The Muse (13 page)

‘How long were they married?'

Lawrie poured more cider into our glasses. ‘Let's see. I was fourteen – so that's sixteen years.'

‘How did she die?'

Lawrie visibly prickled. I saw his closed expression, and sensed his self-­protection. I regretted the question immediately, feeling like a blunderer.

He placed the bottle down gently. ‘It's hard to explain.'

‘You don't have to. I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry.' Now I was interfering, just like Quick.

‘My mother killed herself,' Lawrie said, and the words seemed to weigh down the air between us, the kitchen's atmosphere thickening to a soup. Looking at Lawrie, I saw how a ghost could suck the air from your throat.

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I'm so sorry—­'

‘It's all right. No, really, it's all right. I would have told you eventually. Don't apologize. I mean, don't feel bad about it. In all honesty, it wasn't that much of a surprise.'

I tried desperately to think of something to fill the silence, but the admission seemed to open something in him: ‘We tried to help. We were always trying. And now I can't even look at bloody Gerry, because every time we look at each other I know he's thinking,
What if you'd done more?
, and I'm thinking exactly the same. But it's not his fault. It's just a horrible game of blame.'

‘I can't imagine it.'

‘Well, neither can I, and I was her son.'

He was very still, his voice very quiet, and I wanted to get up and give him a hug. But in the soupy air I felt unable to move, and I wasn't sure he wanted one anyway. I thought of the kitchen at Cynth's wedding, how Lawrie must have been reeling from his past two weeks – and me, mocking my own mother, rude when he tried to be nice about my poem—­

‘Anyway, that's that,' he said. ‘But she
was
spirited, and she did a lot of things, and enjoyed herself a great deal, and that's really why she reminds me of you. And now there's her painting.'

‘Yes.'

‘So.' He exhaled brusquely. ‘I've told you
that
. Jesus. I promise you that's the worst. Now you tell me something.'

‘I don't have anything.'

‘Everyone has at least one thing, Delly.'

I stayed quiet. He leaned back in his chair, fishing around in the dresser drawer behind him. ‘A-­ha. Gerry always leaves a few lying around.' He brandished a box of slim cigars. ‘Care to join?'

WE WENT TO THE BACK
room and Lawrie pushed open the French windows. The night was still fragrant with the smell of damp grass and wood smoke, bats dipping in and out of the garden.

‘It's like paradise,' I said, even enjoying the smothering scent of Lawrie's cigar. I sat on the sofa and watched him, propping himself against the window frame.

‘I don't know about that,' Lawrie replied. ‘But one thing is – you can't hear the road. When I was little, my favourite book was
Peter Pan.
I used to pretend this garden was Neverland.'

‘And was Gerry Captain Hook?'

‘Ha, no, this was before Gerry. It was just me and Mum at that point.'

‘I was just with my mother too.'

He turned to me. ‘What happened to your dad in the war?'

Given what Lawrie had told me about his mother's suicide, I felt I had to dredge it up, although I really didn't want to. ‘Well,' I said. ‘My dad sold his bicycle and trumpet to pay for his passage to England in '41. He walked to the Air Ministry, passed the medical, and got himself twelve weeks' basic training. He served as an air gunner in the RAF. Then three years later, my mother found his name chalked on the death board in Port of Spain.'

He came over, and put his hand on my shoulder; it was warm, and I focused on it with particular concentration. ‘I'm sorry, Odelle,' he said.

‘Thank you. I don't remember him, but I know what it was like not to have him. My mother took it bad.'

He sat beside me. ‘What was it like, on the island, in the war?'

‘­People were just terrified what would happen if Hitler won. We've got one of the largest oil refineries in Trinidad. U-­boats were already torpedoing British ships off our coastline.'

‘I didn't know that.'

‘We knew what Hitler wanted; his plan for a master race. We were always going to want to fight. My dad was no exception.' I sipped on my cider. ‘England wasn't too keen on the colonies helping out at first, but as things turned bad they wanted the help.'

‘Do you think you'll go back?'

I hesitated. Most English ­people I'd met would ask me questions about the island in a way that seemed limned with the expectation that I should fit the complexity of Trinidad into my single body for their benefit. None of them had ever been there, so to them we were specimens of curiosity, realities risen from a tropical petri dish that until very recently sat under a British flag. Most of the time, as with Pamela, the Englishers' interest was not malicious (except when it was) – but their questioning always served to make me feel
different
, when I'd been brought up to feel perfectly understanding of British ways, because I was a child of empire too.

