by Primula Bond
‘That box of moulded plastic was my shield. That tiny window was my eye. It shrank everything to a seven by five image, or a six by four. A thumbnail. I took one solitary picture of those people through the kitchen window. I was outside, looking in. They were sitting motionless at the table. No food on there. No drink. No flowers. Just the two of them, staring not at each other, not at me, but at the floor. I went away and printed the shot then came back to rip it up in their faces.’
‘I can’t imagine you being so venomous, Serena.’
‘You see? I’m a bad girl.’ I stood close beside Crystal. ‘That was the last time I ever saw them.’
‘You’re not bad. Mixed up, maybe, and who could blame you?’ Without looking at me she uncurled my fingers from the biting bracelet. ‘You made something artistic out of something ugly. Pity they’ve been earmarked, actually. I love them. Those breathtaking views. That arched rock in the sea. The spray flying up against the old bent tree.’
The calm, airy way Crystal described the house on the cliffs somehow diminished it, ironed out all that historical pain like a carpenter’s plane smoothing away splinters.
‘Was the house really teetering on the edge of the cliff?’
I nodded. ‘Deliberately deceptive, those perspectives. But my life was vertiginous.’
‘Plenty of beauty in bleakness. My favourite kind.’ She tapped my silver bracelet with its tiny dangle of broken silver chain. ‘I’ll have signed prints of those, please, Madam, if I can’t have the originals. So. If they follow through with the purchase that will leave four photographs unsold. Oh, and they’ve asked a local reporter to interview you. In Devon. As soon as you can manage it. I’ll book the train ticket and a couple of nights at Burgh Island Hotel whenever you’re ready. You could use the fresh air.’
She tied a silk scarf printed with blousy flowers tightly round her throat and buttoned on a pair of red leather gloves. Picked up my wrist. Glanced more closely at what remained of the silver chain.
‘First the Alps. Now the sea. Go ahead and book it. I ought to get back to work, Crys.’
‘Crystal. And what better way to get back to work than getting out there? Selling yourself. Promotion. Publicity. Some R and R while you’re at it.’
‘How did you know I’ve always wanted to stay there? And isn’t it very expensive?’
‘I’ll run it past Gustav later. And why Burgh Island, you may ask? Didn’t I tell you that Agatha Christie is another of my heroines?’
I laughed. ‘OK, Crys – Crystal. But I wish you could come with me.’
She lifted her hand as if in benediction. ‘I am holding the fort here.’
‘After that I’m going to disappear while I still have the willpower.’
She turned her palm upwards like a traffic cop. ‘Whoa! Back up a minute. You’re going nowhere. You have other press interviews back in London next week. Remember this is ultimately about you, not Gustav.’
I felt as if I was imploding. ‘Just don’t tell Gustav where I’ve gone.’
‘I don’t know where he is at the moment.’ She twisted the fragment of silver chain in her red leather fingers. ‘Dickson phoned me. The chalet is locked up now. The estate agent has the keys. I know Gustav had business in Manhattan, so maybe he’s over there.’ She hesitated and then tilted my chin so that I was forced to look at her. ‘I’ve warned you before. There’s no reasoning with him. That woman left him raw, like an open wound.’
I let out a snort. ‘Well, he has no intention of suturing it.’
‘You’re wrong. It’s all he ever thinks about.’
‘All he ever thinks about is her?’
‘Being healed. He knows he has to move forward. He must reckon you’re the one to do it, otherwise he would never have got involved with you. Drawn up the contract. Or taken you to Lugano.’
‘Oh, Crystal, we got so close. Everything felt strange, but perfect. And then I found all these pictures. She’s not history at all. She’s in our faces, and always will be.’
Crystal tipped her head on one side. A wise blackbird, considering our foibles from a high branch. Her beak opened, then snapped shut again.
‘If you leave now, you might never see him again.’
She switched off all the main lights, leaving only select spots to illuminate the photographs.
‘I’ll take that chance.’ I pressed the button on the lift. ‘Why leave those lights on? No-one’s going to be able to see into the gallery, let alone study the individual images. Unless they’re looking through a telescope, or flying low into Heathrow.’
