by Ray Connolly
She laughed lightly, and putting down her bags, indicated that the two girls follow her up the stairs to the living room as soon as they were ready, while she went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Silently Kathy went down the corridor with her bags and entered her room. It was dark. Moving to the windows she opened the shutters and allowed the late afternoon sunlight to sweep in. Because the living area of the house was upstairs she found that the bedrooms were on ground level and as she sat there looking at the garden and vineyards she noticed Ille walking out into the grounds, now dressed in one of her long flowing gowns again. She was beautiful, thought Kathy for the first time in weeks, and she watched with growing admiration as, graceful as ever, Ille moved languidly around the grounds, stopping at last by a dovecot to peer inside. It was empty, but as she began to move away a handful of tiny coloured birds flocked down and around her, attracted by some scraps of bread which Hélène had just thrown over the balcony. And for a moment Kathy once again noticed the silent reverie that came over Ille when confronted with such delicate beauty, and she wondered whether this could be the same girl whose games and tricks were quickly destroying her own life and the lives of those around her.
Opening the French windows Kathy walked quietly across the garden and joined Ille by the dovecot.
‘Shall we go for a walk?’ she asked. At first Ille appeared not to have heard her, and then after a delayed reaction she turned and smiled for the first time all day, and together they made a careful way down the hillside, through the small wood, and scrambled to the edge of the sea.
‘Do you think it’s warm enough to paddle, my love?’ asked Ille, her manner curiously mellow and soft.
It was strange how Ille’s moods changed with such variety and speed, but Kathy had now learned to live with them. She shook her head: ‘We should have come last summer if it was paddling you wanted.’
‘But last summer I was in love and there was no time to paddle.’
‘And now?’
‘Now … you’re right. It’s too cold. You know when we first met I used to dream of days like today, of moments like this one. Of times when we would be happier than we dreamed possible. But nothing has worked out the way it did in my dreams.’
Kathy held her breath: ‘You’re not happy?’
Ille looked at her gravely: ‘Are you?’
‘No. But I could be. I was happy.’ She paused reflectively. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
‘Of course you should have come. I wanted you here. You will have a nice holiday, and then perhaps a trip to London.’
Kathy looked at her sharply: surprised, and wounded.
‘I have been thinking about everything, Kathy. And that seems to me to be the best solution for us all.’ Again she had changed her mind.
Kathy didn’t answer: her throat was too parched for words.
Seeing the effect she had brought about in her friend a great melancholy overtook Ille who, after a moment’s silent consideration, turned and wandered into the sea, still wearing her boots, and allowing the waves to break across her knees and the bottom of her gown.
‘Is that what you really want?’ shouted Kathy at last, against the noise of the sea.
Ille turned to her and smiled: ‘We can still be friends, my love. We will always be friends,’ she said.
On the balcony Hélène sat knitting, watching the two girls below, and wondering just what delights were in store for her.
Dinner started that night as a solemn affair. At Hélène’s suggestion all three women had dressed in suitably formal wear, Hélène in a long black gown, deeply cut at the neck and with a scissored V down her back, Kathy in her simplest dress of white while Ille wore the hooded all-red velvet gown that she had worn the night Kathy had first met her. And as befitting an area where there was some of the best boar hunting in Europe Hélène had prepared a supper of roast pork.
Slightly intimidated by the lack of conversation from her two guests Hélène kept up a virtual monologue during dinner, explaining her husband’s trip to Milan, how they had first decided to build in Olméto when they had found Provence too crowded, and hoping that the very remoteness of the area would not spoil the girls’ holiday. In the summer Propriano was quite a busy little resort and harbour, she said, and that was only twelve kilometres away, but it was Olméto and Sartène that were to her the real heart of Corsica. Both Kathy and Ille nodded their agreement, but a quick under-the-eyelids glance at Ille by Kathy caught the mockery in those dark grave eyes of her friend. Kathy had come to know that face so well, with all its moods and shades of emotion. Poor Hélène would never know the malevolence of which Ille was capable.
‘Would you like some more pork, Kathy?’ Hélène was breaking into Kathy’s thoughts.
‘No … no thank you.’
Ille looked up, her eyes glinting: ‘Remember you’re eating for two now, Kathy,’ she whispered.
Kathy’s face dropped in surprise and horror. Ille couldn’t have been thinking what she was saying. But Hélène, still the gay hostess, hadn’t heard her, and after offering some more to Ille began to refill her own plate. Kathy stared at her plate: suddenly she felt numb with fear. There was no end to the number of games that Ille was prepared to play.
The rest of dinner passed off without incident, but a steady lacing of the local wine increasingly loosened Ille’s tongue, and very quickly she and Hélène were chatting amiably in French leaving Kathy to feel once again isolated.
‘Do you like music?’ Hélène asked at last, turning to Kathy. ‘We haven’t very much that’s American I’m afaid. Why don’t you see if you can find an American record for us? I feel like dancing.’
Picking herself up from the table Kathy went to a bookshelf where a record player was precariously placed and began going through a collection of albums. At last she found one she recognized, a Frank Sinatra album of standards. It wasn’t her choice in music, but then nothing else was either, and she wanted something quiet and restful.
‘Excellent choice, my dear,’ said Hélène as Sinatra’s voice went into ‘Autumn Leaves’. ‘Come, Ille, will you dance with me?’
Without a murmur Ille rose to her feet and allowed Hélène to take her in her arms as they moved in a slow seductive waltz around the room. From the record player Kathy watched in growing desperation. There was no doubt in her mind now that she had lost Ille, yet life without her was unthinkable. Hélène had no idea of what she was allowing herself to become involved in, had no notion of the tricks and treats that Ille needed to sustain her appetite for life. To Kathy the dance was a slow, obscene parody of the life she had come to know, Hélène looking gaily, almost innocently flirtatious, while Ille held her head well back, her smile a mockery of all the pleasures that she and Kathy had once known.
