Still Life with Strings

by Cosway, L. H.

  He shrugs and runs his hand over his head. “I’m in favour of both?” he replies like a question.

  “Good. Come to my house tonight at six, and we’ll hang out.”

  “Okay. You aren’t going to explain?” he asks with interest.

  I stand up. “Nope. I have to get back to the bar now. See you tonight.”

  “See you tonight, Bluebird,” he breathes, shaking his head and smiling as he watches me walk away.

  Once a month my friends and I get together at my house for a catch-up night. The group consists of me, Lara, Lara’s cousin Ben, and Ben’s boyfriend, Clark. Ben is a hairdresser and Clark is a counsellor, so we combine haircuts with talking about our feelings. I like to think of it as grooming for the inside as well as out. We also love Indian food, so we always order some in.

  I’m beginning to wonder if Shane’s going to show at all when a quarter past six hits and he still hasn’t arrived. Ben is moving furniture about the kitchen to create a makeshift styling station, asking Lara what kind of a cut she wants this month. She tells him she’d like seventies-style retro layers, like one of the Charlie’s Angels. She’s far more adventurous than me in this respect. I always keep my hair long and just have a basic trim to keep the split ends at bay.

  “So what’s he like, this new friend of yours?” asks Clark, sitting down beside me at the table. He and Ben are both in their late thirties, and I love having them around because they kind of feel like my two gay big brothers, giving me guidance and advice. Ben also had a drinking problem when he was younger, so we’ve bonded over that shared experience for years.

  “Well, at first I just thought he was this good-looking, slightly shy violinist, but then I spoke to him some more and got to see him play, and now I kind of feel unworthy of his friendship. He’s like one of those, what do you call them? Virtuosos. He was a prodigy at the age of six.”

  When informing my friends about Shane, I left out the part about us meeting on the street in the middle of the night and instead simply pretended we met at the concert hall after a show.

  “All those classical musicians are mad in the head, though,” Ben puts in as he runs his hands through Lara’s auburn hair. “You know, like Beethoven. Oh, and the guy out of that movie, Shine.”

  “Beethoven went mad because he had all this beautiful music to create but couldn’t hear it because he was deaf,” says Lara.

  I look at her in surprise.

  “What? Haven’t you ever seen Immortal Beloved? I cry at that film every time. The unrequited love that wasn’t unrequited after all.”

  “I have, actually. I couldn’t watch it more than once, though. I was literally in tears for days afterward. Anyway,” I say, looking back to Clark, “I’d forego sanity any day of the week to be able to play like Shane.”

  “Are you having a little cerebral crush?” Clark asks with a knowing grin. “You don’t want him for his body, you want him for the music he’s got inside kind of thing?”

  I love how Clark uses words fancy words like “cerebral.” He’s one of the only people I know with a college education, so I’m always stealing his phrases.

  “Oh, his body is something to be coveted just as much as his talent, let me tell you. But anyway, stop reading into this. I think I’m just fan-girling.”

  There’s a knock at the front door, and my heart leaps. I give each of my friends a look urging them to be on their best behaviour and then rise to go answer it.

  I stare at my reflection in the hall mirror for a moment. Little zinging gold sparks radiate from my chest, and butterflies flit around my head. I think I even see a love heart or two. I swipe them all away, not reading too much into their presence. When I finally open the door, Shane is standing on the step, holding a bottle of sparkling grape juice.

  “Hey,” I breathe.

  “Hey, Bluebird.”

  We both smile and take each other in for a moment.

  “You look great,” he says.

  I’m wearing an old sundress, no shoes.

  “Thanks, so do you. I see you brought refreshments.”

  “Yeah, I almost grabbed a bottle of wine, but then I realised that would be counter-productive.”

  “Counter-productive, indeed,” I say with a smirk, taking the bottle from him and helping him out of his jacket. I catch a whiff of his cologne and get assaulted by memories of our one night together…if you could even call it a night. Swallowing hard, I hang the jacket by the end of the staircase and lead him into the kitchen to meet the others.

  Jacinta Lennon loved to paint pictures of her daughter.

