Gerald was smiling at her, his eyes bright and shiny. His black hair sprang energetically from his head as if it was growing as she watched, and his heavy eyebrows met in a perfect V above the bridge of his nose. When he smiled she glimpsed a gold tooth, half way along at the top. It made him look exotic and scary, like a pirate in a storybook.
‘Yes, I’ll come,’ she said.
‘Marvellous!’ He let his hand rest on her arm. ‘I’ll say goodbye to a few people and meet you by the door. The others have already gone.’
The restaurant was dark and smoky. A pianist and guitarist were sitting on a raised platform in one corner, and jazz music drifted across the room. A waiter came to greet them. ‘Monsieur.’ He bowed to Gerald. ‘Let me show you to your table.’ He turned to Vanessa. ‘And Mademoiselle.’ She immediately felt important, a woman of the world: her dreams were starting to come true. She’d seen a film where two lovers had a clandestine final meeting in a restaurant like this; it was incredibly romantic and so sad when they had to say goodbye.
The waiter led them between the other diners to a table near the rear of the restaurant. Vanessa felt Gerald’s hand in the small of her back, propelling her forward. There were shouts of welcome from the people round the table. ‘Gerald! What kept you?’ A cacophony of voices. ‘We’re famished!’ … ‘Who’s this you’ve brought along?’ … ‘Don’t let the success go to your head, Gerald, darling!’
Gerald put his arm round Vanessa’s shoulder and gestured vaguely in the direction of the table. ‘Let me introduce you … that’s Freddie, my agent, Felicity, who co-owns the gallery, James who’s over from New York, Sabina, my sister … ’ Vanessa felt the eyes of a beautiful dark-skinned woman, with elaborate piled-up hair, scrutinising her. The woman held a cigarette holder to her lips and smoke encircled her head. ‘… Henry … Julian … Francesca … ’ At last Vanessa was able to slide into the chair Gerald held out for her.
She squinted at the menu the waiter placed in her hand. It was all in French. She ran her fingers over the thick white card with its gold embossed writing. Gerald leant over. He wanted her to try the pâté, followed by duck, he told her.
The waiter filled her wine glass and she took a large gulp. The others were toasting Gerald, the show: ‘A fantastic success,’ the man called Freddie said. ‘I can’t wait to see the papers tomorrow.’
‘Hear, hear!’
‘Spectacular!’
‘You’ve pulled it off this time, Gerald!’
Conversation bubbled round Vanessa. She finished a second glass of wine. She nibbled at the food. She liked the taste of the duck, but she couldn’t be bothered cutting off all that fat. The waiter filled her glass again. The inside of her head felt warm and fuzzy. She smiled until her face ached. This beat sitting in Andrew’s bed-sit.
Some of the others said they had to go. It was too soon. Vanessa wanted to eke out every last moment – she was going to remember this evening for the rest of her life. Julian and Francesca suggested going on to a club. That sounded more like it. Gerald might ask her to dance.
‘We’ll hang on here a bit longer,’ she heard him say. ‘Vanessa’s got a problem with her work she wants to talk through.’
She looked across at him. What was he talking about? He gave a little shake of his head. Don’t say anything. She smiled. They already had a code only they understood.
Gerald ordered two brandies.
‘Nice to have you on my own at last.’ He raised his glass. ‘Let’s drink to you, Vanessa.’
She tilted the glass towards her mouth and felt the liquid burning her throat. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
He reached across the table and put his finger to her lips. ‘You don’t have to say anything. Your face, your body, your wonderful hair, do your talking for you.’
Vanessa glanced round. The woman at the next table was looking at them. ‘You’re embarrassing me.’
Gerald laughed, a loud gravelly noise that seemed to come from deep in his chest. ‘You’ll have to learn to take praise, you know. But come on … ’ He paused to break off a piece of bread from the basket of rolls that remained untouched in the centre of the table. He held it out to her. ‘Have some of this. Soak up the alcohol.’
Obediently, she took it from him.
‘It wasn’t a complete fib,’ he said. ‘I want to hear about your work. I was taken with those drawings of yours that Carla showed me.’
