A Model Partner

by Seery, Daniel;

  ‘Sorry, Tom,’ she apologises again.

  ‘Fiona,’ Tom stares at the ground and bites his lip for a moment. He plays with his sleeve nervously.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Do you know anything about Indians?’ he asks.

  ‘Not really,’ she shakes her head.

  Tom inhales deeply, holds it in for a couple of seconds. When he exhales, the words flow out of him, quickly.

  ‘Before they had horses they’d catch bison with a trap.’

  She nods.

  ‘And women are a bit like these bison, ye know. I don’t mean that they look like bison. What I mean is that you can’t really catch them by running after them so you set a trap.’

  ‘I don’t like where this is going Tom.’

  Tom laughs. ‘No,’ he says. ‘What I mean is that instead of running after women you should wait for them to come to you. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘A bit, I suppose. At a push. What are you getting at Tom?’

  ‘This is a bit embarrassing really.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘This business of trying to ask someone out.’

  ‘Oh no, Tom. I’m sorry,’ her hand moves to her mouth.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Tom says quickly.

  ‘I really shouldn’t,’ she says.

  ‘No, that’s grand Fiona,’ Tom holds his hands up. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just chancing my arm.’

  ‘I’m sorry Tom. It’s just bad timing at my end.’

  ‘No, that’s okay. I understand,’ Tom inches backwards towards the revolving door. ‘I should never have asked.’

  ‘Tom wait,’ she calls after him.

  ‘No, it’s okay. Really, it is.’

  ‘Tom,’ she laughs.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jesus, you’ll have me as mad as you.’ She looks to the side, smiles and shrugs. ‘I’ll give you a ring,’ she says.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You want me to change my mind?’

  ‘No. No. Give me your number and I’ll give you a ring sometime.’

  ‘I’ll ring you Tom.’

  ‘Okay, fair enough. I’ll give you my number.’

  ‘I have your number. Everybody in this place has your number.’

  ‘I’ll write it down in any case.’

  He writes the number on a page in his notebook, rips it out and hands it to her.

  ‘Thanks for the flowers,’ she says.

  ‘That’s all right,’ he says. ‘They weren’t that expensive.’

  He walks away from the counter, turns before the exit. ‘Thanks,’ he says.

  She gives him a little wave and looks at the number on the page. She covers her eyes with her left hand and shakes her head, smiling all the while.

  Tom leaves through the revolving door.

  He crosses the street and stands in the shade of a massive grey building, boarded windows and a wooden sign displaying the name of a property company.

  His legs shake and his thoughts feel untamed. They kick about his head wildly, spark and run and jump.

  He should be happy.

  But he is nervous and unsure of himself. There have been dates with the agency but this is the first time he has asked someone out since that incident in work.

  He needs to calm down.

  He rubs his hands together and breathes quickly.

  Calm down.

  Calm down.

  He closes his eyes.

  And a cold breeze catches him unawares.

  The way it hits him, the way it causes the nerves to stand on his legs and back, the way the darkness of the shadow engulfs him and the droplets of rain fall from the grating above, it takes him away from the now and for one horrible instant he is back in that beat-up old horsebox and there is a gift in his hands, wrapped in brown paper, tied with a string. His name is written on the front, neatly in pen, the writing of a woman.

  His heart is beating quickly.

  Fear?

  Excitement?

  The brown paper gives way to softness underneath when he presses his fingers against it.

  And Tom is untying the string, a fat, weaved type of string. And he finds a jumper inside. Knitted or bought, he isn’t sure. It is red and heavy. And there is a note, written in the same handwriting as the parcel.

  To Tom,

  For those cold nights.

  Love,

  Mary xxx

  Mary from the pub. Mary from the stream. Naked Mary.

  Tom recalls the confusion of that time, how he wasn’t sure what the woman had wanted from him.

  He stands in the cold shadow for a moment.

  Unknown to himself he is squeezing his eyes tightly at regular intervals.

