Sex and Death (21 page)

Henri placed his fancy designer reading glasses on his nose very, very slowly. ‘The Bohum.' He clucked his tongue and frowned, moving his head around the model, which was just beneath his chin. ‘Who made this then? I'd like to talk with him; your small brother? Your young son maybe?'

‘How do you mean, lovey? I don't have no kids. I made it.'

Henri blinked up over his lenses, quite appalled.

She smiled round the three of us.

‘How did you obtain this particular model?' asked Norm, with a sort of feigned English indifference.

‘I'm not with you. Obtain it? Like balance it, once the wings were on, or put a putty weight in its nose?'

Henri had a caustic smile, which didn't become him.

I said, quietly to her, ‘It's an out-of-date but very rare model among old collectors like us. They don't make these any more and you just don't see them for sale.'

‘Oh. Really? How about that then? I got it for nothing. Just came by it up in this old house in Hampshire back home. This is the first model I ever made, isn't it?'

Norm gave me a funny look, like he was going to remove a notebook and jot this information down for future use against her in a court of law.

Henri enquired, ‘And have you been doing this long?'

‘Two years, seven months and eight days.'

Henri sneered, ‘It took you that long to complete this one model?'

‘Nah. I did this one in a week, lovey. You're not getting me straight here. I've a load of these that I've all done; just thought I'd cart this over for you to see how it's come out. It's a sudden hobby I've got; isn't it? Like a sudden hobby I can see all you fellows share.' She shook her earrings and held both her palms up in the air, which seemed to signify Henri's collection all around us. ‘That's about all I do now, building these fellows up, painting them, putting their cute little sticker things on.'

‘The decals.'

‘I'm addicted,' she mumbled, apologetically.

Henri very carefully hoisted the model and studied her work on the underside of the fuselage, his lips parting silently in French. Then he asked in English, ‘You are using airbrush then hand brush on some smaller parts?'

‘True enough. A hand brush on bits of that but I use more airbrushes now.'

‘What type of airbrush? What type of compressor?'

‘I don't know the names, lovey. My husband used them in the workshop for his bloody Harley and now I use the littlest ones.'

‘Your husband?' Norm said cautiously.

Henri nodded, in an impatient way. ‘These discolourations on the wing surface are from wet landings, dirty runways, just in front of the flaps and the staining here. Very skilfully done. And what was your approach?'

‘To be honest. Henri is it? To be honest, Henri, I get most of my brainwaves all off my iPhone. You just type it in the net and you get all the sites and Myspaces; lots of blokes' tips, but I try to do my own thing too. I try to put in unique touches. Do you know what I mean? Guess what I used there? To get that mucky effect round the what's-it? The exhaust thing.'

‘The cowling.'

Henri told her, ‘You used a touch of charcoal, maybe cigarette ash on your fingertip.'

‘Nah, that's too obvious, lovey, and besides, I seriously quit the smokes.' She let out a brash laugh. ‘
That
is using just the tiniest flake of mascara. Lancôme Doll Eyes. Good stuff too,' she pointed a bright finger up at her own smoky eye, crowned with lagoon-blue eye-shadow, and out came that laugh again.

Norm and Henri looked at one another.

‘I know fine what you bunch is all thinking and yous are too much gentlemen to say out loud, but you're thinking that building up planes from all their little bits and pieces is just a boys' game and what's she doing, getting stuck in about it, but I'll let you all in on a little secret about me, boys – if you want to know?'

We all three leaned a little closer to her.

‘I'm a trained beautician. If you can use tweezers to whack a pair of false eyelashes on a hungover housewife in Colchester, then it's a doddle gluing these plastic things all together; it's basically IKEA flatpacks, but littler. Isn't it? Nail technician too. So I'm fairly handy with the smaller brush.' She shot out her
ringed fingers and the bangles chipped together once, displaying for us the gaudy, woven, fantastically intricate patterns on each of her long fingernails. ‘I got pretty steady hands, fellas. These days. Hey. Go break us off some of that naan, why don't you?'

Norm hesitated, then he leaned across and did so. She took it from him and tugged away at the bread chunk in her fingers using the front teeth, chewing at it as if she now had a plug of tobacco behind her sunken delicate cheek.

