By the time Carolyn and her cover arrived, the party could be heard half a block away and the hosts were lost among the guests.
Annabel sat wrapped in a flowered silk shawl making right angles to the wall on her brass bed, still too frozen with fear to drink from the glass of red wine she held in her hand. When Lee felt her eyes upon him, he thought she was privately accusing him of hypocrisy and soon grew in the mood for violence. The brothers danced together, a put-on or come-on for which they were notorious, an exotic display. Loud music played. Carolyn detached herself from her group and edged down the room until she reached the long windows. She slipped the catch on one window and let in a breath of cold air which made the candle flames around her quiver and sent coruscating lights up and down the shining surface of her white satin dress. Lee saw her and was by now drunk enough to give her his most dazzling smile. Her principal distinguishing feature was an air of tranquil self-confidence and he thought it was both plausible and even inevitable she might light him out of Juliet’s tomb into some kind of promised land.
Afterwards, the events of the night seemed, to all who participated in them, like disparate sets of images shuffled together anyhow. A draped form on a stretcher; candles blown out by a strong wind; a knife; an operating theatre; blood; and bandages. In time, the principal actors (the wife, the brothers, the mistress) assembled a coherent narrative from these images but each interpreted them differently and drew their own conclusions which were allquite dissimilar for each told himself the story as if he were the hero except for Lee who, by common choice, found himself the villain.
‘You’re crying,’ said Carolyn, touched.
He did not bother to correct her. He stood by the window and looked out across the tops of the leafless trees to the few windows still left glowing in the houses on the other side of the square.
‘We all stole a car, once. Well, it wasn’t so much stealing, more like taking and driving away, they told me I was too timorous for authentic stealing. I opened the glove compartment and found a leaflet that promised you a thousand destinations. Think of that.’
Carolyn, mystified, could not see the point.
‘What happened then?’
‘We couldn’t decide where to go,’ said Lee and laughed.
Annabel glimpsed the nacreous shimmer of Carolyn’s dress intermittently through the shoulders of the dancers. The music continued to play extremely loudly. Buzz, magnificently painted, sat briefly beside her.
‘All right, are you?’
She nodded. They both watched Lee’s leonine left profile bent over the head of the girl in white.
‘She’s done up like a bride,’ said Annabel softly, so that nobody could hear her.
‘Sure you’re all right?’ demanded Buzz, quivering in the expectation of disaster.
‘Give me your ring.’
He slipped his father’s silver ring on to her thin forefinger, the only one it would fit, and she allowed him a ghostly smile.
‘Now I’m invisible,’ she said with satisfaction. Since they often played inscrutable games together, he thought no more about it but smiled and kissed her before he went away. She drew the shawl around her shoulders and set her feet on the ground. It is hard to say if she actually thought she was invisible; at least, she felt as if she might be. She picked her way delicately towards the window, drew aside the curtain and pressed her face against the cool glass. She saw, in themost immediate, domestic terms, a recreation of the sun and moon in appalling harmony.
Carolyn had become so obsessed with Lee that she had lost all sense of discretion or any sense at all. The landlord had replaced the rusted wrought iron of the lower part of the balcony by some graceless wooden boards so they were concealed from the street but Annabel gazed through the window at them like an infatuated spectre. The spectacle was as silent as if it
Annabel sat wrapped in a flowered silk shawl making right angles to the wall on her brass bed, still too frozen with fear to drink from the glass of red wine she held in her hand. When Lee felt her eyes upon him, he thought she was privately accusing him of hypocrisy and soon grew in the mood for violence. The brothers danced together, a put-on or come-on for which they were notorious, an exotic display. Loud music played. Carolyn detached herself from her group and edged down the room until she reached the long windows. She slipped the catch on one window and let in a breath of cold air which made the candle flames around her quiver and sent coruscating lights up and down the shining surface of her white satin dress. Lee saw her and was by now drunk enough to give her his most dazzling smile. Her principal distinguishing feature was an air of tranquil self-confidence and he thought it was both plausible and even inevitable she might light him out of Juliet’s tomb into some kind of promised land.
Afterwards, the events of the night seemed, to all who participated in them, like disparate sets of images shuffled together anyhow. A draped form on a stretcher; candles blown out by a strong wind; a knife; an operating theatre; blood; and bandages. In time, the principal actors (the wife, the brothers, the mistress) assembled a coherent narrative from these images but each interpreted them differently and drew their own conclusions which were allquite dissimilar for each told himself the story as if he were the hero except for Lee who, by common choice, found himself the villain.
‘You’re crying,’ said Carolyn, touched.
He did not bother to correct her. He stood by the window and looked out across the tops of the leafless trees to the few windows still left glowing in the houses on the other side of the square.
‘We all stole a car, once. Well, it wasn’t so much stealing, more like taking and driving away, they told me I was too timorous for authentic stealing. I opened the glove compartment and found a leaflet that promised you a thousand destinations. Think of that.’
Carolyn, mystified, could not see the point.
‘What happened then?’
‘We couldn’t decide where to go,’ said Lee and laughed.
Annabel glimpsed the nacreous shimmer of Carolyn’s dress intermittently through the shoulders of the dancers. The music continued to play extremely loudly. Buzz, magnificently painted, sat briefly beside her.
‘All right, are you?’
She nodded. They both watched Lee’s leonine left profile bent over the head of the girl in white.
‘She’s done up like a bride,’ said Annabel softly, so that nobody could hear her.
‘Sure you’re all right?’ demanded Buzz, quivering in the expectation of disaster.
‘Give me your ring.’
He slipped his father’s silver ring on to her thin forefinger, the only one it would fit, and she allowed him a ghostly smile.
‘Now I’m invisible,’ she said with satisfaction. Since they often played inscrutable games together, he thought no more about it but smiled and kissed her before he went away. She drew the shawl around her shoulders and set her feet on the ground. It is hard to say if she actually thought she was invisible; at least, she felt as if she might be. She picked her way delicately towards the window, drew aside the curtain and pressed her face against the cool glass. She saw, in themost immediate, domestic terms, a recreation of the sun and moon in appalling harmony.
Carolyn had become so obsessed with Lee that she had lost all sense of discretion or any sense at all. The landlord had replaced the rusted wrought iron of the lower part of the balcony by some graceless wooden boards so they were concealed from the street but Annabel gazed through the window at them like an infatuated spectre. The spectacle was as silent as if it
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