ÎLE SAINT-LOUIS
PARIS
NOVEMBER 2001
The moment Annie heard the creak of the door she snapped a cassette into the player. It was a tape from the desk drawer at the Grange, freshly repaired by a grumpy man from a clock shop.
With a thundering heart and the shakiest of hands, Annie swallowed hard and hit Play.
FROM THE RECORDINGS FOUND AT THE GRANGE
A voice, male: This is a first interview conducted by writer Win Seton.
A voice, female: Also, the last.
Male: We’ll see about that. I have with me the lovely and talented Pru Valentine.
Female: Laurel Innamorati. Let’s get our facts straight.
Male: Yes, okay. No aliases. I am here with Miss Innamorati at a decayed estate in the derelict hamlet of Chacombe. The last time we were in this location a grievous injustice was committed. Miss Innamorati, how does it feel to return to the scene of the crime?
Female: Interesting question. Now that you mention it, I am a touch sick to my stomach.
Male: The interviewer will assume it’s not the company making you ill.
Female: Feel free to assume what you wish. It won’t make you right.
Male: Why do you think your stomach is upset? Is it due to “fear” perhaps?
Female: Yes. I am worried I’ll fall victim a second time.
Male: Lightning doesn’t strike twice.
Female: Actually, it often does. I’m quite afraid I’m in a great amount of moral danger.
Male: You mean mortal.
Female: No, I mean moral.
Male: Tell me, what happened the last time you were at the Grange?
Female: I encountered a suspicious character. He called himself a writer.
Male: Suspicious indeed.
Female: This so-called writer, he started out as your basic prowler. Then he ingratiated himself to the woman of the manor. He secured free room and board to boot.
Male: A real swindler sounds like.
Female: If you’re being generous. Anyway, he tried to befriend the woman’s guileless, wide-eyed assistant.
Male: Wide-eyed! Ha!
Female: The girl didn’t know what she was getting herself into, being sweet and innocent as a lamb.
Male: Now I think I’m getting sick.
Female: Within days, the writer began weaving a web of lies and wickedness around her.
Male: Sounds wretched! Don’t tell me this man is permitted to freely roam the streets?
Female: He’s free as a bird. This known confidence trickster duped the poor girl into a friendship and then …
Male: Yes, Miss Innamorati?
Female: Oh, it’s too horrible to go on!
Male: But you have to! I insist upon it!
Female: Well, this con man bamboozled me into falling, GULP, in love with him.
Male: No! You’re the conned girl!
Female: I am.
Male: Please, I must know more details. How did it all start?
Female: In this very room, less than a fortnight ago, I told him the truth.
Male: Which was?
Female: That I loved him.
Male: Sounds like a very bad decision.
Female: The worst. But it was and is true and so I had to say it. Even though he is an unclean, unshaven, uncouth cad of a man, I love him. I told him this and then he committed a grievous crime against humanity.
Male: Which was? I’m almost afraid to hear it.
Female: He did not return the sentiment.
Male: What? But you’re so beautiful! Utterly enchanting!
Female: I know! And, what’s more, he committed this crime in broad daylight, in front of witnesses.
Male: Dear God. Witnesses? And no one did anything?
Female: Not a soul.
Male: The man must’ve lost the plot. Tell me, what happened next?
Female: Well, we went to Paris.
Male: You and he? Together?
Female: Yes. And a third person too.
Male: You traveled abroad, voluntarily, with a hardened criminal?
Female: There were extenuating circumstances. We had to help a friend. It was an emergency.
Male: Oh dear, I hope your friend is okay.
Female: Yes, she’s fine. She will be anyhow.
Male: What happened after you got to Paris?
Female: Well, this man, he continued his crime even as we cavorted—
Male: Cavorted!
Female: As we cavorted throughout the city.
Male: Did you cavort any other places besides?
Female: I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. What I mean is we dined in cafés, strolled through the quiet, cold gardens, spent hours gazing at da Vincis and Rodins.
Male: Sounds splendid. “Where we are would be Paradise to me, if you would only make it so.”
Female: Wharton?
Male: Hardy. Well, surely after all this so-called cavorting the man finally rectified his crime and declared his love in return.
Female: He did not!
Male: I’m gobsmacked! How can that be?
Female: Truth be told, he’s a bit of a cheese weasel.
Male: What now?
Female: A cheese weasel. An idiot. I also believe the man is slow. Socially and mentally. He doesn’t recognize what love is, even when it’s knocked him upside the head.
Male: And you yourself are an arbiter of the feeling?
Female: Well, if I’m wrong then the only other explanation is that he didn’t say it because he doesn’t feel it.
[Long pause]
Male: Ah hell, Pru, you know—
Female: Laurel! No aliases.
Male: Fuck. [Pause] Well, in regard to the writer’s feelings, you are well aware that the two of you are of the same mind. I don’t need to tell you.
Female: Yes. You do. That’s how this works.
Male: But you already KNOW it, being a wise woman with vast experience in love.
Female: Not vast. Very limited, honestly. I thought I knew love—before—but this is something else.
[Long pause]
Female: You know, this is an awfully elaborate apology, Mr. Seton. Or are you not planning to apologize at all?
Male: I have, I believe?
Female: You’re a shit, you know that? You put me through all of this back-and-forth, saying you wanted it recorded. And for what? You’re not even going to say it?
Male: Pru …
Female: No. Screw this. Turn off the tape. You act playful but it’s only because you can’t … you can’t … you can’t have real feelings!
Male: I have many feelings. Every day even. But I’m a Brit. We’d rather not express them.
Female: You have big-time problems, Seton. Big. Time.
Male: I agree. My problems are many and they are big. The greatest of them is that I do love you, Laurel Innamorati, my Valentine. I love you more than I can satisfactorily say, which is why I haven’t been able to say it. Love. It feels so … insipid, wishy-washy. I want a better way to tell you.
Female: Just tell me the real way. Like a normal person.
Male: I love you, Laurel.
Female: I love you too. Now turn off the damned tape.