Autumn

by Vina Jackson

  Lauralynn gave me a scornful look, like a teacher disappointed by my petulant, childish reaction. It seemed that my hopefully anonymous encounters in Europe had not been as discreet as I would have hoped and venue staff and others had become aware of my meaningless adventures and, somehow, word had even reached Simon, my erstwhile orchestra conductor lover for a while, who was back in South America, and he had thought it right to contact my London friends to ask them to try and intervene.

  I’d been back in London for over two weeks and spent much of it wandering around the large, empty house clad in just pyjamas or an old fluffy dressing gown which had seen better days and ordering ethnic takeaways for bodily sustenance. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, feeling unable to read or even watch movies on TV.

  I had become a ghost in my own home. What had once been our home. His home.

  The images of what I had been up to in Kentish Town and the blurry memories merging into each other of the sex I’d had in all the European cities of the past month bubbled in my mind like bad reminders of the damaged state I was in.

  I felt no shame, just an intense awareness of being broken inside and knowing all too well that the casual sex had done nothing to piece me back together again.

  ‘Oh, come on, Summer,’ Lauralynn unzipped her grey top and threw it onto one of the sofas in the study into which she’d followed me, giving a distasteful look in passing at the desk still littered with fast food containers I hadn’t bothered to sweep away. ‘Grow up. Please do.’

  ‘So?’ I stood my ground. Both touched and annoyed that my friend should feel so concerned about my well-being.

  The silence that followed weighed on both of us as we looked at each other.

  ‘Oh … Summer …’ Lauralynn said and there was a genuine sadness in her voice.

  She held out her arms to me, opened them as if to embrace me.

  I ran towards her and wallowed in the warmth and softness of her body as I wrapped myself round her, chin on her shoulders, the herbal and autumnal fragrance of her hair enveloping me as it brushed against my cheeks.

  We remained that way for a long time. Words had become superfluous.

  In the kitchen, sipping coffee together, the conversation finally resumed.

  ‘A mutual business acquaintance tells me you’ve suggested going on yet another tour, Summer.’ We shared the same agent. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ Lauralynn continued.

  ‘Playing keeps me sane,’ I replied.

  ‘And once you’ve stopped playing, you go batshit crazy again,’ she said.

  ‘So what’s your solution?’ I asked her.

  ‘Listen: Viggo and I have been talking about it. We’re taking charge. Pack up some things and come and stay with us, for a bit. You’ve become a danger to yourself and this large house is too big for you alone. You need a break. And most definitely a better sort of company.’

  It felt like walking back into my past as I provisionally moved back to the Belsize Park mansion and its rock star accoutrements and cache of secret rooms and treasures.

  Viggo would be busy for the initial fortnight working in an outside studio with pick-up musicians on his fusion project of rock and classical and I felt somewhat spurned when he did not even ask me to join in further. We had laid down tracks for the improvisation on the ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ theme before I had embarked on my tour but he insisted he wanted to use different participants for each individual track and refused to let me know who else he had chosen or what other pieces of music he had selected for the project.

  I spent most of the time with Lauralynn and was grateful for her lack of questions and any attempt at psychoanalysing me, which I would have vehemently resisted anyway. We pottered around the house, cooking, cleaning and slobbing away to our heart’s content, the conversation never veering away from safe banalities. Once Viggo had completed his sessions, the vague plan was to go away somewhere warm for a vacation in a sunny clime. A beach, maybe. But far away. I was happy to leave the details to them.

  I was staying in what Lauralynn jokingly described as the penthouse suite, a medium-size bedroom on the last floor, carved out of what had once been a vast attic in a major conversion long before Viggo had acquired the property.

  At night, through the flat roof window above my bed I could watch the stars swarming in the late spring sky and listen to the minute sounds of the dark, along with the noises of the house below, the imperceptible creaks and whispers and breath of wood and water as the building settled. I found sleep difficult, sometimes lying between the sheets for hours awaiting peace of mind, tiredness battling with the buried fears of what tonight’s nightmares might bring.

