‘It’s Dillon MacGuire. The man who ran his car into yours.’
‘Oh yes. Hello, Dillon.’
‘I’ve just been to your gallery.’
‘Gallery. Very good.’
‘To see your exhibition. It was great. Really great.’ Beginning to feel stupid, Dillon switched back to the facts. ‘The owner says you are going to New York soon?’
‘What? Oh-New York?’ Damn, she wasn’t ready for this. Georgie sprang away from the wall and began to walk round in an agitated circle. An unusual chill down her side led her to discover a hole in her sweater. A large hole. ‘New York,’ she repeated, hoping for a sign.
‘So good they named it twice. Yes.’
‘What?’ She hit a few buttons to fake the sounds of connection breaking up. The line held clear and unbroken. The hole in her sweater, she saw with dismay, was growing with every movement of her arm.
‘Sorry, you don’t understand. Listen, we can’t talk like this. Could we meet sometime? Sometime soon? Before you go? I need to ask you something.’
‘Ah …’ Georgie pressed the cancel button. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. Dillon’s voice was still talking. Her sweater was running into ladders like a silk stocking.
‘Coffee, if you like. There’s a coffee shop near my office, we could meet there any time you liked, really. I could just slip out for ten minutes. That’s all it would take, just ten minutes.’
‘OK.’ It seemed easiest to give in. Besides, Georgie felt ready to annoy Flora. Just a little. A sweater’s worth, in fact. ‘Tomorrow. Twelve o’clock. What is this place for coffee?’
He told her and rang off. Georgie pulled her jacket around her ruined knitwear and strolled back into the bar.
‘Cat’s got the cream,’ Des announced, looking at her face. ‘All I said was yes, hello, nice to meet you, maybe it’s going to rain. In Russian. I don’t know any Phlegm or Wally or Sprout or whatever language they speak in Belgium. So, was Felix OK?’
Georgie was considering a white lie when Flora said, ‘It wasn’t Felix, it was Dillon, wasn’t it? I know it was, I heard his voice.’
‘Good going, Georgie. That’s a great result.’ Donna said this in precisely the same tone as she used to congratulate people for meeting their sales targets.
‘So, you sexbeast – what did he want? As if we don’t know, eh?’ Des tickled Georgie under her chin. ‘He wanted to see you, didn’t he? So when’s it to be?’
‘You were chilling,’ Flora accused her.
‘Didn’t he wonder why someone was yelling at him in Russian?’
‘I think he expected something like that. He thinks I’m that Albanian sculptor.’
‘He what?’ Donna demanded dramatically. ‘Georgie, what have you done?’
‘I don’t know. It just happened that way. I was shaken up, I needed a name and that invitation was still in my bag.’ The three of them were looking at her in bewilderment. Georgie realised she had made no sense. It would have been nice at that moment to be Merita Halili and be released from the obligation to make sense.
‘I never saw you doing something daft like that.’ Des sounded as if he thought she had acted out of character to annoy him.
‘Why not? We agreed we’d use fake IDs. Flora’s being a witch from the pharmaceutical industry. I can be a sculptor. When the bet’s over, we’ll all four of us have dinner together and have a good laugh about it.’
‘If he can actually laugh. Your Felix,’ said Flora drily. She had recoiled into a defensive tangle of limbs. Her face was pinched with anxiety.
‘Of course he can laugh.’
‘So, when are you seeing him?’ Donna sensed them straying.
‘Tomorrow. Just for coffee.’ The ruin of Georgie’s sweater was rankling. I will not fall out with Flora over a sweater, she lectured herself, editing the self-satisfaction out of her body language. A sweater or anything else. This is a game, it is not a competition. Flora is hurt. I will not let it look as if I must be a more desirable female because her man is making moves on me. I will make this right. I must make this right.
Georgie sat with her friends, trying to think of something she could do to heal the wound she had inflicted on Flora’s feminine pride. Feminine pride, she felt, was easily hurt but not at all easily repaired. No useful ideas came. Most of her mind wanted to wallow in anticipation of the moment when she would leave her desk, head for the ladies’ room with her black eyeliner and a can of hairspray and transform herself into Merita Halili.
