Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  ‘What are his options?’

  She shrugged. ‘I suppose the company can counter by putting up the price—’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ The orange-haired man seemed to vibrate with nervous energy. ‘We’re not talking about a drug for the rich here: it’s not a drug to grow hair or eliminate wrinkles. Taumex is a drug for Everyman. This situation could, potentially, be quite catastrophic. Hospital budgets blown. Maybe even …’ He stopped as though the implications were too dismal to articulate.

  ‘And maybe we should put the brakes on.’ The last member of the panel, a chubby man with a prominent Adam’s apple, spoke quietly. ‘Justin Temple has managed to weather some very tough times before. Let’s give him the opportunity to sort this out.’

  ‘Which brings me to my next question,’ the moderator said. ‘Why did investors panic to such an extent? Temple has shown himself to be an excellent CEO. If he says he’ll come up with a solution, why don’t investors believe him?’

  The chubby man folded his hands comfortably over his paunch. ‘I think after the British Biotech controversy, investors are a lot more wary when it comes to pharmaceutical companies. Investors have a love-hate relationship with biotechs. On the one hand, they stand to make a lot of money if things work out, because very few consumer-product makers have a growing demand-driven market the way pharmaceutical companies do. The West’s population is greying. They want drugs to improve their quality of life and investors can make a lot of money if they back the right horse. But more often than not, they get burned. Usually the expectations do not live up to the results. And this makes biotech investors more nervous than most.’

  ‘So what is your prognosis for Temple Sullivan?’

  There was a short silence. The chubby man said slowly, ‘Unless Justin Temple can do immediate damage control and show clearly and concisely how he’s going to tackle the sourcing problems, I see difficult days ahead. He’s going to have to post a current trading statement to the exchange and the shareholders, anyway.’

  ‘Tom?’

  Carrot Top spoke with his usual intensity, his eyes blinking rapidly. ‘If he can’t woo investors back, he’s going to run into funding problems at some point. Maybe even find himself in breach of banking agreements. And if it can be shown that the directors have deliberately misled the investors on the sourcing issue, they could be open to personal prosecution. In the U.S. that could lay the groundwork for a variety of class actions against the company and its officials and advisers. Also, I can guarantee you—’

  Isa clicked the remote control. She didn’t want to hear any more. She sat looking at the blank television screen, feeling stunned.

  It was quiet in the room. So quiet that the ticking of the charming, old-fashioned clock on the mantelpiece seemed very loud. A ray of pale sunshine fell across the rich colours of the Oriental carpet.

  She needed to get out of the house. As she placed her hand on the sofa to push herself to her feet, her hand pressed down on the newspaper next to her. Through the pages she felt something hard.

  It was the book on alchemy. As she picked it up by the corner, it fell open. It fell open as though someone had marked the place especially for her, Isa, to read. And indeed, Alette had shaded the paragraph with pencil, underlining words, bracketing sentences:

  ‘Sophia: woman as anima (the soul of man) and his guide of the spirit. Sophia, the divine virgin, originally found in “primordial man”. George Gichtel and Jakob Bôhme, the seventeenth-century mystics, taught that Sophia abandoned man and that he is lost without her. She forsook him and he cannot be saved unless he finds her once more.’

  TWELVE

  When bodies join and victory hovers

  ’Twixt the equall fluttering lovers

  This is the game: make stakes my Dear,

  To the State of Love, or the Senses Festival

  John Cleveland (1613–1658)

  ISA PLACED HER FINGER on the buzzer. After a few seconds the speaker above her head crackled. Justin’s voice sounded tinny.

  ‘Fourth floor, second door.’

  The heavy, black, iron-grilled door clicked loudly and the lock sprang open. She entered and the door shut behind her.

  The wood panelling in the entrance hall was dark and beautiful. The floor in the lobby was carpeted in crimson, as was the lift. She pushed the button for the fourth floor. Next to every button was a brass plaque listing the names of the residents who called this exclusive block of flats in Cadogan Square their home.