In the time I'd known him, Lawrie hadn't asked me a thing about Trinidad. I didn't know whether he was being polite, or whether he was genuinely uninterested – but either way, I was mainly glad of his failure to highlight our differences in life experience. I'd learned Latin and read Dickens, but I'd also seen the lighter-­skinned girls get more of the boys' attention, in a way the boys probably didn't even understand themselves. Most of our ‘differences' had been created by the white skin of the English. And yet, by the shores of the Thames, the complexity of our island life was reduced to one phenotype:
black.

Practically every Englishman, even the enlightened ones, believed we would have more in common with a Sudanese than with them. But what did I know of the Sahara, of a camel or a Bedouin? My ideal of beauty and glamour for my entire childhood was Princess Margaret. With Lawrie, I'd talked about James Bond films, or my strange boss, or the painting, or Gerry the Bastard, dead parents. Stuff that bound us together as a duo, that didn't make me a representative of a whole island that I hadn't seen for five years. When Lawrie didn't ask me about Trinidad, I felt more of an individual again.

‘Odelle?'

‘Let me tell you about London,' I said.

‘OK.'

‘When I first got here,' I went on, ‘I could not believe the cold.' Lawrie laughed. ‘I'm serious, Lawrie. It was like the Arctic. Me and Cynth arrived in
January
.'

‘Of all the months.'

‘I know. When I was a little girl, I was Autumn in a school play about the seasons. I didn't even know what autumn
was
, let alone winter.'

I was quiet for a minute, remembering my smaller self, in her little boater and her English pinafore uniform, telling her mother she needed ‘russet leaves' pinned to a leotard – and my mother, who had no idea either what frost on the tips of grass might look like, what a conker was, how it felt to inhale London's November air and feel a sliver of ice in your lung – doing her darnedest to make this English costume in the humid Caribbean.

‘I remember,' I went on, warming to this reminiscence, feeling that I could do this with Lawrie, that I was safe – ‘an early day I was here – a feller saying to me in the shoe shop, “Your English is very good.'' My
English
! I told him, “English is a West Indian language, sir.” '

‘And what did he say?' Lawrie asked, laughing. I realized that never in Lawrie's life would anyone say to him what that man had said to me.

‘He thought I was simple. I nearly lost my job. Cynth was furious. It's true though – I'd be quite at home with Queen Elizabeth and that tall Greek husband of hers, drinking a cup of tea and petting those funny midget dogs she loves so much. Quite at home. “Your English is not as good as mine,” I should have said. “It does not have the length and the breadth, the meat and the smoke. Come at me with my Creole, with its Congo and its Spanish and its Hindi, French and Ibo, English and Bhojpuri, Yoruba and Manding.” '

Lawrie laughed again. ‘Oh, to see his face,' I carried on, draining my cider glass. ‘With his Anglesaxon—­'

‘Angle what?'

‘Two-­up, two-­down, a window with a view ­people never truly look at, because they think they know every shrub and flower, the bark of every tree and the mood of every cloud. But we made room for their patois too—­'

‘Odelle,' Lawrie said. ‘I would be happy with you for the rest of my life.'

‘Eh?'

‘You have this light, and when it switches on I don't think you even realize what it does.'

‘What light? I was talking about—­'

‘I love you, Odelle.' His face was hopeful. ‘You inspire me.'

We sat in silence. ‘You tell it to all the girls,' I said desperately, unsure what to say.

‘What?'

‘You're not serious.'

He stared at me. ‘But I
am
serious. I feel like time's tricked me, as if I've known you from before. Like we passed each other in our prams. Like it's been a waiting game to meet with you again. I love you.'

I said nothing, unable to respond. He looked down at the carpet.

No one had ever told me they loved me before. Why'd he have to ruin our evening with talk of love and . . .
prams
? I felt panicked. Quick's words flashed again through my head –
Just be careful of him –
and I cursed her inside. Why should I be careful – but why could I not bear to hear Lawrie's words?

I got off the sofa and walked to the windows. ‘You probably want me to go,' I said.

He sat, motionless, looking at me with incredulity. ‘Why would I want you to go, after what I've just said?'

‘I don't know! I – look, I'm not—­'

‘It's fine,' he said. ‘I'm sorry. It's fine. I shouldn't have—­'

‘No – it's just, I was – and then you—­'

‘Forget I said anything. I – please, forget it. If that's what you want, then I'll drive you home.'