  Chapter 25

  Tom has one eye on his phone for the next few days. He hears phantom ringing whenever he is surrounded by excessive noise. He splashes from the shower at times or flees from the rumbling whoosh of a kettle only to discover that his phone is still quiet and nobody has rung. In a way his life becomes quieter. He keeps the volume of the radio and television low. When reading, his bed-sit is silent.

  Sometimes an unpleasant feeling drops into the pit of his stomach, a sensation like falling from a height. When this happens he grabs his phone and ensures that the battery has sufficient charge to make it through the day, or he pats his pocket until he feels the shape of the device through the material of his trousers. He charges the phone whenever he gets the chance and when leaving for work he carries the charger with him.

  Although the phone call is a dominant force over these days he still spends a lot of time in his neighbours’ place and uses the model as a distraction. He buys polymer clay from an arts and crafts shop and begins to construct the nose using the ideal characteristic cuttings as a template. The size of the nose quickly becomes a problem. It is supposed to be proportional to the ideal face but William Shatner’s face isn’t the ideal face.

  ‘It’s just not happening Shatner,’ he says as he holds a rough prototype of the nose up to the model’s face. ‘I’m sorry but your head is going to have to go.’

  Tom journeys to the city centre, to shops and department stores, on the hunt for a damaged mannequin. His search brings him to a large clothes shop along the quays, brisk staff and dazzling lights, pop music loud enough to crack the healthiest of thought-processes, a window display with birdcages, bonsai trees and gold sheets of fabric. The shop assistant is a young girl. She wears the type of clothes that the store sells, eighties’ style, long T-shirt with a leopard-print design, leggings, her hair big, blonde and puffy. She is the type who makes a face when forced to interact with people over twenty-five, the kind of face that someone might make if they have found something disgusting stuck to their shoe.

  ‘What for?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s for art,’ Tom lies.

  ‘You’re an artist?’ She raises her left eyebrow ever so slightly at this news.

  ‘Yes. I am an artist,’ he says. And then he repeats it so as to convince himself of the lie. ‘I am an artist.’

  ‘There might be a couple in the storeroom,’ she says.

  ‘I just need the head,’ Tom says.

  ‘Why didn’t you say that?’ She rolls her eyes. ‘We’ve loads of those. Dave breaks them off the damaged mannequins all the time. He uses the head as a football when he’s on his lunch break.’

  She disappears through a set of double doors at the rear of the shop and soon returns with a head. There is little detail to it, hollow, a few scuff marks near the ear, but it is in good condition.

  Tom thanks her and returns to his neighbour’s place.

  He opens a beer and takes a swig before gnashing away at Shatner’s neck with a hacksaw. When he has finished he places the head in a clear plastic bag and rests it on the table. He wedges a piece of wood in the hollow mannequin head and uses a dowel screw to attach it to Shatner’s body. The join is a bit messy but he will easily be able
to conceal it with a neck scarf, he thinks.

  Tom shoves his hands into his pockets for a minute and stares at the head on the table.

  Alas, poor Yorick!

  He decides that the trauma of cutting his friend’s head off warrants a break from the model. He drinks more beer and stares out the large window of his neighbours’ bed-sit.

  He doesn’t receive any phone calls.

  The following day, Tom returns to his neighbours’ bed-sit and to the model. He replicates the dimensions of the mannequin’s face on a sheet of paper. He sketches a rough shape of the nose on this page, holds it up to the mannequin’s head for a moment, offers a disappointed grunt before retrieving another page and repeating the process. This time he reduces the width of the nose. He holds the head next to the page, looks from one to the next a number of times before shaking his head and repeating the process. Thirty-one pages later and he is satisfied with the dimensions of the nose.

  Using modelling clay, he sets to work shaping the nose. It takes him over an hour to create his first draft. Luckily, the notch for a nose on the mannequin’s head is smaller than his ideal nose so he will not have to cut it off. Instead he presses the back of the modelling-clay nose onto the notch. He figures that the extended shape will help keep the new nose in place when he glues it later. The modelling clay goes out of shape slightly when he presses it and he spends the next ten minutes rectifying this. He then removes the nose and bakes it. When he takes it out of the oven he notices that there is a crack on the right-hand side of the clay. Tom has to start the process all over again.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Shatner,’ Tom talks to the head in the bag. ‘This is going to drive me insane.’

