The Red Men

by Patrick McGinley

  ‘It’s very relaxing. Do you know why Mother’s got it in her bedroom?’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Neither can I. Now tell me what comes to mind as you watch me.’

  She gave a push with one foot so that she rose a little higher, but still her dress did not lift.

  ‘When I look at you, I think of opening the window.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To create a gentle breeze that would lift your curls as you swing.’

  ‘That’s the wrong answer. You were meant to say “The Swing” by Fragonard. Very erotic. Cookie, you’ve let me down!’

  They returned the swing to its place against the wall, after which she hooked through his arm again and took him to the third upstairs room. It was smaller than Mrs Bugler’s and more striking too. As soon as he entered, he felt bombarded by a score of rival blues that leapt from every wall, from the spaces between a dozen drawings and posters. On the single bed was a coverlet with bright red and green stripes, and above it a single shelf of French and Italian paperbacks. He felt slightly dizzy. In his chest was a sensation of fullness, as if his heart and lungs had swollen. The window hung open, the air was light with perfumes of tantalising subtlety.

  ‘Of the three rooms, which do you prefer?’

  ‘This one.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like single beds.’

  ‘It’s small and cosy and beautifully untidy, and you can see the hotel from the window. From the other two you can only see the island or the hill.’

  ‘If you had a pair of binoculars, you might be able to spot Pauline.’

  ‘No, I think she’s probably working in the back office.’

  He turned from the window. She was lying on the bed, one leg fully stretched and the other raised with layer upon layer of flimsy slip showing.

  ‘Are you in love with her?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Pauline, silly.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s hard to believe. You live under the same roof, you must see each other a score of times a day.’

  ‘Perhaps seeing is deceiving.’

  ‘I think about her a lot. She’s the only person I know who is good-looking in a way that makes me envious.’

  Feeling foolish and exposed, he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She was smiling up at him, her curls a piece of delicate filigree on the white pillow. He bent down and kissed her, and with the first taste of her lips he felt that he’d been kissing her passionately for at least half an hour. She pulled his shirt out of his trousers and began caressing the small of his back with her fingers. He was kissing her slowly, almost secretly. He could hardly believe what was happening to him, or the speed with which it was happening. It was as if he’d never kissed a girl before, as if all the other girls he’d kissed had been nothing but imposters in women’s clothing. Her body was so short and light and her face so small and round that she seemed to have been reduced from twice the size, making every inch of her twice as precious. He felt enveloped and enfolded. He had lost all sense of himself as separate and distinct from her.

  Suddenly she pulled away.

  ‘You’re not very original, Cookie, are you? What would you say if I drove my hand up the leg-hole of your trousers?’

  She laughed impishly and tweaked his nose. He tried to kiss her again, his body drugged, his movements uncoordinated.

  ‘No, don’t, Cookie. The stars aren’t favourable today.’

  She got up off the bed. Ignoring the heavy hopelessness in his legs and arms, he tried to catch her from behind.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re so excitable, and all I wanted was a cuddle.’

  He gazed out of the window, while she went to the bathroom. The hotel was perched on top of the rise, gaunt, gabled and exposed. There were no other houses near. It stood alone between moorland and fenced fields, the very picture of uncompromising solidity. Yet the lives within wilted under a pervasive sense of dissociation. All were passing guests except Gulban; only he was not a lodger. He was confined to bed, and the bed belonged to him. He was, and always had been, one of life’s owner-occupiers.

  Fort Knox was built on the level. The ground around was firm, yet the footing was still uncertain and there was no reliable purchase. Alicia was erotically elusive. Her preoccupation with ‘The Swing’ said it all. She flushed the toilet with a high, hissing noise that turned into an aggressive rumble at the end.

  She came up behind him and put an arm round his waist.

  ‘Why did my father build that wall?’ she asked. ‘He was an artist, he may have wanted solitude to paint.’

  ‘I like to think that it was to keep your father out.’

