‘Well, I won’t say anything if you don’t,’ he promised, lowering his voice conspiratorially. ‘Plus I’ll be really quick. Up, have a swift look around, and down again before you can say Robinson Crusoe. You keep a lookout. Then you can show me your kelp forest and teach me how to find pearls. Deal?’
With obvious misgivings, Joe agreed.
Climbing the Top should have been easy since it was essentially built like a staircase – albeit one with very high, birdshit-covered steps – and in places access had been made easier to maintain the bamboo guttering. But he was still weak from his ordeal, and by the time he reached the top, his lungs were burning and his limbs felt like seaweed. He could see clearly now the four booms – and thought again: who would give them ridiculous names like Up, Down, Strange, and Charm? – radiating from Stray like the cross-hairs of a gigantic gun-sight, but Joe had been right about not being able to see any islands from the Top. To make matters worse, the siren call of the awful blue void was more intense the higher up he climbed; an attack of vertigo loosened the last strength in his knees, and it was all he could do to get back down safely.
When they had nearly come full circle, Joe pointed out a beaded curtain hanging over an opening which seemed to lead into the very structure of the Hub itself. ‘That’s where Miss Sophie lives,’ he said, and moved on quickly. ‘You don’t want to go in there.’
‘No? Why not?’
‘She’s crazy. She says that there are monsters living underneath Stray. Plus, she tried to eat me once.’
Bobby nodded as if this made perfect sense. ‘Well naturally, trying to eat kids would be a box to tick on the Big List of Crazy, that’s true. So the crazy lady gets the only proper cabin on this thing, is that right?’
Joe shrugged and didn’t answer. Clearly the whole subject of Miss Sophie filled him with unease. Bobby briefly considered popping his head through the curtain for a quick hello with whomever was inside, but he was still exhausted from his climb to the Top and didn’t think he had the mental energy either to cope with any more lunatics. Rationing, Allie had said, and it seemed to make sense. He would try not to force himself to cope with any more than three barking mad things before each meal.
He lay in his hammock for the rest of the afternoon, shocked at how weak he was, and trying to make sense of this place.
Chapter 5
Mi Chiamano Vessa
1
During University term time, the Barber Institute of Fine Arts put on free lunchtime concerts, usually by final-year music students, who to Steve’s untutored ear sounded as good as professionals. They performed in the ground floor concert hall which had in recent years been restored to its original art deco glory – simple lines and planes of glowing walnut and oak – to small audiences of their friends, colleagues and teachers. When Vessa had completed her customary contemplation before the Goddess (with Steve hovering at a discreet distance), they followed the sound of a solo female soprano downstairs to the concert hall and watched from the doorway, where they could talk quietly without disturbing the performance.
‘You’d think,’ he whispered, ‘that surrounded by all this free art I’d be taking the opportunity to better myself, but the truth is I feel like a dog at the opera. I have no idea what that girl’s on about.’
She nodded, considering this, then replied, ‘If you’re trying to impress me with your cultural credentials, you’re doing it very badly.’
‘I’m not trying to impress you.’
‘I could tell.’
The girl’s voice soared over and around them. She was quite small, dressed very plainly in jeans and a university hoodie, seeming too ordinary to be creating such a wide ribbon of sound. Rather, it seemed to be flowing through her from somewhere else.
‘She’s singing Mi chiamano Mimi, from La Boheme.’
‘Ah. Yes. Mm-hm.’ He nodded sagely.
‘Mimi is a penniless seamstress, and she’s just met the love of her life, Rodolfo. He’s a starving poet.’
‘Of course. Is there any other kind?’
‘She’s trying to explain that Mimi isn’t her real name but she doesn’t know why people call her that. She embroiders flowers in silk and they remind her of spring, which she loves, but it makes her sad at the same time because the flowers she sews have no perfume. They’re beautiful but they’re not real.’
