CHAPTER
14
C
OSMO COULD HARDLY
stand it. He had never been handed so much on a plate in his life, at least never so much of what he wanted. She didn’t exactly volunteer, but nor was she unwilling. She did only what she wanted to and luckily for him, she also wanted to sing.
Can you give me a trill, like this? On these two notes, a top A and B flat? Yes, that’s it, lovely, lovely
. She simply didn’t mind what he asked. She would just do it, then stare at him patiently, wanting his next instruction, only a little less eager than a spaniel waiting for him to throw a stick. That was it. It was her compliance that was almost off-putting. As a child Cosmo had learned to express his wants to his elderly parents by means of carefully veiled wheedling. Adele’s naked, unconcealed wish to please was almost embarrassing next to his own perfected indirectness.
But then, he told himself, it must please her to please him or she simply would not do it, any of it.
Oh, yes. Lovely Adele, oh yes, that’s lovely
. Still, it made him feel almost awkward, her being quite so pliable in her uninterested way, like a good-natured tart. He knew himself capable of exploiting her to an almost reprehensible degree although there was no question of force, none whatever. He was learning, too, that there was no question of her ever complaining, either (that had worried him rather, at the beginning). Still, perhaps in future he would call in at the workshop instead; it really was a little close for comfort doing it in the house. She
could
always refuse. Meanwhile, he had to assume she was enjoying herself.
The arrival of the little Chinese squit had eased his tension, a little. But after he’d taken them through their duet a couple of times there seemed little point in continuing and no point in his sticking around. There was no chance of anything else as long as Phil was here. He had not expected Adele to enthuse about the music, but Phil might at least have said something about it. But no, he had just frowned at the notes and concentrated on singing them, without referring once to the fact that this was Cosmo’s own work. Not so much as a ‘nice tune, Cosmo’. So as soon as he reasonably could, Cosmo had brought the rehearsal to an end. There was certainly no point in hanging around for conversation; Phil spoke almost as little as Adele.
And he did not suggest they come to the pub, too. The prospect of a Poppy-free night of steady drinking had been shining in Cosmo’s mind since morning, when he had cried off from the dinner party because, he claimed, he had to work. ‘When things start to flow, I feel I have to go with it. It’s almost as if it’s not quite
me
in control.’ Then he had so succeeded in looking artistically troubled that Helene had graciously offered to ring Valerie herself to excuse him. ‘Let me at least take that pressure away from you, Cosmo, dear.’
Poppy had looked hard at him and offered him an aromatherapy massage, which he refused. Acupuncture? No, thank you. She must go to Valerie’s without him and enjoy herself; he wouldn’t mind. He so didn’t mind that he had managed a kiss on her forehead to show her. So he was not going to waste this opportunity by taking a couple of mute, inscrutable dummies in tow. He was not going to be a bloody babysitter on top of everything else, and Adele and Phil were both adults, for God’s sake. Adele certainly was well able to stick up for herself, in fact he wasn’t at all convinced about the autism thing. It was a bit of a front. In the end Adele knew what she wanted, and got it. And anyway Phil seemed in no hurry to leave, so let him deal with her. He pushed off at half past eight. Helene and Poppy had seemed to assume that he would be working all evening. Let them, but he had never said that.
T
HEY MADE
themselves coffee. They ate biscuits. They sat on the floor. They watched television but only for a short time, because the programme was something noisy with several people laughing a lot and being asked pointless questions. In the silence, they sat on the floor some more. After a while Adele stopped Phil from kissing her all over her face and neck and drew back to look at him. His hair fell from the crown of his head straight over his forehead like a blue-black waterfall. His eyebrows looked greyish because they did not grow thickly enough to conceal the skin beneath, but each blue-black eyebrow hair seemed to be matched by an identical one on the other side. It was wonderful to see. She smiled, but stopped Phil as he leaned forward to kiss her again. It was not that she minded the kissing—she knew about kissing—it was just that she hadn’t finished looking.
His eyes were almost closed and they looked a bit wet. It was funny how people went wet in different places once the kissing started. She knew that, too. She saw the white web of skin that rose in an arch from the corner of one eye and noted with intense satisfaction its perfect equivalent on the other side of the bridge of Phil’s nose. And the nose itself was straight, and was the same even colour as the rest of his face. Best of all, it came to a neat stop which did not draw your attention too much, not like some other noses which were mottled, bent and sticking out and had damp hairs waving at you out of the end. Her eyes persued his right ear, around which the hair had been cut so that she might more easily admire it. It was a thrill to confirm, as she took his face in her hands and turned his head for inspection, that the one growing out of the other side was exactly the same, only its opposite. Phil was smiling now, and she could see how every tooth had its white counterpart. It was so exciting already, but she knew there would be more.