  At half one in the morning Tom has a new nose.

  He is happy with it.

  He wraps it in newspaper and puts it on the table.

  As time moves on without a phone call Tom’s urge to ring Fiona grows.

  But he doesn’t ring her. Nor does he go anywhere near the hotel.

  He isn’t a stupid man. A bit eccentric maybe, he thinks. But he has enough sense to realise that if Fiona sees him at the hotel the possibility of a date will disappear.

  He has to control himself.

  Bzzz

  ‘Control’ might not be the best word, he thinks.

  He has to be patient.

  He has to be an Indian without a horse.

  He dedicates time to the ears. As the better part of each ear will be concealed by the wig, Tom doesn’t go into too much detail. While they are baking he rings up a pizza-delivery service using a number retrieved from a television advert. His call is answered by a man with a heavy Dublin accent who keeps referring to him as ‘Bud’. Tom doesn’t order a pizza but he does ask if the man could ring him back so he can confirm that his phone is still working.

  ‘You’re having a laugh, Bud,’ the man refuses.

  He hangs up.

  ‘Some people, Shatner,’ Tom says and shakes his head.

  Tom paints the model.

  He makes a large batch of paint, mostly white with a small part yellow and a splash of red. He mixes and adds until he has a suitable skin colour. He paints the head of the mannequin and the arms and hands of the waxwork model. It dries darker on the model than it does on the head so he adds extra white and repaints the arms and hands. He paints the nose and the ears. They need two coats. He leaves them to dry on newspaper beside the open window and lays some jewellery next to the ears and the nose, a bracelet and a couple of bangles that he bought in a charity shop.

  Tom adds a bit of red to the cheeks of the mannequin. He thinks about Fiona while he does this. He worries that he may have given her the wrong number or that she may have lost the number. Perhaps there is something wrong with her phone?

  Underneath the apprehension there is a heavier dragging feeling in his gut. It tells him the real truth. She is not going to ring.

  Tom cuts the iris and pupil parts from the ideal-eye magazine photograph and sticks them to the eyes of the mannequin head. He glues the nose and ears to the model. He cleans up the paint and brushes and places them in a box. He sweeps and dumps the collected rubbish into a black refuse sack along with the earlier drafts of his noses, other clay parts and debris from his activities. He ties a tight double knot in the top.

  Tom is about to leave his neighbours’ bed-sit when he remembers the lips.

  ‘How could I have forgotten the lips?’ he says to Shatner. ‘The lips are a key element of the face.’

  They shouldn’t take too long to do, he thinks, and retrieves the red paint from the box, and a brush. He pours some of the red paint into a container and slowly begins to colour the lips.

  ‘This will make the lips seem fuller, Shatner,’ he says. ‘And that’s important.’

  He uses small dabs and moves slowly, careful not to go outside the lines of the lips.

  ‘Full lips make a face seem young and healthy. Evolutionary psychologists believe that the colour of the lips also offer an indication of fertility.’ He regurgitates information he has read in a cosmetic journal. ‘Full lips are developed by,’ he pauses, searches his memory for a few seconds before continuing, ‘oestrogen. And the more oestrogen a woman has the more fertile she is. I suppose that makes you think doesn’t it? So many men don’t want to be tied down with kids. They don’t want to be putting any buns in the oven, if you know what I mean. So really they should be going for women with the lowest levels of oestrogen. I don’t know, maybe women with excessive muscles.’

  He takes extra care at the corners of the lips.

  ‘Physically strong women.’ He moves across and dabs at the upper edge. ‘With a full beard maybe.’ He steps back to examine the lips.

  They look well.

  He pulls the mannequin forward and tilts it across the counter so the head is closer to the open window, in the hope that the glue and paint will dry quicker.

  There is a sudden knocking at the door.

  It develops into successive light tapping.

