Director's cut

by I K Watson

  “We'll have to tighten security,” the colonel said seriously. “They got to him. She got to him. Lured him on to the rocks, or rather, into the road. Beware of the women's sweet song.”

  Mr Lawrence interrupted. “She left him.”

  “Exactly!” The colonel refused to see the point. “She left him knowing that he would be destroyed. My God, how I hate women. They never fight a single battle face-to-face, bayonet-to-bayonet. They come at you in the night, in the dark, in the back. Listen to an old soldier. Stay away from them. Just like the wops, really. Women and wops have a lot in common.” To a young woman in a hugging black dress behind the bar he shouted, “You there, you with the Polish accent, another drink if you please." And while she poured it he kept his eyes open for the possibility of poison. He turned as Mr Lawrence put on his hat. “Are you off, then? Is it that time already?”

  “Yes, it is. I have an early sitting.”

  “The woman?”

  Paul must have told him.

  “Yes.”

  “Good grief! You be careful. Take care. Can't stand any more casualties at the moment. Not until we get some reinforcements. Watch your back.”

  “I'll try to.”

  He left them to their mourning.

  Two customers were waiting for his return. Three if you counted the woman. She stood aside while a young couple chose a painting: ducks flying from a pond surrounded by trees in grand seasonal decay. Even as he wrapped it and wrote their card number on the back of their cheque he cringed at the thought of it hanging anywhere outside a garden shed.

  “Ducks!” he said to her once the brass bell had announced their exit. “My best seller. Ducks, and then tigers and horses and dogs and, of course, Oriental women with breasts bared. I ask myself what it is about ducks that make the masses want them flying up their livingroom walls? They ruin hundreds of quite reasonable landscapes. But there you are. Ducks sell.”

  He led her into the studio.

  “What is it about you today?”

  She settled into her pose.

  He wagged a finger. “There's something different. Let me guess. You're standing straight. There's a spring to your step. There's a glow to your skin. What's happened? You're messing about with my values.” “What is your favourite colour?”

  He shook an irritable head and said sharply, “That’s got nothing to do with it,” and then, after a pause, he relented and all but whispered, “Yellow.” He nodded. “Yes, yellow is good. That’s the colour of the future.”

  “I'm sorry. Gosh, you're always so grumpy. Perhaps it's not me at all. Perhaps your temper has changed, your eyes clouded with red. They do look red.”

  “Perhaps. Maybe. But if that were the case then things would be darker, not lighter.”

  “You've had a bad day?”

  “All days are bad. This one is worse.”

  “So it's true that the artist suffers.”

  “A sense of humour too, along with the spring. That's something else I hadn't bargained for.”

  “I want to change my pose. Is that all right by you?”

  She slipped that in and took him by surprise. Knife and palette suspended, he stood rooted while his colour darkened.

  “Will it mean starting over?” Her eyebrows raised over laughing eyes.

  She teasing him, by golly!

  Her shrug was a little caress. “If we can change our arrangements so that you're paid by the session, or something like that, it shouldn't much matter. And I do so want you to catch me…just right.” Eventually, a small tremble spread up from his knees and he seemed to come alive again. He said, “Christmas is coming. There won't be much to wrap.”

  “There is always Easter,” she said and gave him a broad smile. She sat on the sofa and leant back, lifting her legs up so that her dress fell away to reveal an expanse of thigh. “Something like this,” she said. Her thighs were slim and tanned, brushed with the colour of her copper-brown dress that fell away to expose them. She lay on the sofa, one arm resting on the arm, her legs drawn up, her knees bent, her dress falling away just right. It was, for her, a daring pose. It was impossible not to wonder. Her skin radiated the heat from two glasses of Cadet. He was down to his last bottle of Merlot-Malbec and kept it back for later, for when he was alone again and could brood over the session.

  She said, “I wonder what happened to Helen?”

  “Mrs Harrison?”

  “Yes, Mrs Helen Harrison.”

