Surrender to Mr. X (27 page)

I could see that it probably was, and also the rain forest drug wasn't as hopeless as they said, because my interest in things of the flesh was quite revived.

“I'm not as hetero as all that,” said Naz, and got to his feet and walked out, and I applauded gently. I like it when others show spirit. But then Naz wasn't under will. I seemed to have remarkably little choice, living under law, the law being love.

Snapshot. Me meeting Robert at Paddington.

Snapshot: Robert wandering amongst our grandmother's art, my paintings, the Chagall, the
Picasso, the Klimt—he has quite an eye for a painting—my scented lingerie, my dresses, my jackets, my scarves, my mascaras, eye color, concealers, all my littered lovely female mess: my Wittgenstein, my Cathexis, still unopened.

Robert scooping up a great armful of garments and throwing them all in the air and laughing. Robert at my dressing table putting on lipstick, patting his hair, deciding no wig: pulling out drawers, pulling on panties to hold himself in, smooth his front of unsightly bobbles, constrict him.

“I reckon I'm gay,” he said. “Or perhaps I'm a girl.”

I said, “You don't know till you try.”

“I don't go for all that marriage and children stuff,” he said.

I said, “My boyfriend has asked us out to dinner tonight to meet some friends of his,” and Robert said that was okay by him, there wasn't much food in this place, was there? “Robert,” I said, “but you have to do me a favor. Play it plebeian, not public school. I've told them you're a comprehensive boy, our dad is an unemployed retard, mum's a social worker and we live in a council flat.”

“That's fine by me,” he said. “More fashionable.”

Snapshot. We go out walking down by the canal in the evening. He is fetchingly pretty in my pale pink flouncy blouse and a peasant skirt with a tight gold belt. It wasn't a woman's taste: it was what a man thought a woman's taste was. I'd helped him with his eye-shadow
and mascara. Two coats, no smudges. Some concealer for the acne but it wasn't too bad.

“Feels really good,” he said, my little teenage brother, stumbling on heels, head high, little bosoms improvised out of rolled up socks, buttocks out, pretty face turned to the low sun. Men looked after us. I could see it was a turning point. What was to become of him? He'd scraped through his exams. What then? I supposed he could join the Soho
demi-monde
, that subfusc world of men and women of dubious sexuality, who frequent the clubs and the street corners, thinking about sex-change ops, talking to therapists, staring into mirrors, dolling themselves up, thinking about nothing except the impression they make. Well, it was his life.

Snapshot. Dinner at the Ivy. Very grand. Alden, Ray, me, Bernie, Robert, Lady Daisy and Lord O, puffing and snorting and spluttering when he spoke. She looking at me a little puzzled and saying, “I'm sure I've met you somewhere before. Do you paint also?”

All of us having caviar—the last of their Beluga, imports now being banned—Bernie saying there was nothing else worth eating on the menu. Ray wincing: he and Alden were treating the rest of us. Bernie choosing the wine.

And Bernie looking at Robert and Robert looking at Bernie: and the two of them falling in love. I've seen it happen once or twice before. Two people meet, their eyes hold, and they know their lives are going to join, whether it be for a night, a week, a year, for life. Across
a crowded room, everything just slips into another gear, another dimension, the Dream Time. Though of course it is possible for at least one person to pretend. But this was genuine: I'd give it at least five years.

Robert recovering first. Bernie, moon-eyes, pouring him champagne. Their futures sorted, just like that. Robert would learn about art, money, power; move on when he had learned all he needed. Bernie would be left behind, but that would be his fate whoever it was. I had won the old man another few years, which he didn't deserve because he thought nothing of me, and let it show, but never mind.

Lifting champagne glasses to the En Garde gallery, opening Tuesday, a week to go. Well, not quite—it's already Thursday.
The Blue Box
to be put in place on Sunday. “Isn't that cutting it a bit fine?” from Lord Toby. Daisy patting his hand, and saying, “Don't be such a fusspot, Toby. We must trust Ray.” Ray saying it was completed, except the varnishing: I knowing otherwise—one square still to go and another two mirrors cracked today.

Ray picking up the bill—but there's something wrong with his right hand. The fingers won't clench. Bernie taking the tab from Ray, saying: “No, please let me do this.” Bernie holding Robert's eye, soppy and daft. Robert's cheerful, bright smile. Robert 16, Bernie 53, I guessed, but given an age of consent, consent can get given. The time is right. Robert takes the baton from me and runs with it.

