The Drowning People (29 page)

What could I have done but follow him?

With a word of caution to Ella standing silent in the hall I went down the steps after him in my dressing gown, the wind of that chill night whipping my ears, its frost freezing my feet. I called my friend’s name once, twice, but there was no reply but the steady beat of shoes on gravel as he ran away from me. In the dark I followed him, guided by my ears and by the lines of yew hedge which scratched my hands but kept my path straight. At first I called, but when I knew that my voice only made him run faster I was quiet and listened instead, following the crash of his footsteps and trying to make out his flying form in the dark. As the moon appeared from a bank of clouds, full and luminous, I saw him in the line of trees at the end of the garden and ran towards it; and as I emerged from its thick darkness I saw him across the orchard, calling to me to leave him alone, a sharp wild note in his voice like the cry of a hunted animal. On I ran, on and on until I had left the orchard behind and was standing by the edge of the quarry, panting, calling softly to Eric, telling him that I could explain. He appeared quite suddenly as the moon shone once more through a crack in the clouds and I saw that he was standing by the bench. As I called his name he sat down on its rusted seat, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Muffled breathless sobs came to me through the damp air and I, appalled, moved towards him and put my hand on his shoulder.

“Do not touch me.” His voice was small and unsteady, almost reedy; I had never heard it like that before.

“Eric …” I began, and fell silent. No words would come.

Slowly he turned and looked at me; and as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark I saw that his face was wet. “Why are you here?” he asked; and there was something pathetic in his helpless look and streaming eyes. “Why are you here with
her?
”

I looked at him and said nothing. What was there to say?

“I love you, James.” The man by my side now took my hands in his and held them as I tried to pull away. “I have loved you since the first moment I saw you.”

“Eric, no….”

“And I know that you love me.” He was talking quickly now. “I know that you do. I did not think you did at first. I tried to be content with your friendship, with what we had in Prague.” I got my hands away from his and waited awkwardly, willing him to end. He sensed my unease. “But … last night,” he went on eventually. “Last night I knew that you loved me too. No, do not say anything. I knew.”

Mutely I shook my head, my brain reeling.

“What is the use in pretending, James? A love like ours is a fine thing. There is nothing shameful about it.”

“But Eric …”

“Do not say ‘But Eric’ to me like that. You know that you love me. Say that you do.”

And as he took my hands once more and pressed them to his lips I knew that I had to speak, that I had to make him see. “Eric,” I began, shaking my hands free from his grasp again, “I …”

“What James?”

“I …” I searched vainly for a form of words, for a formula which might mask the truth, which might conceal my betrayal of his trust. After a moment’s thought I found it. “You are my friend,” I said, “one of the people I like most in the world.” I paused, seeing the hope in his eyes. “I confused my affection for you with something else.”

“No.”

“I did, Eric, and I’m sorry. I do love you, but not in that way. I can never love you in that way.”

“But last night?” He looked up at me in helpless misery.

“Last night was madness. I was confused. I had no idea what I was doing.”

“I do not believe that.”

“It’s the truth, I swear it.”

“But you kissed me.”

“It was a mistake,” I said quietly, numb with self-loathing.

“A mistake?”

“Yes. A mistake. I cannot love you like that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not made that way.”

There was a brief, awful silence.

“Do you love
her?
” he said at last.

“Who? Ella?”

“Who else?”

“Yes, I love her.”

Eric looked at me helpless, uncomprehending. “And you do not love me?”

I sat down on the bench and put my arm around him. “I like you as much as I have ever liked anyone,” I said.

“But you do not love me.”

“No I don’t.”

He started crying at this point, first slowly and quietly, then fast and loud; and I did not move as he leaned against my shoulder and cried large hot tears which wet my neck and the collar of my dressing gown. Slowly I put my hand on his shaking back and as I did so I realized I was freezing.

“Come on,” I said gently. And as I opened my mouth to say more I saw the sharp beam of a torch in the darkness and heard Ella’s voice calling for me. Eric heard it too and clung to me with all his might, burying his face in my neck, his tears still hot and wet on my chest.

“Come on,” I said again; and as I spoke I blinked in the harsh beam of the flashlight which caught and then held us. Ella stood beyond it, her face ghostly and white above the high collar of her coat; and dazzled though I was by the brightness of the torch I saw that there was fear in her eyes.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was sharp and brittle.

