Fascinated

  A silence settles between them. The radiators tick like clocks. In the darkness beyond the windows, angels stretch their dripping wings.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ says Frank, turning the empty glass in his hands.

  Valentine jumps up and plucks at the pleats in her skirt. ‘We don’t have to be home until midnight,’ she says quickly. ‘You know the rules. Have another drink while I go upstairs. I want to try my new outfit.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid to go up there alone?’ he asks, rolling his eyes at the ceiling.

  She hesitates. ‘I’ll scream if I need you.’

  She gathers together her shopping bags, retrieves her fallen overcoat and staggers up the staircase to the cottage bedroom.

  Frank puts down his glass and walks to the window. A thousand graves out there in the rain. Pillars and crosses. A crooked marble obelisk shining in the winter darkness. Men, women and children. Buried deep in the mud and forgotten. Nothing left of them but their names, fading on tablets of stone. The stones themselves get eaten away, decay like teeth, leave nothing but stumps in the ground. No one believes it will happen. No one believes in their own death. Impossible to imagine. Eternal sleep. Oblivion. Is that why they’ve started locking the graveyards? Blaming the dead for spreading the curse. Mortality held in isolation like some contagious disease.

  ‘Frank!’

  He swivels, turns to confront the staircase.

  ‘What is it?’ he shouts at the ceiling.

  ‘Come here!’

  He runs up the stairs, punching at the wooden banister, sensing the cottage shiver around him.

  The room contains a narrow brass bed covered by a quilted eiderdown. An old-fashioned enamel bath stands in one corner, sheltered by a folding screen. There are shopping bags and clothes scattered across the bed and the floor. Candles flicker around the walls.

  Valentine stands beside the bed and watches him enter the room, pausing, staring about him, surprised by the candlelight. She’s wearing a full-blown satin ballgown with a bodice tight as a swimsuit that flows into thick, voluptuous skirts. The satin is a crimson so dark it looks black in the candlelight. She fills the room like a fantastic moth trapped by the dangerous flames.

  ‘What do you think?’ She turns on tiptoe, a dancing movement, making the skirts swirl under her hands.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he says simply.

  ‘Jesus. I dunno.’ She looks doubtful, cups the bodice with her hands and gives it a violent twist that drags at her breasts and ruffles the skins against her hips. ‘I think it makes me look cheap.’

  There is no answer he can find to challenge her low opinion of this unexpected miracle. His mouth is dry. His chest feels squeezed by desire.

  ‘Help me out, Frank,’ she says finally, impatiently clipping the skins with her fist. ‘I think I’m beginning to suffocate.’

  Frank steps forward and she turns her back, presenting herself to the window. After so many years of married life he’s become a master of hooks and buttons, tangled knots and broken zips. He studies the tight scoop of the bodice beneath the wings of her shoulder blades, looking for the trace of a seam.

  ‘I can’t find the buttons,’ he says at last, but continues to finger the satin skirt, reluctant to abandon his search.

  ‘It doesn’t have any buttons, stupid! You’re supposed to lift it over my head.’

  He drops to one knee, dainty, fussing, a haberdasher with pins in his teeth, gathers the hem in his hands and draws the ballgown around her waist. For some mysterious reason she’s discarded her shoes and pantihose. As he rises from the floor, the skirts lifting into his arms, his eyes follow the map of her legs, the long muscles in her calves, the sharp cords of the hamstrings, the faint popliteal hollows where she’s placed a little of her poisonous perfume, the swelling convexity of her thighs, until he straightens up again and the bundle of satin obscures his view.

  He hesitates, breathing hard, excited by her sudden captivity in this sagging crimson hoop, while she patiently stands and stares at the rain with her arms raised above her head. A witch calling out to the dead. This dark-haired phantom. This woman who is not his wife.

  ‘Hey, take it easy!’ she complains, as he tries to wrench her loose at the waist. He fumbles, spilling some of his precious cargo.

  Valentine snorts impatiently, turns in a circle and twists from the bodice, conceals her breasts in her hands, tilting at him with her elbows, bending her head to pull the ballgown over her shoulders. The skirt slithers the length of her arms and falls from her fingertips.

