Eighty Days Blue

by Vina Jackson

  ‘You think I want money?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Look, I know it won’t make it better, and you’re a bit of a hotshot now, aren’t you, so you probably don’t even need my money,’ he sneered.

  ‘I don’t want your money, and I’m not going to tell anyone.’

  ‘Thank God. Thank you.’

  His shoulders relaxed and he took a heavy drag on his cigarette. ‘You were pretty good, by the way. On the violin, I mean,’ he added, smiling as he dropped his stub on the grass and ground it down with the vigour normally reserved for crushing particularly revolting insects.

  He turned and walked back into the assembly hall, just as a bell rang to signal that everyone should return to their seats.

  I sank down onto my haunches, watching the last red embers on his cigarette butt, still burning despite the pressure from the flat of his shoe, flicker and die.

  I wanted Dominik at that moment more than I had ever wanted him before.

  10

  Under the Boardwalk

  ‘I thought I’d call,’ Lauralynn said.

  Dominik had been working on his novel for a few weeks now. There was little else for him to do. He had life down to a routine. The compulsory few hours in his office at the library, or calling on some of the other fellows’ similar cubicles to discuss all sorts of literary gossip, and then the subway down to SoHo. He didn’t even eat out now, relying on the diverse delivery services: sushi one day, Mexican another, Italian or organic health food from the place off Greenwich Avenue, or just bagels.

  It had proven tough going at first. The cursor on the white screen of his laptop endlessly blinking on and off, ideas careening in all directions inside his head, most often too fleeting to catch in flight before another emerged, only to fade away in the cold light of rational thought. Writing about facts was so much easier, he realised, after the initial surge of enthusiasm for the new project. You just stuck to the elements you had researched, presented them as cleanly and cogently as you could and then gave them an opinionated spin. This fiction business was another thing altogether.

  He knew the story he was trying to tell, almost down to the last detail. The things his characters would do, the ways they would react, the dance of death and pleasure they would find themselves involved in, but still he could not focus on them properly in his mind. Get under their skin. Fully perceive what made them tick, as if they were not even creatures of his own creation.

  He’d then set aside all the books and printouts of old magazine and newspaper articles he had accumulated about Paris in the immediate post-war period – about the black jazz musicians, Existentialism and the French bohemian crowds who filled the streets and cafés of Saint-Germaindes-Prés – and had spent a slew of evenings rereading some of his favourite novels in an attempt to analyse how the writers had gone about bringing things to life, seeking out the technique beneath the skill. It had only made the whole prospect of writing a novel even more problematic. He didn’t feel up to the task. Maybe this was a talent he just didn’t possess?

  Summer was now in Australia. The tour was going well, though the return to her roots was summoning many mixed emotions. She would send him an email every few days in an attempt to describe how she felt, and he tried to imagine the places where she was, the damp streets, the faces of the people and how she might appear to them, the particular way she dressed, walked, that very specific mix of innocence and unwitting provocation she carried in her wake wherever she went.

  He hadn’t seen Summer for over a month. He closed his eyes and tried to remember her face, the colour of her eyes, the shape her lips made when she pursed them in the throes of pleasure.

  Her pride, her unpredictability.

  In front of his eyes, the cursor continued to flick in and out of existence.

  On the run from an unhappy first love affair, his young heroine had fled the ordinariness of East Texas and a place called Nacogdoches where she had grown up and landed in Paris, where she would meet an English journalist and their story would unfold against the uncommon but fascinating historical period he wanted to write about. The male character was naturally based on himself, on what he might have been in another life, but Elena’s character was still proving elusive and all his attempts so far to make her credible had, in his opinion, failed abysmally. He didn’t even know what she looked like.

  His thoughts were mercifully interrupted by a phone call. It was Lauralynn.

  ‘Hi, Lauralynn. How’s life?’

  ‘I’ve come to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I have a week off. I want to come to the city. The atmosphere is quite stultifying here. So fucking provincial, even though it’s a university town. I might turn into a Stepford wife if left to my own devices . . .’

