The China Bird

by Bryony Doran

  ‘Thought it was a bit pretentious actually.’

  ‘How would you know? You slept through most of it.’

  ‘The bit I saw was. So it stands to reason.’

  He languishes back in his chair, legs apart. ‘I hadn’t been to the cinema for ages.’

  ‘I went to see the Toulouse Lautrec film last week with …’ No, she won’t tell him that.

  ‘I wanted to see that. Why didn’t you give me a bell?’

  She shrugs it away, ‘How’s your dissertation going?’

  ‘Not good. I had what I thought was a really good idea and that bastard Alex says, it’s shit, go away and think of something else.’

  ‘Why do you take any notice of him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if you think it works.’

  ‘The bastard would fail me, I know he would.’

  She stands up. ‘Right, I’m off.’

  ‘Aren’t you having another half.’

  ‘Haven’t got anymore money.’

  ‘There’s a cash machine round the corner.’

  She can’t believe the meanness of this man. ‘When I say I haven’t got any more money, I mean I haven’t got any money.’

  He sighs a long suffering sigh, ‘Sit down, I’ll get you one.’

  She sits back down, ‘Why, thank you. Can I have a pint this time? I could do with getting drunk.’ She watches him standing at the bar; faded jeans, clumpy boots, nice arse.

  Back in his room, the sheets are even greyer than before. She sits down on the edge of the bed and watches him strip off. She loves his body, perfect even down to the slight tan. He jumps into bed, pulls her towards him. His kiss is sloppy, intrusive. She pulls away.

  ‘Come on, aren’t you getting undressed?’

  ‘Not sure I can be bothered,’ she yawns, stretching her arms above her head. This action causes the underwiring in her bra to dig sharply into her breasts. She lets out a little gasp and stands up. Dan hasn’t noticed her discomfort. He is leaning out of bed scrabbling for something underneath.

  She feels quite drunk and sits back down on the bed, ‘What are you doing?’

  He sits back up a grin on his face. In his hand he has a small clear plastic bag. He waves it at her, ‘Thought this would liven you up.’

  ‘What is it?’ She knows what it is. Suddenly she feels afraid.

  ‘Nice bit of spliff, best Moroccan.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘You’ve tried it before haven’t you, you’re not that square.’

  ‘Course I have,’ she lies. She has to get out of here.

  ‘I think artists should to be made to take it.’

  ‘I don’t need it. I can be creative without all that shit.’

  ‘Cocky, aren’t we? Well, answer me this, Miss Think-we’re-so-bloody-fantastic, how do you know if you’ve never tried. I think I’ve got an LSD pill under here somewhere,’ he leans back under the bed. ‘I’ll split it with you.’

  She walks back home through the terraced streets. No TV screens to watch tonight. Everyone’s gone to bed. She could so easily have stayed, been persuaded. Spliff? LSD? And then what else? It would be so easy to be curious. She wasn’t like that though. Not like him. She wonders if he’s even noticed she’s gone yet.

  She studies her reflection as she passes a darkened window. She has the same loping gait as her mother.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The cold hardness of the concrete beneath the thin carpet seeps through and into his bones. He is lying on her grandfather’s blanket again. The roughness of it irritates his skin.

  When he had first entered the room he noticed that Angela had cut her hair and returned it to its natural colour. He thought how it softened her skin, making it even more translucent, the blue vein tracing down her left cheek like a blurred line in fine porcelain. She was already undressed. He searched for signs of the crimson bra in her pile of clothes, looked for marks on her body to see if she had been wearing it, but he could determine nothing. At first he thought she seemed a bit offhand but that had passed and they returned to their normal banter.

  He shuts his eyes and imagines her sitting there, drawing him, her breasts encased in the crimson bra. He feels annoyed at her for placing him again on the grey blanket on the hard floor and for not showing gratitude for his present. But underneath the annoyance is a terrible longing. He grits his teeth and wills it to subside, to wait for darkness, for the privacy of his own room. This is private, between you and me he tells it; it has nothing to do with the girl. He concentrates his whole mind on trying to quiet the stirrings in his groin.

