Iain Pears - Stone's Fall

'What then?'

She said nothing, but reached across and found her blouse, which she put, without any underclothes, across her shoulders.

'Tell me,' I insisted.

'I don't know if I can,' she said. 'It is not easy to say it.'

'Try.'

She looked out to sea for a long while, gathering her thoughts.

'I was twenty-seven when I married Mr Cort,' she began softly. 'An old maid. I had all but given up thought of marrying, and believed I would have to make shift as best I could on my own. Then he appeared and proposed. I accepted, even though I knew there would never be any love between us. He made me no promises, nor I him. He wanted a housekeeper; he has no notion of love or romance. Besides, I was giving nothing up, and I thought we would make do together. I would have children, and they would provide affection enough.

'I learned soon enough that was simply a dream as well. He cannot . . . do what you do.'

'What do you mean?'

'We do not have the intimacy of the sort that is usual between man and wife,' she continued stiffly. 'Nor has he any interest in women in that way. I thought to begin with it was just the shyness of a habitual bachelor, but I soon realised that it was more than that. No! I must say no more!'

'As you wish, but do not keep silent for my sake.'

I could see what she meant by this being difficult; it was hard to listen to. But once she had started she could not stop; it was as though all her words had been blocked in her for years and took the first opportunity to come bursting out into the open, to the first sympathetic listener. I said nothing at all, merely listening cemented our intimacy and drew our lives closer together, made us lovers in the soul as well as the body.

'He has other tastes. Terrible, perverted, disgusting ones. He did his duty, and we had our son, but that was all. When I discovered . . . what he was, I could no longer go near him. I will not have him touch me, if I have the choice. Do you understand?'

I nodded, but only hesitantly.

'That is why he likes Venice. There is opportunity, for people like him. You think of him as a mild, gentle man, do you not? Foolish, ineffectual but good-natured.'

'I suppose that is my general impression, yes.'

'You do not know him. You do not know what he is like.'

'I find this all difficult to believe.'

'I know. Much of the time he is as you know him. But then the madness comes on him and he changes. He is violent, cruel. Do you want me to tell you the things he does? The things he makes me do, when I don't run away, or lock myself in a room so he cannot come to me, him and the people he finds? He likes pain, you see. It excites him. It is the only thing which does. He is not manly in the world and he takes his revenge on me.'

I shook my head. 'Don't tell me.'

I reached out and took her hand, horrified by what she was saying. How could anyone treat such a woman – any woman – in the fashion she hinted at? It was beyond all understanding.

'You do not seem like someone who has been so abused,' I said.

'I do not have bruises or cuts, at the moment,' she said. 'Do you doubt me? Wait a little and soon enough I will have marks to satisfy you.'

'I did not mean that,' I replied quickly. 'I meant that you do not have the air of a woman mistreated. Neglected, unloved, perhaps.'

'I have grown used to it,' she said. 'It was not always so. In the beginning I rebelled, but how could I do so successfully? I have no money of my own, no position, he is my husband. If I ran away, where would I run? He would find me again, or I would starve. I tried, once, but I was discovered before I could leave.

'So I have learned. I think to myself that perhaps not all men are like that. I tell myself that it will pass. Once the madness passes, he is perfectly agreeable for weeks before it starts again. He has allowed me to show you around; is that the decision of a monster? The man you have met, is he cruel and violent? No. To the outside world he is meek and mild. Only I know the truth of what he is like. But who would ever believe me? If I said anything it is I who would be called mad, not him.'

Here she broke down completely, her head in her hands, sobbing silently. She could not go on, and even turned her back on me when I tried to comfort her. I insisted, and eventually she gave way, throwing herself into my arms and crying without restraint.

I could not yet see my course of action; all I knew was that I would eventually have one. 'You must leave,' I said. 'Leave Venice and your husband.'

'I cannot,' she said scornfully. 'How could I do such a thing? Where would I go?'

'I could . . .'

'No!' she said, really frightened now. 'No, you must say nothing. Do nothing. You must promise me.'

'But I must do something.'

'You must not! Do you think of yourself as a knight in shining armour, rescuing the damsel in distress? We do not live in an age when such things happen. He has rights. I am his property. What would happen? He would deny it all, of course. He would say I was inventing things. He would get someone like Marangoni to say that I was a habitual liar, that I was mad. Do you think that if I told the truth, said that he beats me to become excited . . .'

She broke off, horrified at what she had said, that she had let out more than she wished about her hellish existence.

'Please,' she said, pleading with me. 'Please do not take matters into your own hands. Do not intervene. There is nothing you can do for me. Except to love me a little, show me that there are men who are not monsters, that there is more to love than pain and tears.'

I shook my head in confusion. 'What do you want?'

'I need to think, to clear my head. Meeting you was – I cannot describe it. The moment I saw you I felt something I have never known before. I do not ask you for help; there is nothing you can do for me. I ask you simply for your presence, a little. That is more soothing and comforting than anything you can say or do.'

'You ask for too little.'

'I ask for more than any person has ever given me,' she replied, stroking my cheek. 'And if I asked for more, I might not get it.'

'You doubt me?'

She did not reply, but threw herself on me once more. 'No more words,' she said. 'Not for a while.'

She was ferocious; it was as though, having unburdened herself to me, shown me her secrets, she had no need left of any modesty or caution. She was violent with me, just as others had been violent in their hatred of her; it was her defence, I thought, to respond to her tormentors in such a way. Afterwards she lay once more on the ground, stretched out with a total lack of caution or care.

'I wish I could die now,' she said as she ran her fingers through my hair. 'Do you not agree? To end your life in this place, with the sound of the sea and the trees, the light twinkling through the branches. Will you kill me? It would make me happy, you know. Please, kill me now. I would like to die at your hands.'

I laughed, but her face was serious. 'Then I would never see you again, or talk to you or hold you,' I said. 'And I am a selfish man. Now I have you, I will not let you go so easily, whatever your wishes.'

'Oh, if only I had known men such as you existed! I might have made different choices.'

'Listen,' I said, beginning to pull on my clothes. Time was passing, far quicker than I wished and one of us had to remember the outside world continued to exist. 'How do you wish to proceed now? I need hardly say that I want to repeat this afternoon. Do you want that also? If you do not, then tell me now because I could not stand to be repulsed.'

'What would you do if I refused you?'

'I would leave, and quickly. There is no vital reason to stay here.'

'Do not leave. I really would die if you did.'