The Ecliptic (56 page)

I heard a noise like buttons rattling in a jar. Victor was holding a glass medicine bottle with the label ripped off. He shook it and shook it and the tablets clattered weakly inside. ‘I
don’t know how many were in here to begin with—maybe sixty or so,’ he said, and tipped out a mound of them into his palm, ‘but this suggests our toxicology’s been off
the mark.’ He picked up a tablet and examined it. ‘It’s Tofranil, no question. Looks to me like you stopped taking them. So, whatever’s been showing in your blood-work, I
wouldn’t think it’s necessarily from these.’

‘Then what?’

‘You tell me.’ He brushed past me. ‘Could be the oil paints. They’re full of chemicals. Or the turps, maybe.’

‘I don’t know.’

My eyes turned back to the wall, picking up a section further down:

It was a complete transcription of the entire article, scribbled from the ceiling to the skirting boards. On and on it went in detail:

Victor was busy at the hearth. He tore something, and struck a match, and then I heard the sudden puff of an ignition.

‘Come and get warm,’ Victor said. ‘It’s really getting going now.’ He was kneeling at the fireplace with both hands extended to the flames. The orange light dappled
his face. He looked so entrenched in the glow of it, and I felt so cold and jittery, that I could not resist.

Kneeling beside him, I saw that he had ripped the topmost pages of another magazine and fed them to the fire. The uncomfortable dampness of my clothes began to bother me. We stayed there on our
knees together for a while, saying nothing, letting our bodies gently warm through. And then I said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll get over this, Victor.’

He kept his eyes upon the flames. ‘You’ll be all right. We’ll work through it together.’

‘I’m not sure I can go back with you. Not yet. I always thought that I could live without anything as long as I had painting. Now look at me—I’d be better off in a
factory, doing something useful. I think I’d be much happier that way.’

Quite unexpectedly, he placed his arm around me. ‘Elspeth,’ he said, ‘you are twenty-six years old and you are still alive. And the sun will rise tomorrow, as it always does.
That’s all you have to think about for now.’ I wanted to lean my head on his shoulder, but I could not get past the pain. ‘What happened to your sling?’

‘It came off in the loch.’

‘Then I’d better make you another.’ He reached onto the bed and removed the grubby slip from the pillow. He ripped along the seam, folded a triangle, and put my arm inside it,
knotting it at the back of my neck. ‘You have people who care for you. Remember that,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known Dulcie Fenton get sentimental about anyone. But she is
genuinely fond of you—and not just because she has a vested interest.’

‘Well, she tries to make it seem that way, at least.’

‘No, I think it’s quite sincere. She must have called me twenty times, asking if I’d heard from you.’

‘Worried about the show, most likely.’

‘At first, maybe. She said that you’d written to her. Gave me an earful about it, actually—I told her you would be OK travelling on your own, that we shouldn’t be
alarmed. But even after your show went on, she was still calling about you. I think she even phoned your mother a few times. Everyone said the same thing.
Travelling
. None of us knew where
to look for you.’

He tore off another page of
National Geographic
, balled it up, and threw it on the fire. I could not tell what time it was. The mantel clock was smashed and buried outside. But it did
not matter. We were drying out, slowly and steadily, and soon we would get back to the car and he would drive me all the way to Kilburn, where nobody was awaiting my return.

‘So what do we do now? Go back to having sessions once a week?’ I said. ‘Pretend this didn’t happen?’

‘If you feel that’ll help.’

‘I doubt I could afford you any more.’

‘Nobody can. After this, my fees are tripling. I’m pricing myself out of the psychiatry game entirely.’

‘That’s probably for the best,’ I said. ‘You’re a bad influence on people.’

‘Precisely. The world is better off. I’m going into show business.’ He grinned. ‘Jazz clarinet has always been my calling. There has to be a career in it for
me.’

I smirked.

‘You think I’m joking. I’ve actually got—’ The bulb went off above us, and the kitchen light had blinked out, too. ‘I suppose that’s the last of the
meter,’ Victor said. ‘We ought to be making tracks. Are you dry yet?’

The hospital had given me back my wretched painting clothes: a paint-smattered flannelette blouse and stiff cotton trousers. They were grimy and still damp, but I felt much warmer now.
‘Not quite,’ I said.

‘We’ll put the blowers on in the car.’

