The Room Beyond Read online

  ‘So you have been spying on me.’

  ‘Oh my dear sister. I don’t have to spy on you to see that your marriage is a disaster.’

  ‘Better than no marriage at all, don’t you think?’

  Jane’s face turned pale and all at once that puffed up lividness seemed to drain out of her. Miranda felt the cold shudder of regret.

  ‘I think you give marriage a little too much credit.’ Her voice, no longer indignant, seemed to tremble under the weight of some great burden. ‘All that I have seen of marriage is misery and deceit.’

  ‘But mother and father...’

  ‘Oh stop wrapping things up in this great fairy tale in your mind. You have no idea what went on between them and it seems you have little clue about your own state of affairs.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Do you know about what your husband really got up to in India?’

  Miranda arched her back to pull away a little.

  ‘Your Tristan got into so much trouble out there that he had to leave. Yes, you see I listen to the talk.’

  ‘Stop now.’

  ‘You think he married you out of love? Well either you’re a fool or he’s a jolly good actor.’

  ‘Enough!’ Miranda unpeeled herself from her sister’s shadow and lunged for the door. ‘Why are you doing this? Why? Stop blaming me. Stop... punishing me. Because that’s what you’re doing, still doing, isn’t it? You have no sisterly concern for me, please don’t pretend. We both know where all of this is coming from. Now leave, please. Leave me alone.’

  She kept her eyes lowered but felt a rustle of air as Jane passed by her.

  ‘You always have to bring it up, don’t you?’ came her sister’s icy voice. ‘If you’d only stopped dwelling on the past then you might be better equipped to conduct yourself properly now.’

  Miranda closed her eyes and pictured Jane climbing into the carriage; her chin set determinedly, a few tendrils of her grey hair come loose. And then she listened to the carriage wheels start up their clatter along Marguerite Avenue until they merged into the noise of the city beyond.

  The clock in the hallway began to chime. Ten strokes; he’d be here soon. She waited for her hands to stop shaking and then took up her sewing, seating herself in the usual place by the window to wait for him. It was overcast outside; spots of rain were starting to make black blotches on the pavement.

  Rain’s bad luck on a wedding day.

  The servants had whispered it outside her bedroom door on that very morning. She’d heard their words as she stood peering at the reflection of herself in all her finery, flowers in her hair.

  It had rained all day; not quite torrential but in a grim determined manner like a factory machine at work. June weddings were supposed to be full of sunshine and flowers, not row upon row of grim faces in a damp old church.

  She looked up from her sewing and spotted him only a few houses away. Even after two years of watching him come and go, the man’s extraordinary physique still made her want to gape open-mouthed.

  He approached swiftly as always, with those huge rhythmic strides of his. Six foot five at least, with the physique of a crane fly; the oddest looking man that she and perhaps anyone else had ever seen. Today he wore a scarlet velvet suit and a long cloak of some deep purple cloth, the usual medley of charms and bottles hanging about his neck.

  She lowered her eyes, studying his approach from under her lashes, and just at the last second looked up to greet the whisper of his smile and the subtle nod of his head. He strode on and she waited, as she always did, for the sound of his three sharp knocks on the door of number 36. Perhaps this time Mrs Eden would let him in.

  The door opened. She heard the muffled sound of his voice, anxious but never pleading and then the sound of the closing latch. Rejected again. One, two, three, and there he was... striding back down Marguerite Avenue once more. No time for a nod or a smile now; his emaciated features set in a frown and then nothing but the back of his head with its long thinning mesh of hair.

  ‘Who are you, strange man?’ she whispered against the window pane. ‘What brings you back to this place week after week?’

  Mrs Hubbard was far from pleased with the recipe.

  ‘It’ll turn thick, like plaster,’ she said, with a wary shake of the head.

  But Miranda felt the flutter of triumph. ‘It’s just the most perfect cauliflower soup; exactly as I remember it. Father loved this! It was his favourite, and mine.’

  They ladled it out, but Tristan was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Oh dear. And I thought we were running late.’

  ‘I can go up myself to knock for him,’ suggested the cook.

  ‘No that’s alright. He doesn’t like being disturbed as it is, so it’s probably better if I go.’

  Miranda skimmed the tips of her fingers up the coils of banister. Up and up. It was like living in a lighthouse, or climbing up a helter-skelter in a fairground. She hardly ever went beyond her own bedroom now. So many rooms and nothing much to put in them. And then at last the little door right at the top: a bleak maid’s door, not even painted.

  ‘Tristan, supper’s ready!’

  There was no reply. A cold chill brushed against her face.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  She tried the handle but the door was locked. And there was that chill again.

  ‘Come down when you’re ready.’

  She retreated back downstairs to the concerned lines of Mrs Hubbard’s face.

  ‘It’s setting already ma’am. You won’t be able to get a knife through it if it’s not eaten in the next five minutes.’

  ‘Mr Whitestone has been delayed I’m afraid. Try the best you can to water it down, I’ve no doubt he’ll be here soon.’

  Forty minutes later Tristan loped into the dining room. His shirt collar was rather dishevelled and he had an absent look in his face.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘The jasmine plant outside.’

