The Kings of Eternity (13 page)

“Carla, I didn’t mean to hurt you. This isn’t easy for me, you know?”

From somewhere in her repertoire of stock expressions, she employed a cruel smile. “Do you know something, Jonathon? You all say that, every damned man I’ve ever known.”

“Would you rather we went on as we have been? Me becoming ever more dissatisfied, resenting you because you aren’t the person I wanted you to be?”

“We could have talked things through, Jonathon. If only I’d known how you were feeling, then maybe I could have done something.”

“It’s past that,” I said.

She stared at me, then hurried from the room. I followed her. She opened the door and paused on the top step, her back to me. Then she turned.

“Let’s meet again,” she said. “I don’t want this to be the last time I see you.”

She came into my arms, like a thousand times before, and it seemed so right, she fitted so perfectly, that as I held her then I wondered why the exquisite physicality of our affair could not be matched by a similar union of temperament or soul.

She pulled away, then kissed me quickly on the cheek and hurried down the steps. I watched her stride along the street and turn the corner, a sensation of emptiness and desolation expanding within my chest.

I returned inside, switched off the light and sat before the fire. Why was it, now, that all my earlier reasons to end the affair with Carla seemed so empty and baseless? The prospect of freedom was a shallow concept when I felt so alone; the thought of tolerating her friends seemed a small price to pay for the joy of her company, the delight of her physicality which I would never again experience. Had she returned to me at that minute, I am sure I would have swept her into my arms and begged for her forgiveness.

I sat for hours in the light of the fire, the room dark around me. At that moment, with the thought of my father alone in his hospital room, and my affair with Carla at an end, I had never felt the future to be so bleak: even the wonders I had experienced in Hopton Wood did nothing to alleviate the simple human emotions of grief and loneliness I was undergoing.

I slept badly that night, even at one point dreaming of Carla. I awoke in a sweat in the early hours, remembering the times I had woken with her beside me and stared at her face as she slept, unaware of my gaze.

I rose late, bathed, and decided to walk into the city in order to while away an hour or so. As I strode through Chelsea I passed a public house where Carla and I and the theatre crowd had met once following a show. I saw a small Greek restaurant that we had favoured in the early days of our courtship. It seemed that many such familiar places crouched in ambush all over the city, waiting to leapt out and remind me of all that I had lost.

I tried to look ahead, consider the possibility of other liaisons; but the simple fact was that she had been the centre of my existence for so long that it was well nigh impossible to imagine meeting another woman as real and alive as Carla.

I considered visiting my father, but the coward in me shied away from that encounter. I hurried across the river to Battersea through the busy rush-hour streets. I wanted nothing more than to be away from London, heading with Vaughan towards the Chilterns and Hopton Wood. Friday could not come soon enough, and it was still only Wednesday. The prospect of having to endure a cold winter Thursday in London filled me with despair.

I retired early to bed, and by some miracle sleep came early and was uninterrupted. I did dream - visions of coruscating blue light, and fleeting, surreal images of Carla, and my bed-ridden father - but woke reasonably refreshed at nine.

I forced myself to eat breakfast, bacon sandwiches and strong tea. I sat at my desk for the rest of the morning and read through my notes detailing the strange occurrences at Hopton Wood.

I decided to spend the remainder of the day at the British Library, and attempt some research into the phenomena of blue lights and haunted ancient forests and the like - though I very much doubted whether I would turn up much information on the subject.

I was about to set off when there was a knock at the door. Overcoat in hand, I pulled open the door and stared at Carla, standing on the top step.

I indicated my coat. “I was just about to go out.”

My response might sound heartless, but the fact was that the sight of Carla standing there, beautiful in the bright winter sunlight, filled me with pain. It was all I could do not to reach out and pull her into my arms.

But I told myself that I had to be strong; that my decision to leave Carla would ultimately be for the best, for the both of us.

