‘I… The tea? Oh, no, quite sure…’ He thrust mug and glass into her hands and strode towards a door, which turned out to be a cupboard of crockery and crystal. He closed it, muttering apologies, his face burning.
‘I'll show you out,’ she said, leading the way through another door into the hall. ‘Poor you and your family. I do hope everything sorts itself out.’
‘Oh, it will, it will.’ He was jolly now, light-headed with desperation to be gone. ‘Thank you again, very much. You've been most kind.’
It was a relief to be outside. He looked up at the sky, which had crowded since his arrival with menacing dark clouds, and breathed deeply, feeling suddenly as if he hadn't breathed for hours, as if he'd forgotten the simple necessity of it, for life, for lucidity. He shook Delia's outstretched hand – firmly, cursorily – then strode towards his car, which he had parked on the curve of the little crescent-shaped drive, facing towards the street. With each step his head cleared a little more. The rest of the day was unfurling in his mind like an open road: he would get back to Barnes before the start of the rush-hour, call Helen again, pack an overnight bag and his briefcase, head down to Sussex, get what sense he could out of his mother, help Charlie and Serena decide where on earth they went from here.
Delia stayed on the doorstep, rubbing her arms as if she was cold and looking – Peter decided with some relish – rather lost. As he was about to get into the car she called, ‘I do hope everything works out. And I need to see that shoulder again, okay?’
He waved in response, a single dismissive sweep, then slammed the door and edged out into the road. He might well have another appointment, but not with Delia Goddard, he thought savagely. Never with Delia Goddard. Already what had happened – what hadn't happened – seemed risible, preposterous and shameful, given the drama with his mother. ‘Sad old bag, he said out loud, glimpsing Delia again in his rear-view mirror, still on her doorstep, tiny against the backdrop of her large, handsome house. He accelerated away noisily, noting that his shoulder felt tender but a little looser, as if some invisible knots had been untied. It made no difference, he told himself. No matter how good a physiotherapist she was, or how much of the afternoon's extraordinary disquiet had been fabricated by his own imagination, some dim animal sense remained, humming at the back of his mind, telling him that there had been a scent of danger in the house and he would return to it at his peril.
When it started to rain Clem almost turned back. She didn't want to arrive damp and bedraggled, with her hair, specially washed that morning, all frizzy. Though the American had said it didn't matter what she wore, that he liked his subjects to look natural – entirely themselves – she had deliberated for hours in front of her meagre rail of clothes, struggling with the notion that she didn't know what ‘being herself' meant. It felt increasingly, these days, as if she had many different selves, depending on her mood and the company she was in – meek and mousy for her flatmates, raunchy and wild with a microphone, brisk and neutral as a waitress, self-contained and distant with her family… Which, if any of these, to choose when posing for an artist was almost impossible to decide.
In the end, feeling fake in anything pertaining to glamour, aware that she had a bus ride to get through, with the possibility of gawping strangers, Clem had settled on a long grey skirt and black T-shirt, making up for this conservatism with a more than usually lavish application of makeup. Staring at her reflection afterwards – the glowing cheeks, highlighted eyes and crimson lips – she had smiled shyly, both at the notion that she was confronting a new and interesting person for the first time and because it felt comforting to have assembled some sort of armour against the now frighteningly imminent ordeal of being scrutinized.
Flora, languishing in an armchair with a heavy cold, had squealed with delight as she emerged from her bedroom. ‘Gorgeous!’ she shrieked, her voice thick with catarrh. ‘I hope he's worth it.’
‘We'll see,’ Clem had murmured, unearthing her handbag from under a cushion and heading for the door. She hadn't told Flora or Daisy or anyone about Nathan Chalmer. Just as she hadn't yet told anyone about the thin, but growing manuscript in the bottom drawer of her desk. Aside from fearing the possible ridicule that such confessions might invite, the private smirking (who does she think she is, writing a novel? That scarecrow, a model?), there was something about the secrecy of these new ventures that Clem couldn't help relishing. Perhaps, she mused, slamming the flat door behind her, because with Maisie breathing down her neck for twenty years she had never felt private enough. Looking back, she wondered how she had put up with being a twin for so long – shared bedrooms, shared teachers, shared birthday parties. Any normal sibling would have protested violently at such enforced overlaps. It had made them close, of course, unbelievably so for a time – with a secret language and an almost telepathic empathy – but, as Clem had discovered, being close to someone was as burdensome as it was nice. It opened one up to pain, made one vulnerable. Far better – far simpler – to be self-contained and on top of things, to forge one's own separate path, as she was now doing, blissfully far from the possibility of comparison and competition.
