by Ian Mcewan
“Come on then, landlord.”
Willingly, for this is his only scrap of a strategy, Perowne takes the gin and refills Baxter's outstretched glass and tops up Nigel's. As he does so Henry becomes aware that Baxter is staring past him at Daisy. The fixity of the look, and that same bottled-up little smile, causes an icy contraction across the surface of Henry's scalp. Baxter spills more gin as he raises the glass to his mouth. He doesn't shift his gaze, even as he sets his drink down on the table. Disappointingly, he's taken only a single sip. He hasn't said much since his attack on Grammaticus, and it's likely that he too is without a plan; his visit is an improvised performance. His condition confers a bleak kind of freedom, but he probably doesn't know how far he's prepared to go.
They're all waiting, and Baxter says at last, “So what's your name then?”
“My God,” Rosalind says quickly. “You come near her, you'll have to kill me first.”
Baxter puts his right hand in his pocket again. “All right, all right,” he says querulously. “I'll kill you first.” Then he brings his gaze back onto Daisy and repeats in exactly the same tone as before, “So, what's your name then?”
She steps clear of her mother and tells him. Theo unfolds his arms. Nigel stirs and moves a little closer to him. Daisy is staring right at Baxter, but her look is terrified, her voice is breathless and her chest rises and falls rapidly.
“Daisy?” The name sounds improbable on Baxter's lips, a foolish, vulnerable nursery name. “And what's that short for?”
“Nothing.”
“Little Miss Nothing.” Baxter is moving behind the sofa on which Grammaticus is lying, and beside which Rosalind stands.
Daisy says, “If you leave now and never come back I give you my word we won't phone the police. You can take anything you want. Please, please go.”
Even before she's finished, Baxter and Nigel are laughing. It's a delighted, unironic laughter, and Baxter is still laughing as he stretches out a hand towards Rosalind's forearm and pulls so that she falls back onto the sofa in a sitting position by Grammaticus's feet. Both Perowne and Theo start towards him. At the sight of the knife, Daisy gives a short muffled scream. Baxter is holding it in his right hand which rests lightly on Rosalind's shoulder. She stares rigidly ahead.
Baxter says to Perowne and Theo, “You go right back across the room. Go on. Right back. Go on. See to them, Nige.”
The distance between Baxter's hand and Rosalind's right common carotid is less than four inches. Nigel is trying to shove Perowne and Theo into the far corner by the door, but they manage to back away from him and into separate, diagonally facing corners, ten or twelve feet on either side of Baxter—Theo by the fireplace, his father towards one of the three tall windows.
Henry tries to keep not only the panic, but the entreaty from his voice. He wants to sound like a reasonable man. He's only partially successful. His heart rate makes his voice thin and uneven, his lips and tongue feel inflated. “Listen, Baxter, your only argument is with me. Daisy's right. You can take what you want. We won't do a thing about it. The alternative for you is psychiatric prison. And you've got a lot more time left than you think.”
“Fuck off,” Baxter says without turning his head.
But Perowne goes on. “Since we talked this morning I've been in touch with a colleague. There's a new procedure from the States, coupled with a new drug, not on the market, but just arriving here for trials. First results from Chicago are amazing. More than eighty per cent are in remission. They're starting twenty-five patients on it here next month. I can get you on the trial.”
“What's he on about?” Nigel says.
Baxter makes no response, but some tension, a sudden stillness along the line of his shoulders, suggests he's considering. “You're lying,” he says at last, but a lack of emphasis encourages Perowne to go on.
“They're using the RNA interference we talked about this morning. The work's come on quicker than anyone thought it could.”
He's tempted, Henry is sure he's tempted. Baxter says, “It isn't possible. I know it isn't possible.” He says this, and he wants to be convinced.
Henry says quietly, “Well, I thought so too. But it seems it is. The trial starts on March the twenty-third. I talked to a colleague this afternoon.”
In a sudden surge of agitation, Baxter blocks him out. “You're lying,” he says again, and then louder, almost shouting, protecting himself against the lure of hope. “You're lying and you better shut up or watch my hand.” And the hand bearing the knife moves nearer Rosalind's throat.
