The afternoons she spent out visiting and buying, looking daily for new little love stories to begin. George had neglected things and his study was full of scribbled notes: names and addresses of potential new artists, trails abandoned when he stumbled into his hole.
Valerie. Knitter. Lewisham. 23 Dover Road. No phone. Sweet person. Careful—very prudish! FANTASTIC MASKS.
Grace took up these scraps, the slant and disorder of the handwriting encouraging a sense of urgency, as if the treasure were in danger of being discovered by someone else. She went to Lewisham to see Valerie and her knitted masks, to Brixton to see Victor and his budgerigars made of crushed glass, and to Chelsea to listen to an old major’s dreams of pursuing a young woman through a forest. At the end of the dream she always turned round and he saw she had the face of a eagle, a vision he’d painted over and over on small wooden tablets that he hung from the ceiling of his antiques-filled sitting room, so low that Grace had to weave between them as she crossed the room to greet him.
Eleven
All this time, Grace had resisted looking at the painting. It had been standing in her bedroom for three weeks, uncovered, and not once had she walked round the other side to take a look. As the days went on it asserted its presence more and more. The solid rectangle of canvas and the wide stance of the easel grew into a kind of sentinel, standing guard over the secret that lay on the other side. What was it? Who was waiting behind there? The more she wanted to know the less she dared to look. Until one evening. She was alone downstairs, as she often was after Mira had gone to bed. She’d been writing a proposal for the exhibition she had in mind at the Serpentine but had put down her pen and moved over to the sofa, where she sat listening to the music she’d had playing in the background. She turned up the volume. The male voice on the cassette was soft and melancholy, but behind it was a beat, crazy and strong, that made her feel strangely exhilarated. Facing the large window that overlooked the park, she stared at her own reflection amidst the treetops and felt as though she were gearing up for something, about to launch off and set sail on her sofa out across the park and over the rooftops of Kensington. She clutched her own hand, as though in readiness, but the thrust of the moment took her not out of the window but upstairs to her bedroom, feeling bold and excited and surer than ever of the beauty of what she would find.
She stood behind the canvas and rested her hand upon the top edge, lightly as though on the shoulder of a lover. And then she circled slowly around to face it. Herself, as she really was.
It took less than a heartbeat for Grace to realize that she was not looking at herself at all, for the image that faced her was so horribly familiar. The beach, the woman, a gaze that stared disinterestedly through her. She’d sat in front of him for three weeks and he hadn’t seen her. How odd to discover one didn’t exist.
The paint was still wet. She reached out a finger to touch it, leaving a small, smeared impression just below an eye. She thought of George next door in his hole. What a warm, comfortable place it must be. All this time she’d felt herself on the ascent: collecting, sitting for Ray, the days stacking up on top of one another like they were really adding up to something. The gleaming silk tie, Ruby in her concrete tower, the art she’d added to the collection. And behind it all, the thing that propped it all up, this painting.
How quickly it all drained away, and how weak and hollow she felt now, as if even her insides had deserted her.
She walked out of the room onto the landing. She didn’t know what to do or where to put herself. It wasn’t late but everyone else was in bed: Mira, a child; George, who never came out of it; and Ray … She stood still in front of the door to his room feeling detached from herself, watching for what she might do next. Her hand rested lightly on the door handle, lowered it, the door opening slowly and quietly. Her steps sounded softly on the bare floor as she crossed the room to the bed.
He slept with his face to the ceiling, open and unguarded. Like a tiny moon it seemed to gather what little light there was in the room, while the walls lurked thick with shadows and painted faces. An imaginary woman who was more real than she was. She stood over him. Trespassing in his dreams. And then she hit him. It was a pathetic, hesitant slap, landing clumsily on the side of his forehead, barely forceful enough to wake him. She hit him again. More forceful this time. Her fist in his eye. It opened. Between her blows he did open his eyes and he looked straight at her. Fear and confusion. But he didn’t attempt to escape her or even to defend himself. And she didn’t feel like an attacker. Her movements were too slow and too silent for that. She felt the growing sting in her knuckles, but inside she was empty, just watching his face transform, soft and pliable like a slab of clay. First the colour bloomed around his eye. Then it emerged from his nostril, making its way slowly across his cheek and spreading over the white pillow.
There must have been some noise. Perhaps there was a lot, because George appeared in the doorway. The moment she saw him she stopped. Gentle George, who would never hurt anyone. She saw then what she had done.
“Oh, Grace,” he said quietly. Then he said it again, “Oh, Grace”, as he walked over and stood behind her, taking hold of her trembling arm. He held her forearm firmly, though not in restraint, for she was clearly finished. She began to shake all over and he held her with both hands now, one on each arm, as they looked down at the poor beaten creature in his bed, curled on his side with his knees tucked into his chest.
George let her go and dropped to his knees, putting a hand to Ray’s head. He turned and looked up at her. “You go, I’ll deal with this,” he said firmly.
She didn’t question his presence, the calm competence with which he who had been incapable of leaving his bed for weeks now began to tend to Ray. She did as she was told.