  The whine of the lift was loud. She looked at herself in the ceiling-to-floor mirror. Around her neck she had wrapped Alette’s green scarf, like a banner of courage. But her eyes were staring, the pupils slightly dilated.

  She still couldn’t believe she was going ahead with it. She had felt compelled to keep her appointment with Justin. She was discovering a side to her own character with which she was less than comfortable. There was something exhilarating, a kind of perverse fascination, about the idea of sitting opposite Justin tonight; knowing what she knew and knowing what she had done, while he remained oblivious to the undercurrents of their situation. She was ashamed of it, but she was filled with a sick curiosity to see how he was handling the ill wind she had set loose in his life.

  The door on the fourth floor was slightly open. She knocked twice. He didn’t answer, but she could hear his voice. It sounded as though he was talking on the phone.

  She pushed the door wider and stepped into the room. The room was gloomy, the only light source a red fire burning in an enormous hearth. It gave off enough of a glow for her to see that the room was large, with high ceilings and beautiful cornicing. A bright strip of light fell through a door opening off to the left. Justin’s voice came from inside.

  She hovered just outside the threshold. Justin was standing with his back half-turned; the telephone receiver wedged between his chin and neck. In his hands he held a sheet of paper. On the table in front of him stood a glass half-filled with amber liquid.

  ‘I tell you, the leak came from that pisser Fromm. No, Sara I trust implicitly. She’s been with me for fifteen years.’

  Silence, then he started talking again, irritably. ‘How the hell should I know where he got Perette’s letter from? Not from Perette, that’s for damn sure.’ He listened: responded vehemently, ‘It’s no use telling me I should have let Fromm go gently. We’re talking about months ago. And why should I give that weasel a golden handshake? He was bloody incompetent. He was lucky I allowed him to resign; he deserved to be fired.’

  Isa started to move away from the door, but just then Justin turned and saw her. He placed his hand over the receiver. ‘Fix yourself a drink. The box with Alette’s things is on the desk over there.’ He motioned with his head to somewhere behind her. ‘I’ll be right with you.’

  She nodded and walked back into the living room. She flicked the switch on the wall and a subdued light beamed from the wall sconces. The light showed a sofa, leather club chairs, and an exquisite antique tallboy. The colour scheme was heavy: chocolate brown, reds and gold. Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of a man in eighteenth-century dress. On the opposite wall was a mounted Peruvian tarantula: its eight legs splayed out in eerie, beautiful symmetry.

  A walnut desk stood in one of the bay windows. The lovely slab of wood was highly polished but pitted: the marks of a long-ago woodworm infestation. On top of the desk stood a cardboard box. She opened it.

  There wasn’t really much inside. A few books; a pair of evening velvet gloves with a beaded, black fringe; old theatre programmes bound together with a pink ribbon; a cancelled passport—Alette looking stern with her hair drawn back from her face—and a shoe box. She lifted the lid.

  The shoe box was filled with a jumble of photographs. They seemed to be mostly pictures of Alette taken during a tour of Europe. Alette, sunglasses on top of her head, at the Trevi fountain; posing in front of a colourful poster of Las Ventas; propping up the Tower of Pisa. Alette sunbathing in a stunning black s
wimsuit, behind her a glimpse of the Croisette. In all the photographs she looked young—almost adolescent young—and heartbreakingly carefree and happy. The pictures were date-stamped and with a small shock Isa realized that they were taken shortly after Alette’s wedding. The person on the other side of the camera must have been Justin.

  At the bottom of the box was a slim pile of letters bound together with an elastic band. Without removing the band, Isa extricated a page from one of the envelopes and unfolded it. The handwriting was sloping, the characters seemed almost languid looking: long, lazy loops to the ls and gs. It was a handwriting so familiar to her: Alette’s.

