She’d felt fat before, wearing the tight jeans and sheaths Simon liked, then trying to squeeze into old school clothes when she first came here, but now she wasn’t so sure. She looked . . . grown up. Not some skinny student anymore. And not a Bounty bar either. The salwar looked alright.
And her hair . . . She thought of what Munch had done with hair, how it would swirl around his paintings like a live thing, creeping into cloud formations, flowing water, transforming into spermatozoa and embryos. Hair was power, life, wild nature. She stared at the canvas, dipped her finger into the sepia mess on her palette and started to change the faintly outlined figure into something larger, bolder and fuller. And then the suggestion of a mass of hair flying upward against the hedge, to balance the rose, high in the opposite corner.
—
RICHARD STOOD IN the middle of Bourne Abbey’s library. There were no books to be seen, having been packed away with all the moveable furniture. The massive outline of the stone fireplace, still under its protective coating of bubble wrap, was about the only thing he recognized. That and the dusty, thirty-foot-high mullioned windows that formed the room’s southern wall. Light streamed through them in angled shafts that turned the drop sheets the same creamy gold as the walls, and gave mystery to the barren bookcases.
When he was little, family Christmases were held in here, with the pine tree’s smell competing against his mother’s cigarettes and the aroma of Bristol cream sherry that clung to her clothes and skin. He and Henry would compete to bring a smile to their parents’ faces, try to stretch out the anticipation and the unwrapping, the brief moments of cuddles and jokes, and to delay sitting down to the family lunch and the inevitable bickering or worse.
Mother was long gone, some twenty years ago, and Father, nine years now. His father had spent his life struggling to make-and-mend, with mortgages on mortgages to line the roof, repair the plumbing, hold back the ever-present damp rot. While his wife and his marriage were falling apart in front of him. Maybe he’d thought that fixing one would fix the other. Or perhaps he had just decided to concentrate on the things that could be mended.
How many Christmases had there really been in this room, so long ago? Shortly after Mother died, chunks of masonry started crashing down from the front parapets, and they had moved to the Lodge. By then Richard was consumed with hatred for the monstrous building that just seemed to carry on what his mother’s drinking had started: a perpetual problem with no solution, a cancer in their finances, a hole in his father’s heart.
Oxford had been a fading hope until Richard had scraped into a scholarship for the fees, and a part-time-rounds clerk position in a local solicitor’s offices had been enough for the rest. Anything to escape his decomposing family. Henry was bloody lucky to have ridden in on his coat-tails three years later, just when Father was ready to give up and sell out to developers and was finally willing to listen to Richard, freshly acquainted with the law of trusts and his idea of breaking the deed and ceding the Abbey to Henry. The back-breaking loan Richard had taken out, on the strength of certain objects now on perpetual loan to the Victoria & Albert and the Bodleian, to cover Henry’s university fees, buy out Father and get both of them free of the Abbey, had been a small price to pay.
And now the monster was tamed: shiny new in places, not a hint of mustiness, woodworm conquered and parapets safe again. For a few years anyway.
Perhaps Thea was the best person for the place. Her family were loaded enough to withstand the money-sink that the Abbey would always be. And she had no history with this house and was thus free of the gigantic burden of ancestral obligation that had distorted his parents’ marriage and eventually destroyed them both. Nouveau riche gave her a protective coating of utilitarianism that had always been lacking in the Bournes.
How calm and quiet it was, in this late-afternoon light. He had seen Thea’s decorating plans for this room: cream and gold with touches of mid-blue. He’d withstood her hints about returning the blue and gold Persian in his Chambers, but had been relieved at the projected color scheme, despite his pose of unconcern. It bore no relation to the dark red flock and black japanned side tables that he remembered from his childhood. And the bookshelves, cleaned of centuries of smoke stains much to the horror of the National Trust, were now closer to the honey shade of new oak than the blackish brown that he remembered. He smiled—he was fairly sure that Thea had hidden that particular series of indignant Trust letters from Henry, who was always such a slave to authenticity.
