I felt quite sure that when I did sleep I would have a nightmare. Such premonitions were not unusual, however much I fought against them, and almost always came true. This night was no exception. I was aware that maybe I half brought it on myself, but there seemed nothing I could do about it and the vivid detail was so overwhelming that I had no awareness that I was dreaming, that I was in fact asleep.
Instead I was caught in a terrible biting reality which took over my whole being. I felt the pain, smelled the blood, sensed the pleasure that came first and hated myself for it.
His arms were around me, his lips seeking mine, then kissing and nibbling my ears, my neck, my breasts. Methodically, efficiently.
The warm glow of arousal became a burning at the very core of me. He entered me, gently but forcefully pushing himself deep deep into me, as far as possible into the essence of my body.
My eyes were tightly closed, as if the lids were glued together and I could not open them. It did not matter. This was not really lovemaking, just clinically executed sex. But that did not matter either. The physical sensation was everything, all that existed.
The tingling sensation inside me rose and rose until the moment of climax burst upon me and I could feel great waves of pleasure rushing through my body. Then – it was always then, at that moment, at the beginning of my coming – he hit me.
I felt the flat of his left palm smash into the side of my face with a force so great that it almost broke my jaw. My cries of pleasure turned into screams of pain as with his other hand he made a fist and punched me full in the chest, the belly and then again the face, all the time pushing himself into me.
The gentle nibbling and kissing turned into a cruel biting and my breasts started to bleed, but there could be no escape until he had reached his climax. Always it was like that, he would raise himself triumphantly from me and eventually the blows would stop.
But then came the worst moment. Just like in all these terrible dreams, the moment I dreaded more than the pain that was so real, more than the blood and the brutality. The moment when I could eventually open my eyes, when I could not stop them opening, in fact, and I had to see again the black hole where his face should be.
That was the moment when my screams reached their loudest, that was the moment when Carl coaxed me into some kind of wakefulness and for the umpteenth time held me tight while I hit and kicked out at him as he willed me to be still, so patiently, so tenderly calming me.
‘The dreams will go away, one day they will,’ he said. ‘I’ll make them, my darling, I’ll make them.’
I lay in his arms still weeping, trembling. So many times he had told me that. So many times I had wanted it to be true. And this time I really had thought it could have happened. ‘They had gone away, I believed they might have gone away for good,’ I sobbed. ‘It was the van. It was just so horrid. I can’t help feeling that it was a message . . .’
‘I know, honey,’ he whispered. ‘I was so afraid that would bring it all back. But try not to worry, my darling. It must have been kids. It cannot really be a threat to us. It just can’t . . .’
Somehow he gentled me so much that I actually managed a few minutes’ fitful sleep before morning.
Perhaps the sleep helped. One way and another I didn’t feel quite as bad the next morning as I had expected. The nightmare remained vivid enough. I could always remember every detail when I woke up, that was one of the worst aspects of it, but it was another bright sunny day.
Unusually, I got up before Carl. I made tea and took him a cup in bed, just as he was waking.
There was anxiety in his eyes as I leaned over him and kissed his forehead, but he could always sense my state of mind, my mood. I knew he recognised that I was really quite calm considering what I had been through in the night.
Later that day, Carl bought a can of red spray paint and some fine sandpaper and did a pretty good job of removing all but a trace of the words crudely scratched on to the van.
It was a great tribute to him and, I suppose, to the power of our love that I was able to return quite quickly to some kind of normality. I think I even convinced myself that the words on our old van really had been nothing other than meaningless vandalism.
Four
Another four months passed without a nightmare and much of the old day-to-day happiness and contentment returned. Carl’s and my life together was simple and intimate, our pleasures thoroughly unsophisticated. He had his work. I had my pride in his work. We never tired of exploring the beautiful county that was our home. We liked to walk together along the clifftops and beaches, and inland through the woods and meadows, particularly in the spring when we sought out the special places where the bluebells and the daffodils and primroses carpeted the ground. We had our shared love of fine art, we enjoyed cooking and eating good food together and we delighted in each other’s company. We laughed a lot. Carl could always make me laugh. We were so comfortable together.
It was surprisingly easy to forget our suspicions that something sinister lay behind the damage to the van. And in spite of that this four-month gap was the second longest period I had been without a nightmare since our arrival in St Ives.
However, I abandoned the idea of applying for a job. Instead I buried myself in the familiarly safe cocoon of my life with Carl. Once again the world outside us seemed full of danger.
My friendship with Mariette developed over the summer, which, in spite of such a promising start, had generally been cooler than usual for St Ives. Occasionally I joined her for a lunchtime snack in a café or, on the brighter days, sandwiches eaten sitting on the sea wall dodging gulls and tourists, both of which could be infuriating.
It was the summer of the total eclipse. Carl and I watched it together from St Ives Head, the rocky piece of land jutting out to sea to the south of the harbour and always known to the locals as ‘The Island’ because that is what it looks like from most parts of the town, although it is in fact joined to the mainland by a wide, grass-covered causeway.
