by Bryony Doran
‘It’s balance, you know,’ she says out loud, without meaning to. ‘That’s what draws the eye.’
‘How do you mean?’ he asks.
‘Well, we’re used to seeing two halves of a body that are almost a mirror image of each other. So if they’re not, we find it shocking or slightly disturbing, depending on how severe the difference is.’
‘So you’re saying that if I had a matching hump it would be acceptable?’
‘I wonder, we could try it. Stuff some towels up your jumper.’
‘Don’t you think I’d look like a camel?’ The side of his mouth is twitching.
She starts to laugh, ‘Maybe more like wearing a rucksack.’
‘I think I’d prefer the camel.’
‘Okay, camel it is.’ She is surprised at how relaxed she feels this week; last week seems to have broken the ice. ‘You know, Edward, don’t take this as an insult, but you’re really comfortable to be around. There aren’t many men, or women, who I could sit naked in the same room with and still feel comfortable.’
‘That’s because I’m a cripple.’
‘Sometimes you can be so cruel, you know?’
‘Yes, I know. I enjoy it. It’s one of the few ways I can have power over other people. I don’t do it often though, do I?’
She looks at him, ‘No, just all the time.’
She is circling him, looking for a new angle. She sketches quickly the line of his neck, the way his ear lobe joins his head, the top of his hair, the way it spreads, ginger-tinted, slicked across his scalp where it thins at the crown, the little gnarl right at the centre. Like a small boy.
‘What are you doing now?’
‘Quick sketches of different angles.’
‘What? On the same sheet of paper?’
‘Yes, it creates a good effect.’
‘I feel like a rabbit with a bird of prey hovering,’ he says.
She sits down, puts her drawing board on her lap and smoothes her hand across the paper. She concentrates on her work, does not respond.
Edward stares at her in wonder, sitting in front of him, entirely naked yet so at ease. But then, remarkably, so is he. After the first session, when he’d been frozen with fear and cold, he’d begun to relax. When she first removed her clothes he’d felt an initial shyness, but also a certain feeling of power at being able to observe her. Admittedly, not in quite the same way as she had been able to observe him. At first he had been careful to glance only fleetingly. Her body had seemed so unexpectedly human. So vulnerable, like his own. She is still staring down at her drawings, as if in a trance.
‘Are you pleased with them,’ he asks.
She stands up and tilts herself and the board forward, displaying to Edward her charcoal sketches. He notices the under-flesh of her breasts pressed plump against the board; voluptuous, the word comes into his head. He is filled with a sense of delicious mischief. He is so tempted to put out his hand and lift her right breast from the board, where he is entranced to see it touches against a drawing of the side of his neck.
Angela lowers the board, ‘I might even be tempted to give these a colour wash, if I can manage to get enough done that is. I’m not really feeling in the mood today.’ She puts her hand to her belly, ‘God, I’m hungry.’
“Haven’t you had any lunch?’
‘No. Nor breakfast. Woke up late.’
‘You’re good at doing that, aren’t you?’
She laughs. ‘Yes, but I have a good excuse. I wasn’t out partying last night, I was working.’ She moves round behind him.
‘What at? This?’
‘Yes, it’s really coming on. Still loads more to do, like, but it’s building up nicely.’
He is not really listening to her. He is trying to quell his thoughts, trying to stop imagining how it would feel if in fact her breast was caressing the side of his neck.
He hears her sigh. She moves from behind him and bends forward, placing her board on the chair. He can see faint wisps of hair and a pinkness, the colour like the inside of one’s cheeks. She seems unaware of him; she is looking through sketches, deep in thought. He is suddenly angry; she just sees him as some old man without any feelings.
Without a word he fetches his clothes and begins to get dressed. She dresses quickly. He notices she has on her jeans with the rip in the knee. She picks up her can of fixative and begins rattling it. She glances over at him,
‘You look fed up.’
‘Do I?’ At last she’s noticed. ‘I didn’t realise you knew I had feelings.’
He stands, pulling his trousers up and fastening them at the waist.
‘Where did that come from?’
‘So when I say I have to sit down, like last week, you automatically think of my discomfort do you? Or are we more interested in pursuing one’s art?’
‘Am I that bad?’ She frowns. ‘You haven’t stood or been uncomfortable today though, have you?’
‘Last week’s still rankling.’
‘How about, to show my gratitude, I get you a burger. After I’ve been to the cash machine, that is.’
‘No thanks, my tea will be waiting for me when I get home.’
‘A coffee then? They do good coffee.’
They sit down at a plastic table covered in grains of salt. She is right. The coffee is good, but the polystyrene cup is awful.
‘Are you sure you don’t want a burger?’
The ketchup is running out of the burger and down her chin.
He laughs, ‘No thanks. I’m a well brought up boy. My mother taught me never to eat things that have been ground up. Like she says, why go to the bother of grinding them up if it’s not to hide something.’
‘So you’ve never had a burger?’
‘Nope. Never been in one of these places before either. Mind you, I can see why now, they’re nearly as dreadful as I thought.’
‘And the coffee?’
‘I must admit it’s not bad, but the cup’s awful.’
