Surrender to Mr. X Page 21

  “Feels really good,” he said, my little teenage brother, stumbling on heels, head high, little bosoms improvised out of rolled up socks, buttocks out, pretty face turned to the low sun. Men looked after us. I could see it was a turning point. What was to become of him? He’d scraped through his exams. What then? I supposed he could join the Soho demi-monde, that subfusc world of men and women of dubious sexuality, who frequent the clubs and the street corners, thinking about sex-change ops, talking to therapists, staring into mirrors, dolling themselves up, thinking about nothing except the impression they make. Well, it was his life.

  Snapshot. Dinner at the Ivy. Very grand. Alden, Ray, me, Bernie, Robert, Lady Daisy and Lord O, puffing and snorting and spluttering when he spoke. She looking at me a little puzzled and saying, “I’m sure I’ve met you somewhere before. Do you paint also?”

  All of us having caviar—the last of their Beluga, imports now being banned—Bernie saying there was nothing else worth eating on the menu. Ray wincing: he and Alden were treating the rest of us. Bernie choosing the wine.

  And Bernie looking at Robert and Robert looking at Bernie: and the two of them falling in love. I’ve seen it happen once or twice before. Two people meet, their eyes hold, and they know their lives are going to join, whether it be for a night, a week, a year, for life. Across a crowded room, everything just slips into another gear, another dimension, the Dream Time. Though of course it is possible for at least one person to pretend. But this was genuine: I’d give it at least five years.

  Robert recovering first. Bernie, moon-eyes, pouring him champagne. Their futures sorted, just like that. Robert would learn about art, money, power; move on when he had learned all he needed. Bernie would be left behind, but that would be his fate whoever it was. I had won the old man another few years, which he didn’t deserve because he thought nothing of me, and let it show, but never mind.

  Lifting champagne glasses to the En Garde gallery, opening Tuesday, a week to go. Well, not quite—it’s already Thursday. The Blue Box to be put in place on Sunday. “Isn’t that cutting it a bit fine?” from Lord Toby. Daisy patting his hand, and saying, “Don’t be such a fusspot, Toby. We must trust Ray.” Ray saying it was completed, except the varnishing: I knowing otherwise—one square still to go and another two mirrors cracked today.

  Ray picking up the bill—but there’s something wrong with his right hand. The fingers won’t clench. Bernie taking the tab from Ray, saying: “No, please let me do this.” Bernie holding Robert’s eye, soppy and daft. Robert’s cheerful, bright smile. Robert 16, Bernie 53, I guessed, but given an age of consent, consent can get given. The time is right. Robert takes the baton from me and runs with it.

  Bernie saying, “Can’t thank you enough for inviting me, Alden. Thank you Ray.” For my little brother Robert, the freebie, or loss leader.

  Stress And Paralysis

  SNAPSHOTS. PANIC STATIONS. RAY’S right hand, paralyzed. The clock ticking. A week to go. Mirrors cracking and springing as fast as Lam can mend them. Only one square left to fill in with tiny lines to complete the universe, but the apparent unlikelihood of its achievement. Alden’s chair going round in circles as he loses control of his touch-pads in his agitation—I’ve never seen this before. Dr. Wondle summonsed urgently. Diagnosis: hysterical paralysis. The cause: stress, sexual repression. No wonder they have him as a doctor: private doctors always tell you what you want to hear.

  Vanessa’s voice loud and clear in my head. She says the poststructuralist concept of subjectivity is suggestive of a self that is both stable, and unstable, knowable and unknowable, constructed and unique. Crowley’s pivotal magical experience was when the Scarlet Woman copulated with the goat and it was the goat that died. What is Alden’s pivotal experience going to be, as he follows in the footsteps of the master, seeking ultimate self-realization? Desperate people do desperate things: be careful. Vanessa bows out with a cheery, “Take care, God is good, keep rocking!”

  Alden’s persecuting Ray by telling him he has the name of a private restorer who’ll come in and get the piece ready in no time. He’ll simply copy into the waiting Box 93 what’s in Box 1 and that will complete the circle. Hysterics from Ray: threats of suicide: an actual physical attack on Alden which has to be fended off by Lam. I am back cleaning and scrubbing and getting under everyone’s feet but somehow it feels safer at floor level. A telephone call from Robert saying he’s in love, he’s in love, he’s in love, he’s in love with a wonderful man. I am rather sorry for Bernie: his emotions will be shredded at some point.