SO LAWRIE DROVE US BACK
in silence up the deserted A3. I clasped my handbag tight to my body, feeling utterly miserable, my fingers clenched around the pamphlet I had stolen, and the pills Pamela had handed me only hours before. How could I explain to Lawrie that this was terrifying for me, and that I couldn't exactly say why? We'd only just started, he barely knew me. I felt like he'd hoisted me onto a pedestal and left me with my legs dangling, and of course I'd managed to turn it into a trauma for the pair of us. Being alone was always so much easier.

I glanced only once at him, his profile coming in and out of the orange light as the car moved under the street lamps. His eyes were on the road, his jaw set. I didn't know which of us felt more humiliated.

When reached my flat, he pulled in. ‘I left your present in Surrey,' he said, the engine still running.

‘Oh – I—­'

‘Anyway. I'd better go.' I got out, he revved the car and was off. I stood in the road, until the noise of his engine was replaced in my head by the sound of a silent scream.

I LAY IN BED AWAKE,
my bedside light still on past three. In my chest, my stomach, in my aching head, I felt pain for us both. That Lawrie loved me, I could not easily believe. Though he had never made me feel like an outsider, I couldn't help worrying that he only liked me because I looked different to all the other girls in that gang he'd turned up with at Cynth's wedding.

Lawrie had rushed in with his declaration of love – but did he really
see
me? I couldn't imagine being someone who dived in for another like that; the sense that one's molecules were being recalibrated; the sheer, multi-­layered joy of being seen and adored, and adoring in return, the cycle of shyness to confidence as each new step was taken. To seek your beloved in a crowd, to lock your eyes and feel you have no truer place – it seemed impossible to me. I was – both by circumstance and nature – a migrant in this world, and my lived experience had long become a state of mind.

I didn't know if I loved him, and that was also frightening – not to know, to be sure.
Just be careful of him. You don't just
happen
upon a painting like that, Odelle.
Quick's voice again: I had tried so hard to shut it away. I wondered if her warnings about Lawrie had arrested my affection, if Quick was the reason I could not drop my anchor with him as confidently as he'd declared his love. I leaned over and switched off the light, hoping in the dark for sleep. As I lay there, I couldn't tell whether the fears were mine, or whether Quick had slipped her own inside my head.

 

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

February 1936

 

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins
Publishers

....................................

7

T
he painting Olive had finished was propped against the wall. She was more proud of it than even
The Orchard
, and felt that she was creeping ever closer to that shining citadel. The new piece was a surreal composition, colourful, disjointed to the gaze. It was a diptych; Santa Justa before her arrest and after, set against a dark indigo sky and a shining field. Olive had decided to call it
Santa Justa in the Well
.

The left half of the painting was lush and glowing. Olive had used ordinary oils, but had also experimented with gold leaf, which glinted in the light as she held the painting up. She'd always thought of gold leaf as an alchemist's dream, a contained ray of sun. It was the colour of queens, of wise men, of shimmering land in high summer. It reminded her of the Russian Orthodox icons she had always wanted to touch as a little girl, when her father took her to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

In the middle of the healthy land on this left-­hand side stood a woman, her hair the colour of the crop. She was carrying a heavy pot with deer and rabbits painted on it, and in its centre was the face of the goddess Venus. Both the faces of the woman and Venus looked proud, staring out at the viewer.

On the right half of the painting, the crop was deadened and limp. The woman appeared again, except this time she was curled inside a circle which was hovering over the crop. This circle was filled with an internal perspective to make it look as if it had depth, as if the woman was lying at the bottom of a well. Her hair was now severed and dull, her pot had smashed around her, a puzzle impossible for anyone to piece together. Around the rim of the well, full-­sized deer and rabbits peered down, as if set free from the broken crockery. Venus had vanished.

Olive could hear soft knocking at the attic door, and she sat up. ‘Who is it?' she asked, her voice half-­strangled with hope that it might be him.

‘It is Teresa.'

‘Oh.'

‘The party is in a few hours, señorita. Can I come in?'

Olive leapt up and hid the painting under the bed. ‘Yes,' she said.

Recently, Teresa had begun to help Olive keep her room in order. It was an unspoken agreement. Olive had not invited it, but she liked it; the attention, the paint brushes laid out for another day's work. Her clothes were always neatly folded on her chair or hanging in her cupboard, her unfinished canvases were turned to face the wall, the way she liked it when it was time for bed. Olive would turn them back in the morning, and work up there unbothered.

Teresa stood at the doorway, her satchel across her chest. ‘Is there anything I can do?'

Olive lay back on the bed. ‘I want to look like Garbo,' she said languorously, stretching herself out, running her fingers through her hair. ‘Tere, how good are you at making waves?'

