My brother was more down to earth. He was fifteen, sailing his passion, and was in Cornwall taking part in a regatta.
'That's not going to make life easy,' Matthew said. 'First Father, then you. They're going to expect me to do the same.'
'You'll be starting uni when I'm leaving.'
'Dead men's shoes, that's all I need,' he said, and I laughed.
'Are you winning any races?'
'No, not really. We don't want too many winners in one family, it wouldn't be fair.'
'Nothing's fair.'
'Yes, I know, it's all, what do you call it, random chaos.'
'That's what Mother calls your room, Matt.'
'Anyway, bloody well done.'
I dressed in a white bikini and grabbed a book; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the latest from JK Rowling. The wet grass was cold underfoot. My mind was empty like a suitcase in a cupboard. I read without hearing the words, closed my eyes and saw myself dancing naked through the dusty light at Black Spires. Now I had been offered a place at the college of my choice, it felt as if these two disparate turning points were connected, that the first had, by some absurd act of wizardry, intervened in the second.
Golo lugged a table into the garden and placed it in the shade of the rose arbour. She spread out a cloth from Provence; it was green with yellow parrots on swings and loaves of country bread. She placed at the centre a vase with lily-of-the-valley, the white blooms mysterious as pearls.
Mother wore a white cotton dress with a lace top and a large straw hat with polka dots in pink on the white hatband. She looked pretty, immobile, a china doll. I could always tell her moods by the faint twitch in her right eye, the vacant look, like she's just missed a train. She had made marriage her career and her husband was on the other side of the world.
'How's your father?'
'He sends his love?'
'Does he now? I'm sure he's pleased.'
'Over the moon, he said.'
'What a peculiar thing to say. You're so alike.'
We sat down with a bottle of sauvignon blanc in a bucket of ice, my glass topped up with fizzy water.
'This weather,' she said, and sipped her wine.
The air was baked. The roses were fully open, the petals heavy with perfume. There was no breeze. I could hear the soft murmur of a bee and remember how the bottle of Perrier gleamed in the sunlight, the beads of condensation like diamonds, a dark circle spreading over the cloth. Golo had made Caesar salad, far too much. She was from Bolivia, Golondrina, 'swallow' in English, the bird, not the action, plump as a peach, her mission to fatten us up utterly hopeless.
We sat quietly. Mother kept refilling her glass. It was too hot to talk, and it was a relief when Golo came waddling out like a conspirator.
'Misses Boiled...'
'Boyd.'
'Misses Boyed, is Simon.'
'Simon?' I gasped.
'Do tell him to come through,' Mother replied.
'Really, I wish you hadn't said that.'
'Why? I thought you were, whatever.'
'Well, we're not.'
He appeared and she smiled. She lifted back the brim of her hat and her eyes lit up.
'Simon, what a pleasure.' She called Golo. 'Bring another glass, will you, dear, and a chair.'
He stood beside the table as if at ship's rail sailing away from port. He was wearing a tee-shirt with the words Black Eyed Peas on the front and a stain on the shoulder. He was as white as clay and I had an urge to tell him about Mr Devlin.
'Hi.'
'Hi.'
'The clever girl has made it into Cambridge. Her father's old college,' Mother said, and he looked away from me as if surprised by a distant sound.
The wine bottle was empty. Mother left and he remained standing there at the table in his stained tee-shirt.
'That's great,' he said.
'Thank you.'
'You didn't mean what you said, you know, those emails, like, like just like that.'
'I did.'
'But why? Why, Katie? You promised.'
'I changed my mind.'
He was breathing heavily, panting, clenching his fists, revving himself up.
'Is there someone else?'
I thought for a second. 'Yes,' I replied. 'Me.'
He wasn't sure what I meant. 'What...'
I pointed at myself. 'Me. It was always about you, what you wanted, what you want...'
'You did, too.'
'Not any more.'
'Well, let's see what happens. We can go out tonight. I'm back now, go into town or something?'
