The Room Beyond (12 page)

‘But would you steal them?’

‘Probably.’

‘Cigarette?’ Seb waved a packet in front of me.

Raphael shook his head and then fixed his eyes on me, so intently
that I felt as if we were staring at each other through a tunnel. For a moment
Seb’s hand blurred out of vision. ‘Most beautiful things are stolen; it makes
them more captivating,’ he murmured.

‘Like Helen of Troy,’ broke in a female voice that made me start. We
all turned to find Eva standing before us. ‘Hello Serena.’

But before I had a chance to say anything to her a hush suddenly
fell across the room and then the slow-paced and almost eerie reverberations of
violin music filled the air. The crowd dispersed as Arabella took to the floor,
thigh-to-thigh with a young man.

We all pulled away to give them space; Arabella in her exuberance
wasn’t taking any prisoners and as she arched her body back and flung up her
sickled neck to the man’s lips I found myself squashed up against Robert.

As usual he was looking rather shy and uncomfortable, although I
could certainly see why on this occasion.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Lovely music!’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not really my sort of thing though.’

I glanced over to see his mother’s face glide startlingly close to
her partner’s groin.

‘Yes I can understand that,’ I replied.

Across the dance floor someone was trying to push through the crowd.
People shifted to either side with annoyed expressions. Over to my right Eva,
Seb and Raphael had formed a disapproving little huddle. Arabella bolted across
the floor, her turban coming loose and her hair tumbling across her shoulders.

‘Look here,’ said Robert, quietly. ‘I don’t really like to get
involved in... family stuff, but none of them know what to do with you. Do you
see? They’ve all got different opinions.’

I looked up into his pale face. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing,’ he shrank back. ‘Perhaps you should leave... this house I
mean. OK, just forget I said anything.’

The music stopped abruptly. Edward had appeared opposite at the
front of the crowd, his lips set in a thin smile. I looked back at Robert but
he was moving away and now I was being pushed in the other direction towards
Eva.

‘We shouldn’t have let her do it... and she’s all tanked up as
well,’ I heard her murmuring to Raphael. ‘Sasha’s upstairs. He’ll have a good
probe whilst her tongue’s loose no doubt. Yuk.’

Arabella curtsied to tumultuous applause as Edward led her gently
away by the hand.

‘We have to send that cretin back to Russia somehow,’ replied
Raphael. ‘Can’t your new man lend a hand, maybe they come from the same town or
something?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

Eva turned and her eyes fell on me, narrowing at once.

‘That’s a very pretty dress,’ she said through tight lips.

‘Thank you.’

‘Have you cut something off it?’

‘No.’

Seb emerged from behind them, grinning broadly at me. ‘Enjoy the
show? Eva’s not bad at the tango either, are you?’

Raphael smirked. ‘She’s too busy for all that now, eh? Spends all
her time eating caviar with her new man.’

‘Shut up darling,’ said Eva, rolling her eyes.

Seb burst out laughing, Raphael egging him on.

‘... So that’s the black diamond he gave you eh?’

‘He mined it himself no doubt.’

‘In his lunch break probably.’

‘Do oligarchs get lunch breaks?’

Gradually they squeezed a smile out of her and then even a laugh as
she started to jibe back at them, their faces full of mock indignation. But I
gave up listening to any of it. Around me the room began to buzz with white
noise and all I could think about was Robert’s strange words, and the image of
Edward escorting his wife from the room.

I nudged my way through the chattering groups in search of a silver
tray, my shoulder brushing against a sweaty shirt front on the way. Above it a
face like a West Highland Terrier glowered down at me.

‘And who are you?’

He was in his thirties maybe, his lips shiny and moist; I could
smell the drink on his breath.

‘I work here. Sorry, excuse me.’

‘You work here!’ he exclaimed, grabbing at my hand. ‘What, polishing
the saucepans?’

‘No, I’m a nanny.’

‘Then shouldn’t you be Latvian or something!’ he bellowed.

‘But I am. How did you guess? Was it my outrageous foreign accent?’

He looked baffled for a moment and I snatched my hand back.

‘Ah, there you are! Are you ready for your escort back to Latvia?’
said a voice behind me. Seb’s voice. Just the sound of it made my whole body
soften like hot wax. ‘I have a carriage waiting outside.’

I began to giggle and the man knitted his fuzzy eyebrows together in
even greater bafflement.

