CHAPTER FOUR: SECRETS AND LIES For characters in Story: check Biographies

#1


I was thrown awake as the car took a sudden swerve to the right. Goethe and Eva were slapping each other in the front seat. The road was swimming through torrents of mist, breaking round fences, tall trees, and hills. Down below a river was rushing in full torrent.

"It is not right! Not right!"

Eva's eyes were afire, her cheeks red, She was quivering with anger.

" This time no regrets. We do it whatever the law says"

Goethe bald head glowed with the strength of a man who has to have it his own way.

" We have to tell him. He deserves that"

Eva turned to stare into my half awake eyes. That naked energy sparked me to want her then and there. She sensed that. She kicked open the door. Goethe stopped the car by a path leading uo to a chapel. She half dragged me out of the car, and crushed her trembling body into mine,

"I tell you"

I pressed my lips to her. Her hands slid into my pants grabbing me.

"Follow me!"

We climbed and slipped through the wet grass, pulling ourselves by shrub and rock, here and there. In no time Goethe was far below, walking away through a churchyard. Our clothes were wet with sweat and the rain that began to fall. Out of the cloud, came the ruins of a gaunt castle, riding atop the hill, and down below, the river swirled.

"Take me again. Like last night!"

I could not remember.

She pulled her skirt up and pressed herself against me. Her hands squeezed tight in mine.

"Feel me! Feel me!"

She gyrated, her body billowing swerving dancing on mine. The castle walls climbed above. Dark, with mosses as silent witnesses. I fell into her neck, her breasts, the darkness exploded, and I was circling down into........

I awoke with a coldness, and Eva smiling, and I guess we looked like lizards amongst those old stones.

As we climbed down, Goethe was standing by the car.

"Told him?"

Eva nodded with a no.

"John"

Goethe stood facing me.

"Eva and I have being lying to you"

I was still flushed, my head racing, a hawk diving.

"That night at the club"

I let the mist and water splashing down the hillside speak for me.

" We slipped you something, I have been working on"

Not the first time, I said, to myself. The chapel was all locked up, even the windows bricked in.

" A mixture of herbs, plants, all natural"

Eva's hand's slid over my cheeks. Her lips moved close.

" From your concert, I knew you were the one"

Why was it that when you put all into a performance, they think they own you. They go for the blood every time!

" We found this old formula, whilst at the chateau, guessed on this, tried that"

I started to walk away from the car, the rain biting into my shirt. A thin slender bridge ran across the cascading river. The car nudged its way in front of me. Eva leaned out of the window.

"Coming?"

I slid into the back seat. Eva threw a towel.

"Wet? Dry yourself. We still have a long way to go!"








#2


Here she was again. Flying. The ever faithful lapdog - thank god she had him - Clive - by her ever faithful side. And behind her Jean and Marine. Out of Paris. Away from the media that she played with, toyed with, pushed to make her fashion, the fashion. They somehow were caught by her panache of being always one step ahead. Now their eyes were upon her as she fought it out on the birthplace of fashion. She cared, but she didn't. She thought back to the plane coming into Paris, the man with those lips lingering in her eyes - it was always those little details that caught that became obsessive - why couldn't she let go?

The plane started to angle down through the clouds, and the Mediterranean glittered back. An odd white puff of cloud falling rising above between. He was adjusting his meaning in front of her eyes. What she could do with an evening away from it. Away from herself. Having it with this man. This man on the plane, that haunted her now days later. The man she had seen standing at the bar in the discotheque, when her head was full of the look. The look that now put her on this plane and leaving Paris. That had got her in trouble. And Marine and Jean they were in it too. They were players in her head. If she made it they would make it. It had been that way - she almost thrust it upon herself. She knew she worked best when the stakes were high. When the stakes were personal.

For Marine and Jean this was America. Just to get out of town, like on the run, take any plane, and arrive. This was the thing of movies. And they had read this and that about Joe, and how she would disappear for weeks and suddenly what was in took a new turn. Now they were both in on her plan. Marine had spent her whole life up north, and this was her first visit to the south. As a kid her parents had taken her to the cooler climates of Denmark, Norway, Sweden. It was on her father's side. He had family. They went to the land of Saunas, aquavit, and deep forests. Never to the south of France. For Jean this was going home, perhaps a little too close, a little too soon.

In the airport cafe, as they were sitting down having a coffee, before breaking out into the strong sun, a tall large black man, came striding up, - waved his hand.

"Hello - Joe"

" Why - Candy!"

