The Book Collector

by Alice Thompson

  This onslaught, she felt, was damaging their marriage, its irrationality far more significant than what it was about.

  ‘But what am I to do – I love reading – if I am at the house all day?’

  ‘You can embroider, play music. Besides, you have the baby to care for. And you refuse all help. Why you won’t have a nanny is beyond me. It’s most irregular. I don’t understand it.’

  ‘I want to look after him myself.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Felix will be safe. I’ve told you before. I know someone who has been recommended. A Clara Whittaker.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. Things happen with nannies. Children drown in streams. It’s not the same as them having their mother.’

  ‘You mean nannies don’t fuss.’

  ‘Yes, that is what I do mean. Why do you think mothers fuss? It’s evolutionary. It protects their young.’

  ‘Clara would be a boon. I hear she’s very good. Responsible. She has two younger brothers that she helped to bring up.’

  ‘Why would I want a stranger looking after my baby? She might harm him.’

  ‘Look after Felix then, if it’s what you want to do! But please don’t touch any of my books again.’

  ‘Can I not even read the ones in the library? I promise I won’t look in the safe again.’

  ‘No. Not even them. You might stain them with the sweat on your hands.’

  He was making her feel as if his books were more precious to him than she was. She suddenly felt like an imposter, the way Archie had plucked her from obscurity to marry her. Really, she was an interloper in this house full of beautiful objets d’art and discreet servants.

  He saw the anguish on her face. He quickly regained his composure. She could see he realised he had stepped over the mark, gone beyond whatever Archie considered was acceptable behaviour in their marriage.

  ‘I’m sorry, dearest. I didn’t mean to upset you. You must realise how important my books are. They are irreplaceable.’ She felt relieved, even grateful for his remorse.

  ‘Of course I understand. I shouldn’t have gone into your safe and I won’t go into the library again.’

  She left the library astonished, wondering how an argument could have been conjured out of something that seemed to be far more to do with Archie than with her. For weeks now her domestic life had lacked fluency and she realised it was because on some level she had become unhappy. And unhappiness had made her life like a river, consistently coming up against rocks that had to be circumvented or obstacles that impeded its flow.

  That evening at dinner, she looked at her husband through the candlelight. She tried to reframe him as someone different and could not. He was her husband. She cherished him. He protected and loved her; how she adored his body. The way his chestnut hair swept back from his forehead, his handsome older face. She was devoted and could not imagine disloyalty in others. Looking back, it had been a failure of her imagination or perhaps a failure of her nature. Or perhaps of both. It was too hard to try and see him in a new way and she would not.

  In her bedroom, the moon was shining through the window full and strong. Whereas a few months before she would have cried at her argument with Archie, now she just felt a little hardening of the heart and a painful constriction, as if she were becoming less generous and kind, turning into a smaller person. She felt his secrecy about the book, his compulsion to keep all his books to himself, was driven by desire, a sexual possessiveness. She remembered the way sometimes he caressed his books.

  After Archie left for work the next day, she entered the library and continued to peruse the books. Drifting from one book to another, looking at the etchings of Dürer or reading the philosophy of Rousseau, or the fiction of George Eliot, she read for the prose style or for information or for both until her eyes grew tired. But she was now careful of the books and nervously tender with them, until, lost in the prose, she forgot what she was handling and began to turn the pages roughly. She was always careful to put the books back exactly where she found them, which was straightforward as they were so carefully ordered alphabetically and arranged in categories.

  Chapter 7

  ONE NIGHT SHE woke up with her back towards Archie. She turned round to see, instead of him, an empty space and rumpled sheets. The blankets had been cast back and there was an indentation in the mattress where his body should have been. She had the overwhelming feeling he had secretly left the house. And to her shock, looking over at the chair where he normally folded his clothes, she saw that they had gone. The next morning, she didn’t say anything, as if somehow she knew that if she asked questions, confronted him, he would disappear in front of her.

