by F. R. Tallis
Laura lifted the sheet and let it fall in order to cool herself. She had been restless too, unable to settle because of the humidity.
Since their earlier altercation they had managed to be perfectly civil to each other, but Christopher sensed that things weren’t quite right yet; the subtle accords that make intimacy possible had not been fully restored, and he was uncomfortable going abroad without having first recalibrated their affections. He was superstitious in this respect, worried that if something horrible happened to him, if the plane crashed or he was run over, they would have parted for the last time without having resolved their differences.
Christopher slid across the mattress and pressed his body against Laura’s. He kissed the nape of her neck and, reaching down, insinuated his hand between her thighs. Touch, closeness. He had faith in the healing properties of physical contact, the palliative effects of shared pleasure. Almost immediately, Laura rolled onto her back and let her knees fall apart. He was surprised by her acquiescence; he had expected her to need more coaxing, more encouragement. She pulled him between her legs and raised her hips. He felt a slight resistance, her flesh giving, and then immersion, engulfing warmth.
Their lovemaking was not particularly vigorous, but it wasn’t long before Christopher began to experience fatigue. The muggy atmosphere made intercourse effortful. Christopher found that he was running out of breath and supporting the weight of his body was making his arms ache. The moon was casting just enough light to reveal Laura’s expression. She did not look like a woman lost in a state of sensual abandon, but rather someone trying to solve a difficult mathematical problem. Her expression was determined, her lips pressed tightly together. Christopher still hadn’t got used to her short hair.
It was evident that neither of them was very excited. They were both perspiring heavily. To avoid the embarrassment of having to give up, Christopher closed his eyes and thought of someone else to expedite his climax. The person he thought of was Amanda Ogilvy.
After their exertions, husband and wife lay next to each other in silence, moisture evaporating off hot skin, arms extended, only their fingers touching. The taint of the stagnant pond water was now fortified by the pungency of their bodies. It had been a pointless exercise. The subtle estrangement that had existed between them was still there – only made more obvious by their perfunctory union. A mosquito or some other insect was producing an irritating whining sound, but it was not irritating enough to stop Christopher from falling asleep.
He was awake before the alarm clock sounded. He turned it off and crept to the bathroom where his clothes were hanging behind the door: a crumpled, pale linen suit and a cheesecloth shirt. After he had washed and dressed he went downstairs and picked up his travel bag in the hallway. He unlocked the door, being careful not to make any noise. As he did so, Maybury’s last communication came back to him: Turn the key gently. I shall have what is mine. The reference to key-turning, which had up till then seemed obscure, now acquired uncanny resonances. It was as though Maybury had foreseen the moment of his departure and had judged it to be significant. Christopher closed the door, remembering the tender sighing that had followed. She is mine. She is mine. The sky was streaked with salmon-pink clouds and the birds were singing.
Emerging from the porch, Christopher walked to the gate, where he paused and looked back at the house. He had been looking forward to getting away, but now something snagged. The sensation was almost physical, yet he immediately recognized that its nature was psychosomatic, that his discomfort was caused by a moral scruple – doubt, uncertainty. His leave-taking suddenly felt like an abrogation of responsibility, abandonment, neglect.
Laura and Faye weren’t in any danger, surely? He had read too much into a chance observation, made false connections and ascribed meaning where there was none. There was nothing to fear. He took a deep breath and the fresh air of the new day cleared his head. The cab he had ordered seemed to glide smoothly into the Vale and he raised his hand to attract the driver’s attention.
Second week in June
Laura wiped the surfaces in the kitchen with a damp cloth and then paced from room to room on the ground floor brandishing a duster. Everything was already spotless, but for some reason she couldn’t settle and cleaning gave her something to do. She had tried to read a novel; however, after only ten minutes she had had to set it aside. She just couldn’t concentrate. A new character had been introduced and she realized, belatedly, that she had no idea who he was supposed to be or how he was related to the other people in the story.