  It was one of her favourite things to do.

  She took one final look at the painting she was about to sell to a passer-by, admiring the brush strokes and the quality of the canvas.

  Her daughter stood within the frame, a blue beacon on the grey street, standing so still on her box.

  Closing her eyes briefly, she made a wish that it would bring its new owner as much pleasure as it brought her.

  Then she handed it away. She would never see it again.

  Six

  Shane pauses halfway down the hall as he turns to study a painting hanging in a dark wooden frame. It’s one of my mother’s. She never really held down a steady job when she was alive; however, she managed to keep the household afloat with welfare payments and the money she made selling her paintings on St. Steven’s Green. She loved to paint scenery and sometimes portraits. Often she’d make me sit for her. There are dozens of paintings of me up in the attic. I hate looking at them because I find it weird seeing myself through the eyes of another person.

  “Where did you get this?” Shane asks, his gaze roaming over the country scene depicted.

  “My mother painted it. She did lots of pictures like this one. Do you like it?”

  “Ah,” he says with a sharp breath, as though something has just made sense to him. “It’s very good. Your mother was a talented woman.”

  “She was. Come on, everyone’s dying to meet you,” I say, linking my arm through his and leading him into the kitchen.

  Clark is the first to greet Shane, thrusting his hand out for a shake and introducing himself. I catch sight of Ben shooting Lara an omg, he’s fucking hot look. Lara gives him an omg, I fucking know look back. I smile to myself a little in satisfaction.

  Though to me Shane’s not just hot, he’s beautiful. Man-beautiful.

  Dangerous, slippery-slope thoughts I’m having these days.

  I put the grape juice in the fridge as Shane says hello to Ben and Lara, taking the seat at the table where I had previously been sitting.

  “Oh, Jade, Shane took your chair. Now you’ll have to sit on his lap,” Ben chirps with a saucy wink.

  Shane shifts to look at me apologetically. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

  “Oh, would you stop? I’ll grab a chair from under the stairs,” I say, shaking my head at Ben. If I know my friend, he’s going to go out of his way to try to embarrass me tonight. Ben just has that way about him.

  When I return with the chair, I set it down beside Shane, and we watch as Lara has her hair cut. Ben already washed it before Shane arrived. It’s hard to talk once he whips out the hairdryer, but we just about manage to make casual chitchat.

  Ben takes me upstairs to wash my hair in the bathroom when he’s done with Lara. We return a few minutes later, and I find with relief that Shane and Clark are deep in conversation, about politics of all things. Lara looks like she’s ready to nod off from boredom.

  I can’t help myself when I brush my hand along Shane’s shoulder as I pass him by. He stiffens and then relaxes, turning his head to stare up at me hotly. I shouldn’t be teasing him like this, but every time I see him I feel this overwhelming urge to touch him.

  “Clark, will you call for the Indian now? That way it’ll be here once Ben’s finished with my hair.”

  “Will do,” says Clark, standing to retrieve his phone.

  Shane watches as Ben starts to trim the en
ds of my hair. I stare right back at him, unable to pay attention to Lara and Ben, who are talking about the latest episode of their favourite soap opera. My body gets all warm as we continue to fuck each other with our eyes. Jesus, I want him so badly.

  The eye-fuck Olympics are interrupted only when Clark starts asking everyone what they want to eat. Shane’s voice is gravelly when he speaks. I feel a silly little satisfaction deep in my belly to know I’ve affected him. Immediately afterward I reprimand myself for being so careless. I know I can’t have a relationship with Shane, and yet here I am, leading him on.

  The moment he breaks my heart, I’ll be straight back on the vodka, and that just can’t happen. There are too many people who need me sober and functioning.

  The food arrives just as Ben has finished blow-drying my newly trimmed hair. Shane bends forward and reaches out to run his hand down it. I watch him curiously. A second later he pulls away and clears his throat, getting up to assist Clark in dishing out the Indian.

  “So, tonight’s theme is anger,” Clark announces once everybody’s seated with their food.

  Hmm, we’ve never done anger as a theme before.

