by Lee, Tanith
And Sula stayed with Georgina. Really, Georgina did live with Sula. Slept with her too, wild dreams where Sula would suddenly burst through a wall and angrily shout that she would always be with Georgina. But awake, obviously, this was never so.
When Georgina sang, she sang for Sula, and to Sula, Every love song and lament, for her. Every book with a fair-haired heroine that Georgina read, was about Sula. Every piece of music listened to – Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, the moon aria from Russalka – they were all about Sula Dale, and infallibly conjured her. She drifted from the mind’s darkness and folded Georgina in her arms. She was like a haunting. She was like a second shadow.
Other (real) lovers felt her presence, even the least jealous. Even the ones Georgina carefully hid every DVD from, every inner memory. They knew. They scented Sula, they glimpsed her ghost. One of them had said sorrowfully to Georgina, “I know you loved someone once, very much. I realize she must have died.” Georgina shook her head. “It’s all right,” said the lover. “I won’t say anything again. I promise.”
But the dreams persisted. For all those twenty-four odd years. In aspect they were diverse. Sula would burst out of solid matter or through a slammed-back door, scintillant with rage. Or meet Georgina, smiling, (or mocking) on a street crowded with people or a deserted woodland track. Or at the top of a tower, where once she placed her hand quietly on Georgina’s left breast and asked, without either eroticism or aggression, “Where is your heart? Is it here?” “I suppose so,” Georgina had answered. But most frequently in these dreams there was no contact, not even a glance. Sula would pass by – or she was due to do so and never arrived. These dreams, whatever their scenario or coloring, were always of loss. What else?
Georgina never once dreamed though that she spoke to Sula Dale on the phone, as in reality she had done, two years after their last physical meeting.
Marc Henser’s death knocked the breath out of Georgina.
She had not, by then, seen him for over a decade. He had been one of her tutors at the Academy. He lectured on musical theory, but the subject was not dry or overly precise, with him. By telling stories he would illustrate the pivots of his argument. He was genuinely witty, clever, and funny; sometimes restfully abstruse. An old man, at that time – as she presently learned – only in his fifties. But in Georgina’s thirties, when Henser was seventy, he died of a stroke. Quick and clean. Or so Georgina’s erstwhile friend described it, breaking the news.
Georgina went to the funeral down at Eastbourne. She came back up and then down from London again on the last train, drained and drunk from the prolonged Burying Breakfast at a posh hotel.
She walked round the flat and sat in chairs, crying as she had not cried in the church or the graveyard. Marc Henser was one of the men she had been non-sexually in love with. She and others had spent a lot of time with him outside the curriculum. He always let his students be about him, without exploitation on either side. He would go on telling them things in the pub, as dutifully they swigged their Cokes and orange juices, or nursed their single wine or lager, too much liquor being bad for the professional voice.
Crying in the dark, lights left off, all but a single lamp, Georgina recalled his stories. How for example he had conclusively solved the riddle of what came first, the chicken or the egg.
“The egg, of course.” “How do you make that out, Marc?” “Well, Justine. We know that every species started as something quite unlike itself, crawling out of the sea aboard the land. Then gradually it evolved, in some cases over colossal amounts of time, until eventually becoming what we know today – a dog, a lion, a man...or a chicken. Which indicates that the original progenitor of chicken-kind was remarkably unlike any chicken that now bears the name of chicken. Following this premise to its natural denouement, one must assume that, every evolutionary while, one of the proto-chickens would become rather more like what is now accepted as a chicken, but that the very last of these individuals was still not quite what would pass as a chicken today.
“Nevertheless, like all its ancestors, it mated and produced some sort of egg. And when that egg, that ultimate, formative egg, broke open, out came the very first chicken of the true chicken genus. Ergo, chicken-creature-not-quite-chicken, then 1) egg, and 2) true chicken.” They had laughed and applauded him, making more uproar than all the surrounding alcohol drinkers. William had added slyly, “Egg first, then. I think he’s cracked it.”
When the sun came up out of sight from the flat, Georgina made tea, but was uncomforted either by tannin or daylight.
She found, in this unlooked-for extremity of grief, she wanted Sula. Wanted her now not in any obsessively romantic or sensual way, but as the child wants its parent. And as the child cries then for that succor and rescue, now Georgina began to cry for Sula, as never had she cried over Sula’s indifference and non-return.
For Sula, obviously, had never called Georgina. Not about the date of the radio play – Georgina found it by looking carefully through the Radio Times each week for months – not about visiting Georgina’s own venue in Richmond. If Sula ever had ‘dropped by,’ she must have been quite unimpressed by both the show and the singer. But no. Georgina was certain Sula had never been in the audience of Evil Evening. It had been easy enough to scan the meager gathering out front every night, before the house lights went down. And anyhow, the ridiculous play only lasted for ten performances.
While aside from any of that, Sula had never been, had she, welcoming. Let alone flirtatious. Sula was not tempted. Not at all.
