by Jonathan Coe
But all at once she was aware of another noise, too. It was coming from the direction of the door, which she had taken the precaution of locking before getting into bed. She sat up cautiously and reached out for the table lamp, which cast a murky, ineffectual glow over the room. She looked towards the door. Suddenly feeling like the leading lady in some low-budget and none too original horror film, she realized that the handle was turning. There was someone out in the corridor, trying to get in.
Phoebe swung her legs out of bed and tiptoed towards the door. She was wearing a thick, striped cotton nightshirt which buttoned up at the front and reached down almost to her knees.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, in a brave, slightly quavering voice, after the handle had been tried a few more times.
‘Phoebe? Are you awake?’ It was Roddy’s voice: a loud whisper.
She sighed with exasperation. ‘Well of course I’m awake,’ she said, unlocking the door and holding it ajar. ‘If I wasn’t before I certainly am now.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘I suppose so.’
She opened the door and Roddy, who was wearing a satin kimono, slid inside and sat down on the bed.
‘What is it?’
‘Come and sit down a minute.’
She sat beside him.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said.
No further explanation seemed to be forthcoming.
‘So?’
‘So I thought I’d come and see how you were.’
‘Well, I’m fine. I mean, I haven’t contracted any life-threatening diseases in the last half hour or anything.’
‘No, but I mean – I came to check that you weren’t too upset.’
‘Upset?’
‘By my sister, and … oh, I don’t know, by everything. I thought it might all have been a bit much for you.’
‘That’s very nice of you, but I’m fine. Really. I’m quite a tough little cookie, you know.’ She smiled. ‘Are you sure that’s the reason you came?’
‘Of course it is. Well, pretty much.’ He sidled closer towards her. ‘I was lying in bed, if you must know, thinking about that story you told me. About you burning all your paintings. I was thinking that – well, correct me if I’m wrong here – but that’s not the sort of story you would have told to just anybody. It occurred to me that possibly’ (he put his arm around her shoulder) ‘you must have begun to like me a little bit.’
‘Possibly,’ said Phoebe, pulling fractionally away from him.
‘There’s a feeling between us, isn’t there?’ said Roddy. ‘I’m not just imagining it. We started something down there.’
‘Possibly,’ Phoebe repeated. Her voice was toneless. She had begun to feel strangely removed from the situation, and hardly noticed, at first, when Roddy kissed her softly on the mouth. She noticed the second kiss, though: the feel of his tongue slipping between her moist lips. She pushed him away gently and said: ‘Look, I’m not sure this is such a good idea.’
‘No? I’ll tell you what is a good idea, though. November the 13th.’
‘November the 13th?’ she said, dimly aware that he was starting to unbutton her nightshirt. ‘What about it?’
‘The opening night of your show, of course.’ He undid the last three buttons.
Phoebe laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course I am.’ He pulled the nightshirt back over her shoulders. Her skin, in the weak glow of the table lamp, was golden and flawless: ochre, almost. ‘I’ve been looking in my diary. It’s the earliest we can manage.’
‘But you haven’t even seen the pictures yet,’ said Phoebe, as his finger began to trace a line from her neck across her collarbone and beyond.
‘It’ll mean a bit of reshuffling,’ said Roddy, kissing her again on her lips, which were wide with astonishment. ‘But who cares.’ He drew her nightshirt further open and brushed his hand across her breast.
Phoebe felt herself being pushed back on to the pillows. There were fingers stroking the inside of her thigh. Her head was swimming. November the 13th was only six weeks away. Did she have enough pictures for a major exhibition? Ones that she was really happy with? Was there time to finish the two large canvases which stood half-completed in her studio? The rush of excitement made her weak and dizzy. Her mind was so busy racing over the possibilities that it seemed the easiest thing in the world to let Roddy lie on top of her, his kimono thrown aside to reveal strong forearms and a hairless chest, his knees pushing their way between her legs, his tongue working assiduously at her nipple, until the impulse to resist asserted itself again and her whole body tautened.
‘Look, Roddy – we have to talk about this.’
‘I know. There are hundreds of things we have to talk about. Prices, for instance.’
In spite of herself she responded to the movement of his hand, and stretched her legs even further apart. ‘… Prices?’ she said, with an effort.
‘We’ve got to get them as high as possible. I’ve got Japanese clients who’ll pay thirty or forty thousand for a big canvas. Seven by nine, something like that. Abstracts, landscapes, minimalism, anything: they don’t care. Does that feel nice, by the way?’
‘Thirty or forty …? But I’ve never painted anything that … Yes, yes it does, it feels very nice.’
‘Stay there a minute.’
He rolled off and took something from a drawer in the bedside table. Phoebe could hear the sound of a packet being opened and rubber being unfurled.
‘We’ll have to take the show to New York, of course,’ said Roddy, sitting with his back towards her, his fingers working with a dexterity born of long practice, ‘after it’s been in London a few weeks. I’ve got a sort of twinning arrangement with a gallery over there, so I don’t anticipate any problems.’ He replaced the packet and lay on his back. ‘Well, what do you think?’
