Bird Inside

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘So how do you like my bird?’ he asked, turning now to her.

  She tried to find an answer, keep her mind on art, rather than adultery, but the subject of that art was almost equally disturbing. She could see the bird again, feel its pain, its panic – maybe even its resentment. She was relieved when her first fumbling words were swamped in a loud chorus of congratulations, greetings. A new group of boozy friends had come to claim the artist, tangle him in flattery and faddle. She let their talk wash over her, still tuned in to her inner thoughts, still fretting over Anne; only pricked her ears up when the subject turned to Christmas.

  ‘Yes, we’re going to Nice on the twenty-third,’ she heard the artist say. ‘Staying for two weeks. We’ve got friends out there who own this stunning villa. It’ll be quite a little house-party – at least a dozen guests and even the chance of a new commission, if I’m lucky. You see, they’ve invited a French architect, who already knows my work and …’

  Jane slunk away, unnoticed. He hadn’t mentioned Christmas, not to her; hadn’t said a single word about villas in the sun, house-parties, commissions. And she loathed that casual ‘we’ – him and bridal Anne, not him and wilting Rose. Rose had been rationed to one brief weekend in the winter wilds of Lincolnshire, while Anne was rewarded with a whole fortnight on the Côte d’ Azur.

  She glanced up at an oblong of strange geometric glass, mainly horizontal lines, and mainly dreary greys. She’d better concentrate on that, distract herself by looking round the exhibition, which was what she’d come for anyway. The artist was a German, judging by his name. Christopher had told her that the Germans were important in the modern revival of stained glass – not to mention pushy and aggressive – but she had never seen their work before, found this particular sample extremely hard to like. She moved on to another work: a large rectangular panel, with a repeated pattern of squiggles set in squares, which reminded her of wallpaper. She wished Christopher was with her, to help her sift the cream from the crap; to explain why some exhibits looked so different from his own – the glass unpainted, the leadlines sharp, insistent, the whole impression one of stark high-tech rigidity.

  ‘There’s a real sense of dialogue,’ said a well-stacked blonde beside her, a sultry-looking girl in skin-tight leather trousers and a frilly low-necked blouse. ‘I mean, it may be abstract in its form, but there’s still a narrative in progress, an argument between active/passive, translucent and transparent.’

  The girl was talking to her friend, both of them with drawly Sloane Street accents, both only in their twenties, yet clearly well-informed, able to discriminate, make deep, incisive comments, see things in the glass which were invisible to her. Anne had mentioned the ladies’ room. Perhaps she’d hide in there, escape these sophisticated highbrows, all superior to her. This would never be her world, and she was stupid to have come at all, or craved an invitation. Had she imagined that the artist would be free to pay her court, show her off to people as his mistress? She turned to look at him. He was posing by his panel for a photograph; a reporter with a notebook hovering just behind, waiting for her turn. He’d be busy all the evening, galvanising journalists, charming wealthy sponsors, wooing architects. She hadn’t even seen his panel, beyond that first quick glance, had hoped to study it in detail, so she could discuss it with him later, learn from his own skills. She was still helping him cut the glass for the Resurrection window, had improved by leaps and bounds after two weeks’ solid practice, but was still basically a novice. Yet how could she go back there to examine ‘Bird Inside’, when the press had joined his fans, and he was surrounded by a circle of gawpers, hangers-on?

  She mooched on to the door, weaving through the crowds, caught a glimpse of Adrian, standing by a glass-screen whose lowering blues and purples made his mouse-grey suit look timid and washed-out. She dashed towards him, pleased. He seemed almost an old friend in this room of arty strangers. He returned her eager greeting, then gestured to the tall man at his side. ‘You’ve met Aubrey, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, trying to make it gracious. She had hoped to have Adrian to herself. ‘You’re the international equities portfolio manager.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Aubrey grinned. ‘What a memory. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to get to know you, but we’re just off now to a very boring dinner.’