“In that case I won’t keep you for long,” she said in a small voice. She wore a long, ankle-length coat and a red bonnet-affair as close fitting as a swimming cap. Her face was pale, drawn.

She met my eyes briefly. “Are you going to let me in?”

I stepped back. She side-stepped past me and walked into the lounge. For once she could not warm herself before the fire, as I had neglected to build it that morning.

Instead she stood before the empty hearth and regarded me.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Jonathon?”

I was non-plussed, at first thinking that she had somehow found out about the events in Hopton Wood. Before I realised the improbability of this, she went on. “I called your father last night. I spoke with his housekeeper. She told me about... about his illness. Of course I went to see him.”

I found myself murmuring, “He’d like that.”

“I wanted to ask him about you, if anything was troubling you.”

“Isn’t the fact that my father is dying enough to trouble anyone?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s the reason for you finishing with me.”

“Of course it wasn’t.”

“Then what was?”

I sighed. “Need we go through all that again?” I made to put on my coat, hoping that she would take the hint.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Harold was ill?”

“To be honest, it didn’t seem appropriate. How could I simply slip into the conversation the fact that my father was dying?”

“You could have... I don’t know, phoned, or even written.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it such a grievous omission.”

She stared at me from across the room. “It was awfully thoughtless, Jonathon.”

I shrugged, attempting nonchalance at the charge. A thought occurred to me. “You didn’t tell him? About us, I mean?”

Her eyes widened in a kind of flinch that I could think her so crass. “Of course not! How could I have told a dying man... He told me that he wants us to get married.”

I laughed, though in fact I felt closer to tears. “He told me that, too.”

The silence stretched. “About yesterday - you weren’t yourself, Jonathon. Something is wrong, isn’t it? Whatever it is, you know you can share it with me.”

“Carla...”

“A year is a long time, Jonathon. We’ve shared so much. I don’t want it to end like this.”

“What do you mean?”

She stared at me, an intensity in her gaze that I found disconcerting. Her lips trembled; if she was acting, it was a prize-wining performance. “I love you, Jonathon. I think I only realised quite how much I loved you when I left here yesterday. I went through hell... You can’t imagine. Last night’s performance. To be honest I don’t know how I managed to get through it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why... why can’t we try again? I can change. We won’t see my friends as much. We could go away for a while, a short holiday. I just want things to be perfect between us, as they were in the early days.”

My heart seemed to expand in my chest, as if it were bursting. I was aware that I was standing at a crossroads, and whatever decision I made, whichever road I decided to take, would be momentous and possibly regrettable.

I wanted to be strong, and turn my back and walk out of the flat, and out of her life forever. But weakness kept me there, a weakness and insecurity at the core of my being which I told myself was compassion; how, I reasoned, could I hurt her so much yet again?

Impulsively, she moved towards the bedroom. I was aware of my heart, thudding suddenly.

She left the bedroom door ajar, and I could make out her shadow on the floor as she moved. I could discern very clearly what she was doing, and a part of me wanted nothing else but to flee, while another part experienced the visceral tug of lust and affection that some people call love.

As I moved towards the bedroom, I thought of all the wonderful times we had shared over the year - the tiny shared intimacies that seemed magnified and made all the more important because they might never occur again. It was within my power, I realised, to make them happen... and the weight of responsibility, not only for one person’s happiness but for two, brought tears to my eyes.

I stood in the doorway. Her clothes were scattered on the floor. She lay in bed, the sheets kicked back, her hands above her head. Her face was turned away from me, and I received the impression that she was holding her breath, and at the same time murmuring a silent prayer.

The thought occurred to me that I was unworthy of her heartache, that she would in time be better off without someone whose inexperience filled him with jealous rage and insecurity.

I walked around the bed and sat down. My hand trembled as I reached out and stroked her cheek. Her face was so pale, made even paler by her jet black bangs. When I pulled her to me and our lips collided, I was surprised anew at the weight of her, her warmth and sheer humanity.

