by Don Boyd
“How do you feel about this? Where did you meet him?” Margot couldn’t really believe that she had asked such banal questions but her personal curiosity had exceeded her usual rigorous professional responsibilities.
“We were both waiting to go into the loo at MACBA. I go there on Thursdays to sit in the small café. I like watching the surfboarders. I feel safe inside the plate glass windows. When I have finished my coffee, I amble through the galleries, and look at the paintings. I adore Antoni Tapies, they have a great collection of his work…”
Laura looked away for a second.
“ …And I sometimes say things to the person who is next to me, taking in a picture. Usually just a word or two. And one day I said to this man, I made some silly remark, I said that I had always about wanted to own one of his paintings. A Tapies.
“He replied with a pretentious but rather poetic philosophical quotation. I looked at him blankly. This was his opening gambit, if you like. I giggled like a schoolgirl. He was gorgeous and it was such a funny line. He explained that it was the only phrase he knew written by some rather obscure French semiologist called Jacques Lacan who was referring to the ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ signs which separate the sexes outside toilets everywhere… What that had to do with Tapies I had chosen to ignore.”
Margot couldn’t help smiling. And of course, had calmly registered the Lacan reference and the MACBA link.
“Why are you smiling?”
“I have also read Jacques Lacan.”
And then the inevitable thunderbolt as if Margot had wished this on her from the beginning of their session.
“He likes me to call him by the name of an animal. His real name is Xavier. He was at the funeral. He sang the French song.”
Margot’s heart missed a couple of beats. She managed to choke back a gasp, and then recovered enough to avoid registering any obvious shock at what Laura had confessed. No form of professional training had equipped her to deal with what she now faced. She tried to freeze her own brain while she listened to Laura’s description of Xavier, as if she was still at her most sympathetic and rigorous. Obviously in any normal professional context, what Laura was revealing was controversial enough and professionally irresistible, but on a personal level it was devastating. How could she continue to disguise that personal prurience without revealing a powerful conflict of interest, without confessing her own guilt? Her characteristic, evenly suspended attention was about to be tested on a monumental scale. The rules of her profession and the kind of therapy she practised completely forbade any engagement with ‘insider knowledge’. She was screaming internally. My Xavier. Not your Xavier. She desperately wanted to share her experiences, and to immediately tell Laura that she knew Xavier. To probe in the way that she might have outside the ‘room’.
“What do you mean by the name of an animal?”
“He thinks I am a peacock and gave me the Spanish name for a peacock. Pavo real. I call him leopardo…”
“Why does he think that you are a peacock and why is he a leopard?”
Margot needed to draw Laura out, persuade her to talk without interruption. This was the only way to handle it professionally. To do this, she knew that her reactions would have to seem totally normal, as surreal as the nature of their exchange had been. Laura was about to describe in detail the sexual relationship she was having with the same man with whom Margot had twice shared the most spectacular sexual experiences of her life, experiences she had already decided she wanted to repeat. A man who was jeopardising her life and her marriage, and a man the police would almost certainly regard as a prime suspect in the murder of Paolo and Domatilla, if Margot was to let them into her secret knowledge.
