We fall quiet. I notice that swirling around our pale feet is a spiral of rose petals, caught in a whirlpool made by their motion. We both move our feet in time, our eyes fixed on those dancing red curls. For a while they stay in that slipstream but then spin out of our control, floating back into the body of water.
“The last thing I need is another parent figure,” he says. “Trying to make me fit their requirements of how I should be. My father is 70, but he's still struggling with the idea of a son who's a surgeon but also a transvestite.” He laughs and looks over my shoulder at the fountain. Glancing at his profile his seeming contradictions make perfect sense to me. There's the tightness in his jaw line and the high set eyes which are precise and surgical. Yet the makeup under his eyes and the ruffle of his scarf fit with the effeminacy an altruistic role sometimes implies.
“Do you also see yourself as a transvestite now then?”
He considers the question with a look that's very childlike, given what has been asked.
“I think I always have been Vincent. I think it's just that I've become more confident about it. Some of my happiest memories are of being temporarily left alone at home by my parents. Within seconds I'd be at my mother's dresser, clumping about in oversized heels with ridiculous clouds of rouge on my cheeks. I must have looked like a Victorian toy soldier. Had my father returned home at that moment, I would have been beaten to within an inch of my life.
“I remember the ecstasy of first going to a nightclub wearing eyeliner. Drenched in hairspray and glitter, dancing to Lou Reed records. I felt as if I was living on the outside, in a realm that most people could never enter. For so long I had felt completely alone, but makeup made my isolation feel special. The world came to life – the streets were no longer grey and cold, they sparkled with sordid possibility. But the most resonant pleasures in our lives are always individually defined. When you expect the world to appreciate them they simply expose their own bland uniformity. I learnt that the more unusual you are, the more personalised pleasures the world reveals to you.”
“I remember when we used to climb trees in the summer holidays,” I say. “You were the biggest risk taker of all. But when the evening came you'd always start suggesting that we play fancy dress. That would be the point at which I'd start to think about going home.”
“Poor you,” he laughs. “Having a perfectly innocent day, and then having me suggest something truly subversive at the end of it. I wasn't the only daredevil amongst us though, was I? Do you remember the time you climbed the one tree in your garden that your father had forbidden us to go near?”
The memory of that afternoon, still painful, flashes before my eyes. Perhaps reacting to my expression, Graham lowers his voice. “It was his favourite tree, the great sycamore at the foot of the garden, the one he watched from his top floor study when he was writing. And he said that it was the only tree that you shouldn't climb, and that if you did you would be very sorry. So you did what any schoolboy would have done under the circumstances.”
“I still feel guilty about that Graham,” I laugh. “I'm so sorry. I thought he was out. I wanted so badly to get back at him for ignoring me. But I was cowardly, so I got back at him in a way that I hoped he would never know. By climbing that stupid, sacred tree of his. But I soon learnt that he wasn't out at all – he'd just left his study for a few moments. He came back to see this muddy kid clambering up his beloved tree at the foot of the garden.
I remember the roar that he gave out; it reverberated around the garden. I instantly opened my arms and fell about ten feet, grabbed onto one of the lower branches. ‘Get down!' you screamed. ‘He's going to kill us!' I was so much more scared of him than of the fall. When I got to the ground my arms were bruised, my knees were cut and bloody and you said – ”
“That I'd never seen you look that frightened before. And then he loomed over and grabbed you by the arm, and I was so terrified of what he might do Vincent, his rage was so terrifying that I reacted – ”
“You told him that it was you who'd climbed the tree.
I'll never forget that. And he looked at me and said, ‘Is this true? Because if not you have just doubled your punish-ment.'And you insisted.” The memories are raw and clear now, if a little disordered. “‘It was me,' you said. ‘Vincent told me not to do it but I ignored him.' And then that moment of mute rage when he looked between the two of us, and it occurred to me – ”
“That he'd hoped it was you in the tree?”
“Yes,” I answer. “I think you're right. But then his rage was so enormous, so overwhelming, that he couldn't stop himself. There in front of me, he beat you. He even dropped your shorts to do it, didn't he?”
“You kept opening your mouth, to say it was you. That he shouldn't beat me, but my eyes were begging you not to as I knew it would just mean both of us getting punished.”
“That was my punishment. He knew it. To let you take the blame for me, he knew that would destroy me. And it did. You were such a good friend Graham. You really didn't need to do that for me.”
“I don't know why I did!” he laughs. “But I remember afterwards, looking at him and thinking how incredibly unfair it was. I had no idea life could be so wrong. And him, shamefaced, saying to me, ‘It's for your own good Graham. Your father would have done the same had he been here.' It was pathetic. He seemed to want me to thank him for his brutality, to look up at him through the tears and congratulate him for being such a man. And of course I didn't; I kept completely silent. And I felt that in some little way I got level with him at that moment. By seeing how embarrassed he was with his own rage.”
He kicks at the water. “My father would have beaten me too, but not as savagely. He knew about my little secrets, he just needed to catch me in the act. Our fathers were similar in that way, both of them made us hide a great deal. That sense of having a certain state of mind that you sometimes must express – it's enough to define you. I think if I'd not have had a father who found such activities repulsive, I would probably not have gained as much pleasure from them, funnily enough.”
