It’s strange to be back, but it’s even stranger to be here without you. I got off the bus by the library and walked through to Albert Square, gave the poor prince a salute where he stood, still encased in his tower of scaffolding, and sat on a bench a while and watched the people go by. I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to sit there with you under my arm. How I wouldn’t even notice the damp wood of the bench underneath me and the leaching cold of the stone under my feet. We would laugh together at the busy scuttle of people – those who knew the square angling their umbrellas just as the wind catches the water of the fountains and the tourists getting a sudden soak. I sat there until the rain started up again in earnest and then stumbled the cold out of my bones with a walk to the Northern Quarter and towards our bar.
The sex shop you always peer in at – don’t pretend you don’t – has boards nailed up over its window. Someone more curious, or less open-minded, than you must have put the glass through. The red light still pulses between the planks. Still open for business. I thought of calling in and picking you up something. But really, Alice, the place is ancient. I’ve never seen anyone come in or out, but I can almost smell the stale spunk and see the shifty eyes of men turn as I enter. I didn’t stop. You’re worth more than that.
Our bar is busy, but you’re not here. I stand in front of the mirror distorted by optics, waiting for the barman to notice me. I peel off my raincoat and rub a hand through my hair, scanning the crowd behind me for your blonde head. I suppose I should be glad you’re not here in this lively scrum of laughter and smoke. That you’re not enjoying yourself without me. But I never wished my own isolation on you.
I trust you, Alice. I know you love me, just as I love you.
A girl comes and leans on the bar beside me, a five-pound note tilted out of the pinch of her fingers and a painted smile ready for the barman. I’m on my third whisky. I’ve found a stool and I’m writing to you.
‘You a writer?’ she asks. The music is loud; I can feel the bass-line through my feet. The girl lays a hand on my arm. Chipped black nail polish; she must bite her nails. ‘Hey, lonely man, you writing a book or something?’
‘I’m writing to my girlfriend. It’s a letter.’ I try not to look up. Not to encourage her. Her hand is still on my arm.
‘Shame. I had a bet with my friends that I could get into your book.’
She is just a girl. Midlands accent, slurring towards northern. Probably just another student, fresh to the city, desperate for a story to prove she really is having the best years of her life.
(Later)
I drank with them for a while. The girl and her student friends. In fact, I drank too long. I allowed myself to forget about you for a couple of hours. Can you forgive me?
I started as a novelty: the lonely writer man Kelly picked up at the bar. We bought each other drinks and smoked each other’s cigarettes. They claimed our bar as a ‘find’ and questioned me about places to hang out. I told them about my afternoon on the bench and they laughed their public school laughs and called me a weirdo. Kelly wanted a job behind the bar and she had an eye out for the manager. I realised that was who she’d taken me for – a sour note to her flirting. But they were nice kids.
I suppose I drank too much. I sat next to Linda, the smallest and quietest of the group. They were all dressed strangely, but she was wearing an odd calf-length dress which looked as if it was made of paper. I couldn’t keep from touching it. ‘What is this? It’s beautiful.’
‘Hey! Hands to yourself, writer boy.’ That was one of the lads with them. A big rugby-type called Christian with hair styled so he looked as if he’d run up against a wall. But he was good-natured and smiling.
I laughed up at him, my fingers still folding and unfolding the fabric of Linda’s sleeve, suddenly finding skin with a quick pinch. She flinched away from me, but I laid a hand on her arm, just the way Kelly had done to me at the bar. I stroked the soft hairs of her arm as if I were petting an animal and let my fingers play over her black skin, feeling the flesh spring up under my fingers like piano keys. I whispered something to that effect into her tiny ear.
‘Seriously mate, let go of her!’ Christian again. He pushed his big manly body between me and Linda, and forced me up on to my feet. Big and manly, but not as big as me. To give him credit, he managed to hold his ground. He had enough pints in him to give him courage. Besides, the girls were watching us now, gathered round Linda as if something terrible had happened.
‘I think it’s time you left.’ That was Kelly, stepping in to line with their champion. No trace of the northern twang now. No friendliness either.
‘And don’t forget this.’ Christian tossed the pages of this letter at me. I walked out into the rain. I didn’t want to fight children. Somehow found my way back to Aubrey’s and it was there I remembered you.
You see what happens when I’m left alone? I need you, Alice. You are the one who keeps me safe.
Forgive me,
Daniel
15th January
Manchester
Dear Mab –
It’s always puzzled me that you never wanted to know more about my work with Aubrey. You must think me a kind of glorified secretary. Maybe that is what I am. But us copy-typists are in demand, I’ll have you know. Aubrey’s lucky to have me. Unfortunately, I have to have him at the same time.
‘Let’s talk about the paintings for a while.’
‘Let’s talk about me getting out of this room for a couple of hours. I have things to do, Aubrey.’
‘Relax, will you? Oh, go on and smoke if you must.’
‘You’ve got me for five minutes. Why do you want to know about the paintings? We’ve talked Dad’s work to death. Why do you want to bring all that up again?’
‘Your sister mentioned some new works. I may have seen some photographs…’
So you told him about them, did you? And you’ve been sharing pictures? Nice. You and he have such a beautiful relationship, sometimes I’m loath to get in the way.
