‘And I told her, I said, “I’m not ’avin’ that—” ’
‘Be with you in a minute, babe.’
Sometimes in a noisy room you can pick out the sound of a single voice — sometimes even a single word — that clatters against the wall of sound like an out-of-tune violin in an orchestra.
‘Earl Grey, please. No lemon, no milk.’
His voice is unmistakable. Soft and slightly nasal, perhaps, with a peculiar emphasis on the aspirates, like a theatre actor, or maybe a man who once stuttered. And now I could hear the music again, the opening chords of the Berlioz, never very far from my thoughts. Why it had to be that piece, I don’t know; but it’s the sound of my deepest fear, and it sounds to me like the end of the world.
I kept my own voice steady and low. No need to disturb the customers. ‘You’ve really done it now,’ I said.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about your letter,’ I said.
‘What letter?’
‘Don’t bullshit me,’ I said. ‘Nigel got a letter today. Given the mood he was in when he left, and given the fact that I only know one person capable of winding him up to that level—’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ I heard his smile.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘Not much,’ he said. ‘But you know my brother. Impulsive. Always getting the wrong idea.’ He paused, and once more I heard his smile. ‘Perhaps he was shaken by the news of Dr Peacock’s legacy. Perhaps he just wanted Ma to be sure that he knew nothing about it—’ He took a sip of his Earl Grey. ‘You know, I thought you’d be pleased,’ he said. ‘It’s still a magnificent estate. Perhaps the property’s a little rundown. Still, nothing that can’t be fixed, eh? Then there’s the art. The collections. Three million pounds is conservative. I’d estimate it at closer to four—’
‘I don’t care,’ I hissed at him. ‘They can give it to someone else.’
‘There isn’t anyone else,’ he said.
Oh yes there is. There’s Nigel. Nigel, who trusted me —
How fragile are these things we build. How tragically ephemeral. In contrast, the house is solid as stone; as tiles and beams and mortar. How could we compete with stone? How could our little alliance survive?
‘I have to admit,’ he said mildly, ‘I thought you might show some gratitude. After all, Dr Peacock’s estate is likely to bring you a tidy sum — more than enough to get out of this place and buy yourself somewhere decent.’
‘I like my life as it is,’ I said.
‘Really? I’d kill to get out of here.’
I picked up my empty chocolate cup; turned it round and round in my hands. ‘So how did Dr Peacock die? And how much did he leave you?’
A pause. ‘That wasn’t very kind.’
I lowered my voice to a hiss. ‘I don’t care. It’s over. Everyone’s dead—’
‘Not quite.’
No, I thought. Well — maybe not.
‘So you do remember.’ I heard his smile.
‘Not much. You know how old I was.’
Old enough to remember, he means. He thinks I should remember more; but for me now most of those memories exist only as fragments of Emily, some at best contradictory, others, frankly impossible. But I know what everyone else knows: that she was famous; she was unique; college professors wrote theses on what they had begun to call The Emily White Phenomenon.
Memory [says Dr Peacock in his thesis ‘The Illuminated Man’], is, at best, an imperfect and highly idiosyncratic process. We tend to think of the mind as a fully functioning recording machine, with gigabytes of information — aural, visual and tactile — within easy recall. This could not be further from the truth. Although it is true that in theory, at least, I should be able to remember what I had for breakfast on any particular morning of my life, or the precise wording of a Shakespeare sonnet I had to study as a child, it is more probable that without recourse to drugs or deep hypnosis — both methods being, in any case, highly questionable, given the level of suggestibility in the subject — those particular memories will remain inaccessible to me and will finally degrade, like electrical equipment left in the damp, causing short-outs and cross-wiring until finally the system may default into alternative or backup memory, complete with sense-impressions and internal logic, which may in fact be drawn from a completely different set of experiences and stimuli, but which provides the brain with a compensatory buffer against any discontinuity or obvious malfunction.
Dear Dr Peacock. He always took so long to make a point. If I try hard I can still hear his voice, which was plush and plummy and just a little comic, like the bassoon in Peter and the Wolf. He had a house near the centre of town, one of those big, deep old houses with high ceilings, and worn parquet floors, and wide bay windows, and spiky aspidistra, and the genteel smell of old leather and cigars. There was a fireplace in the parlour, a huge thing with a carved overmantel and a clock that ticked; and in the evenings he would burn logs and pine cones in the giant hearth and tell stories to anyone who cared to walk in.
There was constant traffic at the Fireplace House. Students (of course); colleagues; admirers; vagrants on the scrounge for a bite to eat and a cup of tea. Everyone was welcome, as long as they behaved themselves; and as far as I knew, no one had ever abused Dr Peacock’s good nature, or caused him any embarrassment.
It was the kind of house where there is something for everyone. There was always a bottle of wine to hand, and a pot of tea standing on the hearth. There was food, too: usually bread and some kind of soup, several fat fruitcakes weighted with plums and brandy, and an enormous barrel of biscuits. There were several cats, a dog called Patch, and a rabbit that slept in a basket under the parlour window.
In the Fireplace House, time stood still. There was no television, no radio, no newspapers or magazines. There were gramophones in every room like great open lilies with tongues of brass; there were shelves and cupboards of records, some small, some as wide as serving dishes, scored close with ancient voices and yawning, scratchy, vinegary strings. There were marbles and bronzes on wobbly tables; strings of jet beads; powder compacts half-filled with fragrant dust; books with autumn pages; globes; fiddly collections of snuffboxes, miniatures, cups and saucers, clockwork dolls. That was home to Emily White, and to think that now I could join her there, a perpetual child in a house of forgotten things, free to do anything I liked . . .
Except, of course, to leave.
I thought I’d managed to get away. To make a new life for myself with Nigel. But I know that was all an illusion now; a game of smoke and mirrors. Emily White never got away. Nor did Benjamin Winter. How could I hope to be different? And do I even understand from what I’m trying to escape?
Emily White?
Never heard of her.
Poor Nigel. Poor Ben. And it hurts, doesn’t it, blueeyedboy? To be eclipsed by a brighter star, to be ignored and left in the dark, without even a name of your own? Well, now you know how I felt. How I’ve always felt. How I still feel —
‘That’s all in the past,’ I said. ‘I hardly remember it any more.’
He poured another cup of Earl Grey. ‘It’ll all come back eventually.’
‘And if I don’t want it all to come back?’
‘I don’t believe you’ll have the choice.’
Perhaps he was right about that, at least. Nothing ever vanishes. Even after all these years, Emily still shadows me. Now there’s an admission, blueeyedboy. I’m sure you can see the irony. But the tenor of our relationship is closer in some ways than friendship. Maybe because of the screen that divides us, so like the screen of the confessional.