I came late to love, and as mysterious as the baffling psychology of attraction was the renewed wonder, every time I held Carla, that the physicality of something that I had feared for so long, the giving of oneself and taking from another in the act of sexual intimacy, could be so perfect and so right.

We made love in silence, and in the same quality of needful silence lay in each other’s arms for what seemed like hours, while outside the world went on its way and a fall of snow commenced to coat the streets.

Later still, Carla said, “I didn’t tell you: the play’s been closed. Poor attendances. Bad reviews. It’s the final night tonight.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I could hardly tell her that it came as no surprise.

“There’s an end of run party tonight, or rather a wake.” She pulled a pretty grimace. “I can’t get out of it, Jonathon.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have to visit my father, anyway.”

She stroked my chest. “What are you doing this weekend?”

I sighed. “I’m going over to Cranley Grange again, staying with the editor I mentioned, Carnegie. He wants me to do a series of stories for the
Scribe
... we’ll be discussing the details over the weekend.”

“Good for you, Jonathon. Tell me all about it when you get back, okay?”

“I’ll phone as soon as I’m in London,” I said.

Later I threw together a late lunch and we chatted of nothing in particular - the exchange of smalltalk familiar and pleasant - until Carla had to leave for the matinee performance of
Lost Horizons
.

We parted on the top step of my flat with a quick kiss and a hug, and as I watched her walk quickly down the street and turn the corner, I was filled with joy at our reunion and at the same time a subtle sense of despair.

That night I visited my father. He was home from hospital and sitting up in bed, grey of face but paradoxically full of life. A nurse was on hand to administer the array of pills he had been prescribed, and with Mrs Johnson in attendance I could be reassured that he would be well cared for while I was away. Nevertheless, I felt guilty.

My father waved away my apologies. “These things can’t be avoided, Jonathon. Business is business, after all.”

We played chess for a couple of hours, but I could see that the effort of concentration was taking its toll: he made a couple of elementary errors, which I purposefully did not take advantage of, and I managed to play out a stalemate.

I noticed that he had proceeded no further with my novel. From time to time he lost track of what he was talking about, and on occasion nodded off, and then came awake with a guilty start.

Before I left, I asked him if Carla had visited.

“Came yesterday. We had a good old heart to heart. Fine girl.”

I considered my next words. It had occurred to me only moments before. “Did you tell her about the will?” I asked, hating myself for doing so.

He frowned, considering. “I do believe I did. Mentioned the fact that you’d both be able to settle down pretty soonish...”

I promised I’d drop by as soon as I got back, and took my leave. In the taxi back to Battersea, I considered what my father had told me, and Carla’s appearance at my flat that morning.

The insidious suspicions were starting again, and we had been back together less than a day. I thought of the party Carla would be attending now, along with Ticehurst and the rest of the crowd, and I could not help an involuntary and painful pang of jealousy.

It was midnight by the time I reached home, and I slept badly. The only comfort I experienced was the thought of the weekend away in the country, and what secrets Hopton Wood might yet divulge.

Chapter Seven

Kallithéa, July, 1999

Four days had elapsed since their last meeting, and for much of the time Langham had been unable to push thoughts of Caroline Platt from his head.

The tyranny of biology, the reclusive misanthrope in him said as he stared into the bathroom mirror on the morning of the fourth day. It was unnatural for man to live without woman, and vice-versa, and after more than ten years of celibacy his body was making its needs known. If she were to leave the island tomorrow, he told himself, he would be upset for a week, and then slip back into his old routine as if she had never interrupted it.

Nevertheless, after completing his thousand words that morning, he donned his sun hat and took the path through the pines trees to her villa.

She was in her studio, working.

He paused at the door and watched her.

She had her back to him, and was oblivious of his presence. She moved from side to side, swaying, her brush moving in broad, rapid strokes across the top of the canvas.