Encounters (15 page)

Brian would stand and watch her at her easel, studying the fluent lines of her body as she wielded her brush or the palette knife, smiling slightly at her unconscious beauty, realizing that against all the rules – his rules – he had begun to love her, and as she sensed his eyes on her and looked up he would exchange with her a quiet smile before turning away to the stove or the cats, not wanting to distract her.

But he knew it could not last. He had watched the emergence from her shell, felt her relax and bloom beneath his hands; he realized her new dependence on him and he knew he could not allow it to continue. His own conscience was too stern. He had no right in her house, no brief to give her advice when his own life was such a mess.

‘How long will it take you to finish that painting, Celia?’ He was leaning against the door, feeling the buffet of the wind against his shoulder through the wood. He aimed the ash from his cigarette at the stove, frowning.

‘A week perhaps. I don’t know.’ She did not look up as she spoke, squinting at the canvas, her thin face framed by its tangle of ash-blonde hair. Brian forced himself to look away.

‘As quick as that?’ Bleakness swept over him for he knew this painting would be the last he watched. He bent to pick Kizzy up from her nest in the chair and buried his face in her fur.

‘You’re going, aren’t you?’ Her quiet voice behind him made him swing round. He looked into her eyes, the cat still in his arms.

‘Sometime. Yes.’

She held his gaze for a moment. Almost, but not quite, she heard her mother’s voice but the pain in his face was too plain. This time she understood. She smiled and held out her hand. Her fingers met silky black fur and secure against his chest Kizzy began to purr.

Three days later he was gone.

She awoke to find the pillow next to her cold, the kitchen door swinging gently in the icy sunshine. The glare from the crystalline sea hid the path across the saltings, but somehow she knew he was already long out of sight.

For a long time she stood there clutching her towelling robe around her in the cold wind, then, slowly she turned back inside and closed the door. But the house wasn’t empty as it had been when Don had left. It was still warm and welcoming and full of happy memories, and bereft as she was she knew she could continue with her painting and her life, for this time she had not driven anyone away.

She found his note pinned to her easel:

I wanted to stay for ever. You know why I couldn’t. When I’ve settled my debts I’ll come back to see you. Then if you’re still alone and you want me, all you need to do is smile.

I
n the long, narrow back garden behind the house the grass they had so carefully tended through the spring was rapidly turning, beneath the children’s feet, back to the dust from which it came. Cathy’s anxious watering, walking up and down with a long-spouted can, refilled eight solemn times from the tap in the kitchen, did nothing but turn the dust momentarily into little swirling eddies which promptly vanished. If only they could use a hose pipe, but they had been banned until further notice. It hadn’t rained for five weeks.

She turned from the kitchen window with a sigh. Ben and Sarah were occupied at least. Perhaps she could snatch a cup of coffee and five minutes with the paper before the children’s onslaught resumed.

The crash outside in the street made her leap to her feet. A huge lorry had backed up the cul-de-sac of Edwardian terraced houses and deposited an enormous yellow skip almost outside their front door. She stared at it, watching mesmerized as the man uncoupled the heavy chains. Behind her two small heads pushed against the front window beside her, noses flattened against the glass.

‘We heard the noise from the garden, Mum.’ Ben’s eyes were shining. ‘Is it ours?’

Cathy was indignant. ‘No. It’s not ours.’

It was the new neighbours’. Liz knocked on the door half an hour later and introduced herself.

‘I am sorry about the skip.’ She seemed genuinely embarrassed. ‘When I ordered it, I had no idea it would be bigger than the house!’ She ran her fingers through a shock of short brown hair. ‘It’s only for a couple of days – while we gut the place.’

Cathy shooed away the children and offered her a cold drink. ‘Is the house in a bad state? Ours was already more or less modernized when we moved in. We were lucky.’

Liz drained the glass of orange with apparent enjoyment. ‘The place is a tip. I doubt if it has been touched since it was built. I only hope we haven’t taken on too much!’ She gazed reflectively into the empty glass. ‘Come and see what we’re doing if you like.’

One look at her children’s faces told Cathy such an invitation could not be missed.

They told Tony about it later. ‘There were still gas lamps on the walls, Dad. No electricity. Not anywhere. I didn’t know there were houses without electricity!’ Ben, a true child of the twentieth century, had been shocked speechless by the thought of there being nowhere to plug in the TV.

‘You should have seen it, Tony.’ Cathy had loved it. ‘It was like walking into the past. Oh, it was dirty and everything, but the detail – the stained glass, the carved wood, the ornate shades on the gas lamps. It’s a crime it’s all going to be thrown away. There was the most wonderful old bath with wrought iron scrolling on it and beautiful ornate legs.’

