by Bryony Doran
He makes his way, eyes lowered to the floor, to where he thinks the chair is. To raise his head and look around is always a conscious decision, she notices. He will pause like an animal suddenly smelling danger, then lift his head and swivel it from side to side.
He comes to a standstill under the skylight, looks around for the chair. He is doing his best not to stare directly at her. The fact that she has also removed her clothes seems to have unnerved him even further. Good. She is glad. Sensing that he will not look up unless she asks him to, she observes him without trepidation
It is as if a sculptor, modelling him in clay, has bunched his ribs to one side and moulded them into a peak to form the distortion to one side of his back. She sees how he wields his stick like a cloak, hiding behind it; scrunching his body around the familiar.
‘Edward, could you put down your stick?’ She was also going to say, ‘and rest your hands on the back of the chair,’ but hesitates. For him to do that, she will have to get up and move the chair into position.
Startled, he lets the stick clatter to the floor. To steady himself he has to put his legs slightly further apart, allowing his genitalia to hang free. She sees a look of anger flicker across his face, but he does not speak.
She begins to sketch his profile. His jaw line is still firm but the tension in his cheek seems to have slackened. The mouth, she notes, is quite full for a man of such lean features. She studies his back, thinking how she would love to mould her hands into the gnarled and woven shape of his bones.
After five minutes she hears him quietly say, ‘Have you nearly finished? I can’t keep this position much longer.’
She is just drawing his shoulder line, trying to weigh up the uneven perspective, the one shoulder higher than the other. If he can keep still a bit longer, ‘Whatever you do, don’t move yet. I’m at a really crucial point.’
‘I need a chair, NOW!’
She looks at him, he has moved position. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she says it under her breath. ‘Can’t you keep still for just a second longer?’ She looks down to the drawing. Damn!
‘My stick,’ he gestures towards the stick on the floor.
She stands up and, holding her board in front of her, retrieves his stick.
‘Chair,’ he says, rudely.
As she walks over to the window to get his chair, she knows his eyes are on her. Suddenly she feels self conscious, even more so when she hears him say, ‘A body of perfect curves.’
She sits quickly back down, trying to hide the lower part of her body behind her board, and laughs nervously, ‘I’m supposed to be the observer here.’ She half covers her breasts with her arms wondering how long it will take her to feel less inhibited.
‘I’m sorry. You didn’t mind me saying that did you? I meant it purely as a compliment, as a fellow observer of the human body.’
She cocks her head nervously, uncertain of his remarks, unsure how to play it. She goads him, ‘Okay then, tell me what you see?’
‘Your skin is like milk, as the saying goes, but milk is not really the right word. Perfect as a button mushroom.’
He seems pleased with himself, though she had thought to disconcert him. ‘Good, go on.’ I sound like a teacher, she thinks to herself.
‘The bones in your neck and your collar-bones are carved and honed out of a seasoned piece of cherry wood and,’ he pauses, ‘your breasts are perfect.’
‘That’s not a description.’ She instinctively wants to bring her board up to cover her front.
‘No, I know. Let me think. I never knew that a body could have so many exquisite shapes. Like dough plumped and rising. Sorry, I can’t think of a better metaphor.’
She can feel herself beginning to blush. He’s good at description, she’ll give him that. ‘You make it sound as if perfection is the only true beauty.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. I think perfection can be rather boring.’
‘Would you rather have a body like mine, then?’
She pulls her face into a wry smile. Whatever she does, she mustn’t upset him this week.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he says.
She wishes he was a dummy that she could just put into whatever position she wanted and leave him, and not have to listen to him banging on.
‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ she says, ‘but I’d rather draw your body than mine. Now can I get on?’
‘That’s a bit of a cop-out isn’t it?’
She puts down her charcoal and stares at him. She wishes she could bite her tongue, but she can’t. ‘Would you like me to be dishonest? Would you like me to say: Oh, it must be so interesting having a body like yours?’
‘Now you’re being patronising.’
‘I’m not. I’m being truthful.’
‘Are you?’
‘Look. I surrender. Okay? I don’t know what to say.’ She sighs, ‘Now can we get on?’
‘How would you like me to sit?’
She narrows her eyes, studies him long and hard. ‘In the most uncomfortable position I can think of.’ She smiles then, ‘But unlike you, I think I’ll take pity, just this once. Adopt whatever position you want.’
‘Miss, you’re so considerate.’ He takes a mock bow.
She laughs and shakes her head, ‘And here was me thinking you would be so meek and mild.’
‘Like a cripple should be.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’
He puts his hand up to his mouth, ‘I’m sorry, it’s my favourite occupation, making people feel uncomfortable.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly had plenty of practise.’
‘I’ve got an awful feeling I may have met my match.’
She shakes her head, ‘Now, do you think you could adopt a position – and shut up?’
He pulls his feet in under the chair and places his hands in his lap, covering his genitals.
She looks at the position he’s adopted and smiles, ‘Shy, are we?’
‘Don’t get me started again.’
‘Sorry, sorry.’
‘While you’re drawing me, describe how you see my body.’