  ‘Surely not?’

  ‘I’m not kidding you. Anyway, any chance of you putting me up?’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ Dominik was taken aback by her request.

  ‘Summer’s still away, isn’t she?’ Lauralynn added.

  ‘Yes,’ Dominik admitted. ‘For at least another couple of weeks. She’s Down Under . . . Hadn’t you thought of Miranda’s maybe?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s given no signs of life since the party in Brooklyn,’ Lauralynn said. ‘Maybe it was a step too far for her. Still essentially a vanilla sort of girl, I guess. Now wallowing in shame, no doubt, or too shy to come back and ask for more. Anyway, her place is rather small. Might prove uncomfortable cohabiting for a whole week. I gather you have quite a bit of space.’

  ‘Only one bedroom, though . . .’

  ‘No worries. I’ll bring my own sleeping bag along. Wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. You know me, I’m invisible.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Totally.’

  Dominik pondered for one moment. ‘I suppose . . .’

  ‘Thanks, you’re a real pal. You’ll see, I won’t impose on you. Anyway, when was the last time someone cooked properly for you, eh? Can Summer cook?’

  ‘Just the basics,’ Dominik confessed. ‘We mostly order in.’

  ‘How lazy,’ Lauralynn said. ‘Give me your address, then. I should be getting into Grand Central early afternoon. I’ll come straight down. Anything you’d want me to bring?’

  ‘Can’t think of anything. Might be nice if you could somehow conjure up a certain someone from Australia and beam her up, but I think that’s even beyond your extraordinary powers . . . You can leave your paddles, whips and other toys back in New Haven. There will be no need for them. Oh, and no handcuffs either.’

  Lauralynn giggled. ‘Handcuffs are for wimps,’ she said. ‘For middle-class couples in search of thrills and naughtiness. The smut folk, I call them. Outside of the vanilla crowd, I’ve only come across handcuffs used extensively in fiction. It’s another world altogether, Dominik. Too many people confuse reality and fiction,’ she added. ‘Now, restraints, well, that’s another matter altogether . . .’

  That’s when it clicked for him.

  What was wrong with Elena, the character in his novel in slow progress.

  She was still unreal even to him. A fabrication.

  If he lent her Summer’s face, her words, her body, then she would feel authentic. Flesh and bone. No longer a parody.

  He hurriedly provided Lauralynn with the loft’s address in Spring Street, rushed back to his laptop and began frantic revisions on his opening chapter and imagined Summer hailing from the East Texas wilderness and a narrow-minded small-town environment. An hour later, he felt as if the character now had a new dimension, was believable. Summer had never been willing to talk much about her life in New Zealand, her life before him. This might also help him to understand her better, he felt.

  Lauralynn proved a perfect houseguest, tidily parking her rolled-up sleeping bag and keeping out of sight during the day in one corner of the loft. She also volunteered to sweep up, dust and clean the living and kitchen spaces, which had been somewhat neglected during th
e course of Summer’s absences on tour, when Dominik could not be bothered to be in the least domesticated. The fact that she preferred to do so wearing only her knickers and a cheerful smile was an undeniable, if pleasing distraction, but he had seen her naked before, during the threesome with Miranda, and when she’d sunbathed topless, so there was nothing unduly provocative about her attitude. Just another manifestation of her unbound mischief, of course, as she knew all too well the effect it had on Dominik. It was high summer and even with the air-conditioning on, the heat seeped in from the outside torpor with surprising ease. He normally walked across the loft barefoot, so this was just taking things a logical, natural step further.

  ‘I used to live close to here,’ Lauralynn said. ‘I was born in New York.’

  ‘I didn’t realise.’

  ‘My parents had a ground-floor apartment on Sixth Avenue close to the corner of Bleecker Street. Our windows overlooked Minetta Lane. There’s a small theatre there. Mostly experimental stuff, then and now, but when I was a kid, I always thought it was something of a sleazy dive. Endlessly fascinated me. I already had a strong imagination,’ Lauralynn said.

  ‘When did you move away?’ Dominik asked.