‘Sounds like you, my love.’ Tony smiled at her fondly. ‘Shall I take a turn with the watering can, while you put the kids to bed?’

Cathy cringed. A part-time feminist – part-time between taking the children back and forth to playschool and cooking and cleaning – she had taught herself like so many of her friends to loathe what she considered sexist remarks. ‘No, my love. You take a turn putting the kids to bed. Then you can roll up your trousers and show me your legs.’

‘OK, sorry. Point taken. It was a joke.’ No longer upset when his attempted compliments were rejected, Tony raised his hands in rueful surrender.

Two days later, when the bath appeared in the skip, Cathy could bear it no more. She went next door.

‘You want it?’ Liz looked at her amazed. ‘You want that old bath?’

‘I’ll buy it from you.’

‘No, no. We’ve thrown it out. You can have it and welcome. Where would you like it?’ Jim, Liz’s man, was vastly amused. ‘I’ll get our builders to put it round in your garden, shall I?’

Solemnly the huge iron bath was marched in through the front door, across the living room, through the kitchen and out of the back door into the hot dusty garden. They left it, standing forlornly on what passed for a terrace outside the kitchen window. Then Cathy rang Tony at work. ‘I know you’ll think I am quite mad, but …’

When he had stopped laughing, he told her she was, quite mad. ‘You don’t seriously want it installed?’

‘I do, Tony. Please. After all there is room. The bathroom is big enough.’

‘Cathy, you are out of your mind. We have a beautiful modern bath! And it matches the basin. It matches the loo for that matter.’

‘The loo is next door,’ Cathy retorted, ‘so it hardly matters what colour that is. Anyway, I intend to paint the bath. It will match as well as the old one, I promise. Please, Tony. You wait till you see it. It will be magnificent.’

As she hung up she knew she had slipped disastrously down the scale in their relationship. To want the old bath was an illogical ‘feminine’ act. She had to convince Tony of its interior design possibilities or her personal five year battle for female equality would be lost on a momentary impulse.

The plumber they called to install it thought she was mad as well. As did the children. ‘Mum, it’s horrible! It’s dirty and all black and grey at the bottom, and YUKKY!’ Sarah was in no doubt at all how she felt about it. ‘I will not sit down in it. I will NOT!’

Cathy was beginning to feel rather desperate. Family revulsion and ridicule were all very well in small quantities, but in such unanimity they were beginning to worry her. Doggedly she worked at the bathroom, throwing open the windows to the hot July night as she painted the outside of the bath a beautiful olive green to blend with what was left of the modern suite and resurfaced the pitted, stained inside. The result was dramatic and very effective. Pleased with herself, she called Tony and the children for an inspection. They were all watching TV and were not too keen on leaving their programme. With much protesting they solemnly trooped upstairs and crowded into the bathroom.

‘Not bad,’ Ben was grudging. ‘At least it’s bigger than the old bath.’ The little boy had to stand on tiptoe to see over the edge.

‘It’s twice as big, you dope.’ Cathy ruffled his hair affectionately, ‘You’ll be able to swim in that! But not yet. We’ve got to let the enamel dry.’

‘I must say, they built man-size baths in those days!’ Tony said with reluctant admiration. ‘Even I will be able to stretch out full length in that! No more excuses about dirty knees because they never get under the water.’ He grinned. ‘We’re not getting a Victorian loo next, by any chance?’

She shook her head. ‘Pretty curtains, and perhaps a mirror from the junk shop on the corner – they’ve got one there which would be just right. He’s had it standing out on the pavement for days; it’s not expensive.’ She glanced sheepishly at her husband. ‘Old pine would be perfect, wouldn’t it?’

‘I dare say.’ Tony frowned. ‘But we’re not made of money, love …’

She bought it, guiltily, after knocking the price down by a fiver, comforting herself with the thought that she would soon be working again. The mirror was perfect. Staring into it, she could see the whole bathroom behind her. The room had once been a bedroom so it was large; there was room for a chair and the old chest she had stripped the year before down to the warm soft honey-coloured wood. The new curtains blew gently in the hot breeze from the garden. From the trees at the bottom of the road she could hear the gentle moaning of a wood pigeon. It was very, very hot. The house was quiet. The children had gone out to play and Tony was at work.

Cautiously she touched the new enamel of the bath with her finger. It felt hard and cold. Impulsively she put in the enormous brass plug and turned on the taps. Dragging off her T-shirt and jeans she pitched them into the straw clothes basket, followed by her bra and pants. The draught from the window was cool on her skin as she pinned her hair up on top of her head. A mist of steam shaded the mirror and she rubbed it absentmindedly with her fingers as she reached for the bath crystals Liz and Jim next door had given her. ‘As a sort of launching present,’ Jim had said with a grin. They still thought her mad, although they had been in to admire the bath.

