Fictional Lives (18 page)

Some time later she was aware of Cyrus kissing her, and whispering something into her ear. Then, after a final effort to save herself, she lay still, and was silent.

*

She had no idea, when she awoke, whether it was night or day, or for how long she had been unconscious. All she was aware of was that Gerhard, Cyrus and her mother were gazing at her and smiling; and that she no longer felt any pains. She could feel where they had been—it was as if she had a bruise in her stomach, or had had something torn from her—but the
pains themselves were gone. She smiled, very weakly, back at the faces looking down on her, asked for a glass of water—and then promptly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

*

A week later she was able to get out of bed; and three weeks after that she was strong enough to leave, with Gerhard, for a month in Vermont; to do nothing but rest, read, and convalesce.

Till then no one, least of all her, had spoken much of her sickness; other than to say that whatever had afflicted her had reached a climax the afternoon of David’s party, that everyone had been terrified she was going to die, but that though she had been in a coma for four days, after that climax had passed she had started, very slowly, to pull through; and the doctors had announced she was going to recover. They still had no idea what had been wrong; but guessed it had been some virus that had burned itself out—or been burnt out by her own desire to live.

Sitting in the New England sun, however, in front of the small white house in the hills that Gerhard had rented, Fran thought it was time to talk more openly of what had happened.

She started, therefore, by apologizing to Gerhard for her behaviour.

‘You know,’ she said with a smile one afternoon, ‘I really did think you were trying to poison me. I fought against the idea, but—’ she shrugged, ‘I did.’

Gerhard looked embarrassed. ‘I know,’ he murmured, his head lowered. ‘But you were sick, weren’t you?’

‘I’m sorry, anyway,’ Fran said—as it occurred to her that when she had finally given up the fight against the madness of that notion, she had both had her great crisis—and started to recover from it.

‘But in a way,’ she continued a little later, ‘it’s done me good. It’s as if’—she paused, searched for the right image, and
then found it—‘I were in a zoo, with a wild animal that was kept locked up in a cage. As long as it was locked up it scared me so much I became obsessed with it. So much so that I couldn’t see anything in the world apart from that animal. But finally I had the strength to release it—or didn’t have the strength to keep it in its cage—and somehow—well, I don’t know whether I fought it and beat it, or whether I realized that though it was wild, and even dangerous, as long as I wasn’t scared of it—it wouldn’t hurt me.’

Gerhard smiled, and took her hand. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘it’s all over now. And when you’re completely better we can go back to New York, and everything will be as it was before.’

Fran lay back in her chair, and wondered. Possibly, she told herself. But she doubted it. Now that that animal was out in the open—and now, too, that she had seen it was possible to fall through space and survive—she doubted that anything would be the same as before. Strangely, however, the idea exhilarated her….

‘Except for one thing.’ Gerhard added. And lowering his head again, he told her that his affair with Lucie Schmidt was over…. He had broken with her, he said; or to be honest, she had broken with him. She had gone back to France, and was getting married again.

Fran stared at her husband for a while, wondering what to say. Then, realizing there was nothing to be said, she merely touched his blond hair with her finger tips—and quietly,
gratefully
, changed the subject.

‘Do you think,’ she asked, ‘I should apologize to David?’

Gerhard looked up, and also seemed grateful. Then he said ‘No. Why? You didn’t accuse him of trying to poison you, did you?’

‘No,’ Fran murmured—hesitantly.

‘Well then. Besides, I’ve been thinking about David and
that book of his, and you were right. He really shouldn’t have started it, considering everything you’ve done for him.’

Fran shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ She smiled. ‘Just as long as it’s a good book. Have you heard from him?’

‘No. I called him a couple of times, to thank him for sending Cyrus home in a cab, and to let him know how you were, but there was no reply. And since then I’ve sort of forgotten about him.’

‘Poor David,’ Fran said, as she wondered, very calmly now, whether Gerhard had indeed been poisoning her, and had lost his nerve—or Lucie?—at the last minute. She supposed it was quite possible. Anything was possible. Though she doubted that he would ever try again, even if he had. He had made his point, and she had taken note of it. Taken note of it to such an extent, in fact, that she would, she decided, as soon as she got back to New York, put half her money in his name, without any strings attached. Which might not make him feel entirely free; but would at least be a start….

