to defy it. Was that all she was? Something that existed only by reference to others? The wife of someone, mother of someone? No. She was herself.
In the speeding train, the words rang thin. The wife, the mother, watched through the stained window as smoke from the wailing locomotive blew past, to be shredded on the wind and disappear.
To the city at last, soot-stained, grey. Faces surrounded her, a jostle of bulky, thrusting bodies shoving her this way and that. It was a land of carrion-seeking birds. They watched with cruel eyes, they singled her out even amid the crowds. They promised retribution. They told her she was selfish, selfish. Dear God.
She saw a church on the other side of the road. A spire pointed skywards to what might be forgiveness. She waited for a gap in the traffic, crossed and went inside.
The air was hushed with sanctity, heavy with the odours of candles and incense. She knelt in the pew nearest to the west door. She stared past the looped arches of the nave at the altar, decorated for some festival. Marie did not know what it might be and despised herself for her ignorance of what seemed suddenly so important.
You come here. You have the impertinence to hope for forgiveness. And know nothing. You are careless even of that.
She remembered how Katie, talking long ago of Russia, had dismissed the golden rituals of the bearded priests.
Superstition …
Perhaps. But it was what she needed now. The golden weight of belief. In something, anything. With that, with the knowledge that she had been forgiven, she would no longer be so alone.
The solution was there, stark and undeniable. She must go back, accept the duty that she saw, now, she had been wrong to deny.
If I remain here, I shall have betrayed my child. Nothing good can come of that.