  ‘Close the window. You know I hate it.’

  ‘It is closed, it’s very pungent that’s all. How was your day dear?’

  He slumped down at the table without an answer and Mrs Hubbard bustled in, the lines on her face now resembling contours on a map.

  The soup had gone badly wrong: one part grey dishwater to two parts gelatinous lumps. It now gave off a putrid smell that made Miranda’s stomach lurch.

  Tristan lifted his spoon and then tossed it back down again. He hadn’t combed his hair and she could smell the liquor on him.

  ‘I’ve been rather concerned about you this past week,’ she said. ‘It can’t be good for your health being stuck up there in that poky little room all day, especially when you have such a lovely library down here. And are they not missing you at work? Surely you must have meetings to attend? How is the office able to function adequately without you there?’

  He shot her a smile as cold as blunt glass. ‘Please don’t meddle,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no my dear, don’t interpret my words wrongly. It’s only natural that I should care.’

  Tristan prodded curiously at his soup. ‘What is this in my bowl?’

  ‘Cauliflower soup. I do hope you like it; it was cook’s recipe when I was a little girl.’

  He prodded it again and then tasted a morsel with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘I read in The Times today that there have been all sorts of troubles at the docks. Perhaps you’re the person they need, darling, to go and sort it all out. Oh!’

  One sharp strike of his hand and his bowl skimmed across the table, spewing the soup all over the cloth. Little grey hillocks of cauliflower steamed everywhere.

  ‘Perhaps I’m mistaken but I thought I asked you not to meddle in my affairs.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I...’

  ‘On and on and on. I seem to hear nothing but the grating whine of your voice. You have a house, a husband, your ridiculous circle of friends. What more do you want of me? I permit myself one small space in this vast house of ours; one sm
all corner for my own private use. Surely I can call this space my own, I told myself. But no. Oh no! You choose to grumble and whine even about that.’

  He pressed his thumb down against his nose, pushing it into his face until it went white.

  ‘You have a snout Miranda. Not pretty is it? Now get it out of my affairs!’

  A long sliver of saliva clung to his bottom lip and he brushed it away with the back of his hand.

  The soiled tablecloth sneered up at her. She tried to rub away at the soup with her napkin, but the oily stains just got larger and larger.

  ‘Stop that,’ he muttered.

  Her hand collided with a glass and a sticky puddle of wine now merged cloudily with the spilt food.

  ‘Stop!’ He slammed his hand down over hers.

  She froze, her eyes now fixed on his. A hazy film had set across the blueness, as if he were blind.

  ‘I am going upstairs now and will probably sleep in my office tonight. Under no account will you disturb me or badger me about my business again.’ He withdrew his hand from hers and stood up. ‘Oh and get that Hubbard woman to clear up this revolting mess. It’s nothing short of a pigsty in here.’

  The door was almost noiseless now: loud enough for her to hear the promise of its click but without all that dreadful scraping and grating. Lucinda threw a shawl around her shoulders and found Tristan half way over the narrow cast iron railing between their two balconies.

  ‘Hello... be careful. How was your meal?’

  ‘Disgusting.’

  And then his lips were caressing her neck.

  ‘I accused her of having a snout.’

  ‘Goodness. What did she feed you?’

  They fell into the small room together and she watched him peel off his shirt.

  ‘We could go downstairs into the house, it’s empty now.’

  ‘No, I like it here. Come to bed.’

  During his short absence she’d ached for the warm hard certainty of his body against hers and now it felt as comforting as moonlight in a dark forest. She turned on her side and glided her finger in circular movements over the skin just beneath his ear.

  ‘I love this part of you the most. I love it so much I want to eat it. Can I eat it darling?’

  ‘No you cannot.’

  His eyes were smiling under their lids.

  ‘Spoil sport. Shall we have some wine?’

  ‘Go on then.’

  She glugged some wine into the smudged and dirty glass they shared. Tristan balanced two cigarettes on his lower lip and lit them.

  ‘I was going to ask you something Lucy. This morning I heard someone knocking on your front door. Must have been loud for me to have heard it from all the way up here. You were still asleep; I was a bit worried it might have been your dastardly husband, so I crept downstairs and had a look out of the window... ’

  He paused to smoke, his eyebrows raised in a bemused arc.

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Well, either old Alfonso’s grown two foot and dressed himself as a court jester or you’ve got some vagrant witch-doctor knocking on your door.’

  ‘Oh! What day of the week is it?’

  ‘Tuesday, I think.’

  ‘Yes. That’ll be Walter Balanchine.’

  His eyes narrowed. Oh good, she’d caught his interest, and with a surprising helping of jealousy thrown into the pot.

  ‘And who is he?’

  ‘Just an old lover of mine.’

  He lurched towards her, catching her by the hair and she heard herself explode with laughter. But she could feel the blood draining from her face at the same time.

  ‘Say you are joking,’ he whispered, his face so close that she could see small pearls of sweat forming on his brow. His body pressed down on her, she could barely breathe.

  ‘I never thought that being grappled by an enraged lion would be so exciting.’

  ‘Say you are joking.’

