‘What have you got to do tomorrow?’ she asked wearily, leaning against him as the taxi swayed. It seemed as good a topic as any until a drink could give her a sense of direction. Francis was beginning to notice this aspect of Annie, found it endearing. Anger crackled from her like static electricity: she became vibrant with it, almost incandescent, just as she did with company around her, but afterwards slumped into a kind of formless passivity only one stage short of sleep. He leaned back. It was late. Both seemed to have taken it as read that they could do nothing else significant that evening.
‘Tomorrow I’ve got to be in court, like today but more so. I’m not pretending, not prevaricating, I just have to be there. It’s a kid, only a kid, pleading guilty, but it’s important. I’ve been neglecting what I do best. I can’t cancel.’
‘Maybe we should go there now. We’ve got the address. Or should we phone this sister first?’
‘It’s late. Tomorrow. Makes no difference.’
Francis could feel the dust of his own establishment. It hit him like the smell of smoke when he opened the door. Annie did not notice: her priorities were different. She aimed for the fridge and its promise of dry white wine as if she had been in the place every day of her life and knew where everything would be. Elisabeth never liked it here, Francis was thinking. She stayed once or twice and I always had the impression she wanted to be gone, back to her own cave. Or maybe I never made the point of allowing anyone to feel at home, in case they closed in on me. To think I felt I could criticize her for the same.
‘Cheers,’ said Annie. ‘Here’s to Enid. May she rot in hell. Along with Uncle. Oh Jesus Christ, I’m tired.’
He did not resent her making so free, nor her failure to comment on his domain, his taste, the choices which illuminated his personality in the form of all those pictures, half of them crooked. He sipped cold white wine, thought of Annie’s diminished fire and was glad to see her as she was. What strange, intense fondness had grown out of sparring. Then he picked up the telephone and dialled the first number on the card announcing the elusive existence of Thomas Milton. No reply. Annie watched, drank as if the wine were water. He dialled the number of the quoted sister, whose existence, if believed at all, was equally elusive. She had no face, no stick, no sinister mannerisms: she might be all right. She wasn’t.
‘You want Thomas?’ said a voice. ‘You want Thomas? You can have Thomas. Not here. Telephone tomorrow, see? Tomorrow. It’s late now, very late.’
So it was. Annie was relieved it was easily late enough to give an excuse for doing nothing more.
‘Is there someone with Mr Milton? I was looking for Elisabeth …’ Francis ventured with a high politeness in his voice which reminded Annie of an intoning priest. It struck her as ridiculous, this particular voice of strained deference. In the background she laughed loudly. ‘Aw, come on, Francis,’ she muttered and laughed again.
‘What do you want with Thomas? He is sleeping. Telephone tomorrow. You’ve woken me. Go away until the morning.’
Maria listened to make sure the voice obeyed. Then she put the phone down, thinking hard. She is not alone like me, this girl. Not what I thought: someone is asking for her and no one would ask for me. He is doing something very wrong, my Thomas. If other people knew, it must be so. If a message came from the outside world in the middle of the night, there must be something wrong and the wrath of God was calling down the line. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Someone with him? they asked. In what sense? Laughing, they were laughing at something they knew. Maria was hesitant, concerned; hot and sweating all over again, she went to the bathroom. Elisabeth: that name, synonymous with betrayal.
Elisabeth vomited three times, and slept because her body would allow nothing else after the last reflection of her face in the mirror had shown a thinner self: cadaverous somehow, the form of her shrunk to fit the dimensions of the dress which would not have fitted ten days before. The last thought before the hazy, sickening sleep with that fruity, putrid taste of brandy in her mouth, was the dog lying on silk like some fat, decadent prince.
Some time before dawn, Thomas went to find the dress. He called it a robe for the house, nothing fancier than that, a housecoat. The robe, so similar in colour to the one worn by the madonna of the painting, was sticky with Butler’s saliva. A few other mild excretions: he was jealous of his master and he had not liked the smell. His claws needed clipping: they had shredded the material of the bodice, involuntarily, not out of malice, as he tried to make a nest in there, a resting place for his imperfect form.
