Free The Self-Enchanted by David Stacton

Antoinette, but Christopher paid no attention to her. He led MacCrone out of the room and closed the door firmly behind them.
    “She can’t live much longer,” said MacCrone.
    “Is that why you’re here?” asked Christopher contemptuously .
    “I’m here because she wants me.”
    Christopher just grunted. “She wants something. Shewon’t die until she gets it. But she won’t get it, whatever it is,” he said.
    “That’s no way to speak of the dying.”
    “I’ll be glad when she’s dead,” said Christopher, and leaving MacCrone at the front door, he went back to the garden room. Antoinette had not stirred, but Angelica was fluttering about like a singed moth. When she saw Christopher she scuttled out of the room. Antoinette sat waiting in the shadows, her head twisting about, as she peered around her.
    “Well,” said Christopher, “what do you want?”
    “Why should I want anything?” She was smiling.
    “What was MacCrone doing here?”
    “He thinks I’m dying and he knows we’re rich. I’ve known him a long time.” Antoinette seemed pleased with herself. “You’ll never get away,” she said. “I might even outlive you.”
    “You want to make me like the rest of them.”
    She shrugged. “You might have told me you were building a house,” she said. “I want to see it.”
    This made him really angry. “You shan’t,” he said.
    “You’re afraid of me,” she said. The statement seemed to give her pleasure. Instead of answering, he rushed out of the room. She knew he would, and she knew he would be back. She sat alone, pleased with herself, until the garden lights were turned on, as they always were at dusk. Suddenly the garden outside was bathed in a fierce white light that turned the foliage ashen grey-green, the lawn almost white. Antoinette sat still, propped up on pillows, watching out of the depths of her aquarium.
    She sat up half the night that way, waiting for those few minutes of sleep which were all, at seventy-eight,that she ever did manage to get, and which were more than she wanted. In the glaring light of the floods in the garden, the shrubs cast fantastic beckoning patterns on the walls, mottled, leprous patterns that swept across her face. Beside her, on a table, stood the mash she had had to eat for dinner, a gruel, a helpless pudding, a thin runny concoction of milk. Seated there in the shadows she was a predacious bird. She watched everything: the crack of a door, the rustle of a leaf, all made her turn suspiciously, her sunken eyes, that were all that remained of her strength, searching the darkness for an enemy. She was old. She was older than she had any right to be. But she also knew that she wanted to live to smash Christopher. He was the one who had tried to get away.
    At midnight Angelica came in with a damp towel to bathe her face and hands and rub warm olive oil on that flesh the texture of burnt cloth. Then she arranged Antoinette’s thinning hair and slipped from the room.
    At last Antoinette heard unwilling steps in the corridor. She listened to Christopher hesitate and then come more firmly along the hall. In that hesitation was her power over him.
    “Come in,” she called. “Come in.”
    He stepped inside and closed the door. She could feel him behind her. He was looking out at the floodlit garden. She did not stir. She did not speak. She forced him to come forward to her. He was the largest of her sons, the only one worth hating. And how he liked to dress up in the clothes of other people, in rich, expensive clothes that were not really his. It was his mouth that really gave him away. It was large, sensual and blind, like the mouth of his father. She stirred uneasily.
    “You’ve been to see the doctor, haven’t you?” she asked. “In that case you know I’m not lying.”
    “I thought you would be asleep.”
    “I never sleep. I sit and watch.”
    He looked at the garden. “I’d think it would be horrible.”
    “It interests me. I’ve lived a