by Marc Levy
“I’m sorry, Mr. Daldry,” she said sheepishly. “I’ll be sure to buy some more and make it up to you.”
“I don’t expect you will, Miss Pendelbury.”
“You can call me Alice, you know.”
“Good night then, Alice.”
Daldry closed his door, and Alice went back to her flat.
A moment later there was a knock, and Alice opened the door to find Daldry standing there with a box of matches.
“I suppose you’ll be needing these too? You didn’t have any matches last time, and since I’m going to bed now, I thought I’d make sure.” Alice said nothing, but it was true that she had just used her last match. Daldry lit the wick of the candle he had given her. “Did I say something that offended you?” he said.
“Why do you ask?”
“You look so serious.”
“I’m sure it’s just the shadows, Mr. Daldry.”
“If I’m to call you Alice, you also should know my Christian name. I’m Ethan.”
“Very well. I’ll call you Ethan,” said Alice with a smile.
“Shadows or not, you look upset.”
“I’m just tired from a long day.”
“Then I’ll leave you to sleep. Good night, Alice.”
“Good night, Ethan.”
2
Sunday, December 24, 1950
Alice went out to do some shopping, but all the shops in her neighborhood were closed, so she took the bus to a local market.
She stopped at a grocer’s stall and decided she would buy the makings of a holiday meal. She chose a fresh egg and forgot about her resolution to save money at the sight of two strips of bacon. A baker’s stall just a little farther down the road was full of small but delicious-smelling cakes, so she treated herself to a fruitcake and a little pot of honey.
That evening she would have dinner in bed with a good book. A sound night’s sleep and she knew she would feel ready to work again. Alice tended to feel gloomy when she hadn’t got enough sleep, and she’d been spending too much time at her worktable over the past few weeks.
A bouquet of old-fashioned roses in the window of a florist’s shop caught her eye. It wasn’t very thrifty of her, but it was Christmas. Besides, she could let them dry and use the petals for her fragrances. She went into the shop, spent two shillings, and left with the flowers in the crook of her arm and her heart singing. Farther down the street, she came to a perfume shop. A CLOSED sign hung in the window, but when she approached to peer through the glass, she could see one of her creations on a shelf among the lines of bottles. She waved, as though waving to a friend, and headed back to the bus stop.
Back at home, she put away her shopping, put the roses in a vase, and decided to go for a walk in the park. On her way out, she ran into Mr. Daldry on the street. He also seemed to be just coming home from the market.
“Christmastime,” he said, visibly embarrassed to be seen holding such a well-filled shopping basket.
“Christmastime indeed,” said Alice. “Do you have guests this evening?”
“God, no. I hate that sort of thing,” he whispered, aware it was blasphemous to admit as much.
“You too?”
“Don’t even get me started on New Year’s Eve—it’s even worse. How can you decide ahead of time whether or not it’s going to be a day worth celebrating? Who knows until they get up that morning whether they’ll even be in the mood to have a party? I think it’s phony to force oneself to be jolly just because it happens to be marked on the calendar.”
“I suppose celebrations are nice for children though.”
“I don’t have any. All the more reason to give up playtime. And that whole business of making them believe in Father Christmas—say what you like, but I think it’s rather nasty. One day you’ll have to tell them the truth, so what’s the use? It’s so cruel. The slow ones wait for him for weeks, thinking he’s on the way, only to feel betrayed when their parents confess the rotten truth. The smart ones have to hold their tongues and play along, which is just as bad. Is your family coming then?”
“No.” She paused. “I don’t really have one.”
“A good reason not to invite them over.”
Alice laughed at this, but Daldry still blushed violent purple. “I’m sorry, that was horribly clumsy of me, wasn’t it?”
“No. A very sensible observation.”
“I do have one. A family, I mean. A father, a mother, a brother, a sister, and a dreadful nephew.”
“And you’re not spending Christmas with them?”
“No. I haven’t for years. We don’t get along.”
“Another good reason to stay home.”
“I’ve tried for years, but every family celebration has always been a disaster. My father and I agree on nothing. He thinks it’s ridiculous that I’m a painter, and I think his business is ghastly dull. We can’t stand each other. Have you had breakfast?”
“How did we go from your father to breakfast?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, since you asked, no, I haven’t.”
“The café on the corner serves a winning porridge. If you’ll just give me a minute to put this decidedly feminine but very useful shopping basket in my flat, I’ll take you there.”
“I was just about to go for a walk in Regent’s Park.”
“On an empty stomach in this cold? Very bad idea. Let’s go eat, and then we’ll feed the ducks. The nice thing about ducks is that you don’t have to dress up like Father Christmas to make them happy.”
Alice smiled and acquiesced. “All right. Take your things upstairs and then we’ll go and have some of your porridge and give the ducks Christmas dinner.”
“Marvelous,” said Daldry, already on his way up the stairs. “I’ll just be a minute.”
A few moments later he reappeared, winded from having hurried and doing his best to hide it.
