The Girl With Glass Feet (31 page)

Someone was knocking on the front door and the bell was
ringing over and over. Midas blinked hard and stood up. He was in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. The ringing and knocking continued. He stared back at the wine bottle on the kitchen table. Knock knock knock. Holding his head, he staggered to the door. Dazzling bright light came into the hallway. It took him a moment to adjust.

‘Blimey, Midas. Heavy night?’

‘Hello.’

‘You had your girlfriend round again?’

He shook his head. Beside her father, Denver studied Midas, a scarf wrapped up to her nose. She’d pulled her sleeve over her fingers to hold a prickly holly branch. A little arctic poppy was brightening up her hair.

‘Ah,’ said Gustav, peering inside, ‘oh, I see. What happened? And what happened to you?’ He stepped inside. ‘You smell something rotten. You sure you’re okay?’

‘I… messed something up. Had an accident. Come inside. It’s freezing today.’

Soon Midas sat holding an ice pack to his head while Gustav rooted through his cupboards and Denver sat opposite, watching with faint amusement.

Gustav closed the fridge door and put his hands on his hips. ‘There’s nothing green in your whole house. There’s no fruit either. What are you living off ?’

Midas gestured to his empty coffee mug.

‘Right. I’m going to make you some lunch. Get your spirits up. I’ll be ten minutes.’

Denver twisted in her chair. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To get some veg. Back soon.’ He left, muttering under his breath. Denver sighed, then stretched her arm across the length of the table and took hold of one of Midas’s fingers. Her skin was still cold from the chill outside. He tried to pull away but she squeezed. It was sometimes okay, being touched by Denver. She
had spent so much time with him that he sometimes forgot she was a separate entity. He wondered miserably if he would ever have reached a state like that with Ida.

Denver squeezed harder.

‘Ow. Ow, Den, ow.’

‘Were you in love with her?’

He shook his head.

‘Don’t believe you.’

He tried to pull his finger away again. She gripped it hard and twisted it back.

‘
Ow
.’

‘Was she horrid to you? I hate her if she was horrid.’

He swallowed. ‘Actually, I think I was horrid to her.’

‘You said something nasty about her feet?’

‘No.’ He gulped. ‘Denver, why do you—’

‘I know, remember. I saw the same photo that nasty man saw.’

‘That was… just a doctored photo.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘Thank you.’

She loosened her hold on his finger. He didn’t pull it away.

‘Your camera’s on the floor.’

‘I threw it there.’

‘Why?’

‘I was cross with it.’

She let go and for a second he wanted to feel her cold little hand around his finger again. She lifted the camera with both hands and put it on the table.

‘You haven’t shown me new pictures in ages. Show me some now.’

He shook his head. She started to play with the digital’s buttons. The two of them sat in silence as she flicked through its image bank.

‘Not even one of Ida,’ she said.

Midas rubbed his forehead. ‘They were all too awful. I couldn’t get them right.’

‘And you got rid of them because they didn’t look nice enough?’

‘Precisely.’

‘I think you
were
in love with her.’

‘Love… is not something you understand when you’re a grown-up, Den. It’s just as if it’s… a memory of something that should have been. From stories… and… I don’t know whether you really can be in love.’

‘You could be,’ she said. ‘You and a few other people. You’re like me. You’ve got it.’

‘Got what?’

She shrugged. ‘A grip. On the bits in the back of your head. And here…’ she touched her tummy. ‘Somewhere in here.’

He wrapped his arms tight around his chest. He hardly thought he had a grip on anything.

Gustav came in and dumped bags on the kitchen counter. ‘Lettuce, tomatoes, spuds, honey roast ham. I’m making you a salad and a jacket potato because you, well… Bloody hell, Midas, look at you.’

He didn’t tell Gustav everything: that would have been too much. He only told him enough to make him understand the situation regarding his relationship with Ida: the failed kiss and abortive explanation. Then his flight and the long drive back here. Denver sketched throughout the recounting, as if her mind were elsewhere. Midas waited for his friend’s damning verdict.

Gustav sat back and looked impressed. ‘I can’t believe you went to Hector Stallows’s house. Does he have as many cars as they say he does?’

‘Gustav, this is a nightmare for me.’ Of course he wouldn’t see the urgency, when he hadn’t told him about her feet.

‘Sorry. Sorry, mate, but do you see my point? Um… listen. You’re chicken. You know you are, I know you are. You hate confrontation and you’d rather bottle than fight. You’re not even looking at me now.’

Midas’s eyes flicked up then shirked away.

‘You’ve got a bloody heart of gold, and I think Ida sees that in you. You need to get your arse back up there and fully, sincerely apologize for anything you did do wrong, which I suspect is a whole lot less than you’ve convinced yourself of. I think she’ll see you mean it. I don’t think she’ll execute you, though you might do to be ready for some frank words.’

‘I’ll phone her in the morning.’

‘No. Phone her now. If you think it’s worth patching things up with her, you do it before she moves on. Time won’t wait for you. You know exactly what I mean.’

He meant: Remember Catherine. Remember frozen lakes and paramedics. Remember no ice where a floor of ice had been beneath her feet. Remember trying to sound like you meant it when you told a little girl about narwhals and water angels caring for her mother now.

Remember shins turning hard like enamel where they had been smooth and pink a week before.

‘You’re right,’ he sighed, ‘but I’ve not the heart for it.’

‘You’ll have to do better than that.’

