Sex and Stravinsky (21 page)

She even comes into the house when she drops Cat back, and Cat’s mom is there, worse luck, having a cup of tea with the midget.

‘Hi there, Hattie,’ she says. ‘Now look, I don’t know where your Cat’s gone, but I found this one on my way home. She’s like maybe one of those cute Muslim girls from Mayville?’

And because her mom’s in such a good mood from having the midget with her, she just laughs and says, ‘Hey, Cattie-pie, you look really great! Gosh! Wow!’ And that’s it. She doesn’t even ask about school.

School. Cat’s not been anywhere near her school all week and now it’s Friday. She’s been getting into her school uniform and sneaking down to the annexe every morning with the new jeans and one of the T-shirts in her schoolbag. Then she changes in the shed before she goes to sit at the tenant’s desk. Giacomo’s desk. Because having the black hair and the new black gear and all is making her feel much more poised about what she’s doing and she’s been working really hard. Much more than she’d ever have done at school.

So far she’s done six really nice drawings on lovely thick cartridge paper, because she’s always been good at drawing. She’s done the stork mask and the stilt mask and the tree mask as well as the healer mask with the four figurines on the headdress and the hunter mask and the antelope. And she’s made lots of notes as well. But, even so, she’s kind of known all along that, come Friday afternoon, she’s going to have to sneak out the book and photocopy some of the colour pictures, and also some of the text, because she’s running out of time.

So, anyway, she’s got it all worked out, because Friday is when the tenant stays out about an hour later than usual, and the plan is, she’ll sneak in early afternoon at about five past two, after she’s seen him go. That’s because he usually comes back between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. for some lunch. So she’s tipped everything out of her A3 art portfolio and taken it with her to the shed to put the book in because, that way, if her mum sees her coming back with it, she won’t start smelling a rat. Anyway, it’ll be quite easy to stick the book in the portfolio, although it is quite big and heavy. Well, it kind of weighs like a ton of bricks, to tell you the truth.

So she takes the bus one stop to the photocopy place in the Musgrave Centre, which is a bit of a piss-off, because if her dad was there she would be able to get him to scan it for her, but as it is she doesn’t yet know how to do it. And like last time she wanted to scan something that slimy Alan insisted on doing it for her. Anyway, when she gets there to the photocopy shop, they tell her she’ll have to come back in an hour – and that’s after this guy gives her a whole lot of shit about copyright and stuff, like what’s she going to use it for etc, but eventually this manager girl comes up and says for God’s sake, it’s only for a school project, so they agree to do it.

Then for a whole hour Cat is like nearly dead with nerves, because she’s so scared they might lose it or damage it or something, so she can’t stand still and she just keeps on riding up and down on the escalators. Up and down. And she goes all round the different avenues inside the centre. In the basement she buys this packet of Rolos and rips it open and sticks three in her mouth all at once, but then she spits them all out into the litter bin and chucks out the rest of the packet as well. But then she goes back after about a minute and picks out the packet. After that, she empties all the sweets one by one into the bin, and pokes them right down to the bottom, underneath this kind of revolting old smeary carton of takeout chicken tikka that somebody’s dumped, just to make sure she won’t be able to go back for them.

After that she just keeps on buying more and more bottles of fizzy spring water and pouring it down her throat, like Lettie’s beautician said to do. She even looks at all the boring old ladies’ ‘needlecraft’ stuff and the shop with household goods like posh tin openers and juicers, because she’s starting to get scared that Michelle and them might get out of school a bit early and be hanging around the clothes shops or the cafés on the floors higher up.

And when she finally goes back, after what feels like about five hours, they tell her sorry, but it’ll be another half-hour. Shit! Anyway, she says that’s OK, though she’s practically pissing herself that maybe they’ve lost it or something, and they’re not saying, but she’s got no choice. So finally, she’s just got to sneak into Truworth’s, so she can check herself out in the full-length mirrors, with the new hair and the black jeans and all, and then she tries on these crap jeans that aren’t nearly as good as the ones Lettie bought her and they make her stomach stick out. Oh yuk.

