Her Fearful Symmetry

Valentina said, “We don’t exactly understand how the heating works in the apartment. It was kind of cold in there last night.”

“Robert can help you with that; he’s a very practical chap,” Mr. Roche said. “Do say hello to him for me, and ask him to give me a ring, there are one or two things we ought to go over.” He bid them goodbye. Julia turned back as they were leaving and found him standing with both hands on his stick, watching them with a bemused expression.

When they got back to Vautravers the building was quiet and cheerless. In the front hall Julia said, “Maybe we should just knock on his door.”

“Who?”

“This Robert Fanshaw guy. We could ask about the heat.”

Valentina shrugged. Julia knocked; she could hear the sound of a television playing faintly in the flat. Julia waited and then knocked again, louder, but no one came to the door. “Oh well,” she said, and they went upstairs.

The Upstairs Neighbour

MARTIN PUT the phone down on the bed. The bed was an island. Around the bed was a sea of contamination. Martin had been crouching on the bed for four hours. Luckily there were survival tools there in bed with him: the telephone, some bread and cheese, his worn copy of Pliny. Martin wanted very much to leave the bed. He needed to pee, and he was hoping to get some work done today. His computer sat waiting for him in the office. But somehow Martin sensed, he knew, that there had been a hideous accident in the night. The bedroom floor was covered with filth. Germs, shit, vomit: someone had got into the flat and smeared this horrible slime over the floor. Why? Martin wondered. Why does this always happen? Is this possible? No, it’s not real. But what can I do about it?

As if he had asked the question out loud, an answer came to him: Count backwards from a thousand, in Roman numerals. Touch the headboard while you do it. Of course! Martin began to comply, but faltered at DCCXXIII and had to start again. As he counted, he wondered, with a separate part of his brain, why this was necessary. He lost track again, started again.

The telephone rang. Martin ignored it and tried to focus on counting. It rang three more times, then the answering machine picked up. Hello, this is Martin and Marijke Wells. We’re not here now. Please leave a message. Beep. A pause. “Martin? Come on, pick up, I know you’re there. You’re always there.” Robert’s voice. “Martin.” A click. Martin realised that he had lost track of his counting again. He threw the telephone across the bedroom. It smashed against the wall and began to buzz. Martin was horrified. Now he would have to replace the phone. It was on the floor, contaminated. The light in the bedroom was afternoon light, slanted. He had failed to escape from the bed. Once again, he had allowed his madness to rule him.

But an idea came to him. Yes: he would simply move the bed. The bed was large, wooden, antique. Martin clambered to the footboard and began to rock the bed, to propel the bed towards the bathroom. The bed moved in inches, its small wooden wheels scraping the floorboards. But it did move. Martin was sweating, concentrating, almost joyous. He rode the bed across the bedroom, inch by inch, and finally, stepping onto the bath mat, he was free.

A few minutes later, just as he had finished peeing and was beginning to wash his hands, Martin heard Robert moving through the flat and calling his name. He waited until Robert was in the bedroom before he said, “In here.” He heard a sound which he thought was probably Robert moving the bed back to its usual location.

Robert stood outside the door. “Are you all right in there?”

“I’m fine. I think I’ve broken the phone. Could you unplug it?”

Robert walked away and came back with the telephone in his hands. “It’s fine, Martin.”

“No, it’s…it was on the floor.”

“So it’s contaminated?”

“Yes. Could you take it away? I’ll order a new one.”

“Martin, couldn’t I just decontaminate it for you? This is the third phone in what? A month? I was just listening to a report on Radio Four about how British landfills are chock-full with old computers and mobiles. It seems a shame to toss a perfectly functional phone.”

Martin didn’t answer. He began to wash his hands. It always took a long time for the water to get hot enough. He was using carbolic soap. It stung.

Robert said, “Are you coming out anytime soon?”

“I think it might be a while.”

“Can I do anything?”

“Just take the phone away.”

“All right.”

Martin waited. Robert stood on the other side of the door for a minute, then left. Martin heard the front door slam. I’m sorry. The phrase began to repeat in his head, until he replaced it with another, more secret refrain. The water was satisfyingly hot now. It was going to be a long afternoon.

Robert went back to his own flat and called Marijke at work. She had told him not to do this unless there was an emergency, but she never answered her mobile and she wasn’t returning calls. She worked at VPRO, one of the quirkier Dutch radio stations. Robert had never been to the Netherlands. When he imagined Holland he thought of Vermeer paintings and The American Friend.

Strange Dutch ringing sounds: a voice, not Marijke’s. Robert asked for Marijke and the voice went to get her. Robert stood in his front room with his phone pressed to his ear, listening to the noises of the radio station. He could hear muffled voices: “Nee, ik denk van nie…” “Vertel hem dat het onmogelijk is, hij wil altijd het onderste uit de kan hebben…” Robert imagined the receiver sitting on Marijke’s desk like a marooned insect. He imagined Marijke walking towards it, her plain, gently creased face, her tired green eyes, her mouth red with too-bright lipstick and tense at the corners, seldom quite smiling. Robert pictured her in an orange jumper she used to wear for days at a time every winter. Marijke’s fingers were never still, always holding a cigarette or a pen, picking at imaginary lint on someone’s collar, fiddling with her limp hair. She drove Robert crazy with her fidgeting.

Now she picked up the receiver.

“Hallo?” Marijke had a sultry voice. Robert always told Martin she could have made a fortune in phone sex. In her old job at the BBC she had read the afternoon traffic reports; sometimes men appeared in the lobby of Broadcasting House asking for her. At VPRO she was a very popular programme host on a show that mostly featured stories about human-rights catastrophes, global warming and terribly sad things that happened to animals.

“Marijke. It’s Robert.”

He felt her discomfort come at him through the telephone ether. After a pause, she said, “Robert, hello. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Your husband is not fine.”

“What do you want me to do? I am here, he’s there.”

“I want you to come home and take him in hand.”

“No, Robert, I won’t do that.” Marijke covered the phone with her hand and said something to someone, then returned to him. “I’m absolutely not coming back. And he can’t even walk downstairs to get the mail, so I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing each other soon.”

“At least ring him.”

“Why?

“Persuade him to take his medicine. Cheer him up. Hell, I don’t know. Don’t you have any interest in helping him sort himself out?”

“No. I’ve done that. It’s not a joke, Robert. He’s hopeless.”

Robert stared out the windows at Vautravers’ chaotic front garden, which sloped up away from the house so that it was like watching an empty raked stage. As Marijke declared her complete lack of interest in Martin’s future, the twins opened the front door of Vautravers and walked up the footpath to the gate. They were dressed in matching baby-blue coats and hats and carried lavender muffs. One twin was swinging her muff on its wrist-strap; the other twin pointed at something in a tree, and both girls burst out laughing.

“Robert? Are you there?”

One twin walked slightly in front of the other; to Robert they appeared to be two-headed, four-legged, two-armed. They let themselves out of the gate. Robert closed his eyes, and an afterimage formed on the backs of his eyelids, a silhouette-girl shimmering against darkness. He was enchanted. They were like an early Elspeth, a previous version that had been withheld from him until now. They’re so young. And so strange. My God, they look like they’re about twelve.

“Robert?” His eyes flew open; the twins had gone.

“Sorry, Marijke. What were you saying?”

“I have to go. I’m on deadline.”

“Er-right, then. Sorry to have bothered you.”

“Robert, is something wrong?”