The Drowning People (28 page)

“Good night,” I replied. And there was an awkward pause as I steeled myself to take the plunge. Thinking of Ella’s eyes, of the smooth hollow beneath her collarbone, I twisted my lips into a smile. “I’m not very tired,” I said, keeping it fixed.

My friend turned to me, surprised.

Unseeing, I looked through him. “Come and keep me company for a while,” I went on, walking quickly into my bedroom. As he followed I took a sip from the glass of water by my bed, for my mouth was dry. When I looked up I saw Eric framed in the darkness of the doorway, hesitant, uncertain.

“It is so wonderful to have you here,” he said, at last.

“It’s good to be here.”

“And my family likes you so much.”

“I like them.”

“You are an old charmer, James.” Bolder now, he moved towards me and sat on the foot of my bed. Awkwardly I stood next to him.

“We are very easy around you,” he said, and I knew that this was true: there had been no further signs of the tension between Eric and his mother which I had seen in Prague, for the family had drawn together to show its best side to its guest.

Slowly, trying not to shake, I sat down on the bed next to him. Our knees touched, as if by accident, but Eric didn’t move his away and I forced myself to keep mine where it was. There was silence between us, though inside my head I could not think for sound; above the quick hard beat of my blood I heard Ella’s voice, cool and even, telling me that she could not love emotional cowards.

“You are a mystery to me, James,” Eric was saying.

I looked down, not trusting myself to speak.

“I never know what you mean or what you want. You seem so different since we left Ella’s. What happened there? What happened between you two?”

With a supreme effort of will I forced myself to raise my head. I looked steadily into Eric’s eyes, found my voice, and said, hoarsely, that I didn’t want to speak of Ella. With a deep breath I put my hand on his.

“Now I really do not understand you.”

“I think you do.” My voice was measured; I was determined to keep it steady. I took his other hand in mine.

The uncertainty on Eric’s face resolved slowly into a smile. “This I cannot believe,” he said, looking at me shyly.

“Why not?”

“Because I …
Mon Dieu,
how does one say this?” He hesitated and then decided to trust me. “Because I love you and thought you wanted me only for a friend. I thought
she
had taken you forever.” He spoke quickly, his words falling over themselves in his eagerness to get them out.

I let them glide past me, leaving no mark on my mind. Silently, adrenaline making me light-headed, blood pounding in my brain, I leaned forward to kiss him.

I remember that kiss. Oh God, I remember it. I see Eric’s broad unbelieving face with its frame of dark curls moving towards mine even now; I smell his foreign unknown scent of sweat and shaving foam; I feel his hands on my shoulders and the violence of his quick embrace. His kiss itself was rough and harsh, as unlike a woman’s kiss as anything could be, and suddenly I felt him on top of me pulling at my buttons and I was pushing him away and saying “No” with all the force in me. Ella’s voice rang in my brain, saying over and over that a simple kiss would suffice, that once I had kissed him I would know; and as I pushed Eric away from me and sat upright, breathing heavily, shaking from what I had done, I knew that I did know, that I had come as far as I could safely go, that I had passed my lover’s test, that I deserved the sparkling praise of her shining eyes, that I could claim it now as my own.

It was only then that I saw Eric smiling delightedly at me, his face glowing with a passion I had never seen in it, his body taut with excitement. It was only then that I had the first inklings of what I have since come to know with such certainty: that human beings cannot be divided; that their constituent parts cannot stand alone; that they cannot be separated into distinct halves for the moral convenience of others. Breathing heavily, eyes dancing, Eric took my hands and leaned towards me; and as he did so I knew with sudden certainty that I had lost my friend forever. I said nothing, sickened by that thought; but as his lips moved towards mine again I pushed him away and stood up, reeling with what I had done.

There was silence.

“I… I’m not ready for this,” I said at last.

Slowly, respectfully, he released my hands. I could see the effort it cost him to restrain himself, to leash once again the unleashed desire of so many months, and I admired him for it. Sitting upright on the bed once more, however, he leaned over to where I stood and took my right hand in his again, raising a questioning eyebrow as he did so. I didn’t have the heart to refuse it him.

“I love you, James,” Eric said quietly.

I said nothing.

“I have loved you since the day I first saw you, since the minute you walked into Regina Boardman’s drawing room.”

My brain was spinning; Eric tried to pull me closer but I pushed him away and went to the window. I could not bear his touch any longer. Far below us the street lights twinkled and cars drove back and forth over the cobbles.

