Song of the Damned Read online

  At some point her own nightgown was also discarded, after which came a series of caresses, starting with gentle ones, then increasing in intensity and urgency. Chimaera was murmuring something about crescendos and accelerando, which sounded romantic and passionate, but which did not tell Gina a great deal about whether she was doing the right things by way of response. It was difficult to know what you should touch and what you should not, and whether you should move or remain still. Fortunately, Chimaera did not seem to expect her to do very much at all, and it began to seem that love-making was a slightly confused and rather frantic activity, involving a good deal of pushing and encouragement about relaxing from Chimaera, and then a whooshing rush of something giving way which brought a swift, secret pain, and was followed by a pounding thrusting into the most secret part of Gina’s body. By this time Chimaera was gasping and crying out, causing Gina to panic again in case anyone heard him shouting things like, ‘Mio Dio, io vengo.’ And, ‘Sto esplodendo.’ She did not like to ask him to be quieter, however.

  Then he suddenly drove frantically against her, which made her wince, gave the loudest cry yet, then pulled back from her, almost as if something had scalded him, and fell against her shoulder. This, it appeared, concluded things. Chimaera lay against her shoulder, panting and gasping, his hair silky against her bare shoulders. This felt good. It also meant he was no longer breathing the scent into her face.

  He lifted himself on one elbow and looked down at her, smiling. Gina hoped she might look like a painting of one of those semi-clad ladies reclining on a couch, love-flushed and slumberous, dark hair spread picturesquely over the pillows. There had been one in father’s library until mother pronounced it improper and consigned it to somebody’s dower house where it would not be seen.

  ‘The cabaletta, it was too sudden, too soon for you?’ said Chimaera, a tiny frown creasing his brow. ‘But it was because I am so much overwhelmed with the passion, you understand.’

  Gina had no idea what he meant, but she vaguely recalled that cabaletta was the concluding, very rapid, part of an operatic aria. Since he seemed anxious, she said, ‘Oh no, not in the least.’

  He beamed at her. ‘You are a delight,’ he said. ‘And next time we shall do even better.’ He got out of the bed, regained the brocade robe, and went from the room. Gina noticed with relief that he paused in the open doorway, looking both ways along the corridor to make sure no one was prowling around before going out.

  It was certainly good to know that she had actually done the forbidden bedroom thing – the act about which people wrote magical poetry and composed marvellous music, and in whose name they sometimes even died. Tidying the bed before composing herself for sleep, she was determined not to feel a bit let down, or to think that surely there ought to be more to it than this.

  Probably it did not matter that there was an uncomfortable patch of wet stickiness between her thighs, and that it had dripped down onto the sheets. She did not know if it had come from him or from her, and it had seemed rude to try to do anything about it while he was still lying half on top of her. She would try to mop it up with a handkerchief, and hope the housemaid did not notice in the morning.

  Chimaera had enjoyed making his stealthy way through the darkened Chandos House to the bedchamber of the bella Gina, so dainty and sweet, like a little porcelain doll.

  It had been a gratifyingly theatrical thing to do; it pleased his thespian soul, and it made him feel as if he had stepped into a scene from the commedia dell’arte – Harlequin making a prancing, goatish way to Columbine’s bedchamber, Scaramouche serenading Isabella. Not that Chimaera would be goatish – he had often been described as remarkably graceful, in fact – but he could probably permit himself a brief prance.

  He did not intend to live in Chandos House for very long, but while he was here he would make sure he did not risk provoking the ire of Sir John Chandos, who was wealthy and powerful. And a man was entitled to look after an only daughter, he supposed. A priest, also, was entitled to guard the morals of his flock, and Chimaera had already noticed Father Joachim’s watchful eye on him. But then Father Joachim was apparently partly French, so allowances would have to be made, what with all the trouble presently going on in that country. Barbaric happenings, which were enough to make a man feel shudderingly ill.

