The Experimentalist

by Nick Salaman

  ‘Gee, that’s really pretty,’ said a spotty boy on a bicycle, suddenly apparent but shadowy behind the thick mesh of the fence. ‘Did you make that up?’

  Marie though he must be the only spotty boy in California.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You like to come out some time?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You married or something?’

  ‘Yes. And my husband is insanely jealous. He makes Othello look like Percy the Pussycat. He doesn’t shoot to kill, he shoots to maim. And do you know what he especially likes to shoot at?’

  ‘Maybe we’d better make it some other time…’

  ‘Uh oh, there he is now.’

  The spotty boy got on his bicycle, did a wheelie, and shot off down the road. Marie carried on looking at the distant ocean. She thought: this is going to go on for the rest of my life. How boring my life would be if they didn’t give me something to make me not unhappy. I don’t want to remember the old days; it makes me sad. I like to be not unhappy. Everyone tells me so. It’s a good place to be.

  ‘Pssst.’

  She reacted very slowly to anything surprising.

  ‘Pssst.’

  There it was again. She moved her head very slowly as if she were carrying a huge gourd on top of it. That was the effect of whatever it was the Holdsworths were still giving her. Not unpleasant, but slow.

  A man was standing there. Where had he come from? He was holding a large envelope.

  ‘Are you Marie?’ he asked.

  She was not surprised. Nothing surprised her these days. She looked at the man. He was, she guessed, about sixty years old. His eyes were very blue and seemed to have seen a great deal and his hair was silver grey. In spite of his blue eyes, he might have been Spanish or Mexican. He was spare in figure, almost gaunt. His face looked weatherbeaten or perhaps not beaten by weather but by life. He looked like a survivor who has survived a great deal. He had asked a question. Was she Marie?

  ‘Not the one I was,’ she told him.

  The man looked puzzled.

  ‘Would you mind asking me again?’ she said.

  ‘Are you Marie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have something for you.’

  He threw the heavy envelope over the fence, since he could not pass it through or under the wire, and it landed on the ground beside her.

  ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It will change your life for ever. Show it to no one. I will come back in one week’s time. One week exactly, same time, same place. Be here.’

  He seemed very intense. She looked at her watch. It was exactly twelve noon.

  ‘Marie…’ a voice was calling from the direction of the house.

  ‘Don’t let him see you, stay behind the hedge until I go in,’ she said. ‘Next time bring a ladder. A nice light one.’ She surprised herself by saying the bit about the ladder. It was as if someone else were saying it for her. Where would he get a ladder? He would have ways and means.

  ‘Coming,’ she shouted at the house. ‘I am a prisoner,’ she said to the man.

  The man nodded. He understood. Perhaps he too had been a prisoner. He scuttled sideways under cover of the hedge. The letter would be read and confiscated if she took it into the house, so she hid the envelope in a thicket of the hedge, deep in the tunnel where it would be safe. There were no wild things to nibble or tear paper with rodent teeth in the perfect gardens of Beverly Hills. She now hurried to the upper end of the hedge where the tunnel stopped. Here she stepped out. Holdsworth was looking in the wrong direction again.

  ‘Cooee,’ she said.

  He turned round.

  ‘Here I am,’ she said.

  ‘Mr Middleburg will be coming back for a few days,’ he told her. ‘He has things to attend to.’

  ‘When is he going to be here?’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’

  Upstairs in her room, she confirmed that tomorrow would be Friday. Somebody had given her a diary last Christmas when she complained that all days were much the same.

  ‘Make the days different,’ someone had said, ‘set down your thoughts.’

  But her thoughts had been heavy as clouds that lour and do not rain, and the diary had not been used. But today it came into its own with seven more days of usefulness, seven more days before the man with the ladder came back. She started to write. Then she stopped. Everything she did was under supervision. What was she thinking of? She tore up the page she had written into small strips, and flushed them down the lavatory for the alligators to read.

