The Comfort of Strangers

  It was a full minute before Robert spoke, and when he did there was a trace of regret in his voice. ‘It’s time to go,’ he said.

  The gallery, as Mary stepped inside and Caroline closed the door firmly behind her, appeared to have doubled in size. Practically all the furniture, and all the pictures, rugs, chandeliers and wall hangings had vanished. Where the great, polished table had stood were three boxes supporting a thick plywood board on which were spread the remains of a lunch. Around this makeshift table were four chairs. The floor was an open plain of marble, and Mary’s sandals flopped and echoed loudly as she advanced a few paces into the room. All that remained of significance was Robert’s sideboard, his shrine. Behind Mary, just inside the door, were two suitcases. The balcony was still profuse with plants, but the furniture had gone from there too.

  Caroline, who was still standing by the door, smoothed her dress with the palms of her hands. ‘I don’t usually dress like a ward sister,’ she said, ‘but with so many things to arrange, I feel more efficient in white.’

  Mary smiled. ‘I’m inefficient in any colour.’

  Out of context, it might have been difficult to recognize Caroline. The hair, so tightly drawn back before, was slightly awry; loose strands softened her face which in the intervening days had lost its anonymity. The lips especially, previously so thin and bloodless, were full, almost sensual. The long straight line of her nose, where formerly it had appeared no more than the least acceptable solution to a problem of design, now conferred dignity. The eyes had shed their hard, mad shine and seemed more communicative, sympathetic. Only her skin remained unchanged, without colour, without even pallor, a toneless grey.

  ‘You look well,’ Mary said.

  Caroline came forward, the same painful, awkward gait, and took Mary’s hands in hers. ‘I’m glad you came,’ she said, urgently hospitable, squeezing tight on ‘glad’ and ‘came’. ‘We knew Colin would keep his promise.’

  She went to withdraw her hands but Mary kept hold. ‘We didn’t exactly plan to come, but it wasn’t completely accidental either. I wanted to talk to you.’ Caroline sustained her smile, but her hands were heavy in Mary’s, who still would not let go. She nodded as Mary spoke and directed her gaze at the floor. ‘I’ve been wondering about you. There are some things I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Caroline said after a pause, ‘let’s go in the kitchen. I’ll make some herb tea.’ She pulled her hands free, this time a decisive tug, and, resuming the intent manner of the serious hostess, beamed at Mary before she turned briskly and limped away.

  The kitchen was at the same end of the gallery as the entrance to the apartment. It was small, but immaculately neat, with many cupboards and drawers, and surfaces coated in white plastic. The lighting was fluorescent, and there was no sign of food. From a cupboard under the sink Caroline produced a stool of tubular steel and gave it to Mary to sit on. The cooker was supported by a worn card table and was of the kind found in caravans, with two rings, no oven, and a length of rubber hose which ran into a gas bottle on the floor. Caroline put a kettle on to boil and reached, with great difficulty and a curt refusal of help, into a cupboard for a teapot. She stood still for a moment, one hand resting on the refrigerator, the other on her hip, and appeared to be waiting for a pain to pass. Immediately behind her was another door, slightly ajar, through which Mary could see the corner of a bed.

  When Caroline had recovered and was spooning small, dried flowers from a jar into the teapot, Mary said lightly, ‘What did you do to your back?’

  Once again there flashed the ready smile, hardly more than a baring of teeth and a rapid forward movement of the jaw, the kind of smile offered to mirrors, all the stranger here in this confined, bright space. ‘It’s been like this a long time now,’ she said, and busied herself with cups and saucers. She began to tell Mary of her travel plans; she and Robert were flying to Canada and there they would stay with her parents for three months. When they returned they would buy another house, a ground-floor apartment, perhaps, somewhere with no stairs. She had filled two cups and was slicing a lemon.

  Mary agreed that the journey sounded exciting and the plan sensible. ‘But what about the pain,’ she said. ‘Is it your spine, or your hip? Have you seen anyone about it?’ Caroline had turned her back on Mary and was putting the lemon slices into the tea. At the clink of a teaspoon Mary added, ‘No sugar for me.’

