AGATHA CHRISTIE
writing as
MARY WESTMACOTT
Unfinished Portrait
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Foreword
Book One: The Island
1 The Woman in the Garden
2 Call to Action
Book Two: Canvas
1 Home
2 Abroad
3 Grannie
4 Death
5 Mother and Daughter
6 Paris
7 Grown Up
8 Jim and Peter
9 Dermot
10 Marriage
11 Motherhood
12 Peace
13 Companionship
14 Ivy
15 Prosperity
16 Loss
17 Disaster
18 Fear
Book Three:The Island
1 Surrender
2 Reflection
3 Flight
4 Beginning
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Foreword
My Dear Mary: I send you this because I don’t know what to do with it. I suppose, really, I want it to see the light of day. One does. I suppose the complete genius keeps his pictures stacked in the studio and never shows them to anybody. I was never like that, but then I was never a genius – just Mr Larraby, the promising young portrait painter.
Well, my dear, you know what it is, none better – to be cut off from the thing you loved doing and did well because you loved doing it. That’s why we were friends, you and I. And you know about this writing business – I don’t.
If you read this manuscript, you’ll see that I’ve taken Barge’s advice. You remember? He said, ‘Try a new medium.’ This is a portrait – and probably a damned bad one because I don’t know my medium. If you say it’s no good, I’ll take your word for it, but if you think it has, in the smallest degree, that significant form we both believe to be the fundamental basis of art – well, then, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be published. I’ve put the real names, but you can change them. And who is to mind? Not Michael. And as for Dermot he would never recognize himself! He isn’t made that way. Anyway, as Celia herself said, her story is a very ordinary story. It might happen to anybody. In fact, it frequently does. It isn’t her story I’ve been interested in. All along it’s been Celia herself. Yes, Celia herself …
You see I wanted to nail her in paint to a canvas, and that being out of the question, I’ve tried to get her in another way. But I’m working in an unfamiliar medium – these words and sentences and commas and full stops – they’re not my craft. You’ll remark, I dare say, que ça se voit!
I’ve seen her, you know, from two angles. First, from my own. And secondly, owing to the peculiar circumstances of twenty-four hours, I’ve been able – at moments – to get inside her skin and see her from her own. And the two don’t always agree. That’s what’s so tantalizing and fascinating to me! I should like to be God and know the truth.
But a novelist can be God to the creatures he creates. He has them in his power to do what he likes with – or so he thinks. But they do give him surprises. I wonder if the real God finds that too … Yes, I wonder …
Well, my dear, I won’t wander on any more. Do what you can for me.
Yours ever,
J.L.
Book One
The Island
There is a lonely isle
Set apart
In the midst of the sea
Where the birds rest awhile
On their long flight
To the South
They rest a night
Then take wing and depart
To the Southern seas …
I am an island set apart
In the midst of the sea
And a bird from the mainland
Rested on me …
1 The Woman in the Garden
1
Do you know the feeling you have when you know something quite well and yet for the life of you can’t recollect it?
I had that feeling all the way down the winding white road to the town. It was with me when I started from the plateau overhanging the sea in the Villa gardens. And with every step I took, it grew stronger and – somehow – more urgent. And at last, just when the avenue of palm trees runs down to the beach, I stopped. Because, you see, I knew it was now or never. This shadowy thing that was lurking at the back of my brain had got to be pulled out into the open, had got to be probed and examined and nailed down, so that I knew what it was. I’d got to pin the thing down – otherwise it would be too late.
I did what one always does do when trying to remember things. I went over the facts.
The walk up from the town – with the dust and the sun on the back of my neck. Nothing there.
The grounds of the Villa – cool and refreshing with the great cypresses standing dark against the skyline. The green grass path that led to the plateau where the seat was placed overlooking the sea. The surprise and slight annoyance at finding a woman occupying the seat.
For a moment I had felt awkward. She had turned her head and looked at me. An Englishwoman. I felt the need of saying something – some phrase to cover my retirement.
‘Lovely view from up here.’
That was what I had said – just the ordinary silly conventional thing. And she answered in exactly the words and tone that an ordinary well-bred woman would use.
‘Delightful,’ she had said. ‘And such a beautiful day.’
‘But rather a long pull up from the town.’
She agreed and said it was a long dusty walk.
And that was all. Just that interchange of polite commonplaces between two English people abroad who have not met before and who do not expect to meet again. I retraced my steps, walked once or twice round the Villa admiring the orange berberis (if that’s what the thing is called) and then started back to the town.
That was absolutely all there was to it – and yet, somehow, it wasn’t. There was this feeling of knowing something quite well and not being able to remember it.
Had it been something in her manner? No, her manner had been perfectly normal and pleasant. She’d behaved and looked just as ninety-nine women out of a hundred women would have behaved.