  She would go to the tunnel and read the letter after her afternoon rest, otherwise it would make the Holdsworths suspicious, but she had to read it today, before Felix’s arrival. If she waited until he came, he would be solicitous and demanding, watching her all the time, endlessly on the qui vive. These people had an instinct for subterfuge, perhaps because the layer of grease that oiled their money engine was paper-thin and they lived on lies.

  Holdsworth was different, he had only the instincts of a lackey.

  What could the letter be? Who could it be from? Even in her foggy cloud where the debree was particulated, the importance of this sudden communication woke excitement in her, tinged with some alarm. It was as if the sun had hit a fragment of glass in the darkness of her forest. She had become used to a state of no hope. Where there is no hope there is no disappointment, but still she could not but feel the lighting of a spark of possibility; and now the spark caught fire. The more she thought about it as she prepared for lunch – washed her hands and ran a comb through her hair, put on a little lipstick which she seldom did these days – the more she burned to read the letter. Of course she knew any undue interest would quicken Holdsworth’s suspicions, especially with Felix in the offing, so she forced herself to eat mouthfuls of fried chicken, fries and salad, before putting her knife and fork down conclusively on her plate.

  ‘I hope you are not sickening,’ said Mrs Holdsworth.

  She could hardly say she had been toiling over the preparations of the meal, since she and Mr Holdsworth knew that all the elements of the feast had been bought ready-prepared. Even so she managed to convey the impression of toil without actually putting it into words. She was good at conveying impressions.

  ‘Perhaps we should curtail your time in the garden,’ suggested Mr Holdsworth. ‘The Californian sun is deceptive.’

  ‘It is not the sun,’ said Marie, instinctively defensive. She was almost unsustainably curious to know what was waiting for her in the tunnel. The rise in adrenaline fought with the drug and made her feel quite strange, but the result was a sharpness of mind along with a feeling of giddiness. She knew that she must behave as if everything were as usual, if not more so, so she forced herself to eat more of the strangely coloured, piquant-coated chicken that Mrs Holdsworth had so carefully fried. Why was it always chicken – and chicken so large as to be threatening?

  ‘Mmm. Delicious,’ she said

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ said Mrs Holdsworth, balefully. ‘Eat more slowly.’

  ‘So many tunes,’ observed Marie. ‘Don’t you sometimes wonder how they can get so many tunes out of boring old doh re me?’

  ‘It never enters my head for a moment,’ said Mrs Holdsworth.

  ‘I must get the garden shears sharpened,’ said Mr Holdsworth. ‘Somebody has been using them for a purpose for which they are not designed.’

  ‘I hope you are not referring to me as somebody,’ said Mrs Holdsworth, competitively.

  ‘No, my dear, but you are not a nobody.’

  Marie breathed a silent sigh of relief. Her excitement had not been noticed. Everything was proceeding as normal. ‘I have done a new watercolour of the house,’ she told the Holdsworths. ‘Would you like to see it later?’

  ‘I am no judge,’ said Mrs Holdsworth. She didn’t hold with art.

  ‘I am sure Mr Middleburg will want to see it,’ said Holdsworth, ‘though I hope
you are not taxing yourself. He is, after all, sadly delayed, but will be here in a few days.’

  After a slippery pudding, Marie excused herself. ‘I need to put the finishing touches to my picture,’ she said.

  ‘You must have your rest,’ observed Mrs Holdsworth. ‘Mr Middleburg is quite clear on that point.’

  Marie folded her napkin and went up to her room. There was no point in alerting them to the ferment in her mind. However, after her statutory hour of siesta, she came down again. Mrs Holdsworth was in her room watching television and Holdsworth himself was tending the fax machine which she could hear chattering away. Now was her chance. She walked lightly across the lawn, sat herself in her artist’s chair just to allay any suspicious glance that might be cast in her direction from the house, then after a few minutes, she stood up and walked to the top of the garden, which the camera could not quite reach, and crept into the upper end of the tunnel in the wax-leaf privet.

