By Rory McAlpine
It consumes you, a dinner party such as this. You become no longer a person but an omnipresent host. You are the hands serving canopies and topping up delicate champagne flutes. You are the decorator and the entertainment; the gentle smiles and the “lovely to see you again” and “how is the family” and “how was the summer, it was France wasn’t it, where you went?” And the laughter, the flirting with the men – but tasteful – because you have a husband, and the smiling. You are even the weather. I have learned that the only way to ensure others’ happiness at these events, it seems, is one’s own deep unhappiness. But only if that unhappiness is hidden from sight.
Henry and I had hired staff for the event, naturally. But the bodies do not matter. Still, I feel the responsibility, still the weight of everything all at once grinding me to the earth. Atlas should pity me. What is the weight of the world when I must shoulder this dreadful dinner party?
The candles are being toyed with by the warm evening breeze, and every one that flickers I feel a flicker in my breast. They must remain lit. It would be on me if one was to extinguish. Henry had insisted on a garden party. And a lovely garden we have, gently sloping down from the house to level out towards the cliff. It is full of flower beds and old bowed trees, statues and benches and an herb garden. There are olive trees and oleander, pomegranate, and paper flowers. The colours are best at this time of year, vibrant and fully realised. Then once you reach the edge of the garden out over the cliff, is the sea.
People are jealous because of it. They would never breathe a word of it. Yet when they come round and step out of our French windows and see the view, even if they have seen it a thousand times, I see that flash of jealousy in their eyes. It feels unfair to them that someone could possess such a view. Money cannot buy it; I imagine that is part of the problem. It is the one thing that our guests, women and the men alike (friends I suppose I should call them) are unable to have. Sure, they have beautiful views from their own homes, but it is like placing a Picasso beside the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Both are beauty incarnate, but one is mortal, and one belongs to the realms of heaven.
“How is Reuben?” Daphne brightens as I ask, her hands are moving like spiders across her high neck dressed in the lavender shawl and bulbous pearls that she has a habit of fiddling with. I would slap her hands away, but now that wouldn’t be proper, would it. “Oh Reuben, yes he is back for his second term at college at present. He is studying in Britain; I think I may have mentioned it; he reads Arabic. I look at the symbols and despair but my boy he just gets it. Really it is a wonderous thing to witness”. I nod my head; my neck is stiff and sore already. I sip the white wine, it is French. It sharpens me, the crisp alcohol. “Children, they do amaze us”.
I pass our pond; it is freshly stocked with fish for the occasion. Their golden scales dart below the lily pads and lotuses, like glimmers of sunlight that have been left behind. The sky is fast darkening. Sparks leap into the air as some of the servants shovel more coal onto the large fire pits that are placed around the garden. Coal does not smoke like wood, and the pits were raised so any smoke will waft high above the guests. It would be unimaginable for smoke to mingle with the mix of perfumes, scented candles, colognes, and flowers that are being rolled together in the sea air.
I watch my husband at the far end of the garden, over the pinkish oregano flowers beside the olive and lemon trees that we had planted only last year. They were so slender, those olive trees, they would so easily snap. Given time they would grow strong. Or alternatively; break. He is talking to someone. I cannot see her face but the short cut blonde hair and green flowing dress tight in all the right places is enough for me to know. My husband takes her hand to help her up the steps to the garden’s upper tiers. I feel my hand squeeze the glass stem and breathe deeply.
In and out. In.
It was weighing heavier now. This whole evening. The throb in my temple was worse. I answered it with another delicate sip from my delicate glass.
And out
I want sea air. I walk down through the tiers of the garden. Nodding politely, smiling. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” I am like water, slipping unimpeded across and around stones. The stones; my guests. I reach the edge of the garden and sit on the simple wooden bench I had placed here so long ago now. I can hear the waves crashing below. In the same way rocking a baby soothes it, the sea was my mother calming me in her swell and tide.
In and out.
The background behind me: beautiful people, beautifully dressed, in my beautiful garden. The band has begun to play, and their gentle strumming and opening notes waft down to my ears. The dying daylight casts everything in a rich honey hue. This was my beautiful life: the sophisticated parties full of lawyers and bankers and government ministers. The holidays, just a few weeks ago I had returned from St Tropez. I sat on the boards of foundations and charities; my photo appeared in the press catching me at just the right angle. I had raised three children who were polite and excelling in their respective fields. Then I had my husband, the man who held the art world in his hand, a God that could mould critics and public opinion to his will. His art hangs in galleries across Europe and the US. Reviews of his recent exhibitions never failed to allude to not only his work but his handsome face and charm. The man himself was admired in journals almost as much as his paintings. He had the world enthralled, adoration and jealousy of his life and success, culminating to create a fervent worshipping. And I had that sea view. The entire world in front of me, the sea a gateway to countries afar. What an ironic view to have from a cage. A gilded cage, with glass bars. But nonetheless, a cage.
