by Helen Kitson
‘I knew about you, of course. My dad didn’t have many photos of Madeleine and I guess her parents still have most of them, but there was one photo she’d kept pinned to a board in her room at uni: a picture of her with you. Dad let me have it. I never met her parents, by the way. They don’t know I exist and I’d prefer they didn’t.’ He shrugged. ‘Awkward for everyone. Too much explaining. I’m not sentimental.’
No, he certainly wasn’t that.
‘When did you find out about the book?’ I asked.
‘Quite recently. I thought the book was yours – admired it, genuinely – but then my dad asked if I wanted to go through some of Madeleine’s stuff she’d left with him. He said he’d never had the heart to go through it and I guess that was true, because if he’d found the manuscript, he’d have realised immediately what it was and what it meant.’
‘What manuscript?’
‘The first book she wrote. Before The Song of the Air. It’s badly typed, some of the pages are torn, a couple are missing altogether. She dedicated it to you. That’s when I started thinking, but even then, even when I wrote you that first letter, I thought maybe some fluke had produced two exceptional writers who just happened to be best friends.’
‘And then I confessed to you.’
‘Yeah. I didn’t expect that. I wanted to meet you to find out about Madeleine. I had to get to know you first, make you trust me.’
‘You’re looking at me as if you hate me.’
He shrugged, his gaze sliding to the gold locket. ‘You stole her book. You watched her die.’
‘She abandoned you.’
He shot me a murderous look. ‘She would have come back for me if she’d lived. I know she would. When she could have afforded to support me.’
He’d deluded himself and that was entirely understandable. Madeleine should have confided in me – I would have helped her, done whatever I could. Had she trusted me so little? To keep from me something like that, yet to give her book to me – it made no sense.
‘I knew her,’ I said. ‘You didn’t.’
He stood. ‘Maybe it’s true she let you have The Song of the Air, but that’s only because she wasn’t thinking straight. She didn’t know what she was doing. I don’t think she cared about anything by then.’
‘Not even you?’
‘If she cared so much about you, why didn’t she tell you about me? You watched her die, knowing the book would be yours to do with as you wanted.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘You didn’t save her. You could have.’ He took several paces towards me. I backed away. ‘Why didn’t you?’
I had no answer. It had happened so suddenly – I really had tried…
Excuses.
All those years I’d been haunted by Madeleine’s death and now I was confronted with the full extent of my guilt, my failure. She’d wanted to die and I’d let her.
‘I can’t swim,’ I murmured. ‘I was out of my depth. I didn’t want to die. She did.’
Would he hit me? Spit in my face? Kill me? I sank to the ground, too sad to cry, too hurt by everything I’d done; by everything I hadn’t done.
‘And after all that you still fancy me, don’t you? Of course you do. You want me to fuck you.’ A statement, not a question. For I did; of course I did.
And what happened next might seem incredible – grotesque. And it was.
He yanked me up by one arm, dragged me over to the stand of yew trees. Pushed me against a tree. Unbuckled his belt. Unzipped his jeans. He was hard. I was his.
‘You want it, don’t you?’ he said, his cock pressed against my pubic bone.
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘Yes!’
He pulled down my jeans and fucked me. No preliminaries, no tenderness, simply the act of penetration. And, my God, I wanted him so much! The vicar himself might have walked along the path at that moment and I wouldn’t have cared. Simon, inside me, was all I wanted. Despite everything.
And after he’d come, and the little shudders that followed, he zipped himself up again as if nothing had happened.
Tears fell from my eyes. He took pity on me, I suppose, for with some show of gentleness he helped me put my clothes straight. Then he pulled me to him and kissed me hard on the mouth. A kiss that felt more like a punch.
Bewildered, I followed him back to Madeleine’s grave, as I would have followed him anywhere. And, in my shame, the bleakness I felt was occasioned by the knowledge that what he’d given me over by the yew trees was a parting gift. Russell had given me Paris, Madeleine her novel. Simon gave me a fuck.