  The next night, she tried to stay awake, to see if she could catch him leaving. But she drifted off and then woke up, startled, in the middle of the night. She quickly turned over. Archie was sleeping beside her. She turned back over and dug her nails into her palm to keep herself awake. Ten minutes later she heard him quietly get out of the bed and dress, tiptoeing cautiously about the room, so as not to wake her. She heard him softly close the door. Moments later, she leapt out of bed, flung on her dress and shoes, and followed him outside into the cool night. She caught sight of him walking down the driveway, a lonely and estranged figure. For a mile she followed him through the darkness.

  He began to walk faster, possessed, as if the devil had appeared at his heels. He was walking along the road in the direction of the asylum, a nineteenth-century dilapidated institution that had been built on the far side of the village surrounded by its own private estate. Just as he was at the edge of the asylum’s estate, he suddenly vanished. Violet halted on the road, tried to remain calm, but he had dissipated entirely into the thin night air. There was just the black landscape of the countryside all around and a full moon in the sky, obscured momentarily by clouds. Wondering if it had all been a mad dream, she returned home, clambered into bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she awoke, Archie was lying beside her, as if he had always been there.

  Seeing him sleeping there, she felt riven by desire. The possibility of losing him suddenly seemed to become a certainty. She bent over and kissed him, made love to him, as if her heart would break. All the time she was aware of an unspokenness stopping up her mouth. She tried to fill up her mouth instead with his tongue, his lips. Anything rather than ask the words that would break the spell, uncover the truth she didn’t want to know. Not now, when everything was skating on the surface of her survival.

  Why did Archie have so much power over her? Was it a spell he had cast over her or a spell that she had cast over him? A spell that said, I give you power over me. She continued to resist asking him where he went to at night. His absences had become a regular occurrence. She didn’t want the answer. She could sense that he was not just going for a walk because he couldn’t sleep, that there was a purpose, an assignment that took him along the dark, straight lanes of the countryside, towards his destination. She could follow him, physically. But she would not ask him face to face or give him the opportunity to confound her with his lies, his eyes looking into hers, his power to deceive her at its most sensible and irrefutable.

  No, better to match secrecy with secrecy, enter his realm of deception, that landscape of shadows and creation where following her errant husband into the night suddenly seemed not wrong or mad at all. In fact she had never felt more sane, as if what she was doing was the natural summation, conclusion, of this married life together, that the revelation of the hidden had been the end point of their marriage.

  All that was obscure about him, then and now, had to be accepted. And she had to enter that obscurity, manipulate it to her own ends, bring it into the light. This was the only way to find out the truth. She would never be able to find out the truth on her terms – only on his. She would be outwitted unless she entered his world. What she chose to do, to secretly follow him, was no compromise. Quite the opposite, it was from a stance of strength, not a position of weakness, that she could do this. Aft
erwards she would be able to come out into the light, unscathed and untainted, like invisible ink appearing on an apparently blank page.

  Chapter 8

  A FEW NIGHTS later, she was trying to fall asleep, when she heard Archie quietly rise from the bed. She did not know what violence waited for her, what it would do to her, what she would do to it. Her plans to match his secrecy with her own fell away. She was unable any longer to contain her curiosity.

  ‘Archie, where do you go to at night?’

  He sat back down on the edge of the bed. Even in the darkness she could sense his calmness but she could also hear his hands were tapping on the frame of the bed: tap tappety tap, tap tappety tap.

  ‘I don’t go anywhere, darling.’

  She turned on the gaslight by their bed. His eyes were resilient and watchful like a reptile.

  ‘But I’ve seen you, Archie. You go out at night.’ She didn’t say that she had followed him to the edge of the asylum’s estate, seen him vanish many times.

  He suddenly looked wildly angry as if he had summoned up his anger out of nowhere.

  ‘Have you been spying on me?’

