How You See Me (15 page)

Before our interest could wane, the Mask introduced a friend. A new actor – a middle-aged woman who rivalled Maggie and myself for girth – was helped into her mask and then given a flash of her reflection in a hand mirror. It was a full-face mask, the mouth a tiny pout and painted wide dark eyes. She made no sound, but pulled her body up and minced around, her hands fluttering before her. The audience cooed and she gifted them a curtsey. One of the black polo-necks trailed her to the edge of the stage, occasionally flashing her a glimpse in the mirror, which she fed off like Narcissus at his pool until it was cut away. The male Mask tried to engage her, but she had found a plastic flower on the prop table and was busy trying to plant it, bloom first, in between the feet of the first row. She sat cross-legged, making a loop out of a lock of her hair, and thrusting the plastic stem of her flower between patent shoes. She was so innocent and so beautiful. And also, strangely, familiar.

Laughter told me that a third Mask had arrived and I was aware of a new barked voice on the stage, but I couldn’t stop watching the woman. She was still at play on the edge of the stage and seemed completely self-absorbed. She had found a cloth doll knocked off the prop table and was dancing it around. It was possible to forget that her face was made of clay and shaped by my sister’s fingers. As it tilted and shifted in the light, it seemed to live and breathe and move. I was sure that expressions were made and lost. It was an extraordinary piece of work.

I couldn’t tell you how long the performance went on for, or how long I sat there mesmerised by her and her doll. She was complete in her own performance. She didn’t do much, but what she did was so uninhibited and natural I could have watched all evening. In her purity, she had a kind of magnetism. Oh, it’s so hard to describe! I wanted to be near her; to feel her; to feel what she was feeling.

It wasn’t until the third Mask approached and snatched her toy that I realised I recognised him. It was
my
mask. The mask Mab sent me. She must have taken it from my bedroom wall. The mask himself was really quite an aggressive and brutal creature. The audience chased him back with the noise of their collective displeasure. He sat and sulked on his haunches at the back of the stage, until the main Mask tried to draw him into another game with a reviving flash of a mirror. This involved some crude business with the female Mask’s doll. Cue much leering and unseemly gestures from the third Mask and then, I think, the talker beat him with a rubber stick. I’m sure there was some sort of story going on, but I didn’t really follow it.

It was such a shock to see someone else wearing my mask. I almost stood up from my seat to reclaim it. The actor was obviously some stooge. He had none of the honesty of the other Masks. He was just going through the motions. Playing a part. Turning the whole event into a pantomime. Of course the rest of the crowd ate it up.

Still, I must admit, watching my mask move without me behind it was absorbing. I kept twisting in my seat to try and catch Mab’s attention, but the vacancy of his face drew me back to the stage. The other masks were luridly painted and stylised; mine was blank clay from brow to chin. He offered the eyes nothing to catch hold of and remember.

I hated the end. One of the polo-necks, an older grey-haired one, who I suppose was the director, ordered the masks removed. The actors simply slipped them off and into the waiting hands of other assistants. There was a short moment of adjustment and then they stood together to receive applause. It was awful. Reality was back, the illusion of the sweet child and the monster lost forever. I mourned it.

No one else seemed affected. They all clapped and shouted praise, their flushed faces open to the stage now full of nothing but predictably preening actors. I blame the booze.

After the show, I tried to find Mab. I wanted to know what she was up to with the masks. Instead, I found myself speaking to the middle-aged woman who had affected me in her Mask incarnation. She’d changed out of her plain black clothes and was now dressed in some kind of large
purple smock with lines of glitter running through it. She had also made up her face, perhaps to compensate for its banality.

‘I’m afraid I don’t remember much of the performance. You’ll know better than I what I did. It’s always that way when the Mask takes hold. I’d not worked with Her before, but I shall again. That’s if your sister will let me.’

She laughed. She had lipstick on her teeth. She was already looking around for someone else to talk to. The woman was an idiot. I wish I’d never spoken to her.

