The Muse (16 page)

 

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11

I
saac walked back to the cottage in a daze. He was so tired, so hungover. Harold had got some woman on the telephone about the painting; she'd expressed interest, and he was off to Paris in the morning. The Schlosses had implored Isaac to stay for a celebratory dinner, but he couldn't bear it. He felt like half a man. He almost hoped the thing wouldn't sell, that Olive's vendetta against her parents was a delayed adolescent whim soon to be forgotten, something she would look back on in years to come and laugh. The
­people.
She wanted to help
the ­people
. She wanted to help herself, and Isaac knew he had made it possible.

He patted his pockets for his cigarettes, lit one, inhaled deeply and breathed out the smoke on a sigh. What was he doing? As he began the ascent to the cottage, the kites circled above him. He pushed open the door and thought again about the party, that kiss against the finca gate. It seemed half a year had passed since then. Olive's insistence on coming to the church had showed a spontaneity and rebelliousness that he'd admired. He just didn't realize quite how deep that spirit went.

He should simply have kept away from the finca from the very beginning. He should have said no to the commission, he should have told Teresa to find work elsewhere, he shouldn't have stopped Olive in the dark, in her evening gown, hair flying everywhere. He should have marched into the front east room, bearing his own painting. He shouldn't have given Olive this opportunity. He wasn't up to pretending, and he didn't want it.

The sound of feet on the gravel made him turn. It was Olive, running up the hill after him. She stopped to catch her breath, and he waited, immediately wary.

‘I just wanted to say, don't worry. It's going to be all right, I promise. If he sells it, the money's yours. That's it. The end.'

‘It's done now.'

‘Look, I promise you, Isaac. Just the one painting.'

‘Fine.' He began to turn away.

‘And was it just the one kiss?' she asked. He turned back to her, and she came closer, stopping just beyond his reach. They surveyed one other.

Isaac was done with her words, and tired of himself. He took her by the waist and pulled her towards him, kissing her hard on the mouth. Beneath him, Olive sprang to life, and he felt the power of her body responding as she kissed him back. He forced himself to pull away.

‘I've wanted this,' Olive said. ‘Since the day we met.'

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘You are unbelievable.'

She stepped back. ‘You've allowed me this chance, Isaac. And I wondered why – and I thought – well, I thought—­'

‘I did not allow you that chance. You took it.'

‘I think both of us can see this pretty clearly.'

‘Are you sure? What we have just done is exactly what a child would do. The three of us, whispering like children in the kitchen. It is make-­believe. Dressing ourselves up, taking revenge on the grown-­ups. Only my sister tried to inject a bit of honesty into it.'

‘I wasn't talking about the painting, Isaac.' He was silent. A look of fear flickered over her face. ‘You don't want me, then,' she went on, and began to turn away.

Isaac felt something collapse inside himself. He turned towards the cottage and could hear Olive following him. He stopped again. ‘I just – I want it to be you,' she said. He carried on walking, and could hear her steps.

He closed the door, and they stood facing one other. The dim light, but he watched as Olive reached up and opened the top button of her blouse. She carried on, methodical as a sergeant major, button after button, letting the blouse fall off her shoulders, no brassiere beneath.

She stood before him, and her torso was perfect, her skirt a fabric stillness over the shape of her thighs. She must have thought Isaac was thinking of her, but he was not. He was thinking of that long-­lost woman, Laetitia, twenty-­seven years old and him, fifteen – and how grateful he was for her generosity to him that morning, how she'd never laughed, how she'd treated him like the man he'd been so desperate to become.

Isaac stepped forward and wrapped his hands around Olive's waist. She gasped as he lifted her onto the table, her feet just touching the floor. She sat rigid as he drew a single finger all the way from her neck, between her breasts, down to the top of her skirt. She shivered and arched her back, lifting her hips and Isaac thought then,
Why not, why not
, and he brought his mouth to her breasts, kissing and kissing her, hearing her sharp inhalation as his finger stroked up the side of her leg and slid inside her knickers. Her legs tensed. ‘More?' he murmured.

There was a pause. ‘More,' she said.

He ruched Olive's skirt up around her waist, dropped to his knees and prised apart her thighs. When he ran his tongue down the fabric of her knickers, Olive gasped again. He stopped.

‘More?' he asked. ‘Yes,' she said again, so he pushed the fabric aside and dipped in his tongue, dipping and lapping, opening his mouth onto her.

‘Is this a real thing?' Olive whispered, and then her words were lost.

He carried on, and soon Olive was pushing her hips hard into him, her moans turning upwards into a huge sigh. She shuddered onto the table, her arms thrown back on the wide, gnarled wood. Isaac stood up and surveyed her, his hands holding the sides of Olive's legs, how her arched spine now lay flat, how her face was turned away, closed to everything except her smile, her undeniable triumph and bliss.

‘More?' Isaac asked.

Olive opened her eyes, widened her legs, and looked at him. ‘
More
,' came her reply.

 

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PART III

The Lion Girls

 

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October 1967

 

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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....................................

X

T
he first story I ever published in England appears on pages seventy-­four to seventy-­seven of the
London Review
of October 1967. It was called ‘The Toeless Woman', and they even paid someone to draw an accompanying illustration. They missed the
e
off the end of my first name, so it looks like my father wrote it. I still have two copies of that particular edition – the one that I'd purchased myself, and the other I'd posted to my mother in Port of Spain, and which was returned to me years later, after her death.

My mother had annotated her copy with the words ‘
My girl!
' and to my amusement, added the missing
e
in biro. Years later, at her funeral, my second cousin Louisa told me that Mrs Bastien had passed that
Review
round all her friends like a one-­woman lending library, strictly insisting that they could only have an evening with it each. I think more ­people in Port of Spain read that story than in the literate sections of London town. What they made of it, I'll never know.

