Chrysalis Read online

  “We are moving to the country next month. You know what boys are like, they need space to grow up in,” was Mary’s opening salvo as the frantic first table conversation subsided into pockets of talk with those on either side. She said this with the look of shared knowledge as if a single, childless man would have sympathy and understanding of the confines of metropolitan living. Although Sebastian had often heard of this mythical collective noun called the “countryside” he was never too sure where it was or how to get there, as it was always referred to in a vague and non-geographical specific way. By now slightly tight he slurred, “What happens, Mary, the family arrive all packed with their suitcases at Liverpool Street station like refugees in the Second World War, approach the counter and ask for a single to ‘The Country’? A knowing wink from the cheery clerk to the escapees and off you go to pastoral pleasure? The other thing I have never understood is that people who move to ‘The Country’ always move near somewhere, never in somewhere. Near Nyland, near Oxford. Does anyone actually live in the villages and towns or do they settle in anonymous desolate places like Soviet nuclear testing towns during the Cold War?”

  “It’s for the children,” she relied in a syrupy and sanctimonious manner, as if the future foregoing of coffee mornings and organic weekend markets were sacrifices to be made as a good parenting rite of passage. “Joe’s commute will only be two hours each way. He will wake to the silent tranquillity of the countryside and return to it in the evening with the birds singing in the trees to relieve the stress of the day.”

  “Must admit I prefer to wake up, open the windows and hear the birds coughing on the carbon monoxide from the passing buses and cars. All too cheery for me to hear the birds run through the Lauds every morning. The commute will be hell, leaving in the dark and arriving in the dark for at least five months of the year. Does Joe know what he is letting himself in for with this move?”

  “Oh Seb, you’re always so negative,” Martin butted in. “You just don’t understand the symbolism of motherhood. The desire for the topographical paradise in which women crave to bring up their children.” This was the start of a long psychobabble monologue from Martin to which Sebastian paid little attention as he played with his starter and drained his wine glass. He looked across at Zoe with slightly blurred vision.

  Her face was lit by candlelight and the shadows cast gave prominence to her high cheek bones. Her smile fast and wide, even teeth showing as she laughed and with each laugh her Eurasian-shaped eyes seemed to close. Wishing they were alone in a restaurant, he leaned across the table to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand before he kissed her gently on her nervous lips.

  “What do you think?” Martin interrupted his dinner for two.

  “Bollocks,” was the reply in punishment to Martin for ruining his imagined dinner and punishment to Mary for being so content and certain. Without looking at either Martin or Mary, whose glances he knew were telling each other, “ignore him, he’s drunk”, Sebastian stood up and under the pretext of going to the toilet went for a cigarette in the garden.

  Standing outside in the dark looking through the sliding double doors of the kitchen extension he was the sole attendee of the theatre watching a play on social interaction. Clarissa the pugilist, animated in conversation with Simon throwing verbal punches at him; Simon with ease and the skill of a bantamweight avoiding each jab as he drew diagrams on the table top with his index finger pictorially showing her the shortcomings of her thoughts. Arabella and Mary from the opposite ends of the table sipping their wine in unison as their conversation faltered, both more interested in the now escalating discussion between Simon and Clarissa. Joe and Martin talking across Zoe in the middle. Zoe oblivious to the surrounding conversation was looking towards Simon. Her eyebrows knitted with each jab thrown by Clarissa but relaxed as Simon remained untouched. Knowing he was safe she looked towards the window and unknowingly looked straight at Sebastian. She rose, slipped unnoticed from the table and joined him outside.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing and everything. I can’t stand all those smug bastards.”

  With her bodiless embrace he knew his desire was one-sided.

  “Who is Simon?”

  “He’s nice, isn’t he?” She looked for approval. “I met him at a party a couple of months ago and we’ve been going out ever since.”

  Spitefully Sebastian threw the end of his lit cigarette into the middle of the well-manicured suburban lawn.

  “We had better go back in. I hope he is good to you, you really deserve someone nice.”

  “I know you’ll like him.”

  He doubted that but kept his counsel.

  Reaching for a bottle of wine from the sideboard as they re-entered the room he retook his place at the table. Martin gave a disapproving glance at the theft as he was one of those irritating hosts that fills the wine glasses and, as if rationing for one’s health, places the bottle back on the sideboard beyond reach until he himself deems it is time for a refill. Sebastian filled the glass to the rim and looked at Simon who exchanged a glance with Zoe, enquiring if all was alright. Zoe replied with a demure, not-to-worry smile. Sebastian decided to get drunk.

  The conversation had deflated after a draw between Simon and Clarissa. It was now being passed around like a soggy leather football: dreary predictable summer holiday plans in villas in Tuscany, neighbour troglodyte basement extensions threatening sink hole devastation of entire streets. Clarissa, now more relaxed after her work out with Simon, turned to Sebastian with her left eyebrow arched and asked, “What are your plans for the summer?”

  Emboldened and braver after the excess of Martin’s reluctant hospitality he slurred, “I’m off to Amsterdam to sleep with hookers and smoke vast amounts of Moroccan Black. In between I’m going to write a book.”

