The Room Beyond (34 page)

He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and then his eyes
sparkled. ‘But now, now, I have something even more!’ he said, unfolding a
piece of paper. It was the torn envelope from Jess with my drawing of Seb’s
face scribbled onto it. He dropped it into my lap, padded softly over to his
office door and locked it with a small key which he then dropped into his
pocket. ‘Speak.’

I held the picture of my lover tightly in my hands. I couldn’t take
my eyes off it.

‘Beth didn’t take me to the library on the first occasion, Raphael
did,’ I murmured eventually. ‘The second time, when I found the book, I really
was alone. I seem to be able to find and see things which I shouldn’t... As
I’ve already told you, I read the introduction about Miranda. Her family chose
to ignore her as a punishment and gradually she disappeared, just like the
house I think.’

‘What house?’

‘34.’

‘So you noticed.’

‘Of course. The missing house fascinated me right from the start...’

‘Yes!’ his excited tongue flicked out as he sat down again. ‘That
house is the key to it all. Balanchine’s greatest feat. And every day I feel, I
know, I am closer to discovering it!’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘It baffled me for a long long time. How could it have disappeared? What
happened to the couple who once lived there?’

‘Miranda and Tristan Whitestone.’

‘You even know about them, as well?’ his face filled with something
that looked almost like admiration.

‘I do. Miranda changed her name, brought Lucinda’s child to Druid
Manor.’

‘Yes yes,’ he said hurriedly, suddenly gripping my hand. ‘But
Tristan... where did he go? When and where did he die? I’ll tell you! Just last
year, about the time that you joined the household, I finally unearthed the
truth.

‘I was reading the newly-discovered journals of a fascinating
Scottish psychiatrist of the time by the name of Blythe. In a chapter dedicated
to the causes of suicide, Blythe wrote about the case of a man called Tristan Whitestone
of Marguerite Avenue. He describes the man’s hideous decline, his wild
ramblings regarding the loss of his mistress, his despicable treatment of his
wife and finally the eventual discovery of his body in the kitchen larder of
their house.

‘The date given to the commencement of Whitestone’s mental decline
closely coincides with the secret disappearance of his neighbour Lucinda. As
soon as I put these dates together I knew that I had found the true father of
Lucinda’s child. Lord Hartreve would not have enjoyed being associated with
such a scandal and that’s where Balanchine wove his magic. The man eliminated
it all: birth and death certificates, legal correspondence, even the house
itself.’

He sat back and loosened his collar, breathless with his own
brilliance.

‘You’ve got it wrong,’ I uttered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Walter Balanchine might have eliminated many things to save the Hartreves
from scandal, but he didn’t make that house disappear. When I read the story
about Miranda’s childhood, there was nothing contrived about her invisibility. People
just couldn’t stand seeing her misery anymore, her loneliness. I think the same
thing happened to the house. Goodness me, in spite of all your delving you
really don’t know that much about Walter Balanchine after all, do you? 34
Marguerite Avenue is still very much there, disguised by nothing but its own
cloud of sadness.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’ve been there myself.’

‘You’ve been there? It really does still exist?’

‘Yes.’

His face went rigid. ‘Then take me there. Take me to the house.’

‘Why would you want to go to such a place?’

He jumped from his seat, every sinew and muscle so taut that he
looked ready to climb out of his own skin. ‘Do you have any idea what I... we...
could gain from such a discovery? We could tell the world!’

‘And what would that do to the family, to Beth?’

‘No harm would come of Beth! She’s my prodigy, practically my own
child. I would turn her into a sensation.’

‘I wonder what Eva would think of that.’

He drew his tongue across his lower lip. ‘She’ll learn her place,
eventually. You just leave Eva to me.’

‘That’s what I’m most afraid of.’

He threw me the same look as when we first met on the threshold of
Arabella’s office: his face crunched like a fist but this time ready to punch.

‘You like her, don’t you?’ I said slowly. ‘All that aristocratic
beauty: those long legs, that youthful body. You can barely keep your hands off
her. Do you really think she’d give in to you?’

He broke into a small laugh. ‘How naïve you are. There are ways of
persuading people into doing things, didn’t you know? And the Hartreves can be
bought. I have proof of that.’

‘Your plans would destroy them.’

‘Oh they’re already destroyed, you don’t need to worry about that. And
even so, what does it matter at the end of the day? Eh? A few casualties at the
expense of such an extraordinary, momentous find?’

‘Even if you do tell the world, you might just be laughed at. They’ll
call you a crank.’

‘Absolutely not! I have too much evidence and enough credibility to
make myself heard. All you have to do is take me to the house.’

I stared back at him, into that sweaty covetous face and thought of
Eva. I saw those little hands of his fondling her white skin, his breath heavy,
panting even. I saw the tears in her eyelashes as they closed together.

‘Take me to the house!’ he commanded, urging me from the depths of
his eyes.

‘Alright, yes I will,’ I heard my voice say. ‘Now unlock that door
please.’

‘Do I have your word?’

‘Yes, but I want to go back alone first, just to say goodbye to
Beth, to Gladys...’

‘Gladys? Who is she?’

I drew in a deep breath. ‘Meet me in two hours on Marguerite
Avenue.’

‘Do you swear? I’ll find you if you let me down.’

‘I swear that I’ll be there in two hours. Unlock that door.’

He turned to the lock, fumbling with the key and in one swift
movement I did it. I drew the small package from my pocket and slipped it
behind the bookcase, balanced quite comfortably on the thick skirting board. Sasha
opened the door and I brushed past him without another word, my legs trying not
to run.

