The Book of Evidence (11 page)

I do not recall p r o p o s i n g to D a p h n e . H e r hand, so to speak, had already been granted m e . W e w e r e married one misty, hot a f t e r n o o n in A u g u s t . T h e c e r e m o n y was quick and squalid. I had a headache all t h r o u g h it. A n n a and a colleague of m i n e f r o m the university acted as witnesses.

A f t e r w a r d s the four of us w e n t back to the house in the hills and drank cheap c h a m p a g n e . T h e occasion w a s not a success. My colleague m a d e a l i m p excuse and departed after half an hour, leaving the three of us together in a restless, swirling silence. All sorts of u n s p o k e n things s w a m in the air b e t w e e n us like slithery, d a n g e r o u s fish. T h e n A n n a , with that smile, said she s u p p o s e d we y o u n g things w o u l d w a n t to be alone, and left. S u d d e n l y I w a s prey to an absurd e m b a r r a s s m e n t . I j u m p e d up and b e g a n collecting the e m p t y bottles and the glasses, a v o i d i n g D a p h n e ' s eye. T h e r e w a s sun and mist in the kitchen w i n d o w . I stood at the sink l o o k i n g o u t at the blue-black 71

I do not k n o w that I loved Daphne in the manner that the world understands by that word, but I do k n o w that I loved her ways. Will it seem strange, cold, perhaps even inhuman, if I say that I was only interested really in what she was on the surface? Pah, what do I care h o w it seems.

This is the only w a y another creature can be known: on the surface, that's where there is depth. Daphne walking through a r o o m searching for her spectacles, touching things gently, quickly, reading things with her fingertips.

T h e way she had of turning aside and peering into her purse, frowning, lips compressed, like a maiden aunt fetching up a shilling for sweets. Her stinginess, her sudden rushes of greed, childish and endearing. That time, years ago, I can't remember where, when 1 came upon her at the end of a party, standing by a w i n d o w in a white dress in the half-light of an April dawn, lost in a dream — a dream f r o m which I, tipsy and in a temper, unceremoni-ously w o k e her, when I could — dear Christ! — when f could have hung back in the shadows and painted her, d o w n to the tiniest, tenderest detail, on the blank inner wall of my heart, where she w o u l d be still, vivid as in that dawn, my dark, mysterious darling.

We quickly agreed — tacitly, as always — to leave America. I gave up my studies, the university, my academic career, everything, with hardly a second thought, and before the year was out we had sailed for Europe.

M
A O L S E A C H L A W M
M
A C
G
I O L L A
G
U N N A
, m y counse l and , he insists, my friend, has a
trich
of seizing on the apparently trivial in the elaboration of his cases. Anecdotes of his m e t h o d s circulate in the corridors of chancery, and around the catwalks in here. Details, details are his obsession. He is a large, l u m b e r i n g , unhandy man — yards, literally yards of pinstripe — with a big square head and r a g g e d y hair and tiny, haunted eyes. I think a life spent p o k i n g in the crevices of other people's nasty little tragedies has d a m a g e d s o m e t h i n g in him. He exudes an air of injured longing. T h e y say he is a terror in court, but when he sits at the scarred table in the counsel r o o m here, with his half-glasses h o o k e d on that big head, crouched over his papers and writing out notes in a laborious, minute hand, panting a little and muttering to himself, I am reminded irresistibly of a certain fat b o y f r o m my schooldays, w h o was disconsolately in love with me, and w h o m I used to get to do my h o m e w o r k for me.

At present Maolseachlainn is deeply interested in w h y I went to 'Whitewater in the first place. B u t w h y should 1

not have g o n e there? I k n e w the Behrenses — or G o d k n o w s I k n e w Anna, a n y w a y . I had been a w a y for ten 73

years, I was paying a social call, as a friend of the family.

This, however, is not g o o d enough, it seems. Maolseachlainn frowns, slowly shaking his great head, and without realising it goes into his court routine. Is it not true that I left my mother's house in anger only a day after my arrival there? Is it not the case that I was in a state of high indignation because I had heard my father's collection of pictures had been sold to H e l m u t Behrens for what I considered a paltry sum? A n d is it not further the case that I had reason already to feel resentment against the m a n Behrens, w h o had attempted to cuckold my father in —

B u t hold on there, old man, I said: that last bit only came to light later on. He always looks so crestfallen when I stop him in his tracks like this. All the same, facts are facts.

It is true, I did fight with my mother again, I did storm out of the house (with the d o g after me, of course, trying to bite my heels). H o w e v e r , Binkie Behrens was not the causc of the r o w , or not directly, a n y w a y . As far as I r e m e m b e r it was the same old squabble: m o n e y , betrayal, my g o i n g to the States, my leaving the States, my marriage, my abandoned career, all that, the usual — and, yes, the fact that she had flogged my birthright for the price of a string of plug-ugly ponies out of which she had imagined she w o u l d m a k e a fortune to provide for herself in the decrepitude of her old age, the deluded b l o o d y bitch. There was as well the business of the girl Joanne. As I was leaving I paused and said, measuring my words, that I thought it hardly appropriate for a w o m a n of my mother's position in society — her position! — in society! — to be so c h u m m y with a stable-girl. I confess I had intended to cause outrage, but I am afraid I was the one w h o ended up goggle-eyed. My mother, after a m o m e n t ' s silence, stared me straight in the face, with brazen insouciance, and said that J o a n n e was not a child, that she was in fact 74

twenty-seven years of age. She is — with a pause here for effect — she is like a son to m e , the son I never had.

Well, I said, s w a l l o w i n g hard, I ' m h a p p y for y o u both, I ' m sure! and flounced out of the house. On the drive, though, I had to stop and wait for my indignation and resentment to subside a little before I could get my breath back. S o m e t i m e s I think I am an utter senti-mentalist.

