John Banville - Nightspawn

‘Come to my flat.’

She nodded mutely. Was there a tear in her eye? Some hope. I put a guiding hand under her elbow.

So she returned with me to my squalid quarters, and for an hour we had some rough and tumble on the bed, while a neon sign outside the window punctuated our darkness every second second, a great red heartbeat now illuminating a smooth flank, now a bruised and bitten nipple. And what was her first question afterwards, what was it? I give it in all of its passionate abandon.

‘You’ll do what I ask, you’ll be Yacinth’s tutor?’

And what was my reply? It also quivers in the coils of erotic fever.

‘All right.’

She put on her clothes and went away, leaving me in a pulsing red and black world, a trident of nail-wounds on my shoulder, my mouth throbbing with echoes of the soft explosions of her kisses. So much for odours of hot musk.

In dreams now I sometimes see myself sitting motionless in a room, a room which I have never known in any waking moment. All my most precious things are gathered there, but I never look at them; my attention is fixed upon a flower which stands on a low white table before me. A petal has broken from the blossom, but it does not fall. It never falls, never decays. I can feel the velvet softness of the flower’s flesh, can feel the enormity of the gap which lies between the petal and the stem, am torn by the agony of separation. The petal does not fall. That is how I remember. In real time, god knows, the petal did fall, a whole cornucopia of rot and wrack came spilling down around me, until my mouth was choked with foul sodden leaves and the pus of cancerous orchids. But recollections do not decay, unless I should forget, and I shall not forget. Take these moments. Treat them with care, for they are my inheritance.

The bus took us away from the burning city, and the burnt lowlands, up into the mountains. In the foothills, the air was sharp with the scent of lentisk bushes, of thyme and myrtle. The narrow tortuous road wound through forests of dwarf pine, dark fir, and the woodland grounds were vivid with spring growth, violet and white anemones, fragile dogroses twined with briar, a myriad other passionate blooms. I sat with Yacinth, and Helena had the seat behind us, the bottles and baskets piled beside her. Now and then she would lean forward and touch the boy’s shoulder with two small fingers, and point out to him some beauty of the pastoral scene through which we passed. I watched them with their faces together, gazing through the window, the glass giving back the wisps of a reflection. They were so alike. Helena said, Oh, and, look, and the boy murmured, yes yes, I see it. And they would glance at each other, and smile. I smiled also, unseen by them. By accepting me with such ease, they offered me love. It was all so simple.

At the terminus we alighted. The bus turned with difficulty, and went away. The silence of the mountains seemed inviolable. There was a view over all the Attic plain. Piraeus to the south and the distant islands could be seen, Glyfadha and the rocky coast down to the wind-torn cape of Sounion. The sea, the sky and the mountains merged to fuse a light over the pure white city hard and bright as blue burned glass. We turned away from the overwhelming austerity and brilliance of the land, and went into the woods. The trees smelled sweetly. I carried the baskets. By secret dusty paths we moved. There was a humming in my ears, like the last echo of music retreating, never to be quite lost, into the hollow tunnel of eternity. It was the sound of happiness. Yacinth walked ahead of us, slashing at the trees with a piece of stick.

‘We must bring him here more often,’ I said. ‘Children should grow up in the countryside.’

She lifted an eyebrow at my ponderous paterfamilial tone.

‘Where was your childhood spent?’ she asked, and stopped to disengage a waving coil of bramble which had sunk its tiny teeth into her skirt.

‘My sister and I were brought up in the depths of the country. We lived by the sea with a decrepit aunt.’

‘And your parents?’

‘Dead.’

‘But you spoke to me once of your father, I’m certain.’

I skipped lightly away from that subject.

‘Did I? Look, there’s a good place to sit.’

Helena unpacked the baskets. We sat on a hillock which looked down over the trees to a white house far in the valley below. Inquisitive lizards came to survey us with bright little eyes, then pottered off about their business. There was even a bird or two. The weather was perfect. A bald blue sky was fringed with white curls of cloud on the horizon. There was cold duck and other delicacies, wine for Helena and me, and grape juice for the boy. He sat cross-legged before us, chewing slowly and looking about him with an appraising eye.

‘Do you like it here?’ I asked.

He nodded swiftly, then lowered his eyes and shyly smiled. It was never easy for him to smile. His solemnity was intriguing. Helena said,

‘We shall come here very often.’

The meal ended. None of us had been very hungry. I lay down on the soft new grass with my hands behind my head. The voice of summer whispered around us.

‘Julian is going to have a party,’ Helena said.

She sat with her legs folded under her, examining the tips of her hair. The sunlight flickered on her lowered lashes. The boy was lying in the same position as me, with his hands behind his head. Emulating his hero. Ha.

‘He mentioned it to me, yes.’

Helena smiled, but shook her head.

‘I am not sure that I approve of the idea,’ she said.

Far calls; some animal complaining.

‘What idea?’

‘Of a party.’

‘Ah.’

Indolent pauses lay between our remarks. Nothing was important. I could not believe that anything would ever again be important except this sunlight, this peace.

‘Do you realize,’ I asked, ‘I’m supposed to be giving an English lesson to Yacinth.’

‘You can start tomorrow.’

‘Or next week.’

‘Next year.’

‘Never.’

Music somewhere. Pan piping under the leaves in an olive grove. She tickled my ear with a blade of grass, and, to oblige her I pretended that I thought it was a fly, and flapped my hands. She laughed. I told them about Botticelli, and of Dante’s first meeting with Beatrice, of his love for her, a child. I fell asleep for a moment, and wakened trying to remember a word.

‘What is that word?’ I murmured. ‘It means fragrant, full of fragrance.’

‘What?’

‘That word. It’s on the tip of my tongue.’

‘Perfumed?’

‘No. The air was blank of roses. What is it? Damn.’

There were birds, lizards, flowers burning in the wood. We stayed for a long time. The sun declined.

‘I think I shall dye my hair red,’ said Helena, pulling forward a yellow strand and considering it with a critical eye. I laughed. Yacinth at last plucked that word from my tongue.

‘Redolent.’

‘Yes, of course. Full marks. Perhaps, Helena, your brother should give me lessons.’

I raised myself on my elbow, and frowned. Yacinth was gone.

‘That’s strange,’ I said.

Helena glanced at me.

‘What?’

‘I thought … it doesn’t matter.’

Suddenly she leapt forward, and fell on top of me. The light cut jewels from her hair. We explored each other’s faces with our fingertips.

‘I’ll never leave you, Helena.’

She smiled.

‘Oh yes you will.’

‘No.’

We went to look for the boy. I picked some of those flowers, his namesakes, and gave them to her. She put one in her hair. What matter if that bloom was too large, and made her look silly? It was something of mine which she wore. A little further on, among the trees that smelled so sweetly, I found that she had left me, and I was alone. I knelt and put my fingers to the flowers. Her voice came to me, calling her brother.