  A distant cloud obscured the sea of stars and the weight of night felt oppressive. I shifted uncomfortably, my feet tangled in the sheets, an invisible weight falling across my chest.

  I threw the bed cover away and stepped out of the bed. All I could hear was the sound of my breath. Halting. Scared. I walked out onto the landing and made my way down the stairs, one cautious step at a time, careful not to make any noise.

  Lauralynn and Viggo’s bedroom was on the floor below. Their door was half open and, standing there wearing just the short T-shirt and cotton knickers I normally slept in, I gently pushed against it. The room was in total darkness, heavy curtains drawn across the bay window which looked onto the large garden at the back of the house.

  I tiptoed towards their bed, guessing at their slumbering shapes beneath the quilt. As I approached I saw their naked shoulders peering out and listened for the irregular rhythm of their breath. Viggo snored ever so lightly, I recalled from the brief time I had been in a casual relationship with him.

  My eyes were getting accustomed to the room’s darkness and I could now make them out better.

  It was a large bed and Viggo was on his stomach, splayed out, his body almost balancing on the left edge, a few toes sticking out between the sheets and quilt, his dark thatch of curls spreading like creeping ivy across the pillow. Lauralynn was on her back, statuesque, still as an odalisque, a faint smile separating her plump lips. I wondered briefly how Dominik and I must have looked when sleeping and a rush of emotions came swirling back and I felt tears welling up inside my eyes, as I realised that unlike the distance that lay between my two sleeping friends in the privacy of their bed, Dominik and I had always slept close to each other, bodies together, skin to skin, the barrier of intimacy shattered and how the steady beat of his heart had always lullabied me to sleep when I stayed awake longer than him.

  He had died alone.

  I hadn’t been at his side.

  The thought just annihilated me.

  I slipped out of the T-shirt and pants as I attempted in vain to dam the tears and pulled the cover away from my friends’ sleeping bodies and inserted myself between them and pulled the quilt back as I settled between their warmth.

  They both stirred indistinctly as they became aware of my presence. Viggo turned round and shifted, moving closer to me, his haunch brushing against mine, and then kept on sleeping. Lauralynn opened her eyes and noticed me. There was no need for words of explanation; she knew clearly I hadn’t entered their bed in search of sex. My now abundant tears staining the edges of the two pillows I was straddling was evidence enough.

  ‘Shhh …’ Lauralynn said.

  Her hand moved to my cheek and wiped away some of the tears. ‘It’ll all be OK. Just give it time …’

  She rolled over to me, squeezing me tight between her naked body and Viggo’s. He grunted slightly but didn’t evade the contact.

  Her arm draped itself across my shoulder and pulled the quilt up so that we were both cocooned in its growing warmth. I closed my eyes, allowing the comfort of their body heat to invade me.

  ‘Sleep, darling,’ Lauralynn whispered.

  And I welcomed the night.

  ‘We’ve made
arrangements,’ Lauralynn said the following morning, shortly after we’d all had breakfast together. I had woken with a start, briefly shocked to find myself wrapped around the nude bodies of my friends, both with eyes wide open and still, not having wanted to disturb me and waiting for me to wake. After I’d opened my eyes, both of them had leaned over me and kissed me on each cheek to greet the morning.

  We’d all showered together as if it was the most natural thing to do. Through our complicated past involvements, we had long become accustomed to the spectacle of our naked bodies.

  ‘Somewhere warm?’ I asked her.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘No time like the present.’

  Later, we would drive up to my house and pick up some clothes, although Lauralynn instructed I should not pack too many, as one of the sections of our journey would involve a small boat, so weight restrictions were inevitable.

  I was intrigued, but she refused to give me any clues.

