Looking Down (2 page)

All was as wicked as it was beautiful.

Somebody hit him again. He felt sure he had somehow deserved it, and all he could do was sigh.

In a moment he would have to remember the other man he was, when he did not have a sketchbook in his pocket and visions in his mind.

‘What’s your name?’

He paused. ‘Richard. I think. What have I done?’

Lilian Beaumont looked down into the street below, wondered if she would be better off outside than in, saw the rain and decided not. The apartment was huge, with big, slightly dark rooms, panelled doors, moulded ceilings, a kitchen rarely used for cooking, two bathrooms, a porter downstairs with a uniform, and carpet like cushioned velvet. Silence indoors was assured. It was home sweet home, and yet a million miles from home, especially when it came to the silence. She had a childish dislike of silence. It made her want to stamp her feet.

The kitchen, like everything else, was a showpiece. In here her husband, or ‘they’ as legend had it, kept an impressive collection of antique glass, arranged against a mirrored wall and carefully backlit. He loved glass: he had once treasured it. Lilian was standing on an elegant library ladder, reaching for the top shelf, from which she plucked an ancient and fragile decanter of pink crystal and let it fall from between her varnished fingernails to the marbled floor beneath. It imploded, neatly, with a satisfying crunch. Good. The mirrored glass caught her reflection, slender, agile, tense. Still well groomed, even when slightly drunk
at home, alone. No leisure track suits and slobbing out for Lilian, although her hair required attention. She had always been like that, even as a little girl, and she was scarcely more than a girl, now. She swept up neatly. There were now several holes in the display.

Then she replaced the library steps (old mahogany, beautifully carved and valuable in their own right) where they belonged as an adornment to the room at the front, where they stood against another shelved wall full of colour-coordinated books, rising to an impossibly high ceiling. The remainder of the walls were furnished with large, decorative paintings of flowers, older than the furniture, a
pleasing
room, capable of holding fifty for drinks and still leave gaps in between. Definitely the best room in the block, apart from the lighter penthouse, perhaps. The traffic hummed beyond the magnificent curtains. The boiler, hidden somewhere, made soothing, efficient noises to ward off spring. The place was as luxurious as a colossal suite in a luxury liner and made her feel as if she was on a ship going nowhere.

Bastard. Absolute bastard. What about little me? I’m too young to be left alone.

She could have telephoned her sister. Emailed even. Also her brother, her other sister and all those she had left behind when she married
him.
And been despised for it, even while they approved. She certainly wasn’t going to phone them now and say, how are you all, I’m feeling like shit in W1, not after she had virtually disowned them for something better. Or inform them how the rich, much older man, so upper class, so blessedly respectable, who looked so good and provided a passport to another land, had turned out so badly. There was no way she was going to say anything of the kind. Although they might quite like it if she told them that the man they had liked, despite themselves and because of his relentless consideration of their preferences when it came to the wedding, had just been arrested in some part
of the coast nobody acknowledged, probably for pissing downwind, somewhere a hundred miles from here, and that aside, only came home when he needed a wash, the way he did these days. Had enough money to sink this ship and several others, and what did he do?

Went weird. Decided at sixty years of age that what he wanted was the great open spaces, dirt, cold and feathered friends. Had a thing about birds, ha ha, which was not a preoccupation that could be cured by getting a parrot for the kitchen.

Nothing she did could keep him from his
hobbies.
Or nothing she did could keep him as sweet as he was. And she did not know what to
do.

The wide corridor bisecting the apartment was precisely fifty feet long. She should know: she had paced it enough times. It was dark and artfully lit to show more of the decorative paintings, themed with pale green walls. She walked on angrily, trying to make a noise by stamping, but the carpet merely yielded to her feet.
She
had arranged all this, the pictures, the plants in silver containers, the gleaming candlesticks, the clever lighting effects, the impression of comfort and harmony, and he had been delighted with the result. Then she turned left, where the corridor led to the two commodious bedrooms, both ensuite, and then the third room, which was study, library, the darkest room of all, where she kicked open the door decorated only with the sign
Do not disturb
in blood-red lettering. She itched to scrub that door.