“It’s not what you think,” I said, and began to push Eric away. But as I did so I knew suddenly that I had done proving myself to Ella. She could take me on trust now; I had sacrificed enough to earn her confidence. So I continued to hold my friend as his huge frame shook. Quietly, firmly, I asked Ella to leave us for a moment.

“What are you trying to say?” she replied, her voice quivering now.

“Nothing but what I have said. I’ll come back to the house in a moment. Please. Eric and I need to talk in private.”

There was a tense silence, broken only by Eric’s whimpering.

“Before I go tell him that it’s me you love.”

The sound of Ella’s voice seemed to rouse Eric from his misery for he raised his head and looked at her.

“Tell him,” she said again, her face hard and set.

“Go away.” The man by my side had stopped crying. Slowly he stood up, and his great bulk loomed terrible in the moonlight. “You have done your harm,” he said thickly. “You have done your damage. You can go now. It is me who James loves. Nothing you can say will change that.”

I watched as they faced each other. “Please, you two ….” I began.

“Tell him, James.”

“Please Ella. I’ll be in in a minute.”

“Tell him now, before I go.”

“Please.”

“Tell him why you kissed him.”

There was silence. Eric looked at me.

“What is it she wishes you to tell me, James?” he said at last.

“Nothing. Nothing, Eric. Now please….”

The beam of the torch swung into my eyes again. Behind it Ella’s face was pinched and drawn. “Tell him,” she said again. “There’s no use pretending now. We’re past that, we three.” And as she spoke she walked over to me—I had risen from the bench now, too—and deliberately put her arm through mine.

“What is this, James? What does she mean?” Eric’s voice was quieter now, but I could see the veins on his temples throbbing.

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“Oh yes it is.” Ella’s voice was high and defiant.

“Please Ella.” I looked at her, trying to show with my eyes that she had nothing to fear.

She looked away from me. “I won’t leave until you’ve told Eric the truth,” she continued, her voice set. “I want you to tell him that you love me, that you kissed him to prove yourself to me.”

“It is me he loves.” Eric’s voice was angry now. “You have done your best to cause us harm and you have failed.” He moved towards me. “Come James. Come with me.” And he looked at Ella with fury in his eyes.

“Eric …” I began, searching for words. “Eric, I … I love Ella.” I stopped.

“Tell him, Jamie.”

“I …”

“But what about last night?” Eric’s eyes met mine and I forced myself to face them.

“I … I didn’t mean it.”

“Tell him, Jamie.”

“It was a test,” I said finally, sick at heart.

“A test?” There was a frightened note in his voice now.

“I had to prove myself.”

“What did you have to prove?”

And I knew then, too late, that I had proved nothing but my own weakness.

“He proved that he would do anything for me.” Ella’s eyes were shining now. She put her hand in mine.

Her touch and her smiling lips revolted me; I shook my hand free of hers. “Don’t,” I said; and I felt a rising tide of nausea wash over me. “I had no idea what I was doing,” I murmured hoarsely to Eric. “You must believe that.”

“You had every idea.”

And all three of us knew that he was right.

CHAPTER 23

I
DON’T REMEMBER HOW
I
GOT AWAY
from them that night, how I made my way back to the house and to the warm shelter of its dusty rooms. I do remember running through the orchard and slipping on its icy grass. I remember also Eric’s eyes and Ella’s smile, surreal in the moonlight, and the ghostly pallor of their skin. In my need to get away from them both I ran without thought of direction, past stark trees and ill-pruned hedges and a silent fountain sinister in the darkness. I ran until the lights of the house loomed before me, a beacon in the night; and I did not stop running until I was in its bright hall, dripping with sweat, my knees bloody from where I had fallen, my hands red and frozen. I was still in my dressing gown.

I could not face either of them again that night, that much I knew; and I stripped a bed in the bedroom which had been mine and Eric’s and put sheets and blankets on the floor of a disused little room off the pantry. I worked quickly, worried that one or the other might return, and breathing hard and nearly in tears I locked myself into cramped darkness like a child hiding from punishment. Alone at last I still had no peace, for the room filled with sights and sounds; with the rough scratch of Eric’s lips on mine; with the acrid sweetness of Ella’s smell; with wild laughter and streaming eyes and the sight of Eric’s face by the quarry, frightened like a wounded animal’s. From far off I heard the front door open and close and thought with relief that neither of them would find me until the morning. Sick at heart I tried to sleep.

