Midmorning, Catherine had one of her seizures. The word “seizure” always seems too dire, with images of flailing and tongue swallowing. Catherine’s episodes are of a different order, albeit threatening in their own way. She has what are called complex partial seizures, like petit mals, in that she simply appears to cross over into some other mind space, entranced, as it were. But her episodes last a little longer than is usual, and there is often some sort of accompanying automatism, like head or hand movements tracing invisible figures in the air.
I first heard about the origin of the seizures from Catherine’s hubby, Richard, very early on, when the architectural firm I work for loaned me to his archaeological expeditions around the Aegean. He broached the subject because he didn’t want me to be taken unawares, and really, if he hadn’t clued me in, I doubt I would have figured it out for a while. Catherine’s seizures are rarely intrusive, especially to the unsuspecting. Of course, once you know about them, once you know Catherine, the events do play upon the mind.
Anyway, Richard told me that she didn’t always have the seizures, that they began after she fell out of a window at university. Accident, push, drugs, suicide blunder? Possibly. Richard couldn’t say and Catherine wouldn’t even if she remembered, which I’m not sure she does. She went to hospital with a broken arm and a concussion. Arm healed, head less so. The spells began a few months after. Tragic, of course, in many ways. She can’t drive a car or ride a horse. May be why they never had children. Still, Catherine is not in spirit or look or intent much of an invalid type, and the affliction does give her a certain mystery; her face, those indigo eyes, are never more lovely than when coming back to this world after drifting away.
Of course, the fall, hospital, healing, and a certain reevaluation of everything she had known or desired—all of that proved a felix culpa for old Richard. I believe she was taking one of his undergraduate lectures at the time and he took a special interest in her circumstances. Clever that, as she comes from solid old money, a baronetcy or some such passed among uncles, a catacomb of connections in London and the South. Not that Richard the Wise needed her backing; no, she was more like the perfect pudding to sweeten his bountiful feast of a life. Richard seduced her family, commandeered the management of her convalescence, and then somehow or other persuaded Catherine that marrying him freed her forever from those very aspects of family she most feared. Wise, wizen, wizarding Richard. How I adore and loathe him. Especially now, especially when, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the one responsible for this current flurry of seizures.
Ags (Richard’s niece and Catherine’s surrogate child) and I believe that tensions, emotional excesses, and faulty schedules leave Catherine vulnerable to episodes. And Richard has been full of surprises lately, unsettling everyone. Cat must see this. How can she not blame Richard as I do? Of course, she would never admit to it even if she did. The subject of her seizures is strictly off limits. She is the dearest, sweetest soul in the world, but mention her seizures—even after you’ve been sitting next to her when she’s “gone,” silent, eyelids fluttering like insect wings, a hand occasionally reaching through for some invisible goblet—and she will present you with a deliberate vacancy that makes the seizures seem all light and lovely. So we, Ags and I, don’t discuss them with her, but we do, naturally, talk about them between ourselves. The subject is all porridgey for Ags and me, homey and warm and thick, much to our liking.
Recently, Catherine mentioned them, albeit tangentially. It was a few months back, during a uni visit not unlike the one we’re on now, Catherine and Ags and me, only up to Cambridge. We were looking for lunch and turned off the M11 to take the back road through Whittlesford and came across a moldy old pub called The Bees in the Wall. Out of the blue, Catherine says with a little laugh, “Bees in the Wall? Yes, that’s it. Little buzzing Corybantes, trapped and dancing in the wall, with me. Nothing else, only the buzzing bees.” We knew instantly that she was talking about the seizures.
Well, Ags and I just stayed mum a while, as you can imagine, waiting for more. But no, that was it. I would have been punished for days if I’d dared beyond that, but not Ags. Wonder of wonders, little Ags. She just asked straight out, “Angry bees or silly bees, Cat?” To which Catherine replied, “They’re bees, darling. One can hardly say.”
So earlier today, midmorning, while Ags and I were loading the car, Catherine had one of her little seizures, one of her Bees-in-the-Wall moments. She sat quietly in the back of the car, staring at a pot of flowers near the drive, a finger pointing aimlessly. Ags and I noted it in a shared glance and let it go.