As she turned into the narrow street just short of London Bridge station – sketched for her by Nathan on the back of a paper napkin – Clem's phone beeped. Recognizing the number and in no mood for her mother, she let it ring. A couple of minutes later a text arrived. ‘Darling, could you call home? Love Mum.’ Feeling vaguely harassed, as if her parents had somehow found out about her escapade and wanted to put a stop to it, Clem dropped the phone back into her bag. It beeped again a moment later, this time with a message from Roland, saying he was staying with Cassie and Stephen and could she meet them for lunch on Sunday? Families clung so, Clem reflected crossly, remembering with a swoop of dread the impending ball with Theo, and a still unanswered missive her aunt had sent her, full of sketches of bridesmaid dresses: leg-o‘-mutton sleeves, frilly necklines, giant Easter-egg ribbon sashes. Clem had riffled through the pages in horror, wishing, for a few unguarded moments, that Maisie could have been there to help her see the funny side.
Nathan Chalmer lived on the top floor of what looked from the outside like an old Victorian factory. It had tall, imposing red-brick walls, lined with rows of small arched windows, the larger ones fronted by bulging wrought-iron balconies. Like miniature prison cells, Clem couldn't help thinking, digging deep inside herself for the final burst of courage necessary to push the button next to his name. A few moments later there was an audible click, releasing the lock on the heavy black front door. She pushed it open cautiously, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the hall. Inside, a stone staircase curled round a black iron Tardis of a lift. Its concertinaed metal doors seemed to fight her attempts to open them, then slid shut easily behind her with a clang. A moment later, there was a whoosh of compressed air and the lift rose, so swiftly that the pit of Clem's stomach dived towards her knees.
Nathan Chalmer was waiting for her at the top, arms folded, with an air of studied patience. Like a craggy, ancient-faced statue, Clem decided, wondering how old he was. He dressed like a teenager – baggy combats, a white T-shirt – but his face was like crumpled leather. He had to be sixty at least. Her uncle Peter was fifty-five and didn't look anything like as old. And whereas her uncle had pale-skinned hands with neatly filed nails, Nathan's were huge and hairy with bulging violet veins.
‘Welcome,’ he said, smiling more grooves into his face, and staring his steely, grey-eyed stare from under the shelf of his eyebrows. ‘It was good of you to come. I thought you might change your mind.’
‘Why?’
‘Fear, maybe?’ He cocked his head at her, looking amused, as he turned to lead the way into his flat, which wasn't really a flat at all but one huge room partitioned into various functions only by the arrangement of its furniture – a single divan bed, a cluster of armchairs, a semi-circular bar of a kitchen and, taking up most of the space, a forest of tables and easels covered with
sketches. ‘An old guy watches you for a few weeks, then asks if he can draw you. It would be enough to make anyone afraid.’
‘I'm not afraid,’ retorted Clem, taking off her coat, then hugging it hard. ‘I just fancied some extra cash.’ She glanced about her, taking in the high ceilings – twice as high as anything at Ashley House – and the wall of windows overlooking a muddled landscape of rooftops, chimneys and railway track. She stepped over to the nearest and peered out. In the same instant a train appeared, like a toy in a model railway but making such a clatter that she could feel the faint vibration of the floorboards beneath her feet.
‘I like trains. Do you like trains?’ He had come to stand next to her, so close she could see a thicket of white hairs curling over the neckline of his T-shirt.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Tracks and carriages, all that coming and going, people on different routes in their lives… starting points and destinations… making choices about where to begin, where to end… Life is all about such choices, don't you think?’