‘Yes, I found some old canvases when I was at the studio. Portraits, would you believe? I bet you’ve read all there is to read about Dad, so you must know how he felt about portraits.’
‘I think “obscene” was the term that stuck in my mind.’
‘Yes, well. Always good for a joke, was Dad. And never one to let anyone throw a word at him that he couldn’t throw right back.’
‘I think we’re getting off point here. It was the nature of these portraits that I wished to discuss with you. Or, should I say, the subject matter?’
‘Oh, now we’re really treading old turf. You really want to go back over that old business? Again? OK. OK. He’d painted me, Sarah, and himself. The self-portraits were the most interesting. I never thought he – ’
‘When do you think these portraits were painted? Could you tell?’
‘I don’t know. Probably after he kicked me out. OK, if I’m honest, straight after he kicked me out.’
‘And how did they make you feel?’
‘Does it ever bother you? Being a walking, talking cliché, I mean? I don’t know how they made me feel. They’re paintings. You know I can’t really ever see my father’s work the way other people can. It’s too close. I can’t get it in focus. Maybe I’m just not as willing to lay a load of claptrap on top of it as others seem to be. They fucking love it.’
‘But this is the first time he painted you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come now, Daniel, you must have had some reaction? Wasn’t there anything in the paintings that you responded to? Which triggered memories or emotions.’
‘Not really. They’re good, I suppose. That’s all. It’s Dad’s work – what’s it got to do with me? The subject doesn’t paint the picture, does he? Now, you’ve had your five minutes. Goodbye.’
You see how he tries to get into my head? I have the feeling you encourage him. Please stop.
Daniel
15th January
Manchester
Dear Alice –
I must have missed you again. Ridiculous. I’ve had so much time for so long and now I’m close to you I can’t get my hands on you. Instead, I’m stuck with Aubrey all day and standing at your door in the dark, pushing these letters through your letterbox.
I thought I saw you today in the women I passed. I’m putting you together piece by piece from the faces and bodies of others. What I want is the complete picture. What I want is you, my darling.
Daniel x
18th January
Manchester
Dear Mab –
What have you said to Aubrey now? This is my life, Mab. How dare you try to manipulate my friends? And he is my friend, you know. I’ve certainly spent more time with him than either you or your mother have. I know I let you down with Dad, I know you think I just ran out on my responsibilities and my promises to you, but I don’t deserve this.
I have a girlfriend, whom I love, here. I have a job, which I tolerate, here. I did have a home of sorts, until you started bullying my landlord. Aubrey is so despicably weak when it comes to you. He’ll believe anything you tell him. I dread to think what you’ve been whispering in his ear to have him react the way he did last night.
‘Daniel, is that you? Late back, aren’t you?’
‘I was with my girlfriend.’
‘Yes, well. Before you head up, could we have a quick word?’
‘I have the notes from today typed up. I’ll give you the memory stick tomorrow.’
‘No. I mean, it’s not a work chat I had in mind. Come and sit a moment. That’s it. Now how are things with you?’
‘Listen, I’m not really in the mood for another session, Aubrey.’
‘Good. That’s good. It’s just I was speaking to your sister today. She’s been having some trouble getting hold of you. And she mentioned your dad isn’t doing too well. Something about an infection. Seems he’s had to go back into the hospital.’
Is that right, Mab? Is it his leg? Well, you can’t go asking me to care. It’s nothing to do with me any more.
And then he told me, ‘Mab suggested you were needed back. “Now more than ever”, I think her words were. All rather dramatic. And, before you start on your usual tirade, I have to say I agree with her. This situation, you living here and working for me, I don’t think you’ve ever really understood… or maybe you have. The point is, Dan, I don’t think we can continue. I think the time has come for a move. Your job is always here, of course, but living here in my house now… well, I’m not sure that’s the best plan for you at the moment. Not when you’re needed elsewhere.’
‘You’re kicking me out?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. It’s just, the arrangement between your sister and me requires a certain amount of co-operation, and this is one of those occasions when…’
Arrangement? Mab? You don’t even like him.
‘I have a great deal of respect for your sister,’ he went on. ‘For her work and her person. And of course for your whole family. You must admit, you are resistant to all my methods of helping you. You won’t talk. You refuse to even contemplate re-establishing a medical regime. Therefore, when Mabel asks me to do something, I must do my best for her.’
‘What about doing your best for me? What about your respect for me?’
What on earth do you have on him, Mab? What on earth could have changed so that he’s willing to push me out on to the street?
I hope you know what it is you’re destroying here. And I hope you know I will kick and fight all the way back to the Studio. I was finding happiness here; why must you ruin that?
Daniel
23rd January
The Studio
Dear Alice –
The only warm room in the house is downstairs with the wood-burner. Dad was never much of a believer in the comforts of central heating. So downstairs we sweat, and upstairs, where I’m hiding, the air is so cold you can watch your breath dissolve into it. I’m under my covers; the sheets are chilled and feel damp against my skin. It must have been like this before I left, but it seems so much colder now I have the memory of your warmth only hours behind me.