‘Really?’
He laughed again. ‘Really. Great sensitivity and attention to detail. Are they of someone you know?’
‘My parents.’
‘They must be proud.’
Vanessa thought of the battle she’d had to get to college in the first place, the way her father shouted if he saw her ‘doodling’ as he called it. ‘Not proud exactly, no.’
‘Tell me,’ Gerald said. ‘I want to hear all about you.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything about Vanessa Heaney, the beautiful butterfly.’
Vanessa had never had such a conversation. ‘I don’t know where to start.’
‘Tell me … tell me … ’ Gerald picked up his glass and swirled the brandy round. ‘Tell me your dreams. Those things you think about when you’re in bed at night.’
Vanessa found herself talking, as she’d never talked before, about her plans for the future, her designs, how she loved her parents but felt at odds with them.
‘And who is this blond boy you’re always with?’ Gerald said. ‘Do you sleep together? Are you in love?’
The lie was out of her mouth before she’d even thought about it – yes, she had slept with Andrew, she told him. Sitting here in the restaurant, candlelight casting its glow, it seemed too coy, too schoolgirlish to admit she was a virgin. And now she’d said it, it was almost as if she had done it, as if that hurdle of her virginity was behind her.
Gerald took out a cigar from the pocket of his leather jacket. ‘Do you smoke?’
Vanessa shook her head.
He broke the gold seal on the cellophane and slowly unwrapped the cigar. ‘These are my indulgence,’ he said, running his finger along the length. ‘I picked up the habit in Argentina.’ His lips pursed as he pulled on it several times and a cloud of smoke emerged. ‘Mmm. Nectar.’ He threw his head back, his eyes closed.
‘Can I try?’
He opened his eyes. ‘A cigar? Are you sure?’
She nodded.
He reached into his pocket.
‘No, can I try that one?’
He passed over the cigar he’d been smoking. She felt his eyes on her as she placed it in her mouth and closed her lips round the moist tip. She sucked cautiously. Smoke filled her mouth, making her gums tingle.
She felt a cough rising up in her chest and filling her throat. She forced it back. Slowly, she breathed out. A trickle of smoke escaped from between her lips. She grinned at him.
He smiled back. ‘A natural.’
She took another tentative pull on the cigar and handed it back to him. His fingers brushed against hers as he reached out to take it. ‘I think it’s time to go, don’t you,’ he said softly.
‘Go?’ Vanessa didn’t want to go. This was the most exciting romantic evening of her life. She felt as if her head would burst. It couldn’t all come to an end yet.
He laughed. ‘Don’t worry. The night is young.’
‘What are we going to do now?’
‘Do? There’s no doubt about what we’re going to do next.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to make love to you as you’ve never experienced love before, and after that … well, we’ll see.’
She managed to smile. She managed to stand up and walk to the door of the restaurant without her legs giving way beneath her. But she could feel them shaking uncontrollably. This was it. It was going to happen. For a second, she saw Andrew’s blond hair and grey eyes. She pushed the thought of him away. H
e’d gone off, hadn’t he? He’d decided. One stupid petty argument and he’d gone off in a sulk, like a child. Gerald was a man.
She asked the taxi driver to drop her at the end of her road. It was gone one o’clock. The houses were all in darkness. Except hers that is. The lights were on in the front room. Even if they were waiting up for her, her parents wouldn’t sit in the front room. Her mother kept that for best. The overhead light in the hall was shining as well. That was seldom switched on, a waste of electricity, her father said.
Vanessa opened the door. Mrs Cochrane from number fourteen was sitting in the armchair, knitting. Two bars of the electric fire were on and the room was sweltering hot. Catherine and Daniel were in their pyjamas and were curled up asleep at either end of the sofa.
Mrs Cochrane looked up from her knitting. ‘You’re back.’ She had a large mole on her right cheek, and vertical lines furrowed her top lip as if her mouth was permanently full of something sour.
‘Is everything all right? Where’s Mammy?’
‘At the hospital.’
‘Why? What’s wrong with her?’
Mrs Cochrane folded up her knitting. ‘Your daddy’s had an accident.’
