‘Then why did you stop?’
‘I’ve told you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Of course not. We’re doing very nicely here.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she cried, and her hair shook with the vehemence of her cry. I considered her through half-closed eyes.
‘Mrs Kyd, I’ll make a bargain. First, what have we? You want to know why I stopped writing while wanting to continue, and I want to know why you came here when you said you never wanted to see me again. Are you with me?’
She stood up suddenly from the bed and started to the door.
‘I’m going now.’
‘Listen, wait,’ I cried, bouncing after her.
She halted, and whirled about to meet me. Her eyes really could flash.
‘I came here,’ she said quietly, ‘I came here with the intention of … I don’t know, tearing out your eyes. You raped me, and now you play word games. Before, I thought you were very evil. Now, I think you are just a fool. So I shall waste no more of my time. But I shall say one thing. Some day you will suffer for what you have —’
‘Ah god,’ said I wearily. ‘Will you go away and leave me alone. I’m tired. I’ve had enough for one day.’
Then I turned my back to her. Had I planned it like that, I could not have found a better way to hold her there. The door closed again, but when I looked, I found that she was still on my side of it, standing with her back pressed against the panels, her eyes lowered. I took a book and sank down into the armchair, my shoulders hunched. She did not move. Her presence was unsettling, if that is the word. At length I said,
‘If you’re preparing another speech, I don’t want to hear it.’
She shook her head, still not looking at me. She returned to the bed, sat down, and began to pick at the blanket with her fingernails. I laid down the book with a weary sigh.
‘Mrs Kyd,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know all the circumstances of what happened today. I —’
She held up a hand to silence me, and then began to speak softly herself, her head still hanging.
‘I lied to you, Mr White. I came here because … well, you have met my husband. He’s a good man, I would not deny that, and I love him. But today you touched something in me, something which I did not know was there. It was as if …’
Oh Jesus, I can reproduce no more of this twaddle. Did she really say all that, and expect me to take her seriously? It seems incredible. And yet, what am I saying? I took her seriously, indeed I did. I was looking through the window, laughing to myself and wondering how in the world I could imagine that I loved such a melodramatic, boring, hysterical, stupid, utterly humourless woman as this one, and all the while, with both big ears, I was agog to catch even the most banal of the clichés spilling from her mouth, and was enraptured with it, every syllable. At last she came to an end of sorts, and heaved a great sigh. I cleared my throat, and shifted my feet, and said,
‘Yes. I see. Well.’
She looked at me then.
‘Now I must go,’ she murmured, a deep throb of grief in her voice, Anna K. preparing to dive under that train. Oh, she was magnificent, I cannot deny it, she had me teetering on the edge of tears. She pinned up her hair (an encore) and the light through the window set a fire in the down on her uplifted arms.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked, and had she said, drop dead, I would have commanded my heart to be still. But she said nothing, and shook her head hopelessly. She stood up. On the table something which gleamed among the litter of books and papers caught her eye. She picked it up and examined it curiously. It was a small oblong silver box, perfectly smooth, without a catch or clasp on the closely-fitting lid. I sat sprawled deep in the armchair, my chin on my breast, watching her. I wonder if my tongue was hanging out.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
I held out my hand.
‘Here, let me show you.’
I took the box and pressed a thumb and middle finger against both sides. With a tiny click, the lid sprang open. I closed it again and gave it back to her. She pressed it with the heels of her hands, but it would not open for her.
‘It’s just a small thing,’ I said. ‘There’s a knack to it.’
‘Teach me.’
I shook my head.
‘I’d be thrown out of the magicians’ union.’
We stood together and looked through the window. The sun trembled on the brink of the hills, shaking the sky with a last fury of light. It went down, the gold become crimson, the dry hills aflame. I was weary; each of my bones seemed to have its own private ache. Something flashed in the corner of my eye. Helena had drawn her hand above her head. I made a grab at her, but too late. With a little grunt for the effort, she flung the box through the window. It tore a neat hole in the centre of the pane, and disappeared. The glass shivered around its wound, and the pieces came slowly apart in long wicked spikes. I caught her by the shoulder.
‘You stupid bitch.’
She tore herself away from me, and lifted her hands to protect her face. We glowererd at each other, teeth clenched.
‘Look —’ I began, but she flew at me, and her nails ripped my cheek. I leapt away, trying to hold my balance, and with an open fist I caught her a crack on the side of the head which must have loosened a filling or two. The knot of her hair flew asunder as she whirled away from me. A rug slipped under her feet, and she crashed to the floor. There she lay motionless with her head in her arms. I touched my cheek, and my fingers came away bloodied.
I flung open the door and went clattering down the stairs, and reached the street in time to meet a small boy coming from the lane with a dented but unbroken silver box in his little paws. He halted in fright at the appearance of this toothed creature with arms spread bat-like above him, and whipped the box behind his back. The presence of mind the little bastard could muster.
‘Little man, may I have my box?’
He looked at me silently with round brown eyes. I put my face in front of his and breathed brimstone at him.
‘Give. It’s mine.’
‘No.’
‘Sweet Jesus. Look, I warn you.’
‘No, I won’t, it’s mine, I found it.’
There was a light patter of steps behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see Helena slip out of the doorway and disappear into the dusk. I gave a shriek, and caught the child by the throat. His eyes opened very wide, and his tongue came out. I reached down behind him and wrenched the box from his hands (please god he will some day beget a battalion of retards and die roaring after a long life of unmitigated failure), then threw him to one side and fled down the street with my knees knocking against my chin and the silver prize clutched to my breast. Behind me the child let out a roar. Helena was gone. Again. My heart.
I walked to the harbour, through streets luminous with the last light of day. The shops were closing, the owners sleepily gathering in their wares. The dusk rang with the far clear shouts of children, and those other cries, less easily identified, which seemed to reverberate above the roof tops, sounds that were out of time and place, that carried with them other times and places, the voices of nightingales and kings.
The white liner calmly rode at anchor beyond the harbour bar, and by the pier two yachts were anchored. The water barely stirred, bearing another island, another harbour on its back. Down there were windows washed with blue, the palest green, and boats drifted upside-down on the hulls of their progenitors. People came and went, came and went, their voices flying out across the bay to the other shores and islands. The trawlers were already setting off for the liner, bearing the first cargoes of mail and baggage, and the mysterious things which, with the rats, are the first arrivals on an outbound ship. The lights were coming on in the tavernas, and the nightclub on the hill was sending down the first strains of music, calling its few revellers. Hold this overworked twilight for a little longer, just a little longer.