Director's Cut (13 page)

“The woman?”

Paul must have told him.

“Yes.”

“Good grief! You be careful. Take care. Can't stand any more
casualties at the moment. Not until we get some reinforcements. Watch your back.”

“I'll try to.”

He left them to their mourning.

Two customers were waiting for his return. Three if you counted the
woman. She stood aside while a young couple chose a painting: ducks
flying from a pond surrounded by trees in grand seasonal decay. Even
as he wrapped it and wrote their card number on the back of their
cheque he cringed at the thought of it hanging anywhere outside a
garden shed.

“Ducks!” he said to her once the brass bell had announced their
exit. “My best seller. Ducks, and then tigers and horses and dogs and,
of course, Oriental women with breasts bared. I ask myself what it is
about ducks that make the masses want them flying up their livingroom
walls? They ruin hundreds of quite reasonable landscapes. But
there you are. Ducks sell.”

He led her into the studio.

“What is it about you today?”

She settled into her pose.

He wagged a finger. “There's something different. Let me guess.
You're standing straight. There's a spring to your step. There's a glow
to your skin. What's happened? You're messing about with my values.”
“What is your favourite colour?”

He shook an irritable head and said sharply, “That’s got nothing to
do with it,” and then, after a pause, he relented and all but whispered,
“Yellow.” He nodded. “Yes, yellow is good. That’s the colour of the
future.”

“I'm sorry. Gosh, you're always so grumpy. Perhaps it's not me at
all. Perhaps your temper has changed, your eyes clouded with red.
They do look red.”

“Perhaps. Maybe. But if that were the case then things would be
darker, not lighter.”

“You've had a bad day?”

“All days are bad. This one is worse.”

“So it's true that the artist suffers.”

“A sense of humour too, along with the spring. That's something
else I hadn't bargained for.”

“I want to change my pose. Is that all right by you?”

She slipped that in and took him by surprise. Knife and palette
suspended, he stood rooted while his colour darkened.

“Will it mean starting over?” Her eyebrows raised over laughing
eyes.

She teasing him, by golly!

Her shrug was a little caress. “If we can change our arrangements
so that you're paid by the session, or something like that, it shouldn't
much matter. And I do so want you to catch me…just right.”
Eventually, a small tremble spread up from his knees and he
seemed to come alive again. He said, “Christmas is coming. There
won't be much to wrap.”

“There is always Easter,” she said and gave him a broad smile. She
sat on the sofa and leant back, lifting her legs up so that her dress fell
away to reveal an expanse of thigh. “Something like this,” she said.
Her thighs were slim and tanned, brushed with the colour of her
copper-brown dress that fell away to expose them. She lay on the sofa,
one arm resting on the arm, her legs drawn up, her knees bent, her
dress falling away just right. It was, for her, a daring pose. It was
impossible not to wonder. Her skin radiated the heat from two glasses
of Cadet. He was down to his last bottle of Merlot-Malbec and kept it
back for later, for when he was alone again and could brood over the
session.

She said, “I wonder what happened to Helen?”

“Mrs Harrison?”

“Yes, Mrs Helen Harrison.”

Twice the sitting was interrupted by customers in the shop. Paul's
absence was a nuisance – most inconsiderate of him – and slightly
puzzling. He should have been home by now. Mrs Puzey arrived with
her family and cleaning equipment and during the next hour while
flying dust was cornered and lemon polish stung the air, he hid in the
studio and continued with the painting. The woman had gone and left a
curious hole.

The painting was coming along. The blocking was complete, the
key, the composition, and the shape was pleasing; the sweep of the hip,
the depth of one smooth thigh as it curved in against the other, drew
the eye to the shadow caused by her dress.

The noise had ceased. The old bell had rung out a beautiful silence
broken only by the sounds of tapping on the studio door. The door
eased open and Laura glided in. Laura, she glided everywhere. A black
streak of cover-girl potential hugged by a tight black skirt. A wide
shiny belt bridged her skirt and a loose crimson top. No naked midriff
for Laura. Not a hint of that firm, flat landscape with its glittering
omphalos
. Not that he had any reason to believe that she wore a bellybutton
ring but he could fantasize as well as anyone. More to the

point, Laura was fashion conscious and mutilation was the fashion.
There were none of the flatlands of the Chinese delta about Laura,
no paddy fields by gosh, more the lush hills of West Africa, he would
say, or some bursting volcano in the Philippines. Somewhere jolly
warm, anyway.