Vanessa forgot her sore lips that felt swollen from Gerald’s kisses, the pounding ache between her thighs where he’d pushed his way inside her. ‘What happened? He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?’
Mrs Cochrane puckered her lips. ‘Keep your voice down. You’ll wake the little ones.’
‘Tell me,’ Vanessa insisted. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Your mammy didn’t know. She got a telephone call. Course she thought he was at the pub as usual. What that poor woman has to put up with, it’s a wonder – ’
‘What happened?’
‘She came round about nine o’clock. In a right panic, she was. Asked me to sit with the little ones – seeing as you were out gallivanting – the hospital had phoned to say your daddy had fallen off some scaffolding.’
‘No! Is he hurt?’
‘Shouldn’t think he’d be at the hospital if he wasn’t.’
‘How badly?’
Mrs Cochrane shrugged. ‘I told you, your mammy didn’t know. Said she’d telephone when she got to the hospital.’
‘And?’
‘She hasn’t yet. And just as well, or I’d have had to tell her you – ’
‘Which hospital is it?’
‘She didn’t say. Just went off in a taxi.’ Mrs Cochrane gathered up her belongings. ‘I’d better be off. Tell your mammy I’ll come round in the morning, to make sure everything’s all right like.’
Vanessa closed the door and went back into the front room. She turned off the electric fire. Catherine and Daniel’s cheeks were brilliant red from the heat. The only sounds were their breathing and the ticking of the clock. It was nearly two o’clock. Why on earth hadn’t her mother phoned? If her father had had the accident at work, it must have happened hours ago. Surely, there should be news by now?
She went out into the hall and picked up the telephone receiver to make sure it was working. The dialling tone hummed in her ear. She felt sick. She’d been drinking champagne, lying in Gerald’s bed, letting him kiss and lick that place that she’d hardly even touched herself, no, not letting him, encouraging him, pleading with him, ‘Again, please do it to me again’, and all the time Da had been lying injured and Mammy frantic with worry.
She knelt down and clasped her hands, cradling the telephone in her arms. She hadn’t prayed since she was about thirteen and confessed to missing Sunday Mass. But now she closed her eyes and the words poured from her lips:
‘Dear God, please keep Da safe. Don’t let anything happen to him. He’s a good man. He gets angry but he doesn’t mean it. Mammy told me he misses Ireland. It’s not his fault. Please don’t punish him. I’ll do anything if you make him well. Anything. I’ll go to Mass every Sunday. I’ll look after Catherine and Daniel. I’ll never see Gerald Blackstone again, I promise. I’ll leave college. I’ll get a job at Haversham’s. Please God, I’ll make a bargain with you – ’
The telephone shrilled in Vanessa’s ear. Its ringing echoed round the narrow hallway. In the room behind her, Catherine and Daniel began to cry. Vanessa picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
‘Nessa.’ Her mother’s voice sounded old and tired.
‘Mammy, what’s happened? How’s Da? Is he all right?’
‘Nessa, your da died half an hour ago.’
Nine
Cordelia fits her key in the lock of the front door. She’s spent all morning in a room above the art shop stretching and preparing canvases. The front of her jeans is stained white with spilled gesso; her knees are numb from crawling round the floor, and her hand is bruised from the kickback of the staple gun.
The hall is drab with winter light. There’s an envelope on the mat. For a moment she enjoys the way its pale rectangular shape forms an asymmetrical pattern with the red-bristled doormat. Then she realises it looks official. She leans back against the front door, closing her eyes. There was a time when she allowed post to pile up unopened on the hall table, thickening like November leaves, a time when the phone rang unanswered, when unwashed crockery piled up in the kitchen sink. A time, when with Savannah safely at school, she sat in a locked bathroom, ran the blade of the knife across the soft pale flesh of her arm and watched blood seep from the wounds.
But those days are gone. She’s better: she eats three square meals a day, her hair shines and her skin glows. Patrick loves her, and the counsellor says she’s making progress. She picks up the envelope. Inside is an electricity bill. She goes straight to the kitchen, takes her cheque book from the drawer and quickly writes the amount and signs her name. There. It’s done. It was easy.