This was a surprise - she hadn't seen Candy since the party at where the Purple was present. He was as he was then immaculately dressed, and grinning with that slightly risque smile.

" I didn't think France and you"

Joe was taken aback. Didn't know what to say to a man who had saved her from a couple muggers who had hung round back with the cars waiting for money maybe rape. She could usually could handle one, but two large thugs got her in a corner, with menace in their eyes, too much crack to much something and then this big man with a smile, put fear in their eyes, even though one had a gun. Candy had reputation for knowing all the wrong people at the right times. He'd had history by the time he was fifteen, but then with that smile and a thing with words, he got into rap. And with some lucky strikes, he now had labels, and was a name producer.

"In town to open a film retrospective. The Jazz Greats. They wanted someone with the new jazz, the new talk."

" Candy!"

They met in a big warm bear hug.

" You're coming with me!"

Joe immediately grabbed at Candy's arms and picked up her bags. Her crew followed. There was no time for discussion.

A disgustingly large mercedes limousine was lined up outside, being fussed over by a small man.

" Its on the town"

They all fell in - and off they went to a large house in its own grounds sitting along side a busy street.

" Welcome to Candy's Chateau!"

It was marble everything - walls, floors, ceilings. And out of this, came a couple of strangly figures.

" You remember Zee and Rev"

Joe recalled a video shoot.

"You've got the east wing. No freaking around. Its yours. You need a base. O.K.?"

In her monster bedroom, Joe stripped down to slide into the large tub, and soak. She'd let her crew find there own roosts tonight. She needed to lie out. A good long sleep. Oh ... that would be so good. So good. She had not slept in days.

She lifted her eyes, to see a glass of wine being serenaded in front of her. And a pair of muscular thighs, taut chest, eyes lips and the words:

"May I join you "

She would sleep tonight!



#3


The bed felt good. Hard. It was one of those great pleasures. Able to stretch out after being squeezed cramped in a back of a car. The night had been full of dreams, that switched from Eva to Goethe, and flash backs of Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and the Pendulam, and being walled alive in some cobwebed dungeon. It felt morning, and there was the wiff of fresh air whispering over my face. But it was pitch black. A thin stream of light angled its way across the sheets, and I began to see. I was enclosed within curtains. Velvet curtains. Upwards were satin stuffed between thin wooden beams. As I was peicing it all together, the curtains parted, and Goethe stood there, tray in hand with a steaming cup of coffee, and a stick of bread with jam on it. "Homemade Jam. ....Don't worry - its all kosher"

I gave him a quixotic smile - the expression and him rekindled questions - but I let it go

"Where am I?"

"This is the 10th century chateau of the Duyards, who still have direct descendants in the village. The bed you are sleeping in is 18th century, and was where the Comte entertained royal connections."

I turned to see the four posts of the bed now exposed as Goethe drew the curtain to let the sun break in. I was surprised to find myself naked.

" We undressed you - but I'm afraid we got so tired ourselves, we left you as god intended. Anyway we are now family."

The heat from the sun, and a hawk weaving up and down in the sky, outside the tall windows, pulled me up. I jumped up - and ran to a door that connected to a large bathroom, with a shower.

"You'll find us downstairs in the library, - take the second stone staircase, two floors down, you will see a room full of maps - go through it - the library is through there"

After the shower, that was bursting with hot water, I looked at myself in the full mirror, pleasantly aware that the muscles still looked good, though I knew I needed some exercise. Some vigorous walking. Perhaps now.

Finding my bags stacked by a large closet, I quickly organised things, dressed, into loose pants and a t-shirt and near ran down the hallway to the staircase, which dropped down under a large portrait of a bearded man with a ruffled shirt, with a strange look in his eyes. The paint had been badly varnished, so the dogs that were nudging at his thighs disappeared into darkness.

Endless rooms seemed to nudge off the staircase, and in one of them a man was smoking and writing feverishly over a desk, the size of which you could almost live in. I said something - but he did not hear. So I continued down to a large hall with a room that was heavy with maps on the walls, floors, doors. Lines on them, drawn this way and that. Figures and symbols danced on a blackboard. Voices worked words into the room.

" John"

Eva was dressed in black leather pants, and a pink angora sweater. She was holding a large leather bound book, with papers squeezed into it.

"Follow me"

I followed her into a long dark room with walls of books, at the end there was a number of armchairs, a coffee pot steaming, and an alcove of leaded windows, one open, that looked down over rooftops and across a wooded and mountainous landscape.