  Caroline turned and gave her her cup. ‘Just stirring in the lemon,’ she said, ‘to make it taste.’ They carried their cups out of the kitchen. ‘I’ll tell you about my back,’ Caroline said as she led the way on to the balcony, ‘when you’ve told me how good you think this tea is. Orange blossom.’

  Mary rested her cup on the balcony wall and fetched two chairs from indoors. They sat as before, though less comfortably and without a table between them, facing out to sea and the nearby island. Because these chairs were higher, Mary had a view of that part of the quay from which she and Colin had caught sight of Caroline, who was now raising her cup as though to propose a toast. Mary swallowed, and though its tartness caused her to purse her lips, she said it was refreshing. They drank in silence, Mary watching Caroline steadily, expectantly, and Caroline glancing up from her lap every so often to smile nervously at Mary. When both cups were empty Caroline began abruptly.

  ‘Robert said he told you about his childhood. He exaggerates a lot, and turns his past into stories to tell at the bar, but all the same it was weird. My childhood was happy and dull. I was an only child, and my father, who was very kind, doted on me, and I did everything he said. I was very close to my mother, we were almost like sisters, and between us we worked hard looking after Dad, “backing up the ambassador” my mother used to say. I was twenty when I married Robert and I knew nothing about sex. Until that time, as far as I can remember, I hadn’t had any sexual feelings at all. Robert had been about a bit, so after a bad start it began to come alive for me. Everything was fine. I was trying to get pregnant. Robert was desperate to be a father, desperate to have sons, but nothing came of it. For a long time the doctors thought it was me, but in the end it turned out to be Robert, something wrong with his sperm. He’s very sensitive about it. The doctors said we should keep on trying. But then, something started to happen. You’re the first person I’ve told. I can’t even remember the first time now, or what we thought was going on at the time. We must have talked about it, but just possibly we didn’t. I can’t remember. Robert started to hurt me when we made love. Not a lot, but enough to make me cry out. I think I tried hard to stop him. One night I got really angry at him, but he went on doing it, and I had to admit, though it took a long time, that I liked it. Perhaps you find that hard to understand. It’s not the pain itself, it’s the fact of the pain, of being helpless before it, and being reduced to nothing by it. It’s pain in a particular context, being punished and therefore being guilty. We both liked what was happening. I was ashamed of myself, and before I knew it, my shame too was a source of pleasure. It was as if I was discovering something that had been with me all my life. I wanted it more and more. I needed it. Robert began to really hurt me. He used a whip. He beat me with his fists as he made love to me. I was terrified, but the terror and the pleasure were all one. Instead of saying loving things into my ear, he whispered pure hatred, and though I was sick with humiliation, I thrilled to the point of passing out. I didn’t doubt Robert’s hatred for me. It wasn’t theatre. He made love to me out of deep loathing, and I couldn’t resist. I loved being punished.

  ‘We went on like this for some time. My body was covered in bruises, cuts, weals. Three of my ribs were cracked. Robert knocked out one of my teeth. I had a broken finger. I didn’t dare visit my parents and as soon as Robert’s grandfather died we moved here. To Robert’s friends I was just another beaten wife, which was exactly what I was. Nobody noticed. It gave Robert some status round the places where he drank. When I was alone for long enough, or when I was out with ordinary people doing ordinary th
ings, the madness of what we were doing, and my own acquiescence in it, terrified me. I kept telling myself I had to get away. And then, as soon as we were back together again, what had seemed mad became inevitable, even logical, once more. Neither of us could resist it. Quite often I was the one to initiate it, and that was never difficult. Robert was longing to pound my body to a pulp. We had arrived at the point we had been heading towards all the time. Robert confessed one night that there was only one thing he really wanted. He wanted to kill me, as we made love. He was absolutely serious. I remember the next day we went to a restaurant and tried to laugh it off. But the idea kept coming back. Because of that possibility hanging over us, we made love like never before.

  ‘One night Robert came in from an evening of drinking, just as I was falling asleep. He got into bed and took me from behind. He whispered he was going to kill me, but he’d said that many times before. He had his forearm round my neck, and then he began to push into the small of my back. At the same time he pulled my head backwards. I blacked out with the pain, but even before I went I remember thinking: it’s going to happen. I can’t go back on it now. Of course, I wanted to be destroyed.

