The Intimates (19 page)

I lead her through the circular, brick lined passageway, lit intermittently by electric candles. It winds in one long crescent into the distance. The two of us, shaking and battered, urge ourselves into the darkness.

“He was trying to touch me Vincent. His hands were all over me.” I squeeze her hand harder and start to run with her through the tunnel. It's barely tall enough to accommodate us at full height, and the deeper we go the danker it becomes.

“Francoise told me the previous owner built this in case people came looking for him. We'll be perfectly safe in here,” I say, my voice echoing around.

“But didn't she also say how strange the previous owner was? How do we know that he even finished it?” Suddenly I trip on something, and catapult to the floor. Carina screams, and keeps screaming as she recoils against the wall. I find my feet as she clasps her hands to her face. As I look down I see that I have tripped over a black cluster of cloth and bones that resemble a dead body. A rank stench fills my nostrils. “Carina! Carina, it's okay!”

I bend down to inspect the skeleton of a man, his body clothed in what was once an evening suit, his face pressed into the dirt.

“It's the previous owner.” My voice is barely a whisper.

“What?”

“The previous owner. Francoise told me that he built this tunnel in case his debtors came looking for him and he needed to escape, but that one day he disappeared and was never found.”

“He must have taken something and then ran inside here,” she whispers, pressing her shaking body against mine. At the entrance to the tunnel a clattering is still audible. “Come on,” I whisper. “We don't have a choice. We have to get to the other end. We're nearly there.” Eventually I see the passageway ending, with the tunnel ascending slightly before merging with a trap door. “That's it, the exit! If what Francoise says is true, we'll now be at the foot of the garden and perfectly safe.”

“Thank God,” Carina says, holding my hand. “I thought it was never going to end.”

I urge her to step back as I find the latch to open the door. Punching against it with my fists, gradually the trap door bursts open, its eroded wooden slats breaking out into the night and revealing above it black sky. “Is there anyone there?” she asks. Her voice echoes around.

Cautiously, I peer through it. No-one's waiting for us; all I see is the dark night, partially lit by stars. I prise myself out of the trap door and onto the grass. Looking around I can see the drained swimming pool just at my side, lit by its interior lamps. I look carefully around me. In the far distance I can see the lights of the house, only just perceptible through the trees. But as I inspect our surroundings more carefully I see that Carina and I are now completely alone. There is nothing in the garden but the pool and the soft hissing of the summer night.

“We're perfectly safe,” I say, reaching my hand down to her. “We're by the empty swimming pool at the bottom of the garden.”

Carina smiles with relief and holds out her hand to me. I bring her carefully up through the trap door and onto the grass. I seal the door shut, laying a large sculpture over it, just to be sure. “No-one will find us down here.”

“Look.”

I turn to see what she's gesturing towards. My eyes had missed the seven ice sculptures on the lawn. They now appear to be crouching into the growing pools of water on the grass. They have melted so much that their poses and expressions have been lost. Where Carina's sculpture once danced expressively it now folds into itself; it no longer mocks her for being unable to mimic it. My sculpture now has an expression as glassy as its body. Its limbs are just stumps, dripping onto the grass beneath it.

“Feels liberating, doesn't it?” Carina says. She smiles, and I realise that she is right. Those statues were only able to depict us for a short while before inevitably melting away. But now they've disintegrated we're freed from the constraints that trapped us within. We're now just as amorphous as the water, building into a silver pool at their feet.

Her hand rests on the back of my shirt. “Are you hurt? The back of your jacket has been torn open, it looks a little burnt.” I turn to face her. “My God,” she says, her face suddenly visible. “He bust your lip open. And your hands… they're bleeding.”

“Come on,” I say, looking around me and feeling a little less brave. “Let's hide in the pool.”