‘I think you’re mad,’ said Phoebe, giggling joyfully. Accepting the invitation in his eyes, she raised herself and knelt over him, her hair brushing his face. ‘And I don’t think I should be doing this.’
But she did.
Roddy fell asleep soon afterwards. He slept on his side, facing the wall, taking up three quarters of the bed. Phoebe dozed more fitfully, her mind still dancing to the tune of his promises, awash with visions of the glories soon to come. At one point she was awoken by voices coming from the grounds outside her window. Pulling back the curtains she saw two figures wielding mallets and chasing each other across the floodlit lawn. Hilary’s piercing cackle merged with the more apologetic laughter of Conrad as he explained that ‘I don’t know much about croquet’. They both appeared to be naked.
Phoebe returned to bed, tried to get Roddy to move, failed, and then had little option other than to lie up against his back. For a while she tried putting her arm across his shoulder: but she might as well have been hugging a block of marble.
∗
She woke to the sound of loud groans coming from a distant room. She was alone in the bed, and the weather was grey and drizzly. She guessed it was between nine and ten in the morning. Hastily pulling a blouse and trousers over her nightshirt, and slipping shoes on to her bare feet, Phoebe went out into the corridor to investigate. Pyles was limping by, carrying a tray which contained the congealed remains of an uneaten breakfast.
‘Good morning, Miss Barton,’ he said coldly.
‘Is anything the matter?’ she asked. ‘It sounds as though somebody might be in pain.’
‘Mr Winshaw, I fear, is suffering the consequences of my carelessness yesterday. The bruising is worse than we thought.’
‘Has someone sent for the doctor?’
‘The doctor, as I understand it, prefers not to be disturbed on a Sunday.’
‘Then I’ll attend to him.’
This suggestion met with stunned silence.
‘I am a qualified nurse, you know.’
‘I scarcely think that would be appropriate,’ the butler murmured.
‘Too bad.’
She hurried off down the corridor, paused outside the room from which the groans were issuing, then knocked and walked briskly in. Mortimer Winshaw – whose pale and crooked face she had glimpsed behind his bedroom window when she arrived yesterday – was sitting up in bed, his hands clutching the blankets and his teeth clenched in pain. He opened his eyes when Phoebe came in, gasped, and pulled the bedclothes up to his chin, as if modesty demanded the concealment of his egg-stained pyjamas.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘My name’s Phoebe,’ she answered. ‘I’m a friend of your son’s.’ Mortimer gave a snort of indignation. ‘I’m also a nurse. I could hear you from my room and thought I might be able to do something to help. You must be very uncomfortable.’
‘How do I know you’re a real nurse?’ he said, after a pause.
‘Well, you’ll just have to trust me.’
She met his gaze.
‘Where does it hurt?’
‘All down here.’ Mortimer drew the bedclothes back and pulled down his pyjama bottoms. His right thigh was severely bruised and swollen. ‘That clumsy oaf of a butler. He was probably trying to kill me.’
Phoebe inspected the bruise, then pulled off his pyjama bottoms altogether.
‘Let me know if this hurts.’
She raised his leg and tested the range of movement of the hip.
‘Of course it damn well hurts,’ said Mortimer.
‘Well, there’s nothing broken, anyway. You could probably do with some painkillers.’
‘There are pills in the chest over there. Hundreds of ’em.’
She made him take two Coproxamol, with a glass of water.
‘We’ll make up an ice pack in a minute. That should help it go down. Do you mind if I take this dressing off?’
His shin was loosely bound with a yellowing bandage which should clearly have been changed some time ago. Underneath was a nasty leg ulcer.
‘What’s my treacherous little runt of a son doing bringing nurses up here, anyway?’ he said, as she unwound the dressing.
‘I paint as well,’ Phoebe explained.
‘Ah. Any good at it?’
‘That’s not really for me to say.’
She fetched cotton wool from the chest, water from the basin in an adjoining washroom, and began to clean up the ulcer.
‘You have a delicate touch,’ said Mortimer. ‘Painting and nursing. Well, well. Both of them rather demanding vocations, I would have thought. Do you have your own studio?’
‘Not my own, no. I share with another woman.’
‘Doesn’t sound very satisfactory.’
‘I manage.’ She took a strip of clean bandage and began to wind it around the scrawny, brittle shin. ‘When was this dressing last changed?’
‘Doctor comes about twice a week.’
‘It should be changed daily. How long have you been in the wheelchair?’
‘A year or so. It started with osteoarthritis: then these ulcers.’ He watched her working for a few minutes, and said: ‘Pretty, aren’t you?’ Phoebe smiled. ‘Makes a change to see a young woman about the place.’
‘Apart from your daughter, you mean.’
‘What, Hilary? Don’t tell me she’s here as well.’
‘You didn’t know?’
