by Aitana Moore
She had lost, and it was time to run. The mean old blues were coming, yes, they were coming for her.
SEVENTEEN
There was always the thought of time when she had the mean blues — the thought that time was passing for everyone else, but that it had frozen for her.
She ought to get up, wash, eat, but the blues could stop her like a giant hand pushing her into the ground. The notion that she ought to do something made it all worse. Everyone else was doing something, but she couldn’t.
Although Lee had closed the heavy curtains in her hotel room, there was light coming through a slit. Sometimes it was white, sometimes yellow or blue; sometimes it came in and left fast, sometimes it blinked, sometimes it stayed still a while.
And there was noise, too. It was the noise of people living with appetite. They were laughing, calling each other, whistling. They were going somewhere to eat, and they would be hungry, they would go drinking, dancing or to a show, they would laugh. Some would make love. Some would fight.
Was it only four days ago that she had been laughing with Bryce in an old bed?
The medal he had given her hung between her breasts. She could feel it biting into her flesh, telling her that she was crushed because for a second she had dreamt of him.
She knew too well how that dream ended.
How long have I been crying? she wondered. The sadness wouldn’t lift, and she knew better than to struggle against it. She had to let it build around her like a cocoon weaved by kind, invisible hands. The cocoon would become thicker and thicker, until no one could find her.
The thought of Cora was the only thing reminding her that eventually she needed to resurface. She couldn’t leave her sister.
Lee sobbed, watched the lights and slept. She slept and slept.
A noise woke her up. Someone was fiddling with her door. Someone was opening it.
“No!” she shouted. “There is a ‘don’t disturb’ sign, go away.”
The carpet was soft. She couldn’t hear steps, but she felt them.
“Vivien …”
Lee gave a strangled cry and pulled the covers over her head. “No, no, no! Go away!”
Bryce sat next to her on the bed, his hand stroking her back.
“Please go away …” she begged.
“I can't."
“Why did they let you up?”
“I sneaked in.”
“How did you find me?”
Lee felt so tired she couldn’t even speak. When he pried the cover from her fingers and lowered it, she hid her face in the pillow. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“You’re just sad.”
She shook her head, still hiding her face, unable to say anything. He brushed her hair behind her ears and repeated, “You’re just sad.”
Tears overflowed from her eyes, and her pillow was already soaked. Bryce lifted her, although she tried to fight him off. He was too strong for her, and he wouldn’t leave her alone.
His tenderness was a lie.
“It’s all right, Viv,” he said. “Cry as much as you want.”
“You don’t know how much that is.”
“Won’t be more than an ocean, and I can swim.”
“You have to go away, James. I have to stop by myself.”
“Sorry, I’m selfish. I can’t stand the thought of you alone here. I prefer to watch you cry, at least we’re together.”
“But we’re not,” she whispered.
“No? Shall I tell you what I think you’re thinking? That there isn’t anything as good in life as the bad is bad. That life is a struggle that makes no sense and isn’t worth it. That people are in a fight for themselves, clambering on top of each other’s heads, taking you or elbowing you out of the way according to their needs. That I’ll be kind to you for a little bit, then get tired and move on. That none of it will ever get better, but you stay alive because you’re stubborn and don’t want to be beaten, and there are people you can’t leave behind.”
She listened to him, and to his heart beating. “You’ve had the mean blues, then?”
“I call it the black dog,” he said. “And when I have it, I’m pretty sure that’s how things are, and that anything else is plain bollocks.”
“Do you think it isn’t?”
“I think it’s all pretty bleak, to be honest.”
Lee gave a small laugh. “I can count on you to say the truth.”
“Yes, if what I think is the truth. And here’s some more of it: life can be worth it, my sweet.” He picked up the medal that lay against her chest. “I’ll exchange moments like these for a thousand black dogs.”
Lee started crying again. “I don’t want you to see me.”
“Tough, I’ve seen you. You’ve seen me act like a complete idiot, and you put up with it.”
“It’s different.”
“You think sadness is weakness and anger strength? I’m a bloke, I can’t cry as much as I should, so I go out and smash things.”
“I can’t stop crying,” Lee said in a garbled voice.
He lay down, holding her to his chest as he kicked off his shoes. “You don’t have to.”
“How did you find me?”
“You still have to check into hotels with your documents in this country.”
Why had she used her Vivien papers?
His shirt had become sodden with her tears, but he stroked her back until she fell asleep.
The next time she opened her eyes, the heavy curtain had been drawn a little. There was some daylight in the room, and a tray on the bed. He made her sit up, fed her sweet tea from a small spoon and gave her pieces of stewed apple. She couldn’t eat most of it.
Lee didn’t protest when he undressed her and carried her to a bath. The warm water hurt her, but he put her in slowly, allowing her to get used to it. Maybe he knew how it felt when your nerve endings only acknowledged pain.
Once she was in the bath, she didn’t want to get out. The air would be cold, and it would also hurt. He took her right arm and ran the soap to her elbows, then did the same with the left arm. “Look, you have white gloves. You can go to the ball.”
