Cages by David Mark (reading fiction TXT) 📗

heard you were quite the expert in old violins, is that right? That’s a specialism and a half, isn’t it? Have I heard right – the bow is often worth as much money as the violin itself? That’s interesting. You were a valuer for Sotheby’s, weren’t you? Or was it Christie’s? Saw the world, I’m told. Freelance appraiser? It’s fascinating. I suppose I was rather hoping that I could pick up knowledge somewhat passively – that you would tell me interesting things and I could absorb it and see what comes out when I write. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I wanted to see you and ask myself what I really believe.’

Rufus hears his voice get softer: hears the last dregs of verve draining away. He turns and stares at Wilson Iveson. Sees nothing to fear, or to pity. Sees nothing at all.

‘Did you know he was going to do it?’ asks Rufus, quietly. He leans back against the sill, feeling the dry petals tickle his back. ‘Your boy. Griffin. Are you afraid of him, I wonder? Or was this all part of some grand idea?’

Rufus walks to the foot of the bed, and perches on the mattress. A smell of detergent and dry paper wafts up, and he wrinkles his nose at the thought of the tiny particles entering his nasal passages and climbing down his mouth.

‘You told the police where to dig, I know you did,’ says Rufus, softly. He lets his gaze linger on Iveson. Spies a gleam of metal by the chair: an oxygen cylinder – the clear plastic mask puddled on the floor like a dead jellyfish. ‘Why would you do that? You’ve been looking after the house all this time, taking care of his assets, going to visit him. You care about him, that’s clear. There’s pictures of him right there by your bedside. So why would you send the police to that spot? She’s not there, is she? So you either thought she was, or you were messing with somebody. I don’t know if you were sending a message to Cox. Maybe you were. Was he upset when you told him you were ill? Was he worrying that he’d have nobody else on the outside to keep his secrets safe?’

Rufus pushes his damp hair back from his face. Scratches at an insect bite on his arm. He doesn’t know what he thinks. He’s heard of people who trust their gut, but Rufus’s prime influence is imagination, and as such he can never work out whether he believes something or just thinks it will make a good story.

‘It’s a lovely place,’ says Rufus, looking around. ‘Don’t imagine that I’ve got no sympathy for you, because I have. I have for Griffin too, up to a point. You like beautiful things. You both revel in things that are sophisticated and sublime. You’re Epicureans. You’re Renaissance men. And here you are, trying to cram a lifetime’s work into a little single room, and Griffin has spent years in a variety of small rooms, shitting in a bucket and making do with memories and drawings. It’s almost tragic.’

There’s no response from Iveson. Wherever his mind is, it’s a long way from here.

Irritated, Rufus walks to the bookcase and starts glancing through the titles. There are some exquisite tomes. Endless classics. Plays by Euripides, the letters of Cicero, the love poetry of Propertius; Augustine’s Confessions: all eight books of volume one. Rufus has a writer’s love of books and feels an irresistible urge to take one of the leathery works from the cramped confines of the shelf and to open it up: to inhale the dry musk of its pages. He doubts that Wendy knows the value of what she permits him to keep in his room. Wonders how many other, similarly sublime manuscripts might be piled up, untended, at the big stately home where Griffin grew up, and where Wilson Iveson built a garden to rival Verona’s Giardino Giusti. He shakes his head, considering walking straight back out and driving home. He could find a little pub. Knock back a couple of shots. Call Ruth, the busy journalist, and let her do the job properly. Try Annabeth again, or maybe try leaving her alone. He could text one of his daughters, or apologize to his agent for whatever it was he said last time they had a chat.

His eyes fall upon the big photograph albums. They’re stacked like towels: black leather bindings absorbing the light. He grabs the top one, and pulls. It’s an expensive binder: soft leather, vellum or calfskin. He strokes it, enjoying the feel of the material against his fingers, then opens the volume at random. The images within are printed on card, and their edges have been pushed into little slits in the black crepe. There is no plastic covering. Rufus skims through the pictures. They are unremarkable snaps of a life colourfully lived. He sees Wilson Iveson as a boy: grey shorts, grey jumper, a thick mop of dark hair, standing in a dirty street, barefoot and holding a cricket bat. There is washing flapping on communal lines behind him, his eyes too dark to make out. Rufus skims through a lifetime of moments: the same young boy, sitting on the knee of a plump, elderly woman in a headscarf; a man on a ladder leaning against a pear tree in the background of a semi-detached house. Sees him, older still, dressed up as Puck in a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, barefoot and feathered legs, furry jerkin and a crown of flowers.

Rufus puts the book back. Picks up another, from further down the pile. Opens it and sees the piercing, melancholy eyes of Procne Henshaw-Cox. She’s strikingly attractive: pixie-ish, with short hair and fine features; a neck as thin as a wrist and perfect décolletage. She has a waif-like quality, somehow ethereal; other-worldly. In the picture she is sitting on a low stone wall, legs crossed demurely at the ankle,