Mr. Porter and the Brothers Jones

by Reinhold, Margaret;

  “You mean?”

  “We would have to go back to earlier days—the origins of Jerome’s feelings for and about Joshua, and Joshua’s feelings for him and the mother, and so forth. Lilac, I think, is symbolic. She seems to be a symbol of so many things for so many people …”

  Lilac was, by now, making her way with Emily, from London to Zermatt. Joshua had driven them to the airport and, thereafter, other men appeared to help her on her journey. Men stepped out of shadows, out of nowhere to carry her suitcases, her skis, her child. She had no need of porters. At the airport in Geneva, in the taxi queue, at the railway station, men came magically to her rescue, murmuring reassuringly, grasping her burdens, placing her tenderly in favored seats on aircraft and train.

  One such man took the same train from Geneva and, having silently installed her, sat opposite her in the compartment. He was a handsome Italian of middle age, in an elegant suit and elegant boots. He stowed his fur-lined coat carefully on the overhead rack, together with a hat and a beautiful leather attaché case. He glanced lingeringly at Lilac and Emily before unfolding La Stampa and concealing his face. His hands remained visible—white, soft, manicured hands. Lilac noted a gold ring on the wedding finger.

  Emily was tired. She cried. Lilac held her in clumsy fashion as best she could, spoke to her, patted her awkwardly. Emily fell asleep in Lilac’s arms. Lilac looked down at the child’s lolling head and tried to steady her. She felt a sad but insecure love for the little creature—although, at the same time, a monstrous urge to push her away. She looked up to find the Italian watching her. Without realising it, Lilac’s eyes became hungry and placating. The Italian turned away. He had a smooth, intelligent face with a slender moustache along his upper lip. His expression was closed, mysterious. Lilac recognised the outward manifestations of wealth and self-control, the inner manifestations of passion. She felt excited by him. Neither spoke. The train slid quickly along the upward sloping floor of the Rhône valley and climbed towards the Simplon pass.

  Staring out, Lilac saw the spare winter landscape, dry vines, bare orchards, a sprinkling of snow on ribbed, brown earth and the dark river running swiftly. The mountains stood to right and left, grey shapes that loomed more threateningly the higher they went. The snow became thicker, the air more icy, beyond the heat of the compartment. Emily slept and Lilac’s arms grew numb. Sometimes the grave Italian looked up from his newspaper, took off expensive glasses, and smiled. His smile was slight. Lilac could not guess what lay behind it.

  Tired now, she smiled nervously in return. Still they had not spoken.

  The neat Swiss trolleys moved up and down the corridor, offering refreshments for which Lilac suddenly longed—but she dared not put Emily down. The Italian leaned forward as if sensing her need. “You want?” he enquired gently—but when she shook her head, he sank back in his seat and immediately began to read again, as if offended.

  Dusk came and the lights went on in the carriage. Lilac now met only her reflection in the glass of the window. Beside her own image was that of the Italian. He looked up and their eyes met as if in a mirror—a shadowy, sexual game which caused her heart to jump. Then “Visp,” called the conductor and almost at once she must alight to catch the little train to Zermatt. She bundled the sleepy and protesting Emily into warm padded clothes as the train slid silently to a halt. The platform was alive with cheerful voices, the clatter of footsteps and skis. She struggled for a moment with Emily and her suitcases but immediately, as had happened before, strong hands came to her rescue. The Italian leapt out onto the icy platform and received her and Emily as she stepped down from the train. He held her for an infinitesimal moment—but long enough for her to be aware of his soft, skilled hands, the texture of his jacket, and a powerful aftershave scent.

  “You are in Zermatt?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” she replied, nervous, exhilarated.

  “I may come and find you. Where are you?”

  But now the train was ready to leave and he had to jump aboard.

  “Yes! Come!” she cried to the air as the train gathered itself for its leap into the Simplon tunnel.

  He was gone.

  She clasped the warm little body of Emily and, again surrounded by helpful male travellers, each of whom grasped a suitcase or a ski, she ran staggering with her burden across the dark ground.

