Beautiful Lies (6 page)

It was their habit to eat breakfast together in companionable silence, Maribel with a book propped up against the toast rack, Edward intent upon the newspaper. Occasionally Edward remarked upon a particularly interesting article but for the most part they communicated only through long-established habits, Maribel pouring tea, Edward buttering toast for them both. When they had finished eating, it was Alice’s habit to clear the dirty plates before bringing in a second pot of tea and the first postal delivery of the day, which she placed at Edward’s elbow. Edward would grimace at the paper, sigh and set it down. Flipping quickly through the envelopes, he set those addressed to himself to one side and passed the remainder to Maribel, who smoked a cigarette while they opened their letters.

On this particular morning, most of Maribel’s were tradesmen’s accounts: the greengrocer, the butcher, the laundry. There were several invitations, one of them in the careless scrawl of Edward’s brother Henry. Maribel was very fond of Henry, an army officer who shared all of Edward’s dash and none of his seriousness. Henry, who had nothing of the bohemian in him and was suspicious of any nation that did not play cricket, had never raised an eyebrow at the unusual circumstances of their marriage. The very first time they had met he had kissed her warmly and told Edward he was one lucky beggar. It had been Henry who had insisted on taking them to the Café Royal and toasting them with champagne, Henry who had decided, on his behalf and his mother’s, that Maribel was to be welcomed wholeheartedly into the family. Henry did not believe in complications. As a result he seldom encountered any.

There was a note from Charlotte too, written in haste the previous evening.

I wished you had come back with me last night rather than going home to an empty flat. When we parted you seemed so sad and far away. I feared you would spend the evening gazing into the fire and thinking melancholy thoughts and that it would be all my fault. Forgive me, dearest, for pressing you to remember. My affection for you makes me greedy. I need to remind myself that there are certain secrets you are allowed to keep.

Biting her lip Maribel slid the letter back into its envelope. The generosity of Charlotte’s apology made her ashamed. She had grown so accustomed to her own secrets she no longer thought of them as secrets. They were judicious omissions, discreet approximations. They rounded up the numbers. She told herself that she was not so very different from anyone else. It was a truth universally acknowledged, after all, that the details of other people’s lives were ineffably tedious, especially when they insisted upon a fastidious regard for the facts. During those long hours spent at the Charterhouses’ dining table as Arthur and his friends reminisced about their schooldays, she had many times been tempted to hurl the nutcracker across the room or stab herself in the back of the hand with the cheese knife, anything to create a diversion.

These days, though, there was seldom any requirement to lie outright. She could not even pretend it was for Charlotte that she lied, that it was a kindness. The truth was that the truth was impossible. Impossible for her and, in particular, impossible for Edward. She was obliged to lie, she knew that, but she could not bear Charlotte to be kind to her for it.

She took up the teapot and poured herself another cup of tea. Edward looked up over his newspaper and held out his cup. Now, she thought, was the time to tell him about her mother.

‘So how was the famous Buffalo Bill?’ she asked instead.

‘Do you know, I was ready to dislike him thoroughly. I had pictured him in cahoots with the despicable Senator Dawes, trailing around Europe like a freak-show proprietor with his stolen Indians in cages while busily selling off the red man’s lands to the railroads.’

‘And?’ Maribel asked.

‘It proved quite impossible. The gentleman – and he is a gentleman, for all his American habits – is simply too amusing. His adventures have to be heard to be believed.’

‘You were very late.’

Edward laughed. ‘There is a rumour that the wives of the Garrick Club have been driven so much to distraction by their husbands staying out all night that they have sent Cody a letter with all their signatures, asking that he forbear from telling any stories after midnight. I am inclined to believe it. The tales of his adventures in the Wild West exceed the imaginings of the wildest Fenimore Cooper.’

‘And the stolen Indians?’

‘The truth is that Cody is a great champion of the Indians. The few that survived Custer are a great deal better off with him than they are on the reservations. At least Cody is teaching them a little of the world they are now required to live in. They are fairly paid, well fed, clean. They have proper medical care. If only we could say the same of the miners or the dockers or any other working man in this country for that matter.’