The coffee tasted good. I took in the room, running my fingers along the spines of the books. As I reached the end of one bookcase, it seemed the book was pushing back at me. I pulled back. The bookcase moved, and Goethe emerged, with a rolled up map under his arm.

" My little room. A place where the priests hid, I'll show it to you one day, but now its all a mess and well - sit down - Eva!" Goethe pushed the disguised door back to become the bookcase. Eva was writing something in the book she was holding.

" Eva - you know I feel about books. They are sacred" "Goethe's right though - I shouldn't but I do - this book is a find - it must have been here centuries, unread" Goethe sat down in one of the chairs. Pulled out a pack of Sobranie's and lit one. Letting its strong smoke, ooze amongst the titles.

He leaned forward, flicking the ash into an art nouveau ashtray with a nude arms outstretched. " Did you know that it is believed that Jesus' family came here, and his descendants still live in these hills?"

I admitted that I had, but took it like UFO's and things that go bump in the night. I only thought of them when they seemed right for a song or a line. But beyond no.

" Around here there are the remains of a religious culture that was desimated by the catholic church. They were called the Cathars. They were believed to have been wiped out. But in this château. This château the wisdom they learnt and was given to them lives on. Lives on in these books. Lives on in ...."

" Is this the young man, you spoke to me about, Eva?"

The man who had been writing at the room size desk, staggered into the room. He was in his seventies, perhaps more. He had a stick that he used to effect, pointing it in my direction"

"Yes, Uncle"

Eva replied

"Good"

Her uncle smiled.




#4



Marine and Jean walked through the narrow streets of Ste Anne, and found themselves looking towards the Arc de Triomphe. Marine was in need of some tittle-tattle, some racy gossip about the royals, the stars. It was an excursion into glossy life that had been there since coming back from school with her friends when she would giggle over some hunk of a man, or the doings of a film star.

"Just a moment"

She walked into a side street, open the door to a tabac, looking at the rows of cigarettes, and a husky woman leaning over and talking to a customer. They were looking down at a magazine. She recognized it as one that she always bought, - kind of hid it from her intellectual friends - for fear of ridicule.

She hated it when conversations got in the way of when you were in a rush.

It was a good time to gloss the lips and see what havoc the morning had made of her face. Jean who had been out all night seeing some old friends from university, made a heavy play for her - just as she was leaving her bedroom. Men. She thought. But they couldn't get better. Breakfast was a pick-me-up.

Coming out of these deep provocative thoughts, she found herself being stared at.

No, not me!

The street. Something in the street.

She turned. Nothing.

They were giving her the works.

Did her strenuous morning show- were there bite marks?

Jean was outside. Striding. Getting impatient. He came towards the store door. Opened it. Saw the look of the two voyeurs at the counter.

Then suddenly it hit him. Boom! Boom! Boom! Magazines everywhere with his photographs all over them. Some with Marine, some with Joe. Woman 2000. American Fashion Action in Paris. The Femme Fatale Bites Back.

Marine thought at first Jean was on something. But catching his eyes, following the stare, she saw she was bathed in herself. Every part of her body caught in the glossies around her.

She turned, walked out. Walked across to the bar. Took a slug of brandy. Then another. How could she? How could Joe? Without telling? Without nothing?

Jean saddled up next to her. Pulling her close to him.

He felt warm, hot. She near dragged him, pulled him, down the stairs to a bathroom. In her anger, trembling of disgust surprise, and an unanticipated enjoyment of herself of the wildness the animal side that the photos showed. She wanted the wolf. Jean. the man who had taken the photographs. Who had violated her past of simplicity of tranquility of lush romance, in these photographs that stunned her. She pulled him into her. She was not going to stop getting her fill. Now. He started to push her further and further up the wall, kicking the door shut behind him. And she climbed to where everything disappeared. Where the awful horror of discovery, sputtered out, and she came in an endless roar, and there was a knocking, a banging. A woman outside turning the lock. Looking in.

Outside on the street, the flower seller making a brisk trade, Jean and Marine sat under the umbrella as coffee came to them large and strong. Joe had had them. She had used them. His photographs. Her body. (Marine still could not identify with this woman that she saw staring back at her).

Everything was changed. An exhaustion set in. They both sat back and let the day, the sun take over. No words. Nothing. Just watching. Watching. Watching.






END OF CHAPTER FOUR


Read CHAPTER FIVE

© Giles Denmark/Giles Mitchell 1997. Worldwide Copyright.