by Lisa Jewell
‘Merry Christmas!’ said the top-hatted man, and he removed the hat from his head with a theatrical flourish. Beneath his hat he had a head of dense dark curls. He ran the fingers of a gloved hand through the curls, and looked at Arlette curiously.
‘Merry Christmas,’ Arlette returned the greeting. She smiled again, a tight, modest smile, and then continued on her way. But as she walked she was aware of the man’s eyes still upon her.
She heard one of the lady carollers call out to the man, ‘What next, Gideon? “Silent Night”, “We Three Kings” ...?’
‘Yes,’ she heard him reply absent-mindedly.
‘Well, which one is it to be? Your choristers await ...’
‘One minute,’ he said. ‘Just one minute. Wait!’
Arlette turned. As she’d suspected, the man in the top hat, Gideon, was walking urgently towards her. ‘I want to paint you,’ he said, his eyes taking in every contour of her face.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m an artist. My name is Gideon Worsley. I want to paint you. You have the most remarkable face. The bones ... just so delicate ... like the bones of a tiny bird.’
She blinked at him.
‘It would require very, very tiny brushes, one or two hairs at most. My goodness. How do you not break? How do you not shatter into a hundred tiny pieces?’
Arlette couldn’t help herself; she put a hand to her cheek, trying for herself to imagine what he saw. And then she looked up at him and saw again what had unnerved her before: the fire in the eyes, not normal, not quite sane. He was not drunk, she could see that much. He was not slurred or unfocused quite the opposite: he was electrified, possessed.
‘Excuse me, if you would, Mr Worsley, I’m in rather a hurry.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘you mustn’t hurry, not in these treacherous conditions. You might fall, and if you fell you might break. You must walk very, very slowly, taking great care.’ He offered her the crook of his arm and she heard a caroller from behind calling, ‘Oh God, Gideon, please leave the poor girl alone.’
He turned to the heckler and said, ‘I shall not leave the poor girl alone. Can’t you see that she is made of fine bone china, that she is delicate? She cannot be expected to walk unaccompanied. Come, we shall sing and walk at the same time. Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to get on a bus,’ Arlette replied hesitantly, ‘towards Kensington.’
‘Well, we shall escort you to your bus stand. Please,’ he offered her his arm again and this time Arlette took it. She felt that her behaviour was altogether acceptable. She was being escorted not just by a single gentleman, but by a whole band of ladies and gentlemen. And she had been concerned about her footing on these slimy paving stones.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘What is your name?’ asked Gideon.
‘Arlette,’ she said. ‘Arlette De La Mare.’
‘Arlette De La Mare! Did you hear that, everyone, this delicate young lady is called Arlette De La Mare? Arlette of the sea. Probably the most romantic name I have ever heard. And what do you do, Arlette of the sea? Do you have a job? Or are you, in fact, a mermaid?’ He glanced down at her water-stained boots and sighed. ‘No. Not a mermaid. But still, a divine creature, none the less. So let me guess, a teacher? No, not a teacher – your clothes are too fine. So possibly ... fashion? Am I close?’
She smiled inscrutably.
‘I am, I’m close. Are you a seamstress?’ He picked up her hands and studied them under a streetlight. ‘No,’ he said, ‘wrong again, your hands are as soft as kittens’ ears. I think you are a shop-girl, in a smart department store. Possibly ... Dickins and Jones?’
‘No,’ she laughed.
‘Lillywhites?’
‘No!’
‘Then ... Liberty! Must be!’
Arlette laughed and Gideon Worsley punched the air victoriously. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘as an artist, I have to understand people, to read them, to work them out. I am the Sherlock Holmes of the art world. I can probably tell you where you’re from.’
‘Right then,’ she challenged.
‘Well, no, not right away, not immediately. But if you were to allow me an opportunity to paint you, if I could study you, in a favourable light, at my leisure, I could certainly hazard some very good guesses.’
They had arrived at Arlette’s bus stand.