‘Seriously, though, I can hear that. It sounds like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
‘It’s an allegory, of course. All art is an illusion, a fake that can never capture the essence of reality.’
‘Nope. Gone again.’
‘The problem is,’ she continued, ‘that it’s wrong. Good art – really great art – constructs a reality which is just as real as anything else. If Mimi really were a gifted seamstress, she’d be able to smell the scent of her embroidered roses.’
But Steve wasn’t thinking about roses – in his memory he was watching the brushstrokes of She Shall Be Called Woman coming to life and rippling in response to Vessa’s approaching fingertips, as if eager for her to touch it. He thought that if she ever reached for him with anything approaching the same urgency, then his flesh might just ripple too.
‘I have a confession to make,’ she whispered.
‘Whatever you’ve stolen, put it back, and we’ll say no more about it.’
‘Not that. I cheated.’
‘You cheated?’
‘I know nothing about La Boheme. I looked up the concert programme on the internet and everything else on wikipedia. I’m a big fat fraud.’
‘You are a perfectly proportioned fraud, if I may say,’ he replied without thinking, and turned an instant, furious scarlet. Somebody please tell me I did not just say that.
‘Why Mr McBride, I do believe you’re blushing.’
‘I’ll just be heading back to my desk now,’ he muttered. ‘Hopefully somebody’s trying to steal a priceless masterpiece, or something.’
She followed him, and as he was about to head upstairs to the upper floor gallery, she called out ‘Will you have dinner with me sometime?’
That stopped him in his tracks.
‘Give me a millisecond to think about it,’ he answered.
‘Frankly I’m insulted you should take that long.’
‘In that case, yes. Immediately, absolutely, unhesitatingly yes, I will take you out to dinner.’
‘Good, then. I’ll call you.’
‘I’ll, um, yeah. That’d be great.’
She smiled – an uncomplicated and unguarded smile of simple happiness which was so staggeringly beautiful that he was glad he was holding onto the handrail of the stairs, because he feared that otherwise he’d actually stumble under in its clarity.
‘And thank-you for the free performance,’ she added as she left. ‘It was very entertaining.’
2
Dinner was at Gustavo’s in the Mailbox, the old Post Office depot which had been redeveloped into a complex of high-end boutiques, designer outlets, salons and restaurants catering to those who worked in the shiny office complexes around Wharfside. It was said that Birmingham had more canals than Venice, and judging from the menu, Steve reckoned that it was giving the Italians a run for their money on the costs of things too. He’d taken Jackie there for her birthday a few years ago, and it was a bit beyond his price range for anything except special occasions – which this most certainly was.
‘It’s kid gloves off, now, Big Bruv,’ she’d said when he’d told her about dinner with Vessa. ‘Time to wow the pants off her. You’ve laid the groundwork as a perfectly normal, salt-of-the-earth, non-psycho type, and you’ve still got that to fall back when you make a total mess of things tonight.’
‘This is your romantic pep-talk, is it? How is your work with the Samaritans these days? Make anybody top themselves recently?’
‘
Shut up and pay something off your credit card, or it’s going to be real embarrassing when the cheque comes.’
‘Technically she asked me.’
‘Technically don’t enter into it, babe.’
That said, when Vessa arrived at the restaurant, it definitely felt like he was the one being wowed.
3
She’d chosen a midnight blue dress just short enough at the bottom and plungey enough at the top to showcase her figure without being actually slutty, highlighted by a simple silver necklace and drop earrings. It was the kind of thing that Sophie would never have worn in a million years, but this was her life now. She loved having a reason to dress up and go out, and if those reasons had come few and far between in recent times, well then more fool her for having stayed in the same boring, frightened rut which Sophie had fallen into in the first place. And who knew? Vessa might very well choose to sleep with this particular reason. That idea shocked the Sophie-voice into silence, which was exactly what she’d intended.
‘You look stunning,’ said Steve, with open admiration.
‘Correct. And thank-you. So do you.’