As she walked down the hallway to her room, the bell rang. It was craziness to answer it but she had no thoughts right now. Robotic, she simply went where she was called. She walked past her bedroom and through to the entry phone by the front door. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Zoob?”
“Yes.”
“This is Lucy Clarkson. From the Sunday Times? I wondered if I could come up and talk to you a moment.”
“But it’s so late,” Grace said, looking at her watch and seeing that it was not as late as it seemed.
“I know, I’m sorry, but would you mind?”
Grace looked at the button that, when pressed, would open the door into the lobby. It jittered like a dying fly on the wall.
“Well, you’re here now.”
In fact she felt suddenly very much in need of this sort of company. It was as though life, instead of punishing her, had taken pity and, seeing just what she needed, had delivered a young journalist to her door. Someone with whom she could be Grace Zoob, art collector, again. “We’re on the top floor,” she said, and held her finger firmly down on the button.
The girl’s face, when it arrived outside the apartment, had the flush of the night on it, shining like a hard little apple. Round and round and round it went without directing you anywhere in particular. There was someone with her, the sudden awareness of which interrupted Grace’s attempts at a smile. “I wasn’t expecting two of you,” she said.
“No,” said the girl, turning to beam at the woman standing by her side who, distinctly awkward in a shapeless brown woollen coat, hardly seemed worthy of eliciting such excitement. “I didn’t want to explain over the intercom but … can we come in?’
“Sure,” said Grace, standing aside to let them pass and leading them through to the sitting room.
She switched on a lamp and, walking across the room towards another, said, “I hope you’re not going to ask me to see the new Eccles work for the exhibition because I shan’t show you.”
Lucy laughed. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it!” She walked over to the window and leaned towards the glass, peering out. “Isn’t it a beautiful evening? W
e walked right across the park to get here and the moonlight was all draped across the grass.”
“It’s the streetlamps,” said Grace. “We have no concept of moonlight in London.”
She turned quickly round towards the other, older woman who was hovering moth-like beside the standing lamp, her brown woollen coat still firmly buttoned up.
“I’m sorry, I must introduce you,” said Lucy. She raised her arm towards her companion. “This is Jennifer Mulholland. I’ve brought her here from Southend-on-Sea.”
Still that ridiculous smile, as if something marvellous should be understood from this.
“She’s the one in Ray’s paintings!”
Dear God, not this. Not this now.
“Really?” said Grace slowly. “The One?”
Again, that short laugh. Grace disliked people who were always laughing for no reason. “Yes. Can you believe it? I had a call from someone who knew her once. It’s a strange story. Quite beautiful.” More laughter. “I’m sorry, you must know it already. But isn’t it exciting that we’ve found her? I thought I should bring her to meet you at once.”
“And how did you expect me to react?”
Grace needed some help because this was not what she had opened the door to.
“I suppose I thought you’d be excited too. I guess you know that Jennifer and Ray have never actually met?”
“Well, perhaps you’d like to meet him now?” said Grace, gesturing towards the door. “He doesn’t look too pretty, I’ve just beaten him up. You see, I wanted him to paint me. I wanted him to paint me and I sat there practically naked in front of him for three weeks believing that he was painting me and all he painted was you! Tell me, what does it feel like to be so … so inspiring?”
Her words had made the woman blush. She’d stepped out from under the light and was standing now behind the armchair. “Well, I, I really wouldn’t know, I didn’t—”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy cut in. “We really didn’t mean to disrupt anything. You’re all very happy here, I know. Ray’s Mira’s father and—”
Grace laughed. It seemed too ridiculous. “Ray’s not Mira’s father! You think anyone could get close to him except … your friend here?” She looked away towards the room’s strip of window. In reflection she watched Lucy join Jennifer protectively behind the armchair. She turned to face them. “Who are you anyway? I mean … what do you do?”
The woman hesitated, and then spoke. Her voice was small and dry. “I run a small ladies’ dress shop in Westcliff-on-Sea.”
Grace sat down on the sofa. She felt suddenly exhausted. A small ladies’ dress shop in Westcliff-on-Sea. Nothing made any sense to her. It had made sense to her once. Until only an hour ago, it had all made sense. It had been bizarre and beautiful and she had been part of it. A man possessed by beauty. A man who couldn’t stop painting. They had found him and they had taken him home. And his paintings, his silent mysterious energy, had filled their home. But that the face should be a real face. That it should be this face. This soft, mothy face. That the woman on the beach should be here, now, in her apartment, wearing a brown woollen coat. That she should run a small ladies’ dress shop in Westcliff-on-Sea. That didn’t make any sense. She was never part of the story.
“I think it would make a really interesting story for the paper,” said Lucy suddenly.
“Oh, I’m sure it would,” said Grace, snapping out of her fatigue. “What would it be? A photograph of Miss—I’m sorry, what was it? Macdonald?—on Southend beach next to a picture of one of Ray’s paintings? A kind of spot-the-difference? Or perhaps the two of them together, reunited at last. Really, I’m sorry to break it to you, my dear, but if Ray wanted to find you do you not think he would have done so already? What you don’t seem to understand is that this is not real life. This is art. Maybe he saw you once. God knows why but you seem to have stuck in his mind. But don’t you see? It’s not you in those paintings. This goes way beyond you. You don’t matter at all.”
