The Voices (13 page)

‘Sweet dreams,’ she whispered.

Laura stepped out onto the landing and considered what she might do next. The need to remain fully occupied seemed even more pressing than before – a necessity rather than a choice. Directly ahead of her was a large cupboard that had clearly been designed for the purpose of storing linen. Ventilation lattices were positioned above both doors. This enormous space was where they – Laura and Christopher – had chosen to stash all of those things that weren’t of any real value but which for various reasons (such as sentimental attachment) they had been reluctant to throw away. Laura grabbed the handles, pulled and found herself staring at a wall of junk. The interior was filled to capacity; chaotic and shabby, like a jumble sale. She saw a chipped Smith Corona typewriter, a teasmade, two tennis racquets (with broken strings), four lever-arch files, some glazed pottery figures, chocolate
boxes, a Hornby steam locomotive, some model railway track and, stuffed into the gaps, several plastic carrier bags overflowing with bills, receipts and used-up chequebooks.

It needed a good clear-out.

Next to the typewriter was a pile of magazines. Most of them were editions that had been published between 1965 and 1967 and some had Laura’s face on the front. After 1967 she had become quite blasé about her image appearing in magazines and thereafter was less inclined to save them.

She picked up a copy of
Harper’s Bazaar,
flicked it open and saw a younger version of herself on the streets of New York. It had been a Richard Avedon shoot and the photographer had made her leap about on Broadway. The camera had caught her walking on air, legs straight, like an open pair of scissors, dressed in a short skirt, boots and a tight jumper that emphasized the pertness of her breasts. She dropped the magazine on the floor and examined the next one on the pile. It was
Cosmopolitan.
The scantily clad cover girl didn’t really look like her at all. But it
was
her, at her thinnest, her ribcage visible through her pellucid skin. Then
Elle,
encased in a dark, figure-hugging suit – not a bad likeness; then
McCall’s,
wearing a futuristic-looking gold dress and massive
earrings, with pale, chalky lips and hair subjected to the harsh discipline of a severe geometric cut. One magazine followed another: some dropped, some tossed, some hurled across the landing in anger. There was another pile of magazines behind the first. Laura didn’t look at any of them. She simply heaved the lot out and let them spill across the floor.

The shelf had been lined with thick wallpaper and this had been dragged forward with the magazines. Laura was about to slide the overhang back into position, when she noticed that something had been uncovered: a pattern of pale squares. She reached into the dark recess and tried to dislodge four pieces of stiff card that were stuck to the shelf. It was difficult and she had to use her fingernails. One of the pieces got torn in the process.

When she brought the cards out into the light, she discovered that they were old photographs. The edges were worn and the images were speckled with spots of mould. All of the photographs were of the same individual, a girl of about seven years of age. She was wearing what appeared to be a shapeless dress made from sacking and her face was smeared with dirt. Her expression was glum.

‘Such a sad little face,’ Laura murmured.

Only one of the photographs was taken without
trickery. In all of the others the girl was, to a greater or lesser extent, transparent. They seemed to represent an early experiment involving double exposure. Laura looked at each photograph in turn and chanced upon a particular order that made the girl seem to vanish. Frame by frame, she faded almost to nothing, becoming, in the end, a featureless outline. The child’s expression seemed to grow more fearful as the sequence progressed, but it was difficult to be certain because of the gradual loss of detail. Laura reversed the order so as to bring her back.

Chris would be extremely interested in these photographs. A week or so earlier he had been babbling excitedly about one of the voices he was now in the habit of recording: the voice of a Victorian stage magician who he believed had once lived in the house. Chris had said something else too, about Mr Ellis the builder and a camera in the attic, but she couldn’t remember what exactly. She hadn’t been listening. Chris had wanted her to go upstairs with him so that he could play her the voice he had recorded, but she had made some excuse or other. He had obviously been irritated by her indifference and he had left the room in a huff.

Laura wasn’t impressed by his new musical project and she was finding his obsession with the dead rather unsettling. He sometimes chastised her for being unwilling
to engage with the big questions, but why should she care about life after death? Life
before
death was challenging enough. She went down to the kitchen and returned with a dustbin bag. She filled it with the magazines she had removed from the cupboard and then, pausing for a moment, she considered the photographs. She didn’t want to encourage Chris’s morbidity. The mouth of the dustbin bag was wide open and inviting. For a moment she hesitated, but it was only for a fraction of a second. The photographs fell from her hand and slipped out of view. Laura knotted the plastic and closed the cupboard doors.

