by Kate Russo
Still wide awake, he sits up and rests his chin on the windowsill, looking at his house, all dark. Kirstie’s bedroom window is opaque, but he imagines her naked body, lit up, staring down at him. He can see the image as a painting. They still haven’t talked about that night. They probably never will. Maybe they don’t need to. Some moments are like paintings—no words necessary.
What the fuck do you want, Bennett?
The question pulses in his mind, perhaps because he’s no closer to the answer. He again regards his new painting of Claire on the easel. After a few weeks of no productivity, it felt really good to hold a paintbrush again, to remember what made him fall in love with painting all those years ago. It would be nice, he thinks, to be inspired once more, to wake up in the morning and wonder how he’ll pack everything into the day, instead of wondering how he’ll fill it.
* * *
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He’s up early in the morning, having barely slept. Eliza, Kirstie, and Claire were all present in his dreams, though not, blessedly, together. They hadn’t joined forces to murder him, though it may be only a matter of time before that idea occurs to them. He opens his front door to the garden at seven a.m. and starts unraveling a roll of Bubble Wrap on the lawn. When he gets down on his knees, he feels a twinge in his lower back and groans. Honestly, a baby? He looks up at the sky. Whose fucked-up plan is this? He cuts the Bubble Wrap into equal strips, which he tapes together again with packaging tape, the kind that shrieks when you pull on it. A few minutes later, Kirstie comes outside in one of her wrap dresses (Finally!) with her hands over her ears. “What on earth are you doing?” she asks.
He smiles up at her. He’d like to leap to his feet and wrap his arms around her, but he can’t. Foremost among the many reasons, because his days of leaping are long over. “Taking my painting to the Royal Academy today. Just wrapping it up.”
“Can I get a closer look?” she asks. “Before you wrap it?”
“Why not?” he says, and immediately thinks of several reasons. She hasn’t been in his studio yet.
She watches as he gets to his feet in stages. “Need help, old man?”
Cheeky little . . .
She smiles wide. “I could show you some yoga poses that’ll make you feel young again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, arching backward, hands on his hips, for a stretch. He gestures for her to enter the studio and follows when she does. She smells amazing, like wildflowers and fresh linen.
“So, this is where the magic happens?” she says. But then she notices the futon, and her curiosity turns to horror. “Are you sleeping on that?!”
“I thought you wanted to look at the paintings.”
“I do, darling.” When she puts her hand on his shoulder, he notices she’s painted her fingernails a deep purple. “But no wonder you have a stiff back. Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the house?”
Haven’t you heard? I have no idea what the fuck I want.
“It’s not so bad.”
“I’m offended that you don’t want to share the house with me when you’re sleeping on that!”
“Don’t be. It’s not you.” He’d give anything for a pile of sand to bury his head in.
She shakes his arm. “Prove it! Stay in the house tonight.”
Breathe. He has to remind himself every couple seconds. Breathe. Where would he sleep? Mia’s old room? In the guest room where he probably impregnated Claire? Or in the master with Kirstie, where he spent twenty years sleeping next to Eliza?
“I’m going out with Mia tonight. I won’t be back until late.”
“Who cares?” She looks at him, genuinely flabbergasted. “You’re a grown man, for Christ’s sake. Come back whenever you want.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Was that so hard?”
Yes.
“Now,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “Let’s look at this painting.”
He picks it up from the floor, where it was leaning against the backs of larger canvases, and hands it to her.
She grips it gingerly and grins at it. “Yes,” she says, “I can see why you wanted to start anew. This is so much more visceral. None of the useless details, but so much more depth.”
He feels a lump the size of a walnut in his throat. “Thank you.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “Really,” then turns to look at him. “I’m so jealous. God, how I’d love to be this good at something.”
He wants to tell her that he finds her perfect just as she is, but he knows it doesn’t matter what he thinks.
She puts her arm around his waist. “I find you quite inspiring,” she says.
Really?
“The way you just keep working. You could have given up, but you haven’t.”
He wants to draw her in close, because so far nobody has understood, not even him, that painting this painting was hard. It meant admitting mistakes, it meant stepping back in order to move forward. He feels a tightness in his gut, the kind that comes with realizing your responsibility. A responsibility he feels for Kirstie, to inspire her, to make her smile. The kind of responsibility he hasn’t had in a long time and, until now, he hasn’t realized he’s been missing desperately.
* * *
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“Why don’t I drive you?” Kirstie asked, after Bennett made the mistake of complaining about how difficult it would be to protect the painting on a congested Tube train.
“The traffic will be terrible. There will be nowhere to park.”