But Perowne doesn't stop. “I promise you I'm not. All the data's upstairs in my study. I printed it out this afternoon and you can come up with me and . . .”
He's cut off abruptly by Theo. “Stop it, Dad! Stop talking. Fucking shut up or he'll do it.”
And he's right. Baxter has pushed the blade flat against the side of Rosalind's neck. She sits upright on the sofa, hands clasping her knees, face empty of expression, her gaze still fixed ahead. Only a tremor in her shoulders shows her terror. The room is silent. Grammaticus at the other end of the sofa has at last removed his hands from his face. The blood congealed above his upper lip thickens his look of horror and disbelief. Daisy stands by the armrest that supports her grandfather's head. Something is welling up in her—a shout or a sob—and the effort of suppressing it darkens her complexion. Theo, despite the cautionary shouts, has moved a little closer in. His arms dangle uselessly at his sides. Like his father, he can look only at Baxter's hand. Perowne watches and tries to convince himself that Baxter's silence suggests he's struggling with the temptation of the drug trials, the new procedure.
From outside comes the sound of a police helicopter, probably monitoring the dispersal of the march. There's also a sudden cheerful racket of voices and footsteps on the pavement outside as a group of excited friends, foreign students perhaps, come round the square and turn towards Charlotte Street where the restaurants and bars will be filling up. Central London is already launched upon another Saturday evening.
“So, anyway. What I was trying to do is have a conversation with this young lady here. Miss Nothing.”
Nigel, who stands leering in the centre of the room, his moist lips and horsy face suddenly animated, says insinuatingly, “You know what I'm thinking?”
“I do, Nige. And I was thinking the same thing myself.” Then he says to Daisy, “I want you to watch my hand . . .”
“No,” Daisy says quickly. “Mum. No.”
“Shut up. I haven't finished. You watch my hand and listen. All right? You mess about, we're lost. You listen carefully. Take your clothes off. Go on. All of them.”
“Oh God,” Grammaticus says quietly.
Theo calls across the room. “Dad?”
Henry shakes his head. “No. Stay where you are.”
“That's right,” Baxter says.
Baxter is addressing not Theo but Daisy. She stares at him in disbelief, trembling, shaking her head faintly. Her fear is exciting him, his whole body dips and shudders.
Daisy manages to say in a whisper, “I can't. Please . . . I can't.”
“Yes you can, darling.”
With the tip of his knife, Baxter slices open a foot-long gash in the leather sofa, just above Rosalind's head. They stare at a wound, an ugly welt, swelling along its length as the ancient, yellowish-white stuffing oozes up like subcutaneous fat.
“Fucking get on with it,” Nigel mutters.
Baxter's hand and the knife are back on Rosalind's shoulder. Daisy looks at her father. What should she do? He doesn't know what to tell her. She bends to remove her boots, but she can't free the zip, her fingers are too clumsy. With a cry of frustration she goes down on one knee and tugs at it until it yields. She sits on the floor, like a child undressing, and pulls off her boots. Still sitting, she fumbles with the fastener at the side of her skirt, then she gets to her feet and steps out of it. As she undresses she shrinks abjectly into herself. Rosalind is shaking badly as Ba
xter leans over her shoulder and steadies his fidgety hand with its blade against her neck. But she doesn't turn away from Daisy, unlike Theo who appears so stricken that he can't bear to look at his sister. He keeps his gaze fixed on the floor. Grammaticus too is looking away. Daisy goes faster now, pulling off her tights with an impatient gasp, almost tearing at them, then throwing them down. She's undressing in a panic, pulling off her black sweater and chucking that down too. She's in her underwear—white, freshly laundered for the journey from Paris—but she doesn't pause. In one unbroken movement she unhitches her bra and hooks off her knickers with her thumb and lets them fall from her hands. Only then does she glance at her mother, but only briefly. It's done. Head bowed, Daisy stands with her hands at her sides, unable to look at anyone.
