Attachment (16 page)

Jean would think back on the things that surprised her through the night. She was surprised by her ease, how it flowed—once, that is, he’d silenced her helpless running commentary, those footnotes to every twitch of her cerebral cortex. And she was surprised (no,
stunned
) by Mr. Manning’s answer to that question she’d been too embarrassed to ask Mr. Scully: yes, readers of
Mrs,
the spot does exist—although the pleasure of it, as with his kiss, was sheathed in insatiability. And how did you figure those Egyptian cotton sheets—the twelve hundred thread count once again confounding her idea of their chunkysoled rugby-playing owner. But what she kept returning to (sentimental, childish) was how he tucked her in, taking care to cover her evenly and completely, just as earlier he’d folded his handkerchief, and it smelled the same, the big edition, like fresh laundry and damp leather, like Dan.

W
hen Jean awoke
she was alone. For just a moment, one glorious moment, she thought she was in St. Jacques. She was disoriented by unfamiliar traffic noises and by the strange light, the morning sun filtering in through thin orange curtains like a tangerine dream. And then she sat up. She hadn’t really taken in the upholstered wall behind the bed—was that hessian? A bit seventies, but no doubt that was its point: another design classic. She looked at the time, 8:18. Beside the clock radio, the blue glass ashtray with two butts in it, upright like the legs of a diving duck. One of them was hers. Along with all the rest, that cigarette, which she could still taste, seemed so perfect at the time,
was
perfect at the time, her last bright idea of the evening. And the huge whiskey, a nightcap—or kneecapper, as they called them at home.

Jean stood, gathering the sheet around her, and listened. Not a sound: no one in the bathroom or the kitchen alcove. She was relieved Dan wasn’t there—but where’d he gone? Was that a TV? Something was glowing on the long table, facing her. Jean, winding the loose sheet around her, leaned forward. What
was
that? She stepped off the low bed platform (reminded as she moved of each part of her body entrained during the night) and crossed the polished concrete floor to the
table. It was a computer monitor, as thin in its class as Mr. Scully’s gold watch, the black-and-white screen beaming a message in red letters across the bottom: back soon with panetone, coffee in kitchen.

The image was a photograph, a picture of a sleeping figure, turned away. The artistically arranged sheet reached just below the high hip. Fanned fingertips peeked over the rib cage; a dune rose to the shoulder from the crevice of the waist, head and hair swirled and blurry, like the satellite image of a storm. There were no shadows behind the figure—dozing on a cloud. It looked like an old photograph, but it wasn’t. It was Jean.

She covered her mouth, letting drop part of the sheet. Fully awake now, she wanted urgently to be gone. She gathered her things—dress, tights, bra, and underpants (belated shame as she found
them,
buried deep in her bedsheet toga). No coffee: burdened Jean shuffled into the bathroom and got dressed. She squeezed her eyes shut, not ready for contact with the surprisingly fancy mirror, a movable triptych over the sink, and splashed her face. Listening for Dan through the gentle trickle from the tap, she had an idea.

Quick—she’d find the camera and delete the pictures; then maybe she could figure out how to remove the picture from his computer. Jean returned to the glowing screen, stagily placed in empty space, like an advertisement. But she saw instantly she’d never figure it out—this was a new kind of machine, with no buttons or any kind of keyboard. She couldn’t even see how to turn it on, or rather
off.
Like the bathroom mirror with its wings—like him, Saturday winger, speeding up from out of nowhere through your blind spot—there were Jeans ad infinitum in that computer. Even if she managed to delete this one another would appear in its place, and another and another, reproducing instead of dying, like chopping up an earthworm, all you could do was make more.

She looked over at the bed—the set: that wall fabric, the ideal backdrop for photographs, eating light like velvet. Apart from the fact of it, and the illiterate caption, the picture on the screen wasn’t by any means gross—in fact, it was lovely. There was no point in saying, Oh, what a time for vanity, does your shame know no depths? There it already was, lovely and dangerous—and, like the would-be model Giovana, just waiting to be discovered.

