Coral Glynn

by Peter Cameron

  Coral thought: This is more happiness than I deserve, even if it is not exactly happiness. But it was a sort of freedom: there had been so many problems—it had all been problems, everything had been a problem for such a long time—and to be released from that perpetually increasing darkness was a kind of joy.

  * * *

  There was only one other tenant living in the house on Grantley Terrace with Madame Paszkowska: an elderly woman called Miss Lingle. She lived in a suite of rooms on the floor below Coral with her pet rabbit, Pansy, who sat all day upon Miss Lingle’s lap. Although she left her door open and smiled at Coral when she passed by every morning and evening, she never spoke to Coral, and Coral did not speak to Miss Lingle. Once or twice Pansy managed to escape Miss Lingle’s clutch and hop up the stairs, where Coral would find her waiting, as she was apparently either unable or disinclined to hop back down the stairs, no matter how persistently Coral encouraged her. On these occasions, Coral would carry the rabbit, who was surprisingly heavy, down the stairs to Miss Lingle, who seemed unconcerned by Pansy’s abandonment and accepted her return as if Coral had simply borrowed her for a spell.

  A similar cordial distance existed between Coral and Madame Paszkowska: with the exception of polite greetings they spoke only about matters concerning the house and Coral’s residency therein. Madame Paszkowska’s daughter, Irene, lived elsewhere with her husband, a darkly silent man named David Chaiken who published books about paintings, but used her mother’s drawing room to give piano lessons on many evenings and weekend afternoons. She, too, was pleasant yet distant with Coral, if their paths happened to cross, and the resulting privacy and solitude suited Coral, as her nursing brought her every day into confining spaces often oversaturated with life and in contact with lonely patients as needful of companionship as care.

  There was a room on the second floor, beside Madame Paszkowska’s room, that was apparently uninhabited, for its door was never opened. One morning a few days before Christmas—it would be the first Christmas Coral passed in London, the Christmas after the Christmas she had nursed the DeVries children—Coral paused on the second-floor landing on her way downstairs because the door was open. She moved closer and peered inside. The room was small and dark; the walls were painted a deep olive-gold and the tall golden drapes where closed against the morning light. The room contained a bed, a cupboard, and a desk piled high with paper and books. Madame Paszkowska was folding clean sheets onto the mattress. She sensed Coral’s presence in the doorway and looked up at her.

  “Good morning, Miss Glynn,” she said.

  Coral said good morning.

  “Lazlo is coming,” said Madame Paszkowska. “My son. Did you know that I had a son as well as a daughter?”

  “No,” said Coral.

  “He will be here today, to spend the Christmas with me. He will be here tonight. All the way from Lowestoft, he comes. He manages a hotel there. But he has holiday for Christmas.”

  “How nice for you,” said Coral.

  “Tonight we have a little party, Irene will come with her David and my friend Mrs Sturtevant from number twelve. You will join us, please? To greet my son and welcome the holiday?”

  “Oh,” said Coral, “thank you, it’s very kind, but I’m sure you would rather be with your family and friend. I don’t want to intrude.”

  “You do not intrude. You intrude if you do not come. Miss Lingle will come. We have some music and drink schnapps. Today I make pierniczki and rogaliki. Delicious cookies.”

  “Thank you,” said Coral. “I will be very happy to come.”

  “Good,” said Madame Paszkowska.

  * * *

  On her way home that evening, Coral stopped at Shreve & Sons and bought a decorated tin filled with crystallised ginger and orange peel. They wrapped it for her in silver paper tied with a red ribbon and Coral thought she had done right, that it was an appropriate gift, and felt adult as she descended the stairs later that evening. Someone was playing the piano in the drawing room, a piece her brother had played. Chopin, she thought. She paused on the stairs and listened, and thought of James. Although she had loved her parents, they did not return to her thoughts as often as James did. He came to her, unbidden, at the slightest provocation: the boy in the flower shop; a boy on the street; a dark green Raleigh bicycle leaning against a building; some notes of music; espadrilles, which James had brought back from his school trip to France and wore until they fell to pieces—all these things caught James up with her.

