Sheer Blue Bliss (11 page)

Maybe it's because he loves hospitals that he's visiting Donna. Maybe it's because he likes her, yes, something is stirring in him that feels like
like
. Lisa set him off, that frightening open glimpse into her, into her eyes. And Donna … well, he may never see Donna again. Donna has only been a part of his waiting life. When he sees Lisa later that will be the end of it and he may never return to the flat. So maybe he is here to say goodbye.

Visitors swarm through the entrance and they all have something with them, flowers or carrier bags full of fruit and chocolate. Of course, that's what you do on a hospital visit, you take a present. Goes into the hospital shop, looks at the chocolates but she might not like chocolate, did she say, he can't remember, that she was allergic to chocolate? She's one of these people allergic to everything, allergic to life practically. Best off with a book or magazine but most of them are crap in here and he doesn't know what she's got. Chooses a box of tissues, different colour ones in a flowery box. Tissues are always useful and you can't go wrong with something useful. Goes up in the lift in search of Donna's ward.

He sees her before she sees him. She's reading, not looking around, obviously not expecting a visitor. Her bed is opposite the door with its panel of criss-cross patterned glass. There are curtains drawn either side between her and her neighbours. Her hair is tied back from her colourless face, her eyebrows are fine raised lines. Is she really reading? She looks kind of defiant. He feels shy of her in the high neat bed and almost loses his nerve, but she looks up before he can turn.

‘Tony!' It's like a fucking lightbulb's switched on inside her face, makes him feel bad.

‘Hi.' Hands her the bag. She puts her hand in, eyes huge with surprise, and brings out the box of tissues.

‘Oh … ta.'

‘Didn't know what else.'

Light's off again. Looks as if she might cry. Christ, he's done his best. But then she shrugs and smiles. ‘Very useful,' she says.

‘That's what I thought.'

‘Sit down.' She gestures to a chair which makes him way below her. He can't think of anything to say. Shifts around. Her book slides off the bed, he picks it up, another crap romance. Tragic.

‘Well,' she says, ‘didn't see you as the type … to visit, you know.'

‘Said I might.'

‘Still.' She smiles at him, the smile that makes crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her eyes are not blue, but muddy green.

‘So …' Shifts his eyes down to the green honeycomb blanket with the shape of body underneath. ‘How was it?'

‘I was asleep.' She laughs at the expression on his face. ‘All according to plan … two more days I'm out of here. How's things?'

Tony nods. ‘Fine, great actually. Donna, reason I've come, I'm moving on.' Her eyebrows meet. ‘Something's come up, work and that.'

‘Oh.' She smooths the folded edge of the sheet over the blanket. Her nails are bitten right down to their soft pink beds. ‘Can't offer you anything … except water … water?'

‘No ta.' A long silence. He wishes he hadn't come.

‘I fucking hate cauliflower cheese.' The voice of a visitor behind the curtain is raised.

‘What can I bleeding do about it stuck in here.'

Donna lifts her eyebrows and grins. ‘They're always at it, hammer and tongs,' she whispers. ‘So … what sort of work?'

‘Not a job exactly, more an occupation you might say.'

‘Girl?' Something funny in her voice, a little twist. New. The woman behind the curtain is crying now.

‘Christ, I'm sorry,' the man says, ‘I'll eat the fucking cauliflower cheese, only stop crying, baby, stop fucking crying.'

‘Shall I lend her a tissue?' Donna says.

‘Actually I did meet a girl, at an exhibition.'

‘Exhibition?'

‘Art. Lisa, gave me her number.'

‘Going to ring?'

He shrugs.

‘What's she like?'

‘Blonde, blue eyes, kind of pretty.'

‘Sounds nice.' Her hand goes to her own hair, stringy with grease, fiddles with the ratty rubber band. ‘What were you doing at an exhibition?'

‘Looking.'

‘You don't say.'

‘Patrick Mount's portrait and that …'

‘Course. Well, ring her then. What you got to lose?'

‘And where's my bleeding Lucozade you promised?' The woman, recovered now, demands.

‘I'll miss you when you've gone.' Donna puts the raw end of her thumb into her mouth.

‘I watered your plants.'

‘Ta.'