I brushed my tears away, wondering what on earth would happen now. It had been ridiculous to imagine Simon had ever wanted me. I’d never fooled myself into believing that he loved me or that we had any kind of future together.
But that wasn’t true, was it? Each fleeting kiss, each touch of his hand had persuaded me he felt something for me. Not love, not that, but some measure of affection, of need.
‘What do we do now?’ I asked.
His eyes opened wide. ‘I promised you afternoon tea, didn’t I?’
The idea was so absurd, I laughed. ‘What? Are you mad?’
‘Aren’t we both a bit mad?’
So that’s what we did. Simon and I sat opposite each other. A red and white checked cloth on the table; a plate of scones, pots of jam and clotted cream in front of us.
Simon lifted the tea pot. ‘Shall I be mother?’
I nodded. Words seemed beyond me.
‘Well. This is surreal, isn’t it?’ Simon said, pushing a cup towards me.
‘It’s horrible,’ I managed to whisper. I’d looked forward to this little treat, expecting to eat my scone in a happy glow of accomplishment and relief.
‘I expect you’d like to know what Madeleine’s first book is like. Personally I think it’s even finer than The Song of the Air. It deals with some of the same themes: the fear of and longing for abandonment; ideas of personal liberty and how far you can take that.’
He was quite the critic. Clearly he knew Madeleine’s work inside out. Better than I did, for he had the precious first book, the one I’d never dreamed existed.
‘It’s called The Flight of Birds,’ he said. ‘There are a couple of characters who turn up in the next book. I wonder if she planned to write a trilogy? You wonder where it came from, don’t you, all that talent?’
I gazed at him dumbly. The playground bully, enjoying himself at my expense.
‘It’s odd she never mentioned it when she gave the second book to you. Doesn’t seem likely it could have slipped her mind. But I guess she wasn’t thinking straight, was she? Hardly knew what she was doing.’
In his eyes I was no better than a thief and a murderer. I’d let her die; I’d stolen her book. He couldn’t stop riffing on those two fixed ideas.
‘Would we have got on, do you think, me and Madeleine?’ he asked, spreading a split scone with jam and cream. ‘Am I the sort of person she liked? What were her boyfriends like?’
‘All sorts,’ I mumbled, adding, ‘She wasn’t fussy.’
He pursed his lips. ‘That’s not very nice. Did you ever share blokes?’
‘Share?’ What did he mean?
‘Yeah – you know – swap guys between you.’
‘No. That’s a disgusting thing to suggest.’
But just once, we had.
‘Bet you did. Bet you always wanted everything she had.’
One evening, both of us tipsy, round at the house of Madeleine’s boyfriend, the older brother of one of her friends, rugby player shoulders and film-star looks. I’d hooked up with his mate as a favour to Madeleine.
Up in the boy’s bedroom, the lights out. Madeleine and her bloke got the bed, but when we were all done she tapped me on the shoulder, whispered into my ear. Then Madeleine and I simply changed places.
When the lights went on again I hated everyone in that room, myself most of all. Madeleine seemed not to care; it didn’t mean anythin
g to her. Men – sex – never did matter much to her. Or so it appeared. What did I know about her at all?
‘She had everything she wanted,’ I said. ‘Why would she throw all that away? I’ll never understand.’
‘So would she have liked me, d’you reckon?’
‘As her son, or as her lover?’
‘Is that a bitchy thing to say or just honest?’
‘What does either of us know about honesty, Simon?’
Or love, either.
‘Aren’t you going to have a scone? They’re pretty good.’
‘I’m not hungry. And to answer your question, I doubt Madeleine would have cared one way or the other about you. I don’t think she cared about anyone.’
‘I thought you loved her.’
‘I don’t know any more. I admired her, envied her, would have loved her if she’d let me. I thought I knew her best, but even if that’s true I’m not sure it’s worth much.’