  ‘I must have been ten or thereabouts.’

  ‘Only child?’

  ‘No, I have a brother, although we’ve never been close.’

  ‘Where did you end up?’

  ‘Out of the city, Long Island, to be closer to my grandparents. My parents felt it wasn’t the right place to grow up. I begged to disagree, of course. Greenwich Village is such a great place to be for a kid. So many small parks and playgrounds the average New Yorker doesn’t even know about, and the hustle and bustle of the big city all around you. I loved it.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘They bribed me – promised me horse-riding lessons out there on Long Island.’

  ‘I can just imagine you riding a horse.’

  ‘Lady Godiva, you mean?’

  ‘No,’ Dominik smiled. ‘Just that you must look great in riding gear.’

  ‘I am. It’s where I got my first crop. One thing led to another. I began trying it out on my little brother, then later with others. It was in jest, of course, but it gave me a taste for inflicting corporal punishment, however mild and innocent it was at the beginning. A slippery slope. I got the itch to dominate people. Never wanted to figure out why. Just the way I am, I suppose.’

  ‘Where is your brother now? Still on Long island?’

  ‘No. He’s a marine. Likely in Afghanistan. We don’t have much contact these days. Our parents are both dead now. My mum of cancer, my dad in a car crash shortly after my mother died. We grew apart. He went to live with relatives out of state, and I was already at university. Things happen.’

  ‘I didn’t know marines liked to be on the wrong end of a riding crop,’ Dominik observed.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Lauralynn remarked.

  ‘Where did you learn to make your own pesto?’ Dominik asked Lauralynn, as they relaxed on the couch after their meal. She had conjured up the flavoursome green sauce full of basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil and Parmigiano from individual ingredients she had ordered on the Net and which had been delivered to their door, alongside the homemade pasta, which she had cooked al dente with the lightest of touches.

  ‘I once lived in Genova in Italy,’ she said, ‘with a local count who had a taste for my kind of punishment. Between scenes, he taught me to cook the Italian way. Ligurian food is very characteristic; they use a lot of garlic. You didn’t mind it being so strong?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Dominik replied. ‘Although it means we might be well advised to steer clear of other human beings for a few hours still. They’d be repulsed – we probably smell of garlic a mile away!’ He could still feel the taste on his lips and licked himself clean again.

  ‘Fuck other people,’ Lauralynn exclaimed. ‘I’ve always been highly suspicious of anyone who truly dislikes garlic.’

  ‘So first there was horse-riding; then, it seems, came the cello. Or was it the other way round?’

  ‘More or less the same time,’ Lauralynn answered, ‘once we’d transplanted to Long Island. My parents had always loved music, but had missed their time in life to take up an instrument, although they both sang in the church choir. They had lovely voices. Initially, I was not enthusiastic. I played the piano too, not to a great standard, and tinkered along with a few instruments until I found my very own. There is something wonderfully sensual about the sound of a cello, isn’t there?’

  ‘As you know, I’m more of a violin person,’ he smiled at her. ‘Its sound can be so pure, not dirty like the cello, I find.’

  ‘Dirty is good,’ Lauralynn said.

  ‘Trust you to say that.’

  ‘And for a woman, there is that ineffable feeling holding the instrument between your thighs, the wood against your skin, the sounds you’re extracting from the instrument bouncing along your flesh, as if your whole body is controlling its resonance.’

  Dominik was having difficulty holding his eyes open after the richness of the meal Lauralynn had prepared and as the heat of the afternoon began to drain his energy.

  ‘Shall we put a CD on?’ he suggested.

  ‘No,’ Lauralynn said. ‘This is my week off. I don’t wish to hear a single sound.’

  ‘I might doze off otherwise,’ he pointed out.

  ‘So let’s go for a run,’ she offered.

  ‘A run, in this heat?’ he protested.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I do many things, but I don’t run.’

  ‘Oh dear! A walk, then, nice and slow for an old man like you?’

  ‘I could manage that, I suppose.’

