Game Girls (18 page)

He pulls her tighter. 'So young. So young to
live alone. It makes me . . . '

'Makes you what?'

From deeper in the house, the phone rings.
Above them a bird scuffles down onto the glass
roof, then swoops away again.

They stay very still.

'. . .want to look after you,' he says at last.

'I'm not a child.' She pulls back slightly,
defensive. Does he think she's too young?
Maybe she's pitched it wrong. That wasn't
what she was going for at all.

He tightens his grip, not letting her go. 'I
don't mean that,' he says. 'But there's
something about you. An innocence. Unsullied.
I'd want to always keep you safe.'

She smiles. She doesn't press against him. She
will let him make all the moves. But she's got a bit
of time to work on him. Innocent. Unsullied. She
can shape herself to be the way he wants her to
be.

* * *

His bedsit is full of colour. Rugs and cushions.
Pots and bowls and candles. Paintings on the
wall.

'Is this your work?' Courtney stands in the
centre of the L-shaped room, her fingers
clasping and unclasping nervously. She plays
for time, makes herself take in the strange,
almost surreal, scenes of boats and beaches and
figures standing watching the sea.

'It's a series I worked on at the end of last
summer. D'you like it?' Elroy asks the question
as if her opinion matters – as if she is likely to
have an informed view. She thinks the detail is
amazing but she doesn't understand it, and she
struggles for something intelligent to say.
'You've painted everyone from behind. So you
can't see their faces.'

He laughs. 'With the way I earn my keep, I
get sick of faces.'

She flicks a tight smile back at him. She
watched him work yesterday – it was a hot
afternoon and the promenade was buzzing
with tourists. She sat with him while he worked
on his soft-pastel portraits, and explained to
her what he was doing. 'I kind of measure
things in my head,' he said. 'For instance, I
need to be spot on with the space between the
eyes. The length of the nose. The distance from
the ear lobe to the jaw.'

Courtney was surprised. She hadn't realised
how much maths might be part of art. She'd
always thought artists started scribbling, and it
just happened. A sort of magic. He laughed
when she told him this. 'I wish,' he said.

Later he took her for dinner in the cobbled
lanes, spending everything he'd earned.

'I made these, too – these pots and bowls. I
did them at college but I had to drop out
because I couldn't keep up with the fees.'

'I've got a . . . a friend who makes pottery
things.' Courtney is surprised to find she has
used the word 'friend' to describe Fern, but she
realises, in the same moment, that she would
much rather introduce Elroy to her, than to
Alix. She hopes he'll never have to meet Alix.
She hopes none of that life ever brushes
anywhere near him.

'What sort of pottery things?'

Courtney shrugs. She hasn't a clue really –
apart from a few things she remembers from
school. 'Mermaids, I think. You'd probably hate
them.'

'I'd never knock anything anyone else is
working on – I know how tough it is when
people try to rubbish what I do.'

Courtney nods. He is so full of the right
thoughts. Because of him, she is already a
better person. They fall silent, and in the
silence she can feel her heart beating, a
frantic panicked pulse she has been trying to
ignore. She wanted to come – she had to
come – but now she wishes she hadn't.

He stands in front of her, looking as nervous
as she feels. 'You're not OK, are you?'

She screws up her eyes for a moment, and
then shakes her head.

'You don't like it? My bedsit. I knew it
would put you off.' He sags as if he has been
punched and she wants to reach out and hug
him but she's scared of the contact.

'No – no – it's not that. It's just – you know.
It's weird – being on our own together like this.'

He takes her hand and she lets him, feeling
him squeeze her fingers.

'Do you want to sit down?' he says. 'Sorry
about the lack of chairs – I usually just lounge
on the bed. I'll make us some coffee.'

She glances across at the bed with its
cheerful lime-green duvet, and her gut tightens.
'I'll sit on the floor.'

He goes to the sink and fills the kettle, then
stands looking across at her while he waits for
it to boil. She can't look back at him, and her
eyes search the room, trying to hunt down
more objects that she might use as prattled
conversation.

He carries across two mugs, handing her the
one without the crack. 'Is it OK if I sit next to
you?'

'Don't be stupid.' Her giggle is high and
brittle. 'You can sit anywhere you like.'

But as he settles beside her, she is thinking
that it isn't all right. What if he makes a grab for
her? She wants to be with him so much that it
hurts, but the wanting is in her heart. Her body
is like a locked cage and she can't let him in. The
floor is hard and the metal frame of the bed
presses into her back. This isn't how she wanted
it to be, but she doesn't know what to do or say
to put it right.

'Courtney?' he turns to her and his eyes are
both gentle and sad. 'What's up?'