  ‘No, Archie. It’s not like that at all. It’s just I heard you get up.’ She couldn’t help but be defensive; it was in her nature.

  ‘You know. I’ve told you when I can’t sleep I go for a walk. It’s what I always do.’

  But he had just said that he didn’t go anywhere. Or had he? She was growing confused. Archie, in the dim light of the room, straightened his back, pulled himself together; he was trying to look like an ordinary husband, she thought with a cold sense of shock.

  ‘Come here, my darling.’ He put his arms around her. She could smell his sweet scent. The scent that meant security, marital happiness, and her future mapped out in straight, unwavering lines of contentment. She inhaled deeply, his aroma relaxing her, making her feel calm. She could sense his body holding itself deliberately still, letting her inhale him, giving her the opportunity to feel safe in his arms. There was no fury here, no walls of shame.

  It was only sex which brought her back to the physicality of herself. Was that why she needed it so much now? When she was ostracised from sex, she began to feel withered. She felt her body hunch up and she lost her appetite, as if she were fading away.

  Amy liked to swim in the sea. She would take off her clothes. She swam deep down amongst the sand and shells, the starfish on the bottom, feeling like a mermaid. It was lovely to be so free after her confinement, the cold salty water engulfing her. She became confirmed. The cold water was refreshing and cleansing. She surfaced. She swam to the shore and strode up onto the sand. The warm air was gentle on her skin. Her skin was goose-pimpled with the cold, but the warm air gradually restored it to its original smoothness.

  She didn’t notice the person standing in the shadows watching her, in the shadow of the trees, admiring her white voluptuous body, its curves and undulations so conspicuous against the backdrop of the blue sea.

  Her long blond hair was dripping over her shoulders and down over her breasts. The watcher gasped at her sensual nonchalance. She turned to look at the sea. He could clearly see the curve of her buttocks, the deep cleft, her wide hips and narrow waist. She should dive back into the sea, he thought, that is where she belongs. Deep down in the water. He imagined her breathing under the water, like a mermaid living in a palace made of coral.

  He came swiftly up behind her as she looked out at the sun setting over the sea, turning the water to gold. He locked an arm around her neck and then swiftly snapped his elbow to the right. He flung her over his shoulder and carried her through the forest into the tunnel carved in the rock face.

  Inside the cave he began to prepare her body. It was one of the things that was important to the ritual. He lay her on the rocky ground. How beautiful she looked naked, her hair drying to its golden state. It was like spun gold, like a mermaid’s hair. He washed her body carefully, so there was no salt on it, spoiling her skin. She was already quite clean because of the sea. He just had to remove the salt. Between the shoulder blades. Every indentation.

  She was a beautiful object to him; how he admired it. She was soft flesh and hard bone and it gave him a thrill to move from one texture to another, at his will and at his own pace, but always with his final goal in mind, his single focus driving him, giving meaning to everything he was doing. He felt his heart beat faster with rising excitement as he was reaching the final stages of what he had to do. He turned her over and took out a knife. Making the incision of a rough circle, he peeled some skin from her back. How tender and soft it was. He then began to hack at her thighs, until the blood poured out from her.

  Violet and Archie walked down the path to the beach lined by bluebells and primroses. She wanted to see the beach and the rocks that formed a naturally enclosed harbour. She needed to clear her mind. But halfway down the path she suddenly became overwhelmed by the conviction that something terrible had befallen Felix.

  She ran back up the path, breathless, trampling over the flowers, through the garden, into the house. Felix was still lying peacefully asleep in his pram in the hallway. What was she finding sinister in the most innocuous, beautiful afternoon? What fairy tale had a missing child at the heart of it? She remembered the book of fairy tales in the study.

  She felt her neck. There were marks where Archie had bitten her during their love making. She glanced at herself in the hallway mirror, with her long straggly hair, unkempt and hunched with anxiety, and didn’t believe it was her.

