He rushed over to the roll of linen canvas he kept on the wall and pulled out a length, slicing it with a Stanley knife. He knew the size he wanted exactly. He pulled out four stretchers and laid them out on the floor, tapping the mitred edges together to get the size and shape he wanted, laying an extra one across the middle for strength. Then he spread the canvas over the table-top and placed the frame gently on the top. It might have been a while since he had done this, but it was second nature to him. He was totally absorbed as he made sure the grain of the linen was parallel with the sides of the frame, then folded the canvas over the edges, making sure the linen was taut. He started to put in the tacks, using his trained eye to position them exactly, one in the centre of each side. Once they were in place, he added more at half-inch intervals, and finished by folding neat hospital corners, as if he was making a bed.
He hesitated before preparing the canvas. He was in such a hurry, he wanted to start straight away, but he still had to prime it and wait for it to dry properly, which would take at least six hours. But he told himself it would be worth the wait. He applied the first coat, then pulled out a sketch pad, found his favourite 6b pencil, and started to put down his ideas. He felt slightly crazed. Almost obsessional, as if he had to pin her down before she flew away.
All night long he worked, flitting from stretching canvasses to priming them to sanding them down, and in between he drew. He couldn’t work fast enough for the ideas that were flooding his mind. He was drowning in the essence of her. Just before dawn, he fell exhausted onto the futon he kept in there and fell asleep. It was the sweetest sleep he’d had for months, untainted by alcohol or drugs. He hadn’t even stopped for a cigarette all night.
She was the first thing he thought of when he woke. And he tried to identify his feelings for her. It certainly wasn’t a sexual feeling - he wasn’t fantasising about her in a weird way. She was just so unlike any woman he had met before. She was so self-contained and un-needy - yet she probably needed emotional support more than anyone. There was a purity about her, an innocence. It made him want to protect her and keep her safe from harm. He had never felt like that about anyone before. Which possibly said more about him than anything.
Maybe, thought Sebastian, for the first time in his life he was worrying about someone other than himself.
He rolled off the futon and got to his feet. There, scattered around the studio, were the six large canvasses he had prepared the night before, stretched, primed and ready for him. For a second he felt frozen with fear. What if the desperate need to paint from the night before had been an aberration? What if it had evaporated, leaving him with the same torpor he had been suffering for months? But no - already he could feel the urge to get started.
He looked around and realised the studio was a disgrace. The air was stale, the surfaces thick with dust, littered with ashtrays and abandoned magazines. He felt a sudden puritanical need for order and cleanliness. He didn’t want his work to be sullied with his former chaos. This was going to be a fresh start. He threw open the skylights and let the sweet morning air in. He stacked the wood-burner with fresh logs. He collected up all the mugs and glasses and stacked them in the dishwasher, threw all the empty bottles in the bin, sorted through the magazines and newspapers, put all the loose CDs back in their cases.
Suddenly there was an almighty banging on the front door. His heart leaped into his mouth - perhaps it was Charlotte, in trouble, needing him. He rushed to open it.
It was Stacey, red-faced and anxious.
‘Thank God you’re here,’ she gasped. ‘The missis has been phoning and phoning you all night. I just spoke to her. She told me to see if you were here. She thought . . .’ She trailed off, not wanted to voice Catkin’s fears. Sebastian couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice.
‘I’m fine, Stacey,’ he told her. ‘I was working. I slept in here last night.’
Stacey peered into the room over his shoulder, not quite believing him, as if she wanted evidence of some sort of debauched orgy that she could report back.
‘Oh,’ she said flatly, clearly disappointed. ‘Well, you’d better ring her. She was talking about coming back home, she was that worried.’
The last thing Sebastian needed now was to hear Catkin’s censorious tones. He turned to Stacey with his most charming smile.
‘Could you call her for me?’ he asked. ‘Only . . . I’m under rather a lot of pressure. Tell her I’m absolutely fine and I’ll call her tonight.’
For a second, he considered asking Stacey to come in and clean up. But no - he didn’t want anyone contaminating his air, or to listen to her burbling away about her six children. He didn’t usually mind at all - he was happy to listen to the minutiae of her life that was so far removed from his, even though she lived barely two hundred yards down the road. No, he needed to keep the place sacrosanct and his mind clear. Sebastian wanted to stay inside his little bubble for as long as he could. Any contact with reality might burst it.
He could tell by the way Stacey pursed her lips that she didn’t approve of the fact he wasn’t calling his wife himself. But eventually she waddled off. She knew him well enough not to argue, and to mollify her he’d agreed to let her bring him over some lunch at one. Stacey wasn’t happy unless she was cleaning under your feet or providing.
Once Stacey was out of sight, he went over to the first canvas and placed it reverentially on the easel in front of him. His heart was beating so loudly he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He felt sick with excitement and anticipation. This was like meeting a secret lover for the first time - the greatest thrill mixed with the greatest fear, not knowing what was going to happen, waiting for the first move to be made, not wanting to go too fast or too slow but desperate to begin.