“I didn’t have any choice. He quite literally ordered me to behave exactly in the way he dictated I should. Immediately after that first exchange, he insisted on taking me to one exhibit in the gallery… a very sexy, sensual painting of a young girl. He spoke with great authority about art and talked about his own work, which involved extensions of conventional art, extensions of even the more experimental forms of art, the cutting edge stuff that is drawing the crowds, installations and gimmicks. He talked about the American video artist Bill Viola. I have always loved Bill Viola. He said that he was redundant, bourgeois. He dismissed most of the great post-war American artists as poseurs and frauds. This might have been rather silly and reactionary but in his case he did so with such depth. He was so informed. His details, his analysis spanned centuries. We talked and talked, we couldn’t stop. He took me to other paintings in the gallery and then he led me to a room which was very different – very few paintings on walls or sculptures laid out normally. This room had computers, LCD screens, and exhibits like the kind you might see in a natural history or science museum. It had a small screening room… it had video art running on a loop on small televisions. He led me into the screening room. At first I was fazed by the change from the brightly lit galleries to the darkened room. I stumbled in the dark and he held me. He was strong, powerful. I really don’t know how or why this happened so quickly but he kissed me on the mouth as I recovered from the stumble. I responded and we sat down. His lips were soft, gentle. A black and white film was being projected onto the cinema screen. It was a slightly scratchy, probably sixteen millimetre film, no sound. It looked as if it had been professionally filmed but the camerawork was done so it was like just observing what was in front of the lens. A man and a woman looked as if they were about to have sex. And then the man took his clothes off, and then the woman… she was thin. He was thin and tall. I suppose they would be called performance artists. Xavier just announced it, so casually: ‘We have a special connection?’ I had to admit that we did. And then he began to ask me some very personal questions about my body physically and my attitude to my body. ‘I want you to show me your body,’ he said. ‘I want to see it in all its glory.’ I allowed him to lead me on. At first I just laughed and teased him. ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ He told me very firmly that he wasn’t joking. And for some reason when he repeated his demands, I started to do what he told me to do. ‘Watch!’ he whispered.
“I watched the film… it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen in my life! Way beyond anything I could have imagined being called art. And yet, as I watched it and as he explained it to me, I was more and more drawn to him physically and sexually, so much so that to this minute I am as obsessed with him now as I was back then…”
Margot listened to Laura, a trained lawyer, using her almost pedantic talent for description. She recognised almost every element of her seduction. She recognised the Günter Brus imagery of defecation and self-mutilation described by Tilly in her voice-over on the DVD Carlos had shown her. She recognised the charming and imperious manner Xavier used to advertise his idiosyncrasies, including of course the animal names. And what was very nearly the most difficult aspect to reconcile, she recognised the sexual excitement that she shared. His body, his hands, his frogs, his knives, his cock - Laura spared her nothing. Every gory detail, every sensuous moment.
What Margot did not recognise was the ‘rape’ element in Laura’s experiences with Xavier, although of course she had come across rape fantasy many times before. This was a variation in Xavier’s technique, yet in the context of his considerable power to exercise abusive control over his prey, ‘rape’ fantasies were obviously another useful weapon in his hideous, perverted arsenal. Finally, Laura was silent. She looked at Margot as if begging her to eradicate the memory of her story from her mind. She sobbed, quietly. All the bravado of her public persona was obliterated. She looked at her expensive Cartier.
“I suppose I have used up my therapeutic hour!”
“Don’t worry about that, Laura. I can break the rule today – I don’t have another client. What about you?”
Laura looked at her mobile carefully.
“My chauffeur is waiting for me in front of FNAC on the Catalunya. I still have a few minutes.”
“Can I ask you some si
mple questions? They may help me to begin the process of helping you. This will inevitably be very painful at first. For both of us. Many of my clients underestimate this. It will change your life.”
“Of course. Please do, go ahead. Ask. I totally understand. I am still embarrassed at my outburst when we met…”
“Don’t worry, I have seen much worse.”
The setting sun had begun to seep into the room and Laura now sat there looking like a character in a Diane Arbus photograph. Bizarre, a little defiant and very vulnerable, confused. By contrast, Margot felt like the female equivalent of Van Gogh in one his self-portraits. Deceptively contemplative, and insane. She composed herself by drawing the blind enough to take the sun out of Laura’s eyes, and pouring two glasses of water. They both drank quickly.
“How have you been dealing with your husband?”
“Ironically enough, our lives have never been happier. We enjoy all that domestic stuff. The children are as adorably annoying as ever and our sex life is spectacular. I don’t really even have a guilty conscience. Xavier seems so separate. Of course, the secrecy is thrilling. I love my secret. But I have come to see you. I have been dying for some help. I realise that what is going on is not normal.”