  Twice the sitting was interrupted by customers in the shop. Paul's absence was a nuisance – most inconsiderate of him – and slightly puzzling. He should have been home by now. Mrs Puzey arrived with her family and cleaning equipment and during the next hour while flying dust was cornered and lemon polish stung the air, he hid in the studio and continued with the painting. The woman had gone and left a curious hole.

  The painting was coming along. The blocking was complete, the key, the composition, and the shape was pleasing; the sweep of the hip, the depth of one smooth thigh as it curved in against the other, drew the eye to the shadow caused by her dress.

  The noise had ceased. The old bell had rung out a beautiful silence broken only by the sounds of tapping on the studio door. The door eased open and Laura glided in. Laura, she glided everywhere. A black streak of cover-girl potential hugged by a tight black skirt. A wide shiny belt bridged her skirt and a loose crimson top. No naked midriff for Laura. Not a hint of that firm, flat landscape with its glittering omphalos. Not that he had any reason to believe that she wore a bellybutton ring but he could fantasize as well as anyone. More to the point, Laura was fashion conscious and mutilation was the fashion. There were none of the flatlands of the Chinese delta about Laura, no paddy fields by gosh, more the lush hills of West Africa, he would say, or some bursting volcano in the Philippines. Somewhere jolly warm, anyway.

  Her glossy lips widened into a tropical smile. There was a breathless honesty in Luscious Laura, the black vixen of The British, unusual in women, for there was no threat. No threat at all.

  “Mr Lawrence,” she said.

  “What is it, Laura?”

  “The phone went. You didn't hear it.”

  “My hearing isn't what it was. Who was it?”

  “Paul, it was. He's gone now.”

  “Ah, Paul.”

  “He phoned from the hospital. They're keeping him in an extra night for observation and there’s nothing to worry about. He didn't want you to worry.”

  “Thank you, Laura. I'll try not to.”

  With a flourish she closed the door behind her. The air, still stirred by her breathless words, was touched with Wrigley's Spearmint. Having got used to the idea of Paul's return a slight disappointment drew in with the evening. Even the short walk to The British seemed stale. There was little sense of anticipation. He knew that the feeling would change. A few drinks would change it. In the pet shop window a hamster was going nowhere as it raced a plastic wheel.

  In The British Rasher's absence hung heavily. In the early evening the barmaids were even more indifferent as they contemplated their evening shift and the majority of the punters were on their way home, a swift half of courage to get them there. These were not serious drinkers. These people had families and were simply keen on a slight delay, a little pause in the perfunctory day before their perfunctory evening, train-spotters who were merely passing through. He was early. The familiar faces had yet to arrive.

  The malevolent day was drawing to its close and alcohol, would speed it on its way.

  “Good riddance!” he said and the barmaid in a tight black dress blinked and looked over the bar at him as though he was mad. She was quite right, of course.

  Beneath red-flocked wallpaper with its nicotine-stained edges they'd begun with 6 and 7, moved to 23 and 26 and finished with lychee and fresh mango. Two bottles of Wan-King, the house white, proved slightly more satisfying than its promise.

  Laura came back from the loo. He noticed the dilation of her pupils and her sudden elati
on.

  Laura giggled, wasted. The Wan-King was lethal; drink enough and you'd go blind, so they said, that's why the Chinese squinted, but that was probably an old Chinese wives’ tale. She let him into a secret. “Paul asked me to look after you. He thought you would be lonely. That's why I made an exception. I normally keep to my regulars. I owe him one for the telly and video he got me. The DVD is coming, on a promise. He's so grateful that you put him up and for the grapes that he wanted to give you something in return. So I agreed to perform a little trick for you, later. I have a whole box of them, Mr Lawrence. A whole box of tricks.”

  He lifted an overblown eyebrow. Leaving the tricks aside he knew a thing or two about boxes. Get to his age and, if the memory was up to it and that had a lot to do with diet – plenty of mackerel and walnuts and Heinz Tomato Ketchup – most men could remember the odd performance when they might have excelled. Even so, he was rather crestfallen and stuck out his lower lip. Eventually he said, “So it wasn't a coincidence then, our meeting in The British?”