  “Madame! Madame! Ici! Ici! Vite! Vite!”

  The cold engulfed her like an icy river. Frozen snow crunched under her feet.

  At last, the heavenly warmth and bright lights of the mountain train. Soon, Emily, full of milk and biscuits, chortled and flirted with the other occupants of the car. Up and up they went until they reached at last the deep heart of the mountain. They had arrived.

  Twelve

  She had abandoned him. For the first time in months, there were no tea parties on Wednesday afternoons, no timid, shadowy Lilac lounging on his sofa, cheekily teasing him, comfortably stretching out in the safety of his presence. He had had the same magical satisfaction, with her calmly resting in the room, as someone who has painstakingly trained a wild creature to trust him, to come close and stay, without fear. He missed her terribly. How had he allowed himself to become so dependent on her?

  The time had come, Mr Porter told himself, to call a halt to his involvement with the Jones family, and with Lilac in particular. He decided to take a long weekend at his country house, which he had not visited for several weeks.

  When he arrived on Saturday morning, he heard in the distance the loud, wild barking of hounds and a tumult of shrieks and calls which signified that the local hunt was tearing about in the surrounding woods and fields, causing havoc and destruction. Mr Porter’s heart sank. He had particular affection for the resident foxes, whom he fed some evenings—particularly in winter—and whose cubs were brought by their parents each spring to play on Mr Porter’s lawn at night. Mr Porter had had a few sharp encounters with odd members of the hunt and he loathed the lot of them. He was thankful to see Bimbo, who bounded down the track from the farm as soon as he heard Mr Clark’s car. Mr Porter’s relationship with the land and the creatures of the land around his cottage was a mysterious and passionate one. He was deeply disturbed by the savagery of the natural world, fearful for all creatures, enchanted by them, tragically unhappy at their death or suffering. He had heard the vixen barking in the woods in previous weeks and the answering call of the male dog. He presumed that they had mated, listening to the hoarse, wild, cries which tore through the dark winter nights. Mr Porter lived through the union of the foxes with a sense of deep understanding of the relentless drive of instincts, the satisfaction of instinctive drives fulfilled—together with his belief that animals were capable of emotional attachments, emotional pain.

  That afternoon the hunt killed the male fox, tore him to bloody shreds amid, to Mr Porter’s mind, hideous jubilation. And that night, not long after the monstrous death, Mr Porter heard the vixen call. She called and called, searching from one end of the woods to the other, ranging across the hilly fields, calling ceaselessly. He heard her cry first on one quarter, and then the cry grew fainter as she ran, louder again, as she drew nearer—a sorrowful anxious call—she ran so fast that the sound rose and fell in seconds. She called all night and all the next day and again all that night and again the following day and then there was silence.

  Mr Porter felt a profound, helpless anger which burned in his breast like a physical fire.

  His feelings about the death of the fox and the vixen’s grief intensified his own sense of loss. Lilac was constantly on his mind and his feelings of wretchedness and fury over the senseless killing of the fox merged into a fog of pain through which he struggled for survival.

  He decided it was useless to break himself away from Lilac. His need for her was too great. Nevertheless, he recognised that serious sorrows lay ahead—dangers, disasters, and some ultimate fate too awful to contemplate.

  Thirteen

  “I find your familiar
ity with the ski teachers distasteful,” said Joshua severely. “After all, it’s commonplace, it’s a bad joke—tennis coaches, ski instructors …”

  “Joshua! Please! It’s commonplace also that after you’ve been in a place like this for a while, skiing every day, you’ll know the instructors by their first names!”

  “And they yours?”

  Joshua gave a deep sigh. Disapproval emanated from him. They lay, half-naked, half-wrapped in blankets, on the balcony of their room. The early afternoon sun was hot enough to burn the skin, but mellow enough to soothe them with glowing warmth. Under the balcony, in the crust of fast-melting snow, sparrows and a blackbird hopped about picking up the crumbs Lilac had scattered from the remains of their breakfast.

  Lilac changed the subject. “Aren’t you proud of your daughter? She skis better than anyone in her class.”