In her handbag, her telephone rang again. She rapidly answered it, fearful of another prank from Des.
‘Sweetheart, is that you?’ It was Felix.
‘I’ll call you back. I’ll go outside,’ she shouted into the phone, hoping to drown any identifiable London background noise. On the pavement outside the bar once more, she told him, ‘We’re out in some bar. It was really full.’
‘How can you network when there’s so much noise?’ Felix sounded tired and peevish.
‘I’m not exactly networking,’ she told him. ‘We’re just having a drink. It’s been a long day. Seminars and stuff.’
‘I tried you earlier, you were on recall.’
‘We were calling a taxi,’ she improvised. ‘Did you leave a message?’
‘No, I did not leave a message. I didn’t want to leave a message. I wanted to speak to you.’
‘I’m sorry. I was thinking you wouldn’t be calling until later.’
‘You’re an hour ahead, don’t forget.’
He talked on for a couple of minutes, until it became clear that there was nothing much to say. To fill the sudden silence, Georgie invented some facts about emerging markets.
‘Well, sweetheart,’ he said suddenly. ‘Take care. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
‘You take c—’ Georgie realised that he had cut the connection. But Felix was not a phone man, he did not chat even when the line was good.
‘It was this one. “River Number Four.” The blue glass mobile. The one at the front of the gallery, by the window on the left.’ Was he making an idiot of himself? Had he got it wrong? Was she going to be tempestuously insulted because in his philistine stupidity he had been unable to identify the marvellous sculpture which he claimed he wanted to commission? No, he was right, there was a picture. To hide his nerves, Dillon put the gallery catalogue on the counter and took a swig of his large skinny latte.
“River Number Four.” I know it. It is blue.’ Thank God, there was a picture of the thing. Shit and thrice shit and I say again, shit. Georgie blew on her double espresso and set her mind to finding a way out of the elephant trap she had apparently dug with her own hands. ‘You like it?’
‘Very much. It’s … ah … it makes me think of … well, I think my fiancée will like it.’ Had he said that? Had he really said that? Banal, or what? He had shown himself a cretin and unfit to own art. Let alone an exquisite work like ‘River Number Four.’ She was going to refuse. Her eyes were definitely dark, she was smouldering. Very expressive, those eyes. Real windows to the soul. And what a soul.
‘You want to make a present to your fiancée?’ You are not disappointed, Georgie informed herself immediately. You are pleased for Flora. You are pleased for yourself, because you didn’t want to seduce him and you obviously haven’t so that’s absolutely fine. You are pleased for yourself and for Flora, because this was getting out of control. What a nice man. ‘You are a nice man,’ she told him.
‘No,’ he said, meaning that she should not start with personal stuff.
‘Yes!’ she insisted, because it was fun to make him blush.
‘Look, um …’
‘I am sorry again. I embarrass you. We start again. You like my art.’
‘Yes, and I like this one, “River Number Four”.’
‘And you want to give it to your fiancée.’
‘Yes. As my present to her when she gets married.’
‘That is very sweet.’
‘Ah …’ Maybe,
being an artist, she was above all the dreary stuff about sales and money. Her head was probably full of wonderful creative impulses. ‘But you’ve sold this one. The one in the exhibition.’
‘I have sold it?’ Yes, she was looking quite amazed.
‘So the man who owns the gallery said. But he said you might accept a commission?’
‘Commission?’
‘Commission to make another one. For me.’
Georgie immediately saw her escape. ‘Please,’ she asked him, laying on a flourish of hot-blooded supplication. ‘You ask gallery. Better for me. Gallery handles commissions. It is my contract.’
‘Oh,’ he said, feeling disproportionately disappointed. ‘You want me to go back to the gallery.’
‘Please.’ She nodded encouragement at him.
‘But their commission …’ How to open this subject without looking mean? Mean in the question of a wedding gift to his bride. Tricky.