  ‘My father and yours were friends.’

  ‘Until they had a row about Mother. We must never fall out, Cookie. In fact, I’m sure we won’t.’

  She gave him a little hug to which he did not overtly respond.

  ‘Would you like a drink while I’m getting lunch?’

  ‘I’ll have a large whiskey with no water.’ She laughed indulgently.

  ‘There’s only wine today. It was given to Mother, it’s rather special.’

  She poured him a glass of burgundy and left him the bottle while she busied herself in the kitchen. He sat by the fire wondering why he felt such pain close to where his heart was beating in his chest.

  She brought in bread, cheese and apples, and asked him to follow her into her father’s study with the wine.

  ‘I’d like to sketch you as you eat,’ she said.

  ‘What about you? Aren’t you having lunch?’

  ‘I don’t feel like anything just yet. I hope you don’t mind eating on your own.’

  ‘I’d enjoy lunch better if we shared it.’

  ‘Then we’ll share the wine.’

  She smiled sweetly and put him sitting at the end of a bare table by the window with a shelf of books behind him. He didn’t quite know what to say, didn’t even know what he felt. She got a large pad and sat down with pencils and crayons at the other end of the table. The food looked attractive. He broke a piece of the bread and took a sip from his glass, carefully and shyly, as if he were lunching in public with ecclesiastical dignitaries.

  ‘I’m going to make one or two sketches of you today. Later, I’ll do a painting. I’m convinced that I can do something good.’

  She went to the bookcase and took down a leather-bound copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

  ‘I’d like you to read that as you eat. Open it anywhere. It’s one of those poems that can be read with advantage by taking a series of lucky dips.’

  ‘Aren’t you overdoing it, Alicia? Or are you trying to make me poke fun at myself?’

  ‘No, this is just right. We’ll laugh at it later, it will bring us closer.’

  ‘I hate Fitzgerald. I’d much rather read Hardy or Blake.’

  ‘Don’t make excuses. Just keep eating, drinking and reading. It’s all in my head.’

  ‘I suppose this is what is called a working lunch.’

  ‘Take another sip of the wine to moisten your lips, and do let them pout a little. I want you to look like Rupert Brooke. All young poets should look like R. Brooke and all old poets should look like R. Bridges.’

  She got up and changed the parting in his hair. He continued munching, pretending to ignore the mockery. The bread was fresh but the cheese was dry. The wine, as she had promised, was rather special. Gradually, he relaxed. The tension left his chest. His heart and lungs resumed their normal proportions. He ate one of the apples and picked up the last few crumbs of cheese.

  ‘I’m quite pleased with them.’ She closed her pad. ‘May I see?’

  ‘Not yet. You’ll see the finished painting.’

  ‘I’ll come again tomorrow for another sitting, if you like.’

  ‘There’s no need. All I wanted was a few characteristic features. The rest will come from my head.’

  She poured the last of the wine and cam
e and sat on his knee.

  ‘How long is your mother away?’

  ‘Another two days. She’s up in Dublin. Up to no good. Still trying to put pressure on me to go back to university.’

  ‘She means well, I’m sure.’

  ‘She has no feeling for any of the finer things. She doesn’t want an artist about the house, but she’d love a doctor. I hate medicine. I don’t mind learning about the body but the thought of practising fills me with disgust. I’ve been trying to get her to pay for art school, just for one year. She’s rotten rich, thanks to Father, and she refuses to spend another penny on my education.’

  Listening to her voice while her thighs pressed on his knees filled him with an extraordinary surge of happiness. He touched her hair and she began nibbling at his lips. It was different now. He wasn’t too excited. He just knew that he had never experienced such quietly enduring pleasure before.

  ‘The afternoon we played croquet, did you go to bed with her?’

  He began kissing her neck inside the collar of her shirt. ‘Tell me the truth, Cookie.’

  ‘Yes, I did. It seemed at the time that there was nothing else to do.’

