The Skull Beneath the Skin (12 page)

Half a mile from the shore Simon Lessing stopped his slow and regular crawl stroke, turned on his back and let his eyes rest on the horizon. The sea was empty. Faced with that shuddering waste of water, it was possible to imagine that there was emptiness also behind him, that the island and its castle had gently subsided under the waves, silently and without turbulence, and that he floated alone in a blue infinity of sea. This self-induced sense of isolation excited but didn’t frighten him. Nothing about the sea ever did. Here was the element in which he felt most at peace; guilt, anxiety, failure washed away in a gentle and perpetual baptism of redemption.

He was glad that Clarissa hadn’t wanted him tagging along behind her on the tour of the castle. There were rooms he would be interested to see, but there would be time enough to explore on his own. And it would give him another excuse to keep out of her way. He couldn’t swim more than twice a day at most without it seeming odd and deliberately unsociable but it would seem perfectly natural to ask if he might wander off to explore the castle. Perhaps the weekend might not be so terrifying after all.

He had only to thrust himself upright to feel the bite of the cold undercurrent. But now he floated, spread-eagled under the sun, feeling the sea creep over his chest and arms as softly warm as a bath. From time to time he let his face submerge, opening his eyes on the thin film of green, letting it wash lightly over his eyeballs. And deep down there was the knowledge, unfrightening and almost comforting, that he only had to let himself go, to give himself up to the power and gentleness of the sea and there need never again be guilt or anxiety or failure. He knew that he wouldn’t do it; the thought was a small self-indulgence which, like a drug, could be safely experimented with as long as the doses were small and one stayed in control. And he was in control. In a few minutes it would be time to turn and strike for the shore, to think about luncheon and Clarissa and getting through the next two days without embarrassment or disaster. But now there was this peace, this emptiness, this wholeness.

It was only at moments like this that he could think without pain of his father. This was how he must have died, swimming alone in the Aegean on that summer morning, finding the tide too strong for him, letting himself go at last without a struggle, without fear, giving himself up to the sea he loved, embracing its majesty and its peace. He had imagined that death so often on his solitary swims that the old nightmares were almost exorcised. He no longer awoke in the darkness of the early hours as he had in those first months after he had learned of his father’s death, sweating with terror, desperately tearing at the blankets as they dragged him down, living every second of those last dreadful minutes, the stinging eyes, the agony as he glimpsed through the waves the lost, receding, unattainable shore. But it hadn’t been like that. It couldn’t have been like that. His father had died secure in his great love, unresisting and at peace.

It was time to turn back. He twisted under the water and
began again his steady powerful crawl. And now his feet found the shingle and he pulled himself ashore, colder and more tired than he had expected. Looking up, he saw with surprise that there was someone waiting for him, a dark-clad, still figure standing like a guardian beside his pile of clothes. He shook the water from his eyes and saw it was Tolly.

He came up to her. At first she didn’t speak but bent and picked up his towel and handed it to him. Panting and shivering he began patting dry his arms and neck, embarrassed by her steady gaze, wondering why she was there. Then she said: “Why don’t you leave?”

She must have seen his incomprehension. She said again: “Why don’t you leave, leave this place, leave her?” Her voice, as always, was low but harsh, almost expressionless. He stared at her, wild-eyed under the dripping hair.

“Leave Clarissa! Why should I? What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t want you. Haven’t you noticed that? You aren’t happy. Why go on pretending?”

He cried out in protest.

“But I am happy! And where can I go? My aunt wouldn’t want me back. I haven’t any money.”

She said: “There’s a spare room in my flat. You could have that for a start. It isn’t much, a child’s room. But you could stay there until you found something better.”

A child’s room. He remembered hearing that she had once had a child, a girl who had died. No one ever spoke about her now. He didn’t want to think about her. He had thought enough about dying and death. He said: “But how could I find somewhere? What would I live on?”

“You’re seventeen, aren’t you? You’re not a child. You’ve got five ‘O’ levels. You could find something to do. I was working at fifteen. Most children in the world start younger.”