The early morning sun is just beginning to break through as the two of us pick our way through the weeds to the pool. Its lights are clouded over with dust, but the pool is still as illuminated as a rectangular runway. Like two wounded animals we limp towards it in our torn and bloodied clothes, having finally found somewhere to huddle together. We look like two soldiers walking home after a brutal battle, shaken to the core and yet still convinced of our cause. We both seem too shaken to even question why we're going into the empty pool, but it seems now like the one place that can offer us solace. I take off my ripped dinner jacket and place it around her shoulders.

We step carefully down the rusty ladder of the pool, and with one hand I beckon her to join me in its corner. Carina's eyes are alight with the possibility of morning as she lifts the train of her dress, stepping towards me. I crouch in its corner, gratefully receiving her slim body in my arms. I wrap them around her and feel her fingers snake through my shirt, cling to my back. I inhale her scent; it suddenly gives me a kick of strength. I feel like I've chased that scent for a long time, and to have it here with me now helps me relax. I spread out my legs, and she bunches her thighs against my chest. Our two bodies curl together in a desperate state of intimacy. At first I think she is laughing as she lays her head on my shoulder. But then I realise that she's started to cry, out of relief I hope. With the dim air surrounding us our little den is lit up like a cradle, and when her body relaxes in my arms it is as if she finally feels safe.

I smooth her hair and whisper nonsensical words to soothe her. But her sobbing doesn't seem one of grief, it seems wider than that – as if she's weeping about the struggles that continually taint our lives. As I comfort her I feel I am somehow comforting myself, trying to settle everything that's inflamed in my own life. I now see her for what she is – someone unique who's been badly damaged and made to doubt her own ability. Yet she's still preserved the essence that sets her apart. I squeeze her tighter and tell her that she shouldn't cry, that we're both safe now. But I sense it's only with great determination that her breathing begins to settle. Where it was once jagged and broken it now becomes stoical and calm. I feel a sense of satisfaction in having calmed her frightening state of distress.

The last hour has been like a nightmare, and yet those events all seemed inevitable. But it appears worth having gone through them to now be here, with her, like this. Though my head is swelling with a pain that seems raw and idiotic, I feel this intimacy with Carina is my reward. My reward for the bruises on my chest, the cuts on my neck, the wounds on my shoulders and back. If they have guaranteed this then they all seem worth it. We both now seem to be physically expressing the wounds that our minds have suffered in the past years. It's as if they have all been brought to the surface in a few wild minutes. But now they are worn on the outside of our bodies we can finally tend to them. As I smooth her hair, it feels as if we're finally showing each other honest portraits of ourselves.

I kiss the top of her head, and she looks up at me with a weak smile. I am used to Carina playing the distant seductress, but now she seems completely unmasked. I realise that my life until now has been a hopeless series of wanderings, but now I have a purpose, however long it takes her to accept that. I promise myself that I must not ever shirk this vague and sincere duty.

Her fingers close on my slightly bloodied shirt. “You need to see a doctor,” she whispers. “Is your chest still bleeding?”

“I don't like to talk about it,” I whisper, with fake-modesty.

She laughs and strokes my chest. “You're a mad little man. Always getting into situations that are out of your depth. In the morning we'll solve everything.”

“We'll have to,” I say, thinking about the wreckage of the house. Though I know I should check if Barbara's alright, I'm unable to prise myself from our makeshift home.

“I've never been that scared,” she says. “It took so long to be able to walk again after the accident. Months and months of rehab, of excruciating pain just so I could get out of bed in the morning. And I thought that in a moment of madness James might undo all that. With all this anger that is based on nothing. If you hadn't arrived I don't know what would have happened.”

“I came in because I heard Georgina and Barbara arguing. I think Georgina may have hit her.”

“So it's just luck that brought you downstairs at that moment?”

“Yes.”

“When you came through the door, part of me was hugely relieved. But another part of me was more scared that he might hurt you instead.”

“I don't think he set out to hurt anyone Carina. He needs help.”

She sits up and looks me in the eye, before glancing down at my body. “Of all the people who might have overheard, don't you think it's strange that it was you?”