  After I’d gathered a bunch of summer stuff and beachwear, I made my way to the study and opening the Chinese wood cabinet where I kept my violins, experienced a pang of guilt for the fact it had now been a few weeks, I had last done any practice scales, exercises of any kind. Lauralynn had stayed back in the kitchen, having volunteered to clean out the leftover food from fridge and cupboards so it didn’t rot in my absence.

  I was holding the Bailly in one hand and my other favoured violin in the other, a more modern but sleek Italian-made instrument whose warm tones were perfectly suited to the majority of my repertoire. Wondering which to bring along. Weighing the pros and cons. Both were heavily insured so their worth was not a problem, although the Bailly had of course considerable sentimental value. Surely, it would be foolish to take both along, I reflected. I wasn’t going to have that much use for them, just an hour or so’s practice every day at most.

  ‘No.’

  Lauralynn had walked in and seen me weighing the two violins.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not taking any instrument, Summer.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s supposed to be a vacation. I don’t want you to think of music. The whole idea is to take you away from all that.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘No if and buts, darling,’ Lauralynn looked terribly severe. ‘Neither am I taking my cello,’ she added. I was about to remark that her own instrument was so much heavier than mine. ‘I know you feel incomplete when you’re not playing. But I’ve also seen the way the music consumes you, the way it warms your blood, brings you alive. It leads you to temptation …’

  I was about to protest, argue that she was being melodramatic – surely there would be few temptations where we were going, just sand and sun and exotic cocktails – but part of me knew she was right.

  I left my instruments behind.

  That night, I slept with Lauralynn and Viggo again, sheltering inside their welcoming warmth. It seemed like the natural thing to do.

  In the morning, a taxi drove us to the airport.

  I’d seen more than enough airports those past few months, and become so tired of travelling that I simply followed along after Viggo and Lauralynn in a haze as we navigated through terminals and departure lounges, customs officials and security barriers. As soon as we settled into our seats, I took a sleeping pill, rousing only briefly to eat the plastic chicken dish, bread roll, anaemic salad and cupcake placed in front of me by an air stewardess who bore the expression of someone who has awoken to find herself in the middle of a bad dream, working in a job she despised. I ordered a Bloody Mary, my drink of choice when flying, although most often it could only be made with vodka and tomato juice, livened up by just a sachet of salt and cracked pepper, without all the other accoutrements.

  ‘We’re going to Rio?’ I asked Lauralynn. My lips felt like two rubbery sausages and my mouth was dry. I pushed the call button, braving the grumpy flight attendant to request some water. The discomforts of drugs, alcohol and long haul flying.

  ‘Yes, although we’ll just be passing through. There’s no actual airport where we’re going. Not a lot else, either.’

  I meant to ask her how long we would be staying and if she had been to our destination before but before the words could escape my lips another wave of fatigue had swept over me and I fell into a doze, my head uncomfortably propped up against Lauralynn’s shoulder and my legs folded up like a grasshopper’s to avoid pressing into the seat in front of me. Viggo was in another world altogether, large headphones sheltering his ears, listening to his iPod and its treasury of rock sounds.

  We stayed two nights in Rio, just long enough to recover from the travelling and begin to relax.

  ‘But I’ve barely been working,’ I complained to Lauralynn, who insisted that I sleep in, breakfast late and do very little besides laze around.

  On our second night, we had an early dinner on the balcony at Zaza, raw tuna ceviche with a spicy coconut mayonnaise scattered with wasabi peas that lit a pleasant fire on my tongue with each mouthful. Lauralynn ordered one improbable cocktail after another; strawberry mixed with basil with a rim of black and white chocolate, star fruit and chilli, passionfruit and peppercorn. Viggo was a dedicated red steak and french fries sort of guy and left the exotica to us women.

