Sheer Blue Bliss

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Oh! That!’ She smiles. ‘The times I’ve been asked that! The things I’ve been tempted to say.’ She breathes out a plume of grey and the smile fades. ‘The truth is I can’t quite remember. It was something about it being more than the human frame could bear. I was afraid of the experiments – the effects getting stronger, more intense.’

  ‘You took many of the elixirs?’

  ‘Like it says in the book, I helped.’ She sucks on her pipe till it gurgles. It has tiny white hands carved into the clay, small as mouse paws. She plucks at the material of the cushion. ‘You want me to tell you what it was like.’

  Tony sits down, puts his cup on the floor and rolls a fag as she speaks. ‘I didn’t like it. To tell you the truth I didn’t … I do like to stay in control. Those elixirs made me feel like … well, I wasn’t quite me. Oh it felt glorious sometimes, soaring and light and this sense of … of a kind of stunning peace … unity. Like God, dear. Or sex.’ She gives an oddly throaty laugh, then coughs. ‘But I … I prefer to be me, feel what I really feel.’

  ‘But you really felt that.’

  ‘But … well, each to his own. Patrick certainly liked it.’

  ‘You have none of them left?’ He watches for a flicker, hopes to find her out. She might have a little stash here or there.

  ‘Shall we get on?’

  ‘How far had he got … the final elixir. Bliss, did he make that one?’

  ‘It’s all in the Memoir,’ she says. ‘I don’t know no more than that. Any more, rather. I never did know the details. His thing, it was, not mine. Crazy idea that you can solve anything with drugs.’

  ‘Course you can. Antibiotics, they cure …’

  ‘No, I don’t mean, he didn’t mean. More universal things, he meant, abstract things. Like war. By making the need for war … well, unnecessary. Irrelevant.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘You don’t understand, dear?’ She laughs again. ‘You aren’t the only one, believe me. Now if you want this thing done we better get on.’ She knocks out her pipe and picks up her pencil.

  To solve war? That isn’t in the Memoir, it’s more individual what Patrick says, more for individual … improvement. He wants to argue with her but she is shut in with concentration. Her head bobs over her pad, her hand makes scuffing sound on the paper. There’s a bit of drool at the corner of her mouth which she wipes away with a finger, then wipes her finger on her dress. Old. Patrick looking over her shoulder does look so young.

  ‘How old is he?’ Tony nods at the portrait.

  She starts. ‘I was just thinking of that … the last portrait I did, apart from …’ She waves her hand over the sketches that are scattered round her chair. ‘I did it after he’d gone.’

  ‘Can you call it a portrait if he wasn’t there?’

  ‘He was there.’

  ‘You said …’

  ‘Don’t take any notice of me. And call it what you like.’

  ‘He looks so young.’

  ‘It’s just how he looked when, when I last saw him.’ Her voice has gone small like a lost little girl’s. She clutches at the cushion like a baby at a blanket. Makes him feel … something. Christ, he’s getting soft, must not. It’s just the smoke in her throat making her voice go like that. It’s nothing.

  Tony takes a scalding swallow of tea. ‘He looks so different. From how he does in all the others.’ Getting used to drinking it without milk. Maybe he’ll stick with it black from now on, tastes cleaner, thin and hot.

  ‘Yes, well … a portrait is as much a portrait of the painter as the sitter. Now.’ But it doesn’t look like you, he wants to say. What do you mean? She waits for him to resume his pose. ‘You don’t need to be here all the time, just get the composition sorted. You going to tell me what your interest in Paddy is?’

  ‘Just … interest.’

  ‘The drawings are not considered good.’

  ‘Not the drawing, the ideas.’

  ‘Oh he would have liked you – and the elixirs, yes. Lots of hippy types liked the thought of them. Not Patrick’s idea at all. Not for fun, not recreational, not that. His intention was serious. Very high-minded, Patrick, though he did laugh, too, he had a sense of humour.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you said about war. But if someone had … I don’t know, kind of a mental problem, if someone came to him with a mental problem would he think the elixirs could help?’

  ‘Aaah.’ She peers at him and nods. ‘Aaah.’

  She makes him feel naked, naked and stupid looking at him like that with that kind of understanding.

  ‘He wasn’t a doctor,’ she says, then grins at the idea.