  ‘Did she sit facing the engine?’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Did she sit with her back to it, then?’

  ‘The engine?’

  ‘She’s got a different metaphor for every man. For Forker it’s trains. For Jack it was horse-racing. What is it for you?’

  ‘Horse-racing.’

  ‘It must run in the family.’

  ‘You say these things to tease me.’

  ‘I like to think that going to bed with her killed off whole areas of your experience, just as drinking to excess can kill sizeable areas of the brain. Am I right?’

  ‘I’m not aware of it.’

  ‘I’m trying to establish whether certain zones of your body have been desensitized.’

  She put down her hand and gripped him tightly on the knee.

  ‘You’re still alive in parts,’ she pronounced.

  ‘I’ve told you about your mother. Now tell me about Jack.’

  ‘Why Jack?’

  ‘Did he ever make love to you?’

  ‘Not love.’

  ‘Did he ever …?’

  ‘Yes, he did. I was hardly thirteen. Some people would have called it rape.’

  ‘You should have told on him.’

  ‘Told Mother? She’d have been jealous.’

  ‘Alicia, you mustn’t allow yourself to feel like that. I want you to be happy and whole. I don’t want you to feel pain ever again.’

  She began kissing him on the lips. His mind lost its sense of shape and its desire to shape. He longed to lie on his back with arms and legs outstretched and die to ensure her happiness.

  ‘Alicia.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How much money do you need for a year at art school?’

  ‘I asked my mother for five thousand pounds, expecting to get three.’

  ‘I’ll give you five thousand.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were flush. I’m very grateful but I couldn’t take it, Cookie. I might be tempted to spend it recklessly.’

  ‘I want you to have it. The thought of you spending it would give me enormous pleasure.’

  ‘Why would you want to do such a thing?’

  ‘I love you, Alicia.’

  ‘For myself, or as a substitute for Pauline?’

  ‘How can you say these things? I’d do anything for you. I’d give my life if I knew it would ensure your happiness.’

  ‘Then, you do love me. There can be no question of it now.’

  She smiled with her nose touching his. He became very excited. The idea of her spending his talent recklessly made him giddy with delight.

  ‘Will you take it? I’ll not stop asking till you do.’

  ‘What would you get in return?’

  ‘The pleasure of seeing you soar. I want you to be a great artist. I’d like you to feel the warmth of life, I want you to blossom in the sun.’

  It was true. He could give and give and give. Take nothing and still have everything. No sacrifice was too great. He had been born for one triumphant purpose.

  ‘I’ll accept on one condition. You must allow me to pay you back one day.’

  She kissed him sweetly, running her fingers up and down his neck and through his hair. Quietly and dreamily, he had a nocturnal emission though it was less than two hours since noon.

  Chapter 19

  He went out the gate, treading softly on balmy air. He looked back over his shoulder at the house. She appeared in the doorway and waved.

  ‘I’m going over to see Old Gildea now,’ she had said.

  ‘What’s he got that I haven’t?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s older. When I give him a peck on the cheek, he doesn’t get excited. He’s a first-class subject, he can sit for hours and put on any expression you ask for. He reminds me of a tree growing out of the ground or a rock that’s lodged deep in the earth. Compared with him, the rest of us are slithering on quicksilver in the moonlight.’

  ‘Let me give you a foothold,’ he smiled.

  ‘For you and me there is no foothold here. House of Heron, Fort Knox: they make me laugh. We don’t belong. What I’d like to know is whether we’d feel as remote from life in London, Paris or New York. I often wonder if Pauline feels as I do. I’d like to know.’

  At the crossroads he met Joey who was making for the slip with a heavy pullover draped over his shoulders.

  ‘You didn’t dally?’

  ‘It was a working lunch.’

  ‘Then you must need a rest, you tired old shaft-horse. I’m going out to the island for a run. Will you come?’

  ‘It’s a bit late, it’s nearly two.’

  ‘It’s still light at half-past four. I want to show you my little secret.’