  Coral waited until the piece was finished and then entered the drawing room. Mrs Sturtevant and Miss Lingle were seated on the sofa; David was sitting in a chair and Irene perched on the pouf beside him; Madame Paszkowska was seated at the piano; and a very tall young man with a wonderful shock of golden blond hair stood in front of the fireplace, one long arm laid along the mantel, smiling at her. He was very handsome, almost beautiful, although his beauty was slightly obscured by the suit he was wearing, which had obviously been tailored to fit a larger, shorter man, for it hung too wide across his chest and hips and too short at his wrists and ankles. Despite these flaws, he wore it confidently, as if he knew that a suit that fit him well would make him excruciatingly beautiful.

  Madame Paszkowska stood up from the piano and approached Coral, who held her silver-wrapped present before her ceremonially, with both hands, as if she had come a very long way to present it to Madame Paszkowska.

  “Miss Glynn!” Madame Paszkowska exclaimed. “How very kind of you.” She took the gift from Coral and handed it to Irene, who had also stood up. “Here is my son, Lazlo Paszkowski,” she said, indicating the young man, who had detached himself from the fireplace and stepped forwards to greet Coral.

  Coral said hello to him and shook his hand and then greeted the other guests, all of whom she knew.

  “Your dress—so beautiful!” said Irene.

  “Yes,” said Miss Lingle. “How pretty you look in it.” She smiled kindly at Coral, as it was she who had fastened the clasps on the back of the dress, and therefore felt partially responsible for the dramatic effect it made. Coral blushed. She had not worn the dress since her wedding, although she sometimes took it out of the wardrobe and contemplated it. If you looked carefully, you could see where Mrs Henderson had mended the seam, the slightly irregular stitches binding the torn fabric back together. But only if you knew where to look.

  She sat on the sofa between the two older ladies. Lazlo handed her a little crystal glass of schnapps, and filled everyone else’s glasses, and made a toast to his mother, his sister, and all the other beautiful women present. Coral sipped the schnapps as Irene played the piano, and then Madame Paszkowska played again, accompanying Miss Lingle while she sang, in her surprisingly steady and strong soprano voice, several carols and folk songs, finishing with the barcarole from The Tales of Hoffmann.

  And it was then revealed that Rosamund Lingle had been a very famous singer early in the century, and had sung at Covent Garden. Coral had been aware of Madame Paszkowska’s successful career as a classical pianist, for there hung, on the wall alongside the staircase, a series of framed programs and photographs illustrating this fact, but she had never suspected that Miss Lingle, who seemed quite simple and sat all day stroking her pet rabbit, had also been a person of noted accomplishment. And this revelation caused Coral to feel ashamed and downcast, for she had felt smugly superior to the old lady every morning as she hastened past her door in her nurse’s uniform, hurrying out to be engaged, somewhat heroically, she imagined Miss Lingle imagined, with the world. How was it ever possible to know who, or what, people really were? They were all like coins, with two sides, or dice, with six.

  When Miss Lingle’s program was complete, Madame Paszkowska asked Coral if she would like to sing or play, as if to do so was a talent bestowed upon every inhabitant of that house. Coral admitted that she had no talent for either, and so could contribute nothing to the evening.

  “Nonsense, Miss Glynn,” Lazlo said. “You cont
ribute your beauty, and who can say what that is worth?”

  Coral was about to answer that beauty could not compare to talent, but she realised that saying this implied that she considered herself beautiful, however inferior beauty was to talent. She blushed and said that she wished she had a talent.

  Lazlo said her blushing made her more beautiful than ever.

  Coral was aware that he was flirting with her; she had been aware of him watching her ever since she had entered the room, and she thought perhaps she should not have worn her wedding dress, for surely it was the dress that accounted for any beauty she had, and it seemed immodest to wear it if that was true. One should look presentable, of course, but to try to look beautiful, which effort implied a belief that one could achieve beauty, made her feel uneasy, for she felt that courting the attention of men could only lead to disaster. And so, in an effort to divert Lazlo’s attention from herself, she said that her brother could play the piano, and had in fact often played the piece that Madame Paszkowska had been playing before she joined the party; was it Chopin?