I shook my head. He was pleading, throwing out his hands, jaw tight. The urge to mention Mr Devlin had gone. Like enemies, it is best to keep old lovers, even if they were never lovers, as friends.
'No, best not,' I said.
'Moving up, then, are you, Katie?' He shook his head and looked at me properly, really for the first time. 'You look fucking...fucking amazing. Maybe I'll see you on the way down.'
He turned, marched off, paused and glanced back.
'Bitch,' he spat.
He passed Mother without speaking. She had returned with a second bottle of wine and sat with a look of pleasure crossing her features.
'A thwarted lover, dear?' she said.
'No, not really.'
'Always be nice when you give them the sack. It pays.'
'I was just thinking the same.'
'So we do have something in common after all.'
The bee had sunk its head into the nectar on the rose hanging above me. It flew off, buzzing, as we clinked the rims of our glasses.
'Here's to you, Katie,' she said.
'Thanks, Mummy.'
She sat back. 'It never crossed my mind to go to university,' she said. 'I thought it would be a complete waste of time.'
'It's different now.'
Again, she lifted the brim of her hat. She studied me for a long time, my face, my shoulders, my breasts in the white bikini top.
'Not really,' she replied. 'You could just find an older man, there's lots of them about, someone who likes fishing and shooting, and golf. Those things they do. While he's in the country, you could swan around Kensington with different lovers.'
'Like in a Luis Buñuel film?' I said and she shrugged.
'I've never been interested in all that psychological claptrap. I'm not even sure what bourgeoisie means.'
'Middle class,' I said.
'Really? I thought it was an attitude more than a designation.'
'Well, yes....'
Mother had never spoken like this before, of love and lovers. She didn't know about Roger Devlin, I was sure of that, but was aware that something in me had changed and the way Simon Wells had stalked off had revealed what it was. She stared at me through the vase of lily-of-the-valley.
'You have become quite a beauty, but then, you know that, don't you, Kate?'
I shrugged. 'I'm alright,' I said.
'No, dear. You have become...' she paused, 'that obscure object of desire.' She refilled her glass, leaned back in her chair. 'It is a burden as well as a gift.'
Once, in a restaurant, as a man was leaving, he leaned over my table and whispered, 'Don't think you're special, because you're not. You're nothing.'
What had I done to offend him? Was my voice too loud? Too plummy? Was my skirt too short? He had seen something in me he didn't like. Had Tom seen something he did like? Or was I just a stray girl with whom to see in the New Year?
It felt more than just that to me. But did he feel the same?
I grow anxious when happiness comes near. I grill myself with the same dreary questions. Who am I? Where am I going? What makes me me? What do I want? What do I really want?
There is a game we used to play. You ask a friend, if they had to stop being human and become an animal, what would they be? Immediately they answer, you say, there are no vacancies for that particular animal. What is your second choice. The first choice (often a lion, a wolf, a leopar
d) is what we think we are; the second is what we really are (a poodle, a fox, a snake). I can't remember my first choice, but my second was a giraffe – aloof, an observer, partial to the sweetest leaves.
I look into the mirror and it seems sometimes as if the person in the reflection is wearing a mask, that there is someone quite different looking out through my eyes, the hunched, haunted figure I call Black Dwarf, my avatar, the portrait of Dorian Gray that hides in the cupboard. I have always surrendered to Oscar Wilde's counsel: The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.
The mirror reveals each day someone different. Time never sleeps. It moves, bends, spirals. Our cells die and new cells come to life. We grow tired repeating ourselves. Something had been shifting inside me, slow and delicate, like a lizard stalking a fly. An ennui had slipped like a sour smell into my daily routines; perhaps that's why I had moved along the river from west to east?
Was Tom another symptom of this feeling, or the catalyst for something new; something definitive? It was as if I had wished him into being and he had appeared in the dying seconds of the old year; the first day of the new.
Why had doubt so overwhelmed me the moment he left my bed? When he said he had a dinner, my first instinct was that he didn't. There was someone else, his girl, his wife. Trust is a dying species; the tigers, the orang-utans. There is a shop nearby with a sign in whitewash across the window saying SALE – Final Day. It has been there for three months. We have lost confidence in politicians, bankers, advisers, doctors. We don't trust ourselves. So how can we trust anyone else?
