Half Light

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘I didn’t arrange any of this,’ he said. ‘Whatever you think of me, you mustn’t think that. You’re here of your own free will, and is there any point in going anywhere until you’ve finished the paintings? No, I’ll answer for you, no. Just the three. They’re all too valuable to me, as you are, for me to let you leave. Can’t you see that? I thought you could.’

  ‘Just the three,’ she echoed, still looking at her hands. ‘Do you think if you let me go today, I would steal them?’

  ‘They found photos of you, in your flat,’ Thomas went on conversationally. ‘In the nude. Letters to lovers, letters to the parents you seemed to have abandoned. Letters from aunts and uncles, begging for a reply which was not, apparently, forthcoming. Your friends seem to know about these. It’s the way with all jigsaw puzzles. People put together the pieces in the wrong order and the result is not slightly different, but totally different. Your neighbours are describing you as a whore, worse than that, a thief who arranged it all. Is there any point going home today, or until they know better? Let them think about you. Just the three pictures, and then I’ll help you start again. I want nothing from you. But I do care for you, did I tell you that? Who else cares, who else, I ask you? No, don’t answer. Just finish the madonna. Make her perfect.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ She turned her hands upwards. There were faint traces of stains on the palms, looking like the hairs which superstition said were the first sign of madness, small streaks of purple and fainter yellow, the marks of strong pigments, mixed yesterday. Elisabeth Young got to her feet and pulled the blue smock close to herself by stuffing the hands in her pockets and balling them into protective fists by her sides. She thought of the salvation in those colours, the half-done work, the mixtures which would quickly dry, the careful application of overpaint, the new discoveries, the neck of the olive-skinned lady, the only source of solace left. Thought, too, of the letters she had written on Thomas’s fine-head notepaper, and the absence of any reply. It was true, then: they all despised her.

  ‘It’s a lovely day,’ she said neutrally. ‘I’d better do some work. While there’s light.’

  Maria toiled upstairs. Like her brother she despised the lift, but, unlike him, it was because she was afraid of it. Walking was only another penance which made her in all ways stronger. Her skin chafed beneath the big boots. No socks today, for the added sanctity which was promised by pain. Or so it said in the book on all the saints, a book with pictures she had brought upstairs with her, in the hope she might be able to show it to Elisabeth, by way of explaining the extra accoutrements she felt the madonna needed. Despite the discomfort, Maria was humming in pleasurable anticipation of the real singing in church. Thomas had been neglectful of late, about their Sunday excursion to the cathedral, but today he’d promised.

  ‘Swee-eet heart of Jesus! We-ee implore …’

  She pressed the bell and waited for a long time. When he finally answered, her face fell. He was not ready, no coat, no umbrella.

  ‘Not today, Maria, I’m sorry.’

  She looked down and kicked the door with sudden savagery.

  ‘Shh,’ he said. ‘Look, I can’t. Our Elisabeth isn’t well.’

  Maria’s face lit up. ‘I’ll look after her,’ she volunteered distinctly.

  Thomas shuddered. ‘No you won’t. Anyway, it isn’t that kind of sick. She’s saying her own prayers in her own room. Be a good girl and take Butler out instead.’ He thrust the dog at her and closed the door in her face.

  Maria told herself she did not really mind, but she still sat down on the top stair, heavy with disappointment. She had so hoped … that they would all go out together, the whole family, Elisabeth, herself and him. There were all these things in church she wanted to show Elisabeth, because Elisabeth was so like all the saints in her pictures and she loved her for being so quiet and nice and good. She could have shown her the portrait of the virgin martyr St Agatha, who was equally good. She had vowed her virginity to Christ and kept her promise even when she was tortured by rack and fire and her breast cut off. Then there was St Agnes, another holy virgin, killed by a sword through the throat. She might even have got Elisabeth to tell her which of her namesakes she preferred, because there were two St Elisabeths, she thought. One from Hungary whom Maria did not like much, because she was married and had children before turning holy, and one from Portugal who was very much better, dark like this Elisabeth, and although she hadn’t been a martyr, she had been a queen. With a sinner for a husband, until she made him better.

  ‘Come on, you devil,’ she said to the dog.

  There was so much else she wanted to say. Instead she plodded downstairs. She could have gone to the cathedral by herself, but it wasn’t the same. She could take Butler to the square and watch the people, then go home to the darkness of the basement and pretend it was church. A sense of unfairness went into every step. It wasn’t the same.

  This basement was a different place, Annie decided, when it was light. On the few occasions she had come here before, including the one time with Francis, she had always entered and left in the dark. This time, in the division of their labour which had become crosser as their enthusiasm faded, each shaming the other while pointing out that they did have livings to earn (and there was, of course, a limit to the time they could spend), she had drawn the short straw of going back to Elisabeth’s flat because a woman on her own was less likely to draw fire. Fire from whom was not a question either bothered to answer. Sparks, you mean, Annie told herself, no fire here, only sparks and smoke. In truth, Annie was quite pleased to be going back in there alone. Instinct, the feminine kind, had been inhibited by male company the last time. There were things about a woman’s rooms which only another woman could see, and it was, as she noticed, so much better in the light. Darkness, any kind of darkness, hid the stains, the neglect, the cold spots of shame in any house: the shabbiness could shine with pride in the light, never in the dusk.