Richard strode out to the great hall. He and the boys had taken the main stairs last night, clomping up with flashing torches, plenty of ghost sounds and shrieks of anticipatory fear. This time he would take the servants’ stairs and walk up quietly on green baize. He pushed open the swing door and paused to let his eyes adjust to the semi-dark. There was that smell again. No, it was a different one. Damned if it wasn’t curry: the builders must have gotten in takeaway.
—
THE DEEP BLUE of the salwar Rohimun was wearing would do nicely against the equally deep green of the hedge. Harmonious colors. It would also ensure that the golden rose was the true center of the painting. Light shining out of darkness. Pagan nature worship. The hand of God in all things. Whatever. That stuff was for the dealers and, God forbid, the critics. What really mattered was the physical response, which bypassed the brain and went straight to the gut and the heart and the hairs on the skin. Like music. Critical analysis was just an attempt to understand those reactions. Or rationalize them.
Rohimun squinted again. For the salwarkameez, the darkest darks would be Egyptian violet and lamp black. Later, she would use the lighter darks: Prussian blue, with ultramarine and indigo, for the blocked-in highlights. The dusted gold of turmeric on cuffs and front she would paint as half-embroidery, half-reflection of the rose itself: alizarin orange-gold with Indian yellow, cobalt yellow, a touch of that almost edible Naples yellow, perhaps the odd flash of Courbet green. But no layering for a glaze effect here: using the very tips of her finest brushes, each color would be scattered individually onto the salwar’s blues, as if the rose’s tints had fractured, pixilated, into their components. A sort of prismed reflection of the flower. But the glow of the rose itself eclipsing that effect. She sighed with pleasure and set to work.
—
RICHARD WALKED SLOWLY up the stairs, keeping his hand on the balustrade so as not to lose his footing. With the entry door shut, the darkness in this windowless space was almost total, and he was annoyed at himself for having forgotten this. As children, he and Henry had played in this network of narrow stairs and corridors that fed all the great rooms of the house and which were like a separate world, a cramped and distorted copy of the great staircases and spacious halls used by its official denizens. The great and the good. Who had said that? And who had ever believed it?
He remembered daring Henry to ride with him down these stairs on a sheet of cardboard. They had managed the same feat on the main stairs until caught and banned by Audrey, but to do it on the servants’ stairs, with their much steeper gradient and smaller landings, looked like suicide now. Plucky of Henry really, being that much younger and determined to follow where Richard led. A broken collarbone had been the result, along with Audrey’s told-you-sos in the ambulance all the way to casualty because Father couldn’t leave Mother.
Reaching the upper floor, Richard started to feel about for the door that would take him into the hallway near the green bedroom. It was quiet and close on the little landing, and an image came to him, unbidden, of the scullery maids, often no more than children, who would have had to feel their way as he was doing, probably carrying hot water or linen at the same time.
Why was he here again? What possible result was realistically to be expected? He would surprise some traveller or tramp camping for a day or two, then have to deal with the inevitable unpleasantness before the local magistrate, which Henry would expect him to handle as
a matter of course. And what if it really was a woman: an addict or some broken homeless creature? What then?
—
ROHIMUN LOOKED AT the sky outside her window, gave a cursory rinse to her fingers in the turps jar, and moved to the door. This was exactly the image she wanted: a summer sunset partially overcast by piled-up clouds, with shafts of light coming through at a sharp angle. She must see what it did to the colors in the salwar first-hand, see how it looked against the yew. This light would only last half an hour.
She ran out the bedroom door, crossed the hall, grabbed hold of the handle to the servants’ stairs, then hesitated. No time to waste stumbling down the back way in the dark: she would take a chance on a Sunday and head down the main stairs and out the back. She set off, running barefoot.
