It’s a four-bedroom house, but only two of the rooms have actual beds in them. The other two are sort of office slash practice rooms, full of stuff I assume he’s accumulated over the years. There are lots of music books. You know, those old thick cream ones with pages upon pages of sheet music and music theory inside. There are also several violins, some shiny and perfect, hanging in cases on the walls, and others battered and bruised. Clearly these are the ones he practices with. He doesn’t have to care about breaking cheaper instruments.
For some reason, I see more life and spirit in the cheap violins than I do in the pristine ones in their sealed protective cases. On a stool there’s a bow with half the fibres broken off. I pick it up and run my hands along the snapped horse hair, imagining the demons Shane worked out as he sawed it into the violin so hard it broke.
Because I know he has demons. On the outside he’s like his polished, perfect violins, but on the inside lies a battered and broken one. I need to know what happened to him. He told me about Mona and the abortion, but I sense more. It’s probably hypocritical of me to want to know, since I’ve got demons I never plan on revealing to him.
In the corner of the room there’s a black leather trunk; the lid is open, and inside there are a bunch of paintings in fancy frames. He must not have had the chance to hang them yet, which makes me wonder just how long he’s been living here.
There’s a sort of half-finished feel to the place, so I’m thinking not that long.
Pulling up a seat, I flick through the paintings, admiring them. Most of them are modern art, a bunch of shapes and colours on the canvas that mean something different to every person who looks at them. I gasp out loud then, because the next painting I come across is eerily familiar. Before I’ve even pulled it out of the trunk, I recognise the brush strokes.
They belong to my mother.
Then, when I’ve pulled it out and laid it on my lap, something strange catches in my throat. How on earth does he have this?
The picture shows a city street, pedestrians walking hurriedly by, and in the background there’s me. The Blue Lady. Mum did lots of paintings of me when she was alive and this is just one of them, but the question is, when and how did Shane acquire it?
The feeling of betrayal is an ugly emotion.
Sometimes it’s so virulent that it makes you want to die.
He stood on the edge of the famous Reichsbrücke.
Sucking in what he envisaged would be his very last breath, he jumped.
***
Healing a broken body is easier than healing a broken heart.
His limbs had long since knit themselves back together, but the silly organ still ached.
His only solace was the painting on the wall, the one of the woman in blue.
She gave him hope.
Seventeen
Heading downstairs on shaky legs, I carry the painting with me under my arm. Shane is busy setting plates on the table, so he doesn’t immediately notice what I’ve got. I prop the painting on a chair and sit down, leaning my chin on my hand and looking at him speculatively.
Shane turns from the cooker with the hot pan full of scrambled eggs. He dishes them onto the plates and then pauses when he sees me. His eyes travel from me to the painting and then back again. He swallows, turns around, and puts the pan back on the cooker. Wiping his hands off on a dish towel, he comes and take his seat on the other side of the table.
He picks up his fork, scoops up some eggs, and shoves them in his mouth. A minute later he nods to the painting. “Where did you find that?”
If I’m not mistaken, his voice sounds hesitant.
“I was looking in your practice room, saw your art collection and started browsing. You’ll understand my surprise to find one of my mum’s pictures there.”
I start eating now, too, watching his reaction all the while. It suddenly makes sense why he took an interest in Mum’s art when he visited my house.
“I’ve had that piece for a while,” he says, voice low.
“You mean from before you knew me?” I ask in genuine surprise. For some reason I had it in my head that he got his hands on it after we’d met.
He nods. “Yeah, that’s why I was watching you that first night. I felt like I’d walked into a dream. There you were, the blue woman from my painting.”
A small smile tugs at my lips. “I thought you were just drunk.”
“I was a little tipsy,” he admits. “Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been so blatant about staring at you.”
I bob my head and eat some more of the breakfast he made for me, a strange fizzing sensation in my belly. This is just kind of weird. Weird, but also a little wonderful. “So where did you get it?”
He raises a brow. “The painting?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s from my parents’ house,” he explains. “It was hanging on the wall in the spare bedroom, and I’d been staying there for a while after, well, after my entire life fell apart, thanks to Mona. I don’t know why, but that painting was a huge comfort to me.”
“Wow,” I whisper, feeling odd to discover that a man I didn’t even know had been deriving comfort from a picture of me. It makes me wonder who else might have my mum’s paintings. She was pretty prolific, so there could be hundreds, if not thousands of them in circulation around the country, even around the world.
“I asked my dad where he got it from, because I loved the style and I wanted to buy another. There’s this peaceful quality about your mother’s work, kind of like she’s trying to tell the world not to fret on things,” Shane continues. “Like she’s telling you everything will be all right in the end.”
I get that. There’s always been a warmth in Mum’s art, almost like a maternal affection for the world. The way she depicted things showed her heart.
“And what did your dad say?”
“He didn’t know. So I asked Mum, and she couldn’t remember where they’d gotten it from, either. She thought maybe it had been given to her as present at some point. It was a little mystery, and I was kind of disappointed that I’d never be able to find another work like it. Then I was out that night and I saw you, my painting come to life. I don’t normally approach strangers like that, but I just had to know you.”