‘How old are you?'

‘Why?' She starts to laugh and grabs her belly. ‘Ouch! Twenty-two, why?'

‘Just wondered.' Wants to go now, been and done it and now he wants to go, can't think of another thing to say, hates goodbyes. There's something he ought to say, something kind or comforting, but he can't think.

‘Funny sort of present,' she says. She presses down until the perforations give and tears out the oval cardboard shape from the top. She plucks out a yellow tissue and wipes her nose. ‘Very nice, very good tissue that,' she says stuffing it up her pyjama sleeve. Is she taking the piss? ‘If you'd brought grapes you could have eaten them all like they do on the telly.'

‘Didn't have grapes in the shop.'

‘Doesn't matter I'm …'

‘Allergic to grapes?'

‘No, joking.' Their eyes meet for a second and he looks away.

‘Best be off.' He stands up. What he should do, he realises, is kiss her. Kiss her on the cheek because it's goodbye and she is a friend. She likes him and he … he does like her. Is she expecting a kiss? Her eyes are dry and bright as she looks into his face. He leans towards her. Her skin is sallow and sheeny with grease, he can see the open pores beside her nose. Can't. Can't put his lips against her skin. Actually can't do it.

‘See you Donna, take care.'

‘Yes.' Her voice is very small. He leaves fast, whack through the swing doors along the corridor where a woman in a dressing gown totters along, a drip on wheels attached to her arm. Makes him go weird. Stops by the lift, finger hovering by the buttons. Can't do it. Something makes him go back. Stops by the doors of Donna's ward and looks through the chequered glass. She is clutching the box of tissues to her chest but he doesn't think she's crying. Thank Christ for that. Turns away and this time makes it down in the lift and out.

Goes in the first cafe he sees and pulls out his book. The same book she, Lisa, had in her bag. Nice name that, Lisa. Coincidence, she said. But it is a further sign. Watches his tea get cold. The tannin forms a patchy ginger skin on top. When he stirs it the skin breaks into geometrical fragments, clings to the spoon and the sides of the cup. Won't see Donna again. Raises the cup to his lips but puts it down. Wasn't tea he wanted in any case, just a fag and a place to sit out of the wind while he makes up his mind whether to ring Lisa or not. Whether to ring her today. The woman who served him is Australian, pretty, dark hair cropped very short, a straight look, sensible, long-fingered. ‘Coming up,' she said when he asked for tea. ‘Can I git you anything to eat?' as if she cared almost, took a personal interest. He felt sorry to say no and sat with his back to her to stop himself staring. What is it with him? Women everywhere all of a sudden and he can't have them, that decision is made. Laughs at a sudden realisation. Patrick! Of course, it's Patrick guiding him, noticing, steering him. Rolls a fag and opens the book at random. This page! Yes, Patrick is behind this all right, randy bastard. Grins as he reads:

As the attentive reader will be aware, it is one of the highest tenets of my system that one should take pleasure, where it does not give pain, wherever one can in order to increase the amount of pleasure and therefore joy and therefore good in this world. It is enjoyment that lends strength to the plants which nourish the air we breathe and return it, purified, a thousandfold to mankind.

Human and animal sexual activity, when it is of an enjoyable nature, gives pleasure to plants in the vicinity – and even to plants at great distances if they are personally attached to the participants. (See appendix for precise data.) Suffice it to say for the purposes of this memoir that the galvometer shows highly increased vibration in plants exposed to human orgasm.

For a male, and in some rare cases, for a female, novelty is one of the greatest aspects of sexual enjoyment and therefore I have made it my life's work, and occasional sacrifice, to seek sexual novelty (enjoying, I would estimate, upwards of five hundred women). However, when Constance Benson came into my life I discovered how a rather different sexual pleasure can occur in the context of a deepening love. Constance Benson has been and remains the love of my life. My wife I loved, too, but the love between us was always tempered by the love she had first given to another man – the fiancé who died in a riding accident – and our marriage from the first was based on understanding rather than passion. After the first year of our marriage we turned aside from each other in the physical respect alone. We both had lovers and sometimes early on, we had conjoined experiences – what have been commonly and crudely described as
orgies
, by my critics.