Bernie saying, “Can't thank you enough for inviting me, Alden. Thank you Ray.” For my little brother Robert, the freebie, or loss leader.

S
NAPSHOTS.
P
ANIC STATIONS
. R
AY'S
right hand, paralyzed. The clock ticking. A week to go. Mirrors cracking and springing as fast as Lam can mend them. Only one square left to fill in with tiny lines to complete the universe, but the apparent unlikelihood of its achievement. Alden's chair going round in circles as he loses control of his touch-pads in his agitation—I've never seen this before. Dr. Wondle summonsed urgently. Diagnosis: hysterical paralysis. The cause: stress, sexual repression. No wonder they have him as a doctor: private doctors always tell you what you want to hear.

Vanessa's voice loud and clear in my head. She says the poststructuralist concept of subjectivity is suggestive of a self that is both stable, and unstable, knowable and unknowable, constructed and unique. Crowley's pivotal magical experience was when the Scarlet Woman copulated with the goat and it was the goat that died. What is Alden's pivotal experience
going to be, as he follows in the footsteps of the master, seeking ultimate self-realization? Desperate people do desperate things: be careful. Vanessa bows out with a cheery, “Take care, God is good, keep rocking!”

Alden's persecuting Ray by telling him he has the name of a private restorer who'll come in and get the piece ready in no time. He'll simply copy into the waiting Box 93 what's in Box 1 and that will complete the circle. Hysterics from Ray: threats of suicide: an actual physical attack on Alden which has to be fended off by Lam. I am back cleaning and scrubbing and getting under everyone's feet but somehow it feels safer at floor level. A telephone call from Robert saying he's in love, he's in love, he's in love, he's in love with a wonderful man. I am rather sorry for Bernie: his emotions will be shredded at some point.

And Ray's poor right hand dangles from his wrist, useless, just as his cock dangles from his balls, useless. If only the one worked, the other would too.

A telephone call from the BBC: they're hoping for delivery soon. They have a change of schedule. Can Alden have the piece in its finished form within the week? Alden says yes, and stares at me. What does he want from me now? Some deathbed howl? We watch some porn films to see the state of the market. We watch family snaps of the twins on the lawn playing netball.

“They're virgins, aren't they,” he says. “You were telling porky-pies?”

“How would you know that?” I ask, but he just shrugs. I say yes, actually: he wins, he's right. He doesn't pursue the matter any further. He just waits. I know him by now. But there isn't much time to take time, and we both know it.

I do what I can for Alden, I really do. I lie down, crawl about, crouch, sit, blow, suck, twirl, everything a girl with a practiced repertoire can do for any man without the use of his legs, but a strong upper body and an alien assistant. I squeal, grunt, scream, choke, laugh, delight, chatter, and come: 80% is genuine. Still he doesn't come: the gods of Tantra win.

I do what I can for Ray. I lie in his big low divan with its heavy silk savonnerie spread, naked and next to him at his request: he's crying and needs comfort, his nose is running and he's snuggled into goose-down cushions in the fetal position, and the sheets haven't been changed for ages. I do the rest of the house but not the studio (nor the Bluebeard room, of course). It's very Ray-ish and fairly disgusting but I'm sorry for him. I wear nothing but he's not interested. His penis lies small and cozy against his balls and refuses to so much as twitch. That's okay by me, though not by Alden. Alden wants Ray's soul and Ray won't let him have it. Alden sees Ray as an extension of himself. Ray in the meanwhile won't have Alden in bed with us. He says it's unnatural. The paralysis is his punishment for sins of lust. My sins, he means, Ray just mostly watched.

Even as Ray and I lie there in the dark there's a tiny pinging sound, and I know another mirror's gone. I wonder if the same thing is happening to the quilt in the mirror room—whether the patches are disintegrating yet further. I decide to go down and see.

Snapshot. Me creeping from the studio and tiptoeing downstairs to the mirrored bedroom with my needle and thread. A couple more patches have come adrift, but maybe it's not too bad, not terminal. The quilt ought really go to be professionally restored, but I can't face the uproar consequent upon my suggesting it. I sit on the floor to get to the worst frayings and comings-apart which are round the hem. The mirrors throw back reflections: I'm there reflected unto all infinity—naked girl crouching with needle and thread. I don't like the room at all any more: nasty things have happened here. Once it was pure and light and naughty and experimental. Now something else haunts it.

