by Claire Dyer
Vita hesitates, taps her paintbrush on her glasses and says slowly. ‘I know I’ll probably live to regret this but OK, I promise.’
Then there’s another pause and Honey asks, ‘Well?’ She can feel her phone buzzing in her handbag. Most likely it’s Boyd ringing to see where she is. He’s probably got back by now and is in the house turning on the rest of the lights, checking what’s on TV, getting out the takeaway menu. Her heart stings with love for him and the life they’re living together. ‘Please,’ she says again. ‘Please will you do it, paint my picture?’
And, astonishingly, Vita says, ‘Yes. OK. I’ll do it.’ And then she adds, ‘You want it to be a surprise, I expect.’
It wasn’t a question but still Honey answers it. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do. So perhaps we could work on it while he’s doing evening viewings, or is visiting his mum. What do you think?’
‘It will be tricky to find the time.’
Although Vita’s said yes, it’s obvious she’s still not making it easy.
‘I know it will and I’m really grateful.’
‘I don’t want your thanks.’
‘I’ll pay you.’
‘I don’t want your money either.’
Vita is a mystery. Right at that moment Honey doesn’t think she’ll ever understand Boyd’s wife, but says, ‘Thank you,’ again anyway.
‘I told you I don’t want your thanks.’ Vita picks up her brush again and this time she puts it behind her ear and squeezes some paint from the tube she was playing with earlier. ‘Look, I’d better get on,’ she says. ‘And so should you. Boyd will be wondering where you are.’
‘OK, shall I let you know when he’s next due out in the evening or if I plan to take time off work and if you’re free …’
‘Yes, yes,’ Vita replies, waving a tube of paint in the air.
Honey takes it that she’s been dismissed and so she leaves, closing the door quietly behind her. In the distance she can see the lights are on in the house and, as she crosses the small patio where they’d had dinner on their first night here, she can see Boyd moving about the kitchen. He’s putting something into the sink and his body fills the window. Although she can see him, he obviously can’t see her yet.
‘Hello Boyd,’ she says as she steps into the kitchen.
‘Hello love,’ he replies, kissing her on the mouth. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Chatting to Vita.’
‘Oh, that’s nice,’ he says. ‘Now, which continent shall we visit tonight?’
‘I fancy Chinese.’
‘Perfect.’
And he kisses her again.
Vita
When Colin asks me if I’m sure I’ve made the right decision in agreeing to paint Honey there’s no judgement in his voice. It’s not: ‘Are you sure …?’ or even, ‘Are you sure …?’ He is just curious and I like him very much for this.
We’re walking. Around us people in their houses are doing what people do on Sunday evenings: some are eating, others watching TV (I’ve always hated Antiques Roadshow with a passion), some may be hunched in front of their laptops checking off those last few emails from Friday. But Colin and I are walking, of all places, to a church.
He’s persuaded me to go with him to a choral thing, something by Mendelssohn apparently and I’m not sure about it, not sure at all. But, in the spirit of trying new things I’ve agreed to go.
I haven’t changed; am still wearing my red wool dress and clogs. I did re-plait my hair, clean my glasses and wash my hands. The cursed dog I’m painting at the moment will have to wait until tomorrow.
As we turn into Upper Church Lane he asks other, more direct kinds of questions. ‘Have you,’ he says, ‘agreed a timeframe for the picture? I know you’re busy with the animals. You mustn’t let this distract you. I guess she’s not paying?’
Against my better judgement, and once again, I have a craving for him to reach out and take hold of my hand. This surprises me because I rarely feel anything like this. I ball my hands into fists and let my arms swing by my side as though I’m marching and say, ‘A rough one. Yes. We have to do it when Boyd’s not there. It’s supposed to be a surprise.’
I realise I haven’t answered his first question so say, ‘You asked if I’m sure. Well I am. It’ll be all right. It’s nothing major.’
