Chapter 15

It was a Tuesday morning.
Guy was at home, reading. The day wore on lazily, he drank a coffee or two, and generally slummed around doing nothing. At eleven, he decided to go out to buy some cigarettes and have a wander about, see what’s happening.
He reached the newsagent’s and stopped in his tracks. In the window there was an advertising poster, a copy of the front cover of a woman’s magazine.
Guy was no longer young (32) nor, he thought, impressionable, but the sight of the girl hit him in the heart like a pile-driver. It was the Perfect Woman.
For a while, he stood there mesmerised. He had never seen anyone so beautiful in his life. Maybe it was the pose, the torrent of blond hair cascading down her arms, the flattering swimsuit and smooth, smooth curves. Her eyes were dark, very dark hazel, mocking and slutty. And the lips... he could feel the softness, the magically delicate baby-soft contours, the centre of the upper lip suggesting the minutest of pouts, as if she were blowing out an ultrafine wisp of invisible smoke. In the middle of one breast, there was the slightest of shadow. It was impossible to tell whether a nipple was sticking out its cheeky tongue or darkroom deceit had painted another trompe-lèvres.

Guy had a thing about models. Beautiful imaginary creatures that stare blankly out of glossy magazines with their look of unattainable perfection, discreet smile playing on finely-contoured lips that kiss no-one. Hours of preparation, make-up artists, hairdressers and assistants all fussing around to make her feel important and blossom for one hour. He especially had a thing about swimwear. Everything is smoothness, no bird’s-nest pattern of pubic hair traced on the fabric, no crack between the unnameable lips, perfect smoothness, dry, smooth, rounded, smooth, smooth, smooth.
And, above all, non-existent.
An image never says no. An image takes reality and grooms it to a stage beyond perfection, each feature inflated and polished till it shines. Legs are longer, breasts are fuller, and the face becomes a mask of exquisite surgical precision.
He knew it was all lies, he’d seen one or two of the haggard, lanky anorexics before they went in. They rarely lived up to expectations. It was the silent image that attracted him, the façade.
This one was different.

Guy had an uneasy week of it. Wherever he went, her gaze was there: bored, sarcastic and unspeakably lovely. On every street corner, from the window of every newsagent, in bars, restaurants and launderettes, replicated a thousand times across the streets of Paris, and probably every town in France, her hazel eyes followed him past.
In one café, somebody had burned a hole between her lips with a cigarette.
“How dare they!”
He could hardly stay at home, he kept on going out to look at her beckoning, beautiful gaze.
He knew it had to end. He had one week before the clamour for the new replaced her with another.
There was only one thing to do. He went far from his own quartier and slipped into a newsagent’s. And out again, other people were there. He went in one after the other before finding a deserted front. Just a grey old woman fussing with her returns. He bought the magazine. Maybe she’d think he was buying it for his wife. She was probably too old and silly to imagine he was a pervert. A disgusting, dirty old man who drooled over pictures - pictures! - of girls.
Inside, glorious technicolour: fluorescent green, zebra stripes, blazing pink, thick syrupy yellow, blues and, obviously, white. One swimsuit was an open invitation. Dark bordeaux with a single broad black band of material in the centre, starting between the rich breasts and descending in a smooth, willowy line to the honey-guide curve between her legs.
He put it in a smooth manila envelope and filed it away. And now he had a name too: Fenella. He could find her. He would be very careful, very, very careful. It would have to be planned with the utmost precaution.