  “Someone care to explain?” says Shane with a bewildered expression.

  “Clark’s a counsellor,” I tell him. “Every month he gives us a new theme, and we have to talk about it. The theme is always an emotion. You have to discuss the time in your life you felt the given emotion most intensely.”

  “Ah,” he furrows his brow. “Do I have to take part?”

  “Of course you do!” exclaims Ben, reaching out to pinch Shane playfully on the arm. “Otherwise it’s just voyeurism, and that’s no fun unless there’s sex involved.”

  Shane laughs good-naturedly, and I’m surprisingly relieved at how well he’s getting along with my friends. You are not grooming him to be your boyfriend, Jade, so stop it. I have to scold myself into submission; otherwise, my girl-brain will lose the run of herself.

  I like to think that I have two brains. One is my girl brain and the other is my boy brain. They both have their good sides and their bad sides. For instance, my girl brain is great for organising, while my boy brain is good for fixing shit, and when you live in a house like mine, stuff gets broken all the time. My boy brain is crap at counselling night. He doesn’t want to talk about his feelings. My girl brain is ace at counselling night. She loves to talk about her feelings. In fact, sometimes she likes it a little too much.

  “There’s no need to be anxious,” Clark reassures him. “What gets said on counselling night stays in counselling night. Or something like that.” He grins and dips some naan bread into his korma.

  “Well,” says Lara. “I think I’d like to go first because anger is something I know all about.”

  “Here we go,” says Ben, rolling his eyes teasingly. We all know the story Lara’s going to tell. In fact, she’s told it for a number of different themes already: sadness, despair, heartbreak. She eyes Shane, seeming eager to recount it again for new ears.

  “Hey! Don’t take the piss. I’ve had a lot to be angry about in my life. The thing that made me most angry, though, was when I came home and found ‘he who shall not be named’ shagging my slut neighbour Leonie McEvoy. Leonie McEvoy lived in the apartment next to mine for two years, and she’d always be hanging around making ‘fuck me’ eyes whenever my boyfriend came to visit, wearing the tightest pair of jeans and the most revealing top she could find. She knew when he was there because she’d recognise his navy Ford Fiesta parked outside.

  “‘You’re crazy, Lara,’ he’d say whenever I’d warn him not to go near her. ‘I only have eyes for you,’ he’d declare, the lying toe rag. I swear to God I felt like I was turning into the Hulk when I sauntered in tired after a long day at work, and there he was going to town on that wrote-off walking advertisement for chlamydia.”

  We all burst out laughing while she pauses for breath before addressing Shane. She’s been addressing him the whole time because she’s well aware we’ve already heard this story before. “He’d moved in with me at this point, you see, and I was three months pregnant with my little girl, Mia. I didn’t care that I’d have to raise my baby by myself — I wasn’t going to stay with someone who cheated on me. I was so angry I smashed almost every plate I owned before kicking him out and telling him not to show his face ever again.”

  “Well, that sounds pretty hardcore,” says Shane with a low whistle when Lara’s finished with her story.

  She folds her arms, looking satisfied with his reaction. Ben goes next, detailing how there’d been a boy who’d bullied him brutally at school for being gay. Years later Ben had been standing on the street watching the pride parade go by, and who did he see sitting atop one of the floats wearing a crystal tiara on his head and a pointy Madonna bra? The very same bully who’d made his life a misery. Ben was so angry that he marched straight into the parade, climbed atop the float, and pulled the guy off it by the hair before punching his lights out.

  I can see Clark eyeing Shane as Ben’s story comes to a close, and Shane looks sort of uncomfortable at the prospect of having to share a story, so I volunteer to go next.

  “Hmmm, do we only get to tell one story?” I ask Clark. “I’ve been equally angry in the extreme about a few things over the years.”

  “Just one story, Jade. Pick the one when you were most angry.”

  I make a show of scratching at my chin as Ben gives me a sympathetic look. He knows exactly when I was most angry. It’s not something I’m ever going to share, and he knows it. So I select a substitute and lie.

