Sheer Blue Bliss (24 page)

She goes to the trap-door and sits on the edge, stiff and old, as soon as she turns her face away from him he can see what a decrepit old bitch she really is. She pushes her feet in the stupid shoes or to the rungs of the ladder. Could shove her down and no one would be any the wiser. Misadventure. Stands over her looking at the pink scalp under the thin puff of hair. ‘I killed someone,' he says. She doesn't answer or look at him, manoeuvres herself round to descend the ladder.

Tony needs to see her face to see what she's thinking. Goes down after her, too quickly, feet almost in her face. They stand at the bottom of the ladder, she looks down at the floor, he at her bowed head. So she is scared then, scared to meet his eyes.

‘I don't eat much as a rule,' she says. ‘Oh … but there's still your stew. You have more stew, that'll last for days at this rate. I'll have a bag of crisps.' She rummages in the cupboard and brings out a pink bag. ‘Prawn Cocktail, good,' she says. ‘Incidentally, dear, did you like them?'

‘What?'

‘This person that you killed. Did you like … or love? I can't see the point of killing someone otherwise.' Tony turns to the stove, flicks his lighter at the gas. A swoosh as it lights, a big blue flower of flame squashed by the pan. Benson is stuffing crisps, crackling, munching, Christ. Doesn't see the point? The
point?
There is no point. She's completely fucking barking. ‘Or hate?' she suggests. ‘Do you want to talk about it?'

He watches the cassoulet heat. The greasy skin of the top goes glossy and it starts to bubble, lazy heaves of vegetable and meat. He tries to block out the crunching of the crisps, that horrible swallowing sound she makes like she's got some kind of mechanism in her throat. ‘Tea?' she says, and he refills the kettle – still warm from last time. Spoons some food on to a plate and switches off the gas. He waits till she's finished the crisps and sits down at the table. She has salt and bits of crisp all stuck in the hairs and wrinkles round her mouth.

‘Manslaughter,' he says, ‘a girl.' She does miss a beat then, surely she does miss a beat.

She screws up her crisp bag. ‘Funny word, I've always thought. Manslaughter. Split it up and you get man's laughter. Funny that.'

‘What?

‘But anyway, dear, it means not deliberate?'

‘Not premeditated.' Tony takes a mouthful of the cassoulet. Swallows. Good, even better than it was, the flavour rich, not quite hot enough, not warmed through, but good. Cooking is something he can do. She keeps her eyes on him, head on one side.

‘I suppose not. And why do you want yourself painted?' He won't reply. What is this? Why will this woman not react properly? Must have driven Patrick mad, no wonder he pissed off out of it.

‘Rather than a photo?' she says.

He won't answer.

‘Photographs are quicker. More the thing, I'd have thought.' He finishes the food and gets up to wash his plate. ‘I'll take a cup of tea and have a nap now,' she says, ‘just forty winks. And I'll have them upstairs in my chair if you don't mind. Not that dreadful bed.'

He watches her make tea and pour herself, not him, a cup. She climbs up the ladder with it. Watches the thin legs, the twinkling shoes disappear. His mother had shoes that shape but never green, always black or brown and smelling of Cherry Blossom polish, a smell that makes him want to puke, even the thought of it. Every Sunday evening that was his job – to clean the shoes. He had one or two pairs but she had several and he had to do them every week, shoes and boots, even if she hadn't worn them. She'd stand them in a line by the back door on a sheet of newspaper and the tin with the brushes and the tins of polish – dark tan, light tan, black. He had to polish till she said they were shiny enough, brushing and brushing, little lumps of polish getting under his nails, staining his fingers, the smell of it getting into his skin. She said you should be able to see your face in them, she'd hold them up to her face and frown, black lines across her white forehead. But even when they really shone his own face was just a smear in the leather, you never could have told it was a face. Then in the bath scrubbing and scrubbing with the sharp nail brush to make that smell go away, staying in the bath till his fingers crinkled and the water got colder than the air.

EIGHT

Connie settles herself with her tea. The door downstairs opens and bangs shut. Gone out then. Good. She sags. Good to be alone, even just for a moment. That blasted boy is no danger, not really, not if she handles him right. Later she'll go down to the sea, just for a while, just for a breath of it. But what to make of
him
? Manslaughter, a girl, what to make of that? True? Murder you might fantasise, but manslaughter?