Her eyes swept the room. Hardly any clutter, few objects and fewer books on the cantilevered shelf that floated the length of the room—the camera should be easy to find. At last she spotted it on the floor by the bed, next to an asymmetrical plastic bottle of lubricant, the Astroglide.
Not
a design classic, not now, not ever, Jean thought, unable to believe she was here. A foot above the floor there was a bank of electrical outlets. Jean, downcast, remembered she’d had a good long close-up view of this spot last night; she knew just how the cement met the wall, how the chrome plates over the outlets had uneven gaps between them, how the shiny metal distorted her face like a carnival mirror…

At the time, upended and eyeballing those plug holes, she’d experienced an acute moment of recognition because she was arranged exactly as she’d once seen Giovana, and this familiarity had just made it seem doable, utterly natural and exciting, nothing like a dubious submission her disembodied brain would have to reject. Last night she’d learned such play wasn’t peculiar to the desperate man-toy Giovana as she’d piously,
naïvely
thought; it was the thing people did called sex—almost unrelated to the solemn, face-to-face sacrament of her youthful courtship. So she’d also learned that the unexamined feminism of her generation had in fact enforced bans on a number of things that were pleasurable and therefore basically good, and wasn’t that—in addition to the momentary fun of it—a thrill?

But—oh, God—the license didn’t hold. Jean was ready for shame now; she could feel the floodgates opening. First, however, the memory card. She slid open the camera and unclicked the sliver of plastic. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could do the same with her own memory, just click it out of its slot, gone. Now where was her bag? Hurry, by the front door. Her mac was there too, right where she’d left it, a sorry heap on the floor. With a glance around for any further traces of herself, she opened the door, softly shutting it behind her.

“You’re
not
leaving.” His initial smile (did he think she’d run down to greet him?) turning to childish dismay, the two masks eliding, comedy and tragedy. She met Dan right on his doorstep. He had his key out, and all the other keys on the ring jingled with the promise of doors still unopened. Jean thought for a split second: girls’ doors. Under his arm he had a shopping bag—she saw a milk bottle (another design classic—yes, she got that) and something boxed, the panettone.

“Actually, I am. Sorry, but I really must get going.”

“Not even coffee and a bun? Come on.”

“Not even coffee and a bun.”

“All right. Let me get these inside—I’ll run you home.”

Jean was about to protest—but it was clear from the Sundaymorning stillness that it was Dan or hoofing it, and she remembered what Vic said about the walk to Clerkenwell. Imagine how long it would take her to get home from—where was she?—
Hoxton.
Mark had told her he’d be home for lunch. When was lunch?

“Okay,” she said softly, trying to smile. She was utterly parched—her throat, her skin, her stinging eyes. Where was the rain
now
?

Dan took the stairs four at a time. Standing in the street, she gulped the cool air and, arms crossed, looked down at her boots, ruined and then ruined again, as she deserved. The left foot was many shades darker than the right, the tarry color of unhealthy feces, with ugly scalloped white stains seeping up from the sole. Maybe, she thought, she could save them by stepping into another puddle, this time with the right foot. Or would it have to be the same puddle—with its particular south-of-the-river salt-streaked grime? Quididdity, she thought, a wave of grief hitting her now. She could hear Dan on the stairs—good. But his descent was much slower, outrageously slow, she thought, preparing to bolt, and when he appeared she saw why: he was carrying a giant white mug of hot coffee.

“I hate that I don’t even know if you take sugar,” he said, handing her the cup.

“I’m sure it’s fine, that’s great,” Jean said, not telling him, taking the vase-size cylinder in both hands.

Settled in the car, she took a few sips, and realized she should share. Was that what he meant by not bringing a cup for himself? She passed it, sloshing a little into the gearbox, but he refused, occupied as he was with violent downshifting (Jean sensed an ego impeding legitimate use of the brakes). He was strikingly fresh faced, but the driving was definitely tired.

London looked evacuated. Seemed unnecessary, this back route Dan had chosen, snaking through narrow streets. Habit, she supposed, and a desire to show the knowledge. As if she hadn’t seen enough of that, Dan’s knowledge. Jean looked resolutely out the window. The knowledge: she thought as they bumped along a cobbled mews she hadn’t known existed, dribbling coffee onto her conveniently brown dress, Dan could certainly pass an exam covering the A to Z of her body, the roundabouts and closes, the bridges and embankments, the lay-bys and flyovers, the canals and culs-de-sac, no quarter unmapped. Come to think of it, there was a kind of practiced feel to his itinerary, as if he was moving, in considered sequence,
through an entire repertoire. A great performance, Jean would give him that. A great
service.

They weren’t talking and that seemed all right. Throughout the drive, he’d been smiling. Save the satisfaction, she thought. Just look at him reviewing his latest coup. Jean was not going to do any more reviewing in this car. And possibly nowhere else either.

“You are wonderful,” he said into the silence, keeping his eyes on the road. “And a great beauty.”

“Dan,” she said, emboldened, thinking it concession enough that she’d used his name. “That picture. You can’t keep it on your screen.”

