Dark Palace (25 page)

‘He is, yes, a man of contradiction within his personality. I have always known that.'

‘Do these contradictions persist?'

Was he checking on the results of his work?

She nodded, hoping that they were talking about the same things.

‘And how do these contradictions affect you?'

Affect? She felt deep waters around her neck. ‘We get by. We are comfortable with the “contradictions”, as you put it. I prefer the word “predilections”.'

‘As lovers?'

She bridled at this. This was a long way from the point.

He pushed. ‘It must be strange for a woman?'

‘I am accustomed to his predilections … from the old days. I suppose I see it as part of life's rich tapestry. Part of his rich tapestry.'

‘Is that all that it is?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Are you perhaps drawn to him because of these contradictions?'

He was sticking to his word against hers.

‘I was drawn to him as a friend, firstly. His predilections came out later.'

‘Here you are, now years later, back together. Again. As lovers. Even though you know about his contradictions and predilections you are still drawn to him?'

He had now conceded her word.

‘You think it discloses something about me?' She felt she'd caught him
up to something
.

‘Do you?'

‘I think I am a modern person, a free-thinking person.'

‘That is very generous.'

‘Do you think so? It is not seen by me as an act of generosity—it is more an act of affection.'

‘I meant generous to yourself.'

Was he being cruel? ‘You are being critical of me?'

‘When we describe ourselves as being virtuous in some way, we sometimes conceal that it is also in our interests to be “generous”, as we put it. I am not here to hurt you. I am here to help you find the truth about your inner world. Nothing more, nothing less. I am not here to flatter you.'

‘Of course.' She bristled. She found an escape along the path of curiosity, ‘Did you try to cure him of what you call his contradictions?'

‘Cure? I suppose we tried to interpret his condition. I don't know if cure is the right word. Yes, it was an attempt to either eliminate the contradictions or … accommodate … them into the household of his personality. And into the realities of the world.'

For the first time Doctor Vittoz seemed unsettled. He had wavered on the word ‘accommodate'.

She had truly ‘accommodated' them. Literally. She decided to say that. ‘I have accommodated him—and his foibles. Literally.'

He genuinely did smile this time at her humour. ‘Yes, you have, it seems, literally “accommodated” him, in your household.'

He laughed again, seeming to be pleased with her little
witticism. ‘Into the household of your personality, as it were, also?'

He didn't let the word ‘foibles' pass. ‘Foibles? How do these express themselves in your life as lovers?'

‘Am I required to answer that?'

‘Required? You must help me understand. I am interested also clinically, scientifically. As a student of human nature.'

She didn't answer.

He seemed to let her off the hook. ‘Tell me, what does your husband think of Doctor Westwood living with you as a lover? Does he know of Doctor Westwood's contradictions? Foibles?'

She looked at him helplessly, ‘I told him about Ambrose before we married.'

‘That required some courage?'

‘Yes,' she said, with slight bitterness.

‘And you say you told him, more recently, about Doctor Westwood's coming to live with you again?'

‘Yes.'

‘And when you told him—he replied?'

‘He didn't mention Ambrose … Doctor Westwood.'

‘Not at all?'

‘Not at all.' She felt close to tears again.

Oh, what did Robert think of her now? He'd always been free-thinking, but this may just have been too much. The idea of her living with a nancyboy. When Robert visited, he and Ambrose circled about each other in the apartment but remained perfectly civil and Ambrose always presented himself as a regular man. But it was perhaps all too much, too much, for Robert. Perhaps if he had not left her when they parted in Geneva, he had left her now.

Perhaps something had happened in their marriage
after
her letter telling him that Ambrose had moved in. Although affectionate postcards still came. Lightly affectionate. And he still visited and took his rights as a husband.

‘You seem to be thinking?'

‘I don't really know what my husband would think—about me living with a person such as Ambrose.'

She was cold and tearful. She found she held the doctor's handkerchief tightly in a ball in her fist.

‘Perhaps it will help if I say something about myself, at this point, in these matters,' he said, breaking off his inquisition.

He considered his words, and then spoke, ‘I am a professional correspondent with an institute in Berlin—the Hirschfeld Clinic—which is interested in these matters, matters of human sexuality—'

She said rather eagerly, ‘I know of the Hirschfeld Clinic.'

