She rose and no one stopped her, or observed that she could scarcely walk while wanting, desperately, to run. She was slow and determined, rigidly controlled, scenting the air outside like an animal. The older woman walked her out. Di could smell that peculiar cell smell of bleach, urine and desperation.
‘Ok, we jumped the gun,’ the woman said, grudgingly. ‘Bloody men, know what I mean. I told them … hey, whatever happened to your hair?’
Di fixed her eyes on the exit. The shaking would start again when she got outside. She turned to the woman.
‘I get it fixed tomorrow. What about yours? Who made the report?’
‘Can’t tell you. Someone jumped the gun, that’s all.’ She leaned towards Di. ‘All I can tell you is, it wasn’t Jones.’
When she got out of the taxi with the key in her hand, she saw that Jones had left the lights on. She read the note and did not phone him. The kitchen looked much the same; the snug, tidier and barer. They had taken Thomas’s processed food and feeding equipment, left the same, sanitised oven. The idiots. The shaking began again, and then subsided, because she had won, she had taken control, for a while, passed a test. She drank the brandy, carefully, smoked a cigar, sat at the computer. Tomorrow, she would do exactly what she had planned to do. Smarten up, get out of here. Go to London.
Don’t deviate. Be passionate and dispassionate, Di. Remember who you are. Remember who was proud of you. Write down what happened. Write something every day.
Sleep now. Think of summer. Control the breathing. Put the fears in order of priority. An image of her father rose to mind, along with the conviction that he was close by. She supplanted him with another image; the geese over the bay this time of year. That was the way it worked. You displaced ugliness by thinking of something effortlessly beautiful, like a piece of flint. She would go tomorrow. So much to do, tomorrow.
Where was Saul?
A dark, winter morning.
Morning was a different creature to night; easier to rationalise in the morning and even this poor daylight made everything simpler. She had been taught to analyse what she saw with such joy; she was growing an ice chip in her heart, forming a lens through which to see. It was only Thomas’s opinion of her that counted. It did not matter that she was neither liked nor loved in a town she loved dearly, and perversely loved even more, now. So much so that she was dreading leaving it, postponing the moment of movement by sitting in his chair, looking at the screen.
She was reading an article she had found online.
Collectors, the screen informed her, must not be confused with the art-lover, or the person who is simply interested in art. The urge to possess, bring together objects, is inseparable from the taste for the unusual and the flair for discovery. As soon as man developed a sense of beauty and the ability to choose, he felt the fascination of coming under the spell of coveted objects.
Collectors have been treated as the victims of a disease, with four main symptoms: the possessive instinct, the necessity for spontaneous activity, the desire to surpass oneself and the need for social standing. The collector is by definition inseparable from a love of risk or battle. Supremely unsociable by nature, he has no self confidence apart from his conquests, which recall the moments when he has, to some extent, mastered his fate. He may even feel obliged to keep his collection from the sullying gaze of alien eyes.
With few exceptions, the screen said, the great collectors are self-made men, who began life shining other peoples’ shoes. They may have wanted to establish a personalised, grander past. Master their own fate.
‘Rubbish,’ Di said to the screen. Her irritation with this googled script of cod analysis from a learned source made her uneasy. First because although she was addicted to keyboard and screen, she could never quite trust the text as much as she would if she had seen it in a book. Pictures were another matter; text was less convincing, somehow.
Another reason for the irritation was because some of this psychological treatise was so true, while the rest was patently false. Whatever kind of collector Thomas had been, he was not like that and neither was she. They were not ego driven, they were rescuers, celebrators of neglected beauty, seekers and restorers, and the last thing Thomas had wanted was status. Di Porteous was trying to discover what she was. A small thief, turned by circumstance into something else, or better than that. Someone who would always need to learn something, every day.
She lit a cigar. OK, OK, the author on the screen was right. Collectors could be persons in search of an identity; collecting was a highly effective way of sidetracking loneliness. A substitute for a family, even. Boys collected cards and coins; girls collected ribbons and nuts and bolts and other people hoarded thimbles. Collectors had their own, alternative sanity, an excess of passion, rather than the opposite and even if it began with disappointment in real life as others knew it, it also came from a longing to take pride, another version of the creative instinct, and, in this day and age, it enabled a man to be a hunter–gatherer without wielding a spear.