I thought I saw Freya and her flicking hair in the crowd, but she was lost behind a row of black-suited backs. I don’t know what trouble Mab thinks I could cause, but with her daughter throwing her charms at every man in the room she needs someone to look after her interests. She’s the real troublemaker, if only Mab could see it.

There was one other strange thing in this strangest of evenings. As I was looking for Freya, I realised the fat lady Mask was watching me again, and with none of the indifference she had displayed during our short conversation. She was looking from me to my Mask. My Mask was carried by one of the actors, just like the others. But, unlike the others, the crowd seemed to avoid rather than gather around it, and its support was looking bored and as though he had drunk too much prosecco. Still, the fat lady looked from me to the blank face in his hand. Stupid, I know, but I could have been sure she knew we were connected. And for some reason she looked terrified.

I’ll write again tomorrow for the big event,

Daniel

1st April

The Studio

Dear Alice –

It’s the morning of the exhibition. I thought I’d write and post this off before we get to the workhouse. That way you can have my day in instalments and I won’t forget to write anything down.

Heads were pretty heavy after the Mask show last night. I don’t know what time Freya and Mab got back, but Aubrey and I didn’t leave until the early hours and the party was still going strong. Maggie is in a bad mood about missing it all, so turned up early and started banging about until I got up and quietened her. Dad, of course, was oblivious, seated on the edge of his bed in his long johns and T-shirt watching Maggie move things. And Sarah was sitting next to him, stroking the side of his face with her hand. She must have come in with Maggie.

‘I missed you at the show last night,’ I said.

‘I couldn’t make it. Thought I’d spend the time with your dad instead.’ She wouldn’t look at me. Her hand trembled.

‘If you’re going to mess with his face like that, you should try the other side. The stroke ruined the feeling on his right.’

For no real reason, I was angry with her. I went through to the kitchen to make tea. By the time I got back the rest of the house was up: Aubrey already buttoned into his three-piece suit, looking in want of a pipe; Mab chain-smoking in an extraordinary pair of pyjamas; and Freya picking her way through it all like a ballerina, her hair tied into a knot
on the top of her head. She smiled at me and took my hand briefly as she wished me good morning. Obviously nothing has been said about her behaviour last night. Still, I’m not her parent. I smiled back.

We managed to get through the business of breakfast. Mab took numerous calls on her mobile, which appeared to consist mostly of hectic laughter and complaints about the phone reception. I’d taken it that the crowd who turned up last night were all of the invitees to today’s exhibition, but it seemed that people were still arriving. London was flowing into Upchurch without any sense of direction. I fielded calls on the landline and persuaded people not to visit us at home.

I let Maggie and Sarah sort Dad out. Thankfully, the wheelchair idea of Mab’s appears to have been forgotten and Dad looks quite respectable in one of his old suits, despite the weight he has lost. Sarah has bought him a pale blue shirt for the occasion. Freya said how well it brought out his eyes, when Maggie and Sarah brought him through from the bathroom and turned him round in the centre of the crowded living room.

I think dressing him this early a mistake, but it looks as though Maggie and Sarah are willing to take on babysitting him. I’m certainly glad of the freedom. If I can just shake loose from Aubrey, it could be a good evening.

(Later)

Despite my best efforts, we have had visitors. Claggy, the agent, brought them round. Two men in expensive coats and a glossy-lipped, grey-haired woman of indeterminate age. I was foolish to have doubted Sarah and Maggie’s
preparations, because of course Dad is the major exhibit for this show.

Claggy led them round like a tour guide, pointing out possible areas of interest. When they got to Dad, for one strange moment I thought they might actually kneel and kiss his hand. Actually Dad did rather well: he looked up at them and didn’t screech or holler the way he did last time Claggy was here. I think I saw her cross her fingers behind her back as they approached him.

Sarah sat at Dad’s elbow like a courtesan, her hand on his shoulder. She seemed to calm him. In fact, she always seems to calm him. I’ve been trying to make sense of their relationship for most of my life. I’m still no closer to an answer. I just know enough to realise that any affection Sarah once had for me has disappeared. Gone and never to be recovered.

