The Intimates (6 page)

‘Vincent arrives just as the rest of us are becoming inebriated, just as we are due to leave. Carina, I notice, has refrained from drinking too much. She lacks the confidence to throw herself into proceedings and allow her demeanour to be threatened by spontaneity. But I wonder if she also restrains herself because she wishes to be preserved for Vincent's arrival. Though they barely nod at one another in greeting, they spend the rest of the night at each other's side. When one of them is distracted they are followed keenly by the other's gaze, which promptly snaps away on their return. There seems to be a strange symmetry in their mutual attraction. As I am increasingly fascinated by Vincent's father's work, so my protégé is increasingly drawn to his son. It's not just their stolen glances which make me believe they are destined for one another, it's the peculiar uncertainties they share. Neither of them seems assured enough to make the first move, to threaten their own pride for long enough to clumsily reach for happiness. I hope it is not a tendency that will plague either of their lives. Soon, when they realise the brevity of this paltry and prescribed existence, I am sure one of them will clear their throat and make a proposal. Until then, they must continue this ridiculous dance, ignoring those whose company they never leave.'

I notice Elise draw away from me, biting her bottom lip. “Are you alright?” I ask, and she nods, not meeting my eye. I see her search for some kind of reaction in Carina. But Carina's expression is vacant; she glances over at me with a slightly amused smile, as if she is being teased. I notice she is blushing. The reaction flatters me, and I look away to disguise it. James considers me with a reproaching and disappointed expression. Francoise looks up and carefully registers these reactions. A little falteringly, she returns to the page.

‘There's barely room to breathe, let alone move at the concert, and I am delighted this is the case. Vincent hurries to his guru, practically begs him to see if there is anything he can do, but Franz has everything in hand. The room seems filled with all the most important faces, and Franz moves comfortably amongst them. He is yet to play a note, and yet I can see the transference of these skills to the international stage will be a seamless, elegant gesture, performed with a transfixing sense of inevitability.

‘Before Franz takes to the stage I see Vincent moving lovingly amongst the instruments, as if by merely being on stage he is worshipping at a shrine. Vincent has a voracious hunger to express himself and find reward through the act, so much so that I am frightened he will now look to music for the answers to his questions. Frightened, because Vincent takes to new causes with excessive zeal, but is too vulnerable to accommodate criticism. I know already that Vincent has no musical talents, and that his gifts lay elsewhere. And yet something tells me that all of us will have to see him play through the motions of walking exactly in Franz's footsteps, and none of us will dare say a discouraging word. Vincent's enthusiasm, his interest in everything and his need to consume will stand him in good stead. But we are all aware of how sulky and introverted he can be if his little experiments are criticized. He is a curious mixture of assurance and vulnerability, and I hope that inevitable tests to his confidence will not dent his bravado. The link between these two traits is self-centredness, yet he cares keenly about his friends and so is developing as a man of intriguing contradictions. The uncomfortable truth is that he has a talent very similar to his father's. He has recently distributed a promising manuscript amongst our group; an excerpt from it won a prestigious regional literary award. I fear that he will only belatedly realise that his talents lie in this area.

‘The concert is a triumph. Franz electrifies the audience with his teasing, emotive songs, with the addictive growl of his voice, with the glacial quality of his instru-mentals. His choruses embed themselves in the ear, so that a few are mouthing along to the words even as the songs begin to end. His bandmates, in their black uniforms, look to him for affirmation and leadership. They play a thrilling encore, which has the venue moving as one and roaring for more, and when he takes to the stage alone, for an acoustic encore, his words of gratitude are self-effacing and charming. He looks every inch the lizard-like rock star, baring his soul and basking in the sheer warmth that emanates from the audience. It is exactly as I imagined a good rock concert to be – visceral, life affirming, and yet with enough meaning to make one more spontaneous than they had previously dared to be.'

Francoise gives a small smile, and her little audience applaud and cheer kindly. She hands the volume to her butler, and says, “Thank you. I was quite nervous, and your approval is most kind. I hope my small observations were received as generously as your applause was given. Back then I was a star-struck and occasionally inspired little girl, so don't take anything I said too seriously.”

“It was very interesting,” Elise says, as Francoise comes over.