  It was the work of a minute to locate and open the envelope. Inside, was a sequence of pages written in a flowing hand that spoke of education and yet lack of practice. The ink was mainly black, sometimes brown. The pages themselves seemed to have been gathered from various sources. Some were ruled, some on mathematical paper, others from old diaries, or menu lists; paper that had been hard won, and spoke of desperation. She settled herself back against the wax-leaf privet, shut her eyes for a moment as if to summon all her powers, and started to read.

  ***

  The writing seemed to fly up at her, and for a while she could not make sense of the words, so powerful were the emotions that the sight of them evoked. This was her father’s writing, the man whom all her life she had been without. It was like the presence of an evil ghost. It had seemed impossible that the endless submerged causeway of her life would ever change, but somehow out of the mists and the confusion, the suggestion of a path could be discerned, even if it lead nowhere, through a minefield. The words settled back onto the page, and she began to read.

  To whom it may concern and damn you if it doesn’t, this is the last testament of Giles Lavell, written in Chinchona Prison, Mexico, during the month of February in the year of Our Lord 1965, with no certain hope that it will ever see the outside of this accursed place or survive to tell the true account of the circumstances leading to my false arrest, rigged trial and unjust imprisonment.

  To be honest, I write this first and foremost for myself since I do not expect anyone else to be allowed to read it. It will probably die with me. The gaoler is, as gaolers go, a civil fellow, and I daresay he would carry it out of prison for me; but he too is watched and it would be a shame, after his small kindnesses, to get him into trouble; so I shall have to think of some other recourse.

  Regrettably, there is not much time. I have a troubling cough and an ulcer in my leg. The food is insufficient and the water foul, the mosquitoes remorseless; but all that is mere inconvenience. They will come for me but I do not know when. I have the feeling that it will be soon. I try not to sleep so that I may be awake for every second of the time remaining. I am as avid for life as those mosquito nymphs that hang upon the surface of the water. I suck at it, d’you see? Not that I want you to get the impression that I am afraid of death in normal circumstances, or in the course of action, but I am afraid of dying and having nobody know what has happened to me. I want my daughter to know for she has been the true victim in all this.’

  Here the first few pages, clipped together, seemed to come to an end or, at least, to denote some kind of punctuation. The next instalment featured the writer – if it were the same writer – in a different mode. It was in French but of an antique kind and, although she spoke French well – her great-aunts had been very particular on that score – the ancient spelling and crabbed hand made it hard to understand.

  To whom it may concern, and damn you if it doesn’t, this is the last Testament of Gilles Laval, Baron de Rais, Marshal of France. It is written in the dungeon of Nantes Castle during the month of February in the Year of Our lord 1440, with no certain hope that it will ever see the outside of this accursed place or survive to tell the true account of my life and the circumstances leading up to my false arrest.

  Indeed, now I think of it, I will bribe the gaoler to give it to one of my loyal servants with instructions to hide it in the fabric of my castles of Machecoul and Tiffauges so that, in future days, someone may find it and tell the true story of the monster, Gilles de Rais. The gaoler is, as gaolers go, a civil fellow and I daresay he would carry it out of prison for me himself, but he too is watched.

  Regrettably, there is not much time. The shortness of it weighs on me. I try not to sleep so that I may live every second of the time remaining, for sleep is a kind of death. Not that I want to give the impression that I am afraid of death in normal circumstances or in the course of action.

  If she were here, Joan, Saviour of France, my lovely Pucelle, she would tell you that I was at her side when we drove the English back – Talbot and the lot of them – to their ship at La Rochelle, scuttling like schoolboys. But the feats of arms, the glory, the trumpets, the martial airs, the cheering crowds, the spoils of victory, they are all cold now – cold as the ashes of the fire she roasted in. Yes, they cooked her as a witch, just as they will broil me too later – after they have half-strangled me, cut off my testicles, stuffed them in my mouth (I never cared for ‘rognons blancs’, particularly my own), and cut my belly four ways to let the bowels spill out like a pig’s. That is the way they treat their heroes in France.

