Fig and the Flute Player Read online

  ‘Why did you decide to love me, Maisie?’

  ‘Do people decide?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t think I decided. I don’t think I wanted it like that. It just ran into me – like an accident.’

  ‘You make it sound like a catastrophe.’

  ‘Perhaps it will be.’

  ‘No. We won’t let it be that.’ He kissed her hair, then, turning her round to face him, still inside his coat, kissed her mouth.

  At last he released her, and they started walking, then, back the way they had come.

  ‘What happened with you and Leo?’

  ‘We became too friendly. Too easy with each other. There was no friction.’

  ‘He seemed so suitable for you, Maisie. Just right for you.’

  She hated him saying that, but only answered, ‘You liked him?’

  ‘I thought you would have suited him – more than Irene. What do you think of her?’

  They had come to an iron seat and sat down.

  ‘I’ve hardly met her,’ said Maisie, ‘but I wouldn’t have thought of her for Leo. I think he’s intrigued with her more than anything. She’s so different from him and he’s never met anyone like her.’

  ‘I’ve met quite a few women like her,’ said Michael.

  ‘You and Leo have moved in different circles.’

  ‘Do you still care for him?’

  ‘Well – I still care for him.’

  ‘Didn’t you feel betrayed by him?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘You don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s just that whole time – I can’t really remember what happened, how I felt.’

  ‘Cut yourself off from feeling about it?’

  ‘Well – perhaps that was it.’

  ‘I think you would do that. Just slip away. I feel that about you – that you could just slip through my fingers.’

  Maisie could not understand him talking like that, when every shred of her now was wrapped up in his being.

  ‘Why did you love me?’ she asked. She knew she should not ask this, but expected him to say because of her fascination, her sex appeal and beauty, her honesty and directness. Things that Leo had once said about her.

  ‘Because you loved me first,’ he said simply. That truth brought tears to her eyes and she turned her head away. She pretended to look at her watch.

  ‘We’d better go,’ she said, ‘I mustn’t be late.’

  ‘Are you crying?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’d better go.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘now I’ll show you Kiev.’ Pulling her up from the seat, he began to run. Then they were both running, running down a wide street. This time he was pulling her along.

  ‘This is October Revolution Street!’ he shouted, looking up at the street name. He was getting good at translating the Russian alphabet. They ran and ran. They whirled round a corner.

  ‘This is – this is another street,’ he said, unable to read the name. She couldn’t go any further, and pulled away from him, panting. He pinned her against the wall. One arm each side, a prisoner.

  ‘You are my prisoner,’ he said.

  2

  ‘I REALLY loathe conference receptions,’ said Maisie in a low voice. ‘I’m inflicting this on you.’

  She had changed into a simple dress and complicated jewellery.

  ‘I’m enjoying myself,’ said Michael, ‘I love it.’ He had his name label on upside down.

  ‘I love you,’ said Maisie, and drifted off.

  The delegates were being welcomed in what had probably been the ballroom of this pre-Revolutionary palace. The huge room still had splendid sad bones. It was completely bare of furniture, not a chair in sight, and people tended to range themselves in little groups round the walls, so they had something to lean on. This left the centre of the beautiful, immense wooden floor in a pool of light from the chandeliers, empty, except when the space was occasionally crossed by a distracted delegate looking for someone. Chandeliers with pieces missing dripped like broken stalactites from the ceiling and gave the room, with its peeling walls, a cave-like melancholy and grandeur. You felt that, looking up, you should see a hole in the ceiling, letting in the light. But grey wintry light, unlike the glow from the chandelier, came from long windows, cloister-like down one side of the room. That side of the room retained its former elegance and looked on to frozen grass and statues of gods and goddesses mantled in snow. One of them was headless.

  An obstinate-looking young woman with a blankly pretty face seemed to be in charge. She made sure everyone on her list was introduced to their hosts.