And then, finally –
finally
– at bloody last, and after another bottle of spring water – she goes back and, phew, they haven’t lost the book or anything, and all the photocopies look seriously fantastic. They look exactly like the real ones. So then they put everything in a plastic bag, even the book, and she sticks it all in her portfolio and she pays them, like millions of rand, and then she’s zooming up the escalator, worried as hell, because she’s been cutting it all a bit fine, and she’s got maybe half an hour before the tenant gets back and it’ll be getting dark already, even though it’s like all sparkle-sparkle inside the shopping centre.

Anyway, she suddenly looks up and there are these two people just passing her on the going-down escalator and they’re staring at her like really hard with their mouths wide open like goldfish and it’s Michelle and Alan. And there she is, looking right through them, with her new black eyelashes and her feathery black hair and the uplift bra and the Armani jeans and all, and carrying a black portfolio, like she was an art student or something, and they’re just looking like dumbo schoolkids in their crappy uniforms, and Michelle’s like got her skirt all hitched up at the waist, which is supposed to make her look sexy, but all it means is you can like see these two fat knees and how short her legs are and Alan’s hair is looking all kind of yellow under the bright lights, that are like making his skin look really terrible as well.

So Cat’s feeling pretty OK once she’s finally made it back to the annexe, and she’s got the key in the lock, though she can’t see a thing, of course, and she’s feeling her way, like doing baby steps, carefully-carefully, across to the other side of the room where the desk is. Then she gets out the book, and puts it like exactly squared up on the corner just like it always is, with the bookmark and all, and then she’s just about to go when suddenly she needs to pee so badly, what with all the spring water and the hours of hanging around in the centre, she realises she’s been practically holding it in all day and that she’s about to wet her pants any second, so she does what she’s absolutely never done before. She goes for a wee in the tenant’s bathroom. I mean she’s been in the bathroom before where it’s got all this lovely pale-green glass, like a green-glass washbasin and stuff, and with his wash lotions that say ‘
per uomo
’, but she’s never ever actually dreamed of using his lav, like right now, when she’s got her jeans and her pants around her ankles and she’s thinking, Oh my God and hurry up, hurry up, HURR-EE UP, because this pee is going on and on and on for ever. And then she’s just about to flush and hoick up her pants, when she hears this weird noise.

But seriously weird noise. Like tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. And it’s coming from right behind her, like from up on the wall near the lavatory cistern, because it’s one of those high-up ones. So now she can’t even flush, of course, because she’s too scared to make a sound. Oh shit! And now he’ll know it’s her, because boys don’t need to use loo paper when they pee and who else could it be except for her? The dumbo girl that like stares at him out of the bathroom window, because the other day she could swear he looked up and saw her watching him. Or maybe not? Anyway, right now, she’s literally shaking as she’s trying to pull up the Lycra magic pants that have gone into a kind of tight, scrambled-up ring, like they do when you’re in a hurry – of course – and she’s trying to yank up her jeans as well, but like just at the same time she’s turned to face the wall behind her, where the sound’s coming from. And then she’s holding her breath and – Oh my God, she’s thinking – I’m out of here, right now, but then something really weird starts to happen.

There’s just a bit more light there in the bathroom than in the rest of the place, because there’s like this long, high-up window that faces on to the side street and so there’s this slightly orangey street light glow in there and, in the beam of light, Cat can see that little bits of plaster are fluttering down from the wall and they’re falling on to the lid of the loo seat, that she’s just closed really quietly, and some of it is even falling on her.

And then there’s like a little shiny tip of metal coming through the wall, like a chisel or the point of a knife or something. It’s a bit like in that story about the knives in the walls that close in on you. And suddenly Cat can’t help it but she just starts to scream. She’s standing sort of stuck to the spot in her snaggled-up magic pants, and she’s screaming so loud that she doesn’t even hear the crash on the other side of the wall, or the groan that follows.

She’s standing, rigid, in the dark and screaming.

‘Mom-
meee
! Mom-
meee
!’

And Cat just can’t stop screaming.

Chapter Six

Jack

’You’ll be Giacomo Moroni,’ Hattie says. ‘I’m Hattie. Please come in. I’ll take you to the garden cottage.’