Mortimer went tight-lipped. ‘Let me give you a warning about my family,’ he said eventually, ‘in case you hadn’t worked it out already. They’re the meanest, greediest, cruellest bunch of back-stabbing penny-pinching bastards who ever crawled across the face of the earth. And I include my own offspring in that statement.’
Phoebe, who was on the point of tying up the bandage, stopped to look at him in surprise.
‘There’s only ever been two nice members of my family: Godfrey, my brother, who died in the war, and my sister Tabitha, who they’ve managed to shut up in a loony bin for the last half a century.’
For some reason she very much didn’t want to hear this. ‘I’ll go and get that ice pack,’ she said, standing.
‘Before you go,’ said Mortimer, as she made for the door, ‘how much do they pay you?’
‘Pardon?’
‘At the hospital, or wherever it is you work.’
‘Oh. Not much. Not much at all, really.’
‘Come and work for me,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a proper wage.’ He thought for a moment, and named a five-figure sum. ‘They don’t look after me here. There’s no one to talk to. And you could paint. Nobody uses half of these rooms. You could have your own studio: a really big one.’
Phoebe laughed. ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ she said. ‘And the funny thing is that if you’d asked me yesterday I probably would have accepted. But it looks as though I’m going to be giving up nursing for good.’
Mortimer chuckled and said unkindly: ‘I wouldn’t bank on it.’ But she had gone by then.
∗
Her ministrations complete, Phoebe washed, dressed and arrived in the dining room just in time to see Pyles clearing away the plates and tureens.
‘I was hoping for some breakfast,’ she said.
‘Breakfast has been served,’ he answered, without looking up. ‘You’re too late.’
‘I could do myself some toast: if there’s a toaster somewhere I could use.’
He stared at her as if she were a madwoman.
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ he said. ‘There are cold kidneys left. That’s all. And some sweetbreads.’
‘Never mind. Do you happen to know where Roddy is at the moment?’
‘Young Master Winshaw, so far as I am aware, is in the library annexe. Miss Hilary likewise.’
He gave Phoebe a series of elaborate directions which, followed to the letter, eventually brought her out in some sort of laundry in the basement. Undaunted, she went back upstairs and wandered the corridors for about ten minutes until she heard the laughing voices of brother and sister behind a half-closed door. Pushing it open, she found herself in a wide room which seemed both chilly and airless. Roddy and Hilary had her folio open on a table and were flicking rapidly through it, barely glancing at one picture before taking up the next. Hilary looked up and stopped in mid-cackle when she saw Phoebe standing in the doorway.
‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘It’s Florence Nightingale herself. Pyles has been telling us about your little mission of mercy.’
‘Do you want me to talk you through any of those?’ Phoebe asked, ignoring her and walking straight up to Roddy.
‘Perhaps I should leave you two lovebirds to plan your glittering future together,’ said Hilary. ‘Cocktails on the terrace in half an hour, anyone?’
‘Make it a quarter,’ said Roddy. ‘This won’t take long.’
Hilary closed the door behind her and he resumed his desultory browsing. Watching him, Phoebe began to quiver with anxiety. She didn’t know which was more worrying – his silence on the subject of the paintings or his failure, so far at least, to make the smallest acknowledgement of anything that had happened between them during the night. She stood beside him and briefly laid a hand on his arm but he was unresponsive. After that Phoebe went and stood over by the window. About three minutes later he snapped the folio shut. One picture – a simple watercolour of snow-covered rooftops, part of a commission which she had reluctantly accepted to design Christmas cards for a local firm – lay on the table. Roddy picked it up, carried it over to the wall and tried holding it at different heights. Then he put it back on the table.
‘Fifty for that one,’ he said.
Phoebe didn’t understand.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Frankly, that’s more than it’s worth. But I’m feeling generous this morning. You can take it or leave it.’
‘You’re offering to buy that painting … for fifty pounds?’
‘Yes. It would cover that damp patch rather well, don’t you think?’
‘But what about the others?’
‘The others? Well, to be honest, I was hoping to find something a little more
exciting. I don’t really see anything here that would justify an investment.’
Phoebe thought about this for a moment.
‘You bastard,’ she said.
‘There’s no need to take it personally,’ said Roddy. ‘Tastes differ, the world over. It’s all subjective in the long run.’
‘After everything you said last night.’
‘But I’d hardly seen any of your work last night. As you were at pains to point out yourself.’
She frowned and said hollowly: ‘Is this some sort of joke?’
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘the Narcissus Gallery has an international reputation. I think you’re the one who must be joking, if you suppose that any of these … studenty daubs are ever likely to find a place in it.’
‘I see.’ She looked out of the window, which was thick with dust. ‘Wasn’t it rather a lot of trouble to go to, just for a quick fuck? I mean, I don’t know what your standards are, in this area, but I didn’t think it was anything special.’
‘Well, of course, I’ve also had the pleasure of your company for the weekend. That’s not to be discounted. You’ll stay for some lunch, I hope?’