by Primula Bond
What do they see? In headline terms? Handsome, rough-hewn local hack seen arguing with red-head city girl.
‘Still? What do you mean, still? We’re history, remember?’
A week is a very short time in the search for fame and fortune.
‘I saw you. An hour ago. In the caravan with your new tart!’
We gape at each other. The tea urns behind the counter hiss and steam. The small audience props their chins on their hands, turned fully round now to listen.
‘I know the window is extremely grubby, but if you were watching closely, Folkes, you’d have seen that it wasn’t the missionary position after all. She’s very nimble, that one. Very flexible. When she rides me like that I come in seconds. I don’t know what it is, special internal muscles, a technique learned in a Chinese massage parlour, whatever, but she’s always gagging for it, she’s brilliant at making me come. She’s a sexy little thing. So much better than you!’
He jabs his biro at me like a dart, tips his chair forward on its front legs, and I slap him across the face. The silence in the cafe is equally sharp.
‘My God. There’s fire in that belly of yours. You’re not jealous, are you?’ He tips backwards, holding his sore cheek. I can tell he’s trying hard not to yelp with the pain. ‘You’re the one who ran out on me, remember? You’re the one who grew too big for her boots.’
‘I’m the one who dumped you, yes. But that doesn’t mean you can go around saying foul things about me. It’s offensive. You hit a nerve. All that intimate stuff about what I was like in bed!’ I clasp my hands together and shake my head to calm myself down. ‘I shouldn’t have hit you, and I’m sorry. But I’m not jealous. Get that into your head once and for all. I’m happy for you, Jake. You’re a great guy, and she’s a lucky girl. You and me, we’re over. So let’s leave our sex life out of it, OK?’
‘Says the woman who’s been creeping round spying on people!’
‘Write what you like about me! Kiss and tell! There’s no such thing as bad publicity, and sex sells, doesn’t it, however kinky or sad? You know that better than anyone!’ I fire it all back at him, then lay my hands flat on the table between us. Lower my voice. ‘I’ll just have to trust you.’
‘That could be interesting.’ He sticks the biro behind his ear and uses the movement as an excuse to touch his red cheek. ‘There’s always another tack. I could tell my own story, how I rescued you from your abusive parents? How the first time I saw you you were twelve years old, cowering outside the pub, in the rain, while they sat in there drinking like fishes?’
‘Fish.’
‘Or the time I found you sleeping on the beach, covered in bruises?’
I sigh and hold my hands up in exasperation. ‘Perfect! A shameful stick to beat the new talent on the block. Why would you do that?’
‘It’s what they want these days. Misery memoirs. It’ll add to your mystique, Serena. They’ll sit up and take even more notice. And if you want to be really pretentious about it, it’ll explain why so many of your pictures show the archetypal light and shade. Mostly shade.’
‘You have a point, actually, but you haven’t seen the half of them. The ones I took in Venice and Paris, they’re really dark.’ I narrow my eyes at him. Try a different tack. ‘But you are right. You know me better than anyone, Jake. You know what lies behind those photographs. What drives me. I’m trying so hard not to be bitter and poisonous. I had no-one except you and your family to teach me how to be the opposite of them. So you also know how ambitious I am to fly above all that. You did help me, and you did rescue me, but when fate stepped in and took those bastards away, the world turned a little more, and I decided to get off. Please don’t waste your life being angry with me.’
I push my chair back after my little speech. It’s late. It’s getting dark outside. Jake remains slumped in his chair, sweeping his recorder and his other things across the table and into his bag.
‘Show’s over,’ he growls.
The other punters resume their drinking and gossiping.
I step out into the cold street, into the shrill column of air where the sea breeze and the wind from the moors always clash. I’ve been rude and abrasive to my first and only love, but I feel strangely liberated as well. Jake’s a big boy. He can take it.
I wrap my blue scarf more closely around my neck and square up my shoulders to move on.
A leather-clad arm blocks my path.
‘I didn’t mean that. About you being no good at it.’