Jack hasn’t quite got used to being called Giacomo Moroni. It’s a recent nom de plume; a name of convenience. For so long now, he’s been Jacques: Jacques Moreau. Admittedly Eduardo, when in fatherly mood, had occasionally called him Giacomo, but then the name had come out sounding a whole lot more like Jack. ‘
Jack
-omo’. Now there is something that startles him about the extra syllable in the mouth of a native English speaker. He is not much accustomed to native English speakers. ‘You’ll be
Gee-acc-omo
,’ his landlady said. For the first time in his life, he has been travelling on a passport that calls him by his real name. Sipho Jack Maseko.

But his rented studio is a dream. It’s even nicer than it looked in the pictures.

‘It’s perfect,’ Jack says. ‘You’ve made it all so perfect.’

His eyes are taking in the black-brick floor tiles, diagonally scored; the narrow oblongs of roof window through which he can see a heavenly Magritte-blue sky. An African sky after the notorious grey skies of Milan. He takes in the slate worktop that runs the length of his shining new kitchen. And here, at the far end – the ‘sleeping’ end – are these lovely pale-wooden wall cupboards whose doors come uninterrupted by handles; doors that open at the touch with a satisfying push-click.

‘There’s just one thing,’ he says. ‘I have a desk. I would really love to have my own desk.’ Then he says, ‘Not that this one isn’t beautiful.’

He and Hattie are staring at Herman’s purpose-built desk table with its solid legs and chunky mortise joints. She knows that Herman will not be best pleased. The studio is a machine for living and Herman is god of the machine.

‘My desk is very special to me,’ Jack says. ‘It was left to me by a friend.’

‘Ah,’ Hattie says.

‘A friend who died,’ Jack says. ‘A benefactor.’

Hattie glances quickly at the tenant. Giacomo Moroni. He is young, tall, slim, light brown and very good-looking. He has close-cropped Afro hair and a beautifully shaped skull. He has those alluring eyes that come as one of the benefits of mixed-race parentage; eyes that look as if permanently enhanced with eyeliner. His lashes are long and black. He has the slightest hint of peachy glow across the cheekbones. Giacomo has the sort of pale Afro looks that modelling agencies go mad for. In addition, there is a lovely fluidity in his gesture and movement – something that Hattie appreciates. Inwardly she’s speculating that the ‘friend’, the ‘benefactor’, could have been a partner who died of Aids. In which case, how dreadful for the poor young man, especially at his age, because Giacomo looks too young to be a member of staff in the drama department, even in the humblest junior capacity; more like an undergraduate. He certainly looks younger than his twenty-seven years. Could it be that the friend was an older woman who loved him in a motherly way? She can tell that older women will fall for Giacomo; will long to nurture him; to put themselves out for him. Right now she’s doing it herself. Yet his body language is unambiguous. It says to her, ‘Touch me not.’

‘But of course,’ she says. ‘Of course you must have your own desk. It’s no problem.’

And she thinks, What the hell, Herman’s table can go in the garage – especially since he’s incorporated almost all of the one-time shed space into ‘the studio’. Or better still, she’ll have the beautiful desk table for herself. She’ll get it hauled up to her study in the turret – that’s if the legs will manage the last bend in the stairs. Then, by the time Herman returns, he will be confronted with a fait accompli. The desk will replace her brother’s old bureau, which allows her little space to spread. The latter can go in the drawing room. Or maybe she’ll flog it? Dispatch it to an antiques auction? It’s time she got some practice in discarding elements of her past life.

‘Thank you,’ Jack says. ‘You’re very kind.’

The desk, his beautiful silver desk, is one of the few material possessions that have become important to him, though in general he carries little baggage. There is Josh’s old copy of
Treasure Island
along with a small box of books. There are the three engravings given him by Eduardo, along with his framed Giacometti poster. There is his Moka espresso pot and a bag of clothes. There is his pistachio-green Vespa, which is currently in transit on the high seas. He hasn’t seen the desk since he was nine years old but Bernie Silver’s desk still gleams there on the edges of his mind; a thing to focus on in this oddly familiar yet altogether different place. He can almost not wait to go and claim it. And it’s so amazing that, after all these years, after the deaths and disappearances and God knows what, his desk should still be there waiting for him – as confirmed by a recent phone call from Milan. It’s exactly where Bernie left it; at the university, in social studies.