Behind her there was a shadowy disturbance somewhere in the mirror. She stared into the glass, puzzled. Some of the silvering had gone and parts of the image were indistinct and blurred, but there it was again – a light movement behind her in the room. She turned. There was nothing there. Only the gentle whirl of steam and the glittering patterns of water. Guiltily she turned off the taps. It would be wrong to try and fill such a big bath with the water shortage so bad.

She lay there a long time, luxuriating in the these days unaccustomed luxury of a daytime bath, then slowly she climbed out and dried herself and, dropping the towel on the carpet, began to rub some lotion lazily over her body.

As she balanced one toe on the chair, stroking the lotion up her legs she suddenly had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She spun round, grabbing the towel, holding it tightly over her breasts, but there was no one there – only the cheerfully gurgling water spiralling out of the plug hole and, outside the window, the pigeon still crooning in the heat of the afternoon. She told herself she was a fool and, wrapping the towel round her, ran through into the bedroom to dress.

In the end the children loved the bath. There was room for both of them at once, together with Ben’s fleet and they could still re-enact the Battle of Trafalgar with sound effects. Tony grinned at his wife as they stood for a moment listening in the kitchen. ‘You sit down and have a cold drink. I’ll sort them out.’

He disappeared upstairs and was still missing half an hour later. The sound effects had if anything worsened. Cathy smiled. The bath was obviously a success.

At half past ten that night Tony went upstairs yawning, while Cathy sat watching the end of the film. After it had finished she sat for a while on her own, relishing the silence and the cool. Upstairs the house was unbearably hot. When at last she followed him up, the light in the bedroom was already off and she could hear the gentle sound of snoring. She smiled sadly. They were often too tired to make love these days.

She ran a cool, shallow bath while she undressed and stood naked while she brushed her teeth. Outside the closed curtains the night was very still.

The appreciative chuckle was almost drowned by the sound of running water. Spitting out the last of the toothpaste she rinsed out her mouth. ‘I thought you were asleep,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’re not.’ She turned, expecting to see Tony. The room was empty. She peered into the bedroom. He was exactly as she had left him, snoring.

Puzzled and disappointed she went back into the bathroom. She was obviously hearing things.

She was vacuuming in the bedroom next day when she smelt the pomade. The rich, spicy scent was drifting into the room from the bathroom next door. She sniffed appreciatively, then, puzzled by its source, she switched off the cleaner and looked into the bathroom. As always in the heat the window was flung wide. The room felt steamy as if someone had just had a bath and the exotic smell was very strong. She stared round, feeling the little hairs on the back of her neck stirring slightly. Then a shriek from one of the children downstairs distracted her and she turned away. When she came back, crisis over, half an hour later, the smell had gone.

That night she and Tony were going out. The children had refused to go to bed; the baby sitter was late and long after they were supposed to have left she was still desperately putting on some make up. She was leaning towards the mirror in the bathroom, squinting slightly as she stroked the mascara onto her lashes, when she caught sight of a movement out of the corner of her eye. The room seemed steamy and hot and faintly she could smell it again. The sweet spicy smell. She peered harder and her eyes widened in astonishment. Someone was in the bath. In the mirror she could see the water swirling around his middle, thick with suds. He was lying back watching her, an expression of quizzical amusement on his face. For a split second she saw him, saw the handsome, heavy-set face, the mutton chop whiskers, the wavy chestnut hair, the broad shoulders, the slightly plump hairy chest, then he was gone. She spun round with a gasp, staring into the bath. It was empty. She swallowed hard, trying to calm herself, but her heart was hammering furiously somewhere under her ribs. Cautiously she stepped towards it. She reached out and ran her fingers over the enamel. It was cold.

‘Come on, Cathy, we’re going to be late.’ Tony appeared in the doorway. ‘For God’s sake, you’re not even dressed!’

She stared at him blankly then without a word she turned back to the mirror. As she hastily finished her make up, the bath behind her remained bleakly cold.

She didn’t say a word to anyone. In retrospect she wasn’t afraid. She was really quite amused. Half of her – the rational half – knew she must have imagined him and yet – the smell of his hair oil, the steam, the gentle sound of water dripping into the deep, warm suds. They were so real! Real enough to stop her wandering round the upstairs with no clothes on! She would grab her bath robe and knot it firmly round her waist before going into the bathroom. When she actually had a bath it was different. She put in the plug and filled the bath, almost daring him to appear. But she knew he wouldn’t. As she climbed into the two inches of water they were now allowed in the tenth week of the drought she knew she was alone. It was when she had her back to it, thinking about something else, glancing absent-mindedly into the mirror that she saw him.

But he only came when she was naked.