Maggie is not talking to me. Dad is, as usual, not talking. Tatty was the only one who seemed delighted at my return. In fact, she is the only one who reacted when I came through the door, unless a grunt from Maggie counts for anything. So much for Mab’s promises.
I miss you, my darling. I miss the weight of your shoulder against mine as we lay together with the coloured paper lanterns ticking on their strings as the heat rose from your warm bed. I miss the smell and taste of you. I miss the sweet shudder of your body as I entered you and the soundless gasp of your lips waiting to be smothered by my mouth. I miss my fingers dragging through your electric hair, down the smooth curve of the sea-sucked shell of your pale back. I miss the heft of your thigh. I miss the crooked quality of your smile. There is too much for me to miss all at once, I have to miss you piecemeal. It’s the only way I can bear it.
I’m so glad I found you again. And I am so sorry, Alice. I’m sorry I’ve ever had to leave you, but to do it twice… I still can’t quite believe I’m back here. Curled up in bed, in this ill-lit room, wearing all the clothes I left Manchester in, including my coat, with a hard-on. I am ridiculous without you.
At least this time it is finite. Mab promises it won’t be long, my darling, and I’ll be back with you. That is the one promise Mab must keep. I’m sure she can even talk Aubrey round to our way of thinking. She’ll make sure he’ll take me back again. She owes me.
Forgive me and don’t forget to miss me.
Your Daniel xx
25th January
The Studio
Dear Mab –
Things continue to be frosty – in all senses of the word. The routine has slipped back into place with terrifying ease and I have taken my role in it: dog-walker; bed-changer; arse-washer; waiter; chef; collector of piss and shit and blood and any other fluid that dog or man wishes to throw at me.
Maggie has progressed the silent treatment into a series of barked orders, which she tosses my way at the most unexpected moments; last time was through the toilet door, just as I’d settled down with the paper. I am expected to carry out these orders immediately and without complaint. This is the only way to win back her approval and assistance. This I learnt by dawdling on the toilet – she left the bag of dirty washing behind and only made Dad a cup of tea before she left.
Talk to her for me, could you?
Daniel
28th January
The Studio
Dear Aubrey –
I may not be speaking to you after you kicked me unceremoniously into the gutter, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write to you about a conversation I had with someone else.
I was pottering around the living room, searching for the emergency tobacco. Dad was watching TV and Maggie was in the kitchen redoing the washing-up I’d finished before she arrived.
‘Maggie? Are these yours?’
‘You’ll have to come through. I can’t clean and see through walls.’
I carried the bottles of nail varnish to the kitchen. ‘I found them on the bookshelves. You been dolling yourself up?’
‘Hardly my colour, are they? That one there looks no better than this dishwater.’ Maggie snapped a tea-towel from the rail and wiped the suds from her forearms. She nodded at the bottles in my hand. ‘They’ll be Sarah’s. Give them here, lad. I’ll get them back to her.’
‘When was Sarah here?’
‘What did you expect? Someone had to look after Michael while you were off gallivanting. What did you think, that I was doing it all on my lonesome? That girl was a godsend. She’d give up anything for Michael. Do anything to keep him happy.’ She swiped the inside of a coffee cup with the tea-towel. ‘Did no one ever teach you how to wash dishes? You use too much liquid and not enough elbow grease. This lot were a right state.’
‘Is she comin
g back?’
‘That’s what we were wondering about you. Disappearing in the middle of the night and then phoning me up whimpering like a child. Leaving your father high and dry in that god-awful place. Who did you think it was that fetched the doctor and got your dad to the hospital when he was raving? Half out of his mind, he was, poor man. And where were you when you were needed?’
‘I know, I know. But Maggie, what about Sarah?’
‘What about her?’ Maggie laid a final saucer into the stack and twisted her hip to settle against the draining board. ‘Don’t start all that business again, Danny. It’s not right and you know it. Forcing a poor girl out of the only home she’d ever known. Now hand over that nail polish.’
I didn’t. I pocketed them. I took the chair next to the bookshelf and sat there imagining her painting her nails Nose Bleed, Corpse Pallor and Yellow Snow. I wondered what the colours said about her mood. She must have stayed here. Maybe she slept in my bed again.
I used to paint her nails for her, back when she first arrived and we were making friends. I was quite the accomplished manicurist: one stroke to the centre; one stroke either side. Apparently it helps to lengthen the nail. Don’t colour over the lines, Danny. She never wore makeup in the time I knew her and she bit those nails of hers down to the quick, but she liked to have the ragged ends painted over in bright glossy colours.
Her favourite colour back then was gold. I used to watch, magpie-like, her nails’ glittering dance in the light of the kitchen as she talked and flirted with Dad in the evenings. I liked to repair the cracks and chips in the paint after a hard day’s work in the pond, her finger-pads still crinkled from the water. The polish would slide over the gaps, but it was impossible to make them smooth again. The wounds still showed, scarred dips puckering the smooth surface.
Maggie was foolish to worry about my heart. That is safely stowed with Alice. There is nothing to fear in that regard. The main thing is, Sarah came back, and I must find a way of making her come again.
How You See Me Page 8