Destiny (75 page)

That night, they decorated the little tree. They tied it with ribbons, strung it with tinsel, hung the pretty baubles from its branches. They had closed the curtains, and lit the fire, turned on only one lamp.

In the soft warm light, the little room looked charming with its red velvet chairs, and its soft worn rugs. Lewis no longer thought of it as shabby—he no longer cared. It was not Anne Kneale's room anymore: it was theirs.

They had forgotten to buy any other food except the turkey, so they feasted on toast and caviar in front of the fire, and looked at the tree, and held hands, and talked.

Lewis knew words were inadequate, but he tried very hard to explain to her how he felt: how, all his life, he had been frightened of failing, and trying to find an alternative route. How he had tried to be what his parents wanted, and then what he wanted, and then what his friends wanted, and

DESTINY • 465

finally, what Thad wanted. And now, suddenly, all that was unimportant, because now he could be himself.

"I love you," Lewis said. He buried his face in her lap. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

She bent her head, and kissed his hair. She stroked him gently, hke a mother comforting a child. And Lewis felt guilty. He felt he had to confess to her. He poured it all out, the horrible person he had been. The wine, the women, the parties, the confusion. How he had hated it and pretended he Uked it, and how he now wished that it had never happened, because he wasn't good enough for her, and he wanted to be.

"That's not true, Lewis," she said. "Please don't believe it. Please don't think it. Lewis—come to bed."

The next day they spent a great many hours cooking that monster of a turkey. Since they had forgotten to buy potatoes, or any other vegetables, they ate it with sweet com, a can of which they discovered in a cupboard. It tasted delicious. They drank a bottle and a half of a fine Burgundy— Lewis had not forgotten that—and then, feeling a httle tipsy, they went for a walk, through deserted streets and along the side of the smooth-flowing river. Sweet Thames, Lewis murmured, fragments of that expensive education remaining with him. He caught her hand, and swung it.

She stopped, and looked down at the water. She wondered if what she was doing was wrong, but the thought seemed to her to have no reality. Things happened; you could only control them so much. The wine she had drunk seemed to flow through her mind, lulling it; the slow movement of the river itself was hypnotic. She fixed her eyes on one twig, watched it being carried downriver. The tidal pull was very strong, and she found that comforting.

"I Uved near a river once." She pressed Lewis's hand. "It's cold. Let's go home."

They went home. Lit the fire, closed the curtains, locked the door. A make-believe world, Lewis thought, and smiled, hking the idea. They made it, and they believed in it. Nothing else mattered.

They opened their presents in front of the fire. She had bought him a tie, and a scarf, a black leather billfold, a box of linen handkerchiefs, a silk shirt that was the right collar size, and a bottle of Armagnac. She tipped these presents into Lewis's lap, her eyes wide and nervous, as if she were terrified he would scorn them or find them inadequate.

Lewis, who knew she had had no money in Paris, and that the amount she had been paid so far for the film was very little, was deeply touched. He unwrapped each one, slowly and carefully, and she watched him hke an anxious child, her hands darting out occasionally to touch a box, to pull at a piece of stubborn wrapping paper. When all the presents had been

466 • SALLY BEAUMAN

opened, they knelt, looking at each other. Their laps, and the rug, were strewn with lace and silk and torn paper and shiny ribbons.

"Do you like them? Are they all right? Oh, Lewis. It's hard to buy a man presents. ..." She glanced at him shyly, stroked the things that lay on her lap. "These are so beautiful, and what I chose is so dull. I would have liked—"

She broke off, and Lewis reached across and took her hand. He wanted to say that only one gift mattered to him then—that if she said she loved him, too, he would have everything he wanted in life. But it seemed wrong, and ungracious, almost unnecessary anyway. He thought, looking into her wide eyes, that she understood.

"My darling." He bent and pressed his lips mto the soft palm of her hand. "My darling."

Later, he persuaded her to dress up in some of the things he had chosen. They drank some of the Armagnac, and it became like a marvelous, and for Lewis, arousing game. Palest pink silk shimmering against her skin. Lace that revealed the creamy curves of her breasts. The pearls wound around her throat. A white nightgown of silk through which he could glimpse the darkness of her nipples, the shadowed triangle of her pubic hair. Lewis's body hardened and stirred; he lay back, watching her. She slipped the white nightgown off, and pulled on the black one.