  ‘I’m not saying … I’m just saying if. Like I said I’m interested in his ideas. And in what happened to him.’

  ‘Nobody knows,’ she says, sharply. ‘And nobody ever will.’ She pinches her lips together in a thin line and starts sketching, gestures to him to arrange himself. Mental problems. Christ, how could he have said that? He looks down at his knees, at his hands on his knees, the black hairs on their backs. Patrick is supposed to help him, that’s why he’s here. Must wait, must be patient, don’t blow it now. He really wants this portrait, wants it. He sits for a while, questions building up in him. Christ, he feels so near. But he wants this. Wants to be concentrated on like this by Patrick’s woman. If she was young maybe he’d … No. For a minute there he caught a bit of … something about her, something that made him feel … what? Pity? Liking? NO. Stop. And she’s probably lying to him, even now, probably thinking, Mental problems, eh? She better not fucking laugh. Stop. Look at Patrick, keep your eyes on Patrick’s eyes. On that wild shine.

  ‘Or cares,’ she says, making him jump.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nobody knows or cares.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Care? You mean you want something.’ Stares her out. Something strange, must be the light, or staring too hard at Patrick or something but for a moment there he thought he saw … not saw but sensed something like a girl, something that might make him want … no. Not to want to touch. Not to feel it, not tender, no. The feel of Lisa’s body in the toy fur coat. No. Those open eyes. No. No. Something behind the lines, face screwed up like some old brown-paper bag, see behind all that to something soft. Something Patrick loved and he can almost see it. NO.

  A seagull flies low over the skylight casting a shadow. The room suddenly goes cold. Patrick’s eyes cold now. Oh please! This is a painting we’re on about here. A painting of a dead man. Flat canvas you could put your fist through.

  Benson sketches on, both profiles, different angles, the light falling on him this way and that.

  ‘You could tell me your shady past,’ she suggests, looking up at him, eyes all bright. ‘Assuming it is shady. Say if I’m wrong.’

  He could say anything. Could say everything – or nothing. He’s the one in control here whatever little games she wants to play. She’s doing what she was told, isn’t she? Isn’t she? Think what she likes.

  ‘Not telling? Let me ask you something then. Whatever possessed you to read Patrick’s book? I mean, you’re young, it’s considered nothing but a curiosity piece nowadays – always was for that matter. Wherever did you find it? Out of print for donkey’s years.’

  OK. Right that she knows who she’s dealing with. What. Mental case. Yeah. Take that kind of monkey twinkle out of her eyes. ‘Inside.’ He watches for her reaction.

  ‘Inside what, dear?’

  ‘Prison.’

  ‘Ha!’ She drops the paper and stands up. ‘You found it in prison. Oh glorious! Patrick, did you hear that? Priceless!’

  Who’s insane? Laughing. She walks about the room cackling, those green shoes crushing the dead bees and wasps. Isn’t she going to ask? She goes back to her chair in the end, sits down, though still flicking stupid smiles at the portrait. ‘I’m getting tired,’ she announces suddenly. ‘Can’t work when I’m tired. Usually have a nap round now, after lunch. Do you think it might be lun
chtime?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Tony looks at his useless watch. Taking the piss, that’s what she’s doing. Still thinks she’s one up on him. She knows he wants her to ask, why, why he was inside, what he did, and she won’t. As if she’s in control. See how she kept Patrick on a leash, wiles, that’s what they’re called, female wiles.

  ‘Tell me if you like,’ she says. ‘It’s your business. I won’t ask.’ See there she goes, putting the ball into his court. Making it be up to him. Making as if she doesn’t care what he might have done.

  She goes to the trap-door and sits on the edge, stiff and old, as soon as she turns her face away from him he can see what a decrepit old bitch she really is. She pushes her feet in the stupid shoes or to the rungs of the ladder. Could shove her down and no one would be any the wiser. Misadventure. Stands over her looking at the pink scalp under the thin puff of hair. ‘I killed someone,’ he says. She doesn’t answer or look at him, manoeuvres herself round to descend the ladder.

  Tony needs to see her face to see what she’s thinking. Goes down after her, too quickly, feet almost in her face. They stand at the bottom of the ladder, she looks down at the floor, he at her bowed head. So she is scared then, scared to meet his eyes.

