Fictional Lives

by Hugh Fleetwood

  But what choice did she have, she cried to herself as she decided to get up and make herself some tea. She hadn’t chosen her refuge; she had, by the circumstances of her birth, been forced into it. Just as Gerhard, by the circumstances of his birth had been forced into his refuge; into building up ramparts of houses and cars and silk suits and bank accounts. Just as everyone, in one way or another, was forced into some refuge. Some people made their walls of religion; some of art. Some of sex; some of power. Some—many—of money; some of reason. But while they were all more or less safe within their ramparts—safe from the monstrous, mythical creatures who wandered round outside—if something, something at times as apparently inconsequential as a stomach-ache, were to slip through a crack in those bricks—oh, then everything started to tumble. In her case it had been a stomach-ache. In Gerhard’s case it had possibly been something equally as trivial; something that had suddenly brought infection into his isolated ward, and caused him, in his panic, to attempt to seal over the cracks. To prop up the toppling walls with affairs, and dreams of murder….

  No. No! It wasn’t so. Gerhard was not dreaming of murder. His word had not become infected. It was only her’s that had been; and she would keep up her barricade of reason. She had to….

  *

  She did; but within another month she had been obliged to retrench and retrench, until there was almost nothing left in her world apart from the word ‘reason’. And now more than feeling that a germ had entered her, she came to feel that she had allowed a guest into the hallway of her house; a guest who had started to consume everything in sight. The pictures and the furniture had gone first; then the floors and ceilings; and finally her husband, her parents, her belief in and love of literature, and her belief and faith in civilization. In fact virtually all that remained at this stage was a tattered carpet on which she was flying through space; with the intruder tearing at its border, snapping and chewing at its edges.

  But still, as she lay in bed all day, wracked continually by her pains, almost unable to eat, she fought it off. Still she told herself, as she saw doctors and psychiatrists (who could agree on nothing but that she was seriously ill), and as she submitted to further tests, she would not give in. She was not being poisoned. She was not. For if she were she would have at last to look her guest directly in the face. And still she couldn’t bear that prospect. The prospect of seeing the face of hatred, madness and death….

  Yet—she hadn’t, even now, been entirely abandoned. She did, even now, have some outside help. And determined though she was to cling to her rug of reason, she knew that without this steadying hand she wouldn’t have been able to manage it. She would, sooner or later, have slipped.

  This one remaining person, this only surviving companion of her flight, was, perhaps inevitably, her son, Cyrus; and the help he gave her was simply to remind her, or make her aware, that he was also the one person she did not control; and never had. (Of course she had never controlled Lucie Schmidt, who was in a way the source of all her problems. But that was neither here nor there. Because apart from the first few months of their acquaintance Lucie had never been in her world—she had indeed been firmly barred from it—and she didn’t pretend to control those who were not hers to control.) Why she didn’t control Cyrus—and why, looking back, her parents had never controlled her—and why he rather controlled her, was because she loved him. Naturally she loved her mother and father, and Gerhard too; but that was a conditional love. (The condition being that they played their parts as parents and husband, and did not, so to speak, branch out on their own, and force her to rearrange her own character in order to accommodate theirs.) Whereas the love she had for Cyrus was unconditional; and though many of her friends told her she was wrong, she would have been prepared, if it had come to it, to sacrifice herself for her son; which she would not have been prepared to do for anyone else. She hoped it would never come to it, and saw no reason why it should; sacrifices in her opinion tended to breed devils, not appease them. Nevertheless, in the final analysis—in an ‘only room for one person at the top of the tower’ situation—she would have done it.