“I don’t need to park. I’ll just drop you off and head home.”
“Kirstie, that’s too much,” he said, and meant it. Sometimes someone else’s kindness is far too much to bear, he thinks, especially once you’ve realized that all you want is to absorb that person’s kindness and give it back tenfold, except you can’t. There’s no way.
But after the initial protest, she wears him down. As she barrels down the Great West Road at forty miles an hour in second gear, he realizes her city driving needs more than a little work. The engine shrieks bloody murder until she finally shifts into third. “Oh. That’s better,” she says, turning to Bennett, who has a death grip on the car door’s handle, the veins in his hand fit to burst.
He surrenders a nervous smile. They’ve been in close proximity before, but this feels more cramped—the two of them, plus a painting of a naked Claire—all jostling for space in her Mercedes, the physical embodiment of a love triangle he’d hoped would remain in his mind, where it belongs. That’s why he had to put the painting in the back seat, out of view. It’s now lounging back there, effortlessly, just like Claire always does. Kirstie senses something is up with him, he can tell. She’s too astute not to. She keeps looking over at him, trying to read his face.
“My wife had this car,” he says, cutting through the silence.
“Then I’m surprised you haven’t keyed it.” She laughs, slamming on the brakes to avoid running into the back of a red Vauxhall Corsa.
“I never even considered it,” he assures her, reaching his other hand out onto the dash.
When the car in front of her moves, she downshifts into second again, causing the car to lurch forward. A moment later she has to break again. “Such a Cub Scout, you are. Where’s your sense of menace, Bennett?”
I’m thinking about grabbing the wheel from you. Maybe diving out of this moving car.
“Your mother raised you well,” she adds, resolutely.
“She’d have liked to hear that.”
“When did she die?”
He likes that she uses the word die. He hates it when people say passed on. Lives end. Relationships end. They don’t pass on to anywhere, they die. “Five years ago.” He shifts in his seat, remembering Helen hooked up to all those monitors, gasping for air. She had
said her heart felt “like an anvil pressing on her lungs.” How was it that she should be the one to get congestive heart failure, while his father got to drift away peacefully during a dream?
“Were you as close to her as Mia is to you?”
“No,” he admits, though he immediately feels the need to clarify. “She was a good mum, but I couldn’t tell her most things.”
“Why not?”
He feels his eyes getting misty. This is torture. “She wasn’t very interested in the truth. She preferred things with a thick coat of sugar.” He stares straight ahead, feeling that if he looked at Kirstie right now, he’d surely cry. “Hey, there’s your favorite store,” he tells her, pointing at Harrods.
She gives him a wry smile. “You can just say, darling, if you want to change the subject.”
Darling. She’s been calling him that since day one. She probably calls everyone that, but the way she says it now, with a combination of sweetness and frustration, makes him feel like he’s her only darling.
* * *
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The Royal Fucking Academy. Hello, again.
Waving goodbye to Kirstie, he stands just outside the entrance to the Academy’s magnificent courtyard, where a giant orb sculpture glows orange in front of him, looking as hot as the surface of the sun. The artists’ entrance is technically through the rear of the building, but he felt bad asking Kirstie to drive around the back; plus, it’s nice to look at the grand entrance, to feel grand beside it. After a moment of taking it all in, he enters the opulent Burlington Arcade, moving past all the fancy jewelry shops, to the Academy’s back entrance. In one of these shops he bought Eliza’s antique 1920s engagement ring, a central sapphire surrounded by six small diamonds. This city, he thinks, is nothing but a map of the past, even as he tries desperately to move forward. Kirstie’s words—you could have given up, but you haven’t—sing in his ears.
* * *
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“Oi! Benji!”
Confused and turned around, Bennett searches the Academy foyer. Where is the fucker? Finally, he locates Carl Willis at the top of the staircase, arms wide open, a giant two-liter bottle of Volvic Touch of Fruit water in one hand.
“Let’s see this beaut’ee,” Carl says, descending the staircase and crinkling the plastic bottle like it’s a stress ball. There’s an artistic rendering of a snarling dog on his tight black T-shirt.
“That Rosie?” Bennett asks, indicating to the dog on the shirt.
“No, Givenchy,” he explains without a hint of irony. He extends his free hand to Bennett. “Alright, mate?”
Bennett reciprocates for what starts out as a warm professional handshake, but quickly devolves into an embrace. As Carl pulls him in, Bennett nearly drops the painting. “Yeah, good,” Bennett grunts.
“Come on, then. Let me get a look.” Carl takes hold of the painting, regarding it. “You’re shagging her, I hope?”