She wishes he would just be quiet but she’d better humour him, this week anyway. ‘Mmm, let me think.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘I know this may sound slightly odd but your body has a foetal shape about it, as if you are still all curled-in trying to protect the centre. Your skin has a slightly yellow, slightly gingerish tinge to it; maybe that’s the freckles. The way your bones have formed on your back gives you,’ she hesitates. ‘I don’t know really. I just want to smooth it, make it look less vulnerable.’
‘Now who isn’t giving a proper description?’ He says quietly.
‘It’s very difficult, there aren’t any ready-made words to describe it, so let me think. Like, like the middle of a pie, you know, where the china bird is put to support the pastry, but the pastry still pulls downwards.’
He laughs, ‘What sort of pie is it?’
‘Best steak, of course, with plenty of gravy.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘What?’
‘My china bird.’
Is she, she wonders, getting into dangerous territory again? ‘You do ask some very demanding questions.’ She wrinkles her nose, ‘Do I like your china bird? Yes, I suppose I do, but it’s a bit like asking if I like your face. It’s just another part of your body.’
‘Thank you, thank you for that.’ he says, quietly.
She sees that, for once, she has said the right thing. ‘Do you want me to go on with my description?’
He nods.
‘Your limbs,’ she frowns, ‘are a bit thin, the flesh is slightly wasted, I think you’re lacking a bit in muscle tone.’ She looks up and sees that he is amused by her awkwardness. ‘Doesn’t it upset you, me saying these things about your body?’
‘No. It’s such a novelty to have someone actually looking at me.’
‘You have good hands,’ she continues. ‘Strong, clean, elegant han
ds. Strange how even your body hair is tinged with ginger.’
He looks directly at her, ‘Why do you dye your hair?’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘What colour is it, really?’
‘A sort of mousey blonde.’
‘I think your natural colour would suit you better.’
‘I don’t know why I dye it, really.’
They fall into silence. The charcoal scratches across the textured paper, drawing the squareness of the shoulder line, the short neck jutting forward, the upper arms. She is really pleased at how her work is developing.
Four sketches later, she puts down her charcoal. Her automatic response is to stretch but, she smiles to herself, today she feels inhibited by her lack of clothes, ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Shall we call it a day?’
Angela doesn’t leave with Edward. She had intended to, but at the last minute realised that she had forgotten to spray her work with fixative. She unzips her portfolio case and lifts out the charcoal sketches she has done that day. She props them up against the window and rattles the can. At last she is getting somewhere. She can feel the whole thing beginning to build into something tangible. She studies his face, his chin cupped in his hand. He has discovered that if he does this, and speaks through closed teeth, he can hold a conversation without getting told off.
It is a nice face, a clever face. She is surprised. She has never thought of Edward’s whole face in any context before now. It is the eyes, and that dry mischievous humour that she trips over time and time again. It’s almost sexual, she thinks. But no, she shakes her head; don’t be stupid, he’s an old man. She’d imagined that the sessions with Edward would be long and arduous but instead, apart from when he’s being annoying, they have become afternoons of unrelenting banter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Claudette’s house was a cottage, not a semi like the other houses that her Gran cleaned, or a brick terrace like the one she lived in with her grandparents, but a real cottage, built of stone in a little village caught between the city and the moors where, if you stood at the front gate and looked into the distance, you could just make out the motorway that snaked across the Pennines.
They caught two buses to get there. As Angela grew older she would sometimes wonder why her Gran went to all that effort twice a week, when she could have easily got another cleaning job locally. She loved going there too, but she hated the journey. She’d asked her gran once, while they stood waiting in the cold for the second bus,
‘Gran, do we have to go today.’
She’d put her arm round Angela’s shoulder and hugged her into the warmth of her old grey coat with its smell of cabbage and fried food.
‘What questions you ask, child.’
Angela asked again, once they were safely seated on the bus, ‘Do you like going to see her, Gran?’
‘Yes, I do. She’s very special, our Claudette. She’s not like the others; she treats me like a person.’
Her gran had been visiting Claudette since long before Angela was born. She didn’t take Angela with her until she was nearly five. Before that, she left Angela with Mrs. Ramsbottom who had lived next door. Angela hated going there and begged her gran to take her with her to Claudette’s. Eventually, she relented. At least she wouldn’t have to owe Mrs Ramsbottom any more favours. The first time she went to Claudette’s, Angela skipped down the road past Mrs. Ramsbottom’s house. She was free at last of old dog smells, patterns, the wallpaper, carpets, curtains, even the woman herself. Once she broke a vase and there were harsh words. Afterwards Mrs Ramsbottom tried to engage her in conversation, but Angela remained silent; it was her only armour against this woman and her ridicule.
‘What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?’ She would pinch Angela’s cheek hard and laugh.
Her gran would have been horrified if it had ever occurred to her that by taking Angela to Claudette’s house, she was leading her granddaughter down the same path as her mother and into a world of images and colour.
