Still Life with Strings (22 page)

We stare at each other
for a long time, me above and him below. Absolutely connected, having a
conversation without words.

Yeah, we’re both
completely screwed.

Once my breathing has
started to slow down, I lower my body to his and wrap my arms around his neck.
His hands pet at my hair, as though trying to reassure me that everything is
fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. I drift off for a while, half asleep, half not, and
then finally I move off him.

“Can I use your
shower?” I ask.

He nods. “Go ahead.
I’ll cook us some eggs while you’re showering.”

I grin. “I thought you
couldn’t cook.”

“It’s more of a ‘not
having time to cook’ issue than not being able to. I get by,” he says, and then
pats me playfully on the bottom.

I go into the living room
to collect my discarded clothes from last night. Upstairs I turn on the shower
and then step under the hot spray, almost feeling sad that I have to wash
Shane’s smell off me.

And that right there is
why this whole thing is one big old bad idea.

Can I back out of the
arrangement now that it’s been… consummated? Perhaps since we’ve fucked each
other’s brains out a second time, the need will have dissipated. Though even as
I’m thinking this I can already feel the hunger for him re-fuelling. This is
scary, and not something that’s going to go away after one or two sessions.

Sometimes I wish my
brain didn’t always have to warn me about things. Stupid people seem to live
such easy, carefree lives.

Stepping out of the
shower, I dry myself off with a towel and wrap up my wet hair. Then, like any
decently curious human being, I go snooping. God forbid I actually ask for a
tour. No, I’d rather be nosy in private, thanks very much.

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.

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.