Just a boy with a screw loose who thinks the elixirs would help him. That's all. Nothing to fear. She told him a lie, but sometimes lies are good not bad, sometimes lies are the very best, the safest thing. Just keep a step ahead, just keep your head. What this manslaughter business is about … should know more, doesn't want the detail, just the bare bones. Like how long ago. Thinking of bones: the bones in his face, good, cheeks, aquiline nose – Patrick must be bones by now, loosened and sprawled – her own bones ache with tired, but nice to be in the chair, in her place, Patrick back in his rightful place.

Oh if only Tony would go. It could be all right, she could be. Think of something that will make you warm. So sleepy with the upheaval. But it isn't anything much, it isn't. It isn't anything to be frightened of. Just bear with it, just go along, make the best of it.

Funny how life happens. How she's here, stuck here, like a prisoner, forced to do the thing she used to love, that
was
the point of her. Funny how life happens, the hinges that bend you this way and that. If this had been different, so would that. If not for this, if not for that. Useless to regret because who knows what else there was? If not for the war, what? No Patrick, no Sacha, no Red. Maybe no painting? That is hard to believe. Other lovers – a husband – babies? Certainly another life. But she's had this one, this life. And here she is, stuck in her studio with him down there. Oh well. Useless to regret, the only regret allowed is Red. Let's think then, let's think of that.

The day after her birthday she woke with a headache. They had sat up late drinking beer: Patrick being outrageous, Sacha long-suffering, Cora flirtatious, Duffield and Waverley by turns shocked and provoking. Connie and Red had sat a little apart from the rest, said little to each other but touched each other with their eyes and with sideways smiles. And when Connie went to bed he had followed her to the door and kissed her good-night, just a kiss on the cheek, but in front of everyone, and said, ‘See you tomorrow,' sending a thrill right through her.

But the next day was thick grey streaming rain. Everyone was out of sorts and the house was cold. It was too wet for walking. Connie had imagined sunshine, thought that she and Red would lie in a field and listen to the birds and that he would kiss her again. She wanted to touch and to be touched. The rain upset her and the pain in her head. Patrick gave her a drop of one of his prototype elixirs. Red complained of a headache, too, he appeared in the kitchen just after her, looking pale, in need of a shave, not so … attractive, not like he'd been in her mind all night. She was disappointed. Patrick gave Red a drop, too. She'd watched him stick his tongue out and Patrick drip the stuff on it and she had turned away.

What a dull, dull headache of a day. If she couldn't walk, if there wasn't going to be some kind of love – and oh she did want some kind of love – then she may as well be painting. She could try and catch the watery grey of the light, but it seemed rude to go off alone when she'd said she'd spend the day with Red. Until Sacha said, ‘Connie, why not paint Red?'

‘Well?' He looked at her and she caught the warmth in his eyes. Oh yes, it was still there that feeling.

‘I've never done an actual portrait.'

‘There's a first time for everything,' Sacha said, smiling from one of them to the other.

‘I'd be most honoured,' Red said.

‘All right then.' She led the way upstairs. She felt him pause on the landing and turned, knowing why he had paused, what he would be looking at. And she was right. He was gazing at Sacha's painting of herself standing before the window, her long pigtail snaking down her naked back. ‘Come on,' she said and he looked away from the painting and met her eyes and flushed.

It was so chilly in the studio that she lit the fire. He wandered about looking at her paintings. ‘I know nothing,' he said, ‘but the colours are so superb. Are you excited about what Duffield said?'

‘Of course.'

‘Will you go to Goldsmiths'?'

‘I don't know. I don't know if I want to study. I just want to paint.'

‘But you would get better. You would get stimulated.'

‘Perhaps.' Pale flames licked the log in the grate. ‘Good,' she said, ‘that's caught.' He knelt down beside her, took her hands. His were cold but she liked the firm way he held hers between them.

