We waited by the lake for the swans, as the sun rose higher in the sky. I was exhilarated by the pale colours of the park, by the quiet and the calm. It was an aesthetic, sterile reaction for the house and its grounds had oppressed me from the start. Only the transient beauty of the morning - a frozen, fragile countenance - stirred something in me.
The master had lapsed into silence, and had returned the backrest to the horizontal position he found most relaxing. Though his eyes were closed I knew he would not be asleep.
I walked away from him, out of his earshot, and strolled around the perimeter of the lake, always keeping a watch for movement on the carriage. I wondered if he would be able to resist the offer from the Theatre Alhambra, fearing that if he did there would be no greater attraction.
The time was right… he had not been seen in public for nearly four and a half years. The mood of the public was right… for the media had recently returned their interest to him, criticizing his many imitators and demanding his return. None of this was lost on the master. There was only one Todd Alborne, and only he could have gone so far. No one could compete with him. Everything was right, and only the participation of the master was needed to complete it.
The electric klaxon I had fitted to the carriage sounded. Looking back at him across the ice I saw that he had moved his face to the switch. I turned back, and went to him.
“I want to see Elizabeth,” he said.
“You know what she will say.”
“Yes. But I must speak to her.”
I turned the carriage round, and began the long and difficult return up the slope to the house.
As we left the side of the lake I saw white birds flying low in the distance, headed away from the house. I hoped that Todd had not seen them.
He looked from side to side as we moved past the wood. I saw on the branches the new buds that would burst in the next few weeks; I think he saw only the bare black twigs, the stark geometry of the naked trees.
In the house I took him to his study, and lifted his body from the carriage he used for outside expeditions to the motorized one in which he moved about the house. He spent the rest of the day with Elizabeth, and I saw her only when she came down to collect for him the meals I prepared. In those moments we had time only to exchange glances, to intertwine fingers, to kiss lightly. She would say nothing of what he was thinking.
He retired early and Elizabeth with him, going to the room next to his, sleeping alone as she had done for five years.
When she was sure he was asleep, she left her bed and came to mine. We made love at once. Afterwards we lay together in the dark, our hands clasped possessively; only then would she tell me what she thought his decision would be.
“He’s going to do it,” she said. “I haven’t seen him as excited as this for years.”
I have known Todd Alborne since we were both eighteen. Our families had known one another, and chance brought us together one year during a European holiday. Though we did not become friends immediately, I found his company fascinating and on our return to England we stayed in touch with each other.
The fascination he held over me was not one I admired, but neither could I resist it: he possessed a fanatical and passionate dedication to what he was doing, and once started he would be deterred by nothing. He conducted several disastrous love-affairs, and twice lost most of his money in unsuccessful business ventures. But he had a general aimlessness that disturbed me; I felt that once pressed into a direction he could control, he would be able to exploit his unusual talents.
It was his sudden and unexpected fame that separated us. No one had anticipated it, least of all Todd. Yet when he recognized its potential, he embraced it readily.
I was not with him when it began, though I saw him soon after. He told me what happened, and though it differs from the popular anecdote I believe it.
He was drinking with some friends when an accident with a knife occurred. One of his companions had been cut badly, and had fainted. During the commotion that followed, a stranger made a wager with Todd that he would not voluntarily inflict a wound on his own body.
Todd slashed the skin of his forearm, and collected his money. The stranger offered to double the stake if Todd would amputate a finger.
Placing his left hand on the table in front of him, Todd removed his index finger. A few minutes later, with no further encouragement from the stranger - who by this time had left - Todd cut off another finger. The following day a television company had picked up the story, and Todd was invited to the studio to relate what had happened. During the live transmission, and against the wishes of the interviewer, Todd repeated the operation.
It was the reaction to this first broadcast - a wave of prurient shock from the public, and an hysterical condemnation in the media - that revealed to Todd the potential in such a display of self-mutilation.
Finding a promoter, he commenced a tour of Europe, performing his act to paying audiences only.
It was at this point - seeing his arrangements for publicity, and learning of the sums of money he was confident of earning - that I made the effort of dissociating myself from him. Purposely, I isolated myself from news of his exploits and would take no interest in the various public stunts he performed. It was the element of ritual in what he did that sickened me, and his native flair for showmanship only made him the more offensive to me.
It was a year after this alienation that we met again. It was he who sought me out, and though I resisted him at first I was unable to maintain the distance I desired.
I learned that in the intervening period he had married.
At first I was repelled by Elizabeth, for I thought that she loved Todd for his obsession, in the way the blood-hungry public loved him. But as I grew to know her better I realized that she saw herself in some messianic role. It was then that I understood her to be as vulnerable as Todd - though in an entirely different way - and I found myself agreeing to work for Todd and to do for him whatever he requested. At first I refused to assist him with the mutilations, but later did as he asked. My change of mind in this instance was initiated by Elizabeth.
The condition of his body when I started to work for him was so bad that he was almost entirely crippled. Though at first he had had several organs grafted back on to his body after mutilation, such operations could be carried out only a limited number of times, and while healing, prevented further performances.
His left arm below the elbow had been removed; his left leg was almost intact beyond the two removed toes. His right leg was intact. One of his ears had been removed, and he had been scalped. All fingers but the thumb and index on his right hand had been removed.
As a result of these injuries he was incapable of administering the amputations himself, and in addition to the various assistants he employed for his act he required me to operate the mutilating apparatus during the actual performances.
He attested a disclaimer form for the injuries to which I was to be an accessory, and his career continued.
And it went on, between spells for recovery, for another two years. In spite of the apparent contempt he had for his body, Todd bought the most expensive medical supervision he could find, and the recovery from each amputation was strictly observed before another performance.
But the human body is finite and his eventual retirement was inevitable.
At his final performance, his genital organs were removed amid the greatest storm of publicity and outrage he had known. Afterwards, he made no further public appearance, and spent a long spell of convalescence in a private nursing-home. Elizabeth and I stayed with him, and when he bought Racine House fifty miles from Paris, we went there with him.