The Comfort of Strangers (13 page)

‘My back was broken and I was in hospital for months. I’ll never walk properly now, partly because of an incompetent
surgeon, although the other specialists say he did a wonderful job. They cover for each other. I can’t bend down, I get pains in my legs and in my hip joint. It’s very difficult for me to walk down stairs, and completely impossible to walk up them. Ironically, the only position I’m comfortable in is on my back. By the time I came out of the hospital, Robert had bought the bar with his grandfather’s money, and it was a success. This week he’s selling it to the manager. When I came out, the idea was that we were going to be sensible. We were shaken up by what had happened. Robert was putting all his energy into the bar, I was seeing a physiotherapist here in the apartment several hours a day. But of course, we couldn’t forget what we’d been through, nor could we stop wanting it. We were the same people after all, and this idea, I mean the idea of death, wouldn’t go away just because we said it had to. We didn’t talk about it, it was impossible to talk about it, but it showed through in different ways. When the physiotherapist said I was strong enough, I went out by myself, just to walk in the streets and be an ordinary person again. When I came home I discovered that I couldn’t get up the stairs. If I put all my weight on one leg and pushed, I felt a terrible pain, like an electric shock. I waited out in the courtyard for Robert to come home. When he did, he said it was my own fault for leaving the apartment without his permission. He spoke to me like a small child. He wouldn’t help me up the stairs, and he wouldn’t let any of the neighbours come near me either. You’ll find this hard to believe, but I had to stay out all night. I sat in a doorway and tried to sleep, and all night I thought I heard people snoring in their bedrooms. In the morning Robert carried me up the stairs and we had our first sex since I had been out of the hospital.

‘I became a virtual prisoner. I could leave the apartment any time, but I could never be sure of getting back, and in the end I gave up. Robert has been paying a neighbour to do all our shopping, and I’ve hardly been outside in four years. I looked after the heirlooms, Robert’s little museum. He’s obsessed with his father and grandfather. And I made this garden out here. I’ve spent a lot of time by myself. It hasn’t been so bad.’ Caroline broke off and looked sharply at Mary.
‘Have you understood what I’ve been talking about?’ Mary nodded, and Caroline softened. ‘Good. It’s very important to me that you understand exactly what I’ve been saying.’ She was fingering the large, glossy leaves of a potted plant on the balcony wall. She pulled away a dead leaf and let it drop into the courtyard below. ‘Now,’ she announced, but did not finish her sentence.

The sun had disappeared behind the roof at their back. Mary shivered and stifled a yawn. ‘I haven’t bored you,’ Caroline said. It was more a statement than a question.

Mary said she was not bored, and explained how the long swim, the sleep in the sun and the heavy restaurant meal had made her feel drowsy. Then, because Caroline was still looking at her intently, expectantly, she added, ‘What now? Will going home help you become more independent?’

Caroline shook her head. ‘We’ll tell you about that when Robert and Colin are here.’ She set about asking Mary a series of questions about Colin, some of which she had asked before. Were Mary’s children fond of him? Did he take a special interest in them? Did Colin know her ex-husband? Throughout Mary’s brief and polite replies, Caroline nodded, as though checking off items on a list.

When, quite unexpectedly, she asked if she and Colin had done ‘strange things’ Mary smiled good-humouredly at her. ‘Sorry. We’re very ordinary people. You’ll have to take that on trust.’ Caroline became silent, her eyes were fixed on the ground. Mary leaned forward to touch her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I don’t know you that well. You had something to tell, so you told it, which was good. I didn’t force it out of you.’ Mary’s hand lay on Caroline’s several seconds, squeezing gently.

Caroline had closed her eyes. Then she grasped Mary’s hand and stood as quickly as she was able. ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ she said through the effort of rising.

Mary stood too, partly in order to help her up. ‘Isn’t that Colin way over there,’ she said, and indicated a solitary figure on the quay, just visible beyond the topmost branches of a tree.

Caroline looked and shrugged. ‘I’d need my glasses to see that far.’ Still holding Mary’s hand, she was already turning towards the door.

They went through the kitchen into the bedroom which was in semi-darkness for the shutters were closed. For all Caroline’s account of what had happened there, it was a bare, unexceptional room. As in the guest room at the other end of the gallery, a louvred door gave on to a tiled bathroom. The bed was large, without headboard or pillows, and was covered by a pale green bedspread, smooth to the touch.

