The Heart Is a Burial Ground

by Tamara Colchester

  Elena glanced at him and gave him a small shake of her head.

  ‘What do you need to change?’ Diana’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Elena. ‘What’s wrong with the way you are?’

  ‘I don’t need to change,’ Elena said quietly. ‘But there are some things . . .’

  ‘Such as . . .’

  ‘Well, the main one is that we’ve decided to get married immediately.’

  Diana looked at James. ‘Aren’t you meant to take me out for a whisky to ask my permission?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe in all that, Diana.’ James held up his hands. ‘Elena doesn’t belong to anyone – she’s taught me well,’ he laughed. ‘We just want to make our vows sacred as soon as possible.’

  ‘Sacred in what sense?’ Diana said, crossing her arms. ‘Marriage is a fine thing, don’t get me wrong. But sacred? I’m not sure about that.’

  ‘I believe it’s sacred,’ Elena said quietly.

  ‘Vows made before God can’t be broken,’ James agreed. Elena winced.

  ‘I think you’ll find they can. But you’re not getting married so you can have a guiltless fuck, are you?’ Diana said with a raised eyebrow. ‘There’s no need for any of that around here.’

  Elena stared down at the table.

  ‘We just want to start our life together. We’ve found a flat below Inés in Batter . . .’ James felt the pressure of Elena’s leg against his and his voice trailed into silence.

  ‘How cosy for you all,’ said Diana slowly. She turned to her daughter. ‘Well, don’t expect a big wedding, Elena; there’s no salt left in the cellar.’ She spread her arms wide. ‘So it will be sopa de papas at Inés’s. Do let me know if I’m invited.’

  ‘We don’t want a big wedding,’ James said. ‘We honestly don’t expect anything at all, Diana. Apart from being happy. I can’t deny I fully expect that.’ He smiled at Elena and she met his eyes briefly, before turning to her mother.

  ‘But what will you do, Diana?’ she said, eager to change the subject. ‘How long will you stay here?’

  Diana glanced at David, but he was silent. ‘I need to stay here to organise the sale.’

  ‘Of this place?’ said James. ‘That must be terribly painful.’

  ‘Quite the opposite, actually,’ Diana replied.

  ‘Did Caresse . . . want you to sell it?’ Elena asked tentatively, straightening her knife and spoon so that they were in line with one another.

  Diana swept her gaze over to her daughter and Elena’s eyes widened. But she held her mother’s look.

  ‘What your grandmother wanted was for me to be free. Freedom was her greatest desire in life. So that is what I am doing.’ She pressed her napkin to her mouth and then laid it to rest, a faint red stain pressed into the white linen.

  ‘What a thing, to sell a place like this.’ James shook his head, gazing around. ‘I’ve hardly seen it and have already fallen in love with the very stone it’s made of.’

  Elena shot him a warning glance.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it,’ David said. ‘I had a similar feeling when I first came. It seemed extraordinary that one should be able to come and actually live somewhere so alive with the past. Many of the rooms haven’t even been reopened. Did you know there’s a snow cellar? It’s dug so deep into the foundations that a previous Cardinale could store ice and snow there through even the hottest summers.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ James murmured.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s unbelievable – the bills. The artists’ hotel is sadly closed for business. It’ll be back to the chilly garret and studio for the lot of them.’

  David stared at her. ‘Diana, I am one of those artists.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re good. I have plenty of time for someone making work that means something. But half the people here are no more artists than I’m Georges Braque. I think this kind of thing makes people lazy.’

  ‘But the role of patron is as old as money itself,’ James interjected. ‘It seems a good use for the stuff.’

  Diana looked the boy over. ‘You can use yours to patronise whoever you like, James.’

  ‘So where will you go now?’ Elena broke in.

  ‘We’ll be in London for a time. David needs to be there for his work.’ Diana turned back to her daughter. ‘And you never know, perhaps like you two there’ll be a quick tying of the knot.’ She did not look at David.