  Lauralynn beamed at him. ‘No, I have a better idea. Why don’t we go to the beach?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Have you ever been to Atlantic City, seen the board-walk? There’s a beach there too, I think.’

  ‘Never been.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘So let’s do it,’ Lauralynn said decisively. ‘Is it Penn Station or Grand Central, or can we get that far on the subway?’

  ‘I’ll find out.’ He opened his laptop and logged on.

  ‘It’ll be just like going on a date,’ she remarked.

  ‘I feel as if I’m in the movies,’ Dominik said.

  The Atlantic City boardwalk unfurled as far as the eye could see, like a long beige carpet bordered on one side by the sea and on the other by an irregular parade of colourfully painted buildings. It was still mid-afternoon and the neon lights of the outlying tall hotels had not yet been switched on.

  ‘I want an ice cream,’ Lauralynn informed him.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather have frozen custard?’ Dominik suggested, noticing the array of choices inscribed over the façades of the many cafés and parlours dotting the promenade.

  ‘Absolutely not. That’s my idea of hell, and today I want a piece of heaven.’ She laughed like a child.

  ‘We could even go to the Steel Pier later,’ he suggested. ‘Go on the rides?’

  ‘Maybe . . . Let’s see.’ She walked over to the nearest café and examined the list of flavours on offer.

  Crowds of badly dressed weekenders and tourists and a group of visitors with kids in pastel outfits, racing down the boardwalk on diminutive scooters, milled about them.

  ‘Chocolate fudge. That’s the one that I want,’ Lauralynn exclaimed enthusiastically, pointing at the list with an animated finger. ‘What about you?’ Her eyes were wide open, and her smile appeared so effortlessly unforced.

  Dominik gave a final glance at the choice of flavours and opted for a combination of raspberry and Belgian chocolate.

  ‘Cone or tub?’

  Lauralynn looked down at her tight white T-shirt and up at the sun in the deep-blue sky. ‘I think a tub would be more advisable.’

  ‘Done deal.’ Dominik leaned against the counter, gave the uniformed kid their order and dug into his jeans po
cket for a ten-dollar bill.

  ‘Isn’t this exciting?’ Lauralynn said.

  Why had he never thought to bring Summer here, or Coney Island, or another place designed for ordinary fun? They hadn’t even been to Central Park to sit in the grass and watch the kites fly in the wind or had a picnic together. The small epiphanies of life. Had they been too much in thrall to their emotions, their cravings?

  Maybe there was something wrong about them. Were they even normal?

  ‘A penny for your thoughts?’ Lauralynn’s voice reached him through a fog of mental haze as he scraped the bottom of the paper cup for the last, almost liquid, remnants of his ice cream.

  ‘Nothing important,’ Dominik replied.

  Lauralynn looked at him quizzically. ‘Summer?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he agreed.

  ‘She’s really got under your skin, hasn’t she?’

  ‘I suppose she has.’

  ‘Seems to me you’re no longer in charge.’

  ‘I sometimes wonder what the point of the whole thing is.’

  ‘That’s just the problem with you, Dominik: you think too much.’

  ‘Easy to say.’

  ‘You should relax more. Take matters as they come. Go with the flow of things.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’ he mumbled.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s go down to the sand.’

  He looked out to the narrow beach below the boardwalk. Scattered silhouettes were dotted across it, with a few heads bobbing here and there in the sea.

  ‘No way we can go swimming,’ Dominik remarked. ‘We haven’t brought anything.’ They wouldn’t even be able to strip to their underwear, as Lauralynn was braless and he had slipped his jeans on with no thought of underpants.

  ‘Just dip our toes in the water,’ Lauralynn said, ‘under the boardwalk. Just like in the songs and the movies, no?’

  They ventured further up the boardwalk until they found a set of stairs that led down to the sand. They descended and took off their shoes. The sand was coarse and still damp, and after loitering briefly in the wave-swept spume on the edge of the beach and enjoying the feel of the water round their ankles, they retreated back and installed themselves in a dry spot of sand under the boardwalk’s rafters.