When she had finished dusting, Laura wandered around the house searching for other things to occupy her. She was looking for something undemanding, something that would keep her busy and provide her with a modest sense of accomplishment at its conclusion; something that would accelerate the passage of time and allow her to justify the reward of tea and biscuits that she was already planning.
‘Come on, Faye,’ she said to her daughter. ‘Let’s tidy the nursery.’
The child followed her mother up the stairs on all fours.
Laura encouraged Faye to pick up her soft toys and put them in a basket. The child copied her mother’s actions with gleeful enthusiasm. While Faye was thus employed, Laura set about organizing the books in alphabetical order. On the lowest shelf she discovered the clockwork monkey. The last time she had seen it was in the empty room on the top floor. Chris must have brought it down. The thing was supposed to amuse, make children laugh, but the cast of its expression was not simply mischievous. The monkey’s face had a sinister aspect and its grin was oddly twisted, almost a leer. Laura pushed the toy back on the shelf as far as it would go.
Faye was becoming fractious. She threw a miniature panda across the room and stamped her feet.
Laura asked, ‘What’s the matter, darling?’
The child looked annoyed and shouted the infantile equivalent of a profanity. Laura picked her up and held her close. ‘Are you tired, honey?’ She sat down on the window seat, stroked Faye’s hair, and the child became less agitated. ‘What a good girl, helping Mummy. Who’s been a good girl?’
The garden was fabulously wild and colourful. Ivy had begun to climb up the sides of the gazebo and the gorse bushes seemed to have doubled in size. Long grasses and poppies surrounded the apple trees. The overall effect suggested reckless, paroxysmal growth. Many of the plants Laura couldn’t name. Some were tall and strange, with massive petals and fleshy spikes. They were otherworldly and reminded Laura of the exotics that flourished in the steamy hothouses of Kew.
A thought came into her mind. Sue’s coming tomorrow.
Laura was glad, not only because the garden was in dire need of attention, but also because she liked Sue and she was looking forward to seeing her again. That a professional visit from someone she hardly knew had become such an eagerly awaited occasion exposed the deadly monotony of Laura’s day-to-day existence. She felt her throat tighten with emotion.
When Chris had announced that he was going to Paris she had reacted badly. The thought of being left in the house with only Faye for company – albeit for only a few days – had made her feel like she was teetering on the edge of an abyss. Chris’s expression had been enquiring but she had managed to conceal her desperation. There was the old fear, of course, that familiar dread of loneliness, but in addition to this she was aware of something new, a fleeting apprehension of danger. She didn’t know what it was but it made her feel weak and defenceless.
Faye was very still, nestled in the crook of Laura’s arm. When Laura studied her daughter more closely she was surprised to discover that the child had fallen asleep. Laura stood up, drew the curtains, and walked over to the cot. With a single fluid movement she deposited Faye on the mattress.
‘Sweet dreams,’ she whispered.
Laura stepped out onto the landing and considered what she might do next. The need to remain fully occupied seemed even more pressing than before – a necessity rather than a choice. Directly ahead
of her was a large cupboard that had clearly been designed for the purpose of storing linen. Ventilation lattices were positioned above both doors. This enormous space was where they – Laura and Christopher – had chosen to stash all of those things that weren’t of any real value but which for various reasons (such as sentimental attachment) they had been reluctant to throw away. Laura grabbed the handles, pulled and found herself staring at a wall of junk. The interior was filled to capacity; chaotic and shabby, like a jumble sale. She saw a chipped Smith Corona typewriter, a teasmade, two tennis racquets (with broken strings), four lever-arch files, some glazed pottery figures, chocolate boxes, a Hornby steam locomotive, some model railway track and, stuffed into the gaps, several plastic carrier bags overflowing with bills, receipts and used-up chequebooks.
It needed a good clear-out.
Next to the typewriter was a pile of magazines. Most of them were editions that had been published between 1965 and 1967 and some had Laura’s face on the front. After 1967 she had become quite blasé about her image appearing in magazines and thereafter was less inclined to save them.