We’re headed out to visit Maud MacLeod, the Oxford classicist. Richard, just back from his dig site in Turkey, has a number of ancient Greek inscriptions he wants Maud to analyze, so he’s sent us all off to make nice. Of course, we will be nice, terribly nice, even though Ags can’t stand the way Maud condescends, and I can’t stand speaking for Richard, and Catherine can’t … Well, Catherine can’t help enjoying herself in general and never more so than when playing ambassador for her brilliant Sir Richard. Can’t be helped, really. I suppose we all enjoy our role in his whirl of worlds: Oxbridge business, museum business, archaeological business, adventuring in new and lost civilizations business. Or we did, until Richard began stirring the pot.
I’m not really sure I should use Catherine’s enjoyments as a barometer these days. Maybe I should use my own. Or better yet, little Ags’s; she’s so less likeable than Catherine and can be stunningly impolite and impolitic, which is why we love her desperately. She’s a bit of a gremlin, our Ags, an angel-faced, perfectly poised, and poisonous gremlin. Only a fool would fail to fathom her inherent and risky worth. She’s such a wonderful balance to Catherine’s serene bliss. Much, I suppose, as Richard’s carnival-barker allure is a balance to my own well-schooled reticence. And the four of us together are, were, a perfect balance of humors, which is probably why the recent shift in Richard’s view of us—that is to say, me—is so disturbing. It’s probably why I still, oddest of odds, find I wish Richard was with us. Absolute madness, I know. Especially now. But I miss what was before, when we were in such perfect harmony. One doesn’t quite know how to move forward.
There is a suggestion from Maud that we play bridge, but Catherine doesn’t think she could possibly move from her comfy club chair. I sit in the matching chair and agree with her by raising the half-empty bottle of port I’ve brought Maud as a present.
“Well, Agnes,” Maud announces, “I suggest that we not follow the example of those two and that you and I play a hand or two of gin rummy. Much better for the digestion than inaction or drunkenness.”
Agnes makes a face and sits at the table with Maud.
“Cheer up, Aggie,” Catherine says softly. “Think of this as holiday. We’ll be back to sorting through Richard’s old bricks and broken pottery soon enough.”
Agnes gives in, and Maud rattles away about the lack of funding for the arts and the corporate-sponsored morass of upstart science types. Agnes is making faces at her the while, without even the hope of being detected.
“Gin,” Agnes says in short order, laying her fan of cards with a snap upon the table and smiling triumphantly.
“Oh bother, and I had such great tendencies still in my hand,” Maud moans as she shuffles and redeals the cards.
I am having a better time than I’d expected. With Richard not around, Maud doesn’t bother talking “shop.” Once Catherine and I explain the general outline of Richard’s new finds, Maud tries to hide her pleasure in such arch remarks as, “Probably jumping the line” and “highly suspect” and “I’ll be the judge,” etc., but then she glows like a just-plucked ingénue and checks her calendar for the earliest break when she can hunker down with Richard and his newfound treasures. After that, I’m sure she thinks, why talk to the toadies when she would soon enough talk to King Richard, and so the evening falls into a lovely and unexpected sort of enchantment, full of glittering chitchat, gossip, minor wit.
Of course, this bit of luck is further fed by Maud’s always-excellent table. She’s a brilliant old bird, is Maud, and smart enough to know her limits. The meal was brought in from a renowned gastropub around the corner, really excellent jugged hare. I particularly appreciated the sitting arrangement at table: Maud and Agnes at the ends and Catherine and I in the middle, where I was free to, unable really not to, stare. Catherine was exquisite in the candlelight; the haunted woman who had slept most of the way from London was gone, replaced by the spry, gossipy Catherine. I love that Catherine, but then I love all the Catherines: saint, sinner, invalid, nurse, artist, cheat, wife, lover, sister, enemy, soldier fellow. I kept her feet trapped between my outstretched legs throughout dinner, enjoying the feel of her bony ankles against my calves as she struggled to find a more comfortable position.
