Ivory

by Steve Merrifield

  Chapter Sixteen

  The tarot card was labelled The Tower. Martin didn’t know what it meant but the colourful image was of a lightning bolt shearing down through a tower, causing half of it to crumble into the outline of a man decaying into rubble. It seemed to resonate with King’s, Ebony’s, Richard’s, and his father’s stark warnings that still haunted his consciousness. He would have moments where their voices and prophecies would draw him away from whatever he was doing and he would find himself trembling, sick to his stomach at what he had done. However, Ivory was a contradiction to their warnings and an antidote to the way he felt. Her siren smile, her touch, and her passion fuelled the desires he no longer had to hide or restrain, and their relationship satisfied him wholesomely and fully, soothing his worries and fears around his descent. He knew that he had been naïve in his excuses for his pursuit of Ivory, rediscovering his art was simply an unexpected result. His pursuit of her had ended his marriage and turned his world upside down, he had lost everything that should have been most important to him, but her presence and the fact that she was still with him gave him justification in following the path he had taken. He had found love and passion and lust, and it was real and it made him feel alive again.

  Over the last three days Martin had returned from work and Ivory had been waiting dutifully for him in his house, she hadn’t left him as Ebony had expected, although realistically she couldn’t have left if she had wanted to as the only window that remained unlocked (because Martin couldn’t find the key for it), was the one in the kitchen and that was a tall narrow opener that wasn’t big enough to climb through. If she had attempted to leave she would have surely appeared distressed or defensive upon his return, but she appeared content, sitting in exactly the same place on the sofa in the lounge as when he left her in the mornings. It had, however, not stopped him from repeating what had originally been a mistake, and deadlocked the front door when he left in the mornings.

  For the first evening and morning Ivory headed to the door and waited to be allowed out, and through a few questions he understood that she wanted to return to Arven Road, again he reminded her of the potential danger, stressed that he cared for her and offered her the money she would miss by not going, she accepted and stayed. Stayed safe. Martin had begun leaving her payment on the kitchen table and it would be gone when he returned. She no longer waited to be let out, but accepted that he was keeping her safe. He knew Ebony would say that he was paying her like any other customer she might have encountered, but he decided that although he was in effect buying her time, he was not paying for her body or her passion, that, Martin had decided, she gave him willingly. He was paying for her time so that she could experience something other than the brief encounters in undignified places, a change of environment and lifestyle that could make her realise there were other ways of living her life. Ivory had saved him from King and he had saved her from the scavenging pimps. Those kinds of acts drew people closer to each other and created bonds. On the simplest level they owed each other something deeper than love; their lives.

  He was a little uncomfortable with the sex. Over the years he had grown used to Jenny’s body and her to his and they had matured together, both accepting the unflattering changes to their figures and features that age and contentment had brought. With Ivory possibly twenty years his junior he was conscious of himself, his face was slack with years of expression and he was flabby and out of shape from comfortable living and his taste for cakes. He usually maintained a stubbly beard due to a lack of interest in his appearance and hardly ever feeling the motivation to shave. He had shaved it off this morning though. Worried it would give Ivory rashes, and in the hope it might make him look younger.

  He and Jenny had found their routine between the sheets and they hadn’t strayed from it in years, with Ivory sex was an adventure again and her eagerness was infectious. When he had been inside her it had felt fantastic, taking him back to when he had first discovered sex, but he had experienced a moment where he was sickened by how his podgy clammy stomach pressed against her tight hot flat abdomen. The sensations of their passion had soon distracted him from dwelling on such details, but afterwards he had reasoned that he was no nineteen-year old lad, and he shouldn’t try to aspire to be what he wasn’t as Ivory obviously liked him the way he was.

  Martin had grown used to Ivory’s limited range of responses in conversation, and had grown comfortable within the shared monologues he had with her. Her inability to initiate conversation or to contribute to any significant degree meant that the conversation never strayed from topics that Martin liked to talk about, and this nurtured within him the sense that Ivory shared many of Martin’s interests and added to their connection. However, that had not distracted from Martin’s frustration at knowing he wouldn’t have any satisfying answers to the questions he had since Ebony had spoken mysteriously of Ivory’s future.

  There was something else that puzzled Martin, Ivory had been in exactly the same seat and position when he returned home and nothing in the house had the appearance of being disturbed. As far as he could tell she hadn’t been to the cupboards or fridge for food. In fact she hadn’t accepted any offer of food or drink since he had brought her back to his house. He hadn’t actually seen her eat or drink anything since he had met her. He guessed it was possible that she had made herself something to eat and washed up after herself and he hadn’t noticed the missing food. He was a little concerned about her mental capacity, maybe Ebony took far more care of her than Martin had appreciated, and perhaps Ivory needed prompting to eat and drink. He had made a note to keep an eye on the food in the house and see if she was eating while he was out. He didn’t want her to become malnourished. Although he was sure she couldn’t go without food or drink of some sort for three days.

