Cathexis (2 page)

“Oh” she said, pulling herself backwards and forwards, casually frotting against the banisters.

“What's your name?”

“Minette” I said, “what's yours?”

“Sasha. And he is Nikolai”. She pointed at her brother, who ran towards her screaming and copying her movements enthusiastically on the spindles. “He's such baby'” she said scornfully.

“Not a baby” protested the little boy and descended to the kitchen carefully gripping the handrail.

Todor offered the kettle to the tap.

“No Nancy?” I said.

“Unfortunately, she's away on a course”.

Quiche making? Flower pressing? I smiled to myself.

“She's training to be a life coach” he added.

A family of coaches  ...how helpful.

“Crikey” I said.

“Exactly”. He raised his eyebrows. Then he explained she was sorry she couldn't be there and wanted me to proceed with the design.

Mist about my boots, I stood like Wellington, co-ordinating the attack, directing the boys before kneeling on the mossy earth and plunging my hands, JCB like, into the ivy. As predicted, the job was a bastard; uncovering all manner of rubble and gnarly tree stumps and on Friday we were rained off. None of the team could make the next day, so I pitched up on my own to wrap up. Saturday, in contrast, was unusually warm for the beginning of April.

“They've taken quite a shine to you”. He motioned towards his unruly offspring.
Sasha resolutely pushing the bristles of a broom against my arse, while her brother rolled in gusts of giggles. Come midday, I'd finished. Todor sawed a bread knife along the seams of large, flat boxes containing two American sized sun loungers and spent much time calibrating them to the rays.

“Hey Minette” he said. “Are they not perfect?”

I regarded the riot of plump Tropicana, clearly of his choosing.

“Yes” I said, “they look very comfy”.

“Try it” he said, thumping the padding.

I shook out the polythene packing over the chair, so as not to grubby it and reclined. He disappeared into the kitchen and I sensed I should remain in sticky appreciation. He returned with a tray of cucumber, mozzarella, tomatoes and olives, not what I considered a square meal, but he handed me a beer which made up for it. Sasha hoisting herself on his lap and little Nikolai, not wanting to be left out, climbed on mine. Slightly irritating because I was desperate for a roll-up
.
Soon seduced though when he laid his head on my chest and docked his thumb in his mouth.

We sat in agreeable silence. Todor nodding all the while, self-congratulatory, leg jittering justified. An ice-cream van in the distance, warbling 'Captain Pugwash'. When it stopped, the refrain still chiming in my brain. Lumpy cumulus scaled the blue sky, a tiny jumbo vanished and reappeared like a skier fleeing an avalanche. The inside of my eyelids switching cadmium orange to burnt sienna as we were blessed and forsaken. Nikolai eventually slid off, clammy and dopey. The buttons on my shirt had embossed little crescents on his cheek.

Wondering if she could see my muscles working beneath my t-shirt as I drew the trowel in front of my chest. My heart thudded in certain knowledge, while my brain presented loopholes. The reason I hadn't cottoned on sooner was because she'd been trying to engage me as if I were a man – a straight lady's concept of seduction. Stooping for more cement, I glanced at the window. She smiled enigmatically and turned away, seemingly in a quandary like Lady Macbeth.

                                                                                                                                                          Chapter 3

April escaped down a tunnel of relentless toil and it was in May, a week before my birthday, when the phone drilled rudely into my high. I stared at it stupidly and then at Remy.

“It's probably one of your clients Minsk” she mumbled, too stoned to care. Rolling off the 'sofa that might eat you', I crawled towards the tantrum, hand hovering in spliffy indecision, not sure if I could be coherent, but starved of entertainment. “Might be funny” I thought. “Hello” I said thickly.

“Hi, may I speak to Minette please?” A female voice, breathy, charged with something – nerves, nausea, I couldn't tell.

“Speaking” I slurred. Perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea.

“Hi, it's Nancy Ilarian”. A provocation in the voice.

I knew it was my turn to speak, but kept missing it, like trying to catch a chicken. This imagery made me snort. I could hear her puzzlement. Managing to grasp the chicken, I planted it firmly under my arm.

“Hi Nancy” I said. “Sorry, I'm a bit zonked”.

“Oh, I'm very sorry to have disturbed you” she said.

“No, s'fine” (the chicken was struggling).

She paused. Was it my turn? I noticed the mouthpiece of the phone was filthy.

“I wondered” she continued, “if you had progressed with a design for me?”. My mind spun around a word; what was it now?

“No” I said decisively.

Silence, followed by a fluttering discourse which reminded me of Woodstock berating Snoopy. I looked at the irritable, scrapey lines in the speech bubble, trying to read them as if they were words. I had no clue what she was on about and opted for a pacifying approach.

“You're quite right” I interjected. “I'm sorry, I'll have something for you very soon”. I hoped I was on the right lines. Another hiatus.

“OK, thank you” she said inscrutably. “Take care, Minette”.

I liked the way she said my name, emphasizing the ‘t’ by breathing an e at the end.

“Bubbye Nancy” I said, slipping down a hole. But she was still there and so was I. Why weren't we hanging up in the customary fashion after the sign off? Was she expecting something more?

