This time was an exception. At ten a group of women — a hen party from out of town — had still not cleared the premises. They’d had a few bottles of Chardonnay, and the talk had turned to scandals past. I pretended not to listen to them; I tried to be invisible. But I could feel their eyes on me. Their morbid curiosity.
‘You’re her, aren’t you?’ A woman’s voice, a little too loud, divulging in a boozy stage whisper what no one else dared mention. ‘You’re that What’s-her-name.’ She put out a hand and touched my arm.
‘Sorry. I don’t know who you mean.’
‘You are, though. I saw you. You’ve got a Wiki page, and everything.’
‘You shouldn’t believe what you read on the Net. Most of it’s just a pack of lies.’
Doggedly, she went on. ‘I went to see those paintings, you know. I remember my mum taking me. I even had a poster once. What was it called? French name. All those crazy colours. Still, it must have been terrible. Poor kid. How old were you? Ten? Twelve? I tell you, if anyone touched one of my kids I’d fucking kill the bastard—’
I’ve always been prone to panic attacks. They creep up on me when I least expect them, even now, after all these years. This was the first I’d suffered in months, and it took me completely unawares. Suddenly I could hardly breathe; I was drowning in music, even though there was no music playing . . .
I shook the woman’s hand from my arm. Flailed out at the empty air. For a second I was a little girl again — a little girl lost among walking trees. I reached for the wall and touched nothing but air; around me, people jostled and laughed. The party was leaving. I tried to hold on. I heard someone call for the bill. Someone asked: Who had the fish? Their laughter clattered around me.
Breathe, baby, breathe! I thought.
‘Are you OK?’ A man’s voice.
‘I’m sorry. I just don’t like crowds.’
He laughed. ‘Then you’re in the wrong place, love.’
Love. The word has potency.
People tried to warn me at first. Nigel was unstable. He had a criminal past, they said; but after all, my own past could hardly be said to bear scrutiny, and it was so good to be with him — to be with someone real, at last — that I ignored the warnings and plunged straight in.
You were so lovely, he told me later. Lovely and lost. Oh, Nigel.
That night we drove out to the moors and he told me all about himself, about his time in prison and the youthful mistake that had sent him there; and then we lay for hours on the heath in the overwhelming silence of the stars, and he tried to make me understand about all those little pins of light scattered across the velvet —
There, I thought. Now for the tears. Though not for Nigel as much as for myself and for that starry night. But even at my lover’s funeral, my eyes remained stubbornly dry. And then I felt a hand on my arm and a man’s voice said:
‘Excuse me. Are you all right?’
I’m very sensitive to voices. Every one, like an instrument, is unique, with its own individual algorithm. His voice is attractive: quiet, precise, with a slight pull on certain syllables, like someone who used to stammer. Not at all like Nigel’s voice; and yet I could tell they were brothers.
I said: ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’
‘ “Fine”,’ he repeated thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t that a useful word? In this case, it means: “I don’t want to talk to you. Please go away and leave me alone.” ’
There was no malice in his tone. Just a cool amusement; maybe even a touch of sympathy.
‘I’m sorry,’ I began to say.
‘No. It’s me. I apologize. It’s just that I hate funerals. The hypocrisy. The platitudes. The food you’d never think of eating at any other time. The ritual of tiny fish-paste sandwiches and mini jam tarts and sausage rolls—’ He broke off. ‘I’m sorry. Now I’m being rude. Would you like me to fetch you something to eat?’
I gave a shaky laugh. ‘You make it sound so appealing. I’ll pass.’
‘Very wise.’
I could hear his smile. His charm has a way of surprising me, even now, after all this time, and it makes me feel a little queasy to think that at my lover’s funeral I talked — I laughed — with another man, a man I found almost attractive . . .
‘I have to say, I’m relieved,’ he said. ‘I rather thought you’d blame me.’
‘Blame you for Nigel’s accident? Why?’
‘Well, maybe because of my letter,’ he said.
‘Your letter?’
Once more, I heard him smile. ‘The letter he opened the day he died. Why do you think he was driving so recklessly? My guess is he was coming for me. To deliver one of his — warnings.’
I shrugged. ‘Aren’t you the perceptive one? Nigel’s death was an accident—’
‘There’s no such thing as an accident as far as our family’s concerned.’
I stood up much too fast at that, and the chair clattered back against the parquet floor. ‘What the hell does that mean?’ I said.
His voice was calm, still slightly amused. ‘It means we’ve had our share of bad luck. What did you want? A confession?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ I said.
‘Well, thanks. That puts me in my place.’
I was feeling strangely light-headed by then. Perhaps it was the heat, or the noise, or simply the fact of being so close to him, close enough to take his hand.
‘You hated him. You wanted him dead.’ My voice sounded plaintive, like a child’s.
A pause. ‘I thought you knew me,’ he said. ‘You really think I’m capable?’
And now I thought I could almost hear the first notes of the Berlioz, the Symphonie fantastique with its patter of flutes and low caress of strings. Something dreadful was on its way. Suddenly there seemed to be no oxygen in the air I was breathing. I put out a hand to steady myself, missed the back of the chair and stepped out into the open. My throat was a pinprick; my head a balloon. I stretched out my arms and touched only empty space.
‘Are you OK?’ He sounded concerned.
I tried to find the chair again — I desperately needed to sit down — but I had lost my bearings in the suddenly cavernous room.
‘Try to relax. Sit down. Breathe.’ I felt his arm around me, guiding me gently towards the chair, and once again I thought of Nigel, and of Daddy’s voice, a little off-key, saying:
Come on, Emily. Breathe. Breathe!
‘Shall I take you outside?’ he said.
‘It’s nothing. It’s fine. It’s just the noise.’
‘As long as it wasn’t something I said—’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ I faked a smile. It felt like a dentist’s mask on my face. I had to get out. I pulled away, sending my chair skittering against the parquet. If only I could get some air, then everything would be all right. The voices in my head would stop. The dreadful music would be stilled.
‘Are you OK?’
Breathe, baby, breathe!
And now the music rose once more, lurching into a major key somehow even more dangerous, more troubling than the minor.
Then his voice through the static said: ‘Don’t forget your coat, Albertine.’
And at that I pulled away and ran, regardless of obstacles, and, finding my voice just long enough to shout — Let me through! — I fled once more, like a criminal, pushing my way through the milling crowd and out into the speechless air.
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