Her glossy lips widened into a tropical smile. There was a

breathless honesty in Luscious Laura, the black vixen of The British,
unusual in women, for there was no threat. No threat at all.

“Mr Lawrence,” she said.

“What is it, Laura?”

“The phone went. You didn't hear it.”

“My hearing isn't what it was. Who was it?”

“Paul, it was. He's gone now.”

“Ah, Paul.”

“He phoned from the hospital. They're keeping him in an extra
night for observation and there’s nothing to worry about. He didn't
want you to worry.”

“Thank you, Laura. I'll try not to.”

With a flourish she closed the door behind her. The air, still stirred
by her breathless words, was touched with Wrigley's Spearmint.
Having got used to the idea of Paul's return a slight disappointment
drew in with the evening. Even the short walk to The British seemed
stale. There was little sense of anticipation. He knew that the feeling
would change. A few drinks would change it. In the pet shop window a
hamster was going nowhere as it raced a plastic wheel.

In The British Rasher's absence hung heavily. In the early evening
the barmaids were even more indifferent as they contemplated their
evening shift and the majority of the punters were on their way home,
a swift half of courage to get them there. These were not serious
drinkers. These people had families and were simply keen on a slight
delay, a little pause in the perfunctory day before their perfunctory
evening, train-spotters who were merely passing through.
He was early. The familiar faces had yet to arrive.

The malevolent day was drawing to its close and alcohol,
would speed it on its way.

“Good riddance!” he said and the barmaid in a tight black dress
blinked and looked over the bar at him as though he was mad. She
was quite right, of course.

Beneath red-flocked wallpaper with its nicotine-stained edges they'd
begun with 6 and 7, moved to 23 and 26 and finished with lychee and
fresh mango. Two bottles of Wan-King, the house white, proved
slightly more satisfying than its promise.

Laura came back from the loo. He noticed the dilation of her pupils
and her sudden elation.

Laura giggled, wasted. The Wan-King was lethal; drink enough and
you'd go blind, so they said, that's why the Chinese squinted, but that
was probably an old Chinese wives’ tale. She let him into a secret.
“Paul asked me to look after you. He thought you would be lonely.
That's why I made an exception. I normally keep to my regulars. I owe
him one for the telly and video he got me. The DVD is coming, on a
promise. He's so grateful that you put him up and for the grapes that he
wanted to give you something in return. So I agreed to perform a little
trick for you, later. I have a whole box of them, Mr Lawrence. A whole
box of tricks.”

He lifted an overblown eyebrow. Leaving the tricks aside he knew a
thing or two about boxes. Get to his age and, if the memory was up to
it and that had a lot to do with diet – plenty of mackerel and walnuts
and Heinz Tomato Ketchup – most men could remember the odd
performance when they might have excelled. Even so, he was rather
crestfallen and stuck out his lower lip. Eventually he said, “So it wasn't
a coincidence then, our meeting in The British?”

“Mr Lawrence,” she giggled like a teenager contemplating her first
blow job. “Grown-ups don't believe in coincidence, do they? Come on.
Swallow these and lighten up. You're much too dark.”

Still downhearted Mr Lawrence said, “And what are these?”
“A bit of Adam, to use an old-fashioned term, that's all. Down
them with your wine.”

“All of them?”

“Go on, be an old devil.”

“Well, perhaps this once, and only because it's been such a dreadful
day. I'm not a druggie, you know? I’m not one of your long-haired
surfers from Newquay.”

“Come on, Mr Lawrence, take me home. Let me tuck you in and
blow out your candle.”

“I have electricity. It’s back on, no thanks to my lodger.”

“Yes, he told me about that.”

“How about a cup of coffee and a brandy and we'll leave it like
that?”

“As you like. It's all paid for anyway.”

“Where does Paul get his money?”

