LOVE'S GHOST (a romance) (18 page)

I tossed the shoe to one side and then stood there, a little unbalanced, one shoe on, one shoe off.

Carl didn’t say a word. He just stood there looking at me. I hadn’t asked him whether I was allowed to speak, whether that spoilt his concentration. So I didn’t. We stood there for about ten minutes.

Then he said, “And now the other one.”

I took off the other shoe and threw it somewhere close to the other one. This time, he started painting.

“You’re different today,” he said.

“In what way?”

“Just different.”

He moved his brush quickly around the canvas. I wondered how he thought I was different, but I didn’t follow up.

It was time to remove the next garment.
 

“What would you like next?”

“Your blouse would be fine.”
 

I undid it, button by button, as slowly as I could. I slid the sleeves from my arms, then tossed the blouse towards the discarded shoes. I stood there in my bra.

I expected to feel vulnerable. I expected to feel shy. But I didn’t. I felt how Carl suggested I should feel — like I was shedding a layer of my old self. I didn’t know what was replacing it. I didn’t suddenly feel liberated. But I felt different, not completely like me anymore.

Carl flicked the end of the brush without the bristles across his lips, contemplating my form. A couple more strokes on the canvas then he walked over to the wall and turned a dial.

“I’m going to make the room hotter. Much hotter. I don’t want you to get cold. If you’re too cold, tell me,” he said.

What was he doing?

Another ten minutes went by. “Skirt or bra?” I asked. He didn’t say anything, leaving it up to me. I removed the skirt, slowly of course. I stood there in my bra, knickers and socks.

“Look around you,” he said.

I’d kept my back to the longest window. But now I turned round and faced the trees. Birds flitted from branch to branch. A slight breeze caused the branches to wave at me.

“How do you feel?” Carl asked.

“Okay. No, I feel good. Better than I expected. I mean, I’ve been naked in front of you before, but this is different.”

He seemed pleased at this response. “Yes, it is. It’s very different.”

Carl pushed another button on the wall. Music began to be piped into the room. It was loud but the acoustics were magnificent. It was a classical piece that I vaguely recognised.

“What’s that music?”

“It’s Mozart’s
Cosi Fan Tutte
.” Then he snapped his brush in half and threw it against the wall. The splintered wood fell to the floor. He wiped his mouth. His face looked pained.
 

“What’s wrong?” I enquired.

He recovered. “Nothing,” He smiled, but it was forced. “Nothing. It’s fine. It’s time for the next piece of clothing.”

I unhooked my bra strap and freed my breasts. It was so different from taking off my clothes before making love. I felt naked inside as well as out, as if Carl could see right into me.

Over the next half an hour, I divested myself of all my clothes. Meanwhile, Carl kept painting. At one point, he put the canvas down and picked another one up.

“Are you starting again?”

“This is going to be more than one painting.”

Then I noticed something curious. There was a tear coursing down his cheek. A solitary tear. He wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

But he wasn’t about to admit that he had shed a tear. Instead, he sniffed and painted more furiously. But he had changed. He hadn’t lost any of his masculinity. The face still had an angular strength, the well-developed chest hadn’t caved in. But his face had acquired a certain softness with the tears.

“What’s wrong?” I asked again, this time my voice more insistent. I took a step forward.

“Stay in your circle,” he shouted. “That’s why I drew it. You mustn’t leave it. Just stay in the circle.” His words ran out of energy and he lowered his voice. “Please stay in the circle.”

His breathing became heavier. Then he started undoing the front of his overalls, undoing them at a frantic pace, as if he was overheating. He ripped the t-shirt underneath the overalls from his body and flung it to the floor. His pecs were wringing in sweat. Yes, the room was warm, but not
that
warm. He walked towards the back wall and leant against it, his arms stretched high, looking like he was about to be frisked.

I looked down at the painted circle around my feet. I left it and walked up to him, laying my hand on his drenched back. He spun round and grasped me in his strong arms. The kiss was firm. But at the end of it he pushed me away.