‘What would your mother say?’
‘You’d think I’d enjoy it, wouldn’t you? The thought that she’d disapprove.’ He looks across the table at her, ‘You never did tell me why you thought she would model for you if I decided against it.’
She gulps and wipes her mouth with a napkin, ‘I’m not sure I should really tell you.’ She looks at him and screws up her eyes, ‘You might find it a bit shocking.’
He remains silent, polishing his nails with the pad of his thumb. Little does she know that there is nothing about his mother that he could find shocking.
‘Oh, all right then.’ She takes a sip of her coke. ‘But don’t tell her I told you. She used to be a life model up at the college. You remember at the funeral when I was so sure I’d seen her somewhere before. Well, she was the first model I ever drew.’
‘Wait a minute, what are you saying?’ He finds this hard to take in. He puts his coffee down on the table and stares at her, ‘You’re not serious? In front of a whole class?’
She nods.
‘I don’t believe you. Not my mother.’
‘Why not?’
He clicks his tongue, ‘Are you sure?’
Angela nods again, ‘Positive.’
‘I wonder how long she was doing it for? Well, I never, I suppose, thinking about it, it’s not really surprising. It fits in with some of her other behaviour patterns that she thinks I don’t know about.’
‘I don’t know how long she did it for, I only saw her the once. Alex said she stopped shortly after I started college.’
‘You’ve been discussing my mother with him?’
‘I was just checking,’ she pauses, licking at a blob of ketchup at the side of her mouth, ‘that I wasn’t imagining the whole thing. Are you shocked?’
‘I’m not sure what I feel. I’ve always known my mother was vain. But, well, I don’t know what to say.’
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘No, I’m glad you did. She has so many secrets it’s good to fin
d out something new about her.’
‘What makes you think that vanity made her do it? It could have been for the money, or for the pleasure of doing it.’
‘I assure you, in my mother’s case it is. The world always did revolve around her.’
‘I think you’re wrong.’
‘So, you know my mother better than me, do you?’
‘So you’re saying, are you, that you are modelling for me out of vanity.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘What, then?’ She takes another bite of her burger.
‘God knows, for all the gratitude I get.’
‘You’re dodging the question.’
He is amazed at her resilience. ‘You know, you once told me that if you got a good degree you could go on to fulfil your dreams; get a scholarship, do an MA in London. I got a good degree. I wanted to become an archaeologist, but no one was there to help me. Does that answer your question?’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Well, there’s a first. A simple ‘thank you’ will do.’
She leans across the table and lightly touches his hand. Her hand is cold to the touch. ‘Thank you.’
He takes a sip of his coffee.
‘You still haven’t answered my question, though.’
He looks up, ‘What?’
‘Why you think you’re mother did it out of vanity.’
‘Oh God, I don’t know. Shall we just say she has always been a woman in pursuit of beauty. She wouldn’t have taken her clothes off if she’d looked like me, that is a fact.’
‘Yes, you may have a point there. I’d never thought of it like that. She did rather like preening herself, always wore a grey pearl necklace.’
‘My point exactly, I don’t know what her obsession is with her bloody necklaces. She’s always worn them.’
‘Edward?’ He looks up. ‘I can’t get my head around why you’re so hard on her. What ever has she done to you?’
‘Are you saying I am hard-hearted?’ He watches her studying his face to see if he is joking.
She smiles, the ketchup is still marking her chin. ‘It’s just, sometimes, like you say, you can be very cruel.’
‘And do you think cruelty makes one hard-hearted?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She twists her face, the ketchup blob twisting with her. ‘I don’t think you’re actually cruel. I think you just like sounding cruel.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘I think you can be very cruel with words, but I don’t think you’d ever carry out a cruel act or, I dunno, it just feels like some anger inside you trying to get out.’
‘A regular little psychiatrist, aren’t we?’
‘Very patronising, aren’t we?’
He laughs. ‘By the way, you’ve got ketchup on your chin.’
She wipes it off with her napkin. Some still sits at the corner of her mouth,
‘I know you don’t want me to be serious, but actually I think that the barbed jibes are a way of trying to keep people at arms length, but I, My Lord,’ she makes a mock bow, ‘have to look at the evidence presented to me. I don’t know many other people who would have given up their Saturday afternoons without pay to do what you’re doing for me.’
‘Even worth being seen walking down the road and sitting in a burger joint with an old cretin like me, is it?’
‘See. You’re at it again. I pay you a compliment and there you are fishing in your box for another barb. Do you think I give a damn what anyone thinks?’
‘Then you must be one remarkable young lady.’
‘Has it taken you all this time to suss that?’
He laughs, ‘There’s just one slight improvement you could make.’
‘What?’
‘Wipe the ketchup off your chin.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
His father had been a keen fisherman. Edward would hear him downstairs early on a Sunday morning packing up his lunch for the day. In winter, Edward would snuggle further down the bed and wonder why his father would voluntarily get up and venture out into the cold dark morning to sit all day in the rain.
