Transit(54)

‘You still do,’ he said, looking at her. ‘You still prop up that good-for-nothing.’

‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘You won’t hear a word against him,’ Lawrence said. ‘Let alone stand up to him.’

Eloise wore a pleading expression.

‘What would be the point?’ she said.

‘He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it,’ Lawrence said. ‘You should stand up to him.’

‘But what would be the point?’ Eloise said.

‘You should stand up to him,’ Lawrence repeated, ‘instead of propping him up, running yourself into the ground day and night to cover up for him. They should know the truth,’ he said, taking a long swallow of wine.

‘They just need to see they’ve got a father,’ Eloise said tearfully. ‘What does it matter if it’s a fake?’

‘They should see the truth,’ Lawrence said.

Tears began to run down Eloise’s cheeks.

‘I just want them to be happy,’ she said. ‘What does anything else matter?’

The two of them sat there, side by side in the guttering candlelight. Eloise was weeping with a lifted face, her eyes sparkling, her mouth open in a strange grimacing smile. Gaby glanced sideways at her and then quickly stared back down at her plate, her eyes widening. Lawrence took Eloise’s hand and she gripped him, still weeping, while he gazed darkly into the distances of the room. Birgid leaned over, a white shape in the dimness, and rested her hand on Eloise’s shoulder. Her voice, when she spoke, was surprisingly sonorous and reassuring.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘it’s time for all of us to go to bed.’

In the morning it was still dark when I got up. Downstairs the ruins of dinner remained on the table. The melted candles were hardened into sprawling shapes. Crumpled napkins were strewn amid the dirty glasses and cutlery. Jake’s book lay open on the chair; I looked at the photograph he had shown me, the shadowy ridged declivity in the blasted planetary surface. At the far end of the room there was a blue light flickering beyond the half-open door. I heard the murmur of the television and saw a shape flit briefly across the gap. I recognised Eloise’s silhouette, caught a glimpse of her filmy nightgown and her swift bare foot. Through the windows a strange subterranean light was rising, barely distinguishable from darkness. I felt change far beneath me, moving deep beneath the surface of things, like the plates of the earth blindly moving in their black traces. I found my bag and my car keys and I let myself silently out of the house.





A Note on the Cover Photograph


The cover shows a detail of a photograph of a nude: Natacha, 1929 by Man Ray (b.1890, Philadelphia – d.1976, Paris). The photograph is an example of solarisation, a technique rediscovered by Man Ray and the photographer Lee Miller, who was his assistant, muse and lover. It involves exposing a partially developed photograph to light at an early stage of its processing. The result creates halo–like outlines and alters the tonal values, and was much used and perfected by Man Ray in his photographs of female nudes.