Maribel rolled her eyes. ‘You sound as though you have swallowed one of their advertisements.’

‘Cody is extremely plausible,’ Edward said with a grin. ‘Though I am convinced he goes to bed in curl-papers. Nobody has ringlets like that naturally.’

‘It is his diamonds I am envious of. I hear they are perfectly enormous.’

‘You will have the chance to see them for yourself on Friday. Cody has invited us to the opening performance of the show.’

Maribel looked at him, dismayed.

‘Must we go?’ she said. ‘On Friday you will only just be back from Scotland. I had hoped to have you to myself for once.’

‘You have been complaining recently that life has become so dull. I thought you might think it diverting.’

‘Me? Watching cowboys galloping about and shooting at one another? No, Red. You should think it diverting. I think I should find it rather tedious.’

Edward hesitated. Then, draining his teacup, he stood.

‘I should go,’ he said.

‘I am due in Committee at ten.’ ‘When will you be back?’ ‘I’m not sure. I may have to go to Croydon. A League rally. I promised Hyndman I’d be there if there was no late vote.’

‘Croydon? But we are dining with the Pagets.’

‘Oh Lord, are we? I’m sorry. You’ll have to send my apologies. Better still, apologise for both of us. You always say you find the Pagets tiresome.’

‘They are better than no company at all. Red, truly, if I have to spend another evening here alone I shall go stark staring mad.’

‘I thought you were writing.’

‘I am failing to write. It takes up just as much time and is ten times as exhausting.’

‘It will come.’

‘Will it? I have written nothing for months, or nothing I wasn’t ashamed of afterwards. And I am tired of you always, always being out. There are things – I hardly see you.’

‘I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to.’

‘You find time for the Wild West.’

‘To which we are to go together, if you remember.’

‘You know as well as I that I shan’t see you from one end of the evening to the other. Croydon, for heaven’s sake? I shall forget what you look like.’

‘Then use the time you have. If you won’t write, draw my portrait. Take my photograph. I don’t know the last time I saw you with your camera.’

‘That’s because the camera is broken. It was never much use anyway.’

‘And what about you? Are you broken too?’ Edward snapped. Then he sighed. ‘We make of our lives what we are able, Bo. Don’t waste yours being angry with me.’

When Edward had gone Maribel rose and went to her desk, taking from its pigeonhole the book of marbled Venetian paper in which she jotted ideas for poems. She turned the pages. Scribbled sideways across one leaf was a list, written some months before at Inverallich, headed ‘Champs-Elysées’:

flash of silver bit
white scum frothing on arched neck
hooves like arrowheads slicing sky
metaphor for love: coiled sinew, glint of iron
peril bare contained

Edward was right. One made of one’s life what one was able. Taking out a sheet of writing paper she scribbled a note to the Pagets, pleading a head cold. That afternoon, when she was returned from calling on the Wildes, she took her mother’s letter from her writing case and propped it against the mirror on her dressing table. There was no purpose in waiting for the right moment. There would be no right moment. The best one could do was to try not to be afraid.

She was sitting at her dressing table when Edward came home that night, brushing her hair in front of the mirror. She heard the click of the front door, the low murmur of voices as Alice took his coat and hat. She reached for her wrap but before she had put her arms into it he knocked at the door.

‘Come in.’

She reached out a hand towards him as he opened the door. Under one arm he carried a large package. He set it down on the dressing table beside her and leaned down to kiss her on the top of her head. Glancing at the envelope containing her mother’s letter she caught his hand and pressed it against her cheek. He smiled at her in the mirror.

‘What a nice surprise,’ she said. ‘You’re early.’

‘Early? It’s past eleven.’

‘That’s early for you.’ She kissed his fingers. ‘I am sorry I was so ill-tempered this morning. You were right. I had no right to be cross with you.’

‘I am not so sure. I have neglected you horribly.’

‘In the pursuit of a better, juster world. I should stop complaining.’

‘Have you been working?’

Maribel shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

Putting down her hairbrush she turned to face him.

‘Edward, dearest, there is something I have to talk to you about.’

‘Is anybody dead?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Then can it wait till morning? I brought you something.’ Picking up the package he deposited it in her lap.