It was Quick, of course, who was to blame – or thank – for the story finding its way to the editor. I think she relished the symmetry of it – how, after my leaving the raw thing on her desk, she was able to leave a copy of the magazine containing it on mine. I thought it was odd, how she had sat in her garden and exhorted me to disregard the opinions of others, only to go and submit my work for mass approval.

‘Find page seventy-­four,' she commanded, scratching aggressively at the base of her neck. I obeyed her, sitting in that viewless room in the Skelton, wishing she would go away, so that I could be in private to study this vision of my almost-­name on the page. But Quick did not leave, and I had to hold in the tsunami of sound I wanted to unleash across the square, a cry of satisfaction so loud it would have travelled over the rooftops to the coast of Kent. My father's name,
Odell Bastien
, his daughter's writing underneath. Next time, I swore there would be no missing
e.
But for now, it would do. The words, at least, were mine.

Quick smiled, and the effect on her gaunt face was transformative; gleeful, youthful, briefly illuminated with pleasure. She was dressed that day in a dark green pair of trousers, slightly flared, and a pussy-­bow silk blouse with a seasonal repeating pattern of brown leaves. I noticed the slight sag of the material on her thighs; she was definitely thinner. ‘It was an excellent story,' she said, ‘so I sent it in. I even got you a fee. Thirty pounds.'

‘Thirty
pounds
?'

‘I hope that was all right. You don't mind I went ahead?'

‘I don't know how to thank you. Thank you.'

She laughed, sitting down opposite me, fumbling in her trouser pocket, lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag. ‘Don't thank me,' she said. ‘It was a fantastic read. Did you base it on something that happened at Dolcis?'

‘Sort of.'

She gazed at me. ‘How does it feel, to be a published writer?'

I looked back down at the page; the ink that couldn't be rubbed away, the deceptive permanence of the paper. I felt exalted, my mind a cathedral, with an actual congregation who wished to visit my altar. ‘Incredible,' I said.

‘You'd better write some more,' she replied. ‘Keep going at it. It seems to work.'

‘I will. Thank you, thank you again.'

She went to the window, cigarette in hand, and looked down at the alley where the smokers gathered. I couldn't imagine her mixing with them, a bird of paradise amongst the canaries. ‘Would you have let me look at it,' she asked, ‘if you'd known what I might do?'

‘I don't know,' I said. It was a good question.

‘I wondered. Anyway, you've got a terrible view here. Did Pamela choose this room? We can get you a nicer one.'

‘I'm fine, thank you. A nice view would probably distract me from my work.'

She raised an eyebrow. ‘How puritanical.'

Quick could tease me as much as she wanted; I didn't care. I was published
.
She remained at the window, her back to me again. ‘How about Reede's news on Mr Scott's painting, eh? He's looking very pleased with himself. Looks like we are going to have an exhibition. He wants to call it “The Swallowed Century”. But we cannot exhibit only one painting.' I could hear the disdain in her voice. Her body was slightly curled over, as if she was shielding a ball of pain.

‘I didn't know,' I said.

She turned. ‘No? Is everything all right between you and Mr Scott?'

‘Yes. No. Just a misunderstanding.'

‘I see.' She straightened up, leaning against the wall. ‘Want to talk about it?'

‘There's nothing much to say.' Quick fixed her gaze on me, so reluctantly, I went on. ‘I went to his mother's house, in Surrey.'

‘Nice?'

‘Nice. We had dinner. And then afterwards, he told me he loved me. And I didn't say it back. And it all went wrong from there. I haven't spoken to him for three weeks.'

Quick inhaled thoughtfully on her cigarette. ‘No harm done. I saw the way he looked at you. You've got him in the palm of your hand.'

‘I don't think so. I wasn't very polite.'

‘Odelle, you don't have to say, or do, anything you don't want to. I don't suppose he loves you for your politeness.'

‘But he hasn't called. I haven't seen him.'

‘Does that bother you?'

I was astonished at the tears pricking my eyes. ‘Yes.'

‘Then it'll work itself out. Don't go flailing back in. Never helps, in my experience. Did you stay long in the house?'

‘A few hours.'

‘Big place?'

‘Fairly. I didn't see much.'

I considered telling Quick about the pamphlet I'd smuggled out in my handbag, but something stopped me. Maybe it was my reluctance to look like a thief, but there was also something about the way Quick constantly hovered over the issue of Lawrie and the painting that made me wary. Given her attitude towards him, she might jump on anything to use against him – although what a long-­forgotten pamphlet might mean in all this was anyone's guess. Lawrie and I may not have been quite on speaking terms, but I didn't want Quick to make him even more defenceless in the face of any attack.

‘Come and have dinner with me tonight,' she said. ‘Let's have champagne.'

‘Champagne?'

‘I'm feeling victorious. I've got a ­couple of lamb chops that need eating. And someone needs to give you a pat on the back.'

I hesitated. Being alone with Marjorie Quick was always a very intense experience, and after the last time in her garden, I didn't know if I was up to it. But then I thought about another night in the empty flat, with only the crackle of the radio and my overly read books for company, and suddenly I didn't want to be alone. ‘Thank you,' I said. ‘Shall we ask Pamela?'

‘She wouldn't want to come. Besides, I've only got two chops.'

I felt I couldn't insist, because it wasn't my house, my dinner, my champagne. But I do remember thinking it would be no problem at all to pop to a butcher and buy Pamela an extra chop. Quick seemed keen to have me there alone.

‘Good,' she said, taking my silence for assent. ‘That's settled. See you later, Odelle. We can take a taxi home together. And well done again. I'm very proud.'