Authors: Jonathan Coe
She took a few sips from her glass and brushed a strand of hair back from her brow. Roddy didn’t speak for some time.
‘What we should probably do,’ he said at last, ‘is take a look through the pictures tomorrow and see what we can arrange.’ Phoebe nodded. ‘Right now, I think we’d better go to bed.’ She looked up, questioning. ‘Separately,’ he explained.
‘All right.’
Together they climbed the Great Staircase, and at the entrance to the East Corridor, they kissed a formal good-night.
4
Phoebe felt tiny in the four-poster. Her mattress was soft and full of lumps, and although she had intended to lie to the side of the bed nearest the window, she found herself rolled by the weight of her own body into a deep valley at the centre. The bed creaked whenever she moved: but then the whole house seemed to be forever creaking, or groaning, or whispering, or rustling, as if never for a moment at ease with itself, and in an effort to close her ears to this disquieting soundtrack, she tried to focus her mind on the day’s strange events. She was pleased, on the whole, with the way things had worked out with Roddy. Even before arriving at Winshaw Towers, she had taken the reluctant decision to sleep with him if he made this his absolute precondition for promoting her work, but she was glad that she hadn’t been obliged to go through with it. Instead, something much better, and much more unexpected, was starting to emerge from their weekend together: a sense of mutual understanding. She even realized – very much to her own surprise – that she was beginning to trust him. And in the warm glow of this realization, she permitted herself a fantasy: the same fantasy to which all artists, however good their intentions, however unflinching their principles, have recourse from time to time. It was a fantasy of success; of recognition, and acclaim. Phoebe’s ambitions were too modest to encompass worldwide celebrity, or serious wealth, but she did dream – as she often had before – of having her work seen and appreciated by other painters; of touching the lives and colouring the perceptions of a few members of the public; of being exhibited, perhaps, in her home town, so that she might give something back to the people with whom she had grown up, repay her parents for the faith and patience which they had vouched her and which had been so valuable during her worst moments of self-doubt. At the thought that some – or even all – of this might now, possibly, miraculously, be about to happen, she stretched her legs beneath the grey, musty sheets and added a whole new chorus of delicious creaks to the furtive stirrings of the house itself.
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.