Instances of the Number 3 (13 page)

Frances, who was fussy about her make-up, was almost late for the meeting at the gallery because she couldn’t find her eyeliner. A quarrel had broken out between Roy and the young sculptor, Ed Bittle, and she needed to have her best face on to deal with Roy, who put you down if you were not presentable.

Searching in her dressing-table drawer, she found it, among the lipsticks, and was puzzled. Generally she was careful to keep the eye make-up separately, in the bathroom cabinet.

Zahin had been staying with her for three weeks now and the initial strain had worn off a little—but not enough to suggest she would ever want him permanently about the house. Yet Peter had liked the boy, enough to confide in him about her. She couldn’t quite envisage it—but the boy’s words were the proof!

Frances hadn’t liked to probe exactly what Peter had said. She felt embarrassed to raise the topic, and Zahin had that manner—it wasn’t aloof, not aloof enough in some ways, but it shared the deterrent effect of aloofness.

The argument between Roy and Ed Bittle was over the commission Roy charged for the sale of the sculptures. The gallery was a showcase for new talent, and Roy, conscious that many purchases made for investment purposes were based on his noted eye for talent, exacted a high percentage from his new exhibitors for the privilege. Often they didn’t read the small print of the contract—and that was when Frances would find herself becoming involved.

Entering the gallery, Frances could hear raised voices coming from the room behind.

‘You should have fucking well told me…’

‘I’m afraid it states quite clearly…’

‘It’s a fucking disgrace, that’s what it fucking is!’

‘Roy,’ said Frances, ‘I’m so sorry to be late. Lady Kathleen rang. She needs to talk to you about her Matthew Smith.’ Lady Kathleen, a multimillionairess, held an unimpeachable position in Roy’s affections.

‘Will you excuse me…?’ Roy left the room with an exaggerated deference to manners.

‘He can drown in the frigging Antarctic for all I frigging care,’ said Bittle, looking angry and sheepish at once.

‘Tell you what, let’s go over the road to Marie Rose’s and have a bagel and some coffee,’ said Frances diplomatically. ‘I need some breakfast.’

Outside she took the sculptor’s leather-clad arm and steered him across the road. Marie Rose was the name of the tall Malayan woman who owned the eponymous bar conveniently situated just across from the gallery. Apparently she was redecorating—Frances and Ed had to step over several pots of paint.

‘He wants to take seventy per cent of everything I sell,’ Ed said gloomily when coffee and bagels had been ordered. ‘That’s not just what you lot sell—it’s all the stuff I sell from me own workshop. It’s not right.’

‘It’s his policy, I’m afraid,’ Frances said. She was used to this. Roy charmed and flattered, so it was a double shock to discover it was only part of a plan to systematically fleece you. ‘He’ll drop you unless you guarantee to sell through him alone.’ She had been in this position numerous times with other young artists.

‘Yeah, but seventy per cent! It’s frigging daylight robbery.’

Frances looked at the young man beside her. His nails were bitten to the quick, his face, pale as marble, was drawn back into his ponytail and he had mauve rings under his eyes. It took guts to be a sculptor: to work long physically taxing hours with few chances of sales.

‘Almost the only way for someone like you to become known is through a gallery like ours,’ she tried to sound soothing. ‘And Roy will get you known. That’s his upside.’

‘Jesus Christ! He needs a frigging upside with a frigging downside like that!’

Frances was touched by the ‘frigging’ which she understood as some kind of deference to her sex. She looked at the taut young face again; it looked as if it could be trusted to keep its mouth shut. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘this is how you do it. You work away and don’t show Roy all your pieces. Other than the ones he’s already seen. Just show him one or two more. If you’re good—and you are—he’ll sell you for a price and you’ll get a reputation. Then, if you want to, when you’ve established a name,
you can go somewhere else with the work you’ve accumulated in the meantime.’

‘Yeah, and in the “meantime” how do I frigging well live?’

‘Well, I agree that’s a problem. But if you can hang on for a year or two he will make you a success. It’s happening already—Patrick Painter thinks you’re talented.’

Bittle turned an anguished face to hers. Painter had told her once that the human face could be defined as one of two categories: cabbage or horse. ‘He was just trying to cheer me up.’

Definitely horse, she thought. ‘I know Patrick quite well—he wouldn’t say anything he didn’t mean.’

‘Yeah?’ The face became ecstatic. ‘His work’s fantastic. I really rate him.’

‘Under all that showing off he’s rather a nice man, too,’ Frances said, feeling confidential.

