Seducing Ingrid Bergman (23 page)

I tug at her stocking tops, which unpeel like a second skin. The silk darkens, folded over, crackles as though about to spark.

In a tricky manipulation, my fingers fumble, discover a seam, then lose themselves in a rosy open moistness, a shapeless hot wet mouth.

Her breath snags for an instant. Her head slips sideways.

I sense something stretch within her. Her thighs flare, a net waiting to take me.

Her hands unbutton my flies. The angle is awkward, but I bend to make it happen.

My free hand gathers her hair into a thickness.

Her legs clamp me, making a triangle.

The music seems so remote now, it works to slow the world around us, while here inside these four small walls, time accelerates.

What starts as an agitation at the back of my knees shades into an ache and lingers as a sweetness as if my legs were injected with honey.

Her pearls click together distantly.

I feel my head swim.

Her hands push down against the lid beneath her so that her back arches and her wrists stiffen.

We work clumsily for what seems a couple of minutes before something within her brims. Every nerve strains hotly to complete the reaction that kicks off inside her. Her face stretches tight and her lips come unstuck from mine to issue a silent scream. Her limbs quicken in a final rhythm, shiver, then release me in a kind of sob.

Everything is suddenly blind sensation, followed by a sense of gentle endless falling like the rain. An obliterating sweetness. I want to possess the moment, to wrap myself around it, to give it weight.

Inches behind us, there comes a knock. The knock is rapid, becoming more urgent.

‘Ingrid?’

A silence.

‘Are you in there?’

It is Petter. He is just beyond the door. Ingrid freezes then leaps up as if she’s just been stung by a bee.

‘Ingrid?’ he says again. ‘Are you okay?’

Her voice comes out high and cracked. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. ‘It’s nothing. I had a stomach ache. I’ll be with you in a minute.’

We both grow small, retreat into ourselves.

‘Open the door,’ he says, his voice laced with impatience.

‘Just a minute,’ she manages, her voice level again. But her eyes are filled with panic. She mouths to me, gesturing wildly, asking what we should do. Fear grips her. Wordlessly she curses me.

I tuck myself in. Blood thunders in my chest. Feelings of shame battle with the need for more practical action. I turn on the tap. It buys us a few seconds. He will think she’s washing her hands.

In this time Ingrid fastens her stockings, slips on her shoes. I point behind her to the handle of the chain. She understands, yanks it.

Slowly the oval of water fills with bubbles and flushes with an enormous roar.

Ingrid straightens her dress, unmusses her hair, rinses her hands without looking at them. ‘I’m coming,’ she calls.

The tumult subsides and the toilet drains. The next logical thing is to open the door.

He’s still there.

I’m trapped. There’s no way out. The room is tiny, the window too small to squeeze through. The only chance I have is to hide behind the door. If someone else is waiting, I’m lost.

I flatten myself against the wall and signal to her to flick off the light. She understands and choreographs it perfectly.

The door opens and the light goes out, cancelling the pattern of tiles beneath my feet. The toilet drips and gurgles as it settles into silence. The smell of ammonia fills my nose.

‘Darling, I was worried about you,’ I hear Petter say.

‘It’s my stomach.’

‘Ingrid, I had no idea. You should have said.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Do you want to go home?’

‘I’m all right now.’

‘You seem hot. Do you have a temperature?’

‘I’m fine. Really.’

They begin speaking in Swedish. Their voices recede, mingling with the soft jazz of the guitar and violin, the distant chatter and tinkle of the restaurant.

No one else has come in. I’m lucky. I’m saved. I sigh inwardly with relief. But just as I walk out, a woman approaches. Offended, she stops. Her glance takes in the fact that I’ve been in the women’s toilet with the light switched off. She looks like the type who might make a fuss, call the manager and complain.

‘I’ve fixed it,’ I say quickly.

‘I’m sorry?’ she says, patrician, suspicious.

‘The light. It should work now.’ I switch it on, gesture with a screwing movement for the bulb. ‘See?’

She looks baffled for an instant, then wary. The fat on her upper arm jiggles. Unsmiling, sceptical, she glances back at me as she enters the rest room. I hear her loudly bolt the door.

