THE ALARM CLOCK goes off much too soon. Celia is still looking for Alex-the-coward who’s been eluding her all night. The man of her dreams: taking cover behind the arsenal of jars, tubes, pots and bottles in the Beauty Room vanity cabinet, lurking inside her mother’s shiny walnut wardrobe where he’s held in check momentarily by snakes and the advancing-and-retreating-and-advancing armies of hemlines, then again barricaded behind piles of suede shoes at the bottom of an antique oak cupboard, holed up in the sloppy roll of the white lounge carpet, or camouflaged with old lace curtains, like a ghost. But when the alarm comes on a second time, more strident now and louder, Alex simply vanishes into thin air. Nothing remains, neither curtains nor carpet nor shoes nor dresses, not even a single eyeliner in its jar.
Only a solitary passionflower, ashy pale.
Quarter to seven already. Celia forces the image from her mind and gets out of bed, showers, dresses, prepares breakfast. On the local radio station the announcer predicts ‘a crisp glorious day so don’t forget your gloves and sunglasses and, if you’re lucky enough, your skis, because snow conditions are absolutely fabulous. But remember: never beyond the demarcated areas. Flumserberge and the Toggenburg report record levels …’
As she bites into her Weggli roll, a blob of raspberry jam lands on her napkin, bright red. That’s when she remembers her promise to Angelina. Damn that stupid handkerchief! Stuffing the rest of the Weggli into her mouth, she pads over into the spare room. The drawer handle on her mother’s bedside table gives her a crooked grin. Of course: she needs to find the key first. Back in the kitchen she gulps down more coffee. Closes her eyes, trying to picture her mother’s perfectly manicured fingers feeling for that key. Somewhere soft, she thinks, soft, innocuous and within easy reach, unlikely to have ever aroused her own interest or curiosity.
She pauses, hovering. Then, like a sleepwalker, she is being steered out into the corridor. The cleaning cupboard next to the bathroom door seems to spring open all by itself, the lid to lift from the old wicker sewing basket with the gallantry of a gentleman’s hat.
And there it is, buried under reels of white and pastel-coloured threads, glittering, gold-plated, its bow like a wedding ring, its bit resembling a neatly trimmed beard.
She doesn’t hear the van getting parked in the backyard, the slam of the street door out front, the heavy tread on the wooden stairs, made by one pair of feet. Doesn’t hear the key inserted into the lock of her front door, the steps approaching along the corridor, halting briefly at the threshold to the kitchen where muted radio voices are discussing the refugee crisis in the former Yugoslavia. Doesn’t hear the steps turning sharply right, continuing towards her.
She is on her knees, the bedside drawer with its honeycomb of cards and jewellery boxes on the floor beside her. She’s crouched over a large piece of water-and-dirt-stained paper which had been folded up like a map. Except that there are no agglomerations of black dots suggesting homes and people, no green swathes of woods. Merely a tangle of lines shaped like a bat in flight, and printed names such as Devil’s Wall, Nirvana, Witch’s Cauldron, Styx, Nile Valley, Titans’ Tunnel, Galerie des 1001 nuits, Angels’ Fort, Lake Pagoda, Tunnel of Hope, Coral Gallery. Though that’s not everything. The margins are crammed with smudgy large-scale plans and scribbles in pencil, most of them quite indecipherable, and arrows pointing at the bat shape (found two large specimens of niphargus, lost glove, perfect for radio reception, fifth handhold missing, replace rope, slipped here twice three times, dammit are some of the entries she can make out).
Celia’s fingers are brushing along the edges of the paper. She has recognised the handwriting; it’s identical with the inscriptions in her Schellenursli picture books. So this used to belong to her father. This was his personal map of the Hölloch. Then she goes rigid, her fingers poised in mid-air. Why did he leave the map behind? Surely, he’d have taken it with him on that last expedition? So whyonearth didn’t he?
All at once she becomes aware of a presence in the room. Someone is here with her. Someone … The map falls to the floor as she swings her body round sharply, jerking upright, hair flying, her right hand balled into a fist.
‘Alex!’ Her hand uncrumples slowly, like the bud of a flower. ‘How–? What –? You must be early.’ She has sunk down on the mattress of the bed, her stomach in a sudden flutter. She tries not to gaze at him. Forheavensake, woman, she admonishes herself, he is the bastard that gave you an imitation flower, and a grubby one at that! Don’t let him put one over on you again!
‘Or you late,’ he says with a smile that would have appeared easy from several metres away. But he is standing in front of her now, close enough to touch her if he wanted to. He’d been spying on her for a good couple of minutes, fascinated by her total absorption, debating with himself what to do. Whether to clear his throat or cough, rap on the door or sneak back down the corridor, then make one hell of a noisy entrance. They need to talk. At least, he does.
Celia has decided to ignore him and glances down at her watch. Shit, nearly twenty to eight!