  ‘I don’t eat much as a rule,’ she says. ‘Oh … but there’s still your stew. You have more stew, that’ll last for days at this rate. I’ll have a bag of crisps.’ She rummages in the cupboard and brings out a pink bag. ‘Prawn Cocktail, good,’ she says. ‘Incidentally, dear, did you like them?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This person that you killed. Did you like … or love? I can’t see the point of killing someone otherwise.’ Tony turns to the stove, flicks his lighter at the gas. A swoosh as it lights, a big blue flower of flame squashed by the pan. Benson is stuffing crisps, crackling, munching, Christ. Doesn’t see the point? The point? There is no point. She’s completely fucking barking. ‘Or hate?’ she suggests. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  He watches the cassoulet heat. The greasy skin of the top goes glossy and it starts to bubble, lazy heaves of vegetable and meat. He tries to block out the crunching of the crisps, that horrible swallowing sound she makes like she’s got some kind of mechanism in her throat. ‘Tea?’ she says, and he refills the kettle – still warm from last time. Spoons some food on to a plate and switches off the gas. He waits till she’s finished the crisps and sits down at the table. She has salt and bits of crisp all stuck in the hairs and wrinkles round her mouth.

  ‘Manslaughter,’ he says, ‘a girl.’ She does miss a beat then, surely she does miss a beat.

  She screws up her crisp bag. ‘Funny word, I’ve always thought. Manslaughter. Split it up and you get man’s laughter. Funny that.’

  ‘What?

  ‘But anyway, dear, it means not deliberate?’

  ‘Not premeditated.’ Tony takes a mouthful of the cassoulet. Swallows. Good, even better than it was, the flavour rich, not quite hot enough, not warmed through, but good. Cooking is something he can do. She keeps her eyes on him, head on one side.

  ‘I suppose not. And why do you want yourself painted?’ He won’t reply. What is this? Why will this woman not react properly? Must have driven Patrick mad, no wonder he pissed off out of it.

  ‘Rather than a photo?’ she says.

  He won’t answer.

  ‘Photographs are quicker. More the thing, I’d have thought.’ He finishes the food and gets up to wash his plate. ‘I’ll take a cup of tea and have a nap now,’ she says, ‘just forty winks. And I’ll have them upstairs in my chair if you don’t mind. Not that dreadful bed.’

  He watches her make tea and pour herself, not him, a cup. She climbs up the ladder with it. Watches the thin legs, the twinkling shoes disappear. His mother had shoes that shape but never green, always black or brown and smelling of Cherry Blossom polish, a smell that makes him want to puke, even the thought of it. Every Sunday evening that was his job – to clean the shoes. He had one or two pairs but she had several and he had to do them every week, shoes and boots, even if she hadn’t worn them. She’d stand them in a line by the back door on a sheet of newspaper and the tin with the brushes and the tins of polish – dark tan, light tan, black. He had to polish till she said they were shiny enough, brushing and brushing, little lumps of polish getting under his nails, staining his fingers, the smell of it getting into his skin. She said you should be able to see your face in them, she’d hold them up to her face and frown, black lines across her white forehead. But even when they really shone his own face was just a smear in the leather, you never could have told it was a face. Then in the bath scrubbing and scrubbing with the sharp nail brush to make that smell go away, staying in the bath till his fingers crinkled and the water got colder than the air.

  EIGHT

  Connie settles herself with her tea. The door downstairs opens and bangs shut. Gone out then. Good. She sags. Good to be alone, even just for a moment. That blasted boy is no danger, not really, not if she handles him right. Later she’ll go down to the sea, just for a while, just for a breath of it. But what to make of him? Manslaughter, a girl, what to make of that? True? Murder you might fantasise, but manslaughter?

  Just a boy with a screw loose who thinks the elixirs would help him. That’s all. Nothing to fear. She told him a lie, but sometimes lies are good not bad, sometimes lies are the very best, the safest thing. Just keep a step ahead, just keep your head. What this manslaughter business is about … should know more, doesn’t want the detail, just the bare bones. Like how long ago. Thinking of bones: the bones in his face, good, cheeks, aquiline nose – Patrick must be bones by now, loosened and sprawled – her own bones ache with tired, but nice to be in the chair, in her place, Patrick back in his rightful place.

