The Intimates (14 page)

We have to work to open the door; time has sealed it shut. I try to open it in one faultless, masculine gesture and Carina laughs when I revert to pushing it open with my shoulder. I almost topple inside the darkness when it bursts open, but her hand restrains me.

“This is like stepping into a time portal,” she says.

“It's like a Victorian toy box,” I answer, composing myself.

The room is lit only by the faint light from the house, which makes each toy look unsettling. Spinning tops lay on their side, as if having drunkenly failed in their ambitions. Dolls houses without roofs reveal their intricate interiors. Carina stoops to inspect them, gasping with wonder at their dusty secrets. She disappears behind a small Punch and Judy theatre, and tries to scare me with a crocodile puppet. Being barely able to see her when she emerges, somehow gives me confidence. It allows me to treat her as the person I tend to in my mind, and as I do so she becomes that woman. We toy with masquerade masks, and I make her scream with laughter when I surprise her with a gargoyle one while emitting what I intend to be a monstrous sound – which sounds more like a weak gargle. She brushes dust from dolls that have long become expressionless. “What is this place?” I ask.

“The owner of this house lost custody of his daughter when his wife left him,” she says, putting on a mask. “Francoise told me that he kept this summer house full of toys in the hope that she would one day return. Isn't it tragic?”

“There's something quite melancholy about the whole house. It seems to almost be a monument to irretrievable times.”

Carina steps out of the shadows and reveals her face from behind the mask. The two of us spot a large wooden elephant, its trunk coiled triumphantly in the air. Carina claps her hands; we straddle it and face one other.

“I know what you mean about how something always got in the way,” I say. “Do you remember the last time that happened?”

Through the darkness, I think I see her smile. She seems tempted to hide her face with the mask again; she holds it inches from her nose. “What night was that?” I wonder if she really knows.

“That night the six of us came to see you dance.” She smiles faintly; it seems she's not replayed the memory as much as I have. The mere reminder of that evening seems to make her flinch with caution, and it's a painful sight. She looks at me silently.

“It had been a long time since the two of us had properly spoken. That night I tried to make it happen though, didn't I?”

“I think I can distinctly remember wanting us to talk properly that night too,” she says, raising the mask.

“Do you remember how it happened though? You'd just finished the show and everyone was talking about how exquisite your dance was. Francoise was practically bursting with pride. And you looked so flushed with happiness.”

“It did go well,” she whispers.

“And on the way home we all walked along the river. It had those gold lights back then, the ones that lined the boulevard right up to the city wall. Something happened that night, which made the two of us fall behind the others. We sat down for a while by the river, looked out at it. I got the sense that something had been unleashed in you during the dance. I think I was hoping to unleash something else as well.”

“You said some very sweet things that night Vincent. Things that suggested you'd been thinking about me a lot. That you saw me in a way I had never seen myself. I was worried that you thought there was more to me than there actually was.”

“I knew you were worried about that.”

The darkness is growing deeper now, but I can sense her moving nearer and further away as the scent of her perfume rises and fades.

“No man had ever spoken to me like that before. No-one had ever said that I could mean that much to them. I didn't think I had it in me.”

“You were dating that guy, weren't you? You seemed a little reluctant to hear what I had to say.”

“Not reluctant Vincent. Just unprepared – and perhaps a little overwhelmed. Your feelings were so intense, and you were so clear in expressing them.”

“I remember.”

“Don't be embarrassed by that.”

“I remember that we ended up pinned against each other, lying on the wall we'd been sat on. And we spoke for a few minutes, inches apart from each other. I wondered if I was going to kiss you.”

“A little like now?”

“Yes. And I was just wondering if I should kiss you when – ”

She laughs. A laugh so resonant and bright that it suddenly dispels any doubt that I've ever had about the two of us. “And then Graham came round the corner, didn't he? Drunk as a lord.”

“Drunk as a lord,” I whisper. She looks down, and gathers her dress before dismounting the elephant. We trail outside to the silver-lit porch, and sit down slowly on it.

