Fictional Lives

by Hugh Fleetwood

  And then, after she had brushed aside, with more briskness than she intended, Christopher’s offers of assistance—‘or at least a glass of brandy’—she returned briefly to her own office, picked up her large shoulder bag, picked up a larger bag containing all her notes, all Brandon’s letters and papers, and the three volumes of diaries, and left the building; only pausing by the reception desk long enough to leave a message for Christopher that he should send her, as soon as possible, all Brandon’s published work, and that she was, once again, sorry.

  She took a taxi to the Alitalia offices and booked herself a seat on a flight to Pisa; she returned to her hotel and told the reception clerk she would be leaving that evening. And finally she went to her room and sat there; waiting….

  *

  She waited for four hours; during which she read and re-read in her mind those pages of Joseph Brandon’s diaries, realized that she had been right in thinking that, having read them, it would be impossible for her to feel any joy at all, and told herself over and over again that while, God knows, she had already learned far too much about the man—much much more than she had ever hoped or feared she would learn about him—she was well aware that what she had learned was but the tip of a colossal iceberg, and that if she were to pick up the notebooks again and read them all the way through, she would discover such a quantity of horror, such a depth of horror, that it would make what she had discovered so far seem almost trivial. At the end of four hours, though it wasn’t time for her plane, she took the underground to the airport.

  Because she couldn’t help feeling that unless she did make a move right then, she might never be able to go home.

  *

  She remained in a state of shock for a week; telling a first concerned, and then really worried Maisie, that London had proved too much for her. But at the end of a week, assisted by the familiarity of her small and comfortable little house, by the warm, wonderful late September weather, by the necessity of having to take off Maisie’s hands the details of the approaching grape-picking, and above all by Maisie’s presence, and the renewed realization of how much she loved, and was loved by, her gentle, sandy-coloured friend, she started to pull herself together; started to prepare herself for the decision she knew must be made.

  And three days later she was ready.

  She had, she thought, four choices.

  One was to write to Christopher, tell him that she couldn’t do the book, and send him back all the material she had—including the diaries.

  The second was to tell Christopher that she couldn’t do the book, and send him back everything except the diaries.

  The third was to write a full exposure of Joseph Brandon; an exposure based upon the diaries, and an exposure that would cause a sensation.

  And the last was to destroy the diaries, pretend she had never seen them, and write a biography that was, in effect, a work of fiction.

  She went through them all in turn.

  The first she had to reject because though in a way it would be the easiest thing to do, she was convinced (a) that if she didn’t undertake the task Margaret Brandon wouldn’t, as she had stated, and because of her husband’s instructions, allow anyone else to, (b) that the woman’s handing over to her of the notebooks had been a saying, in essence, ‘Here, they’re your responsibility; I don’t know what to do with them,’ and it was the least she could do for the poor abused creature to accept this responsibility, and (c) that in view of that message at the start of those notebooks, addressed personally to her, she was somehow bound to make the decision regarding their eventual publication or otherwise.

  The idea of returning to Christopher all the material except the diaries she had to reject for the same reasons.

  Which left her with just two alternatives: to reveal, or not to reveal….

  *

  If only, she told herself (she was watering the garden at the time), she could have asked Maisie for advice. But she couldn’t, she realized. Partly because if she had deferred to Maisie’s judgement on most matters since she had given up her career, now she felt she had to make up her own mind and trust her instinct; and partly because if she did tell Maisie, she knew what her friend would say: ‘Publish and be damned.’

  Which, she finally admitted to herself, as she gazed towards the setting sun—and thus, almost by default, reached her decision—she didn’t want to do. Neither publish, nor be damned. And while, in a way, she knew she should reveal the facts of Brandon’s life (for deep down she still believed what she had so solemnly declared all those years ago: that it was the writer’s task to denounce crime), she also knew that if she did force herself to read through those diaries, if she were to reveal to herself—let alone to the world—the full horror of the man (a horror she was more than ever sure she had glimpsed but a fraction of) she would indeed be damned. For aside from the scandal the book would cause—a scandal that would inevitably drag her back into the world—what she would learn would even more inevitably drag her, drive her back to the world. She would, by her very indignation, by her very feeling of outrage, and above all by the sense that her life itself, and her love of Maisie, were threatened, be forced out of retirement; be forced once again, and then again and again, to take up her pen, and write.

  And she couldn’t go through all that again, she nearly cried out loud. All right, she would admit that it was weak of her, wrong of her. She would admit that one couldn’t, as long as one lived, retire. She would admit that she was dishonest in trying to dissociate herself from history, from reality—for of course women were just as responsible as men for the state of that history, for the state of that reality. She would even admit that her life here with Maisie was, in a way, a fiction, a pretended withdrawal from something that couldn’t be withdrawn from. She would admit anything you like—but she would not go back to the world. For she did find it ugly and squalid and tedious; and would find it so much more ugly and squalid if she were to return to it via Joseph Brandon’s notebooks, that it would, she was sure, destroy her.