He helped me up. The flames gave off the last remaining light inside the cottage. It quavered on the floor and our moving bodies flashed and dulled it. Victor reached down for the bucket of
mulched petals. Lifting it, he sniffed the liquid to make sure it was not flammable, and, when he was satisfied, he came and threw it on the flames. They spat and sizzled into blackness, and gave
off the smothered scent of a dud firework. For a second, it was so dark that I could not see where Victor was standing. ‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘I’ve got the matches in my
pocket.’ And I heard him get them out and fumble with them. But before he could strike one, the far end of the room brightened, swelling with a pale blue light. I could see Victor’s
outline now before me, burnished like the moon. ‘What
is
that?’ he said.

He went after it, walking into the blue glow on instinct: a moth in the tow of a porch light. I trailed after him. Beyond the hallway was the storeroom that I had once cleared out with Jim. The
door was shut but there was a clear blue eking out from the gaps around the frame, between the hinges. Victor looked at me, slightly fearful. ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Nothing can
harm you.’

‘What can’t?’

He was dithering now, so I twisted the handle and showed him inside.

All he said was: ‘Jesus, Ellie.’

The walls were banked with wooden painting boards, turned inwards—there must have been over a hundred. Victor hardly paid them any mind. He was staring at the gleaming garland by the water
boiler. It was hanging from the clothes-rail at the back end of the room. As he approached it, the radiance of the mushrooms was so strong that his whole body seemed floodlit. He moved even closer,
shielding his eyes. ‘What are they?’ he said, clasping one of them in his fingers. ‘They’re unbelievable.’ But I did not answer. I was moving for the door, breaking
through the hallway, through the lounge, and swinging back the kitchen beads. Victor did not call after me. He was transfixed by the shine.

Now the kitchen sink was faintly humming blue as well. Drips of the pigment had hardened on the edges of the mixing slab that lay inside the basin; flecks of it were on the handle of the muller,
drying on the rack beside it. I felt a prickling elation, scoring along my spine.

With my good arm, I cleared everything from the table, sending food and dishes careening, smashing. I picked up the mural and laid it there, dropping it to the surface like a cut of meat. With
my sore nails I picked at all the tape along the corners and the seam. I pulled at the plastic and lifted it away. There was a blush of pallid light. The canvas unfurled. It spread across the
table, moist in my grip. It spilled over the edges, kissed my boot caps.

Victor clattered through the beads. He stood at the threshold, dazed. Three blue circles bloomed upon his lenses and I could not see his eyes behind them. I thought he was about to speak, but he
stopped himself. He moved slowly to the canvas, knitting his hands behind his head. It was a gesture of surrender. He did not ask me any questions. All the darkness in the room was painted out.

This book could not have surfaced from my imagination without the generosity and support of a number of people. First, a special thank you to my former editor Jessica Leeke, who
afforded me the time and space I needed to chase down these ideas and whose confidence in me was so important throughout. Thanks to everyone at Simon & Schuster, most particularly Rowan Cope,
Jo Dickinson, and Carla Josephson. Thanks as ever to my agent Judith Murray and the team at Greene & Heaton; to Grainne Fox at Fletcher & Co., and Ed Park at Penguin Press. I am greatly
indebted to Jonathan Lee, Karen Brodie, and the British Council for giving me the chance to live and write in Istanbul; to November Paynter, Anlam Arslanoglu, and the teams at SALT and Noa
Apartments for hosting me so warmly while I was there. My eternal gratitude to Cansu Ataman, Caroline Hesz, and Machiko Weston for the various translations featured herein. Thanks to Shumon Basar,
Robert Weston, Simon Johnson, Ellis Woodman, Funda Kucukyilmaz, Sema Kaygusuz, Sam Alder, Jack Cocker, Derek Dunfield, Peter Irving, Alistair Windsor, and the fine comforts of Galata Kitchen;
enormous thanks to Professor Ian Crawford and Dr David Lloyd for assistance with research matters; to Birkbeck College and all of my supportive colleagues in creative writing. Thanks to the Hesz
family, to my brother Nicholas for help with everything (NaCW!), to Katy Haldenby, and my family, especially my granddad for steering me on course when I most needed it. To JB and RH for
inspiration. Above all, thank you to my wife Stephanie, whose love and understanding of me is the most extraordinary thing: every day with her is clarity.