  ‘Hello, is it okay to come in?’ It is Maureen Hill from downstairs.

  Shit.

  Tom hurries to the black refuse sack to get rid of the red paint and the brush.

  Don’t push the door.

  Please!

  The refuse sack is tied with a knot, so Tom grabs the plastic bag which contains William Shatner’s head and throws the paint in. He carries both bags to the door.

  ‘Hello?’ Mrs Hill calls again.

  ‘Hang on, just a minute.’

  Tom raises the black bag to chest height and uses it to obscure the view of the bed-sit as he squeezes out the door. ‘Just cleaning up a bit,’ he says and awkwardly closes the door behind him.

  ‘Are they back?’ she asks.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Walters.’

  ‘No, they’re still away.’

  ‘Oh sorry, I thought I heard you talking to someone.’

  ‘Must have been the radio or something.’

  ‘When are they due back?’

  ‘Wednesday, I think.’

  ‘Grand,’ she says.

  ‘Grand,’ Tom agrees.

  She pinches her lower lip.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says. ‘And I don’t know how you feel about it but, well, I was thinking that maybe you shouldn’t say anything to them about me being in their place. Just in case they get the wrong idea.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Tom motions forward slightly. He just wants to get out of there. He hates holding rubbish. This image keeps flashing into his head, the rubbish bag nestled neatly in the metal bin in his bed-sit. And he imagines the sound of the lid closing.

  Clunk.

  ‘We both know it was an innocent mix-up,’ she says. ‘I’d hate for them to get the wrong idea.’

  Tom nods.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that we’re best friends,’ she says. ‘But I’ve known the Walters for years and I always stop to talk to Mrs Walters. She’s a very nice woman. So,’ she leans f
orward, ‘maybe we’ll just keep it to ourselves. What do you think?’

  ‘That sounds grand,’ Tom says.

  Clunk.

  She exhales dramatically.

  ‘Oh, thank God we’ve sorted that little problem out. You worry about these things, don’t you?’

  ‘You do,’ Tom steps forward.

  ‘When did you say they’d be back?’

  ‘Wednesday.’

  ‘Wednesday.’ She folds her arms. ‘From,’ she frowns, ‘where was it again?’

  Tom closes his eyes briefly. He tries to recall the place. All he can think of is the bin.

  Clunk.

  ‘I have to head inside,’ he says. ‘Put this stuff away.’

  ‘Of course,’ she smiles and nods, looks to the black plastic bag and then to the bag with William Shatner’s head in it. His features are obscured slightly by the material of the bag but the outline is still visible, as is the red paint which streaks the face.

  Maureen Hill’s eyes widen. She pales instantly and turns as quickly as her magnitude will allow.

  ‘Grimsby,’ Tom remembers.

  She doesn’t acknowledge him. She rocks towards the stairs, almost tripping at one point in the panic of her departure.

  ‘Grimsby,’ he calls after her once more before moving to his own bed-sit.

  Chapter 26

  One of the evenings Mary was accompanied by a man, tall if he wasn’t so stooped over, and handsome if it wasn’t for his pained expression. His arms were long and bent awkwardly at the elbows, his hands curled inwards as if collapsing in on themselves. He wore an old suit of crumpled black material and he reminded Tom of a spider.

  Tom would later find out that he was Mary’s husband and that he suffered from chronic arthritis.

  The couple sat at a table in Ryan’s bar, side by side facing the same point on the wall. They didn’t turn to each other once and they didn’t speak. After a time, Mary left him and made her way around the bar. She wore a flimsy dress, the type which ended above the knee and hinted at what lay underneath with every movement of her hips or legs. Her hair was tied up on her head, revealing the paleness of the skin at her neck. The women in the bar reacted differently to Mary than the men. They had little time for her. They offered blunt, unsmiling greetings and immediately found distractions to prevent a conversation following. The men would watch her though, bouncing on heels, shouting witty lines and straightening their backs. And she would lay a hand on their upper arms when talking to them, press against them as she laughed, play with her hair when listening.