Didier Baumann, the producer of
Le Jardin des Reflets,
arrived at Christopher’s hotel shortly after lunch. He was a middle-aged man with a weary, hangdog expression. Dark pouches of wrinkled flesh sagged beneath his rheumy brown eyes. Although he looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week, he was smartly dressed in a white shirt and blue trousers. They made their way to the Rue de Rennes and then set off in the direction of the river. Heat rising from the asphalt made everything shimmer in the distance. Baumann talked about his production company and his association with several ‘successful’ projects, although Christopher had only heard of one of his films,
a romantic comedy called
La Saison des Tempêtes.
The traffic had come to a halt and irate drivers were blasting their horns continuously. Baumann had to raise his voice to compete. ‘There it is – where we are meeting.’ He was pointing at Les Deux Magots, a cafe on the corner of Boulevard St-Germain and Rue Bonaparte. The interior was crowded and very noisy, but a quiet table was found for them on the pavement, in the shady corridor beneath a vast green awning. They sat drinking coffee. Time passed. Baumann consulted his wristwatch and looked around anxiously.

‘Is there a problem?’ Christopher asked.

‘No,’ Baumann replied. ‘He will be here soon.’

Christopher wasn’t convinced.

Half an hour later Fabrice Ancel arrived. Even though the sun was shining, he had chosen to don a black leather jacket over a polo-neck sweater. His hair was long, unwashed and tousled. He wore glasses with thick frames and his cleft chin was shadowed with stubble. Standing by his side was a blonde girl. Excessive quantities of mascara and lipstick could not hide the fact that she was still in her adolescence.

‘Monsieur Norton.’ Baumann gestured towards the young man. ‘Fabrice Ancel.’ The director gripped Christopher’s hand firmly and said,
‘Je suis honoré,’
before adding
in heavily accented English, ‘I have admired your work for many years.’ Christopher thanked him and Baumann introduced the girl. ‘Martine. A very talented dancer.’

Christopher bowed gallantly.
‘Enchanté.’

After a brief exchange of preliminary courtesies, Ancel launched into a detailed exposition of his objectives; occasionally he would say a phrase or two in English, but he appeared to be uncomfortable when he wasn’t speaking his own language. He talked about illusion and reality, and made frequent references to the writings of a psychoanalyst called Jacques Lacan. It transpired that the central character of
Le Jardin des Reflets
was loosely based on one of Jacques Lacan’s case studies, Aimée, a woman who had attempted to stab a famous Parisian actress. Ancel spoke at length about mirrors and identity, occasionally slowing his delivery to make some quasi-philosophical observation. ‘A man sees himself in the mirror. But what does he see? In fact, he sees another man. We identify with an image outside of ourselves, something alien.’ Christopher nodded, feigning interest, but actually he was finding Ancel’s long-winded speech void of substance and rather tedious.

The girl was silent, but at regular intervals she threw a sideways glance at Christopher. When she crossed her skinny legs, he noticed that her tights were laddered. She
had allowed one of her flat shoes to fall away from the heel of her foot and the ribbons holding up her vest had slipped from her shoulders. It was as though her clothes were causing her discomfort and she was eager to be free of any restraint. Christopher altered the angle at which he was sitting in order to remove her from his sight. The director was still grappling with the problems of identity. ‘How do I know who I am? The ego functions to conceal inner fragmentation. It is an inauthentic agency. Thus, we can learn very little by asking ourselves this type of question.’

Christopher was becoming impatient. He wanted Ancel to stop talking about psychoanalysis and start talking about the film; he wanted to discuss the characters, their development, and the musical possibilities of the plot. Attempts to steer the conversation away from theoretical abstractions met with considerable resistance, and when Christopher became more insistent, Ancel simply talked over him. Then, quite suddenly, Ancel produced a notebook, scribbled something down and tore off the top sheet, which he held out for Christopher to take.

‘What’s this?’ Christopher asked.

‘My address,’ Ancel replied in English. ‘Could you come tomorrow afternoon?’