Xavier! My Xavier! Her Xavier!
“How do you feel when you leave him?”
“I feel exhilarated. Liberated. Excited.”
“A little ashamed?”
“No!”
“And how do you feel on the day you have planned to see him?”
“Butterflies. The kind of fear that I remember the day before I had an exam when I was at Oxford, or the day when I had to wear a new dress at a big party at the Union. Or just before I took a dive from a high board in our local pool. Those last few steps and then a plunge into the air.”
Margot knew exactly how she felt. She was describing exactly what she had experienced. She wanted to hear Laura articulate it in detail.
“What do you feel about him… about this man?” She so nearly used his name.
“I know that he is abusing me. I realise that he is in control. He doesn’t disgust me and the physical pleasure I have from him more than compensates for the feeling that he is some sad, perverted, desperate man. I suppose the only time I really begin to worry is when he begins to frighten me.”
“Physically?”
“We have an agreed system. If he is going too far, I have a failsafe system. I can rein him back. We have a sign for a complete ‘stop’! But on one occasion he didn’t, and I had to repeat my emergency signals. He said that he hadn’t seen the signs. I was terrified but he managed to pacify me, eventually.”
“And after sex?… How do you feel afterwards?”
“I feel ashamed, disgusted, filthy, cheap. For an hour or two. And then I want him again.”
Laura stopped talking and looked again at her watch.
“I must go.”
“Laura, one last question before you leave. Do you want to see him again?”
Of course, Margot knew that she had seen him at the funeral.
“That’s my problem. I desperately need to see him again. I think about him every minute of my day. I wake up and all I think about is planning my next meeting.”
Again, Margot knew exactly how she felt. She allowed Laura to pay her fee, hugged her and then looked searchingly into her eyes.
“Thank you, Margot, you have no idea how much I needed to talk to someone. I will ring you from London to arrange my next visit if that is okay?”
“You are most welcome, Laura. Have a great trip. Ring me anytime. Here, take this. And I mean anytime.” She handed Laura a card from her desk, and when the click-clack of Laura’s Fratelli shoes had disappeared across the square, she sat down and stared at the brown envelope with the script and the DVD. The ‘phone rang. Archie would have known that the session had finished. She clicked the answer machine to listen to his message.
“Darling, please come home as soon as you can. I know you are upset. I will buy some goodies for supper.”
And then there was another message, from Xavier.
“I need to see you! Soon!”
Should I feel jealous about Laura? I feel protective, desperate, wired and strangely attracted to Laura. Almost sexually so. Certainly not jealous. Does Laura suspect that Xavier had anything to do with Paolo’s and Tilly’s deaths? Unlikely.
I can’t rope Elvira into this, is there anyone else? Archie? No way! I am much too ashamed. He would never understand, never forgive me. It would crush him. He doesn’t need to know so why should I upset him? I certainly don’t want to ruin my marriage. I am sure that I can control the information, hold it back in the same way that I have done in the past when he has asked me about my clients – they are all people we come across from time to time. Carlos and Elvira are much more of a problem. He is a very good detective and she is my friend. I cannot lie to either of them, but to let them into my secrets would have catastrophic consequences for me and would almost certainly lead to Xavier’s exposure.
I have enough circumstantial evidence to put him well and truly in Carlos’ frame. But I can’t prove a thing, let alone point my finger. He doesn’t appear in the DVD. Is the voice coaxing and asking questions off-camera really Xavier? It sounded a little like him but I couldn’t be absolutely sure. And anyway the first question Carlos or Archie would ask me would be – “How do you know this man?” And this would open up a very different can of worms. Sex with him was indeed violent and perverted, spectacular, but he didn’t harm me and didn’t try anything which would suggest that he was a murderer. A morbid interest in surgical instruments, chisels, extremely kinky sexual behaviour, and the rest? Carlos wouldn’t understand that in a strange, peculiar way it was safe, I felt in control despite the degree to which I was dominated by Xavier. The truth is that the sex was so explosively good that I want more of it… dangerous, compulsive, and inevitable. But this is no longer just an exquisite secret.
