by Gayle Curtis
Answering the door in only his jeans, he’d been breathless. Ava had still been upstairs getting showered and dressed – activities he often liked to watch. Since he’d started using her as one of his muses her body had become more graceful to him and she seemed taller and more confident.
‘Oh. Have I disturbed you?’ Caroline looked concerned.
‘Not at all! Come in, come in!’ Sebastian grabbed his T-shirt from the back of a chair and pulled it over his head.
‘Let’s go upstairs, I’ll show you what I’ve just done.’
Caroline followed him, caught up in his excitement. ‘What is it? You’re covered in blue paint!’
‘Do you remember I told you about Yves Klein the other day? How he imprinted naked women on linen using paints?’
‘Yes . . .’
‘I’ve tried it out on a friend of mine and it’s turned out better than expected. Come and see.’
Sebastian opened one of the bedroom doors at the top of the stairs revealing a floor covered in large pieces of linen with blue smudges all over them, the ghost of anatomical parts imprinted, some clearer than others.
Caroline just stared at his work, dropping her school bag onto the floor.
‘What’s wrong, don’t you like it?’ Sebastian watched the disappointment on her face.
‘You were going to experiment on me. Why didn’t you wait?’ Tears sprung to Caroline’s eyes.
Sebastian grabbed the tops of her arms, startling her somewhat. ‘Oh, Caroline, you’re too young for all this. And what do you think people would say if they knew I was using my naked niece as a subject? It would be a bit weird.’
Caroline shrugged, reminding him again of Cecelia at that age.
‘Look, I’ll tell you what. How about I do some work with your face and hands using the linen? I could take some pencil sketches of you too if you like?’
‘OK . . .’
‘Caroline, believe me when I say, if you weren’t my niece I’d gladly use you as a subject. But I can’t, you must understand that?’
A naked Ava walked up the stairs from the bedroom. ‘I can’t get this blasted paint out of my hair . . . oh sorry, I didn’t realise you had company.’
‘This is my niece, Caroline.’
‘Oh, hi Caroline. I’ve heard so much about you – quite the favourite niece,’ she said, smiling and rubbing her hair with the towel, making no attempt to cover herself, which embarrassed Caroline.
‘It’s not difficult, the other niece is dead.’ Caroline smiled sarcastically, jealousy clear on her face.
Sebastian and Ava both laughed at her comment, taking it as a joke.
‘Your uncle said you make him laugh.’ Ava reached forward, running her fingers down one side of Caroline’s long hair, making her lean away slightly. ‘Pretty girl . . . Sebastian, I’m going to get dressed and make a move, I’ve got stacks of work to do.’
‘OK, beautiful, see you later.’ Sebastian pushed past Caroline and kissed Ava.
‘Don’t go on my account.’ There was a hint of irritation in Caroline’s voice.
‘No. I really need to get back.’ Ava wrapped the towel around herself. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you another time. It was nice to finally meet you.’
‘And you.’ Caroline couldn’t hide the juvenile jealousy in her voice and it made Sebastian smile.
Perfect. There was more than one good use for Ava after all, apart from the obvious. She’d just let Caroline know he’d been talking about her.
‘I could cook you dinner later, Sebastian, if you’re around?’
‘Yes, that would be nice.’
An awkward silence began to drip down the walls and seep into the room as Ava went off to get dressed, Caroline’s dislike of her clearly apparent.
Sebastian grabbed Caroline again. ‘I’ll tell you what, why don’t I make you some lunch? Open a bottle of wine?’
‘Only if you have time . . .’ Caroline continued to sulk.
‘Well, I have to do something to put a smile back on that face. Can you imagine what my linen artwork would look like with a miserable mush like that? The paint would go off.’
They both began to laugh, the atmosphere lifting immediately. They were like children – just as he and Cecelia had once been.
Yet again, Sebastian whisked Caroline up in his enthusiasm and she followed him down the stairs to the kitchen. Two glasses and a bottle of white wine sat on the table. He opened the wine and poured them both a drink, handing a glass to Caroline. She took it tentatively.
‘Have you got school this afternoon?’
‘No. I have study periods for the rest of the day.’
Sebastian nodded, sipping his wine. Clearly she wasn’t going to study.
‘Why don’t I have a quick bath and then we’ll go out for lunch if you like?’
‘Great . . .’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ She said it as though there was a question mark.
‘Come on. Say what you need to say.’
Caroline sipped some more wine and stared up at him.
‘If I needed to, would you let me live here?’
‘What, with me?’ Sebastian tried to look surprised.
‘Yes . . . only if things got really bad at home.’
‘Yes, of course you could. You’ll always have a place here with me.’ He smiled; his day was just getting better and better.
‘Thanks . . .’
‘Come on, finish your drink and let me draw you.’
‘What?’ Caroline’s eyes widened, her cheeks flushed pink.
‘When your mother and I were younger, I used to sit in the bath and draw her.’
‘What, naked?’ Caroline pulled a face; the wine was seeping into her veins and making her relax.
‘No! Just her head and shoulders.’ He swigged his wine, hiding his lie. ‘You have a beautiful symmetry about your face. Let me, just for half an hour before lunch.’ He was trying to make up for her earlier disappointment.