‘Or a cat burglar,’ Crystal mused, following me into the lift and handing me my overnight bag. ‘They run all over London at night, you know, leaping from roof to roof when we’re asleep.’
The interview is over now and Jake and I have to laugh as we stand on the deck outside the bar and watch the photographer and the make-up girl stumble in panic, laden with bags and boxes, down the awkward stone steps towards the jetty.
‘They could have waited for the Range Rover,’ Jake chortles, pointing at the car park over on the mainland. ‘Once the tide recedes the hotel would have sent that over for them. But let’s see how they get on with the sea tractor.’
I shiver in the wintry breeze. The ancient-looking sea tractor labours across the high water towards the island to deliver what looks like a single passenger.
‘Although why you’d want to leave all this incredible luxury in such a hurry beats me.’ Jake picks the blanket off my arm and wraps it round my shoulders. ‘Especially when all you’ve got waiting over there is a measly old caravan in a field.’
‘Oh, diddums. No-one keeping it warm? At least you have a place of your own. I don’t have anywhere to go after this.’
‘I thought you were staying at your cousin Polly’s?’
I shake my head, watching the figure on the tractor. It’s wearing a red jacket. I can’t tell from here if it’s a man or a woman. Whoever it is stands very still as the vehicle trundles through the water. My eyes sting in the cold air. I blink and look back at Jake. ‘For now. But I’m leaving London soon. Maybe I’ll travel again.’
‘You need to put down some roots if you’re going to make a success of yourself. Not keep running.’ Jake fixes the blanket under my chin. ‘There you go.’
He pulls me close. Instinctively I lean against him, a flower yearning towards the sun, towards the boyish warmth of his body all zipped up inside that leather jacket and promising comfort, fun. Simple, unvarnished sex. We can argue, we can fight, we can hurl insults, but he’s right. I was his sex kitten once. And he was my stud.
‘How about I stay here with you tonight? I could show you a trick or two I’ve learned since you left. I’d let you do whatever you like to me. I’d even let you go on top.’ Jake’s mouth is hot against my hair. ‘Waste of an antique walnut-inlaid queen-size bed to have just one lonely woman sleeping in it. How about one more shag for old times’ sake?’
Before I can answer Jake is lifting me up onto my tiptoes and kissing me. His lips are warm and wet, his tongue trying to push inside my mouth. I wonder if I should like it. I wonder if I should respond. But I don’t like it, and I don’t respond. My lips are cold, and dry. I let his mouth move on mine for a moment, then push him away.
‘Sorry, Jake. It’s just not there any more. I don’t want you. I don’t fancy you. How many times do I have to tell you?’
He spins away. ‘Frigid little prick tease.’
‘Don’t be so foul. All I did was let you hold me for a moment, and it was nice. But that’s all.’ I lift my arms, smack them down against my sides. ‘I’m not frigid, Jake. There’s someone else, that’s all. Just accept it.’
He snatches up his own bags and stares at me, his mouth still open, his cheeks flushed from the wind, that moment of re-awakened lust and, presumably, embarrassment at my rejection.
Behind him the sea tractor is slowing down from its already snail-like pace, its oversized wheels and canopy makin
g it look like less like a pirate ship and more a kind of wonky Wild West wagon.
‘I accepted it was over weeks ago, you idiot. It doesn’t make you any the less beautiful.’ He snatches up his bags. When did he become so poetic? ‘Infuriatingly so.’
‘Be nice about me in the interview, Jake?’
‘You’re a damn fine photographer, even if you are a bitch. Of course I will be nice.’ He jumps like an agile goat down the stone steps towards the jetty, yelling one final message over his shoulder. ‘Piss off and have a nice life.’
I open my mouth to call after him but my voice dies in my throat.
Because the figure now standing on the jetty as the others push past him and clamber on board the sea tractor for the return journey is not wearing a red jacket after all. It’s a man wearing a red scarf, and it’s Gustav.