  “Well, there’s not much of a story to tell about when I was most angry. It was the day my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She had a lot of years still left, but that bastard of a disease took her. It’s hard to deal with anger when there isn’t an actual person to focus it on.” I give Ben a sad smile. “You can’t pull cancer down off a gay pride float and beat the shit out of it, no matter how much you might want to.”

  They all chuckle, and relief washes over me as I push my true story back down into the recesses of my mind. I can’t think about that. It was one of the main reasons why I began drinking at such a young age. I might have been angry when Mum got her diagnosis, but mostly I was just sad. Sad and determined not to keep living my life in a drunken stupor so that I could block out the guilt and loss I felt for so many years.

  Shane leans forward and squeezes my hand comfortingly, his eyes full of empathy. We stare at each other for a long time, and then he excuses himself to go use the bathroom.

  My friends get quiet when he leaves. Ben breaks the silence by declaring, “Jade, that man seriously wants to Channing all over your Tatum.”

  I let out a burst of laughter. “You watch far too many YouTube videos, Ben.”

  “Oh, Channing Tatum,” says Lara with a dreamy sigh. “Now there’s one hot slice of shepherd’s pie.”

  “Number one,” says Clark, pointing at Lara. “If you’re going to use the ‘hot slice of pie’ analogy, the pie in question needs to be dessert-based. Apple is always a popular choice. Savoury pies just sound wrong. And number two,” he goes on, giving me a cheeky wink. “I think Jade would much prefer if he Colined all over her Farrell.”

  “Oh, my God, would you all shut up! He might hear you,” I exclaim.

  “What? I know for a fact you keep a DVD of Alexander the Great hidden under your bed. And let’s face it, you’re not watching that movie for the history.”

  I narrow my gaze at him. “You’re evil.”

  “I do try.”

  At that moment Shane returns to the room, and they all start smiling at him.

  “So, Shane, I think it’s your turn to share,” says Ben, clasping his hands together.

  “Ah, right,” says Shane, sitting down beside me and grimacing. “Anger. Well, I guess my story is quite similar to Lara’s. I came back to my hotel room in Vienna after returning from a party to find my fiancée of two years in flagrante delicto with my best f
riend Justin. He was the cellist in my string quartet, and we’d been doing a set of shows there.”

  “In flagrante what?” Lara asks, confused.

  “He caught them having sex,” Clark explains to her.

  “Oh, shit,” she blurts out, and then reaches over to put a comforting hand on Shane’s arm before pulling away again. “That’s awful. Your fiancée and your best friend!”

  Shane winces a little when she reiterates the fact, and I can’t stop staring at him. Now I know where the almost tangible sadness comes from when he plays his violin. And now I also know the reason why he left his string quartet.

  “Were you in love with her?” Ben asks in a low voice.

  Shane gives him a mournful smile. “I should hope so. I’m not in the habit of asking women I’m not in love with to marry me.”

  I can’t hold back from reaching to him under the table and taking his hand in mine for a moment. Our fingers intertwine effortlessly, and tingles shoot from his skin into mine when we touch. I don’t keep holding on for long, and when I let go I feel like I’ve lost something vital.

  “Well,” Lara chimes in, “once a cheater, always a cheater, that’s what I say. You’re well shot of her, just the same way my Mia and I are better off without her lying man-whore of a father.”

  The edges of Shane’s mouth curve up in a grin, and we continue eating our food. We chat for another hour or so, and then everyone begins to say their goodbyes and leave. Shane is still there when my friends have gone. Once I’ve waved off Ben and Clark, I return to the kitchen to find him standing by the sink, rinsing dishes.

  “Hey, you don’t need to do that. I’m the hostess,” I say placing a hand on his shoulder.

  He turns his head to look at me, and there’s an intensity in his gaze when his eyes wander to my hand on him.

  “My grandmother always told me it’s good manners to help with the clean-up when you’ve eaten at somebody’s house. Let me do it — I’ll feel weird if I don’t.”

  “Okay, but that means I get to dry,” I reply, grabbing a towel. “Sorry we don’t have a dishwasher.”