Perowne hasn't seen his daughter naked in more than twelve years. Despite the changes, he remembers this body from bath times, and even in his fear, or because of it, it is above all the vulnerable child he sees. But he knows that this young woman will be intensely aware of what her parents are discovering at this very moment in the weighted curve and compact swell of her belly and the tightness of her small breasts. How didn't he guess earlier? What perfect sense it makes; her variations of mood, the euphoria, that she should cry over a dedication. She's surely almost beginning her second trimester. But there's no time to think about it. Baxter has not shifted his position. Rosalind has tremors in her knees now. The blade prevents her turning her head towards her husband, but he thinks she's straining to find him with her eyes.
Daisy is before them and Nigel says, “Jesus. In the club. She's all yours, mate.”
“Shut up,” Baxter says.
Unseen, Perowne has taken half a step towards him.
“Well, well. Look at that!” Baxter says suddenly. He's pointing with his free hand across the table at Daisy's book. He could be concealing his own confusion or unease at the sight of a pregnant woman, or looking for ways to extend the humiliation. These two young men are immature, probably without much sexual experience. Daisy's condition embarrasses them. Perhaps it disgusts them. It's a hope. Baxter has forced matters this far, and he doesn't know what to do. Now he's seen her proof lying on the sofa opposite, and seizes an opportunity.
“Pass me that one, Nige.”
As Nigel moves to retrieve the book, Henry shuffles closer. Theo does the same.
“My Saucy Bark. By Saucy Daisy Perowne.” Baxter flips the pages in his left hand. “You didn't tell me you wrote poems. All your own work, is it?”
“Yes.”
“Very clever you must be.”
He holds the book out towards her. “Read one. Read out your best poem. Come on. Let's have a poem.”
As she takes the book she implores him. “I'll do anything you want. Anything. But please move the knife away from her neck.”
“Hear that?” Nigel giggles. “She says anything. Come on, Saucy Daisy.”
“Nah, sorry,” Baxter says to her, as though he's as disappointed as anyone else. “Someone might creep up on me.” And he looks across his shoulder at Perowne and winks.
The book is shaking in her hands as she opens it at random.
She draws breath and is about to start when Nigel says, “Let's hear your dirtiest one. Something really filthy.”
At this, all her resolution is gone. She closes the book. “I can't do it,” she wails. “I can't.”
“You'll do it,” Baxter says. “Or you'll watch my hand. Do you want that?”
Grammaticus says to her quietly, “Daisy, listen. Do one you used to say for me.”
Nigel calls out, “Fucking shut up, Granddad.”
She looked at Grammaticus blankly when he spoke, but now she seems to understand. She opens the book again and turns the pages back, looking for the place, and then, with a glance at her grandfather, she begins to read. Her voice is hoarse and thin, her hand can barely hold the book for shaking, and she brings the other hand up to hold it too.
“Nah,” Baxter says. “Start again. I didn't hear a word of that. Not a thing.”
So she starts again, barely more audibly. Henry has been through her book a few times, but there are certain poems he's read only once; this one he only half remembers. The lines surprise him—clearly, he hasn't been reading closely enough. They are unusually meditative, mellifluous and wilfully archaic. She's thrown herself back into another century. Now, in his terrified state, he misses or misconstrues much, but as her voice picks up a little and finds the beginnings of a quiet rhythm, he feels himself slipping through the words into the things they describe. He sees Daisy on a terrace overlooking a beach in summer moonlight; the sea is still and at high tide, the air scented, there's a final glow of sunset. She calls to her lover, surely the man who will one day father her child, to come and look, or, rather, listen to the scene. Perowne sees a smooth-skinned young man, naked to the waist, standing at Daisy's side. Together they listen to the surf roaring on the pebbles, and hear in the sound a deep sorrow which stretches right back to ancient times. She thinks there was another time, even further back, when the earth was new and the sea consoling, and nothing came between man and God. But this evening the lovers hear only sadness and loss in the sound of the waves breaking and retreating from the shore. She turns to him, and before they kiss she tells him that they must love each other and be faithful, especially now they're having a child, and when there's no peace or certainty, and when desert armies stand ready to fight.