  The idea that she appeared to have not moved from where he had last seen her, as if she had switched off like a machine in his absence, aroused a suspicion within him. He often remembered the boys getting up to mischief when he was out of the room and he had developed a sense for this over time. Whenever he returned he would find one or both of his children sitting back where he had left them, but looking decidedly guilty. Although there hadn’t been any flicker of emotion in Ivory’s face that betrayed her, only the dawning of a smile at his return, he couldn’t shake the connection in his head and the feeling of misgiving that came with it. A dread anxiety hunched down low in the cover of his everyday thoughts and feelings of comfort, ready to pounce and overpower him.

  Martin shook his keys from the lock and struggled through the door with his large art folder under his arm and his bag in his hand. He had not seen Richard since the skirmish at Arven Road. A quick check of the computer register had showed that he had not attended any lectures or studio sessions. Martin had tracked down Richard’s blonde lover, Shaun, in the corridors between lectures but the boy bluntly explained that Richard had ended their relationship by text that morning after several days of cooling him off. The boy’s mood softened after his disclosure and he had reassured Martin that despite some cuts and bruises Richard was okay. It was obvious that the boy didn’t know the real cause of Richard’s injuries, but he added that the last time he had seen Richard was two days previous, when he had seen him buying a large batch of sketching and painting materials. This was curious in itself, but Richard had not answered Martin’s phone calls or texts. Despite Martin’s wariness of Richards’s judgement he planned on persisting in trying to contact him to ensure that he was indeed okay.

  He called into the hallway and announced his surprise return. He had decided to take his planning period as sick leave and had come home during lunch time. He allowed his folder to drop to the floor against the wall and propped his bag against it, locked the door and deposited his keys on the stump of the newel post. He started talking to Ivory from the hallway as he made his way to the lounge shrugging his coat off as he walked.

  “I was thinking we could get takeout or something special for tonight
…” he would make sure she ate something. “I don’t want to risk going out…” His sweater bunched up in the sleeves of his coat turning it into a form of straight jacket. Distracted by a strange tingling sense that he was alone, he nudged the door to the lounge open with his foot. “I know you probably think I am being over cautious…”

  He was talking to himself.

  The seat was depressed from where he had left Ivory that morning but she was not in it. The room was empty except for her twin that haunted him from the wall, like a memory of her presence. He stood, his expression frozen, his mouth caught on the hook of his last word, his arms still pinned to his side by his coat sleeves, a picture of dumbfounded stupidity. His stomach descended into a sickening free-fall. He wandered into the kitchen, back into the hall and up the stairs and checked each bedroom in turn until he reached the loft studio. He returned to the hallway and realised he was still in his straight jacket and frantically thrashed his arms in a tantrum until he was free of his coat. Panting for breath he stared at his keys on the newel post. All the doors and windows were locked and there was no way out of the house, it just didn’t make sense. His mind had been clinging onto hope as he had searched the house, but it now slipped and tumbled after his gut and he descended into panic.

  He had the suspicion that she would be safe from any danger the pimps might have posed. He was more concerned with what her absence meant for him personally. Had she left him? Would she return to the house before the time she would be expecting Martin to be home from work? Did she do this every day? A black fog smothered him. He had paid her to stay off the streets and she had abused the gesture. He shook his head and cleared the fug. He had to work with facts. She was gone. He knew she could only be at her home with Ebony or at Arven Road. He couldn’t go to Ebony to find out, it would confirm everything Ebony told him and Martin was too proud for that. He fought his way back into his coat, locked the house up, rushed to his car and aimed it in the direction of Arven Road and ploughed his way through the lunchtime traffic. If she was at Arven, Martin could approach her and try and get her to return with him. Get her out of danger.

  He drew the car into Arven Road and a panic seized him and shook him, his blood became tumbling beads in his veins and his shallow breaths became feathers that tickled and irritated his lungs. He was unable to recall any of his journey, and he broke out in a cold sweat as he wondered how many speed cameras he had tripped and traffic lights he had missed, but this was not the source of his anxiety for he was terrified that he would see Ivory in Arven Road. He wanted her to have gone to the shops, gone out to spend the money he gave her, gone to see a friend, even to have been enticed out of the house like a little piggy by the bad wolf pimps, anything but Ivory leaving him to go and sell herself after she had agreed to stay at his. That could mean she saw through his motive of wanting her with him to protect her.

  Martin could just about cope with King, Jenny, Ebony and Richard seeing through his motive for wanting to paint Ivory, he had even managed to admit it to himself, but if Ivory also knew… Knew and continued to take his money. Shame and foolishness washed through him in a hot wave that flushed his face red, the colour percolating into his thoughts at the idea of Ivory and Ebony taking advantage of his ideas, finances and feelings. He sat brooding in his car where he had originally parked on his first visit to Arven and waited for a glimpse of Ivory.