  Dear Justin,

  We have to talk. We cannot go on like this.

  ‘Not that.’ Justin’s voice right behind her made her jump. His hand swooped down and removed the letters from her unresisting grasp.

  ‘Sorry. But these are private. I don’t know how they came to be mixed up with the other stuff.’ He opened the desk drawer, placed the letters inside, and shut it firmly. Then he turned to face her.

  His eyes were shot through with red veins. A five o’clock shadow darkened his jaw. He was still dressed in his office clothes—a charcoal, pin-striped suit—but he had removed his tie and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. The collar seemed limp.

  ‘So,’—he nodded his head at the box—‘see anything you want?’

  ‘The photographs, and maybe the books.’

  ‘They’re yours.’ He turned away from her and walked over to the drinks cabinet. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Sherry will be fine.’

  While he took down two glinting glasses from the shelf, she inspected the large oil painting above the fireplace.

  He handed her a glass of pale sherry, his eyes following her gaze. ‘You like it?’

  She stared at the face in the painting; the arrogant eyes. She had noticed earlier that they followed you around no matter where you were in the room.

  ‘Who is he?’

  Justin shrugged. ‘One of my ancestors.’

  ‘He’s arresting. In a sort of Byronesque way.’ She looked at the painting and then back at him. What a strong resemblance between the face in the canvas and the face in front of her. Once you looked past the stiff cravat, rounded chin and effeminate mouth, the likeness was uncanny.

  ‘You think so? By all accounts he was an ill-tempered old bastard, and I seem to recall something about a pretty kitchen wench and cards and drinking. All very shocking. Anyway, cheers.’ He put the whisky glass to his mouth and drained it in two deep swallows. ‘To the end of a rotten day.’

  She didn’t know how to respond. ‘Cheers,’ she said hardly.

  He walked back to the cabinet and refilled his glass. He didn’t rejoin her in front of the fireplace. Instead he watched her over the rim of his glass.

  The silence between them was becoming uncomfortable. She looked around her, desperately trying to think of something to say. Her eye fell on a large, potted shrub which stood in the second bay window.

  ‘I recognize that plant there. Justicia capensis. Did you know that the Zulus in South Africa call it the businessman’s plant?’

  ‘Certainly. Alette told me that when she gave it to me. She told me it would bring me luck.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I’m not much of a gardener but Alette was so clever with plants, wasn’t she?’

  The tone of his voice made her feel ill at ease. Turning away from the shrub, she pointed to the wall. ‘What are those?’

  Behind him, fixed to the wall like paintings, were two boxes with what looked like X-rays mounted on top of each box. The boxes themselves, however, were beautifully made and framed in gold leaf as though they were displaying works of art.

  He reached out his hand and flicked a switch on the wall. Both boxes lit up.

  They were brain scans. She stared. They actually did look like art: the radiant blue-white fluorescent outline of the brains; that mesmerizing dark X in the centre of the whitish brain matter.

  ‘This is a healthy brain.’ He pointed to the scan on the right. ‘And this one here on the left is an Alzheimer brain. These are the parts of the brain no longer functioning because of the pathology. See … this blackness … that’s fluid bathing the brain.’

  She stared at the useless, fluid-filled spaces with sick fascination.

  ‘Is this upsetting you?’

  With difficulty she tore her gaze away from the glowing images. ‘These people must feel so alone. So isolated.’

  ‘Remember, we can now help them.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked back at the image of the healthy brain: receptacle of all experiences; generator of dreams.

  She was almost sure Alette had never told him of their shared dreams. For just a moment she hesitated. ‘Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming?’

  ‘Of course. Very sexy subject these days.’

  ‘You sound sceptical.’

  He flipped the switch on the wall to the off position and the radiant scans turned a dull grey. ‘It’s not my field. I’m a hardware man, not a psychologist. Although I can’t deny that lucid dreaming has been replicated in laboratory conditions. The Lucidity Institute in California has developed all kinds of devices—the DreamLight, the NovaDreamer and so on—which give flashing light and sound cues when a person is dreaming, and help to induce lucid dreaming.’