  And for the moment Chandos House was pleasant enough, and John Chandos and the whey-faced priest could be kept at bay. Gina was entrancing. A total innocent, of course, and it was very reprehensible to have seduced her, but Chimaera was a passionate man and he could not fight his emotions. The seduction had gone very well, and he had prepared a few odds and ends of poetry to quote to her. It was always a good idea to have such things to hand on these occasions, and it was not necessary to know the entire sonnet or poem, which was fortunate, because Chimaera’s memory for such things was not always reliable. Once – he thought it was when he had been with Juliette, unless it had been Renata – he had completely dried halfway through a passionate speech, and had been laughed at with the utmost heartlessness. It had wounded his vanity and made it impossible for him to perform as he would have wished; well, it had made it impossible for him to perform at all that night, in fact. Juliette – yes, it had been Juliette, he was sure of it now – had called him a very hurtful name as a result.

  As Chimaera got back into his own bed, he thought it was a pity that there had been that slightly brisk culmination to the very pleasant interlude with Gina Chandos this evening. But he found it was often the case, and a man was at the mercy of his emotions. He would not waste any time worrying about it.

  Cresacre might be small and remote, but it was several thousand miles away from footling villainous persons who had chased him from the theatre, brandishing stage daggers, and shouting insults about unprincipled seducers of people’s sisters and wives and daughters, and shrieking to the world that Cesare Chimaera was no better than a three-inch fool who often could not fly his flag above half-mast.

  Remembering all this, Chimaera was disposed to like Chandos House and Cresacre’s rural remoteness. When you lived in cities for so long, you forgot about places like this.

  Diary entry, 1790s

  When you have lived outside of the world for so long, you forget that places like this exist.

  I am trying very hard not to listen to the echoes, though, for in this grim old prison house, they would be terrible things to hear. But I cannot help being aware that this is a place where many people have awaited an inevitable and a brutal death – brave souls, prepared to die fighting for justice and against injustice, speaking out with passion to defend their beliefs. They faced their deaths unflinchingly – or did they? Several times I have wondered whether, if I were to press my ear to the stones of these walls, I would hear the echoes more clearly, and whether they might be cries not of bravery and defiance, but of despair – of people whose courage deserted them at the end, and pleaded for their lives.

  What is even stranger, though, is that I believe I am also picking up echoes of my own past. Does that mean I am remembering my grandmother’s tales about this place? Might it even mean I am sensing my death – that some instinct is making me look back on my life and bid farewell to it? No. I would rather return to my mad plan of bartering with one of the turnkeys.

  The candle is guttering and I cannot write much more tonight. But as the shadows strengthen, so do the doubts as to whether my plan is possible or advisable or, indeed, likely to succeed. There’s also the question of whether I can actually remember how to indicate that kind of interest – or invitation – to a man. It has been so long …

  It feels as if it was in another life – a life I have tried to forget – that I experienced that instant understanding and recognition. The poets write and the music-makers sing and the painters portray love at first sight. Cynics scoff, but it happened to me. From ‘our first strange and fatal interview …’ How does the rest of Donne’s poem go? ‘By all desires which thereof did ensue …’

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nbsp; Those desires ensued in an inevitable culmination very soon after he and I met. It was the sweetest sin I have ever committed. That candlelit night in the large, soft bed … That was the first time. There were others, of course. A rainstorm and the two of us sheltering in a deserted cottage, our clothes drenched and clinging to our bodies – both of us clinging to one another … And there was a sunlit afternoon in the old orchard … If I close my eyes I can see how the dappled sunlight came through the trees that day, and I can taste his mouth – warm and soft and infinitely loving, scented with the apples we had taken from the trees and eaten as we walked between them. After that time there were grass stains on my skirt, and I had to think of a story to explain how they came to be there. Lies on top of that other sin … The tally of my sins is really quite high.

  It’s infinitely sweet to look back on those memories now, though.