I need this disease, Thomas, she said. It was our mission in life, but is it really still mine? I want this illness. I want the passion I found through you to stay with me. She logged on to another website and scrolled through the images to find the scarce-known gem of an English artist who Thomas had seen in that last week before his final walk.
Alfred Studd, a tiny oil panel, with a title, A gust of wind, circa 1914. A woman in a pink gown, holding on to her hat on Brighton Beach. A small, vulnerable figure, dressed in her Sunday best, struggling with the indignity of the wind which made her gown billow around her knees and threatened her balance, looking as if she wanted to smile, but the struggle to maintain her poise made it impossible as the wind rendered her naked. Someone out of the picture was laughing at her. The colours glowed, the brush strokes were delicate and confident; pink gown, probably wrong for the weather, grey skies, a hint of turbulent sky and sea foam. Di caught her breath, touched the screen as if she could feel the texture of it and sighed. There was a place for her here, and Di was out of her seat and moving towards the door to find her. Yes, she was a Collector. She was not Thomas’s protége, put upon earth to fulfil his mission. It was in the blood. She had the dreaded disease.
She went back to the screen. Google map; she found her own town, where she was now, and examined that first, a way to orientate herself before going any further. She never went anywhere without a map. Maps were important.
Find the place, then, look at it from above. The town came into view, straggling out along the curving coast and clinging to it, spreading back reluctantly until it melted into fields, with the railway line snaking away, leading to the greater world. Her town, seen as a picture, examined as such. A town that needed this house and all that was in it. This town needs this house.
Di chose her route. She would go to the High Street first, ten minutes’ walk away, then the train station which would take her to London and the studio flat; she would make an inventory and make it as safe as Thomas would have wanted, although it had never been inviolate. Maybe she could mourn him there, away from the sound of the sea. Thomas had lived there when he was young.
Half an hour later, she was outside the hairdresser’s, a place where she was almost at home. It was the place that made it clear that while small-town dwellers thought they knew everything about everybody, they only ever knew a fraction and sometimes, nothing at all. There was no one alive who could be said to have known Diana Porteous, but there were several people who thought they did and Monica was one of them. Monica had known Di’s mum and dad, not that they ever discussed it. Di had taken to going to Monica’s, irregularly, since she was married, because she liked it. She never talked in Monica’s, only listened.
The town ran to two hairdressing salons, one beautician, a nail clinic and other small, useful shops. As a level street, it was popular with one-legged persons in motorised buggies, persons on crutches and mothers with prams. On Saturday nights, it was drunk.
&
nbsp; Reaching Monica’s Hair Salon on this Monday morning, Di could see that the window had been cracked again, along with a couple of others. It followed from that that the brick through her own window last week was equally impersonally delivered, although her house was outside the drinking zone. The salon door was wide enough for a zimmer frame and, once inside, the smell of perfumed chemicals outdid the scent of dog and damp overcoats by the door which, when opened, let out a glorious warmth. Coming inside here was like entering a ship, to sail away for a while.
Monica’s diplomatic side was often defeated by naked curiosity, especially when she did not think that sympathy was called for. She placed delicate hands on her thin hips as the door shut behind Di. There were three other customers.
‘Hallo, what’s the cat dragged in? He’s dead, then, is he? About time, though, wasn’it? Shame, though, lovely man. No time for crying, though. That’ll come later. You’ll have things to do, won’t you?’
You could assess a woman’s mind by the state of her hair and Monica knew that. She was a graduate in widowhood experience. Grief was not always immediate, or at all, although Di’s hair was certainly stricken. Thomas had been welcome here, too.
‘Going to London, are we? Thought so, you’ve got that bag.’
