most wonderful echo trains. The whole place would boom for hours, drive the servants mad.’ She laughed pleasantly to herself at the recollection, as if it had been a long time ago.
‘Try it now,’ I suggested. ‘Or is Mme Charcot mad already?’
Lunora put a green-tipped finger to her lips. ‘Carefully, you’ll get me into trouble. Anyway, Mme Charcot is not my servant.’
‘No? What is she then, your jailer?’ We spoke mockingly, but I put a curve on the question; something about the Frenchwoman had made me suspect that she might have more than a small part in maintaining Lunora’s illusions about herself.
I waited for Lunora to reply, but she ignored me and stared out across the lagoon. Within a few seconds her personality had changed levels, once again she was the remote autocratic princess.
Unobserved, I slipped my hand into the tool-bag and drew out a tape spool. Clipping it into the player deck, I switched on the table. The statue vibrated slightly, and a low melodious chant murmured out into the still air.
Standing behind the statue, I watched Lunora respond to the music. The sounds mounted, steadily swelling as Lunora moved into the statue’s focus. Gradually its rhythms quickened, its mood urgent and plaintive, unmistakably a lover’s passion-song. A musicologist would have quickly identified the sounds as a transcription of the balcony duet from
Abruptly, the music fell away. Lunora had backed out of the statue’s focus, and was standing twenty feet from me. Behind her, in the doorway, was Mme Charcot.
Lunora smiled briefly. ‘It seems to be in perfect order,’ she said. Without doubt she was gesturing me towards the door.
I hesitated, suddenly wondering whether to tell her the truth, my eyes searching her beautiful secret face. Then Mme Charcot came between us, smiling like a skull.
Did Lunora Goalen really believe that the sulpture was singing to her? For a fortnight, until the tape expired, it didn’t matter. By then Nevers would have cashed the cheque and he and I would be on our way to Paris.
Within two or three days, though, I realized that I wanted to see Lunora again. Rationalizing, I told myself that the statue needed to be checked, that Lunora might discover the fraud. Twice during the next week I drove out to the summer-house on the pretext of tuning the sculpture, but Mme Charcot held me off. Once I telephoned, but again she intercepted me. When I saw Lunora she was driving at speed through Vermilion Sands in the Rolls-Royce, a dim glimmer of gold and jade in the back seat.
Finally I searched through my record albums, selected Toscanini conducting
That night I drove down to Lagoon West, parked my car by the beach on the south shore and walked out on to the surface of the lake. In the moonlight the summer-house half a mile away looked like an abstract movie set, a single light on the upper terrace illuminating the outlines of my statue. Stepping carefully across the fused silica, I made my way slowly towards it, fragments of the statue’s song drifting by on the low breeze. Two hundred yards from the house I lay down on the warm sand, watching the lights of Vermilion Sands fade one by one like the melting jewels of a necklace.
Above, the statue sang into the blue night, its song never wavering. Lunora must have been sitting only a few feet above it, the music enveloping her like an overflowing fountain. Shortly after two o’clock it died down and I saw her at the rail, the white ermine wrap around her shoulders stirring in the wind as she stared at the brilliant moon.
Half an hour later I climbed the lake wall and walked along it to the spiral fire escape. The bougainvillaea wreathed through the railings muffled the sounds of my feet on the metal steps. I reached the upper terrace unnoticed. Far below, in her quarters on the north side, Mme Charcot was asleep.
Swinging on to the terrace, I moved among the dark statues, drawing low murmurs from them as I passed.
I crouched inside
As I left I could see on to the west terrace twenty feet below, where Lunora lay asleep under the stars on an enormous velvet bed, like a lunar princess on a purple catafalque. Her face shone in the starlight, her loose hair veiling her naked breasts. Behind her a statue stood guard, intoning softly to itself as it pulsed to the sounds of her breathing.
Three times I visited Lunora’s house after midnight, taking with me another spool of tape, another love-song from my library. On the last visit I watched her sleeping until dawn rose across the desert. I fled down the stairway and across the sand, hiding among the cold pools of shadow whenever a car moved along the beach road.
All day I waited by the telephone in my villa, hoping she would call me. In the evening I walked out to the sand reefs, climbed one of the spires and watched Lunora on the terrace after dinner. She lay on a couch before the statue, and until long after midnight it played to her, endlessly singing. Its voice was now so strong that cars would slow down several hundred yards away, the drivers searching for the source of the melodies crossing the vivid evening air.
At last I recorded the final tape, for the first time in my own voice. Briefly I described the whole sequence of imposture, and quietly asked Lunora if she would sit for me and let me design a new sculpture to replace the fraud she had bought.
I clenched the tape tightly in my hand while I walked across the lake, looking up at the rectangular outline of the terrace.
As I reached the wall, a black suited figure put his head over the ledge and looked down at me. It was Lunora’s chauffeur.
Startled, I moved away across the sand. In the moonlight the chauffeur’s white face flickered bonily.
The next evening, as I knew it would, the telephone finally rang.
‘Mr Milton, the statue has broken down again.’ Mme Charcot’s voice sounded sharp and strained. ‘Miss Goalen is extremely upset. You must come and repair it. Immediately.’
I waited an hour before leaving, playing through the tape I had recorded the previous evening. This time I would be present when Lunora heard it.
Mme Charcot was standing by the glass doors. I parked in the court by the Rolls. As I walked over to her, I noticed how eerie the house sounded. All over it the statues were muttering to themselves, emitting snaps and clicks, like the disturbed occupants of a zoo settling down with difficulty after a storm. Even Mme Charcot looked worn and tense.
At the terrace she paused. ‘One moment, Mr Milton. I will see if Miss Goalen is ready to receive you.’ She walked quietly towards the chaise longue pulled against the statue at the end of the terrace. Lunora was stretched out awkwardly across it, her hair disarrayed. She sat up irritably as Mme Charcot approached.
‘Is he here? Alice, whose car was that? Hasn’t he come?’
‘He is preparing his equipment,’ Mme Charcot told her soothingly. ‘Miss Lunora, let me dress your hair —’
‘Alice, don’t fuss! God, what’s keeping him?’ She sprang up and paced over to the statue, glowering silently out of the darkness. While Mme Charcot walked away Lunora sank on her knees before the statue, pressed her right cheek to its cold surface.
Uncontrollably she began to sob, deep spasms shaking her shoulders.
‘Wait, Mr Milton!’ Mme Charcot held tightly to my elbow. ‘She will not want to see you for a few minutes.’ She added: ‘You are a better sculptor than you think, Mr Milton. You have given that statue a remarkable voice. It tells her all she needs to know.’
I broke away and ran through the darkness.
‘Lunora!’
She looked around, the hair over her face matted with tears. She leaned limply against the dark trunk of the statue. I knelt down and held her hands, trying to lift her to her feet.