But I do wonder if I’m being totally honest with myself. What I can’t tell Colin is how my sorry heart melted when Honey stood before me, her head to one side, her eyes huge. She looked terrified and childlike and there is, I acknowledge, something about Honey which brings out feelings in me I’ve been suppressing for years. It’s stupid of me, I know. And it’s dangerous; I shouldn’t allow myself to feel this way. It is all shades of wrong.
I’d been determined not to get involved in either Boyd’s or Honey’s lives, but the mornings I spend with Boyd and the odd balance Honey displays between worldliness and victim unsettles me, even more so now Honey’s told me about her past. It’s shifted the emphasis between us and I feel as though I should actually be the strongest of the three of us; I never expected to be in this position, not in a million years.
Every time I think of what happened to her and what is happening to her now, my heart flutters and parts of me feel like they’re melting; my knees go soft, the edges of my ears burn as if calamity is just about to strike. They say this is how parents feel when they think of the dangers their kids face, when they understand how precarious their safety is, how something awful can happen in the split second you’re not looking and, after all, I know all about that, don’t I?
They say we’re hard-wired to protect those we love and that with love comes a fierce burning in our bones that means we will grab on to a toddler who’s standing too close to the edge of a pond, that however much at fault our loved one might be we will puff out our chests and stand up to anyone who threatens them, who seeks to diminish them in their own eyes; we will stare down an attacker or retaliate with strength we didn’t know we had if it will save someone we love from harm. And it’s only afterwards, when we realise the full import of what we’ve done and what we’ve risked, we are blinded by the flashing lights behind our eyes and our breath comes in short, sharp bursts as we say, ‘What if? What if I hadn’t done that, been there, intervened? What if it had all gone horribly wrong?’
But right now I’m walking with Colin and I’ve agreed to paint Honey’s portrait. This, I tell myself, has to be enough for now.
Colin’s wearing a moss green corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows. You’d think it would look naff, but it doesn’t. Colin always looks stylish and unruffled: long legs under designer jeans, a black polo shirt, his tawny skin. He looks every inch the architect he is.
Before I got to know him I’d obviously a) thought he was gay and b) assumed he worked in finance. But in both these things I’d been wrong and now, knowing him as I do, it makes sense that he’s firmly, but undemandingly, heterosexual, and an architect; it is the only profession that would suit him. He runs a small practice, which is just him, and Beryl who answers the phones and does the books. He does house extensions mostly, sometimes office conversions and the odd barn, but what he really hankers for, or so he’s told me, is the chance to work on a ground-breaking design, the type that’ll get him noticed by RIBA and, more importantly, Kevin McCloud, or as Colin refers to him with a rare kind of bite, ‘Kevin Fucking McCloud’.
Colin had briefly been married to Suzanne, they’d had no children and the marriage ended in an amicable divorce. He’s never told me why and doesn’t seem to keep in touch with his ex-wife. We never talk about this either and this suits me fine.
‘As long as you’re OK with it,’ Colin says now. It’s been so long since either of us last said anything that I’ve almost forgotten what we were talking about.
‘I am,’ I say.
We’ve reached the church and are joining a line of people walking up the path to it. Suddenly I falter. I hadn’t realised it would affect me thi
s way.
‘Colin …’
‘Yes,’ he turns to face me.
‘I’m …’ but I can’t say it.
I haven’t been in a church for nearly seven years and never quite understood why I chose to have the service in a church then anyway. After all, I wasn’t – I’m not – religious and wasn’t brought up to believe in anything other than the practical scientific theories of evolution and human greed. There has never been an atom of faith in my life and, I’d long thought, this was just as well. Just imagine if I had believed? Just think how much more the betrayal would have hurt.
‘I do hope you’re going to like it,’ Colin says, guiding me, his hand under my elbow. We sit on the spectacularly uncomfortable pews and wait for the concert to start. And, as we wait, I browse the programme and then lift my eyes to the ceiling – its vaulted wonder, the huge stretches of wood, the massive blocks of stone, the carvings and the gilt and the colours and the majesty of it. I can’t breathe. It’s all too much. Boyd would never have brought me to a place like this.