—
THE DOOR HANDLE had moved, trembled in Richard’s grasp like a live thing, and he gripped it harder, tensed for confrontation, all indecision gone. But when he turned the handle and pulled the door inwards, there was no one there. He stopped in the hallway, puzzled, feeling that it was he who was the intruder. No more delays. He strode to the green room and opened the door.
—
ROHIMUN RAN TOWARD the walled garden, relishing the grass under her feet and the freshening air. In the salwar instead of the constricting tracksuit, she felt like she was flying. It might rain tonight, and now that she was sleeping in the great bed, she would enjoy the sounds of a summer storm. The bad dreams had ceased since she had abandoned the camp bed.
On the eastern side of the garden, some remains of the original stonework still lay below the hedge, no more than waist high. The yew must have encroached, then been shaped to form a replacement wall. She stood against it and looked at her arms and torso. As she had hoped, the blue and the green were more intense together. Truly harmonious. And the difference in textures was also heightened: the sheen of the fabric’s draped fall was almost liquid against the yew’s dense confusion of miniature spikes. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the hedge’s luxuriant growth.
—
RICHARD STOPPED IN a patch of sunlight on the floorboards, dazzled after the dark stairwell. He’d forgotten how much light this room caught, with its clerestory windows as well as the windows at the western end. When he could see again, he approached the jumble of furniture by the window, feeling more of an intruder with every step. Then he saw the rose.
It glowed from the canvas: golden, gigantic, three-dimensional, hovering above the figure like a tent of light. And the woman reaching for it, almost touching it, her breasts straining against fabric, her arms rounded in yearning, reminded him of someone. Who was she, and why was Dr. Choudhury painting her?
—
THE LIGHT BREEZE that had met Rohimun at the back door had strengthened, and with it came a few spots of rain, then a ripple of thunder. A sharp gust of wind blew roses apart in front of her eyes, the petals rising and catching on her hair and clothes. As she left the secret garden, a sudden eddy of wind lifted her hair in a mass and swirled it around her face, blinding her. She clawed at it as she walked toward the house, anxious to get back to the painting. The wind was behind her, blowing her hair forward, and she could see the open back door as though through a dark and twisting tunnel. Fleetingly she wished that the front entrance was closer so that she could run straight into the main hall, but thunder clapped again, the rain began in earnest and she skipped into a sprint for the doorway ahead.
—
A GUST OF rain lashed windowpanes, and Richard moved back from the painting and looked around him. He’d heard that Dr. Choudhury had some artistic leanings, but hadn’t realized their extent. How must it have been, the professor standing in this room, the long-haired model posing before him? Were they lovers? The thought was loathsome. Wasn’t he Muslim? And married? No wonder the secrecy, the smell of curry.
Lightning flickered, and he went to the great bed and fingered the velvet cover. Was this the green of the backdrop in the painting? He could not decide, and walked back to the windows. Dr. Choudhury would not be coming tonight: probably having a cosy dinner up at the cottage with his wife. Fucking hypocrite.
He’d thought that this visit would clarify things. In the dwindling light, he swivelled the easel toward him, then sat down on the edge of the bed to look at it, feeling old and tired. Prim and pompous Dr. Choudhury, with a double life. He lay back, turning his head so he could still see the woman and the rose. He would wait here until the storm had passed, then think about what to do.
—
ROHIMUN FOUGHT THE back door closed against the wind. The weather had changed her mood, sobered her, and she tried to ignore a small resurgence of old fears. Her hair was dripping down her back in rats’ tails, and her feet were wet and covered in grass cuttings. She detoured to the builders’ quarters: a temporary toilet and tearoom set up in the scullery, and found some clean drop cloths to dry herself and take some of the moisture out of her hair. In the fridge was a pint of milk, so she put the kettle on and raided the builders’ biscuit supply while she waited for the water to boil. She felt like a worker again, entitled to the tea and digestives.
—
THERE WAS NO such thing as lying on the edge of this bed. Richard slid and kept sliding until he was fair in the middle. The hollow in which he came to rest curved his shoulders inwards and pressed his upper arms to his sides, so he laced his fingers together over his stomach and closed his eyes. Last time he believed that Posturepedic rubbish: this was the best mattress he’d ever lain on.