  ‘And what about Ibiza?’ Elena said. ‘You’re not going to sell that, are you?’

  ‘No, of course not. We’ll go back there eventually.’ Diana smiled, and David nodded thoughtfully, his hands clasped round his knee.

  ‘It’s all to be discussed.’ He smiled at Elena and James.

  Diana laughed suddenly. ‘You see, Elena, marriage is no cakewalk. Men can be very difficult. Very difficult indeed.’ She gave James a sly wink. ‘But prepare yourself, darling. We women can be quite the adversary. Our methods have no centre and no circumference. It’s hard not to find yourself quite surrounded.’

  Rue de Lille, 1931

  ‘Darling, how are you?’ Her mother’s voice soared through the telephone.

  ‘Fine.’ Diana frowned.

  ‘Are you happy to have done with school?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘How was the sale of Rue de Lille?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘And Le Moulin du Soleil?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Has Maxime been a great help?’

  ‘Yes.’ Diana slowly unfurled a smile at the man standing in front of her.

  ‘He’s such a faithful friend, it’s terribly touching that he should offer to collect you from school and help you with all of it. I know you understand that I had to come. The moment was just ripe and the show has been a complete sellout. New York is wild for Dalí. Washington tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes,’ Diana said. ‘Maxime is proving a great comfort.’

  ‘The Astors have thrown a terrific party for me. They don’t want me to sink into gloom. Dalí has been terribly well received and I had a great success with his press conference on arrival. I wore a provocative suit with lamb chops on each shoulder. The press went berserk when we got off our plane. The photographers wanted me to . . .’

  Diana let the phone drop as she leaned back in her chair and lifted her feet onto the desk, and the man got down on his knees before her.

  Alderney, 1993

  Cast in the switching blue light of the muted television, Diana lay in her bed. She’d asked them to leave it on. Somewhere a telephone was sending forth its shrill call. Was no one going to answer it? It might be him calling. Her hand searched the bed, looking for the black handle, as smooth and curved as the big black Daimler. She answered the telephone. Hello. And the earpiece was warm against her face and a rich deep voice was pouring his need into her head, making plans for later. She breathed deeply and let the sound drown out other thoughts. Her lovers liked to hear her low laugh winding along the curled wire. They were always glad she called.

  Darling, are you there?

  But the wind changed direction and she was being sucked out on a dark tide now, dragged backwards. Here was another voice, low and broken, cracked over the solid fact of death.

  He did it.

  Her mother wringing life from all words.

  He did it.

  The hand reaching for the breast beneath her coat, playing over its warm curve. Opium-drenched, struggling to form the words. Do it, Harry, do it to me, the young woman’s voice rose to a singing hymn. He did it and she was silent.

  And Diana sliding down the wall by the telephone until she lay in a small heap on the floor.

  And now her mother drawing a hand out of her black silk glove and her thumb working the lighter so that fire began to eat the pile of paper she had gathered. The whole lot disappearing quickly into hungry flames. Diana staring, speechless, as her mother stood with one hand on the mantelpiece, chest heaving.

  ‘There!’ was all she said.

  Diana
looking round her rose-papered room as though drunk – the handprints all around her bed – and then, to work.

  There was no frenzy like it. She knocked and smashed and tore at all that had stood, she kicked and ripped and bit until her teeth ached. She scratched at the walls and her face and the low neckline of her mother’s black dress, wanting to expose her too, wanting to get at her, until she sank to the floor. Her mother, face set, stepped over her and walked from the room, leaving the door open behind her.

  She could feel someone behind her holding her tight and she turned, reaching arms towards them, as her nightdress twisted and got caught up leaving her dangerously bare. Firm arms pulled the material down and she was concealed by cotton as plain and kind as her daughters’ faces. She smelled the pillow and frowned. It had been washed with cheap soap. She would have to talk to the girls.