  Tears of fury spill from his eyes and trickle down the upper side of his nose.

  His penis continues to grow, protruding like a defiant limb. He listens for the faint scratch of charcoal. Yes, there it is. She said she was going to draw his back today. Please God, he prays, don’t let her see my distress. If only he could shift his pose he could cover it with his hand, or pull it down between his legs. If he keeps perfectly still maybe, just maybe, she will not notice and it will subside and, he grits his teeth, it will become the baby mouse that they had laughed about the other week.

  He hears her put down her board and cross the room to stand above him. She says nothing but crouches down and begins to gently stroke his hair. He sobs and moves his hands down to cover his groin. The sobs judder through his whole body. She removes her hand. He holds his breath, waiting for her to move away. But she doesn’t and he is even more bewildered when she lies down beside him on the blanket. What is she doing? She shuffles her way inside the curl of his body. For a few moments they lie there like two spoons, his tears wetting her newly shorn hair at the nape of her neck, and then he puts his arm around her, seeks out the sweet softness of her breasts. She nuzzles her bottom against him and then, reaching behind her, she takes his penis in her hand and puts it between her legs. He pushes gently against her and, as if in a dream, enters her body.

  Afterwards, he falls asleep, holding her in his arms. When he awakes he notices the light through the skylight has turned to charcoal grey. She stirs and gets up. He stays very still while she dresses, hoping she will leave in silence, but she kneels over him again and shakes him gently.

  ‘Edward? Come on, wake up. The caretaker will be here soon.’

  They leave together in silence. Parting with a nod on the Pelican crossing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Saturday morning and Angela is lying in bed, half way between sleep and waking. She tries to drift back into slumber but her mind has already switched on and her thoughts are forcing her awake. She hears the phone ring downstairs.

  ‘Ange?’ someone shouts up the stairs, ‘Phone.’

  She sits on the bottom stair watching the dangling phone twist round and round. Is it Edward saying he can’t make this week? She doesn’t want to speak to him, but she picks up the phone. Her gran could have been taken ill.

  ‘Hello?’ she says, tentatively, into the mouthpiece.

  ‘Hi, Ange. It’s Alex. Sorry, did I get you out of bed?’

  Thank God. ‘Yeah,’ she yawns. ‘But it’s okay, I needed to get up anyway.’

  ‘Sorry to disturb your sweet slumbers, but I had to let you know I can’t make it on Monday. I’ve got to go to Cornwall for a few days.’

  ‘Cornwall. Christ, it’s a long time since I’ve been there. I went on a field trip from school once. I loved it.’

  ‘My mother isn’t very well.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Sorry, I forgot.’

  ‘Come with me then.’

  Silence. She couldn’t… . ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘I can draw you while my mother is sleeping. That way I won’t get behind with my commission.’

  ‘I don’t know, Alex. I’ll have to think about it. I’m supposed to be working on my dissertation, aren’t I?’

  ‘The house is right next to the sea. I’m only goi
ng to be a few days.’

  ‘When are you going?’

  ‘As soon as I’m packed. A couple of hours?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You kids nowadays are so unadventurous. Fancy turning down a free holiday.’

  ‘Yeah, but it wouldn’t be a holiday would it.’

  ‘You’d have plenty of free time to wander the cliffs at will. I’ll have to spend quite a bit of time with my mother.’

  ‘But that won’t get my work done will it?’

  ‘You never know. It might get your imagination working. You might even come up with something original.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘I’ll contact you when I get back then?’

  ‘No hold on, I’ve changed my mind, pick me up.’

  She soaks her head under the shower and breathes deeply. She is just putting a splodge of orange shampoo into the centre of her palm when she remembers Edward.

  It is Saturday.

  ‘Shit!’ How could she have been so stupid?