Henri viewed her very carefully. He stood and he went through to the side room where earlier, from the boot of Norm's Peugeot, we had each carried in our retail park purchases. I had finally bought the Short Sunderland flying boat; not the classic Airfix Mark III, which I already owned when I was a nipper, but the Italeri Mark I in 1:72, just reviewed as ‘kit sensation of the year'. Norm had gone and got himself that MiG-15 in 1:48 by Revell. Chinese Air Force colours. Inspired by the Korean War era in Benidorm and money-no-object, Henri had bought the beautiful Hasegawa 1:48 F-86 Sabre with its distinctive yellow bandings and amazing cockpit detail, choice of speed brake positioning and decorated drop tanks. Henri placed these three boxes on the counter top at the sink side and he told Josephine, ‘Today we were at the retail park in Benidorm.'

‘Were you now? I go to the toy shops there sometimes, but I write down the names of the planes and then order off the internet. The shop markup is quite stiff now and I'm always careful since I'm divorced.'

‘Divorced?'

‘Oh. Divorced?'

‘You're divorced?'

‘Yeah,' she looked left and right and back again between us, smiling. ‘You know what they say, Spain: divorce capital of Essex. We had a good five years. My husband, he was in securing of oil rights, India, Venezuela, ends of the earth. When we split he
left Spain taking bloody Marie Carmen with him. Didn't he? Our fff-ing accountant. Shoulda known he couldn't be spending that much time. Two-timing
and
double accounting. Got to admit I was seen all right – moneywise, wasn't I? But I've always watched the pennies since I was a little girl, apart from a wild period.' She looked at the kit box and wiped her palm across the picture so the bangles jinkled once more.

Impatiently, Henri said, ‘This one is mine,' and he lifted the F-86 box. ‘I wish very much for you to have it?'

‘Me? I couldn't do that, lovey. That's a nice mark that, pricey, I've seen them.'

‘Why not that you begin it and then next week we too see how much you are getting along?'

‘Really? Then I can be in your modelling club too?'

She seemed charmingly happy but Henri laughed indulgently. ‘Well, we'll see, my dear.'

I had to speak out. ‘Steady on now, we're not a Surrey golf club. I mean surely, the more the merrier?'

‘Tell you fellas,' she said, nodding, ‘the more the merrier. That's what I've often said in life. I can tell you. Look, Henri. I'll work on it and I can just text you a photo to your phone on how I'm getting along.'

‘Ah no no no. I think. No text please. I have no mobile phone. I think next Saturday you come along here to us and bring how much of the model you've made so I can examine?'

‘Oh. How much,' she smiled, gently. ‘All right then, lovey.'

There followed a bit of blether about summer being here at last and the water company digging up the road at the top of the hill. Then Josephine grabbed a last bit of naan and, chewing, she departed, with Henri's new €180 scale model kit in her arms. I helped her out to the car with the old Dick 8-61 in its blanket and we placed it carefully into the hatchback: a silver Range Rover, the one with all the fancy stuff stuck on. Fifty grand's worth at
least. She beeped as she drove off up the hill, the automatic gears dropping and upgrading easy in the ascent towards the larger villas on the summit, where I'd never been.

The three of us sat for some time over the cooled food and we had little interest in reheating it. Subconsciously we had all begun diets. We stared at each other. Henri said, ‘I refuse to believe she made it. A woman. This terrible ex-husband perhaps. Did you see? Hey. Guys. Come
on
! It was one of the best made models I ever seen.'

‘It is. It is just remarkable,' I nodded. ‘Sickening really.'

Norm shook his head. ‘But a young woman. A girl even! A girl in our group. I mean it'll change everything. Henry.'

Henri nodded.

Norm flustered over the gender issue. ‘And not just a woman, I mean, but a . . .' He blushed but spat it out. ‘A divorcee. And a damned attractive divorcee. Damned, damned attractive. Well I find her damned attractive.'

‘I think we're with you on that one, Norm.'

‘She's. Very saucy.' Norm spoke this in a complex tone which seemed to hint that the poor young woman would now be exposed to his own attractiveness and that this would be a sudden and unfair burden upon her.

I turned to Henri. ‘You gave her the Sabre to see if it's really her making them, eh?'

‘
Oui
. I just cannot believe, the look of her. I mean,
trop belle pour toi
but all of this and just a beautiful child. What age is that child?'