Thomas dragged the robe away. He smoothed the crumpled silk with his hand, hung it over his arm and carried it back to his room. Once there, he folded it carefully, with difficulty laid it on the end of his spartan bed, and watched as if it might move, until his eyes, too, closed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘Are we being silly? I don’t know about you. I don’t know much, as it happens. I don’t have a conscience about this, either. Not now. Is it like two people being able to talk openly about a friend, as critically as they want, provided they both know they love the friend? Why don’t I feel bad about this? I don’t know what you think. Listen, we have to go there today, whatever happens, we have to go there and not be put off. We’re the only ones looking, you know, absolutely the only ones and we shouldn’t have wasted time. After I’ve been to court, can you … can we … go and find her? Annie, are you awake? Annie, you’re a lovely lover, but you know why we’re here, don’t you? We’ve still got to find her. You are awake, aren’t you?’
From the depths of his hard bed came an unselfconscious groan, choked on the beginnings of a yawn. Stretching like a cat, Annie emerged from beneath his duvet, all head and collarbones, thin shoulders held together with wire, awake, unrepentant.
‘“Lovely lover”. Thanks for that. But oh God, not conscience again. I can’t stand it. Listen, don’t you dare apologize to me, it’s so condescending. I wanted to be here: it’s the story of my fucking life. Wanted and not wanted. Bit like our Elisabeth, isn’t it, but different. Pity I like you. Pity I’ve come to be so fond of her. Is it morning?’
‘Yes, it’s morning. I’ve got to go soon.’
‘I suppose you do. So do I. Got a clean shirt, have you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You would, I suppose. Christ, this bed’s hard. Why do you have a bed this hard?’
‘I don’t know. Why’s yours so soft?’
‘Soft, like me. It’s in the hormones, can’t help myself. Soft. I need my soft head examined.’ She grinned, ever more catlike, amazingly talkative. ‘For Christ’s sake, this isn’t a confessional. Look, we were both frightened: we are frightened. So we go to bed together, so what? I wanted to get laid and you wanted to make up for last time, which you did, thank you. And we both love Elisabeth and nothing’s altered. Right?’
He put his arms around her thinness. Her face, puffed and sleepy, was the same challenging face, which Francis had never liked or trusted as much as he did now. He hugged her with brief sincerity, feeling the strength of her bones. Annie pulled the duvet round herself like a nest. He was momentarily amazed to have made love so thoroughly with so little confusion, and no, there was no conscience, simply a sense of extra strength.
‘She never came here, you know,’ he said softly. It was almost true but still a lie, one he considered necessary. Annie nodded. She had needed him to tell her that and did not much care if it was accurate.
‘Can I let myself out? What time is it? Where do we meet then? Listen, what are you saying? Of course none of this makes any difference, it never did, but I liked it and we both needed it, so there. Course we’ve got to go and find Uncle today and see what gives. Give us a time and place. This afternoon, did you say?’ She yawned again. He paused, looking and smiling, feeling anxious but contented.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I know you only live here, but fuck off. You talk too much.’
They agreed that they would meet at Westminster Cathedral at t
hree o’clock. Not the abbey with all the buried poets, but the cathedral with its priests and smaller crowds of fervent tourists. By the McDonald’s, Francis said. A strange adjunct to a pigeon-covered square through which the faithful trod to a modern basilica. Yes, she knew where he meant, exactly. There were all those streets full of mansion flats just behind. She might go inside and pray first, she joked, as if praying for her own soul was not as alien to her as priests were, and anyone else who purported to direct the lives of others. Yes, yes, she knew where he meant, now go, now, please.
After he had left, Annie abandoned her nest. In the bathroom she scrubbed at her body and examined a face not improved by the ministrations of soap and water in the absence of her usual battery of cleansers, toners, moisturizers. None of these things in an austere bathroom like this. None, either, in Elisabeth’s place, she recalled, but then Elisabeth would emerge with the face of a wise angel, not the sharp chin and spiky hair which announced the devil in herself. Just wanted to be fucked? Some people believe anything. No she hadn’t: she’d wanted much more than that, but she was only a pragmatist and took what she could.