‘Listen, Gustav, I’m a knot of inhibitions. One, I can barely phrase my sentences. Two, I see my father in bloody well everything I do and I hate myself for it. Three, every time I touch someone my body feels like iron.’

‘All right. In the order you put it. One, you phrased that little list of defects perfectly clearly. Two, your father’s gone now. It’s just you. Don’t shake your head… we’ll come back to that. Three, well, stand up.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Gustav pushed back his chair and got to his feet, motioning Midas to do the same. ‘Den, I need you to go out into the hall, or into another room, and shut the door. I’m sorry.’

She sulkily did as she was asked, while Gustav rolled up his sleeves. ‘Come on, Midas. I should have done this years back. I’m going to fix you once and for all. Up.’

Midas dragged back his chair and rose to his feet.

‘Put your camera back on the table.’

‘Why?’

‘Do it.’

Midas huffed and put down the camera. ‘Now what?’

He shrieked when Gustav tackled him to the hard kitchen floor. His bones juddered and his head clunked against the tiles. He was still shrieking when Gustav climbed on top of him and punched him in the stomach. Midas’s breath erupted but Gustav didn’t stop. Straddling him, he grabbed his shoulders and pulled him off the ground, then slammed him down with full force. ‘Fight me, you twat!’ he puffed, slapping Midas’s face.

Midas shoved pathetically but the weight was too much. Another slap stung his cheek and cuffed his nose. He could smell blood. He grabbed Gustav’s wrist when it swung at him again and, when he was too puny to shove it away, dug his nails into the skin. Gustav roared in pain and sprang off him.

‘You
girl
!’ he bellowed and kicked him in the ribs. Midas rolled to avoid a second kick, grabbed Gustav’s foot in both hands and twisted. Gustav dropped to the floor and thumped his head hard on the tiles, beads of blood swelling on his forehead.

Midas sat up beside him. ‘Are you… are you okay, Gus?’

‘Ugh…’

‘Oh
God
, I’m sorry.’

Gustav swung wildly at him and caught him hard across the chest. Midas grappled with flailing arms and scrambled to block kicks along the floor with his knees. Then they were wrestling
wildly, rolling over each other and knocking a chair on its side. One of Midas’s hands was locked with Gustav’s, the other was spread over Gustav’s face while he tried to prise it free. Midas felt the rubbery skin of a nostril, puffing lips and bristles spiking his palm. With a final effort he wrenched free and threw his whole weight back at Gustav unguarded. The impact questioned every joint but Gustav fell back and Midas was on top of him, pinning portly stomach with scrawny knees, pressing for all he was worth to keep Gustav’s arms on the floor.

Gustav laughed with a choke and licked his split top lip. ‘Okay, okay,’ he wheezed. ‘Midas wins fair and square.’

Midas groaned as he climbed free. Gustav remained on his back panting and laughing. Midas examined his body fresh from scrapping, his flesh a peculiar ruddy tone, his clothes uneven and creased.

Gustav moaned and sat up. ‘Jesus. The things I do for you.’

‘Thank you. That really… it sounds silly, doesn’t it? That really helped.’

‘If you get to touch Ida, you’d better be gentler. You owe me, remember. And you can start by letting me use your shower and capping a cold beer or a cup of tea if you’ve got no booze.’

Gustav opened the kitchen door to Denver crouched at the keyhole biting her fingers to prevent herself from laughing. Midas blushed and felt his skull like a plastic bag full of blood.

Denver stood up the kitchen chair they’d knocked over, then climbed on it while Gustav thumped up the stairs and turned the shower on.

She opened her sketchbook on to another new drawing of a narwhal.

‘You know,’ Midas said, blowing traces of blood out of his nose, ‘your father’s a madman.’

She began to sketch. ‘He’s worried. You’re all he talks about.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since you met Ida. He said…’ she chewed her pencil end while she tried to remember, then did a vivid impression of her father. ‘“He’s going to miss the best bit of luck in his life.”’

‘He said that?’

He watched her draw. She added bridles to the narwhal and reins leading back to an open-topped carriage in the shape of a shell. In the carriage she began the sea queen.

‘Den… how’s your daddy been? Since his trip to see your granny?’

She paused for a moment to chew the pencil. He heard her crunch the wood. ‘He came back with a whole lot of Mummy’s things. We went through some of them together.’ She pulled a piece of pencil wood off her tongue.

‘I know what that’s like. My father left boxes and boxes.’

She left the queen half finished and absent-mindedly dotted bubbles and grains of sand on the seabed. ‘I wasn’t sad. I was happy in a funny way. In the boxes were things Mummy had when she was a little girl. Beautiful dolls and stuff. They’re on my bed now with my own. I go to sleep with the one she gave me and the one she had when she was little. That’s weird, isn’t it? Her doll isn’t older than mine.’

She’d mauled half an inch from the pencil (she wasn’t allowed pencils with rubber tops). ‘Midas?’

‘Yes.’

‘My mummy’s watching me now. Is your daddy watching you?’

He shuddered at the thought of it. ‘I used to think he was. All the time.’

Midas packed his bag as soon as they had left. After about half an hour Denver briefly returned with a vase full of red roses that Gustav had hand-picked to take to Ida.

When she had gone again he sat down and enjoyed the smell
of the petals as he poured himself the remains of yesterday’s wine. It would accompany a plate of the lettuce and ham Gustav had brought him, and although he still felt bruised and unwell from the previous night’s drinking, he needed something to fire his courage.