The Art of Vanishing

Chapter 40 #7

I left the room. I did not look back. The not-looking was not a performance of strength or a gesture of detachment but a practical necessity, because the looking would have produced, in the space where other people feel grief, the faint, cool sensation that was the closest my mind could come to it, and the sensation, while bearable, was not something I wished to experience in the presence of another person, because the experience of it in the presence of another person would have required a response that I was not capable of providing, and the inability to provide the response would have been interpreted, by Dorothea, as evidence of the thing that she already knew about me, and the evidence would have produced in her a compassion that I did not want and could not use and that would have complicated a departure that was already complicated enough.

The carriage was waiting at the kerb. It was a plain black vehicle, hired for the occasion, because my own carriage had been sold as part of the settlement, and the hired carriage was driven by a coachman who had been instructed to take me to the docks and to wait until I had boarded the ship, and the instructions were clear and the waiting was paid for and the transaction was the last of a lifetime of transactions, and the lifetime was ending, and the ending was the thing that sat in my chest like a stone, and the stone was heavy, and I could not put it down.

I entered the carriage. The interior smelled of old leather and horsehair and the faint, sour scent of a vehicle that had been cleaned but not recently, and the smell was the smell of departure, the smell of transience and impermanence and the particular quality of unbelonging that characterises all forms of transport, because a carriage is a place that is nowhere, a space that exists only in motion, and the motion was the thing that I needed, because the motion would carry me away from the house and the street and the city and the country that had been the stage for the performance of my life, and the stage was being struck, and the performance was over, and the audience was departing, and the only thing that remained was the empty space where the curtain had hung, and the emptiness of the space was the thing that I would carry with me.

The streets of London passed before the window.

Mayfair, with its white stone facades and its black railings and its impeccable gardens, each one a small fortress of privilege and beauty and the particular kind of silence that money produces.

The Strand, with its shops and its theatres and its ceaseless, crowded motion, the commercial heart of a city that existed to buy and sell and exchange, and the buying and selling and exchanging were the processes that I had used to build my empire, and the empire was gone, and the processes continued without me, because the processes did not care about me, and the indifference of the processes was the thing that made them so effective.

The Thames, grey and broad and slow, its surface ruffled by the breeze that was carrying the smell of the river and the sound of the shipping and the particular quality of light that comes from water that reflects a sky that cannot decide what colour it wants to be, and the indecision of the sky was the indecision of a day that could not decide whether to be summer or autumn, and the indecision was fitting, because I could not decide what I was, either, and the parallel was the kind of thing that I would once have noted and dismissed but that I now permitted, because the permissions were running out.

The docks were crowded. The ship was a passenger vessel, modest by the standards of the great liners but adequate for the purpose, and the purpose was to carry me across the Channel to Calais, and from Calais I would travel by train to Marseilles, and in Marseilles I would find an apartment with a balcony and a view of the sea, and I would live there, quietly and without fuss, and I would read books and walk in the sunshine and drink coffee at a café on the promenade, and I would think about Edmund and I would think about Sebastian and I would think about the life I had built and the life I had lost and the life that awaited me, and the thinking would be the substance of my days, and the substance would be enough, because enough was all that I had ever required, and the requirement was the thing that separated me from other people, who required more, who required love and connection and the warmth of human affection, and the requiring was the thing that made them vulnerable and the not-requiring was the thing that had kept me alive.

I climbed the gangplank. The ship was small and smelled of tar and rope and the particular quality of sea air that is both fresh and briny and faintly nauseating, and the smell was the smell of departure, and the departure was the thing that was happening, and the happening was irreversible, and the irreversibility was the thing that I acknowledged as I stepped onto the deck and felt, beneath my feet, the subtle, persistent motion of a ship that is not yet moving but that is preparing to move, and the preparation was the preparation for a journey that would take me away from everything I had known and deposit me in a world where no one would know my name or my history or the things I had done.

I turned. The quay was crowded with people, passengers and porters and the families of passengers who had come to see them off, and the crowd was a blur of faces and voices and the particular chaos of a place where departures and arrivals converge in a continuous, indifferent stream.

And in the crowd, standing apart from the others, near the edge of the quay where the stone met the water, was Sebastian.

He was wearing his usual clothes, the dark wool suit and the sensible boots, and he was standing very still, and the stillness was the stillness of a man who is watching something that he cannot change, and the watching was the watching of a man who knows that this is the last time, and the lastness of it was the thing that sat between us like a weight, because the lastness was the thing that neither of us could alter and that both of us understood, and the understanding was the understanding of two people who have said everything that can be said and who are now occupying the space that remains, which is the space of the unsayable.

Our eyes met. The meeting was brief, perhaps three seconds, and the brevity was the brevity of a connection that does not require duration to achieve its full intensity, because the intensity of the connection between Sebastian and me had never been a function of time but a function of recognition, and the recognition was the recognition of two people who saw each other clearly and who understood, with the same terrible clarity, what the seeing meant, and the meaning was the meaning of a story that had no happy ending and no resolution and no moral, because the story was not a story about justice or love or redemption but a story about a woman who was what she was and a man who saw what she was and who could not, despite his seeing, stop himself from wanting her, and the wanting was the thing that had destroyed him, and the destroying was the thing that I had done, and the doing was the thing that I would carry with me, and the carrying was the thing that would define the rest of my life.

I did not wave. I did not smile. I did not cry.

I stood at the rail of the ship and looked at the quay and at the man standing on it, and I looked with the composed, controlled expression that I had worn for my entire adult life, and the expression gave nothing away, because the expression was the expression of a woman who does not have anything to give away, and the absence of anything to give away was the thing that Sebastian saw, and the seeing was the thing that had always distinguished him from everyone else, and the distinction was the thing that I would think about for the rest of my life.

The ship began to move. The motion was slow and almost imperceptible at first, a gentle separation from the quay that was so gradual that it could have been mistaken for stillness, and then the gap widened, and the widening was the widening of a distance that could not be closed, and the unclosability of the distance was the thing that I acknowledged as the quay began to recede, and the receding was the thing that I watched with the composed, controlled expression that was the only expression I had, and the expression gave nothing away, because there was nothing to give away, and the nothing was the thing that I was, and the being of it was the thing that I would carry with me into the foreign city and through the remaining years of a life that would be lived, from this moment forward, in the awareness of what I was and what I was not and what I would never be.

England receded. The skyline of London, with its spires and its domes and its forest of chimneys, grew smaller and smaller, and the smallness was the smallness of a world that was becoming a memory, and the memory was the thing that I would carry, because memories were the only things that could not be taken from me, and the carrying of them was the only form of possession that was available to a woman who had surrendered everything else.

I stood at the rail and watched England disappear, and my face betrayed nothing, because there was nothing to betray, and the nothing was the thing that I was, and the being of it was the thing that I would be for the rest of my life, a woman standing at the rail of a ship, watching a world recede, carrying the weight of what she knew and the weight of what she was not and the weight of a question that she could not answer, a question about a pause, a single second of silence that had occurred in a dark room many months ago, a pause that might have been real or might have been performance, and the uncertainty of it was the thing that she would think about, in the quiet hours of her quiet life in a foreign city, for as long as she lived, and the living would be long, and the thinking would be relentless, and the question would never be answered, and the unanswered question was the only thing that made her, in the final analysis, human.