A Traitor to Memory

“There you go, Gideon,” Libby said.

“So set your mind at rest if you're feeling guilty about Katja Wolff,” Cresswell-White said, and his words were warm. “She did herself far more harm than you ever did her.”

20 October





So was it revenge or was it memory, Dr. Rose? And if it was revenge, what was it for? I can't think of a time that anyone save Raphael sought to discipline me, and the only times he did so were when he made me listen to a piece of music that I wasn't performing to his liking, and that was hardly punishment at all.

Was The Archduke something you listened to? you enquire.

I don't remember. But there were other pieces that I recall. The Lalo, compositions by Saint-Sa?ns and Bruch.

And did you master those other pieces? you ask. Once you listened to them, Gideon, were you able to play them?

Of course. Yes. I played them all.

But not The Archduke?

That piece has always been my bête noire.

Shall we talk about that?

There's nothing to say. The Archduke exists. I've never been able to play it well. And now I can't play the instrument itself. I'm not even close to being able to play it. So is my father right? Are we wasting our time? Is what I have just a case of nerves that has unnerved me and caused me to look elsewhere for a solution? You know what I mean: Foist the problem onto someone else's shoulders so that I don't have to confront it myself. Hand it over to the shrink and see what she makes of it.

Do you believe that, Gideon?

I don't know what to believe.

We drove home from Bertram Cresswell-White's. I could tell that Libby thought we'd found a solution to my problems because the barrister had given me absolution. Her conversation was light—how she planned to “put it to Rock the next time he withholds my wages, the creep”—and when she wasn't changing gear, she kept her hand on my knee. She'd been the one to suggest that she drive my car, and I was only too happy to let her. Cresswell-White's absolution hadn't obliterated the growing pain in my head. I was definitely better off not behind the wheel.

Once back in Chalcot Square, Libby parked the car and turned my face to hers. “Hey,” she said. “You've got the answers you were looking for, Gideon. Let's plan a celebration.”





She leaned towards me and touched her mouth to mine. I felt her tongue against my lips, and I opened them and allowed her to kiss me.

Why? you ask.

Because I wanted to believe what she said: that I had the answers I'd been looking for.

Is that the only reason?

No. Of course not. I wanted to be normal.

And?

All right. I managed a response of sorts. My skull was cracking open, but I reached for her head, held her, and insinuated my fingers into her hair. We stayed like that, our tongues creating that dance of expectation between us. I tasted in her mouth the coffee she'd drunk in Cresswell-White's rooms and I drank of it deeply, with the hope that the sudden thirst I felt would lead to the hunger I'd not experienced in years. I wanted that hunger, Dr. Rose. Suddenly, I had to have it in order to know that I was alive.

One hand still in her hair, holding her to me, I kissed her face. I reached for her breast, and I felt her nipple hardening hardening erect and hardening through the material of her jersey and I squeezed that nipple to bring her both to pain and to pleasure and she moaned. She climbed from her seat onto mine, straddling me, kissing me. She called me baby and honey and Gid, and she unbuttoned my shirt as I squeezed and released and squeezed and released and her mouth was on my chest and her lips were tracing a trail from my neck and I wanted to feel, I wanted to feel, and so I groaned and put my face in her hair.

And there was the scent: fresh mint. From her shampoo, I suppose. But suddenly I was not in the car at all. I was in the back garden of our house in Kensington: in summer and at night. I've picked some mint leaves and I'm rolling them in my palms to release the smell and I hear the sounds before I see the people. They sound like diners smacking their lips over a meal, which is what I think the noise is at first until I pick them out of the darkness at the bottom of the garden, where a flash of colour that is her blonde hair attracts my attention.

They are standing against the brick shed where the gardening tools are kept. His back is to me. Her hands cover his head. One of her legs crosses behind him above his arse, holding him to her and they grind together, they grind and grind. Her head is thrown back and he kisses her neck and I can't see who he is but I can see her. It's Katja, my little sister's nanny. It's one of the men from the house.