  ‘My back was broken and I was in hospital for months. I’ll never walk properly now, partly because of an incompetent surgeon, although the other specialists say he did a wonderful job. They cover for each other. I can’t bend down, I get pains in my legs and in my hip joint. It’s very difficult for me to walk down stairs, and completely impossible to walk up them. Ironically, the only position I’m comfortable in is on my back. By the time I came out of the hospital, Robert had bought the bar with his grandfather’s money, and it was a success. This week he’s selling it to the manager. When I came out, the idea was that we were going to be sensible. We were shaken up by what had happened. Robert was putting all his energy into the bar, I was seeing a physiotherapist here in the apartment several hours a day. But of course, we couldn’t forget what we’d been through, nor could we stop wanting it. We were the same people after all, and this idea, I mean the idea of death, wouldn’t go away just because we said it had to. We didn’t talk about it, it was impossible to talk about it, but it showed through in different ways. When the physiotherapist said I was strong enough, I went out by myself, just to walk in the streets and be an ordinary person again. When I came home I discovered that I couldn’t get up the stairs. If I put all my weight on one leg and pushed, I felt a terrible pain, like an electric shock. I waited out in the courtyard for Robert to come home. When he did, he said it was my own fault for leaving the apartment without his permission. He spoke to me like a small child. He wouldn’t help me up the stairs, and he wouldn’t let any of the neighbours come near me either. You’ll find this hard to believe, but I had to stay out all night. I sat in a doorway and tried to sleep, and all night I thought I heard people snoring in their bedrooms. In the morning Robert carried me up the stairs and we had our first sex since I had been out of the hospital.

  ‘I became a virtual prisoner. I could leave the apartment any time, but I could never be sure of getting back, and in the end I gave up. Robert has been paying a neighbour to do all our shopping, and I’ve hardly been outside in four years. I looked after the heirlooms, Robert’s little museum. He’s obsessed with his father and grandfather. And I made this garden out here. I’ve spent a lot of time by myself. It hasn’t been so bad.’ Caroline broke off and looked sharply at Mary. ‘Have you understood what I’ve been talking about?’ Mary nodded, and Caroline softened. ‘Good. It’s very important to me that you understand exactly what I’ve been saying.’ She was fingering the large, glossy leaves of a potted plant on the balcony wall. She pulled away a dead leaf and let it drop into the courtyard below. ‘Now,’ she announced, but did not finish her sentence.

  The sun had disappeared behind the roof at their back. Mary shivered and stifled a yawn. ‘I haven’t bored you,’ Caroline said. It was more a statement than a question.

  Mary said she was not bored, and explained how the long swim, the sleep in the sun and the heavy restaurant meal had made her feel drowsy. Then, because Caroline was still looking at her intently, expectantly, she added, ‘What now? Will going home help you become more independent?’

  Caroline shook her head. ‘We’ll tell you about that when Robert and Colin are here.’ She set about asking Mary a series of questions about Colin, some of which she had asked before. Were Mary’s children fond of him? Did he take a special interest in them? Did Colin know her ex-husband? Throughout Mary’s brief and polite replies, Caroline nodded, as though checking off items on a list.

  When, quite unexpectedly, she asked if she and Colin had done ‘strange things’ Mary smiled good-humouredly at her. ‘Sorry. We’re very ordinary people. You’ll have to take that on trust.’ Caroline became silent, her eyes were fixed on the ground. Mary leaned forward to touch her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I don’t know you that well. You had something to tell, so you told it, which was good. I didn’t force it out of you.’ Mary’s hand lay on Caroline’s several seconds, squeezing gently.

  Caroline had closed her eyes. Then she grasped Mary’s hand and stood as quickly as she was able. ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ she said through the effort of rising.

  Mary stood too, partly in order to help her up. ‘Isn’t that Colin way over there,’ she said, and indicated a solitary figure on the quay, just visible beyond the topmost branches of a tree.

  Caroline looked and shrugged. ‘I’d need my glasses to see that far.’ Still holding Mary’s hand, she was already turning towards the door.

