Edward Aubyn - A Clue to the Exit

The first thing that threw me when I went back to Angelique’s apartment was the letter waiting for me in the hall from my implacably literary friend Lola.

My dear Charles,

Imagine how delighted I was to hear that you’ve been spotted , pen in hand, in the Monte Carlo casino. They’ll have to put up a plaque! I happen to be on Jean-Marc Olivier’s committee for the screening of Flat , the Maestro’s unfinished masterpiece (which, by the way, is absolutely marvellous and in some mysterious way better, and truer to itself, for being unfinished . One could almost think he died for aesthetic reasons, Maestro to the last). Anyhow, our mutual friend says that you’ve been creating quite a stir by beavering away in the Salle Privée while your engaging-sounding Muse loses huge sums of money at the tables. Please reassure me that you’re not just adding up her losses!

Oh, Charles, how wonderful if you’re finally getting down to the serious work I know you have inside you. One can’t help thinking of Dr Johnson’s famous remark!

If there’s anything I can do to help, you know I’m only too willing. I’ll be staying at Jean-Marc’s all week. Do ring me if you have a moment when you’re quite certain you can’t write another word.

Lots of love and tons of admiration for your courage,

Lola

I was writhing with irritation. How could I be expected to concentrate on the root fear under these circumstances? I wrote a short sarcastic note inviting Lola to be my literary executor and assuring her that if I died before my novel was finished it would not be for aesthetic reasons.

I had scarcely finished when the phone rang. I answered it, in case it was Angelique.

‘Hello.’

‘Hi, baby, it’s Heidi!’

‘Heidi, how did you find me?’

‘Lola told me your number.’

‘What would I do without that woman?’ I muttered.

‘Don’t be grumpy, you silly billy,’ said Heidi. ‘I’m ringing with good news.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘I want you to see Ton Len.’

‘You do?’

‘I didn’t realize you were really ill,’ she said.

‘Did you think I was lying?’

‘I thought it was some kind of English joke,’ she said, laughing as merrily as one of the mountain streams that crowd her native land. ‘You know the way I never got your sense of humour.’

‘How could I forget?’

‘I think it’s important for Ton Len to have some photos of herself with her daddy, and when she’s older we can look at them together and I’ll tell her what a wonderful man you were.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ I said, wondering if things could get any worse.

We made some practical arrangements, and Heidi drew the conversation gracefully to a close. ‘I’ve got a Tibetan monk doing a ritual for you, so you can die more consciously.’

‘Don’t use that word. I never want to hear it again.’

‘You can go into the Bardo state fully aware of what’s happening,’ chirped Heidi, like a mystic wind-up doll. ‘It’s incredible. You can have a proactive relationship with your next birth.’

‘You really shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I also want you to know that I’ve worked through my issues around us and I totally forgive you.’

‘For what?’

‘Everything,’ she said, blowing me a kiss down the line.

I could hardly find room to accommodate what was going on. See my daughter? See her now? Was it too late? Never too late for a photo shoot.

In the bedroom there was a letter for me on the pillow, this time from Angelique.

My darling,

I’m sorry we had such a horrible lunch. It’s all my fault. I find myself faltering as we approach the moment when we must separate. I cannot bear to lose you. I have never known a passion like ours. I have never given myself so completely. It’s very hard for me, I’ve always been so frightened of getting close to anyone. I’ve never told you this before, but both my parents were killed in a car accident when I was three. I was always told what a ‘terrible misfortune’ it was, and ever since I have been fascinated by bad luck. I gamble in order to get close to Maman and Papa. Only by losing can I enter the mysterious absence which constitutes their love.

Don’t you see that I cannot let you stay, I cannot fall more in love with you when you will soon be dead. It’s not the money, my darling, it’s just that I’ve found a system for coping with my unhealable wound and I cannot allow you to destroy that system when you will not be here to hold me among the ruins.

Let’s come back early tonight and make love as never before. Now you know my terrible secret, make love to it, go to the heart of it, make love to my wound with your own desperate desire to live and then let’s part before the dawn, like the two vampires we really are, belonging more to death than life; let’s not wait for the beams of the reproachful sun to discover us together, staining our love-soaked sheets with tears.

Come to me soon, my darling. I long to be with you.

Angelique

Of course I didn’t believe a word of it. Still, I felt an involuntary stiffening in my trousers. I was sure that if I hunted around the flat I would find the prototype of this letter, customized for each bankrupt lover. It was too smoothly written not to be rehearsed. I couldn’t help admiring the way she proposed to get rid of me before breakfast.

I paced around the room indignantly rereading the letter. Then the terrifying possibility that she was telling the truth stabbed through my contempt, like a dagger through an arras. Even if the letter was carefully written, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Authenticity doesn’t have to be inarticulate. What if my own root fear (which I was now over-fearlessly confronting) made me want to believe she was a cold, selfish bitch, when in fact she was someone who couldn’t afford to love me any more than she did? I started to spiral as I attempted to catch sight of the distorting effect of my proudly unveiled terror. How could I see through my fear without looking through it at the same time? I was already lost and I hadn’t even proposed an extra day to Angelique.

Needless to say, as Marie-Louise would say, things didn’t improve when I arrived at the casino. Angelique came running over and kissed me on the mouth.

‘Did you get my letter?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

She threw her arms around my neck. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered. ‘I feel so vulnerable after telling you those things.’

I held her in my arms and I could tell from the trembling in her body that she was telling the truth. I opened to her completely. We pulsed with love, our bodies flowering effortlessly, and at the same time a terrible apprehension rushing over me.

‘What have we done?’ I said. ‘Falling in love is so dangerous.’

‘That’s why I got angry when you said that I only gambled with tokens and substitutes. First, because it used to be true and secondly because it isn’t true any longer.’ She looked at me with a shattering combination of trust and suspicion.

‘This is so confusing,’ she said. ‘I opened up for the first time with you, even though I knew you were dying. It makes me feel mad, like I chose you because of that. Sometimes I wish we’d never met. It’s a miracle to be able to feel again, but it’s so raw. I have no detachment left, none at all. It’s like a drug, it’s so real. But I know I have to let go of you. If I stay with you it’ll destroy me. If you leave now maybe I can thank you for bringing me back to life.’

I was transfixed by her emotions. I have never felt so close to another person.

‘I can’t stand you going,’ she said, ‘either now or ever, but I know I probably couldn’t love you if you weren’t. Christ, Charlie, it’s so horrible. Can’t you stop it from hurting?’