‘I won’t delay you, Frau Roth – I mean, Celia,’ Alex falters, his eyes straying to the sheet of paper she’s dropped and which is lying tented half on the carpet, half on the drawer. ‘I just wanted to apologise for the other night. I haven’t told anyone, don’t worry, and Dominic’s away at the workshop, finishing the shutters.’ The paper tent is slipping, collapsing under the weight of his stare. ‘Celia, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you. I promise it won’t happen again. I must have been mad …’
Celia’s mouth twitches, but she can’t get a word out. Her tongue feels bloated and heavy, dead.
He fiddles with his curls, then finally looks at her, noticing a crumb stuck to her cheek like an untidy birthmark. ‘If you prefer to employ another firm, I can understand. In that case, your advance payment will be refunded in full. Compliments of –’
She’s slapped him across the face without warning. His hand’s been knocked aside and there are a few blond hairs caught between his fingers. He can taste a trickle of blood and the soft sponginess of flesh.
‘Paying me off, are you?’ Celia is shaking with anger and hurt. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, that kind of thing?’ The breakfast crumb’s gone, and she has begun to tear off the embroidered black blouse she’s wearing. The bra is pretty much see-through but she slings it after the blouse just the same.
‘Well?’ she demands, swanking up to him, her breasts out. Feeling powerful now. Fuck him and his pin-prick pupils, his ashy passionflower. Tohell with shame. For the moment everything’s been swept away by this flash flood of power.
Alex wipes his lips with deliberate slowness. Mad, he keeps thinking, mad, mad, mad, and moves towards the door. He doesn’t want to blow a fuse, never struck a woman before, and he won’t start now.
The phone is ringing. ‘I’ll get it,’ he shouts, on his way already. ‘Probably your boss. What shall I say?’
She doesn’t answer.
He picks up the receiver. ‘Hello, Lehmann speaking. I’m –’
‘Could I have a word with Frau Roth, please?’
‘Oh yes, I’ll –’
‘Wait a minute, no need to call her. Tell you what. Ask her whether she liked my little present. Thanks.’ A click, followed by the dialling tone.
Bloody odd, but none of his business; Alex replaces the handset quietly, to buy a little more time. His initial rage has evaporated and instead he’s feeling stunned. Certainly not intimidated, not in the slightest. No woman ever intimidates him. In the oval mirror he scrutinises his lips, satisfying himself that the cuts can hardly be seen and that the faintly numb puffiness isn’t unattractive, on the contrary … He grins at himself and pictures Celia’s full breasts.
Afterwards he examines the new crimson wallpaper, running the flats of his hands over it with professional pride. Dominic’s done a damn fine job; the join’s practically invisible. The overall effect, though, is rather grim, like being inside a body. It reminds him of how his mother used to threaten him with the Jonah story whenever he’d done something wrong, and how the whale’s terrible stomach-red would pursue him into his dreams.
When Alex returns to the spare room, Celia is lying on the bed, her face buried in her arms.
‘On the phone just now they –’
‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbles, remaining quite motionless. ‘I didn’t mean to hit you. Or insult you. But that bloody flower was the last thing I needed … Sorry, Alex.’
As if on cue the room is suddenly swamped with winter sunlight from the two corner windows, bringing a gleam to her bare skin, pearly and fragile.
‘What flower?’ Alex fingers his swollen lips and admires the seahorse curve of her spine from a safe distance.
In reply she states simply: ‘This was my mother’s bed,’ and her arms lunge out to hug the mattress. Like a swimmer in danger of drowning, he thinks. Hasn’t she heard him? No, not a swimmer, he corrects himself: a mermaid. Naked to the waist, dark damp tresses, legs twined together into a fish’s tail by the longish skirt.
She’s raised her body a little to pull something from underneath. ‘And this,’ she says, ‘is my father’s old map.’ She waves it in the air like a sail and the water image is complete. Alex smiles in spite of himself; that fall the other night must have cracked her head all right. Then he tells her about the phone call.
‘Damn, I ought to have known.’ Celia sits up abruptly and stares at the empty wall where the waxplant has left smears of sticky nectar and dust. ‘How stupidstupidstupid of me!’
Alex is about to shrug dubiously when he sees her glance down at her breasts.
‘Of course I won’t change decorators,’ she says as if to herself. ‘Why should I do that?’ A small pause, then her eyes are on him, seaweed-green: ‘Unless you want me to? Actually, I loved being with you, loved every second of it. No question of you taking advantage.’ She blushes, laughs. ‘I guess I’d better get dressed.’
There’s an intimacy between them, tangibly awkward.
Eventually Alex reaches for the piece of paper she’s put back on the bed. ‘Map?’ he asks, ‘Map of what?’ and makes a show of studying it to screen her from his view.
The radio noises from the kitchen seem to crackle with static and fill the room.
Her blouse safely buttoned up, Celia inches over to him and says, ‘He was crazy about caves, my father. Went down into the Hölloch one day and never came back …’ Tears are in her voice all at once and she sniffles, uses her sleeve, then both sleeves, hiding her face in her hair. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just being silly. No use crying now, after all these years. I hardly knew him anyway …’ And to herself she adds, hardly knew my mother either.
