But I can’t feel his presence, only his absence, and I look out the window at the night and feel a hollow feeling with no tears in it.
Chapter 2
The window is open and I can hear the pigeons roo-cooing from the plane tree. Safi touches her fingers together and places them in front of her lips. They are long brown fingers and they make a pattern in front of her mouth. She is wearing a turquoise and gold sari. The gold is stitched into brown.
‘It all seems too hard, that’s all.’
‘You’ve had a lot to deal with, Eve.’
‘It’s like the world is too much; it all seems too harsh, too noisy.’
‘You are feeling vulnerable. It’s only natural. You are grieving, Eve.’
‘But there are so many other things to think about, I have to get a job for a start.’
‘I’m sure you will find something.’
‘Well, Bianca says she might know of one.’
‘That’s good, Eve.’
‘But it’s not even that, Safi.’
‘What is it then, Eve?’
‘Nothing makes sense. It just seems pointless.’
‘What does?’
‘Everything.’
‘That’s because you are tired. You will heal. Give it time.’
‘I don’t even know if I want to paint.’
‘It won’t be like this for ever.’
‘Safi, I wish you’d tell me something.’
‘What do you wish I would tell you, Eve?’
‘I wish you’d tell me something beautiful, that would make it all make sense. It’s just everything’s gone blank.’
‘That feeling is part of the grieving process, Eve.’
‘What am I supposed to do? Just wait?’
‘Trust in the process. Give it time. Don’t expect too much of yourself, Eve. You will find your way.’
I look at the gold patterns on Safi’s sari.
Then I look out the window at the plane tree and watch the breeze blowing through the newly unfurled leaves.
But I can’t see the pictures when you speak, Safi, and the colours don’t sing any more.
Chapter 3
I sit in the studio in front of the white canvas. I feel afraid. The empty space blows a wind through me. It feels impossible to begin when my imprint is so faint I might disappear into the colours.
After the photos had dried, Cecile brought them upstairs and I was shocked when I looked at myself because it was a picture of how I was feeling; as though I had lost my edges; become insubstantial and see-through.
In one I could see the wood pile through me.
‘What is that? It’s spooky,’ I said to Rob.
‘It’s because you moved,’ Rob said. ‘It’s a very slow exposure.’
‘But look, Bianca moved all the time and she comes out really distinct.’
‘Well, don’t move.’
‘I told you I didn’t move.’
‘You must have,’ she said.
‘But I didn’t.’
Behind the muslin curtain dotted with blue paint, I can hear Rob swearing under her breath. I look round and see her using her back and her splayed arms to unroll the big drawings on to the wall, but the corners keep rolling up. I stand up and go through the curtain.
‘You daft idiot! Let me help you.’
‘I can do it!’ she says, staple-gunning the corner behind her head.
‘Well, it’s easier with two.’
We unroll the paper and staple the bottom corners and I look up at the new drawings. The figures are drawn in blue and their bodies are covered in pictures.
‘Rob, they’re great.’
‘I think they’re the Picts,’ she says, wiping her hair away from her damp forehead, and a little out of breath. ‘They were covered in blue tattoos.’
She unrolls the other two and staples them to the wall and the studio dances with the new figures.
‘How’s it going through there?’ She inclines her head to my space.
I sigh. ‘Don’t know. I think I’ve lost my imagination.’
‘Nonsense!’ she says. ‘Just have some fun!’
I shrug.
‘Hey, I know what you need,’ she says, squatting down on the floor. ‘I got them in the market as an experiment.’
She empties everything out of her string bag and gives up squatting and sits down against the wall with her legs out.
‘You’re going to have to help me up, you know!’
‘What are you looking for?’
‘These!’ she says, holding up a handful of triangular packets.
‘What are they?’
‘It’s henna. You know, for drawing on your skin.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Southwark. Shall we try them? Look, you just tear the top off, it’s like icing a cake.’
She hands one to me with the top torn off.
‘What? Now, Rob? You mean . . . oh look, it’s coming out, I can’t stop it!’
The henna is oozing out of the hole at a tremendous rate, and already making wiggles on the floor.
Rob sits down, lifts her skirt over her knees, and kicks her shoes off.
‘Well, I didn’t really mean now, but I didn’t realize it was going to do that.’
You have to draw quickly at the speed it comes out the packet. I draw a climbing plant with tendrils, which wind round her calf and blossom at her knee, with leaves that turn into eyes, and faces that smile from the leaves.
‘See! You haven’t lost it!’
When the packet is finished I roll up my trousers and Roberta paints landscapes on my legs, the moon on my knee, and plants sprouting from my pores. She gets so carried away I let her do my hands and then my arms, which sprout wings, and birds singing, and animals, and people with the bodies of birds, and birds with the bodies of lions. We go to the bathroom to stick our limbs in the sink, and Rob has to stand still while I do her legs, and we wash off the earthy-smelling worms of henna, and the drawings are left behind in sepia, glowing from our skin.
‘Let’s go and show Bianca!’ And we walk upstairs to the abstract floor.