Suddenly the heat in the room became stifling: the logs on the fire were burning fiercely and the smell of roast pork made Kathy once more feel nauseous. Crossing to the large sliding window she retreated out on to the wide balcony in search of fresh air. It was a clear starry night, more chilly than she had expected, but the air was refreshing. Across the bay she could see the dozens of tiny lights which indicated Propriano, while further up the mountains another tiny galaxy of light specks showed her where there must be another village, visible only from this point by night. On the sill of the balcony lay Hélène’s knitting, the steel needles glinting in the light from the living room, left there no doubt when Hélène had called them in to supper earlier.
In the living room the music changed tempo slightly and Ille and Hélène found themselves doing a variation of a foxtrot, a dance that Ille didn’t know, and which gave Hélène the opportunity of leading Ille with little intricacies of steps around the polished wood floor.
‘Kathy is very quiet tonight,’ said Hélène as Ille finally began to understand the steps and the rhythm.
Ille shrugged, although in her heart her soul went out for the loneliness that she knew Kathy must be struggling to hide. She knew she was ig
noring her, and that she was now humiliating her, but she felt incapable of preventing herself. At times like this she despised the forces within herself, the ugly, selfish and evil side which would take control of her personality. She looked out at Kathy on the balcony, so perfectly formed and so fair, beautifully still and frail against the night sky. Later she would take her in her arms and beg forgiveness, she planned. And Kathy, as always, would give it.
Hélène was also watching Kathy as together they continued to move slowly round the floor: and now Hélène felt a tingle of triumph and excitement run through her as she considered the prospect that she might be breaking up the partners she had invited to her home. That would indeed be a conquest: a neat and private little social victory.
‘I think I should go and talk with her,’ said Ille at last, concern for her friend beginning to build within her.
‘Then we shall both go.’ Hélène was not to be robbed of her victory at this stage. She didn’t want to possess Ille. But for her own self-confidence it was necessary that she felt she had won her.
Together they stepped out on to the balcony. Kathy was still motionless by the wall. Behind them in the room the music played on.
Ille made the first move of comfort. ‘You are all right, Kathy?’
Kathy stared out across the bay, her mind drifting in loneliness: ‘I’m all right.’
Hélène put one hand on her arm, but Kathy immediately wrenched herself free: ‘We were worried about you, my dear. Are you unhappy? You hardly ate any dinner.’
Kathy turned to face her, her face drained and her eyes wet: ‘I felt sick. I’ve felt sick all day.’
Knots in Ille’s stomach began to tighten.
‘You should have told us, dear, I would have called a doctor …’ Hélène was prattling on, no longer the predator but now the busy social hostess trying to alleviate the bore of having one of her guests fall sick on her.
‘I’ve already seen a doctor. I went yesterday.’ She paused: and then looking Hélène straight in the eye she spoke again: ‘He told me I’m going to have your husband’s baby.’
For a moment Hélène’s face was frozen in the sympathetic smile that she had assumed to deal with the situation. Kathy stared straight at her unblinkingly. Ille was rigid with shock.
‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me.’ Kathy’s voice rose a pitch. ‘Perhaps you’re too infatuated with her now to care. Perhaps you imagine you’re in love with Ille. That’s a joke. Don’t you think that’s a joke? You can’t love Ille. No one can. She lives her life as one long game, playing off each one of us like some kind of toy that she controls. I tried to love her, but it’s impossible. Because she’s bad. She’s bad all through, hiding everything beyond that perfect fucking serenity. You should ask Claude about that serenity, Hélène. Ask him how serene he was when she spent every other afternoon sucking him off, and watching him fuck me. Ask Claude. Ask your loving husband, Hélène. She’s used me, and you and Claude. And you know why? Because she wanted a baby. But that wasn’t enough. She had to make it all into one of her games. We all had to be entangled in her game. She wanted a baby, and you wanted a baby, but neither of you got one. I did. That baby you wanted Claude to give you, Hélène, he gave to me. Because you’re sterile.’ By now Kathy was screaming hysterically. ‘You’re sterile, and she’s a lesbian who hates herself so much that she has to hate everyone and everything around her. She tries to offer love, but it always gets twisted up in her own hatefulness. Because she’s bad. And she’s mad. And you’re sterile, and I’m going to have the baby that was meant for you … d’you hear me? I’m going to have the baby you’ve always wanted….’
Hélène hardly had to move. The three of them were standing right by the wall of the balcony. In the light she could see the knitting needles and the pitifully useless token baby coat hanging from them. And as Kathy’s hysteria rose into a scream Hélène’s hands stretched out and finding the needles, slipped clear the wool, and even before Ille had time to notice what she was doing the steel needle was driven deep into Kathy’s belly, first once and then again and again, until the hysteria turned into horror, and pain … pain that echoed round the balcony and the woods and hills. And out across the white cotton dress poured the thick red sauce of blood, spreading across the fabric and dripping on to the tiles of the balcony floor. And as Hélène pulled herself away still holding her needle the body of Kathy fell across Ille and slid slowly to the ground. While in the house the music still played, and Frank Sinatra still sang.
There’s a somebody I’m longing to see
I hope that she
Turns out to be
Someone to watch over me.1
1 Reproduced with kind permission of Chappell & Co. Ltd.
Dedication
For all the girls who helped
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
Copyright © Ray Connolly 1975
The moral right of author has been asserted
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make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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ISBN: 9781448205233
eISBN: 9781448204793
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