‘Would you not like to be stimulated?' he said. She could not believe he really meant what he seemed to mean, but his face was warm and close to hers and she opened her mouth to his kiss. It was so easy and natural and there was no shame in what followed. There was only one day before he went back or maybe they would have waited, maybe they would have taken time to flirt and court. Maybe the drops of elixir that Patrick had given them had some effect other than curing their headaches. Because there was no shame or inhibition. He kissed her and she kissed back, feeling a new sort of thirst and a new sort of hunger, too, as they lay down on the rug by the fire and he touched her under her clothes, his hands heating now, discovering all her curves, hollows, finding a kind of rhythm in her that she never knew she had. She ran her fingers down the warm skin of his back, round his waist, and when she touched his cock she found it smaller than Patrick's, or shorter, but maybe thicker, she could hardly meet her fingers round it. The hot sliding silk of the skin fascinated her. She sat up to look closely at the sheeny rose colour of the tip, the tawny skin that slid up and down, the black hairs that curled around. ‘It's beautiful,' she said.

‘My filament,' he said in a good imitation of Patrick's voice. She laughed but closed her eyes to try to banish thought of Patrick from her mind. She opened them to see that Red was staring at her, his eyes so hot she shivered. Then she took him in her mouth, without planning or thinking, or meaning to. A shocking thing, she had never even thought of, and when she took her mouth away she saw that he looked startled, but also very pleased. He laid her down and touched her where she had grown moist and aching: ‘The stigma,' he murmured, ‘oh Connie,
you
are beautiful.' They lay and kissed and caressed until the log had burned half away. She wanted him to make love to her but he would not. ‘It's too dangerous,' he said. The rain stopped and weak sunshine shone through the running glass casting watery reflections on the floor and in the hearth, quenching the brightness of the flames.

‘In that case,' Connie said, standing up and fastening her clothes, ‘I'd better paint you.'

‘Connie.' Red's voice was suddenly serious.

‘What?'

He stood up and grasped her by the shoulders so hard it almost hurt, looked down at her, his eyes fiercely bright. ‘Watch Patrick.'

‘What?'

‘If he ever touched you, so much as laid a finger on you, I'd kill him.'

Connie shivered, pulled away, laughed. ‘Don't be silly,' she said. ‘Come on, let me draw you.'

She did a quick charcoal sketch and mixed the palette of colours, the olives of his skin, almost cobalt of his eyes and the rich umbers and sienna of his hair. ‘So I remember,' she explained, because there was not time on that afternoon to begin the painting.

‘I love you,' he said as he watched her at work. ‘So much that I'd like to marry you. What do you think?'

She was quiet, dabbed her finger on the red-brown paint. It was so simple, the way he said that.
I love you. I'd like to marry you
. It did sound so simple.

He came across and kissed her. ‘Hey?'

‘I don't know.' She grinned at him, feeling a rush of things, happiness, pride, confusion. Love, too? ‘Ask me next time.'

And if there had been a next time … Connie feels her head nod, wakes her up, a sudden jarring in her neck. It's not then, it's now and it's cold and there's his sleeping bag spread out on the floor to remind her. She shivers. It's too cold and she is too old, simply too old for this nonsense. Can't paint his portrait, won't. Why should she? She won't be bullied. You can't be forced to paint.

Her neck hurts, the arthritis starting up again after a rest, the prospect of it bringing tears to her stupid old eyes. She dashes them away. He won't hurt her. He's just a boy with problems. She must be bright and she must be kind, soon he will get tired of this and leave, or someone will come. Barry or his mum call sometimes if she hasn't called at the shop lately. The Calor-gas man … only she's well off for gas just now, the canisters refilled before she went away. She was one step ahead this morning, that's for sure, her wits about her. Oh the body might be failing but her mind, her mind is sharp as ever. But she will stop wearing these cruel shoes that pinch her toes so. What is she about? Surely not
vanity?

She starts to get up from the chair and lets herself fall back. There are painkillers in a bottle in the kitchen drawer. The arthritis let up this summer, because of the sun maybe. But now it is back. She knows the speed with which this first ache gets its teeth in, gets a hold till she can scarcely turn her head. She can't go on with this, can't. When he calls her she will just say no. If he kills her … he won't of course, but still she should face the possibility, be prepared for all eventualities. People do kill people after all, and she has no defence. Her own death she has planned for when the time is right. She doesn't want to be cheated of that. Of that decision.