'I just – I'm sorry. It's stupid – but I'm
nervous.'

'What d'you think I'm going to do?'

She stares down at her knees, plucking at a
stray thread on her jeans, and shrugs.

'I won't hurt you. I'd never hurt you. And
I'd never do anything you didn't want.'

'I know.' She twists the stray thread, pulling
at it so that the denim wrinkles and bunches
together.

'I need to ask you something – I hope it
won't upset you. But are you a virgin?'

She almost laughs then; the awful ugly irony
of the question. 'No.'

'It's something bad then? Something that
happened to you?'

She snaps the denim thread, realising she is
hunched forward and rocking slightly. There is
a roaring in her ears, and she has the sense of
being dragged somewhere she doesn't want to
go. 'Yes. Sort of.'

She feels a fraud saying this – it's only part
of it – it doesn't excuse her time with Alix. And
why can't she treat him like a client? Just fake
it for him? And then she thinks that she'd
rather walk away and never see him again,
than abuse him like that.

He stands suddenly and the movement jolts
her out of her rocking. She looks up, expecting
him to tell her she might as well go if she's
going to be such a drip, but his expression is
preoccupied. Taking his sketch pad from where
it is propped against the wall, he gets the
wooden box he keeps his pastels in and walks
back to her. 'Stay still for me,' he says gently.
'Just look over to the left slightly – out towards
the window.'

He sits in front of her, his legs crossed and
the sketch pad propped up on his lap.

She stares out to where the window lets in
the heated afternoon light, feeling his eyes
move over her. She panics for a moment,
wondering what he's looking at. Stealing a
sideways glance she sees him focused on her
right ear, probably trying to work out the
distance from her lobe to her jaw.

Outside, a motorbike backfires. Someone
walks past the gate, whistling. She feels his gaze
move to her eyes, her hair, her shoulders, and
she realises she doesn't mind.

'It's not that good.' His voice breaks the quiet
trance she seems to have slipped into. 'It's like
that sometimes, with people I care about. I can
do a brilliant job with strangers in the street.'

She stares at him and she thinks that it is
exactly the same for her. A different type of
work. A different setting. But exactly the same.

And then she registers the words 'people I
care about' and she smiles – the first proper
smile since she arrived. 'Let's see,' she says.

He turns the portrait round for her and his
eyes are apologetic as he passes it across.

She tilts her head, and then looks up at him.
'Is this how you see me?'

'You hate it, don't you? I knew you would.
I'm. . . '

'You've made me beautiful.'

He kneels beside her then, his arms round
her, pulling her closer.

She slides the portrait up onto the lime-green
quilt so that it doesn't crush.

'Courtney, you
are
beautiful. People must
have told you that before.'

'Yes,' she answers carefully. 'I suppose they
have.' But she has never felt it. Never cared.

And as he holds her she thinks that if he
wants more from her then maybe she
will
pretend for him – just as her way to say thank
you. But he doesn't seem to want it.

He just strokes her hair, folding her in his
arms as if he will never let her go.

She presses against him and they shift
position, lying together on the hard floor. Still,
all he does is hold her. All he does is care
about her.

He has made her beautiful.

* * *

A
LIX SITS ON HER OWN in the
canteen, thinking how grubby it all is. How
grubby students are. And how young.

She's supposed to go to business studies next
but she can't be bothered. She's ahead of the
work anyway. If she wanted to she could
probably take her exam today, right this
second, here in the canteen – and pass.

She pushes her half-eaten pizza away.

Sipping her cappuccino, she decides that she
loathes drinking from a paper cup. She wants
caramel coffee and fine china mugs. She wants
everything made by Hugh.

She went out for a meal with him last night,
and he drove her home in the Ferrari. People
almost broke their necks looking round at
them – other drivers, walkers, passengers on
buses. It felt good.

She didn't invite him in, and he didn't try to
persuade her, and that felt good too.

Everything's going to plan.

She wonders where the other two are. She
knows Courtney hasn't turned up at college at
all, and neither has Fern, as far as Alix can tell.
Fern usually sniffs her out at lunch time, if she
doesn't see her before. She ought to text them
to check that they're all right – particularly
Fern, after Saturday night.

But checking up on them isn't the only thing
she wants to do.

She's made a decision. She wants to finish it
– the whole working together thing. In fact, she
wants to do more than finish it – she wants to
bury it somewhere – to make it impossible for
anyone to ever find out.

She gets a strange unconnected memory of
Fern dropping a nugget of glass down onto the
bit of muddy beach next to
River's View
.
Sinking and sinking and sinking, she'd said. All
the way to the middle of the earth. Alix would
like to do that with all of the last six months –
get it sucked down into some murky quagmire
in a place where no one will ever dig it up.
Whatever happens, she needs to reinvent
herself. To be vulnerable. Unsullied. The way
Hugh wants her to be.