Annie whistled. ‘I’m on your territory, aren’t I, angel?’ she said. ‘Never mind, I’m going soon, leaving no souvenirs. He just wanted somebody, and so did I. Call it dutch courage, we aren’t giving up on you. You just united us, body, but not soul. You can have him back when we find you. And I’m sorry for the delay, but I needed to find out. What he would really be like. He’s OK. Bit young for me, but OK.’
In the kitchen there were only dry biscuits, coffee and a carton of dead milk. Better go home for breakfast. Before that, she wandered through the space of Francis’s flat, straightening all the pictures on the walls, lovingly. She was not sorry, she was not even disturbed: she felt buoyant. A little loving, that was what it had been: a little genuine loving. Now she knew what it was, this thing which so moved the souls of others, she would know how to recognize it again. Not in the man, whoever he was; in herself.
Breakfast. The thought repelled as much as the day. Elisabeth had not noticed, but registered now, how eating of all kinds seemed to have fallen out of fashion in this strange establishment which was her prison. How she and Thomas had come in the last three days to forage separately in the kitchen while the other’s back was turned. Bread and cheese for her, eaten on the run back to her studio; latterly, only the cheese. Which went part of the way to explain this hollow sickness, a condition with more to it than an indiscriminate consumption of alcohol vomited away in disgust.
Something must be resolved. There was light sneaking from behind her curtains like a temptress, but she was weak. When she rolled from her bed, her legs felt woolly, and the lukewarm water of the shower hit like needles as she drenched her hair in an effort to wash away that pervasive scent of shame, disgust, humiliation. The hostage temperament of guilty imprisonment. It was early, the day still half formed, her mind feeling the infancy of the light and her thoughts. without direction. There was something she must do, something to bring matters to a head, the combined sickness of the house. Thomas had not wanted a lover; she might have known. He had never wanted a lover: he had wanted a spectacle. He might not know what he wanted. Except that it was some vision of beauty which he would be forced to ruin. Then so he must. And if it was her, then at least she would have done what she was compelled to do and honoured something. She would honour the madonna if she honoured nothing and no one else.
In the studio room, she played with the tasselled ropes of the high windows, tugging without thinking to allow air into the room. She had worked in here long and hard yesterday. The continuing urgency overcame the sickness. The madonna was on the easel, safe. She had wondered about that, wondered if she would still be safe, this siren on canvas, now that she was revealed. It was not what he wanted: the original madonna was what he had wanted and that madonna had changed. The changes were not extensive, but they were radical. The first thing which Elisabeth saw this morning was the ultramarine of the gown, that silken taffeta bunched gown, twisted as the woman turned her stupendous face. The skirts were as full as ever, liquid as the sea, but the bodice had shrunk in the preceding days, offered little protection now.
But Victorians did have dresses like these. There was nothing strange, only you did not quite expect to be able to change the garments in a painting as you might alter a model’s. Victorian fashions were made to last: if you had a ball gown with a daring décolletage for your first dance, it could and would be altered to include a fichu of lace up to the chin or a new piece of material serving the same purpose. Sleeves could be made to hook into shoulders which had been blissfully bare, while skirts could be taken up and down, flounced to reveal a different colour of petticoat. They did not expect their finery to expire with the demands of climate and fashion; they expected it to last in dozens of variations, until, as it rarely did, the stuff decayed. They were not feckless: could mourn, walk, talk, receive, in one dress; laugh, wed, dance, dine, preside after dark in another. How easy. No need for a lecture to explain this painting, Elisabeth thought. I know all that. I knew all that when I wore the gown last night, stuffed as I was with all the envy in the world, for the chance to wear something half as beautiful, but not with the expectation that I should wear it again and again and again … I only mention it, because you have to see, Thomas, anyone, whoever you are, that there are possible explanations concerning the madonna you might not otherwise be able to follow.
