The Lying Tongue (35 page)

In the kitchen I washed and dried a heavy pan and placed it on the stove. I opened a tin of tomatoes, emptied the contents into the pan, together with the chopped ripe tomatoes, added the butter and sugar, and gave the mixture a good stir. Then I bent down under the sink and, from among the bottles of bleach, detergent and cleaning fluid, took out the chisel. I gave the sauce another quick stir, turned down the heat and then walked back to my room, closing the door behind me.

I knelt down by my desk, found the piece of wood that I had selected earlier, tried to loosen it a little and eased the chisel into the cavity. The floor creaked as I pushed the chisel down. Slowly, I raised the panel and peered down into the dark space beneath, a mass of cobwebs, old traces of sawdust and dirt. A damp, deathly smell rose up from beneath. I didn’t like the idea of confining my nice, clean notebook in this rank, filthy space, but knew it had to be done. I stood up, wrapped all my material in two plastic bags and pushed them deep into the cavity. I hurried back into the kitchen, where I continued to stir the sauce.

“You seem much better,” I said, twisting the last of the spaghetti onto my fork.

“Oh, yes, I am. A great deal better. My back is not so painful now, and that bath did me the world of good. Your return has really lifted my spirits.”

“Good. I’m pleased to hear it. I still can’t believe that that boy came back and behaved like that. He must be a truly awful person. I’ll bet you are pleased you fired him when you did.”

“Indeed,” said Crace, using his napkin to wipe a smudge of tomato sauce from the corner of his mouth. “He was insufferable.

And anyway, if I’d stuck with him, I would never have found you.”

He gave me that look again, the one that turned my stomach. I smiled, pretending that I was pleased by the compliment. It was only a matter of time, I kept telling myself, before we would have to have our little talk, when he would have to face facts. I doubt he would be smiling after that.

“That was delicious, Adam. Really lovely. You caught the sauce just in time.”

“And thank you for this,” I said, taking another sip of the Margaux. “It’s wonderful.”

He held out his glass.

“Cheers,” he said. “Here’s to you—for everything.”

“Cheers,” I said, looking down. “Right, let me clear away these plates.”

“Oh yes, you’ll be keen to get on with your reading.”

I cleared my throat.

“Gordon, about the reading—”

“Yes?”

“I just wondered if you could give me an hour or so. I just want to look over the piece, rewrite a couple of sentences here and there.”

He looked disappointed.

“It’s just that I want to make it as good as possible for you, that’s all.”

“Oh, very well,” he said, looking at the mass of dirty plates, cups and bowls that scattered the work surface. “Why don’t you leave the dishes? You could do them later if you like. There’s so much mess in here, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference, do you?”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I get you anything before I go into my room?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, holding out his glass for a refill of the wine. As I poured the dark, almost black, liquid into his glass, he moved his hand so that it brushed against mine and smiled. I wasn’t sure how much more of this kind of behavior I could stand, but I didn’t say anything.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said as I walked out of the kitchen.

In my room I looked over my writing. The story centered on a young man named Richard, who could not accept that his girlfriend, Emma, had ended their relationship. I described the boy standing outside Emma’s flat, watching her windows, unable to understand why he had been rejected. Memories of their time together infuse him with a kind of ecstatic happiness, and he becomes so possessed by the past that he believes he and Emma are still together. He goes back to his new, empty flat, picks up some shopping on the way and cooks a delicious supper. He sets the table for two, and during dinner he talks to the space across from him as if it were occupied by his girlfriend. He makes a toast and raises his glass to Emma, the perfect woman he would always love, who would, in his mind at least, forever remain unchanged and untouchable.

I found Crace in the drawing room, his eyes closed, his brow furrowed. When he heard me walk into the room, he opened his eyes, smiled and told me to sit on the chair opposite him.

“Make yourself comfortable and then you can begin,” he said, obviously amused.

I coughed and explained that the story was just a fragment of what I hoped would form a larger work. Tentatively, I started to read. At various points I looked up to see Crace listening carefully to my words, occasionally nodding his head in appreciation, agreement, recognition or merely force of habit. I’m not sure how long I read, perhaps a quarter of an hour or so, but by the time I reached the end of the story, the part where Richard sits down to dinner and addresses his fantasy girlfriend, I noticed that Crace had tears in his eyes. When I finished, he looked so moved that he couldn’t speak.

“Sorry,” he said, waving his hand in front of his face. “That…well…that was beautiful. Beautiful.”

“I’m afraid it still needs a bit of work,” I said, astonished and embarrassed by his reaction.

“No, no, I think it was just perfect.”

“Of course, I’d appreciate any criticism, anything you think I needed to change or alter.”

“You mustn’t change a word,” he said. “No, not a single word.”

“Thank you, Gordon. That means a great deal to me.”

“Not at all, my dear boy. It really was very well drawn. You have a great talent for invention.”