Clem shrugged, lacing her fingers together more tightly under the protective shield of her coat. Everything felt unreal, as if she had drifted on to a stage without a script. ‘I guess so… I mean, I chose to come here, didn't I?’
‘You did.’ He took a sideways step and began, brazenly, to study her, half closing his eyes and rubbing his fingers back and forth across his chin.
Clem stared back, determined not to be cowed. ‘Look… what exactly is the deal here? What do you want me to do exactly?’
‘Take that lot off for a start.’
Her worst fears realized, Clem blushed violently and glanced round for the door.
‘No, not your clothes – unless you would like to. I can assure you it would be a delight and a privilege to draw your naked body…’ His fingers had moved to his mouth, smothering a smile. ‘Maybe when we know each other a little better, eh? No, I was referring to your makeup. I don't like face paint on my models.’ With his American accent he rolled each syllable as he spoke, as if tasting it before releasing it from his mouth. ‘Would you mind washing it off before we start? There's a bathroom over there, the blue door beyond the sofa. Don't get me wrong, you look great, but it's the underneath I'm interested in, those Slavic cheekbones, that quite extraordinary hunger you have about you.’
Clem blushed again, this time with indignation. ‘Slavic? Well, I can assure you –’
‘It was the first thing I noticed – doing that job of yours, serving all that food and looking starved, like your entire being was focused on self-deprivation.’ As he spoke he sauntered towards the semi-circle of kitchen units, floating like an island in the middle of the room, and began pulling things out of cupboards and drawers.
‘That's dumb.’ Clem laughed uncertainly.
He returned from his foraging with two heaped plates of food – one a precarious mountain of plums, fat purple grapes, strawberries, apricots, the other a more solid stack of biscuits, each one a different shape and flavour. ‘So you like eating, do you?’
‘Of course I like eating. I eat what I want,’ Clem retorted, taking a plum and then a biscuit and biting into each, trying not to frown as the flavours and textures collided in her mouth.
‘That's good.’ Nathan took a biscuit for himself and disposed of it in two wolfish bites. ‘And now that warpaint of yours… if you don't mind?’
Clem scurried towards the blue door, licking her fingers and despairing at the oddness of it all. When she returned, feeling scrubbed and vulnerable, a few minutes later, he was sitting on a stool next to the most central window, his head bent over a large pad of paper.
‘Would you stand there for me?’ He pointed without looking up at a space on the floor – a nowhere-space, as it appeared to Clem, with yards of nothing on either side. ‘No, there.’ He left his stool and placed one hand on each of her shoulders to propel her to the exact spot. ‘I want you to look towards the window. I want you to think of the trains and who you are and where you're going. I want you, above all, to relax – to breathe and move as you have to, to fill, to own this space. I want you to be Clementine Harrison, to let all that you are fill your heart and your face…’ He circled her as he talked, at one point brushing a single hair of her forehead and tugging at a crease in her skirt. That's it… Now, unfreeze yourself, unclamp your jaw. Let your fingers float… There, that's better. Now we're getting somewhere.’ He left her for a few minutes, returning with a small table on which he placed the biscuits and fruit, and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, complete with bits of pith and pips. ‘Drink when you're thirsty, eat when you're hungry,’ he commanded, settling himself on his stool and picking up his pencil.
Clem stood for a few moments, trying vaguely to comply with this list of instructions, but managing only to feel silly. Her cheeks and lips tingled unpleasantly from the vigorous scrubbing in the bathroom. Her arms felt heavy and ridiculous, whatever position she chose for them, while her feet looked odd and awkward, as if they had been grafted to her ankles. What did he mean own this space? It was ridiculous. Ridiculous and impossible, she decided crossly, glancing at Nathan's inscrutable, downturned face, the quick, sharp movements of his pencil – convinced that he was just a mad old man enacting some sick fantasy. Once this thought took hold she couldn't get rid of it. Soon, in the quiet turmoil of her mind, it seemed hilarious. Within a few minutes giggles were rippling through her, as unquenchable as the urge to cough or sneeze. Like a schoolgirl, a pathetic schoolgirl, Clem berated herself, biting her cheeks, swallowing, digging her nails into her palms, while the laughter continued to spiral out of her, until she was doubled up and slapping her knees. ‘Oh, God… sorry… sorry, it's just… I feel… God, if my sister – my family – could see me… they'd… she'd have a fit…’
‘Tell me about your family,’ said Nathan, quietly, ignoring her shameful childish convulsions so completely that for a few moments Clem found herself laughing even harder. Through streaming eyes she watched Nathan's pencil continue to move feverishly, his leonine face set in concentration.