  Oh, she thought: that she had never admired that man. Or at least that Margaret Brandon had never given her those notebooks.

  But as she said the woman’s name to herself, and started to walk slowly back to the house, she couldn’t help wondering if the decision she had taken—taken, ultimately, to save herself—was the one Margaret Brandon had wanted her to take; and what, in the end, the woman would make of that decision.

  Well, she told herself: she would see.

  *

  See she did; though not till two years had passed.

  In the first seven months of those two years Tina wrote, at great speed and with remarkably little effort—it was just a chore she had to complete—what she had come to think of as her novel. A novel of which the prinicpal character was an adventurous, spirited young man who had grown up in the backwoods of Alabama, who had become an adventurous world-famous author, who—in the words of some dean of a college in Michigan, when conferring upon him an honorary degree—had ‘told of the world as it is, and had shown that it is possible to live in this world with courage, nobility, grace and integrity’, and who was, frankly, the sort of person his creator would have wished to be if she had been born a man.

  In the following fourteen months she saw her book go into proof, be publicized by a very enthusiastic Christopher, be published to enormous critical acclaim (‘A magnificent biography’. ‘A wonderful achievement’. ‘A great biography, and a great work of art’. ‘Tina Courtland’s Life of Joseph Brandon is one of the major publishing events of the last ten years; perhaps the major publishing event since Miss Courtland’s last book appeared. Cool, brilliantly written, and entirely honest, it tells us, as all great biographies do, and all biographies should, not only of one man’s life, but of the lives of all of us’.), and be tipped to receive prizes as best biography of the year on both sides of the Atlantic.

  And in the last three months of those two years she allowed herself to be bullied by Mais
ie into going to London and New York to give interviews and make television appearances (and allowed herself furthermore, in spite of a constant longing to be back in her home in Italy, to have a good time); she wondered continually (especially after she did return home) when she would hear from Margaret Brandon; and she was made very nervous by an amused telephone call from Christopher, who told her he had, as it happened, met Margaret at a party a few days before, and had been asked by her for Tina Courtland’s address.

  ‘I am going to Italy for a holiday,’ the woman had said. ‘I would like to pay her a visit.’

  ‘What was she like?’ Tina asked.

  ‘Like? The same as ever, of course. Only more so possibly. There used to be an occasional expression on her face. Now there’s no trace of one, ever.’

  ‘Did she mention the book?’

  ‘Not really. She just murmured that she was glad you’d had such a great success with it.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tina said; and then ‘Did she tell you exactly when she’d be coming?’

  ‘To you?’ Christopher laughed. ‘No. But she’s leaving for Italy tomorrow. I expect she’ll get in touch.’

  *

  Margaret Brandon didn’t get in touch, however; she simply drove up unannounced one afternoon, in a hired car.

  Tina, who had thought that she might do just that, was, as ever, working in the garden when she heard the car coming up the long stony road to the house; and guessed immediately who the visitor was. And though she had been so nervous when she had received Christopher’s call, as she brushed her hands on her trousers and went up to greet the woman, she realized that now the meeting itself was upon her, she no longer was.

  In fact, she realized, she was only curious; and glad that this last scene was about to be played.

  Physically Margaret Brandon hadn’t changed at all; unless, as Christopher had said, she seemed even more perfectly embalmed than she had been two years ago. Yet as Tina accompanied her into the house, she had the feeling that there was a purpose about that slim, beautifully dressed body that she didn’t remember from their previous meeting. Then the woman had been like an exquisite objet d’art; a hard polished thing drained of all life, and useless except for the relaxation it might, to admirers of such objects, give to the eye. Now, while she was more brilliant, more finished, more, in her way, perfect than ever, she had an air of having found some sense in her very hardness. It was as if a diamond, that had always been worn in a ring, had, after a final polish, suddenly become aware that it could, if it wished to, cut.

  The explanation for this unexpected air of purpose was, Tina had no doubt, that she had come here to say something; something about the book.

  She started, however, as she accepted a glass of wine, by murmuring—for the third time since she had arrived—that she was so sorry just to drop in like this, but she had been passing and had been given the address by Christopher. She went on to assure Tina she wouldn’t keep her from her work in the garden for very long—she was on her way to visit her sister-in-law, who was staying about thirty miles away—and to tell her how beautiful she found the house, how tranquil it was up here, and how she envied her. And she concluded her warm-up, so to speak, by recounting everything she had done since she had arrived in Italy.