Here the harmony ended. The sweet proportions of the room were not enough to neutralise the contents, namely, an easel with the latest, virulent daub mounted on it, and a set of once beautiful freestanding bookshelves lugged nearby to be used for paints and palettes, brushes and whatnots, the surface of it scarred and stained beyond recognition. The polished wooden floor, similar, the walls half covered with sketches, roughly pinned, ruining the plaster, and everywhere at eye level abandoned paintings on
wood or canvas to augment those stacked messily to the left. The light was an eerie daylight, brighter and less forgiving than any other. On top of the bookshelves was a stuffed bird with bright, glass eyes turned malevolently on her. Richard’s mascot. Defying its gaze, she opened the window a crack wider to get rid of the pervasive smell of turpentine. Stood by it, looking into the dark well of the building with its ugly array of drainpipes.

You
pig.
What have you done?

What had he done? Plucked her, Lilian, from the back room of the Interior Design Company where she was earmarked for failure to create an apartment reflecting a man of exquisite taste, loved it, loved her, married her. Showed her off to his world and his forgiving children for three glorious years until she was as confident as to the manor born, and then gradually and insidiously created this hell-hole of a room, retreated into it with his new passions and all but locked the door. All that hard work for nothing. Never marry a man on the brink of retirement. They change. Never give a man time to think, more like, in case he discovers what he is. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Why that cliché should come back to her as she stood on the threshold of his ghastly lair, she could not imagine. Only that when she met him she was running out of options, and thought otherwise. Her mind went back to the phone call earlier in the evening.

‘We have a genullman ‘ere, says his name is Rick Beaumont. And he lives at Cramner Mansions, W1, on this number. I’m Sergeant Rice, by the way. Am I speaking to Mrs B, by any chance?’

‘This is Mrs Beaumont, yes. And it’s
Richard
 . . .’

‘Yeah, right. Just trying to establish ID, that’s all. And what is it your husband does, Mrs Beaumont?’

That had thrown her. What did he do? What had he done? Something in the City.

‘Finance. Formerly. Now retired.’

‘Was you expecting him home this evening, Mrs B?’

‘I never know what to expect,’ she said, sharply.

‘Oh, it’s like that, is it? Just wondered if you knew what he was doing today.’

‘Depending on where he was,’ she said, controlling the bitterness of her voice, ‘he was probably watching birds. All varieties.’

The chuckle was insulting.

‘That figures, Mrs B. Shall we let him drive home, or do you want us to keep him? Wasn’t sure if he was quite well, at first, but he’s had a long chat with Dr Armstrong and he seems fine, now.’

‘What’s he done?’

The friendly voice hardened. ‘Fiddled while Rome burned, Mrs B. That’s all.’

Yes, he would come home. Unrepentant, probably whistling as he went into his awful back room to turn his sketches into frightful, garish paint. Smiling his sweet and vacant smile, telling her, unfailingly, how lovely she looked, asking what she had done, and then scarcely pausing to hear her speak. That was Richard. Lilian closed the door on the room full of daylight and went towards bed, hoping she would be soundly asleep before he arrived home.

The bed was sumptuous; it always did something for her spirit. Only, when she woke three hours later to hear the door to their room click open and then click shut as someone tiptoed away, only the bleary eye of valium-induced slumber made her fail to notice that it was not Richard Beaumont, but somebody else. Sleep saved her the trouble of screaming.

‘Sarah . . . shhhhh. Don’t scream, please, dear, don’t . . .’

‘Hmmmm . . . mmmm, geroff. Get your hand away from my mouth . . . Oh for Christ’s sake . . . what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Sarah, darling, wake up properly and come and have a drink. I’ve just made the most terrible mistake.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Early, by any civilised standards. Why does it matter what time it is?’

‘Because I was asleep. Why can’t you ring the doorbell like anyone else?’