“That’s sweet,” I tell him, smiling. “And you took it from your parents’ place when you left?”
“Yeah, it was like a comfort blanket. I couldn’t let it go.”
I frown. “How long had you been staying with them?”
His eyes shift away from mine. “A while.”
“How much of a while, Shane?” I press.
There’s a long pause before he finally answers. “Six months.”
My jaw drops. “That’s a long while.” I stop talking then, considering what to say next. “At the photo shoot when you were off getting changed, your mum said something weird to me.”
His face grows serious. “What did she say?”
“She said you were vulnerable. What did she mean by that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shane.”
“What? I said I don’t know. Now just leave it.”
“Fine,” I reply, not liking his snappy response. I stand from the table and carry my plate over to the sink. “I’m going home now. I have a shift later on.”
I don’t look back at him as I turn to leave the room, but he quickly catches up to me. He grabs me by the waist, hauling me back against his chest. “Don’t run off. I didn’t mean to get pissed. It’s just that she had no right to say that to you.”
I turn in his arms so that I’m facing him. “She was warning me away from you.”
“That sounds like Mum all right.”
My hand trails from his chest up to his neck, resting just under the line of his jaw. “If you have issues, Shane, I need to know about them. This thing between us could go badly wrong if we’re not completely transparent with one another.”
I search his face, and what I see is turmoil. If
he has mental health problems, which is what I got from Mirin telling me he was vulnerable, then I need to know about them. I need to know where to tread lightly.
“Right after I found out about Mona’s abortion, I did something stupid. I was at my lowest, and you have to understand that this wasn’t typical behaviour for me. It just felt like everything in my life was a lie.” His words are hushed, quiet, like he’s ashamed or something.
“I know all about stupid, Shane. Believe me, nothing you’ve done could hold a candle to the stupid I’ve committed over the years.”
“I jumped off a bridge in Vienna. On purpose,” he says, abruptly cutting me off.
Whatever words I was about to say next immediately die on my tongue. Suicide. Shit. There were times, particularly in my mid to late teens, when I would have happily ended my own life, but somehow things never got extreme enough for me to go there.
Perhaps I thought death would be too easy, not punishment enough.
I pull him into me and wrap my arms tight around him. “Don’t you ever feel like you can’t tell me stuff,” I whisper to him soothingly. His body melts into mine with what feels like relief. Fucking hell. This man. All I want to do is fix him. Is it even possible for a girl this scarred to fix a broken boy?
“There’s no judgement here. Okay?” I ask, pulling away slightly so I can see his face.
He stares back at me, all beautiful and sad. “Okay, Bluebird.”
I smile and rub his arms, coaxing a smile from him in return. “Are you playing tonight?”
“Yeah, Beethoven and Mendelsohn,” he answers, seeming happy for the change of subject.
“Cool. You want me to come see you in the dressing rooms before you go on?”
He gives me a firm nod. “I always want you to come see me, Jade.”
There’s some meaning in that sentence that I try not to read too much into. I press my lips softly to his and then go to grab the rest of my things. He offers to drive me home, but I say no, telling him I have to run a few errands on the way. I do have some things to do, but I also need some space from him. Some room to clear my head and figure out what exactly we’re doing.
After what I just found out, I can now confirm that although his mother is a bit of a bitch, she was right about one thing. Shane is vulnerable. Never mind about my feelings getting hurt and me turning back to alcohol — I need to consider his feelings, too.
I want to be respectful of him, let him know that I’ll never treat him the way Mona did. But how do I tell him that when we’re not supposed to be anything more than fuck buddies? Even though it’s a liminal situation, I like where we are right now. I like not having to completely define things and just go with what we feel. Touching each other when we want to be touched, and not touching when we don’t want to.
When I arrive home I’m greeted by Alec’s smug face as he sits in the kitchen, reading the newspaper.
“Well, look who it is. My sister, the dirty stop out. Where were you all night?”
He puts the paper down and folds his arms. I give him a long-suffering look, relieved that Pete and April aren’t around. The two of them aren’t exactly children anymore, but I always feel a little bit guilty when I stay out all night. Still, I did text Alec to let him know I wouldn’t be back so that he’d stay in and keep an eye on them.
Not that it happens often. In fact, this is the first time it’s happened in a long time.
“None of your business,” I tell him. “Just like it’s none of my business what you get up to in your own time, Alec.”
“Okay, so you’re gonna be like that, eh? Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask you, you wouldn’t happen to have that Avery chick’s number, would you?”
I raise both eyebrows at once while shaking my head. “No, I wouldn’t. And I thought I told you she was off limits.”
“Come on, Jade, you know that only makes me want her more,” he replies with a cheeky wink.
“She’s in the orchestra, Alec. I barely know her. Why on earth would I have her number?”
“Huh,” he says, chewing on his lip. “Maybe I’ll look her up on Facebook.”