Returning to my table, I see Irwin. He has just arrived.

The olive still floats in my martini, swollen and diluted now by the melted ice. The wax on the candle has congealed around the base. It smells faintly of vanilla.

I feel hot and take off my jacket before sitting down. I know Ingrid can see me in the corner of her vision.

Irwin registers my drink half-empty, my extinguished cigarette. He hasn’t seen her yet. He looks at me, puzzled.

I scratch my head.

‘Where were you?’ he says.

*   *   *

Even if in the brightness and bustle of the day she feels blameless, when she wakes in the night, sensations of guilt assail her. The feeling gnaws at her that what she’s doing is wrong.

I must be crazy, she thinks.

She knows she has acted badly. Everyone will say so. She has no defence, other than a kind of amorous delirium that people will call selfish – which, of course, it is.

It’s odd, because no one who knows her or who has worked with her would claim that she’s irresponsible. In no other sphere would people accuse her of that.

What has happened, then? She’s realized that she was dead inside, is what. And now some force has acted upon her, unhinged her, made her do things that are reckless and incredible. Something has entered and transfigured her, overtaken her with its power.

It is a benign force, she’s convinced. So why fight it? Why oppose what is self-evidently good? And isn’t it wrong to stay with Petter when she no longer loves him? Isn’t she kidding herself if she thinks she’s being good when in reality she’s merely being a coward?

It’s hopeless, she decides. This thing with Capa is compromising her. She will – must – give him up. It’s best for everyone. No more telephone calls. No more secret notes or clandestine letters. Silence. Renunciation. It is the right thing to do, the good thing – the only true course open to her. Then she contemplates life without him. Dry, impoverished, but honest. And her whole being screams out, no.

Whatever happens, she considers, it’s good to know that her heart is not so eroded. It’s good to know that she’s still capable of being stirred. But whereas in Paris it all seemed so exciting, enjoying the high gloss of romance, at home in Benedict Canyon, with Pia at school and Petter at the hospital, the reality of an affair leaves her feeling tawdry.

At least she has her work to sustain her. And some deep instinct steers her to preserve it. Of all the scattered parts of herself, this is what fulfils her, makes her happy. It is the same impulse, she supposes, that makes Capa want to take photographs, and draws on the same deep well of feeling.

‘
You don’t think a woman can change?
’ is one of the lines she has to say to Cary Grant after her character untypically refuses a drink. It is in this moment that Alicia agrees to martyr herself for her country and for the love of a man she knows may well destroy her.

16

The advance from International Pictures is burning a hole in my pocket.

I wake up this morning to find the milk has turned to junket and there’s nothing in the cupboard other than a packet of sugar, two cans of beans and some bread, already stale. Outside, fog condenses and drips from the trees, mist filling the valley like grey water filling a bowl.

Without warning an inner voice says, ‘Put everything on horse number seven in the seventh race.’

I ignore it. The fog clears like a mirror outside.

Later in the morning, it comes again, more insistently. ‘Put everything on horse number seven in the seventh race.’

Once more, I ignore the voice. But it continues unabated up until lunch. It’s like an itch, an irritant that won’t go away. With more emphasis this time, the inner voice says, ‘Put everything on horse number seven in the seventh race.’

I know I shouldn’t pay any heed. It’s the kind of advice that madmen, religious fanatics, killers listen to. But I succumb.

In the afternoon, I go to the race-track at Santa Anita and place my bet. I put everything on horse number seven in the seventh race.

The inner voice congratulates me. ‘You did the right thing. Well done,’ it says. ‘You won’t regret it. You’ll see.’

The race starts.

Horse number seven lies third after the first circuit. He appears comfortable, strong and relaxed, moving easily up the field.

The inner voice says, ‘Trust me.’

And on the second circuit, well placed, he begins his charge. Things are looking good. My fists are clenched, urging him on. He starts to edge it, moves ahead by a nose. Things are looking very good. But another horse, a grey, makes a late kick and steals it.

My heart freezes. The voice is silent.

‘Shit,’ I say.

*   *   *

Two dark-suited men in hats sit up, interested, when they see Ingrid enter the restaurant. She nudges me subtly. ‘Watch out.’

I look around.