•

The girls set up a chair in front of the oval mirror, which Teresa had found in a spare room and nailed to the wall. The glass was foxed and misty round the edges, but the centre was clear enough. They were using a series of illustrations from one of Sarah's
Vogues
in an attempt to recreate Greta Garbo's look. Teresa lit candles around the room as the light outside faded.

‘I've never been able to have finger waves anyway,' Olive said. ‘My hair's too thick. But we should be able to do these curls.'

They remained in companionable silence for a good five minutes, Olive enjoying the calming administrations of Teresa through her hair; a repetitive, smoothing motion that made her close her eyes. ‘I suppose it's good news about the election, but I keep thinking about that poor boy Isaac knew,' Olive said finally.

Teresa kept her eyes down, working at the nape of Olive's neck. ‘One day, left, next day, right. The government change the street names more than I change my bed. And at the end of it, señorita, I never see the difference.'

‘Well, thank goodness there are men like your brother who
do
care.'

Teresa was silent.

‘Do you like your father, Tere?' Olive asked.

‘He is a legend here.'

‘Doesn't sound like you think that's a good thing.'

Teresa frowned at the back of Olive's head. ‘I do not like the stories.'

Olive opened her eyes. ‘What stories?'

The girls looked at each other in the mirror. Teresa wrapped small portions of Olive's sizeable mass of hair round and round her finger, before securing it tightly with the pins sequestered out of Sarah's bedroom. ‘They say that once he cut a man's thing off and nailed it to a door.'

Olive swivelled her head round, and the hair sprang from its curl, the pin skittering across the floorboards. ‘What? To a
door
?'

‘He was his enemy.'

They looked at each other, then burst out laughing, high on the night to come and the violence they believed was safely avoided, because it had gone before their time, because neither of them had a
thing
, and because they were safe up here.

‘Teresa, that's disgusting! Why would he
do
that?'

‘It's just a rumour,' Teresa said, picking up the pin.

‘But no man would drop his trousers to prove it.'

‘And yet Don Alfonso never denies it.'

‘Jesus, Teresa. And I thought I had problems with my father.'

Teresa looked up. ‘What problems?'

Olive sighed. ‘Oh, nothing really. I just . . . I feel a bit invisible, that's all. He never takes me seriously. I never know how to
make
him take me seriously. The only things he thinks about are his business and whether my mother has taken her pills. And she's never really taken the time to understand me either. When I have children, I am never going to be like her. I wish I was free of my parents. I suppose I
could
be free of them, if I put my mind to it.'

‘If you had gone to the art school, you would be free.'

‘You can't be sure. And painting here makes me feel freer.' Olive looked serious. ‘Although I'm learning something else out here.'

‘What is that?'

‘That if you really want to see your work to completion, you have to desire it more than you'd believe. You have to fight it, fight yourself. It's not easy.'

Teresa smiled, working through the mass of Olive's hair with a level of attention that Olive wanted to bask in for ever. She had never had a friend like this, in her private room, combing her hair, listening to her, talking about silly nonsense and the uselessness of one's parents; how the future was perfect, because they hadn't lived it yet.

‘I always find that the time
before
a party is happiest,' Olive went on. ‘Nothing's had the chance to go wrong.' Teresa lifted her hands away from Olive's head. ‘Why have you stopped?' she asked, watching as Teresa walked over to her satchel. ‘Not another chicken,' she joked.

From the satchel, Teresa removed a small, square package wrapped in tissue paper. She held it out, nervously. ‘For you,' she said.

Olive took it. ‘For
me
? My goodness. Shall I open it now?'

Teresa nodded, and Olive gasped when she saw the green flash through the paper, emerald strung on emerald, emerging like a stone snake, a necklace of a beauty and intensity she had never seen before. ‘My God. Where did you get this?'

‘It was my mother's,' Teresa told her. ‘Now for you.'

Olive sat frozen on the chair, the necklace swinging from her fist. No one had ever in her life given her such a present. This was everything Teresa possibly had of her mother; to take it would be a selfish act. But to deny it might be even worse, an insulting rejection. ‘No,' she said. ‘I couldn't—­'

‘It's for you.'

‘Teresa, this is too much—­'

In the end, it was Teresa who made the decision for her, scooping the necklace out of Olive's grasp, laying it round her neck and fixing the clasp. ‘It is for
you
,' Teresa said. ‘For my friend.'

Olive turned to the mirror. The emeralds looked like green leaves, shining upon her pale skin, enlarging in size towards her clavicle. Stones from Brazil, green as the ocean, green as the forest her father had promised they would find in the south of Spain. These were not jewels, they were eyes, winking at her in the candlelight, watching the girls who watched themselves.