  He smiled at this enthusiastic exaggeration.

  “She loves it,” Lilac added, as if in vindication of the holiday.

  “And you?” he asked. “Are you better?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think so.” She held out a hand to thank him. He would have drawn her towards him but felt her resistance—and indeed he knew she was not better, but agitated and despairing.

  “Don’t I look better?” she enquired.

  “You look brown, but—not particularly rested.”

  “Have you come here to criticise?”

  “I came here to make sure that you and Emily were all right.”

  “Particularly Emily,” she said, with unaccustomed fierceness.

  “No—you, too.”

  She shrugged him off.

  Then Joshua said soothingly, “Come on, Lilac! Let’s get Emily up. I’ll take her for a little tobogganing. You can ski in peace for an hour or so.”

  Thus Lilac stood that afternoon poised at the top of the ski run. She settled herself on her skis, mapped out her route down the ski trail, and was about to slide away when a calm voice said, “Madame! Ullo!” It was the Italian from the train, immaculate and elegant from the top of his well-capped head to the tips of his excellent skis.

  “Oh—hullo!” she cried, breathless with an almost fainting excitement.

  “So I have found you! And how are you? And the little one?”

  “Both very well, thank you!”

  “Are you able to dine with me?”

  “Oh, my husband’s here, I’m afraid, just for a day or two—then he’s going back …”

  “A pity!”

  The suave Italian voice held an edge of irony. “I, too, am here only for a night or two.”

  “Joshua—my husband—may leave tomorrow, or at the latest the day after. If you’ll still be here—then I’d love to …”

  He bowed. “We shall see. I shall try to find you again—and now, shall we go?”

  She set off first, feeling flustered and anxious, a little embarrassed, a little put down, but nevertheless excited.

  She sped with abandon down the slope. She was overtaken immediately, however, by the skilled Italian. He flashed past with a slight wave of his ski stick and soon, smoothly swooping and soaring, was lost from sight among the other skiers. Lilac suffered a pang of disappointment, from an emotion stronger than disappointment—almost a sense of loss. She hurried after him determinedly, the cold air washing her face. At the bottom of the ski trail she hesitated. There was no sign of her Italian friend. The sun had set. An icy stillness gripped the mountain. Soon it would be dark and she must return to the hotel, to Emily and Joshua. A terrible restlessness took hold of her—yet she must go back. Carrying her skis, she slipped and slithered on the now-frozen path. Lights were coming on in the village. Ahead of her, in the main street, she saw crowds of cheerful, noisy, people, some returning from skiing on the mountain, some dressed in wonderful après-ski clothes, sauntering and chattering as they made their way to the cafés and tea shops and bars.

  Lilac thought, “I am always out of everything. Everyone’s having a marvellous time—except me.”

  She loitered, looking longingly at the people. Then, with a sudden tingling of her skin, she saw him again. He was strolling along alone. He had changed out of his anorak and ski boots into a leather fur-lined jacket and the same elegant leather boots she had noticed on the train. He came right up to her before smiling and saying, “Again we meet, Madame! Would you like a cup of coffee or a drink?” As always, his voice was calm and collected, his expression under control.

  She glowed at him. “Yes, please,” she said.

  He took her skis from her, brushing away the snow. He held them lightly on his shoulder with his left hand and with his right hand he held her unresisting arm. He said, “Why don’t you persuade your husband to return to England tomorrow and then we can have dinner together?”

  She leaned towards him laughing. “Yes, why not? I would like that so much!”

  Suddenly she felt that she did, after all, belong to the animated crowd, lamplight falling on brown faces, feet crunching frozen snow or tapping the well-swept pavements. Fragments of music, the smell of coffee, streams of hot air from the doors opening into the cafés, a busyness, an excitement, made Lilac extraordinarily happy.

  She said “Couldn’t we meet in the afternoon? I could always say I wanted to ski and my husband would look after my little girl.”

  “Why not?” he asked in his smooth voice. “Let’s do that! But now—coffee? Campari? What would you like?”