‘The tie was my sister’s idea.’
‘Then I like your sister already.’
They found their table, ordered drinks, and made nervous small-talk about the décor. Gustavo’s was a Venezuelan restaurant; Vessa didn’t know anything about South American dining practices, but apparently it involved lots of rattan and coloured woven wool.
‘I know what this is about,’ he said, after a particularly long and awkward silence.
‘Oh? Really?’ She did her best to sound offhand, despite her racing heartbeat. Where had the air gone, all of a sudden?
‘I shouldn’t have threatened you last week, about the painting, when we had that coffee. I didn’t know that it meant that much to you.’
‘Okay…’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure I understand it now. Not that I need to; it’s your business. I just want you to know that of course there’s no question of me ever barring you from the gallery, so if this…’ he gestured around at the restaurant, her dress, and his tie ‘…if this is just a way of keeping me on-side, you don’t have to go to the trouble. I just wanted to, you know, get that out there. In case.’
‘That sounds just a touch paranoid.’
‘Tell me it’s not true. Or at least, that it never occurred to you.’
She couldn’t. But she reached across and took his hand and said ‘Steve, if all I wanted was to keep you on-side I’d have slept with you a week ago. I’m here because you are a sweet, caring, thoughtful man, and I think I’d like to get to know you a lot better. Now can we please order?’
They ordered, and ate, and chatted about anything other than art or their families, and afterwards when he suggested that they go for a drink, she was having such a good time (because someone was interested in her, in her, not bloody Sophie for a change), that she didn’t think twice about saying yes, so they found a nice canal-side bar which had cocktails and a live band who actually sounded pretty good, and sat out in the warm spring night air looking at the brightly illuminated narrowboats and the lights of Wharfside reflected in the canals, and what with one thing and another she completely lost track of time until she went to the loo and happened to glance at her watch and realised that somehow it had become 11:27.
Shock and adrenalin slapped her instantly sober. How could she have been so stupid?
The Sophie-voice in her head kept a smug, expectant silence.
‘Shit.’
4
The next thing Steve knew, Vessa sailed past behind his chair, leaned in to plant a lingering, regretful kiss on him while murmuring ‘Sorry, gotta go,’ against his lips, and was heading down the brightly-lit towpath, her heels clicking rapidly.
‘Hey… wha… hey!’ He went after her. What was going on? Why the sudden rush? ‘I wasn’t serious about splitting the bill,’ he called.
She ignored his joke and went up the steps to the street, scanning for taxis.
Steve threw some cash on the table, hoping that it was enough, and chased after her.
‘Vessa!’ he called. ‘Where are you going? What’s wrong?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Well I won’t be nearly as pissed off as I’m getting right now, if that helps.’
She turned and looked at him as he caught up. All the charm and humour had dropped from her expression, leaving it as serious as a gravestone in the lamplight. ‘I have to be home by midnight,’ she replied tersely. Then, having flagged down a black cab, she started running towards it.
‘Or what? You’ll be grounded? Come on!’
She opened the door and was climbing in, but spared him a second to hold it open for him. ‘If you want to be a real hero, you can make sure I get there safely.’
‘Safely? What do you think is going to happen to you?’
She shook her head and started to close the door. ‘Questions on the way, not here. Are you in or not?’
Steve watched the taxi door closing, thinking that there was so much wrong here. Her mood swings, her obsession with that bloody painting, Caffrey’s disappearance (if that was even connected in any way), and now this. She Shall Be Another in a Depressingly Long Line of Needy, High-Maintenance Women. What was it about him that always attracted the nutters? But still, she made him laugh; she was clever and unafraid to show it when so many other women seemed to think that dumb was attractive. The fact that she actually was attractive certainly didn’t hurt, either. No, his hesitation stemmed from the sudden conviction that there was an awful lot more waiting for him inside that black cab than a strange, beautiful, funny woman – and that his journey’s destination might be very far away from the world with which he was familiar.