  She had planned to ring the old girl’s bell, she whom she had applauded as not so bad, but privately suspected was the sort who would be a concierge in willing KGB employ if she lived in old Moscow, a natural, envious spy. Annie would have preferred not to ring Enid’s chimes at any time of day, light or dark, so she waited across the road, hoping against hope that there might be some other way to get beyond the front door. Resentful in her waiting; she was only doing this as a kind of dare, something to shame Francis for calling that name in the middle of the night. Then a young couple approached the same front door. The woman had the keys in her handbag – some large knapsack which took in her arm to the elbow. Annie sped across the road with a big smile. They did not seem to mind her slipping in behind them as long as she continued the smile. They went upstairs before she went down, without the faintest interest in what she might do next. Arm in arm, they trod beyond the common domain towards their own. Annie felt a stab of envy in their unity as she descended and shoved the key in Elisabeth’s lock, felt the remains of yesterday’s wine, shaken but not particularly stirred by coffee, hitting her with delayed rebellion. Screw Francis. Screw their morning conversation with its mutual lazy challenges and the tasks thereby created.

  It did not occur to her, although it remained a possibility with Francis, that Elisabeth would be back by now. Somehow, Annie knew, through all her speculating in the small hours, that she could not be there, might never be there again, that her absence was quite unnatural; but none of that gave rise to any sensation of fear. What made the hair rise on her neck was the change in the scent of the place. A new warmth, rancid and chemical, not the old scent born on the old breeze. A confusion of scents, a sickly suggestion of aftershave. Then, with a creeping sensation of fear, she heard movement, a scuttling in the direction of the studio room down at the end. Annie’s first impulse was to turn and run, but secondary instinct told her that what scuttled here, like a giant rat, scuttled in fear. The corridor was dark: she had the impression of a figure flung from the bathroom as
she had opened the front door, the race of someone looking for a hiding place.

  ‘Hallo, hallo! Anyone there?’

  Annie stepped forward, leaving the door open behind her. Moved into the studio, where the light showed dust, the same jugs, pictures, equipment. Her eye fell on the rosewood pig with the split back she had noticed before, an intrusive, barbaric but, on second sight, lovable thing. Then her eye fell on the figure in the corner, a creature making her small self smaller, huddled behind a chair partly hidden by a cupboard with the easel pulled in front in a pathetic, hurried attempt at concealment. As her own alarm subsided in the face of the other’s fear, Annie was slightly amused. She recognized Enid, the concierge woman, with a head full of iron grips to keep the hair straight. For what, Annie thought, for what? Why does anyone do that? She had little sensitivity for the vanities of anyone much beyond her own age.

  ‘Hallo,’ she said again, keeping her voice deliberately neutral. ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘Oh,’ Enid whimpered breathlessly. ‘Oh, you did frighten me. I thought it was him …’ Then she began to recover, became brisker. ‘What do you mean, what am I doing? I could ask you the same thing.’

  ‘I came to look for Elisabeth. Who did you think I was?’

  Enid stood up, brushing something from her skirt, which was crumpled, Annie noticed, in contrast to her appearance the time before. Oddly, Enid’s left forearm was heavily bandaged. The fist at the end of it clutched a plastic bottle. Annie’s eyes fixed on that.

  ‘Have you hurt yourself?’ She tried to sound sympathetic, but the woman defied pity.

  ‘Yes, yes, as a matter of fact,’ Enid babbled. ‘That’s right, I did. Cut my arm, clearing up. I only came down here to see if she had some ointment. She does, you know – Elisabeth, I mean – keep that sort of thing, for when she gets dermatitis. Problems, she has, with her skin, sometimes, because of all this lot, I suppose.’ Enid waved a hand towards the bottles and jars. ‘I only came to borrow,’ she added. The lined face, naked of the heavy makeup which Annie knew would be habitual in a woman who tortured her hair, looked pinched, sick, crafty but vulnerable.

  ‘Who did you think I was?’ Annie repeated with understated curiosity.

  ‘Uncle,’ said Enid rapidly. ‘No, the landlord. Him. I thought he’d come back for his umbrella. I only came down for some calamine. What do you want? You shouldn’t be here. It’s all right for him, not you.’ She shuddered on the verge of manic giggles.

  ‘I’ll be gone in a minute, promise. How did you hurt your arm?’ Annie smiled, the full saleswoman smile, rarely known to fail. Enid stood, still trembling, malice and uncertainty combined in her face.

