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Authors: Sarah Dunant

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BOOK: Transgressions
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She had missed the Van Morrison album more than ever that morning. My, how that man could make love with his voice: the long, slow, sensuous kind, rather than the wham-bam pelvic thrust she had become used to in the last days of the destructive rutting match with Tom.

She had opened the windows and stood on the grass, cradling her mug of frothy coffee against her body, enjoying the solitude and, for once, the quiet. Across the long expanse of gardens belonging to the Victorian houses opposite was a jigsaw puzzle of windows and rooftops. The city was full of people she didn’t know and would probably never meet. The anonymity of it all, of herself within it, was surprisingly exciting. It gave an edge to her loneliness. For a while she even found herself looking at men again, wondering what they would be like in bed, if they in their turn might fancy her. But it took energy, pushing her thoughts outward, and by the time she got on the plane to New York she had lost it again.

Back home she made a last stab at conviviality. She threw a dinner party, going through her address book and inviting seven people, including a spare man—a friend of a friend—to even the numbers. She cooked all day, laid a
Good Housekeeping
table, and chattered her way through the evening, high and vital. Two of the guests wrote notes saying how lovely it was to see her in such good form. But the adrenaline faded with the washing up and she was depressed for days afterward.

Toward the end of October it became, finally, too cold to breakfast outside. The French windows were closed up and it was only the squirrels and the cat who did any gardening, Millie scratching up the bulbs with her claws or standing in the middle of the lawn in endless standoff with a sleek black tom that had taken to stalking her territory, green-eyed and taunting.

She stood behind the glass watching it all from inside. She didn’t mind. She still played the music, staring out as the rain rolled in, but she had other concerns now. One of the publishing houses that she translated for had just arrived back from the Frankfurt Book Fair with a hard-boiled thriller by a new Czech writer, and they were in a panic to get it translated because there was movie interest in the synopsis, with names like Brad Pitt and Irène Jacob being bandied about. She had read it some months before—the tale of a New York cop brought in to bust a Mafia drug ring in Eastern Europe—and though she had reservations about its originality she’d decided to do it anyway, partly because the money was good and partly because living in another language would allow her to live less in herself, or at least the self that she associated with Tom.

She upgraded her hard drive and bought a set of slang dictionaries to mark the occasion. The novel was long, an Eastern European attempt at a blockbuster, and its translation would take her the rest of the year and into the new one. Why not? She had nothing better to do with her life. When this is finished, she told herself, I’ll be ready; I’ll emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, transformed, reborn, ready to take on the world.

She bought a bottle of champagne to mark the beginning of her confinement. At six-thirty on the first evening, with the light already fading in readiness for winter, she went down to the kitchen to open it. She had been playing the Morrison live San Francisco double album almost constantly that week—good way to prepare her for translation, appreciating how someone else could make words dance. But when she pushed the button to start the music, nothing happened. She pushed it again, then opened up the machine only to discover that the CD wasn’t in it. Surely she had had it on the turntable that morning? She certainly hadn’t played anything else, and the case was still sitting on the counter. She checked inside. The second disc in its place safely at the back, but the other one, the one she’d been playing, was not.

As she searched further, the cat flap snapped open and Millie streaked in like a bat out of hell, trying, too late, to look dignified and victorious. On the lawn, twenty yards away from the doors, a big black tomcat was poised, stock-still, staring in silent triumph. She went up and hammered on the French windows. It stood its ground, then drew back its ears, turned, and sauntered lazily away. Millie curled herself around her owner’s legs, yowling, eager for affection. “Come on, girl,” she muttered. “It’s your garden. Don’t let some man get the upper hand.”

She went back to her search. But the longer she looked the more obvious it became that the disc wasn’t there. It didn’t make sense. It had been in the machine, now it was gone. If she hadn’t taken it out, then who had? With the exception of an hour or so in the middle of the day, when she’d gone out for a swim and to buy the champagne, she had been in the house all the time.

It was then, for the first time in months, that she remembered the other Van Morrison CD and its equally sudden disappearance. And it was then also that she began to wonder seriously about her ex-lover.

 

“B
ut why? What could he possibly gain from it? Anyway, I thought he only liked classical stuff.”

“He does.”

“So?”

“So the answer is, I don’t know.”

“But you think it’s him?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think you probably mislaid it somewhere.”

“Not ‘it.’ Them. And I’ve looked, and I didn’t.”

“So was anything else missing? Anything valuable?”

“No, nothing. I checked.”

“Well, if it
is
him, it’s a rather subtle way to go about getting to you. I would have expected something more direct from Tom, mean bastard.”

“Is he?” she said, surprised.

Sally laughed. “Sweetheart, you know he is. God, when you two were together you couldn’t get through an evening without him bitching at you, undermining you in a dozen different ways. He didn’t want a lover, he wanted an acolyte. It was okay while you fit the role, but as soon as you didn’t . . . Patrick and I would talk about it afterward.”

How strange, she thought. When we were together nobody thought to mention how ill suited we were. Now people can’t stop telling me. She sat across the table watching Sally dissect a lettuce leaf as if it were a cadaver. “What? Sorry?”

“I said, does he still have a key?”

“Er . . . yes. He was moving stuff out and then I never bothered to ask for it back.”

“Hmmmn.”

“Hmmmn, nothing, Sally. I just forgot, that’s all.”

“Yes, well, if I were you I’d ask for it now.”

“I will.”

