Daniel James
All obsessions are extreme metaphors waiting to be born507
The elevator doors opened into a room decorated in midnight blue wallpaper with silver stars. Animal heads protruded from the walls, victims of an absurd accident. A stag, a bear, and a goat looked back at me. My feet slid over the polished black and white tiles towards a woman sitting at a desk. She was dressed in a grey business suit and was writing in a leather-bound book. On the desktop, a stuffed owl perched on the twisted branch of a bonsai tree next to a transparent phone, whose wiring and mechanisms were exposed through the plastic shell. The woman’s hair was so dark I could barely make out a single strand expect for one thick curl, which hung from her forehead like a sickle. I approached the desk and saw myself reflected in the owl’s eyes. Through the glass wall behind her I could see more than a hundred of London’s richest art lovers eating in the gallery’s restaurant, including the one person I was there to see.
‘Your name is not on the list,’ the woman said, before I’d had a chance to speak.
‘I haven’t even told you my name yet,’ I replied.
She stopped writing in her book and looked me up and down.
‘Your name is not on the list,’ she repeated.
‘I’m here to see Helena Maas,’ I said, gesturing at the restaurant behind her. ‘She’s the professional widow over there, dressed in black. Just behind Charles Saatchi.’
‘Ms. Maas is not here tonight,’ the woman replied and continued to write in her book.
I plucked the pen from her fingers and used it to point at the glass.
‘I can see her.’
‘And do you always believe what you see?’
She tried to snatch the pen back, but I stepped out of reach. Her eyes burned into mine. I tossed the pen back to her and smiled.
‘Just make the call,’ I said. ‘No more games.’
As if on cue, the phone on her desk began to ring. She reached for the receiver and listened closely to a voice on the other end.
‘Yes, I understand completely,’ she said through gritted teeth and placed the phone down.
‘Your name has been added to the list.’
‘See? I knew we could get along,’ I said.
‘Someone will be along shortly to escort you to Ms. Maas’s table. Would you like something to drink?’ she added, with an air of forced courtesy.
‘Yeah, that would be great. Thank you.’
She waited for me to sit down.
‘The bar is over there,’ she said with a smile.
I pulled a face and stood up again.
‘You enjoy your job, don’t you?’ I said.
I walked over to the ornate wooden drinks cabinet that stood against the wall. It contained a selection of highly expensive spirits from around the world. I glanced over my shoulder and made sure my adversary was watching as I poured myself a very generous measure of the most expensive drink I could find into a heavy crystal tumbler, before heading back to the waiting area. She watched closely as I took a seat, before returning to her work. Every now and then she looked up as if she was waiting for something. I raised my glass at her and smiled, roguishly. Her hand gripped the pen so tightly as she wrote that her knuckles were white. I got the feeling she wanted to say something but that she didn’t want to concede any ground by speaking first. I decided to let her off the hook.
‘This is very good,’ I said, swirling the glass. ‘You sure you don’t want to join me?’
For a good ten seconds or so, she acted as if I hadn’t spoken. Finally, she placed her pen down carefully and looked up, very slowly, as if it took a huge amount of effort.
‘What are you drinking?’ she asked.
I grinned.
‘Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon, aged for 21 years in charred oak barrels.’
The bourbon had a deep amber colour, like burnished copper, and tasted of vanilla, caramel, allspice, and oak.
‘They say Elijah was the first man to use charred barrels,’ I said. ‘An accidental discovery after a fire at his mill…but like most of these things, it’s probably just a story.’
‘You know your bourbon,’ she said.
‘Everyone has a passion,’ I replied, ‘and every passion has its price.’
‘I like that,’ she smiled sardonically. ‘You should be a writer.’
‘And you should drink with me more often. I come out with gems like that all the time.’
She smiled again, this time more naturally and seemingly despite herself. We sat in silence for a moment.
‘Isn’t it a bit of a cliché? The bourbon drinking writer?’
‘You think I should drink something else just to prove a point? I just drink what I love.’
‘It was just an observation,’ she said, holding her hands up in faux deference. ‘I hope I didn’t hit a nerve?’
I had to laugh. She was good, but so was I.
I finished the glass, walked back over to the cabinet and refilled the tumbler. This time I chose a bottle of fifteen-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve. An aroma of maraschino cherries, dried fruit, and toasted oak drifted up from the glass after I added a splash of water to the bourbon. Her eyes followed me, watching my every move. I waited for her to react, but she wasn’t biting.
‘How much is this again?’ I said, looking at the glass. ‘£750 a bottle? £1,000?’
I took another sip, visibly savoring every drop. ‘This won’t come out of your wages, will it?’
And still, she didn’t reply. After another moment, she leaned back in her chair with a look on her face that said, ‘I know something you don’t’.
‘It’s a shame you have to go now,’ she said. ‘I was almost starting to like you.’
‘Who says I have to go?’ I replied.
She pointed to three large men walking towards us.
‘You called security?’
‘I wouldn’t resist if I were you,’ she smiled. ‘They rather enjoy showing people out the hard way.’
‘So many tough guys, so few brains,’ I sighed. ‘I’ll try not to confuse them with any long words.’
I turned to face the three men and smiled broadly.
‘All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.’508
* * *
When I opened my eyes, Helena Maas was sat at my bedside, a black veil over her face. Her lips were held in a permanent pout, like a petulant child, black make-up smudged around her dark eyes, hair in a constant tangle, her shoes mismatched. She was a ballerina in black, the epitome of shabby chic. She reached back with a hand gloved in lace, lifting the veil from her face.
