by Clay, Josie
“Push it” I say and she knows what I mean and ups the tempo, going deeper until I am quivering. She grips my waist and sees to it so proficiently that I show her. She waits ten seconds and does it more and brings it out of me again. She repeats this four times until I'm crying because I could stay in this orgasmatron indefinitely, but I'm already half insane.
“Please baby stop, you're killing me”. She opens the kitchen door, makes a kissing noise at Prudence and comes back. Her arms under my back and legs, she carries me up the stairs . I hang around her neck, so strong.
“Sshh” she says, “sshh”. Pulling the covers over me, she kisses my life.
“Ow!”
“Washa mutter Munk?” through toothpaste froth.
Rocking on the toilet, my poor coco on fire; cystitis, the nemesis of nymphos.
“I think that dildo trashed my junk”.
She laughed at my charming turn of phrase, then frowned. “Shit!” she said. Spitting bitterly into the sink, absorbing the implications.
Chapter 16
“Madame Bracewell”. Simon gathered my hands plus the Volvic bottle of cranberry juice that Dale had decanted. Simon, front of house, introduced my co-selectors. Imogen Wagstaff, a chinless, smock of a woman, two oversized front teeth and a surprised smile like a budgie that had turned into a rabbit. Stephen Burgess, a novice suit from Dempsey Makepeace whatever. Zoe Gluck, American, a mono-browed sixty-something old schooler. Her demeanour like her hair, short and steely, scathing, crabby. I liked her instantly.
“OK, here's the thing people”. Rosamund drew her fingers into anxious steeples.
Apparently, the uptake had been three times what we’d expected and the five of us would whittle six hundred and two entries down to a shortlist of one hundred by tomorrow evening, with a final selection of forty by the end of the following day.
“Understood” said Simon.
“Oh brother” said Zoe.
“The plan is” Rosamund continued, “our lovely volunteers from Tiber Academy will bring the pieces before you. You will decide yes, no or maybe. Obviously majority rules; three maybes will constitute a second viewing, as will two yeses and a maybe and one yes and two maybes and so forth”.
“Bring it on” said the suit.
“Let's snuff some hope” I said. 'And give some' Dale whispered in my head.
The artwork floated by, held aloft by bashful teens.
“Relax, kid” said Zoe. “We're not looking at you”.
I said maybe a lot, Zoe and Simon no, and Imogen and the suit said yes to pretty much everything.
Sometimes the pieces were conceptual, represented by photos or sketches and accompanying notes. Simon devoured the explanations but I didn't bother unless I was taken by the image. It was as if we were on a train, stopping at impossibly short intervals, not least because I had to keep leaving to pass splinters. By midday, when Rosamund dropped in to say the canteen was open, we'd only got through a hundred and twenty. Grabbing a stack of sandwiches, I went to see Dale.
The grizzly bear groan of a high powered tool wound down and the red door swung open freely. She attached herself to my sandwich mouth. “How's coco?”
“Agony to wee”, passing my hand over her crotch.
“How long have you got?”
“Half an hour” I said, unzipping her.
By 6.30 that evening, we had winnowed fifty eight from three hundred.
Dale drove home, the car wallowed in third, her hand devoted to my thigh.
“Clutch” I said, shifting the stick to second. She chuckled at our cohesion.
“I vote this goes”. Simon before a canvas the size of my balcony, depicting a forest in secret blues and greys.
“But it's fantastic” I protested.
“Agreed, but it will dominate and deprive at least four others of a chance”. Rankled by his authority and the spiteful crystals down below, I wrestled to keep reasonable. “Now this I like” he said, an image pixelated like a colour blind test, but when your eye fell in, an empty pair of boots swam out at you.
“It doesn't do much for me” I said.
“I can't see how it fits the brief” growled Zoe.
“It has atmosphere” said Imogen, removing her glasses and squinting so close I thought she intended to gnaw it.
“Stephen?”
“Pants”. He'd given up the will to live some time yesterday. Imogen flipped it over. “Such mature work for a sixteen year old” she said thoughtfully.
I scanned the image again and the sensation; the tempered shock of looking out to sea through binoculars, unable to relocate the tiny pair of waving arms you thought you'd spotted from the shore.
“You OK?” Zoe staunched my flow.
“Yeah, thanks, I think I'm a bit punch drunk”. I massaged a temple and something bounced like a needy icon at the edge of a computer screen.
“I think we could all use a drink” she said and marched off like matron.
We made further inroads into the pieces and the Shiraz wine-box Zoe had commandeered. By three, we had our forty and the last drop had been wrung from the silver bladder in the box. My head crowded and loud, shutting my eyes I saw pigeons in flight reflected in the windscreen of a car, the Saab. A compulsion to count them, the opportunity slipping through my fingers like the fine chain of a locket. Perhaps I had a fever.
