cold-blooded fashion. Things happened. I met Martyn — we started our affair. It became more than either of us could have imagined. And then you turned a secret corner in your life, and I was there. I had no control over these two events. I did not know I was going to meet Martyn. I did not know I would meet you.
‘But I always recognise the forces that will shape my life. I let them do their work. Sometimes they tear through my life like a hurricane. Sometimes they simply shift the ground under me, so that I stand on different earth, and something or someone has been swallowed up. I steady myself, in the earthquake. I lie down, and let the hurricane pass over me. I never fight. Afterwards I look around me, and I say, “Ah, so this at least is left for me. And that dear person has also survived.” I quietly inscribe on the stone tablet of my heart the name which has gone for ever. The inscription is a thing of agony. Then I start on my way again. Now you and Martyn, and indeed Ingrid and Sally, are in the eye of a storm I did not create. What power is mine, and what responsibility?’
‘But you spoke of surrender, of being ruled.’
‘It is my surrender that makes you ruler. You must accept this. If you fight, or try to change the pieces on the board, or to design a scenario more acceptable to you, you will be lost. Kneel down before me now, and I shall be your slave.’
And so I did, in the room in which I had first lain with her. Is it important which way I tried to take her? Which entrance? And whether with tongue or hand or penis? Did she lie or stand? Was her back to me or to the wall? Were her hands free or bound? Did she see my face or not?
Tales of ecstasy are endless tales of failure. For always comes separation. And the journey towards the essential, fleeting unity begins again.
Afterwards I left, a powerless ruler. Anna lay in some strange awkwardness on the table, silent, glistening, and still.
I have no sense of place. Only once, in L’Hôtel in Paris, did the shapes and colours that make a room pleasing to the eye enter my consciousness.
That afternoon, however, as I closed the door, the room seemed to paint itself on my mind’s eye. A dark swirl of rich green lay against pale beige walls. The velvet softly touched the glass windows which looked out over a tiny, walled garden. The wooden floor reflected darker beiges, and lighter browns that shone in spaces empty of furniture.
The chairs and sofas were covered in an old brocade, which suggested all the shades of autumn, and no one colour. The hardbacked chairs, which had fallen on the floor as we struggled to the carved cold darkness of the table where she now lay, were cushioned in the same shade of green velvet as the curtains. From the walls huge angular faces, half in shadow, of a man and a woman and a child, gazed at each other and at us, with a malevolence the painter cannot have intended. Bookcases, containing only hardbacks and some first editions, stood either side of a stone fireplace, bare of ornament.
I can look at this room for ever, I thought. I will always have it with me. Until I die.
If you had seen me on television that night, standing in for my Minister, answering questions with my practised mixture of intelligence and charm, you would not have guessed that my inner eye gazed at my painting. As though it held the secret of my life.
T WENTY -T HREE
“M Y LORD ,
Sometimes we need a map of the past. It helps us to understand the present, and to plan the future.
As you left you gazed at me and at everything, as though you were seeing it for the last time.
After I had bathed and put the room together again, I decided to stay at home, to write to tell you why I am so certain that I am doing the right thing. I want to take away this mystery.
I say little about myself because it matters to virtually no one. My particular past is important only perhaps to you, and to Martyn.
I’m sorry. But I must bring him into this letter.
‘But I always recognise the forces that will shape my life. I let them do their work. Sometimes they tear through my life like a hurricane. Sometimes they simply shift the ground under me, so that I stand on different earth, and something or someone has been swallowed up. I steady myself, in the earthquake. I lie down, and let the hurricane pass over me. I never fight. Afterwards I look around me, and I say, “Ah, so this at least is left for me. And that dear person has also survived.” I quietly inscribe on the stone tablet of my heart the name which has gone for ever. The inscription is a thing of agony. Then I start on my way again. Now you and Martyn, and indeed Ingrid and Sally, are in the eye of a storm I did not create. What power is mine, and what responsibility?’
‘But you spoke of surrender, of being ruled.’
‘It is my surrender that makes you ruler. You must accept this. If you fight, or try to change the pieces on the board, or to design a scenario more acceptable to you, you will be lost. Kneel down before me now, and I shall be your slave.’
And so I did, in the room in which I had first lain with her. Is it important which way I tried to take her? Which entrance? And whether with tongue or hand or penis? Did she lie or stand? Was her back to me or to the wall? Were her hands free or bound? Did she see my face or not?
Tales of ecstasy are endless tales of failure. For always comes separation. And the journey towards the essential, fleeting unity begins again.
Afterwards I left, a powerless ruler. Anna lay in some strange awkwardness on the table, silent, glistening, and still.
I have no sense of place. Only once, in L’Hôtel in Paris, did the shapes and colours that make a room pleasing to the eye enter my consciousness.
That afternoon, however, as I closed the door, the room seemed to paint itself on my mind’s eye. A dark swirl of rich green lay against pale beige walls. The velvet softly touched the glass windows which looked out over a tiny, walled garden. The wooden floor reflected darker beiges, and lighter browns that shone in spaces empty of furniture.
The chairs and sofas were covered in an old brocade, which suggested all the shades of autumn, and no one colour. The hardbacked chairs, which had fallen on the floor as we struggled to the carved cold darkness of the table where she now lay, were cushioned in the same shade of green velvet as the curtains. From the walls huge angular faces, half in shadow, of a man and a woman and a child, gazed at each other and at us, with a malevolence the painter cannot have intended. Bookcases, containing only hardbacks and some first editions, stood either side of a stone fireplace, bare of ornament.
I can look at this room for ever, I thought. I will always have it with me. Until I die.
If you had seen me on television that night, standing in for my Minister, answering questions with my practised mixture of intelligence and charm, you would not have guessed that my inner eye gazed at my painting. As though it held the secret of my life.
T WENTY -T HREE
“M Y LORD ,
Sometimes we need a map of the past. It helps us to understand the present, and to plan the future.
As you left you gazed at me and at everything, as though you were seeing it for the last time.
After I had bathed and put the room together again, I decided to stay at home, to write to tell you why I am so certain that I am doing the right thing. I want to take away this mystery.
I say little about myself because it matters to virtually no one. My particular past is important only perhaps to you, and to Martyn.
I’m sorry. But I must bring him into this letter.
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