Outline: A Novel by Rachel Cusk Read Free Book Online Page A

invisible, which had fixed them in these shapes. It required only a couple of steps to move from the impression of wind in the sails to the sight of the mesh of fine cords, a metaphor I felt sure Clelia had intended to illustrate the relationship between illusion and reality, though she did not perhaps expect her guests to go one step further, as I did, and reach out a hand to touch the white cloth, which was not cloth at all but paper, unexpectedly dry and brittle.
    Clelia’s kitchen was sufficiently functional to give the clear message that she didn’t spend much time there: one of the cupboards was entirely filled with esoteric whiskies, another with relatively useless things – a fondue set, a fish kettle, a ravioli press – that were still in their boxes, and one or two were completely empty. If you left so much as a crumb on the counter-top, columns of ants would spring out from all directions and descend on it as though starved. The view from the kitchen window was of the backs of other buildings with their pipework and washing lines. The room itself was quite small and dark. Yet there was nothing you really needed that wasn’t there.
    In the sitting room Clelia’s formidable collection of recordings of classical music could be found. Her hi-fi system consisted of a number of inscrutable black boxes, whose blankness and slenderness left one unprepared for the enormity of the sound they made. Clelia favoured symphonies: in fact, she possessed the complete symphonic works of all the major composers. There was a marked prejudice against compositions that glorified the solo voice or instrument, very little piano music and virtually no opera, with the exception of Janáček, of whose complete operatic œuvre Clelia had a boxed set. I wasn’t sure I would choose to sit through symphony after symphony any more than I would spend the afternoon reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and it occurred to me that in Clelia’s mind they perhaps represented the same thing, a sort of objectivity that arose when the focus became the sum of human parts and the individual was blotted out. It was, perhaps, a form of discipline, almost of asceticism, a temporary banishing of the self and its utterances – in any case, Clelia’s symphonies in their serried ranks predominated. When you put one on, the apartment instantly seemed to grow ten times its actual size and to be accommodating a full orchestral assembly, brass, strings and all.
    Clelia’s bedrooms, of which there were two, were surprisingly spartan. They were small, box-like rooms, both of them painted pale blue. One of them contained bunk beds, the other a double bed. The bunk beds made it evident that Clelia had no children, for their presence, in a room that was not a child’s room, seemed to suggest something that otherwise might have been forgotten. The bunk beds, in other words, stood for the concept of children generally rather than for any child specifically. In the other room, one entire wall was taken up with a set of mirrored wardrobes that I never looked inside.
    In the centre of Clelia’s apartment was a large light space, a hall, where the doors to all the other rooms converged. Here, standing on a plinth, was a glazed terracotta statue of a woman. It was large, around three feet tall – more if you included the plinth – and showed the woman in a striking attitude, her face lifted, her arms half raised with the palms and fingers open. She wore a primitive robe that had been painted white and her face was round and flat. Sometimes she looked as if she were about to say something, sometimes as if she were in despair. Occasionally she appeared to be conferring some kind of benediction. Her white garment glowed at dusk. You had to pass her frequently, going from one room to another, yet it was surprisingly easy to forget that she was there. Her white looming figure with its raised hands and its broad flat face, with its swiftly changing mood, was always