The Intimates (3 page)

Elise smiles a little, but looks away. “Perhaps after a few more glasses,” she says.

“So she needs drink to assert herself? What an interesting woman.”

I grip the menu and glower at him over the top of it. He sees my eyes burning in his direction, but he refuses to meet them. His eyes flicker in saccadic movements over the contents of the menu.

“I can see you staring at me Vincent,” he says, not meeting my eye. The waiter comes to collect our order. “Relax. No-one can hear us.”

I decide I will not speak to him until he apologises for his treatment of Elise. He's found an insidious new way to undermine my judgement, and used her in order to do so. But just as I am rallying my thoughts on how to counteract this, I see Anthony's tall and rather stooped figure enter the balcony. My father raises his eyebrows in relief and he sets down the menu.

“You must remember Anthony, Vincent?” my father asks, as his friend stops in front of our table, fixing his penetrating gaze on Elise.

“He was very young when we last met,” Anthony says.

“It was nine months ago,” I answer, turning my attention down to the menu.

“Anthony, as usual, is quite correct in that case,” my father replies. Elise looks quizzically between the two men, and then concernedly at me.

The two of them grasp hands and my father waves him towards a vacant chair. “I think we are just about able to accommodate you.”

Anthony looks disdainfully down at the seat, and cocks his head as he considers Elise.

“This is Elise Zielifski,” I say. “Elise, my father's main confidante, Anthony.”

“Zielifski?” Anthony says, hovering over the seat for a second. “How interesting.”

“I know. Anthony, do you have time to join us for a rather warm glass of Rioja?” my father asks.

Anthony leans forward as if steeling himself. “It is my unfortunate duty, Sean, to insist that we return to the theatre now for a post-matinee discussion. I fear that imbibing any wine will only render the meeting less constructive. I hope you have been able to catch up with your son as you intended?” Anthony lowers his gaze onto me and back onto my father. The way he slowly straightens up suggests that he has already drawn his own conclusions about this.

My father laughs. “You are a hard task master, Anthony. But sadly, no. I have only been with my son for a few minutes, and I suspect that I already could have handled our reunion better.”

“I'm sure that any tensions can be explained by the generation gap,” Anthony answers. “Which these two are more responsible than you for defining.”

Now feeling a burning sense of injustice, I fix my eyes on the cityscape. Elise begins to ask the two of them cautious questions about their play.

The flower beds below suddenly seem to teem with energy, and they smear into a haze as I look down on them. The sensation of them pressing against my eyes brings me back to the fairy lights on the balcony at Francoise's party – which similarly blurred my vision as I gazed at them.

They illuminate our profiles as I look down at the little boats on the pond below. Each has a small, lighted candle inside them. They pass through each other, like a gold constellation dissolving amongst itself on top of a black lake. The rich scent of wine fills the air as Georgina moves past me, dancing to the faint music in the background. She stops and looks at me with an inquisitive smile. The lamps on the balcony light the edges of her hair. The lack of focus I have at this point suggests that I've started to feel the drink. We are over the essential point any good party advances towards, where each guest has gained enough confidence from their surroundings to fall into synch with their company. They've joined the rhythm of the group, which adjusts slightly for each new addition, granting each guest the opportunity to shed their individuality for a while. As this ephemeral mark is passed each guest is answerable only to the oscillations of the party. Recklessness and impulsivity have become de rigueur, and hardly a consequence of individual thought.

A butler is pouring a bottle of champagne onto a pyramid of crystal glasses, and I watch the golden liquid bubble and foam, dancing around the rims as it splashes down to a bed of ice. Franz offers a glass to Carina, trying subtly to make her laugh, but she only smiles politely, sipping her glass and looking into the distance. Francoise, her voice tinged with the nonchalance of someone used to lounging around St. Tropez in late spring, is telling James that she believes her garden is haunted. “At this time of night,” she whispers, her eyes looking up at him brightly, “it is so easy to believe. When I bought the house the last owner told me strange things happen in this garden. Perhaps if we stay close, and watch carefully, something will start to unfold, no?” I know her mystical words are all part of a seductive act, but looking down at those lights, seemingly dancing to some inaudible music, it does seem almost feasible. There is something enchanting about the way she seems to genuinely believe her fantasies.