  She dug her elbows into his chest and pushed him sharply away, but the sudden loss of his touch gnawed straight back at her and she pressed herself hard against him, greedy for his skin.

  ‘Do you really think I’d get into bed with a man like that? Of course not. Walter Balanchine is a freakish and abhorrent man who works as a sort of assistant to my father. He arrives at the same time every week to try and bribe me back home.’

  ‘And what do you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing. The servants are under strict instructions never to let him in.’

  ‘And yet he still comes?’

  ‘Religiously.’

  He flopped back against the pillows, his eyes glassy, staring straight past her through the window.

  She waited for her heart to stop pounding in her ears. Perhaps she should try and make him angry again, just to see if it was always quite so easy. But then her groaning stomach interrupted her thoughts instead.

  ‘I’m starving. Sarah should have left a tray by the door.’

  Outside she found a platter of ham, bread and grapes and a bottle of wine. They picked away at it together on the bed.

  ‘Does defying your father’s wishes ever upset you?’ he asked.

  ‘A little. I adored him when I was young, but he is so controlling. He hated Alfonso, wanted me to marry a man with, well, a little more to his name.’

  ‘Perhaps he was right. You didn’t make the wisest of choices did you darling?’

  ‘Not really, but anything seemed better than dying of boredom like my mother in a damp country house.’

  She filled her mouth with wine and let its velvety bitterness lap against her teeth and down her throat. ‘I could have done the same as you, married some ghastly halfwit and then conduct myself exactly as I pleased.’

  ‘There was no other way; I couldn’t have gone back to soldiering and my father would only let me join the company if I married. Not easy when most families in our circle wouldn’t let me within a mile of their daughters.’

  ‘I don’t blame them!’

  He pinched her cheek and pulled her towards him, her head locked neatly under his chin.

  ‘So how then did you hunt poor old Miranda down?’

  ‘Oh, her father was parish priest to a family acquaintance. So tucked away in rural Shropshire that they knew nothing of me.’

  ‘Good heavens darling, you married a daughter of the cloth!’

  ‘My father-in-law was an avaricious baboon of a man who used God only as means of getting everything he wanted for as little work as possible.’

  ‘And did his daughter regard him in the same light?’

  ‘Miranda? Of course not, she worshipped the old sod; never even suspected that he spent most of his time fornicating with one of the servants.’

  ‘You discovered them together? Was she a silly young thing?’

  ‘Yes I did and no he wasn’t particularly. It was a little gem of information that served me rather well.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, news of my reputation arrived in the village just days before the wedding. He wanted to shy away, save his daughter from my wicked clutches, but I soon put him back on track, stupid old brute.’

  His eyes seemed smaller suddenly, pinched with cruelty.

  ‘Did Miranda find out?’

  ‘God no. They kept it all as quiet as possible, although I think the ghoul-faced sister had her suspicions.’

  She wriggled out of his arms and took his face between her hands. Every inch of his flesh was so lean; she could feel each sinew tighten beneath her fingers. She could even trace the warm veins of racing blood beneath his skin.

  ‘Darling, will you promise me something?’ she asked. ‘Let’s not talk of our past lives. They’re over now, something to be packed away and forgotten about. Do you promise? And you will never be cruel to me, will you? Can you promise me that as well?’

  His eyes filled with tears and she felt as if she should turn away, but couldn’t. He began to stroke her hair, over and over again.

  ‘I promise,’ he said. />
  ‘Me too.’

  ‘You’re my saviour Lucy,’ his breath felt wet and urgent against her face. ‘All my folly, everything I’ve ever done wrong in my life has served only as a way of getting me to you.’

  ‘Then let’s not talk of it anymore. Let’s enjoy what is now, the two of us locked together. Like this, see.’

  She wrapped herself around him and he clutched her back so tightly that his fingers cast deep grooves into her skin. Her body trembled. His mouth was by her ear, his confiding whispers probing softly in.

  ‘Does this feel like cruelty?’ he murmured.

  She yelped; the cry of someone she barely knew.

  ‘Don’t ever leave me.’

  ‘No.’

  She closed her eyes and found that she was falling again; just like in that dream she’d had in the park. But this time she landed against forest earth: rich and black and all-consuming. She thrust herself in, plunging her fingers into its darkness. And then she let herself disperse; let it take hold of her, laugh and cry out with the pleasure of it. How could there ever have been a time before this man? How could she ever not have known him?

  Morning arrived with barely a moment passing. Outside the treetops looked grey. In a few hours the mist would clear and the leaves would polish up emerald green. She dragged a filthy sheet over her naked body.

  Tristan was still asleep, his long eyelashes curled together in a kiss. If only they could go out, to the park perhaps, and roam about in the dew.

  There were a few dregs of wine left in the bottle; they splashed meekly into the glass. Tristan stirred.

  ‘Save some for me.’

  ‘Alright.’

  The small clock on the mantelpiece began to chime the hour. He stretched and peered over at it.

  ‘I should really go to work today.’

  Those were the words she’d been dreading. She squeezed the glass hard in her hand until it snapped. One swoop of her right arm and the rest of the glass exploded in the clock’s face. It was a good aim; the clock landed on the floor in a flurry of tinny sounding chirps followed by silence.