Now we’re settled in Maud’s little library. Card table at one end and French doors to the garden wide open at the other. The smells of roses and lilacs and green dampness drift in. We are cozy and refreshed, stimulated, like the candles lit around the room, a score at least of tall, cream-colored tapers that dance and quiver, burn too bright.
While Ags and Maud play cards, Catherine and I relax in our respective club chairs, sharing the same ottoman. I can easily tap the bottom of her foot with the tip of my toe. I do. She breaks the rhythm of her talk, smiles but doesn’t look at me. I note her toes wiggling inside her shoes. Her fingers dance lightly over the arm of her chair. My attention pleases her. I please her. I know so many ways and plan to discover even more. Am I to credit Richard for this newfound carnal intensity or curse him?
I always assumed that Richard knew about our affair and didn’t mind. Why, it’s been going on for two years now, and the three of us, four once Ags came to stay, have gone on, too—chummy, social, of a kind. So why change things now?
Only a week ago, less than a full week really, just before Catherine fell asleep, Richard—Richard, in his typical all-knowing, intensely ephemeral but persuasive manner—had gone to her room for a talk, a bit of advice or forewarning that her “friendship” with me might need reevaluation, that she might want to extricate herself from my “influence.” Then he spun a web of near-scandal, improprieties, shady dealings, with me, ME, as the spider at the center. Why that particular tack? Why not simply say, “I know, I’ve always known, but I want it to end now.” Why try to destroy my reputation along with the affair? I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive him, to even talk to him, let alone be civil. I must, though. I must find a way to deal with Richard as if nothing had happened or, more properly perhaps, as if Catherine had dropped me.
That was the plan Catherine and I hit upon the night before our trip to Maud’s: to pretend that a break had been made, to make a secret of an affair that had always been, well, more of an artful understanding. I thought, at first, that I should act angry and belligerent, but Catherine suggested instead that sad, melancholy, broken, ever-so-slightly bitter might prove a better face. Might even make Richard feel a little bad. I’d like that. Besides, wouldn’t that have been my reaction if Catherine had followed Richard’s heart instead of her own? How would I really have reacted? I’m grateful not to know. And I vow to show Catherine the whole of my gratitude, to make her grateful in turn, or at least reassured of her decision. After all, haven’t I in a sense won the war? Catherine isn’t exactly choosing me over Richard, but she is choosing me over Richard’s pleasure. We aren’t finished, just shifting our stance. That thought modifies my anger some.
Still, there is something restless, unsatisfying, about a victory unnamed. Perhaps I’ll find a way to keep Richard guessing. Do I dare? Perhaps better to convert any residual anger into desire, a simple alchemy of the mind, and give it as a present to Catherine. Already, I feel the mist beginning to spread over my body, over the whole of Maud’s little house, a scintillating, stimulating mist. I should, to be sensible, try to straighten up, fly right, rejoin the conversation, but I am feeling too deliciously sexed and surly.
Maud and Agnes are finishing another round of cards, while Maud regales Catherine with details of a recent nine-course luncheon she attended with some ridiculous American director who was wining and dining the college uppercrusties in the hope of filming a slasher film on campus. Catherine appears to be listening intently, or perhaps not at all. She is staring heavy-eyed at the stars and candlelight reflected in the garden doors, smiling her odd smile.
“Your turn Agnes. What, Catherine dear, are you gawking at?” Maud asks, irritated at having to interrupt her bit of gossip to reclaim Catherine’s attention.
I lean in quickly to check.
“Cat,” I whisper.
Damn, she’s gone again.
“Shouldn’t we do something?”
Maud’s flat face is plaintive, her voice full of urgency. She can’t take her eyes off the motionless Catherine.
“I’ve never seen anyone like this. And you call this a ‘seizure?’ I thought seizures were falling down and convulsing and tongue swallowing and such.”
“More the effect of time with you,” Agnes mumbles.
“No,” I insist. “She’ll come ’round shortly.”
“What do you suppose she’s thinking?” Maud asks, automatically picking up the cards Agnes has dealt her.
“I’m not sure that she thinks at all,” I offer as I finish off the contents of my glass.
“But I’ve known Richard for years.”