Bianca wants to be decorated too, so she lies down on the floor of her studio, with her legs and arms stretched like a star and we kneel down on either side of her, an arm and leg each and continue our pictorial flow, while Bianca moans and sighs, ‘Oh, this is ecstatic! Let’s do this every week, I feel as if I am being transported,’ and we laugh and tell her to be quiet, we’re concentrating. Don’t make us laugh, it makes the line wiggle.
We have become proficient and Bianca’s decoration is a masterpiece of twirls and furls and laughing faces.
‘My God, I am a walking mythology!’ says Bianca, delighted, as she prances about after washing off the henna, with her trousers rolled up to her thighs, and in only her vest, stretching out her arms in elegant mudras to show us our skill, and pointing her feet this way and that so she looks like a painted Pierrot.
Chapter 4
‘Hey,’ Bianca said, her painted fingers in an elegant posture. ‘Susie needs someone to cover for a missing waitress on Sunday, says you’ll be next in line for a job if you’re any good. It’s only £6 an hour, but the tips are good.’
‘Thanks, Bianca,’ I said, ‘I’ll do it,’ but I’ve been dreading Sunday ever since.
As I walk along the street I take out the matchbox and push it open.
I need a new battery because the birds don’t light up.
I look at the gold branches and imagine Zeb shaping them with his long fingers.
I asked Rob for his address. She said Mick would know it, or I could send it to the art school in Spain, and Miss Pym would have the address, but I said I’d prefer to wait and get it from Mick.
Bianca said, ‘Zeb’ll know you didn’t get the packet straight away, don’t worry, but send a postcard and tell him you’ve got it now.’
‘He’ll think I didn’t care about it, it was weeks ago he left it, all that time ago.’
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But Bianca said, ‘Your father died, Eve! And it only seems that long to you because of what happened.’
I said, ‘How many weeks is it, then?’ and she counted them on her painted fingers and said, ‘Seven.’
It seems unbelievable. Time doesn’t always pass at the same rate, that’s all, because I feel as if the whole of reality has been reconstructed, and isn’t it amazing it can happen in seven weeks.
So I sat down at her table while she heated wax and resin, and filled her studio with interesting fragrance, and drew a picture on a piece of card of coloured birds flying across the blue sea to Spain. Seven weeks ago. He must have a girlfriend by now, and I said it out loud without realizing. Bianca shrugged. ‘Maybe he does, but I think he loves you.’ And I posted the card in the post box when I’d waited for Mick to come back.
I arrive at the corner of the road and wonder which way to turn. Bianca gave me a note with the address. I look at the numbers and follow them backwards.
There are plants growing up the walls around the door. You have to ring a doorbell.
‘Hello,’ I say to a tall man with blond hair. ‘I’m here for the waitress shift. I’m standing in for someone.’
He nods at me, without smiling, and shows me along a corridor.
I am introduced to Susie, who shakes my hand. She has a beauty spot on her cheek.
‘Come this way,’ she says in a deep grainy voice. I follow her down a mustard-yellow corridor into the dining room panelled in dark wood. There is a long table in the first room, and tables of different shapes in the second room, and a conservatory that leads into the garden where there are benches among the flowers, and places to sit that are hidden behind trees.
‘This is lovely,’ I say.
She shrugs.
‘For them!’
Susie has longer hair at the front than the back, so it hangs down either side of her cheeks like two telephones. When she leans forward she could speak into the receivers.
We go through the double doors into a large brown room with a billiard table and a fireplace and sofas and a bar, and Susie tells me she sings in nightclubs, and what she really wants to be is a singer. I say, ‘You’ve got the voice for it’ and she smiles and shouts across at the bar, ‘This is the waitress today.’
‘What’s her name?’ shouts the barmaid.
‘Eve,’ I say.
‘Upstairs there are bedrooms where the members can stay,’ she says, pointing up the staircase. ‘I’ll introduce you to the kitchen,’ and we walk back down the yellow corridor into the dining room and through a studded green baize door into the kitchen.
The under-chef has grey hair although he is young, and a rough-looking red face. He looks up from his preparation and nods without looking at me.
There are some other boys working in the kitchen dressed in white, with dirty aprons.
‘Where’s Carlo?’
‘Not here yet.’
‘He’s the head chef.’
We go through to the back.
‘This is where you bring the dirty plates. This is Patrice.’
Patrice is African, with a closed face that opens into a smile.
He flicks his towel over his shoulder so it snaps.
‘How do you do,’ I say and smile at him.
Susie ushers me back through the kitchen where a tall bulky man is standing in a white coat and blue checked trousers. He has slicked-back hair.
Susie says, ‘This is Eve, she’s the waitress today.’
He nods upwards and looks me up and down.
We walk back through the swing door.
‘Don’t worry about Carlo,’ says Susie. ‘He’s got the worst temper. He’s a real pain in the arse.’
He bangs through the doorway, so the swing door slams against the wall.
‘Susie, I want to see you!’ he says. His black eyes have a closed-off look.
Susie looks at the ceiling. ‘See, he’s just showing off to you that he’s the big boss. Honestly, he’s such a child, don’t get taken in.’
She winks at me and goes through into the kitchen. I am left in the corner looking at the empty tables and wishing I could go home.