  Her son, to her, was wonderful. He was wonderful because he seemed everything a child should be—joyful and interested, not especially good, and not especially bad. He was wonderful because if she had always thought of herself as spirit, and Gerhard as flesh, she saw Cyrus as a synthesis of both. He was wonderful because when he was good he was good without affectation; and when he was bad he was bad without being evil. He was wonderful because he didn’t, as yet, appear to take refuge behind any ramparts or walls. And he was wonderful above all because though he did control her, and was, presumably, if only unconsciously, aware of doing so, he in no way threatened to destroy her. (As, she was convinced, anyone else would have done if she had allowed them power over her.) He was like a piece of music to which she could open herself so completely that its melody and harmonies filled every inch of her; yet a piece of music which, far from diminishing her, made her feel more complete.

  She spent, now, hours every day with him. Or he spent hours every day—all the time when he wasn’t at school—with her. He sat by her bedside. He drew pictures for her. He told stories to her. He made her laugh. He made her tell him exactly what kind of pains she was feeling. He did everything he could think of to distract her from those pains. And more and more he tempted her to tell him about her almost totally consuming suspicion that she was being poisoned by Gerhard. By her husband. By his father….

  It was terrible even to consider the idea; but she couldn’t help it. For if she did, she reasoned, the child might really be able to give her a grip on that rug to which she was clinging. To give her a grip by dispelling her suspicions; and thereby help her to cast out the monster from her house, and start to reconstruct her life.

  Yet still she couldn’t bring herself to do it. And she might never even have approached the subject if she hadn’t, one Sunday afternoon in July, received a visit.

  Her visitor was David Chezzel.

  She didn’t want to see him, and she would have told him not to come if he had phoned first. But just as she had gone to him unannounced, so he came to her; and was shown into her bedroom by Gerhard.

  ‘Fran dear, why didn’t you let me know?’ he gushed; and sitting down on the side of the bed, took her hand.

  She had neither the strength nor the inclination to answer his question.

  ‘How,’ she muttered, ‘is the book going?’

  ‘Well. Fantastically.’ He paused. ‘You’re not still thinking—?’

  ‘No,’ Fran said. ‘No, of course not. I guess I was just clutching at straws before. Trying to find some explanation for the unexplainable.’ She gave a tiny smile and suggested: ‘Inexplicable?’

  ‘Oh Fran,’ David breathed. ‘Do they really have no idea?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘I was sure you must be away—since I hadn’t heard from you. But then I thought maybe I’d just call, and—Gerhard told me. I came right over.’

  ‘That was sweet of you,’ Fran said, as she wondered whether anyone had ever been so loathed as she was loathed by David. To be going through this pretence now, when he had known all along, or when, even, he had planned…. The rug lurched, and another piece was clawed from it. She hung on tighter, and told herself David is just writing a book. I am just suffering from a disease. David doesn’t even loathe me. His gushing is natural to him. He might, possibly, like me, and be grateful for the help I have given him. Certainly there’s some resentment in his feelings towards me, otherwise he wouldn’t be writing that story. But such resentment is, as I have said time and time again, understandable. And resentment does not equal loathing.

  ‘How’s Cyrus?’

  ‘Well. Very well. He’s been so sweet I can’t tell you.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ A pause. ‘Talking of Cyrus, I was just saying to Gerhard—my sister’s coming to New York next week for a few days with her three kids. It’s a birthday treat
for the twins. They’re exactly the same age as Cyrus. I was thinking of giving a kind of children’s party for them. Do you think Cyrus would like to come?’

  I don’t know about Cyrus, Fran wanted to say, but I know I wouldn’t like him to. She said ‘You’ll have to ask him.’

  Then she closed her eyes, and winced.

  ‘I’m sorry, David,’ she whispered. ‘I’m very grateful for your visit. But would you mind going. I’m—’ she winced once more.

  ‘Of course not. I just wish I could do something.’

  ‘Oh,’ Fran said, as David stood up, and started to back away from her—and as she clasped her rug more tightly than ever—‘you can. Just keep on writing. So I can have a really good book to read.’ She winced yet again. ‘What’s happening to your poor heroine now?’

  David stood there, looking at her. Then, in a voice as normal as hers, and with a little laugh, he said ‘I’m afraid she’s about to die.’