Di carried a small antique suitcase whenever they embarked on a day away; that much had been observed, along with the fact that she had acquired nice new clothes since she became a Mrs, lucky her. Monica had once been sweet on Di’s dad: Jones had been sweet on her mother. Not mentioned now, not ever. The salon still needed a makeover and Monica was feeling sour.
‘Terrible, your hair. Been dropping out, has it? Don’t worry, it’ll grow back when you’ve got him buried and people stop talking. Won’t be church service, will it? Take a while, I expect. Right, what do you want me to do?’
Make me beautiful. Make me grow. Give me height. Anything that stops me looking scared.
‘Last time he came in here,’ Monica said in Di’s ear whilst patting the gown around her shoulders, ‘he asked me to cut his hair really short. I wouldn’t do it. He wanted to save you the trouble of washing it. Lovely hair, lovely man. You can cry if you want. No one’ll notice. You got plenty of time. You need the works. A colour?’
‘Whatever you think.’
‘Right,’ Monica said, offended.
Di sank awkwardly into the comfort.
‘You keeping the old barn, then?’ Monica asked. ‘Thought that’d be on the market sometime soon. Must be worth a fortune.’
‘No. Not yet awhile.’
‘He’s never left you everything, has he?’
Di was silent. Monica’s sharp eyes calculated the odds on persisting, decided not. This hair was a mess, like a mangy dog. Give it some colour to disguise it. The customer rarely knew best.
‘There was a man in here yesterday,’ she said. ‘Asking all about you, well not so much about you, more about the house. I reckon an out of town estate agent, we get them now we’re going upmarket. I didn’t tell him you were living there alone. They’ll be over you like flies. Now love, you can tell me, have you really copped the lot?’
A hush, as Di’s hair was massaged into a lather of unlikely colour. Di said nothing, flushed pink. There was the sound of a magazine being dropped.
‘That means you did, then,’ Monica said. ‘Until someone takes it away. There’ll be plenty ready to do that. Anyway, hasn’t the girl done well? Hasn’t the girl done well,’ she yelled round the salon, so loudly that the pictures shook on the walls.
The silence was palpable. No envy in the tone, only wonder, and a sort of congratulation that a little scrubber like Di could do so well and yet there was a touch of malice in the perfumed air. Di Quigly had won the lottery and no one loves a winner. Earned it on her back.
Monica pouted and paused. The noise resumed.
‘Didn’t mean it, love,’ Monica said, leading her to the basin. ‘You were always good with the waifs and strays.’ She leaned down and whispered. ‘Did I hear right that the police were round yours, yesterday?’
‘Yes,’ Di said. ‘Came and went.’
Monica nodded, satisfied to be proved right. At least she’d got three words out of her. It was impossible to relax. Di kept her face still and did what she did to distract herself, thought of a painting, and replaced one image with another, so as not to think that it might have been someone in here who had sent the police to her door. They did not understand, but Di Quigly had never expected understanding; ever since her father first shot the birds, and the finding of it once, in the way she had, was not going to qualify her to find it again. Being misunderstood was a fact of life. She fingered the map in her pocket. Cartwright Street, the studio flat: perhaps he was waiting there, ready to open the door.
They couldn’t be so bad. His children couldn’t be so bad. Gayle had thanked her for nursing her father. Patrick had come, although in secret. They would come round, they could work something out, they would come to understand. It can’t have been them who sent the police.
Eleven in the morning, only, the same grey day advancing towards a lighter afternoon. Where would she be, how would she be and who would she be, come the spring? There would be the battle of winter darkness. Once in the safety of the train, she made up her face in the lavatory to correspond with the hair. She had been sabotaged; the hair was a mass of spikes with an unnatural sheen. The speed of the train was awesome. Thomas had approached train journeys with the joy of a child, as if each journey was a novelty to be accompanied by a picnic; she remembered that. Out at St Pancras, still in love with the speed of the train and resenting it too, because she arrived too fast to allow time to adjust. She hunted in the case for the print of the painting she wanted to touch and then for the map. The studio flat where she was bound was where Thomas had been a student and he had never relinquished it. Christina had been allowed to use it in her nomadic phases and despite that, it was still Thomas’s bolthole, the base for city forays and the seeing of exhibitions. It had been his home when he was still shining other men’s shoes before he became a dedicated teacher who also invented games. Perhaps he would be there: perhaps it was all a mistake. Perhaps he had simply gone back in time.