“Francoise, you should keep your imaginings for your writing.” Georgina says.

“Vincent believes me, don't you?” Francoise insists, waving towards me. “Vincent pretends to be so cynical, but his mind is alive with possibilities, isn't it true? He inherits that from his father.”

Georgina looks carefully at me as I smile, aware of many eyes on me. “It must be one of the few things we do share.”

Georgina laughs dryly, blushing on my behalf. “He's being modest. You've embarrassed him!”

The hostess chuckles to herself and places a glass in my hand. “Your father is in the country at the moment, isn't he? Perhaps he will surprise us with a visit tonight.”

“Don't tease him,” Georgina says.

“You wouldn't do that to me,” I say to Francoise. She holds my gaze and then looks bemused.

I can see on the grass below us seven ice sculptures, slender and glassy, contrasted against the inky black of the garden. A creamy cloud surrounds them, from the steam rising off their bodies. The drink suddenly possesses me, and for a second it appears that one of them is moving nearer to me, advancing clumsily in our direction before settling back into its icy frame.

“It is a strange evening, isn't it?” Georgina whispers, as her scent passes behind me. I steady myself as she moves to my side. “These early summer nights have a mercurial quality unlike any other time of year. It makes my mind shimmer with possibilities.” I look up, surprised at how close to her I suddenly feel. She smiles, holding my gaze for a second, and then looks over the edge of the balcony.

“The feeling I get at the start of the summer never ceases to amaze me. It's as if the world shrugs off its shrouds, no longer bashful about how beautiful it is.” I smile in a way which I hope shows agreement. “If it's any comfort, I think you are the opposite of your father,” she then says; as if acknowledging something that's plaguing me.

“I find that quite comforting.”

She meets my eye and smiles. “We are so similar, you and I. We are both expected to be pleased to live in a parent's shadow. As if it is some mighty achievement just to be spawned by someone the public recognises!” She sips her glass three times in quick succession, as though steeling herself from this thought.

“I agree. My father's legacy is a tricky thing to constantly run from. Unlike most men, who merely have to achieve something, I have to write three masterpieces instead of his mere two before I can have any impact on the world.”

“Yes.” Her eyes pass over to Barbara, who is laughing loudly at a card trick Franz is showing her. Barbara pretends to find his awkwardness amusing and clasps her hands to his arm. Franz looks back at her with a steeliness that is quite disconcerting. Barbara drapes her arm across his shoulder before Franz looks over at the two of us, suddenly caught by Georgina's gaze, as his fingers reach up to hold her mother's hand. Georgina looks away sharply. A breeze lifts the curls from her shoulder, exposing the pale skin on her neck. She suddenly looks very vulnerable. “Isn't she a little old to be a groupie? And isn't Franz a little too familiar with her to be this easily seduced?”

“Perhaps she just likes being the centre of attention.”

“She's always
had
to be the centre of attention. At least your father actually achieved something. I mean, like you I'm not a fan of his work. Too self-important and heavy for me. But unlike my mother, he did at least achieve his potential. She's so obsessed with who she might have been.”

I turn my head away from Barbara, and notice how little her daughter resembles her. “Well she made three films, didn't she? They did reasonably well, didn't they?”

“I suppose. But were they in any way memorable? I think it's better to leave an undiscovered batch of outsider art than a familiar bundle of mediocrity. Were her films, in any way, art?” A pause hangs in the air. We both catch each others eye and laugh quickly, as if the same thought has occurred to both of us but should not be said.

“I can't sit through them,” she hisses, leaning back. “Those terrible, sexist light comedies. She was just a pale imitation of Anita Ekberg, making sure her cleavage was on show as she laughed coquettishly throughout. At least with Marilyn Monroe you got a sense of compromised intellect. With my mother…” she pauses as Barbara whoops at another failed card trick, “there's nothing behind the eyes. She represents to me the shabbiest type of film, where achieving the demands its surface requires, supersedes the importance of creating any resonance. At least your father created work of some substance. In total she achieved nothing, and yet I'm forced to live in the shadow of it. The shadow of nothing.”