  “Mr Lawrence,” she giggled like a teenager contemplating her first blow job. “Grown-ups don't believe in coincidence, do they? Come on. Swallow these and lighten up. You're much too dark.”

  Still downhearted Mr Lawrence said, “And what are these?” “A bit of Adam, to use an old-fashioned term, that's all. Down them with your wine.”

  “All of them?”

  “Go on, be an old devil.”

  “Well, perhaps this once, and only because it's been such a dreadful day. I'm not a druggie, you know? I’m not one of your long-haired surfers from Newquay.”

  “Come on, Mr Lawrence, take me home. Let me tuck you in and blow out your candle.”

  “I have electricity. It’s back on, no thanks to my lodger.”

  “Yes, he told me about that.”

  “How about a cup of coffee and a brandy and we'll leave it like that?”

  “As you like. It's all paid for anyway.”

  “Where does Paul get his money?”

  “Who knows? Why do some birds hop and some birds walk? Why do some birds come and some birds can't? Who knows? But I have enjoyed talking to you. Maybe, one day, you could teach me to paint. I would love that. There is something about watching an artist work, you know, painting, that's really like, a turn on. I don't know. Understand?” Perplexity pulled down his hairline. He said, “No. Not a word of it. It sounds like balderdash. But it doesn't matter. One day, Laura, I will teach you to paint. But you have too much living to do first.” As though she hadn't heard him she continued, “It's like, creating. That’s it. Going after perfection. You should paint me, Mr Lawrence for I'm as close to perfection as you can get.”

  “I know that, Laura. My goodness, I can see that. But you're the wrong colour. Only the members of the Caucasian race can be perfect

  – pale white-skinned people. People like me. God made us in his own image and he was white, wasn't he? Sunday school teachers don’t tell lies. Whiter than white with flowing blond curls and a perfectly trimmed beard. And his only forgotten – begotten – son, was even whiter, even after forty days in the wilderness. And no matter how I look at you, and in what light, you’re not white and you certainly don't have a beard.”

  “Oh, Mr Lawrence, you've been looking in the wrong place.” He chuckled. “I've no answer to that.”

  “You might have later, if you play your cards right.”

  “That's the problem. I've never been a card player.”

  “Well, there you are then. They say unlucky at cards lucky in love.” He was pleasantly drunk and so was Luscious Laura. Her eyes were black and intense.

  “I have another confession to make,” she said coyly. The pretence made her even more delicious.

  “What was your first? Remind me?”

  “Paul, for goodness sake. That we didn't meet by accident.” “Oh yes, all these confessions. I feel like a priest.”

  “Those pills, they wasn't all disco biscuits. It was Paul's idea. He said you'd need them.”

  “What have I been fed, exactly?”

  She blew out her cheeks and eventually admitted, “Two were adams, and they'll get you all loved-up, but the other two were Viagra, Mr Lawrence, and they'll keep you up all night.”

  “I'll probably have a heart attack. I can feel something throbbing even as we talk. You’ve deceived me, Laura, and I should be angry but I’m not.”

  Everything was outrageously funny: the total on the bill presented by a puzzled waiter, the look on a flattened duck's face in the window and the sign hanging on the huge brick Pentecostal walls opposite, the one frequented by Mrs Puzey and her brood, which read CHRISTIANS, SING

  OUT WITH EXULTATION.

  Even the sting of the night air could not dent their gaiety and it came as a surprise when he suddenly said, “I hate Christmas.” But the twinkle in his eye gave him away. “It reminds me most of chocolates in bright sparkling wrappers and the orange and strawberry creams that are always left in the tin?”

  “I like strawberry creams,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said. “I thought you might.”

  Between the brandy and the coffee was the colour of her skin. Colours seemed deeper, all of a sudden. She wasn't going to go; she made him lock the shop door and turn out the shop lights and then she peeled off her green pants.

  “Buttons! Mr Lawrence you’ve got buttons!”

  “I’m an old-fashioned man, Laura. No till, no TV, no computer, no wireless and definitely no zips!”

  “What’s a wireless?”

  She fiddled with his buttons then said, “Oh, Mr Lawrence, look at me now, I’m playing the mouth-organ. I’m following my old man into the music industry.”