Except – no, it was true – she hadn’t looked at my hands.
There! What an odd thing to have written down. It amazes me when I look at it. An Irish bull if there ever was one. And yet to put it down correctly wouldn’t express my meaning.
She hadn’t looked at my hands. And you see, I’m used to women looking at my hands. Women are so quick. And they’re so soft-hearted I’m used to the expression that comes over their faces – bless them and damn them. Sympathy, and discretion, and determination not to show they’ve noticed. And the immediate change in their manner – the gentleness.
But this woman hadn’t seen or noticed.
I began thinking about her more closely. A queer thing – I couldn’t have described her in the least at the moment I turned my back on her. I would have said she was fairish and about thirty-odd – that’s all. But all the way down the hill, the picture of her had been growing – growing – it was for all the world like a photographic plate that you develop in a dark cellar. (That’s one of my earliest memories – developing negatives with my father in our cellar.)
I’ve never forgotten the thrill of it. The blank white expanse with the developer washing over it. And then, suddenly, the tiny speck that appears, darkening and widening rapidly. The thrill of it – the uncertainty. The plate darkens ra
pidly – but still you can’t see exactly. It’s just a jumble of dark and light. And then recognition – you know what it is – you see that this is the branch of the tree, or somebody’s face, or the back of the chair, and you know whether the negative is upside down or not – and you reverse it if it is – and then you watch the whole picture emerging from nothingness till it begins to darken and you lose it again.
Well, that’s the best description I can give of what happened to me. All the way down to the town, I saw that woman’s face more and more clearly. I saw her small ears, set very close against her head, and the long lapis-lazuli earrings that hung from them, and the curved wave of intensely blonde flaxen hair that lay across the top of the ear. I saw the contour of her face, and the width between the eyes – eyes of a very faint clear blue. I saw the short, very thick dark brown lashes and the faint pencilled line of the brows with their slight hint of surprise. I saw the small square face and the rather hard line of the mouth.
The features came to me – not suddenly – but little by little – exactly, as I have said, like a photographic plate developing.
I can’t explain what happened next. The surface development, you see, was over. I’d arrived at the point where the image begins to darken.
But, you see, this wasn’t a photographic plate, but a human being. And so the development went on. From the surface, it went behind – or within, whichever way you like to put it. At least, that’s as near as I can get to it in the way of explanation.
I’d known the truth, I suppose, all along, from the very moment I’d first seen her. The development was taking place in me. The picture was coming from my subconscious into my conscious mind …
I knew – but I didn’t know what it was I knew until suddenly it came! Bang up out of the black whiteness! A speck – and then an image.
I turned and fairly ran up that dusty road. I was in pretty good condition, but it seemed to me that I wasn’t going nearly fast enough. Through the Villa gates and past the cypresses and along the grass path.
The woman was sitting exactly where I had left her.
I was out of breath. Gasping, I flung myself down on the seat beside her.
‘Look here,’ I said. ‘I don’t know who you are or anything about you. But you mustn’t do it. Do you hear? You mustn’t do it.’
2 Call to Action
1
I suppose the queerest thing (but only on thinking it over afterwards) was the way she didn’t try to put up any conventional defence. She might have said: ‘What on earth do you mean?’ or ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Or she might have just looked it. Frozen me with a glance.
But of course the truth of it was that she had gone past that. She was down to fundamentals. At that moment, nothing that anyone said or did could possibly have been surprising to her.
She was quite calm and reasonable about it – and that was just what was so frightening. You can deal with a mood – a mood is bound to pass, and the more violent it is, the more complete the reaction to it will be. But a calm and reasonable determination is very different, because it’s been arrived at slowly and isn’t likely to be laid aside.
She looked at me thoughtfully, but she didn’t say anything.
‘At any rate,’ I said, ‘you’ll tell me why?’
She bent her head, as though allowing the justice of that.
‘It’s simply,’ she said, ‘that it really does seem best.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ I said. ‘Completely and utterly wrong.’
Violent words didn’t ruffle her. She was too calm and far away for that.
‘I’ve thought about it a good deal,’ she said. ‘And it really is best. It’s simple and easy and – quick. And it won’t be – inconvenient to anybody.’
I realized by that last phrase that she had been what is called ‘well brought up’. ‘Consideration for others’ had been impressed upon her as a desirable thing.
‘And what about – afterwards?’ I asked.
‘One has to risk that.’
‘Do you believe in an afterwards?’ I asked curiously.
‘I’m afraid,’ she said slowly, ‘I do. Just nothing – would be almost too good to be true. Just going to sleep – peacefully – and just – not waking up. That would be so lovely.’
Her eyes half closed dreamily.
‘What colour was your nursery wallpaper?’ I asked suddenly.