“He loves the thought that my achievements will never equal his,” I respond without missing a beat. Her eyes widen, as if she recognises this nascent anger. “He lambastes whatever writing of mine he can get his hands on, with criticisms hollow enough to always be entirely unconstructive.”

“They don't want us to do well, do they? My mother wouldn't even
let
me be an actress. It scared her that I was so literate; she couldn't get her head around it. She says she was just concerned that showbiz would chew me up and spit me out, but I know now she was just so scared that I might make a success of it. She talks about the world of cinema as if it's a conquest. A past lover, clamouring to get back in through the window. But the truth is, once she fell pregnant with my brother and I, the offers dried up. Straight away. Her appeal was as an untarnished, sexy girl-next-door. The idea of her having a family clashed too much with her image. Her window of opportunity passed… thanks to me and him.”

I watch Barbara pulling her dress behind her, sticking her breasts out over the balcony as Franz chases her. She is laughing uproariously, as though thoroughly enjoying a man giving her his undivided attention. “Francoise wants us to play some party games later, which will doubtless involve a little acting. Did you see my mother's eyes light up when she suggested it? She'll play every part as if it's the title role in
Some Like It Hot
. We'll see more of her cleavage than is strictly necessary throughout it, and she'll embarrass me. I promise you, all of those things will happen.”

I pause for a second, as both of us watch the grim flirtation between Franz and her mother play out.

“Do you ever feel like she gives you a hard time for just being born?” I whisper, half-hoping my words will be drowned out by Barbara's laughter.

“Yes.
Ye s
. Even now. ‘An actress' figure cannot
endure
childbirth,' she says. ‘My time ended the moment I had you both.'” Georgina hisses the words, her voice a prissy caricature of her mother's. “She doesn't even mention my brother; we barely ever talk about him anymore.”

“He died just after you were both born, didn't he?”

“Yes. But it's as if he never happened. She wasn't ready to be a mother, and didn't want to be, and he died weeks after coming into the world. His death was just the first barrier between me and her.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “Relationships with parents are almost always difficult.”

She nods her agreement. “What about your father? Does he ever support your writing?”

I quote his comments on my last piece precisely. It surprises me how exact the memory of insult is. The tone, the inflections, the emphases. Georgina laughs sympathetically, throwing her hair back – which in my memory splays over the light from the lamp behind her. It stays there like a snapshot, the fine gossamers layered against the canvas of the rich, dark sky. When the sensations from that moment have settled I look back at her, clutching a cocktail to her chest, her head bowed as she watches Franz circle her mother. “Don't stand here watching them,” I admonish. “Do you remember the summer house down in Francoise's garden?” My words tear her from her preoccupation for a second and she smiles, as if arrested by the arrival of comforting memory.

“Do you think it is still there?” she asks, a little guiltily. “Let's find out.”

As I walk deeper into the garden, I remember how Georgina and I had been the first to arrive at The Fountains that afternoon. The two of us had stayed out on that lawn for as long as we could, until Francoise drew us inside, away from the fading heat.

It had felt good that afternoon to leave my usual routine. As I walked onto the sunlit lawn of The Fountains I felt as if I had entered a sanctuary. Though I usually felt taunted by uncertainty, here it no longer seemed pertinent. To reside in that house for one evening made me believe it inevitable that one day all my ambitions would be fulfilled; that my time outside The Fountains was a mere testing ground. It seemed I had returned home, to a place where all the usual questions were now irrelevant.

Seeing Francoise reclining on the lawn, sipping a glass of iced tea with the sun on her face, I felt I had entered a world of elegance which I could only be privy to by possessing some talent. I knew then that over the course of the party I would try to find a way to permanently inhabit this world. I suspected that by giving me a glimpse of what success might offer, Francoise had encouraged such rumination. As the gates closed behind me, sealing away my problems for one glorious evening, Georgina waved a tennis racket in my direction and Francoise peered up from the wide rim of her summer hat; I instantly felt lighter.