The Good Mayor: A Novel

by Andrew Nicoll

  “I should go in,” Agathe said but she kept her arms around him.

  “Should you?”

  “I should go in.”

  “Is there anybody there?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not. Not usually.”

  “You can come home with me.”

  There was a groan in her voice. “Hektor, I can’t.”

  He said nothing. The snow fell. The sky was white.

  “I can’t, Hektor. I can’t.”

  “It’s snowing,” he said. “Still snowing. It’s snowing worse. I should go home.”

  Agathe was standing there face to face with him, the buttons of her coat brushing his shirt, her face turned up to him, chin raised, nose in the air, eyes closed, snowflakes melting on her open lips, landing briefly on her pale skin and dying there.

  Her body and Hektor’s were touching, belly and breast and thigh as he tried to wrap her in his coat, holding the flaps of it around her, warming her and protecting her. The scent of her filled him. She was waiting to be kissed. Hektor kissed her. Not hesitantly. Not brushing her lips with his. Not giving her the chance to draw back with indignation. Not hinting. Not fearing. Not asking if this was the thing she wanted to do because he knew it was. He kissed her and he kept on kissing her with the snow swirling about them now and the piano jangling and the smell of the stale beer and the noise of the bar.

  “Is there anybody there? At your house?” she asked.

  “No. Nobody. Never.”

  She held him closer, laying her hands flat on his back, under his coat, against his shirt, feeling the heat of him, pressing her face into him, his neck, his chest, his throat.

  “Never?”

  “No, Agathe. Never.” He planted small kisses on her snowy hair, over her forehead, across her eyes, back to her mouth.

  “Take me there,” she said.

  Hektor’s flat was close by, just a little further along the river and round the corner in Canal Street. Now, when they walked, they walked quickly, not like people who wanted to linger together, not like people who went unwillingly towards a reluctant parting, but like people hurrying to something they had waited for and longed for, dreamed of for ages. The trees along the black canal held up bare arms to the sky. Snow was piling in the dips between their branches. It had already hidden the cobbles that ran in front of the tenements and smoothed itself over the rusty railings between the pavement and the water’s edge and the cascade of downy snowflakes falling all around made the street lamps sparkle like the glitter ball that hangs from the ceiling of the Empress Ballroom in Ampersand Street.

  Agathe and Stopak used to go dancing there and, just for a second, she had a memory of a handsome man in a blue suit, holding her in his arms and smiling at her. She drove it from her mind. “Come on,” she said and held Hektor a little tighter. “Is it far now?”

  “We’re here. The green door. Number 15. Soon get you warm.”

  She pressed her mouth on his again. He tasted of cigarettes. “I’m warm. I’m warm. It’s only my face that’s cold.”

  “I believe it.” He grabbed her to him and stood for long minutes kissing her and kissing her, dragging his hands over her, skating over her curves, enjoying her. Even through the thick cloth of her coat, the feel of her was something wonderful and the smell of her perfume was filling him. The kissing went on and on, his hands grew more and more insistent until she was pressed against him and moaning deep in her chest, rubbing herself on him, grinding against him with his hands on her as her coat rose up over her hips and her skirt followed it, sliding over her thighs.

  Agathe broke away. “No! Not here. Not in the street. Let’s get in the house. Come on, for God’s sake.”

  Hektor patted his pockets, searching for his house keys.

  “Come on! Come on!” Agathe was shuffling from foot to foot in an eager little dance behind him.

  He searched every pocket twice—his trousers, his coat, his jacket inside and out and then he found them, jammed down under his sketchbook and his Omar Khayyám. The books strained the cloth as he tugged them out. “Hold these,” he said, passing them to Agathe and stooping to the keyhole. “I can’t see what I’m doing.” His hands were shaking. “I’m so cold.” And there was a tremble in his voice.

  And then the door swung open and he turned round, ready to welcome her but she almost ran past him, out of the snow and into the darkened flat, her hand brushing his as she passed. “Show me the way,” she said. She had already taken off her coat.