  He prepared the bedroom, in his hotel very deliberately, locking the door, pulling the curtains, switching on the bedside lamp. He even placed a glass of cold water on the table by the bed.

  He took off his clothes slowly and began, slowly too, to undress Lilac.

  “What is your name?” he enquired softly.

  “Lilac.”

  “Lilac what?”

  “Jones.”

  “Ah!” Then—“Don’t you want to know my name?”

  “No—”

  “Why not?”

  “I prefer you anonymous.” But she added, “What is your name?”

  “Giovanni.”

  “That’s a nice name,” she said caressingly, “and the other name?”

  “I thought you wanted me to be anonymous?”

  “No! Now I want to know.”

  “Aha!” he teased her, “now I shall not tell you!”

  “Why not?”

  “You are dangerous!” he said lightly.

  “I’m not! Really I’m not! That’s one thing I’m not.”

  He smiled at her. “Victims are always dangerous.”

  “You think I’m a victim?”

  “A little, that’s what makes you so nice and so exciting!”

  “And what are you, if I’m a victim?”

  “Ah! I am the—how do you say it—predator—I’m the hunter coming after you!”

  He caught her in a strong grip and forced her down on the bed.

  When she lay at last under his weight she felt suffocated and panic-stricken—a victim, indeed, as he had said.

  Without his clothes, he had looked a little absurd—too soft, with a small pot belly.

  She closed her eyes tightly and shifted a little beneath his weight.

  After a while she whispered, “Be quick, please, because I must get back …”

  “Wait,” he said.

  Now there was a brutal edge to his voice and she was afraid. His face was blurred with sexual striving.

  She waited.

  Then again she said, “Please, hurry! I must get back, please—now …”

  While she was dressing, he lay on the bed watching her. His expression was calm again, his feelings masked, but there was a sadness in him.

  He suddenly said, surprisingly, “Have you ever been raped? I mean—raped—with violence?”

  Lilac giggled slightly. “No—not yet! Do you think I should have been?”

  He said, “You will be—if you aren’t more careful. Or worse. This time you are lucky.”

  She pul
led her sweater over her head and shook out her hair, the white blonde hair of the North. She came over to him and sat on the bed. He looked carefully into her face. He said, a little roughly, “Take care, Lilac! You are too trusting!”

  She put out a hand and softly touched his mouth, slid a gentle finger across his cheek and closed his eyes. She whispered, “Goodbye, Giovanni! Find me again!”

  With a sudden unexpected movement, he grasped her again and forced her down on the bed. His white soft hands took her by the throat and he held her so, pinioned to the bed, his fingers closing tightly around her gullet. She gasped in terror, tried but failed to draw breath, choked, struggled and collapsed.

  He released her. “That’s what I mean,” he said calmly. “That could happen to you if you don’t take better care!”

  She stood up, coughing and retching, and staggered to the door.

  “Goodbye Lilac!” he called.

  Outside the street was dark, lamplight falling on the busy crowd. A few soft snowflakes drifted from the muffled sky.

  She ran.

  Nearing her hotel, she fell. Her boots had slithered on a patch of fresh snow which lay on ice. She rose, shaken and hurt, knees cut and bleeding. She brushed snow and fragments of ice from her clothes and hobbled on. Her throat felt bruised and she could tell where every brutal finger had pressed upon the skin.

  She reached their room. “Where have you been?”

  Joshua looked thunderous. “It’s pitch dark! You can’t have been skiing all this time!”

  “I fell,” said Lilac, looking so woebegone that Joshua’s anger turned to concern. She indicated her knees, where blood and ice congealed on her ski trousers.

  “Are you hurt?” He hurried towards her as she collapsed in a chair. She shook her head—“No, it’s nothing really, just grazes and bruises I suppose. But it upset me—I had to rest.”

  She shut her eyes. Her hand went up to her throat where she still felt discomfort and constriction. She stood up. “I’ll have a hot bath,” she said, “then I’ll feel better.”

  Joshua, following her to the bathroom asked, “Where on earth did you fall to cut yourself like that?”