When he left I sat curled in the chair listening to the whine of the helicopter, Black Dwarf rearranging like a spiteful juggler the spirals of my DNA. The feeling, so quick to arise, passed with those two iPhone kisses, so little and yet so much.
Jacques.
An amber glow.
The sound of the piano keys like footsteps.
I sipped my champagne. The bubbles burst in my nose and I had a sudden urge to giggle, to be silly, to be that girl at the corner table with her pale arms and breasts pushing over the dip of her sequinned dress. Happiness is the suspension of disbelief; a brief ignorance.
I looked away, adjusted my hair, recrossed my legs and hooked my heel behind the metal ring of the stool. I reached for my phone, as if anticipating a text, and the machine vibrated; a creepy preconception, the opposite of déjà vu. I often get a sense that my phone is watching me and have the odd desire to throw it in the river.
Lizzie is in Old Compton Street, two mins from J.
Valmont is watching me and pours the Cristal before I ask.
She makes an entrance in red, her colour, her waist cinched by a tight belt, stressing her breasts and hips like ripe fruit, her legs long in high pointed shoes. She threw her coat over a chair.
'Am I late?'
'No.'
'Then you must be early. That's a first.'
'I spend more money on cabs than I save in rent.'
'And how is life among the poor and downtrodden? Ghastly, I'm sure.'
'I like it.'
She sipped her champagne and smiled. 'Mmm, that's better,' she said; she looked at me closely, like the doctor with my finger. 'You have that glow.'
'You'll have it later.'
'Yes, my dear, but in different places.'
Ray is a soldier, a sergeant in special forces. He does things in shadowy places, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Lebanon. He has special needs.
She threw up her shoulders and viewed her surroundings with that self-assurance that imposed itself on the amber-lit space. Her gaze took in the men who had arrived too early; the couple in the corner, the girl reminding me of Fay Wray from the original King Kong. The beast was leaning forward and drummed a finger on the table as he spoke. Lizzie's dark lashes fell over her eyes like camera shutters, recording everything. There was a deliberation to her movements, as if each gesture was considered before being put into action. Her eyes opened fully as they turned back to me.
'Now, why are we here?'
'I don't know. I just wanted to see you.'
'I know you better than that. Why aren't you seeing him?'
'He had a dinner with old friends.'
'And he's lying?'
I shook my head. 'No, I don't think so. He's not like that.'
'They are all like that.'
She took another sip of champagne; her lips were the same colour as her dress and she left a ruby red print on the glass.
'You like this one, don't you?'
'We made love for, like, four hours, and when he left, I felt...bereft.'
'That's one of your words.'
'Bereft, desolate, forlorn, fretful. It's totally weird.'
'Sounds totally wonderful.'
'We're going to have lunch tomorrow with his sister.' I took a second. 'Sisters don't like me.'
'Of course not, they dream of incest,' she said, and fixed me with an intense expression. 'What's he like in bed?'
'You are so personal.'
'I'll put it another way: what's he like in bed?'
'Firm, but patient, kind and thoughtful...'
'Just like my grandmother.'
'He asked me to undress for him; well, told me, really. I wore the mask, you know the one, and it really turned him on. When he told me he had to leave, I felt totally...'
'Bereft?'
I nodded.
'Sounds promising. Good looking, good in bed...curious that he should be alone on New Year's Eve.'
'I was alone.'
'Two curiosities make a plot. There has to be someone else, it stands to reason.'
'Then I shall just have to kill her.'
'That's what I like to hear.' She paused. 'If you like this one, you mustn't give away too much of yourself. Keep him in suspense.'
'I'm not writing a book.'
'Of course you are. It will be your best.'
I cheered up. 'You think so?'