“If he can't take in your contradictions, I reckon he hasn't spent enough time with you while being openminded,” I suggest.
He smiles. “I know what you mean. Through my eyes, I make perfect sense. My maternal instincts are put into my work, which is a perfect continuation of my lifestyle. But to him it's a maddening contradiction. He's pleased that his son has an enviable career, but infuriated that the honour that brings him is tempered by me queening it about in drag. But what do I do? Work four days a week at the hospital and spend the rest of my time wearing a suit from Next?”
“No. I can't see you in anything off the rack.”
“Just one reason he'll never be happy,” he laughs. He exhales, smoke passing from his mouth into a cloud above us. “People don't see. They spend their lives in compromised and unhappy states because they don't stumble across a state of mind in which they feel liberated. I'm straight, but I probably never feel more like myself than when I'm wearing a dress. In a way, I feel fortunate. At least I have found a state of mind which I can call home. But the world, perhaps through envy or fear, forces me to hide it away.
“It holds me back professionally Vincent, of course it does. How can I push for consultancy posts when my cross-dressing is bound to be brought up by the review panel? We supposedly live in enlightened times, but my rivals have my head in a noose if they find out about my nightlife. The insinuation behind Francoise calling this party is that we should take a long hard look ourselves, and get over whatever restricts us. But she doesn't see that I have already done that. I'm not like Franz or Barbara, hankering after adolescent glory. I'm more successful than ever, approaching the top of my game. Unlike them, I do not hold myself back. It is the rest of the world that restrains me.”
“What Francoise has shown me this evening is that you shouldn't compromise. If other people can't get their head around you, forget them. Concern yourself with embodying your own
contradictions as fully as you can. If you are open about your own individuality then your rivals will have no hold over you. Now I'm not saying you should go into the surgery theatre in full drag Graham, I'm not saying that.” He smiles. “But I am saying that you should try to be as open about your life as you reasonably can. If you do, you'll find that people quickly fall into two camps – those you want to know, and those you don't.”
He considers this for a second. Then we both look at each other and laugh at our sudden seriousness. Whenever we're in each other's company we seem to use the time to steady ourselves against the world.
“Unfortunately, one of the people who'll fall into the latter camp is my father,” he says.
“But how often does anybody accept all our contradictions? Barely ever. They all try and mould us in some way. Your father probably won't appreciate all the self-actualisation you've achieved. What Francoise says stings me, because I haven't achieved my potential. I'd nearly convinced myself that I didn't have it in me, so that was alright. But she's reminded me that weight is still there, because I have got something.”
“I think you have too,” Graham replies. “I think you've tried hard to justify your situation, when the answer has been in front of you all along. You want to write, but your father's judgements have stopped you. You need to face up to him. Everyone is so frightened of him coming here this evening, of being badly wounded by one of his off-the-cuff remarks. But I know that if you're bold you can face up to him.”
His conviction unnerves me, though I suspect he might be right.
“He has a torrent inside him Graham. I don't know if I can face it this evening.”
“You can Vincent. You can because you must. Do you remember when we used to jump from the pier into the sea at low tide, just for the rush? Do you remember that your father specifically told us not to, that one day we'd hurt ourselves? It was me who encouraged us to keep doing it, and so it was fitting that one day I gashed my leg open doing it. And your father saw the blood and his face went – but before he could open his mouth you said, ‘Did you forget the first aid kit Dad? I told you Graham was going to hurt himself riding his bike one day, and you still forgot it, didn't you?'That look of rage disappeared from his face because you'd shocked him; you had him on the back foot.
“If you confront him, he will be so surprised that he will probably just take it. Look at how trapped each of us are – in our little delusions, our little predicaments. If just one of us faces up to our situation it will offer all of us a way out.”
“But how can I just confront him? If he's to be convinced, he'll need to know what my plan is, and I don't have one. What am I going to tell him, that I'm going to find a quiet desk in a corner somewhere and write something as universally appealing as his first two plays? I don't even have a plan!”
“He doesn't know that. And he doesn't need to know details. He just needs to be surprised by your boldness.”
He finishes his cigarette, and we spend a little more time watching those swirling petals beneath us. Some have escaped that motion we cast upon them and fluttered to the surface, now bobbing on the little waves we've made.
“This conversation is so male.”
“However much makeup you wear, you don't stop being an archetypal man,” I reply.
“What a horrible fate,” he says, throwing the remainder of his cigarette into the water. “Come on. There's something inside that I want to show you, that I think might be of interest.” I follow him back through the patio and into the drawing room. “This way,” he says, walking up a long and ornate staircase. As we reach the top of the stairs he loses himself for a second, and then points down the hallway. “It's along here,” he whispers. Gold lights hung in small stone baskets line the passageway, dimly lighting the path to Francoise's room. As we move down I see that on either side of the hallway there's a series of alcoves, gold strip lamps lighting up the paintings embedded within them. In each one, satin curtains are parted to reveal the picture, but as we reach the end of the hallway one painting's curtains are closed, hiding it from passing observers.