It seems he climbs the stone steps in slow motion. Despite everything – my anger, my jealousy, my confusion – my heart leaps in my chest. No matter how hard I’ve tried to hate him, none of it has worked. I can’t let on, but as soon as I set eyes on him I realise that I’ve missed him every second we’ve been apart. He looks so handsome in his black jacket and jeans, every feature so clear, so dear to me, hair whipping around his unshaven face, his black eyes gripping mine. His mouth, curved in a smile. He carries nothing but the leather rucksack and what looks like a long bulky roll of wallpaper.
‘You look like the French Lieutenant’s Woman all windswept up there,’ he calls as he comes up to me. ‘Tell me I’m not too late, Serena.’
I hesitate as he takes my hand. I should pull it away, but I’m immobile. He frowns at the silver bracelet with the little sliver of silver chain hanging off it. Flicks it with his fingernail. The broken chain is all that’s left of the brief lightning flash that lit up our lives. Then he lifts my hand and kisses the soft skin there, his lips pressing gently.
The full lower lip. The redness of the blood running beneath it. The pulsing beat in his neck above the red scarf. I snatch my hand tightly back inside the blanket, running my fingers over the dampness he has left.
‘Too late for what?’ I sigh after a moment, because he’s waiting for my answer. Behind him the tractor starts its slow, splashy journey back to the mainland.
‘Do me the courtesy of looking at me, not him. Hell. I see that I am too late. You don’t have to explain. It makes sense, actually. You and he look good together. You’re the same age, for God’s sake.’ Gustav slices his hand in the air as if severing it. ‘There’s no fool like an old fool.’
‘You’re not a fool. You’re not old. What are you talking about? The same age as who?’
The passengers have already turned away to face Bigbury and the rest of their lives. Jake is leaning against the rail of the tractor, arms folded across his chest. From the way his head is bent, and hers is lifted, I can tell he’s chatting up the make-up girl. I have to smile.
‘You see?’ groans Gustav, smacking the bulky roll of paper down on his hand. He doesn’t see what I see. ‘You’re smiling at him. And why not? Why wouldn’t a hunky young man like that want to grab you and keep you? Look at you! You look amazing today. Every time I see you afresh something has changed.’
And every time I see you I want to come.
Even though I know I should be sombre and solemn before his obvious distress I can feel the smile still playing on my lips, hardening into satisfaction, because Gustav Levi is standing here in a state of disarray. Well, that’s nothing to what he’s made me feel. As I bring my eyes back to his sombre face I realise that with all his clumsiness Jake has just done me a favour.
‘Are you jealous, Gustav?’ I start to walk across the lawn, away from the hotel towards the rough steps leading down to the little cove on the far side of the island. I’m keeping it calm. I have to, if I’m going to survive this. But inside my heart is pounding. ‘Because I don’t think you have any idea what jealousy feels like, otherwise you wouldn’t have left that gallery of horrors at the chalet for me to find.’
I know he’s watching me as I walk away from him, still in my socks, across the wet grass. The way my hair prickles on my neck tells me he’s watching me. The way that my body pulses and aches to have him near. I don’t know how I’m going to achieve it, but I want to make him suffer. And the easiest way, the way that affords me the best protection, the one I learned from the cradle, is to be the ice queen herself.
‘I’ve never felt jealousy until today.’ He’s right up behind me. ‘But they’re right when they say it’s a green-eyed monster. Trapped on that ridiculous charabanc in the middle of high tide and I saw that whippersnapper kissing you, your beautiful hair blowing round you both. You were in a world of your own. So yes, I was jealous. Am jealous. It looked like the real deal to me.’
I stop at the top of the little cliff that plunges down to the hotel’s private cove. So easy to tumble. I remember the Agatha Christie film that was shot here. Wasn’t a body found on this little beach, dressed in an old-fashioned twenties bathing suit?
‘As real a deal as your portraits of Margot? The ones I saw plastered all over your bedroom at the chalet? The wedding photo? The intimate ones? The sultry ones, all keeping her close? The ones drawn by a besotted husband who can’t let go?’ My voice veers up into hysteria. ‘Peculiar kind of exorcism, when the spirit surges back stronger than ever!’
‘Be quiet for just one moment.’
