John Banville - Nightspawn

‘Nikos is in prison.’

I took a drink from the bottle. The wine was bitter, and left in my mouth a taste of the bad blood of roots and stems. I considered the stars and asked,

‘Who?’

‘Nikos. He was Andreas’s driver sometimes, you know, he drove the car sometimes. He’s in the Bouboulinas. And the boy also, do you remember him?’

‘Should I remember these people?’

‘They came to you here a year ago and asked for your help.’

‘Did they?’

‘You refused.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now how do you know that, Erik?’

Once again I was privileged to witness that rarity, Erik’s sly grin.

‘I know everything.’

The plateau suddenly descended into a new level of silence, and for one wild instant I expected a round of applause for Erik. The fire — no no, not yet. I turned and saw, coming into the flickering light, the entourage I had met upon the quay. There was father, moving slowly with his oddly fluent lurch, and his brood marching behind him, boy and girl. We all watched. Someone laughed, and lapsed immediately into confused silence. The family halted where a table (barrels and planks again) had been placed under the third plane tree. They sat upon crates. A finger was lifted, and the old woman waddled briskly forward. The father said something to her, and they both laughed heartily. I thought he might give her a playful pinch. Wine and glasses were brought, and a lamp, their private lamp. Erik belched. The girl glanced in my direction, and I looked away. I must have had a secret intimation. I looked at Erik. He was watching me, smiling, it seemed. He coughed, and touched his spectacles with his fingertips. The fire was lighted. Voracious flames leapt through the kindling and sent showers of sparks dancing up into the darkness. The red light flashed on the faces around and made of them strange masks with empty eyeholes, ruined mouths.

‘I wonder why you didn’t help them,’ Erik said, and relinquished the bottle.

‘I did. She would have dropped that trunk if I hadn’t —’

‘Nikos, I meant Nikos and the boy.’

‘I thought they were insane. That was sixty-two or something.’

He looked at me.

‘But even now you see no reason to —’

‘Ah shit, Erik.’

I lay back upon the grass with my hands behind my head. The stars were above me, splendid and innocent at once. I do not think that I ever saw them again in their innocence after that night. In the darkness, by that fire, a process was begun which murdered something in me, which … what can I say? How to recount in a sentence all those murders, losses, betrayals? I must not brood. Sing heigh ho the wind and rain, there is laughter trapped in every howl.

‘Excuse me.’

I was lying on the ground, recumbent, cruciform. That is important, I feel. He stood above me, leaning on his stick, smiling, with the firelight on his face. He could not have been more than a few inches over five feet. Later on he was to outgrow me by a bit, a matter of some feet, I do believe. His fat frame was held captive in a wrinkled suit of tweed too heavy for the climate. A full sail of white shirt showed below his waistcoat. His head was far too large for that small body, and its grotesque size was increased by a woolly mop of grizzled hair which curled about his delicately pointed ears. A wide red sensuous mouth was drawn back in a grin of secret glee, and his huge hooked nose, made for looking down, was surmounted by those bright blue eyes which looked down on me now with good-humoured attention. I remember his nostrils, two neat black holes. He said,

‘My name is Kyd, Julian Kyd. You were helpful to my wife today. Perhaps you’d care to join us for a drink?’

I got to my feet, puffing and belching, and almost fell down again.

‘Do you live here?’ I asked, with rapturous inanity. Some distant connection was in my mind between the way he looked and the waking dream I had experienced that night when I first set foot upon the soil of this holy island. Julian’s grin widened.

‘Oh no,’ he said, feigning shock. ‘I’m English, old man.’

He turned and walked away from me. The sole of his left boot was two inches thick, it was, at the very least, old man. I followed him, and glancing back over my shoulder found Erik dogging my steps. When I looked again, Julian had reached the table, and was murmuring something to the girl. My feet missed a step. Wife? Wife? What the hell did he …?

‘This is my wife Helena, and her brother, Yacinth.’

She gave me her smile, and the boy looked at my left ear. I grinned like a gargoyle while my poor mind sorted this new set of relationships into some kind of order. Husband, wife, daughter, no; wife, brother, in-law, husband, wife, brother-in-law and brother. Simple. Did I say pearls? Diamonds, for god’s sake, rubies.

‘I’m Ben White, and this is …’

This was a little man who was very drunk, dancing gaily in the middle distance. My wavering hand at last found Erik sitting with his back against the tree trunk, gaping vacantly at us. His rapid plummet into drunkenness unnerved me.

‘This is Erik White, I mean Weiss, ha ha.’

Well well, all games must have their end. I can no longer avoid it. Mrs Kyd, Helena, my Helena. Is it in my power to describe her, and do her full justice? I think not. She was lovely, I would not deny it (you see, my dear, wherever you are, I do not lie), lovely indeed, made with a delicacy of which I would not have thought that bungler in the sky was capable. She was small, very slim, with no real hips or breasts, none worth the mentioning. Her hair was long and blonde, face the shape of some flower, her nose perfect. As to her eyes, I have already spoken of crystals and the sea. Have I noted everything? Later I shall fill in the details, the whorl of hair on the nape of her neck, soft lashes, little teeth, that particular way she had of walking barefoot across thick carpets, all these things when I get to the smut. Here, let me clarify: I was dazzled by her, came to love her, hate her now. Facts are simply stated, but when are they as simple as the stating would have them appear? But to these things I can attest, and there are scars to prove them.

Sweet Jesus, look upon this wreath of bleeding roses.

I cannot remember every detail of that first part of the night, that is to say that I cannot remember as much as I would wish. We talked a great deal, we talked without cease. I was feeling gay. My gaiety had the faintest touch of hysteria. Long tracts of conversation remain intact in my memory, but the methods by which we slipped from one topic to another, they elude me. I am tormented by the notion that had I listened more closely to each tangential remark, and watched with a sharper eye each flickering glance, I might somehow have been warned. Oh I would not have behaved other than I did, no, I have always been a fool, but perhaps, had I suspected, I might have held back some reserves, kept some of my poor paltry secrets. What does it matter now, for the love of Christ, what does it matter?

‘So you are a writer?’ said Helena, inclining her long Greek face toward me in the firelight. She spoke slowly, pronouncing her English with infinite care. Her grasp of the language was a matter of great pride to her. I looked at her, and caught the wrinkles which lay beside her magnificent eyes. I had thought her to be seventeen. She was twenty-six, nine months and fourteen days my senior, I counted, yes.

‘Benjamin S. White, The Writer,’ I said, and swept a low bow, grazing my nose on the rough wood of the table.

Julian laughed, and Helena too, somewhat over-loud and long. The boy looked away from me, frowning in a mixture of embarrassment and contempt. His disapproval filled me with a sudden depression. I sucked the last drop of wine from my glass. There was a silence. Julian looked toward the fire, the flames of which were falling now, and he asked,