Having demolished one half of his scone, he stared lugubriously at the other as if it had wilfully defeated him.
‘I ought to be your son, not hers. We’re more alike.’
‘How would you know what Madeleine was like? You can’t tell from a few photos.’
‘And the stuff my dad’s told me. He wasn’t in love with her, he told me that. And he was pretty pissed off when she told him she was pregnant.’ He looked up, a bemused expression on his face. ‘I don’t think he liked her very much. Mind you, I don’t think he likes Sophie much, either. Maybe he’s just rubbish at picking women.’
‘I thought you idolised Madeleine. Isn’t that the plot you’ve chosen? Talented, perfect, vulnerable young woman, life and reputation ripped apart by heartless friend – me, that is.’
He took the gold locket from his pocket and placed it on the table between us. ‘I wanted everything to be simple. I wanted to make everything simple, so I can understand it.’
‘That’s not how we understand things. It’s not about making things simple, it’s about appreciating the complexities.’ The sound of me trying to let myself off the hook – did he hear it? Is that why he sneered? Did he sneer?
‘When I wrote you that first letter—’ his hands on the table, his fingertips almost touching mine, ‘all I thought about was learning what Madeleine was like. That’s all, just that.’
‘I know. You said.’
‘I didn’t turn up intending to cause havoc in your life,’ he added.
But you did – you did!
‘Fact is,’ he continued, ‘I don’t know what to think about any of it – about her, about you. About that fucking book.’
The book. It always came back to that. Two books, now. If they’d never existed…
‘Simon… I don’t know what you want, I don’t know what you’re going to do. I’m not even sure I care.’
We both stared at the golden locket. Madeleine’s presence between us, as it always would be. As it must.
Chapter Twenty-One
Somehow we got through the rest of the day, but I couldn’t face the prospect of sharing another meal with Simon. In the event, neither of us was hungry. We grazed on nuts, crisps, biscuits, all washed down with lots of wine.
‘You have to go,’ I said.
‘I know. But we need to talk first. We need to discuss what we’re going to do with Madeleine’s first book.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about. You’ve won, haven’t you?’
‘Don’t be like that,’ he said, as if I were the unreasonable one. ‘There are a number of options. We could destroy it, but I don’t believe you want that any more than I do. It needs to be published.’
As Simon described it, the book was closely related in style and theme to The Song of the Air, and there were those recurring characters who couldn’t be explained away if the book were published as anything other than a novel by Gabrielle Price.
I wished Madeleine had destroyed it. Or else given it to me. Why hadn’t she? Why did I get the second book but not the first?
‘You can’t expect someone in her mental state to have made sensible decisions,’ Simon said when I put this to him. ‘She didn’t think it through. Isn’t that obvious?’
We sat together in my living room, our backs resting against the sofa, knees drawn up, the inevitable bottle of red wine between us. Glasses half full; half empty.
‘If we publish it in her name, I’ll have to come clean about the other book. That, too, is obvious.’
‘I know.’ His knee kept bumping against mine, a sensation at once intimate and irritating, but I didn’t shift away.
‘Well? Is that what you want? Is that what you’re proposing to do?’
If that’s what he planned, I could hardly prevent him. The book was in his possession and he could prove he was Madeleine’s son. The book rightfully belonged to him as her heir. I could never prove she’d given The Song of the Air to me.
‘What’s to stop me from saying you copied elements from my book and that Madeleine had nothing to do with either of them?’ I said.
‘The typescript has written corrections and notes on it. In her handwriting. Easy enough to check, I should think. Her parents will have kept stuff with her writing on, won’t they? Mother’s Day cards, that sort of thing.’
‘Go on, then. What are you going to do?’
‘It’s a tough one.’ His bland tone and expression were maddening. ‘You can read it, if you want,’ he said. ‘I brought it with me.’
‘Then… You must have known all along that I didn’t write The Song of the Air.’
‘Like I said, I thought you might have collaborated. Honestly, that’s what I thought, knowing you’d been friends and grown up together and everything.’