Later Georgina was also aware why Sula so gallantly paid her half of the lunch. She had not wanted to owe Georgina, had not wanted to leave Georgina with any perceived excuse for Sula to repay the meal.
The dusty answer of Sula’s uninterest rankled and depressed, but somehow it never gained a purchase. Somehow Georgina, though accepting and obeying the unspoken law that Sula and she remained unconnected, that Sula had forgotten Georgina, found that Sula did not go away. Sula did not, in fact, leave Georgina alone. Sula was always there, just to one side, just in another room – oh yes, exactly what they said about the dead. And in the dreams, even those endlessly repeated dreams where Sula would never even glance at, or speak to Georgina, often never even appear on stage as it were, still Sula exerted her power. It was like a spell, an enchantment. And reason with herself as she had, Georgina could not get free of her.
At nine a.m. that morning, Georgina did something that surprised her own self. She picked up the London telephone directory and looked there for Sula Dale.
To Georgina’s further astonishment, she found that Sula was in the book, the full name too – not X-directory as Georgina might have expected. Many aspiring actors did this, however, to make themselves easy of access for prospective work.
Georgina sat and stared at the phone number, and the address attached to it. Decoulter Gardens – she believed she recognized where it was; somebody she had once known had lived in an adjacent street – one of those small squares in the back-pockets of the Bayswater Road.
Georgina would never diagnose if she was grieving most for Marc Henser, or for the death of her own former personality – her first youth, when so much had (erroneously) seemed possible.
That cliché.
But about nine thirty she poured herself another glass of wine, and called Sula’s number.
Singer-trained, Georgina had cleared her larynx of tears.
She anticipated the phone would signal and go unanswered. Then the signal cut off. She heard Sula’s voice. “Ye-es?” She sounded half asleep. Relaxed, sexy.
Now was the moment to ask for an invented person, apologize for a wrong number, put down the receiver.
“Is that Sula?”
“Yes,” said Sula. Still relaxed, but more cool.
And now the invented character with a borrowed name rose up after all and became Georgina herself. “Hi. This is Justine.”
“Who?” Sula’s voice was now disbelieving, startle
d. She must have – of course – seen through the falsehood.
“Justine,” Georgina repeated reasonably.
“That’s really odd,” said Sula.
“Is it?” Yes, naturally it is. I am lying. I am using the name of that raven-haired contralto from the Academy.
“It’s my sister’s name,” said Sula, now sounding both amused and intrigued. “I was just speaking to her in Ireland, about five minutes ago.”
Georgina laughed. A bright spontaneous laughter of relief. Such coincidences, previews, life can spring. Only six months before she had dreamed of Sula in a seventeenth century costume of scarlet silk, and some weeks after seen her in just that costume in a new film. This movie, which itself concerned the making of an historical movie, had been shot in Paris.
Sula was laughing as well.
“I’m sorry,” said Georgina, “it’s very early to call.”
“Oh, that’s OK. Sis got me up at eight. She would. Where are you speaking from?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I’m in London at the moment. Makes a change after Paris, doesn’t it. God, that was a good party. Where we met, I mean.” (There were always movie-shoot parties. A safe gambit.)
“Yeah,” said Sula. “They all just became a blur though, didn’t they.”
“I was wondering if you’d be free for lunch?”
“Not till next week,” said Sula, easy as poured syrup. “I have to go over to Dublin. Maybe after the sixteenth?”
“Oh yes,” said Georgina. “That’s fine.”
Oh yes. That’s fine. That’s – just fine.
“How about,” said Sula, “l’Anchois? Do you know that? Near Seven Dials.”
“Sure,” said Georgina. Sure, the worst pub in England, the Tube, the local sewer, absolutely fine.
She could barely stop herself laughing again, but her stage control, which anyway was holding her firm through all of this surreal extended moment, as if really everything were perfectly normal, kept her on track.
And Sula then began to talk about the Paris film, and Georgina added pertinent comments. She managed to convey the impression she had had a tiny part in the movie, without saying anything expansive. Paris Georgina knew well enough to discuss.
And when the talk moved to theatre Georgina was on home ground.
They joked about getting lost in the backstage labyrinth at the National, and the bizarre freak sound the stage sometimes made at the Lyric. They spoke as if they were old friends, but too with a hint of something more enticing. There was a kind of display from Sula, the fanned erection of a peacock’s tail – the note you might strike when you like the correspondent. She likes my voice. The sound of me. She is hearing me for the very first As if I were singing to her. She has never heard me sing.
(During all this, did any of Georgina’s grief for Marc Henser remain? Perhaps. It was the somber key signature after all to these actions, even their result. She never felt guilty that she had – if she had – used her pain at his death to propel her forward. Marc would not have judged her. Though something did.)
They parted warmly, Georgina and Sula, after nearly an hour. The conversation had flowed. Something in them had become – engaged, even if only for that miniature space of time. As, through endless eons, a love affair conducted with maximum intensity for two thirds of a century, becomes also a miniature, when the winged chariot has gone by, mashing as it passes all such spaces, such momentary loves.
