England's Lane (50 page)

The luncheon with Alicia was perfectly pleasant. She keeps the place just so, and I do rather care for it. Christmas decorations, I was gratified to observe, were confined to a cluster of greetings cards, a string of little green lights about the chimneypiece and a fine deep red poinsettia in a blue-and-white cachepot atop her wireless. I had brought for her a pendant necklace with a plain gold beveled lozenge bearing an amethyst stone—a variety I am given occasionally to bestowing upon only a favored few—along with a generous selection of chocolate pralines which I obtained from a rather well-appointed shop in Swiss Cottage by the name of Lessiters: handsome and circular
ribboned box, the confection itself so very much more sophisticated than anything one ever might acquire in that Miller person's tatty little sweetshop. He who, I believe, currently is enjoying residency in some sort of an asylum somewhere. It is maybe England's Lane that does this. Could this be a possibility? That insanity is our ultimate destiny—the only question remaining for each one of us being a simple matter of when …?

Alicia had poached a salmon, and she much enjoyed my pleasure as she presented too a bottle of a more than decent Chablis that had been quite adequately chilled within the smallest refrigerator I ever have laid eyes upon: it squats within a redundant fireplace in what she is pleased to call her kitchenette. She later—with chocolates—was happy to sip some Benedictine, which also I had thought to take along with me. Intercourse was perfunctory, though no less satisfying for that—and from the way she was speaking to me later, as quite contentedly she lay within my arms, I divined that she is quite coyly eager to learn about the subtler sexual possibilities, and even one or two of the more diverting, if only very slightly dangerous, avenues and byways. Her breasts are the most copious I have experienced in a very long while, the nipples engorged and engaging; her fingers are highly adept, and it is her abiding regret that because daily she must utilize a typewriter, this precludes the growing of her nails, though still she does paint them both neatly and brightly. I did not tell her that our relationship was destined to be brief, due to my intention to soon move away. I did not tell her, no … and now, in the cruel white light of later events, I suppose I am rather pleased and grateful for that much. For now, at least, I shall have Alicia to return to.

I arrived back home still early in the afternoon—for when a woman is new, it does not do to overstay, to bestow overmuch of oneself, for then she might easily though erroneously presume that
here is a working template for any future occasion—when often a quite fleeting visit is all that I shall require of her. I had expected Amanda still to be at the party, and such—adjudging the silence—appeared to be the case. What I by no means expected, however, was to find Fiona in the drawing room—her face averted to the window, and stained by the traces of drying tears.

“Fiona …? Fiona, my dear—whatever can be wrong …?”

Her eyes, when slowly she turned them toward me, seemed filled with a passionate regret: how else am I to depict their profundity and ardor … and yet a melancholy longing, still that lingered within …?

“Jonathan … dear Jonathan. I had no idea whether you would return …”

“Return, my dearest …? I am at a loss to understand quite what you can, ah … why of course I have returned. Why should I not?”

“I thought, simply, that finally you had made your … choices. Choices, yes, that failed to favor me …”

“Fiona. Fiona … truly, all that you are saying is quite perfectly beyond me. I have delivered Amanda to the library, quite as we discussed … yes? The party in the library? And then I took a little bit of a walk. A walk, yes—and now I am here. So what has happened? I cannot bear to see you in such distress. Please, Fiona—explain to me why you are speaking in this way …”

“Ah. I assumed that you would know. I assumed that you had sent her to me.”

“Sent her …? Who? Sent whom to you? Someone has been here? Well who? Who? Tell me please, Fiona. Who has been here and so upset you?”

“Your … woman. Your other woman. She said you would be with her. Yes—and forever. And the moment I saw her, I did not doubt it.”

My mind was quite thrown into turmoil. I attempted to hold her gaze—wistful, she appeared to be now, and seemingly quite accepting—while concentrating hard and thinking rather desperately. My
woman
 …? Well which woman? It can have been none of them. It is completely impossible. And even were it not—none would presume: none would dare. None … no … with just the one sole exception under the sun. Oh … my … Christ …!

“She left for you a letter, Jonathan. It is there upon the table. Unsealed—I imagine deliberately, though I have forborne to touch it. I do not care to. Though before you read it, my dearest—and no matter what it might contain … may I please speak? May I please make myself quite plain to you, Jonathan?”

“My dear … my dear …! But you must understand …!”

“I should just like to say that whatever the eventual outcome—whatever may befall you—already I have arrived at a decision of my own. I have known—of course I have always known, that of all your women over the many long years, there ever was only one—just one who possessed the power, the aura, ultimately to take you from me. Well before such happens—no … please do allow me to finish, Jonathan: permit me to say everything that I must, for I never shall again. So … before such happens … I should like formally to release you. I am removing myself, Jonathan. Not literally, no … for where on earth should I go? I am quite without means, as well you are aware. But Amanda and myself … henceforth, we shall somehow be elsewhere. Elsewhere. No—please do not speak. And do not approach. Go now, Jonathan. Take your letter, and read it. No—I beg you: not a word. Not a single word. Leave me now. Please do go.”

Three or four times I attempted to speak, moved to interrupt, went to be near her … but no—she would have none of it. I left the room in a state of great agitation and considerable bewilderment.
Though even as I threw myself into the chair at my desk, I knew that I would be bound to raise up the hammered vellum envelope … and while passing it slowly beneath each of my nostrils, close my eyes and shudderingly gulp down and deep into me the scent that I had known would cling there, its redolence and intensity within an instant storming the tumult of my brain, making me gasp, and making me giddy. And, while very gingerly I slid out the two thick sheets from the slither of the envelope's fuchsia tissue lining, already I was severely shocked by fear of all now that was to come.