  This morning I was tempted to tear out the page on which I had set down those shameful, wonderful memories, and burn it in the candle flame tonight. But I shall not. If anyone were to try to read it – if anyone cared enough to do so – it no longer matters who knows what I did all those years ago. But those events that came later – ah, yes, they must remain buried deep for as long as I live.

  Now that it is morning, I am facing my fears. I knew – of course I knew – that coming to France would be dangerous. I did not know, though, that we would find such turmoil and intolerance.

  I knew about the decadence and the selfish extravagance of the Bourbon royal family, but I did not know the extent to which the Catholic Church was being subordinated and suppressed here – or that much of their land has been confiscated, and that monastic vows have been banned. Members of the clergy– monks and priests and nuns – are being forced to take the oath of allegiance, and if they refuse …

  If they present me with their oath, what shall I do?

  FOUR

  ‘When you live in London,’ said Phin, as they drove through villages, and on towards the market town of Cresacre itself, ‘you forget about places like this. Villages and farms and fields. I’m glad I came. Is that the school over there?’

  ‘Yes, it’s that smudge on the horizon. You can just make out the high gates from here. I don’t know if they were left over from when the place was a convent, but they were certainly made use of in my day to keep the wayward maidens safely cloistered. Not that they did,’ said Arabella. ‘We used to climb over them at weekends, and sneak out to the fleshpots of the Black Boar, and Saturday night discos. You bundled your disco outfit into your gym bag, hoicked it over the wall, and got changed in the bus shelter.’

  ‘All good fifth-form stuff.’

  ‘Well, it was hardly Enid Blyton, but it wasn’t too outrageously sinful either, although there was one girl in my year who vanished for at least two long weekends. The police were called in and searches were made, but she turned up each time. After the second time, the police got a bit annoyed.’

  ‘Did Miss Madeley know about the fleshpots of the Black Boar and all the rest of it?’

  ‘I suspect so. She was very severe on the girl who went off on her own – actually I think she ended up under threat of expulsion. On the whole, though, providing nobody came home stoned on booze or drugs, or got pregnant or caught some frightful antisocial disease, Hats was actually quite tolerant. On Sundays we had to troop primly to church, which wasn’t as grim as it might have been, on account of being able to eye the sons of local farmers and landowners. You wouldn’t believe the assignations that got made in the vestry or the organ loft.’

  ‘Oh, yes I would,’ said Phin, grinning.

  ‘It sounds very demure and Jane Austen, doesn’t it, but it wasn’t so bad.’

  ‘I’ll bet you made sure it wasn’t. Is this the church of the organ-loft-assignation fame?’ said Phin, as a small church with a broach spire and an old lychgate came into view on their right.

  ‘The very one. D’you want to have a quick look round now? We aren’t expected at the school until late afternoon, and we said we’d wander amidst gravestones like refugees from an elegy, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes, let’s take a look now,’ said Phin, pleased at the suggestion, and pulling into the side of the road.

  St Chad’s Church was cool and dim, and there was a faint scent of old wood, polish, and damp. There were stone floors, rows of pews, several stained-glass windows, dimmed with age, and three or four glum stone effigies that stared with sightless disapproval upon the world.

  ‘That brass plaque is dedicated to the famous Tulliver,’ said Arabella.

  ‘The one whose scholarship is causing all this trouble?’

  ‘Yes. He had rather advanced ideas about education for his time. He thought all children should be given the chance to learn. All very worthy. As a matter of fact, I was a Tulliver scholar.’ She glanced at him with a hint of defiance, as if she felt it incumbent on her to establish that she had not been a privileged rich pupil of privileged rich parents.

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Oh, I only got it because I wore very solemn spectacles for the exam and pinned my hair up so I looked scholarly and earnest,’ said Arabella. ‘You do know I’m not in the least scholarly or earnest, don’t you?’