Francoise registers the look of concern on my face. “Oh my dear, you must ignore what I said about Vincent and Carina; they were just children at the time. So much has changed since then.”

“And yet your predictions were confident enough to give us a time scale,” James notes.

“James, if he was attracted to Carina something would have happened by now,” Francoise says, looking absently over our shoulders. My eyes meet Carina's for a second; she is gesturing towards Francoise. Francoise excuses herself to speak with her.

“A little close to the bone, wasn't it?” Graham says, pouring Elise a drink. “I was dressed up that night as a show of support to Franz, I remember it quite specifically. It wasn't that I felt I had
found my look
.”

“As she says, she was just a girl when she wrote it. The importance of the piece is that it reminds us of that time, of how we related to one another as teenagers. She isn't trying to make a point that's any bigger than that,” I counter.

“You think so? That was a long book, and I find it interesting that Francoise chose to read such a confrontational section from it. She seems keen to make the seven of us look in the mirror, and yet she's careful to avoid any scrutiny herself.”

“I think some of her observations sailed pretty close to the wind,” Elise says. “I kept looking over to Barbara, to see if any of those comments smarted, but she seemed pretty oblivious to them.”

“Barbara's defences are well constructed, she would have to work a lot harder than that to find a chink in them,” Graham says. “I say that when we team up for the party game later we turn the tables on Francoise a bit, let her feel a little heat from us. What do you think?”

Elise's face lights up.

“I think you are a vindictive tranny with bricks in her handbag,” I say. Graham laughs. “Don't be too hard on her.”

“She's a big girl,” Graham answers, turning away. “She can take it.”

A few minutes later James is ruffling through a book as we seek temporary solace in the library. I watch the veins in his long hands tighten as he impatiently flips pages under the delicate light. The chandelier has been inactive for many years, but this evening he has blinked it back to life, and it seems to shroud him in a grateful glow. He's trying to find a passage he wants to read to me, something from a book we both read at university, but I don't feel brave enough to tell him that it doesn't matter. I glance upwards, bewildered by the endless row of books.

“These were inherited by her,” he says, smiling in my direction. “She occasionally passes through here and picks over a Baudelaire, in a vague attempt to feel intellectual.” I lean against a dusty stack. The memories feel a little woozier now, disturbed by the wine I gradually drank during the reading. My earlier remembrances were bright, pin sharp, but now they are smeared with fragrances and lights.

“Art is so often wasted isn't it?” James says, more to himself than to me. “People seem comforted to see books in plush libraries, but what use are they if no-one ever bothers to read them? Fields of consideration, laid out in detail, to gather dust, to rot.” He snaps the book shut. “Are you still writing?”

Not as much as I should. “Yes. At university it was a guilty pleasure to write, as I felt I should be concerned with something loftier. Now I don't write as I feel I shouldn't be concerned with something that lofty.”

He runs a long finger down a weathered page, before dismissing it and transferring his attention to another volume. “It's a paradox,” he says. “The work we make in our youth is too pure to be considered serious, but when we are old enough to be deemed worthy of attention we are too serious to be pure. You shouldn't dismiss those adolescent musings of yours. If they're shaped with the discipline of maturity they may yet reveal themselves as unpolished jewels.” He somehow makes the prospect seem ugly.

I don't respond, and he turns to face me. “I remember the manuscripts you used to write at university. And if I remember rightly they were completely unselfconscious, so untainted by worldliness. Their insights were very acute.”

I don't know if I should thank him, but feel frightened to risk an emotional reaction if I do. As he looks up, smiling, I recoil a little as his gaze meets mine. His eyes appear covered in a thick white paste. It's unsettling to remember that the man who's leafing through these books struggles to read a word of them.

“Forgot didn't you?” he whispers, smiling with the corners of his mouth. He looks right at me, and I struggle to connect his words as my eyes fix upon the white sheen. “People always forget. They assume I'm
normal
.”

“You are normal. It's just that I temporarily forgot.”

“I never have that luxury. We were talking about the past,” he says, his leafing starting afresh. “Reminding me of the boy I was then. Useful, vigorous. Blessed with focus.”

“I've seen your recent work. In many ways they possess more focus than your earliest paintings.”