  She stands for a moment and stares at him, her arms still held against her breasts, the gown sinking on the floor between them. ‘Are you going to fuck me?’ she whispers, so softly that Frank thinks, at first, he imagines it. He’s amazed by the sight of her standing there naked; the way the candlelight dapples her face, the brittle bones on her bunched knuckles, the long belly, the tuft of black hair in the fork of her thighs. His heart is pounding. The blood roars through his head.

  ‘That’s what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?’ she says quietly, unfolding her arms in surrender and watching him concentrate on her breasts. The dark nipples harden to berries against his obsessive scrutiny.

  He steps forward in a trance, trampling through the puddle of satin, and reaches out to take her hands. She draws him closer, pushing out with her hips in an effort to close the distance between them. He places a kiss on her neck, tasting the bitter flavour of perfume, peeks quickly along the line of her jaw towards the corner of her mouth that opens, without hesitation, to the darting tip of his tongue.

  He pulls back his head, breathless, excited, wanting to look at her again, but she sucks him back to the heat of her mouth. She is peppery with vodka, slippery with lipstick. Their tongues coil like serpents against her teeth. She has pinned his hands against her waist but he now feels her grip begin to slacken and reluctantly she releases him, setting him free to explore her skin. He traces her spine with his fingers, shapes a saddle to fit her haunches. He makes love to this strange and beautiful woman in the simple way that he courts his wife. But she feels so foreign in his embrace. She is taller than Jessica, broader at the shoulders and cushioned around the hips. She becomes huge to his senses, an unknown continent. He measures her body with floating hands, searching for a pulse, the kick of a nerve, some small response to help guide him forward. He ventures as far as her belly but her thighs snap shut against his advance, trapping his fingertips in her bristles.

  ‘Fuck me against the window,’ she whispers urgently. ‘I want you to frighten away the ghosts.’ She kneels down in the heap of crushed satin and clings to his belt while she works with one hand at his buttons. His trapped penis swings from his pants, stiffens slowly for her inspection.

  He stumbles forward, clumsy and ridiculous, his penis rolling like a happy drunkard as he follows her across the room. She stops before the window, grasps the wooden frame in her hands and stands, arms stretched and legs braced apart, tilting her backside towards him. She is luminous in the candlelight. His shadow is a leaping cat.

  She cries out at his penetration, jerking forward and making the windowpanes rattle. Her hair unrolls against her neck like a rope of liquorice. He buries his face in its darkness, closing his eyes, feeling her big breasts sway in his hands.

  ‘Do you know what my father would do to you if he caught you?’ Her voice has grown small, the words catching against her throat.

  A gust of rain against the slates. A candle gutters. Beneath them the field of gravestones is a crumbling coral reef.

  ‘I can imagine,’ gasps Frank.

  ‘He’d kill you!’ she says with relish. ‘He’d make Webster kill you!’ She throws back her head and squirms against him with her slapping buttocks.

  ‘Slow down!’ he begs as she bumps and grinds and, in a moment of confusion, Jessica springs from his memory, bucking her bones, determined and nimble-fingered, fighting against his caress, impatient to be rid of him.

 
‘If he finds out that you gave me a fucking, he’ll kill you!’ she growls. But she stops pushing, giving him time to pull from the brink. He trembles with fever, his breath in short blasts of steam on the window.

  ‘How will he find out?’ he says, nuzzling her neck. He imagines microphones under the bed, cameras concealed in knots in the woodwork, everything on video tape reduced to a gritty black-and-white peepshow. The thought of it cools his ardour, reminds him of Valentine’s mother, crawling around on her hands and knees, mocking attitudes of desire, a pornographic pantomime. Turning tricks for the camera. Worse than circus animals.

  ‘You might tell Webster,’ she suggests. She levers herself from the window frame, twists around and cradles his face in her hands. His penis plops loose, slapping her thigh, leaving a snail’s trail against her skin. ‘Men talk!’ she adds indignantly.

  ‘Silent as the grave,’ says Frank, rubbing her arms and making her shiver. Already he feels that the room is too crowded. He senses Jessica’s ghost, intent on mischief, conducting his hands upon Valentine in memory of her own body; Conrad’s spirit, brooding and violent, the eye of a storm above their heads; and somewhere in Valentine’s upturned face the ghost of her mother, a shadow of distant tragedy.