A blonde girl slides in, undoing her coat.
‘Oh thank God, I thought I was late. Haven’t even eaten yet. Look, this is where the cutlery is, I’m Edna.’
Susie and I put white cloths on the tables between us and lay the tables in all three rooms, after we have eaten our roast beef and yorkshire pudding cooked by the under-chef. The light slants in through the windows and Susie tells me she’s in love with someone who comes here with his wife. They are having an affair and each time she sees him it’s agony.
‘He’ll come today,’ she says.’ He always comes on Sunday.’
Carlo opens the door and blares, ‘Susie, come here!’
‘See, he’s doing it again,’ she says, smiling. ‘He just loves being in charge and manly!’
People begin to come in and sit down at the tables. Susie comes back through with a biro behind her ear.
‘You can take these tables here, all right?’
I must look alarmed because she says, ‘Don’t worry, we’re not open yet, I still have to tell you what to do!’
She shows me how to take an order, how to put it on the nail through the hatch in the kitchen, and where to collect the plates.
‘Carlo or someone will put it through and call it out. Then you take it to the table, all right?’
‘OK,’ I say.
‘He’s here!’ she says, suddenly blushing and pointing him out with her eyes.
The man she is in love with has a reddish face and black curly hair and eyes that are in a smile, that isn’t really a smile. He slides a glance at Susie while he pulls the chair out for his wife.
‘Oh, he makes my heart race!’ says Susie.
‘But he’s revolting, Susie.’
‘Oh no, you don’t know him,’ she says. ‘He’s just wonderful.’
‘I don’t want to know him.’
Susie takes me by the arm.
‘See that woman with dyed black hair, see over there in the blue?’
I look over to the corner and see a woman dressed in bangles and jewellery and feathers, with bright red lipstick and long false eyelashes.
‘She’s about seventy! Well, she’s going out with the under-chef.’
‘Is there any service?’ a woman calls out.
‘We’ve only just opened!’ says Susie.
Suddenly it seems all the people arrive at once, the dining room is filled with the noise of people talking. They are pulling the chairs out and sitting down and shouting across at each other.
I take my pad and take the order for the first table, and put my order on the nail inside the hatch.
‘Hey, come back!’ says the under-chef. ‘What’s that?’
‘Two roast beef.’
‘Well, you have to write it, 2, number two, times, understand, or I don’t know what the fuck you mean, geddit?’
‘OK,’ I say.
I go back and forth with orders and starters.
People are sitting down at all my tables.
I take the dirty plates from the first table’s starters through the swing door and through the kitchen, where there is a frenzy of cooking and Carlo growls ‘Get out the way!’ as though I am a dog. I go into the back kitchen where we put our dirty plates, and smile at Patrice.
He receives them with a towel over one shoulder.
‘Do you want to sleep with me?’ he says.
‘I . . . er.’
‘Do you want to sleep with me, yes or no?’
‘I don’t even know you.’
He takes the dishes and clatters them in the sink. He whips his towel off his shoulder.
‘You English girls, you’re all the same. Yes or no! I say Yes or NO! I am just asking.’
‘I, er, well, no,’ I say.
‘Thaaankyou,’ he says. ‘A straight answer, that’s all I am asking. A strrr
aight answer.’
He has an African accent.
‘Did he ask you if you would sleep with him?’ says Susie, when I come back into the dining room.
‘Yes.’
‘He asks all the girls.’
‘He didn’t ask me!’ says Edna.
‘You haven’t got the tits!’ says Susie.
‘Maybe someone should tell him it isn’t exactly the best approach.’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ says Susie.
My two other tables are full. I approach with my notepad and pen. I still have the faded henna on my fingers.
‘Oh, very exotic!’ says the young man. ‘Are you exotic?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘What would you like?’
‘You look rather exotic to me,’ he says.
He speaks sideways so I can see up one of his nostrils. Someone should tell him not to do that.
‘Are you,’ and his eyebrows flick up, ‘painted all over?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Can I take your order?’
‘And how long have you been a waitress?’ he says.
‘This is my first day. What would you like?’ I say.
‘Oh, first day! I see, how splendid! I say, Mummy what d’you want?’
Mummy proceeds to order in French. The menu is written in English with a translation in French but she has to order the whole thing in bloody French.
I hesitate. ‘Is that the calves’ liver?’
She says it again in French and looks at me with a blank look.
‘Thank you,’ I say, trying to memorize what she just said so I can look it up. I collect the menus.
‘Oh, I haven’t finished yet,’ says the young man, his nostril pointing at me, and pulling the menu towards him. ‘Does the marmite dieppoise come in a white wine velouté?’
I have no idea, and I’m still trying to memorize what Mummy said.
‘I’ll ask in the kitchen,’ I say.
‘Well, it says it does here,’ he says. ‘And I’d like to change mine for a confit de canard.’
‘Yes. OK.’
‘You might need to do a bit better than that,’ he says, ‘if you’re going to stay longer than the first day.’
When I walk through into the other dining room Carlo opens the kitchen door.
‘Look, you idiot, your beef has been waiting here five minutes! It’ll be COLD!’
Invisible River Page 16