We were disappointed in the weather, of course. Both the day before and the day after the eclipse were gloriously sunny, but not that special Wednesday. We woke up to a damp, murky morning, but nonetheless set off to the island good and early, in order to secure a prime cliff-edge spot. There we stood, along with hundreds of other disappointed eclipse watchers, feeling vaguely ridiculous as we stared glumly at a completely cloud-laden sky. Then, minutes before totality, the clouds parted and there, quite clearly revealed, was a crescent of sun, the rest of it covered by the moon. It was stunning, and by then, unexpected. The gathered crowd collectively gasped. Then there was an outbreak of clapping. Then a sort of communal rustling sound as we all obediently reached for our special eclipse glasses. Then almost everyone gathered on the island began to laugh. The partially eclipsed sun, although clearly visible, was still covered in a film of light cloud. Through our black safety glasses all any of us could see was a reflection of our own faces.
The atmosphere was extraordinary, quite carnival-like. But when the moment of totality came the laughter stopped abruptly. All of us had been prepared for a couple of minutes of darkness in the middle of the day; we knew well enough what was going to happen, but when it happened it was still a shock.
I clasped Carl’s hand tightly. We did not speak. Nobody spoke. The enormity of the moment was overwhelming. The lights of St Ives switched on and above the town a display of fireworks flashed across the blackness. It was weird. At first there was silence and then the sky filled with hysterical seagulls. Confused and bewildered, they went absolutely mad, wheeling and screeching in their hundreds. As the sky began to lighten so their cries became less frenzied. The birds understood that something extraordinary had happened, every bit as much as the humans had.
I pulled my jacket closer around me. The temperature had dropped dramatically during the eclipse, just as it does at night, but it wasn’t only that which had chilled me and made me shiver. In the modern air-conditioned world it is
easy sometimes to forget the sheer might of nature. I don’t think anything has ever reminded me quite as much of the insignificance of the human race as watching the eclipse of the sun on that dull August morning. And to be watching from the heart of Cornwall, this ancient county steeped in legend and mystery, added an extra indefinable magic to the whole experience.
I clutched Carl’s hand even more tightly, feeling the tears welling. I can’t quite explain why I had been so moved, but there it was.
‘I could murder a pint,’ said Carl.
I swung to look at him. He was totally po-faced.
‘You Philistine,’ I said. ‘Have you no soul? That was just amazing, wasn’t it?’
‘Was it?’ he enquired guilelessly.
I made a threatening gesture with the palm of my right hand. I knew he was joking, but even so . . .
Carl relented. ‘Yes, it was amazing,’ he said, his face softening. ‘Of course it was. Makes all our problems seem so unimportant, doesn’t it?’
I knew exactly what he meant. And I just hoped that our problems would indeed prove to be unimportant.
One way and another the eclipse was the high spot of an indifferent summer, which turned gradually into a mild but exceptionally wet early autumn. During the torrential rain which drenched the south west through almost all of September the roof in our lean-to kitchen sprang a leak again. Carl tried to patch it as best he could. Our absentee landlord hadn’t raised our rent for almost three years and we didn’t want to jog his memory.
Carl finished several of the abstracts I considered to be quite brilliant. He had taken to using oil pastels rather than paint. They didn’t fetch the price of oil paintings, but he could complete them much more quickly and in any case I knew that he enjoyed the medium. Also, the speed with which he could produce in pastels gave his work a spontaneity, which I thought added a distinctive sharpness.
One evening I made pumpkin soup, one of his favourite dishes. I served the soup in deep round bowls, its vivid yellowish-red colour streaked with cream and dotted with chopped chives. Carl enthused as much about the look of it as the taste and as soon as he had finished eating disappeared into his studio, for once telling me not to follow him because he wanted to surprise me. Only three or four hours later he emerged with a splendid three-foot-square painting of my pumpkin soup. On it he had written ‘For Suzanne.’ It was the most wonderful present I had ever been given. The next day he framed it for me. We hung it in the dining room and it seemed to transform the room. It remains to this day my favourite of all Carl’s paintings, not least for the spirit in which it was painted and given to me.
This was a prolific period for Carl. There was another piece, in brilliant primary colours, which I also thought particularly impressive. It consisted of a striking series of interlocking circular shapes, each one sharply defined in itself and yet also blending to be part of another. He called it Balloons.
One afternoon, exceptionally dry and bright for November, we walked together to the Logan Gallery, the little shop up the hill that sold most of Carl’s work for him, taking with us Balloons and two other recent paintings. The owner, Will Jones, was a quietly spoken former schoolteacher with a real eye, Carl always said. Will had taught art for many years and dreamed of one day becoming a full-time painter himself. That dream never came true. Will said he guessed he’d never been quite good enough, although Carl and I didn’t believe he meant it. Artists never did. I had grown to understand that most unsuccessful painters were convinced the only reason they weren’t as big as Picasso was that there had been a conspiracy against them. But if Will had that bitterness inside him, at least he didn’t show it. Indeed, he insisted that having his own gallery was a good second best for him.
He greeted us warmly as he always did, unfolding himself from his chair as we entered the shop and stretching out his arms in welcome. He was exceptionally tall, about six foot five, and spent most of his time in old St Ives ducking to avoid smashing his head – somewhat protected though it was by a thick, almost bouffant halo of silver hair – against doorways and low ceilings.