“This isn't easy,” she says. Her expression is serious. “For us to talk openly, there are years of cobwebs to part to one side.”

“But don't you see? You were right when you talked about the egotism of youth. We believed that everything we desired would come to pass. I've since learnt that sheer bravery is needed to make that happen.”

She smiles faintly, as if anticipating something.

“You know what I want to say, don't you Carina?”

“I know that you are probably caught up in the evening.”

“It isn't that. When you say the two of us were never able to speak, you must be aware that isn't true. We've both been afraid to, and so have contented ourselves with circling one another from a distance.”

She looks at me, her eyes wide and vulnerable. We draw closer, and my hand rises to touch her cheek. She closes her eyes as it does. I watch, with the precision of a voyeur, as her eyelashes flutter at my touch.

“Don't,” she whispers. “We can't. What about Elise?”

“I'm not sure anymore that Elise and I are right for each other.” She flashes me that glance again, and closes her eyes as my fingers trail down her neck. And then her body instantly dissolves, slipping beneath me. Her legs part, wrap around me, and as she lies down on the bench I press against her again. I'm not sure if she has suddenly submitted to my need to dominate her, or if this is simply the end of one long movement of intimacy.

“What about James?” she whispers, her lips inches from mine. “He would lose his mind if he saw this. Vincent, we can't.”

“Everything that's happened tonight has told me that we must.” But I can see fear moving backwards and forwards behind her eyes, like waves that can't be quelled.

I wonder if Carina's mysticism can be explained by this motion behind her eyes, whether for a long time she has been locked into a reverie by it. I see how hard it will be to quell that rhythm; that I must not try to suppress it but instead shape my expressions to merge with it. I know I will then propel myself into those waves, to be tossed and banded at the mercy of long-restrained emotion. The desire to give myself completely to her comes with the realisation that I do strongly believe we must be together.

This realisation extends into the sweep of my hand onto her fine skin, which settles and troubles her with such brutal synchronicity. Those long awaited, finally realised moments tremble from me as if sourced from the essence that we so rarely reveal. I think I am caressing her to part the waves of doubt that have washed backwards and forward behind her eyes for years. I wonder if I have the strength to do it, if I have the strength to also face my own future. But as the stroking continues – incessantly, rhythmically, with a sensuousness almost ill-fitting for such a gesture – I finally believe I can assure her until she calms. And I'm sure Carina also senses that resolve, that she is aware her own desires are played upon her skin like open nerves that I'm soothing. The trembling in her eyes suggests the sudden, overwhelming knowledge that I can settle all of her doubts. And in this moment of near clairvoyance I feel something move in her face. She parts from me.

“What about James?” she says. “And Elise? There are too many other people to consider before we can cause this pain.” She rises to her feet, stroking the back of her hair as if to recreate my movements.

“Are you saying you won't give us a chance?”

She looks away from me. “I want to Vincent, I want to so much. But how can I be sure it is the right thing to do?”

“Carina, I feel tonight as though I've been given a second chance. I've learnt that I must seize the opportunity to have the life I want, even if it means confronting my father.” She looks at me, as if frightened in advance.

“I'm asking you to face what is right for you in the same way, if it is us being together. You said yourself that our hidden desires do not naturally come to light; we have to push for them to be satisfied. That is what I am doing now. Even if we agree to try, we have no guarantee that will be enough; but we must try at the very least. If we don't, both of us will continue to spin through the world with no direction, unable even to relate to ourselves.”

“I don't know if I'm strong enough to do that,” she says, suddenly looking resolved. “My dancing was more important to me than anything, and fate took it away from me. It took it despite the fact that it was the only thing that made sense to me, despite the fact that without it I've been trapped in a world without meaning. I'm afraid I'm not able to put my faith in fate again Vincent. If we're together, I will also have to face James, and everything about him that utterly terrifies me. It will mean the end of our group, you know that, don't you? The group that has held us together for so long.”

“That has held us back.”

She nods, looking back at the house. Her expression is the same as the one that darkened her face when she tried to mimic the Turkish dancer. I realise that I cannot expect someone to swallow pain that I have never experienced.