“If I hadn't known you as long, that comment could have caused great offence,” he says, with a gradual, sickly smile. As his head tips back to consider a new row it is garishly lit by the light above him. I notice his skin is starting to perspire, that the sharp cut of his profile has remained unchanged over the years. That slightly keen, flattened forehead, on top of an overlong body. As I glance at him again I imagine him, pale and impassioned, clattering amongst paint pots in his frozen house.

“Do you have any writing that I'm yet to see then Vincent?”

I feel somehow threatened by this recourse to my past. “There is this one piece,” I say. “But I haven't been able to recapture the urgency with which I started it at university. The more I add to it, the more I let it cool.” I realise I am reflecting the patterns of his speech now, the halting, forced rhythms of his words. “The newspaper has me on standby through the week, so it's hard to lose myself in any new work.”

“You wanted to write novels originally, didn't you? Both of us seem to have ended up compromising a little. Not achieving what we set out to? Both of us must be familiar with that clammy, indulgent grief then.”

I nod, wanting to agree more, but wonder if pursuing a connection with him is such a good idea. “I wonder how I'll deal with it as it gets worse. Because it will.”

There is something otherworldly about him; he appears so pale and drawn as he flickers through books he can hardly read. For a moment I wonder if he is a figment of my imagination. I feel a compulsion to leave, but don't want to appear rude. There's also something compelling about the way he relentlessly flips through every book on the shelf. The obsessive manner in which he considers each in turn, looking for a brief passage we once discussed in our twenties, is ridiculous and yet entrancing. Though I feel a distinct urge to leave him, one that's almost impossible to quell, I'm also intrigued to find out what he wants from me.

“I can read you know,” he says, snapping his gaze at me. “I'm not
blind
.” He spits the word out. “Cerebral achromatopsia, that's what it's called. I see everything in grey.” I wonder if I should finish my glass. I catch a view of him from the side, wondering if he knows. What a terrible affliction for an artist. How did –

“You're wondering how it happened, aren't you?” he says, turning to me with those pale eyes, before pronouncing each word as though he's said them a thousand times.

“How on earth do you know that?”

He straightens a little, as if offended by my directness. “It's not difficult to work out. A period of silence, as you leant slightly into my body. With my condition you learn to pick up what a normal person ignores. You've forgotten what happened, haven't you? The drink again, is it?”

“Perhaps.”

“It involves Carina. Ring any bells?”

“Yes,” I say, keen for him to not dwell on it, to not become angry. “I remember now.”

“I've always wanted to know your take on the whole affair.”

“Affair?”

“You know what I mean,” he snaps. “This party, tonight, it's brought it all up for me again. I want to know how you feel about her role in what happened.”

“It isn't really any of my business James.”

“We
are
Intimates,” he says, as if hissing some meaningful password at me. “Which means that everything that's happened between her and I
is
your business. You are pretending to have forgotten; let me remind you.” The book is back on the shelf now, and I can't help but look away from his confrontational pose. To my glass, to the floor. To anywhere.

“A few years after university she and I fell out of touch. It was very strange, as we were so close in our youth. I called round her house one night, rather late, though she had been a little unclear about whether or not she would be in. A man was there. Fine, I thought, she is enjoying the company of a friend.” I feel myself straighten up.

“She knew that I might be coming over that night Vincent, which is what was so strange. And when she answered the door – I admit I had been drinking a little – she expressed extreme surprise at seeing me there. ‘I telephoned earlier,' I said. ‘Do you not remember? We agreed it would be lovely to meet up again. They were your words.' ‘Oh, of course,' she said, smiling gaily. ‘I remember.'And then I went inside and there, by the fireplace, was this swarthy Latino man, you know the type she attracts. Antoine, or something. ‘Good evening James,' he says, mocking me, you know. ‘What is this?' I ask her. She looks embarrassed. Pretends to be caught in the act. I storm outside, not knowing whether to stay and clock him or to pull her outside to get to the bottom of it. And she follows me into the drive. ‘Carina,' I plead. ‘You know how I feel about you. How I've always felt about you. I'm in love with you, and that's never going to the change. If you've invited your little toy boy over to tease me then you are not the woman I thought you were.'