  ‘Poor you,’ she said with envy, then watched the two men disappear; Adrian’s limp and sandy hair contrasting with his companion’s tight black curls. Could the two be lovers, she wondered with a sudden sense of shock; Aubrey’s ‘we’, like Christopher’s, denoting union? Gays were on her mind. Christopher had told her that Jonathan was gay – the owner of the Swan – and the news had somehow troubled her. She mustn’t be censorious like Amy, who damned all ‘queers’ as perverted and promiscuous, but it still wasn’t all that easy to be as casual as the artist was, especially when the gay in question was Adrian, not Jon. It seemed to cut him off from her, make him someone alien.

  The string quartet was tuning up, a scratchy strident sound, which matched the discord in her head. She was glad to see a steward approaching with a tray of drinks, must try to change her mood.

  ‘Champagne for you, Madame?’

  She helped herself, eyes lingering on the steward’s face. He looked a little like her father – solemn and sad-eyed, with neat grey hair, cut short. She’d love to see her father there, so she could join him, take his arm, prove that she belonged to someone, wasn’t just a gatecrasher.

  ‘Rose! At last!’ a male voice cried. ‘You’ve been avoiding me all evening.’

  Jane swung round, saw a dishevelled grinning Hadley, holding out a loaded tray of canapés. ‘Here, help yourself. I’m doing waitress duty.’

  ‘How did you get those?’

  ‘I told the waitress I’d spent the last six gruelling months as a hostage in a prison in Beirut, eating only bread and water. The poor soul cried her heart out. She’s gone to get reserves. Please do dig in. I’m feeling rather sick myself.’ He rubbed his nose, transferred a blob of mayonnaise from his top lip to his sleeve.

  Jane took a small prawn bouchée. She had eaten nothing yet. The food had seemed taboo, snobby itsy-bitsy food for wives and artists, architects and sponsors, not for mere plain Janes. She reached out for a delicate concoction of asparagus and salmon, gulped it swiftly down; realised she was starving, had eaten very little over the whole weekend with Christopher, and still felt famished, hollow. She crammed in a large vol-au-vent, and then two lobster tartlets, continued eating avidly, as if in compensation for the artist’s constant dieting, and also his excluding her from Le Gourmandin. He was going on to dinner there with Anne and Stanton Martin, and a few important others in that cliquish inner circle – the most original new brasserie in London, or so the critics claimed. She wouldn’t know, hadn’t been invited. Her dinner would be cheese on toast at Isobel’s, if they ever made it back, or a Marmite sandwich in the cold and empty studio. She stuffed in two more tartlets, washed them down with pink champagne.

  ‘Ah! I recognise you now,’ said Hadley. ‘You were the hostage in the next-door cell, whose rations were even more prison-fare than mine – the odd dry crust and a slurp of dirty rainwater.’

  She giggled, allowed a passing steward to refill her empty glass. She had forgotten how relaxed she felt with Hadley; liked the fact he’d sought her out.

  ‘I hate these do’s, don’t you, Rose?’

  ‘I haven’t been to many.’ Any, she corrected in her head.

  ‘They’re all very much alike. Well, this is more pretentious. You often get just cheapo wine and a few odd nuts and crisps, rather than champagne and lobster whatsits, but it’s still the same old arty-farty crowd. And you know my views on splurging all this cash on prestige buildings, when a lot of people still haven’t got a decent inside loo. I mean, think what this lot cost!’ He gestured to the silver tray, speared half a dozen scampi morsels on one overloaded cocktail-stick and transferred all six to his mouth.

&nb
sp; ‘I thought you said you were feeling sick.’

  ‘Yes, sick with indignation.’

  Jane’s laugh froze. She had seen the artist’s crest of hair, the scarlet of his shirt, bearing down towards them, making for their corner. She felt irrationally guilty to be caught alone with Hadley, especially a Hadley who had no right to be there, and was dressed most inappropriately in a casual sweatshirt with ‘Brixton University’ blazoned on the chest. He was still holding out the food-tray, still grinning to himself, his hair tousled and exuberant, his dirty trainers scuffed.