And then, quite suddenly, the laughter subsided, draining out of her as quickly as it had arrived. Clem took a deep breath and wiped the back of her hand across her nose, which was running. She felt shaky but also more relaxed. She let her gaze drift out of the window. The rain was falling steadily now, lending a grainy texture to the grey skies and sprawling rooftops. Framed by the windows, the scene looked like a sepia snapshot of concrete and iron, sprouting a patchy forest of chimneys and TV aerials. Here and there Clem could make out the odd abandoned belonging – a battered trainer, a deflated ball – lying like clues to the unsolved mystery of the lives whence they came. It was like seeing a new layer of the world, a populated space between the ground and the sky.
‘I've got a brother called Ed,’ she said at length, screwing up her eyes to follow the progress of an aeroplane as it tracked across the grey backdrop of cloud. ‘He's okay most of the time but also a bit of a twit. He looks like my dad, who has a boring job in the civil service but isn't boring at all. My mum doesn't really do anything, except cook and clean and look after my gran. I've also got a twin sister called Maisie, who's on her gap year in Mexico. We're not at all alike but used to be really close. Then I found out she'd been seeing my boyfriend, which made me glad she was going away. I had another sister, too, but she died when she was a baby. Two years ago we moved to live in this huge house in the country that's been in the family for centuries. My uncle was supposed to inherit it but he told my dad he could have it instead. It's really beautiful but also kind of dull as it's in this tiny village called Barham, which has nothing but a pub and a church…’
An hour later he was pressing a twenty-pound note into her hand and seeing her to the door. ‘Good start. Same time next week sound okay?’
‘I…’
‘It's a date, then,’ he growled, kissing the top of her head and sending her on her way with a pat on the backside. Which was a bloo
dy cheek, Clem decided, performing a little skip as she stepped back out into the street. Trotting towards the bus stop, she found herself carefully placing her steps between all the pavement lines, just as she used to do with Maisie sometimes, walking home from school. Tread on a square marry a bear, tread on a line marry a swine. Dodgy alternatives, Clem had thought, even as a little girl. Though a bear was better, of course, frightening but splendid somehow. Both she and Maisie had aimed for the bear.
On the bus she parked herself at the front of the upper deck, put her feet on the window-ledge and got out her phone. ‘Yes,’ she texted to Roland, ‘am free Sun Inch. Wen n where?’ After a deep breath she phoned home.
‘Ed? Hi, it's me. Mum asked me to call.’
‘Right… er, hang on.’
‘Ed? What's up?’
‘Nothing. Why?’
`Dunn… You sound odd.’
‘I'll get Mum.’
‘Is something the matter with Ed?’ Clem asked, once Serena was on the line.
‘No, not that I know of.’
‘Right… good. Well, you asked me to call.’
‘I did. How are you, darling?’
‘Fine, Mum, I'm fine.’ Clem looked out of the window in front of her feet. She loved being so high up, with the bustle of the city scrolling by like a video on a wide screen. I occupy this space, she thought. I am between the ground and the sky.
‘Well, I wanted to know that, of course, but also to ask if you could join us all for your aunt Elizabeth's birthday dinner next month. I thought if I asked you well in advance… It's going to be a surprise. She's been a bit low recently…’
‘Mum, I'm supposed to work on a Saturday night.’
‘Surely you could take a day off or swap your shift or something? Clem, we haven't seen you since Christmas and it would mean so much to your aunt.’
‘Yeah, right…’ Clem hunched against the window, not looking out of it now, not feeling she had any space at all. ‘I'll see what I can do, okay? I'll let you know in a couple of days… There's a girl called Sarah who might swap with me.’
The Simple Rules of Love Page 13