At the café, they took a table next to the window, looking out on the street. Daldry ordered a tea for Alice and a coffee for himself. The waitress brought them two bowls of porridge, and Daldry asked for some bread. Instead of eating it, he slipped it into his pocket when the waitress wasn’t looking, much to Alice’s amusement.
“What kind of landscapes do you paint?”
“Oh, I only paint utterly useless things. I know some people go crazy over the countryside or the sea or the forest, but I just paint intersections.”
“Intersections?”
“Yes, street intersections. Junctions. You can’t beat the amount of life and activity at a junction. There are thousands of details. Some people are in a hurry, others are trying to find their way. There are all sorts of modes of transportation and so much movement—buses, automobiles, motorcycles, bicycles, people on foot, deliverymen with their carts. Men and women from all walks of life cross paths, bother each other, meet each other, ignore each other, run into each other, get into arguments with each other. An intersection is a fascinating place!”
“What a curious idea,” said Alice, trying to imagine what one of his paintings must look like.
“Perhaps. But you have to admit, it beats a plate of fruit. What could possibly happen, apart from some mold? Yesterday, for example, I set up my easel in Trafalgar Square. It was difficult to find a vantage point where I wasn’t constantly being jostled, but I’ve got a knack for finding the right spot. There was a woman, panicked at being caught in a sudden rain shower, and who was probably trying to find shelter for her hair, which had just been done. She started across the street without looking, and the driver of a dray had to swerve to avoid her. It gave her a terrible fright, but she was fine. The kegs of beer on the back of the cart, however, rolled off into the street. A bus coming from the other direction hit one of them, and it exploded upon impact. It was a scene straight out of A Tale of Two Cities, complete with a couple of old vagrants ready to lie on the ground and lap up the damages! Of course, there was an altercation between the driver of the dray and the bus conductor, not
to mention the passersby who got mixed up in it. And in spite of the fact the police were in attendance, a pickpocket still managed to steal what looked like a day’s earnings off the rubbernecks. Meanwhile, the woman whose distraction caused the whole disaster just crept away in shame.”
“And you painted all that?”
“No. For the time being I’ve just painted the intersection. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me. But I can still see the entire scene, that’s the important part.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed so much . . .”
“I’ve always had a fascination with detail, for the little, almost invisible events that are always happening around us. Don’t turn now, but at the table behind you there’s an old woman. I want you to get up and take my seat as though it were normal.”
Alice traded seats with Daldry.
“Now,” he said, “look at her carefully and tell me what you see.”
“A woman of a certain age eating alone. She’s rather well dressed and she’s wearing a hat.”
“Be more observant. What else?”
“Nothing in particular. She’s wiping her mouth with the napkin. Why don’t you just tell me what I’m not seeing? She’s going to think I’m staring.”
“Well, she’s wearing make-up, isn’t she? Not much, but her cheeks are powdered, there’s a bit of kohl around her eyes, and she’s wearing lipstick.”
“Yes. Well, I think so anyway.”
“Look at her lips now. Are they still?”
“No, you’re right,” said Alice, surprised at Daldry’s powers. “They’re moving ever so slightly. Maybe it’s a tic? Old age?”
“Not in the least! That woman is a widow. She’s speaking to her dead husband. She’s not eating alone—she’s continuing to talk to him as though he were still sitting across from her. She’s made up her face because he’s still part of her life. Isn’t it incredibly touching? Imagine the kind of strength it takes to constantly reinvent the presence of a loved one. And she’s right to do so. Just because somebody is gone doesn’t mean they don’t exist anymore—with a little imagination, you’re never alone. When it’s time to pay, she’ll push her money over to the other side of the table because it was always her husband who paid. When she gets up to leave, you’ll see that she waits a few moments on the pavement before crossing because her husband was always the first to step out into the street. I’m sure that she talks to him every night before she goes to bed and every morning when she wakes up, no matter where he might be now.”
“And you saw all that in just a few minutes?”
Daldry smiled knowingly, and as he did so, an old drunk staggered into the café. He went over to the woman and made a sign that it was time to go. She paid her bill and followed her husband out of the door, no doubt to Wimbledon for the greyhound racing. Daldry, his back to the scene, saw nothing.
“You’re right,” said Alice. “She did exactly what you said she would. She pushed the money across the table, got up, and left. I saw her thank an invisible man for holding the door for her as she went out.”
Daldry beamed with satisfaction and continued to eat with relish. “Great stuff, isn’t it? The porridge, I mean.”
“Do you believe in fortune-tellers?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you believe that it’s possible to predict the future?”
“That’s a complicated question,” he said, signaling to the waitress for a second serving. “Imagine how boring that would be if the future was already written! What about our own free will? I think that fortune-tellers are just extremely intuitive people. But apart from the real charlatans, the sincere ones have a certain talent. Maybe they just manage to see what people are aspiring to, the things that they will try to do one day, sooner or later. Why not? Take my father, for example. He’s got perfect eyesight but sees nothing. My mother, on the other hand, has terrible vision, yet she sees things that my father would be incapable of noticing. She knew ever since I was a child that I would become a painter. But she also imagined that my paintings would be hanging in the greatest museums, and I haven’t sold a thing in five years, so what can I say? I’m a sorry excuse for an artist. But I’m just going on about myself without really answering your question. What makes you ask?”