She didn't answer. She didn't like being prodded for compliments. She stroked the back of my hand. I loved her. I love Daddy, Matt, even Mother...sometimes. But Lizzie was the only person who knew me, the me inside me, the me who got lost in the mirror and hid sometimes in the closet. Bella had moved to America, taking the twins with her. She was big now; she had a fan club, her own hairdresser. I write books, heaven knows why, and Lizzie made me feel as if I were her student, which wasn't surprising as she gave classes in creative writing to prisoners at Wandsworth Jail. She reads the drafts of friends' books, writes honest reviews that always have a word of kindness, even if the review is harsh. She designs book jackets, takes marvellous photographs and looks forward to Ray Fowles arriving and leaving in equal measure.
'How long is Ray here for?'
'Two weeks. That's about as much as I can stand. Especially now.'
'Ah, do tell?'
'It's not as if I'm being unfaithful....'
'An excursion to Pink?'
'I'm especially partial to girls,' she said, her words rolling from her tongue as if she were swallowing melting chocolate. She paused again, shrugging her fine shoulders. 'Anyway, Ray doesn't need to know; he wouldn't even care.'
A man appeared in a navy blue suit; his tie too tight, face flushed.
'Hi, gals, I'm Bob, what are you drinking?'
Lizzie looked over her shoulder. 'In a champagne bar?' she asked.
'Hey, that's right. Two more glasses?'
She glanced at Valmont, raising her eyes a fraction; he knew the drill. Bob leaned on the bar beside her, foot resting on the rail. He was looking at me, forcing Lizzie to turn towards him.
'Where are you from, Bob? she asked.
'Kansas City, USA.'
'What do you do in Kansas, Bob?'
'I'm a banker, you know...'
'A banker. How fortunate.' She turned wide-eyed in her seat. 'So, you're the one who bankrupted the economy and went off with squillions of dollars?'
'I wish,' he replied.
'You didn't?'<
br />
He held up his two palms like a cowboy surrendering in a Western. 'I'm a wheat analyst. I work in futures...'
'You mean, you're not filthy rich?'
'No, lady, I am not...'
She leaned forward with an unnerving smile and lowered her voice to a hiss. 'Then save your money and spend it on your wife, Bob. That's the future.'
'What? Hey, listen, I was only being friendly.'
'Then go and be friendly somewhere else.'
His face grew redder. 'I wasn't interested in you, anyway.'
She glanced at me, then back at the man. 'You know something, Bob, I don't think the feeling's mutual.'
I gave him a shrug and he stared back at Lizzie.
'I've met some bitches in my time, lady, but you take some beating.'
'Never a truer word been said, my dear,' she replied. She threw up her hand to look at her watch, a small silver Cartier. 'I'm going to have to go.'
She slipped to her feet as the young blonde left the bar with King Kong's hand resting on the small of her back. The girl was wearing a fox fur coat that swayed around her long legs. The door opened and I caught a glimpse of the drizzle in the street lights.
'I'm going, too,' I said, and Lizzie's brow rippled.
'Is this love?' she asked, and I shook my head.
'Lust, I imagine.'
We stood outside, waiting for a taxi, the neon signs along the street making the night seem darker. I looked up at the sign, Jacques, a signature in pale green letters, and it occurred to me that I would probably never go back there again.
9
Someone Else
He kissed the inked scroll on my neck, my shoulders, the hills of my spine, those little dents at the pit of my back that I look at sometimes in the mirror, so mysterious, as if two fingers have been pushed into a balloon. He fondled my bottom as if it were pastry dough, kneading the soft flesh and making it rise. The grotto behind my left knee, my right knee; my feet.
'My best feature,' I said, and rolled over to face him.
He was smiling. I adored his smile, his good teeth. 'Yes, quite the best. But I am growing rather fond of your Achilles' tendons, they're in pretty good shape.'
'That's a relief.'
He planted watery kisses on the sinewy flesh above my heels, one after the other. 'Now you are protected,' he said, and propped himself up on one elbow. 'You know something, you remind me of Helen of Troy. She had green eyes...'
Katie In Love: full length erotic romance novel Page 9