  This vision of the future appealed to him in his inebriated state but was obviously less appealing to his fellow diners. The rush to start a conversation, any conversation, saw Sebastian’s future blown away and hoovered up with the urgent exhalation and inhalation of words. The only person to show any interest in his new career was Clarissa who whispered in his ear.

  “How exciting!” she breathed as she kneaded his testicles unseen under the table.

  The excuses for departure started almost immediately with babysitters to be relieved, deserved beds to be got into after a week of repetition. Any excuse to avoid any further views from Sebastian.

  “We are off too,” Clarissa announced as she poured Sebastian into his jacket.

  In the embarrassed silence, his arm around her shoulder for support, Sebastian was guided by Clarissa towards Arabella and Martin where he mumbled his thanks through thick lips. He turned unsteadily to look for Zoe. Her arm linked with Simon’s, she had a quizzical look on her face, almost imploring.

  “I will write it, you know, I’ll write it for you,” he slurred into Clarissa’s chest, but it was aimed at Zoe.

  “I’ll ring you tomorrow,” Zoe said as he stumbled over the doormat with his other arm wrapped around Clarissa’s waist, head firmly in the clasping embrace of her breasts.

  2

  Wiping the cement from between his eyes, he painfully raised his eyelids. The wallpaper patterned. The bed comfortable and warm. This was not his room and this was not his bed. Peering out of the window he looked directly into the MI6 building. Whatever happened last night MI6 would know. Turning inward he stared at the face of a smiling yellow PAC-MAN printed on a T-shirt.

  Tentatively he pulled back the duvet and stood up feeling unsteady and head sore. There was a stirring from the other side of the bed.

  “Great sex last night,” Clarissa said with a sleepy smile stretching her arms upward and yawning.

  “Oh my God… really?”

  She laughed lightly as she wafted her arm upward from his feet to his head.

  “You were so anima
l-like, uncontrollable. Are you always like that?”

  “Well not always… just sometimes.” Sebastian could vaguely remember the departing, the taxi and a lift ride. The rest was a blank.

  Clarissa burst out laughing.

  Looking down – shoeless, trousers on, one sock off, shirtless but with T-shirt on – he felt rather confused.

  “Well it could have been. But Dionysus got the better of Aphrodite. You were very affectionate but sleepy as a newt!”

  Sebastian hurriedly gathered up his few unworn possessions and dressed.

  “Clarissa, I’m sorry about last night. I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself. Perhaps this can be our secret, I mean it’s probably best that no one knows.”

  “Sure.” It was said lightly and obviously not the first time this conversation had taken place in her bedroom. “Perhaps you can include it in your book?”

  It seemed to Sebastian that this was neither the time nor place to discuss his current employment options and opted for a quick escape.

  “Perhaps. I’ll see. It was certainly a fun evening. It was great to meet you.” Droplets of boozy sweat formed on his forehead and prickled his armpits.

  He knew she didn’t believe him.

  “Do you want a coffee before you go?” It was said in the expectation of a no as she had already turned her back with a view to going back to sleep.

  Quickly he walked towards the door to escape from the libidinous humiliation of the night.

  “Thanks, no. Perhaps I will see you around,” fumbling as he eagerly turned the door handle to escape.

  “Perhaps,” her back answered.

  As he closed the door the last vision of Clarissa was the laughing yellow PAC-MAN.

  3

  The oncoming summer stretched in front of him like the never-ending school holiday of his youth. Days passed and Sebastian limply looked for a job using the excuse that no one recruited in summer. Each day passing the responsibility of phoning anyone he knew who might have a vacancy for him to the next. Concluding that it was preferable to rise late, languish in cafés drinking coffee and await the end of the working day when, like children rushing out of the school gates at the ring of the bell, there was always someone he knew that wanted to go for drinks.

  In between the indolent and soporific days there were moments of reluctant self-inspection. Uncomfortable lunches with his parents. A loveless father dressed in his military blazer with gold buttons gleaming with honour looked at him as if his favourite gun dog had died. A mother demur and acquiescent after a lifetime of self-sacrifice following the beat of the military drum. Her dream of becoming a concert pianist dispatched on the bayonet of her husband’s career. Father wanting to know when his son and his investment in his education was going to yield a dividend. Mother privately insistent that now was the time to take charge, change and grab the opportunity of a new life for fear of it being lost forever. Friends, envious of his inactivity, bullying him into re-joining the world of work by trying to frighten him into submission with threats of poverty in old age and mortgage repossession.

  The only constant throughout was the draft of his failed novel. It was ever present, a coffee mat at breakfast, moved but unopened throughout the day to eventually reside on his bedside table at night.

  Zoe was the catalyst for activity. They had spoken many times since the dinner party but, for the sake of mutual shared avoidance of embarrassment, not talked about that evening or Clarissa. The phone rang mid-afternoon, three hours into watching the cricket test match on TV.

  “Hi Sebastian.”

  “Zoe, how lovely to hear you. What you up to?”