‘Through Doctor Westwood?'

‘Yes. And they have informed the League of their work.'

‘As you would know then, the Clinic is interested in sexuality from a scientific point of view—not from any persecuting motive, which seems to be more common. As a way of knowing and perhaps accepting human sexuality. I correspond professionally also with the World League for Sexual Enlightenment in Stockholm. It's run by Elise Ottesen-Jensen. You know of that also?'

‘Through the League, yes.'

The doctor was telling her not to fear him. She relaxed, somewhat.

Edith said, ‘Not very popular at the League—not among the Latin countries, Catholicism and so on. Birth control is not discussed at the League. Ambrose has visited the Hirschfeld Clinic.'

‘My support for Hirschfeld is why your case interests me.'

‘Am I a case? I thought in these matters, Ambrose, Doctor Westwood, was the case?'

He smiled rather condescendingly. ‘I use that expression from habit. I want to put you at ease. I am not shocked by human behaviour. I am not a persecutor. Indeed, not.
Au
contraire
. The richness of human behaviour fascinates and pleases me.'

Au contraire
? It then came to Edith that Doctor Vittoz was perhaps a man who loved men. Or was he
as
Ambrose? Surely not? He was not in the Molly circle, Ambrose would have told her.

This flustered her. Ambrose had not said anything about this. She couldn't very well ask Vittoz. Did it make any difference? She thought it might.

The flustering went away and then, oddly, she felt suddenly more able to talk with him.

If he'd been a properly married man, as she'd first assumed, then he would have perhaps looked down on her as something of a married failure. A failed wife. Even, a failed woman. If he were not a properly married man, it would be a little easier to talk about it all.

What tangled web was she flailing in now?

He changed his voice back to that of the interrogator. ‘Isn't it a little … disingenuous to say that it is his case, not yours? When you are his lover?'

She looked at him. She was floundering.

‘Earlier you avoided my suggestion that you were perhaps drawn to him because of how he was. To be attracted the first time may have been a misunderstanding, but to be drawn to him once again must be illuminating of you too?'

‘I could like him
despite
the way he is. Isn't that a possibility?'

He looked at her quizzically. ‘
You
must tell
me
.'

‘I suppose Ambrose—Doctor Westwood—and the way he is, makes me feel calm. Tranquil.'

She had a flash of recall of always feeling somewhat sweaty and tense with Robert at times of sex.

Doctor Vittoz then broke the gaze. ‘Our time is up. Let us pursue that further next time.'

Up?

Next time?

‘We can make another appointment,' he took out his appointment book. ‘We have much to talk about, it would seem.'

Would it seem?

She asserted herself. ‘I was hoping that we could more or less complete our arrangements, business … whatever … today.'

‘Tell me again,' he said calmly but, she felt, tendentiously. ‘What is this business we are to complete?'

‘As I said …' she was again exasperated by what she saw as his doctorly stratagems ‘… a statement by you, a letter from you, of some sort, that I might use …' she tried her winning smile, ‘… attesting to my normality, but to my strain.'

‘Do you see yourself as normal?'

‘Why, yes, as normal as most.'

‘Yet you live with a man who is not your husband? Who has personality incongruities? You seem to have worries about your drinking habits or, more precisely, what others think of your drinking habits? You take the woes of the world on your shoulders? You choose to live away from your country of birth? Are they signs of the norm? Of the average?'

‘Not of the average—no … but I am not … monstrously abnormal.'

She looked at him helplessly. ‘Am I?'

‘In one appointment, you wish to find out all?' He said this in a kindly, comradely way and shook his head and smiled. ‘At our next meeting, I should perhaps explain my method of working. I will give also some physical tests. Of your blood and so on. But be reassured you are not insane. And I am sure a letter can be written—if you feel it would help you deal with your life.'

He smiled. ‘You are not “monstrously abnormal”—but nor are you an average woman by any measure: and rest assured also, I admire your work—your mission.'

‘When I was at school all we wanted was to be average—I think that is an Australian wish: to be the same as the others.'

