Beguiled and Bedazzled

  BEGUILED and BEDAZZLED

  by

  VICTORIA GORDON

  © Victoria Gordon 1996

  CHAPTER ONE

  Colleen listened to the beeps, then counted the telephone rings … one, two, three, four. Counted, and waited for the answering machine message she had by this time come to expect, idly wondering what nonsense this Devon Burns person might have concocted this time around.

  She also wondered, not for the first time, if Devon Burns actually existed, and, if so, was he actually sane? Stupid thoughts: if he didn’t exist then Australia’s top- rated artist in wood was no more than a myth. Besides, somebody had to be in charge of the amazing voice that left messages on her answering machine in response to the messages she left on his.

  But if the ways he used a telephone and programmed his answering machine were any indication, she thought, the sanity question was certainly valid. Even the voice, she was beginning to think, must be put on. Surely no human throat could produce such a tone; the gravelly resonance and extraordinary depth suggested that it was mechanically assisted.

  ‘This is Devon Burns’ machine,’ that hollow-sounding voice intoned. ‘My human person is.. .indisposed just now, leaving me, as usual, to do all the work. If you wish to leave a message, I shall be pleased to relay it at the appropriate time. But if it is truly meaningful dialogue you require, or if communication with a machine is beyond your feeble human capabilities, may I suggest you put your machine on the line immediately after the bleep?’

  ‘Damn!’

  This was, she thought, the fourth … no, fifth time she had rung Devon Burns, and although each time the message had been different it remained essentially the same — he wasn’t there, he would ring back.

  And he would, she knew. He always had, every time she had left a message. The problem was his timing, which never, ever coincided with her own. It was almost a week since her first call, and all she had accomplished thus far was a dialogue, far from meaningful, with a machine.

  Enough! Damned well enough! Colleen thought frantically, and just managed to be ready when the bleep sounded.

  ‘Greetings, machine,’ she intoned. ‘This is Colleen Ferrar’s machine. Again! My human person requires to meet your human person … person to person, as it were.’

  She struggled to stifle a giggle, then continued. ‘As in face to face, in a situation where they might actually be able to communicate in proper human fashion. Ineffectual, I realise, by our standards, but that is my person’s desire, and I would greatly appreciate you relaying that message to your person, assuming he actually exists and isn’t just a figment of your mechanical imagination.’

  Colleen paused momentarily, then let her frustration fuel another foray into the high-tech world of answering machine.

  ‘Fred … surely we know each other well enough by now that I can call you by name?’ she said in deliberately sultry tones, her voice dripping with seductiveness.

  ‘The problem is that my person wishes to discuss something rather more complicated than just business with your person. My human person wishes to discuss art, Fred … as in A-R-T, Fred. Which is something that requires person-to-person human contact, Fred, because everybody knows that to even understand art you must have a soul … and everybody knows, Fred, that machines don’t have souls — do we, Fred?’

  Colleen took a quick breath and returned her voice again to what she imagined to be that of a mechanical sex symbol.

  ‘Oh, dear, Fred,’ she sighed. ‘There, I’ve gone and blown my circuits again. I do apologise, but, of course, you know how it is — these human people are just so different, so frustrating, so.. .well, you know...’

  And she went on from there, piling it higher and deeper as she freed her imagination, promising Fred the most sensual of mechanical experiences if he would condescend to provide—’at your convenience, of course; I know how busy you must be, keeping your human person functional and artistically productive’ — suitable directions so that her human person could drive to wherever on Tasmania’s Liffey River the illustrious Devon Burns was located.

  ‘Of course, I will make sure she brings me along too,’ Colleen continued. ‘They will undoubtedly need us, after all, to translate for them if nothing else, won’t they? And then, Fred.. .well … use your imagination ... if you’ve got an imagination, which I frankly doubt,’ Colleen added. Then she left her number and hung up the telephone.

  She laughed. If it wasn’t for the frustration and the diminishing time element involved, she might have enjoyed her experiences with Devon Burns’ answering machine a good deal more. But time was running out almost as quickly as her patience,

  The first time she had attempted to contact Devon Burns, the machine had told her that he’d been sent to bed without lunch and was not allowed human contact just at the moment. She had laughed, waited for the bleep, then become her own answering machine long enough to leave a brief message asking him to call when his punishment nap was ended.

  His reply had come at some time in the small hours, when she had been taking not a nap but a much needed good night’s sleep. Something, she had thought she’d detected from a note of weariness in that low, growly voice that he could have used himself. Certainly he hadn’t been loquacious; he’d merely announced himself, apologised for the lateness of his call and hung up.

  From there the whole scenario had become, to Colleen, a black comedy of timing errors and complications. She had emerged from the shower to catch the last words of one message, but hadn’t been quite quick enough to grab up the telephone and catch the man himself. She had returned the call immediately, only to be told that he was in the bath with his rubber duckie and could not be disturbed.

  It must have been a pretty long bath or else he’d drowned; Colleen had waited half an hour, then had had to go and attend to business without getting the expected reply. Subsequently she had tried sweet reason, humour and a dire threat to yank his answering machine’s microphone out by the roots. That had got her a brief lecture on telephone manners but had done nothing for the timing of the hoped-for connection.