  ‘And these things really work?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. They’re basically microcomputers which process signal data from the dreamer’s eye and body movements. They use algorithms to deliver cues to the dreamer at the most opportune moments to stimulate lucid dreaming. All very interesting, I suppose, but personally I think dreams—any dreams—are little more than haphazard junk produced by the brain stem as it tests the brain circuits for cognition and memory retention. Sort of like running a biological maintenance check—like tuning a car.’

  ‘Wow. What a romantic image.’

  He shrugged. ‘When I started out I worked as a lab assistant. Saw a great many brains floating on pieces of string inside white plastic buckets. Not a lot of stardust around when you’re slicing into them: it’s like slicing into a giant mushroom.’ He grinned at her expression. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So I don’t suppose you believe in life after death, or even near-death experiences—’

  ‘I never said that.’

  She glanced up, surprised.

  ‘After a person’s heart stops beating, the brain can still show activity for up to half an hour.’ The bantering tone had left his voice. ‘Sometimes, I can’t help thinking that there’s something in there—something imprisoned inside its cage of dead flesh—desperately hanging on to life … frenziedly trying to find a way out. Something that is still capable of feeling the strong emotions: love, happiness, hate.’

  ‘Hate?’

  ‘It’s the strongest emotion there is. Someone—I can’t remember who—called it the “luxurious” emotion, only to be spent on the one we love.’

  Despite the heat from the flames in the hearth, she felt suddenly cold. She placed her sherry glass on the table. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Don’t go yet,’ he said pleasantly. ‘We haven’t really talked.’ He was walking slowly towards her and she felt herself involuntarily moving backward. The edge of the walnut desk pressed into the back of her thighs.

  ‘Alette was right, you know. Isabelle suits you better. Isabelle is the name of princesses and beautiful ladies locked up in towers, pining for their knights in shining armour. Isa is too … severe.’ He leaned forward and briefly touched the scarf around her neck. He was so close she smelled the sweetish tang of alcohol on his breath.

  She flinched but said tartly, ‘These days it’s the knights who are in distress. And the damsels who don the shining armour.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘You’re probably right.’ He took a sip of his drink, looked at her appraisingly. ‘I don’t remember you as being this caustic.’

  ‘You don’t remember me at all.
’

  ‘That’s not true. And Alette spoke of you so often, I feel as though I know you.’ He paused and smiled deliberately. ‘Rather well.’

  ‘Alette talked about me …’

  ‘Oh yes. She envied you.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘Why do you find it surprising?’

  Isa shrugged. ‘I have nothing she could have wanted.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. “Isabelle never plays games,” Alette used to say. “She doesn’t need to.”’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  She tried to move away from him, but he stepped gently to the side, blocking her. It was done so carelessly, she wasn’t sure if it was on purpose.

  He spoke again. ‘If you had to sum up your relationship with Alette in one sentence, what would it be?’

  ‘Alette wanted what was best for me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ He spoke quietly, his eyes never leaving her face.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Alette was interested in one kind of relationship only: a relationship based on control.’

  ‘What a deeply stupid thing to say.’ She could hear the anger in her words.

  ‘Think, Isa. Think back on the kind of relationships Alette sustained in her life. They were all relationships in which she manipulated and enticed. She seduced the people in her life to become psychologically dependent on her, while she tried to keep her autonomy absolutely. Every relationship became a game of power chess. And she couldn’t bear to lose. She couldn’t bear it. The goal to have the upper hand at all times consumed her.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Oh, yes it is. And you know it, too. She was relentless. And she insisted that those who loved her constantly proved their feelings, their undying affection.’ He looked past her, his eyes blank. ‘Tests. She’d set me tests to prove my devotion.’