‘Or of all children. And again, please rest assured that I do not find your way of personal life a matter of censure. We must be sure that it is a way of life that you want, and not one that has been the result of a series of accidents.'

‘Aren't all friendships an accident of meeting?'

‘As you probably know, in my profession we rarely concede that there are accidents.'

‘I am not really here for analysis.'

‘We could perhaps explore that as well, at the next appointment; examine, then, what is the best way to proceed.'

Proceed? Proceed where?

‘How is the same time next week?'

She nodded, but with resistance. ‘That would be possible.'

‘Good,' he smiled at her.

‘Tell me, doctor—are you a married man?'

‘Oh, the details of my life are of no consequence here in this room, neither here nor there—the more I am just the neutral
docteur
the better. Just think of me as a
docteur
. But since you ask, no, I am not married.'

He was standing up to show her out, holding out his hand. They shook hands across the desk and he came around to where she was and took her elbow.

Before she knew it she was out in rue Mont Blanc feeling buffeted and distinctly chilly, awash in awkward recognitions and ill-shapen comprehensions about her frayed life.

It was as if Doctor Vittoz had begun a charcoal sketch of her life which was only partially finished and slightly smudged. And it was as if, in the few stolen glances over his shoulder at the sketch, she did not really quite see herself in his sketch. Or that she saw that it was
her
but not quite the way she might have wished to be sketched.

She stood stock still then in rue Mont Blanc.

Had Robert been the one who had left? Had Robert left her? Why did that send a tremor through her?

Was she still not prepared to let go of him?

Was he, for her, a touchstone of normality?

She wanted desperately to go back up to Vittoz and ask him more.

‘Tell me what happened with Vittoz,' Ambrose said, as they sat at their dinner table in the apartment, having one of their rare home-cooked meals.

Ambrose had cooked. He'd insisted that she—they—stop their public life for a few days and think out what she was now to do. She was owed the usual three days off after the Assembly and had a few other days owing.

They'd become homebodies, cleaning and fixing and rearranging the furniture, hanging two Tamara de Lempicka lithographs,
Spring
and
The Young Ladies
. What would Robert make of them? Advertisements for the Modern Woman? Decadent? Terribly advanced even for Geneva. Maybe two Lempickas in one room was too strong? They matched her lithograph of
Les Deux Soeurs
which was in her bedroom.

And they talked about all manner of things.

What
had
happened during her appointment with Vittoz?

‘Well?' Ambrose said.

‘He was very clever. But isn't it supposed to be all confidential—between a doctor and patient?'

‘I am your doctor, in some sense.'

‘The Good Doctor Ambrose? Yes dear, you are my doctor, in a sense. Well, he pronounced me sane. Or normal, but not average. Or at least, he thought my life was very unusual but normal. Something like that.'

Like what?

‘
That
, we more or less knew.'

‘I pointed out to him that all the gossip about drink was happening because I was a woman. He seemed to agree.'

‘He “seemed to agree”?' Ambrose sounded sceptical.

‘I know what you mean about our Doctor Vittoz. But, yes, I think he nodded.'

‘Nothing can be assumed with Vittoz. His silence should not be taken as agreement. Or comment. I sometimes think talking to him is like fortune-telling: we tend to remember anything that the fortune-teller says which is vaguely connected to our lives, usually something generalised such as
mourning a loss
. Everyone is mourning a loss of some kind. And we forget the rest. Then we remake it all in our heads to make it tell us what we want to hear. We wish to believe the fortune-teller. But we do the fortune-telling of ourselves. Although the home truths do get through with Vittoz.'

‘You hardly need to tell a Rationalist about fortune-telling. I'm now inclined to think that we might be placing too much importance on the whole thing.'

‘I don't. With the gossips at the League I think we still have what I call unwitting connivance—an unintended conspiracy—an accidental conspiracy, if you like.'

‘Vittoz doesn't believe in accidents.'

‘Gossip can unwittingly cause disasters. And it could well be that you have risen in the organisation to a point where you attract hostile gossip—that you're a target now for resentment. You know that achievement gains you enemies as well as admirers.'

‘I thought the wisdom was that when you gain an enemy you also gain the enemy's enemies as your allies.'