‘Come on,’ said Seb, his lips soft against my face. ‘Stop picking on
the weak. Let’s go to bed.’

His hand clasped mine and we let the noise of the party disappear
into an underworld beneath us. My feet barely touched the stairs; up through
the house together, my hand against the banister and then strumming tenderly up
his spine. And then Seb, my Seb, stripping me of that bloody dress and falling
onto my bed with me in his arms. I gripped his face between my hands and
plunged through the deep blue water, no longer alone. And then I hid my face in
his cool neck, my fingers buried in his hair.

He turned me onto my back, his body as gentle and enveloping as a
shadow. I wrapped my arms and legs tightly around him until his skin felt like
my own. He whispered my name and tears, happy tears, forged canyons down my
cheeks.

That night I watched him sleeping next to me, his face even more
carved and Aztec in the blue light and the sharp sweep of his ribs and hips
beneath the white sheet. I pressed my back against his chest and his body
curved itself around mine.

And then, much later in the night, just before the first haze of
early morning, I think I had the strangest dream. A man came into my room. At
first I thought he was Seb; the eyes were so similar, even in the shadows. But
I could still feel Seb’s body around mine and his breath on my shoulder. No,
this was someone different and the sight of his gaunt shadowed face made my
throat catch with the force of a stranglehold.

He watched me for a long time; his gaze all-consuming, and I screwed
my eyes up tightly against him until I heard the brush of something leaving. But
the image of his face stayed with me and then I remembered where I’d seen it before.
Not in the kind beauty of my lover but in paintings hidden in the quiet corners
of the house; dark paintings that had turned my skin cold. The dream slid past,
but even though I knew he’d gone I kept my eyes tightly shut until sleep
returned again.

1892

It was the same as always. Her mother was wearing her linen
nightgown, her hair plaited into two grey ropes hanging pendulously over her
shoulders.

‘Miranda darling, get me my medicine.’

She didn’t like being in charge of mother. The medicine cupboard was
so high up that she had to drag the biggest chair in the kitchen over to it and
even then her childish legs could only take her so far, even on tiptoe.

She strained her arm towards the bottle with such force that she
thought her ribs might tear apart.

‘Hurry Darling!’

The voice was getting thin and watery; she smarted at its urgency
and imagined the cracked lips through which it had travelled. Her hand fell on
a bottle and she grabbed hold of it, her feet falling back flat on the chair
and her heels just saving her from performing a clumsy backflip onto the stone
floor.

The bottle looked alright; full of brown gooey stuff. And wasn’t
Mummy’s medicine just like that, brown and gooey? She gazed up again at the
cupboard, it seemed to have stretched even further away, and then back at the
bottle.

‘Coming!’ she shouted.

Miranda let her eyes flicker open. The room seemed full of darting
lights: sunshine dazzling her through the window pane. Something about her left
cheek felt as if it didn’t belong to her. She ran her fingertips along it and
found a long bumpy crease where her face had been pressed against the cushion. The
drawing room slowly came back into focus.

The sunshine was a surprise; just when she thought that summer had
well and truly died. She stumbled to the window. Outside the wind had found a
flurry of dead leaves. It scooped them up and then vomited them violently
across the pavement, over and over again.

Today was Thursday. She tried to count back; had it been Saturday or
Sunday when she last saw Tristan, his eyes red and his shirt collar ripped and
stained? She gazed at the growing mountain of his correspondence on the table. From
the top of the pile a fresh letter from Switzerland glowed whitely at her,
their address on the front written in his father’s hand.

There was a rumbling of wheels. A carriage passed her by, drawing to
a halt outside Mrs Eden’s. She cringed back behind the curtains and peeked out
to see Mr Eden’s expansive form emerge from the carriage door. His face seemed
as benign as ever and from within his grey overcoat came the glint of one of
his bold waistcoats: emerald green.

He knocked abruptly at number 36. No one opened. Then she heard the
jangle of keys. They scraped and croaked about in the keyhole, one after
another, but there was no sound of the door giving way. He muttered something
under his breath and then suddenly the walls shuddered with the most almighty
pounding. Miranda jumped away from the window, pressing her back against the
wall.

‘Lucinda, let me in! I want to help you!’

The pounding came to a halt as abruptly as it had begun and his
retreating footsteps crunched back down the path. And yet there was no click of
a carriage door, no hooves or sound of departing wheels. If anything his
footsteps seemed to be getting louder again...

