Killing Violets Read online

  KILLING VIOLETS

  Tanith Lee

  www.sfgateway.com

  Enter the SF Gateway …

  In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:

  ‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’

  Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.

  The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.

  Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.

  Welcome to the SF Gateway.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  To Begin

  Chapter One: Having Arrived

  Chapter Two: The English Country Walk; with Coda

  Chapter Three: Waiting and its Consequences

  Chapter Four: Then

  Chapter Five: A Reasonable Attempt

  Chapter Six: Entering Through Doors

  Chapter Seven: Among the Pack of Dogs or Cards

  Chapter Eight: A Nocturne; with Extended Coda

  Chapter Nine: The Tea Ceremony

  Meaning to Continue

  Website

  Also by Tanith Lee

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright

  To Begin

  In the European city where he found her, Anna had already made up her mind to sell herself. She was very hungry. She had begun to hallucinate about food. But something had decided Anna’s body was worth more than a dinner. What it was worth is the substance of this story.

  Raoul met her by the banks of the pea-green river, to which she had wandered down. Around them the grey city rose through a grey rain, with one or two buildings like Parma ham, while some copper domes shone like spectral turnips. Old woodsmoke burning somewhere had the smell of chocolate.

  When Anna turned, her large rain-coloured eyes fixed at once on Raoul. She saw he was well-dressed, and he was smoking too, an expensive cigarette. That he was handsome made her think she should be careful. Surely he had no reason to be looking, with his black eyes, for a street girl.

  “Good day. Do you like the rain?” said Raoul.

  “What rain?” said Anna. It had tasted of thin French wine.

  “This one, which falls on the just and the unjust together.”

  “Which are you?” asked Anna.

  He laughed. What lovely teeth. “I see you’re a foreigner, like myself. Rain falls on foreigners, too. I’d like to take you somewhere.”

  Anna felt a surge of hope so painful she nearly screamed. “Oh, where?” she said, negligently, watching some ducks go by. But they did not look like food in their feathers, and now she could smell brown soup from the river mud.

  “To my hotel, perhaps?” said Raoul.

  So he was looking for a street girl. And she must be his type, slim and ash-coloured, and belted into a poor coat, whose pockets held all she owned, water dripping from the sides of her bell-shaped hat, and from the wisps of her short hair.

  “Why would I go with you?” said Anna, seeing the clouds above the rain, marshmallow, or scoops of soiled creamed potato.

  “We could have some dinner, some drinks. We’d have a nice time,” he said. Then he added, strangely she thought, possibly sinisterly, “I don’t have odd tastes. I’d like to fuck you, but there won’t be anything – unnatural.”

  Anna said, “Let’s, then.”

  She walked arm in arm with him – he had gallantly offered his arm.

  The puddles sang at her high heels and splashed her legs, her last pair of stockings.

  She had absolutely no thoughts at all about the lovemaking. She would do whatever he wanted, even squat on the rug giving grunts like a pig. She began to float, weightlessly, nearly floating right away from him, so it was a good thing she had his arm to cling to.

  No one looked askance in the lobby of the hotel, which was one of the grand stone piles of the city, lined with awful maroon carpets several inches thick, marble stairs and pillars, pale green walls that reminded her of celery.

  Even so, they dined in his room. Of course, she wasn’t fit for the gilded dining apartment.

  His suite was lavish and grotesque, with a chandelier. He asked if she would like a cocktail. She said she would. The drink came in grey-rain glasses, with olives and caviar and toast, and Anna ate. She ate, she ate.

  As she ate the meal – she was never able afterwards to remember what it was, only the caviar and the cocktail at the beginning – pickles and patés and the entrée and a dessert and fruit – she kept thinking fondly, nearly enthusiastically, that she would do anything, anything for him. All he wished. Tie him to the bed-posts and bite his toes, beat him with the fire-tongs, pretend to be dead…

  But she had eaten nothing, before this dinner, for five days, and drunk only two cups of coffee. Ten minutes after she had set down the last spoon or knife, she wobbled into his bathroom of mahogany and brass, and vomited copiously and ceaselessly for nearly two hours.

  Finally she found herself lying, damp and shivering, and only semi-conscious, tucked into the luxurious bed. A hot stone water-bottle was being placed at her feet by a faceless female hotel attendant, and Raoul was wringing out a cloth in ice-water for her head.

  Presently, when they were again alone, “I’m sorry,” said Anna, the first words she had been able to speak for some while. “How disgusting. How ungrateful.”

  Raoul sat looking at her. As his splendid dark-browed face came back into focus, she saw only an amused sympathy on it. This gave her, and was to continue to give her for some time, an elevated idea of Raoul, his philosophies and wisdoms, his tolerance of life and of her.

