Алан Джадд: The Devil's Own Work

When we came to relate our encounter with Tyrrel it seemed rather thinner than it had at the time. We must have made it sound as if we were building up to an exchange of words or perhaps even a message, whereas there was only my description of what I had seen in the rain. I was repetitive and laboured it more than I should have, to the point where hyperbole threatened coherence. Edward's blue eyes and regular features attended without a flicker, which I found more disconcerting than if he had shown signs of restlessness and embarrassment, like Chantal. I ended by urging him to see Tyrrel before he died of a heart attack or did away with himself. He said they were to meet the following night and, perhaps as a kindness, suggested the three of us meet again in Englert's the night after.

I shall not relate all of what follows in the sequence in which it revealed itself to me. If I did, you would read in the very fog in which I myself lived for so many years. There must be many of us who think we know where we are and are sure about what we see before us, until people or events prove us wrong, as they not uncommonly do. When that happens to other people one can view it with equanimity; when it happens to you it feels uniquely invidious and unfair, almost an outrage, perhaps as dying might feel. And even now, looking back on it, I know I cannot see everything.

On the morning after Edward had seen Tyrrel — therefore, on the day on which we were to dine again — it was announced that Tyrrel had died during the night. Perhaps it was an omen that Chantal and I went all that day without knowing, albeit an omen with more reference to me than to her. It is one of the features of our world that we may receive news of events in other continents virtually simultaneously with their occurrence while our neighbour's death on the other side of the bathroom wall may happen unnoticed. Not, of course, that Tyrrel was a neighbour but his death only a few miles along the coast was an international event of which we knew nothing because we did not bother with television or radio that day and because those that did had no pleasure in passing on news which they assumed everyone else to know. Thus are we deprived of the daily discovery and discussion of events which must in the past have contributed so much to local self-importance. Whatever the reason, Chantal and I wandered about all day without anyone thinking to mention Tyrrel.

It was only when we were about to go and meet Edward that Catherine, Chantal's younger sister, said: 'You were lucky to see that English author. I wonder if he died when your friend was with him.'

We hurried to M. Englert's and waited but Edward didn't come. We said we were sure he would have rung if he couldn't make it and then, because we weren't, I telephoned the hotel. They said there was no answer from his extension. I was all for going round and seeing but Chantal sensibly insisted we eat first. Next I was seized with an irrational fear that Edward was somehow responsible for Tyrrel's death and was even now being accused of murder. Chantal nearly choked with laughter. Why, she asked, did I suspect Edward of doing violence? He seemed the most calm, the most polite and peaceable of men. What I couldn't explain was that it wasn't so much the likelihood or otherwise of Edward's killing Tyrrel that concerned me — it is curious that I took it for granted that he was capable of it — so much as the feeling that something had happened to him.

We did go to his hotel after dinner but there was no answer from his room. I suggested to Chantal that we borrow her father's car and drive along to Cap Ferrat. She was incredulous: why was I so worried? Edward was not a child, he knew how to pick up the telephone if he needed help. And Tyrrel was dead, so what point was there in staring at his house in the dark? She had never seen me like this, she said; I was worse than a worried parent, stupid (she used that word again). Nevertheless I persisted and we did borrow the car, having checked that Edward had not telephoned.

It was a quiet night and it did not take long to drive to Cap Ferrat. I thought Chantal was going to be irritated with me again but she seemed resignedly amused, or perhaps just resigned. There was a heavy sprinkling of stars and from the road that ran along the bottom of Cap Ferrat the moon laid a rippled path across the bay to the fort. We stopped by the steps we had come down during the squall.

'I'll wait here,' said Chantal.

The absurdity of what I was doing struck me as I climbed the steps alone. To be more accurate, I was struck by how absurd I must appear but I didn't feel absurd at all. I felt that I was doing what had to be done though I couldn't have said why. I am not psychic; at least, no more so than most people. I have no talent for telepathy or anything like that and no particular beliefs. Throughout this account I am trying to record what happened, or appeared to happen, because it may be happening still. But after all these years I cannot always be clear as to what did happen, especially as it was not clear at the time. Contrary to what is often said, the everyday language we use for describing what happens to us is quite well suited to its purpose; it is — or can be made to be — precise. It is much more difficult to describe the half-world in which things half-happen, in which something may become visible only when it is looked for, audible only when listened for, present only when expected. Nor is it enough to write off such half-things as the products of a single credulous mind since by chance or design they often impinge upon others. There are, I believe, stranger phenomena known to physics: sub-atomic particles occupying no space but having velocity and direction and a pattern of behaviour that is modified by the mere fact of being observed.

I felt rather like one myself that night. The steps were uneven and overhung by bushes but eventually I found the place above the shed where I had stood in the rain. There were one or two lights in the house but none in the windows where I had watched Tyrrel and the woman, though the moon was bright enough for me to see a little way into those rooms. I stood for some time, nonplussed. I don't know what I had expected but I had expected something, and now there was nothing. I felt disappointed and frustrated, even cheated. I stared stubbornly at the big empty windows. A creature rustled in the grass nearby and a breeze stirred the olive trees. I was conscious of keeping Chantal waiting below but still I stared. I felt drawn towards the windows and it occurred to me that I hadn't yet got to where I was going. A few steps farther up there was a gap in the fence where palings had come away and were hanging askew. I ducked through into the long grass and tangled undergrowth. It sounded to my own ears that I was making a great deal of noise. I realized that the house might well be occupied, that I might be arrested in such a thief-conscious neighbourhood and that no explanation I could give would be at all credible; but I pressed on through the undergrowth until I stood in a clear area about twenty yards down from the house and in front of the two windows. I did not worry about the moonlight.

I will not say definitely that I saw something, though I think I did. What I do assert, even after all these years, is that I had the most vivid impression that I was being seen. The anxiety I had felt all evening and that had brought me there in the absence of any good reason, evaporated. I felt that this was what I had come for, as if I had been summoned. I was neither frightened nor particularly excited and I no longer thought of Edward. I continued to stare at the windows but calmly, without urgency now, and it was after a while of this that I thought I saw the woman again. She was standing in the upper window looking down at me. I say 'thought' because I wasn't sure even then whether I was actually seeing her or simply experiencing a very strong impression of her. Not that it mattered; even a moment afterwards I could not have described her features. I could only have said that I felt I was held in a sharp, interrogative gaze.