  *

  Fran was crying when Cyrus came into the room a little later. The effort of hanging on was too much for her. She didn’t want to die, she sobbed to herself. And why should she die? She wasn’t a bad woman; she was sure. She had always loved those near to her, she had helped those whom she could help, and while she had always wanted power over people she had never, as far as she was aware, misused her power. So why, why, why? Even as a representative of the rich, of the leaders, of the tyrants, as David liked to called them—as one of the editors, publishers, writers of a certain version of reality—she didn’t think she was particularly worthy of blame. Aside from the fact that not only she, but David himself, she was equally sure, would have found any alternative version far less acceptable—or even worse—than the one she had always supported. So why, why—

  Why, her son asked her, was she crying.

  Because, she wept, holding the boy—and letting the final few strands of her magic carpet fall away beneath her (she would, she told herself, be able to grasp them again later)—because—she hesitated, still unable to say what she thought, but equally unable not, at last, to say something—‘Because I’m afraid I’m going to die, and I don’t want to.’

  Cyrus stared at her. ‘You’re not going to die,’ he told her. ‘You can’t die.’ Then: ‘Why are you going to die?’

  ‘Because,’ Fran said, ‘David has written a story about me. And he has written that I’m going to die.’

  Even in her present state she could tell how absurd she sounded….

  She rushed on, ‘Sometimes poets and writers see things before they happen.’

  But as she was saying this, Cyrus himself had started talking. And when she heard his words Fran realized he didn’t find her absurd at all.

  ‘Why,’ the child asked, ‘did he write something like that?’

  Oh, Fran thought, I am lost….

  ‘Because,’ she whispered, ‘he hates me.’

  ‘But why?’ her son insisted.

  ‘Because,’ Fran said yet again, trying to think of some way of putting it so that Cyrus would understand, ‘he thinks that I have written a book in which he plays the part of a clown.’ She stopped for a second. ‘No, not of a clown. Of a dog. And he doesn’t want to. And so—’ but she could keep it up no longer. And falling back on her pillows, and almost screaming with pain, she just cried ‘Oh Cyrus, I’m sorry.’

  Cyrus, however, ignored her apology. He looked thoughtful, and shook his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he murmured, ‘why David invited me to a party next week if he hates you.’

  ‘He doesn’t hate you,’ Fran whispered. Then, before either falling asleep, or losing consciousness, she added, ‘But you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Even if you said you would.’

  *

  Cyrus had said he would; and in spite of what his mother had told him, five days later, he went.

  Fran would have been mystified if she had thought about it much; but by the day of the children’s party she couldn’t think about anything much any more; apart from her pains, the fact that she was going to die, and the reason for this fact. She heard Gerhard tell her that he was going to take Cyrus over to David’s; the words registered; and then she fell back into the burning mist that was enveloping her.

  She had believed, when she had let those last shreds of reason slip, that she would be able to recover them. She wasn’t able to. She was being poisoned by her husband. He was clearly using a poison that was unidentifiable, untraceable; and she was going to die. Gerhard was going to inherit all her money—it was too late to change her will—and then was either going or not going to marry Lucie Schmidt. She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter any more. There was nothing but chaos in the world, and madness. Madness, hatred and death. She repeated these words over and over again. Madness, hatred and death. Madness, hatred and death. They became a chant, echoing and resounding in her head. Madness, hatr …—she started to laugh. She was being written out of existence. She was dying….

  She called for the nurse who had been with her, at Gerhard’s insistence, for the last few days. (Few weeks? She wasn’t sure.) The woman came rushing in. Fran felt herself being given an injection. She clung to the white uniform. Her parents were in the room. She reached out for them. She was aware of someone making a telephone call. She heard Gerhard’s name being mentioned. She didn’t want to see him. She closed her eyes. He was there. He was saying ‘Fran, Fran.’ He was holding her. She said ‘Cyrus, I want Cyrus.’