Sleep came as the sun was rising and when it did it was deep and dreamless. I slept so soundly that I didn’t hear the shouting; and I had hidden myself so well that Ella had to search the house for me when they found him the next morning. I remember waking to the ache of a night spent on a hard stone floor; to the deep chill of that dank, airless room; to the frantic note in her voice as she pounded on the door.

Eric was lying face down in the water, floating in the depths of the quarry like a piece of timber. It took four men from the village with ropes tied round their chests to abseil down and pull his body to the side and drag it up the steep incline to the little group by the bench. Ella and I stood watching as they tied their ropes to the yew trees and began to lower themselves downwards. We heard the splash of their rubber dinghy as it was lowered into the murky water. We watched two of them get into it and heard their paddling; their heaving as they pulled the body into their boat; their slow return to the others suspended on the quarry sides. Then winches and harnesses appeared and Eric began his jerky solitary journey upwards, back to us, back to dry ground. I remember the ghastly stare of the eyes in his waxy face; the way his mouth hung open; the immense weight of his dripping body as it was laid out on the cold earth.

Dr. Pétin signed the death certificate, his rosy face pale and somber, his hair disheveled for once. For the probable cause of death he put drowning; and I watched the doctor fill out the forms in silence and saw him kneel over my friend’s bloated face, examining his body. It was when I saw the tears in his eyes that I realized that I was not crying. I was numb; impervious to the bustle that follows a death. And calmly, almost mechanically, I greeted the village
gendarme
; saw them put Eric into an ambulance and drive him away for further examination; listened to the condolences of Madame Clancy and Jacques; thanked the men who had hoisted Eric’s body from the quarry. As one in a dream I stood by Ella as she explained to the detective that Eric had followed me from Vaugirard to return my violin; that he had arrived towards the end of dinner and that she and I had offered him coffee and a bed; that he had decided to go for a walk before turning in for the night; that he had seemed perfectly happy, quite his usual self in fact. And I, when asked, said that I was one of his greatest friends; that Eric had said nothing to me about any unhappiness; that the night had been dark; that I could only think that he had fallen; that he was not the kind of man to take his own life.

It was only when the policeman asked if I knew the address of the deceased’s next-of-kin that reality penetrated the cloud. I saw the Vaugirards at once: Louise at the market, examining ingredients for the evening; Eric
père
sitting gravely in his study, looking forward to lunch; Sylvie with her son, collecting him from nursery school asking him what he had done that day.

“I know them,” I said to the
gendarme.

“Then perhaps it would be better if you informed them,” he said. He was a small, anxious man with kind eyes. It was, he told me, the first time he had seen a death.

So it was I who telephoned Louise; I who endured her anxious questioning after Leopold; I who told her that his illness had been exaggerated and that he was now out of danger; I who endured her joy at this news. It was I who told her that something awful had happened; I who told her that Eric was dead; I who listened to the first sharp cry of a mother who has lost her son; I who answered the rush of her questions and explained how Eric had gone walking at night without a torch and had fallen into a quarry. And still I did not cry; I could not. Numb and as calm as the dead I took my place at the dining room table with Ella and the
gendarme
and Dr. Pétin and waited for Louise and Eric
père
to arrive, thinking nothing, conscious only of a dull ache and of the steady throbbing beat of the blood in my head. I looked at Ella but did not see her; I watched her smoke cigarette after cigarette but did not register that she moved; I could not smell her. I knew then that I would never tell anyone of the reason for Eric’s death and that she would not either. I told myself that it was better for Eric’s parents to curse Fate and to rail against the tragedy of an accident than to know that their son had ended his own life. But I no longer had the energy for self-deceit. I knew quite clearly why I had lied, why I would always lie; I knew that I was a coward, that I had neither the will nor the courage to stand to public account for what I had done. And by lying then, by passing up my only opportunity for honest confession, I gave up my only chance of expiation. I condemned myself to my own judgment and made myself a criminal. And as I sat with that silent group at the table I knew that however much I tried to pretend, however hard I tried to forget, the certain knowledge that I was worthless would always be with me.