  And now this! Colleen sat staring at her telephone, willing Devon Burns to return her call at once. Some people, she knew, used their answering machines to filter and monitor their calls, thus avoiding people whom they didn’t want to talk to, but, considering that Burns had always returned her calls eventually, she didn’t think he was actively trying to avoid her. Or was he?

  It was, she decided, vaguely possible but hardly likely. Devon Burns had the ambiguous reputation of being both a recluse and a womaniser — extremes she personally found quite incompatible and contradictory.

  The reclusive aspect might seek to avoid her, but that didn’t explain the way he had constantly returned her calls. She didn’t concern herself with the womanising side of his reputation; Colleen’s interest in Burns had nothing to do with that, however much her machine might try to seduce his. Her interest was in his talent as an artist, not in his looks, his womanising, his masculinity or anything else about him.

  ‘Although I have to admit I do rather like your sense of humour … sort of,’ she admitted out loud, still staring at the phone. ‘And that voice isn’t bad either, although I still think it isn’t real.’

  She got her answer to that simply by answering the telephone when it rang.

  ‘Fred?’

  Just the one word; no greeting, salutation, hello or other word to prepare her. But it was enough, in that gravelly, deep voice. And, curiously, Colleen had no difficulty at all in figuring out what he meant.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied instantly. ‘Aren’t all telephone answering machines named Fred?’

  ‘Mine,’ said the voice, ‘is named Ign
atius. And you’ve hurt his feelings rather badly, I might add. Your machine shouldn’t be named Fred either, by the way. What do you call it — Bertha? Or maybe Imogen?’

  ‘Colleen serves the purpose,’ Colleen replied briskly. ‘Although I don’t see why it couldn’t be a Fred, unless you have some phobia about sexism among answering machines.’

  ‘I have a phobia about sexism, period,’ was the reply, and Colleen fancied that the voice became even deeper than usual. But there was no longer any question about it being mechanically altered, she thought. Or was there? Some sort of distorting device, perhaps. But why?

  ‘Is your voice always that?’ There was no appropriate word to complete her question. What word was there, really, to describe that peculiar resonance, that sensation of gravel being swished around by mighty currents, deep in a seaside cave?

  ‘That … what?’

  And she detected a hint of laughter then. Deep, hidden laughter, devilish laughter.

  ‘Well, it is a rather unusual voice,’ she said, faltering. ‘So very … well … deeply pitched and resonant.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  I could listen to it for hours, she thought, but didn’t say that; she wouldn’t dare to say that.

  ‘I … well ... I just find it very interesting, that’s all,’ she finally managed to blurt out. And immediately regretted it. The last thing she wanted was to sound attracted to the man; to have things the other way round would be far, far preferable.

  ‘That’s nice,’ he said, the voice totally noncommittal now. ‘But what I’m interested in just now is what a Colleen machine looks like. I already know what it sounds like, but I find it difficult to get a mental picture. Suppose you could help me out?’

  ‘One answering machine looks pretty much like another,’ Colleen replied evasively. But as she looked across her workroom to the wall of mirrors requisite to her work, she could see quite clearly what she looked like; the problem would be to provide Devon Burns with an accurate description. Assuming she would do so, she thought, knowing she wouldn’t.

  Facing her in the mirror was a small woman in her late twenties, with long, unruly masses of hair shaded from dark brown to dark honey with auburn highlights. Bright blue eyes, a strong nose, wide, mobile mouth, good teeth, deep dimples. Not a bad figure, she reckoned: Very good legs, or so she had been told.

  But her own impression had always been of being small, and that the masses of hair threatened to overpower the rest of her diminutive figure. Attractive? Maybe, she thought. But certainly not beautiful.

  ‘If you say so,’ was the eventual reply to her cryptic comment, but there was a long silence first that seemed to say far more. ‘Ignatius would have preferred more, of course, but he doesn’t get that many date offers — blind or otherwise — so I guess he’ll manage to live with the disappointment.’

  Colleen was uncertain just exactly what was meant by that last word, but even as she was forming the question in her mind Devon Burns continued.

  ‘Mind you, if he went about giving out directions without my permission, he’d be living without a few other things too, so maybe it’s for the best, actually.’

  ‘I only needed directions so I could somehow manage to speak to you in person,’ Colleen said. ‘You needn’t make it all sound so … so sinister.’

  ‘I’ll decide whether it’s sinister or not after you’ve told me what it is you want,’ was the reply. And then, in a whispered aside that she was clearly meant to hear, he continued, ‘It’s all right, Ignatius’ your essential parts are safe — for the moment, anyway.’

  ‘That’s a bit heavy,’ she bristled. ‘What kind of attitude is that to have towards a faithful servant?’

  ‘This is no faithful servant; he’s an uppity, high-tech monstrosity who’d run my life into the ground at the slightest provocation. Now let’s stop playing around, Colleen … Ferrar? How’s about you just state the nature of your business and we’ll get on with it, shall we?’