‘Come on, Gideon. More songs!’ called one of his male friends.
‘Yes, yes!’ he snapped. ‘One minute! Please,’ he turned back to Arlette, ‘this is a genuine request. I have never seen anyone with bone structure like yours. If I can’t paint you I shall spend the rest of my life in a state of miserable dissatisfaction. Please.’
Arlette looked at Gideon. He was, beyond the madness in his eyes and his air of troubled desperation, an attractive-looking man, probably around her age, possibly one or two years older. His eyes were dark and small, set in broad features. His nose was Roman and his mouth was full and wide. She could imagine that he had been handsome all his life, never an awkward moment in his development from child to man. She knew she must say no to his request. Of course she could not let a strange man paint her portrait, if, indeed, a simple portrait was all that he had in mind.
But still, a portrait. An artist. She pictured his studio, a paint-splattered garret, a jam jar full of wild flowers, dusty windows overlooking rooftops, a cat maybe, thin and slightly anxious. She imagined sitting with her face tilted towards the light, while Gideon examined her through the frame of his own fingers, finding ever thinner and thinner paintbrushes to describe the delicate lines of her face. She imagined him looking calmer than he did right now, softer, asking her gentle questions, and she imagined answering them lightly and breezily with just a hint of mysterious restraint. And then one day, he would turn the canvas to face her and she would see her own likeness played out in tiny strokes of watercolour, or maybe oils, and she would sigh and clap her hands together and say, ‘Gideon, it’s beautiful.’
Her bus approached, although not in actuality a bus proper, rather a lorry with some seats on the roof, all London had to offer to its commuters in these rather ramshackle post-war days. ‘That is a very kind offer and I am flattered, Mr Worsley, but I fear that I’m going to be too busy to accept.’
She stepped towards the bus and Gideon pulled a small leather wallet from his breast pocket. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘take a card. Should you change your mind.’
She took it from his gloved fingers and allowed him to help her up onto the bus. ‘Thank you,’ she said. And then she found herself a seat and watched from a snow-splattered window as Gideon and his band of wild-eyed carollers rejoined themselves into a circle and launched into a full-throated rendition of ‘Good King Wenceslas’. She saw Gideon’s gaze follow the bus as it passed by and then latch onto hers as she came into view. For a moment she saw someone else deep inside him. Not the fiery-eyed leonine man, but a small boy, with a look of vulnerability and sadness in his eyes. She smiled and raised her hand at him. He raised his back at hers, and then he was gone.
She looked at the card in her hand, but it was too dark to read in the early evening gloom. She would read it tomorrow. She would think about Gideon and his garret and his soulful eyes tomorrow.
15
1995
A BOOKSHOP, A comic store, two boutiques, a small gallery, a lingerie store, a brasserie and a cake shop all told Betty that they could not give her a job over the course of the next two days. One of the agencies she signed up with had offered her a three-day stint sewing on buttons in a tailor’s shop in Bloomsbury for £2.85 an hour, which she had accepted wearily. But within two minutes of entering the shop, a festering lint-filled tomb owned by three ageing Portuguese brothers with skin like parchment and hair blackened with boot polish, who looked at her as though she had just burst out of a birthday cake, she had made her excuses (something about sore fingers) and fled.
The other agency were waiting to hear from a zip factory in Isling
ton about two days’ zip-sorting, and there’d been talk of a few days on reception at a photographer’s studio in Kentish Town but Betty didn’t hold out much hope for that, given her performance on the typing test they’d given her. She feared there were a dozen pretty girls with winning smiles out there who could type faster than thirty words a minute.
Betty was nearing the end of her first week in Soho and she still did not have a job. She felt a small wave of panic rise up through her. Then she did something that chilled her to her core, something that made her want to cry and be sick, both at the same time.