Mary sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘My legs ache,’ she said, more to herself than to Caroline who was pulling the shutters open. The room was flooded with late afternoon light, and Mary was suddenly aware that the wall adjacent to the window, the wall behind her which ran the length of the bed, supported a wide baize-covered board covered with numerous photographs, overlapping like a collage, mostly black and white, a few Polaroids in colour, all of them of Colin. Mary moved along the bed to see more clearly, and Caroline came and sat close beside her.

‘He’s very beautiful,’ she said softly. ‘Robert saw you both, quite by chance, the day you first arrived.’ She pointed at a picture of Colin standing by a suitcase, a street map in his hand. He was talking over his shoulder to someone, perhaps Mary, just out of frame. ‘We both think he’s very beautiful.’ Caroline placed her arm round Mary’s shoulders. ‘Robert took a lot of pictures that day, but that’s the one I saw first. I’ll never forget it. Just looking up from the map. Robert came home so excited. Then as he brought more pictures home’ – Caroline indicated the whole board – ‘we became closer and closer again. It was my idea to put them up here, where we could see them all at once. We would lie here into the early morning making plans. You’d never believe how much planning there was to do.’

While Caroline talked, Mary rubbed her legs, sometimes massaging, sometimes scratching, and studied the mosaic of the past week. There were pictures whose context she understood immediately. Several showed Colin on the balcony more clearly than the grainy print. There were pictures
of Colin walking into the hotel, another of him sitting alone on the café pontoon, of Colin standing in a crowd, pigeons at his feet, the great clock tower in the background. In one he lay naked on a bed. Other pictures were less easily understood. One taken at night, in very poor light, showed Colin and Mary crossing a deserted square. In the foreground was a dog. In some photographs Colin was quite alone, in many the composition of the enlargement cut Mary off at the hand or elbow, or left a meaningless portion of face. Together the pictures seemed to have frozen every familiar expression, the puzzled frown, the puckered lips about to speak, the eyes so readily softened by endearments, and each picture held, and appeared to celebrate, a different aspect of that fragile face – the eyebrows that met at a point, the deep-set eyes, the long, straight mouth just parted by the glint of a tooth. ‘Why?’ Mary said at last. Her tongue was thick and heavy, and lay across the path of the word. ‘Why?’ she repeated with more determination, but the word, because she suddenly understood the answer, left her as a whisper. Caroline hugged Mary tighter to her and went on. ‘Then Robert brought you home. It was as if God was in on our plan. I came into the bedroom. I never concealed that from you. I knew then that fantasy was passing into reality. Have you ever experienced that? It’s like stepping into a mirror.’

Mary’s eyes were closing. Caroline’s voice was receding from her. She forced her eyes open and attempted to stand, but Caroline’s arm was tight around her. Her eyes closed once more and she mouthed Colin’s name. Her tongue was too heavy to lift round the ‘l’, it needed several people to help move it, people whose own names did not have an ‘l’. Caroline’s words were all about her, heavy, meaningless, tumbling objects which numbed Mary’s legs. Then Caroline was slapping her face and she was waking as though into another time in history. ‘You’ve been asleep,’ she was saying, ‘you’ve been asleep. You’ve been asleep. Robert and Colin are back. They’ll be waiting for us. Come on now.’ She pulled her into a standing position, draped Mary’s helpless arm over her shoulder, and walked her out of the room.

W
ITH THE THREE
windows wide open, the gallery was incandescent with afternoon sunlight. Robert stood with his back to a window, patiently removing the little wire cage from the neck of the champagne bottle in his hand. At his feet was the crumpled gold foil and at his side was Colin, two glasses at the ready, still taking in the cavernous emptiness of the room. Both men turned and nodded as the two women entered from the kitchen. Mary had steadied herself and was now walking in short, fumbling steps, one hand resting on Caroline’s shoulder.

The painful limp, the somnambulant shuffle, they were making slow progress towards the makeshift table as Colin took a couple of paces in their direction and called, ‘What is it, Mary?’ Immediately the cork popped and Robert called sharply for the glasses. Colin retreated and held them out while watching anxiously over his shoulder. Caroline was settling Mary in one of the two remaining wooden chairs, arranging it so that she sat facing the men.

Mary parted her lips and gazed at Colin. He was walking towards her, full glass in hand, as though in slow motion. The bright light behind him fired loose strands of hair and his face, more familiar than her own, was concentrated in concern. Robert set down the bottle on his sideboard, and followed Colin across the room. Caroline stood erect by Mary’s chair, like an attendant nurse. ‘Mary,’ Colin said, ‘what is the matter?’