Soaping her hair, he gave her a princess hairdo to go with the gloves — but she hadn’t stopped crying yet, and he hadn’t asked her to try.
All day he lay with her without saying anything, only feeding her tea again with the little spoon. In the evening it was still light, and he wrapped her in the blanket and carried her to a big swiveling chair near the window where he sat with her on his lap.
They were near Covent Garden. She had hastily found a hotel in a busy part of London, because the blues were even worse if she went somewhere too quiet and isolated. The lights appearing in the city as night fell were like diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds.
“You don’t like London,” she said.
“I do, actually. Or did, when there weren’t so many idiots following me to take my photo. I used to eat Chinese food for five pounds and then see a film. Could be something Iranian or the three first Star Wars films in a row. I’d go to Charing Cross to the big bookstores and stay there a long time, just browsing. Then I would have a pint at the pub. I wish I could show you London, but I’d become Hulk in ten minutes with all the creatures that would come after us.”
“That’s too bad. I would have liked to see it."
When he took her to bed again, she held his face and kissed him. She removed her own clothes as he undressed. And that night, for the first time, they made love.
EIGHTEEN
James.
He couldn't be "Bryce" any longer, not even in her head. He was completely James, and she would be lying to herself — the most malignant kind of lie — if she pretended otherwise.
The blues were gone as they drove in his white convertible Jaguar toward Deerholt, though Lee knew better than to think they were gone forever. They were lurking somewhere, as was his black dog, but James had come to find her. No one had ever done that.
"Promise
you won't leave without a word anymore," he had asked her the night before in his flat.
"What do I do if I have to leave?”
"Not drug me and sneak off, for example. If you are sure you want to go, tell me and I'll accept it. But I’ll have to be convinced.”
She had smiled. "You are conceited.”
"I know you don't want to go. Promise.”
"I promise."
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"
"Stick a needle in my eye."
The next morning, she had woken up to him shaking a small box.
"Another present?"
"You'll like this one, strange-woman-who-doesn't-like-presents."
His driver's license was inside. "Is that what you went to get yesterday?"
"The authorities love me now. And that means I can drive you to the wondrous world of Deerholt, and then you'll have seen all my houses. And all my cars. Apart from that, I only have the one nuclear submarine."
"We're going to Deerholt?"
"If you don't mind," he had said. "Caitlin's birthday is two weeks from now, and I'm the one putting on the shindig."
"Her twenty-first birthday? And you're only beginning to organize it now?"
“The invitations are out, an extravagant amount of alcohol has been delivered and some people with tents have been booked. We'll drink, we'll be under cover if it rains, and people will come and spoil my lawn.”
Now, as he switched gears and maneuvered the Jaguar through country roads, Lee wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t leave, or that he wouldn’t want her to leave. She was only sure that she couldn't steal from him.
James St. Bryce wasn't a job anymore. A giant hand had tried to squash her a few days before, and after he had come to find her, she had squashed her fears with the same ferocity.
“We're approaching the old place,” James said.
"Anything I should know before we get there?"
He lifted both hands from the steering wheel, palms up, as if saying there might be a lot to know, or nothing at all. “Let’s see … Deerholt was the estate I wanted to keep. The other one was larger and closer to London, and it’s now in the loving hands of a rich family, with tourists walking through it all the time. The St. Bryces” —he gave a wicked grin— “they wouldn’t have stood for that, you know.”
“As if you would have liked it.”
“I’d have hated it.”
“You aren’t modern then.”
“I’m not.”
“Anything else?"
He didn't answer for a long moment. Lee wondered if he would finally mention Mia. She had died there, and he knew that she knew. But he shook his head, and they soon crossed an old stone gate with the statue of a deer on top. Lee swiveled to look at it.
"Are there deer in the park still?"
"There's one looking at you."
To her right there was a brown stag with white spots, staring at the car with a serious face under long antlers.
"It's gorgeous!"
"It can get grumpy. The females are sweeter.”
“Aren’t they always?”
He laughed. “Not by a long, long shot!”
They were inside his property, yet it seemed like they drove for a while before reaching an ornate iron gate with swirling leaves and stars painted in gold. James got out of the car to open it, and once the car was through, he stepped out again to close it.
“Do you see why the aristocracy couldn’t keep its useless ways? They’d have to pay a lot of people to stand at every corner.”
The road ahead was lined with the twisted, tortured trunks of great trees. Lee had a glimpse of rolling lawns that were so green they seemed computer-generated. When the avenue ended, James followed a roundabout toward the mansion, which was finally revealed in all its splendor.
It stood flanked by ancient oaks and tall, leafy elms, and was much bigger than Lee had imagined when she had looked at photographs online. From the front, the roofline of Deerholt had four circular towers and two pointed ones. They were interspersed by Dutch gables and, further back, tall chimneys. The house looked more like a small castle.
As James parked the car before the steps and they climbed out, Lee looked around her. "You didn't lead me to expect this."