  Is it really necessary to say more of what took place then? Is this the kind of story that requires details like that—a record of every last sigh and whimper and groan? “Show me the way,” that was what Agathe said. But that’s not what he did. Hektor didn’t show her the way. Hektor reminded her of the way.

  All that he could give she soaked up like a sponge that’s been left to dry out on the bathroom shelf all summer long and then, when it finds itself in water again, it absorbs everything, it softens and it swells and it drinks in every drop and then it gives everything back again, willingly. Agathe was like that. Hektor reminded her how to be like that. Hektor reminded her that she had never really forgotten.

  All afternoon, they made love in the old brass bed that stood in one corner of Hektor’s room and, when they were too tired to make love any more, he went to the cupboard under the sink and brought out a bottle of vodka that shone blue in the snow-light from the window and they sipped it until it was dark, holding the covers up to their chins and talking. And then they made love again.

  At midnight, when Good Tibo Krovic was asleep, alone in the house at the end of the blue-tiled path, when Stopak was lying face-down on the sofa with an empty beer crate beside him and the front door swinging open to the landing, when Achilles the cat was trampling a nice, flat circle on Agathe’s bed and settling down for the night, Hektor was standing naked at his stove, making a six-egg omelette as Agathe leaned on one elbow, naked in bed, and watched him, smiling.

  And, after they ate the omelette and after they drank a little more vodka, while the snow squandered itself silently all night long and the stove creaked and rattled and cooled, they made love.

  HEN IT WAS MORNING. AGATHE LAY ON HER back, awake, as she once lay in another life, naked, pinned under a snoring man who half covered her, half embraced her.

  The curtains were closed but they were thin and unlined. They fitted none too well. The winter dawn was approaching, the street lamps were still burning outside and every scrap of light was dancing back from the snowy street and through the gaps at the edges of the curtains, through the gap at the middle where they didn’t quite fit, through the scalloped bite marks at the top where they sagged on the pole, filling the room with a mouse-grey light.

  “A man did that,” Agathe thought. “I could fix those. I could make some nice curtains for this place.”

  She lay in bed, her left arm pinned under Hektor and crooked around him, pillowing him against her breast, her right hand free and twisting his hair in curls around her finger. From time to time, she bent forward, awkwardly, and kissed him on the top of his head and lay down again on the pillow, smiling and whispering, “You are just gorgeous,” or “Thank you. Thank you,” and, once, “What have I done?”

  She looked round the room. Things were appearing in the gathering light, stepping out of the shadows and taking shape—the stove, probably not the cleanest, a large china sink below the window with a cupboard underneath and dishes piled on the draining board, another cupboard (or a wardrobe?), a table in the middle of the room and three chairs round it.

  The fourth was at her elbow, pretending to be a bedside table. The dirty vodka glasses stood there and a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches and two books—the books Hektor had taken from his pocket and handed to her at the door. Agathe picked them up and put them on top of the blankets in front of her, one large and black and plain, one small and greenish brown with worn suede covers, all bent and stained and faded. There were g
old letters stamped on the spine and on the front—“Omar Khayyám.” A nice name. Carefully, so as not to move too much and wake Hektor, she opened the book, holding it in her one free hand and turning the pages with her nose. Agathe was surprised to find poems. Small poems. Lots of them. Some happy ones. Some about love. Quite a few about drink but mostly sad ones. Still, she liked them and decided to read some more a bit later.

  She put the book down and trailed her fingers over the blankets, looking for the other one. It was plain and black like a Bible but, where a Bible is thick and squat, this was elegantly proportioned, slim, stylish. Where a Bible has pages that are cigarette-paper thin, these were thick and creamy white. With the book lying flat on the bed, she opened it and picked it up, one handed, and held it overhead, as if to read the ceiling and there, spread over two pages of plain paper, she saw herself, naked. Agathe gasped. She almost cried out. She nearly jumped from the bed but there was a naked man lying asleep on her. Quickly she turned the page. Another naked Agathe. And another and another. Pictures of Agathe, beautifully drawn pictures of Agathe sitting, walking, standing, stretching, running, lying down, all beautiful and all of them, every one of them, naked. Her mind flew to the postcard still pinned up over her desk. “More beautiful than this, more to be desired,” that was what it said.

