“Jesus Christ! What am I supposed to say? We hit and we ran but please stop sending us those nasty letters in the post. I can’t face her. I won’t.”
“You must.”
“How come you’ve never once expressed guilt or remorse, Virginia?”
“I’m tired, adrian. All I want to do is sleep.”
“Will anything have changed by morning?”
“Sleep in the other room tonight.”
“It will be my pleasure.”
Sent: 22 March 11.30 p.m.
Subject: Jake
Virginia – do you remember the night you told me about Jake? Your fingers on my spine. Remember how I danced you around our bedroom and told you I would treasure our child forever. You said I didn’t know the meaning of love. Only the grit and hatred I spewed from a stage. But we removed the masks that night – what a night. And you lay beside me content. I know you did, even though you say differently now. If you had told me about him I would have let you go. I had no desire to love a captive bird. But you never mentioned his name, not by the flick of an eyelid or the tremor in your voice. Why was that, Virginia?
I remember being washed in your tears when our child died. How you cried and clung to me. I kissed your tears and shed my own in private. I rested my head on your soft empty belly and said, “I will fill you with life again.” You never allowed me to keep my promise. Why was that, Virginia? Running away from the past was never the answer.
Razor
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
March had been a boisterous month, clouds as skittish as new-born lambs. The wind buffeted the trees and flattened the early daffodils. Swallows dived like bombers, foraging for twigs and straw, busily nest-building in the eaves above her studio. So much energy and activity. The need to paint, a nervous, creative excitement filled Lorraine, exhilarated her. Yet she was also frightened by the energy coursing through her. It reminded her of the last time, the dream paintings, the trip to Venice when the rapturous singing of a mad woman had awoken her from a long sleep. The woman was probably dead by now or locked up in some safe asylum, her songs of praise silenced – but her voice was a loud exhortation every time Lorraine’s energy flagged.
She moved from one surface to the next, her mind clear, her strokes decisive. Three paintings linked by a single thread. Each time she approached the triptych, she was filled with the challenge of filling such a large space. She allowed her instincts to guide her. Sometimes she brushed out what she had done the previous day and began again. This lack of progress did not disturb her. She was prepared to allow the paintings to grow at their own pace. When she finished each session, she locked the triptych in the darkroom, out of sight of her daughter’s curious gaze.
“Is this another dream painting?” Emily came into the studio one afternoon when she was working on the painting of the boy.
“No. It’s about a life.”
“It’s more like a fairy story. All those briars. Who’s going to awaken him?”
“Faith, I expect.”
“Are the shadows meant to be birds or people?”
“They’re whatever you want them to be.”
“I hate it when you go on with all that abstract stuff. What’s The Cat in the Hat doing there?”
“It’s a voice in the boy’s head.”
“Who’s the subject?”
“Just a boy.”
“Are you going to work through the night again?”
“Yes.”
“You’re painting some very weird stuff. You’re not doing drugs, are you?”
“I promise you’ll be the first to know if I start.”
With each stroke she willed him back to his family. At night she lay in bed and thought how he too was lying with his face turned to the ceiling, breathing in a floating space between thought and dreams. The volcanic force of his desire to communicate – his eyelids fluttering, the clench of his fingers, his grunts and jerking movements – she imagined his mind as a chaotic galaxy, hurtling furiously through a solid veil of stillness. Sometimes, she seemed to breathe in harmony with him and she would sink into a heavy dreamless sleep which only lasted a few hours. Then she arose refreshed, her energy driving her from her bed to the studio where she would paint until the dawn spread silver shale across the sky.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Brahms Ward
10 p.m.
Look at me, Killian. I could dance a jig, a highland fling, the samba and the tango. I might even take up trekking – who knows what the future holds? Harriet says it holds her garden. She wants to plant flowers and doze in the sun. Claims her trekking days are done. Too old for such adventures. I don’t believe a word of it. Her book will be a success, she’ll do some interviews, chat shows, she might even pull a few weeds, and then she’ll spin the globe and be off again. You once called her a stick insect in mountain boots. Remember? Tears ran down her cheeks she laughed so much.
She’s the reason I wasn’t in yesterday. I drove her back to the cottage. She has a month to finish her next book, no title as yet, and needs peace. On the drive down we talked about Shady and childhood and her parents and Mayo and men who wanted to marry her but she’d lost her wedding-ring finger, on purpose I’d swear. Her first book was called Giving My Finger to the World. She always had a weird sense of humour. I told her everything, Killian. It didn’t help. She called me a fool, and not for the first time, but she was my lifeline after Shady died and one doesn’t let lifelines slide too easily away. I told her about the crooked road that led me to Trabawn and how it quickly became a road going nowhere. “I’ve walked many crooked roads in my day,” she said. “Bush, forests, mountains, deserts. Sooner or later, they always arrived at a destination.”
When you’re better I’ll bring you to the cottage. I should have done it before, given you a feel of your own roots, but Jean would have … Oh, what does that matter now? It’s where I lived after Shady died. Harriet believed I’d be safe under the shadow of Croagh Patrick and she was right. When we go there we’ll fish the lakes and climb the mountain. No problem to me when I was a boy, agile as a mountain goat, I was, and barefoot too.