  “It was Liszt,” said Madame Paszkowska, “but Liszt and Chopin sound much alike to the untrained ear.”

  “And sometimes even to the ear that is trained,” Irene kindly added.

  “Is your brother in London?” asked Madame Paszkowska. “I wish I had known; he could have joined us this evening.”

  Coral was about to say that her brother no longer lived anywhere, when she realised that there was really no need to share this information. Perhaps it was the two glasses of schnapps she had drunk, but her lack of any family always made her seem somewhat pathetic, as if their complete disappearance reflected poorly on her. She might as well have a living brother.

  “No,” she said, “he doesn’t live in London. He lives in Harrington.”

  “Is he older than you or younger than you?” Miss Lingle asked.

  “We are the same age,” Coral decided. “We are twins.”

  “I can’t imagine what it is like to have a twin,” said Lazlo. “It was torture enough having a sister. I suppose it is because I am so vain. The very idea of anyone so similar to me is most disturbing.”

  “Well, being brother and sister, we are not identical,” said Coral. “We are fraternal twins.”

  “Harrington—is that where you are from?” asked David.

  “No,” said Coral. “I am from Huddlesford.”

  “And what does your brother do in Harrington?” asked Madame Paszkowska.

  “He manages a florist’s shop,” said Coral. “He is very good with flowers. That is a kind of talent, I think. Another one that I do not have.” She laughed, and then she stopped abruptly, for she felt she had gone too far. It was the schnapps.

  * * *

  Coral woke later that night from a very deep sleep. Someone, she felt, had just opened the door and stepped into her room. Had she been dreaming? She lay very still in bed and listened and tried to make sense of the darkness around her. She heard someone breathing and felt an especial stillness near to the bed, the bottled energy of a body trying not to move. “Hello?” she said.

  “It’s me, Lazlo.” He did not move.

  “Lazlo!” She reached out and turned on the lamp that sat on the bedside table, and there he was, standing in the centre of the room, wearing only his trousers and a sleeveless undershirt, in his stocking feet. He stepped closer and leant towards her, and she thought he was going to touch her, and she almost screamed, but he was reaching only for the lamp, which he turned off. The nearness of him had released a scent of something: man, smoke. It was briefly pungent in the dark.

  “Good night, Mr Light,” he said.

  He was drunk. She had drunk several little glasses of the silvery schnapps and felt tipsy when she went to bed, but the shock of him entering her room had cleared her head. She turned the light back on.

  “Get out,” she said. “Get out or I’ll scream.”

  “No,” he said. “Oh, Coral! Don’t be frightened. I can’t sleep. I only want to talk to you. Please. In the dark.”

  “No,” said Coral. “It isn’t proper. You can’t enter someone’s private room in the middle of the night…”

  “I’ll sit over there,” he said, pointing to the chair in the corner of the room. “Just for a moment or two. Please. Just sit in the dark and talk for a moment. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “No,” said Coral. “Go back to your room or I shall scream.”

  He sat down in the chair and began to weep. He covered his face with his hands.

  Coral watched him, saying nothing. Was he really weeping, or only pretending?

  “Please shut out the light,” he said. “I’m ashamed to be seen weeping.” He removed his hands and looked at her. “I mean no trouble. Please.”

  Coral turned out the light but continued to sit upright in bed. After a moment he seemed to stop weeping. It was quiet. If she didn’t know he was sitting on the chair in the corner of her room, she would not know he was there.

  Then he spoke again. “Would you mind if I smoke a cigarette?” he asked.

  “No,” said Coral.

  “Would you like one as well?”

  “No,” said Coral.

  She heard him rummage in his trouser pockets and then he flicked on a lighter and dipped his head, with a cigarette already in his mouth, into the flame. He snapped the lighter shut and the cigarette brightened as he inhaled.

  “You’re not still scared, are you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Coral. “Of course I am. And tired. I wish you would leave.”