And then the music starts. It’s Mendelssohn’s ‘Hora Est; Te Deum; Ave Maria’ and, by the look of things it lasts a whole fucking hour. How I’m going to get through it, I don’t know. But, as the voices lift singly and in harmony and, as they tell some sort of story I can’t fathom, my heart quickens, there is that tightness in the middle of my breastbone again and I give myself up to it. I’m barely aware of Colin by my side, sitting steadfastly, listening carefully. Instead I’m lost in something that’s fearful and wonderful, something full of a nameless grief and an irrepressible joy.
It’s as though whatever it is I’ve been avoiding admitting to is taking shape in front of me, is becoming something tangible that I could, if I wanted to, reach out and touch.
Dusk is settling outside, the colours in the stained glass windows deepen and, if I could cry, I would do this too. I haven’t cried in years and, although every fibre of my body is urging me to, I can’t.
When it’s over, we leave, say polite things to one another, remark on the church, the music, the others in the audience. We walk slowly back to Colin’s house where we make some supper and open a bottle of wine. To all intents and purposes the evening is continuing calmly, but inside I’m still reeling.
Later, we have sex. I can’t call it making love. It’s efficient and tidy and I relish having Colin’s firm, sleek body between my legs, like the way he tastes of cheese and wine. I like the way his fingers play me as though I’m some kind of musical instrument.
But afterwards, as we lie in the quiet of the house, I imagine I can hear Boyd’s and Honey’s soft breathing next door. It’s almost as though their heartbeats are matching mine and I don’t like this, not at all.
‘You OK?’ Colin asks at last. ‘You’ve been very quiet this evening.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Have I done anything wrong?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So you’re happy?’
Am I? Can I honestly say to him that I am? I thought I was and that everything was in its place, that I was immune and resolute, but then there’s Honey’s request, and the voices and the church and the memories and there’s Boyd next door, his arms around a woman who is not me.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m happy.’
And in my head Colin is asking me to stay the night, he’s saying, ‘I want to wake up with you. I’ve never woken up in the morning with you.’ And he’s asking me to tell Boyd about us, for it all to be in the open so we don’t have to sneak around any more, so I don’t have to close his front door quietly so that no one can hear me, so I don’t have to creep into my own house in the middle of the night afraid that this, whatever it is I am doing with him, will be discovered.
Yes, I want all this, but he doesn’t say these things. Instead he places his warm lips on my neck and says, ‘That’s OK then. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.’
* * *
It’s ten days later. September has slipped into October; the horse chestnut leaves are turning and it’s the day of Honey’s first sitting.
Honey’s taken the afternoon off work, ostensibly to meet a friend for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. It was, she told me, the best lie she could come up with.
‘Pretty crap lie,’ I said to her under my breath as Boyd stacked the dishwasher the previous evening. ‘Do you even have any friends that Boyd doesn’t know about?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Honey had said winking and smiling at me.
Damn her, I’d thought. How can she look so innocent while saying something so false and knowing?
Damn her, I think, as Honey settles herself on the stool in my studio. It’s sunny out but the sun is low and mellow, not the hot high heat of summer – a good light for painting. It casts a gentle kind of shadow across Honey’s face.
I start to sketch.
‘Try not to move too much.’
‘Sorry.’
‘That’s OK.’
It’s quiet in the studio, just the faint murmur of music from the radio and a silence between us that’s just the wrong side of comfortable and then Honey says, ‘Tell me about how you and Boyd met.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m curious. He’s told me some things.’
‘What things?’
‘About the collective where you worked, how he sold it out from under you, how he liked what you believed in.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes. He liked your passion.’
‘They were interesting times,’ I say, tipping my head to one side to look at Honey from a slightly different angle. ‘Can you move a fraction to your right?’
‘OK.’