She rummaged through the clutter at the bottom of her shoulder bag until she found a biro. Then she rummaged through the clutter by the side of her bed until she found the application form for Wendy’s. She filled it in, very slowly, wanting to delay for as long as possible the moment at which she would pass it into the oily, miserable hands of a person who claimed to be in a position to decide whether or not she was worthy of a place within their oily, miserable company. She deliberately misspelled some words, trying to diminish her chances before she’d even left the house. She did not apply lipstick or put a comb to her hair. She threw on a baggy zip-up cardigan and a pair of trainers, and she made herself look as unappealing as was humanly possible.
As she slouched down the road towards Shaftesbury Avenue, she took on the demeanour of a loser. She did not want this job. She did not want this life.
The manager at Wendy’s was a very small Spanish man by the name of Rodrigo. He had a moustache that was black and hair that was white, and a very pronounced lisp. He took the form from Betty and sighed when he saw the tea ring stain and the ink smudges. He glanced up at her unhappily, through thickly lashed eyes and looked so incredibly sad that Betty almost wanted to hug him.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What nationality are you?’
‘I’m British,’ she said brightly, trying to atone for her dismally presented application.
He looked at her in surprise, glossy black eyebrows shooting towards his silver hairline.
‘British,’ he repeated.
‘Yes.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘how great!’ His sadness seemed to turn then to sheer joy, and Betty felt her own heart fill with something good and pure. Finally, someone was pleased to see her. Finally someone thought she was a good thing, by simple virtue of her existence, beyond anything she had said or done, or said she would do or could do. She had merely stated her nationality, a pure accident of her birth, and this small man with a nice face had wanted her.
‘I can have you in for an interview,’ he consulted a huge chunky plastic watch on his hairy wrist, ‘well. Now. Ith good for you? You have time?’ He looked at her keenly through those soulful eyes again and she nodded, very quickly, before she could change her mind. She could not have said no. It would have broken his heart.
His office was a small cubicle at the very end of a long breeze-blocked tunnel beneath the restaurant. The walls were painted gloss white and covered in motivational posters. Bits of paper covered every surface. He asked her some standard questions, but it was clear from the outset that he would offer her the job. And he did.
‘Could I have a trial run?’ she suggested. ‘Just a few days. See if, you know, well ...’
‘Thee if you can bear it?’ he asked with a broad smile.
‘Well, no, not that. Just, I’ve never worked in a restaurant before. I may not be very good at it.’
‘Oh.’ He smiled, his fur-covered hands gently holding the edge of his desk. ‘You will be good at it. I can promith you that. Thtart tomorrow? Nine a.m.? If you don’t hate it, we can fill in the paperwork and get you on board. Officially.’ He beamed at her again and offered her one of his furry hands. She squeezed it. It was soft and warm and reminiscent of a spaniel’s ear.
She beamed back at him and said, ‘Yeah. OK. Why not?’
Moments later she was being led back down the long grey tunnel, staring subconsciously at Rodrigo’s generous bottom squashed inside nylon trousers, and then she was shaking his hand again and wandering through the greasy mayhem of the restaurant, past the tables of junkies and drunks and back out onto the fresh, bright normality of Shaftesbury Avenue. She stood for a moment like a tree trunk in a rapid and let the crowds surge past her on both sides.
And then she slowly made her way back to the flat, her head suffused and subsumed with total and utter weirdness.
‘Wendy’s?’ her mother cried in horror. ‘You mean the burger place?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Betty, ‘that’s right.’
‘But – why?’
‘Because it’s good money. And regular work. Because the boss is really nice. Because it’s free dinners and free lunches. Because the people are ... interesting. Because it’s local and I can walk there. And because ...’ she sighed, ‘because there’s a bloody recession and no one else would give me a job.’
Her mother sighed too, a sigh weighed down with unspoken well-I-did-warn-yous.
‘It’s fine,’ Betty interjected before her mother could say anything annoying. ‘It’s absolutely fine. It’ll do for now. Stop worrying.’
‘I’m not worrying,’ her mother said. ‘Like you said, you’re twenty-two. Why would I be worrying?’