  ‘Rose,’ the artist frowned, ignoring Hadley totally. ‘I know you said you’d like to meet Keith New. Well, he’s here, at last, after a hold-up on the South Circular.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Give me just a jiff and I’ll be with you. I’m a bit tied up at present.’ She helped herself to another canapé, as if to indicate it was Hadley she was tied to, Hadley and his sustenance. She was even using Hadley’s words. ‘Just a jiff’ was his phrase. She was astonished at her daring. Keith New was a well-known stained-glass artist, one she’d heard a lot about from Christopher, one she’d asked to meet. You didn’t put a nineteen-year-old student at a provincial university before a man who’d made the windows for Coventry Cathedral, had helped put stained glass on the post-war map, reinstate it as no longer a lost art. And Christopher was doing her a favour in remembering her request, coming to get her specially when he was busy with his friends. ‘I’ll join you in a minute,’ she said airily, draining her champagne.

  ‘Don’t,’ begged Hadley, once the artist had stalked off. ‘He’s bound to be a wally, and anyway, I’ve hardly had a chance to say a word to you myself. I only came this evening because of you.’

  She flushed. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I should be back at college. I had two important lectures today and a paper to give in. I intended driving back on Sunday evening, but Mum told me you were expected the next day, so I thought, what the hell, I’ll stick around – can’t miss a chance like that. You surely don’t imagine I’d flog up here just to see the glass, do you?’ He put the tray down, grabbed her hand. ‘Look, why don’t we cut loose, Rose, go and have a drink together? There’s this marvellous joint off Oxford Street, with really great music and …’

  ‘But what about your mother?’ Jane tried to release her hand, could feel the artist’s gimlet eyes boring into it, though she realised he’d returned to the far corner of the room.

  ‘Oh, she won’t care. She’ll probably go on somewhere herself – dinner with the Reverend, or a nightcap with some lame-duck artist she’s scooped out of the crowd, who can only paint with his big toe, or has cut off both his ears, or …’

  ‘But we’ll lose her then. I mean, how will we get home?’

  ‘We’ll fly.’

  ‘No, seriously.’

  ‘You’re always far too serious. What’s wrong with British Rail?’

  ‘But the trains don’t run that late, do they?’

  ‘It isn’t late. It won’t be. Look, if you’re that concerned about getting home, let’s escape for a mingy half an hour, and arrange to meet Mum somewhere – either right back here, or in Oxford Street, or … I’ll go and have a word with her, while you fetch your coat and stuff.’

  ‘But I haven’t said goodbye.’

  ‘You don’t need to if we’re coming back.’

  ‘But I told Christopher I’d join him, meet this famous artist …’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll both recover from the fearful disappointment. And anyway, I’m a famous physicist, and you need a change from art. See you downstairs in the foyer. And don’t go off with anyone else – I can’t trust you for a minute.’

  ‘What’s the time?’ Jane mumbled, opening her eyes and blinking against the light.

  ‘Ten past two.’

  ‘You mean two A.M.?’ She shook off the old blanket, which felt heavy, claustrophobic.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘Eleven and a quarter minutes past.’ Hadley slammed his book shut, yawned and stretched dramatically. ‘You’ve been fast asleep.’

  ‘Asleep?’ She rubbed her eyes, tried to knead away her headache. Her mouth felt dry and dirty.

  ‘Yes. You crashed out on that sofa, while everyone else was dancing. You looked so sweet and peaceful, we didn’t have the heart to move you. Though it beats me how you snoozed through all that racket.’

  Jane struggled to sit up, glanced around the room, a rather squalid room, with a stained and fraying carpet and too much ugly furniture jostling for more space. Empty glasses were littering the floor, almost-empty bottles dribbling on their sides, cigarettes stubbed out in hardened pizza crusts. Only one small lamp was on, but an intrusive light with a garish orange shade. ‘I’m sorry, Hadley, honestly. I just don’t know what happened. I suppose I …’

  ‘Why be sorry? It gave me a chance to re-read Lady Chatterley.’ He gestured to his book. ‘I read it first when I was nine, couldn’t really see what all the fuss was about. It’s better this time round.’ She tugged her skirt down, feeling suddenly exposed, though relieved she was still decent, and someone hadn’t tried to make her nap more comfortable by unzipping her red dress. Hadley had removed his shoes, but nothing else, thank God; seemed remarkably sane and sober, sitting upright in a chair with a pile of books beside him, rather than sprawled sozzled on the floor. ‘Where are all the others?’