“Can’t I?” He glanced at her, stung looking, disappointed, she supposed, that this was all she had to say about his wee surprise, his continuing praise. “Didn’t you like it? You look so lovely. I was going to make you a proper print, on good acidfree rag. Forty-six by sixty—matte, I thought. Gorgeous.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it. Or that I wouldn’t like a print: I don’t want there to
be
a print. I want you to wipe it.” Jean was speaking slowly and deliberately, as if she was talking someone down from a roof.

“I didn’t shoot your face.”

Jean blushed deeply. She was going to bathe in her shame; she
wanted
to, forever. “That was thoughtful of you, yes.”

“You could be anyone.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I mean the photograph—it could be anyone, from any time, that’s what’s so good. It could be anyone. Everywoman. Dreamwoman.”

“I know what you mean, Dan.” Jean was patient—she hadn’t praised him and she understood he wanted praise, just as he praised her. “It is pretty. And yes, it could be anyone. Only it’s not anyone. It’s me, Dan. It’s
me.
” She managed a dry little smile. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Don’t insist. “Look, um,” She started, no idea where she was headed. She wanted to be clear: that was
it.
Her tone was serious. “It was great—amazing.
Thank
you. Really.” Did that sound final at all? “I need to get some milk. Why don’t you drop me there, at the newsagents.”

They were just two blocks from the house. Dan obediently and smoothly pulled over. He turned to her and put his hand on her knee. He was going to let her do the talking.

“I guess this is good-bye,” she said. “Oh and uh, I didn’t mention the movie to Mark. Just so you know.”

“Don’t worry. I understand,” he said, making full eye contact, smiling again, confident, wanting to inspire confidence. Just like he must have looked when he first appeared in the office, asking about a job. She could see why Mark hired him, that healthy black hair gushing from his brow. He didn’t have a moment’s trouble looking himself in the eye this morning, she thought. She handed him back the huge cup, smiling more easily now that she was almost free. Dan leaned over and gave her a bright daytime kiss on the corner of her mouth, but not insultingly, as if they hadn’t done what they did. Good. He got the message.

She slipped out and shut the door behind her. When she bent down, he was leaning toward her, his arm hooked around the passenger headrest as if he’d already found a new date. Frowning and smiling at the same time, she gave him the briefest of waves and stepped onto the sidewalk, backing away before he could say anything more. As she walked down the street, she glanced behind her, but he was already gone.

Albert Street, 10:01. Jean, exhausted, hungover, and aching everywhere, headed upstairs to run the bath, and then straight back down again to put the milk away. She saw the machine blinking red: eight messages. Probably all Mark, thinking: Where the hell is she? Or maybe the police, asking her to look in at the station and help with their inquiries. Maybe Vic—no nap yet. Jean filled the coffee machine, right up to the six-cup level, not even bothering to take off her mac. She felt in the pocket for the memory card.

Mark’s digital camera—it was by the front door where he’d been recharging it and then, along with his phone, he’d forgotten to take it with him. He was in a rush, all right, she thought. Was that really only the day before yesterday? Jean could hardly credit it, mounting the stairs slower this time, pulling herself up along the banister. She shut off the bath and returned to the kitchen with the camera. The slot for the memory card was empty: proof enough to Jean that he was hiding it. First, she poured herself a cup of coffee and hit the play button on the message machine.

Message one. 6:22 pee-em!
Vikram. For a sweat-inducing moment she remembered that he had a key to this house. Next she heard the chaotic Maya, who’d missed the train. Then Mark, checking in: “Hello, darling! I can hardly believe I’m still here. Who are these people? Who am I? I’ll try you later. Bye! Bye.”

But it was her father’s voice that dealt her the slap of reality. “Hello, dear. It’s Dad, and it’s pretty late. I hope if you’re not answering you’re out on the town. Listen, sweetheart, give the old man a call, will you? I’ve got some news. Nothing to worry about. Love from Dad.”

She replayed the message, listening for crisis. She looked at the wall clock: much too early to call New York. She felt panic rising to her throat. I’ve been unfaithful and killed my father. The next call was Vic’s. Good girl. And then, not to be left out, Phyllis. “Hi, hon. Listen, could you call me back? Something I want to discuss. Not to worry. Love to Mark and my Vicky. Bye, honey. This is Phyllis.”

This is Phyllis. As if Jean might not know that. What was going on? She thought about those ministrokes her mother had told her about in St. Jacques and wondered if it had been strictly necessary to tell Dan about the biopsy—well, there was nothing strictly necessary about last night, but for some reason she regretted this intimacy as much as all the rest. She had not yet experimented with
not
regretting anything. Saving that for the bath. Another call, a hang up, and then Mark again, Saturday 11:48 p.m.