“I don’t agree,” said Lucy, “I think people would be fascinated.”
“Of course you do. You just care about your little story which is going to get your little name in the newspaper and allow you to keep your little job for a little while longer. I’ll tell you what would make a better story. I’m not joking. I just beat the shit out of him. You could probably get me arrested. In fact, why don’t you? Why don’t you just call the police? You can use my phone. You know, I think I’m going crazy. I could quite easily hit you, too, in a minute. God knows I’m sick of the sight of you. I mean, I can actually see it now. It really is you in his paintings, isn’t it? Of course, you’ve spoiled them for me now. Your fat face has completely—”
“Hang on there,” Lucy cut in. “I think we should probably leave.” She took Jennifer’s arm and made hurriedly towards the door. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your evening.”
And then all of a sudden they’d left the room. There were so many clocks in that room, all ticking out of sync. Grace heard amongst them the louder click of the door closing and knew they had left.
She stood alone in the lamplight. As the silence ticked around her all the things in the room—the lamps, the furniture, the paintings on the walls, the beautiful and thoughtfully placed objects—took a cool step back. It came upon her now: a terrible and pressing remorse. Ray. She had hurt him. She had crushed her butterfly. And that woman in her brown woollen coat was buzzing restlessly around her mind, for she didn’t know what to do with the thought or the knowledge of her. She listened for noises coming from the back of the apartment but there were none. Eventually she walked slowly down the passageway and stopped outside Ray’s door. Her hand wobbled on the door handle as she entered. Now she would have to face George. She both needed and feared him.
But the room was empty. The bed was empty. She stood beside it. The cover had been pushed aside to reveal the crumpled sheet. A blossom of blood on the pillow. She reached down and touched it dreamily with her finger and then, her heart waking up, turned quickly. Suddenly panicked she rushed through to George’s room.
“He’s gone!” she said, throwing back the door, her voice shrill and breaking.
“It’s ok, Grace.” George was sitting at his desk. His face was calm and forgiving. What was this? He’d chosen now to come out of it? To climb out of his hole? For weeks he’d been there, washed up, wretched. And then all of a sudden as if it had never happened. How dare he!
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“He’s fine, Grace. I cleaned him up. He just said he needed to get some air.”
“I didn’t see him go.”
“Who’ve you been talking to? Who came?”
“You let him go?”
George laughed. He took her hand and pulled her to him. “Gracie! Come on. Everything’s going to be okay. It really wasn’t as bad as it seemed, just give him some space now. We can recover from this.”
“I need to find him,” she said, resisting his touch, invasive as it curled around her buttock. She turned and walked quickly from the room.
He called after her: “Let’s go away for a while, a holiday!”
She left the front door open behind her and ran down the steps to the lobby, her socks slipping on the cool stone. She heaved open the glass door and stood outside in the cold, looking up and down the narrow street. There was nobody. He would have cut through into the park. Standing at the end of the passage that led beneath the apartment block she saw two figures framed by and blocking the end of the dark tunnel. She knew them instantly as the woman in the brown woollen coat and the girl, who stood facing the older woman with a hand on her arm. She couldn’t pass them. She was trapped. The cold and the damp pushed up through her socks as she stood impatiently waiting for them to move on, but they remained. She would go up again and look from the window; maybe she would have a better chance of seeing him from there anyway.
*
They did go on holiday. They went to the cottage in Norfolk. By that time they had given up hope of Ray returning. Unfathomably, George was jubilant. He seemed to see it as a fresh start. At least it had appeared that way.
She should have seen what was coming but she didn’t, not at all. He had that raw and crazy energy back that she’d once loved, and she tried to again, to let her sadness be consumed within it. But it was different: more reckless, dangerous, and he wasn’t taking her with him this time.
He was hungry for her though, and she wanted him, too; she wanted to be buried in sensation. They had more sex than they’d had in years. As soon as Mira was asleep in her little attic bedroom he was on Grace, taking her clothes off in front of the fire where their bodies would twist and turn for hours like wrestlers, his wide wet mouth consuming her as if he was trying to get through her to something else beyond.
Afterwards, her memories of that holiday were so vivid they threatened to erase all the rest, the many years of their togetherness. She resented that. It was selfish of him to leave her with such a painful series of compositions. She saw them like pictures on a wall. Three bodies arranged in the bleak landscape, or in the small, low-ceilinged rooms of the cottage, close to one another. Mira curled in George’s lap like a cat in the lamplight. Naked limbs entwined before the fire. Three lone figures strung out across the wide and empty beach. Together hand in hand with the child between them, blown on by the crazy wind. Mira turning cartwheels on the hard, wet sand. And then the last one: George striding out, naked and fearless, into the icy endless sea. She shouted to him. She wanted him to turn and wave but he didn’t. She watched him go deeper. She watched his dark head popping up like a seal among the small choppy waves. And then she couldn’t see him any more.
Man with a Seagull on His Head Page 12
