Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale

And then something penetrated through my reading and drew me out of the book. A prickling sensation at the back of the neck.

Someone was watching me.

I know the back-of-the-neck experience is not an uncommon phenomenon; it was, however, the first time it had happened to me. Like those of a great many solitary people, my senses are acutely attuned to the presence of others, and I am more used to being the invisible spy in a room than to being spied upon. Now someone was watching me, and not only that, but whoever it was had been watching me for some time. How long had that unmistakable sensation been tickling me? I thought back over the past minutes, trying to retrace the memory of the body behind my memory of the book. Was it since the nun began to speak to the young man? Since she was shown into the house? Or earlier? Without moving a muscle, head bent over the page as though I had noticed nothing, I tried to remember.

Then I realized.

I had felt it even before I picked up the book.

Needing a moment to recover myself, I turned the page, continuing the pretense of reading. "You can't fool me." Imperious, declamatory, magisterial. There was nothing to be done but turn and face her. Vida Winter's appearance was not calculated for concealment. She was an ancient queen, sorceress or goddess. Her stiff figure rose regally out of a profusion of fat purple and red cushions. Draped around her shoulders, the folds of the turquoise-and-green cloth that cloaked her body did not soften the rigidity of her frame. Her bright copper hair had been arranged into an elaborate confection of twists, curls and coils. Her face, as intricately lined as a map, was powdered white and finished with bold scarlet lipstick. In her lap, her hands were a cluster of rubies, emeraids and white, bony knuckles; only her nails, unvarnished, cut short and square like my own, struck an incongruous note.

What unnerved me more than all the rest were her sunglasses. I could not see her eyes but, as I remembered the inhuman green irises from the poster, her dark lenses seemed to develop the force of a searchlight; I had the impression that from behind them she was looking through my skin and into my very soul.

I drew a veil over myself, masked myself in neutrality, hid behind my appearance.

For an instant I think she was surprised that I was not transparent, that she could not see straight through me, but she recovered quickly, more quickly than I had.

"Very well," she said tartly, and her smile was for herself more than for me. "To business. Your letter gives me to understand that you have reservations about the commission I am offering you."

"Well, yes, that is- " The voice ran on as if it had not registered the interruption. "I could suggest increasing the monthly stipend and the final fee."

I licked my lips, sought the right words. Before I could speak, Miss Winter's dark shades had bobbed up and down, taking in my flat brown bangs, my straight skirt and navy cardigan. She smiled a small, pitying smile and overrode my intention to speak. "But pecuniary interest is clearly not in your nature. How quaint." Her tone was dry. "I have written about people who don't care for money, but I never expected to meet one." She leaned back against the cushions. "Therefore I conclude that the difficulty concerns integrity. People whose lives are not balanced by a healthy love of money suffer from an appalling obsession with personal integrity."

She waved a hand, dismissing my words before they were out of my mouth. "You are afraid of undertaking an authorized biography in case your independence is compromised. You suspect that I want to exert control over the content of the finished book. You know that I have resisted biographers in the past and are wondering what my agenda is in changing my mind now. Above all"-that dark gaze of her sunglasses again-"you are afraid I mean to lie to you." I opened my mouth to protest but found nothing to say. She was right.

"You see, you don't know what to say, do you? Are you embarrassed to accuse me of wanting to lie to you? People don't like to accuse each other of lying. And for heaven's sake, sit down."

I sat down. "I don't accuse you of anything," I began mildly, but immediately she interrupted me.

"Don't be so polite. If there's one thing I can't abide, it's politeness."

Her forehead twitched, and an eyebrow rose over the top of the sunglasses. A strong black arch that bore no relation to any natural brow.

"Politeness. Now, there's a poor man's virtue if ever there was one. What's so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it's easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think about them. I hardly suppose Wagner lost sleep worrying whether he'd hurt someone's feelings. But then he was a genius."

Her voice flowed relentlessly on, recalling instance after instance of genius and its bedfellow selfishness, and the folds of her shawl never moved as she spoke. She must be made of steel, I thought.

Eventually she drew her lecture to a close with the words: "Politeness is a virtue I neither possess nor esteem in others. We need not concern ourselves with it." And with the air of having had the final word on the subject, she stopped.

"You raised the topic of lying," I said. "That is something we might concern ourselves with."

"In what respect?" Through the dark lenses, I could just see the movements of Miss Winter's lashes. They crouched and quivered around the eye, like the long legs of a spider around its body.

"You have given nineteen different versions of your life story to journalists in the last two years alone. That's just the ones I found on a quick search. There are many more. Hundreds, probably." She shrugged. "It's my profession. I'm a storyteller." "I am a biographer. I work with facts." She tossed her head and her stiff curls moved as one. "How horribly dull. I could never have been a biographer. Don't you think one can tell the truth much better with a story?" "Not in the stories you have told the world so far." Miss Winter conceded a nod. "Miss Lea," she began. Her voice was slower. "I had my reasons for creating a smoke screen around my past.

Those reasons, I assure you, are no longer valid." "What reasons?" "Life is compost." I blinked. "You think that a strange thing to say, but it's true. All my life and all my experience, the events that have befallen me, the people I have known, all my memories, dreams, fantasies, everything I have ever read, all of that has been chucked onto the compost heap, where over time it has rotted down to a dark, rich, organic mulch. The process of cellular breakdown makes it unrecognizable. Other people call it the imagination. I think of it as a compost heap. Every so often I take an idea, plant it in the compost, and wait. It feeds on that black stuff that used to be a life, takes its energy for its own. It germinates. Takes root. Produces shoots. And so on and so forth, until one fine day I have a story, or a novel."

I nodded, liking the analogy.

"Readers," continued Miss Winter, "are fools. They believe all writing is autobiographical. And so it is, but not in the way they think. The writer's life needs time to rot away before it can be used to nourish a work of fiction. It must be allowed to decay. That's why I couldn't have journalists and biographers rummaging around in my past, retrieving bits and pieces of it, preserving it in their words. To write my books I needed my past left in peace, for time to do its work."

I considered her answer, then asked, "And what has happened to change things now? " "I am old. I am ill. Put those two facts together, biographer, and what do you get? The end of the story, I think." I bit my lip. "And why not write the book yourself?" "I have left it too late. Besides, who would believe me? I have cried wolf too often." "Do you intend to tell me the truth?" I asked. "Yes," she said, but I had heard the hesitation even though it lasted only a fraction of a second. "And why do you want to tell it to me}" She paused. "Do you know, I have been asking myself the very same question for the last quarter of an hour. Just what kind of a person are you, Miss Lea?"