‘Perhaps not with gossip. The gossips are not enemies—they don't intend you harm but will accidentally do you harm. They know not what they do.'

‘How do we erase this view of me from the minds of people—so that it doesn't keep coming up when the
haute direction
are considering me for a position or a promotion or whatever?'

‘I think it can be done. During the last few days you've led me to a new position. You have identified things which I did not see. First, you are right, Edith. Drinking, as such, is not your problem. And yes, it is because you're a woman.'

‘Regardless, I'm perceived to be a tippler,' she said.

‘There are different kinds of drinker,' Ambrose said, speculating as much to himself as to her. ‘Liverright is a drunkard. He's so boozed by evening he's not worth talking to. You're a different drinker. But there is not much fine distinction in gossip. I'm inclined to think that you should become, formally, a non-drinker.'

‘I can't see that happening.'

‘Hear me out. We have to change their conversation—by getting out of the gossip. And we, as you say, have to erase the image of you as a tippler that some might have.'

‘If I let it be known I am not drinking it will seem that I have had to give it up—that I have a difficulty with drink. And I rather like drinking.'

‘Drinking is not that important in your life, Edith—it is a very, very minor activity. And anyhow, drink should be your friend—not your colleague. And something else, Edith.'

‘What?' she said tiredly.

‘The world needs you.'

She looked over at him.

‘Edith, we don't want a drift to a situation where you are forced to leave.'

‘You think that could happen?' Edith could hardly believe his words.

‘Remember that they forced Dame Rachel out because of drinking. And there is your countrywoman, the legendary Jocelyn Horn, dismissed for “dancing too much”. And we pretty much can guess what that meant.'

She felt disturbed.

‘You'll find the first part of the plan the most unpalatable. I propose that you do not drink at work or where your colleagues will see you. Stay away from people such as Liverright who will urge you to drink at any given moment of the day. No drinking at official occasions.'

‘Ambrose! That's the only thing which makes much of it bearable.'

‘The drinks afterwards in private will be all the sweeter.'

She could see that what he said was the inevitable outcome of their discussions.

She had some new thoughts. ‘About the medical document—I've changed my mind about it. I do not think that it is ever a good idea to inform people of medical conditions of the mind. I think that anything to do with a doctor such as Vittoz should not be mentioned at all—except perhaps to Sweetser who sees going to such a doctor as a progressive thing.'

She felt embarrassed then as she realised that this lesson applied in some way to Ambrose who had left the League because of such a medical condition.

She realised that his own wounding back then with his departure from the League played a part now in his fears for her. Perhaps he was driven by his own anxieties and was overstating the problem.

She ploughed on. ‘I think Sweetser was looked at differently because of his having been treated in Vienna for mental problems. Because of that, I don't think he'll get promotion now.'

‘Agreed. And my nervous collapse, as you well know, forced me out and they still look at me sometimes as if I
might still be a little daft. Of course there was the great Sixtus V and his use of the tactic of ill-health.'

‘I wish you'd stop reading about the popes. It worries me.'

‘He was a rather zealous and ruthless reformer—in the Franciscans, I think—and he was in many ways an obvious candidate for Pope. But he was penalised time and time again for excessive zeal. So he decided to pretend to be of poor health, no longer having the energy of a reformer. He became passive and this was seen as a kind of wisdom and serenity. They made him Pope. And lo and behold, once installed as Pope, he returned to his former self and became the ruthless reformer again.'

‘How does that apply to me?'

‘I don't quite see how it does.'

They laughed.

‘It does in one small way,' Ambrose said. ‘You should perhaps “disappear”, as it were, from gossip. Quieten down. Become dull for a time. If you don't wish to use Vittoz, go to see Weber-Bauler and say you are run down. And then I suggest you ask for leave. And then really disappear from the landscape of gossip for a time.'

‘What if Weber-Bauler says I'm unfit to hold my position? Sees me as a spent force?'

‘You're not. And he won't. Just have a physical examination. Get him to diagnose that you're just run down. This will be seen then as evidence of how hard you've been working—as you have been.'

The League doctor was something of a friend.

‘And you have now to act your position—as a senior member of section.'

‘You really mean that I have to act my age? How ghastly.'