  An hour passed but the silent time spent waiting didn’t ease the uncomfortable throbbing of his heart that seemed to draw on all the muscles of his chest with every beat as it rode his tumultuous dread and simmering humiliation and anger. The small road held a mixture of feelings for Martin; the embarrassment of being in the road itself and being associated with the types of men that frequented such places, discomfort created by the blackened shell of King’s home and the memory of his violent death, fear of the pimps’ van appearing again, dread that he would see Ivory working the streets when he had hoped he might be able to persuade her to leave that life behind. All those thoughts and feelings wrestled with each other to dominate him completely, and mired him in a sweaty grime he knew he would not be able to shower off.

  The road was quiet and barely populated and only occasionally a girl would appear in an alleyway or walk the pavement. He didn’t know whether it was the exposure to the daylight that made the girls more cautious or whether it was the cold and the threat of rain. Heavy charcoal clouds smothered the sun and created an eerie twilight. It was a depressing abandoned place and Martin doubted that the road would lose its shadows even on the brightest days. There was a pressure in the atmosphere and a charge to the air that matched his brooding emotions. There was a storm brewing.

  The silence scattered from a sudden rapping against his window. Startled, he found Candy peering in at him and he saw that she recognised him and was equally startled. Her face blanked and she exhaled a curse, she straightened up and hugged her arms around herself, appearing caught and unsure what to do. Martin recovered his wits and quickly lowered the window.

  “Don’t go,” he yelped, flailing a hand out of the window to catch her.

  She easily avoided his grip. “I thought you were business.”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “I’m not sorry. You equal trouble. Don’t you get enough trouble up your way or something?” She was trying not to look at him, her face fixed in a distracted sulk.

  “I don’t look for it,” he mumbled dismally, sagging in his seat.

  She faced him, both hands on her hips. “Really?” A dark preened eyebrow arched. “And just what are you looking for?” She tutted before he could answer. “You don’t have to tell me; Ivory?” A breeze suddenly blew through the street sweeping litter and the last of the loose orange leaves around her feet. A darker cloud drew across the sky and pressed its shadow down upon them.

  He nodded apprehensively in answer to her prediction, smothered by the exposure he felt from someone else being able to predict his motives.

  She tilted her head back in reaction, but left her eyes on him, like a doll with tilt-movement eyes. “It didn’t end well last time you came looking for her.”

  “Have you seen her?” He pushed, dismissing her concern.

  The first rain for the day began to sparsely spot the pavement and his windscreen and distracted Candy into looking about her, cursing at the sudden change in weather.

  “Have you seen her?” He urged, trying to compete with her study of the sky and stop her from dashing for cover. She danced on her heels, caught between finishing her conversation and finding somewhere to keep dry as the rain began to fall harder. “Please.” The word snatched her attention back to him. Candy held her flat handbag over her head and squinted against the rain, hesitating around her answer as if it were an obstacle she was unsure whether to scale. The sky grumbled with a low thunder that reverberated through the ground. “She went off with a punter about ten minutes ago.”

  Part Three

  “If you gaze for long into the abyss,

  the abyss also gazes into you.”

  Friedrich Nietsche

  Chapter Seventeen

  Martin fixed his gaze on Ebony’s distorted reflection in the glass of the train’s window. It was a ghost against the rushing black face of the underground tunnel. Ebony’s blank eyes stared back but were oblivious to Martin’s presence. With the knowledge that Ebony couldn’t see him, Martin felt like a ghost himself, haunting Ebony’s journey. Even when the tube train carriage lurched or shook and they were jostled against each other Martin was just another anonymous passenger. It was just how he imagined being invisible would feel. Occasionally he would glance aside and study Ebony up close, his face was a mask of authority and a warning of power and strength worked in iron, contradicted and undermined by his blanched eyes that continually squirmed in their sockets like vulnerable shell rooted molluscs.

  Although Ebony couldn’t see him Martin still travelled with his heart in his throat, and could not shake the idea that he was going to
get caught, that Ebony would suddenly turn to him and address him, revealing that he knew he was there all along. Ebony’s confidence with his environment and the manner in which he faced the world and challenged its mastery of him unnerved him, and left him questioning the limitations of this giant man’s sight. Despite any advantage Martin might have over Ebony through his extra sense Ebony still held all the answers.

  Martin’s head boiled with questions after his discussion with Candy. After learning that Ivory continued to sell herself he needed to understand why Ivory did what she did. Needed to know whether her return to prostitution was a betrayal, or simply an automaton action through learned behaviour.

  The fact that Ivory had, at the moment he had been talking with Candy on Arven Road, been working with another man, gutted him. The revelation had left him as lost as Candy had appeared as the rain began to rush down in drops as thick as bullets. She had frantically looked around her for cover.

  “Get in.” She had frozen, unsure of the offer. “Just for shelter.”

  She had raced around the car, hunched against the downpour, dived into the passenger seat and yanked the door closed with both hands as if against an oncoming wall of water. She had frowned at him. “Just for shelter?” She had repeated. “Thanks.”

  The rain thundered on the roof and distorted the glass through spots the size of fifty-pence pieces.