“We should go back inside,” she whispers. “We should go back and join the rest of them. If you want to?”

“Yes, I do,” I say, with some reluctance.

We step down from the summer house and walk slowly back into the mist. As it gradually thins, revealing the lights of the house, I start to count every step. Carina moves wordlessly at my side, and I wonder if she knows that by counting I'm trying to preserve the sensation of being at her side for as long as I can.

Francoise is waiting with pursed lips at the door, as if she's also been measuring the length of our conversation. “A drink, Carina?” she says, giving me a knowing smile as she opens the door for us.

James is lingering on the patio, and looks as though he has been pacing up and down. From a distance I wonder if he is smoking, but as I approach him I see that he is clasping his fist to his mouth and blinking hard. It is only as I draw up to him that I see he is also breathing fast. As I get closer he begins to turn away from me.

“Are you alright?”

“Is that Vincent?” he asks, his pale eyes passing blankly over me. A trembling smile plays upon his lips.

“Yes, it's Vincent.” I wonder how he was able to guide himself so precisely through the library and yet be so slow to recognise me. I wonder if it's a trick, but then berate myself for my cynicism. He is shivering violently, and as I draw near the fist flies back up to his mouth.

“James, you're a quivering wreck. What is wrong with you?”

“Vincent, your father is here.”

I pause.

“You must be joking.”

I look inside the French windows. I can see the backs of The Intimates, huddled in a cautious semi-circle, their immobile bodies' suggesting gazes fixed on a focal point. I hear nervous laughter, and Francoise's face presses against the window, gauging my reaction.

“He'll know you're here now,” James says. “You have to go in, right now. Don't let him come back outside Vincent.”

“I'm not going in until you're okay.” I know it's an excuse. I know I'm the last person qualified to comfort him. But I'm desperate not to go inside. Not after that conversation with Carina, not yet. I want to preserve the feeling of it, but as ever he has arrived to deny what I might otherwise have savoured.

“I just need some fresh air Vincent, I'll be fine.”

Inside, I curse him for not needing me to stay. “Did he say something to you?”

He nods, and again begins to press his fist against his mouth. I have never seen him like this before; his body seems gripped by an escalating, almost hysterical reaction.

“It's a nervous tick. I get it when I'm nervous.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He said, ‘Still playing the disabled fool? How many fingers am I holding up?' and his stupid crony found it hilarious.”

“Anthony is here with him?”

“Yes. I can see, you know that, don't you? It's just shades of grey. All shades of grey.” He bows his head and shakes it, sadly at first, and then ferociously.

“James, take some deep breaths. He isn't worth getting this distraught about.”

“And so I said that he was holding up two fingers, because I could see that he was. ‘Not so blind after a couple of drinks then?' he said, and him and Anthony laughed. God, I despise that man.”

I put my arm around him, and the shaking starts to subside. “James, he's just a sad little bully. He'll never be half the man you are.”

He nods, and fishes for a handkerchief which he slowly pulls to his mouth. “You should go in now.” A shiver passes through my body. Nonetheless, I feel compelled towards the French windows.

Francoise is waving me inside from them. She looks eager, and I loathe her voyeuristic excitement. I uncoil my hand from James' shoulder and move towards her.

Inside my father is leaning against the dining table, gesticulating to his audience. In his hand is a tumbler that I can see has recently been drained. He looks more pointed and muscular than I remember him being. Standing next to him is Anthony, whose face is already unmasked with appreciation at everything my father says.

As I open the clasp of the door the guests stop moving and turn to face me. Gathered in a semi-circle around my father, he holds the assured pose of someone with everyone's attention. The guests fall into silence; some of them look up.

I notice Barbara and Georgina are not amongst them, but the rest of us are there. They look back at my father, gauging his reaction as I step calmly inside. The room still bears the evidence of dinner earlier, and for a few moments my eyes take in the empty wine bottles, the dirtied plates and the ruffled air of the room. All seem silent and poised, reverent even. Then all eyes turn to me.