  Of course, if I agree not to retract my confession, they will simply hang me without any of the trimmings. It is this that is giving me cause to reflect at the moment. As I say, I am no faintheart, but the prospect of my own balls in my mouth and my stomach split open for the general edification of the groundlings gives me, I must say, more than an ordinary twinge of distaste. It’s not the pain, it is the exposure. Well, let’s be fair, it is the pain as well.

  I must stop writing for a space; I hear the gaoler coming with my supper. He knows I am writing this and he shuts an eye when his wife brings me vellum and ink, but we have an understanding that I shall at least pretend to conceal my labours. It’s just in case one of the Bishop’s men should pay us a surprise visit.

  There was a gap here, and then the narrative continued.

  The supper was good, though I confess I had little stomach for it – nor would you if you had had even as lenient a taste of the water treatment as they gave me – but more of that later. I might just add, in case you are ever down for it, that it’s the cloth they stuff down your throat to make sure the water goes through properly, which really hurts.

  After the torture, I believe it is customary for the prize prisoners to be fed and rested so that they can better appreciate the full drama and – yes, it has to be admitted – the horror of their end.

  Beef stew, white bread, cheese and a pint of Chinon wine, better than balls in the mouth, a repast fit for a king or at least for Gilles, Baron de Rais and lord of Mortemer, Tiffauges, Machecoul, and Champtocé, who was in his day as rich and powerful as a king, richer indeed than that bumbling Valois Charles who would sell his own sister for a couple of castles and, as the word goes, did.

  Where was I? Ah yes, I was about to launch into an explanation as to how I came to be in my present low state – truckle bed, rickety table, damp walls, dank floor – reduced from the grandeurs of my former establishment. Confess: you are interested? My tale is instructive and full of love, blood, treachery, chicanery and pain – especially pain – with not a little mirth and sorrow thrown in for good measure. What else makes a good romance?

  My trouble, I believe, started with a quest for perfection. It has always been with me, right from my cradle. I always expected more of myself than I could reasonably fulfil – an uncomfortable sort of itch. I had to be the one who climbed the highest tree, rode the wildest pony, made the most noise, endured the stiffest beating. Perhaps if my mother and father had lived th
ey would have seen to it that this excess of mine was curbed or deflected at an early age but my father died in an accident when I was ten years old and my mother soon after. I was thereupon brought up by my grandfather who had never been less than sixty ever since he was born. Yes, he was born an old miser, though he was indulgent to me so long as I did not impinge on his studies which were of a wealth-building nature – brigandage, chicanerie and coercion and all that sort of thing. If that happened, retribution was swift.

  I was a trial to my nurse and a pestilence to Jehan, the man my father set to watch over me when I was five.

  ‘Master Gilles, Master Gilles,’ I can hear him now, shouting for me as I hid among the battlements of the castle or scudded away among the pine trees of our own little island of Rez, pounding after me doggedly in his riding boots.

  ‘Margill, Margill,’ he would cry, too short of breath for the extra syllable.

  He was a good man and he died taking a blow that was meant for me as we fought in Normandy in the meadows above the river. So I grew up selfish, indulged, rarely disciplined, alienated, as you might say, from most of the world by birth but, even more by temperament. I was not a bad child, I believe. I was not cruel; I was amiable to visiting cousins and to the occasional other children who came my way. I even sheltered a poor boy who had run away from his master. The woods were full of stirring in those days as indeed they are now – waifs, brigands, displaced people, poor men hiding from the soldiers of either side, refugees, the out of work and the out of mind. I brought him food, lodged him in a hunting hut and commended him to one of the scullions whose mother took him in on the estate at Mortemer.