  She sits on the stairs, a towel wrapped turban-style around her wet hair, looking for Alex’s number. There isn’t an Alex Culver in the book. She tries enquiries but the number is ex-directory. She chews her lip, unconsciously flipping the pages of the phone book, wondering what to do. She could phone Edward and tell him that she can’t make it this afternoon. She picks up the phone, hesitates, and puts it back down.

  How can she ever face him again?

  As they leave the city behind, Angela relaxes back into the heated leather of her seat. Alex keeps looking at her with a puzzled expression on his face, ‘You’ve cut your bloody hair.’

  ‘Do you like it?’ She puts a hand to the back of her neck.

  ‘You’ve changed your appearance.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And I’m in the middle of drawing you.’

  ‘Oh shit.’ She puts her hand to her mouth. ‘I never gave it a thought.’ She pauses, gives him a sideways smile. ‘Do you want to take me back?’

  ‘Never mind.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ll manage, somehow.’

  ‘I could do with being back by Wednesday,’ she says.

  ‘So could I,’ he says. ‘So we’ll aim for that, shall we?’

  ‘I must be crazy.’

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ He grins. She notices the gap between his front teeth.

  ‘Has your mother taken a turn for the worse?’

  ‘She’s bloody unlucky. Breast cancer, recurring again after thirty five years. Not sure how she is. My aunt rang, said could I come down, my mother wants to see me. So I can only assume …’

  She watches his hands grip the steering wheel, the nicotine stain on his index finger.

  ‘I wonder what makes it recur?’

  ‘Grief. She’s never got over my dad dying. The grief seemed to eat away at her. It’s almost as if she wished the cancer back. And now she’s taken herself off to bloody Cornwall.’

  ‘To die?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Like I said the other week, I think she’s into some form of alternative mumbo jumbo. I know her and my aunt are up to something. Her doctor in Nottingham wanted her to go for chemo but she wasn’t having any of it. I tried to tell her it isn’t like thirty years ago, but she still refused. Said she wanted power over her own body this time, and that she would decide how to fight the cancer.’

  ‘Did she have her breasts removed the first time she got the cancer?’

  ‘Only one, if she had done as the surgeon advised and had them both off … maybe it wouldn’t have recurred.’

  ‘Did she have reconstruction surgery?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Have you ever seen it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The scar where she had the breast removed.’

  Alex shudders, ‘No.’

  ‘I’d love to draw someone who’s had a breast removed.’

  ‘You’re sick.’

  ‘No, I’m not. If it wasn’t your mother you might think differently.’

  ‘What is it with you?’

  ‘Why should you hide your body away just because it’s not a replica of everyone else’s?’

  ‘Maybe you’d feel differently if it was you.’

  ‘I don’t think I would. I would say – look, this is me – this is what I am. Other people’s tragedies are usually the most interesting thing about them.’

  ‘Jesus, Ange, you do twist things around.’

  ‘What tragedies have you had in your life then?’ She asks.

  ‘None really, except my dad dying.’ He turns towards her, gives her a tight little smile.

  ‘See. I make my point.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No tragedies. Boring person.’

  ‘And what tragedies have you had in your life to make you so bloody vitriolic.’

  She is taken aback by the anger in his voice. She turns and sees the hurt in his face. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ he persists.

  She stares out of the side window, ‘My whole life’s a bloody tragedy.’

  ‘Poor little thing.’

  ‘It’s true.’ She continues to stare out of the side window.

  ‘Orphan, brought up in the workhouse were you?’ He digs her in the ribs.

  She turns, ‘I might as well have been.’

  ‘Why, what happened to your parents?’

  ‘I was brought up by my grandparents.’

  ‘So what happened to your parents?’

  ‘They’re both smackheads, total wasters. All right?’

  ‘Jesus, Ange. That’s awful.’

  She looks at him. He’s being sincere. She frowns, ‘I bet you were brought up in a cosy little semi in the suburbs of Nottingham weren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I was, and I’ve been fighting it ever since.’