As she left to go back to the gallery Bittle said, ‘Hey, thanks. You don’t fancy going to the pictures, do you, only there’s a movie…?’

Well, why not? Frances thought; at least it would spare her from an evening with Zahin.

Peter had told himself, decidedly, when he had left the heavy-curtained house in Shepherd’s Bush, that that would be that. He had a mistress and a wife, both of whom he loved, each of whom was sexually attractive to him. It was crazy to place in jeopardy a life already blessedly full of satisfactions. That evening he visited Frances, unexpectedly, and returned home to Bridget where he made love to her too; and the next morning followed her into her bathroom and repeated the performance as she bent to put the plug in for her bath.

For a sixty-year-old man, in reasonable health, to ejaculate seven times in seventeen hours is not impossible; but neither is it all that common. Though Peter did not consciously connect his unusual potency with the girl, he was aware that a more-than-ordinary excitement had surrounded his experiences at her hand. And a ‘more-than- ordinary’ excitement is an experience that will nag away until it is replicated.

Even so, Peter was cautious; he had come to know caution early—caution might be said to be his oldest
friend. The occasional wary trip to a prostitute, here and there, was one thing; a regular visit, especially in a locality so close to home, was a recipe for discovery. And there was also the matter of his religion…

A connexion is recognised between sexual and spiritual energies. Bridget had once read Peter a poem by John Donne, in which the reformed Dean had likened his God to his past mistresses. Peter had been impressed by the brilliant, piquant, dovetailing mind of the poet, whose ardent longing for his God seemed honestly to have gained from his former ardour for his women.

Maybe Peter had the Holy Sonnet in mind; maybe it was that common human tendency to rationalise our baser instincts into something elevated. Whatever the cause, when, inevitably, he returned to Shepherd’s Bush to repeat the excitement, the effect was not to lessen but mysteriously to deepen Peter’s religious feeling. He felt, quite literally, after seeing Zelda, that his heart was available to his God in a new way.

Long ago Sister Mary Eustasia had pronounced, ‘If there is a God—and I, at least, Bridget, must assume there is one—then I suppose He is likely to be a stranger to human ways of reckoning.’ Peter hadn’t had the benefit of Sister Mary Eustasia’s wisdoms; but he had lived many years with Bridget, and we pick up ways of looking at the world from those we live with. In any event, Peter wasn’t as puzzled as he might have been by the quickened response to his religion prompted by his new acquaintance: in fact, it could be said that he took it rather in his stride.

Ed was waiting for Frances in Marie Rose’s. The earlyevening showing of the film didn’t start for forty minutes, so they ordered coffee before setting off to the cinema. Outside her business persona as manager of the gallery, Frances felt exposed and slightly stupid. Feeling a need for female solidarity, she tried to engage Marie Rose in conversation.

‘How’s the redecorating going?’ The paint pots seemed in much the same place as the day before.

Marie Rose had the figure of a model. It was rumoured that Antonioni, who had made a habit of using the café during a stay in London, had once offered her a part in one of his films. But Marie Rose had laughed the famous director to scorn. It has to be hoped that she was sincere in her rejection since her hair was now an unexpected snow white and it seemed unlikely she would be offered the chance again. Nevertheless, the well-boned face and cat’s eyes remained striking.

‘Ach! You know, men!’

Early on Frances had discerned that Marie Rose’s aggression was born of anxiety. ‘It’ll be nice when it’s finished.’

‘If it ever is!’ exclaimed Marie Rose, flouncing off, her gold sandals clacking.

‘So…’ Frances said, missing Marie Rose. She couldn’t think of anything to say to Bittle. She didn’t even know on what basis she was going to the cinema with him—or what he imagined the basis was.

They drank their coffee in silence. It was seven years since Frances had been alone with a man she didn’t know, other than for mild socialising or business reasons.

In further silence they walked to the cinema a few streets away. The weather had turned freezing—the green, baleful chill of a May which has perversely decided to turn its back on summer. A passing car threw up dust which got into Frances’s eye. Dabbing at it with the remnants of a tissue, pretending it was ‘nothing’, she wished she was back home where it was warm—even with Zahin who talked too much, but at least one never felt awkward.

The film seemed to be about a motorcyclist who commits a casual murder and subsequently falls in love with the victim’s girlfriend. The plot was hard to follow and the actors’ voices so ‘real’ they were incomprehensible. Frances felt herself sink into boredom, then into grief, missing first Peter, then allowing that to slip, in turn, into missing Hugh. She remembered being taken with Hugh to see
The Railway Children
. Hugh had fallen in love with Jenny Agutter, and had forced his sister to write to the star on his behalf. And, of course, being Hugh, Miss Agutter had replied. How did it work, that effect? Even through an amanuensis the young film star had known Hugh ‘counted’.