I didn’t know what love was when I met Henry. I thought I loved him. He was older, successful, good looking and interested in me. But it wasn’t love, I was dazzled by him, just like the rest of the world. Once we married that bright light quickly faded, and the ugly darkness was left to seep back in. There was the Henry everyone saw, the artist with the house and the powerful friends and the idyllic life. But that was just a façade. A façade I was to play my own part in. On his arms at the galas and balls I was just like his Italian suits or Swiss watches, the right accessory to make the right picture. A doting, pretty wife to hang off his arm. Henry was a celebrated artist, but his greatest painting was his own life. He had planned the composition, the shading, the elements so they looked beautiful. Makeup to mask the ugly truth.
There were the affairs, the harem of young women that would wander half naked through my living room while I ate breakfast. In the beginning, occasionally he would welcome me back to his bed when it suited him, I would hope each time he was returning to me, but it was never for long. Then there was the drinking, he was a mean and scornful man made worse by alcohol. I was left to do everything, at his beck and call night and day, more servant than wife. He would at one point insult me, at another profess his love for me. I would often open the door to a different Henry then the one I had left.
When we first met, I had told him I wanted to be a writer. He had encouraged me then, and read my stories. He said he knew friends in publishing, people who could help me. But our marriage changed that. He became dismissive of my work, he discouraged me from it. “Why spend your time with silly words,” he said. He had a place for me at one of his friends’ charities, somewhere I could make a real change. So, I joined these boards, but soon learned I was to be a pretty face for the press photos and nothing more, do not speak dear just smile. So, the truth of my beautiful life was that it was hollow, there was no substance to it. You wonder why I stay. Why does any prisoner stay in a locked cell? I had married a God in the eyes of the world, I had everything a woman could want, and the ancient Greeks will tell you what happens when you make an enemy of a spiteful God. They destroy you.
I don’t know when people began to leave our party. I think some came over to thank me. I am sure all of them thanked my husband. Henry who did little more than turn up, showered with praise for months of work by his wife. I think I missed the point where I became an extension of him. I lean against the railing, it was designed by a sculptor friend, large looping curves of iron that form the wings and bodies of birds in different stages of flight. The final laughter of the guests departs the house, the fires dim and for the first time I feel the chill of the night begin to set in.
A hand wraps around my waist.
I breath: in and out.
I can smell the alcohol on his breath, the perfume of the pretty woman in the tight dress on his jacket.
In.
Like Jekyll and Hyde, Henry is a collection of identities. An actor playing every part in the
play.
The kiss on my cheek
Out.
My husband.
In.
“Come to bed.” the words are slightly slurred.
He wanted everything. He could have everything. I was always his wife, but he could pick and choose when he deigned to act like a husband.
In and out, in, out, in.
I tear myself away. My headache echoes the thundering of my heart. I throw the delicate wine glass from my hand and watch Henry twist out the way as it shatters. “I can’t do this,” the words rip at my vocal cords, my anger is a physical thing clawing its way up my throat. “I won’t.”
Before he can react, I continue. The floodgates are open. Maybe it’s the wine, maybe the stress. I have opened, no, smashed, Pandora’s Box.
“God, Henry, can you not see we live in an illusion?”
We stare at each other. The thread holding everything together is unwinding itself before our eyes. I see the anger cloud his eyes, but I am too riled to understand the warning signs. This night has broken me. I have been holding the pieces of me together for so long.
“And you know the problem with illusions Henry – they aren’t real.”
Henry moves across the grass; his movement is so quick my anger dissolves to fear. He is inches from me. His cigar smoke, a hand that slides over my mouth. My voice is choked. “Illusions are only false when you stop believing in them.” Henry says, his voice is quiet. The tip of his cigar flares red. “If you believe in the illusion, if you live in it. What does truth matter, it is irrelevant. The illusion becomes what is real.”
I stare at him. He is so calm. No, not calm, dead. Dead behind the eyes. He has no emotion towards me. It would be better if he screamed, if he called me every name under the sun, rather than this. “Just think if someone owns a golden statue. That everyone treats as gold, admires as gold, buys as if gold. Well then, if the truth is that the statue is tin painted yellow. Does it really make any difference?” He tosses the stump of his cigar over the railings and the glowing spark is engulfed by the dark waters below. “No, it doesn’t. Because regardless of what the statue is made of; it is gold my dear”.
Trust an artist to love appearances.
His eyes are inches from mine. If this was a love story we would be poised to kiss. To the servants from the house, it most likely looked like that. But this was not a love story.
“One doesn’t leave a man like me,” Henry says, his voice isn’t threatening, but the words are sharp as knives. “Why give up all this? Because if you leave me, make no doubt I will ruin you. The stories I will tell, the people I will talk to, the favours I will pull.” Henry takes my hand. The wedding band he still wears is icy against my skin.
“Live in the illusion darling. It really is such a beautiful one. You have the house and the children, the fancy events, the money, me as a husband. If you let it be real, then does the truth really matter?”
My necklace. It is so heavy. The emerald that hangs from it, a dropped anchor. I cannot move, I cannot leave. I dissolve into his arms.