  ‘Sue’s retired to bed, and the rest pushed off about half an hour ago.’

  ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

  ‘Why should I? We’d missed the train anyway, and Sue said we could stay the night if we didn’t mind the sofa. How was it? Comfortable?’

  She didn’t answer, needed all her concentration to backtrack to the time they’d left the show, so she could catch up on their movements, remember where and why she’d faded out. They had gone first to Smoky Joe’s, where Hadley met a friend called Jazz, and they’d ordered Blue Lagoons, then on to Frederico’s, which Jazz claimed was ‘far out’ and where they’d drunk some bitter whitish stuff which looked innocent enough; then reeled back to the private view to tell Isobel they’d be later than they’d said and would catch the last train back. After that, Jazz had rustled up more pals, and they had driven to his girlfriend’s flat, and she’d forgotten all about last trains, or artists’ wives, or how the hell she’d report for work at the studio next morning; had simply let her hair down, enjoyed herself for once.

  She grinned as she recalled it. ‘You’re a fantastic dancer, Hadley.’

  ‘Well, not quite the slow foxtrot.’

  ‘I can’t do that myself.’

  ‘Shall we try it now?’ He leapt up to his feet, started hunting through the records, already rasping his own raucous tune, more hip-hop than slow foxtrot.

  ‘Ssh. We’ll wake Sue. And I’m far too fagged to dance.’ She collapsed back on the sofa, feet curled underneath her.

  ‘Nothing will wake Sue. Judging by the amount she drank, she’ll sleep till the last trump. Hey, d’ you want another drink yourself? There’s still an inch of vodka left.’

  She grimaced. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘You’re not much fun, Rose, are you? – no drink, no dance, no music. How about a kiss?’ He lunged towards her, before she could escape, pressed his lips to hers. She hardly struggled, didn’t have the energy for arguments, refusals. And, anyway, the kiss felt very innocent, a brother’s kiss, light and brief and teasing. The artist’s mouth was so much fiercer, Hadley’s kiss hardly seemed to count, didn’t involve her tongue or teeth, didn’t shock through her whole body, or turn it inside out.

  She edged up on the sofa, to make more room for him. He pressed closer, squeezed her hand. ‘You’re sweet, Rose.’

  ‘I’m not.’ She tugged her hand back. She was feeling anything but sweet, had glimpsed the artist in her head, kissing Anne – not her – his teeth grazing down those generous swelling breasts.

  ‘You’ve creased your dress.�
� Hadley’s hand now lingered on the fabric, seemed especially taken with the fastening at the back.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s only cheap.’

  ‘I like it.’

  He was already heaving down the zip. She didn’t try to stop him. If she could no longer sleep with Christopher, had lost him to his wife, then why not formalise the fact, deliberately renounce him in some cold-blooded casual act, prove she didn’t care a toss, show him there were other men who wanted her – younger men, good dancers, men who liked their food? Hadley’s lips were fumbling hers again. The kiss was chilli-flavoured. They had shared a plate at Frederico’s and then pigged themselves on a gigantic banana split. He had paid for everything. Okay, she’d pay him back. He had somehow got her dress off. She hadn’t helped, or hindered, just let him pull and scrabble; his eyes gulping down her body as if it were another ice-cream sundae. Now he was peeling off his sweatshirt and the grubby off-white vest-thing underneath it. She felt angry with his chest – its hairlessness, its paleness – angry with his stomach, which wasn’t taut or flat enough, didn’t have that grizzled pelt she expected on all men now. How could Hadley, at nineteen, have flab around his belly, and why did he wear vests?

  The vest was on the floor, and he was stripped to his grey cords; seemed embarrassed and self-conscious as he groped in his back pocket. ‘I suppose we’d better use one of these.’

  She shut her eyes, didn’t want to see, loathed the thought of condoms, which were connected in her mind with AIDS and silly jokes. Did Hadley always carry them, or had he bought them for this evening, planned the whole routine? That ‘spontaneous’ suggestion of a drink looked rather suspect now; that ‘chance’ meeting with a mate of his whose girlfriend owned a flat. Who cared, anyway? At least he was considerate, wouldn’t land her with a baby.