  Oh if only Tony would go. It could be all right, she could be. Think of something that will make you warm. So sleepy with the upheaval. But it isn’t anything much, it isn’t. It isn’t anything to be frightened of. Just bear with it, just go along, make the best of it.

  Funny how life happens. How she’s here, stuck here, like a prisoner, forced to do the thing she used to love, that was the point of her. Funny how life happens, the hinges that bend you this way and that. If this had been different, so would that. If not for this, if not for that. Useless to regret because who knows what else there was? If not for the war, what? No Patrick, no Sacha, no Red. Maybe no painting? That is hard to believe. Other lovers – a husband – babies? Certainly another life. But she’s had this one, this life. And here she is, stuck in her studio with him down there. Oh well. Useless to regret, the only regret allowed is Red. Let’s think then, let’s think of that.

  The day after her birthday she woke with a headache. They had sat up late drinking beer: Patrick being outrageous, Sacha long-suffering, Cora flirtatious, Duffield and Waverley by turns shocked and provoking. Connie and Red had sat a little apart from the rest, said little to each other but touched each other with their eyes and with sideways smiles. And when Connie went to bed he had followed her to the door and kissed her good-night, just a kiss on the cheek, but in front of everyone, and said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ sending a thrill right through her.

  But the next day was thick grey streaming rain. Everyone was out of sorts and the house was cold. It was too wet for walking. Connie had imagined sunshine, thought that she and Red would lie in a field and listen to the birds and that he would kiss her again. She wanted to touch and to be touched. The rain upset her and the pain in her head. Patrick gave her a drop of one of his prototype elixirs. Red complained of a headache, too, he appeared in the kitchen just after her, looking pale, in need of a shave, not so … attractive, not like he’d been in her mind all night. She was disappointed. Patrick gave Red a drop, too. She’d watched him stick his tongue out and Patrick drip the stuff on it and she had turned away.

  What a dull, dull headache of a day. If she couldn’t walk, if there wasn’t going to be some kind of love – and oh she did want some kind of love – the
n she may as well be painting. She could try and catch the watery grey of the light, but it seemed rude to go off alone when she’d said she’d spend the day with Red. Until Sacha said, ‘Connie, why not paint Red?’

  ‘Well?’ He looked at her and she caught the warmth in his eyes. Oh yes, it was still there that feeling.

  ‘I’ve never done an actual portrait.’

  ‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Sacha said, smiling from one of them to the other.

  ‘I’d be most honoured,’ Red said.

  ‘All right then.’ She led the way upstairs. She felt him pause on the landing and turned, knowing why he had paused, what he would be looking at. And she was right. He was gazing at Sacha’s painting of herself standing before the window, her long pigtail snaking down her naked back. ‘Come on,’ she said and he looked away from the painting and met her eyes and flushed.

  It was so chilly in the studio that she lit the fire. He wandered about looking at her paintings. ‘I know nothing,’ he said, ‘but the colours are so superb. Are you excited about what Duffield said?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Will you go to Goldsmiths’?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to study. I just want to paint.’

  ‘But you would get better. You would get stimulated.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Pale flames licked the log in the grate. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘that’s caught.’ He knelt down beside her, took her hands. His were cold but she liked the firm way he held hers between them.

  ‘Would you not like to be stimulated?’ he said. She could not believe he really meant what he seemed to mean, but his face was warm and close to hers and she opened her mouth to his kiss. It was so easy and natural and there was no shame in what followed. There was only one day before he went back or maybe they would have waited, maybe they would have taken time to flirt and court. Maybe the drops of elixir that Patrick had given them had some effect other than curing their headaches. Because there was no shame or inhibition. He kissed her and she kissed back, feeling a new sort of thirst and a new sort of hunger, too, as they lay down on the rug by the fire and he touched her under her clothes, his hands heating now, discovering all her curves, hollows, finding a kind of rhythm in her that she never knew she had. She ran her fingers down the warm skin of his back, round his waist, and when she touched his cock she found it smaller than Patrick’s, or shorter, but maybe thicker, she could hardly meet her fingers round it. The hot sliding silk of the skin fascinated her. She sat up to look closely at the sheeny rose colour of the tip, the tawny skin that slid up and down, the black hairs that curled around. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.