‘What time?’

‘Four o’clock?’

‘I have a flight to catch.’

‘Then one o’clock?’

Christopher looked at Baumann, who said, ‘You will have enough time to get to the airport.’

‘Very well,’ Christopher replied, slightly confused. ‘One o’clock.’

Ancel stood up.
‘Au revoir, monsieur.’
He nodded curtly at Baumann and, without heeding a single social nicety, strode off down Rue Bonaparte. The girl picked up his cigarettes and followed, falling in behind him, keeping a distance of several paces. When Christopher turned to address Baumann, he was silenced by the producer’s curious expression. The man was obviously in awe of Ancel and a faint smile of wonderment played around his lips. His eyes encouraged Christopher to speak, to acknowledge that they had just been in the presence of a higher being. When Christopher failed to deliver the desired response, Baumann was forced to supply it himself. ‘Fabrice is very complex, a true artist.
Le Jardin des Reflets
will be a work of genius, I know it.’

As soon as the bell rang, Laura rushed down the hallway and opened the front door.

‘Hi.’

The woman standing beneath the porch had struck a pose reminiscent of a pantomime ‘boy’ – legs set apart, hands on hips – and everything about her seemed to telegraph vigour and robust health. She was wearing denim dungarees over a khaki T-shirt and her complexion had been reddened by exposure to the sun. Her thick, streaked hair was pulled back into a single dense tuft.

‘Sue.’ Laura made a sweeping gesture. ‘Please. Come in.’

‘Another beautiful day.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

Laura showed Sue into the kitchen, where Faye was sitting in her highchair clutching a red crayon and scribbling on a sheet of paper. The child looked up and smiled. ‘That’s unusual,’ said Laura. ‘She’s normally frightened of strangers.’

Sue went over to the highchair and examined Faye’s drawing. ‘What a lovely picture.’ Then she brushed a knuckle against Faye’s cheek. ‘You don’t need to worry about me, do you, darling?’ Her voice carried a trace of cockney.

‘Tea?’ Laura asked.

‘That’d be great,’ Sue replied. ‘Thanks.’

As the kettle was boiling they chatted about mutual acquaintances, all of whom were regulars at the bookshop in Islington, and when they sat down their conversation continued naturally, easily, broadening out, expanding to cover the novels they were reading and other topics of common interest. A second pot of tea was made and Laura, mildly curious, asked Sue how she’d become a gardener. Sue replied, ‘I sort of fell into it,’ and went on to explain how three years earlier her husband had been made redundant and she had started to do some odd jobs for her elderly neighbours: weeding, planting, mowing the lawn. They liked what she did and recommended her to others. She attended evening classes in order to study horticulture and subsequently sat an exam in garden design. During this period her husband became a heavy drinker and prone to angry outbursts, so she left him. ‘Best thing I ever did,’ she concluded with breezy indifference.

Laura reciprocated, telling Sue a little about her own past, about her childhood and her parents. ‘They threw me out when I started modelling.’

‘Why?’ asked Sue.

‘They thought it was undignified . . . wanton.’

‘That must have been tough.’

‘It was. I was still very young when I left home.’

‘Were they religious, your parents?’

‘Yes, and terribly pious – it was inevitable that I’d rebel. But, ironically, I’ve come to share their views. I don’t think modelling is sinful – not like they did – but I think it’s morally dubious. I wouldn’t want Faye to become a model when she grows up.’

Laura discovered that her companion was refreshingly level-headed. Sue didn’t become overly excited when Laura spoke about the glamorous world that she had formerly inhabited, nor did she ask any salacious questions about celebrities (which was what usually happened). When Sue learned that Christopher was a composer of film scores, her response was equally measured. Laura was impressed. She had enjoyed talking to Sue, and it was with some reluctance that she looked up at the kitchen clock and said, ‘I suppose I’d better show you the garden.’ Laura lifted Faye out of the highchair and led Sue down the hallway, into the drawing room and out through the open French windows. The air was buzzing, warm and fragrant. Two white butterflies took off and flew into the clear blue sky. Sue took some cigarette papers and a bag of tobacco from her pocket and with deft fingers made a thin roll-up, the end of which she glanced with a burning safety match. ‘So what do you want?’