‘Don’t worry. I make you a special price. Special for wedding.’
‘Would you? That’s so kind …’
‘I like to be kind,’ said Georgie. ‘I like to make people happy.’ Was that over the top? No, he seemed to buy it without any trouble. How pleasant to be Merita Halili, Albanian sculptor, and say exactly what she felt. And as soon as she got back to her office, she would call Smiley-and-Beefy and sort out the price thing. The least she could do for Flora, after all.
‘Thank you,’ said Dillon.
They sat and smiled at each other over the empty coffee cups, allowing an angel to pass. Then another. It seemed necessary to find a reason to leave. Eventually, Georgie said, ‘I have to go.’
Dillon watched her walk to the door. The way she moved really was very beautiful.
12. April 27
Twenty-two floors above the struggling street, a deep peace existed in Donna’s living space. The triple window glass muted the distant drone of a jet, the thick city air muffled the noise of human activity. Flora could hear the hands ticking round on the clock in the kitchen area. The tiny sounds fell into the stillness like drops of water, ricocheted between the steel work-tops and the shiny walls, and disappeared before they hit the dark wood floor. Gently, she shut the door. Quietness was such a luxury.
Flora enjoyed all luxuries, especially those that belonged to Donna. Being in this great apartment was the best thing about this silly Heartswap business. Being in the place by herself was a pure pleasure. It was also a pleasure which she was not going to be able to enjoy much longer. This Flora had decided.
Seventeen-A did not have the luxury of quietness. Nothing protected her little leaning house from the night-and-day snarl of London – the shapeless sound of people, vehicles, machinery, movement, striving, business and hate. Above that grey noise you could hear the traffic on the road and the planes on the flightpath over the river, and the neighbours on one side who screamed at each other and the neighbours on the other side who played Turkish flutes.
The house talked to itself. It was old, its beams cracked and its fabric rustled. When Flora was there alone with her work she thought sometimes that ghostly footsteps came up the stairs, weighting each tread in turn. Flora did not like to share ownership of anything; the spirits of long-dead occupants of 17A nagged at her. It was an annoyance to know that other people had lived between her walls. When she felt particularly harassed, she went about the rooms ringing bells and throwing flower petals into the corners to chivvy away their invading presences.
The beauty of Donna’s apartment was that there was no trace of life in it. The walls were perfect, no pin had ever pierced them and no pictures spoiled their emptiness. The chairs were not crushed by the people who sat in them, the hard surfaces were never marked. There was never any impedimenta of eating or drinking in the kitchen. There was no colour and no scent except the faint animal smell of the sofa. Donna collected stuff and her objects stood self-consciously on shelves, contemporary art glass and monochromatic Chinese pottery. Apart from Flora and the sofa, the only organic things were the lilies in a black ceramic vase, and they were dying with elegance. The silence was so deep that when pollen fell from their stamens Flora heard it sprinkling the glass table top. She put her shopping beside the fallen grains, a plastic bag from a charity shop, a grimy, discordant thing evocative of scarcity.
Walking slowly across the room, she swung her arms, imagining the air stirring like water in a pool, ripples spreading to the walls and returning to her. Flora became aware that she was not satisfied. She wanted. What she wanted was not clear. It would become clear. It always did. She let herself fall face-first into the sofa.
Heartswap was finished. She had decided that as soon as she heard Dillon’s voice from Georgie’s phone. What had she been thinking? Gambling on a man’s fidelity made as much sense as taking bets on the weather. Men were always ready for sex like it always rained in London. Game over. No rematch. The others could bitch all they liked, she was reclaiming the boy immediately.
To that end, Flora rolled off on to the floor and lunged for the telephone. Dillon’s phone was on recall. Presumably because he was still at work. ‘You’d better be still at work,’ she told the electronic emptiness. ‘This conference is crap. I’m coming home. Call me when you get in.’
The bliss of being alone! She lay on her back on the rug and put her feet on the stool, a clever little stool which matched Donna’s sculptural chair, the two fabulous blobs of upholstery being placed just perfectly in front of the fourteenth-century carving of a Buddhist monk with his begging bowl, their greyish horizontalness enhancing the carving’s pinkish verticality. Was it possible to be too relaxed to meditate?