  ‘This is Aleksandr Pavlovich Ivanov from the Bureau for Cultural Exchange,’ she said to Michael. ‘Which party are you with?’

  ‘That party,’ said Michael, pointing to Maisie.

  When everyone was suitably drunk they were all shooed into a lecture theatre for the introductory talk.

  This was given by an intense little woman who was at pains to impress on her polyglot assembly that the purpose of the conference was to do with cultural roots, not religious faith; the churches and monasteries, even the ikons themselves, she said, if regarded correctly, symbolised the people’s struggle. They had been fought over, much blood spilled. They were, in a way, trophies of war.

  Maisie pricked up her ears, though, when the speaker went on to mention the ‘ikon about which we have all heard various rumours … sacred duty to procure it for the people … to occupy a central place in the Museum of Russian Art’.

  Maisie was surprised to hear such open reference to what she had thought had been generally regarded as an almost fable-like account of a miracle-working ikon put about by credulous and superstitious elements. Apparently she had not had her ear to the ground of late. She imagined Denisov’s alarm.

  The little woman made no mention of the fact that the Orthodox Church had a claim on it which it was unlikely to give up.

  ‘This conference,’ she was saying, ‘showed the strength of new cultural ties re-established with Europe and the world, since they were systematically eradicated.’ She paused, then went on.

  ‘It was delightful to see scholars from so many countries with so many diverse talents and views. For so long the intelligentsia had been despised, deprived of oxygen, of free exchange of ideas. Now it could begin to breathe again.’

  There was faint polite applause as people shuffled their transcripts.

  Maisie put her hand on Michael’s thigh.

  ‘It won’t all be like this,’ she whispered. ‘Once the individual speakers start it will be fascinating.’

  Michael looked at the programme. ‘Ikons and Ikonography of the Romanov Dynasty’. After a coffee break, ‘Early Russian Wall Painting’. He pulled a wry face. Maisie’s fingers pressed the sinewy muscle of his inner thigh. She smiled.

  Sitting in the lecture hall with Michael she felt the loneliness of the past years seeping away like a gradual thaw, like pack-ice thawing after a hard, deeply sleeping winter. She hadn’t even known, until now, that she had been lonely. Lonely did not describe what she had been. Lonely. What did the word mean? she pondered. She had not felt lonely. She had thought herself fulfilled. At the same time calm and still. She had needed those years. The being alone had been right. Under the ice something was happening, protected and hidden. In a way those frozen years had been happy. Happy. What did the word mean? And the breaking-up of the ice was not painless. But she couldn’t go back. There had been something frozen, she now knew, as she felt the movement of something in the depths of her. A stirring that was now out of her hands. It had come of its own accord. Perhaps her defences had been down that evening; tired off the train, open to anything that might happen to her, she’d relinquished control and it had happened.

  A babble of conversation among the delegates broke into her thoughts. The speaker now told them, above the din, about hotel arrangements in th
e city, apologised for any mix-ups; dining arrangements were to be in the ballroom where the delegates first met. Were there any queries? There weren’t – people were already streaming out. The woman’s voice rose somehow over the noise. There would be a special banquet the next day to welcome guests. (The next day was Christmas Day in Europe and for Catholic Russians, and the banquet would be by way of a Christmas dinner.)

  As they made their way back to the hotel Maisie said, ‘I must telephone my mother, I’ll do it in our room.’

  ‘Do you want me out of the way?’

  ‘No.’

  She sat on the edge of the bed to telephone, and he lay beside her looking at a sheaf of brochures he’d picked up from the Intourist desk – he’d made a mistake and shortsightedly picked up Chinese instead of Russian ones.

  ‘I’m trying to learn Russian, not bloody Chinese,’ he said. He had rolled over towards her and put his arm lightly round her waist. She got through at once and her mother’s voice was as clear as if she had been in the same room. He felt like a husband this evening, thought Maisie. It distanced her mother’s clear tones.

  ‘It’s a wonderful line, Ma. You’re as clear as a bell.’