“Yeah, you do that. But don’t come crying to me when it all goes belly up and she starts to get clingy.”
Alec grimaces, and I let out a laugh. I knew he wouldn’t like that imagery. My brother is about as commitment phobic as you can get. A typical twenty-one-year-old male who wants to sow his wild oats without any thought to the consequences.
“I’m a man, Jade. I don’t cry.” He pauses and amends humorously, “I might whine to you something fierce, but you’ll never see me cry. Not in public, anyway.”
I point a finger at him before letting Specky in from the back garden and scooping her up into my arms. “You leave that girl alone. She’s done nothing to deserve you. Stick to the mean girls. At least you know they deserve it.”
He chuckles. “Okay, I’ll think about it. By the way, I had a word with Damo. He’ll be steering clear of Pete from now on.”
A quick breath escapes me. “That’s good news. What did you do to him?”
Alec intertwines his fingers and flexes his hands. “I didn’t have to do anything. The prick remembers when I kicked his older brother’s arse a few years ago. I think that was warning enough for him. All those fuckers only pick on little boys because they know they’ll be easy targets.”
Stroking Specky’s soft head, I ask, “Are you sure he got the message? Pete really broke down with me yesterday. I feel like shit for not realising what a hard time of it he’d been having.”
Alec eyes me. “He got the message, sis. Don’t you worry.”
I nod, believing him, and then go upstairs to my room. I spend a couple of hours reading and lounging in bed with Specky before I have to get to work. When I arrive I find a small white envelope in my cubbyhole. I open it up and discover two tickets to a show the orchestra is playing next week. There’s a note that reads:
Tickets for April as promised. I hope you’ll come, too. I spoke with Lara, and she says you’re not working that night. Been thinking of you all day.
Shane.
xxx.
My heart squeezes as I hold the tickets in my hand. I’m not sure if April still remembers she was promised them, since she hasn’t asked. That probably means there’s some other guy on the scene for her to focus her attentions on.
My shift is a busy one, but a couple of hours in I get a break and manage to slip off to the dressing rooms. The orchestra had a rehearsal earlier, so a lot of the musicians are still hanging around for the evening concert. Shane’s sitting in his spot, a book open on his lap as he sinks his teeth into an apple.
Memories from last night flood my senses. And yeah, I’m kind of jealous of the apple.
Like before, I slide my bottom up onto the table in front of him, and he brings his attention from the book to me. He looks pleased to see me as a handsome smile shapes his mouth. I take a sip from the peppermint tea I’m drinking in a paper cup I snagged from the staff room.
We don’t say a word, simply staring at each other in the same silent communication that’s becoming something of a habit. Close by someone’s streaming music from a radio, the faint melody of “Cosmic Love” by Florence + the Machine in my ears, moons and stars and hearts seeping into my subconscious. A landscape of emotion.
Whichever people can actually pull off friends with benefits without their feelings getting involved, I lift my hat off to those heartless fuckers, because I’m failing catastrophically.
Shane pulls his chair forward and runs his hands up my legs, stopping mid-thigh.
“Thanks for the tickets,” I tell him, clearing my throat.
His gaze flicks to mine. “You gonna come?”
His words give me a little jolt, and the dark look in his eyes tells me meant every ounce of that double entendre.
“I hope so,” I finally respond, and shift my bottom a little so that we’re a fraction closer.
He sucks in a breath and s
tarts moving his practiced hands up and down my thighs, slow and torturous. “The PR company that handles the orchestra wants me to do a television slot tomorrow morning.”
“Really?” I ask excitedly. “What for?”
“It’s to promote the upcoming season of shows. I’m shitting a brick, to be perfectly honest.”
“Have you done TV before?”
“Once or twice in France and Germany, but that was with the quartet, and the other guys did most of the talking.”
“Do they want you to do it alone?”
“No, I’d be going on with Henry White.”
The name rings a bell as I reply, “That’s the conductor, isn’t it?”
He nods and tells me sheepishly, “One of the agents got it into her head that I’d be a big selling factor with female ticket buyers, which is why they’re pushing for this.”
A grin tugs at my lips. “Oh, yeah?” I reach over and fix his collar. “She might be right. Plus, Henry would be an added bonus.”
He narrows his eyes, and his hands pause on my thighs. “What does that mean?”
I shrug and tease, “He’s seriously hot. There’s something about conductors, you know. All those vigorous movements, kind of like they’re fucking the air.”
Shane purses his lips, clearly trying to suppress a smile. “You’re being mean. I don’t want you to find anyone else in this place attractive other than me.”
I lean closer so that my mouth is above his ear when I whisper, “After last night, you have nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing to worry about, Shane.”
“That’s good to hear, but I might need a little more convincing,” he says, bringing his mouth to my chin and giving me a little nip. A man a few seats away is blatantly watching our interaction, but I’m enjoying this far too much to care right now. Turning my face quickly, I catch Shane’s mouth in mine and kiss him softly. Just a whisper of a kiss, a promise of more to come later.
Still Life with Strings Page 17