The silver star is turning, hanging in the air over my face because she is above me. We are meant to be getting ready, the night of the exhibition. But her armpits smell like spruce trees and she has offered her breasts. Her rare blue alpine Pasque flowers search my common-or-garden periwinkles. “I love you”.
She's tried the skirt and my leather jacket, which she covets. “I'm too old for that image now” she says, even though she looks thirty four, tops. She smoothes my Calvin Klein trousers across her rump, pleased. She fills them better than me. Tugging at the cuffs of the jacket. “What should I wear underneath?” “Nothing”. “What just my bra?” “Yes ...and the star”. I pretend to die on the bed because she is drop-dead gorgeous. Her sensual lips against mine, unresponsive. Quite convincing, but then she whispers “Jag ä snyggare naken”. And though I don't know what it means, it brings a hint of a smile ...and a tear, because it's as if I'm in the future and this is the past.
Simon's eyes greedily flitted over the fact of Dale, dipping to her cleavage and then, more furtively, to her boots.
“It's wonderful to meet you at last” he said. “And may I say that you are a very lucky woman”. His arm curled around my shoulders; gracious tonight, but still with a soupçon of sleaze.
“I know” Dale said, more to me.
“You have remarkable eyes my dear. One can only imagine the delights they have witnessed”.
I sighed. “Don't spoil it Simon”.
“Forgive me Dale” he said. “I was pushing the envelope a little, wasn't I”.
“That's alright” she beamed, “we like a bit of envelope pushing, don't we Mink?”
“Please, don't encourage him”.
She stood before a painting, one hand lodged under her arm, the other bringing wine to her lips. Her Daleness transcending time and gender: Saladin, Hapshetsut, Zenobia, Cochise, Garbo – she looked famous. I could hear her brain whirring from here and summoned by a mental beckon, I stepped into her prestige.
“Mink, Mink, how do I buy this painting?”
Fauvist, naïve, blue canal boat, colours brutal and exciting, the white-capped water, the tin chimney belched movement - optimistic, heady and not at all twee. Water fowl, spare and witty and a sad little face peering from a window in the impossibly canted, cloud obscured tower block. Reminiscent of Rousseau, but I knew it to be a Dolapo.
“It's one of my girls”. I leafed through the catalogue.
“Really?”
“Here it is, Blue Boat – two hundred and fifty pounds”.
“Shut the front door, it's worth double that”.
“Well, you can pay what you like” I said.
“It's a charity after all”.
“As long as the girl gets it”.
“She will” I said, “after commission”.
Dale returned, an orange sticker on her index finger which she pressed to the white brick ; she'd paid five hundred pounds.
“Can we go home yet?” I said, conscientiously dropping our fag butts in the bin.
“Minky, it's only seven thirty, and we've just had a conversation with Gok Wan”. Having confided only last week I harboured an inexplicable mini thingette for Gok, it was uncanny.
“Loving the boots”, he honked and then, to my heart's delight, “Laters, girlfriends”.
“I think we should stay a bit longer. Who knows, we might encounter another one of your favourites like Cheryl Cole” she teased.
“Or Anthony Worral Thompson” I added optimistically.
“You're such a freak, Mink”.
Rosamund nodded in ferocious agreement with the suit, unaware she had a bite-sized deep fried camembert impaled on her stiletto. My beautiful girl, deep in conversation with Zoe Gluck. In your dreams Gluck, I bubbled smugly. Simon and Imogen, him hopping like a rabbit and screwing up his nose and her over-laughing at her own expense.
The only windowed wall. The powersave lights glowed in the office block opposite making me tired. Some primordial imperative forced my brain to fabricate the shadows and leaves into a hominid. It evolved into a cowled monk before relaxing into a more familiar arrangement - the hunch and haunch of an obese black girl, uncomfortable in her own skin. Her sad face in the dark like a forgotten doll under the bed. I motioned for her to come in, but she remained, shrinking further into her hoodie. Dale's gaze followed me to the exit.
“I can't, I'm not dressed right”, pulling her frayed cuffs over her hands. An evil wind banked us and she shivered, coatless. Taking a stump, I prised out her frozen fingers.
“You're fine” I said. “You're an eccentric artist, it's what they expect”. Her mouth approached a grin. “Come in”. I tugged her hand. “I've got something to show you”. Dale noted my return with the lost lamb. “It's a great painting, Dolapo” I said. She shifted uncomfortably as if it were an accusation. “You should be proud of yourself”.
“You're just saying that Miss, cos you know me”.
“Don't take my word for it”. I pointed at the orange sticker. “Do you know what that means?”
“Err...reduced?” she speculated.
“No, silly” I chuckled. “It means sold”.
“Serious?” Her eyes grew to pies , then narrowed to suspicious crusts. “No way!”
“Way” I said.
“Who bought it?” Still wary of cruel games.
“That woman over there” . I picked out Dale who wiggled her fingers and grinned guiltily.