“But doing what? I’m going to be a pianist. I need Clarissa’s money.”

“Ah yes,” she said, “you need Clarissa’s money.”

And so, he thought, so do you. That’s what this is all about. He felt a surge of confidence, of adult cunning. He wasn’t a child to be so easily fooled. Hadn’t he always sensed her dislike of him, caught that contemptuous glance as she set down his breakfast on those days when she and he were alone in the flat, watched the silent resentment with which she gathered up his laundry, cleaned his room. If he weren’t there she wouldn’t need to come in except twice a week to check that all was well. Of course she wanted him out of the way. Probably she expected to be left something in Clarissa’s will; she must be ten years younger even if she didn’t look it. And she was only a servant after all. What right had she to upset him, to criticize Clarissa, to patronize him, offering her sordid little room as if it were a favour. It would be as bad as Mornington Avenue; worse. The small, seductive devil at the back of his mind whispered its enticement. However difficult things might be at times he would be crazy to give up the patronage of Clarissa, who was rich, to put himself at the mercy of Tolly, who was poor.

Perhaps something of this reached her. She said, almost humbly but with no trace of solicitation: “You’d be under no obligation. It’s just a room.” He wished she would go. Yet he couldn’t walk away, couldn’t start dressing while that dark, oppressive figure stood there seeming to block the whole beach.

He drew himself up and said as stiffly as his shivering body would permit: “Thank you, but I’m perfectly happy as I am.”

“Suppose she gets tired of you like she did your father.” He gaped at her, clutching his towel. Above them a gull shrieked, shrill as a tormented child. He whispered: “What do you mean?
She loved my father! They loved each other! He explained to me before he left us, mother and me. It was the most marvellous thing that had ever happened to him. He had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“But they adored each other! He was so happy.”

“Then why did he drown himself?”

He cried: “It isn’t true! I don’t believe you!”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Just remember it when your turn comes.”

“But why should he do it? Why?”

“To make her feel sorry, I suppose. Isn’t that usually why people kill themselves? But he should have known. Clarissa doesn’t understand about guilt.”

“But they told me that there was an inquest. They found that it was accidental death. And he didn’t leave a note.”

“If he did they didn’t see it. It was Clarissa who found his clothes on the beach.”

Her eyes fell to where his own trousers and jacket were jumbled under a stone. A picture came unbidden into his mind, so clear that it might have been memory. The gritty sand, hot as cinders, an alien sea layered in purple and blue to the horizon, Clarissa standing with the wind billowing in her sleeves, the note in her hand. And then the tattered scraps of white, fluttering down like petals, briefly littering the sea before floating and dissolving in the surf. It had been three weeks before his father’s body, what was left of it, had been washed up. But bones and flesh, even when the fish have finished with it, lasted longer than a scrap of paper. It wasn’t true. None of it was true. As she had told him, there was always a choice. He would choose not to believe.

He looked down so that he need not meet her eyes, that compelling stare which was much more convincing than any
words she could speak. There was a swathe of seaweed wound round his calf, brown as a gash on which the blood had dried. He bent and plucked at it. It tightened, a slimy ligature. He knew that she was watching him. Then she said: “Suppose she died. What would you do then?”

“Why should she die? She isn’t sick, is she? She never said anything to me about being sick. What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with her.”

“Then why are you talking about dying?”

“She thinks she’s going to die. Sometimes when people think that strongly enough they do die.”

His heart surged with relief. But that was ridiculous! She was trying to frighten him. Everything was plain to him now. She had always been jealous of him just as she had been jealous of his father. He picked up his jacket and tried to sound dignified through the chattering of his teeth.

“If she does die I’m sure you’ll be remembered. I shouldn’t worry if I were you. And now perhaps you’ll let me get dressed. I’m cold and it’s time for luncheon.”

As soon as the words were out he felt ashamed. She turned away without another word. And then she looked back and their eyes met for the last time. He knew what she must see in his, the shame, the fear. He was prepared to encounter anger and resentment. But what he hadn’t expected to see was pity.