I g o t to W h i t e w a t e r that evening. T h e last leg of the j o u r n e y I m a d e by taxi f r o m the village. T h e driver w a s an i m m e n s e l y tall, emaciated m a n in a flat cap and an antique, blue-flannel suit. He studied me with interest in the driving-mirror, hardly bothering to watch the road ahead of us. I tried staring back at h i m hatefully, but he was unabashed, and only grinned a little on one side of his thin face with a peculiarly friendly air of k n o w i n g . W h y do I r e m e m b e r people like this so vividly? T h e y clutter my m i n d , w h e n I l o o k up f r o m the p a g e they are thronged around me in the shadows, silent, mildly curious — even, it m i g h t be, solicitous. T h e y are witnesses, I suppose, the innocent bystanders w h o have c o m e , without malice, to testify against m e .

I can never a p p r o a c h W h i t e w a t e r without a small, involuntary g a s p o f admiration. T h e drive leads u p f r o m the road in a long, deep, treeless curve, so that the house seems to turn, slowly, dreamily, o p e n i n g w i d e its Palladian colonnades. T h e taxi d r e w to a stop on the gravel b e l o w the great front steps, and with the sudden silence c a m e the realisation — yes, Maolseachlainn, I a d m i t it — that I had no reasonable cause to be there. 1 sat for a m o m e n t l o o k i n g about me in g r o g g y consternation, like a wakened sleepwalker, but the driver was w a t c h i n g me in the mirror n o w 7S

with rapt expectancy, and I had to pretend to k n o w what I was about. 1 got out of the car and stood patting my pockets and frowning importantly, but I could not fool him, his lopsided grin g r e w slyer still, for a second I thought he was g o i n g to wink at me. I told him brusquely to wait, and m o u n t e d the steps pursued by an unshakeable sensation of general mockery.

After a long time the door was opened by a wizened little angry man in what appeared at first to be a bus conductor's uniform. A few long strands of very black hair were plastered across his skull like streaks of boot polish.

He looked at me with deep disgust. N o t open today, he said, and was starting to shut the door in my face when I rubbing my hands slowly and smiling, playing the returned expatriate. Ah, I said, the old place! T h e great Tintoretto on the stairs, swarming with angels and m a d -

eyed martyrs, blared at me its vast chromatic chord. T h e d o o r m a n or whatever he was danced about anxiously behind me. I turned and l o o m e d at him, still grinning, and said no, I wasn't a tripper, but a friend of the family — was Miss Behrens at h o m e , by any chance? He dithered, distrustful still, then told me to wait, and scuttled o f f d o w n the hall, splaying one flat foot as he went and carefully smoothing the oiled hairs on his pate.

I waited. All was silent save for the ticking of a tall, seventeenth-century G e r m a n clock. On the wall beside me there was a set of six exquisite little B o n i n g t o n watercolours, I could have put a couple of them under my arm there and then and walked out. T h e clock took a laboured breath and pinged the half-hour, and then, all about me, in farther and farther rooms, other clocks too let fall their single, silvery chimes, and it was as if a tiny tremor had passed through the house. I looked again at the 76

Tintoretto. T h e r e was a Fragonard, too, and a Watteau.

A n d this was only the hallway. W h a t was g o i n g on, what had happened, that it was all left unattended like this? I heard the t a x i m a n outside sounding his horn, a tentative, apologetic little toot. He must have thought I had forgotten about him, (I had.) S o m e w h e r e at the back of the house a d o o r b a n g e d shut, and a second later a breath of cool air brushed past my face. ! advanced creakingly along the hall, a hot9 almost sensuous thrill of apprehensiveness pulsing behind my breastbone. I am at heart a timid m a n , large deserted places m a k e me nervous.

O n e of the figures in the Fragonard, a silken lady with blue eyes and a p l u m p lower lip, was watching me sidelong with what seemed an expression of appalled but lively speculation. Cautiously I opened a door. T h e fat k n o b turned tinder my hand with a wonderful, confiding smoothness. I entered a long, high, narrow, m a n y -

w i n d o w e d r o o m . T h e wallpaper w a s the colour o f tarnished g o l d . T h e air was golden too, suffused with the heavy soft light of evening. I felt as if I had stepped straight into the eighteenth century. T h e furnishings were sparse, there were no m o r e than five or six pieces — s o m e delicate, lyre-backed chairs, an ornate sideboard, a small o r m o l u table — placed just so, in such a w a y that not the things but the space around them, the light itself, seemed arranged. 1

stood quite still, listening* 1 did not k n o w for what. On the l o w table there w a s a large and complicated j i g s a w puzzle, half-assembled. S o m e of the pieces had fallen to the floor. I gazed at them, sprinkled on the parquet like puddles of something that had spilled, and once again a faint shiver seemed to pass through the house. At the far end of the r o o m a french w i n d o w stood wide-open, and a gauze curtain billowed in the breeze. Outside there was a long slope of lawn, whereon, in the middle distance, a lone, 77

heraldic horse was prancing. Farther off was the river bend, the water whitening in the shallows, and beyond that there were trees, and then vague mountains, and then the limitless, gilded blue of summer. It struck me that the perspective of this scene was wrong somehow. Things seemed not to recede as they should, but to be arrayed before me — the furniture, the open window, the lawn and river and far-off mountains — as if they were not being looked at but were themselves looking, intent upon a vanishing-point here, inside the room. I turned then, and saw myself turning as I turned, as I seem to myself to be turning still, as I sometimes imagine I shall be turning always, as if this might be my punishment, my damnation, just this breathless, blurred, eternal turning towards her.