‘Because I’m your baby girl.’
‘Well, yes, obviously you’re my baby girl. But I trust you. You lived virtually alone in that big house with that crazy woman ...’
‘She was not crazy.’
‘Well, that sick old woman. You cared for her by yourself. I think you can cope with a bit of real life.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘Yes,’ her mother laughed, ‘I honestly do! As long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters. Have you made any more friends?’
Betty shrugged. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘There’s a guy at Wendy’s. A gay guy. Called Joe Joe.’
‘Oh,’ said her mother in delight. Her mother was nuts about gays, had got the ferry all the way to Portsmouth last year to see Julian Clary live at the New Royal. ‘What’s he like?’
Betty thought back to their first conversation the previous day. ‘Hi,’ he’d said, ‘I’m Joe Joe. Nice to meet you.’ His accent put him somewhere in the southern reaches of the Americas.
Betty had smiled. ‘Likewise.’
‘You are very pretty.’
‘Oh. Thank you.’
‘I like your hair.’
‘Thank you!’
‘And you have beautiful eyes. Like a cat. You know. Or a fish.’
‘A fish?’
‘Yeah. A beautiful fish.’ ‘Oh.’
‘I love your accent.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I love the British accent.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I love your smile.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You have nice teeth.’
‘Oh, thank you.’
‘I’m from Argentina.’
‘Oh, right. Buenos Aires?’
‘Yes!’ he’d cried with delight. ‘Yes! Buenos Aires! How did you know? You must be, like, psychic or something!’
She smiled at the memory and said, ‘Mad. He’s mad. But lovely.’
At these words the front door opened and Betty found herself face to face with the Asian woman from downstairs. She averted her gaze at once in embarrassment and shuffled her bum across the step to allow the woman to pass her. The woman glared at her, through narrowed eyes. Betty looked at her askance and lost her thread for a moment.
‘And I’ve been getting to know the guy outside, you know, the record-stall guy. So I’m getting there, you know ...’ she petered off as she became aware of the fact that her downstairs neighbour had stopped halfway up the stairs and was now staring at her expectantly. ‘Erm, hold on Mum, just a sec.’ She put her hand over the receiver and looked at the woman. ‘Yes?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘You,’ said the woman. ‘You live upstairs, yes?’
‘Yes,’ said Betty, uncerta
inly.
‘You smoke, yes?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘I smell it,’ she chastised, wrinkling her face distastefully. ‘I smell it. It come through my window, into my home.’
‘Erm, sorry,’ said Betty, her heart racing slightly with the stress of confrontation. ‘I can’t see ... I mean, I smoke up there, right up there. On the fire escape. It’s not even on the same level as you.’
‘No,’ snapped the woman. ‘It come down. It come down the stairs. It come through my window. It come everywhere. I smell it. Everywhere on my clothes,’ she plucked at her sweater and pulled it to her nose. ‘Hmm? And in my hair,’ she held a lock aloft.
Betty gazed at her, nonplussed. ‘God, I, er, I don’t know what to say. I mean. It’s outside. I don’t really see where else you expect me to smoke.’
‘You stop smoking! Yes! You stop! Then no more problem!’ The woman smiled then, almost encouragingly. ‘Another thing,’ she continued. ‘You in bed over my bed. Your bed squeak. Every time you turn over, I hear squeak squeak. Squeak squeak.’
Betty stared at the woman, trying and failing to find a response that wouldn’t end in a bitch fight. Eventually she smiled and said, ‘Sorry. I had no idea. What would you like me to do about it?’
‘You stop moving so much. You move all the time.’
Betty blinked at her. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you want me to stop smoking. And stop moving in my sleep?’
‘Yes!’ she smiled again, as though delighted to find that she had somehow just solved all her problems in one fell swoop. ‘Yes! Thank you!’ She turned to leave. Betty watched her disappear up the stairs and round the corner. She waited until she heard the woman’s front door click closed behind her and then took her hand away from the receiver.