“Have a look at this.” After looking each way to check that Francoise is not nearby, Graham parts the curtains to reveal the picture.
Immediately I am startled by the portrait. Unlike the tasteful, sparse paintings around it, this one is vivid and confrontational.
It depicts a slender, waif-like man who is facing the viewer. His skin has a faint grey hue and he is clasping the chair he is sat upon on, which is on the flat roof of a house. Behind him are the vibrant colours of a setting sun. The streaks of scarlet and burgundy in the sky suggest a Mediterranean climate, though his distressed confinement to the chair denies him the spectacle of it. Standing over him is a Greek-looking woman in a domestic dress, her hair scraped back into a bun. Her features are attractive, but the expression she gives the man is one of amused scorn. In one hand she holds a large pair of scissors, and as I look closer I see that half the man's hair is lying around him, having been cut or torn from his head. The woman is leaning in and opening the scissors as if to remove the rest of it. I see how terrified the man is. He looks utterly emasculated, and he clasps the chair that imprisons him as if his life depends on it. There is a gold plate at the side of the picture. A Biblical Scene it says. ‘By James Hewston'.
“This is one of James' paintings?” I ask.
“It's one of his post-accident pieces.”
“I had no idea they were like this.”
“Disturbing, isn't it?” he says, craning into it and then stiffening up.
“It seems to depict a morbid terror of the power women have over him. As if they are all evil and oppressive, as well as potential castrators. It is a biblical scene; one of Samson in distress. He lost all his powers once Delilah had his hair removed. And do you remember what happened next?”
I look back at the picture, casting my mind back to school. “After Delilah had his hair cut, even God deserted him and he was captured by Philistines who… ”
“Who put his eyes out. Samson's downfall came because of misplaced trust in a woman. This is James' self-portrait, Vincent, don't you see? He blames Carina for the loss of his vision, for the loss of his gift. Look closer. Does the woman in the picture remind you of anyone?”
I lean in, wary of what I will see. But from the high cheekbones, and the rich dark eyes it is evident that the woman in the painting strongly resembles Carina.
“How come no-one's said anything before? And how come Francoise has this painting in her house, hidden away?”
“No-one has said anything because everyone is scared of him. Everyone is frightened of how he will react when confronted with his take on the past.” I consider whether I should tell Graham about my conversation with James earlier, but decide not to.
“Francoise bought this painting out of pity,” he continues. “James' inability to distinguish colour explains why the picture is so garish, why none of them sell anymore. But the real reason Francoise closed the veil over this painting is because she doesn't want Carina to see it tonight.”
“I don't blame her,” I answer. “Carina would be extremely hurt to learn that he blames her for his downfall.”
“That's right. And that's why I wanted to show you this. I am worried about James, Vincent. He hasn't just lost his ability.” Graham starts to look serious, lowering his voice and looking around him. “He is also starting to lose his mind. Since the accident he has developed a hatred of women that is becoming very dangerous.”
“He believes they've stripped him of his potency, doesn't he?”
“Yes. He thinks they're all sadists, who set traps for him and laugh when he's ensnared. Did you hear about the Belgian waitress?”
I shake my head.
“James was staying in Belgium for a long weekend when he struck up a conversation with a local waitress. Pretty thing apparently, very petite. But when he asked if she would like a drink and she politely declined, rumour has it that he lost i
t. Completely lost it. ‘You only spoke to me so you could enjoy rejecting me!' he shouted. And apparently, though I don't know if this is true – he broke her jaw.”
“James broke a woman's jaw? Are you sure?” “No. Not at all,” he replies, exhaling. “It's just a rumour, but a rather detailed one, you must admit. Look Vincent, be careful with him tonight. I'm speaking in terms of you and Carina. Don't pay her too much attention. If James sees the two of you exchanging glances, we might all get to see his volcanic temper. I get the sense he is just about keeping a lid on it but Carina's presence is putting him on edge, I can see that. Be careful.”
I nod. Footsteps suddenly become audible in one of the parallel hallways and Graham hurries me down the stairs. He nods to Francoise out on the patio.
As we move outside my attention is arrested by the ice sculptures, which are now starting to melt into a pool of silver. The mist emanating from them has built into a translucent cloud. In their state of disintegration they now seem more realistic portraits of their subjects, and all the more beautiful for the decadent air that they give off. I catch a glimpse of a woman's figure moving between them, but think I should dismiss it as drink-induced. But then I make out that strange motion again, a figure weaving meditatively through the sculptures, and it strikes me. Elise is down there.
“I was wondering where you've been,” I call, walking towards the mist. The movement stops for a moment and then resumes, as if the figure has dissolved into the cloud. “You keep disappearing.”
I run towards the statues, flail quickly towards the moving shape to catch it. But as I level with the statues I see it is not Elise between them at all. It's Carina.
“I keep disappearing?”
“Sorry, I thought – I thought you were someone else.”
“You did?” She stands still, and with her unique air of slightly bruised confidence I wonder how I ever mistook her movement. Perhaps I knew it was her all along. Perhaps I tricked myself. That's what I told myself at the time.
The Intimates Page 10