  And Ray’s poor right hand dangles from his wrist, useless, just as his cock dangles from his balls, useless. If only the one worked, the other would too.

  A telephone call from the BBC: they’re hoping for delivery soon. They have a change of schedule. Can Alden have the piece in its finished form within the week? Alden says yes, and stares at me. What does he want from me now? Some deathbed howl? We watch some porn films to see the state of the market. We watch family snaps of the twins on the lawn playing netball.

  “They’re virgins, aren’t they,” he says. “You were telling porky-pies?”

  “How would you know that?” I ask, but he just shrugs. I say yes, actually: he wins, he’s right. He doesn’t pursue the matter any further. He just waits. I know him by now. But there isn’t much time to take time, and we both know it.

  I do what I can for Alden, I really do. I lie down, crawl about, crouch, sit, blow, suck, twirl, everything a girl with a practiced repertoire can do for any man without the use of his legs, but a strong upper body and an alien assistant. I squeal, grunt, scream, choke, laugh, delight, chatter, and come: 80% is genuine. Still he doesn’t come: the gods of Tantra win.

  I do what I can for Ray. I lie in his big low divan with its heavy silk savonnerie spread, naked and next to him at his request: he’s crying and needs comfort, his nose is running and he’s snuggled into goose-down cushions in the fetal position, and the sheets haven’t been changed for ages. I do the rest of the house but not the studio (nor the Bluebeard room, of course). It’s very Ray-ish and fairly disgusting but I’m sorry for him. I wear nothing but he’s not interested. His penis lies small and cozy against his balls and refuses to so much as twitch. That’s okay by me, though not by Alden. Alden wants Ray’s soul and Ray won’t let him have it. Alden sees Ray as an extension of himself. Ray in the meanwhile won’t have Alden in bed with us. He says it’s unnatural. The paralysis is his punishment for sins of lust. My sins, he means, Ray just mostly watched.

  Even as Ray and I lie there in the dark there’s a tiny pinging sound, and I know another mirror’s gone. I wonder if the same thing is happening to the quilt in the mirror room—whether the patches are disintegrating yet further. I decide to go down and see.

  Snapshot. Me creeping from the studio and tiptoeing downstairs to the mirrored bedroom with my needle and thread. A couple more patches have come adrift, but maybe it’s not too bad, not terminal. The quilt ought really go to be professionally restored, but I can’t face the uproar consequent upon my suggesting it. I sit on the floor to get to the worst frayings and comings-apart which are round the hem. The mirrors throw back reflections: I’m there reflected unto all infinity—naked girl crouching with needle and thread. I don’t like the room at all any more: nasty things have happened here. Once it was pure and light and naughty and experimental. Now something else haunts it.

  Snapshot. Alden’s chair, the swish of its wheels on the carpet. My ears are tuned to the sound by now. Alden in a rage, or is it simulated rage? Something has happened.

  Lam follows on behind.

  “Vanessa!” he says. “Liar.”

  He seems to be crying. There are tears on his cheeks. So, I am discovered. Robert had blabbed. Well, it was bound to come out. I am not Joan, the girl he can despise, I am Vanessa, the girl he must respect, love for her mind as well as for her body. If a man can love Joan surely he would love Vanessa more? It will all be all right. If only he had
not said Vanessa’s name as if he hated her.

  Alden presses a touch pad. The hum starts up: the latest, horriblest version with my howls upon it. Another touch and the metal bars begin to come down to form the V. Lam is looking for whips. I fear for my life. I offer Alden the twins.

  Snapshot. Vanessa writing out place names. Florists are bringing in flowers, masses of them.

  Vanessa: How do you spell Mikhail?

  Alden: M-i-k-h-a-i-I.

  Vanessa: As in an oligarch?

  Alden: As in an oligarch.

  Vanessa: And Bernie?

  Alden: B-e-r-n-i-e. I thought you knew how to spell. You might as well be Joan.