Strange as it may seem I had given no thought to how I would deal with my prize once it was won. I hadn’t thought beyond the passing of Ella’s test, beyond the proving of my own emotional courage to her. And I discovered that I could no longer bear even to look at my friend; I knew that I had no reserves to deal with his words of love. All my energies had been focused on rising to Ella’s challenge. And now that I had done so, now that victory was mine and Eric was sitting on my bed telling me that he loved me completely, I had no idea what to do. I knew then as I stared into the street beneath me that he had never been two distinct personas, that I could never have taken one half as a trophy and left the other intact. I knew then, I think, that whatever I did now I would break him.

He left me that night puzzled by my silence but thinking that he understood it.

“Tonight has been enough for me,” he said as I stood by the window, unable to meet his eyes. “I will leave you now. The rest will come later, in our own time.” And he came up behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. Feeling me stiffen he removed it. “Good night,” he said. And at the door he turned and some last vestige of dignity made me turn and face him. “I am happier now than I have ever been in my life,” he said softly as he left me.

I am trying to remember what I felt as I undressed and got into bed. I know that I turned out the light and tried to think of Ella but that I could no longer see her eyes or feel her lips on my lips. I felt only the harsh energy of Eric’s kiss, the fury of his passion. And it was then that I had my first bitter taste of treachery. I knew then that I could not stay another night in that trusting house, that the next day I must leave, that any lie would be worth my freedom. And sweating, cold with what I had done, I lay awake and tried not to think.

I didn’t sleep until the sun was turning the black sky to a misty gray, but when sleep came it was so deep that I didn’t hear Eric opening my door the next morning; I slept on as he crossed my room and was woken only by him stroking the hair out of my eyes. Then I knew that the night before had not been a dream, that its nightmare logic was part of the real world, that its effects would not fade with sleep. I knew this all; and in my desperation further deceit came smoothly and easily. After a hasty breakfast, during which I forced myself to meet Eric’s shining eyes without embarrassment, I telephoned Camilla Boardman. She answered on the third ring, her speech as shrill and her emphases as frequent as ever.

“Daaarling!”
she squealed. “I thought you were
never
coming back! Where are you? What are you doing for lunch?”

I explained that I was in France staying with friends and that lunch would thus be impossible, a fact I sorely regretted.

“But how
tiresome.
London’s been just
too
deadly without you and I want to know when you’re coming back to liven things up for me.”

“Soon, Camilla. Soon. In fact, I’ll be home all the sooner if you’ll do me a favor.” Rapidly I invented a story about staying with dull people from whose hospitality I needed a polite excuse to escape. Camilla drank it in greedily, for social intrigue was her forte. “I want you to help me,” I finished, “by calling in an hour and leaving a message saying that I must come back to England immediately.”

“But darling how
exciting
! What reason shall I give?”

“I don’t know. I’m sure that you of all people don’t need inspiration from me.”

“Of
course
not, darling. You can trust me.”

“I know. That’s why I called.”

And with many kisses blown and endearments exchanged, the conversation ended and I hung up.

Calmer now, but eager for my abrupt departure from the Vaugirards to be thought unavoidable, I asked Eric if he would like to go for a walk. I wished Louise to receive Camilla’s call, for then I would be beyond suspicion.

He took me over the grounds and buildings of the castle, a picturesque ruin, and told me the history of the town which it commanded. Thankful for so neutral a topic I nodded and smiled and in my uneasiness heard nothing and counted the minutes. I was at my most relaxed when there was silence between us, for with each word I spoke I felt myself more false. But even the silences were untrue: for Eric they were times of quiet communion; for me they were a brief respite from the pressure to be tender. When an hour had passed I suggested that we go home and out of the cold.

Louise, when we arrived, was in a state of great distress. She met us at the front door and led me into the sitting room, taking my hands in hers and asking me to sit down. “I have some bad news for you, my dear James,” she said gravely.

I looked suitably anxious.

“Leopold is dying,” she said gently. “He may not have long to live.” And with infinite tenderness she looked into my eyes and stroked my hand. “Your mother has just telephoned. She thinks you should go back to England at once. She sounded very upset.”

Leopold, it dawned on me, was Camilla’s King Charles spaniel. Straggling to overcome the absurdity of the situation, I looked away from Louise.

“Now, now,” said Eric’s mother, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You must be brave.”

“I had better get my things at once,” I said hoarsely.

“Perhaps you had. Eric will drive you to the station.”

And so, light-headed with relief, I went upstairs to pack.

CHAPTER 22

I
AM GUILTY
, I
KNOW THAT
. But if only … If only great events didn’t hinge on trivial ones. If only I had been more thorough, less frantic when I left Eric’s house. If only I hadn’t left my violin in Vaugirard. If only … I don’t know. With time perhaps Eric’s passion might have cooled. Ella’s trust might have grown. We might, all of us, have had space to breathe. I don’t know.