  Perhaps, she thought, drifting downwards again, she was a little addicted to her mistakes. Someone pushed her head up and did something to the pillows. Always trying to sharpen herself – she felt a sharp scratch on her arm – always cutting, always hurting. Her head was laid back down and she was tucked in tight. Everything hurt. She followed the aching line of thought downwards.

  But people want to be cut free, she thought as she reached blindly for her glass and somebody held her head and helped her drink.

  We must all be set free.

  Roccasinibalda, 1970

  The next morning, wearing a new dress, feet tied into a pair of pale blue espadrilles, Diana wound her way down one of the cool stone stairways. As she entered a large room whose shutters had not been properly opened, she looked around, suspicious of the stillness. The half-restored frescoes had been left with ladders leaning against them, and someone had forgotten a pile of papers at one end of the long table. She moved quickly through the room and then across the brilliant square of a small courtyard until she finally entered the cool of the main hall. The doors were, at last, closed. She checked her hair in the huge mirror that hung before her and, sensing something, turned and saw Ellis standing behind her. He looked and smelled as though he had not washed for days. Her lip curled.

  ‘You know.’ His voice was cracked, as though he’d been shouting. ‘You might not have liked what your mother was doing here. But this was good.’

  ‘I never doubted that it was good, Mr Porto, but it was not real. This was a dream, another one of my mother’s surreal dreams.’

  He grinned at her. ‘You look like a dream. How old are you now? Forty? Fifty?’

  ‘Old enough to know not to answer that question.’

  ‘Shall we take a walk?’

  She looked up, surprised, then glanced at her watch. ‘Yes, all right. I was waiting for David, but I can’t find him anywhere.’

  ‘I saw him walking up the hill earlier with your daughter and her guy.’

  ‘The three of them?’

  Ellis nodded. ‘She’s very thin. A broken wishbone.’

  Diana pressed her dress down over her sides.

  ‘Painfully beautiful. You all are.’

  Diana said nothing.

  ‘Let’s walk through these rooms and say farewell to those that haunt them,’ Ellis said. ‘May your mother’s presence be a welcome addition.’

  Diana nodded and they began to walk. The courtyards were quiet now, and only the sounds of the birds in the walled garden could be heard. The wind moved too, gently blowing Diana’s hair over her forehead so that she had to push it back with her hand. They stood at the edge of one of the gardens, where breakfast had always been served, and looked out at the surrounding hills, and then turned and looked behind them at the steep stone walls.

  ‘She had no friends here,’ Diana said quietly, almost to herself. ‘No real friends.’

  ‘Perhaps she felt new friends were as good as old.’

  ‘But they weren’t.’ She looked at him. ‘I don’t mean you, Ellis. I’m not trying to be cruel. But none of them came to see her in the hospital. To say goodbye. She died alone, Ellis. After all that talk, she died alone.’

  ‘She moved on, Diana. She liked to move on. I’m not sure you can have both roots and wings.’

  Diana said nothing and they turned and walked back along a shaded cloister. The poet began to murmur as they walked, half-whispered lines of verse.

  Diana took his hand. ‘Where will you go?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Back to New York, most probably.’

  ‘We could have dinner when I’m next there,’ she said, and her smile was almost shy. ‘I know a wonderful place in Brooklyn where we can eat.’

  He shook his head ruefully. ‘Ah, little girl. Tenderness after the kill. I know the feeling well.’

  Diana frowned. ‘Little girl?’ she said.

  He stepped forward and kissed her, pressing her hands against the wall. The smell of him was overpowering and Diana felt she might gag. But he was strong and his desire was enough. She lifted her skirt and was pushed against the wall as he fumbled with his belt.

  It was over quickly, his dark greasy head pressed against her neck. She kissed the top of it tenderly, holding him close to her, trying not to breathe. She stroked his back and feeling the worn wool of his coat beneath her hands, began to cry.

  Alderney, 1994

  ‘Let’s pray.’

  In the front seats of the car her parents bowed their heads and after a moment of silent tussle the boys behind them did the same. Sitting in the back, Bay cradled her cut flowers as carefully as her mother held the new baby.