“Oh my God”. She spun in trapped embarrassment. “Is she like, an actress or something? Oh my God”. She hopped on the spot in rabbit urgency, much like Simon had.
“I've got to go and tell my sister”. Her battered trainers squeaked the floor to the door where she turned. “Bye, Miss”. A complex smile, like a box of chocolates containing many soft centres. She offered thanks, pride ...and hope. I blurred at her sweetness.
Chapter 17
The sky magnolia, cycling along Grange Park. Wet moths batting my face and before long, swarming in consistent confetti as the snow lovingly, patiently smothered the sick bed city. The pigeons, wise in this instance, were nowhere to be seen. I soldiered on, crossing Green Lanes. A bus stop, a girl perched in the shelter. Something to do with adverse weather, probably another evolutionary failsafe, compelled me to connect. The girl, head clad in a scarf and hat, just her eyes visible like a surgeon, no, a terrorist. They locked with mine and seemed to shine with associated zeal, then crinkled pleasantly – the smile is in the eyes. Turning into Palladian Road, I shot a look back and she was still watching. Perhaps admiring my coat; it was very nice. Tyre tracks in the fresh snow indicated a recent call to arms for the Saab, long since updated to black ...who gives a toss anyway?
It became hairy, wheels fizzing in the slush and a fishtail that lurched at my heart like turbulence. Conceding defeat at Cally Road, I hiked to the Old Jam Factory, dogged, aiding Eddy Merckx, who'd got drunk and lost all his faculties.
Two o'clock came and went. There were no takers, wise like pigeons. Even the canteen was empty. I pictured Dale at home, googling recipes, Prudence nesting on her untouched paperwork. A police launch rocked the fiercely puffing blue barge and my 'Desert Sands' ring tone shimmered incongruous.
“Are you OK, Minky? I was worried”.
“I'm fine, no-one's here”.
“Shall I come and get you?”
“Why are you so good to me?”
“So I can keep you in my power ...I'm leaving now”.
“Be careful” I said into a dead ‘phone.
The fat tyres crumped the compacted cotton wool as we drove through the frenzied pillow fight. The wipers squeaked lunettes. Of course the girl was no longer there; I hoped she was at home,
safe and warm. Dale needed both hands on the wheel.
“Mink, I think we should go to bed with a hot toddy”.
“Yuck!” I said. “What a vile idea”. She unscrewed the lid on her laugh, accidentally tooting the horn.
We lay watching the flakes frazzle around the street light outside the bedroom window, mesmerising like an ambient screen saver.
“Minky, I need to tell you something”. I heard her difficulty, but dampened a fear response. Dale would never tell me anything bad. “I've got this job, it's big”.
“Don't tell me, it's in Abu Dhabi”, flippant.
“Not quite, Clerkenwell. It's important work, Mink, restoring a medieval church, but it'll mean long hours, plus I'll have to work on site. It's such an amazing opportunity though”.
I struggled to find something generous and encouraging to say, but failed. Filling my void, she bolstered her case. “It's a three month contract, only three months”.
“I think you're clever and brave” I said, which was true and helped me find my feet. “You're right to do it”, breaking into a trot. “We can't cocoon ourselves indefinitely”. I felt myself getting haughty. “We can't stay in this 'best place I've ever been', idyllic Shangri-La forever”. I watched her process my mixed message. I'm such a selfish cunt.
“Yes” she said, smiling, “paradise is for losers”.
Spurred by this, “go for it”, I cantered. “I'll support you in any way I can”.
“I fucking love you” she said and now I was galloping.
“Anyway, it'll give me the chance to do other things as well”.
“Like what?” she said.
“Like tweeting”.
Her laughter blast actually moved my hair. “Yes, and I can drink sherry while watching Bargain Hunt”.
“Good plan” she said, “and don't forget yogalates”. We were back on safe ground.
“But don't blame me if you come home one night and have to drag me from the flames of a fire caused by a forgotten Findus crispy pancake because I'm out cold, 'You don't bring me Flowers' playing on the headphones”.
A laugh, now a silent wheeze, a long creaking inhalation. “Don't laugh”, pinning her wrists, “cos that's what's gonna happen”, enjoying her weak squirms.
“Oh no” she squeaked, “what happens to Prudence?”
“Toast” I replied.
“Ah dear” she sighed, “that's horrible”. I relinquished so she could arm at her good tears. “That's the funniest guilt trip I've been on”.
Chapter 18
Nils at arrivals, showing a cardboard square on which was written 'Minky', his nebula eyes thrummed waggish.
“My dad's idea of a joke” she snorted.
Her case, bursting at the seams, emitting a tired buzz, her electric toothbrush set off by the jostle of Christmas presents, my case housing her excess.
Cunningly, I'd ordered my presents online, delivered to Nils' doorstep by a b
rown suited Father Christmas.