She looks up. Unable to control the muscular spasms in her knees, Rosalind still gazes at her daughter. Everyone else is watching Baxter, and waiting. He's hunched over, leaning his weight against the back of the sofa. Though his right hand hasn't moved from Rosalind's neck, his grip on the knife looks slacker, and his posture, the peculiar yielding angle of his spine, suggests a possible ebbing of intent. Could it happen, is it within the bounds of the real, that a mere poem of Daisy's could precipitate a mood swing?
At last he raises his head and straightens a little, and then says suddenly, with some petulance, “Read it again.”
She turns back a page, and with more confidence, attempting the seductive, varied tone of a storyteller entrancing a child, begins again. “The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair upon the straits—on the French coast the light gleams and is gone . . .”
Henry missed first time the mention of the cliffs of England “glimmering and vast out in the tranquil bay.” Now it appears there's no terrace, but an open window; there's no young man, father of the child. Instead he sees Baxter standing alone, elbows propped against the sill, listening to the waves “bring the eternal note of sadness in.” It's not all of antiquity, but only Sophocles who associated this sound with the “turbid ebb and flow of human misery.” Even in his state, Henry balks at the mention of a “sea of faith” and a glittering paradise of wholeness lost in the distant past. Then once again, it's through Baxter's ears that he hears the sea's “melancholy, long withdrawing roar, retreating, to the breath of the night wind, down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world.” It rings like a musical curse. The plea to be true to one another sounds hopeless in the absence of joy or love or light or peace or “help for pain.” Even in a world “where ignorant armies clash by night,” Henry discovers on second hearing no mention of a desert. The poem's melodiousness, he decides, is at odds with its pessimism.
It's hard to tell, for his face is never still, but Baxter appears suddenly elated. His right hand has moved away from Rosalind's shoulder and the knife is already back in his pocket. His gaze remains on Daisy. The relief she feels she manages to transform, by a feat of self-control and dissembling, into a look of neutrality, betrayed only by a trembling in her lower lip as she returns the stare. Her arms hang defencelessly at her sides, the book dangles between her fingers. Grammaticus grips Rosalind's hand. The disgust with which Nigel listened to the poem a second time has only just faded from his face. He says to Baxter, “I'll take the knife while you do the business.”
Henry worries that a prompt from Nigel, a reminder of the purpose of the visit, could effect another mood swing, a reversion.
But Baxter has broken his silence and is saying excitedly, “You wrote that. You wrote that.”
It's a statement, not a question. Daisy stares at him, waiting.
He says again, “You wrote that.” And then, hurriedly, “It's beautiful. You know that, don't you. It's beautiful. And you wrote it.”
She dares say nothing.
“It makes me think about where I grew up.”
Henry doesn't remember or care where that was. He wants to get to Daisy to protect her, he wants to get to Rosalind, but he's fearful as long as Baxter remains near her. His state of mind is so delicately poised, easily disturbed. It's important not to surprise or threaten him.
“Oi, Baxter.” Nigel cocks his head at Daisy and smirks.
“Nah. I've changed my mind.”
“What? Don't be a cunt.”
“Why don't you get dressed,” Baxter says to Daisy, as though her nakedness was her own strange idea.
For a moment she doesn't move, and they wait for her.
“I can't believe it,” Nigel says. “We gone to all this trouble.”
She bends to retrieve her sweater and skirt and begins to pull them on.
Baxter says eagerly, “How could you have thought of that? I mean, you just wrote it.” And then he says it again, several times over. “You wrote it!”
She ignores him. Her movements are abrupt as she dresses, there could even be anger in the way she kicks aside the underwear she leaves lying on the floor. She wants to cover herself and get to her mother, nothing else matters to her. Baxter finds nothing extraordinary in the transformation of his role, from lord of terror to amazed admirer. Or excited child. Henry is trying to catch his daughter's eye in the hope of silently warning her of the need to go on humouring Baxter. But now she and her mother are embracing. Daisy is kneeling on the floor, half lying across Rosalind's lap, with her arms around her neck, and they're whispering and nuzzling, oblivious to Baxter hovering behind them, making frenetic little dips with his body. He's becoming manic, he's tripping over his words, and shifting weight rapidly from one foot to the other. Daisy let her book drop on the table when she went to Rosalind. Now Baxter nips forward and seizes it, waves it in the air, as if he could shake meaning from it.