I look back at her intrigued expression. “It does seem a coincidence. But I don't believe it's anymore than that.” “But... ”

She seems hesitant to reveal what is on her mind, and I hope badly it is what I want it to be. I don't know if I can take any more painful blows this evening, in whatever way they manifest themselves.

“But it's not the first time, is it Vincent? It's not the first time you've been the one who's there when I need help.”

“Carina, don't tease me with anything, not tonight. Too much has happened.”

“I know. I'm sorry. Perhaps I should keep quiet.”

She pauses for a second, and then looks back at me again. “Or perhaps I can tell you and promise that it won't hurt?”

“Okay, but I don't think you can promise that.”

“I just did.”

“Okay then try,” I say, focusing on her.

“You've always been in the background, ever since we met. Something in me perhaps wasn't ready to bring you into the foreground. But without asking for anything back you've always been there for me. In a quiet, understated way. I think I've taken it for granted that you'll always be there.”

“I'm not sure I follow.”

“Just like I took it for granted that life would tend to my every desire. Although in a strange way I think it does. I think that it brought us here, to this situation, with both of us tending to each other's wounds. Don't you think that is a sign, considering what has happened tonight?”

“Yes, I meant what I said in the summer house. But you didn't need to wait for a sign to know that what I said was true.”

“Perhaps I did Vincent. Perhaps I'm different to you and can't take hold of my own destiny in the way that you can. Perhaps I needed to be told. But right now, looking at us in this situation, I do think I have been told.”

“What are you saying?” The throbbing pain makes it difficult for me to see clearly, and the light from the lamps is painful on my weary eyes. I feel myself pushing through every word to a solution, to the point at which everything will be resolved. I've been drained dry, drained of every drop of emotion and energy, but still feel I must push on. I've reached the summit now, and her company is my prize. I mustn't give up at this point, when we feel so close to a solution – however much my tired body desperately wants me to.

“I'm saying you were right Vincent. What you said in the summer house. We owe it to ourselves to give us a chance. We should just forget about James, and Elise, and even The Intimates if they hold us back.”

It surprises me how much it hurts to speak. I am silent for far too long as I try to find the words, and when they do come out I feel sure they are all wrong, that they will only take us back a step and not forward. But nonetheless, I speak. I speak because I know I have to keep trying until my body completely gives up on me.

“Elise is gone,” I whisper. “She left me. She told me that she thought I was in love with you.”

“And are you?”

She doesn't seem to know how close I am to passing out. She looks up. Looks at me directly, with searching eyes. But this time it's her hand that tends to the side of my face. There's a little smear of dirt just above her mouth, which breaks into a hopeful smile.

“Yes. I am.” And then I remember the brief few moments when the pain entirely disappeared, when she leant into my body to kiss me.

As time passes, when the sun tears itself through the shroud of the night, I feel an intense, swinging happiness. It's so unrestrained and unapologetic in its intensity that it almost overwhelms me. Somehow I suspect that I will replay this moment an infinite number of times, always trying to recapture its details in vain. The reassurance of the rising sun, the delicate silence of the garden. Every nerve in my body seems to applaud my actions, which makes me think that I must not suspect her words. People have made infinite promises in the past, which they've broken at the first opportunity, but given all that has happened tonight I feel sure that I should believe her.

Sensing movement from the other end of the garden I realise I can't even move anymore, as my eyes slowly begin to close. I can't even try to defend this time with her, which I know to be so fragile that it could end at any moment. Everything I need is here, and my only ambition now is to keep the two of us hidden from the rest of the world, even while asleep.

It was the sun rising over the copse of trees that made my eyes open again. Carina stayed still and silent in my arms as I gradually stirred awake. For the first time I saw the statues surrounding the pool, each of them covered in an elaborate web of vines and vegetation. Previously the garden had seemed overgrown and dishevelled but, waking up in it, it now seemed perfectly arranged and made to a design that was quite deliberate.

The plants were rich, green and wet with dew. The statues looked over us with a friendly indifference. Somehow our surroundings seemed to have been expecting us. The way Carina shuffled in my arms suggested that this delicate sheen of sunlight had been expected by her too.