  Out front, hungry prospective diners milled, sipping drinks and waiting for a table. Night was beginning to fall and the beach was relinquishing its hold on the holidaymakers and locals; a river of scantily dressed men, women and children flowed up the street carrying cheap tennis rackets, volley balls and canvas chairs, the debris of a Sunday afternoon. Few had towels. They let the intense heat that still pervaded the air dry their bodies. Many were taut and tanned. Thick droplets of seawater clung to bare chests with abdominal muscles as clearly delineated as that on any underwear billboard. Full breasts, ineffectively restrained by bikini tops swayed a seductive rhythm in time with their owner’s footsteps. Small swimwear was not just the preserve of the fit and young. Hairy, round paunches hung slack over the waistbands of the briefest of swimming briefs, thin legs with knobbled knees protruded below. Arses that were so high and firm they seemed unreasonable outside of a pop music video shared the street with buttocks that had long sunk past their prime, plump and dimpled or shrunken and saggy. A democracy of flesh on display.

  The city was practically pulsing with sex. Lingerie stores lined the streets, half a dozen to a block. The heat made everything feel like it was heavy breathing. Even the air seemed to be gasping, sucking desperate breaths in and out against my skin.

  Later that night I ignored the rules sternly outlined in the guide books and went down to the beach alone after dark. It was unseasonably warm and humid, and a bank of low clouds had gathered overhead. Thunder rumbled nearby, or was it the loud engines of the motorbikes that regularly whizzed past? Spots of rain fell and cooled my sandalled feet. The streetlights from the road adjacent to the shore lit the sand.

  That afternoon, the Ipanema fields of golden sand had been crowded, a veritable bank of bodies and umbrellas. Now, they had all emptied to bars, homes and restaurants, and just a few stragglers remained behind, clustered by the picnic tables near a kiosk drinking bottles of beer and coconut water from large green shells. A crew of green T-shirted council workers equipped with rakes and wheelie bins were collecting the litter that visitors had discarded. It was like a kitchen the morning after a party, on a larger scale. The remains of an afternoon’s large scale hedonism.

  ‘Not like the seaside in New Zealand, huh?’ said a voice, beside me. My sneaking out had evidently not gone unnoticed. Lauralynn had followed me down to the shore.

  Hot weather suited her. She had shed her winter persona as if she had been born to live in tropical climes and now wore a loose fitting pair of khaki short shorts, a slinky white silk top th
at made no secret of the fact her breasts were bare beneath, and a pair of gold sandals. Her toenails were painted tangerine and her hair was pulled up into a loose ponytail. Within a day of our arrival she had managed to gain an all over golden tan. I suspected that while I had been napping in my room, she had been lying naked on the beach baking her skin in the sun.

  ‘No, it’s not at all like home,’ I replied. The beaches that I was used to were deserted by comparison.

  ‘Have you ever seen a tropical storm?’

  Bursts of forked lightning lit up the now violet-coloured sky, showing us brief flashes of the famed Sugar Loaf, Two Brothers, Pedra da Gavea and other mountains and rocky outcrops that our taxi driver had pointed out as we’d driven here from the busy airport but that I could not recall the names of.

  ‘Just a couple,’ I replied, ‘on holiday in Australia.’ I sniffed the air. ‘It reminds me of that here, but without the smell of gum trees. Like I’m reliving only half of a memory.’

  I felt the same way about being on holiday without Dominik. It was the first time in years that I had travelled without him, besides all the work-related touring. As much as I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t help imagining what he would like and dislike and laugh at, or what games he would play. He would have enjoyed making me parade on the beach in the skimpiest Brazilian style bikini that he could find, I knew it, and I could imagine the expression that would have played across his lips as he watched the men watching me, and thought of how he might punish me later for teasing them.

  Tears rose unbidden, and I swallowed them back.

  Lauralynn took my hand and squeezed my palm tightly in a gesture of support, as if she knew what I was thinking and feeling, but if she did, she didn’t mention it.

  ‘I love storms,’ she said. Her shoulders were jutted forward and her face held aloft into the wind, as if she was about to go running down from where we stood across the sand to dive into the water.