‘Twenty-five? Six?'

‘Good God,' Norm blinked, ‘my niece Pippa is twenty-four.'

‘Thirty at a push.'

‘At our age it gets harder to tell.'

‘But it's just, socially . . .' Norm frowned, despondent. ‘Socially we need to face up to the fact there will be differences. I mean she's a bit. She's damned attractive but a bit.'

‘Not
farouche
,' said Henri.

Norm stated it clearly. ‘How can we discuss, with a girl like that, all the latest surface-to-air weapons systems?'

*

Wednesday night at my place, immersed in National Geographic channel, tucking into a six-pack of mini pork pies from Iceland; Henri telephoned the land line. He would only say it was urgent and better if I could come directly, Norm was picking me up in five.

King Crimson were mercifully silenced outside Henri's garden wall when Norm twisted the ignition off. I was disappointed to see no silver Range Rover parked there.

Henri sat at his kitchen table staring down at what lay before him in full sparkling silver. It was the freshly minted F-86 Sabre he'd given to Josephine. Henri had placed the model on a piece of mirror so we could fully appreciate the workings on the undersides. For the unpainted aluminium factory-finish effect, she had used silver foil and pre-grained it; she had sanded the raised lines flush, working to give each piece of metallic skin which formed the aircraft a distinct and flawed identity. I noticed she had used a galvanic, goldish piece of discoloured foil to simulate the overheated metal around the jet pipe. A technique I'd heard of but never dared attempt.

In a quiet voice, Henri told us, ‘She is building them for sure. I had to ask what techniques she used and she explained some to me. Ideas I have never considered. She dropped it off one hour ago. The quality itself is barely credible but that she did this in less than four days. She cannot have slept.'

I tipped my head down to look in the mirror at the hand-painting on the drop tanks. They were each perfectly matched.

Norm sighed, ‘She has even got some of the raised rivets to show as worn-through silver, on the painted wing band sections.'

I nodded.

Henri leaned backwards and extended his two arms out before him, his unlikely, strong, short fingers gripping the table edge. ‘Gentlemen. To my mind, we have the privilege of being in the presence of one of the greatest scale modellers I have ever witnessed. Perhaps who has ever lived.'

*

Next Saturday, the males of Porto Baso Scale Modellers all became visibly nervous as the silver Range Rover crunched in on the gravel beneath the portico. A rare privilege, Henri had parked his Mercedes in his garage to clear the turning place; his main gates had remained flung open in welcome all morning.

It was also difficult not to note sudden transformations in our own physical appearances; gone were the baggy tropical shirts, darkened with the gelatinous tug of underarm sweat stains, cast aside were the bum bags strapped onto each of us, stuffed with watch tools, receipts, old barley sugars and magnifying glasses. We were all wearing suspiciously ironed slacks and chinos, in preference to the baggy tropical cut-offs that normally revealed our pale, skinny and shapeless legs, or Norm's ankles, hammered into a blue cheese by varicose veins. Despite the warmth, Jesus sandals – often with black socks – were now replaced by deck shoes or in Henri's case, Gucci loafers. We all seemed to have paid unmentioned trips to the barber for a tidy trim to what was left of our vanishing, yet still unruly hair.

Henri was extremely attentive; he shadowed Josephine, hovering at her right shoulder like a president's translator on some state visit; nodding and speaking quietly, always in agreement. Often, when she was not looking, I caught Henri gazing steadily at her bleached eyelashes. Norm kept his distance and directed his shyness towards his MiG-15. Without sisters, educated from
an early age in various obscure, male-only independent English boarding schools, and a lifelong bachelor, Norm viewed women with mixed fascination and suspicion – but never distaste.

We had – each of us – rather shameful works in progress: Norm his MiG, I had started in on the Sunderland, and Henri – from his vaults – had produced a big Airfix Mustang P-51 in 1:24.

She had surprised us by arriving with no work in progress. Instead, already, she now toured and examined our own sorrier efforts, pointing out and praising a nifty piece of paintwork on Norm's, or suggesting to me – despite the fact it would be concealed inside the fuselage – that a rogue blob of hardened adhesive, which just showed, could be smoothed down. She produced her own pink emery board from the soft leather bag she had swung round her torso and which bounced upon her buttock. The emery board was stained with the colour of her painted fingernails.