  “But he disappeared, Laura. I hope you don’t disappear.”

  “Like the missing women, you mean?”

  “Exactly, but my goodness, you’re right. I can hear the music. I’m finding it quite stirring, even patriotic in a strange sort of way. A bit like going into battle, I suppose.”

  After a while she stood up and licked her lips and he noticed that her pubic hair was different; to begin with there was more of it, with isolated tufts floating upward toward her navel, tiny tropical islands on a sea of rich Robot City tea. It all looked silky soft but felt quite coarse. The skin around her tight stomach had lost some of it's pigment: a harsh stiff-haired brush would do it; burnt sienna over West Indian sepia.

  He was, nevertheless, looking into a black hole. And that was dangerous. Back in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was in power and the USSR invaded Afghanistan, Disney had lost a fortune looking into a black hole but their special effects weren’t nearly as good as these. But as Einstein had calculated, some time back, there was no escaping it. So Mr Lawrence didn't try. Not really.

  “I can't. I can't,” he said, not really trying.

  “Yes, you can. You can. There, didn't I tell you you could?” She was a furnace, a slippery furnace. And he was sweating. All at once sounds seemed louder. He could hear the rustle of her hair, a little moaning from her lips, the slip-slap of things farther south.

  “Let it come,” she said with burning breath. “It doesn't matter. Feel my stomach against yours,” she whispered against his ear and he felt it turn wet. The sensation wasn't altogether pleasant. Water found its way into his ears very easily. For that reason he never went swimming or put his head under in the bath. Luscious Laura went on, “Feel my thighs against yours. Feel my perfect breasts with their perfect nipples brushing your chest. Tell me if you can, that all this isn't worth twentyfive quid!” And then quickly, like someone selling insurance, she added breathlessly, “No hidden extras. VAT – vagina, arse and tits – included in the price, and there’s ten percent off for pensioners.” He laughed out loud.

  “What is it? Is it something I said?”

  She settled back against his arms, the hint of spearmint and wild flowers quite agreeable.

  But the spit in his ear was still giving him trouble.

  He
said, nevertheless, “You know, Laura, without speaking of looks, you are very beautiful.”

  “Yes, I do know that, Mr Lawrence.”

  She snuggled closer and closed her eyes, safe. Her breath was soft and warm.

  He fell asleep thinking that he ought to kick her out before he did. When you are older courtships should be longer. It takes time getting used to waking next to a nightmare: open mouth slobbering and spitting, zoo noises rattling, breath corrupted by life. Younger things smell younger and taste fresher. Older people should get out before falling asleep. It saves the younger people unnecessary brain damage in the morning.

  And yet, and yet, it was too late now, for he snored a satisfied snore.

  His erection woke him for it was so unusual. Pounding. Detached. Sweat poured from him and collected on his chest, a salty pool, another Dead Sea. He felt utterly wrecked. The sex tonic was taking its toll. There is always a price to pay, old timers would tell you, and they knew a thing or two. If it happened again – and you never knew for even this chance came out of the blue – he would stick to walnuts and red peppers and what was it? Ah yes, Heinz baked beans with sausages in tomato sauce. An old-fashioned tin that needed a tin-opener; razor sharp lids that could slice off a finger and often did.

  Life is so…grey, without the red.

  He heard his own voice. “My Goodness, what's happening?” The dark vixen leant across him. “It's all right. You had a dream. You shouted out. Golly gosh, Mr Lawrence, what horror world do you sleep in?”

  “I'm all right. Just a dream, as you said. I disturbed you. I'm sorry.” “Don't worry. It's only four. Only half way through my shift. Shame to waste it.”

  She was still glued with him and her, more of him, than her. “Did you hear it, in the night?”

  “Hear what?”

  “It sounded like a baby crying.”

  “It was probably a cat. They sound just like babies, in the night.” Her breasts brushed over him, her nipples traced cool ticklish paths across his chest, through the pool. Her hand pulled him gently against her curls and she whispered, “We can try something else if you like. I can turn over if you like and you can try it that way or, if you like, I can eat you.”