  “Packing for my summer holiday. I want to talk to you before I go. You around this afternoon?” He recognised the tone; it foretold of a lecture. He had been in this situation many times with Zoe and knew not to provide her with room to manoeuvre; he built up his defence by tidying the flat.

  On entering his flat she looked around at the discipline and neatness, knew it was temporary and knew why it had been done.

  “Well this is what you do all day. Have you turned yourself into Mrs Drudge?” Her laugh was easy and happy knowing the future had opportunity. “It’s good to see you, Sebastian, I wanted to see you before we go on holiday.” With hands gently cradling his face she kissed him on both cheeks.

  “We?”

  “Yes, we, Simon’s taking me to San Francisco and has booked us into the Fairmont Hotel for two weeks. It’s so exciting, and we’re going first class.”

  As the kettle boiled and steam snorted upward he felt the green-eyed monster of envy awake in his stomach. Not for want of the Fairmont, San Francisco or first class; he wanted to be with Zoe for two weeks, two weeks anywhere even if they had to get to anywhere by a tuk-tuk.

  “That sounds fun. How is the corporate thief?” Handing her a cup of coffee, black and strong as she liked it.

  “I know you don’t like him, so let’s not go there, OK? What are you going to do this summer?”

  Sitting opposite her at the kitchen table he looked around the flat, thinking that the next few months confined in the small space would be insufferable.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look, Sebastian, I had a coffee with your mother last week. She came up to town specifically to see me.”

  “She did what? Why? She didn’t come and see me. What did she want?” He tried to look indignant but felt comforted in the knowledge that his mother and Zoe would have spoken about their shared concern of him. He wasn’t alone.

  “She is worried about you but at the same time excited for you. Excited that you can try something else, something different. Look, she is no fool, I’ve known her since we were students. She knows you won’t get a job over the summer so before the autumn you have a chance to try writing again. I mean, why not? You have the skeleton of the book, rework the text, change it, add more characters. I don’t know but I do know you can do it.” She was talking quickly and excitedly as if for two.

  His lifted the cup off the manuscript. Another ring added to the unplanned Spirograph-patterned cover. The liquid thoughts of the past week slowly turning to crystals. He didn’t reply.

  “Your father doesn’t know she came to see me,” she said to confirm the courage of his mother’s defiance of his father’s authority.

  “Oh, I am sure of that!” His hand touched the manuscript. “He thought it a waste of time when I wrote this, almost delighted in its failure.”

  “Well why not give it a go? For her, her forsaken musical career, for you and… well for me too. I know you can do it, I knew then and I know now.”

  She was right of course, why not? What else was he going to do over the summer but get fatter with sloth and beer? By mid-summer he would be reduced to bar flying with randoms as everyone he knew would be away for the summer.

  “I can’t write it here, I’ll go mad sitting here all day playing Brick Breaker waiting for opening time.” He was looking for inspiration from Zoe.

  “Try somewhere different, different smells, architecture and culture. Somewhere you were happy.” He felt her hand cover his resting on top of the manuscript; she squeezed it encouragingly.

  “Do it, Sebastian, do it for yourself.” She was almost pleading.

  He looked at her, looked at the manuscript.

  “I am going to, as long as you promise to come and see me.”

  He knew it would please her. But it would be her fault when it went wrong.

  Chapter 3

  1

  The air-conditioned train pulled into Amsterdam Centraal, the carriages populated mostly by tourists. The culture seekers clutching their bibles of architectural sites to be visited, the tortoise-back packers with their Time Out counter-culture guides to nightclubs and marijuana-selling coffee shops. The few businessmen arriving from the airport connection looked out of place in
suits, resignedly clutching their flipchart presentations, looking as if they had arrived somewhere they didn’t want to be, to meet someone they didn’t want to meet, to sell something they were not interested in. Sebastian recalled that feeling with smugness now it was no longer part of his life.

  He had been to Amsterdam many times on business but always seen the city through the windows of taxis, hotel rooms and offices. He pulled out a map of Amsterdam and remembered the fan-like layout of the city. Each leaf of the fan was divided by the ribs of the canals: Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht.

  With only his redundancy money and a small monthly rental income from the flat to survive on he had rented a canal boat in the De Wallen district on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal. The internet page had promised a small sitting room with kitchen and bedroom rented from a Ms Anneke Cloos in the centre of the red light district. At 200 euros a month it was just affordable and fitted his idea of a writer’s place, being bohemian and somewhat seedy.

  There was a pause between the sounding of the doorbell and the opening of the door. Having expected Ms Cloos he was slightly taken aback by the tall, athletic black man who opened the door wide with confidence.

  “Hello?” His voice was deep and with an African accent.

  “Is Ms Cloos in? I booked the houseboat.”

  His mouth opened in a welcoming smile, teeth dazzling white against inky black skin, the colour of the chest of a magpie.

  “Sebastian, correct? Anneke is doing rehearsals. I’m Umuntu. Come, let me show you where you’re going.” Picking up Sebastian’s bag he swung it over his shoulder as if it contained air. They turned the corner onto Oudezijds Voorburgwal canal. “Here we are, she is called Tulp, it’s Dutch for tulip.” His laugh full and throaty.