  “You should have told me,” said Raoul, “that you were actually in a starved condition.”

  “I was only greedy, and stupid,” she murmured. And fell asleep.

  If she had thought about it, which she had had no time to do, she would have imagined he would be going to bundle her out in the morning, perhaps with a few banknotes, maybe only with a disagreeable curse.

  In fact, when she woke he was gone, leaving her a note. The note told her to do as she wished in the suite; he had ordered her a very light meal. She must relax. He would see her that evening.

  Anna sat in the bed, eating the hot roll and drinking the milk. Then she got up and had a long, scented bath in the enormous marble tub.

  When Raoul returned, she was lying asleep again in the bed. She was naked, and had been waiting, to make things up to him.

  But cheerfully he only told her, if she was strong enough, to get up. He had hired a gown
for her. They would dine downstairs.

  A woman came and did Anna’s hair and nails. There was powder, lipstick, and more scent. Lingerie and stockings. The gown was beaded grey silk. More rain. It suited her.

  At first, going into the dining-room, seeing all the guests, the straight-laced little orchestra, the palms, and candles burning, and again smelling the food, she felt faint.

  But Raoul guided her to a table. She ate sensibly now, and only a little. She drank two glasses of the red wine to please him, because he insisted it would strengthen her. Then she felt like crying for a moment, because he had been so kind, because she had never thought she would ever sit in such a place again. Or rather, not for many years, perhaps not until she was middle-aged, or old.

  At last, she diffidently touched his hand.

  “Shall we go upstairs?” she timidly asked. She was becoming desperate to thank him, to pay him. To have it over and face grim reality once more. She had proved extremely costly.

  “Yes, in a minute. But I want to ask you something, Anna.”

  “Yes, Raoul.”

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

  Anna frowned. She had not expected this; it was like speaking of fairies or ghosts, probably speaking of them in the middle of a violent storm at sea or when hanging off a wire in mid-air.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t either,” said Raoul. “I don’t even know if I do now. But something – something has happened.”

  Abruptly, she realized he meant himself, and her. Before she could stop it she giggled. How awful. Quickly she said, “I’m sorry. The wine, it’s made me silly…”

  “That’s all right, Anna. This must seem extraordinary. But there you are. I might have taken it more slowly, but I have to go back tonight. Start back. I mean, back to England.”

  A wave of relief rushed over her and through her blood and heart. He must be one of those men who preferred to pretend love when they made it. But then, he had been so direct by the river. He had used, then, only the positive word, fuck.

  “Anna,” he said, “I have to be at the station in an hour. And I want you to come with me.”

  “Of course I will.” There was no time, evidently, even for sex. She would offer it, of course. A quick rough fling.

  “You don’t understand,” he said calmly. “I want you to get on the train with me. To travel with me.”

  “Where?” One of her first questions, repeated.

  “To England, Anna. Oh, it sounds preposterous. But you’re lost here, aren’t you? You’ve no one and nothing. I don’t want to intrude. I won’t ask you anything. We know nothing about each other, do we? Isn’t that rather wonderful? Like two books bound with skin. We can read each other as we go. Or not. Frankly I don’t care if you never tell me anything. Just – be with me.”

  He was not pleading. He didn’t sound desperate or unbalanced. It occurred to her he might lead her on to the phantasmal train, carry her away over the map of Europe, and in some dark forest, as the train roared on, slice her throat or hang her from a pine.

  You met a wet girl in the rain. You took her to your hotel and fed her and heard her throwing up for hours, and from this you loved her? You wanted her? He looked self-possessed, beautiful, rich, and utterly certain.

  “I don’t…” she said softly.

  “I’m afraid it has to be yes or no. The trains are all over the place – I thought I had until midnight to talk you round. I’ve bought a ticket for you. I’ve got a sleeper. It won’t be uncomfortable. I’ll take care of you, Anna. Wouldn’t that be a relief, after what you’ve had to put up with?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t much,” she said. She lowered her eyes. “You’ve been wonderfully kind. But…”

  “Yes or no, Anna. Say it now.”

  “But I can’t – I can’t – it isn’t…” she said wildly. “I may disappoint you…”

  “Sexually, you mean?”

  “Yes, and in all ways.”

  He laughed. Like before.

  Then he took her hand, and squeezed it. And his clasp was warm and strong.

  To ourselves, we are the centre of the universe. How can it be otherwise? Dissemble to ourselves and others all we may, it is not ultimately incredible to us that we should be recognised, by the gods.

  When they got up, it was with an accomplished ease that she glided before him from the dining-room.

  And in the smart travelling clothes he had bought her – just her size, as the gown had been – she next proceeded him to the taxi.

  The station loomed in blocks of smoke and steam, the lights flickering, roars of motion and agitation everywhere. But they were led, by uniformed men, to their secure compartment.