“You are the first person,” he said, “who has ever been allowed in this studio.” His voice quavered but there were undertones of strength in it. “I bought this house five years ago, after my girlfriend killed herself. The day after. I vowed that never again would I let anybody enter my workspace. That I would never paint a woman I was involved with. Both the women I painted before are dead. Do you understand? I’m not saying you’ll die. Of course not. I’m saying that a line has been crossed. A line I didn’t want crossed… I’m sorry.”

He took a deep breath.

“I don’t do relationships, Fay. I don’t do them anymore. I’m sorry if I misled you.”
 

But then he took my face and cupped it in his hands.
 

“There’s something about me that… I’m not saying I killed those women but… there’s something about me that can’t do relationships. I’ve sacrificed so much for my art. I don’t want sympathy. It obviously works. But this is the sacrifice. I want you, I want you so badly. But I can’t have you. You deserve better. I’ve been taking you away from your man, even though I know I’m not up to the job. That’s selfish. I shouldn’t do it.”

He pulled away from me.

“Go. Go back to your man. I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.”

“I ended it. I broke up with Russell for good. But not because of you. I don’t think I do relationships, either. Not at the moment. Not now.”

“But…”

“I mean it.”

His face relaxed. He shook his head disbelievingly. Then he smiled. It was an infectious smile but not entirely convincing. But I smiled back. It was the only thing I was wearing.

He put his arms around me and hugged me more tightly than I’d ever been hugged before. He showered me in kisses — small, delicate kisses up and down my neck.

I didn’t want him to stop, but I was so happy I couldn’t help being mischievous. But happy at what? I couldn’t pin it down. But I was living for this moment in time. Not worrying about the past, not worrying about the future.

“What about the painting?” I asked.

“Fuck the painting.”

We both laughed and slid down the wall to the floor. Wet paint stuck to my body, but I didn’t care. Carl divested himself of his overalls and we made our own contribution to modern art. I already have a title. It’s called
Just Like Rabbits
.

I WALKED HOME along the river. Carl had offered to get me a taxi but I’d refused. I wanted to feel the spring’s fresh morning air on my cheeks. It was going to be a mild day. My mother always said that if we had a mild spring we were sure to have a rotten summer. But when I asked her what she based this on, she’d reply with “that’s what they say”.

I’d stayed the night then started to dress early in the morning. Carl had asked me to stay the whole day, make myself comfortable. It was great to see this change of attitude. But I didn’t want to move things on too quickly. So I insisted on leaving, wishing him a very productive day. Nevertheless, I wore a huge smile as I walked along the river bank.
 

I didn’t want to change him. His work was important to him, and important to a great number of others. But it was nice that he was thinking about my feelings too.

I watched a narrowboat drift along the water. It was a deep purple with hanging baskets of flowers along the side. The gentle ripples caused by its wake spread out across the river.

“I suppose I have to surrender. If ‘surrender’ is the appropriate word.”

The voice came from slightly behind me and to the side. It was Russell. Not the real one. The one in my head. I thought he’d gone for good. But here he was, talking to me.

“Can we make this our last conversation?” I begged.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“I don’t see the point of talking to you anymore. We’ve split up. It’s over.”

I upped my pace a little. But there was no point. I couldn’t escape him.

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”

“No.”

“His wife and a girlfriend both killed themselves. What are the chances of that?”

“It happened to the poet Ted Hughes.”

“And by some accounts he was a bit of a bastard when it came to matters of the heart. His first wife, Sylvia Plath, committed suicide. She might have committed suicide anyway, but Ted didn’t help. Ted and Sylvia went on holiday to Ireland one time. And yet, after only four days, Ted disappeared. Completely vanished without a word to Sylvia. What he hadn’t told Sylvia was that he had another ticket in his pocket to take him back to London. And once he returned to London, he and his mistress took off together and went to Spain for ten days. When he returned to London to meet the understandably irate Sylvia, he refused to give up his mistress.”

Having read a little of Sylvia Plath at school, I remember not being all that surprised that she had killed herself. “Sylvia was a very troubled personality.”