“I’d better go,” said Georgina. “About one, then, at l’Anchois, on the nineteenth.”
“I’ll book,” said Sula. “They get a lot of people in on Fridays. Oh, better let me have your number, just in case.” Georgina rendered it. It was a different number by then anyway. “Well, take care.”
“You too. And again – sorry to call so early.”
“No,” said Sula. She added, softly, almost like a child, (never to be forgotten, this tone, these words, fresh as when new twenty-four years later) “No, it was nice. See you soon.”
Stars fall and cover everything with diamond dust. Dreams come true. Anything is possible. For a moment.
What on earth had been her plan? Sula would know the instant they met. Would Sula be angry – or flattered? Again amused?
Oh, Georgina would confess at once when she met Sula, to exclude all doubt. There in the restaurant, even before the first sips of wine. “Sorry. I just wanted to see you.” It was a risk, but no, not a risk. Sula had been engaged. Things were different, different, now. And Georgina would be at her best, summer tanned, extensions in her hair, extra slim and fit from that last production—
Later, long after the event, Georgina had experienced a curious pang of conscience. Had Sula actually met someone in Paris she had liked, somehow not got to know her, let alone secure her, mistaken Georgina’s fake persona of Justine for her? Yet in fact it could not have been that, not some mistake and keenness for a meeting with another. Because if it had been, Sula would not have called Georgina on the eighteenth.
Georgina, just back from having the extensions done, went immediately cold when she heard Sula’s voice. The chill of fear she supposed. She had already visualized waiting at the restaurant while Sula failed to appear. Or better things, so much better.
“Justine? I’m sorry. I can’t make lunch tomorrow.”
“Oh. That’s—”
“Yes.” Brisk now, not warm. “Something’s come up.”
“Well, perhaps...another—”
“Sorry. Can’t, not for ages. Don’t know what I’ll be doing for a month.” Dismissive.
Yet it could be true. Events, offers, let downs – in their business – anything – nothing—
“That’s a shame. But are you OK – ?”
“Yes. Fine. Look, I have to rush. Take care.”
The lifeless receiver. Georgina put its dead body back on the rest.
Come, darkness...
I never saw a night so dark. Not a star, not a moon.
As if she too had died. Suddenly shot through the brain or heart, still standing there in the black sunshine, but everything finished. The curtain already coming down forever, upon the stupid and badly-written play.
Two
The second occasion that she explored the upper room in the house-dream, occurred in those months that followed Sula’s call. Georgina was writing one of her first plays, in a disorganized manner with a friend, and had abandoned all hope in it. (It was never ultimately finished.) At this time whenever doing anything else she always felt distress. She should be singing. That was her work.
She had become aware too that Sula had got into this play. Perhaps the friend was also aware. The lead female role, twisting in the furnace of Georgina’s brain, into an attractive woman of about forty... (Eventually she would notice Sula appeared in most of her writing, as in most of the music she listened to. A role even specifically written for another actress would reshape itself, and Georgina would know it was still Sula, in the lightest disguise.)
That night, dissatisfied, she went to bed at midnight.
When she saw the green glowing house, she remembered instantly that she had been there before, and crossed the road to it. It was winter again in the garden. The ivy was thick on the trees. The door was shut. Did she have a key? Ah, she must have done, for she was already inside.
As she ran up the stair her footsteps echoed through the empty shell, but the banister had a rich polish on it.
She remembered too the room on the second floor; went straight to it. The door here was shut also, but she turned the doorknob and there, exactly as previously, lay the vista with the – cobbled? – road sloping down through a quite pleasant nothingness, and below, the buildings. They were glinting, not under snow, but in full late summer sun. It was probably about five o’clock.
Without hesitation Georgina went down the slope. She came among the buildings, an ordinary enough street. A little park ran on one side with tall (summer) green trees. Traffic went by. People, crowds of them, passing to
and fro. It was a scene quite unexceptional, yet familiar, although later she knew she had never been in this particular place, awake in the outer world.
But then she turned down a side road and found herself in a pale grey square of large, tall terraced houses, most presumably now flats.
It was Decoulter Gardens. There would be the name up somewhere, on that railing, that wall over there. She thought she saw it. What did it say? De – C… Dc-ter...something. It was all right. It was the right address.
Until then the dream had been neutral. Now it became urgent and exciting. Georgina understood why she had come. She moved around the square, in the centre of which rose a single verdant tree. She stood beneath the tree and looked directly across at the building that held Sula’s flat. The architecture, like that of the green house, had something Victorian to it. There was a balcony. How apt. Behind it, long French windows glittered in the sunlight. They were closed. But only made of glass.
People passed idly up and down through the square, too. When Georgina began to sing, some turned and several paused, to listen – this was all compatible. They maintained an orderly yet magical silence. No one seemed amazed, let alone disapproving.