Snapshot. Alden's chair, the swish of its wheels on the carpet. My ears are tuned to the sound by now. Alden in a rage, or is it simulated rage? Something has happened.

Lam follows on behind.

“Vanessa!” he says. “Liar.”

He seems to be crying. There are tears on his cheeks. So, I am discovered. Robert had blabbed. Well, it was bound to come out. I am not Joan, the girl he can despise, I am Vanessa, the girl he must respect, love for her mind as well as for her body. If a man can love
Joan surely he would love Vanessa more? It will all be all right. If only he had not said Vanessa's name as if he hated her.

Alden presses a touch pad. The hum starts up: the latest, horriblest version with my howls upon it. Another touch and the metal bars begin to come down to form the V. Lam is looking for whips. I fear for my life. I offer Alden the twins.

Snapshot. Vanessa writing out place names. Florists are bringing in flowers, masses of them.

Vanessa: How do you spell Mikhail?

Alden: M-i-k-h-a-i-I.

Vanessa: As in an oligarch?

Alden: As in an oligarch.

Vanessa: And Bernie?

Alden: B-e-r-n-i-e. I thought you knew how to spell. You might as well be Joan.

So we can laugh about it now. The twins are coming to dinner. They're staying the night at the Dorchester, all expenses paid by Alden. Bernie's oligarch is coming. He has to be soothed because of the fiasco with the rainforest drug. No-one likes to look foolish. If the oligarch is pleased, favors will flow down the line once more. Everyone will benefit. Everyone is excited and confident. They know the night augers well.

Caterers are providing the dinner. All I have to do are the place names. Ray is out of his sofa bed, taking a bath, shaving, enjoying all the things a man can do with his left hand. By tomorrow he is sure
The Blue
Box
will be complete, all ninety-three squares done, three years' work borne fruit. I think he expects an apotheosis. Tomorrow, tomorrow all will be well, he will be assumed into Heaven. Alden has spent most of the day in his Bluebeard room. Occasionally he comes out to wind me up about my double first.

“Philosophy!” he exclaims. “Your father a Latin scholar, your mother a vicar! What a little minx you are. Laughing at us all the time, I suppose?”

I say laughter was not really all that high up on my agenda. Oh, I was growing up.

Snapshot: Katharine and Alison, in a taxi with Vanessa, from Paddington on their way to Hampstead, and Alden's mansion on the hill. They look awful, negligible, wearing the shapeless navy blue in which they hope to stay invisible. They have one small, old-fashioned leather suitcase between them, with (they say) all their finery in it, which they have chosen themselves. I'm rather worried about this. I am wearing jeans, heels, a plain white top and my Lacroix jacket and look gorgeous. They haven't even noticed.

Alison: We've been reading the Minmermus Elegies.

Katharine: 7th century BC. Very early texts.

Alison: Our tutor says it would help if we could only feel, not just think. It's a matter of interpretation, not just translation.

I can't concentrate. What am I doing? Why?

Katharine: Don't worry about it, Vanessa.

Alison: We know what we're doing.

Katharine: We brought white dresses for defilement.

Vanessa: Defilement? You've been asked to a dinner party.

They look at me with skeptical eyes and laugh. What can Bernie have told them, Robert? What can Robert have told the twins? But Robert won't be there tonight; he's back at Eton.

The twins meet Alden, and politely admire his wheelchair and his house. They are not shown all of it; not the mirror room, for instance. They are gauche, have no social graces. They ask Alden about his accident and whether it has affected his potency. He tells them no, though he has some residual psychosomatic difficulty. They hope stem-cell technology will soon be able to help him.

I ask Alden how he finds them, and he says it's as well the oligarch speaks very little English.

They go up to the studio and meet Ray and admire
The Blue Box
. They point out that one of the squares is still blank and ask if this is accident or design. Ray replies, “Act of God.” Alison counts the squares and tells her sister “ninety-three,” and Katharine says, “I see, a greeting.” Alison asks Ray if moving the piece is going to be a problem. They are introduced to Lam and Katharine says, “LAM? Isn't that the acronym for lymphangioleiomyomatosis?”