Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks Page A

faith. The chilly, hostile building offered little comfort; it was a memento mori on an institutional scale. Its limited success was in giving dignity through stone and lapidary inscription to the trite occurrence of death. The pretence was made that through memorial the blink of light between two eternities of darkness could be saved and held out of time, though in the bowed heads of the people who prayed there was only submission.
    So many dead, he thought, only waiting for another eyelid’s flicker before this generation joins them. The difference between living and dying was not one of quality, only of time.
    He sat down on a chair and held his face in his hands. He saw a picture in his mind of a terrible piling up of the dead. It came from his contemplation of the church, but it had its own clarity: the row on row, the deep rotting earth hollowed out to hold them, while the efforts of the living, with all their works and wars and great buildings, were no more than the beat of a wing against the weight of time.
    He knelt forward on the cushion on the floor and held his head motionless in his hands. He prayed instinctively, without knowing what he did. Save me from that death. Save Isabelle. Save all of us. Save me.
    ———
    He arrived back too late to have lunch with Isabelle and Lisette, both of whom in their different ways were disappointed. He walked through the cool, quiet house, hoping to hear voices. Eventually he heard the sound of feet and he turned to see Marguérite going into the kitchen.
    “Have you seen Madame Azaire?”
    “No, Monsieur. Not since lunch. Perhaps she’s in the garden.”
    “And Lisette?”
    “I think she’s gone into town.”
    Stephen began to look in all the rooms downstairs. Surely she must have known that he would return. She could not have gone out without leaving a message.
    He turned the handle on a door that led to a small study. Isabelle was sitting inside, reading a book. She put it down and stood up as he came in.
    He went over to her, not sure if he should touch her. She put her hand on his.
    “I was in the cathedral. I lost track of time.”
    She looked up at him. “Is it all right? Is everything all right?”
    He kissed her and she pressed herself close to him. He found his hands at once searching beneath her clothes.
    Her eyes looked up into his. They were wide and enquiring, full of urgency and light. Almost at once they closed as she let out a little sigh of excitement.
    They were leaning against the wall of the room and he had slipped his hand through the fastening at the back of her skirt. He could feel the satin under his fingers, then a round soft swell beneath. He felt her fingers on the front of his trousers.
    “We must stop.” He pulled himself back.
    “Yes. Lisette has gone.” Isabelle was breathless. “But Marguérite.”
    “The red room?”
    “Yes. You go first and go up to your room. Give me ten minutes before you come down.”
    “All right,” he said. “Let me kiss you good-bye.”
    He kissed her deeply and she began to sigh again and rubbed herself against him. “Please,” she said, “please.”
    He did not know if she meant him to stop or to continue. He had lifted her skirts as she stood with her back to the wall and now had his fingers between her legs. “Come to me,” she whispered, her breath hot in his ear. “Into me, now.” He removed her fumbling fingers from his trousers and freed himself. His shoulder was next to the polished wood of a glass-fronted bookcase. Behind Isabelle’s head was a framed picture of flowers in a terra-cotta pot. He had to lift her a little, clasping her behind with his hands, until she slithered on to him and wrapped her legs around his waist so that he could not move but had to bear her weight. The flowers moved a quarter turn on their hook as her shoulder nudged them.
    She opened her eyes again and smiled at him. “I love you.” She covered his face with kisses, keeping his body captive by her