‘Edith, You're no longer a wild young thing in your twenties. You must now become a sober administrator.'

‘What about the other Edith—Edith the madcap!?'

‘Edith, you are a sober administrator—that is the new you. Save your wildness for the Molly Club.'

‘The Molly Club?' she said. ‘Are we to be confined now to the Molly Club?'

It was slowly sinking in that she could be sacked. ‘I'm terrified. I see yet another key to the plan.'

‘Which is?'

‘I'll go to Sweetser and ask Sweetser's advice—make him an ally. With Bartou, I'll simply seek his advice about my life and strain—but I won't tell them about my seeing Vittoz. Bartou will pass on what I say to Walters.'

He thought about it.

‘It's a master stroke. Very good indeed. You get them on board as advisers—they become protectors. If you can pull it off it will be a
coup d'éclat
.'

He laughed. ‘And, Edith, may I add one more thing. Two things.'

‘I listen,' she said in the tone of the chastised schoolgirl.

‘You will improve your grooming.'

She knew what he meant. She looked at her nails. ‘I know, I know—I've not had the time enough in a day, to attend to myself the way I should.'

‘While on leave and when you come back, you must make time for your hair, your nails, your waxing, your facial cleansing, you must … bloom! And you'll buy a new wardrobe. Maybe when you're on leave, go to Paris and buy new clothes.'

‘You just want my old clothes.'

‘I shouldn't mind some hand-me-downs. It's important not to let life coarsen us. Working long hours can coarsen one. When you return everyone should compliment you on your wholesomeness, your radiance, and then you must keep it that way.'

‘And the second thing?' she asked.

‘You will get rid of that wretched drink flask.'

She coloured. What did he remember about the flask?

She said, ‘The flask will remain out of sight.'

He stared at her, forcing her to say more.

She hoped that it was not going to blow up as it had with Robert.

‘It's something of a talisman. It's from the trip we all made to Paris years ago,' she said.

‘All I know is that you disappeared backstage with a black musician, that you didn't have the flask when you left us, and that you had it when you came back. I suppose it to be a trophy of sorts.'

‘A trophy of audacity.'

‘Perhaps the circumstances surrounding the winning of that trophy are better left to my imagination.'

‘Given your rich imagination, yes.'

So. He did not glimpse what was happening when he'd come looking for her back then in the Room
Artiste
.

She left the table and went to his side and kissed his head.

‘It was all a long time ago. Sorry.' She sighed. ‘The only good thing that I can see coming out of the plan is that I'll never have to pretend to be sober when I'm not.'

‘I agree—pretending to sobriety is the most disagreeable of all the social demands.'

‘You are a wonderful nanny.'

‘A nanny who's also a vamp.'

‘Yes. A vampish nanny. Should I continue with Vittoz?'

‘That's up to you. Just do it for yourself if you think it interests you.'

‘I think it'll be good for me to have some more appointments with him. During the period of the emergence of the New Edith. I'm curious about where he might lead me. You think I'm a bit barmy, don't you?'

‘Strain is a sort of barminess, Edith.'

‘I don't want to be seen as being a person who is unable to stay the distance.'

‘The Committee of Eighteen is in abeyance. You were successful in what you did.'

‘If I'd known that getting older was so much trouble I wouldn't have bothered.'

‘Different ages: different pleasures.'

‘And different pains?'

She went about implementing the plan.

She first approached Bartou.

She contemplated taking him to lunch, but the plan now excluded drinking in work circumstances and so instead she took him to afternoon tea.

‘We did all we could with the sanctions. We put all we could into it. I think we were successful as far as we went. Now is a good time for me to take a break,' she told him.

‘Good. You have done your job with the Committee of Eighteen. You've earned your rest.'

‘The leave will give me back my old spirits.'

‘I know it will.'

‘Weber-Bauler gave me a medical examination and my health is good. Could you mention that I'm taking leave to Walters? Keep him informed—tell him that all is fine, that I'm not deserting the ship, not losing my nerve?'

‘Of course, we all appreciate you and your work. May I be impertinent and ask if the strain is in any way to do with Robert? It is perhaps no secret that many of us find your union with him … unusual. I take it that you consider it a marriage still?'