One summer morning, when Edward was eight, he awoke to the sun shining in through the gap in his curtains. It felt like a journey to the seaside sort of morning. He got out of bed and crept quietly downstairs. His father was seated at the kitchen table eating toast and studying a crossword. At first he didn’t notice Edward but then, sensing a presence, he turned. Edward saw a fleeting look of irritation cross his face.
‘You’re an early bird.’
‘I couldn’t sleep, the sun woke me up.’
‘It’s a grand morning. A grand day for fishing.’
‘Can I come with you?’ Edward asked.
‘You want to come?’ His father looked at his watch, ‘Aye, I suppose so. Why not? You’d better get your skates on though, we have to leave in ten minutes. Go and wash your face and get dressed while I make you some toast. You may have to eat it on the way to the bus stop.’
They left his mother a note propped against the milk jug on the table.
Mother, gone with dad,
Love, Edward
At the bus stop, men with big square baskets slung over one shoulder scraped, rubbed and jostled against each other. As they climbed on board the bus it filled with their laughter. Edward now understood why his father ventured out in all weathers to go fishing.
They settled down on the bank and early, too early, had eaten all his father’s cheese and Marmite sandwiches.
‘I never knew you liked cheese and Marmite, Dad. Mother always gives you fish paste or ham.’
‘Aye, I know lad, women are strange like that; always give you what they think you ought to have. I don’t think your mother has ever actually asked me what I would prefer.’
Something fell into place in Edward’s head. Every Monday morning, when mother was making him his sandwiches, she would always complain,
‘I don’t know what happens to this cheese I get. The mice must eat it.’
Crumbly Cheshire. Edward picked a bit off his father’s chin and popped it into his own mouth. ‘Mmm, my favourite.’
His father ruffled his hair. ‘I’m glad you came with me, lad. We’ll have a good days fishing. Here, I’ll show you how to hold the rod.’
For a while Edward was content to sit and watch the sun speckle through the leaves above. The river was brown, stained with peat but clear, and if he caught the light just right he could see below into the polished depths. As the day progressed he began to feel restless. Holding the rod hurt his back and besides, the fish weren’t biting. Behind them, further up the hill, Edward could see a ruined castle. The sun shone directly on to it, soaking into the sandstone, lighting it up, Edward thought, like a magic place.
‘Dad, can we go and look at those ruins?’
His father shook his head, ‘Lad, I’ve come for a days fishing. I can’t just leave all my tackle and go sauntering up there.’
Edward sat delving into the depths, looking for the fish that weren’t coming out to play. With the sunlight now directly above them it was difficult to see below the surface. Edward sighed and his father relented,
‘If you like, as long as you’re not above an hour, you can go on your own.’
Edward expected that he would be the only one visiting the ruins, that maybe he would enter a secret kingdom and be put under the spell of the master magician. He entered the castle and was rather disheartened to find it busy with people. In several places the pristine turf had been rolled back like his mother’s hearthrug. Holes resembling wide, shallow graves had been dug out of the fine dry soil. Lines of binder twine, marking out boundaries, were held taut between pegs.
Edward approached a group of people huddled at one corner who were looking into a deep pit. Something in their voices told Edward that they were excited.
He sidled up, cautiously hoping that no one would see him, still invisible in his imaginary kingdom, but then a young man in his
early twenties turned and smiled, displaying a mouth full of crowded teeth, like a cluster of snowdrops. When he spoke he had an accent like Edward had only heard on his mother’s radio.
‘Come here,’ he said, ‘Come and see what we’ve found.’
In the pit was the skeleton of a young child, the hands clasped together across the chest and, Edward noticed, on the index finger of the uppermost hand was a gold ring that fell loose against the bone.
‘Who …?’ He had asked, shyly.
‘A boy,’ The man looked Edward up and down, ‘probably about your age, he could’ve have been the son of a lord. Look at the ring he has on his finger.’
‘What was his name?’
The young man laughed. ‘I wish we knew. I wish we could have a magic lamp to take us back into the past, but we are only humble archaeologists. We can only guess and surmise at people’s lives by looking at their bones and the everyday objects they left scattered about them.’
On that day, Edward decided he was going to become an archaeologist, but it was to be another four years before his father would relent and take him to see a dig.
It was the Easter holidays and his Mother was making plans, as she usually did at that time of the year, for her and Edward to go on a two-week break to his uncle’s farm. Edward loved everything about the farm: the farm dogs, and being brave enough to slide his hand under the warm, soft hens, the excitement when he felt the smooth roundness of the egg, collecting them carefully in a wicker basket and best of all, boiling one for his breakfast. His great-uncle Jack teased him, but it was in a gentle way, and when his mother took him to the local town he would slide a shiny sixpence into Edward’s palm, and on their last day when they stood waiting for the train to take them home, his uncle would always say, and always at the last minute, ‘Shake hands like a man then, lad,’ and in the palm of his hand would be a half-crown. He would curl Edward’s fingers around it and whisper, ‘Don’t tell yer mam.’
His great aunt Rosemary was different again. She regarded him with a coldness that, even as a very young child, he’d sensed. His mother told him not to mind his aunt, she’d had a great sadness in her life and didn’t intend to be unkind. But that year, when he was twelve, Edward refused point blank to go to the farm.