Looking Down Read online

  ‘You said that I should try and understand Richard’s passions. I mean, his painting passions. So I thought I’d go and look. At paintings and stuff. Today, tomorrow, all week. Do a few galleries. Get the gist. Then I can talk to him about it. Stop him feeling cross with me. But how do I say I got rid of the painting by mistake?’

  ‘You went into the room and it fell on you,’ Sarah suggested, not having the faintest idea which room she was talking about. ‘I suppose it’s large?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all, it’s very small. I could blame the cleaning lady, though she isn’t supposed to go in there. Say she knocked it over by mistake.’

  ‘Good idea, provided she doesn’t get the sack.’

  Lilian shivered at the very idea. ‘Never, over my dead body. I can say I knocked it over and it broke, and was ruined, so she threw it away. That way it would be both our faults. Richard’s too nice to sack anyone.’

  ‘Paintings on canvas don’t break, Lilian. Say it got smeared or something.’

  Shut up.

  Lilian hauled a live and vibrant body out of the armchair, drained her coffee and shook her legs to readjust the trousers until they fell just over the little tippy toes of her boots. Stop this, Sarah told herself. Shut up; be grateful that this is the version of what happened to a painting. What a lovely woman. And then, just as Lilian reached for her cerise, lightweight pashima and wrapped it round her elegant shoulders, she dropped another bombshell.

  ‘Sarah? He did say, Richard I mean, that he was bringing back this nice, old doctor he had dinner with, to stay the night. I gather this doctor’s single at the moment. And part of the reason for bringing him was that Richard thought you might like him. Isn’t that nice of him? I’m sure he’s not too old for you. But then I thought, Rich and I could probably do with a bit of time alone. I mean, there could be a bit of an argument and a bit of making up. Any chance he could stay with you?’

  Oh God. The most unlikely people collaborated, without even knowing. Sarah was now furious with Richard. And because of Steven, she had to keep everybody sweet.

  ‘I expect so. Tell you what, if he’s a nerd, deaf dumb and blind, you have him, you’ve got more space. If he’s OK, he can put up here. Only I charge sixty pounds per hour, plus VAT.’

  Lilian trilled with laughter. It was an irritating version of the usual seductive chuckle. She picked up a duster she had found on the floor and placed it neatly on the table, still laughing.

  ‘You’re so funny, Sarah, really you are. You’re a scream. Must go and look at art. Oh, I tell you what, why don’t we go together, sometime? You wouldn’t blind me with science, would you? And you should get out more. You always seem to be here in the morning.’

  Lilian’s mornings began no sooner than 10 a.m, at a time when Sarah might only just have got home. Well, they both lacked a work ethic, and the less Lilian knew of her neighbour’s lifestyle, the better.

  ‘Yes, I’ll come and look at art with you. Next time Richard’s away. I do it anyway. Hang on, I’ll come down with you. Need to buy food.’

  Need to check on Fritz, too, and what he might have seen and heard. He was there, polishing the mirror, smiling at first, and then nodding a formal ‘good morning’ to Lilian.

  ‘Really,’ Lilian said in a stage whisper as soon as they were outside, ‘he might do the stairs as well.’

  When Sarah came back with tea and whisky, cheese and wine, Fritz had gone. Good: there had been enough conversation for one morning. She was feeling totally outmanoeuvred, blackmailed by everyone into being nice to everyone so that Steven would be safe, and she was even going to have to be nice to Richard Beaumont’s bloody friend. It was going to be a long day. She was very, very cross.

  They sidled in in the late afternoon, Richard and his friend John. Richard was mellow and John was shy. Sarah made them tea. There was an exchange of pleasantries, where Sarah asked John if big cities were a shock after small towns. He said they were, this one most of all. He was tongue-tied. Sarah checked a sigh of impatience. Richard winked at her; it didn’t suit him. She smiled and went out for more tea. Stood in her kitchen, furious.

  Sarah Fortune knew very well how she augmented her income, by being a tart with a heart, as naturally promiscuous with her affections as anyone on the planet. It just came naturally, was all. Never a question of why?, but why not? At the moment, she resented it. Richard Beaumont might be a friend and a kind man, but he would always see her as a tart, and he was pimping for his friend, there was no doubt about that. Probably wanted to help him, somehow, and didn’t know a better way. Got a friend, Sarah, needs looking after, know what I mean? Loaded words, and not the first time she had heard them, and she could always refuse, but what with Steven, and Lilian, and that blasted painting, it might be difficult. And she wasn’t going to be doing anything with Mr Tongue-tied out there unless she found something to like. That was the rule: they had to be worth the effort.

  John, the doctor, was gazing at the painting of the cow with the reverence of an acolyte, his face slowly and unconsciously changing expression, raising an eyebrow, wrinkling his nose, frowning then smiling, as if he was having a conversation with it. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she spoke to Richard, as if it was a vicarage tea party and John was the mad one in the corner. Instead of a man experiencing zing. Then John knocked over the milk jug and did not seem to notice as he rose to look closer, and Sarah relaxed. This was familiar territory. He was another William, another Henry, another nice, awkward man. Richard gave her another wink, an imploring glance. ‘Goodness,’ he said. ‘Must go.’ It was hardly subtle.

  ‘Well, that was hardly subtle, was it?’ Sarah said as the door closed noisily behind him.

  ‘No,’ John said, faintly.