In the little silence that followed she felt Sally’s concern like a comfort blanket around her shoulders. It was hard to know whether to pull it tighter or throw it off. She wondered if she should order the bill.

“Oh, by the way, I bumped into Karen the other day. She said you’d had a dinner party and that you were in great form. I was impressed.”

She shrugged. “So was I, at the time. It took me weeks to recover.”

“Still, it’s a step in the right direction.”

“Is it? You know, Sal, I’m not sure I know what the right direction is anymore,” she said, then almost immediately regretted it.

Her friend slipped a hand across the table. “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

And how would you know, she thought uncharitably. You’ve been with Patrick for ten years. I bet you can barely remember what it feels like to wake up alone. “Well, you know me. I was never exactly a life-and-soul-of-the-party girl anyway.”

“Except when you were singing. You should take it up again.”

She laughed. “Oh, Sally, I can barely open the door to the milkman, let alone get up on a stage before a couple hundred drunken pub crawlers.”

“Still, it’d get you out of that house. Might even make you a few friends.”

She shook her head. “I’ve got friends, Sal. It’s just I don’t want to see them right at the moment.”

“Well, think about it. And think about that house, too. It’s far too big for you on your own now. Big and spooky. I wouldn’t want to live there alone. Patrick thinks you should sell it. You could do it, even in this market. He knows someone who could get you a good price.”

“I’m sure he does. But I don’t want to sell it.”

“No, well, we won’t talk about it. . . . How’s the book?”

“Long.” She left a pause. Then took pity on her. “But good.”

“Hmmn. Can I say something to you?”

She smiled mildly. “I think you already have.”

“It’s just I don’t think you’re helping yourself, that’s all.”

“Why? How?”

“Burying yourself away in that mansion with just a computer and a cat for company. You’ll go stale. Lose all the juice in you, or whatever Tom left after he did his own bit of squeezing. I think you should make an effort to get back into the real world, get out more, meet people, give yourself a chance.”

She nodded. “I know you do, Sal. But I’m not you. I have to do it my way, however weird that may seem. When I’m ready I’ll come out again. Throw a party. You can write the guest list, okay?”

“Yes, yes . . . all right.” She lifted up her hand to acknowledge failure, then turned it into an extravagant gesture to attract the waitress. The bill came. They squabbled over it briefly, but she gave in. It would make Sally feel better if she let her buy the lunch. Poor Sal. Always needing people to need her. Presumably that had something to do with the fact that in the end Patrick didn’t. Maybe she understood something about loneliness after all. Funny the things you know about your friends but can never tell them. I should be nicer to her, she thought. She’s only trying to help me.

“So do I gather this means you’re saying no to Saturday night? I have it on good authority that this guy is very nice.”

“Oh, Sally, I’m sure he is, but I’m just getting into the flow.”

“What, weekends as well?”

“You know me.”

“Yes, unfortunately I do. How about next month?”

“Maybe.”

“All right, all right. I know when I’m beaten. But you be careful. Remember, the further you burrow in, the further there is to crawl back out from again.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.” Then as an afterthought, “I mean it.”

 

 

B
ack home she unpacked the chocolate cake that Sally had insisted on buying her on the way out (“If you can’t have fun with someone else, then have some fun with yourself. God knows you could do with a few calories”) and cut herself a slice to go with her cappuccino. She thought about calling Sally to thank her, to reassure her that she was, really, okay, but she didn’t feel strong enough for another conversation.

Interesting, what other people think of you. So, according to the rest of the world, it was Tom who was the aggressor and she who was the victim. Presumably that was how it had looked from the outside. Except it didn’t square with her vision of herself. Sure, he made more of a show of himself, talked longer and louder, expressed more opinions. But half the time they hadn’t been worth listening to. Certainly not worth competing with. The thought shocked her. Had she really thought that about the man she’d lived with for nearly eight years?

Apparently, yes. She went up to the CD rack and flicked through the shiny line of titles, looking for something to make her feel better. Soon, the camp eroticism of early Lou Reed schmoozed its way into the room.

His voice brought back Sally’s remark about singing, and she thought, not for the first time in her life, how wonderful it must be to be a real musician—to be able to say it all without having to say it to anyone in particular. Alas, she couldn’t do it. Having a voice was only the beginning. When she was younger she had been good enough for people to suggest she do it professionally. But her talent had always been with others’ songs. She herself had had nothing to say. Or nothing she thought anyone would be interested in. As a translator, she had the confidence to do wonders with other people’s words, but was still too often wrong-footed when it came to finding her own. Maybe that’s what had gone wrong between her and Tom; he had talked more only because she had talked less. Or maybe Sally was right. Maybe the problem was that she just didn’t have enough juice.

She went back to the CD problem. It was three days since the loss of the second Van Morrison and nothing further had happened to add to her suspicions. That meant two albums missing in three months. It didn’t make sense. If it was Tom, then it certainly wasn’t his style. Sally was right about that. She tried to imagine him being in the house when she was out of it: standing in the kitchen, going through the record collection deciding which one to pick, which one he thought she would miss most, then slipping the silver disc neatly into his pocket. He would have known how she would react—at the least confused if not frightened. Was he capable of that? What would be the point, except spite? Or a way of getting her to feel uneasy about the house now that she was alone in it? Such was the level of bloodletting toward the end that she couldn’t categorically swear it wasn’t him. Well, damn him if it was. This was her home and she wasn’t going anywhere, whatever the provocation.

BOOK: Transgressions
5.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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