The film’s hero (if that was what you could call him) had
confessed to the girlfriend who, though shocked, was clearly not going to allow the fact that her current lover had apparently stabbed her former one in a men’s lavatory to make any difference. Peter and Frances had seen
Jules et Jim
together—twice. Perhaps the amoral Catherine who had gone with both Jules and Jim, and finally driven one of them (was it Jules? she always got the two men mixed up, anyway, the one with a moustache) into the river, was no different from the murdering biker? Bridget would probably say not. She must ring Bridget, from whom nothing had been heard since the upset with Zahin…

Bridget also thought of going to the pictures that evening—but decided against, there was nothing she really wanted to see alone. She was restless; it was too chilly to walk—instead she got into the car. Nearing the Hogarth roundabout she thought of Peter and drove, on spec, over to Turnham Green.

Frances lived in a mansion block. Walking up the stairs, to the second floor, Bridget was in time to see a girl come out of the door of Frances’s flat and get into the lift.

‘Excuse me,’ she called, ‘is Frances in?’

But the girl had already pulled the lift gate across and now stared blankly out from behind its grille. She was unusually pretty, with long black hair and tight white jeans. But she must already have pushed the button as the lift began to descend and, still smiling, the girl shook her head at Bridget as if in non-comprehension, leaving Bridget to ring the bell of the flat—unanswered.

The film had ended—not at all satisfactorily, in Peter’s view. He was tagging Frances through the cold London streets, as she hurried behind the striding form of Ed Bittle. The murderer had been permitted to get away with his murder, to live happily ever after. But not for all time, Peter reflected grimly, keeping an eye on Frances. Just let him wait! No one got away in the end. And why was Frances dressed so skimpily in this freezing weather? Didn’t she know to look after herself? Bittle, he was glad to see, was saying goodbye to her. So much to worry about, he thought, sliding into the tube as the doors closed, and finding his way to where Frances stood, warm and lonely in the crowded carriage.

Bridget was just about to ring Frances when the phone rang and it was her on the other end.

‘Sorry to have been out of touch.’ Frances was not looking forward to having to speak of Zahin.

‘Oh, Frances…’ Bridget said, pretending not to know for a moment who it was. She didn’t want to give an idea that she might have been missing anyone. Also, she had an instinct about the girl she had seen coming out of Frances’s flat.

‘Only I’ve been meaning to tell you—’ Frances ploughed on.

‘That Zahin is staying?’

‘How did you know?’ Frances, detecting hostility, became cautious.

‘I saw his sister coming out of your flat.’

‘What! When?’

‘The other night.’ Now that Frances was thrown off balance Bridget allowed herself to become amused. ‘Didn’t you know she was there?’

‘Certainly not. Look, I don’t want him staying—only
he sort of imposed himself. I shall certainly enquire about the sister.’

‘He led me to believe she was in Iran, or somewhere…’ Bridget threw in, wanting to make mischief.

‘When did you come by?’

‘Yesterday,’ said Bridget shortly, anxious not to give any impression of being at a loose end, ‘I thought you might fancy going to the pictures.’

‘That’s where I was—at the cinema, with a client.’ Though Ed Bittle, with his turnip-white face and bitten nails hardly seemed to fit the notion of ‘client’. He had been nervous when he said good night; observing this, Frances had forgiven him the frightful film.

‘Well, anyway…’ Bridget trailed off.

‘Bridget, are you going to be around this weekend? Can I call you back?’

It was Bridget’s weekend for staying in London. The weeks without Zahin had passed and the house was already showing signs of his absence. Conscious that she was acting out of a sense of obligation—always a deterrent to pleasure except with the self-righteous—Bridget called round to see Mickey.

Mickey, while not telepathic in the Celtic manner, nevertheless was possessed by some inner genius which kept her instructed in the comings and goings of her neighbours. She knew without sensible evidence, even before Bridget’s call, that things had changed next door.

‘Not in the country?’ she enquired, bluntly. ‘I suppose you’ve nothing better to do then than call on an old woman.’

Mickey’s age and health were, in fact, both matters of
pride to her. At seventy-five she possessed a haleness which would have done justice to a life spent in regular visits to expensive health clubs. In fact, other than trips to the pub, or to the corner shop to buy Embassy cigarettes, she never took any exercise. A box of groceries was delivered fortnightly, originally from Cullens, now Waitrose.