Outside the air was thick with fumes and clouds. I wiped my hand
against my top, the memory of Sasha’s sweaty palm still engrained in my skin.

There was an empty phone box up ahead, littered with cigarette butts
and exotic dancers’ calling cards. I pulled the door open.

‘Hello... yes, I’d like to report the discovery of a stolen item...
a Celtic cross with a red stone, from the Victoria and Albert Museum... you’ll
find it in the office of Sasha Apostol in the Machen Institute in London...
he’s there right now. No, I don’t want to give my name.’

My shadow was long and lean by the time I was back on Marguerite
Avenue. The houses had turned grey against the sky, their blinds pulled down,
their curtains drawn, the climbing rose on the wall at the end nothing but a
naked brown rope. I hunched my shoulders up against the cold. A gust of wind
swept the leaves and dust up from the road.

I was ten years old again, my grubby school shoes slipping on damp
leaves. My mother was at home in the warm glow, worrying why I was a little
late, poised to tell me off whilst hugging me at the same time as soon as I
stepped in through the door. And we were all ignorant of what was waiting for
us around the corner. The minibus sleeping its last night in the big hollow
coach station. Three tickets to a London show sitting in my mother’s handbag.

I stopped abruptly, my hand pressed firmly against my scar.

‘Leave me alone,’ I whispered through clenched jaws.

But as I began to move cautiously again, the glint of gold shimmered
in the corner of my eye. When I turned towards it two brass numbers smirked
back at me: 34.

I am here. I’ve always been here
, they
seemed to say.

And somewhere, perhaps deep inside myself although I wasn’t quite
sure, I felt the beginning of a beat. It sounded like a distant drum or the
rhythmic pounding of a heart.

As I walked up to the house the beat seemed to pause for a moment,
as if unsure of something, and then it started up again, a little louder this
time. The door fell open with the softest touch and closed behind me. I could
hear my breathing quicken, my eyes adjusting to the gloom as the final rays of light
teased the dank air with small white prongs.

I wandered through the hallway and the sound grew stronger again. I
stopped abruptly, turning to look around me. Where was it coming from? Something
had changed in its rhythm as well. Listening carefully I realized that a second
beat had joined in; a second pounding heart echoing the first. And, almost as
an accompaniment, my own pulse quickened as my knuckles clenched and I carried
on.

In the dining room the table was set as before with plates and
glasses, as if awaiting a dinner party. I looked up at the portrait of Tristan
and Miranda and scooped up one of the wine glasses from the table. It looked so
delicate, its pattern woven around the bowl like frost on a spider’s web.

In a sudden flash an image swept through me, the two beats
strengthening yet again. I saw skin: a woman’s neck, a fine bead of sweat
trickling down between her breasts. I felt myself gasp and clutched the glass
tighter.

‘Would you like a drink?’

I jumped at the voice. Cold fear sliced through me as my eyes
scanned the room for its owner. At the end of the table sat a lone figure in
black.

‘Raphael!’

He peered back at me, the handsome poetic face I’d first seen in the
black and white photograph now barely recognizable. There were jagged tears up
one side of his face and his hair was matted with blood. He seemed to have
diminished, hunched and hollow now, the loneliest creature I’d ever seen.

‘So you live here now, as well,’ I murmured, trying to control my
voice.

He smiled sadly, his lips etched with cracked purple lines. ‘You saw
it just now, didn’t you?’ he answered. ‘You can hear it too.’

‘Hear what? What do you mean?’

‘The beating truth. It’s upstairs you know. Or are you too scared to
face it?’

I glanced down at the glass I was holding between my shaking hands
and felt Raphael’s gaze edge towards me like a dark veil, its feelers probing
softly at my skin. My eyes shut for a moment as they lapped against me like
soft kisses.

‘It’s alright, you don’t have to go there. Come to me,’ came his
voice.

My muscles began to give way. I felt my feet stumble. He opened out
his arms.

‘Come to me.’

The black waves washed over my body, drawing my head in last of all.
I saw Seb in the distance; his beautiful eyes blinked back at me with tears and
the drum beats stormed in my head. The image of the woman came to me again. Her
lips this time, blood red. I heard her moan with pleasure and I cried back,
mutely.

And then somewhere, somewhere within the pounding and the horror,
came the softest, most meagre flicker; a white shadow, not bright enough for a
flame. I reached towards it and its whiteness merged into a limp little bell of
petals in my hand.

‘Look inside the flower,’ came my mother’s voice. ‘Look inside...’

I lifted its small head and from within the humble petals a dazzling
light shone out at me, so bright that the force of it threw my head back and
sent fire through my limbs. And as I lurched away from Raphael I crushed the
palms of my hands together as tightly and irrevocably as I could.

The fragments of the wine glass chimed as they met the floor.

I felt my face go white and waited for the pain. But nothing came;
nothing other than cool serenity. My hands were clean. Not a drop of blood in
sight.

‘Look,’ I whispered, raising my hands to Raphael. ‘Nothing.’

He seemed to recoil, fear etched in his face and I began to move away,
suddenly breaking into a run.

‘No!’ he screamed through tearing lips.

‘I’m stronger than you!’ I cried back at him, ‘and I’m not scared
anymore!’

I raced through the hallway and up the stairs, the haze diminishing
before me at every footfall. The beats grew stronger the further up I went and
now the visions of her came to me thick and fast: her fine white skin, her
haunted face and his lips slowly moving up her neck. My throat choked with sobs
but I had to go on. I had to see the truth.

Their heartbeats pulsed as one now, drawing me to the final corridor
upstairs. And yet I could see them in my mind before I’d even found the room. His
arms drawn tightly round her waist, their bodies perfectly and exquisitely in
tune.