Xavier has been the catalyst for unlocking a side to me which I have clearly been suppressing. Why him? And of course, why do I now have this uncontrollable need to explore the darkest sides of my psyche at this stage in my life, when everything seems so ordered and safe? Until now, they have been so safely harboured in the minds of the sickest of my patients. Trying to apply the rules and methodologies of my professional training is useless, unsatisfactory and frustrating. I have glib answers to every question. My perfect parents and my abusive uncle are surely only one side of the picture. Maybe there is something in my own psychology, a genetic flaw.
I want to see Xavier immediately and confront him, but I know that the second that I see him, the moment he holds me in his arms, his charming imperious manner – all of this will lead on to the inevitable. I will succumb to these newfound sexual urges. I will want him to be inside me again, and I am sure he will take me into unmanageable areas; he is a dangerous man and was involved somehow in the deaths of P. and T. But is he really a killer? Maybe I was too hasty when I dismissed the idea of a double suicide. Maybe Paolo and Tilly were indeed producing some sort of sick pseudo ‘snuff ’ movie and the process went horribly wrong? Or maybe they were at the end of their tether and had decided on a romantic death pact. Paolo was a wilful boy, capable of trying everything. Tilly shared her life with him. Perhaps my initial instinct about ‘murder’ had been wrong.
But the more rational and professional part of me is, of course, at odds with all of these feelings. I am a trained analyst, I know my clients. I was thorough and rigorous with them in the way I am with everyone. When Tilly told me of her suicide attempts, I identified them for what they were: desperate attempts to seek attention. She admitted this, and we went on to discuss suicide at great length. She would quote from her favourite book, Le Myth de Sisyphe, Albert Camus’ great existential tract which deals with the absurd nature of life and our need to find some way to deal with the temptation of suicide. She had always maintained that Camus had persuaded her that suicide could no
longer be an option for her. Paolo also made his position quite clear. He loved life. He just wanted to enjoy as many experiences as he could. Why waste the opportunity? He used to joke that he hated to spend too much time asleep. He didn’t accept that the subconscious experience of sleep could be as exciting as the conscious waking experiences we can engineer for ourselves. Had Xavier been taking advantage of Paolo’s needs in that sense? He certainly qualified.
Carlos gave me the script and the DVD because he wants me to look more carefully at them. For clues. I don’t really need the clues. Like Carlos, I need facts and evidence. Perhaps I can look carefully at the DVD with a view to empowering Carlos with information that he can use to arrive at his own conclusions. Leads. Connections. I could talk about the Brus exhibit at MACBA. Or point him to a website. None of this leads to Xavier, but it would give him something to work with.
Robert?
Chapter Twenty Two
Rain.
Margot usually enjoyed the rain in Barcelona. Especially prolonged, consistent Mediterranean downpours which were so rare at home in California.
Margot wasted no more time. She collected the DVD and the script, wrapped herself in the rainwear she used for her cycling jaunts with Archie, and headed for the huge FNAC store on the side of the Plaça Catalunya. After a rather frustrating discussion about the apparently redundant technology of her ancient office computer, she bought a small DVD player and asked the salesman to recommend a mini Hi-Fi speaker system which would give her the very best sound reproduction. He sold her an expensive Bose home movie system, reassuring her that it was top of the range, and ‘idiot proof’ in its setting up. To explain and justify her reasons for this eccentric, spur-of-the moment shopping spree – this was a very uncharacteristic purchase and she shared a credit card account with Archie – she bought a smattering of DVDs and CDs. Archie would never lend his books, DVDs, CDs nor his precious vinyl records. He was pathologically anal about his music and so Margot felt he would ‘buy into’ her seemingly fresh desire to have a good audio visual system of her own in the studio, for entertainment and relaxation in fallow periods between clients. He had often suggested it before.