Mickey’s ruling passion was watching the films of Clint Eastwood. One was showing now and she turned down the sound as Bridget came through from the hall into the over-heated front room.

‘I’m interrupting,’ said Bridget, looking for an excuse to leave.

‘It’s
Misty
,’ Mickey explained, ‘the moment when she picks him up—only he thinks it’s him doing the picking up. She flatters him, you see. That’s men for you, always so sure of their own charms!’

Bridget had never quite liked the film in which Clint Eastwood falls for a psychopathic girl and has his life, and that of his girlfriend, turned upside down.

‘I just called to say hello.’

Until now she had not really been aware how much she had worried that this might have been Peter’s fate.

‘That boy’s gone, hasn’t he?’ Mickey’s satisfaction was evident. ‘Thought he was trouble. Like a cup of tea?’

They sat in the garden. Bridget, looking at Mickey’s regimented beds, thought: I’ll need to find someone to weed. Zahin, without her ever noticing him doing it, had kept the garden almost as impeccable as the house.

‘Who was that young girl, then, that was round all the time while you were away?’ Mickey asked. ‘Didn’t like
the look of her. Not that it’s any of my business, of course!’

Frances was supposed to be going to an old school reunion that day. The school she had attended was expensive and exclusive. It was a day school and because her family lived in the country she had been made to board with Mrs Maddox, who had hairy legs. The legs would not have mattered so much if Mrs Maddox had not also worn white ankle socks. Even as a child it had filled Frances with shame to see the long black hairs on Mrs Maddox’s white calves.

The other school experiences had not, by and large, been comfortable either. Fearful of the effect of Mrs Maddox’s legs, Frances had never felt able to return any hospitality when she was invited to friends’ houses for tea after school. At the weekends she usually went home, which was all right if Hugh was there but dull if it was just her parents. The school prided itself on its intellectual attainments and had a marble-covered wall where the names of girls who won scholarships to Oxbridge were inscribed in gold. There had never been any chance of Frances’s name being on the
Honor Deo
list—she had done Art for A level, a subject which was not admired. Also biology, which for some reason the school considered a subject for the weaker students.

So when the Old Girls League secretary had sent a circular announcing a ‘get-together’ of the girls who left in’78, Frances’s first impulse had been to screw up the letter and throw it in the bin.

Frances had seen no one from her school days since she left miserably sure that she was the possessor of only
one A level with which to approach the hazards of adult life. The fact that it turned out she was awarded an A in Art and a B in Biology (doing better than she had dreamed) had not redeemed for her the school’s associations. But curiosity is a powerful corrective—even to fear. Frances fished the letter out of the bin, uncrumpled it and e-mailed the League secretary.

Before setting off for the school, offsetting one fear against a greater one, she had phoned Bridget intending to tell her about Zahin. What a nuisance—now she would have to ask him about the girl Bridget had seen coming out of the flat—doubly annoying, since she wanted to remain composed before the reunion.

‘Zahin, can I have a word?’

‘It would be the greatest pleasure.’ Zahin’s responses were all too much the same to be quite real.

‘Zahin, has anyone been here? I mean, while I was out?’

The boy frowned, apparently untangling some tremendous puzzle. Then, brightly, he said, as if reaching an answer he knew would find favour, ‘Only my sister…’

‘But, Zahin, you should have asked me. Anyway, I thought she was in Iran.’

‘I am so sorry, Miss Slater.’

Oh no, my boy, Frances thought, You are not getting away with that! ‘It is “Frances”, Zahin and you are not going to distract me by bursting into tears. When did your sister call? You should have introduced her to me first.’

‘You did not come home from work. I did not know…’

So the girl had been round while she was out at the
cinema with Ed Bittle. It was true she hadn’t told Zahin she would be late. ‘OK, but you should have let me know when I got in that you had had a visitor.’

‘After my sister left I went to sleep. Then this morning you were getting ready for your school. And now you look so pretty…’

‘Oh, Zahin,’ said Frances, exasperated, ‘please stop paying me all these compliments!’

In the film
Play Misty For Me
there is a song written by Ewan McColl. The song describes the songwriter’s feelings for Peggy Seeger, the woman who later became his wife. Peter, watching the video in Mickey’s front room, heard these words:

The first time ever I saw your face,

I thought the sun rose in your eyes,

And the moon and stars, were the gifts you gave

To the dark and the endless skies, my love…

and remembered three women and the different gifts they had given him.