  Which caught Colleen rather by surprise. She knew exactly what she wanted from Devon Burns, but suddenly found that to put it into simple words without being able to show him what she wanted wasn’t as easy as she had imagined. She told him that, faltering a bit in the process.

  ‘Make it simple,’ was the blunt response, and she could almost see him shrug, could feel the coolness of the response. Or at least she imagined she could.

  ‘It really would be much better if I could come and see you, show you—’ she began, but got no further.

  ‘Try,’ he said, interrupting. And she could sense that he was losing patience with the whole thing.

  ‘All right,’ she said hurriedly. ‘But it will take some explaining, and since this is your money we’re spending here perhaps you’d prefer me to call you back.’

  ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is the kind of simplicity I seldom see and do appreciate. Right, you do that.’

  And he hung up without another word.

  Colleen’s temper flickered from amused to near-angry, but she quickly brought it under control as she hurriedly punched out Devon Burns’ phone number. It would be just like him, she thought, to have switched on his damned machine and walked out the door; she had best be quick.

  ‘Ignatius,’ she muttered with a shake of her curls, and made a face at the woman in her mirrored wall.

  But it was not the ubiquitous answering machine that she got after only one ring. It was unquestionably Devon Burns himself, and his attitude clearly hadn’t changed much.

  ‘Right. Simple, remember?’ he said, without even bothering to say Hello or anything else. For an instant Colleen was struck by the sheer fact of being so easily taken for granted, but she recovered before she began to speak.

  ‘In the simplest possible terms, I have a commission for you—’ she began, only to be cut off before she could say any more.

  ‘I don’t do commissions.’

  ‘But … but it’s not that simple,’ she insisted. ‘If you’d only give me a chance to explain, or better yet to show you what I have in mind—’

  ‘I don’t do commissions.’

  Blunt, dogged, infuriating.

  "There is more to it than that,’ she cried. ‘Oh … will you just listen, or just give me the directions to where you are and I’ll come out and show you?’

  ‘I can’t for a moment imagine what you could show me that could change the simple fact that I don’t do commissions,’ he replied.

  Right, thought Colleen. Stronger measures were called for here.

  ‘I have,’ she said quietly, almost whispering into the telephone in a bid to force him to listen, ‘two enormous pieces of Huon pine.’

  That should lure him in, she thought. Huon pine, a species unique to Tasmania, was a rare wood that was much prized by craftsmen and certain to be in short supply. For an instant she thought that she was on a winner. But then...

  ‘Define enormous.’

  ‘Why don’t I just come out and show—?’

  ‘Why don’t you just do as you’re asked?’

  Damn the man, she thought. We could go round and round like this all day.

  ‘As big as … well … the size of...’

  ‘Oh, come on! The size of an elephant, a horse, a small dog … which? The size of you? Or are you just making this all up as you go along?’

  ‘Certainly not! I mean, really … would I be making it all up at the same time as I am trying to find some way to explain it to you?’

  ‘How should I know?’ And again she felt that she could actually see the shrug. ‘This is your game, Ms Ferrar; I can’t be expected to know all the rules.’

  It isn’t a matter of rules,’ she explained. ‘It’s just that I can’t think of anything I could mention that would give you a proper idea of the size — which is your fault, by the way; if you hadn’t suggested anything, I expect I would have come up with something quite easily.’

  Devon Burns’ laugh was as gravelly and rough as his voice. It fairly thundered t
hrough the telephone. But then he just went silent, eventually forcing Colleen to rush into saying something for fear he’d just hang up.

  ‘They’re … um … about a metre and a half long by … oh … say a metre across, maybe a bit less,’ she finally managed, having to tuck the phone between her ear and shoulder and wave her arms around to judge these very questionable measurements.

  Then there was another silence — this one thankfully brief — followed by a low, throaty chuckle.

  ‘If that’s what you call enormous, you can’t be very big yourself,’ he said. ‘Are you absolutely certain you’re even grown-up? Maybe I ought to be negotiating with your mother … or your answering machine.’

  ‘I am quite grown-up, thank you very much! But I suppose it has to be admitted I’m not the biggest person in the world. Does that matter?’

  ‘Only in matters of perspective, but we’ll let that go for a bit. Am I to assume you have some half-baked plan for me to do something with these enormous pieces of wood … as in something specifically commissioned by you? Is that the idea?’

  ‘Only with one of them,’ she said. ‘The other one, well, I’m not sure about it. I’m not sure about either one until I can show them to you and see what you think.’

  ‘I think we’re both wasting our time,’ he said bluntly. ‘I don’t do commissions, as I’ve already told you, and two oversized toothpicks of Huon pine don’t seem worth risking my privacy for, if you don’t mind me saying so.

  ‘Still, if you want to get rid of them, give me your address and I’ll stop by for a look one day. If it’s decent stuff at a decent price I might take it off your hands, but I have to tell you I far prefer to go and find my own sculpting wood; my needs are really very, very specific.’

  Colleen fought back anger. The absolute nerve of the man! Then she thought that if he came to look at the wood, she would at least have a chance to discuss the project she had in mind. A chance to discuss it face to face, moreover! But the timing...

  If she couldn’t interest him in her project, and soon, there wouldn’t be time for him to take it on anyway.