  ‘Still trying, eh?’

  ‘Not half as trying as you, my dear.’

  She laughs and notices how he bites his lower lip with his front teeth, trying not to laugh.

  He flicks his fringe out of his eyes. ‘And did your grandparents treat you badly?’ He asks.

  The clouds are scudding across the grey winter sky. They are in the fast lane, skimming grey tarmac. Everything is grey, Angela thinks; the grass, the road, the fields, the trees, all grey, as if they were passing through a grey dream to somewhere else.

  ‘They were lovely, but,’ she pauses, ‘How can I put this? I didn’t belong. I felt like a cuckoo in the nest. I suppose my mother must have felt a bit like that too. Never thought of it like that before.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She shrugs, ‘We never had any books or pictures in the house. It wasn’t until I was about six and my Gran took me to the house of an old French lady she used to clean for, that I discovered there was a whole different world out there.’

  Alex pulls over into the inside lane. ‘I’m going to have to stop at the next service station. He taps the dashboard, ‘She’s overheating again, and more importantly, I’ve run out of fags.’

  Later, back on the road, the sky darkens until she can no longer see the horizon. Alex talks to her of his work and his passion for colour. She drifts in and out of sleep. He puts on a cassette. She likes his choice of music and wishes she didn’t.

  They arrive late at night.

  The sea crashes the rocks below like the roar of an animal out in the night. Angela kneels up in bed and pulls back the curtains, pressing her face against the cold glass. She can see nothing beyond the blackness of the night. She fumbles with the latch and pushes up the window. Sticking her shoulders under the sash to prop it open, she puts her head out and gasps as the salt air chills her lungs. Her first reaction is to draw her head back in, but she sees a faint glimmer in the sky, a sliver of light, the moon silvering the edges of the moving clouds. Just for a moment it pierces through, striking a path across the water in the cove, and she is glad she came. She waits for the moon to appear again, but the clouds thicken an
d soon the wind forces her back into the room. Through the wall, she can hear the faint murmur of voices in the sick room, Alex and his aunt. Angela has not yet met his mother.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  At 4.45 the estate agent is already waiting for him, leaning smugly against his dark blue BMW,

  ‘Mr. Anderson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The estate agent extends a hand, ‘Clive Bates, of Mutton and Hennion, pleased to meet you.’

  Edward swaps his stick to his left hand and extends his right. ‘How do you do.’

  The block of flats is perched on the side of a hill. The flat he is being shown is on the first floor. Access to it is via a metal walkway. To reach the lower flats there are steps from the road above. The windows are large, both at the front and back and, once inside the flat, the estate agent points out the extensive views over the city. ‘You can see right across to the other side of the valley.’

  Edward runs his eye up and down the streets that diagonally cross the opposite hill and sees how the trees trace black against the skyline. The bedroom is at the back of the flat and looks out onto a bank covered in moss and grass. He hopes it will be dotted with crocuses and daffodils in the spring.

  He takes the flat. He loves it and he wonders, going home on the bus, whether he should have looked at more before making a decision, but his need to get away from Mrs Ingram is so great he probably would have taken the flat even if he hadn’t liked it. Up until a few months ago she hadn’t irked him that much. In fact, he had taken a certain pleasure from the perversity of the situation, thwarting her at every turn, playing a game of rituals. But recently he had begun to long for his own private space away from her intrusion. Suddenly he needed to take control, to cook his own food, put his own soiled clothes in the washing machine, empty his own waste paper basket. To live his own life.

  ‘Mrs Ingram? I’m moving out.’

  There, he has finally said it, after all these years. She is so shocked that her jaw drops open and her bottom set of teeth slide forward. Edward watches, mesmerised, as she plonks herself down on a kitchen chair and pushes them back into place.

  ‘Well now, Mr. Anderson. I’m sure I don’t know what to say. What on earth! Why! Well, I don’t know. I’m speechless.’ Suddenly, and to Edward’s horror, she begins to cry,