  “If you’re tired, you aren’t scared,” he said. “You can’t be both.”

  “I can,” she said.

  “Then you are very special,” he said. “But I knew that—that you were special—from the moment you appeared downstairs. So beautiful, so special.”

  “You’re talking rubbish,” said Coral. “You’re drunk. You should go to bed.”

  “Truth is what the drunken speak, not rubbish,” he said. “Everyone knows that. Truth.”

  Coral said nothing.

  “Have you got a man?” he asked.

  “No,” said Coral.

  “It isn’t right, a beautiful girl like you, all alone. My mother says you’re lonesome as a nun.”

  More, thought Coral: Nuns have Jesus to love, to go on and on about. I have no one.

  “I think you need a man,” Lazlo said. “It is a feeling I have. It kept me from sleeping.”

  Coral said nothing. She could feel her drunken drowsiness returning, crawling out from where it had hidden at the shock of him.

  “It would be a shame,” he said, “for you to be alone, now that I am here. I don’t think it’s natural.”

  She did not speak because she wanted him to continue talking. Through the darkness she could now make out the pale glow of his naked arms and his face, which appeared each time he raised the cigarette to his lips.

  “Christ, but it’s cold in here,” he said. “There’s no heat at all. And me sitting here half-naked, freezing to death. Christ.”

  “So go to bed,” she said. “Go to bed if you are cold. You’ll soon be warm.”

  “No,” he said. “My bed’s like ice. You couldn’t know how cold it is.” He stood up, and she watched him stub his cigarette on the window ledge. He moved aside the curtain and looked out the window. The gentle light from outside fell upon his face. “It’s snowing outside,” he said. “Did you know that it’s snowing?”

  “No,” said Coral.

  He was suddenly standing beside the bed, looking down at her. Perhaps she had fallen asleep for a moment, for she did not remember him moving from the window to the bedside. She looked up at him.

  “How beautiful you are,” he said. “And it’s snowing. You don’t want me to freeze to my death, do you? A man could freeze in weather like this.”

  She shook her head, and heard it rasp against the pillowcase. She reached up a hand and held it so that it obscured his face, an
d then moved it aside, revealing him again. He reached up with both hands and pulled his braces off of his shoulders and let them fall to his sides. One fell faster than the other so they made two separate little smacks against his trouser legs. And then he peeled his undershirt off over his head. “Look at me now,” he said, “shivering to death, and you as warm as you can be. It isn’t fair.” He unbuttoned his flies and stepped carefully out of his trousers, and then scooped his underpants down his long legs, revealing his cock, which appeared to be slowly reinventing itself. “Ah, look at him,” he said. “How brave he is. Despite the cold, he is the only part of me that is warm.”

  Coral said nothing.

  Lazlo’s cock got bigger, and lifted up away from him, like a baby reaching out its tiny arm.

  “Touch him,” he said.

  Coral touched him, just barely clasping the tube of flesh, and it was warm. It twitched in her hand and she let it go. “You aren’t cold,” she said.

  “I am,” said Lazlo. “Feel here.” He reached out and took her hand and placed it against his thigh, held it against the curve of his leg.

  “It’s warm,” she said. “You’re warm.”

  “No,” said Lazlo. “Feel this.” He reached down and laid his hand against her cheek. It was freezing. She took her hand from his leg and held it against his hand against her check until it felt warm. He slowly withdrew his hand and moved it down her neck, his fingers touching her throat, and she turned her face aside as he slid it beneath her nightgown and touched her breast. He stood like that, his hand on her skin, and she felt her breast swell within his loose grasp, as if rising up to meet him, and she heard him mumble something—it sounded like “Yes, yes”—and she closed her eyes and shifted over in the bed, towards the wall, making a space beside her.

  * * *

  He came to her room every night of the week he stayed in London, came at some point after everyone had gone to bed and left each morning before dawn. During the day or evening, if he happened to encounter her, he treated her with the same cordiality as his mother, as if the night was another country that had severed all diplomatic relations with the day.