  She moved away before Phin could answer, and he continued his journey of exploration. St Chad’s was traditional and conventional, exactly what might be expected from an old church on the outskirts of a cluster of villages and market towns, and it all pleased Phin greatly. There was a poster advertising a Bach recital in a couple of days’ time, and he thought he would suggest to Arabella that they stay on for that. He walked slowly around, interested in inscriptions on wall panels, many of which commemorated members of a family called Chandos.

  As he walked back down the central nave towards the partly open door, sunlight filtered through a stained-glass window, and it was as if the vivid colours had suddenly bled into the mellow golden sunshine. Phin stopped, his eyes on the oak of the door. The blurred crimson and purple and indigo shards lay across the carved figures, making them look eerily alive, and as the carving came into sharp clarity, the old church seemed to blur, its outlines almost shivering. The air seemed to thrum faintly, as if a beseeching echo lingered.

  Phin took a deep breath, then went firmly past the glowing reflections of the window. The colours faded, and the door was just a thick slab of carved wood, softly lit by ordinary late-afternoon sunlight. But the carving on its surface …

  He knelt down to examine the carving more closely. Arabella’s voice, seeming to come from a long way off, said, ‘Phin? Is something wrong?’

  It took a massive effort to pull his mind back to his surroundings, but Phin heard himself saying, in a relatively normal voice, ‘No, nothing’s wrong at all.’ He stood up, brushing down his jeans. All around him the church was quiet and dim. Or was it so quiet?

  ‘It’s shockingly dusty in here, isn’t it?’ said Arabella. Phin glanced at her, and thought she was looking at him a bit quizzically. But she only said, ‘Still, as long as it isn’t bone-dust remnants from some grisly underground tomb, a few sprinklings don’t matter. What’s that line about antique footprints in the dust of time – I expect I’ve got that wrong, though. Let’s check in at the Black Boar, shall we, then head out to the groves of academe.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Phin. ‘Yes, let’s go – it’s quite cold in here, isn’t it?’

  As they walked out into the afternoon sunlight, he pushed away the impression that the faint echo followed him.

  Phin liked the Black Boar. It had low ceilings and beams, and bowls of bronze chrysanthemums on the reception desk. The floors all creaked and there was a faint, pleasing scent of old timbers and wood smoke.

  ‘It’s very old,’ said Arabella, as Phin carried her case into her bedroom and set it down. ‘But they haven’t chintzed it up too much.’ She stepped out of her shoes, leaving them by the door, which was a habit with her. Phin had already twice tripped over a pair of boots left askew in
side the front door of her Pimlico flat.

  ‘The car park down there was once the yard they used for mail coaches,’ she said, kneeling on the window seat and looking down. ‘You can still see the outline of the entrance where the coaches used to drive in. I’ve been trying to find a link between this place and the school. I couldn’t find a link to the convent era, of course, because the nuns wouldn’t have been likely to nip down to the taproom to get a jug of beer, or munch pork scratchings while they watched the darts tournament, would they? Still, it’s nice to be staying here.’ She turned to look at him. Her hair, which she had tied back for the journey, was escaping its clips, and Phin reached out and wound one of the tendrils around his fingers. It felt like silk.

  ‘You have nice hands,’ said Arabella, softly. She put up one of her own hands, curving it around Phin’s fingers

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes, and—’

  ‘And,’ said Phin, regretfully releasing Arabella’s hand and the strand of hair, ‘there’s only half an hour before we’re due at the school, and I suppose I should wash off that antique dust from the church beforehand.’

  ‘I suppose you should. Pity.’ Arabella considered her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. ‘Will I look all right for Hats Madeley in that pinstripe suit I packed? I do want to look businesslike.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think you could get much more businesslike than navy pinstripe,’ said Phin.

  ‘I don’t want to look boring. What are you laughing at?’

  ‘The idea of you ever being boring.’

  The sartorial aspect of the forthcoming meeting had not occurred to Phin, but now that it had been mentioned, he thought he could stay in the brown cord jacket he had worn for travelling, but that he had better change the jeans for plain trousers, because it felt wrong to be entering a headteacher’s lair wearing denim.