‘Did I have a predecessor?’ Elisabeth asked gently. ‘Was there really another restorer here or did you make that up?’
‘Not quite. There was, but they were not his things you found. I bought them all, after he had gone, for you. He came in and out, but he left when …’
His face became still and he closed his eyes. Growing away at the undyed roots, his hair was white. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Of course he left, that man. Maria had her revenge, you see. She hated my paintings, the ones more human than divine, resented the lifeblood of them. Found them, stabbed them. Of course the restorer went. Why would anyone work for someone else to destroy what he did? But long before that I had seen you, knew what you did … watched. I had got the dog, got him to guard my room from further carnage. Not only to guard against Maria indoors, but to protect her and keep her safe when she was out… She could shop, but that was all. I got the locks to stop her coming and going as she pleased. I threw out every single knife or potential weapon, except my umbrella which gave me such power and she never touched, and besides it was too large for her to take away and hide: she respected it as my weapon and mine only. But I needed her as she needed me. You cannot send away your only sister whom you have disinherited. Where would she go? She was good for a long time, growing sane while I was growing mad. After I saw you. Do you believe me?’
‘Yes. Why didn’t you tell me she was your sister?’
He hesitated. ‘Shame, I think. I had little enough to endear you as it was. Is it Sunday? I only tell lies on Sundays.’
‘No, it isn’t Sunday.’
‘Is it light or dark?’
‘Dark now. I’ll be back soon.’
‘There’s no need. Really.’
‘It’s my choice.’
‘Not approved by your friends, I take it?’
‘No.’ She was retreating, her hand withdrawn from his. He wished he could not feel her relief in that polite, but quivering anxiousness to be gone. He spoke with a sudden urgency.
‘And you’ve taken the pictures?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go with God,’ he murmured. ‘Go with your own God.’
She was next to him again. ‘Thomas? I’m sorry for what happened, both times. We could never be side by side, you know. We seem to trigger destruction, you for me, and more particularly, I for you. Have you noticed?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know that. Take one of the sticks when you go home. It’s dark and dangerous out there.’
‘I detest your damned sticks, Thomas.’
He chuckled. ‘They make a weak person powerful. Never despise a weapon. You are too gentle for your own good, and so was 1. I can’t ask you to come back, even once in a while, can I?’
‘No you can’t ask, but I shall.’
‘What can I do about my sister?’
‘Report to the police, then nothing. A convent, perhaps?’
‘Yes. Elisabeth, how do I make up to you?’
‘For what? Pictures, Thomas: find me pictures to mend.’
Annie Macalpine was spring-cleaning in a fever when Francis called. Not just the kitchen but the whole of her apartment. There seemed to be fewer frills than before. As soon as she had opened the door, she uncorked a bottle of wine and the telephone rang. Plus ça change.
‘Who? Michael! Yes, fine, fine … Sorry, not this evening, sweetheart. I’m washing my hair. Ciao.’
‘Denying yourself company, are you?’ Francis asked her, teasing. ‘That isn’t like you.’
‘How do you know? You don’t know what I’m like.’
He flinched. It seemed these days that he went from friend to friend seeking his self-respect but revealing his ignorance. Annie softened and patted his head like a distant grandmother.
‘No, you’re right. It isn’t like me. Saturday night is party night. It isn’t the company I mind at the moment, but the quality of it. Beggars can be choosers, I find. Any news of that madwoman?’
‘No.’
‘Going round to Elisabeth, are you?’
‘Yes, later. After she’s come back from Thomas. You’re welcome too, you know, if you want.’ She ignored the invitation.
‘I don’t know how she can go and see him,’ she murmured. ‘But then again, maybe I do.’
They were easy together: he could feel the same old reluctance to leave, but she wanted him to feel welcome in her home and, then, go. She wanted to hear all about Francis and Elisabeth while not wanting to know at all. She was the only person he felt did not judge, who had understood the full and dreadful force of closet violence in every man, but she wanted him to go now, so she could miss him in private. Hanging in the corner of her living room he noticed a brilliant-blue gown encased in dry-cleaner’s polythene with the shining silk of the long skirt trailing on the floor. ‘Ah-ha,’ he said, ‘you are going out, after all. What is it? A ball?’
She jumped, looked as guilty as she was ever capable of looking, then relaxed. Elisabeth had been about to throw away that dress during the days when they had been organizing Thomas and his abode, but Annie said no, give it to me: it’s too valuable to throw away; if you hate it, I don’t. She was remembering now that Francis did not know either the history or existence of this dress; only she herself knew, with Elisabeth and Thomas, and Annie was not about to extend the range. She was good at keeping secrets and she was not going to let any kind of sentiment stand in the way of an acquisition.
‘That? Oh, I’m keeping it for someone. I might have it mended and altered for me.’ And wear it, she thought, only for someone special who really did want me, so there, and why don’t you go, Francis, please? The longer you linger, the worse it is for me. She sprang up. ‘Here, take a bottle of wine for Lizzie, and oh, I almost forgot, this cheque I’ve owed her for ages. Tell her I’ll see her next week some time.’
‘Lizzie?’
‘OK, Elisabeth. I can call her what I like. Now piss off, I’m busy.’
After he was gone, she felt the impact of his hug from her knees to her head, attacked her cleaning again with renewed vigour. Handled that one well, didn’t you? she told herself. Didn’t you just? You’re a brave girl, Annie, you’re all right. The phone rang. She hesitated, then ignored it. If they wanted her, they would come back.