  So we can laugh about it now. The twins are coming to dinner. They’re staying the night at the Dorchester, all expenses paid by Alden. Bernie’s oligarch is coming. He has to be soothed because of the fiasco with the rainforest drug. No-one likes to look foolish. If the oligarch is pleased, favors will flow down the line once more. Everyone will benefit. Everyone is excited and confident. They know the night augers well.

  Caterers are providing the dinner. All I have to do are the place names. Ray is out of his sofa bed, taking a bath, shaving, enjoying all the things a man can do with his left hand. By tomorrow he is sure The Blue Box will be complete, all ninety-three squares done, three years’ work borne fruit. I think he expects an apotheosis. Tomorrow, tomorrow all will be well, he will be assumed into Heaven. Alden has spent most of the day in his Bluebeard room. Occasionally he comes out to wind me up about my double first.

  “Philosophy!” he exclaims. “Your father a Latin scholar, your mother a vicar! What a little minx you are. Laughing at us all the time, I suppose?”

  I say laughter was not really all that high up on my agenda. Oh, I was growing up.

  Snapshot: Katharine and Alison, in a taxi with Vanessa, from Paddington on their way to Hampstead, and Alden’s mansion on the hill. They look awful, negligible, wearing the shapeless navy blue in which they hope to stay invisible. They have one small, old-fashioned leather suitcase between them, with (they say) all their finery in it, which they have chosen themselves. I’m rather worried about this. I am wearing jeans, heels, a plain white top and my Lacroix jacket and look gorgeous. They haven’t even noticed.

  Alison: We’ve been reading the Minmermus Elegies.

  Katharine: 7th century BC. Very early texts.

  Alison: Our tutor says it would help if we could only feel, not just think. It’s a matter of interpretation, not just translation.

  I can’t concentrate. What am I doing? Why?

  Katharine: Don’t worry about it, Vanessa.

  Alison: We know what we’re doing.

  Katharine: We brought white dresses for defilement.

  Vanessa: Defilement? You’ve been asked to a dinner party.

  They look at me with skeptical eyes and laugh. What can Bernie have told them, Robert? What can Robert have told the twins? But Robert won’t be there tonight; he’s back at Eton.

  The twins meet Alden, and politely admire his wheelchair and his house. They are not shown all of it; not the mirror room, for instance. They are gauche, have no social graces. They ask Alden about his accident and whether it has affected his potency. He tells them no, though he has some residual psychosomatic difficulty. They hope stem-cell technology will soon be able to help him.

  I ask Alden how he finds them, and he says it’s as well the oligarch speaks very little English.

  They go up to the studio and meet Ray and admire The Blue Box. They point out that one of the squares is still blank and ask if this is accident or design. Ray replies, “Act of God.” Alison counts the squares and tells her sister “ninety-three,” and Katharine says, “I see, a greeting.” Alison asks Ray if moving the piece is going to be a problem. They are introduced to Lam and Katharine says, “LAM? Isn’t that the acronym for lymphangioleiomyomatosis?”

  Lam says, “No, Lam breathe well. Good air on Dog Star,” and sidles off smirking.

  The long L word is for a very nasty, usually fatal, lung disease which affects fertile young women. The twins, as I do, like medical dictionaries. Their eidetic skills are probably twice mine. But I don’t think they have Bipolar Two. Their troubles, if such they be, lie at the autistic end of the mental disturbance scale, which is uncommon for girls. But they have each other, and a great capacity for enjoyment.

  They change in my room. The transformation is astonishing. They wear simple cream silk shifts over their thin, almost hipless bodies. For once I am able to see their legs, which are long and slim. They wear no bras and no panty line is visible. Their breasts make slight bumps. They might as well be wearing nothing, but the effect is graceful and innocent. They move as one. You’d think you were seeing double. By the time most identical twins are seventeen tiny changes in environment will have worked to make them at least distinguishable from each other, but not with these two. They’re not so much individuals as one walking brain with two bodies.

  I go and change for dinner. Joan’s still tripping round in my head la-la-ing, which is the only way I can describe it. La-la-la, all’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds. She’s trying to make me wear a bright red satin thing but I don’t want to upstage the twins. I go for pale pink, more big-sistery, and not too much make-up.