‘Reporters,’ she says, smiling determinedly into the middle distance.

‘How do you know?’

‘I can spot them a mile away.’

‘You want to leave?’

‘If we go now, it’ll look as though we’ve got something to hide.’ She calls over the maître d’.

I try not to look at the reporters.

‘A table, somewhere in the centre,’ she says.

‘Are you sure?’ I whisper.

Ingrid follows the maître d’, striding confidently, almost ostentatiously towards the table. She holds her head high, making no effort to conceal who she is. We sit down.

I say, ‘You think we’ll get away with this?’

She allows a napkin to be flattened on her lap. The two newshounds who sat up like hyenas when we walked in look bored again. Her tactic seems to work. She convinces them that there’s no story, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing remarkable going on here.

She lights her own cigarette. ‘I still feel as if I’m doing something wrong.’

‘That’s silly.’

‘Having to creep around guiltily – it makes me uneasy.’ She looks round as if certain someone will overhear.

‘I thought you found it exciting.’

‘I did.’

‘You don’t any more?’

She says nothing, blows smoke in a column from her lower lip.

‘I don’t mind if people know the truth,’ I tell her.

‘I’m sure you don’t,’ she says.

All those handsome leading men with their mansions, parties and fast cars, I consider, and instead she chooses a gypsy newspaperman. Who would ever guess? Who would suspect a schmuck like me?

But it’s as if she’s been spooked. She takes a long swallow of wine. In returning her glass to its sticky circle, she misjudges the angle slightly, placing it too close to the edge of the table. She pushes it back across the surface, running it through a small bubble of damp.

‘The way you handled them was impressive,’ I tell her.

She’s not interested in compliments. Her face remains impassive. Her eyes slide towards me. ‘I remember once,’ she says, ‘I had trouble with a scene. I couldn’t get the emotion right. I didn’t believe in the character. So I said to the director, “It’s no good, I can’t do it.” And you know what?’

I shrug.

‘He took me aside, sat me down and in a calm voice said, “If you can’t do it, fake it. Just fake it.” So I did, and it all made sense.’

‘Is that what you’re doing with me?’ I say. ‘Faking it?’

She consults the menu. I start laughing. She ignores me at first. ‘What’s so funny?’ she says.

‘Nothing.’

Sunlight pours through the window, throwing slats of shadow on the floor. Cars glide past outside.

I long to hold her in my arms, to say her name over and over, to look her in the eye and tell her that I love her, that everything is okay. I want to touch things because they belong to her, but I can’t, because she’s married and I’m here in this restaurant with two reporters watching, in this city where she works, in this world where she stands as a paragon of virtue. That’s why I’m laughing.

So instead, jokingly I cock my thumb, make my fingers into the shape of a gun, point it towards my temple and pretend to pull the trigger. I purse my lips, then blow to signal an explosion. My eyes rise heavenwards.

She doesn’t laugh.

*   *   *

She tries to imagine the facts stacked in the balance pans. Impossible to measure, impossible to quantify the hurt and heartache involved. She changes her mind a thousand times. Her imagination is feverish with different scenarios. She can’t see a clear way ahead. It is a non-choice, a leap into the abyss, a knife slipped into her whatever she decides.

More than once, in that instant when she wakes in the morning and turns to the empty space next to her in the bed, instinctively it is Capa she expects to see and not Petter. She looks about her in astonishment. She doesn’t recognize the room, doesn’t understand where she is for several seconds.

She is shocked to find that she distrusts herself, her ability to know what she wants, to understand who she is. I’m a bad person, she thinks. I’ve done selfish things. She can’t stand lying, hates being deceitful, loathes hypocrisy, and yet when she sees herself in the mirror, she wants to scream, ‘Look at me!’ She’s confused at the happiness she feels when she thinks of Capa, and she thinks of him all the time. She feels proud of him, though she has no right to. And she feels the pain of excitement this intimacy affords. She feels closer to him than any man. Being with Capa, holding his hand, sleeping with him, feels the most natural thing in the world.

Why must she always be the responsible one? She’s been responsible all her life, she considers. Isn’t it time she enjoyed herself a little, had some fun for a change? Is it asking too much to spend some time with the man she loves?