  Another candle crackles and gutters, whipping shadows around the room. He wants to drive out the ghosts and demons by purging himself to the core in her heat. He grabs her by the waist and tries to turn her towards the bed but she stumbles over the clothes on the floor and falls back, shrieking, bouncing against the mattress, digging down with her elbows and kicking out with her feet.

  ‘You’re paid to look after me!’ she shouts with her voice edged with fear. Her eyes are blurred. Her black hair scribbles across her shoulders.

  He stands above her, catching her ankles in his hands, watching her pump and thrash in the stirrups. ‘I’m paid to do as I’m told.’ He contemplates her joggling breasts, her sleek belly, the powerful pistons of her thighs. He wants to stand here for ever, frozen by some marvellous spell, and do nothing but luxuriate in the sight of this wonderful, sprawling beauty.

  Her struggle subsides and she grins. She stops pedalling. When his hands relax their hold she pulls back one leg, stroking the ball of her foot against his stubborn erection, supporting it, kneading the shaft with her toes.

  ‘Come here,’ she whispers, wrapping both legs around his waist and pulling him down towards her embrace. He topples forward, buckles against the bed and finds himself on the floor with his face pillowed between her thighs. She moans and shuts her eyes. The arms, held out to catch him, scissor together and tumble helplessly over her face.

  He kneels like a man in prayer, lapping at her cleft with his tongue, drinking the bittersweet sap, anointing his nose and chin with her spices. Her legs straddle his shoulders. She arches her spine, rubbing herself against his face, offering grunts of encouragement and prodding him with her heels. He feasts until she pouts open, a bubble of heat against his eager mouth, and feels himself melting into her body.

  ‘No …!’ she cries out. Her thighs lock against his skull, shaking him loose and landing his face aboard her belly.

  ‘Come and lie beside me.’

  He opens his eyes, unravels his aching limbs and throws himself on the bed. While he lies there, fighting for breath, she sets to work undressing him, wrenching his arms from his jacket sleeves, yanking down his pants, crawling over his chest to prise him from his shoes.

  ‘He’ll kill you!’ she mutters gleefully, tossing the shoes at the wall.

  ‘That’s if I survive the night,’ he wheezes as she turns to sit astride him and the last candle flickers out, leaving a ribbon of smoke curling softly against the window.

  ‘What happened to you last night?’ says Webster, bright as a button, wearing a natty new camouflage shirt, as he joins Frank at the breakfast table. He pours coffee from a glass pot. A brilliant sunlit morning flooding the windows brings the first teasing promise of spring.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ says Valentine sharply, before Frank can clear his throat of toast. She sits beside Webster and scowls at a carton of yoghurt, set down on her plate with a napkin and silver spoon. She’s wearing her long silk dressing gown with the heavy embroidered sash. Her hair has been tied in a ponytail.

  Webster smiles softly and spoons sugar into his cup. One. Two. Three. Four. ‘So where d’you stay until three o’clock in the morning?’

  Frank wipes crumbs from his mouth and searches the walls for inspiration. He feels as guilty as a schoolboy. Webster must have seen them come creeping home, watching from his perch in the rafters.

  ‘Don’t tell him!’ warns Valentine, snatching the sugar bowl from Webster’s hand.

  ‘You know Conrad likes you home before midnight,’ he says, smiling, stirring his coffee into a whirlpool.

  ‘I’m not a child,’ complains Valentine. She prises the lid from the carton of yoghurt and licks it clean with her tongue. ‘Did he get angry?’

  ‘He didn’t know you were missing. He watched a couple of your mother’s old movies. Hanky Spanky and Gusset Groaners.’

  ‘Yuk!’

  ‘He was so upset that I put him to bed about ten o’clock with a mug of hot milk and whisky.’

  ‘Did he cause any trouble?’

  ‘He slept like a baby.’

  ‘You’re lovely!’ she says, grabbing the back of his head in her hands and kissing him hot and hard on the mouth, making Frank flinch and turn his face towards the window.

  Webster grins, suddenly embarrassed, drains his cup and reaches again for the coffeepot. ‘He wants to talk to you,’ he says absently, belching and looking at Frank.