She quickly unbuttoned his shirt and found what she was looking for. Shoulders, flat and straight and, just where they should be, in the middle of a smooth, even front, his two brown nipples, one on either side. Perfect. Phil seemed keen to see hers, too, which was all right as long as he didn’t touch them; it would probably hurt. But no, it didn’t, his fingertips were sort of nibbling at them softly and it was nice. Then he nibbled them properly with his mouth and made them tingle. There was more, she knew, and Phil knew too, because he wasn’t stopping her from taking off his other clothes now. There it was. The ridges all the way down his front, the belly button, dead centre, and the other thing sticking up and that’s when it all got spoiled. It wasn’t the sticking-up bit itself that she disliked (funny how people went all wet in different places), it was the rest she couldn’t take to. The two round bits underneath it, the two round things that she wanted to be like a pair of identical bristly lychees, weren’t. One looked a bit bigger and sadder than the other and drooped down, like an exhausted older brother, and she wanted them to be twins. It was all spoiled. But Phil wanted her to have a better look. He was kneeling in front of her and she leaned forward to get closer. She could see it very well now, thank you, but, oh yes, here comes the part she had forgotten. The part when she’s so close to it she’s got to have it in her mouth and then he starts pushing her away with it. No, that was wrong; now she remembered. His hands left the side of her head and stretched down her body. Now the clothes which she still had on were getting in the way of Phil’s fingers (funny how people get all wet in different places once the kissing starts).
CHAPTER
15
S
TEPPING OVER THE
threshold into 11 Camden Crescent on Monday morning, Sara was aware of a sharpness reaching her nostrils, quite unlike the delicious scent of clean paint and flowers that she was used to in James and Tom’s flat. Herve moved aside to let her through the doorway with her cello case.
‘You want coffee?’ he asked unenthusiastically.
‘No, thanks,’ Sara said. The sharpish smell was coming from the kitchen.
‘Have you got something cooking?’ she asked, knowing that he wouldn’t have, knowing from the smell that the bin under the kitchen sink would be a sordid installation piece overflowing with scraped-out cardboard trays, pierced film covers and discarded ‘product sleeves’ from ready-made meals, and the inside of James’s microwave like a still from a spatter movie featuring a week’s exploded dinners.
‘No. I don’t find pleasuring in kitchen,’ he said. ‘Peggy she comes tomorrow to clean. So I left for her, all plates and cups and so.’
Sara the cosmopolitan fellow artist closed her lips, while the contemptuous Scottish housewife within her was tapping on the inside of her head saying, oh, so being a genius gives him leave to be filthy in someone else’s house, does it? She would have a quiet word with Peggy, pay her extra if necessary to have everything nice for James’s and Tom’s return.
Coffeeless, they began work. And it felt like work, as Sara embarked again on Herve’s four notions while he whanged and whined and clashed around her on the electronic rig that had taken over the drawing room. Over and over again they came, all four repeating hauntingly, like bad curry. The telephone rang. Sara was surprised at first that Herve answered, until the tone of his voice told her that he had been expecting the call.
‘Helene, yes! Hello! And a good morning to
you,
’ he treacled. ‘Oh, yes, my headache is quite gone. So sad, yes, about Saturday! I am quite well. Werking, werking, always werk in progress. Tired, of course.’
Sara placed her cello on the floor and wandered over to the window, looking out across the city with her arms folded. She had managed to get two hours’ expensive parking a long way down Lansdown and had lugged the cello all the way up, all because he had been too tired this morning to bring a keyboard with him in a taxi out to the cottage in St Catherine’s Valley. Or perhaps he had just not wanted to miss Helene’s call. She was furious to find that this possibility made her jealous.
‘Oh, thenk you, thenk you so much. Yes, perhaps you are right, it takes another musician to appreciate . . .’
How long was he planning to be? Whatever he wanted to do with his time was his affair, but was it fair of him to squander hers? She cracked the joints of her fingers extravagantly and stretched her arms.
‘Oh, yes, how interesting. Of course also creative. Where? Just to listen, listening only? Well . . .’
And meanwhile it was embarrassing, because although she could hardly help overhearing the conversation, she certainly wasn’t going to go and wait discreetly in the kitchen and let the smell of old baked-on E numbers from a sinkful of washing-up get in her clothes and settle on her hair.
‘When you say, tomorrow? In the evening? Oh, well, I think perhaps yes, is all right. Sara too?
Oh
. Yes, tomorrow. Good, yes,
goodbye
!’
Herve’s smile followed Helene down the telephone as he replaced the receiver. Oh, bloody marvellous, Sara thought, as he explained to her that he had just accepted Helene’s invitation to go to the first proper rehearsal of Helene’s community opera, at which Sara herself would be standing in for Andrew.
‘They would so like, Sara, so I say yes. Their little opera. Helene is interesting woman. I go, yes. To hear you too, is so
extraordinary
you agree to play for them.’