I tap my pencil against my glasses and say, ‘We were very young.’
Honey stays silent and, for want of anything better to do and to avoid the uncomfortable silence of a moment ago, although it goes against my better judgement, I carry on. Each word seems an effort, but it’s a relief to say them. ‘We were so sure we were going to change the world. There was me, a guy called Barney and one called Hugo. We were the main three I guess. Others drifted through, but we rented the space, did the odd commission to help pay our way. It was always so fucking cold in there: huge high ceilings, badly fitting windows. Can’t remember what we ate but we drank a lot of red wine, smoked a lot too. I felt marvellous to tell you the truth. As far away from my parents as I could be.’
‘Your parents?’
‘They live in Scotland.’
‘Boyd’s never mentioned them.’
I pause and look at the floor. I’ve often wondered what he’s told her about him and me. Not much by the sounds of it. But has he shared the awful part, the part with all the pain and confusion in it? Maybe he has and Honey doesn’t know what to say. But, surely he’s said something to her about why what happened to us happened? I daren’t chance it just in case he hasn’t. It’s not my place to, and anyway I don’t want to. Instead I say, ‘I think you’ll find there’s quite a bit Boyd hasn’t talked about.’
I regret saying this as soon as the words are out of my mouth but Honey’s still sitting peacefully, the light falling in waves over her.
‘He told me,’ Honey says after a short pause, ‘that he came to value the place. Your landlord was throwing you out?’
It’s good to be back on safer ground and so I say, ‘Yes, the bastard. I remember the first time I saw Boyd though. I thought him a bit of a knob to tell you truth. He was so ungainly, so eager to please. Like a St Bernard puppy.’
‘So how did you get together?’
Do I really want to tell her this? I don’t like to think why he hasn’t. ‘He trod on my picture,’ I say.
‘He did what?’
‘I was drying a canvas against the wall and he stumbled and put his whole fucking foot through it. You can imagine his embarrassment.’
‘I can.’ Honey is smiling now, her head bent in that birdlike way again. ‘I bet he wouldn’t stop apologising!’
Neither of us speaks for a while and I say, ‘I took him to the most shocking place I could think of. It was a bikers’ pub. The local Hells Angels used to go there. I asked him for a snakebite and bless him, he had no idea what it was.’
The light is starting to change very slightly and, in the garden, a blackbird has set up an alarm call. I study what I’ve done so far. A few lines, a suggestion of the girl’s head, those cheekbones, eyes. Already I know this picture will be a good one because I’m good at this. Even painting my husband’s lover is something I will do well. Perhaps, I think, as I outline the side of Honey’s neck that’s bathed in the remaining light, it’s because I can see her through Boyd’s eyes.
And I remember the smell of the pub and the beat of the music where he and I had had our first drink, him balancing his large body on a barstool and saying good things, things that were intelligent and that mattered about art and property and ambition and about relishing the quiet moments and how I’d wondered briefly as I sipped my pint of snakebite why I was beginning to like this unlikely man so very much.
‘Is it odd?’ Honey asks.
‘Is what odd?’
‘Talking about him to me.’
‘You’d think it would be, but it isn’t. Not really.’
But it is and I hate it because of where it might lead.
There is another pause. The only sound is that of graphite on paper.
‘I’ve not had many friends,’ Honey says.
And, although I have no real idea where this comment came from, I find myself replying, ‘I haven’t either. Not really. I was quite close to Trixie for a while, but we’ve kind of drifted apart lately.’
‘Life can do that to you.’
If I was to analyse this conversation and break it down into its component parts, I would realise the things that were missing, the things we didn’t tell one another: anything about Honey’s parents for instance, or mine; my wedding to Boyd and how Belle had boycotted it; the sharp wind that blew around my ankles as I stood on the registry steps; the day we moved into Albert Terrace and the rain and sitting in front of the fire drinking whisky from the bottle and making love on the floor with Boyd’s body warm and damp and covering mine.