“I’ve been writing crap for days, and I threw it all in there,” he pointed to the fireplace.
I’d noticed that the fire had been lit the previous day, and it surprised me, considering the summer temperatures, but I didn’t ask for explanations.
“Try speaking to your publisher. Do you want me to phone him?” I suggested quickly. “I'm sure he'll understand...”
He broke me off, shaking his hand sharply, as if trying to shoo a fly away. “He’ll understand what? That I’m in the middle of a creative crisis? That I’m experiencing the classic writer’s block?” His mocking smile made my heart beat fast, as though he had stroked it.
He threw the letter on the desk. “The book isn’t moving forward. For the first time in my career I seem to have nothing to write, I feel as though I’ve exhausted my flair.”
“Then do something else,” I said impulsively.
He looked at me as if I were mad. “Sorry?”
“Take a break, just to understand what's going on,” I explained frantically.
“And what should I do? Go jogging? Take a car ride? Or play a tennis match?” The sarcasm in his voice was so sharp it tore me up. I could almost feel the sticky heat of the blood flowing from my wounds.
“There are not only physical hobbies,” I said, bending my head. “You could listen to some music, maybe. Or read something.”
Now, he would probably get rid of me in a flash, like the person who had suggested the worst nonsense in history. Instead, his eyes were alert, focused on me.
“Music. That’s not a bad idea. I don’t have anything else to do, do I?” He pointed to a record player on the top of the library. “Go get it, please.”
I climbed on the chair and pulled it down, admiring its details at the same time. “It's magnificent. It’s an original, isn’t it?”
He nodded as I placed it on the desk. “I've always loved antiques, although this is a bit more modern. In the red box you’ll find some vinyl records.”
I stopped in front of the bookcase, my arms hanging along my hips. There were two dark boxes of similar size on the same shelf on which the record player had been. I passed my tongue over my dry lips, my throat parched.
He called me impatiently. “Move it, Miss Bruno. I know I'm not going anywhere, but that doesn’t justify your slowness. What are you? A turtle? Or did Kyle give you lessons?”
I would never get used to his sarcasm, I thought angrily, as I made a hasty decision. The time had come: should I confess my peculiar anomaly, or take the easy way out, as I had always done in the past? Such as grabbing a random box and hoping it would be the right one? I couldn’t open them first to spy the contents; they were both closed with large pieces of tape. At the thought of the terrifying jokes I would have had to endure if I had told him the truth, I made my decision. I got up on the chair and pulled down a box. I put it on his desk without looking at him.
I heard him rummaging in it silently. Surprisingly, it was the right one. And I started breathing again.
“Here it is.” He handed me a record. It was Debussy.
“Why him?” I asked.
“Because I've re-evaluated Debussy since I’ve known that your name was chosen as a tribute to him.”
The primitive simplicity of his answer left me breathless, my heart full of hopes that hurt like thorns. Because they were too good to be true.
I didn’t know how to dream. Perhaps because my mind had already understood at birth what my heart refused to do. Namely, that dreams never come true. Not mine, at least.
The music started, and invaded the room. First gently, then more vigorously, up into an exciting, seductive crescendo.
Mr Mc Laine closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, absorbing the rhythm, making it his, snatching it in an authorized theft.
I looked at him, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn’t see me. At that moment he seemed tremendously young and fragile, as if a mere gust of wind could take him away. I also closed my eyes to that scandalous and ridiculous thought. He wasn’t mine. He never would have been. Wheelchair or not. The sooner I realized that, the sooner I would have gotten my common sense back, my comforting acquiescence, and my mental balance. I couldn’t jeopardize the cage I had deliberately locked myself into, risking to suffer terribly for a simple fantasy, an impossible dream, worthy of a teenager.
The music ended, passionate and inebriating.
We re-opened our eyes at the same time. His had resumed their usual coldness. Mine were shadowed and dreamy.
“I’ll never finish the book at this rate,” he decreed. “Get rid of the record player, Melisande. I want to write a little, or rather, rewrite everything.”
He gave me a brilliant smile. “The idea of the music was brilliant. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome... I didn’t do anything special” I stammered, avoiding his gaze, or else I’d have gotten lost in its depths.
“No, as a matter of fact you didn’t do anything special,” he admitted, making my spirits drop, because of the quick way he got rid of me. “You’re the one who’s special, Melisande. Not what you say or do.”
His gaze locked with mine, determined to capture it as usual. He raised his eyebrows ironically, in an expression that I knew so well now.
“Thank you, sir,” I replied.
He laughed, as if I had made a joke. It didn’t bother me. He thought I was funny. Better than nothing, maybe. I remembered the conversation we had a few days earlier, when he had asked me if I would have given my legs or my soul for love. At that time I replied that I had never loved, therefore I didn’t know how I would have behaved. Now I realized that maybe I could answer that insidious question.
He pulled the computer towards him and began to write, excluding me from his world. I went back to my occupations, but my heart was fibrillating. Falling in love with Sebastian Mc Laine was suicide. And I had no desire to become a kamikaze. Right? I had always been a person with common sense, practical, reasonable, incapable of dreaming. I was even incapable of day dreaming. Or at least I had been up to that point, I thought.
“Melisande?”
“Yes, sir?” I turned to him, surprised that he had spoken to me. Usually when he started writing, he lost touch with everything and everyone.
“I want some roses,” he said, pointing to the empty vase on the desk. Ask Millicent to fill it, please.”
“Right away, sir.” I grabbed the ceramic vase with both hands. I knew it would be heavy.
“Red roses” he specified. “Like your hair.”
I blushed, although there was nothing romantic about what he had said.
“All right, sir.”
I could hear his look piercing my back as I carefully opened the door and went out into the hallway. I went downstairs with the vase in my hands.
“Mrs Mc Millian? Ma’am?” there was no trace of the old housekeeper, and then a thought came to my mind, too small to grab it. The woman, at breakfast, had told me something about her day off... Was she referring to today? It was hard for me to remember it. Mrs Mc Millian was a source of confused information, and I rarely listened to it from start to finish. Also in the kitchen there was no trace of her. I sorrowfully placed the vase on the table, next to a basket of fresh fruit.
Great. I realized I had to pick the roses in the garden. A task beyond my ability. It was easier for me to grab a cloud, and dance a waltz with it.
With a persistent buzz in my ears, and the feeling of an imminent catastrophe, I went outdoors. The rose garden was in front of me, the roses in bloom like a fire of petals. Red, yellow, pink, white, even blue. Too bad I lived in a black and white world, where everything was shadowed. A world where light was unfathomable, indefinite, forbidden. I couldn’t even dream of distinguishing colours because I didn’t know what they were. Since birth.
I took an uncertain step toward the rose garden, my cheeks in flames. I had to make up an excuse to justify my return without any flowers. One thing was choosing between two boxes, another was to pick roses of the same colour. Red. How is red? How can you imagine something you've never seen, not even on a book?