‘Not at all,’ she said, trying to sound breezy, succeeding only in sounding defensive. ‘Just a favour for a friend. You’d do the same, I expect.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Herve said thoughtfully. ‘To do so is not . . . serious. You are perhaps not serious, Sara. Only for fun you play. You play for fun, with these little people.’
Sara opened her mouth, barely knowing where to begin her enraged defence of herself, fun and ‘little people’, but Herve said sharply, ‘Werk! Come, Sara, back to werk. Already we waste enough time.’
When Sara rose from her chair an hour later and began to put away her cello, she glanced over at Herve. He was jotting something down, some detail to do with the music, half smiling to himself, absorbed and happy. Just then he looked up and smiled at her, and the rage she had been keeping warm inside her throughout the rehearsal cooled into sudden understanding.
‘Here, Sara, here are today’s sketches. New werk for you,’ he said, holding out the sheets of music almost shyly. Suddenly she could see that perhaps Herve was lonely, after three weeks working in a rented flat in a foreign city. How callous of her not to have thought of that. That’s why he had said he would be there tomorrow, his aloofness merely a pose to disguise his loneliness. She pictured Cosmo, Helene and the other fawning disciples in their grateful humility as their small, poor rehearsal was graced by the presence of the great man, and in the glow of her resolve to think more generously of him, did not suspect that that was exactly what Herve was picturing, too.
They said goodbye with an exchange of kisses, Sara lingering just long enough to catch the scent of clean, male skin from his cheek and wonder if their kisses would remain indefinitely in the merely social category.
As she came down into the hall she heard the sound of banging from inside the basement flat and remembered that two of James and Tom’s china mugs were still inside. She had left without them that day, almost abruptly, with the feeling that Dotty’s desire for company had been satisfied as swiftly as the tea had assuaged her thirst. In the ensuing days, nearly three weeks now, Sara had passed the empty flat several times and had begun to wonder if she was going to have to go to Rossiters and replace the mugs. Now at last there was someone inside, perhaps Dotty herself, so here was her chance, even though, cello case in hand, she might this time have to own up to being ‘that cellist’. She leaned the cello case against the wall at the side of the door, knocked the knocker and waited. The banging from inside stopped. She waited some more. The banging resumed, more vigorously. She knocked again, harder, and again the banging stopped. After a long pause Sara heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs to the door. It was opened by a harassed-looking, almost hostile Dotty.
‘You! Oh! Er, hello. Look, do excuse me, I was . . .’
‘I am so sorry, it’s just I left the mugs behind last time. I thought I should just . . . they’re not actually mine, you see.’
‘Mugs? Oh! Oh, the mugs, yes. Look, I’m awfully sorry. Would you just . . . hang on a minute. I’ll get them.’
She left Sara standing by the open door as she disappeared back down the stairs. Bloody cheek, Sara thought, leaving me on the doorstep. Friendly enough when she wanted a cup of tea. She pushed the door open further and stepped in. From where she stood she could see down the stairs to the wide passageway at the bottom which led into all the rooms of the flat. But instead of an expanse of red carpet across the passage, there were bare boards. A large claw hammer sat on the bottom stair. Sara wondered why Dotty was having the carpet up. She couldn’t be replacing it. Did she want it herself? Although it was in good condition the carpet was far from new, and was cut to fit the peculiar and not very large shape of the hallway. Strangest of all, why was Dotty herself doing the job, in what must be her lunch hour, and single-handed?
Leaving her cello case leaning on the wall by the door, Sara made her way down the stairs and called out, ‘Do you remember the ones? One was dark blue and the other one green; they had those big gold dots on them.’ Not that she thought for a second that they would be easily confused with anything in Imogen Bevan’s mug collection, but how else was she to get a closer look? But just then Dotty appeared from the kitchen with the mugs, one in each hand. Sara took them and put them in her shoulder bag.
‘Thanks. Dotty, what on earth are you doing with the carpets?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing. It’s nothing to do with the carpet. I’ll be putting it back. It’s the floorboards. They were just loose, one or two of them. Loose floorboards, that’s all.’
‘Oh, right. Well, I’ll let you get on, then.’
She turned and climbed the stairs, with Dotty close behind, almost shooing her off. Sara retrieved her cello case and turned to say goodbye. Dotty gave a little exclamation of surprise.
‘You
are
her! I knew you were.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I
knew
it. Tell me, why did you say you were someone else?’
‘Tell me, why did you say you were fixing floorboards when you haven’t got any nails?’ Sara smiled sweetly.
Dotty stared at Sara, tightened her lips and looked back hard at her, blinking. ‘I didn’t say I was fixing them. I just said they were loose. I’ve lifted them because I . . . because I’ve lost an earring. I think it might have got down . . . somewhere . . . under the floorboards. I’m just searching.’
‘Oh,’ said Sara. She turned back just as Dotty was closing the door. ‘Good luck with the search, then. For whatever it is.’