She picked up a copy of Harper’s Bazaar, flicked it open and saw a younger version of herself on the streets of New York. It had been a Richard Avedon shoot and the photographer had made her leap about on Broadway. The camera had caught her walking on air, legs straight, like an open pair of scissors, dressed in a short skirt, boots and a tight jumper that emphasized the pertness of her breasts. She dropped the magazine on the floor and examined the next one on the pile. It was Cosmopolitan. The scantily clad cover girl didn’t really look like her at all. But it was her, at her thinnest, her ribcage visible through her pellucid skin. Then Elle, encased in a dark, figure-hugging suit – not a bad likeness; then McCall’s, wearing a futuristic-looking gold dress and massive earrings, with pale, chalky lips and hair subjected to the harsh discipline of a severe geometric cut. One magazine followed another: some dropped, some tossed, some hurled across the landing in anger. There was another pile of magazines behind the first. Laura didn’t look at any of them. She simply heaved the lot out and let them spill across the floor.
The shelf had been lined with thick wallpaper and this had been dragged forward with the magazines. Laura was about to slide the overhang back into position, when she noticed that something had been uncovered: a pattern of pale squares. She reached into the dark recess and tried to dislodge four pieces of stiff card that were stuck to the shelf. It was difficult and she had to use her fingernails. One of the pieces got torn in the process.
When she brought the cards out into the light, she discovered that they were old photographs. The edges were worn and the images were speckled with spots of mould. All of the photographs were of the same individual, a girl of about seven years of age. She was wearing what appeared to be a shapeless dress made from sacking and her face was smeared with dirt. Her expression was glum.
‘Such a sad little face,’ Laura murmured.
Only one of the photographs was taken without trickery. In all of the others the girl was, to a greater or lesser extent, transparent. They seemed to represent an early experiment involving double exposure. Laura looked at each photograph in turn and chanced upon a particular order that made the girl seem to vanish. Frame by frame, she faded almost to nothing, becoming, in the end, a featureless outline. The child’s expression seemed to grow more fearful as the sequence progressed, but it was difficult to be certain because of the gradual loss of detail. Laura reversed the order so as to bring her back.
Chris would be extremely interested in these photographs. A week or so earlier he had been babbling excitedly about one of the voices he was now in the habit of recording: the voice of a Victorian stage magician who he believed had once lived in the house. Chris had said something else too, about Mr Ellis the builder and a camera in the attic, but she couldn’t remember what exactly. She hadn’t been listening. Chris had wanted her to go upstairs with him so that he could play her the voice he had recorded, but she had made some excuse or other. He had obviously been irritated by her indifference and he had left the room in a huff.
Laura wasn’t impressed by his new musical project and she was finding his obsession with the dead rather unsettling. He sometimes chastised her for being unwilling to engage with the big questions, but why should she care about life after death? Life before death was challenging enough. She went down to the kitchen and returned with a dustbin bag. She filled it with the magazines she had removed from the cupboard and then, pausing for a moment, she considered the photographs. She didn’t want to encourage Chris’s morbidity. The mouth of the dustbin bag was wide open and inviting. For a moment she hesitated, but it was only for a fraction of a second. The photographs fell from her hand and slipped out of view. Laura knotted the plastic and closed the cupboard doors.
Didier Baumann, the producer of Le Jardin des Reflets, arrived at Christopher’s hotel shortly after lunch. He was a middle-aged man with a weary, hangdog expression. Dark pouches of wrinkled flesh sagged beneath his rheumy brown eyes. Although he looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week, he was smartly dressed in a white shirt and blue trousers. They made their way to the Rue de Rennes and then set off in the direction of the river. Heat rising from the asphalt made everything shimmer in the distance. Baumann talked about his production company and his association with several ‘successful’ projects, although Christopher had only heard of one of his films, a romantic comedy called La Saison des Tempêtes. The traffic had come to a halt and irate drivers were blasting their horns continuously. Baumann had to raise his voice to compete. ‘There it is – where we are meeting.’ He was pointing at Les Deux Magots, a cafe on the corner of Boulevard St-Germain and Rue Bonaparte. The interior was crowded and very noisy, but a quiet table was found for them on the pavement, in the shady corridor beneath a vast green awning. They sat drinking coffee. Time passed. Baumann consulted his wristwatch and looked around anxiously.