‘At what? Photography?’
Jake plants himself in front of me. He looks down at the ground and shuffles in the kind of kicked-dog way he has when he’s saying sorry. ‘Sex. I was lashing out just then. Seeing you down here again so soon has thrown me, I guess. You’ve obviously moved on with your new life, your career and all, but I’m not quite there yet. I feel as if we’ve only just said goodbye. Anyway, just want you to know I didn’t mean it about you being selfish in bed.’
I stop and button on my new blue leather gloves. ‘This apology sounds good. I’m listening.’
He looks up sheepishly. ‘I should have told you, bigged you up more at the time, but you were, you are, red hot. Despite the efforts of your family to crush you, you were like those flowers that come up again and again, even on a rock.’
I shake the hair out of my eyes and laugh. ‘Never had you down as a poet, Jake.’
‘Just hear me out!’ He coughs awkwardly, still scuffing boyishly at the kerb. ‘I won’t get the chance to say this again. But you blossomed, Serena, and now you have the body of a goddess. Every inch of you. You were dynamite in the sack. I’ll never forget that, and I’ll never forget you.’ Jake looks up, takes my face in his big hands. Thank God already the gesture feels platonic. ‘Some lucky geezer is going to find that out about you very, very soon.’
Once again I’m on the train. He’s not seeing me off this time. He’s got an article to file. An ex-girlfriend to eulogise. A new girl to get back to, keeping his caravan warm.
And I’ve got a patron to please. He was proud of me at the private view. I know that much. I saw it in his eyes, in the way he introduced me, walked around the room showing off my work, watched me as I stood against the wall remembering that night in the Venetian convent. I’ll tell him all about that when we’re alone together. Every detail. Maybe I’ll even take him back there to Venice, and show him.
When I get back to London he might tell me what he wants. And I’ll do it, whatever it is. I’m desperate to get back to him. He has something he needs to get out of his system, maybe the ex-wife, maybe something else nasty that’s lurking in his woodshed.
The train gets underway, the rumbling tug vibrating through the seat as it pulls us out of the station, out into the countryside, it thrums up my legs, right up into me, making me vibrate in time. I’ll move in tomorrow. I’ll get my stuff, and use this key. And then I’ll set out to please him. How will I do that?
How about I arrange myself on my bed up there in the attic, ask him to bring me up a glass of water or a candle, let him find me stretched out on the bed, the white negligee half on, half off, perhaps pretending to be asleep but my arms stretched wide in welcome, legs a little open too.
He’ll come into the room hesitantly because he’ll be unable to leave. He’ll stand at the end of the bed, breathing heavily as he looks at me. He’ll come closer, and sit beside me on the bed. I’ll feel the mattress give under him. My chest will rise and fall with my breathing; will I be able to conceal the fact that my heart is hammering? My breasts will rise and fall, too. He’ll stretch out a hand and run it over my contours. I’ll be able to feel the electricity in the millimetres dividing us.
The palm of his hand might brush the points poking sharply through the silk, and they will stiffen eagerly. I’ll resist the temptation to smile, or lick my lips. I’ll be the Sleeping Beauty. But inside I’ll be melting.
I watch the countryside rush past, glance at my passengers. One or two are looking
at me, but could that be because I’m looking smart today? Lashed by the sea wind and rain, bright eyed from the fresh air, but focused totally on what lies ahead of me in London?
What will Gustav do then? Will he rise and step quietly from the room, leaving me fuming with frustration? Or will he notice the dampness, close his hands over the swell of my breasts, shift nearer on the bed, a tiny fleck of saliva in the corner of his mouth, his face flushed with desire, pulse pummelling in his neck?
In the train I cross my legs, trapping my hand inside my thighs. My newspaper is open on my knee. Another review of my show. Under it I start to lift my skirt, slide my hand underneath as I plot and plan how to bring about Gustav Levi’s downfall.
I will yawn and arch my back, let my arm drop over the bed, push my breasts up higher to be seen. Will he be able to tell that even in pretend sleep I’m aching to be touched?