“Well, no, it’s perhaps a bit of a family secret,” I say smugly. “It’s not terribly common when she’s…rested. Or rarely so pronounced. She’s just tired, that’s all. That’s what brings it on: being tired or stressed or hurried about.”
“Nearly a minute, I’m sure. Perhaps you should walk in front of her,” Maud suggests, motioning with her hand. “See if she registers anything.”
“Stop talking about her,” Agnes says softly.
“What if she’s like that all night. What will we do?”
“She won’t be. That’s not how it works,” I reply.
“But…” Maud stammers and stops herself. “Look, she’s moving!”
Catherine is still staring at the French doors, but now one of her hands is floating above the arm of her chair. Her other hand still holds the glass of port she was sipping when her mind slipped away.
“Leave her be. Stop staring. Stop talking about her,” Agnes implores a little louder.
“What is she staring at? What does she see?” Maud asks me.
“Nothing. Nothing. She’s alright.”
I rise from my chair, turning my back on Catherine, stretching my legs, swaying a little as I move. I reach down to pick up the bottle of port for a refill and find I’ve already finished it.
“How odd,” Maud moans on. “I’d heard of such things, of course, but I’ve never witnessed…How very odd. Absolutely amazing.”
Maud is still humming the last syllable, gazing absently at the cards in her hand, when Agnes swings at her, scattering the cards over the surface of the table.
“Good god, girl,” Maud shouts, standing up. “What a rude, intolerant thing you are. All night you’ve been leering and snarling like some bad-mannered terrier, and now this. What could you possibly mean? What is wrong with you?”
“I told you to stop talking about her. I told you twice to stop. How rude of you!”
“Robin!” Maud turns away, bewildered. “What is wrong here?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Behave, Agnes, for Christ’s sake.”
“Should we send a message to Richard?” Maud asks.
“Richard?” I hear myself bellow with a choked laugh, stumbling around my chair. “Hell no. He’s the one who sent her off. Changing the rules in midstream. No. There’s nothing Richard can do for her that I can’t, that I probably don’t already do, and far better to be sure.”
“Oh,” Maud says. “Oh.”
“‘Oh’ indeed,” I reply, resting my hip against the curve of Catherine’s chair and carefully prying the glass of port from her hand.
“Here, love, give it to Robby.”
I know I am smiling a glazed, drunken smile, a completely inappropriate leer, but I seem unable to stop, running my fingers up Catherine’s neck and out through the curls of her thick, dark hair. I am possessed by my claim of possession.
Catherine abruptly stands up, turns toward the open French doors, and starts to walk.
“Why, she’s going out to the veranda!” Maud gasps. “Do something. Stop her.”
“Quick, Robin, stand in front of the doors,” Agnes says. “She’s not headed outside. She’s aiming for the reflection in the panes.”
I jump over Catherine’s chair, race ahead to block her view. She stops, returns to her seat, smiles her stuck smile.
“Christ,” Maud laughs, sinking into her chair. She looks as if she might have more to say but glances at Agnes and changes her mind.
I suddenly sense a ruin that I cannot yet fathom.
“Maybe we should begin gathering ourselves up, Ags,” I hear myself say. I try to sound brave, but find that I am shaken to the core. Two years of carefully walking the rim of our little labyrinth of loyalty and longing, only for me to leap into the unknown.
But it isn’t me. It isn’t just me. There are others. Like Richard, who asked me to do his bidding today with Maud. And there’s Catherine herself. Does she keep me around as an act of love or defiance? If I’ve misbehaved, it’s because I’ve felt a little bruised, as if tripped and shoved, mangled and spit out.
And horrible Maud, with her depths of dreariness. She’s a swinging mallet all on her own. Even little Agnes is a threat, a combatant, over at the table, watching, waiting to strike. What in the world does she really see?
I don’t know why, but I blame them all. I do. Do I? I’m not so sure of much at the moment, for there is this bewildering buzz in my head and heart. I feel claustrophobic and slightly lost, as if stiles over familiar walls, fences, hedges have closed to me that were open just moments before. I must move but I cannot move.
“A nine-course lunch?” Catherine says with a bit of a yawn, sitting up suddenly, dewy-eyed, her arms stretching over her head. “My God, such smashing excess. Right over the top.”