So the book was in my house. There, within reach. Or so he said. Could I believe a single thing he told me? He sprinkled his speech with words like “honestly” and “truth”, but they were just words, without weight or meaning.
‘I could give it to her parents, couldn’t I?’ he said. ‘I wonder what they’d think? I wonder what they’d do?’
‘For God’s sake, Simon. Put me out of my misery.’
I sensed he was building up to something and enjoying the journey, enjoying my fear and apprehension. I wasn’t wrong.
‘I’ve taken your confession,’ he said. ‘You’d written down the safe code on that notepad by the phone. I mailed it to myself at my parents’ address.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Easy enough to check, isn’t it?’
He was right. I had nothing left with which to bargain. The horse had bolted. I changed the safe code anyway. Stupid of me to have written down the original one, which I thought I’d cleverly disguised as a telephone number among many other genuine ones.
‘It was insurance,’ he said. ‘I knew you’d destroy it as soon as I’d gone. Anyone would.’
I could hardly bear to look at his smug face, but I forced myself to do so.
‘What have you done to me?’
‘Now you know what it feels like. You betrayed your best friend, now I’ve betrayed you. You knew I wasn’t to be trusted, didn’t you? You never really did, but you didn’t care as long as I was here. You wanted me. You couldn’t figure out what I wanted from you and I gave you just enough to make you believe I wanted to fuck you. Enough to keep you hoping I could be Chéri to your Léa.’
‘He loved her!’ I said. Ridiculous. They were fictional characters, the strings pulled by Colette – forty-seven when the first Chéri novel was published – a writer who understood how devastating it is when a beautiful woman must come to terms with her ageing body.
‘Yes. But when Chéri meets Léa again after his marriage, he realises how much she’s aged. Fat, old, repulsive. A woman who knows she’s lost her appeal; a man so disillusioned he sees no escape except a bullet through the brain.’ He mimed the action of shooting himself in the head.
I’d been in my early twenties when I first read the two Chéri novels. Even then, prot
ected by youth, I’d found them depressing; even then already mourning the inevitable process of ageing, the misery of seeing my breasts sag, my skin wrinkle, my waist disappear. Bad enough at the best of times, so much worse when the disintegrating body is being scrutinised by a young, pitiless man.
My relationship with Simon was based on lies, misunderstandings, games. And I was no better, allowing myself to fall for his gorgeous face. What qualities did he possess beyond the physical that attracted me? Not enough.
‘There’s nothing you can reproach me with,’ he said. ‘Whatever I’ve done, you’ve done worse. Anyway, you put up with awful Russell for long enough, didn’t you, however badly he treated you?’
‘Russell was a sordid mistake. But that’s no excuse; I knew what I was getting in to. I didn’t even have the saving grace of being in love with him.’
‘Why, then?’
‘I thought I needed someone.’
‘Was he any good in bed?’ He shifted closer to me. ‘Better than me?’ He put the glasses and the wine bottle on the table and sat astride me. ‘What was I like?’ I noted his use of the past tense and what that implied. ‘Was I good? Did you like me being inside you?’
I shook my head. ‘You don’t need me to tell you.’
He laughed and got up to take the glasses into the kitchen.
I remembered Madeleine telling me she wanted to learn the violin. She had no particular ear for music, but that wasn’t the point. She’d heard about some guy whose girlfriend played the violin for him, naked. This image appealed to Madeleine. She was used to being looked at by men, but what she wanted was to stand naked in a room and play such beautiful music, the man with her would simply shut his eyes, moved by the sounds she made. That’s what she wrote about – the freedom to be found once we lose the body and only sounds and thoughts remain.
She told me – playfully but, I think, seriously – that I was boring for choosing Dracula as the most erotic book I’d ever read. More curious than I about transgressive sex, she read The Story of O and wanted an owl mask. She said love was worth nothing unless it killed you. Love, for her, was something to be feared, not celebrated.