With trembling hands, he set out his palette and began to squeeze the tubes of paint that had sat untouched for so many months. The squirls of colour oozed their way out reluctantly at first, then flowed more freely. The smell hit him, so familiar and evocative. How he could have left it so long he didn’t know. This was the stuff of life to him. This was what he was meant to do. How could he have spent so many months idling, letting his creativity atrophy? And as his creativity withered, so had his soul, until he had become someone he despised. It was only now that he recognised just how hateful he had become.
He ran his fingers through the oils, stirring, mixing, adding little dots of colour to create the perfect flesh tone, a creamy pinky-white, then he began to smear it over the canvas, his fingers darting all over the surface, creating curves, sinews, muscles. It was as if he was caressing her himself, bringing her to life with his touch - her shoulder, her neck, her spine . . .
In a mere twenty minutes, the whole canvas was smothered in Charlotte-ness; impressionistic strokes that were at once light but bold, like the loudest of whispers. Now he had captured her whole, it was time to put in the detail. He’d barely known her a week, but he felt as if he had known her a lifetime, as he worked in the curve of her lips, the set of her brow and the light in her eye.
She was perfect.
Nine
On Friday, Charlotte woke feeling as if she had greasy washing-up water sloshing about in her stomach. Perhaps it was the paint fumes accumulating. She should have opened more windows while she was working.
Or perhaps it was the fact that today was the day she was going to visit Ed.
She ran to the bathroom and threw up in the sink, tendrils of hair sticking to her sweaty forehead. She’d better phone the prison to cancel. After all, if she had a bug they wouldn’t thank her for bringing it with her.
She clung to the sides of the basin as she ran the tap to rinse away the contents of her stomach. Now she had been sick, she felt a bit better. She looked in the mirror as the colour slowly came back into her cheeks. Cancelling her visit would just be prolonging the agony. She had to confront Ed and, although it sounded corny, get closure. She felt strong enough now, after a few months on her own. She’d started bu
ilding a new life for herself. She felt as if she had a future; even though it wasn’t exactly rosy, it wasn’t entirely bleak. But she had to shed her demons in order to move on.
‘Come on, girl,’ she told herself, going back into the bedroom and pulling open the wardrobe door. What did you wear to visit your husband in prison? In the end, she decided on jeans and a grey cable-knit hooded jumper. She didn’t want to stand out as the posh bird and get her head kicked in on the way out. Or look as if she’d gone to any great effort. She drank a quick cup of tea and managed two slices of toast. If she was going to be sick again, it was better to have something to throw up.
She’d calculated that it was going to be nearly a four-hour drive. The prison was in Warwickshire, so it was straight up the M5, but she wasn’t looking forward to driving her tank all that way. It had been rattling rather ominously of late. She packed her handbag swiftly, sticking in a banana and a can of Diet Coke to swig on the way. She referred to the complicated list of instructions from the prison. She remembered her visiting order, and her passport, for identification. She wasn’t allowed to bring much in the way of presents, but then she didn’t feel inclined to.
As she walked through the hall to the front door, she felt her heart lift just a little. The whole feel of the house had changed, even though all she had done was lift up the carpet and paint the walls. It felt cleaner, fresher, lighter, warmer. She had made some headway. She had achieved something, in the face of adversity. Visiting Ed was the next obstacle, and she could get over it. She knew she could.
There was a hideous amount of protocol to get through at the prison, though Charlotte couldn’t help feeling that a lot of it was in place to wind up the visitors. She was searched, her paperwork was checked and double-checked, her bag was taken away to be stowed in a locker until she came back out, and there wasn’t so much as a smile or a please or thank you. She felt sorry for the other women who had come to visit loved ones, some with children in tow. Their expressions were dull with the tedium of it all. They were obviously used to this treatment, and accepted it wordlessly.
As they were ushered like cattle into the room to wait, she felt a gloom descend. The cheap grey corded carpet, the orange plastic chairs, the strip lighting - this was no atmosphere in which to discuss the future. She sat down awkwardly, feeling slightly self-conscious, even though she knew no one else gave a stuff about her or who she was.
And then Ed walked in. She wasn’t prepared for the way she felt. Disembowelled was the only word to describe it. She had meant to be so strong. She had thought she no longer cared, that she would be able to discard him. But when she looked across the room at him, she saw the man she had once loved. The man she had been through so much with. As he walked over to her, it was as if a film of their life together was playing out in front of her. She saw him feed her chocolate-covered fruit on their first date. She saw his eyes as he looked at her during their wedding vows. She saw his face above her as they made incredible love in their house. She saw his face as they looked at scan after hopeless scan . . .
He looked at her warily as he sat down.