  Now Bay made her way down the aisle of the almost empty chapel, her brothers walking behind her like too-late grooms, their shoes tapping smartly over the stone. It sounded as if they were almost catching her up, and Bay quickened her pace as she made a straight line towards where her Aunt Leo sat in a pew unnecessarily marked Reserved. The family sat down and Bay watched her aunt first kiss her mother, pressing their foreheads together in silence, and then bend down and kiss the baby, held close to her mother’s chest.

  Leonie welcomed Bay into the crook of her arm, and as Bay pushed against her she felt the familiarity of her mother’s shape. The evening before, Leonie had lain with her in the narrow bed reading her a story while her mother tended to the new baby in the other room. Her grandmother’s room had been emptied and cleared, the wind billowing the fine curtains into ghosts that blew in and out, filling the room with cold, clean air.

  The last time she’d seen her grandmother, she was lying in a small bed in that close-smelling room. The curtains were closed even though it was day, with only a single lamp spreading shadows up the walls. Her mother had not pulled open the windows as she normally did so that they could all breathe, but left the room in half-darkness, keeping Bay’s hand tightly in her own. In the gloom of the bedroom, Bay could tell that her grandmother had changed, and as she went forward to kiss her cheek, saw that she was like a sandcastle – half washed by a wave to a softened mound. Not knowing where to look, Bay stared instead at a black-and-white photo of a little girl holding a dog in one hand and a whip in the other.

  It was a stroke, she had heard her mother say to her aunt, and she’d lain in her bed and run her fingers gently up and down her arms, stroking and stroking, until she buzzed under the covers and had decided that she would like to die of that too.

  Bay felt her aunt looking at her and leaned closer, rubbing her cheek against her arm.

  Leonie kissed the top of the child’s carefully brushed head and felt the ache of love as she looked down at the folded white socks and red jelly shoes that kicked back and forth, the bony knees, and the hand that rested with no intention or awareness along her own thigh. Last night she had read to the child, feeling sleep stealing into the room until the small body became heavy with it, and as she’d put the book down and pulled the covers up tight, she’d been cut by the first sharp stab of loss.

  The organ began to play and everybody’s gaze was drawn towards the back of the room as the men carried the wooden coffin down the aisle.
Bay turned further round and saw a man she didn’t recognise take his seat in the back row. He had wild hair and his eyes met Bay’s with a jolt so that she quickly turned away, heart beating against the stiff wool of the cardigan her mother had buttoned her into that morning. She felt her mother also turn and Bay watched as she inclined her graceful neck and smiled at the man. Bay looked up at her father, but he was hovering near the front, ready to deliver his speech. She cast another quick look behind her. The man went on watching, and Bay turned her head slowly too, just as her mother had done.

  At the front her father, in a navy suit and pale tie, his soft dark hair waved back from his forehead, was speaking.

  ‘Diana’s life was extraordinary, troubled, warm and dangerous, as well as brave and sad and filled with great kindness, generosity and style.’

  Bay sat a little straighter as the words settled over the family. By association with her grandmother, she also felt grand; full of that feeling, she risked a final look back and saw that the man was now looking at the coffin, his hands pressed over his mouth.

  ‘All living things are subject to death,’ her father went on, ‘and Diana was not afraid of meeting this part of life. May she rest in deepest peace with her maker and her friends.’

  From inside the car, Bay watched her mother and the man with tangled hair walk under the trees in the dripping graveyard, until they turned a corner and she lost sight of them.

  She leaned forward and wrapping her arms round the front seat, brought her head close to her father’s, who sat in the front seat with his eyes closed, the sleeping baby in his arms.

  ‘Where’s Mummy going?’

  ‘Hmm?’ He turned to look at her.

  ‘Who’s that man she’s with?’

  ‘He was married to your grandmother.’ He smiled at her and then closed his eyes again.

  Bay sat back in silence and resumed her watching.