But I
did
leave my violin in Vaugirard. And because I left it Eric was told, when he telephoned my parents that afternoon to ask whether or not to send it on, that my family knew no one by the name of Leopold and that I had not said anything about coming home before Christmas.

With no idea of how soon events were to overtake the I made the short train journey between Eric’s house and Ella’s slumped in the corner of a deserted carriage, letting the awful memory of the past two days drain from me, thinking with relief that I had escaped. And as the hard fields sped past I began to think with pleasure that in a matter of hours I would have my beloved to myself once more, that soon her hair would be in my eyes and her fragile body in my arms. As Ella filled my mind the events of recent days took on an air of increasing unreality, and Eric became unreal with them. This calmed me, for it obscured my motives and made it easier for me to forget what I had done to him. I was glad of that; I wanted to forget. I tried hard to put away all thoughts of my friend. And because I knew that I would see Ella soon and that it would be weeks before I saw Eric, I was able to tell myself that time and space would be my teachers; that somehow they would show me how to make amends; that they would light for me a way to reclaiming his trust. Youth is famous for its optimism and I had supplies in plenty. It’s strange to think that now, knowing myself as I do; but it was true of me then.

I telephoned Ella from the station when I arrived and her delight touched me and made me feel that all would be well, that all was almost well already. She collected me in Jacques’ dusty Renault and for the first time since I had left her in London there was something of the old magic between us, undimmed by worry, uncomplicated by the company of others. The old house no longer seemed so gloomy with her by my side as we rounded the last curve in its drive; its desolation was a refuge, a protection from all thoughts of the outside world. And even then I needed protection.

I did not give Ella any but the barest details of what had taken place between me and Eric. I had passed her test, that was all I cared her to know; and she, perhaps already guilty for setting it, did not probe me. After my brief account of the past two days we talked together as if nothing had happened; as if Eric and Sarah and Charles did not exist; as if we were alone in our love and fed solely by it. We touched that afternoon with a passion that was new, even to us; and I basked in the caresses of her warm white body with something approaching perfect joy. Thinking of her now I miss her supple limbs; her soft breasts; the arch of her nose; the warmth of her silvery laugh. Even now I miss her, though I am an old man and I sit alone in a darkening room. Despite all that has happened, I want her. And I shall take my longing to the grave.

I have reached now the most painful part of this long story. I have reached the first of the dreadful consequences of my sin and Ella’s, the first of the many which were to follow. I cannot speak of the sweet dinner we shared that night, or of the way our delighted laughter and warm words lit up that cold old house. I had no idea then how near the end we were, how little untainted love was left to us, how soon the strands would turn. We ate alone together in the small dining room which led off the hall. Dr. Pétin was away again in the village and we were left in delicious peace. I remember the cozy crackle of our fire; its warm light on Ella’s face; the smell of woodsmoke and cigarettes and sweat and perfume which hung about us. We had not dressed but sat side by side at the small table in dressing gowns, hair disheveled, touching sometimes as we ate, watching the movement of each other’s fork, listening to the muted clash of silver on china, drinking sweet wine. Remembering that night I see my love’s tousled hair, the glow of her cheeks; the line of her cheekbones in the candlelight. I hear our lazy candid words; her light laugh; my deeper chuckle sounding with hers. I watch her eyebrows furrow as the doorbell rings and hear her say that it must be Dr. Pétin back unexpectedly from the village, that it’s just like him to come home at a time like this. I hear her giggle and say how compromising our near nakedness is and I see her tie her dressing gown tighter round her slim waist and run a hand quickly through her hair, to little effect. I watch her as she moves past me through the dining room door and into the hall and I listen for the deferential greeting of the doctor. There is silence for a moment. Then the scraping of a heavy bolt and the turning of a key in an unoiled lock. Then a short sharp cry and the sound of a man’s step on the flagstones and I hear Eric’s voice, wild and high, asking for me and Ella’s reply that I am not here, that he must go at once. And I hear his hurried forceful steps in the hall and his raised voice calling my name and I stand up, sick, and go to the dining room door and open it and see him standing there, in the same clothes I left him in that morning, his hair wild, my violin case in one strong hand. And then I remember where I left it and know with awful clarity what has happened, how he has found me. And I go to him but he looks at me in horror and throws the faded leather case on the floor with all his might and there is a twanging of strings and I watch him bound through the doorway and down the steps of the house into the cold black night.