Alex’s hand is on her arm, warm and strong and stroking her gently. ‘Easy now. Easy,’ she hears him whisper. So he hasn’t given up on her altogether, thankgodforthat. He’s produced a packet of tissues from his overalls and started dabbing at her wet cheeks, murmuring, ‘I can understand. I lost my mother seven years ago and it’s still painful.’ He doesn’t elaborate and for a moment they’re silent, and very close.
Finally Celia asks, ‘Do you mind?’ With her fingertips she traces his sore-looking lips, then quickly kisses him. ‘I do like you,’ she says, ‘a lot.’
By the time she arrives at the office, having taken the Golf to save at least a few minutes, it’s after ten and they’re all there, enjoying the Friday patisseries. She had rung earlier to explain how she’d been held up because of a misunderstanding with the decorators painting her flat.
Salesman Martin’s eternal-boy crew cut seems to have got even shorter since she last saw him, on the day before her mother died. ‘My heartfelt condolences, Celia dear,’ he says between dainty bites from a tartlet aux vermicelles. She thanks him, trying in vain to ignore the wriggles of chestnut purée on the pastry, greyish-brown, like earth intermixed with snow …
When Angelina offers her the plate of cakes, she waves it away with a smile that feels all lopsided and trembling. Don’t cry, silly Cel, someone says inside her head, in her mother’s inflection. Angelina is still looking at her and Celia hastily pretend-pats her stomach and nods towards Lapis, whose salivating mouth has already slid into position on the arm of his leather seat.
Yes, her mother had wanted a burial; now Celia almost wishes she’d been cremated. Ash is so much less real, so much less corporeal. One breath of wind and it ceases to exist.
‘Got the colours for your rooms sorted then, have you, Celia?’ Eric asks, startling her back into the world of life, and work.
The rest of the day is encrusted with gemstones – an order of diamonds (Piqué II and III) and another of turquoise cabochons for a manufacturer of exclusive fashion jewellery, some weighing and cross-checking to get the annual stocktaking under way, and a request from Herr Q for a couple more tourmalines, 1 ct. each, mixed cut, dark green, please (the two blue-and-green specimens had been promptly returned by courier, but not the watermelon type, much to Celia’s surprise, and satisfaction).
Encrusted with gemstones set in thick layers of gossip or, in Celia’s case, fuzzy dreams of Alex. Alex with a dribble of blood on his mouth; Alex holding her father’s map to hide behind; Alex smiling back at her, saying, ‘I like you too,’ and the tip of his tongue touching hers, very lightly; Alex sucking at her lips, his Vandyke rubbing up against her chin; Alex lying on her mother’s old bed, fully clothed except for the overalls on the floor and the unzipped jeans she’s leaning over (no time for belt buckles now), teasing his hard-on first with her hair, then with a lick, then another and another, swift and darting and making him groan, grab her head …
Things had veered wildly out of control after this. It was only once she’d cleaned her teeth, washed her face and was bent over the bath, sluicing off the shampoo, that she began to regain a sense of herself. The first clear image was an upside-down one of Alex – standing barefoot in the doorway in just his Levi’s, his chest and round thin-nosed face tinged crimson by the sunlight slanting in through the narrow arched window at the end of the corridor.
While he stood there waiting for her to finish rinsing her hair, he kept brandishing something she couldn’t quite see, and shouted, ‘Found this in the lounge. How about one before you’re off, Celia?’
That’s when she recognised the silvery chocolate box, and gasped. After that business with the ash, she’d stuffed the silk flower back in, squashed down the lid and thrown the lot on to the coffee table – sick at heart. But now that she knew Alex had nothing to do with it, she couldn’t very well go on playing her game. Or could she? Carefully draping one of the freshly laundered Beauty Room towels round her head, she coaxed, ‘Mm, yes, open it.’
And he did. Started to exclaim, ‘What the hell –?’ as a few wispy-grey flakes drifted to the floor, then concluded in a much calmer tone: ‘So this is it, the “little present” your caller was talking about. Your “flower”. Want to tell me?’
Alex is looking at her even now, though his eyes seem a lot darker suddenly and not needle-sharp either.
‘Celia?’ a voice says, but it isn’t his.
And again, a bit louder, ‘Celia, are you okay?’
Martin’s voice. His head craned forward, he grins at her from the other side of her desk. She notices the Gemmologists’ Compendium in his left hand and a flicker of reflections coming from his right. He must have tried flashing one of Angelina’s little mirrors, counting on her vanity to spring to attention.
She blinks. ‘Fine, yes.’
‘God, you were miles away!’ Chortling, he slips the blue mirror back under the clasp inside the book. Then he says, ‘Eric’s asked me to do a spot of research for him, but this editon here is years out of date. Maybe you could show me some websites?’ With a wink he adds, ‘Angelina is busy – strictly professional, of course.’ He points to the reception area where the girl’s brown hair is cascading over two pairs of shoulders, hers and Handsome Henry’s, as they pore over what appears to be a very tiny magazine indeed.
Celia smiles at him: ‘No problem:’ She logs on, banishing Alex and the passionflower from her thoughts – for the moment, at any rate.