Flora was not angry with Dillon. His lapse was natural. In fact, it made him more of a man. There were times when Flora could wish Dillon had more manliness in him. He was consistently eager, always bloody bright-eyed; there were no challenges in him. Look at the way he had asked her to marry him. Flora always said, ‘Let’s get married, darling,’ when she got out of a new bed. It smoothed over the weirdness of being naked with a stranger.
Most men knew to laugh. In fact, all the men she’d said that to had laughed away the M-word immediately. Dillon had said, ‘Wow,’ in a rather idiotic way, then gone for a massive snog. When she came up for air she found she was supposed to be a fiancée. Everyone was cool with that. Dillon was storming ahead, buying them a place to live. Flora felt the thing was out of control.
She was happy thinking about herself. She discovered that she felt good in Donna’s place. Being alone here had a quality that being alone in her own house lacked. It was almost a meditation in itself, just being here with Donna’s things. If Dillon were with her, he would be all over her like a rash, wanting reactions, expecting her to know what she wanted to do. Flora had little difficulty knowing what she wanted to do, but it was a bore to be asked, even by the implication of being with someone else. Most of the time, she wanted to do nothing.
From somewhere, Flora had acquired the idea that Dillon was the kind of man she ought to marry. Their marriage would be like some American comedy series from the fifties; she would be tripping around her big dope of a husband being sassy and getting applause. His dopiness would be the kind that all men had. He would never understand what she talked to her girlfriends about or why it was necessary to redecorate the bedroom. Her role was to use her superior understanding to manoeuvre the dumb beast into doing what she wanted without him realising what was happening. The only problem was that Flora found it irritating to be communicating all the time with someone who really might as well be a Martian. She did not want to be irritated. She wanted calm. That was why she liked being alone in Donna’s home.
Satisfied that she had worked out what she needed, Flora got up and reclaimed her shopping. She drifted into her bedroom to put Plan B into operation.
An hour later Georgie dragged out her keys and unlocked the apartment door. Tonight, she felt exceptionally tired. Guilt, of course. Guilt about Felix. Guilt about Flora. Georgie kn
ew she was hopelessly honest, which was why deception made her guilty and guilt ate away at her strength like some moral tuberculosis. That was why she loved Felix. And Flora. They believed in honesty just as she did. So no wonder the Heartswap thing hadn’t worked.
When she thought about that madness, Georgie shuddered. Well, that was all over now. Without great enthusiasm, she opened the door.
The flat was exquisite but it made her feel sad. Sharing Donna’s life was depressing. Nothing about her had changed in the time Georgie had been away. Flora had been a winsome, scatty girl but was now a poised and focused woman; Georgie had left London as an angry victim and come back healed. They were both moving on, moving up, getting married. Nothing had changed for Donna; the same meetings in the corner office, the same evenings in the same bars, the same laughter and the same jokes. Georgie found that this bothered her. She saw Donna’s life unchanging until she was sixty. Or seventy. Or until she gave up work. But Donna loves her work, Georgie argued with herself. It’s her whole life. And being single is a valid choice. She‘s perfectly happy. You want more, but she doesn’t. Live and let live. Even if you wouldn’t really call it living.
The silence was creepy. Georgie went straight to the stereo and put on some music. Goodness, she hadn’t played music for herself for months. Choice! So exciting. Donna had no Chopin. She seemed to have mostly compilations, racked alphabetically: Abba, The Beatles, Boyzone, The Best Disco Album in the World Ever. Felix would have had to go and lie down if he’d been asked to choose from such a selection.
‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people being judgemental.’ Georgie said it aloud to herself and giggled. Felix couldn’t understand why she found things like that funny. Felix did not like paradoxes at all. He always tried to argue them away. Georgie giggled again. The prospect of music was lifting her mood. She found a Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux compilation and wondered if she could make do with that. Why not? There was no one else to hear.
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