They've already got bookings this week.
Most are 'regs', and one is new, so they'll see
them just because it's impossible to cancel – she
never stores numbers – and after that she'll
announce that it's over. She won't be doing any
more sessions. She doesn't think they'll be too
bothered anyway – Courtney's drawing further
and further away, and Fern will go with
whatever she says.

There won't be any trouble from the clients
either. She's thought it all through. She won't
destroy the phone – not quite yet – because some
idiot might show up on the doorstep. But
whenever they ring to book a session, she'll
explain that there's a problem and they can't risk
working for awhile. The word 'risk' should do it.
No one's going to want to be around if there's a
paparazzo-style reporter lurking in the bushes.

And pretty soon, if things work out for her the
way she wants them to, she won't be available
anyway. She might not even bother to do the
exams. Who needs A grades in business studies
when you're drinking up the sun, turning golden
on the deck of a luxury yacht called Zara?

* * *

Fern wheels Dad's chair out round to the front
of the house, and sits on the wall next to him.
The weather has turned muggy, the air
churning with the threat of storms. The tide is
unusually fast, pushing in towards the shore.

She watches two swans waddle down the
slipway onto the stringy slice of beach, and
thinks how awkward they are out of water. So
lumpy and clumsy.

Turning to Dad, she takes her sketch book
from him. 'I'm going to do plants and creatures
as well as people. I'll glaze everything in shades
of brown – make it all look really earthy and
muddy.'

'It's such an excellent idea.' Dad smiles at
her. 'Just the sort of project the tourism
committee is looking for.'

'Other artists much older than me will be
sending things in too, Dad.' Fern doesn't want
him to be disappointed if she doesn't get
chosen, but he's buzzing with enthusiasm for
her. She hasn't seen him like this for ages.

It was magical, how it suddenly all came
together in her head. It happened yesterday
evening, while she was still in bed. Fragments
from the party had somehow joined with
fragments of ways to put her life the right way
round again – and then she'd noticed the rolled-up
Long Cove Echo
, still tucked behind Lily, the
elephant, and the soft green crocodile. Dad's Art
and the Environment project. The council
award thing that she had forgotten to let him
show her. She fumbled her way out of bed and
got it down, staring groggily at the entry form.
The details kept swimming in and out of vision
like something hypnotic. After a while she put it
aside because her head was throbbing, leant
back on the pillow, and closed her eyes. And it
was then that the idea came. She'd work on
something like the glass sculptures in the
millionaire's garden, only she'd do it with clay,
and with her whole underworld fantasy.

Once the idea started it rushed and tumbled,
as if all her life it had somehow been gathering
secretly, and now it was ready to come pouring
out. Forcing herself to get up, she staggered
downstairs and babbled her thoughts out to
Dad, while Mum brought more hot sweet tea
and they all sat together and talked and talked,
and it was just the way it always used to be.

In front of her, the swans waddle on along
the beach. Fern runs swift lines down the page,
trying to capture the sense of their awkward
lumbering.

'I shouldn't worry about older artists. Or
any other artists. I can't see they'd be offering
anything as imaginative as the solution you're
putting forward. The whole underworld of the
river hidden amongst the reeds and on the
wreck, and caught up on the banks. I just can't
stop thinking about all the possibilities that
could run alongside it. It could work like a
treasure hunt for tourists – I could even draw
up a map to go with it all. Kids could circle the
spots where your sculptures are, and the
council could run a prize draw for correct
entries.' Dad coughs and draws breath for a
few moments before racing on. 'Your idea isn't
just about art, sweetheart. It's a whole concept.
Interactive. And it'll get everyone really
thinking and talking about the river, and the
tides, and the way everything affects everything
else. It's exactly what they're looking for.'

Fern sharpens her pencil and begins
sketching a cluster of reeds. She needs to send
in rough plans showing exactly where along
the river walk each sculpture will go, and she
needs to send in photographs of the sculptures
– at least six. This is fine, because she's got half
of them done already.

'It's going to be something special,
sweetheart. Different. Surreal.'

Fern squints round at him. Surreal. That's a
word Aaron used at the party. It still hurts a
bit, thinking about him, but at least she didn't
do anything too stupid. He won't have any idea
of what was in her head. She didn't make
herself look too keen.

'I'm going to sort the boathouse out for you
too,' Dad goes on. 'Get the electricity working
for a start. I'll do it as soon as Mum and I get
back from our break. You sure you'll be all
right for a few days? You're welcome to invite
friends round to stay, if you want.'