  Exhaustion felled her. She sat on the lower bunk. Raoul kissed her hand.

  “Sleep, Anna. There’s no hurry, now.”

  He did not make love to her until the second night.

  Dizzy with wine and the motion of the train, she lay with her arms outflung, her legs lifted so the tender backs of her knees were on his shoulders.

  His kisses shivered like feathers into her sexual core. As he stroked her breasts she forgot everything, her past, her future. Harp glissandi, sensations of fizzing, and sweet ache. She seized his shoulders frantically. The train bounced her up and down and she had the half image, as once or twice in her life before, that she rode the back of a black horse, but that had been in dreams and now real flesh and muscle galloped between her thighs.

  As she came, her womb gulping in pushes and rushes, returning and returning to the bursting pivot of bliss, the train slowed down. It halted when she did, as if the whole world had stopped. For a second she did not know his name, perhaps not her own. Where were they? Would he kill her now? But he groaned and spasms shook him, and they were only in Europe, somewhere, and he was only a man, after all.

  Chapter One: Having Arrived

  By the time they reached Paris, Raoul had bought her betrothal ring.

  It was a diamond. A polished diamond, not cut, for he said he thought that large cut diamonds were vulgar. This stone was soft as a rainy moon. It was set in twisted old dark gold.

  In the shadowy basement room with barred windows, where first she tried it on, Anna was impressed. It was what she would have called antique jewellery. She could imagine thieves cutting off her finger to get it. It did not seem it could ever belong to her, but nothing ever had. Either seemed to, or had, belonged. He would take it away, or ask her only to wear it sometimes, locking it in a safe. This did not happen.

  In a way, the house was like the ring. Like the ring, as it seemed to be: hers… not hers… Nothing to do with her. Big. Polished, though.

  Or no, the house was simply somewhere they went to.

  She had never been in England. She had only read about it, and looked at pictures.

  This was like a Landscape with Country House.

  Outside, there had been farms and fields, and then a gateway in a wall, and a muddy drive. The rain was streaming, and against the opaque purple slate of the sky, the horse-chestnuts that lined the drive were a rich, acid and improbable green. There were so many trees. Old cedars and beeches, and oaks, one of which had stood, Raoul muttered, in the time of a queen called Elizabeth I. Then there was a treeless gap, and the lawns went up baldly to a long terrace, and a house of yellowish stone, with pointed roofs crayoned in on the shadowy light.

  And far, far behind, there were hills like small vague mountains.

  Anna knew she should be impressed, overawed, or – what Raoul seemed to want – thrilled. So she gripped her hands together and said breathless things – How old was the house? What style was it? Wasn’t it just like a painting? – to please him.

  She was indifferent to it, however. It did not seem real. It was preposterous. She felt like a visitor to some peculiar and perhaps over-rated monument. She would always, she decided, be a visitor, here.

  The afternoon arrival was a flurry. Anna had read in novels about such flurri
es of arrival.

  There were a lot of servants. They wore the shiny black of beetles and searing white starched aprons and caps that had a Puritan look. A tall fat man, with a horseshoe of grey hair round his bare scalp, was the butler. They all, saving the butler, had some sort of accent. Anna had spoken English and French most of her life, and other languages, where needed, fluently. But the accent of the servants she found difficult and excluding. She stared at them, feeling her eyes popping with strain, and only realised after, they had simply been welcoming her.

  All the maids curtseyed – a bob, it had been called. And the butler nodded.

  Anna might have wanted to laugh, but instead it depressed her. She was so tired. The journey had been in quite easy stages, until the last two or three days. Then train succeeded train, and boat, train, and train, boat, with dull miserable little stops between, hotels creaking in the wind, fires quick-lit that smoked and warmed nothing. Sandwiches, cold meats, things you didn’t want, being worn out, and only a few snatched hours of sleep before starting off again. Raoul so relaxed. She trying to be bright.

  How swiftly, Anna saw, she had got used to food and proper beds, to rooms even, shelter. How blasé and thankless she was, turning from the sour cheese, the smoky fire. She was not, though, used to Raoul. Sometimes he woke her during the journey, making love to her. Once he had come into a bathroom and simply begun stroking her, there, at her core. Until she climaxed with a sudden shudder.

  After the last soul-rattling train, which was freezing cold, came the car ride, to the house, which took two hours.

  When the episode of servants was over, Anna went up to bed. Raoul had explained she would not need to meet anyone until dinner.

  The bedroom was like a cavern. What else? She did not look at it. The fire was hot; they had run her a bath. Three maids, standing in a row. She sent them out. She was too polite, of course. They had faces like eggs, blank.

  She stepped into the bath, crawled out, crawled into the enormous bed under its yellow tester. Was gone.