Shift the tempo of my fantasy. How about if he was already on the bed with me, running his hands down my back, turning me towards him. What if I flipped up, like Jake’s girl in the caravan, surprised him with my agility, pushed him down and straddled him?
‘Do you like what you see?’ I might whisper, pushing the straps of my negligee down my arms, bending over him. ‘My nipples are hard. I like them being touched. I like them being sucked.’
He will stare at them, take my breasts in his hands, this is torturing us both. He’ll rub his thumbs over the nipples, and then I’ll lower myself right over him and push them at his face, at his mouth, poke them hard so they slip between his teeth and he’ll feel the leap of desire inside him as his mouth closes round them and starts to suck.
I am lying back in my seat now, my fingers stroking myself under my skirt. This fantasy is driving me mad. Jake was right, in a way. I am jealous. Not because I want him, or our old life together, but because I want someone, right here, right now, to call my own. And if that special person turns out to be Gustav, I know that nothing will ever be simple and straightforward again.
Why can’t this train go faster? I rub my fingers faster under the newspaper, press my thighs together as the excitement builds and bursts and leaves me weak and breathless, and a little ashamed.
He’ll suck until I come, and maybe then he’ll call me selfish.
I close my eyes. One step at a time. I start to drift, away from Devon, away from everything.
A text pops up on my phone. Come to me as soon as you can. I miss you.
But it’s not from Jake. It’s from Gustav.
NINE
I like sitting behind this glass desk. When I’m here on my own it’s as if these few hundred square feet of prime London real estate are all mine. The whitewashed walls are adorned with my photographs, and nearly half of the exhibits are dotted with red spots to indicate a sure sale. Already limited edition prints, posters and greetings cards are being rushed out for sale in our pop-up shop – and I’ve gone with Jake’s idea to sell the Devon series as arty postcards in the village.
I am itching to go to Gustav like his text said. But I’ve managed to resist for another whole day. Something is telling me to play hard to get, just a little longer. Not withhold completely, because we have an agreement. Just not show him all my cards. How I sat on that train travelling away from my past, wanting to be with him, as he seems to want me. That silver chain permanently pulls at us, even when we’re at opposite ends of the country.
A while ago Crystal glided out of the lift with a huge cup of Americano. Not polystyrene. A proper, French-style tasse, complete with tray and plate of chocolate HobNobs. She looked round the exhibition, nodded with satisfaction at the red dots stuck onto the frames. She is wearing a red trouser suit to match the dots today. But she didn’t linger for a chat.
From here I can see the London Eye, Westminster Bridge and, if I crane my neck, part of the Houses of Parliament. I love the clear wintry daylight bathing my face. There’s something serene yet life-giving about watching the river, this once disease-ridden artery of the city flowing ceaselessly past.
It’s lunch time, and several potential buyers have wandered in. A couple are standing in front of my Halloween triptych. It’s already been sold, but I drift up to them and tell them that they can also buy a special edition if they put down a deposit.
Next, a large group of photography students troops into the gallery. I watch them study the composition and lighting, and I really enjoy giving them a mini lecture on my technique. It’s especially fun seeing their reactions as they see the Venetian series, look once, then take two, glancing at each other, as they see what the angelic nuns are actually doing to themselves.
At last the gallery is deserted.
I wander back to my desk and as I sit down I knock my bag off. A pile of old exercise books tips out all over the floor. My diaries. Covered in dust. The big print of a man’s boot on one of them. Some ripped. Why on earth didn’t she burn them?
I shouldn’t do it, I know it’ll be opening a can of worms, but there’s nobody here and so I open one at random.
Today my calendar says it’s my seventh birthday. I put a big pink heart around the day. I told everyone at school and they sang to me in assembly. Miss Joney gave me a packet of felt pens and was very kind.
When I got home I hoped there would be a chocolate cake with seven candles that I could blow out, but there wasn’t. Not any sandwiches or squash. She was there and she threw the teapot at me. It was full of tea and it didn’t hit me but the tea burned my hand.