Caroline stared at the floor for a few moments. He could see she wanted to but didn’t know if she should. She was at that age where she was caught between the standards her parents had set and wanting to make her own decisions.
‘And here’s the girl who just got in a strop because I wouldn’t let her get naked and writhe around in paint and linen.’
‘I wasn’t actually going to do that . . . I was just feeling a bit jealous of your friend, I suppose.’
‘An artist is never faithful when it comes to his muses.’ He smiled at her. ‘You know you’re my favourite girl, right? Now then, are you going to let me draw your beautiful face?’
Caroline smiled back. ‘OK. But you get in the bath first and shout me when you’re ready. I don’t want to see . . . you know?’ she nodded at him. ‘That would be weird!’
‘Very weird indeed.’
Sebastian smiled at this wonderful memory now. Only a few hours had passed since he’d shared the moment he’d waited so long to have with Caroline. The wine had helped her to relax and he’d managed to draw some intricate pencil sketches of her face.
And now, Cecelia had nudged her daughter even closer towards him. He walked home via the churchyard in search of his niece’s grave; Lydia, who he would never know, because Cecelia had been careless with her little mice and allowed one of them to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cecelia woke to find herself halfway along the track that ran down the side of her home, leading to the funeral parlour. Initially she was disoriented; she had thought she was already awake. Lydia had been leading her somewhere again and in her mind it had been every bit as vivid as reality – the cold air on her skin, her breath in the night sky, plumes reaching up to the stars. She looked down at her hand, expecting to see a smaller version of her own, but it was empty.
Instead of walking back to the house and getting into bed, she continued along the track, wincing at the small shards of stone pricking the sole
s of her bare feet. Her teeth chattered fitfully – the summer evenings were coming to an end. The quarter moon shone its blue light, showing the edges of larger objects, but the rest were muffled in the darkness. The security light flicked on as she approached the building, blinding her for a few seconds.
I have to see her, she told herself. It’s the only way to heal. Her determination was keeping her warm in only a cotton slip.
Pausing, she turned to look around for her little girl, but she’d gone – lost in her own world of sleep, slipping in and out of her dreams.
Upon reaching the wooden-clad building she was surprised to find the door unlocked and she could see a light on in the back room. Heart thudding, she moved forwards tentatively. Her first thought was that it must be Samuel. His insomnia would often take him by the hand and lead him to his work; a forgotten detail, a new idea that wouldn’t wait until the morning.
Tiptoeing through the rooms, stumbling across a chair, she made her way out to the back. She should have been frightened, nervous, but so many years around Samuel’s work had removed the creepiness surrounding the cadavers that had passed through the back door. It was their stories that made them seem sad and macabre; they wore them like death tags on their toes. But Yvonne had a different story and it was her who Cecelia had come to see before she travelled with her on her last journey.
The room was empty apart from the rows of coffins. Tired and distracted, Samuel must have left the light on and the door unlocked after the long day.
Yvonne lay on the main table, lit up like a shrine, the light bouncing off the brass handles of her casket. Cecelia stayed where she was, frozen to the spot; the top of Yvonne’s face was visible like a white wall mask. Stepping forward, Cecelia peered in, intrigued to see what Sebastian had chosen for her to wear. It was trivial but important to her nonetheless. She had an impression of Yvonne in her head, of a woman who had deserted her children, had chosen her own needs over theirs, and Cecelia didn’t want to see a reformed version, a softer, kinder face. When she’d heard about Yvonne’s heart attack, she’d begun to imagine her as a frail old woman, a victim. But then she’d seen her in hospital and she hadn’t looked that bad, nothing like Cecelia had expected anyway.
Leaning into the casket she stared at the face of this stranger who had played a part in bringing her into the world.
‘Why did you stop visiting me?’
Cecelia almost choked as she took in a sharp breath and turned around to see Sebastian standing behind her.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ She stood with her back to the coffin, hands gripping the edges of the table.
‘Answer my question, Cece, and I’ll answer yours.’
‘No. Get out!’ She looked past him and through the window, hoping that Samuel would notice that she was missing and come down to the funeral parlour.
‘Just answer that one question and I’ll leave you alone.’
‘What? Like I owe you something? I didn’t ask you to kill anyone for me.’
‘You really do believe your own lie, don’t you? I didn’t kill anyone, remember?’
His voice was becoming deeper, darker and she desperately wanted to be on the other side of the door.
‘Look Sebastian, we’re very different people and . . .’ She was trying to stay calm and not get angry with him.
‘Are we, Cecelia? Are we really?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She couldn’t help snapping back.
‘The thing that scares you the most is that you know what you are and what you are capable of. And you know that I never would have done what you did. I had so many chances to kill Roger but I didn’t. You’re the murderer, not me.’
They stared at one another, their identical eyes boring into each other.
‘You’re capable of just as much as me. Why did you have to serve another three years on top of your sentence?’
He took a deep breath. ‘He was a nonce, Cecelia, and I was provoked . . . What does that matter now anyway?’
She couldn’t help laughing at the false irony she’d fabricated.