"What do you mean? I said Elizabethan.”
“That’s a lot of rooms,” Lee observed, indicating the large windows on the stone façade.
“About a hundred. But most of them aren’t ever used.” He put his arm around her waist. “I’m offended you didn’t google this more thoroughly. Properties should interest you.”
“It felt a bit rude,” she said, knowing she had slipped up. Wouldn’t Vivien, who worked in real estate, wish to know everything about the house? Lee didn’t want to pretend anymore, but she needed to be careful.
James lifted a finger, as if asking her to listen. All she heard was the noise of hammering.
“The sound of Deerholt. An endless amount of things to fix all the bloody time.”
Two Great Danes ran through the open door toward James. He pulled their ears and patted them, saying, “Brought you someone who smells good. She didn’t expect us to look like Disney World.”
“Stronzo.” Lee read the motto on top of the threshold, "Amor gignit amorem?"
"Love begets love.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Talk about irony.”
He held her hand as they entered a sumptuous hall, where two stone staircases descended from a mezzanine, curving gently toward the ground. The marble floor was white with black details and the ceiling vaulted like a cathedral’s. Quite a few portraits of dead St. Bryces hung on both sides of the staircase.
But there wasn't much time to look around. A woman in her fifties appeared from the hallway on the right, smiling.
"Mr. James, welcome home!"
He smiled back. "Mrs. Taylor, this is Vivien."
The woman extended a soft hand, and her smile reached her eyes. Not a Mrs. Danvers type, then, Lee thought with relief. That cheerful woman would probably not end up setting another fire to the place.
"I hope you'll be very comfortable here," Mrs. Taylor said. "If you need anything at all, let me know.”
“Thank you.”
“You'll even have sun today.”
She pointed at the sky through the high windows. The large clouds floating in the blue didn't seem menacing.
"Though, mind you," Mrs. Taylor continued. "Things here change very quickly. We’re by the sea, and the sea is so unpredictable, isn't it?”
“In England, anyway,” James said.
“Where would you like tea, Mr. James? Outside?"
"In the peacock room, Mrs. Taylor. Vivien will enjoy it."
"It's almost ready.”
The Jaguar was driven away, and their luggage brought up by young men who nodded at her and exchanged a few words about football with James.
“I’m famished,” he said, pulling her through a long corridor.
There was no time for Lee to dwell on the glimpses of the drawing rooms they passed. They were all the size of football fields, but the peacock room was more intimate, which was probably why James liked it. Vertical strips of golden stone around the wall were carved to look like stalks of flowers and reached up to the ceiling, where they bloomed into open petals. There was old, hand-painted wallpaper depicting peacocks in exquisite color and detail. They perched on thin branches of trees with other colorful birds and a discreet amount of leaves.
James threw himself on a blue sofa. Everything in the room was priceless: the polished antiques, the furniture, the stone fireplace. Logs were piled inside a brass basket on the floor.
"They keep it very tidy,” Lee said.
"I never used to be allowed inside this room. The dogs like it.”
The Dalmatians rolled on the carpet and settled before the empty fireplace, wagging their tails.
He pulled her to him. “Let’s desecrate the peacock room.”
"Tea’s coming soon …”
"Th
ey’ll knock."
The knock came when they were entangled, lips to lips, like two teenagers. Lee sat up, running a hand through her hair. After a discreet moment, two young women entered carrying big trays and greeted them with smiles. James asked about their families and they relayed their news as they set the low table in front of the sofa with porcelain plates of sandwiches, scones, cake, jam, butter and a silver pot of tea.
"Shall I pour?" one of the girls asked.
"Miss Vivien will do it. Thank you, Greta."
“Miss Vivien?” Lee asked as they left.
“Should I have said Ms. Vivien?”
“I've never poured proper tea!"
"This isn’t the Japanese tea ceremony. You just pour.”
“I’m sure it’s full of secret things I’m not supposed to do,” she said, eyeing the pot with suspicion.
"Just milk in last," he said, picking up the newspaper that had come with the plates.
"You are going to become unbearable, aren’t you?”
"I thought I was always unbearable."
When they went upstairs to change for a walk around the estate, James asked Mrs. Taylor whether there were Wellingtons that would fit Lee.
"Miss Vivien is so tall," Mrs. Taylor said, "The only other person as tall—”
She stopped short. She had been about to mention Mia.
"Caitlin's might do," James said calmly. "She isn’t as tall as Vivien, but her feet are monstrous."
Mrs. Taylor laughed. "That’s not true!”
“Do I really need boots?” Lee asked. “I grew up stepping around mud.”
“Just you wait to see this place when it really rains,” James remarked.
A large photograph in a silver frame caught Lee's eye. There was Mia on the mezzanine, smiling with the glow of love in her eyes.
James walked past the frame without a glance. Something in the way he had refused to look, in the set of his shoulders and the determination of his steps as he moved away made Lee think that if Mia’s photograph was there, it wasn’t because James had recovered from her death and could see her likeness without pain.
Things were never that simple.