After their audience with Dad, the visitors trooped out into the garden to look at the choked and muddy pond, Aubrey and Freya on hand with the full charm offensive. I went into the kitchen with Maggie to fetch tea and ‘best biscuits’, which she’d picked up from a shop in town especially in case of guests. It was then that I noticed Maggie had made rather an effort. She was dressed in a smart blue wool dress with a hideous brooch on her left breast which I had never seen before. I suspected it was a treasure. There was even the suggestion of lipstick around her mouth.

‘You look lovely,’ I said, wrapping an arm around her middle as best I could.

‘Nonsense.’ She blushed and patted at her hair. Pleased. ‘Now get your hands off me. I’ll upset the biscuits. Make yourself useful and go and fetch your sister. Don’t think I
didn’t see her scurry off, just when she’s needed. And leave off those, they’re for that lot outside.’

I went through to the living room, passing Dad still sitting in state. I fed the last bite of my best biscuit to Tatty and climbed the stairs.

So, I forgot to knock. So, I caught Mab just as she was stepping out of her pyjamas and into her underwear. So, I saw my sister naked. I don’t know why it needed to be made such a fuss over. It’s not as though it was the first time I’d ever seen her without her clothes on.

I will write again when we arrive.

Daniel

1st April

The exhibition

Dear Alice –

A man and woman are standing in front of the largest of Dad’s portraits. They tilt their heads and take small steps back and forth. The woman has a sweep of pale blonde hair that she fusses with, reaching up a hand to flip it over her shoulder and away from her face. I suspect her of meeting Freya on her way in. The couple exchange a few words, but it is not entirely clear whether they are together for any other time than these few moments in front of the painting. They both hold wine glasses and the dregs of their champagne. The man has a soiled napkin crushed in his fist.

A louder group approaches – jostling suits and a woman in a scarlet dress. The couple move away. The man towards
a cluster of smaller frames, and the blonde woman – head raised – into the centre of the room, looking to catch the arm of a circulating waiter.

There was music when we arrived, some kind of jazz piped so softly it was impossible to identify. Our party arrived ten minutes late as Mab had instructed. She said the artist should always be the last to arrive. We got Dad through the crowd and over to a group of chairs in a far corner. Sarah sat down beside him to do the talking and the smiling. I leant over to whisper a warning about letting people get too close to him and she flinched away from me. I wonder what lies she’s been fed in my absence. Mab seemed as sick of her as I was and went off to talk to the catering staff. It was only then that I turned and saw the room.

It had been transformed. The portraits were all hung according to Dad’s preferred style: some in isolation; some arranged above each other in irregularly shaped groups. All the canvases were draped in individual dust sheets – which I thought a little extreme – and were to be revealed one at a time as Mab gave a short introduction from the improvised stage. Yes, another section of the evening where my dear sister has decided to wrest control away from me.

The swathed frames served the purpose of extenuating the architecture of the hall. The red-brick walls looked somehow brighter and the white-painted window frames swallowed their dark panes. They must have done something to the lights. Waiters were already moving through the crowd of guests with canapés and glasses of champagne and there were white-sheeted tables from which people could help themselves. Most of the crowd I
recognised from last night, but they were glossy and well-dressed. I felt scruffy in my shirt and jeans. The clack of high heels and polished brogues almost drowned out the music. They would probably take me for staff, or whatever comes below staff at this kind of event.

Aubrey also seemed strangely out of his element, and as reluctant to leave my side as he had been the night before. Not really his kind of crowd, I assume. All too happy and able to take care of themselves.

Mab did a pretty good job with the introduction to the paintings, though the constant unveiling quickly became tedious and some of the portraits were pulled out of line as they pulled the dust sheets free. She didn’t mention my name when the largest painting of me came up, but gave it a title,
Honoured with Human Shape
, which I didn’t understand. I was hoping, at the very least, for a personal spotlight and a short round of applause. But that may have been in some part due to the quantity of champagne I’d consumed. There were a lot of strange titles which I’d never heard before – mostly quotes from Shakespeare. Mab must have found them in Dad’s notebooks.