‘They always told me I’d be late for my own funeral,’ I heard myself saying. ‘But I didn’t expect to wake up in the middle of it.’
‘I’ve worn black every day since Ezra disappeared,’ she replied. ‘But I’m sure you knew that already.’
‘You don’t really think he’s dead, do you?’
‘I think he was never alive to begin with. Not in the same way you and I are, at least.’
I watched her sad eyes drift to the light streaming in from the balcony. In the sun, her skin seemed remarkably smooth and unlined. I had forgotten how young she was when she married Maas. There were sixteen years between them. It was a strange thought, but she was closer to my age than she was to his.
‘So what now? Are you going to kill me, too?’
I sat up in bed and looked around. The room was immaculate, with contemporary furnishings arranged in a minimalist interior design, modern art on the walls, and large French windows framing a particularly beautiful view of the London skyline. I appeared to be in one of the many properties owned by the Maas Foundation; maybe the apartment in Kensington. Helena and I were alone, save for her dogs. Three Black Russian Terriers lay together in a tangle of fur and limbs, like a single black dog with three sets of gleaming white teeth and watchful eyes, to guard its master.
‘We haven’t killed anyone,’ Helena said. ‘If you hadn’t fought with my guards, we would be having this conversation over tea.’
‘I saw the police cut down the last person you didn’t kill.’
‘If you’re referring to Mr Wallas, we had nothing to do with his death. I understand the police are treating it as suicide, but to be honest, we did wonder whether you had something to do with it yourself. You were the last person to see him alive.’
‘If you really thought I was a murderer, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘So why are we?’
‘Because there’s something you want from me.’
She considered me for a moment.
‘You’re catching on, but I think you misjudge us, Daniel. The Maas Foundation wants nothing more than to preserve Ezra’s legacy.’
‘And I just want the truth.’
‘There is no truth, only art.’
‘Your husband’s words.’
‘Ezra said that reality is merely what we agree is real, a representation of the true conditions of existence. If you are searching for the truth, then you are looking for something that can’t be found.’
‘I will find your husband.’
Helena sighed. ‘It’s not him you’re looking for. It’s never been him. Don’t you realise that by now? Ophelia said you were smart, but I’m beginning to think she misjudged you.’
‘You sent Ophelia to see me?’
‘Of course. Do beautiful women throw themselves at you every day?’
‘Well, as it happens…’
‘Don’t be facetious, Daniel.’
‘Did you tell her to sleep with me too?’
Helena’s pale face seemed to drain of what little colour it had left. She clearly hadn’t known that last piece of information.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about…’
‘She tracked me down after I slipped through her fingers in Soho,’ I smiled. ‘Maybe she felt bad about sticking a needle in my neck. Or more likely, she just wanted to get more information out of me. Either way, I was happy to let her try…’
I was lying through my teeth, but Helena didn’t know that.
‘Ophelia went too far. I’m sorry. She has too much of her father in her, I fear.’
Her father. My little game had worked. Helena had confirmed what the actor had told me.
‘Ezra…?’ I said. ‘Of course.’
‘I don’t suppose you could be persuaded not to include her in your book? We’ve managed to protect her from unwanted attention her whole life. You don’t seem like the kind of man who would hurt others unintentionally.’
‘I don’t know what kind of man I am.’
‘I hope you find that out for yourself through all of this, Daniel. I really do.’
‘You didn’t bring me here to talk about me.’
‘Actually, I did. While you’ve been looking at Ezra, we’ve been looking at you. I know all about the debts you’re running from, the women, and what happened to your family…I’m sorry. Something like that…it changes people.’
‘You don’t get to talk about my family.’
‘It’s not a wonder you live the way you do. Pretending like there’s no tomorrow. But it must be a lonely existence, living out of hotel rooms, changing the place you live like other people change clothes, always moving, never at rest.’
She was starting to get to me.
‘Hemingway used to live at the Ritz in Paris,’ I said. ‘He left his notebooks in storage there for thirty years. Howard Hughes moved from hotel to hotel, too. I’m a lot more considerate. It’s not like I take over entire floors…’
‘You like to hide behind humour, don’t you? But I see through you.’
‘And what is it you see, exactly?’
‘I know you would like people to think your lifestyle is one of choice, inspired by your artistic influences, but I know different. It doesn’t have to be this way, Daniel. Just tell me how much they’re paying you, and I’ll make you a better offer.’
‘They?’
‘Your client. Just give me a number and we will triple it. The amount I’m offering could go a long way to solving your problems.’
‘I have to see this through. I’m sorry.’
‘Then I’m afraid the Maas Foundation cannot help you.’
‘And what about you, Helena? Can you help me?’
I wanted to ask her about Maas’s final creation, Michael Malone, and Jane D, the significance of the numbers 18-6-0000000003, hidden in his work, and more, but I was also wary of letting her find out what I knew.
‘It doesn’t matter what I want,’ she replied. ‘Not anymore. You’re just like Ezra, I see that now, blinded by your own ambition. You’re going to do what you want, regardless of what I say. I just wish you could see what I see.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘That in exhuming Ezra’s life, uncovering his bones and unearthing his secrets, you’re opening up a great darkness, a gaping pit that exists just under the surface of the everyday, a black and infinite void waiting to consume everything you are, everything you’ll ever be. Don’t you see, Daniel? You’re digging your own grave.’
END
Notes
507. J.G Ballard.
508. The final line in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a film which is referenced elsewhere in the text – Anonymous.