‘For me?’ she said.

‘For you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Why don’t you open it and see?’

She smiled excitedly as she slid off the string, tearing the paper a little as she unwrapped it. Inside was a wooden box, E. & H.T. Anthony stamped in black letters on the top. She lifted the lid and gasped.

‘Edward.’

‘It’s rather fine, isn’t it? It’s American. The latest design.’

Very gently she took the camera out of its box. Perhaps ten inches square, a little more in depth, it was made of polished mahogany with exquisitely worked brass fittings and bellows of dark green leather. The lens protruded from its glossy face like the tip of a telescope. She held it in her lap, stroking the smooth wood with her thumb. She knew without asking that they could not afford it.

‘It’s so small,’ she said.

‘They call it a field camera. It’s designed to be portable.’

‘It’s beautiful. Almost too beautiful to use.’

‘If you say that I shall take it back.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t deserve it.’

‘No. But I thought you would like it.’

‘I love it. Thank you.’

She tilted her head up to kiss his cheek. Gently he took the camera from her lap and placed it back on the dressing table. Then, turning her to face him, he kissed her deeply on the mouth, his long fingers loosening the ribbons at her neck, slipping the silk from her shoulders. She sighed as his lips moved down the slope of her neck to her collarbone, finding the dip at the base of her throat, the tilt of her breastbone. She was tired, her body unresponsive, but it was several weeks since he had come to her and she had missed him. She clasped his head, burying her fingers in his red-gold hair, straining to stir in herself the heat of old desire. In the morning she would tell him about the letter. She closed her eyes as his tongue flickered between her breasts and over the cool skin of her belly, his hands tracing the curve of her hips and buttocks, the soft slopes of her thighs, easing her legs apart. She let them fall open. He pressed his forehead against her belly and the push of his tongue was hot and urgent.

Afterwards he fell almost immediately asleep. Maribel slept too, though at about four o’clock she woke and slipped out of bed to smoke a cigarette. On the dark-smudged pillow Edward slept on, his mouth slightly open and his hair tumbled like a child’s. Maribel watched him, the jolt of the cigarette bright in her, and the desire that earlier had eluded her flared like a match in her.

In Mexico they had made love almost every night, biting back their cries so as not to waken the dogs. There had been a hunger to her then, a wantonness she had not known she possessed. On the dusty afternoons, as the heavy sun thickened the air and the mules drowsed with their heads low, she imagined him against her and the thought had quickened her breath and set her blood to racing until she burned like the night sky, her skin alive with one hundred thousand white-hot pinpricks of light. She had not known it was possible to feel that way about a man, that a sideways glance might cause her heart to turn over, the taste of his name on her tongue enough to melt her flesh. At the house on the Calle de León, for the sake of discretion, the Señora had assigned the gentlemen names of her own choosing. Edward she had introduced as Santiago.

‘Sylvia,’ he had said, taking Maribel’s hand. ‘What a pretty name,’ and he had given her a private smile as though he told her a secret. She had not smiled back. Names might mean nothing in a place of that kind but it was discourteous to draw attention to the pretence.

Privately, of course, the girls gave the regular men names of their own. There was Bisabuelo, the ancient lantern-jawed count, and Apestoso, who smelled like an old dog, and Sudoroso, whose perspiration gathered in his eyebrows and scattered like raindrops when he neared the end. Angélique’s nicknames were always the unkindest. Her most regular client she called Chinga, or Dog-fuck.

Sometimes, late at night, when the work was over and the lights in the drawing room extinguished, she and Angélique had sat on the balcony, the long windows open behind them, smoking cigarettes to discourage the mosquitoes. Below them, in the courtyard, the fountain sang quietly to itself in the darkness. Angélique was from Marseilles, or so she said. She was saving up her money until she had enough to buy a place of her own. Maribel had not liked Angélique much. She had dark eyes and a full mouth and a body that swelled like ripe fruit inside its skin. Her mother had been a great beauty but her father died and her mother’s new husband had difficulty remembering which bedroom was his. Angélique had been obliged to leave. When she talked of men she made scissors with her fingers.