  Now she wondered what Archie had seen in her. Was it her susceptibility? But why? Where was the location of the deceit? She couldn’t work it out. His masculine certainty against her vague feminine amorphousness would heal the uncertainty of her world. Make everything clear cut and understandable. Archies’s perception of her was stronger and more certain and took precedence over her own view of herself as mother and wife. Like the tree falling in the forest, she was only falling because God was watching.

  Chapter 9

  IN THE EARLY evening light, Violet was in the drawing room enjoying watching Felix lying naked on the rug, his delicate fingers grasping the empty air. Suddenly, underneath his bare chest, she noticed a small fluid movement as if an insect was crawling under the surface. Unsure of what she had seen she kneeled down beside him. She gently turned him over and stifled a scream. Under the length of his back insects were scuttling under his skin, his flesh protruding in the shape of their tiny linear forms. He seemed innocently oblivious to what was happening. Hopelessly, she tried to brush them off but the insects were trapped under his skin. She could feel the shells of their bodies hard underneath her fingers. Felix was now crying in distress. The insects were hurting him. She would have to excise them, cut them out.

  She began to frantically rub her hands over his skin trying to kill them. Felix was now screaming. Utter panic was choking her. ‘It’s all right, darling, hush, hush, I will get rid of them.’ Oh my God, he was so distressed.

  Just then she heard Archie’s footsteps come into the drawing room behind her.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ he shouted at her over Felix’s screams. He rushed over and grabbed Felix off the floor. Felix gradually calmed down in his arms.

  Archie turned to her, furious. ‘What have you done to him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look at his back.’

  He turned the baby around in his arms. His pink buttocks and back were covered in scratches that her fingernails had made.

  ‘There were insects crawling under his skin. I had to get them out.’ She was desperate to make him understand.

  ‘Violet, you clearly are strained and exhausted. There are no insects under his skin. Go to bed and rest.’ His angry look had been replaced by one of concern.

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ Bewildered, she could see, apart from the scratches, how smooth the baby’s back was. Relief flooded her that the insects had gone. She put her arms out to take him. Felix look
ed at her with his knowing eyes and reached up his hand to her. She took it and kissed his baby fingers. The nails so tiny, like baby shells.

  ‘You know I would never harm you,’ she said. ‘I am your mother.’

  ‘He’s probably hungry. And you fussing over him probably just distressed him more.’ But Archie didn’t hand the baby over to her.

  She went up and leant her head on his strong shoulder.

  ‘Really, Violet.’ But he looked pleased that Felix was now settled in his arm. With the other he hugged her, lightly.

  ‘My beloved family,’ he said.

  She relaxed into him, the memory of the insects fading. She felt tired though, as if she had seen something she shouldn’t have, and now had to keep the reality of it secret.

  That night, as Archie made love to her, tenderly caressing her back and breasts, she felt as if his hands were like insects crawling over her and had to hold her breath to stifle a desire to scream out loud with repulsion. She endured his hard thrusting, waiting for the ordeal to be over. Oblivious to her imaginings, Archie then quickly fell asleep. Restless, she crept out of the bed and into the bathroom. Taking a bath, she soaped herself, still feeling the traces of the insects on her skin. She dried herself quickly, enjoying the dry roughness of the coarse cotton towel. Quietly she crept back into bed and manoeuvred herself to the side so they were no longer touching.

  When Violet woke up, Archie had already got up and left for London. He knew that the servants would be present in the house and their lovemaking must have reassured him that she had recovered. She couldn’t hear Felix and went through to the nursery that was next to their bedroom. He was fast asleep in his nightgown, his fingers up against his cheek as if he were deep in thought. She resisted picking Felix up, holding his soft sweet-scented body to her and never letting it go. Wasn’t it supposed to be a sin to wake up a sleeping baby? How beautiful he was, she thought. She gently traced the outline of his round cheek with the tip of her finger. His eyelashes fluttered, but remained shut. Her baby was perfect. There was nothing wrong with him.