‘Is there a problem?’ Christopher asked.
‘No,’ Baumann replied. ‘He will be here soon.’
Christopher wasn’t convinced.
Half an hour later Fabrice Ancel arrived. Even though the sun was shining, he had chosen to don a black leather jacket over a polo-neck sweater. His hair was long, unwashed and tousled. He wore glasses with thick frames and his cleft chin was shadowed with stubble. Standing by his side was a blonde girl. Excessive quantities of mascara and lipstick could not hide the fact that she was still in her adolescence.
‘Monsieur Norton.’ Baumann gestured towards the young man. ‘Fabrice Ancel.’ The director gripped Christopher’s hand firmly and said, ‘Je suis honoré,’ before adding in heavily accented English, ‘I have admired your work for many years.’ Christopher thanked him and Baumann introduced the girl. ‘Martine. A very talented dancer.’
Christopher bowed gallantly. ‘Enchanté.’
After a brief exchange of preliminary courtesies, Ancel launched into a detailed exposition of his objectives; occasionally he would say a phrase or two in English, but he appeared to be uncomfortable when he wasn’t speaking his own language. He talked about illusion and reality, and made frequent references to the writings of a psychoanalyst called Jacques Lacan. It transpired that the central character of Le Jardin des Reflets was loosely based on one of Jacques Lacan’s case studies, Aimée, a woman who had attempted to stab a famous Parisian actress. Ancel spoke at length about mirrors and identity, occasionally slowing his delivery to make some quasi-philosophical observation. ‘A man sees himself in the mirror. But what does he see? In fact, he sees another man. We identify with an image outside of ourselves, something alien.’ Christopher nodded, feigning interest, but actually he was finding Ancel’s long-winded speech void of substance and rather tedious.
The girl was silent, but at regular intervals she threw a sideways glance at Christopher. When she crossed her skinny legs, he noticed that her tights were laddered. She had allowed one of her flat shoes to fall away from the heel o
f her foot and the ribbons holding up her vest had slipped from her shoulders. It was as though her clothes were causing her discomfort and she was eager to be free of any restraint. Christopher altered the angle at which he was sitting in order to remove her from his sight. The director was still grappling with the problems of identity. ‘How do I know who I am? The ego functions to conceal inner fragmentation. It is an inauthentic agency. Thus, we can learn very little by asking ourselves this type of question.’
Christopher was becoming impatient. He wanted Ancel to stop talking about psychoanalysis and start talking about the film; he wanted to discuss the characters, their development, and the musical possibilities of the plot. Attempts to steer the conversation away from theoretical abstractions met with considerable resistance, and when Christopher became more insistent, Ancel simply talked over him. Then, quite suddenly, Ancel produced a notebook, scribbled something down and tore off the top sheet, which he held out for Christopher to take.
‘What’s this?’ Christopher asked.
‘My address,’ Ancel replied in English. ‘Could you come tomorrow afternoon?’
‘What time?’
‘Four o’clock?’
‘I have a flight to catch.’
‘Then one o’clock?’
Christopher looked at Baumann, who said, ‘You will have enough time to get to the airport.’
‘Very well,’ Christopher replied, slightly confused. ‘One o’clock.’
Ancel stood up. ‘Au revoir, monsieur.’ He nodded curtly at Baumann and, without heeding a single social nicety, strode off down Rue Bonaparte. The girl picked up his cigarettes and followed, falling in behind him, keeping a distance of several paces. When Christopher turned to address Baumann, he was silenced by the producer’s curious expression. The man was obviously in awe of Ancel and a faint smile of wonderment played around his lips. His eyes encouraged Christopher to speak, to acknowledge that they had just been in the presence of a higher being. When Christopher failed to deliver the desired response, Baumann was forced to supply it himself. ‘Fabrice is very complex, a true artist. Le Jardin des Reflets will be a work of genius, I know it.’