I sat in silence for a good long time—certainly the room was chill and quite perfectly dark by the time I could rouse myself into any sort of awareness. My fingers, now … they at last had ceased to tremble. And a letter such as this from any other woman in the world, I could quite easily dismiss as mere obfuscation and so much overblown oratory: no more than the spite and grudge of a slighted female. But this letter … ah … this particular letter had been penned in the blood of both of us by a spellbinding goddess—and eternal torment upon this earth in the shadow of the sword of vengeance … here is an agony that a goddess will inflict. Her finger now lingers on the trigger to insanity: for the rest of time I am cursed with insuperable disease so far beyond all human toleration: the venom of both knowing, and unknowing. There remains for me simply an eternity of nothingness, spiked by terror, all of which yet I somehow must endure.

“Happy Christmas, Jim …”

Yeh: and I looks at her when she say it—she sticking a cracker out at me, that what she up to now. Look a picture, she do: like the day I marry her. On account of I give that Gwendoline a bit of dosh—do her a perm, like, or whatever she get done. Yeh because Mill, she say to me—here Jim listen, do me a favor, don't be getting me no more of all of that lavender stuff, ay? Got a pile of it. So I says to her—yeh? Well, what you want then? Box of wossname? And she get a bit sarky and she go to me what's wossname, Jim? And I says to her well you know—chocolates, and that. And she go nah—tell you what I want: nice new hairdo. And then I do all of the sarky back at her and I says well I don't reckon I be much good to you on that side of things Mill, and she say don't be daft Jim: I mean Gwendoline, don't I? Yeh—so I done that, see … and she do look lovely. Shorter it is, the barnet—got a bit of red in it like what it used to the first time I seed her. As for me … I look like I been dragged under a bleeding bus, as bloody usual. I ain't been, nor nothing—but I feeling a bit on the doddery side, just lately. My face, that ain't looking quite so bad now—bit of dark around the eye, like—but the other day my plates gone again from
under me: all of that Achilles wossname: you don't get no warning. They goes like it quite a lot, just lately. Yeh—so like I say, I a bit had it, sort of style.

Christmas Day, this is—and I'm in that blazer what Mill gone and got me. Ever so miffed I never wore it at her party. I were going to, yeh … and then I thinks—nah, it's a bit good for me, this: reckon what I'll do is, I'll just keep it nice. And after, she going so what you want to go keeping it nice for then, Jim? Nice for wearing at your funeral, that it? And I reckon she got a point—so I wearing it now, ain't I? She ever so pleased. Feel a bit bleeding hot in it though, on account of she got the fire going lovely: stupid, ain't it really? Being in a jacket when you's at home. Reckon I slip it off, later. Mill … she done us a lovely dinner, like what she always do: Trojan, it were—with the turkey and the stuffing and all of that plum duff what she gone and lit with a drop of my Scotch: prime, yeh. Pauly, he down there on the rug with Anthony, ain't he? Playing about with all of them doings what Mill gone and buyed them: don't know how she do it on what I give her—proper little housewife, and no mistake. Having ever such a time, them two boys is. Nice to see it. Weren't like that when I were a kid—never got nothing. So yeh: nice to see it.

But I knows, don't I …? What bringing me down. Family matters, you might say. Family matters, yeh. Because it Cyril, ain't it? Course it bloody is. Fell off his perch, didn't he? Quite literal. Yesterday morning, I comes down quite the thing just like what I normally does, and he lying in his cage there, and all his little feet stuck up. Were ever so sad. Such a lovely little feller, my little Cyril were. Won't never be able to talk to him no more. And I reckon it were on account of me. Yeh it were. Them fumes. Mill, she were right all along about that. Can't go keeping a little bird, can you? Not with all them fumes. And it funny—yesterday, when I claps
eyes on him, I gets it for the first time, them fumes. Before, ain't never noticed nothing—but yeh, stink like bleeding hell down there, it do. Can't do nothing about it. Way it is. And I don't know how she done it, Mill, of a Christmas Eve and all—but this morning, you know what she gone and give me? Well first off I got a pack of cards with a picture of Cyril on: you want to see it—spit bleeding image, I tell you. But that ain't nothing—because listen: you know what else she gone and got me? Canary. Yeh—little yellow canary. Ain't kidding. And after we bury little Cyril all nice and dignified in the yard in a old wooden box what once had Whiffs in, she must of gone and done up his cage—cleaned it all out proper, she had. Christmas paper on the bottom—robins, which is a bit funny—yeh and then she bung a bit of mistletoe up the top of it, like … and blow me down if that little birdie ain't coming out with his beak and giving me a smacker, right on my tache. Keep him up here, we will—all nice and cozy. Away from all them fumes. Ain't called him nothing yet. I says to Mill—how's about Yeller? And she go nah Jim—can't go calling no little bird Yeller: might take offense. She say Tweety—and Pauly, he go why don't you call him Sitting Bull, which is right plain bloody daft, you ask me. That kid, telling you—stuff he come out with. Ain't said nothing, but I think I going to go for William, when it come to it: look like a William, he do.