“Perhaps,” Russell said. “But two women? Two? Even Hughes himself admitted that the death of the second woman, the woman he left Sylvia for, was avoidable.”

“So, what are you saying? That because Carl is artistic, he’s just like Ted Hughes? And that I’ll end up dead? That’s ridiculous.”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. Don’t be silly. I just want you to be happy. I really do.”

Even though I knew it wasn’t really Russell talking, I had immersed myself in this “conversation” so much that I couldn’t help feeling a little nostalgic. I was happy to have met Carl, but however it turned out, it wouldn’t match the romantic purity of those early days with Russell. Naturally, a lot of that was to do with the fact that Russell was the first real love of my life. The memory of that first love usually has a head start on any subsequent relationships.

I sat down on a bench, largely because I couldn’t outpace Russell.
 

Why was I torturing myself like this? After getting over the shock of losing my job, I’d had a lovely afternoon with Carl, followed by an erotic evening. There was no need to spoil it with one of these imaginary conversations. No need at all.

I sat there for a while watching a couple of swans glide by. They twisted their long necks towards me, no doubt to check whether I had any bread for them. I wished I had.

I stood up and continued my walk. It was odd not to have a job to go to. I still hadn’t told Carl that I’d lost my job. When he’d asked me to stay there all day, I’d lied, told him that I couldn’t spare the time off work.

“You wouldn’t have lied to me,” said Russell. He was back.

“No, probably not.”

“You can’t dismiss little details like that. They’re important in life.”

“I know, I know.”

Instead of going home, I carried on walking into Kingston. Some retail therapy was called for. Except that I didn’t know what to buy. Unemployment made me cautious, even though I was confident of finding another job soon.

I walked around clothes shops, tried on a few pairs of shoes, and browsed in a bookshop. But I couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm. The clothes were either the wrong shade or the wrong cut. The shoes were the wrong colour or didn’t fit properly. And in a bookshop containing thousands of books there wasn’t a single volume that could get my attention.

And it was a much colder day. A cold snap was passing over the country, sending temperatures plummeting. The sky looked full of snow. Snow in April, what a thought.

“It’s true. You wouldn’t have lied to me. You’d have called me the moment you got thrown out of the office. I would have reassured you, we’d have gone to a bar, got drunk and been mocking Polly the whole evening.”

I was getting angry now. “Maybe we would’ve, yes. But that would have been in the early days. If I’d rung you yesterday to tell you the news, I don’t think you’d have suggested doing any of that. And if you had, it would have been half-hearted. I have to live my life in the present. I have to move on. Meeting Carl has been so exciting. Different. Very different. But I have to see where it takes me. So goodbye, Russell. It’s time for you to be quiet. I do miss you. I’ll probably always miss you in some way. But it’s time to move on.”

I gave up on the shopping expedition and got on a train. I travelled to the National Film Theatre on the South Bank. They were running a season of films starring Ingrid Bergman. Today, it was Casablanca. I have the DVD, but I couldn’t resist going to see it on the big screen. I wanted to lose myself in the world of Rick’s. The best part is when the locals stand up and sing the Marseillaise in defiance of the Nazi occupation. It always brings a tear to my eye. The ending, too. It’s a sad ending but so romantic. For years, I never understood why I liked the ending so much. Rick and Ilsa don’t end up together, and yet it’s more romantic than if they did. I used to imagine what had happened after the war ended. Did Rick go off to find Ilsa? Or did he let her live out her life with Lazlo?

I used to believe that he tracked her down and whisked her away. But these days, I wasn’t so sure.

After the film was over, I stopped for a hot chocolate at the NFT’s café. Through the window I watched a busker singing. The glass dampened the sound, but he was singing
As Time Goes By
. He must have thought that he could make more money if he sang one of the movie’s songs. A few people were tossing coins into his upturned flat cap.

 
My phone rang.

“Hello?”

There was silence at the other end.

“Hello?” I repeated.

“Fay?” It was Emily’s voice. It was thinner than usual, a little croaky.