The Betrayals(77)

24: the Magister Ludi


It’s her own fault. She should have known better; she’s been playing with fire. She should never have spent so much time with Martin. All the hours she’s devoted to helping him this term, laughing at his quips, refusing to let him get away with sloppy thinking – she should have known that they were dangerous. That he would read more into them than reluctant politeness; that he would be too vain to attribute her kindness to a sense of duty. Did she enjoy them too much? Has she, God forbid, let him notice that she looks forward to seeing him, that in spite of everything it’s exhilarating to speak to an outsider? No. Be honest. To speak to him. He’s charming, he’s energetic. Having him here is like oxygen, a strong drink, an open door … In spite of everything, she has to admit that. But it’s a long way from that to wanting him to touch her. Inviting him to her room for a brandy, what foolishness! She’s ashamed of her own stupidity. How could she forget she’s a woman, and that he’d treat her like one? From the moment she opened the bottle, it was inevitable that he’d humiliate them both, somehow. Loneliness was no excuse. For a few dreamlike minutes, when she came out of the library, exhausted, sick of herself, she’d imagined that they could be friends. She wanted … what did she want? Not this, anyway. Not to stand here, staring at the door, with her hand over her mouth. Her palm is soft against her lips, her lips moist on her palm. For a strange, thoughtless moment, all her attention is on the place where they meet. She can’t remember the last time she really felt her body. It makes her queasy. In another life … but this is her life, and no one else’s.

It takes an effort to turn away. She goes to her desk. At least she put her papers away where he wouldn’t see them. She’s been careless, these last few weeks, but not that careless: she has made sure that he never sees anything she’s written. She’s restrained herself even from leaning across him to add diacritics – why can’t he learn, for goodness’ sake? – limiting herself to pointing at the absences with the end of her pen, prompting him to dot them in himself. And his diary … She slides out the drawer, as if it might have disappeared. The ledger is still there, of course. The pebbled marbling on the cover is like a landscape, seen from above: in the unsteady lamplight the black blotch could be as deep as a well. She puts her finger in the middle of the stain and presses down, as if to reassure herself.

She can still feel the brush of his mouth against hers. How long was the kiss, before she pushed him away? It took her a second to realise – well, to believe – what he was doing; and then another instant to—

To what?

She wipes the last trace of dampness from her lips. Her chignon has collapsed on to her neck, heavy and hot. She shuts her eyes.

What would have happened, if she hadn’t stopped him? She refuses to let herself imagine: but she doesn’t have to imagine. She knows. If she had opened her mouth to his, he would have frozen, then pushed deeper with his tongue, bringing his hands up to clasp the back of her head. A second later, when they came up for breath, he’d have pulled away to look into her eyes. And then he’d begin to kiss her again, but she’d feel him smiling, his teeth bared against her lips, and he’d break off and bow his head, grinning at the floor. If she’d pressed her forehead into his shoulder she’d have felt him laughing softly, as incredulous as she was: until she cupped his jaw and resumed the kiss, harder now. She doesn’t want to think about his hands sliding down her neck, down to the small of her back, or the unexpected tenderness in his touch, a softness – almost a timidity – that you couldn’t have predicted from his usual manner. Now that he was getting what he wanted, he’d be gentle: it would make her want to dig her nails into the back of his neck, make him wince and tighten his own grip until they were nearly wrestling, contesting and matching their strength in a sort of game that wasn’t a game.

And later – how much later? – he would bunch her gown in his hands, ready to pull it up and over her head. And then—

She even knows what it would be like, to push him away at that point. Not like it was, this time: he wouldn’t stumble backwards, crimson-faced. He’d blink, half smiling, half confused. He’d raise his hand towards her face, and his sleeve would fall back to show the solid shape of his wrist. The vein, like a trace of blue glaze on porcelain. Skin she’d want to lick.

And she’d say, ‘No. Not now. Not – no,’ running out of breath on every monosyllable.

And mean it.

That’s the point. She’d mean it. She reaches for the bottle of brandy and takes a swig. Perhaps alcohol will numb the hollow, tight sensation in her belly, or drown the incendiary crackle in her spine. She drinks again, and again. She has to lower the bottle and gasp, but immediately she lifts it for another mouthful. Her head spins. Good.

She shoves the open desk-drawer shut so roughly the whole desk shudders. Then she climbs the stairs, her shoulder bumping against the wall. She’s still holding the bottle; it wasn’t deliberate, but she takes advantage of its being in her hand by drinking some more. Maybe this is the first stage of alcoholism, and she’ll die like her father, bruised and swollen, weeping at the stings of invisible insects. Well, he died; she supposes the details might not be exact. She remembers Aimé whispering, ‘He said there were ants inside his skull. He said they were eating his brain …’ It was late at night, when both of them were hunched together on his four-poster, listening to Mama cry. Aimé must have been too young to remember Papa, too, but for years she thought his deathbed tales were unadorned truth. Now she isn’t sure which are real. Papa died, anyway. And then Mama went, too, going away ‘on holiday’ and never coming back, jumping alone from a moonlit hotel balcony. She wasn’t a de Courcy, except by marriage: but that’s what the de Courcys do, they spread the contagion to anyone who gets too close. At least Mama was dead before Aimé.