He kissed me rather theatrically on both cheeks and his arms quickly wound themselves round my waist. I well was aware that Will grasped every opportunity to touch me with considerable enthusiasm. I wished he wouldn’t, but he didn’t mean any harm. He was just a tactile sort of person. Sometimes I quite enjoyed the attention, to tell the truth, and he never really took liberties. He looked a bit like Peter O’Toole with big hair, had a penchant for velvet jackets and capes, and was certainly the most unlikely shopkeeper. I suppose he reckoned he could at least look like an artist, although I always thought he resembled an actor playing the part.
He was, however, physically overwhelming, partly because of his size and partly because of his personality. The bear-hug in which he grasped me took the breath from my body.
‘Will, be careful,’ I admonished him.
He backed off at once. ‘Sorry, darling, just so pleased to see you,’ he cried and winked at me in that way he had, which demonstrated that he wasn’t in the least bit sorry and would actually like to hug me again.
I nearly always accompanied Carl to the Logan Gallery because I enjoyed looking around and I liked chatting to Will. He was the kind of man who accepted you for what you were and didn’t ask too many personal questions. I even liked the name he had chosen for his much loved gallery – Logan, after the famous Logan Rock, a sixty-five-ton hunk of granite balanced impossibly on a clifftop at Treen right down at the bottom end of Cornwall not far from Land’s End.
‘As wondrous a piece of natural sculpture as you’ll ever be lucky enough to encounter,’ was Will’s opinion of the Logan Rock. And you had to warm to a man who could see the world like that. He was a true romantic, right enough, and I liked romantics.
Will took the three wrapped paintings from Carl, but at first merely put them to one side unopened. ‘Coffee?’ he enquired. This was part of the ritual.
While Will busied himself with the kettle in the little back room, Carl and I studied the work of the opposition, as it were. There was a small Clive Gunnell bronze called Windows – an abstract of intertwining ovals, their inner curves finished in a beautiful green patina – which I particularly admired, but Carl and I weren’t into buying other people’s art. Sadly, we could not afford to.
‘Turn it round,’ instructed Will, when he returned to the gallery and noticed me studying the Gunnell. The bronze was mounted and balanced on a plinth, which allowed it to be rotated. Slowly I turned it a full circle.
‘See, it looks right from every angle,’ said Will. ‘You should be able to do that with any piece of work that is truly sculptural. And if you can’t, then whatever it is and whoever it’s by, it’s too one-dimensional and not really a sculpture at all.’
Will had a habit of always having to know more than you did and a rather condescending way of lecturing in a schoolmasterly fashion, but he did know his business, there was no doubt about that, which was why Carl had so much respect for him.
Only when we were sipping our coffee from brightly coloured mugs did Will start to unwrap Carl’s paintings. Then he propped them one by one against a wall and stood back, hands on hips, head thrown back, legs akimbo. A flamboyant pose.
The first he looked at was Balloons, black-edged and framed in white wood – Carl did all his own framing; he said he had no intention of sharing his meagre profits with anybody else. Balloons was a large painting, slightly more than three foot square, just a little bigger than my Pumpkin Soup. Its vibrant colour and dramatic shapes seemed to dominate the gallery. I reckoned it was the finest piece of work in the room – apart from the Gunnell bronze, perhaps.
Will was silent for what seemed a lifetime. ‘You get better with every canvas, Carl,’ he said eventually.
Carl beamed. I glowed. We both respected Will’s opinion enormously – don’t take my description of him to suggest that we regarded him as a figure of fun, because we didn’t. Rather, we consi
dered him a true eccentric, but also a true expert.
The other two paintings, smaller but equally original and striking, also met with the gallery owner’s approval.
‘You’ll take them all?’ queried Carl anxiously. He knew that his abstracts weren’t easy to sell.
‘Of course I’ll take them,’ said Will. ‘I just wish I could sell them for what they’re really worth, that’s all.’
Carl and I knew exactly what he meant. Art is a world of great contrasts, like show business really. Those at the top of the tree are mega-earning superstars and those at the bottom barely make a living at all – particularly if they try to be original.
Carl’s name was not well known and two or three hundred pounds was the most that Will could ever ask for one of his paintings – even those large abstracts he sweated blood over. Not a lot for something Carl had worked on over several weeks.
Nonetheless we left the gallery in high spirits.
‘How about a little celebration in the Sloop?’ Carl asked, clutching my hand and swinging both our arms. I happily agreed and we began to amble down to the harbour.
Although for various deep-seated reasons neither Carl nor I approved of excessive drinking – we had each in different ways seen the damage it can do – we both liked pubs. Carl had the fascination common among Americans for English pubs and I think we both saw public houses as somewhere we could enjoy a certain conviviality without involvement. Mind you, perhaps to ensure we didn’t get too involved, once a week was about the limit of our pub-going, more often than not at a lunchtime rather than the heavier evening session. However, the promise of a decent sale changed things.
A Deep Deceit Page 4