  They went through the kitchen into the bedroom which was in semi-darkness for the shutters were closed. For all Caroline’s account of what had happened there, it was a bare, unexceptional room. As in the guest room at the other end of the gallery, a louvred door gave on to a tiled bathroom. The bed was large, without headboard or pillows, and was covered by a pale green bedspread, smooth to the touch.

  Mary sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘My legs ache,’ she said, more to herself than to Caroline who was pulling the shutters open. The room was flooded with late afternoon light, and Mary was suddenly aware that the wall adjacent to the window, the wall behind her which ran the length of the bed, supported a wide baize-covered board covered with numerous photographs, overlapping like a collage, mostly black and white, a few Polaroids in colour, all of them of Colin. Mary moved along the bed to see more clearly, and Caroline came and sat close beside her.

  ‘He’s very beautiful,’ she said softly. ‘Robert saw you both, quite by chance, the day you first arrived.’ She pointed at a picture of Colin standing by a suitcase, a street map in his hand. He was talking over his shoulder to someone, perhaps Mary, just out of frame. ‘We both think he’s very beautiful.’ Caroline placed her arm round Mary’s shoulders. ‘Robert took a lot of pictures that day, but that’s the one I saw first. I’ll never forget it. Just looking up from the map. Robert came home so excited. Then as he brought more pictures home’ – Caroline indicated the whole board – ‘we became closer and closer again. It was my idea to put them up here, where we could see them all at once. We would lie here into the early morning making plans. You’d never believe how much planning there was to do.’

  While Caroline talked, Mary rubbed her legs, sometimes massaging, sometimes scratching, and studied the mosaic of the past week. There were pictures whose context she understood immediately. Several showed Colin on the balcony more clearly than the grainy print. There were pictures of Colin walking into the hotel, another of him sitting alone on the café pontoon, of Colin standing in a crowd, pigeons at his feet, the great clock tower in the background. In one he lay naked on a bed. Other pictures were less easily understood. One taken at night, in very poor light, showed Colin and Mary crossing a deserted square. In the foreground was a dog. In some photographs Colin was quite alone, in many the composition of the enlargement cut Mary off at the hand or elbow, or left a meaningless portion of face. Toget
her the pictures seemed to have frozen every familiar expression, the puzzled frown, the puckered lips about to speak, the eyes so readily softened by endearments, and each picture held, and appeared to celebrate, a different aspect of that fragile face – the eyebrows that met at a point, the deep-set eyes, the long, straight mouth just parted by the glint of a tooth. ‘Why?’ Mary said at last. Her tongue was thick and heavy, and lay across the path of the word. ‘Why?’ she repeated with more determination, but the word, because she suddenly understood the answer, left her as a whisper. Caroline hugged Mary tighter to her and went on. ‘Then Robert brought you home. It was as if God was in on our plan. I came into the bedroom. I never concealed that from you. I knew then that fantasy was passing into reality. Have you ever experienced that? It’s like stepping into a mirror.’

  Mary’s eyes were closing. Caroline’s voice was receding from her. She forced her eyes open and attempted to stand, but Caroline’s arm was tight around her. Her eyes closed once more and she mouthed Colin’s name. Her tongue was too heavy to lift round the ‘l’, it needed several people to help move it, people whose own names did not have an ‘l’. Caroline’s words were all about her, heavy, meaningless, tumbling objects which numbed Mary’s legs. Then Caroline was slapping her face and she was waking as though into another time in history. ‘You’ve been asleep,’ she was saying, ‘you’ve been asleep. You’ve been asleep. Robert and Colin are back. They’ll be waiting for us. Come on now.’ She pulled her into a standing position, draped Mary’s helpless arm over her shoulder, and walked her out of the room.

  10

  WITH THE THREE windows wide open, the gallery was incandescent with afternoon sunlight. Robert stood with his back to a window, patiently removing the little wire cage from the neck of the champagne bottle in his hand. At his feet was the crumpled gold foil and at his side was Colin, two glasses at the ready, still taking in the cavernous emptiness of the room. Both men turned and nodded as the two women entered from the kitchen. Mary had steadied herself and was now walking in short, fumbling steps, one hand resting on Caroline’s shoulder.