You see, she was not dressed thus when she was first painted. I uncovered for you the redone neck of her dress and took away those vulgar sapphires which clutched so oddly to her throat, lying where a necklace could not quite lie. I know about these things, I have looked, I have seen, although I have never worn myself the necklaces other people try around the antique stalls. At first, the neck of the dress revealed only that slender stem encircled by those bright sapphires, but they were the wrong blue: bangkok sapphires, not pale blue, but dyed to make them artificially, durably darker. Now, you do not have coloured gems of a different blue to go with your best, ultramarine, silk-lined-with-silk dress, the one which might have to last you for years … This was not a lady unused to thrift: we understood each other. At second glance she wore that demure pendant to go with the little earrings, but by then, only because I had looked at those colours for so long, I knew that the whole of the top of the bodice was wrong. So skilfully wrong it was difficult to detect. Beautifully done, and not long after the thing was first painted, probably by the same artist with almost the same palette, within a year or so, but not with quite the same pigment. A different lapis lazuli, lumpier, paler, a slightly cheaper alternative. Maybe he, too, resented these changes and left his clues. I confess that I have not undressed this lady lightly. It was because I felt she was dressed as she wished to be for her portrait, and if she later changed her mind, or her keeper changed it for her because he wanted her effigy hung in the dining room rather than the bedroom, that was up to her. She might even have been a kept woman who became a kept wife, but she was the woman first. But I did want to get back to the way she was when the artist first put brush to his pristine canvas, and saw her as she was. Before he was ever called back to save her from disrepute, he or the brother artist who could paint in exactly the same way …
There was so much less dress to the original. I did not detect that from the craquelure, those crazy cracks which come with age, when the paint breathes and dries like a human skin. I guessed more from the colour and a little from the lumps and bumps which betrayed a thicker surface where there was varnish not of the same source, things you guess through your fingertips. Then there was the impasto round her head, where he had introduced an extra layer of light to soften her and hide the fact that her coiffed hair had been untidier at first. The artist spruced her up, and with all this removed, all these optional extras, what is now on the canvas is not a madonna, not an elegant matron leaning forward with some entreaty to a child, but a woman with her handsome bosom cur
ving forth over the undone bodice of her dress, her hair slightly wild, beckoning some man back into the circle of her arms, back into her bed. Not a chaste wife, but a mistress.
Perhaps, Elisabeth thought, I should have let well alone. Little wonder this artist was also paid to hide his name in the draperies behind the chair. There was nothing anonymous about her: it was obvious what generous manner of woman she was and who had painted her, but it was too late now, far too late to do anything but admire. Elisabeth had kept this canvas turned to the wall, pretended to work on the others, and now all there was left to do was revar-nish completely, to protect and make the colours of this earthly creature glow and shine, reveal the density of her glory, make her perfect for Thomas’s admiration and destruction. There was nothing else Elisabeth needed to do and nothing else she could do, so while the light outside was still milky, and the busy world still half dead, she began to varnish. Precisely, deftly but swiftly to provoke the crisis.
When Thomas woke, for the tenth time but after the longest and darkest sleep, he could remember few of the nightmares, only the sensations and panics of his dreams. They were the repeated sensations of the worst, most terrifying episodes of his life, the sharp end of the terror, not the dead end of all the realizations which followed, when he looked in a mirror once to see how he appeared as a man without an eye, or when he woke, the other time after the stroke, to discover he was still alive, not in pain, but speechless, to all intents a worthless lump of man. The ultramarine dress lay across his chest: twice in the night, after he had wept his way to bed with that diminished garment, he had woken to find it wrapped round his throat, as if the garment crept with a life all of its own and forced itself into the intimacy he had refused from Elisabeth herself. On the first occasion he awoke to a sensation of total blindness that reminded him of when the boys had taken out his eye; he pulled off the silk cloth and screamed. When the dress was in his mouth the second time, he recalled the dumbness, and when he woke in the morning, with the dress draped over the bottom of his bed, that was still what he recalled.
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