In the end, it wasn’t even a choice. He climbed in.
Chapter 6
Blessings, Great and Small
1
Supper on Stray was a spiced fish stew with some kind of seaweed which tasted not unpleasantly like spinach. They ate from wooden bowls in the light of the fire and a few small oil-wick lamps, chatting and trading news of the day while Bobby listened from the sidelines. There was only one moment of awkwardness when he piled straight into his food and received a warning tap on the knee from Marjorie Lachlan.
‘We say Grace, dear,’ she admonished gently.
Oops. He waited politely while Lachlan led the prayer and thought he saw Allie tip him a knowing wink from beneath her bowed head. He enjoyed the sense of their camaraderie but was very much aware of his status as an outsider. In the end, Lachlan seemed determined to do something about that.
‘So, Bobby,’ he said, ‘what do you make of us Strays and our little floating village? Don’t be afraid to be honest, now. We rarely get newcomers, and it’s always good to have a fresh perspective.’
Finally this was something he knew. Lachlan’s invitation of an ‘honest’ perspective was no different from that of any other big-bellied Town Father, and about as genuine. He expected to be praised for his little piece of heaven on earth (or sea), and since Bobby had no idea how long he was likely to be staying, he had no intention of disappointing the man.
‘To be honest, sir,’ he replied, ‘I’m very impressed. To have survived so well on so little, and for so long – I’m no engineer, and I know as much about marine environments as I do about flamenco dancing, but I’d say that some of the solutions you’ve come up with here are simply ingenious.’
Lachlan puffed up and glowed. Marjorie stroked her husband’s arm and smiled adoringly at him.
‘Obviously I’m jealous as hell,’ Bobby continued. ‘I mean, you saw the state my own raft was in when you found me. I’d also like to say to you all, just for the record, how genuinely grateful I am to you for saving my life. I don’t know how I can ever repay that.’<
br />
Allie tossed him her empty bowl. ‘Looks like somebody just volunteered to do the washing up,’ she said, and everybody laughed.
‘She has a serious point, though,’ Lachlan commented. ‘It’s going to be good to have another pair of hands about the place. We have room and supplies to spare. We don’t live like kings, but it’s an honest, God-fearing life.’
‘That it is, sir.’
Lachlan regarded him for a moment over his mug of rainwater. ‘I noticed that you didn’t join us in the Grace.’
‘Well sir, I’m not much of a praying man, so no I didn’t. But I don’t have a problem with religion. Faithless but friendly, that’s me.’
‘We’re all very pleased to hear that, I’m sure.’ Was he being paranoid, or was there a hint of condescension in Lachlan’s voice?
Marjorie got up and began to clear away the dirty bowls. ‘Well, never mind,’ she said, with the kind of maternal amusement usually reserved for young boys who have just skinned their knees. ‘There’s still time.’
‘It’s not really a question of time, ma’am,’ he said.
‘My wife is a very devout woman,’ Lachlan explained. ‘She has suffered a great deal of privation here and is thankful for every small gift which the Lord bestows on us. As are we all. When you’ve been here a bit longer you’ll understand.’
Bobby got the distinct impression that he was being rebuked when all he’d tried to do was be polite and respectful, and it was starting to nettle him – as was the assumption that he was set to stay here with them.
‘As I said before, Stuart – you don’t mind me calling you Stuart, do you? – I am in no position to judge anybody. I meant what I said: this is a truly impressive place. Frankly, I’m even a little amazed.’
‘Oh? How so?’
‘Joe told me that you’ve been here since he was born. That’s an awfully long time to be living on this kind of diet. I’d have expected to see one kind of vitamin deficiency or another, not to mention just plain old illness and injury, but here you all are – happy, healthy, and holy. I don’t know how you do it.’ He raised his bamboo cup in salute. I’m no slouch either, it said. Don’t you ever go making that mistake, Mr Lachlan.
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