Bennett looks down at his toes, runs his free hand through his hair. “No comment.”
“Nice one, geez. She gonna be with you at the opening?” Carl looks Claire up and down, not letting the Bubble Wrap spoil his view.
“Yeah, maybe. I don’t even know if you guys are going to hang it.”
“Of course we’re going to bloody hang it, mate. You’re Bennett Driscoll.”
Bennett suppresses a smile. He doesn’t want to give Carl the satisfaction of knowing how happy he’s just made him.
“Get your bird a shiny new frock. We’ll toast Bennett Driscoll’s return to fame.” He uses his water bottle as a prop, pretending to pop its top like a champagne cork.
Though he should be thrilled by Carl’s enthusiasm, he’s overcome by a sense of dread and guilt. No champagne for Claire. If she comes at all. He changes the subject. “Where should I take this?”
“I got it, mate.” The pervert seems all too happy to hang on to it. “I’ll text ya a pickie as soon as it’s up on the wall.”
“Thanks. That’d be great,” Bennett says.
When he moves toward the exit, Carl draws him in for another embrace, then slaps him hard on the back several times. “Proud of you, Benji!”
“Thanks,” Bennett says, finding himself welling up again. “I should—”
“Yep, yep,” Carl says. “I gotta get back to judging all the other shit-munchers.” He laughs. “I kid ya.”
No, you don’t.
* * *
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You working tonight? He texts Claire from a bench in Trafalgar Square. He’s not sure why he’s there. He just started wandering when he left the Royal Academy. Teenagers bounce around in the stone fountains with their pant legs rolled up, splashing each other and screaming, announcing to the world that summer will soon be here.
Yes. Claire writes back. She’s a woman of few words these days, especially considering it used to be impossible to shut her up.
Mia asked me to meet her for a drink at the Claret tonight. I’m not sure what I should tell her, he types.
That’s strange, you’re usually so decisive, Claire texts back.
Walked into that one.
What do you want me to do, Claire?
The three dots come up indicating she was responding, then they disappear. This happens a couple more times, before a short message finally pops up, Have you told her?
This is ridiculous. He decides to call her just as a young mother and her little girl, sharing an ice cream, sit down on the bench next to him. Both have tight blond ringlets, and he wonders, for the first time, what the baby will look like. Will it have ginger hair like Claire’s? His grey-blue eyes? Mia’s infectious smile?
“Hi,” he says, when Claire answers. “I haven’t told her. I think we should talk more first. But you two really should meet,” he says, with as much authority as he can muster. He’s surprised to find himself coming to this conclusion, but he wants Mia to meet Claire like he did, in her element. He wants her to meet the Claire from the sketch.
“Alright,” she responds. No argument.
“That’s what I want. I want you to meet Mia.”
“Okay.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
“Yes. A week ago.”
“So when we had that big fight, did you know?”
“Just found out, that’s why I wanted you to come in.” Her voice is getting thinner and thinner. “So I could tell you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me it was important?”
“Jesus, Bennett,” her voice cracks, her anger returning. “I shouldn’t have to tell you it’s important.”
“Sorry,” he says, his tone suggesting more aggravation than remorse.
“You were on a date with another woman. I’m clearly not important to you at all.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
The young mother glares at him. Claire’s voice is now loud enough for her to hear.
“Bollocks, it wasn’t.”
“Of course you’re important to me, Claire.”
“You have to say that now.”
Yes, I do.
“It’s true.” He glances over at the little girl, her blissful face planted on the top of the ice cream cone, her mother giggling at the mess. “You’ve had a scan?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“The baby is healthy?”
The young mother stops giggling and stares at him again.
“Yes. Strong heartbeat, the doctor says.”
Fuck me. That hits him like a ton of bricks. “Yeah?”
The mum takes a napkin from her purse and wipes chocolate off the little girl’s face. Only when her previous look of disdain morphs into concern does he realize there are tears streaming down his face. Here we go again. He quickly wipes them away.
“Did they give you a photo
?”
“Yes. You want to see it? I can text it to you.”
“Really?” Things have changed a lot in the last twenty years.
He puts his head in his free hand, holding the phone away from him so Claire won’t hear him sniffling. The mother picks up her little girl and leaves him to weep alone.
His phone vibrates and there on the screen is a photo of the sonogram. His child, a barely visible ball of mucus.
Putting the phone back to his ear, he says, “Wow.” That’s all he can manage.
“I can’t get it out of my head that it looks like a turtle without a shell,” she says, worried.
He laughs. “That’s ’cause my uncle was a turtle. I didn’t tell you that?”