Gustav pulls me roughly, holds me close up to his shadowed face. We glare at each for a moment, then he kneels on the ground at my feet. I flinch away.
‘No need to grovel, Gustav.’
‘Are these the pictures you mean?’
He unrolls the paper and spreads it out on the ground. He weights it with a pebble at each corner. Margot’s black eyes stare up from various torn shreds of paper. I fold my arms and sulk out to sea.
‘A few fragments of them. So why bring them to me? To rub salt into the wound like you did when we went up the mountain and found the chapel? To show me everything she is, and everything I’m not? I knew you were made of stone, Gustav, but I never dreamed you’d be so cruel. How much more do you want to hurt me! Why don’t you take your poxy collage and leave me alone!’
It’s out before I can stop it. The strength and heat of it.
And he sees and hears it. Even if he hadn’t come to know me so well, he’d see everything written on my face. Everything crying out in my voice.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Serena. That’s the last thing on earth I want to do!’ He jumps up and grabs my arm. ‘I don’t blame you for running away after discovering these. I certainly don’t blame you for rushing back to your old love. I’ve tried to explain, but I’m obviously useless with words. So all that’s left is to say I’m sorry.’
I can’t hear him. All I can see are those mocking, repeated eyes which were bad enough on the walls of the chalet, but excruciating now that he’s brought them all the way to Devon.
‘By bringing these bloody portraits of your wife to taunt me even more?’
‘Ex-wife. Wife who ripped the heart out of me just as I managed to rip these pictures off the walls after you’d gone.’ The heat from his fingers sears through the blanket, but I keep my eyes averted. I’ll drown if I look at him. ‘Serena. You weren’t supposed to see these. Dickson was supposed to steam them off the walls years ago. He was supposed to redecorate the room as well but instead he was sneaking down to the lake to tup his Fräulein. Add springing the safe to his list of offences, giving you your passport, stealing money from me. My God, he’s in deep shit.’
My head snaps up at his unaccustomed swearing. ‘You knew about the Fräulein at the Alprose? But I used that as blackmail to force him to get my passport!’
‘I thought you knew me so well, Serena. But have you forgotten?’ Gustav’s sombre eyes stir with something I recognise. Restlessness. Justified triumph. ‘I know everything, about all of you.’
‘My lord and master.’ I sketch a mock curtsey, and then j
ab my foot at the pictures. ‘But what infuriates me, what hurts, is that you couldn’t keep away from that bedroom. Admiring your handiwork, no doubt. Praying to Saint Margot.’ I’m on a roller coaster here, and I’m not sure how to get off. I swallow. ‘I saw your rucksack in there. And your cufflink.’
‘The cufflink I can’t explain. It must have dropped there a long time ago. But the reason I went up there? To get my telescope. The rucksack I can also explain.’
He lifts it off his shoulder and pulls it open, starts to draw something out.
‘What now?’ I snap, shifting my feet angrily. ‘Something tells me I’m not going to like this.’
‘You have to see it. We have to do this together. And then you have to listen to me, Serena.’
As he kneels down again, right in the centre of the top picture this time so that he scuffs and rips Margot’s face, I look down at him, at the silky black hair grown longer, at the eyelashes curved in concentration over his taut, pale cheeks. His big hands digging about in the bag.
My heart melts just a little, the first icicle sliding like a tear off the iceberg. Gustav Levi is stricken, that’s for sure. He’s come all this way, found me out here on this island in the middle of the sea kissing my childhood sweetheart, and I’m wondering if he’s lost his way.
Still kneeling he pulls out a bunch of exercise books and tosses them down on top of the portraits.
My voice is low and harsh. ‘What the hell? Those diaries are secret, and they’re mine. And I never want to see them or read them again!’
‘And nor shall you. You seem to have forgotten, Serena, that we still have an agreement, even though you’ve breached it by running away from me. You are still mine. Which means that all your belongings, everything you have left in my house, is mine.’
I kick out again, aiming for him this time, but Gustav swiftly catches my foot and pulls the sock off, damp and muddy now from the grass, knocking the breath out of me with surprise.