  And she realised, “I am more beautiful. I am more desired.”

  “Do you like them?” Hektor spoke without moving his face from her breast, without even opening his eyes. She felt his moustache moving against her skin and the bristles of his morning chin.

  “Oh, God, they are lovely,” she said. “Hektor, I had no idea. I never knew.”

  “Well, now you know. But you don’t know the half of it yet.”

  Hektor made to roll out of bed, putting his knees and elbows down carefully on either side of her so as not to squash her. For a second or two, they were touching again along their whole lengths and she felt him stir. He looked at her and smiled and kissed her nose, then he rolled on, out of bed and on to the floor.

  “You hungry?” he asked.

  “No. I’m fine.” Looking at him Agathe couldn’t help grinning.

  “Coffee?”

  “That would be nice, yes. Thanks.”

  “I’ll make some in a minute. Something to show you first.”

  Hektor went to the sink and tugged the flimsy cotton curtains off the window. “Need some light,” he said.

  But Agathe had dived under the covers with a shriek.

  “Hektor! I’ve got no clothes on!” She peeked out from the blankets. “You’ve got no clothes on! The whole street will see you.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s nobody about. People in Canal Street don’t get up much before opening time at the Crowns. And it’s my house. If I want to go about with no clothes on, that’s my business. Now, look at this.”

  From the gap at the side of the sink Hektor pulled out a large oblong canvas, covered in a torn sheet. “No, I’m standing in the light,” he said, “that won’t do.” He brought the painting to the foot of the bed and held it up. “Don’t say anything. Feel,” he said and he let the sheet fall to the floor.

  Agathe had half expected to see another image of herself but she was unprepared for this. The picture glowed with colour and life and animal heat. It warmed the room with a kind of lust. She could feel it in every brush stroke, a dark longing that Hektor had carried with him for days or weeks or months and caressed and pounded into the canvas. She lay, the painted Agathe, on her right side, her back turned to the room, hair piled high on her head and a few loose curls falling temptingly from her neck. She was stretched on a couch of plump cushions, nestled in velvets and rich silks and putting them to shame with the soft, pale simplicity of her skin. But there was more, for the whole of the background was taken up with a giant mirror in a gilded frame and she lay there, smiling, completely exposed, front and back, every rose-pink cello curve of her wantonly on show.

  “It’s based on a famous picture,” said Hektor. “It’s called The Rokeby Venus by a man called Velázquez. What they call an Old Master. You probably haven’t heard of him.”

  “Oh, no. I recognise it.” Agathe had thrown back the covers and she was crawling along the mattress like a tigress confronting a rival. The painting fascinated her and appalled her. That look, that knowing smile, reflected in the mirror, the hunger in her eyes. How could he have known that? How could he have painted that?

  Hektor gestured over the canvas with a finger. “I made the mirror bigger. In the old days they only had little ones and I wanted …”

  “I know what you wanted—you wanted all of me.” Agathe was kneeling at the end of the bed, gazing at the picture, forgetting the morning cold and the drawn curtain and the window on the street. “You wanted all of me.” She reached out to brush the painting with her fingers but Hektor danced it away.

  “Don’t touch,” he said.

  With the picture gone, Agathe collapsed back on the bed like someone released from a spell. She stretched out on her back and writhed slowly, pouting, dancing to the music of words only she could hear—more beautiful than this, more to be desired. “Hektor wanted all of me,” she said, “and Hektor can touch me if Hektor wants.”

  “Hektor wants.”

  “Draw the curtains,” she said.