After I left her I stopped off at the cemetery. I can’t remember the last time I was there. Cowslips and buttercups are blooming on her grave, stars in the long grass. There were horses in a nearby field, their coats as sleek as melting chocolate, and they ran together when they heard my car, tossing their heads, their manes, their hooves dancing; and the rooks gathered on the branches above them, chattering like old women in black shawls. It’s a good place for Shady to rest. I left flowers on the headstone. I asked her for nothing except your life. Everything else, passion, desire, love, yearning, is immaterial. I will survive anything except losing you.
See you tomorrow, Killian. It’s been a long night and we have done much talking.
I hear you … see you … smell you … touch you … taste you … need you …
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Adrian flicked the invitation with his nail. The thwacking sound reminded Virginia of fine bones snapping, like the wishbone she always broke on Christmas Day, herself and Edward gripping the delicate turkey bone with determined fingers, fighting for the wish. She always won.
The invitation had arrived in the morning post. Unlike the other envelopes, which had been delivered by courier to Blaide House, this one was postmarked Trabawn and had been posted two days previously. It contained an invitation to the opening of an art exhibition. The logo on the invitation ended any last lingering doubt; a ripe melon moon shining plump above a deserted pier. Even the title of the collection, Falling into Night, resonated with suspicion.
Virginia inserted the compact disc accompanying the invitation into her computer and opened the attachment. There was nothing surreal or abstract about the painting that flashed on her screen. It had inspired the logo on the invitation but the pier she now gazed upon was not deserted. A silver car had been added, shards of shattered glass, and beyond the car, two entwined
figures against a high wall. The man remained in shadow but each feature in the woman’s face had been painted in exquisite detail. The jaded satisfaction of her smile. Her lips slightly open, swollen like a flower-head about to burst into bloom.
Virginia’s friendship with Lorraine had survived because there were compartments in her mind that closed and opened at her will. Only occasionally was she swamped with the enormity of her betrayal. Then, guilt was a wolf clawing her throat. Lorraine had waited until now to avenge herself on the people she once loved, the people who had betrayed her. The wolves had been sprung from the attic, freed.
The car with its rusty chassis was long gone and the sand dunes were eroding, coiling inwards like a forlorn row of question marks. Music came from an open window where Celia Murphy had once watched for the arrival of the holiday makers. A vase of daffodils sat on the ledge. After trying to attract attention and failing, Virginia walked to the side of the house. She ducked beneath a dash of yellow forsythia and entered the studio. Discarded paint brushes rested in a jar of spirits. The sink was splashed with red, as if a blood bath had taken place within its enamel confines. Canvases in the process of being primed and slabs of painted wood rested against the walls. Three paintings had been grouped together, almost hinged in their closeness, the vivid imagery creating such uniformity that the scenes – although distinct and different – merged effortlessly together. She had already seen the first painting on her computer but the reality of it – the layered texture and thick impasto, the precision of each brush stroke and shimmering glaze of oils – shocked her anew. The second painting contrasted the luminosity of the terminal building and its reflection on the water with the muffled pier on the far side of the bay. A silver car was held in a blur of speed and a young man’s body danced upwards, spinning, falling. She had turned to the third painting when Lorraine’s voice cut like a whip through the studio.
“Why are you trespassing on my property?” She closed the door quietly behind her. “I asked you a question, Virginia. Why are you here?” As she advanced towards Virginia she tracked sand from the soles of her sandals across the floor.
“I want an explanation for the anonymous post you’ve been sending us.”
“Anonymous?” Lorraine raised her eyebrows. Her voice sounded different, no quiver of uncertainty, not even the weeping anger she had displayed so openly when her marriage broke up. “Surely the term ‘anonymous’ signifies a mysterious sender?”
“There’s no mystery. It’s obvious you’re responsible. It has to stop, Lorraine. I know how deeply we’ve hurt you. I’m not going to pretend you haven’t good reason to hate us but choosing this way of getting your own back is madness.”
“Beware the vision of the insane, Virginia.”
“I’m worried about you. There were times in the past … I wondered. I could see it in your paintings … And now this – this obscenity.” Virginia’s gaze skittered towards the triptych and away again.
“It’s not an obscenity, it’s a triptych. An eternal triangle. An unholy trinity. I’ve decided to call it Exposé on the Great South Wall. I’ve always liked unambiguous titles.”