“Who knows? Why do some birds hop and some birds walk? Why
do some birds come and some birds can't? Who knows? But I have
enjoyed talking to you. Maybe, one day, you could teach me to paint. I
would love that. There is something about watching an artist work, you
know, painting, that's really like, a turn on. I don't know. Understand?”
Perplexity pulled down his hairline. He said, “No. Not a word of it.
It sounds like balderdash. But it doesn't matter. One day, Laura, I will
teach you to paint. But you have too much living to do first.”
As though she hadn't heard him she continued, “It's like, creating.
That’s it. Going after perfection. You should paint me, Mr Lawrence
for I'm as close to perfection as you can get.”

“I know that, Laura. My goodness, I can see that. But you're the
wrong colour. Only the members of the Caucasian race can be perfect

– pale white-skinned people. People like me. God made us in his own
image and he was white, wasn't he? Sunday school teachers don’t tell
lies. Whiter than white with flowing blond curls and a perfectly
trimmed beard. And his only forgotten – begotten – son, was even
whiter, even after forty days in the wilderness. And no matter how I
look at you, and in what light, you’re not white and you certainly don't
have a beard.”

“Oh, Mr Lawrence, you've been looking in the wrong place.”
He chuckled. “I've no answer to that.”

“You might have later, if you play your cards right.”

“That's the problem. I've never been a card player.”

“Well, there you are then. They say unlucky at cards lucky in love.”
He was pleasantly drunk and so was Luscious Laura. Her eyes were
black and intense.

“I have another confession to make,” she said coyly. The pretence
made her even more delicious.

“What was your first? Remind me?”

“Paul, for goodness sake. That we didn't meet by accident.”
“Oh yes, all these confessions. I feel like a priest.”

“Those pills, they wasn't all disco biscuits. It was Paul's idea. He
said you'd need them.”

“What have I been fed, exactly?”

She blew out her cheeks and eventually admitted, “Two were
adams, and they'll get you all loved-up, but the other two were Viagra,
Mr Lawrence, and they'll keep you up all night.”

“I'll probably have a heart attack. I can feel something throbbing
even as we talk. You’ve deceived me, Laura, and I should be angry but
I’m not.”

Everything was outrageously funny: the total on the bill presented by a
puzzled waiter, the look on a flattened duck's face in the window and
the sign hanging on the huge brick Pentecostal walls opposite, the one
frequented by Mrs Puzey and her brood, which read CHRISTIANS,
SING OUT WITH EXULTATION.

Even the sting of the night air could not dent their gaiety and it
came as a surprise when he suddenly said, “I hate Christmas.” But the
twinkle in his eye gave him away. “It reminds me most of chocolates
in bright sparkling wrappers and the orange and strawberry creams that
are always left in the tin?”

“I like strawberry creams,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you might.”

Between the brandy and the coffee was the colour of her skin. Colours
seemed deeper, all of a sudden. She wasn't going to go; she made him
lock the shop door and turn out the shop lights and then she peeled off
her green pants.

“Buttons! Mr Lawrence you’ve got buttons!”

“I’m an old-fashioned man, Laura. No till, no TV, no computer, no
wireless and definitely no zips!”

“What’s a wireless?”

She fiddled with his buttons then said, “Oh, Mr Lawrence, look at
me now, I’m playing the mouth-organ. I’m following my old man into
the music industry.”

“But he disappeared, Laura. I hope you don’t disappear.”

“Like the missing women, you mean?”

“Exactly, but my goodness, you’re right. I can hear the music. I’m
finding it quite stirring, even patriotic in a strange sort of way. A bit
like going into battle, I suppose.”

After a while she stood up and licked her lips and he noticed that
her pubic hair was different; to begin with there was more of it, with
isolated tufts floating upward toward her navel, tiny tropical islands on
a sea of rich Robot City tea. It all looked silky soft but felt quite
coarse. The skin around her tight stomach had lost some of it's
pigment: a harsh stiff-haired brush would do it; burnt sienna over West
Indian sepia.

He was, nevertheless, looking into a black hole. And that was
dangerous. Back in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was in power and
the USSR invaded Afghanistan, Disney had lost a fortune looking into
a black hole but their special effects weren’t nearly as good as these.
But as Einstein had calculated, some time back, there was no escaping
it. So Mr Lawrence didn't try. Not really.