  Draw the curtains. That’s probably very wise advice. With the curtains closed, even those thin and skimpy curtains, there would be nothing to draw attention to No. 15 Canal Street, nothing to startle the pale children with their thin trousers and leaking shoes as they pelted each other with snowballs on the way to the Eastern Elementary School and, if a barge full of coal should happen to be passing along the canal, there would be no reason for the captain to gawp and run backwards along the deck so he could stay level with the window for as long as possible, not the slightest clue that a beautiful young woman was in there, making love with her husband’s cousin for, what, the fifth time since lunch yesterday. Draw the curtains. It’s sensible advice for the people who read stories, as much as for the people in them. Draw the curtains and wait outside in the snow for a bit until Agathe opens them again, just as she did that morning, all washed and dressed with her hair brushed and her make-up done. And, when she opened the curtains again that morning, the omelette pan was washed and the vodka glasses were rinsed and sparkling and the coffee pot was hot on the stove.

  Agathe put it on a tray with a bottle of milk she had found outside on the bathroom window sill, two blue cups and a green sugar bowl. Wet spoons had set the sugar into a solid lump but a few pokes with a fork had broken it up again, more or less. She carried the whole lot to the table in the middle of the room, where Hektor was seated, in his shirtsleeves, reading yesterday’s early edition of the Evening Dottian.

  And then a strange thing happened. That sob which had been hanging around the corner of her mouth as she ate her soup in The Golden Angel only the day before, hanging round and pretending to be a laugh, suddenly came back. Agathe sat down at the table and began to pour the coffee and, just as she did, she started to laugh. And she laughed until she cried, laughed and laughed with two hands over her face, hiding her eyes until she sobbed and choked and wept, until she was doubled over, wailing and beating the table with bunched little fists and letting the tears roll off her face on to the striped oilcloth.

  Stopak would have been frightened by something like that. Tibo too, for that matter, but he would have touched her, put an arm on her shoulder, patted her hand and cooed soothing noises until it passed. But neither of them would have understood it or known how to react. Hektor was wiser. He sat at the other end of the table, sipping hot coffee and reading the racing tips, snatching a glance at her from time to time but saying nothing, not touching her.

  Even when the sobbing was past, he said nothing. When she lay, rolling her face on the table and moaning, he never said a word. When she was still and sniffling softly, Hektor made no sound. He kept reading the paper until Agathe dragged herself up f
rom the table, ran the cold tap in the sink and washed her face and took a dish towel from the rail on the front of the stove and balled it into her eyes. Even then, he said nothing. Even then, he waited until the alarm clock on the window sill had ticked out twenty tiny, tinny ticks and only then he put down his paper and set his cup back down on the tray and said, “It had to come out.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh, God. What have we done? Hektor, what have we done?”

  “We’ve made each other very happy—that’s what we’ve done. Well,” he looked modestly at the tablecloth, “at least you have made me very happy.”

  She flapped the dish towel at him. “You made me happy too. A lot.”

  “I didn’t mean that way,” he said. “Look, I really mean this. If you regret last night, then it never happened. Go to work and say you slept in. Stopak won’t even notice you weren’t home. He’s probably still sleeping it off as usual. Go round the corner, give him his cup of coffee and he’ll never be any the wiser. He won’t hear it from me.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Tell me what to do,” she said.

  “I’ll never do that. Promise.”

  “Then tell me what you want to do. Tell me.”

  “I want you to move in with me.”

  “Oh, God.” She buried her face in the dish towel again.

  Hektor left the table and came to stand beside her, holding her by the shoulders and cradling her face against his chest. He said, “Agathe, listen to me and, if there’s a word I say that isn’t the truth, you’ll hear it and know it. I love you. I have loved you from the day you married Stopak and I danced at your wedding. I love you. And Stopak is killing you. Day by day, he is killing you and it makes me want to kill him. If you want to stay with him, you can. If you want to come to me sometimes for things that Stopak doesn’t give you, I won’t deny you but I love you and I want us to be together. Come to me.”