A determined rap now shook her own front door. Her fingers darted to
her hair, the creased line across her face. Mrs Hubbard was approaching.

‘It’s alright, I’ll open it. It’s just an old neighbour of ours.’

‘As you please.’

‘Mr Eden! How nice to see you again.’

‘Please excuse me. Am I interrupting anything?’

His eyes were moist and pleading. He seemed older than she
remembered him, standing there alone on her doorstep.

‘No, do come in. Would you like some tea?’

‘Many thanks but no, just a moment or two of your time.’

He floated behind her like a large cloud into the drawing room,
surprisingly soft-footed and rather dainty in the way he perched on the edge of
one of the chairs.

‘I’m rather concerned about the welfare of my wife Lucinda. Have you
seen her at all recently? Or perhaps her maid Sarah?’

‘I have rarely seen your wife over this past year I’m afraid. She
came for dinner some months ago but left with a headache. I used to see her
servant girl quite regularly but well, now that I’m thinking about it, I
haven’t spotted her around for weeks.’

Mr Eden rested his chin in his neck. He looked as if he wanted to
say something but wasn’t quite sure how. She tried to focus on the gold button
of his waistcoat.

‘Is your husband at home?’ he asked eventually. ‘Perhaps he might
have seen one or the other.’

‘I’m sorry but Mr Whitestone is working. I very much doubt whether
he’s seen them as he’s rarely here. He works incredibly hard you know.’

He smiled kindly at her, his eyes soft and pleading again. ‘I have a
letter here for Lucinda,’ he said, handing her a crisp white envelope from his
inner coat pocket. ‘It’s rather important and I have a feeling that if I put it
through her door it will simply sit there gathering dust. May I leave it with
you? If you see her for any reason I implore you to give it to her.’

She glanced down at the envelope in her hand. ‘How urgent is it? It
is rather a responsibility.’

‘I’ve often noticed you at the window. You sew there, don’t you? I
think you would be the most likely person to spot her if she is around.’ He
shook his head and stared down at the floor. His lip appeared to be trembling. ‘My
apologies, this is wrong of me. This is a very private matter and I shouldn’t
be involving you.’

‘No, no. Of course I’ll pass it on if I can.’

But he still looked agitated, fidgeting about and unable it seemed
to meet her eye.

‘May I ask? Is your wife in danger of any kind?’ she asked, quietly.

He scratched his head, scowled at the floor again, pulled all manner
of awkward faces. The letter began to burn in her hands like a hot coal.

‘I think she is mixing with a rather dangerous individual,’ he
replied. ‘But it isn’t my business to talk to you about this Mrs Whitestone. Please,
please, don’t let anyone else see the letter. And do contact me at the theatre
if you see or hear anything. I’m so sorry I interrupted you.’

‘No interruption at all, I’m sorry for your concern.’

As the carriage wheels groaned into the distance, she turned the
envelope over in her hands. It was an innocent enough looking thing: light,
small, no more than a couple of pages inside perhaps. And just one word on the
front:
Lucinda
.

She sewed at the window for longer than usual that afternoon,
pricking her fingers at the merest hint of a moving hinge somewhere on the
street. But no, no Mrs Eden. It was quite ridiculous really to expect to see
the woman now after so long, just because that letter was smouldering away
upstairs in her dresser drawer.

The light was starting to fail much earlier now. She retreated to her
room and devoured some of Mrs Hubbard’s home-made bread and butter under her
warm bedcovers. There was no need to pretend to be busy at night; she could
read novels until hers eyes itched and drift off into sleep without having to
move a muscle. Even now her eyes were closing down like shutters. Her book
slipped to the floor.

Riawwwww
. A wail. A screech like
something inhuman. What time was it? Gone two o’clock in the morning. The room
was full of shadows, she hugged her knees tightly under the blankets.
Riaaawwwww
.
It was somewhere inside the house, as sharp as a blade edge cutting through the
night air.

She had to do something, get help, but her body trembled at the
thought of leaving her room.
Agwwwwwwww
. The bronze statue of Minerva
glinted on her dresser. She grasped it and it felt cold and reassuring against
the palm of her hand.

Out in the dimly lit corridor all seemed silent and still. She
peered around her, gripping the statue so tightly that she could feel her
knuckles turning white.