  ‘Never you mind. I’ll go now. Please give me back the key. I’m supposed to look after this place and take care of it. I’ve got a right.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘Of course you have.’ She was too tired to ask questions and still too resentful, turned her back on the neighbour, hearing rather than seeing Enid’s crablike departure. The desk had been disturbed, but she could not recall if it was herself and Francis who had done the disturbing. The piles of correspondence were in a different order, the photographs of Elisabeth still prominent. Annie looked at these again, thought she understood them in daylight. Art school fodder, a small, dated portfolio which had been sent around to show the sender’s availability for work as a life-class model, lots of poor students did it, nothing prurient there at all. So why had they been left out like this, as if to give such a deliberately wrong impression? Annie sat down, mortified, tried to think clearly. Were I a detective, what would I do? Look for bloody clues, is what, but there was nothing worthy of the name. All personal letters seemed to be missing; there was no sign of an address book. Absently, Annie stuffed into her bag a pile of receipts, confirmations of goods bought in a variety of shops, all saved, she supposed, for the tax man. Don’t lose these, Annie told herself, remembering her own nightmarish battles with business accounts: it wouldn’t be fair. She remembered how Elisabeth had spoken about getting phone messages from a dealer, and, feeling clever, opened the answerphone on the desk, to find there was no tape. Her sense of alarm grew. Crossing back to the door, she collided with the rosewood pig, stopped and looked again. Deep into the fissure along the back, there was paper, easy to miss since it looked like old-newspaper stuffing, but as her fingers explored with a careful probing, they encountered letters. Trust Liz never to discard a letter, even if half written. Perhaps poverty made her such a hoarder; something did. Annie pulled out the first, discarded an envelope postmarked CLAYFIELDS, wherever that was, read quickly a juvenile script on good paper. ‘Dear Mr Artist,’ she read, ‘I am so very sorry …’ and that was all. Hearing steps in the corridor, Annie scooped out the rest, the good paper with the cheaper, pink paper, hidden envelopes and all, crushed them down in her bag along with the other papers from the desk. Enid was back in the room, panting from a scramble up and down stairs.

  ‘Are you from him? You must be from him. She didn’t have any girl friends. Only men.’

  Annie stayed calm in the face of this nervous malice.

  ‘From who? Oh, yes, all right.’ It seemed better to deny nothing.

  ‘Only he left his umbrella. This thing.’ Enid extended a rolled umbrella, of exceptional quality to Annie’s cursory glance. ‘Take it away. I don’t want it here.’

  ‘Fine, yes fine, no problem, I’m going now. You go first, I’ll lock the door.’ Enid had the instinct to obey any orders if firmly given, left for the second time, forgetting to repeat the request for the key, while Annie paused, simply to examine the umbrella. The handle was carved and topped with ornate silver: the fabric curled neatly into the dimensions of a thick cigar and the tip was six inches of silver hidden beneath a ferrule. Removing this out of sheer curiosity for anything so immaculately designed, Annie revealed in the afternoon light a spectacular little dagger, double-edged and glinting, brilliant but stained. Such an ordinary brolly, such a neat little weapon, so effective, she felt a distinct aversion to carrying it. But it was beautiful and valuable and had been thrust into her hands, and none of those factors were of the kind which Annie could resist. She had never turned away a gift in her life, especially a gift which could be sold. Out in the street, some distance from the house, memory tugged at her like wind in the hair. She recognized what she possessed, but not in any kind of focus, experimented with it by holding it as she would a walking stick. It was the right size for a woman, though heavy; the sound of it was pleasantly officious, one two click on the pavement, one two click, as if she meant business. While she struggled to remember where it was she had seen something similar before, imagining it was on some stall in the Antiques Centre, she thought with conscious amusement of how it looked so innocuous and contained this stained and lethal knife.

  It was the sort of decorative thing which gave its owner a sense of power.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Bring me my bow of burning gold,

  Bring me my arrows of desire;

  Bring me my spear, O clouds unfold!

  Bring me my chariot of fire.

  I shall not cease from mental fight,

  Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

  Till we have built Jerusalem,

  In England’s green and pleasant land.’

  Francis had been born in the soft belly of the South-east. There had been no great rallying cries in the Church of England agnosticism of his childhood, only exhortations to learn, do well and become what was expected, all of which he had followed without any need for rebellions. The tune of a hymn sung at school in Surrey, running through his head with irritating insistence now, was somehow more apposite to the industrial lands beyond Nottingham which he had largely ignored except to comment on the mystery of the accents. From his own affluent ghetto, Francis had only visited the North because England was too small a space to ignore that half of it and there had always been some friend or relative marooned up there. Looking now, with adult eyes, he
saw how beautiful was the colour green, how scarred in parts as the train slid north of Loughborough. Inside the safety of his carriage, slipping up the first vertebrae of the spinal column of England, he felt strangely peaceful, but then excited and ashamed to be what he was, an Englishman born and bred, a dealer in the flotsam and jetsam of his own society, an educated man but, to put it in the words of the couple on the next seat who were arguing in fierce undertones, as ignorant as a pig in shit.

  ‘You don’t know nothing,’ the woman was saying to her companion. ‘You don’t know bugger all. I don’t know where you was born, but it weren’t the same planet as me.’