‘There is one thing I must do though.’

‘Which is?’

‘Apologize to Cyrus.’

Gerhard laughed. ‘What did you accuse Cyrus of?’

‘Oh, nothing. But that day, after David had come round, I wanted to talk to him. But as I obviously couldn’t tell him I suspected you of trying to poison me, I told him I was dying because David had written that I would.’

‘Just because of that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I don’t know about apologizing. But you’d better explain. Otherwise Cyrus might grow up thinking people can be killed by the stroke of a pen.’

‘Yes,’ Fran repeated, more thoughtfully this time. ‘I didn’t really mean it like that of course. I—I didn’t really mean
anything
.
It was all just a story. But—I’ll talk to him as soon as we get home.’

*

She did; and Cyrus, who had been staying with his grandparents while his mother and father had been in Vermont, listened to her in silence.

‘Oh sure,’ he said, when Fran had finished her explanation, ‘I realized you were only telling me that because you were sick. I mean that would be dumb, wouldn’t it?’ He smiled at her, and then looked slightly defiant. ‘But I’ll tell
you
something. I thought it was so mean of David to hate you, and that was such a mean story he was writing about you, that when I went round to that party that afternoon, I went into his study and found the notebook where he was writing it. Then I tore all the pages into little pieces and threw them out of the window.’

Fran stared at him. ‘You didn’t,’ she whispered.

‘I did.’

‘Oh but that’s terrible.’

‘He shouldn’t have written it.’

‘But—did you tell your father?’

‘No. I haven’t told anyone.’ Cyrus shrugged. ‘Apart from you, when I got back from the party. But I guess you didn’t hear me. You were unconscious.’

‘No,’ Fran murmured, ‘I guess I didn’t. Or maybe,’ she added, feeling suddenly faint, ‘I did. In fact I think I probably must have. But,’ she concluded, still staring at her son, ‘you shouldn’t have done it, Cy. It really was a terrible thing to do.’

Cyrus looked crestfallen now; and sounded disappointed as he asked, ‘Do you think David will forgive me?’

‘Yes,’ Fran said, kissing the child. ‘Yes,’ she repeated, ‘I’m sure he will.’ Then she closed her eyes and whispered, feeling more faint than ever, ‘It’ll be me he’ll never forgive.’

*

Nor, she thought later that day, sitting alone in her living room, should he. For she realized not only how David would interpret this whole affair, but how she at last interpreted it. Oh it was still quite possible that Gerhard had been trying to kill her, and had lost his nerve; or, more poetically, that having faced the beast of unreason, she had overcome it. But somehow neither of these explanations, in the light of what Cyrus had revealed, really satisfied her any longer. They neither of them went far enough. Now she saw the events of the past few months in a different fashion. She saw them, she told herself, as a parable of oppression; as an illustration of the power of tyrants. She had indeed supported David in order to control him. When he had attacked her, to free himself from her grasp—she had sickened. When she had attempted, and failed, to bring him to heel—she had grown worse. And if, when it was nearly too late, she hadn’t turned to Cyrus and used him, albeit unconsciously, as her ultimate weapon, she would have died. As it was she had reasserted her power; she had won; and she had survived. Obviously she was glad to have survived; and while she had chided him, she would always be grateful to her son for having saved her. But, she thought—at what a cost. To have to spend the rest of her days with the knowledge that, however much she had now renounced her longing for control, she had already done irreparable damage; and worse, with the knowledge that when and if she met David again, the overwhelming hatred with which he would then greet her would make his former feelings seem almost like affection.

*

In fact she did meet David again; though not before eighteen months had passed. Yet strangely—wonderfully—when she did, it wasn’t at all with hatred that he greeted her….