A long arcade, brick-built but with columns and arches of patterned stonework, led from the west side of the castle, past a rose garden and formal pool, to the theatre. Making his solitary way, rather late, to watch part of the final run-through, Ivo could picture the slow after-dinner procession of Victorian guests passing under the arches, pale arms and necks above the richness of satin and velvet, jewels sparkling on bosoms and in the intricately piled hair, the white shirt fronts of the men gleaming in the moonlight.

The theatre itself surprised him, less by the perfection of its proportions, which he had expected, than by its contrast to the rest of the castle. He wondered whether it was the work of a different architect; he would have to ask Ambrose. But if Godwin had been responsible, it was apparent that his client’s insistence on opulence and ostentation had prevailed over any inclination he himself might have had for lightness or restraint. Even now, with only half the house lights lit, the theatre glowed with richness. The deep red velvet of the curtains and seats had faded but was still remarkably well preserved.
The candle lighting had been replaced by electricity—the conversion must have given Ambrose a pang—but the delicate convolvulus light shades were still in use and the original crystal chandelier still glittered from the domed ceiling. Everywhere there was ornament, sumptuous, florid, occasionally charming, but always splendid in its craftsmanship. Across the front of the boxes gilded, plump-buttocked cherubs held swags of flowers or lifted trumpets to pouting mouths, while the richly carved royal box with its Prince of Wales feathers and twin seats, regal as thrones, must have satisfied even the most ardent monarchist’s view of what was owing to the heir apparent.

Ivo had settled himself at the end of the fourth row of the stalls with no intention of staying for more than an hour. He was anxious to disabuse the cast of any idea they might have that he was on the island primarily to review their performance and this casual appearance to watch the final rehearsal would remind them that he was less interested in what they managed to make of Webster’s tragedy than in the glories, scandals and legends of the theatre itself. He was glad that the seats, designed for broad Victorian rumps, were so luxuriously comfortable. The afternoon was always the worst time for him when his luncheon, however frugal, lay heavily on his distorted stomach and the monstrous spleen seemed to grow and harden under his supporting hands. He twisted himself more comfortably into the velvet plush, aware of Cordelia sitting silent and upright further along the row, and tried to fix his attention on the stage.

The cast had obviously been instructed by De Ville, a director more at home with the moderns, to concentrate on the sense and let the verse look after itself, a ploy which would have been disastrous with Shakespeare but which succeeded well enough with Webster’s rougher metre. And at least it made
for pace. Ivo had always believed that there was only one way to direct Webster, as a highly stylized drama of manners, the characters, mere ritual personifications of lust, decadence and sexual rapacity, moving in a stately pavane towards the inevitable orgiastic triumph of madness and death. But De Ville, half-sunk in lugubrious disgust at finding himself actually directing amateurs, was obviously aiming at some semblance of realism. It would be interesting to see how he dealt with the more gratuitous horrors. He would be lucky to get away with the proffered severed hand and the gaggle of madmen without a suppressed giggle or two. Revenge tragedy was hardly a genre for the inexperienced; but then, what classic was? Certainly this charnelhouse poet, heaping horror on horror until the appetite sickened, and then suddenly piercing the heart with lines of redeeming beauty, demanded more than the present enthusiastic bunch of playactors. Still, De Ville only had to get one performance out of them. It wasn’t what you could raise yourself to on one night but what you could continue to do, night after night and two matinées a week, for three months or more, that marked the professional from the amateur. He had known that the play was to be done in Victorian costume. The idea had seemed to him an eccentric, slightly ludicrous conceit. But he could see that it had its uses. The stage and the small auditorium fused into one claustrophobic cockpit of evil, the high-necked dresses and the bustles hinted at a sexuality which was the more lascivious because covert, overlaid with Victorian respectability. And there was some wit in the decision to dress Bosola as a kilted Highlander although it was hard to imagine Victoria’s good old Brown in this complex creature of nihilism and thwarted nobility.