  ‘I’m glad you rang. Rose has arrived but she’s out at the moment. That man has been telephoning ever since she got here. He’s driving down for Christmas lunch. A long way to come for lunch. A very peculiar relationship. How are you, my dear?’

  ‘I thought I’d better telephone today – they’ve laid something on for tomorrow. I’m fine,’ said Maisie.

  Michael had moved away from her, and was looking through his little Russian-English dictionary and phrasebook, his glasses on the end of his nose.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t seem like a good relationship to me,’ her mother was saying. ‘She speaks of him as if he was the biggest fool. The whole thing horrifies me. I’m surprised at you, Maisie.’

  Not a husband, she thought, a stranger, really. A stranger husband. Yes. That exactly.

  ‘Well, it’s not me that’s having the relationship with Glantz.’ There was a small silence. What was her mother getting at? thought Maisie.

  ‘There was something to be said for girls marrying before they were twenty and having a couple of children to give them a sense of reality.’

  Maisie looked at her watch – this would be an expensive call if her mother didn’t stop soon, but she couldn’t resist saying, ‘It didn’t give you a sense of reality, Mother. You dumped me with a nanny and went on the stage. Rosalind at Stratford.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But at least I knew who I was.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Of course I did. We did in those days.’

  ‘Well, have a lovely Christmas, Ma. Make Rose and that man wash up, and put your feet up.’

  ‘I had a call from Leo – wishing me a happy Christmas and everything, checking on Rose. He doesn’t like that man either.’

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘Glantz.’

  ‘Well – have a splendid Christmas, Ma, and thank you for my present. Just right.’

  ‘Well … goodbye, then, dear.’

  ‘I knew a psychiatrist,’ said Michael, looking up the Russian for the word in his dictionary, ‘and all he did – he ran a sort of private madhouse – was pair up the men and women. It was the only treatment. No drugs. Never used drugs. Said it was better than drugs.’

  ‘Sounds quite a creative approach – if you believe most of these troubles stem from frustrated love. I wonder if he followed up the results of his treatment to see what happened, though.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. What’s the worry about Rose, anyway? She seemed perfectly sensible to me.’

  ‘She is sensible.’

  ‘Seems to be coping with life.’

  ‘Yes – but she’s not happy.’ It occurred to Maisie that Michael was getting to know more and more about her and the relationships that surrounded her – and she knew no more about him than when she had first met him. Was it just women who were barnacled about with so many indissoluble relationships?

  He had a look about him – of freedom. She had been aware of it from the beginning. Perhaps it was that she had fallen in love with. Perhaps that was it. Did she want to be him – because he was free?

  It was in his eyes even now, however loving, however interested in everything about her, behind them, a light of non-attachment. But his voice was kind, intimate, caressing.

  ‘Well, that’s a lot to expect – happiness. Until you’ve made up your mind that’s what you’ll be, that is.’

  ‘You mean we choose if we are to be happy or not?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s a decision we take – one way or the other. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘What have you chosen?’

  ‘I’ve chosen to be miserable,’ said Michael, smiling. ‘It’s better for my art. What did your mother give you?’

  ‘A book I wanted,’ said Maisie.

  ‘I’ve never asked about your father. Is he alive?’

  ‘No,’ said Maisie, ‘he is dead. Damn – I haven’t any shampoo.’ She was rummaging through her things.

  ‘For long? Has your father been dead for long?’

  ‘Quite a few years now. I was seventeen.’

  ‘He died young.’

  ‘Yes. He died – he died, well, it was alcohol that killed him.’

  ‘Were you close?’

  ‘Earlier I was. I suppose I was in love with him. And then things got mixed up. Well – it was pretty awful at the time. And for my mother.’

  ‘I can’t imagine your mother being married to anyone like that.’

  ‘Well, she was.’

  ‘Which book did she give you?’

  ‘Oh, just an art history book.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ She laughed a little short laugh. She would not tell him.