Over the course of the next few days, I carried on with my duties, getting the Francesco de’ Lodovici woodcut fitted with a new piece of glass and rehanging it on the wall, straightening the rest of the pictures that Crace’s former employee had disturbed, cleaning the kitchen of dirty pots and pans and tidying the drawing room. As I worked, I rehearsed the scene in which I finally confronted Crace with the evidence about his past. I imagined myself walking into the drawing room, where Crace was reading, and asking him to listen to me; I had something important that I wanted to say. He would look up without interest initially, but then, when he heard the contents of my speech, panic would infect his eyes. I ran through our conversation over and over, and in my imagination I acted out my lines using different intonations, emphases and punctuation. I would pause for a few moments, watching Crace’s face for a flicker of emotion, after I let it be known that I had obtained Chris’s suicide note. Yes, that would add greater dramatic effect. That would work splendidly.

It was important to present myself in a persuasive, confident manner; after all, I didn’t want Crace to twist my words. But there was no way he could absolve himself of guilt on this occasion. I had it all in black and white, the truth of the written word.

Timing, choosing the right moment, was important. Before confronting him, I wanted to try and lull him into a false sense of security, so I did everything according to his instructions, careful not to upset or antagonize him in any way. I ignored his occasional bursts of rudeness, his impolite dismissal of questions and inquiries, and endured his pathetic attempts to flirt with me. When he “accidentally” brushed against me, the jut of his ribcage pressing against me as he tried to squeeze by me in a corner of the kitchen, I closed my eyes and imagined that I was somewhere else. Since my return, his interest in me had heightened to a level that I would describe as near-obsession. The act of leaving the palazzo to get the glass fitted on the Francesco de’ Lodovici woodcut, for example, had almost reduced him to tears. But after I promised to be as quick as I could and presented him with the alternative—hanging the picture back on the wall in its damaged state—he relented. Often I would catch him looking in my direction, a dreamlike expression on his face, living out some fragment of memory from the past.

One evening after Crace had told me he was retiring for the night, I ran a hot bath. I eased myself down under the water and closed my eyes. I heard the murmur of my heartbeat like an uncertain drum in the distance. I stayed under the water for some time; I’m not sure exactly how long, but I do remember the sense of freedom I felt in that dark place, deprived of my senses. Before the water started to cool, I soaped and rinsed myself, climbed out of the bath and had just started to dry my body when I saw the handle of the bathroom door slowly beginning to turn. I realized I had forgotten to lock it—Crace, after all, had already wished me good night—but as I quickly reached out to slide the bar across the space between the latch and the frame, the door began to open. I secured the towel around my waist, but Crace was already in the room before he asked whether he could come in. He apologized, but he had an urgent need to pee, he said. He was still fully dressed in the pair of bright orange corduroys, white shirt and light brown tweed jacket he had been wearing all day. Obviously, he had decided not to go to bed after all. His eyes gazed upon my chest, running up and down my torso as if he were about to feast on my flesh.

“I’ll leave you to it,” I said, feeling my face redden.

“There’s no need to leave on my account,” he said. “After all, we are all boys together, aren’t we?”

“No, honestly, Gordon, it’s fine,” I said, leaving the room as he started to unzip his trousers.

As I stood in the corridor, I could hear him relieving himself. A few moments later he called my name, saying that the bathroom was free. He waited in the doorway, knowing that I would have to brush by him. I smiled, hoping that he would move, but he remained fixed to the spot.

“You know, it’s extraordinary, isn’t it?” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You and me. Here and now.”

“I don’t quite follow, sorry.”

“It was almost like it was meant to be, don’t you think? I mean, everything you’ve done for me since you arrived here, all your kindnesses and careful attention to detail. You saw how I fell apart when you went away for a week or so. Terribly pathetic on my part, I realize, but your influence has been life changing, it really has.”

“I’m pleased that you’re happy.”

“Oh, yes. Happier than I have been for years.”

I stepped toward him so as to suggest that he stand away from the door, but he did not move, so I jumped nervously from foot to foot in a mock attempt to keep warm.

“How inexcusably insensitive of me. You’re still wet; you must be freezing. You must get dressed at once. What was I thinking?”

He turned sideways in the doorway so as to offer a space by which I could pass him. Holding the corner of my towel with one hand and bending my head slightly forward so I wouldn’t meet his eyes, I passed by him, half expecting to feel the touch of his hand on the base of my back. Although he let me walk by him without assault, once I was inside the bathroom he continued to stand in the doorway with a curious expression on his face. I willed him to shut the door and go away, but he carried on looking at me as if he were testing my reaction. What did he want me to do—let him watch me as I finished drying myself? The idea was abhorrent to me, enough to turn my stomach. My face reddened again, anger pulsing inside me, and I felt my wrist beginning to ache from the intensity with which I gripped my towel. I had to concentrate to keep my hand where it was as I was afraid of what I might do. But just then, in the instant before I lost control, Crace shifted his body and stepped back.