It transformed her; but, he saw, she had also the power to transform herself. She changed, too, with her costumes. The planes of her face seemed to Lewis to alter, so that, a young girl a moment before, she now looked older, a woman. He stared at her, mesmerized: her lips seemed to him fuller, her eyes darker and wider, almost black; she seemed not to move at all, and yet her very stance altered; there was a new erotic jut to her breasts. She looked down at him; Lewis knew the thrust of his erection was obvious; she smiled. She knelt down and began to whisper to him, and as she did so, she changed her voice. Lewis listened in astonishment; her eyes were amused, and he knew she was teasing him, that somewhere, inside, she was the same woman, the same Helen. But just for a moment he could not believe it; she changed herself before his eyes, and he found it almost unbearably erotic, as if he were being tempted, not by one woman, but by many. It aroused him, and it also frightened him a little. He touched her face, held it between his hands, and drew it around so he could look into her eyes.

"Helen? How do you do that? I didn't know you could . . ."

She smiled. "It's a trick I have. I have lots of voices. I have a good ear, that's all." She paused. "I can have an English voice—several English voices. A French one. An Italian one. American ones ..." She glanced

DESTINY • 467

down, her lashes brushing her cheeks. "I can have a southern voice—I can have your voice, I think."

Lewis laughed. "Mine? I don't believe it."

"Listen." She frowned, concentrating. Then she said a few sentences, and Lewis listened, amazed, to Helen speaking his tongue. The clipped Bostonian vowels, a slightly arrogant nasal flatness. Lewis gripped her arms, and gave her a gentle shake. "Stop that. You've convinced me. You're seducing me in my own voice, and I don't like it. It's disturbing."

She stopped instantly. Her color rose, and she looked up at him. When she next spoke, it was with her own voice.

"Is that what I'm doing, Lewis? Seducing you?"

"No, of course not. I didn't mean that. I was just teasing." He went to embrace her, and then something serious and intent in her face stopped him. She lifted her hand and pressed her fingers against his lips.

"I don't want to pretend, Lewis. I don't. I want you to know me as I am. I want to be truthful, Lewis—" She stopped, her eyes wide, her mouth trembhng a little, so Lewis suddenly felt an overwhelming protectiveness toward her, an intense and gentle love. He drew her to him, and held her close. He kissed her hair, and her face, and her closed eyes. His Helen. He felt quite certain he knew her, as certain as he was that he loved her. He sUpped the black silk over her head, and tossed it to one side. Then he drew her down onto the floor, and in front of the fire, amid the wrappings and the presents, he made love to her. This time, for the first time, she clung to him tightly when he came, and covered his face with shy kisses.

He took her upstairs, lifting her easily in his arms, slid her into the bed, and under the sheets, where it was warm. Then he climbed in beside her, wanting her again, and made love to her again. Before, he had sensed some resistance in her; like a fine strong strand of gossamer, it would not give. This time, to Lewis's wonderment and pride, it snapped. She cried out once, though not his name.

In the morning, the fourth morning, she woke first. Lewis opened his eyes and found her looking down, gently, into his face. He reached for her sleepily, and drew her warm body into his arms, holding her gently and with a sense of happy possession. She waited until she was sure that he was quite awake, then she pressed her slender hands either side of his face, and turned him so he looked at her.

Then, gently, gravely, faltering only a little, but clearly afraid, she told him the truth. She was pregnant.

468 • SALLY BEAUMAN

The baby was due in May. She had seen a doctor, and that was what he had said. She would never, could never, she said, see the baby's father again. It was over, and she never wanted to talk about it. Lewis stared at her in utter stupefaction. He looked down into her face; he looked at the gentle curve of her stomach.

He walked out of the bedroom, leaving her there, went downstairs, looked at the little Christmas tree, wan in the morning light, and wept.