Two months later, he found exactly what he was looking for. Everything was fitting into place.
From his manhole cover, he could climb down the eighty-two rungs and get there in seven minutes flat. He was 99% certain no-one else used the shaft. Not everyone had a car like his and most people preferred the reassuring faces and handshaking near the main entrance.
Weeks went by and no-one came anywhere near. It was well off the beaten track.
He was exploring again and came across a series of dead-ends, a sort of beginners’ course in labyrinth design. Spaced at regular intervals, fifteen passages led off to the right as you go north-west, and they were all cul de sacs. Right at the end of number thirteen, there were four stirrup-holes on the left-hand wall, not the sort of thing you’d notice when you’re expecting yet another dead-end. Guy nearly missed it too. He preferred the head-torch to the acetylene burner (blinds people better) and the directional beam picked out something odd. He decided to investigate. What he found was above his wildest dreams.
Climbing up the wall, he found himself at the entrance to a low tunnel. Almost at the end and virtually blocked off by a pile of rubble, was another leading off to a shallow pit on the right. He called it the crow’s nest. In case of surprise visit (noises travel well), it gave him time and place to hide and watch. The main tunnel carried on and led him to a cave-like room.
Apart from the isolation, the cave had no particular advantage. The only thing of interest was a strange, man-made well. It was just a hole in the ground. From its carefully rounded rim, the walls descended a foot or so into a pool of black water. The level seemed to be maintained by the plop that echoed dully around the walls.
It wasn’t right, but he liked it. Here, he was alone, perfectly alone with only the occasional drop of water to shatter the silence.
It was disposing of the bodies that remained a problem. Even as isolated as this, his age-old enemy was still there: chance.
Ironically, the solution was an accident. His knife fell in the water.
“Shit,” he thought, “bloody good knife that.” Which meant going in for it. He took some nylon rope from his knapsack and tied a weight to the end. About ten yards, he could do that.
He stripped, tied his belt and torch around his waist, and dropped in. A few strokes later, his hand touched the bottom, sending up a cloud of fine sand. He found the knife quickly enough but that was trivial compared to what else he saw: a tunnel. Air was becoming short. With one push, he shot up to the surface.
His heart was racing with excitement. After the miles and miles of never-ending passages, a tunnel was like a magic door. For the moment, Guy could do nothing, he was too excited. He lay back and listened to the plopping of the water.
Within a few minutes, he was calm again. Time to prepare himself. It could be any length, there could be obstructions. He was not going to get trapped.
Slowly, he ventilated his lungs, saturating his blood for the hour-long minutes to come. Taking in a final half-lungful, he leaned forwards and slipped in.
Reaching the tunnel, he shone the light into its hollow belly and looked in. How far it went, he couldn’t tell. He put his head in and pulled himself along the walls, advancing in slow, leisurely movements.
The end was not that far. He twisted round and rose to the surface. With a sharp thrust of his arms, he threw himself out of the water and stood up.
He took his torch and shone it round. Against the far wall was a mass of fallen rock. Above it, the remains of wooden beams stuck out at all angles. Surrounding it, four bare stone walls gouged out of the bedrock. The only unusual feature was a long bench-like projection about a yard square running the length of one of the walls, and a dead body. Or what was left of it. Guy shone a light into its face, highlighting the empty sockets and ghastly smile.
“Charming company,” he mused. The clothing was in tatters and tore, or fell off, at the slightest touch. With unnecessary precaution, he pulled off the rags to look at the bones. A couple of coins fell to the floor. Nothing broken bar a few ribs.

Martin Morin died of starvation in 1886. The collapse had been extensive; more than thirty workers had perished. Morin was crossed off the list three weeks too soon, and the planned reservoir was moved to another location.

The coins told Guy that nobody had been in here for over a hundred years.
He was home at last.
What it was meant for, the room, the weird shafts and interconnecting tunnel, he had no idea. It was of no importance. He had discovered the most secret place he could ever have imagined. Nobody, not a soul, would find it. He was perfectly alone.
In here, he was total master.

It was time to move on to the next stage. It was going to be a major turning in his life. He even started thinking about marriage.
He realised he’d idealised her totally, that as a person she was a total figment of his imagination. He understood he’d have to forget everything he’d invested her with and start anew. Who was she? The obviously professional name was there to add glitter to a probably dull background, Miss Beautiful but Boring Blogs of thirty-three Acacia Avenue. The little girl next door so fucking lovely nobody ever contradicted her. Being desired gives you existence. When everyone desires you, begging you for a smile, you become god.
She could be anybody, and he hated her making him feel those disgusting feelings of gut-wrenching sogginess. He hated her for the feeling of insignificance she gave him. Yet he wanted her, very badly.
Whatever she was in reality, she was also a template. People change, they develop and grow, moulded by their environment. The only genuine obstacle would be her being stupid. It was certainly possible. Ideas were already forming as to how to cope with this, or a number of other situations; ideas which passed fleetingly through his mind, half-remembered the following day, yet building up the invisible web of impressions, sensations, thoughts and flashes of inspiration, the raw materials of intuitive knowledge that fuels the gut reaction.
Guy believed in his intuitions and gut reactions. He knew it would work out, in one way or another. ¶ 1:56 AM