White Bodies(46)

She purrs. “Yes, darling. And beautifully planned . . . I adored your Power Point presentation.”

I squirm at the darlings and turn to Lucas. “Tell me about your work.” Tilda asks him to fetch his architectural drawings from the bedroom.

Lucas returns with three rolls of heavy white paper that he opens up on the limestone floor, using books to hold down the corners, and I kneel next to him, immediately immersed in his confident fluid lines, delicate cross-hatchings, sweeps of watercolor. It’s the design of a house that sits in a landscape of rolling hills, marked as Provence.

“It’s beautiful.” I mean it.

“The wood cladding is perfect for the setting,” says Lucas. “It will become silver-gray as it weathers—and I’ve stressed the relationship between the interior and exterior—this internal bridge crosses the double-height kitchen and leads straight from the living room to the balcony. There’s glass on the two long sides—to the south and west.”

“And who gets to live here? You?”

“Sadly not. I’ve designed it for a British couple.” He pronounces it “Briddish.” “It’s a second home.”

“Another world,” I say. “Have you seen these, Felix?”

“Oh, yes.” He doesn’t look up, and I sense that he’s being competitive—Felix’s squid versus Lucas’s drawings.

“It’s my first house. Until now it’s been all extensions and alterations, and supplementing my income with teaching . . . It’s not built yet, though. We’re laying foundations right now.”

“Drawings away,” says Felix, “supper’s ready.”

Lucas collects up the papers while Felix puts his dish in the center of the dining table. “Squid with chili and mint . . .”

“That looks wonderful.” Tilda’s being wifey, sending him a quick admiring grin. She circles the table, straightening the knives and forks, putting the wineglasses in exactly the right place.

“Oh, look, you’re turning into Felix,” I say, and she flashes me hostile eyes.

Over dinner, Lucas entertains us with stories of the couple who’d commissioned the house. “Corporate lawyers, more cash than they know what to do with; he’s monosyllabic, keeps his verbal brilliance for the courtroom, and she’s one of those tiny brittle women who has a session with her tennis coach before breakfast. . . .”

“They have good taste, though,” I say. “If they’ve commissioned you.”

“Yeah . . . That’s what matters. But I worry that my beautiful house will stay empty most of the year; they both work all the hours. It’s a building that’s been designed to be used, lived in. Still—I’m grateful—creatively, I’ve never been so engaged, so fulfilled . . .”

Felix is sitting stiffly, gazing at his squid, as Lucas chatters on about France and architecture and his ambitions, and I actually feel sorry for my future brother-in-law—he can hardly effuse about the wonders of hedge funding, or his personal ambitions to make more money. At one point he says, “Who’d like chocolate mousse? I made it earlier.” And Tilda says, “Yummy!”—making me think, Is this the only sort of conversation they have when they’re alone these days, baby talk, and banal comments about food and cooking, maybe occasionally talking about holidays? And then a riveting idea occurs to me—if I steal Tilda’s memory stick again, I’ll maybe get her version of this evening, of Felix’s reaction to his brother’s good-humored boasting. Of her attitude towards me. And I say to myself, That’s what I’ll do—and if Tilda’s evening turns out to be benign, nothing sinister, I’ll forget everything, all the Controlling Men nonsense, and Scarlet’s monstrous suggestion. I feel that I’m conducting some sort of scientific experiment as I say, “So, Lucas, what were you and Felix like as children? Were you always the creative one?”

“How can I put it, I was the one who, in all senses, was expressive—drawing, painting, playing baseball and soccer—generally noisy. My big brother was the observer in the family; always watching, keeping his thoughts to himself, making private plans.” Lucas’s gaze flits lazily between Tilda and me, gently encouraging us to play along, only once glancing at Felix, but in that second his expression hardens, and Felix carefully moves the wine bottle three centimeters to the right.

“Callie’s an observer,” says Tilda. “You and Felix are alike that way.”

“What? I’m like Felix? No, I’m not, not at all. . . .”

“Thank you for sharing.” Felix’s tone is wry and faintly comical.

“No—I only mean that, although we’re both observers—you’re a leader, a doer, you make things happen. I tend to follow, like a sheep.”

“You’re not a sheep,” says Lucas. “You’re a beautiful little black pony. . . .”

“What animal am I?” asks Tilda. And together Lucas and I say, “A white butterfly.”

“It must be true, then,” I add. “But what about Felix? What is he?”

“A snake,” says Lucas in a voice that indicates he’s joking. Felix pretends to laugh.

Then we turn to praising Felix’s chocolate mousse, and Lucas returns to the subject of their childhood. Felix, we learn, never had leanings towards architecture, but he was a remarkably capable builder and had constructed a tree house in their back garden. “Do you remember?” says Lucas. “All the planning you did. I think you spent nearly a year planning it in minute detail, then buying all the materials and tools with your saved-up pocket money.”