He felt betrayed, of course. He felt also the most raging and acutely painful jealousy. It physically affected him, as if knives were being dug into his flesh, as if something monstrous were tearing him apart. Who? What man? What was his name, and what did he look like? Lewis felt he wanted to see that man, to know him, to confront him face to face, and then fight with him. Had she loved him? Had he loved her? What had he done to her? How, how often, where?

Sexual jealousy is never a dignified emotion. It is ugly and its banality is inescapable. Lewis knew his thoughts were banal and crude, and that fact made the pain worse. Both what he knew and what he did not know tormented him. He looked around the httle room, and wanted to cry out, to break things, to howl and to smash blindly.

He leapt to his feet and ran up the stairs. He flung back the door, Ufted her in his arms, shook her.

"Tell me you love me. Just tell me that. Tell me that, and I swear, I swear, nothing else matters. ..."

He could hardly believe it was his voice speaking, this voice which choked on the emotion he felt.

"I care for you, Lewis." She sounded frightened. "I care for you very much."

He wanted to hit her then. Care was such a little word. A tiny inadequate pathetic word. He hated her for using it. He hfted his hand, and almost struck her. Then he let it fall, slammed out of the room, slammed back down the stairs, feeling like a fool, feeling like an animal.

He paced up and down the room, back and forth, up and down. He tried to think, to compose his mind, and it went on howling its pain at him. He decided to get drunk, poured out a tumbler of Armagnac, took one swallow, then went into the kitchen and tipped the rest down the sink. He searched for cigarettes, found three empty packets, and one full one, inhaled the nicotine, and felt it calm him, just a little. Then he sat down and stared at the Christmas tree and made himself think.

Anyone familiar with the charity and masochism of intense love—and

DESTINY • 469

Lewis was both intensely in love and naturally kind—would be able to predict the course of his thoughts. They were predictable even to Lewis himself. First forgiveness. Then, after a period of further raging, excuses. There his mind became extraordinarily creative. Suddenly he could think of a thousand reasons, a million, why this should have happened, and why Helen had acted as she did. The man had duped her, used her. Maybe she had loved him, but he must have rejected her, because otherwise she would be with him. Maybe she hadn't loved him after all—that lifted his heart for a second. He leapt up from his seat, found a calendar, and began to count weeks like a madman. The time she left them in Paris, those weeks, he decided. Then. And she had come back to them then, of her own accord: he felt his hope soaring. Forgiveness turned to pity. He remembered how ill she had looked sometimes in Rome. He remembered standing outside her bedroom door at the palazzo, and hearing her weeping. She must have been so afraid, so lonely. At once she seemed to him brave, to have kept her fears to herself. He felt admiration for such strength, fury with himself for being so obtuse, so unnoticing. In a second, pity had winged into love, love into protectiveness. She had turned to him. She had told him. He looked around the httle room, and saw it again with yesterday's eyes.

Lewis sat there two hours altogether. At the end of that time, exhausted, cold, unable to force his mind to think anymore, he knew only one thing with any certainty. He loved her. There it was.

Lewis went back up the stairs. She had not moved. Her face was pale and swollen, and he thought she had been crying. Awkwardly and gently, Lewis sat down on the bed and took her hand.

Then, because he didn't know what else to do, he asked her to marry him.

She sat very still. Lewis lifted his face to hers, and clasped her hand.

"Please," he said. "I love you. I wanted to marry you anyway. I've been thinking about it every day since—" He broke off. "The baby doesn't make any difference. Why should it? I'll look after you and I'll look after the baby. I want to, Helen. Please, say you'll marry me. I can't bear this. I'm going mad."

Helene felt terribly afraid. She could see Lewis had been crying; the expression on his face made him look very young, almost like a boy, and for a moment she saw them both, herself and Lewis, as if from far away: two frightened children, clinging to each other for support.

She was absolutely certain then, for a brief second, that she should refuse. Then she thought of the baby, and how it would be, trying to work, trying to bring up a child on her own. She could see how it would be; the picture was hideously clear in her mind. / won't let my baby live like that, she thought, and, taking Lewis's hand, she said "yes."

470 • SALLY BEAUMAN

On the sixth day, Thad arrived from Paris, unannounced. He hammered at the door, and came in, bustling. Thad came—and the world came with him.