  ‘When?’ Frank glances at Valentine who quickly looks away, avoiding his eye, making him feel uneasy. A few hours ago he was holding her by candlelight, naked in a haunted gatehouse on the edge of a rain-swept graveyard. This morning they’re strangers. He’s hungry for a sign that something has happened between them, anxious to believe that something has changed in their lives. Don’t flatter yourself, Frank Fisher. You’re just here for their amusement. You’re Johnny the jolly gigolo.

  ‘He’s waiting for you in the hothouse.’

  ‘Finish your breakfast,’ commands Valentine as Frank pulls back his chair and launches himself from the table.

  ‘I’ve just lost my appetite.’

  He strides from the breakfast room, narrowly avoiding a maid with a tray, and hurries towards the jungle lair.

  He finds the old man sitting in the branches of a fallen tree in a damp glade of mosses and sword-edged grasses. He’s wearing a primrose cotton frock and a pair of gold earrings the size of walnuts. A shapeless blue cardigan hangs on his shoulders. His legs, in black stockings, dangle through rustling petticoats of curled and brittle leaves.

  ‘Frank!’ he shouts and grins as Frank comes trampling down the forest path and wades towards him through the field of swords. ‘Is this the tosspot who stole your wife?’ He produces a cardboard folder, flips it open and pulls out a black-and-white photograph which he hangs between bony knees.

  It’s a picture of Bassett with his arm wrapped around a girl in a corset and fishnet tights. Bassett is wearing a dinner jacket and smoking a fat cigar, a dark turd poking between his teeth. The girl is sporting a smile and a sash with the legend Golden Delicious warping over one breast. They’re posing for the camera at some annual fruit shippers’ dinner and dance.

  ‘That’s Bassett,’ says Frank, plucking the picture from Conrad’s fingers. ‘How did you get hold of it?’

  ‘Simple,’ says Conrad. ‘Fancy Wholesale Tropical Fruits is part of Pelican All Star Foods.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘You haven’t heard of Pelican?’

  ‘Well. I knew there was some connection …’

  ‘Pelican is a flag of convenience for Trojan Imports and Trojan is part of Staggers Security Holdings.’

  ‘You mean, you own Tropical Fruits?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s about
the size of it,’ beams Conrad. ‘Small world.’ He places a finger against the side of his big, marbled nose, squeezing one nostril, and winking at Frank with a blood-chilling smile.

  ‘Well, don’t look so surprised!’ he bellows when Frank is slow to recover from the shock of this revelation. ‘I’m more important than you. I’ve got more money.’

  ‘How long has he worked for you?’

  ‘I dunno, Frank. I didn’t know I owned Fancy Fruits until I made some enquiries. It’s difficult to keep track. But now that I’ve found him, it’s a pleasure to lose him for you.’

  ‘What have you planned?’ says Frank suspiciously. He can’t tell Conrad about his late brawl with Bassett because of Valentine but, as far as he is concerned, their dispute is settled.

  ‘I’m sending down the accountants to look at his paperwork.’

  ‘That should wipe the grin from his face,’ says Frank, holding out the photograph. It’s a most bizarre revenge but Conrad seems pleased enough with it. Frank had half-expected him to have Bassett shot in the back of the head, the corpse skinned and boned, the flesh flaked and fed to his goldfish. He’s mad enough to do anything.

  ‘You haven’t heard the rest of it,’ says Conrad. He reaches down for the photograph and restores it carefully to the folder. ‘I’m closing down the company!’ He sniggers softly to himself, watching Frank through the chinks of his eyes. ‘I’ve told Pelican All Star to fire the Fancy Fruit staff, strip out the assets, destroy the records and put the building up for sale.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Damn right!’ explodes Conrad, shaking the branches of his tree. He’s the king of the jungle. Mr Mumbo-jumbo.

  The high and mighty Boogaloo.

  He starts to erupt with laughter. It begins as a growl in his stomach, runs up through his chest and rushes into his throat, choking him, making his eyeballs bulge in their sockets, until he throws back his head and roars, his jowls set dark and trembling like the wattles on a mad old turkey cock. His grey face, swollen with so much blood, ripens into a varicose gourd.

  ‘You can’t shut down the company! You’ll hurt a lot of innocent people!’ argues Frank, shouting to make himself heard through the uproar. ‘They shouldn’t suffer because of Bassett!’