‘Mauve irises – twisting round a pillar –’ She started. ‘How did you know I was thinking about them just then?’
‘I just thought you were. That’s all,’ I went on. ‘What was your idea of Heaven as a child?’
‘Green pastures – a green valley – with sheep and the shepherd. The hymn, you know.’
‘Who read it to you – your mother or your nurse?’
‘My nurse …’ She smiled a little. ‘The Good Shepherd. Do you know, I don’t think I’d ever seen a shepherd. But there were two lambs in a field quite near us.’ She paused and then added: ‘It’s built over now.’
And I thought: ‘Odd. If that field weren’t built over, well, perhaps she wouldn’t be here now.’ And I said: ‘You were happy as a child?’
‘Oh, yes!’ There was no doubting the eager certainty of her assent. She went on: ‘Too happy.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘I think so. You see, you’re not prepared – for the things that happen. You never conceive that – they might happen.’
‘You’ve had a tragic experience,’ I suggested.
But she shook her head.
‘No – I don’t think so – not really. What happened to me isn’t out of the ordinary. It’s the stupid, commonplace thing that happens to lots of women. I wasn’t particularly unfortunate. I was – stupid. Yes, just stupid. And there isn’t really room in the world for stupid people.’
‘My dear,’ I said, ‘listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve stood where you are now – I’ve felt as you feel that life isn’t worth living. I’ve known that blinding despair that can only see one way out – and I tell you, child – that it passes. Grief doesn’t last forever. Nothing lasts. There is only one true consoler and healer – time. Give time its chance.’
I had spoken earnestly, but I saw at once that I had made a mistake.
‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I know what you mean. I have felt that. In fact, I had one try – that didn’t come off. And afterwards I was glad that it hadn’t. This is different.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘This has come quite slowly. You see – it’s rather hard to put it clearly. I’m thirty-nine – and I’m very strong and healthy. It’s quite on the cards that I shall live to at least seventy – perhaps longer. And I simply can’t face it, that’s all. Another thirty-five long empty years.’
‘But they won’t be empty, my dear. That’s where you’re wrong. Something will bloom again to fill them.’
She looked at me.
‘That is what I’m most afraid of,’ she said below her breath. ‘It’s the thought of that that I simply can’t face.’
‘In fact, you’re a coward,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ She acquiesced at once. ‘I’ve always been a coward. I’ve thought it funny sometimes that other people haven’t seen it as clearly as I have. Yes, I’m afraid – afraid – afraid.’
There was silence.
‘After all,’ she said, ‘it’s natural. If a cinder jumps out of a fire and burns a dog, he’s frightened of the fire in future. He never knows when another cinder might come. It’s a form of intelligence, really. The complete fool thinks a fire is just something kind and warm – he doesn’t know about burning or cinders.’
‘So that really,’ I said, ‘it’s the possibility of – happiness you won’t face.’
It sounded queer as I said it, and yet I knew that it wasn’t really as strange as it sounded. I know something about nerves and mind. Three of my best friends were shell-shocked in
the war. I know myself what it is for a man to be physically maimed – I know just what it can do to him. I know, too, that one can be mentally maimed. The damage can’t be seen when the wound is healed – but it’s there. There’s a weak spot – a flaw – you’re crippled and not whole.
I said to her: ‘All that will pass with time.’ But I said it with assurance I did not feel. Because superficial healing wasn’t going to be any good. The scar had gone deep.
‘You won’t take one risk,’ I went on. ‘But you will take another – a simply colossal one.’
She said less calmly, with a touch of eagerness:
‘But that’s entirely different – entirely. It’s when you know what a thing’s like that you won’t risk it. An unknown risk – there’s something rather alluring about that – something adventurous. After all, death might be anything –’
It was the first time the actual word had been spoken between us. Death …
And then, as though for the first time a natural curiosity stirred in her, she turned her head slightly and asked:
‘How did you know?’
‘I don’t quite profess to be able to tell,’ I confessed. ‘I’ve been through – well, something, myself. And I suppose I knew that way.’
She said:
‘I see.’
She displayed no interest in what my experience might have been, and I think it was at that moment that I vowed myself to her service. I’d had so much, you see, of the other thing. Womanly sympathy and tenderness. My need – though I didn’t know it – was not to be given – but to give.
There wasn’t any tenderness in Celia – any sympathy. She’d squandered all that – and wasted it. She had been, as she saw herself, stupid about it. She’d been too unhappy herself to have any pity left for others. That new hard line about her mouth was a tribute to the amount of suffering she had endured. Her understanding was quick – she realized in a moment that to me, too, ‘things had happened’. We were on a par. She had no pity for herself, and she wasted no pity on me. My misfortune was, to her, simply the reason of my guessing something which on the face of it was seemingly unguessable.
Unfinished Portrait Page 1