The receiver clicked.

In bed that night, reviewing the photos of the empty garden on the new company digital camera. I often did this because
I dreamed solutions. The next morning I had it. Throughout the night I'd been in Nancy's virtual space, it was uncanny. With my favourite blue biro poised over the pad, I stared into the portal. When I'd finished, I set it down, unable to look at it straight away with any perspective. Remy, still comatose, the amorphous lump's only identifying feature a comb of straight, black hair on the pink pillow.

In the living room, I sat cross legged on the crusty, itchy carpet and played patience to find out if I would get the job. My companion was obsessive compulsive disorder, but it made me good at my job, combining all the components needed to feed the Tamagotchi: repetition, checking and creativity and constructing new and tortuous elaborations. There was a degree of counting, estimation and volume, and a firm belief that outcomes could be affected and gods placated by sheer perseverance and force of the mind, plus a smattering of masochism and a great deal of anxiety thrown in.

After playing five games, the cards had indicated a largely positive result, so returning to the mouldy futon, I retrieved the work. Rolling my eyes up, down, left and right several times to purge them, I beheld the drawing. It was good, in fact it was inspired. I'd rendered the garden in exaggerated perspective. The new features complied to the existing perameters, but burst up and out in unexpected and cunning ways, making best use of the space. This had to be built and I phoned Nancy on a wave of confidence.

“That sounds great” she said. “Can you come tomorrow?”

I bounded up the steps, suddenly seized by a bout of nerves; this never happened when I was showing a design. I touched the door knocker four times before using it and decided to study her to see if she was gorgeous. The door opened and she smiled warmly, but with a coy undertone, on high alert. I wondered if this was contrived, but decided to find it charming. She ushered me into the living room where I dropped into an enormous, leather sofa and looked around for clues.

While she was downstairs making coffee I twisted the rolled up drawing in my hands and deducted. The room, vast and oddly bare. It appeared that in an attempt to fill it, they had chosen the largest versions of everything: a giant three piece suite, an expansive glass coffee table with chrome legs, a plasma telly the size of a school blackboard. An absence of books, ornaments and artwork, aside from, above the sepulchral fire place, a truly horrible painting of a unicorn leaping forth from an orange, splattery sea. Three sizeable mirrors (clearly people who liked looking at themselves), two of which were hung on opposing walls, creating that sickening exchange of infinitesimal reflection.

Most notable however, on the garden side of the room, a concert size grand piano crouched. Its curves and silence intimated femininity in an otherwise masculine room.

I remembered my mother trying Chopin, tinkling tentative, concentrating through some fog I didn’t understand, then crashing the keys in frustration. I managed to figure out Doe a Deer by myself when I was five. My mother told me to stop that racket before slamming the lid down on my wrists.

Not many clues to her character. I concluded she was either a woman of no substance who managed to present a plausible façade, or she didn't care enough to invest time in expressing herself in décor.

I urgently picked at the pad of my hand hoping to remove a detaching callus before she returned.

The rattle of proper cups and saucers announced her approach and I pocketed the carapace of hard skin, observing her as she placed a tray on the low table in front of the sofa. She was perhaps, some five inches shorter than me. I could see why Clive thought I might like her. He knew I had several penchants; one being long, curly ringlets of a particular type, pre-Raphaelite, not exactly curls, more like coils. She had it just right. Her eyes, intelligent, expressive and kiwi fruit green. Her lips, a lavish, painted pout and her nose cute; nostrils which were round from the front, almost like a child's, but long and sensual from the side. The whole effect pleasing, perhaps even beautiful.

She sat down beside me, queerly trespassing on my personal space, her thigh aligned to mine. I perceived it as a benign gesture. Unrolling the design, I started my explanation. She stared at me, her eyes only moving to the plan intermittently. I noticed her hands, unusually large for her frame, bigger than mine even. Her head canted towards my lap to examine the drawing and I smelt the fresh, woollen quality of her hair. She could find no fault and add nothing. When I asked her what her budget was, she smiled into my eyes.

“Whatever it costs” she said. “I trust you”. Now she was gorgeous.

There were many elements to the garden: excavation, decking, patios, a lawn, raised beds, fencing, play structures. I warned her it could take six weeks and that was if the weather was on our side.

“Fine” she said. So I scheduled her for the end of June and stood to leave, my eyes drawn once more to the unicorn.

“Hideous, isn’t it” she said, “but Todor loves it. I let him keep it and he allows me the piano”.

“Do you play?” I said, looking at her hands.

“I used to, but now I don’t have the time”. She said this so regretfully I sensed it was only partly true. “My mother is the famous pianist, Alexandra Ivankova” she added and I heard the steel wire of an unfelted issue.

“Please, drink your coffee” she gestured, closing the lid on that particular discord. I'd forgotten all about it. “I'll heat it up for you” she said.

“No it's fine”, gulping it down in great draughts. I sensed she might be lonely. “Just out of interest, did you approach anyone else?”

“Yes, three” she said, her tongue working hard on the r. “One didn't come back, the other did but I knew I wanted you as soon as I saw you”. Her eyes danced.

“Why?” She was amusing me.