Sacha, Constance and I lived harmoniously together for eight years until the sad occasion of Sacha's death, after which my heart was given solely to Constance with whom it remains. Sexually I have never understood the reasoning behind fidelity but emotionally there has been only one woman for me since she entered my life.

Tony pulls out a Rizla and smooths it on the table in front of him. To ring Lisa now or not ring her now, ring her tomorrow? He needs another sign. Pinches out tobacco and rolls the paper into a tight cone, slicks his tongue along the shiny edge. Listens to the Australian woman behind him, ‘Can I git you anything to eat?' asking someone else, with just the same pretence, as if she cared. But maybe that's just because she's Australian. Are they really friendlier? Thinks of Donna and her pinched little face, reluctant smile and her pile of crap romances. If this one speaks to him again, then he'll go straight out and ring Lisa. That's it. Signs will come via fanciable women, of course they will, he's getting the hang of this now. If not, then what …? Flicks his lighter and breathes in smoke.

‘Nobody iver tell you those things kill?'

Tony looks up at her face. She's standing behind him, a tray of crockery in her hands. He likes the way she wears a white apron over her jeans, and the shape of the muscles in her thin arms straining with the weight of the tray. ‘Thanks, doll,' he says, gathering together his book and fag stuff.

‘Doll! I like that!'

‘See you,' and he's out of there heading for the nearest phone.

‘Fucking pom,' she calls after him, but when he turns round she's grinning.

He has no phone card and there's a queue for the coin box. Almost gives up. But no, Patrick won't let him, he won't let himself. A windy corner – the wind sprung up from nowhere. Sky suddenly dark. A whirlpool of rubbish blows round in the gutter, crisp bag, cellophane, even some yellow leaves – though there are no trees in sight. Suddenly it's autumn, just like that. Pulls up the collar of his jacket, hunches into it, hands in pockets. Finally gets into the old-fashioned pissy-smelling box. Gets the card from his wallet, money from his pocket, only 20p, Christ. Lifts the receiver, puts in his coin, breathes in as he presses the numbers. What will he say? Probably isn't there. Should have rung the work number, dick-head, why would she be there at this time? Just about to put the receiver down when there's her voice, breathless.

‘Sorry, just got in. Machine on the blink.'

‘Lisa?'

‘Speaking.'

‘It's Tony?'

‘–'

‘From the Benson …'

‘Oh!
That
Tony.'

‘So … how are you?'

‘All right … good.'

‘–'

‘So?'

‘Look, I'm in a box, money going, fancy a drink or …'

‘Er, yes …'

‘Meet me at Leicester Square Tube at eight … we're going to be cut off …'

‘OK.'

‘OK? Which ent …'

But the line has gone dead. Tony listens for a moment to the quiet of it. Steps out of the box and into the wind.
Here we go
. Feels kind of loose and light all round his heart. This is it, the process starting. Three hours and he'll be with her and he won't get too close. Only needs directions. Won't hurt her and he won't get too close. And once he's got to Benson and got whatever he needs, the recipe or the elixir itself, then it will all be different. His proper life will start. The wind hooes round the corner and he clatters an empty Coke can along with his feet.

TWENTY-ONE

They let her have the studio. For those hot summer months Patrick worked in the garden tending his beehives and growing the victory vegetables as Sacha mockingly called them and they
were
splendid vegetables, creamy earth-tasting potatoes, the sweetest peas, lettuces big enough to fill your arms. He spent the rest of his time in his shed, doing some kind of experiments with the essences of plants, something that was secret and so absorbing they sometimes did not see him for days until he emerged with an odd dazed smirk on his face.

Sacha cycled off and set up her easel outside whenever the weather was clement. Sometimes she went to Bakewell to shop and visit Betty or Betty visited her. But usually Sacha painted, she took to painting in the kitchen so that the oily linseed smell infused the entire house, crept even into the taste of the food. The pastry she made to surround the fruits and vegetables of the garden was leathery with a linseed tang and sometimes even a streak of colour so that Connie, in her first giant burst of creativity, really felt that she ate, slept and breathed painting. Her dreams came in images and when words entered them it was often the names of pigments – burnt umber, raw umber, raw sienna, cinnabar green.