‘Hi,’ she managed, her eyes roaming his face to discern what emotion he was feeling. He just nodded. She was surprised to see he looked well. His hair was cropped close to his head. He looked lean and muscular, and his shoulders seemed broader. Somehow when she’d imagined him in prison he’d been small and shrivelled. This guy looked tough, like a survivor. Someone not to be messed with.
‘So - what made you come?’ His voice was flat.
‘Didn’t you want me to? Isn’t that why you sent the . . . ?’
‘I thought maybe we should talk. Discuss the future.’
She nodded. She hadn’t expected him to be hostile. She’d expected him to be relieved. Grateful, even, that she had come to visit. She put her fingers on the table between them, drumming them nervously.
‘So . . . how is it?’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘Fucking shite. Fucking boring. The food sucks. The conversation isn’t exactly stimulating. And the décor’s dire, as you’ve probably noticed.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘Oh. The gym’s not bad. That’s the one bonus.’
For a moment she wanted to snap back that it was his own fault, not hers, that he was in here. That he had had a choice. And the choice he had made was his. But she guessed he’d had plenty of time to reflect on that. This wasn’t an opportunity to rub salt into his wounds. She’d done enough of that. This was about giving them both the chance to move on.
She cleared her throat. ‘I thought perhaps we should talk about . . . um, a . . . divorce.’
Again, the eyebrow went up and he gave her a twisted smile.
‘Let me guess. Unreasonable behaviour?’
‘I haven’t really thought about it.’
‘I suppose you just want it over and done with as quickly as possible. After all, it’s not like you can screw any money out of me, is it?’
This was horrible. Why was he punishing her like this? She felt tears stinging her eyes and she looked up at the ceiling, as if by defying gravity she could stop them falling.
‘Ed . . . Please . . . It doesn’t have to be like this.’
‘But this is exactly the way it is. I fucked up. You couldn’t forgive me. End of marriage. End of story.’
She felt as if the rug had been pulled out from underneath her. She hadn’t expected to feel so drawn towards him when she saw him. And she hadn’t expected him to be so hard. She felt ashamed. She had thought she had all the cards, but it seemed she had none.
She stood up.
‘I can’t deal with this.’
‘Oh, lucky you,’ he snapped back. ‘You can run away.’
‘Why are you being like this?’ As she spoke, she knew she sounded childish, whiny.
‘I’ve had time to think about things. And I don’t think I deserved the way you treated me. OK, so what I did was wrong. Fair cop, as they say. I did the crime, so I’m doing the time.’ He spoke disparagingly. ‘But look at all these other women . . .’
He indicated round him. There were couples in intense conversation, some chatting animatedly, some looking into each other’s eyes. But Charlotte was surprised to see there was no hostility between the other couples in the room.
‘A lot of these guys did far worse than me. But their women have stood by them.’ He put a finger to his lips, feigning an attempt to remember something. ‘What was that old cliché again? For better, for worse . . . ?’
Charlotte sank back down into the chair.
‘So . . . what are you saying?’
Ed stared back at her. His eyes were dead, devoid of emotion. He’d never looked at her like that before.
‘I’ve got nothing to say.’
She reached out a hand to touch him. This was unbearable. But he put up a warning hand, speaking in a mockney accent.
‘No bodily contact, sweetheart. This is prison, remember?’
She pulled back her hand quickly.
‘So,’ he went on. ‘Shagging anyone yet? Is that why you want a divorce?’
Charlotte felt a sudden surge of anger. Who did he think he was? Bloody Ray Winstone? Maybe he’d been brainwashed by the other prisoners. Maybe he thought he was some misogynist hard nut. What the hell was going to happen to him when he came out? She felt totally confused.
‘I’m trying to rebuild my life,’ she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. ‘After you managed to take everything I’d got away from me.’
They stared each other out for a moment.
‘After I was arrested,’ he said, his voice dropping almost to a deadly whisper, ‘you said thank God you hadn’t got pregnant, because you wouldn’t want a monster like me fathering your child. Well, I would just like to say the same,’ he went on, ‘because I wouldn’t want any child of mine having such a hard-hearted bitch for a mother.’
Charlotte recoiled from the harshness of his words. She got to her feet once again, her legs s
haking.
‘I didn’t come here to be spoken to like this.’
‘Then why did you?’ he snarled back.
‘I don’t know,’ she managed to reply. ‘I just thought we could talk.’
‘We had all the time in the world to talk. Before I got banged up.’
‘Maybe I wasn’t ready then.’
‘Well, maybe I’m not ready now.’
She looked at him for a moment. The angle of his cheekbones that she had always loved to stroke. His nose, slightly broken and bent. His jaw, his neck . . . She felt an immense urge to reach out and touch him, as if her fingers might be able to impart what her words couldn’t.
‘I better go.’
He turned away. She thought she caught the glitter of tears in his eyes. So he did still care.
‘Shall I come again?’
He shrugged.
Marriage and Other Games Page 20