At first Angela was frightened of the old French lady, who must have been of similar age to her gran. There was a peculiar musty smell about her, like the scent of damp cellars. She always wore black; even her stockings were black. Wisps of wiry hair protruded from her chin and when she spoke, Angela at first found her difficult to understand and could only nod in answer to her questions. While her gran cleaned, the old woman followed her from room to room, engaging her in her low, heavily-accented voice. Angela would be seated in a worn armchair, with her crayons and pad, trying to avoid the horsehair that poked through the bald patches and scratched at her bare legs. She remembers vividly the first time she went. She sat the whole time copying a picture hung on the wall. It was of a man with a funny hat. Claudette had come to stand behind her, and then she had called her gran.
‘Elsie? Come here quickly. Have you seen this?’ She took the pad from Angela and showed it to her gran. ‘You never told me she could draw.’
Her gran had shrugged it off, ‘Oh, she’s always drawing.’
Claudette asked her if she could keep the drawing. Angela thought it strange as she already had the original, but she gave it to her. The next time she went it was framed and hanging on the wall beside its bigger brother. It was the first drawing she ever had on show.
The cottage was over three hundred years old so the walls were very thick. Next to the chair where Angela sat, a small window was tunnelled out of the stone. A fish tank containing hundreds of tiny, silver-bellied guppies filtered the light from the window. The flash of their bellies captured that light and illuminated the whole space. It made Angela feel that she herself was inside the tank. She drew many pictures of it over the years. When she was about ten, Claudette asked if she could keep the fish drawing she had done that day. Without telling her, Claudette entered it in a National Competition. It won first prize. She could have gone to London to collect it but instead she received a certificate through the post and a cheque for twenty pounds.
One day when they visited there was a book on the chair arm and, as Angela sat down, she accidentally knocked it onto her lap. She opened the book carefully and started to turn the pages from back to front. It was an art book. All the drawings were in fierce, black, charcoal lines. Gypsy people; old men with hooked noses and rings in their ears, laughing women with large calves and thick forearms, urchin children with bare feet and shaven heads.
The next time Angela visited, she plucked up the courage to ask Claudette, ‘May I please look at the book of Gypsy people?’
The old woman had seemed surprised, and then slightly irritated.
Her Gran scolded, ‘Don’t go pestering Madame Mason, Angela. What have I told you about behaving yourself.’
Claudette pulled the book from the shelf. ‘No, no, no. Perhaps it is good she is interested.’
Whenever Angela visited after that, she waited until her Gran and Claudette had left the room and then she would pull the book out herself. Occasionally, Claudette would catch her with it, but she would only smile conspiratorially and shake her head. One day, while Angela was looking at the photo of the artist, a man with thick, black-rimmed spectacles and white sprouting hair, she noticed that under the photo was some writing, most of which she couldn’t make out except for the name - Claudette.
‘Excuse me, Madame Mason. What does this say?’
Claudette took the book from her and put it back in the shelf. She pulled out a bigger book of coloured drawings.
‘I think it is time you look at a different book, don’t you?’
‘Excuse me, Madame. Is this by the same artist?’
Claudette laughed, ‘No, child. This artist is called Degas. When you get tired of this book I shall choose another for you.’
Over the years, Angela studied all the art books on Claudette’s shelves, but always the book of Gypsy people was her favourite. When she began to study art seriously, she found she had a penchant for charcoal, smudging life into her models with the hard, brittle stick
and the soft pad of her finger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Angela has placed the chair sideways and asked Edward if he could manage to sit on it cowboy-style, with his arms resting on the back of the chair. She can now see only one shoulder and one side of his back. The profile jutting up like a folded elbow.
‘Edward, how did it happen?’
‘What, my back you mean?’
‘Have you always had it?’
‘I just woke up one morning and there it was, like I’d started to grow wings, or a wing at least.’
She looks up, startled for a minute, and then laughs. ‘Is that why you are such a wise old bird?’
‘Am I allowed to laugh?’
She is drawing his neck, the shadow under his jaw reflecting onto his shoulder like the smooth curve of a pebble.
‘As long as you don’t move and as long as you tell the truth.’
‘Have I always had it? It seems like it. I can’t look at pale green without thinking of hospitals. All my childhood pulled first one way and then another, trussed and bound so I had to walk like the Tin Man.’
‘So, what caused it?’
‘I know this may sound strange, but I’m not quite sure. My mother says it was polio, but I think I’ve always had a problem with my back. It suits her better to think it was polio, then she doesn’t have to take the responsibility for producing something like me.
Angela shakes her head in disbelief. Whatever had his mother done to him to make him hate her so much? ‘Jesus! Edward. Why are you so hard on your poor mother? You must know whether you had polio or not?’
‘Yes. I did. I caught it when we went to Mablethorpe for our holidays when I was six. I remember being in a hospital room all on my own, and my parents looking at me through a glass window. When I returned to school I felt like a leper. For a long time no one would talk to me or even sit next to me – which is probably why I became a loner. I wasn’t really trussed and bound, but if I had been I might not be like this now. My back started to go when I was in my early teens.’
She stands up and moves round behind him, studying his body, trying to find what it is that draws her instinctively to the deformity. Then she has it.