‘I’ll tell you why I stopped visiting, shall I? Because I wanted to make a life for myself. I didn’t want to be forever reminded of the past. If you remember, you refused to see me on that last visit.’
‘You gave up on coming because I didn’t turn up for one visit?’
‘We’re not twins. Not in the true sense of the word. When we’re together, you make up three parts of us. I’m that tiny quarter smothered by you.’ She glanced at the reflection that the tiny shard of crescent moon cast on the window. That was how she felt within their relationship, a fragment.
‘Look up there.’ She pointed to it, desperate for him to understand. But when she looked back, he was gone and she was standing there alone.
She spun around and around, searching for him.
‘What are you doing?’ A harsh whisper startled her. It was Samuel.
‘I was . . . I . . . just . . . I was sleepwalking . . . I must have been sleepwalking.’
‘Why are you covered in mud?’
‘What?’ She looked down at her grey slip. It was smeared with soil and dirt, as were her hands and knees. ‘I don’t –’
‘Oh my God, Cecelia, have you finally gone completely mad?!’ He was looking past her and she followed his gaze to Yvonne’s coffin. Protruding from her mother’s chest was the knife Cecelia had hidden on the window sill. It rose proudly from Yvonne’s body.
‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t do that!’ Cecelia peered uncertainly down at her hands. ‘It was Sebastian. He was here a second ago . . . I promise you, Samuel.’
The look he gave her was a mixture of pity and anger and she knew no amount of talking would convince him she was telling the truth. They’d been here before and the increase in her sleepwalking of late would only convince him she was getting worse instead of better.
‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you back in the house.’
‘No, Samuel, I promise you it wasn’t me!’ She felt like she was a child again, being led away by Roger whilst desperately trying to protest her innocence. But the more she struggled and rambled, the madder she sounded. She’d lost the battle – this was the end of her reality and the beginning of another terrible dream.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sebastian had realised that watching someone without them realising was easy – no one ever seemed to notice him doing it. It was an activity he hadn’t had much opportunity to do during his time in prison. But having spent many hours reading psychology textbooks, he’d learnt to get a more rounded view of himself and other people, and the idea of who he could be within his own scenery.
Casually he wandered down the alleyway and went through the back door of his house, not wanting to be seen or heard going through the front at this late hour.
In the kitchen he washed the engraved knife he’d removed from Yvonne after Samuel had led Cecelia away. Tiredness suddenly swept over him, but he didn’t want to sleep, the latest events with Cecelia still playing through his head. Instead, he made himself a pot of tea and stoked up the fire, the summer evenings having turned autumnal, a chill in the air.
The café opposite Cecelia’s bookshop was the ideal place to hide in the shadows. It was old-fashioned, dark and dingy – Cecelia thought of it as a mild threat to her own business where Sebastian knew she wished people would stay and drink the coffee she offered whilst deciding which books to buy. It was clever, he granted her that. If people had a hot drink, they felt obliged to make a purchase. But it was the perfect place for Sebastian to sit and watch Cecelia and Caroline.
He’d observed Cecelia’s day-to-day life in the shop: her rituals, her foibles, her busy times, quiet periods. The regular intake of medication, the hours Caroline worked for her, the fragile relationship they had, the strong love Cecelia had for her daughter, which was so easily dismissed by Caroline. He’d watched all of this through the large grey looking glass o
f the shop windows. Then at night, he watched them through the lit windows in their home. Why so many people lived in such an exposed way baffled him. When he longed for the dark he could close his shutters and say goodbye to the world for a few hours.
At Cecelia and Samuel’s house there were always lights being turned on and off in the middle of the night and on that one particular occasion he’d witnessed Cecelia sleepwalking late at night when he was leaving a bar where he’d met Ava, as he did on most evenings. It had been like looking through the windows of a doll’s house and he felt like a giant. He’d got a glimpse into Cecelia’s life – everything she didn’t want him to know.
A banging at the back door startled him from the darkness. He picked up the engraved knife before he went to see who it was. For a brief moment he thought it might be his probation officer or the police because he hadn’t been sticking to his curfew, but his instinct was telling him it was Caroline.
‘I don’t know what to do!’ Caroline cried, as soon as he opened the door. She ran straight into his arms whereupon he wrapped her up like a doll, kissed the top of her head and told her everything would be OK.
‘Come. Sit down and tell me what’s happened. Does your mum know you’re here?’
‘No . . . no, she’s gone mad. I told Dad I was leaving, I can’t take it anymore . . . What are you doing with that?’
Sebastian looked across at the blade on the table. ‘I took it away before your mother hurt someone with it . . .’
Caroline nodded, completely taken in by his story, not thinking to ask him when he’d removed it.
‘Give me your mobile.’ He grabbed it from her hand before she’d answered.
‘What are you doing? No, you can’t ring them.’
‘I’m going to speak to your dad and just let him know you’re safe here with me for tonight.’
Caroline reluctantly gave in.
After he’d reassured Samuel, made tentative enquiries and told him he’d bring her back in the morning, he sat down with Caroline. The deep glow from the fire in the dark room lit up her beautiful face and, for a moment, it took his breath away.