  ‘I left him at David’s,’ Gerhard whispered. Shouted? ‘I thought it would be better. I’d only just arrived when your father called. I came straight back. But I thought it would be better,’ he repeated, ‘if Cyrus stayed there.’

  ‘Cyrus,’ Fran shrieked—though she heard no sound leave her lips. ‘I want to see Cyrus. You’ve got to get him back.’ She started hitting at her husband. She punched. She fell back. She tried to get up again. The pains were destroying her. She couldn’t move. There were waves breaking over her, pulling her out to sea. No, she tried to scream, I don’t want to die. I don’t—The sea was ablaze, and she was falling into the flames. They reached up to her body. They reached up to her mouth. They reached into her brain. No! she tried to scream. No!

  Some time later she was aware of Cyrus kissing her, and whispering something into her ear. Then, after a final effort to save herself, she lay still, and was silent.

  *

  She had no idea, when she awoke, whether it was night or day, or for how long she had been unconscious. All she was aware of was that Gerhard, Cyrus and her mother were gazing at her and smiling; and that she no longer felt any pains. She could feel where they had been—it was as if she had a bruise in her stomach, or had had something torn from her—but the pains themselves were gone. She smiled, very weakly, back at the faces looking down on her, asked for a glass of water—and then promptly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  *

  A week later she was able to get out of bed; and three weeks after that she was strong enough to leave, with Gerhard, for a month in Vermont; to do nothing but rest, read, and convalesce.

  Till then no one, least of all her, had spoken much of her sickness; other than to say that whatever had afflicted her had reached a climax the afternoon of David’s party, that everyone had been terrified she was going to die, but that though she had been in a coma for four days, after that climax had passed she had started, very slowly, to pull through; and the doctors had announced she was going to recover. They still had no idea what had been wrong; but guessed it had been some virus that had burned itself out—or been burnt out by her own desire to live.

  Sitting in the New England sun, however, in front of the small white house in the hills that Gerhard had rented, Fran thought it was time to talk more openly of what had happened.

  She started, therefore, by apologizing to Gerhard for her behaviour.

  ‘You know,’ she said with a smile one afternoon, ‘I really did think you were trying to poison me. I fought against the idea, but—’
she shrugged, ‘I did.’

  Gerhard looked embarrassed. ‘I know,’ he murmured, his head lowered. ‘But you were sick, weren’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, anyway,’ Fran said—as it occurred to her that when she had finally given up the fight against the madness of that notion, she had both had her great crisis—and started to recover from it.

  ‘But in a way,’ she continued a little later, ‘it’s done me good. It’s as if’—she paused, searched for the right image, and then found it—‘I were in a zoo, with a wild animal that was kept locked up in a cage. As long as it was locked up it scared me so much I became obsessed with it. So much so that I couldn’t see anything in the world apart from that animal. But finally I had the strength to release it—or didn’t have the strength to keep it in its cage—and somehow—well, I don’t know whether I fought it and beat it, or whether I realized that though it was wild, and even dangerous, as long as I wasn’t scared of it—it wouldn’t hurt me.’

  Gerhard smiled, and took her hand. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s all over now. And when you’re completely better we can go back to New York, and everything will be as it was before.’

  Fran lay back in her chair, and wondered. Possibly, she told herself. But she doubted it. Now that that animal was out in the open—and now, too, that she had seen it was possible to fall through space and survive—she doubted that anything would be the same as before. Strangely, however, the idea exhilarated her….

  ‘Except for one thing.’ Gerhard added. And lowering his head again, he told her that his affair with Lucie Schmidt was over…. He had broken with her, he said; or to be honest, she had broken with him. She had gone back to France, and was getting married again.

  Fran stared at her husband for a while, wondering what to say. Then, realizing there was nothing to be said, she merely touched his blond hair with her finger tips—and quietly, gratefully, changed the subject.