  But then, as she took a seat, lowered her eyes, and paused before delivering whatever speech she had prepared, something strange happened. Which was that Tina, who had been nervous while waiting for the woman, and merely curious for the last few minutes, now all at once became terrified, and realized she didn’t want to hear that speech. For just as she had been certain, before she had read them, of what Brandon’s diaries would reveal, now she was certain of what Brandon’s widow was going to say. She was going to say—Tina knew—that she had trusted Tina, as a woman and as a writer, and that Tina had betrayed her. That even if she hadn’t been aware of it at the time, or felt capable of taking the responsibility, she had, ultimately, handed over her husband’s diaries in the hope that Tina would have the strength and courage to disclose their contents to the world. And finally, that being now so very desperate, so very aware that this was her last chance—or finding, simply, that with Brandon two years dead she now had the courage, and could take the responsibility—she had decided to publish the diaries (of which she had presumably made photocopies) herself; and so be free of the lies and deceptions in which her marriage had involved her. The lies and deceptions that had been bred by her refusal to acknowledge what she had always suspected or perhaps always, within her, known. The lies and deceptions that had caused her to become the frozen, stone-like creature that she was today….

  And if that were to happen, Tina thought, not only would that foulness be released into the world, but she herself would, more than ever, be caught up in the ensuing scandal.

  So terrified was she by this prospect, and by her conviction that this was the speech Margaret Brandon was preparing to make, that even as the woman murmured ‘I read your book about Joe,’ she interrupted her with a forced laugh, said ‘Oh before we talk about that I’d like you to meet my friend,’ and, not caring how extraordinary her behaviour must appear, rushed to the door and shouted for Maisie—who was upstairs writing an article for some medical journal—to come down. And though as she hovered in the hallway she thought that perhaps she had made matters worse—for if Margaret Brandon made her speech in front of Maisie it would be not only appalling, but humiliating—she also thought that she didn’t care. She just had to put it off for as long as possible; and she couldn’t be alone if it weren’t possible to put it off altogether.

  But when she returned into the living room with Maisie, something stranger still than her being overcome with terror happened; something truly amazing. As Margaret Brandon looked at her—and showed she had noted that terror—an expression came into her eyes….

  For a moment Tina was too confused to know what she was saying, as she introduced Maisie. She must have been mistaken, she told herself. There couldn’t have been an expression—not in those eyes. It was impossible. Absolutely impossible. And certainly not such an expression as the one she had seen. An expression of pity, and understanding, and the most terrible resignation.

  *

  But there had been; and she was to see it again, just ten minutes later. She was to see it as she and Maisie walked Margaret Brandon to her car, as Margaret Brandon thanked them for their hospitality and told them yet again how much she envied them their home, and as Margaret Brandon returned once more, as Tina knew at last she must, to the subject of the book.

  She returned to the subject of the book; but she didn’t say what she had come to say, and had been on the point of saying earlier. No—all she said now, with pity, understanding, and the most terrible resignation not only in her eyes, but in her voice too, was this: that she had thought the biography very well written, that she expected Tina must be very proud of it—and that she had wanted to come here in person ‘To thank you, Tina, for telling the truth.’

  Then, for a moment, Tina felt more than confused. She felt—along with an immense sense of gratitude, and an even more immense sense of awe at the sacrifice that was being made on her behalf—a chill come over her. A chill that threatened to make her—as the news of Brandon’s death, two years ago, had threatened to make her—faint. It was the same chill that had frozen the woman in front of her; and it was a chill that was caused by the idea that in those words the whole of Joseph Brandon’s horror had, after all, been revealed to her.

  No, she wanted to scream. Not that. Please not that. That I cannot bear.

  But bear it she did; as, she realized a minute later, after Margaret Brandon had climbed into her car, given a last tired smile—a smile of total defeat—and started the motor, she would be able to bear even her return to the world. A return made inevitable, as she had feared it would be, and saw now was, by that revelation of horror. In fact, she thought, giving a wave of farewell to her visitor, with the example of that wonderful woman before her,
there would be nothing henceforth she couldn’t bear.

  The Travelling Companion

  HE WAS TEMPTED, since it came from abroad, not to open it. Precisely because it came from abroad, he did open it.

  And therein, he was to think later, lay the seeds of the whole affair.

  *

  Andrew Stairs was a big bouncing boy of a man—forty-five years and three months old the day the letter arrived—with a smooth red cherubic face and the manner of a clumsy good-natured puppy, and he distrusted all things foreign as much as he was fascinated by them. The distrust was due to his loving his own country to such an extent that whatever was not British he considered corrupt, barbarous or at any rate in some way inferior; the fascination to the fact that—however unwilling he might be to admit it—even he was aware, and acknowledged, that though Britain was an island, islands were hardly more isolated from the rest of the world than any other place, that what went on, for better or worse (normally for worse) in the rest of the world had an effect on the life of islands, and above all, that corruption and barbarity had an attraction—for him—that integrity and civilization simply couldn’t match. Of course he didn’t imagine that Britain was without corruption or barbarity, and when he heard or came across instances of either he was both ashamed and distressed. Yet he couldn’t help feeling that such lapses were lapses from the norm; vile blemishes on an otherwise perfect portrait. Whereas abroad—the lapse was the norm; the portrait itself was vile. And therefore, having more practice, in this field at least foreigners were better; their sins were altogether more vivid, more brightly-coloured, more—unfortunately—splendid.