CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

In the morning I had several cups of tea, to give me energy and calm me down. The trick was to be as calm as possible. I would act as though everything was normal, all was well, I would be unhurried; I’d do my shopping and visit the post office as usual, so they’d think I was cooperating. I might even seek out Mr. Vitroni and ask about the house, so they’d think I was going along with everything. I would wait until the afternoon, when there were people around. Then I would simply stroll down the hill, carrying my handbag but not my suitcase, and hitch a ride to Rome. I wouldn’t be able to take much with me, but I could get quite a lot into my handbag.

I went through the bureau drawers, deciding what I would have to leave behind. I packed three pairs of underpants. Nightgowns were not necessary; Fraser Buchanan’s black notebook was. The typewriter would have to stay, but Stalked by Love I would take with me.

I picked up the manuscript, intending to roll it into a cylinder for easy packing. Then I sat down and started leafing through it. I saw now what was wrong, what I would have to do. Charlotte would have to go into the maze, there was no way out of it. She’d wanted to go in ever since reaching Redmond Grange, and nothing anyone could say, not all the hair-raising tales of the servants, not all the sneering hints of Felicia had been able to deter her. But her feelings were ambiguous: did the maze mean certain death, or did it contain the answer to a riddle, an answer she must learn in order to live? More important: would she marry Redmond only if she stayed out of the maze, or only if she went in? Possibly she would be able to win his love only by risking her life and allowing him to rescue her. He would unclench the hands from around her throat (whose hands would they be?) and tell her she was a silly little fool, though brave. She would become Mrs. Redmond, the fourth one.

Don’t go into the maze, Charlotte, you’ll be entering at your own risk, I told her. I’ve always got you out of it before but now I’m no longer dependable. She paid no attention to me, she never did; she stood up, put away her embroidery, and prepared to go outside. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, I told her. But I couldn’t stop, I had to see it through to the end. I closed my eyes.…

It was noon when Charlotte entered the maze. She took the precaution of fastening one end of a ball of knitting wool, borrowed from Mrs. Ryerson on the pretext of mending her shawl, at the entrance; she did not intend to lose her way.

The walls of the maze, which were of some prickly evergreen shrub, were indeed sadly overgrown. Surely no one had been here for many years, Charlotte thought, as she pushed her way through the straggling branches, which caught on her gown as if to hold her back. She turned to the left, then to the right, unwinding her ball of wool as she went.

Outside, the sky had been overcast and a cold February wind had been blowing; but here, sheltered by the thick walls of leaves and branches, Charlotte felt quite warm. The sun had come out and the sky was clearing; nearby, a bird sang. She was losing track of time; it seemed as if hours had passed while she walked along the gravel path between the green, thorny walls. Was it her imagination, or had the maze become trimmer; better kept … and flowers had begun to appear. Surely it was too early for flowers. She had an odd sensation, though unseen eyes were watching her. She remembered Mrs. Ryerson’s stories about the Little Folk; then she laughed at herself for giving in, even momentarily, to superstition. It was just an ordinary maze, there was nothing unusual about it. Surely the two previous Lady Redmonds had met their fate in some other way.

She must be getting near the center of the maze. She turned another corner, and sure enough it was there before her, an open graveled oblong with a border of flowers, the daffodils already in bloom. Disappointingly, it was empty. Charlotte peered about looking for some clue to its evil reputation, but there was none. She started to walk back the way she had come. Suddenly it was frightening, she wanted to get out before it was too late. She didn’t want to know any more, she’d been a fool ever to have come here. She began to run, but she made the mistake of trying to wind up the ball of knitting wool as she ran, and her feet became hopelessly entangled. As she fell, iron fingers closed around her throat … she tried to scream, she struggled, her eyes bulged, she looked wildly around for Redmond.

From behind her came a mocking laugh – Felicia’s! “There wasn’t room for both of us,” she said, “one of us had to die.”

Just as Charlotte was sinking into unconsciousness, Felicia was flung aside like a bundle of old clothes, and Charlotte was gazing up into the dark eyes of Redmond. “My darling,” he breathed hoarsely. Strong arms lifted her, his warm lips pressed her own.…

That was the way it was supposed to go, that was the way it had always gone before, but somehow it no longer felt right. I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere; there was something, some fact or clue, that I had overlooked. I would have to walk it through, I would have to find a suitable locale and go through the motions. I thought of the Cardinal’s garden in Tivoli, with its sphinxes and fountains and its many-breasted goddess. That would do, it had a lot of paths. I would go there this afternoon.…

But I was forgetting about the man, my car with its empty tank; I would have to leave the book for later and concentrate on my escape.

This time I really would disappear, without a trace. No one at all would know where I was, not even Sam, not even Arthur. This time I would be free completely; no shreds of the past would cling to me, no clutching fingers. I could do anything I wanted, I could be a hostess in a bar, I could return to Toronto and give body rubs, maybe that was what I should have done. Or I could merge into Italy, marry a vegetable man: we’d live in a little stone cottage, I’d have babies and fatten up, we’d eat steamy food and cover our bodies with oil, we’d laugh at death and live in the present, I’d wear my hair in a bun and grow a moustache, I’d have a bibbed apron, green, with flowers on it. Everything would be ordinary, I’d go to church on Sundays, we’d drink rough red wine, I’d become an aunt, a grandmother, everyone would respect me.

Somehow this was not convincing. Why did every one of my fantasies turn into a trap? In this one I saw myself climbing out a window, in my bibbed apron and bun, oblivious to the cries of the children and grandchildren behind me. I might as well face it, I thought, I was an artist, an escape artist. I’d sometimes talked about love and commitment, but the real romance of my life was that between Houdini and his ropes and locked trunk; entering the embrace of bondage, slithering out again. What else had I ever done?

This thought did not depress me. In fact, although I was frightened, I was feeling curiously light-hearted. Danger, I realized, did this to me.

I washed my hair, humming, as if I were getting ready for a big evening. A lot of the brown came out, but I no longer cared.

I padded out onto the balcony on my wet bare feet to dry my hair. There was a breeze; far below in the valley I could hear gunshots, it must’ve been someone shooting at a bird. They’d shoot anything that moved here, almost, they ate the songbirds in pies. All that music devoured by mouths. Eyes and ears were also hungry, but not so obviously. From now on, I thought, I would dance for no one but myself. May I have this waltz? I whispered.

I raised myself onto my bare toes and twirled around, tentatively at first. The air filled with spangles. I lifted my arms and swayed them in time to the gentle music, I remembered the music, I remembered every step and gesture. It was a long way down to the ground from here; I was a little dizzy. I closed my eyes. Wings grew from my shoulders, an arm slid around my waist.…

Shit. I’d danced right through the broken glass, in my bare feet too. Some butterfly. I limped into the main room, trailing bloody footprints and looking for a towel. I washed my feet in the bathtub; the soles looked as if they’d been minced. The real red shoes, the feet punished for dancing. You could dance, or you could have the love of a good man. But you were afraid to dance, because you had this unnatural fear that if you danced they’d cut your feet off so you wouldn’t be able to dance. Finally you overcame your fear and danced, and they cut your feet off. The good man went away too, because you wanted to dance.

But I chose the love, I wanted the good man; why wasn’t that the right choice? I was never a dancing girl anyway. A bear in an arena only appears to dance, really it’s on its hind legs trying to avoid the arrows. And now I didn’t have any Band-Aids. I sat on the edge of the bathtub, tears running helplessly from my eyes, blood running helplessly from the tiny cuts in my feet.

I went into the other room and lay down on the bed, feet raised on the pillow so the blood would run the other way. How could I escape now, on my cut feet?