  Proper formal dinner-time at Alden’s table. I really go for this. Forget the Divan; forget the scenarios, all that’s another life, a kind of sideline. This is the real thing. White linen, silver cutlery, crystal glasses—Riedel, I was pretty sure. Primroses. Flown in from where? Geothermal greenhouses in Iceland—a special order. Mikhail the Oligarch, with Bernie at his side, has arrived in a limo long enough to block all traffic trying to get round South End Green. The chauffeur drops them off, doesn’t even try to park. Two security men sit just inside our front door. They are armed with automatic weapons.

  Alden sits at the head of the table: I sit at the foot, we are a married couple. When we have solved his sexual problems he will forget his need to make music out of experience, and we will settle down like other, normal people. Ray will go off and live somewhere more suitable for a famous artist, such as LA, and I’ll use the studio as a nursery. Alden will have stem-cell treatment and we won’t need to have Lam around. I feel warm inside, owned and appreciated. Alison and Katharine sit next to each other, Alison perched on the left of her chair, Katharine to the right of hers, so their hipless bodies touch. They are wearing their big owl glasses. Why can’t they get contact lenses like anyone else? I am embarrassed for them. Don’t they know anything of how to behave? They seem so untutored in the ways of the world. Ray sits next to them, using his left hand to guide his right. Lam, who stands behind Alden’s chair, comes over to cut up his food. The girls are concerned for him; they coo and murmur in their twinnish way, and put morsels of food into his mouth; he seems quite pleased by the attention.

  Sitting opposite are Bernie and Mikhail. Mikhail takes up two places. He’s like a much cruder, larger, glossier, heavier, more uncouth version of Bernie. Caterers flap around serving minimal portions of allegedly gourmet food. Mikhail refuses it, but nothing seems to upset me. I realize I am under will, and probably have been since I left for Paddington. Ray calls me Vanessa now, not Joan, and for this reason, I suspect, I am thus more vulnerable to the way of the Fourth, or is it now the Fifth Path, the Fifth Stage, the Fifth Sphere? Or just to the eyes, as Alden would have it, of a natural-born hypnotist. Alden the new Crowley, Ray the new Mesmer, with his powers of animal magnetism.

  Mikhail pushes his plate away, untouched. I am not surprised. Alden chose the menu: goujons of rhubarb, lentil and squid? I just nod and smile and ask the staff to bring bread, cheese, sausage—apparently he always brings his own with him—and raw onions. He sits and eats using a knife to pierce the food and bring it to his lips, and he chews, carefully studies Alison and Katharine.

  I wonder if this vision of the oligarch is Ray-induced, or some flashback from the rainforest drug, which i
s more powerful than it seems, so stereotypical is his behavior. “Gross oligarch with crude table manners”—like some Boyar in an Eisenstein film? But a bit of chewed cheese splutters from his lips onto my cheek, and I can tell he is real: it’s true. The twins don’t seem to notice anything strange. I am sure it was never like this at home. I have to get them back home before something terrible happens. I try to stand. Ray pulls me back down and leans over to me and says, “Vanessa, they are the Chosen of the King. Let it be.”

  “It’s all right, Vanessa,” says Alison. “We’re getting very well paid.”

  “We know what we’re doing,” says Katharine. “But it’s sweet of you to worry.”

  That’s all right then. Ten thousand each, it seems. They know the value for what they can offer—a double virgin defloration. They must have sorted it out with Alden while I was wondering about their social graces. Perhaps we do have the same father after all.

  I am handing them chocolates from the Harrods box. I am eating myself. We agree they’re a little on the sweet side and must be fearfully calorific but we like them. Mikhail hoists his bulk to his feet, knocking over his chair and breaking a couple of the Riedel glasses—two champagne flutes and one claret—and cries out something in Russian which I assume to be “let’s get to business!”

  The sudden noise makes me start and wince: everything looks very clear and sharp. What has been going on? What is Alden is saying about “little owls”? He has taken the glasses from their noses. Their eyes are wide and pale, short-sighted, startled and eager. Mikhail is stumbling round the room like one of those brown bears which break into houses in Alaska and toss all the contents about like rubbish. He is roaring just like a bear too, but I find that a bit hard to separate out from Alden’s music. Lam herds the bear and the twins into the mirror room.

  Snapshot. Alden is unlocking a door. We are upstairs. It is Bluebeard’s door. I am honored! His music room at last—what I have so wanted to see.