“Something strange happened to me yesterday, the sort of thing I would never have paid any attention to before. Yet, ever since, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it—to the point that I’m beginning to feel obsessed.”
“That’s rather vague. Why don’t you tell me what happened yesterday, and I’ll tell you what I think?”
Alice leaned in and told Daldry about her day in Brighton and her encounter with the fortune-teller. Daldry listened without interrupting. Once she reached the end of the fortune-teller’s strange predictions, Daldry turned to ask the waitress for the bill. He suggested they go outside and get some fresh air.
As they walked back to the house, he asked with false consternation, “So, if I understand you correctly, you have to meet six other people before you’ll meet this important man?”
Alice corrected him. “‘The man who will matter most in my life.’”
“Nearly the same thing, I suppose. And you didn’t ask any questions about who that man might be or where he might be found?”
“No. She just told me that he had walked behind me while we were talking.”
“And she spoke of a journey?”
“Yes, I think so, but it’s all so absurd. I’m terribly silly for telling you such a ridiculous story.”
“A ridiculous story, as you call it, which seems to have kept you awake for a good part of the night.”
“Do I look that tired?”
“Your pacing made the floor creak.”
“I’m sorry if I bothered you.”
“Well, I can only think of one solution for us to get a normal night’s sleep. I’m afraid the ducks’ Christmas will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Alice as they reached the house.
“Go upstairs and put on something warmer and I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.”
“What an odd day,” Alice said to herself on her way up the stairs. Christmas Eve wasn’t at all panning out as she had imagined. First breakfast with her crabby neighbor, a man she could barely stand but who now didn’t seem so bad, and then her unexpected confidences . . . Why had she gone on for so long about something she herself found absurd and insignificant?
She opened her wardrobe and had a terrible time finding a jumper and a scarf that went together. She hesitated between a navy-blue cardigan that showed off her figure and a heavier wool coat.
She looked in the mirror, fixed her hair, and decided to forgo make-up. She was, after all, just going on this walk out of courtesy.
When she returned to the street in front of the house, Daldry was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had changed his mind. He was an odd man.
A car honked its horn, and she turned to see a midnight-blue Austin 10 pull up to the curb. Daldry got out to open the passenger door for Alice.
“You have a car?” she asked, surprised.
“I stole it.”
Alice’s eyes grew wide.
“Of course I have a car. Do you take me for a thief?”
“Well, excuse my astonishment, but you are now officially the only person I know who owns a car.”
“I bought it used. It’s no Rolls, as you’ll note once you’ve experienced the suspension, but it gets me from point A to point B quite effectively. I always put her somewhere in my intersections. It’s a sort of ritual. She’s in all of my paintings.”
“You’ll have to show me your paintings one of these days,” Alice said, getting in.
Daldry muttered something unintelligible under his breath as he closed the door. He got in the driver’s side, and with the gears making a grinding sound, the car lurched into motion.
“I don’t mean to pry, but might I know whe
re we’re going?”
“To Brighton, of course.”
“Brighton? What on earth for?”
“To go visit that fortune-teller and ask her a few of the questions you ought to have asked her yesterday.”
“But that’s crazy!”
“We’ll be there in an hour and a half, two hours if there’s ice on the roads. I don’t see anything crazy about it. We’ll be home by dusk, and if by any chance we get held up, the chrome things you see on either side of the bonnet are headlights. Nothing perilous is lying in wait for us.”
“This is all very generous of you, Mr. Daldry, but would you be so kind as to stop poking fun at me?”
“I promise to make an effort, Miss Pendelbury, but please don’t expect the impossible.”
They left London by way of Lambeth and drove to Croydon, where Daldry asked Alice to take the road map out of the glove box and find Brighton Road, somewhere to the south. Alice told him to turn right before telling him to turn around because she had been holding the map upside down. After a few more wrong turns, a passerby put them on the correct route.
At Redhill, Daldry stopped to fill the tank and check the tire pressure. Alice preferred to stay in the relative warmth of the car with the map open on her lap.
After Crawley, Daldry had to drive more slowly. The countryside was white with snow, and the windscreen began to fog up. A few times the Austin skidded on sharp turns in the road. An hour later, they were so cold that it became impossible keep up a conversation. Daldry had turned the heat up as far as it would go, but the little heater was powerless against the icy wind that blew under the bonnet and into the car. They stopped at an inn called the Eight Bells and warmed themselves up at a table near the fireplace. After one last cup of boiling hot tea, they set off again.
Nearly four hours after they had left London, Daldry announced that Brighton wasn’t much farther. When they finally got there, the carnival was already beginning to close for the evening and the long pier was nearly deserted. The last few merrymakers were heading home to celebrate Christmas.