'I'll be fine Dad. I don't need friends
round. All I want is for you and Mum to
have a really happy few days – for some
other guesthouse to look after you two for a
change.' Fern has helped set this up – another
idea they all agreed to yesterday – a chance
they have to take while Dad's in remission.

She moves her attention from the reeds and
on round to the jetty. She could sculpt some sort
of mud-oozed birdlike creature to sit on the
post. Or maybe a fish would work better? She
likes the idea of a fish out of water. She can make
it a strange flying fish. She could do lots of them,
all shapes and sizes. Fish and eels – and why not
flying crabs? It will be all the things from
beneath the surface, learning to evolve and
survive above it.

'There's no reason why I can't do things like
basic wiring.' Dad coughs again, but his voice
is sparky and determined. 'My body might be
caving in, but there's nothing wrong with my
brain. It's about time I got myself a new
attitude and started getting on with things.'

Fern watches the swans swagger closer to the
edge, and then wade into the river. They push off,
gliding towards the centre, a trail of ripples
streaming out behind them. Fern thinks it's like
an enchantment. Beauty and the Beast. The Frog
Prince. Once they are in the water they are transformed,
all grace and elegance. And watching
them she feels moved with the magic of the
moment. She's been trying so hard to be someone
else, but Alix's world is all wrong for her.

She's been a swan on the shore. A fish out of
water.

Thank God she's woken up, before Mum
and Dad found out.

She's going to tell Alix. She might even
pluck up the courage not to go over on
Wednesday. She doesn't have to get in the taxi,
just because it's there.

She sketches on. Seagulls. A cormorant.
The gliding swans. She has to focus on
movement. Get a grasp on the way flying
things work. The tide is slushing up against
the bottom of the wall now, and the sky is
darkening. The storm can't be far away.
She'll have to move soon – but not yet. Not
just yet. She wants to sit here with Dad,
pinning her imagination down onto paper,
and knowing that this, all of this, is where
she is meant to be.

* * *

Courtney has filled the sink with hot, sudsy
water. 'It was a brilliant meal – but I don't
know how you can use so much stuff just
cooking for the two of us,' she laughs, taking
the first saucepan from the mountain of pots
and plates and dishes. The mountain wobbles.
A stray spoon clatters down and slips into the
soapy froth.

Elroy comes up behind her, sliding his
hands round her waist. 'I'm just being fair to
the pots. Making sure none of them are left
out,' he says.

'You're nuts,' she giggles, twisting round
slightly and flicking suds at him.

'A crazed, tortured artist,' he agrees,
reaching past her and getting his own handful
of suds. 'So – beware the Bubble Maniac . . . '

'You . . . ' she splutters, scooping out more
bubbles as he tosses the sparkling froth
towards her hair. 'This is war.'

He ducks as she hurls her next onslaught,
stepping backwards and away from her.

She advances, her hand raised, a fresh
mound of suds all fizzing and blinking on her
palm.

'Mind my eyes – mind my eyes,' he shouts.
'A struggling artist is nothing if blinded by the
scorched sting of suds. Mercy, oh mercy.'

She keeps coming for him and he reaches
the bed as she does the flick.

'You really do mean business, don't you?' he
roars, grabbing her waist and tumbling her
down with him.

She rolls under him on the lime-green quilt
and he stays on top, holding her arms and
looking down at her. 'You are a dangerous
Fairy Liquid fiend.'

She giggles again, twisting to try and escape,
but his grip is strong and she is trapped.

She stares up at him, deciding to be
strategic. She will pretend not to struggle and
then suddenly wrench away as he loosens his
grip.

He is staring back down at her.

His eyes are so lovely. So warm. So kind.
He has a soft froth of suds caught on his left
eyebrow. She becomes aware of the sweet
familiar smell of him. The shape of his
mouth.

She wants to be perfect for him. She wants
to be honest. She has to cut loose from Alix.

'Let me go,' she says softly. 'Please.'

He releases his grip immediately, his so warm
so-kind eyes suddenly anxious. 'I'm
sorry – I wasn't trying . . . '

'I know.' She reaches up, clasping her
hands behind his head, and pulls his face
down to hers. The kiss soaks through her,
long and rich and full. She feels as if she is
somewhere inside it, spinning in a magic
sparkling bubble. There is a soft sighing, and
she knows it is coming from her. Her hands
slide down the length of his body, exploring
him.

He squeezes her shoulders; runs his hands
across her breasts. 'Is this OK?' he whispers.
'Are you sure?'

She kisses him again, more softly now and
it is as if she is flowing through him and he
is flowing through her and she thinks this is
it. This is it. This is how it should be.

'I'm sure,' she whispers back. 'Honestly.
I'm sure.'

* * *