  He put his arms round her. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  She was laughing more now. ‘No,’ she said, laughing until the tears began to come. He tightened his hold.

  ‘You’re hurting,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me,’ he insisted, not smiling, pretending to be grim-faced.

  She gave in. ‘Oh, Origins of Christian Iconography – it’s a paperback, I had it before and lost it. It’s out of print. My mother must have combed the Brighton second-hand book shops for it.’

  Stopping the flow of words, he kissed her.

  ‘Don’t you want to know who wrote it? The publisher?’

  He kissed her again, tenderly. She began to feel dream-like. Perhaps he felt a little out of his element at this conference, she thought. They were not the sort of people he was used to, she guessed.

  ‘This is when I feel you will slip away from me,’ he said, holding her away from him now. ‘I feel that about you sometimes. You look so – you look as if you don’t need anyone. Don’t want anyone.’

  Maisie was bewildered. She groped in her mind towards trying to understand his words. But she was too shocked by them. It must be that whatever was happening inside, the thaw, did not yet show on her face. She looked in the little mirror on the cheap dressing-table. She touched her face. ‘Do I look like that? Is that how I seem?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t feel like that,’ she said. ‘I think I am in love with you.’

  ‘Oh, Maisie.’

  He was standing behind her, both now seeing the other’s reflection. ‘Be careful.’

  Maisie felt the blood drain from her face, and her pale reflection in the mirror, the only colour her brilliantly lipsticked mouth, against her lover’s dark features, became blurred to her. She almost felt she might faint. She felt she had been dealt a fatal blow to the heart. She felt her life’s blood flow from her.

  She said nothing and fought to recover herself, but the voice inside her was saying over and over again – ‘Be careful.’ Careful. Why? Be careful. Why be careful? Careful. Careful.

  Why had he briefly felt like a husband? No. He wa
s a man she had known for two weeks and with whom she had fallen in love. She felt afraid. She began to tremble.

  ‘Are you coming to bed?’ he was saying. Casually. Like a man who might have picked her up a couple of weeks ago. Picked her up in a railway station or somewhere like that.

  ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I want to check something at the desk.’ She was walking down the long corridor. The hotel was like a huge ship adrift on a vast, cold sea, its tunnelled passageways opening out on to the stage-set of velvet-curtained, potted-palmed, turn-of-the-century spaciousness. A heavily carved staircase spiralled down, curling round an ornate iron lift shaft, the elaborate and splendid cage of which moved slowly up and down. Maisie flew lightly down the stairs, round and round again. She hardly knew she could not see for unspilled tears, her feet scarcely touching the ground in a feeling akin to ecstasy.

  The girl at the Intourist desk looked up, but Maisie turned away to scrutinise the notice-board with unseeing eyes. She was still shaking slightly.

  Had nothing changed since she was twenty years old, then? After all the years of taking thought? Did they count for nothing? The placid walks in the park, watching, without pain, the seasons change. The daily rituals of life; the pleasant stress of work. The whole thing. Her life. What she had made of it.

  It had fallen apart. The white bone laid bare.

  No longer her own woman, then.

  When it came down to it, where was the sense of her own reality as a person alone in the world? Had he taken it from her already, was it so fragile a thing? The self-sufficient Maisie Shergold – was she his prisoner?

  She scanned the notices about exhibitions and concerts as if she might find the answer to her desperate questions. She hardly knew him. Her quick-grown delicate trust shattered like glass by two words of warning – ‘Be careful’ – and pierced her with bloody splinters.

  Be careful. Why? Why be careful? Why careful? For the first time she wondered if there was anyone else in Michael’s life. She had never thought to ask him. She knew nothing at all about him except that his mother was a witch. And even something that had not troubled her before began to trouble her, as she wondered fancifully if this might be true, and not a light-hearted joke. She saw Michael’s witch-like mother, tall and commanding, standing behind them both, reflected in the dim, cheap little mirror on the dressing-table.