They crowded round. Caroline pressed her palm against Mary’s forehead. ‘It’s a mild touch of sunstroke,’ she said
quietly. ‘Nothing to worry about. She said you went for a long swim and lay in the sun.’

Mary’s lips moved. Colin took her hand. ‘She’s not hot,’ he said. Robert moved behind the chair and put his arm round Caroline’s shoulders. Colin squeezed Mary’s hand and searched her face. Her eyes, wide with longing, or desperation, were fixed on his own; a tear welled suddenly and dropped on to the ridge of her cheekbone. Colin wiped it with his forefinger. ‘Are you ill?’ he whispered. ‘Is it sunstroke?’ She closed her eyes for a moment, and her head moved just once from side to side. The faintest sound, barely more than a breath, left her lips. Colin leaned close and put his ear to her mouth. ‘Tell me,’ he urged, ‘try and tell me.’ She drew breath sharply, and held it for several seconds, then articulated from the back of her throat a strangled, hard C. ‘Are you saying my name?’ Mary opened her mouth wider, she was breathing quickly, almost panting. She held Colin’s hand in a ferocious grip. Again, the sharp intake of air, the breath held, and again the distant hard C. She repeated it softened, ch … ch. Colin pressed his ear closer to her lips. Robert too was leaning over. With another immense effort she managed ‘G … G’, and then whispered, ‘Go.’

‘Cold,’ said Robert. ‘She’s cold.’

Caroline pushed firmly at Colin’s shoulder, ‘We shouldn’t crowd round. It doesn’t make it easier for her.’

Robert had fetched his white jacket and was draping it round Mary’s shoulders. She still held Colin’s hand tightly, her face was tilted up towards his, and her eyes searched his face for understanding. ‘She wants to go,’ Colin said desperately. ‘She needs a doctor.’ He wrenched his hand free of Mary’s grip, and patted her wrist. She watched him wander aimlessly up the gallery. ‘Where’s your telephone. Surely you’ve got a telephone.’ There was panic in his voice. Robert and Caroline, still keeping close, were following him, blocking her view of him. She tried once more to make a sound; her throat was soft and useless, her tongue an immovable weight on the floor of her mouth.

‘We’re going away,’ Caroline said, soothingly. ‘The phone has been disconnected.’

Colin had circled round to the middle window and now he stood with his back to Robert’s sideboard. ‘Go and fetch a doctor then. She’s very ill.’

‘There’s no need to shout,’ Robert said quietly. He and Caroline were still walking towards Colin. Mary could see how they held hands, how tightly their fingers were interlocked, and how their fingers caressed in quick, pulsing movements.

‘Mary will be fine,’ Caroline said. ‘She had something special in her tea, but she’ll be fine.’

‘Tea?’ Colin echoed dully. As he backed off at their approach, he nudged the table and upset the champagne bottle.

‘What a waste,’ Robert said, as Colin turned quickly and righted it. Robert and Caroline stepped round the puddle on the floor, and Robert stretched out his arm towards Colin, as though he were about to take his chin between finger and thumb. Colin lifted his head back and retreated another step. Directly behind him was the large open window. Mary could see how the western sky was softening, and how traces of high cloud were arranging themselves into long, fine fingers that seemed to point to where the sun must set.

The couple had separated now and were pressing in either side of Colin. He was looking straight at Mary, and all she could do now was part her lips. Caroline had placed her hand on Colin’s chest and was stroking him as she spoke. ‘Mary understands. I’ve explained everything to her. Secretly, I think you understand too.’ She began to pull his T-shirt free of his jeans. Robert leaned his outstretched arm against the wall at the level of Colin’s head, boxing him in. Caroline was caressing his belly, gently pinching the skin between her fingers. And though Mary was watching into the light, and the three figures by the window were silhouetted by the sky behind, she saw with total clarity the obscene precision of every movement, of every nuance of a private fantasy. The intensity of her vision had drained her faculties of speech and movement. Robert’s free hand was exploring Colin’s face, probing his lips apart with his fingers, tracing the lines of his nose and jaw. For a full minute he stood still and unresisting,
paralysed by sheer incomprehension. Only his face changed through wonderment and fear, narrowing to puzzlement and the effort of memory. His eyes remained fixed on hers.