She could see how it must have been, a floor above a long defunct pub, a garret of three small rooms, accessed by an old door in the alley between. How he loved small doors, obscure entrances into large rooms, and how she did, too. The studio was a haven of peace and light and a place to hide, as well as collect. Hence the inventory. She went up the dark stairs from the narrow door, lighter hearted, wanting to see it again, imagine him in it. She heard them before she saw them.
Gayle, Beatrice, Edward. Patrick, sweet Patrick.
The door was not locked. There was a small, mirrored vestibule inside the entrance. Di could see them, reflected in it, visible in the mirror through the half-open door. She flattened herself against the wall, saw her own profile, witnessed a thin girl in a loose red coat, black leather trousers and artificial hair, looking like a tasteless tramp; a girl in another person’s clothes.
There was stick thin, elegant Gayle and plump husband Edward in his good suit; no colour in them at all, except for Patrick, the boy, who sat on the floor with his sketchbook and pink face. Di put down the suitcase, quietly.
The studio room was in the process of being dismantled. The walls had been cleared of all the small things that had found their way here, the comforting drawings and pictures, the little bits and pieces worth pence. The walls gaped with the marks of plucked-out hooks and the booty was gathered into untidy piles. The ceramics, which had always been there long before her time, and which she had arranged along the window ledges, the mismatched cups and plates were also gathered in. There were three boxes, one already sealed. The smallest, nostalgic part of the collection Thomas Porteous had spent half a lifetime creating, was being bundled ready for removal. They had come prepared.
Edward was speaking. The women listened to him.
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��We can come back for this later,’ he said. ‘It’s all rubbish, anyway.’
Patrick leaned sideways and picked up a ceramic green frog which lay forgotten on the floor. He put it to his ear, listened, put it in his pocket and then put his hands over his ears.
‘Better than nothing. Do you suppose they’ll keep her in?’ Gayle said.
‘I hope so,’ Edward said, in his loud and resonant voice. ‘But they might not have enough to keep her. Enough said. A young, convicted thief in charge of the medicine chest. They’ll keep on looking. She’ll never be free of suspicion.’
‘It might at least drive her bonkers,’ Beatrice said, carelessly. ‘Best thing to do, keep on hounding her till she loses it. Who knows what they’ll find? Ha, ha.’
‘But it isn’t what Saul says we should do,’ Gayle said. ‘And nor is this.’
‘Saul’s not the only one with ideas,’ Edward said, in his resonant voice.
‘The bitch,’ Beatrice said in her singsong voice. ‘Thinking she can have what’s ours. The skinny little bitch.’
Di saw the back of Gayle’s head, shaking disapprovingly.
‘You have such a small vocabulary, dear,’ Gayle said wearily.
‘She’s a thieving con and he was a paedophile,’ Beatrice chanted. ‘Likes little girls and boys. Did you tell them that bit, Edward?’
‘Do hush,’ Gayle said, pointing at the child indifferently.
The voices descended into mumbles. Beatrice was dressed in homespun folds that wafted around her as she moved, clumsily. The odd thing was broken as they packed: there were shards of glass on the floor, as if they did not particularly want what they took, only wanted to take it.
Edward yawned. ‘Leave most of it, make it look like someone broke in.’
Contempt shimmered in the air, like a mist.
Di listened. Watched. Frozen. They hated her; they hated him.
The boy, Patrick, looked up, gaped round with his myopic stare, pushed his spectacles further up his nose, gazed towards the half-open door and saw Di, pressed against the wall. He began to grin, then wiped it away with the back of his hand immediately, shook his head, warningly. Then he screamed, yeugh, in a single, barking shout and drummed his heels on the floor. They gathered around him with their backs to the door, shushing him as if he was a baby. Gayle slapped him.
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