—
ROHIMUN RINSED OUT her tea cup and replaced it on the draining board. The rain had set in, and through the scullery window, her peaceful golden sky had turned vermilion and cadmium red and French ultramarine and cobalt violet, in rough and hectic streaks.
She set off up the main stairs and along the upper hall until she came to her room. The door was wide open; she was sure she’d shut it. Tariq had already come and gone, so it wasn’t him. She edged cautiously in, looking for the easel. Still there, thank god. A snore came from the great bed, and she froze. Simon was here. He had come for her, had invaded her sanctuary, touched her painting. And now he was asleep on her bed. Well, he could just fuck off. She wasn’t scared of him anymore.
She snatched up the palette knife, shiny from disuse, and walked softly to the edge of the bed, her heart pounding. This time, she would have the upper hand, and he would be the one running away.
But when she got a bit closer to the figure shadowed by the bed curtains, it wasn’t Simon at all. She exhaled, trying not to make a sound. This man was tall, well over six foot, and thinner. His hair was dark, and stubble shadowed his jaw. She stood still and tried to think, thumbing her blade. Not a tramp. Some kind of burglar? Well, whoever he was, he could still just fuck off. This was her room.
She crept nearer, until she was next to the bed, carefully climbed onto the mattress and, on her knees, inched toward the figure, then paused. She looked at the length of his body, the symmetry of his stance, his clasped hands and the upward-pointing toes of large feet in some truly naff white trainers. She crept closer, leaned over his face. It was his position: just like the effigies on those crusader tombs in the old churches. All he needed was a sword to hold. Well, she had the sword.
Eighteen
RICHARD WOKE TO find some creature leaning over his face. He tried to rise, but the bed defeated him and a hand reached out and pushed on his chest. He grabbed the hand to move it away and a mass of hair swung over his face in a wet clinging tangle of black. Jesus Christ, like some kind of gypsy succubus.
The bed sabotaged him again, sinking him further as she tilted forward, defeating his efforts to rise one-handed. Some shiny object in her other hand flashed. Without thinking, he grabbed that wrist as well and with a muffled “Shit!” she fell onto his stomach.
He had a firm hold on her but was unable to rise from the hollo
w in the mattress and she, smaller than he had first thought, and with both wrists held, was clearly in the same predicament. He lifted the wrist with the weapon and saw its blunt, rounded end. Not a knife at all, just some kind of spatula.
No. A palette knife. Her hair: was this the woman in the painting? What the hell was going on?
She must have sensed a slackening in his hold because she wrenched her arms hard, and he almost lost his grip. He pulled her right arm out over the side of the bed and twisted her wrist until he heard the implement hitting the floorboards.
“You can just fuck off!” she hissed.
Young enough to be Choudhury’s daughter. Sick bastard. They were still stuck in the same ridiculous position, but without the threat of the improvised weapon, he managed to transfer both her wrists into one spread of fingers and used his free hand to push both of them into a sitting position.
He could hear the harsh sound of her breathing, and saw the roll of eye-whites through her hair. Masses of black hair curling and twisting all over the place—and were those yellow petals caught up in it? He looked to the painting, as if he expected to see torn canvas, bleeding paint, where she had stepped out of it. What was she doing here on her own? What sway did that old man have over her?
“Where’s Choudhury?” He’d almost shouted the question, the first he could put into words. Her wrists jerked in his grip.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
To think of that old man doing his morning visits. Using the Abbey. Abusing Henry’s trust in him.
She twisted sideways and started to slide her feet toward the edge of the bed but stopped short, her head awkwardly angled. At the same time he felt a tug on his shirt: a length of hair was caught on the topmost button.
“Wait,” he said. “We’re caught up.”
Now she looked familiar. Had he seen her before?
A Matter of Marriage Page 22