She said the school had phoned her but it isn’t my birthday and I’m a wicked little liar. She says I’m the only girl in the world who doesn’t have a real birthday. I don’t even have a real mummy or daddy. Nobody wanted me. When I was born he found me in a plastic bag when he was coming out of church. He was a vicar then. He’s not a vicar now.
He was sitting there while she said all this new stuff. He sat in his chair, not looking at me or the teapot or at her, just looking at the floor as if he wishes I was down there so he could step on me.
I shut the diary and slam it back down on the desk. A red mist has come down over my eyes. Seven years thinking I belonged somewhere, belonged to someone, all shattered in that one moment.
A train clatters over Hungerford Bridge. The light is already fading. Try not to think of it, try not to remember, but here it comes. The paralysing sense of betrayal that lingered for months after that. Maybe years. They must have been relieved to get that off their chests. Someone could have advised them how to tell me the truth, but they never consulted anyone. I don’t know how I coped, because I can’t remember, and I didn’t write anything in my diary for about two years.
This fading winter darkness reminds me though of the muffling boredom when I was a child, too young to get away. As the light faded, closing off the cliffs and the sea behind the darkness, I would stare out of the window as the night rolled in, with no-one to talk to until I got to school the next morning, nothing to do except read and draw sad pictures in my cold little room.
They’re still hurting me, even though they’re six feet under. Making me feel, again, like that piece of shit on the dirty kitchen floor. The one that had to mop up the spilled tea and shards of teapot and go to bed with no supper.
What did Gustav say about being besotted, blinded, belittled, blamed? Well, they were the adults. I was the child. There’s no-one else to blame.
The phone rings.
‘There’s something I want to show you, Serena. I think it’s time. Can you shut up shop and meet me?’
‘Where?’
‘Are you alright? You sound breathless.’
I take a deep breath. Open a drawer to shove the diaries away, and something catches my eye. A hasty sketch on a piece of paper torn from Crystal’s clipboard.
A woman’s face. Big eyes. A swan-like neck. Face turned sideways, mouth half smiling, half gasping in secret rapture, an arm outstretched pointing at something. She looks like the pre-Raphaelite Rapunzel in Gustav’s house. She looks like me.
I recognise the long drop earrings I was wearing at the private view. Someone sketched me that night when I was leaning against the wall, remembering Venice.
‘Are you there, Serena?’
‘Er, yes.’ The diaries topple on top of the sketch and without thinking I slam the drawer. Wipe the sweat off my hand, off the phone itself. Stare out of the window at the sliding river.
‘I’m OK, Gustav. Just had a trying trip to Devon yesterday.’
‘I missed you when I came to the gallery. Important business, was it?’ He clears his throat. ‘That ex-boyfriend hassling you?’
‘Tying up loose ends, yes.’ I can feel myself calming down as I hear his voice. My heart rate slowing. ‘Ex-boyfriend hassling me? No. I was making sure I never need to go back there.’
‘You still sound stressed, Serena. What’s happened to that feisty mare with the tangled hair?’
Tears are welling up, obscuring my view of the river and the London Eye opposite. Goddammit. How does he do that? Takes what I’m feeling, reads it even through the phone, processes it, susses it, even makes it rhyme?
‘If I start telling you what’s dead and buried, I would never stop.’
‘I’m a good listener.’
‘One day, Gustav.’
‘Fine. So. You’ve looked at the figures? Crystal held the fort while you were out and she’s shifted nearly half the pieces now. Your amazing delivery the other night has tapped into some kind of underground zeitgeist. I thought I had my finger on the pulse when it came to trends, no matter how off the wall, but the response to your masochist voyeur motif has hit the mainstream!’
‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
There’s a silence at the other end of the phone. Rain is starting to hurl itself against the window.
‘You can thank me by meeting me in half an hour,’ Gustav answers at last. ‘Indulge me by letting me show you something that will extricate you from all those memories once and for all.’