She was pulling the duvet over her head and the sound of her voice was mumbled beneath it. A thatch of dark auburn hair protruded onto a white pillow and the sight of it enchanted him. He pulled at it and sat back on the edge of the bed, listening to her grumble, watched her finally unearth herself and sit up in her broiderie anglaise nightie which made her look quite angelic. Such a sweet little girl she must have been, snub nose and everything. She was supposed to have had a talent for turning cartwheels. She looked cross, ran a hand through her hair which obeyed the gesture and stood on end in a halo round her face. The other hand fumbled on her bedside table for her spectacles and stuck them, lopsidedly, on her nose. Apart from the treacherous hair, she could have been his primary-school teacher, Miss Prymm, who also wore clothes buttoned up to the neck, even in sleep. In fine cotton, too, and always white. Conspicuously clean. Hers had been the first house he had ever burgled.

‘What mistake?’ she said.

‘I went to the wrong flat.’

She groaned, flopped back against the pillows, the hair still in a rage but the half-glasses over which she peered still in place.

‘You look like a virgin madonna, by Titian. But it’s hardly cool, is it, Sarah, to keep your specs on a piece of string?’

‘Oh, shuttup. It’s a silver string. And this was an early night. Did you lose your key?’

‘You know I lost it last week. I just needed the practice and—’

‘Don’t even tell me. I don’t want to know. Go away.
Far
away.’

‘And I’ve just seen the head of a Sleeping Beauty.’

Sarah gave up. The time of day was never relevant anyway, not in this room which looked into the well of the building and was dusky dark twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, winter and summer, ideal for sleep. The view from it was only that of white brick, thick black drainpipes, metallic service impedimenta and other windows looking on to the four-sided centre leading down to a solitary basement quadrangle out of sight from the second floor. At a set time of day, the Romany wife of the Indian, lighter-skinned porter harangued him so loudly that echoes sounded and birds flew from distant chimneys. Then doors were slammed and they went inside. The quarrels might have been the result of living in a dark basement so near the rubbish room, from which Fritz, the porter, emerged sleek and helpful each morning in a clean pressed uniform. He had a vested interest in remaining deaf.

Without a hint, Steven left the room, out of respect for Sarah’s modesty and out of respect for her house, and shed his bodysuit and belt inside the bathroom before she noticed how filthy he was, as if she hadn’t noticed already. Black Lycra, like cyclists wore. Pliable, slipper-like shoes, a size too small, for grip. He removed the tape and washed the chalk from his hands, created a tidy, movable pile of his belongings. Day was night and night was day: there was a uniform for each. Back in her living room, swathed in towels, he sat down in an armchair and stroked the arm, disliking the embossed texture and wishing his domestic habits were better. It was irksome to find himself stroking things and noticing the quality of the fabric. People did not like it.

Sarah was in the silk dressing gown he had bought her last birthday, a scarlet clash with her auburn hair if it had not been interlined with soft black on the inverted collar; quite a find, that. She carried a tarnished silver tray with two glasses and a bottle of red wine, settled herself into the sofa opposite, waited for him to
pour, curling her feet beneath her, spectacles still on nose. The dressing gown was more claret than sheer red. He decided she was right, and that wearing black and white really did suit her best, provided it was enlivened with a dash of the right kind of red.

Day was night and night was day.

‘So,’ she said, peering at him over the half glasses held on the silver chain, giving her the look of a judge, ‘you came in by the alternative route to give yourself practice and got into the wrong flat. Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me I’m dreaming.’

He poured the wine, handed hers over, took his own and put it back, willing his hand not to shake, because it did, slightly. He always felt slightly nauseous after a climb.

‘You didn’t answer the door so I went round the back. Need practice, as I said, but got so enthused I was up a floor further before I knew. These drainpipes are a cinch. Any old drunk could do it, what with all the other stuff and the windowsills. And then, led by an open window, I was in a room, full of painting clutter, wondered where I was, knew I was in the wrong place, so I thought I’d have a quick look round before I left. Until I looked in this room next door and saw this woman asleep, well, I only saw the back of her head, really, so I thought I’d better go out the way I came in. Same drainpipe. It’s good of you to sleep at the back with the window open. I didn’t wake her, promise.’