  They walked down the lane to the slip. Joey readied the boat, a small, white punt with a blue gunwale and thwarts that were smooth in the centre.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit choppy?’ Cookie said.

  ‘It’s the best kind of day, it’s neither rough nor calm. When you look across the Sound before launching, you wonder if the water will hold its skin till you get back. If you have spunk, you won’t hesitate. You’ll know that it could be a life-or-death run with no prize for winning. A wild day is no fun, just plain suicide.’ Joey laughed.

  ‘It isn’t my idea of a joke,’ Cookie said.

  ‘Relax, man, you’re in safe hands. Never turn your back on an experience.’

  When they were afloat, Joey pulled the stuttering outboard into life. They nosed out through the channel between black rocks and grey rocks with slanting seams rising into serrated pinnacles. The wind caught the bow and in the same moment Joey gave challenge with open throttle. Cookie sat facing him on the centre thwart with one leg stretched and one hand gripping a thole-pin. The wind had an edge that caused him to envy Joey his pullover. He glanced at his brother’s face, a corner shop with the shutters up. He looked back at the receding rocks, now a series of dark, irregular gables.

  ‘What was it like with Alicia?’ Joey asked as soon as they reached the open Sound.

  ‘The lunch was simple: bread, cheese, wine and an apple for dessert.’

  ‘It’s the apple that interests me. Was it sweet?’

  ‘It wasn’t a crab.’

  ‘Was it rosy-cheeked?’

  ‘It was green.’

  ‘Did she make you eat the core?’

  ‘She’d cored it already. It was baked, you see.’

  As it happened, the apple wasn’t baked. He lied to conceal his sense of vulnerability.

  ‘Served with cream?’ Joey spoke without taking his eye off the island on the bow.

  ‘With cloves, sultanas and cream.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Fort Knox, the hotel, her father, Old Gildea.’

  ‘Old Gildea dotes on her. She paints him and gives him a wee kiss once in a
while to keep his circulation going. Has she ever kissed you?’

  Cookie didn’t answer straight out. He could sense Joey’s mounting excitement. A young gun-dog with his snout to the breeze.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He decided to tease him a little.

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yes, today.’

  They were half-way over. The sea was choppier now. Ugly waves curled unpredictably. A south wind was blowing across the rising and falling bows. Cookie looked over his shoulder at the approaching island. It was higher, and also darker, in spite of the sharpish sun.

  ‘Do you love her?’ Joey asked casually.

  ‘No.’

  To port, a wave rose and rolled: a grinding-wheel with sparks of spume flying. Joey gave a sudden turn to the tiller and Cookie gripped both thwart and gunwale. A splash came in under his arm, soaking his left trouser-leg. The wave rolled right in under the keel. An invisible hand lifted the boat out of the water. For a moment they lingered above the sea, then dropped without warning into a rising valley.

  ‘Look what you’re doing, you madman,’ Cookie shouted. ‘You deliberately let the wave come at us broadside, we could both have ended up in the water.’

  ‘Answer me straight,’ Joey said. ‘Do you love Alicia?’

  ‘Head out north-west with half the wind behind you, then turn and come up again with the bow cutting the waves. It’s the only way we’ll ever get across dry.’

  ‘Don’t panic. Just answer my question. Do you love Alicia?’

  Cookie considered the question as if his life depended on his answer. The fanatical look in Joey’s good eye gave no clue to the answer he sought.

  ‘I could love her if she’d let me.’

  ‘Not good enough. Too ambiguous.’

  Joey gave another turn to the tiller. The engine smothered and roared. Cookie braced himself without knowing why. Then the port side rose. They soared, sliding sideways, and rose again. They came down with a sudden slap that shook the hard thwart beneath his buttocks.

  ‘Say it firmly and resolutely. Say, “I love her.”’

  ‘I love her,’ said Cookie. ‘Now will you steer like a Christian?’

  Joey laughed with mad excitement.