Francis, too, felt the print of hands on his back as he walked up the road towards where Elisabeth Young lived. He was quite hopeless with his longing for her, back to where he had been with her in the very beginning, gripped by the crush he now had to call love. Humbled by his own misjudgements, his capacity for violence and the terrible harm he had almost done. Bemused by the complete irrelevance of law, order and judgement in all their messy private lives. Not one of them, himself included, had once considered calling for official help, still less official retribution or family assistance. No one had called anyone to task for their lawlessness. He was unsure of what code he could live by next, what he would find himself holding in lieu of a belief. People or love, crooked paintings and damaged lives. Something like that. He walked slowly, full of the anxious anticipation of seeing her.
Enid opened the door for him. He did not know why she did that, but she did, scuttling back inside her own premises with a nervous smile as he made his way downstairs, shaking his head. ‘Why should I be cruel to her?’ Elisabeth had said. ‘Look, she is old and sad, I was unkind to her, I who should have recognized the casualty she is. She had her revenge and now we’re quits. Why shouldn’t she come in for tea? What have I got to hide?’
‘And your father?’ Francis asked. ‘What about him? Does he come under the mantle of universal tolerance and forgiveness, like me, now you can think of him clearly?’
She stopped for that one. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘Not yet. There’s a bit more work to do on that one.’
The door was open wide. Francis could smell polish and sweet smells. ‘Hallo! Hallo!’ The blond man bearing gifts, his own wine, Annie’s wine, food and flowers and a vulnerable heart fit to burst.
‘Hallo,’ she shouted back from the studio room, where the door was also open wide. Working after dark: it was long after dark. The half light which still lived when he had knocked on Annie’s door was long since gone: now it was night. He recognized the glow of her tungsten light. On the beechwood easel was the madonna. Stacked in one corner were all the eyeless portraits, the sight of which made Francis quiver. Thomas had paid in kind.
The madonna glowed in haunting beauty. She had lost the pus of paint, stood there, varnished again, beckoning with her provoking smile, a man’s ideal mistress. Elisabeth turned from the easel, smiling her own completely different smile. There was no resemblance at all.
‘It’s all right, I’m just finishing.’
‘No, no, you carry on if you want.’
She had been applying the last touch. He put his arms round her and his face against her hair, smelling the shampoo, perfume, linseed and all the scents which were hers and rose from her warmth. When he looked up, he met the glance of the painting and automatically shook his head.
‘I love you, Elisabeth. I love you to pieces. But I can’t have you, can I?’
‘No. Not all of me. No one has all of anyone. You only get a fraction, and that’s usually more than enough.’
‘A fraction of you, then.’
‘Perhaps.’
He kissed the nape of her neck, satisfied for now. She put down her tools and turned to him shyly. She brushed hair out of his eyes.
‘You could do with a haircut,’ she said. You are, Francis thought, the most voluptuous, desirable, compassionate person in my world. I might have to spend a long, long time acquainting you with just how beautiful you are. The inhabitants of your world to date have shown strange ways of convincing you. I have to do better.
‘How was Thomas, then?’
‘As you saw. I’ll tell you what he told me today. Might help me to understand it.’
‘Do you actually like him? Or love him, in a way? You don’t have to answer.’
‘In a way, both. He’s a part of me, is all. I admire his inner eye. I’m glad he’s alive. I want him to have a better life, and I want him to be safe.’
She turned off the tungsten light. The existence of light was less important if it was all your own share of light. You could only do so much in a day. Keeping your eyes to another day was more important. Property was important only if you loved it. The fog which had dogged Francis’s footsteps up the road now sealed itself against the windows.
‘I just wish he wasn’t so lonely. It makes people mad,’ Elisabeth said.
‘Hmm,’ said Francis.
‘I do want him to feel safe. I feel safe. I want everyone to feel safe. At least sometimes.’
A small, squat figure sat huddled in a doorway, listening to midnight and watching the fog. It was all the thicker, closer to the river. She had felt it sidle up from the ponds in the park as she had wandered through, hiding behind trees and calling for the dog. Once off the grass and on to the pavements, she remembered to be quieter with the stick. Someone had given her the stick, or maybe she had found it. You could always find a good stick if you came up behind someone old who was resting on a bench. Near the cathedral, Maria detoured, bolder now. The stick made a sound, one two click, one two click. She liked it: it gave her a sense of power to go with this equally dizzy sense of power which was her freedom. When she found the dog, she would beat it. Maria had grown in confidence, and with her stick she had walked for miles. She knew the centres of London in a way she never had, and all those years of frugal life and deliberate courtship of penances such as cold and pain stood her in good stead for survival now.
She thought she knew where the madonna was. Dead, she hoped. She also thought she might know where the girl was. And if she was wrong about that, she did not doubt that they would both come back. Everyone always came home, she supposed: they had no choice. For tonight, she was not in the doorway of her brother, but she was close.
From the opposite side of the road, even in the fog, looking up, she could see the lights from everyone else’s windows.
Look at me.
About the Author
FRANCES FYFIELD has spent much of her professional life practicing as a criminal lawyer, work which has informed her highly acclaimed novels. She has been the recipient of both the Gold and Silver Crime Writers’ Association Daggers. She is also a regular broadcaster on Radio 4, most recently as the presenter of the series ‘Tales from the Stave.’ She lives in London and in Deal, overlooking the sea, which is her passion.
www.francesfyfield.co.uk
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Also by Frances Fyfield
A Question of Guilt
Shadows on the Mirror
Trial by Fire
Shadow Play
Perfectly Pure and Good
A Clear Conscience
Without Consent
Blind Date
Staring at the Light
Undercurrents
The Nature of the Beast
Seeking Sanctuary
Looking Down
The Playroom
Safer Than Houses
Let’s Dance
The Art of Drowning
Blood from Stone
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book was originally published in the UK in 1992 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd and in 2005 by Time Warner Books.
HALF LIGHT. Copyright © 1992 by Frances Fyfield. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition APRIL 2014 ISBN: 9780062303974
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