She bumped into him outside the Museum of Modern Art; and would have avoided him if she had seen him coming. But
the writer, who was with a friend, was so changed that not till the last moment—just before he stopped, and said ‘Hi Fran’—did she even recognize him. And if the friendliness of his tone took her aback, his appearance shocked her far more. It wasn’t that his once luxuriant black hair was now cut very short and flecked, in spite of his comparative youth, with grey. Nor that while before he had been soft and tending to plumpness, he was now so thin as to be gaunt; almost emaciated. It wasn’t even that his expression was no longer the expression of a pleading spaniel, or that his mouth no longer seemed about to utter some self-condemnation. No, what really shook Fran, really staggered her, was that while she had found him repellent before—now she found him beautiful. Not good-looking, in the way that Gerhard was; nor exotic, in the way that other young men she knew were. But—beautiful. In the way that deserts were beautiful. Or bare winter trees.

To begin with, after she had taken all this in, and after she had told herself that she had never, in her whole life, seen anyone so transformed, Fran was tempted to reply with a muttered ‘Hi’, and to rush on; if only because she was afraid that she was going to be confronted with something—with the cause of that transformation?—still more appalling than the hatred she had expected to see. But before she could do so David had asked her, in a quiet spare voice, how she was; and she, despite her fears, had forced herself to meet his eyes. And once she had she couldn’t have rushed on if she’d wanted to. For what she saw there was not only not hatred, but something that seemed the very opposite of hatred; and something that, in any case, transfixed her.

‘I’m very well,’ she said gently; ‘and you?’

David nodded, and smiled. ‘Yes. I am too.’ Then he looked away, as if embarrassed by her gaze; and went on to say how sorry he was to have left the apartment like that, without a word, and that he did hope she had recovered the keys from
the people next door, and that everything had been in order, and that—

Yes, Fran interrupted. Yes of course, and she had
understood
. Of course she had understood. And she too had been so sorry….

Looking down at her shoes, she asked David where he’d been living.

‘I’ve been fortunate,’ the man said. ‘I was lent a house in the country in Italy by some friends. I was there for almost a year. Then I went to England and rented a cottage in Sussex for six months. I got back to New York three weeks ago.’

‘And’—this very quietly—‘you’re still writing?’

Another nod. ‘Yes. I started—something different.’

Then they were both silent for a while; until Fran, almost whispering, said ‘What’s it about?’

Their eyes met once more.

David shrugged. ‘Basically,’ he said, ‘it’s the story of a writer who is supported by a rich patroness whom he believes, mistakenly or otherwise, is a criminal; or at least a member of the criminal classes. Hating her for the compromise with crime that he feels her patronage represents, he writes a story in which she dies. Poisoned by his hatred, the woman actually does start to die. But then, at the last moment, her child destroys the manuscript of the story; and she starts to recover. The writer is so—’ David hesitated—‘stunned, I guess, by this evidence of the power of love, that he has a kind of breakdown, goes to Europe, for a while, and eventually comes to see that—’ David hesitated again—‘he might achieve more, both for himself and everyone else—and might also be happier—if he accepts the implications of what has happened, and learns a lesson from the child. Sure, it means he’ll have to make compromises, but—’ David stopped. ‘I guess you could say that the moral of the piece is that it’s better to be compromised and love than try not to be compromised and hate. But I don’t
know whether it is. I don’t think in fact there’s a moral at all. I think really—it’s just a story about a group of fictional people who are doing their best to live. That’s all.’

As he finished this account David blushed; and now seemed so embarrassed Fran had the feeling that
he
might rush off. But then he glanced at his waiting friend, who was studying the traffic on 53rd Street, and pulled himself together.

‘I must be going,’ he murmured.

‘Yes,’ Fran said—though hardly audibly—‘so must I.’

Their eyes met one last time; and they held each other’s gaze until David stepped forward, put his arms around her, and told her: ‘Take care, Fran.’

For a moment, as she remembered the man’s previous
embraces
, Fran hung back. But after that moment she relaxed; and feeling happier than she could ever remember feeling—happier, and more relieved—she whispered ‘And you too.’

They stood there; two people who, though possibly enemies, had sealed a treaty of friendship. Then, promising only to see each other soon, they turned; and went their separate ways.