Suddenly there came the sound of a loud brushing jolt from
downstairs, followed by something sliding across a floor.
Agh agh agh agh
.
She panted for breath, her hand muffling her sobs. But her feet kept on, one
trembling step at a time down the stairs, her shoulder pressed firmly against
the wall and the statue now clutched against her chest.

‘Oh, Tristan!’ she gasped.

He was lying beneath her on the hallway floor. She couldn’t see his
face but he was breathing heavily, as if he were asleep, the clothes on him as
tattered as a vagrant’s. His shirt looked yellow, stiff with dirt. And near his
foot was a hessian bag tied up with string.

Something in the bag began to move. It squirmed about, with what
looked like limbs extending here and there, struggling to get away. A... baby
perhaps? She retched, clasping at her throat.

The squirming seemed to awaken Tristan. He raised his head for a
moment and groaned.

‘Damn blasted thing,’ he slurred drunkenly. He drew his booted foot
back a little and then fired it at the bag, sending it hurtling across the
tiled floor.
Riiaaw riiaaw riiaaw
. The scream was coming from inside the
bag, less piercing now, more of a whimper.

‘Stop now!’ she screamed.

‘The blasted creature’s good for nothing! Doesn’t catch a thing,’
and he scrambled across the floor towards the bag, his fist poised for attack,
a clump of sinew quivering in the air.

The blow was short; over so quickly that it was hard to say whether
it had actually happened at all. But Minerva was smiling up at her from the
ground and one of her slender hands was slightly bent. Tristan’s eyes were shut
firmly; she could already see a surly looking mound of blue rising up at the
side of his forehead and scarlet where the skin had broken.

She picked the knotted bag open with shaking fingers. ‘Don’t worry
little thing, it’s over now.’

Her hand landed on soft fur. A ginger cat, no longer a kitten but
still young with green marble-like eyes.

‘It’s alright.’

Its silky fur was warm against her lips.

‘Would you like some milk? You’re too thin little thing. Where did
he find you? Here, let me take you to the kitchen.’

The cat clung to her as if it instantly recognized a friend and once
down on the kitchen floor it squirmed ravenously towards the saucer of milk she
gave it, one of its back paws dragging along behind it like a spare part.

‘Ah I see you still want to live. That’s very good.’

But that leg looked bad. She rifled round for something to set it:
there were some bandages in the cupboard by the door and a small wooden spatula
that would work as a temporary splint for the night.

When the animal had licked the saucer clean she lay it carefully on
the kitchen table and eased the shattered bone back into place. It watched her
with listless but unblinking eyes, too exhausted to object.

‘I thought you might fight me on this little thing but you’re being
very good. I used to have a cat like you when I was a girl. It was a very
naughty cat though, always getting into trouble and it broke its leg too. I
watched them fix it, just like this. All better again. Now, I’ll take you
upstairs with me, but I need to get my statue back first.’

Tristan was still lying exactly where she’d left him in the hallway.
She crept past him back upstairs, the cat clutched under one arm and the statue
under the other.

‘You can sleep here on this cushion. Look, this is my bed, I’m not
far away. Good night Minerva. It’s a rather good name for you, don’t you think?
You’re a strong little thing, aren’t you?’

By the morning the cat was curled in a tight ball at the end of
Miranda’s bed. She ruffled its fur gently with her fingers and caught sight of
herself in the mirror. Her skin was pale but she looked quite calm, not shaking
at all now.

‘Breakfast time little cat, come on.’

Downstairs, Tristan had gone. The hallway echoed with emptiness and
she felt as if she was standing on its cold tiles for the first time again, a
stranger in her own home. An ugly looking stain caught the corner of her eye. It
was comma shaped: a flaky, bloodstain on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. A
little further up there was another similar mark, and then another. She shrank
back and hurried on to the kitchen, Minerva purring softly against her chest.

‘Now what are you bringing into my kitchen?’ groaned Mrs Hubbard.

‘A perfectly civilized young cat. I’ve called her Minerva, isn’t she
lovely?’

‘What’s wrong with its leg?’

‘I think she must have been attacked. I found her on the street last
night making the most awful din.’

‘I don’t like creatures in the kitchen.’

‘Think of her as a friend then. Would you mind feeding her? I need
to see to something upstairs.’

The comma shaped mark laughed at her in the hallway again. She
chipped at it with her thumb nail and it fell away leaving a dirty tea coloured
scar on the wall behind. She pictured him crumpled and staggering up the
stairs, half blind with pain, touching his head, brushing his bloodied fingers
against the wall.