“Jesus, Lorraine, have you any idea what you’re doing to yourself? You ran away without giving me a chance to explain anything and locked yourself away from everyone who cares about you. No wonder you’re losing touch with reality. I can understand your anger. What happened with Adrian was a stupid crazy mistake. I’ll regret it to my dying day but I was going through such a wretched time with Ralph and Adrian listened. We never intended hurting anyone, you least of all. I was on the verge of ending it, I swear to you, we were going to finish it and I was returning to London, cutting all ties with him. Ralph hated living here. We’d have gone back sooner only I knew that if he left Adrian in the lurch the company would fold. I was so torn, Lorraine, unsure of the best course of action to take. When you rang that night you not only ended your own marriage, you destroyed mine in the process. But the most devastating thing was the loss of your friendship. I don’t expect you to understand … How could you understand? … But it’s true, I swear. I deserved everything you said, and I agreed with you too … only you wouldn’t listen. How many times did I ring you? I pleaded with you, begged you to meet me. I desperately wanted us all to find a way forward. There were others to consider, Emily, for instance, and your career, adrian’s business. It wasn’t just about you and me but no matter how hard I tried to make amends –”
“I’d stopped listening for the knock on the caravan window.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter. Please, don’t let me interrupt. I now appreciate why Ralph called you the Princess of Spin.”
“I’m not spinning, Lorraine. I’m telling it as it is. You’ve had too much time to brood over everything. This is your way of getting back at us. It’s cruel and upsetting –”
“But effective, don’t you think?”
Virginia slowly released her breath. “I never meant to break up your marriage. I know you find that impossible to believe –”
“On the contrary, I find it utterly believable. You had it all, devoted husband, compliant friend, vigorous lover, successful career. Why would you change anything when life was so bountiful?”
“If you can’t forgive me then I must accept it as the price I have to pay. But I won’t allow you to invade my life with these malicious accusations. I didn’t steal your husband. Adrian came to me of his own free will.”
Lorraine combed her fingers through her hair, brushed it back from her forehead. Her face, revealed in its entirety, seemed alien, formidable, the skin drawn finely under her eyes. Sleepless nights. Virginia recognised the signs.
“Free will? What an interesting concept. Did my husband leave the Great South Wall of his own free will? Did he decide to keep silent of his own free will? And you. Where do you stand on the subject of Killian Devine-O’Malley? Don’t look so puzzled, Virginia. Surely you haven’t forgotten his name? Look again if you can’t remember.” She nodded towards the last painting. “You left him for dead. Free will. Remember?”
Her eyes dulled as they rested on the imagery Lorraine had crafted with such deliberation and which seemed to expand outwards while drawing Virginia into its centre. A car speeding away and the moon shining an accusing beam on the face of the boy they had left behind. She had refused to give him an identity, imposing on him an identi-kit image: brutish features, a crude protruding forehead, hard staring eyes. But she saw him now, his young stricken face, his mouth slackly open, as if he had lost consciousness on a cry of terror.
“This is outrageous.” Her knees shook in a sudden violent spasm. “Does Emily know you entertain such vile notions about her father?”
“Emily is not your concern.”
“She adores Adrian. What will she do when she realises her mother is suffering from crazed delusions?”
“Don’t waste my time, Virginia. I’m preparing for an exhibition.”
“You’ll never exhibit in that gallery.”
“You have no say in where I choose to exhibit. That decision has been made by Mara Robertson.” Lorraine gestured towards the paintings. “This triptych will form the centrepiece of my collection. You and Adrian have already received invitations. Opening nights can be such interesting events. Quite revelatory, on occasions. On my last opening night I discovered that you and I both loved an insubstantial man.”
The glass jug was heavy in her hands when Virginia lifted it from the table, the smell of spirits almost overwhelming as she flung the cloudy liquid against the canvas. Oil and spirits collided, ran like blood from the painted faces. The features blurred, massed into abstract humps and hollows, no longer recognisable.
“See a shrink, Lorraine.” She placed the empty jug back on the table. “It might help get this shit out of your system. Next time you paint my portrait ask my permission first.”
Apart from the twitch of muscle below Lorraine’s left eye, her face was impassive. She walked to
the door and held it open. “I know what you and Adrian did, Virginia. Always remember that I know. I want you to leave now. You’re not welcome in my house.”
The apartment complex was in darkness except for the globe-headed security lights in the courtyard. Virginia listened to the drip-drip-drip of raindrops falling from the balcony. The wind blew moist on her face. Adrian was sleeping in the spare room. They had hardly seen each other for over a week. When they did meet in the corridors of Blaide House they greeted each other with a sullen calm that signified the inevitable ending of their relationship. She did not want to think about him, not now. Tomorrow, perhaps, she would tell him it was over. He was too locked into his own self-absorption to protest. Unlike the night her marriage ended, this relationship would cease with a whimper not a roar. Emily would welcome him back. For all her tantrums and attention-seeking wiles, she missed him desperately. But Lorraine – forgiveness was beyond her.
A movement in the courtyard below attracted her attention. For an instant, something flitted through it, a dog, perhaps, or someone hurrying, running slantways through a splash of light before disappearing out of sight behind the red-brick blocks. The young man spun before her eyes. Her skin tingled as if tiny electrical currents had being switched on over her entire body. Her heart began to palpitate, the fast thumping beat causing a swelling sensation until it seemed as if it could no longer be contained within her chest. She returned to the living-room and sank into an armchair. When she could move again she poured a brandy and sipped it neat. The need to awaken Adrian was overwhelming but nothing would be served by opening the subject up again. She was determined that the ghost made flesh was not going to destroy her. She switched on her computer and watched the screen come to life.
Deceptions Page 32