Before the momentum can abate, she takes off her coat and pulls on the thick jumper that’s lying across the back of the chair. She goes out of the kitchen and round the side of the house to the conservatory. Unlocking the door, she steps inside. She stoops to switch on the fan heater that blows hot air round her ankles, but leaves her fingers and nose numb with cold. She surveys the jumble that she calls her studio. She hasn’t been in here since Christmas and the half-finished painting of beech trees on the easel, the canvases stacked three deep, the piles of art magazines, reproach her for her neglect.
Her eyes skim the paints: watercolours or oil? Perhaps she’d be better with acrylic. No, definitely oil, but then … Before indecision can sabotage her plans, she removes the trees from the easel and puts an empty canvas in its place. She selects some brushes, round ones, good for line and detail, and some flats for the bigger spaces. She picks up a half-used tube of titanium white, and some ivory black, and lines up other colours, cadmium red and yellow, ultramarine, burnt sienna … Taking her painting shirt down from the hook on the back of the door, she draws in a deep breath. She’s ready to start.
Anna, the owner of the art shop and Cordelia’s closest friend, is planning to use the long shed at the back of the shop as an exhibition space. Anna’s fed up that so many talented artists, who come in to stock up on equipment, don’t having anywhere regular to show their work. Next week wooden flooring will be laid and the walls painted white. The first exhibition begins in two months and Anna has offered Cordelia space. ‘It’s the motivation you need,’ she said when Cordelia started to prevaricate. ‘Sort through your canvases. You’re bound to have loads of stuff.’
But Cordelia knows she hasn’t. Her landscapes are predictable and amateurish: a splash of sky, rolling hills, a river or a road, a house in the foreground … pictures that could have come out of any teach-yourself-painting book. How embarrassing even to think about the one Patrick insisted on buying for his office. With a brilliant mother and a famous father, you’d think she’d have inherited some of their talent. But her work is too cautious, too timid. ‘Constipated’ a tutor called it at one art class she went to. She’s been frightened to make a statement in case
it was the wrong statement.
She decides to forget about landscapes and try faces. The memory of her mother’s portraits has always put her off before. The drawings were pen and ink, or charcoal, and when she was a little girl, Cordelia would sit at the kitchen table, with her felt pens, laboriously covering sheets of paper. With their uneven eyes, crooked mouths, noses offset, the faces looked nothing like those her mother had drawn. She would say ‘Wonderful, darling! That’s so pretty.’ But she never stuck them up on the fridge like other parents did.
Cordelia fishes round in her handbag for the photo of Savannah she always carries with her and pins it to the top corner of the easel. She takes one of the round brushes and squeezes some ivory black on to her palette. Her hand hovers in front of the canvas. Before its blankness can unnerve her, she begins to paint a rough outline. She mixes some burnt umber and white into the black and swaps to a flat brush, layering the paint thickly on to the canvas. After a while, the smell of the oils makes her feel heady. She reaches up to the skylight and wedges it open.
The face begins to emerge on the canvas. Strong bold strokes for the nose, mixing and remixing shades of brown for the eyes, hints of yellow to suggest Savannah’s mischievous take on the world. The joy of working into the wet sticky paint, loading different colours on to the canvas to create the halo of gold that is her daughter’s hair. Cordelia feels a power coming from her shoulder, pulsing down her arm and into her fingers.
It’s nearly dark when she puts down her brushes. Pain stabs the middle of her spine. She puts her hands on her waist and leans backward. She steps away from the easel, her head to one side. The face on the canvas is very different from the image she usually has of her daughter. Savannah’s eyes stare unmistakeably out of the painting, but they look unnaturally large, dominating the otherwise slight face. Cordelia notices that the strong lines of the lips are shapely and sensuous, the lips of a woman, not her little girl. She seems to have captured the strange mix of defiance and vulnerability that characterise Savannah these days, and there’s a vitality in the picture that her landscapes lack. A warm feeling creeps into the place in her stomach usually occupied by a knot of anxiety.
Unravelling Page 9