  ‘Do you really like the cow?’

  ‘Yes, I really do.’

  There was no point in pussyfooting around, it never worked. It was usually better to trust people and take the consequences. He was a likeable man, reminding her of a bemused bird. There were enough good vibes with this fellow to allow instinct to take over.

  ‘What did Richard tell you about me?’

  ‘Well, he gave me the impression you were a friend, and a sort of . . . counsellor.’

  ‘For which, read amateur tart. Does that bother you?’

  His face went white, then pink, and then he laughed, loudly and honestly.

  ‘No, it doesn’t. They were always my favourite patients. Only I can’t afford you. Nor can I perform, I seem to have lost the knack. That Richard, he’s a cunning bastard, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is. Don’t worry about the tart angle. Richard told me you needed to talk. And I’m the kind of person who needs to listen. I’ve got a terrible addiction to talking, too. Shall we have a drink? I’m sick of tea and coffee, been drinking it all day.’

  He shook his head, back to tongue-tied. There were purple hollows beneath his eyes, etched lines of weariness. She liked him, waited for him.

  ‘Speaking for myself,’ he said, ‘I’d like to talk about Richard. He’s been a marvellous shot in the arm for me, but I don’t know him. And there is something the matter with him, you know. He worries me.’

  ‘The memory, you mean? Yes, I’ve noticed. Do you always worry about people?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s a habit. Thought I’d shaken it off, but I haven’t. Wanted a quiet, pain-free life, and now I don’t.’

  They liked one another.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘We talk about Richard first. And what a cunning bugger he is. Call it tit for tat because, you see, I desperately need to know about him, and what he’s been up to.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ John said. ‘I’d really like that.’

  ‘Good, because I doubt if he’ll be back. I’m afraid they might be having an almighty row upstairs because, as far as I can gather, they might love one another but they never talk about anything at all. Mind you, it’s the hardest thing to do when you live together. Much easier with strangers.’
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  He could see a path between him and her. He had nothing to lose. Richard was right: he had been losing his mind.

  ‘Keep my seat warm while I get some wine. Or would you prefer whisky?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I have it.’

  He gazed at the somnolent, lumbering, grazing cow in the oversized painting, thought the scale was quite right and felt unaccountably content.

  He felt safe. He forgot the cliffs, the bodies, everything. He was adrift, not at all in control, and safe.

  Tomorrow was soon enough for everything else.

  Edwin stank. He had waited for the low tide. Then he had gone out over the rocks, slashed at the corpse with an axe. It took a long time to dismember it. The business disgusted him, but it was bloodless. Food for them.

  He pulled parts of it ashore and let the tide take the rest. There was no light except the reflection of the moon, and the torch. On the horizon there were still the boats coming into port, and halfway between, the signal.

  Don’t you dare, he told them. Keep away. All of you keep away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Fasten all gates behind you

  There was not enough light.

  Fritz paused outside the door of the penthouse flat and watched the city dawn through the window of the landing, with a duster in his hand as an alibi. Go check up there, his wife said: too much coming and going for anybody’s good, all those parcels, people coming and going at night, but it was futile to check like this. No sound penetrated into the corridors from behind these doors and he should know, he listened all the time. Then, as he watched, the door shook, as if someone was pushing it from inside. The brass handle on his side of the door turned vainly back and forth. The door gave slightly but held. The rattling went on for a minute. He felt he could hear sobbing. Fritz fled.

  Lilian could not sleep. She had been so pleased to see him and Richard told her she was always a joy to behold. He dropped his bags where he stood, looked round, breathed a sigh of relief to be home and hugged her. Told her he thought his doctor friend was better off with Sarah, and what they should do, just the two of them, was go out to dinner. He could eat a horse, he said. Richard could always eat. Puzzled but relieved by his casual abandonment of his friend, Lilian let herself be led, her own worries giving way to a mild anxiety about him at dinner. There were the occasional lapses of memory she had noticed before, such as when he could not remember what he had ordered and was surprised when it arrived. And when they emerged from the place, and he did not seem to know how they had come to be there at all. It was if he was still elsewhere, but it passed and it did not matter; he was jovial and affectionate, talked about the children and where they should go in the summer. Italy? Turkey? Should they include her family, too? No, she said, firmly. She was desperate to tell about the burglary, but she could not. If she told him the truth about what had happened, she would have to explain why she had let that muscular burglar out of the door with the only thing in the flat which had no value. She would have to explain that she had been drunk and not frightened, and she had an inexplicable but determined instinct not to mention the ridiculous garb of a man who had let her overpower him and then admired her. And Richard forgot to go into his daylight room. Maybe he would forget the painting, too, in the pleasure of shared sleep.

  Then he woke her, early in the morning. Not forcefully, but by sitting on the big bed beside her, shaking her shoulder gently until it was obvious he was not going to stop. One look at his face told her he had not forgotten anything.

  ‘Lilian, what happened to the painting?’

  ‘What painting?’

  ‘The one on the easel.’

  She was wide awake now, about to bluster and pretend she did not know what he was talking about. All the variations she had rehearsed scrambled in her mind, coinciding with the realisation that she was afraid of him at the moment, and had been denying to herself the fact that she had been worried to death about exactly this.

  ‘I took it to a dealer, it fell on me, it broke,’ she said.

  ‘Paintings don’t break.’

  She wondered about bursting into tears. Too late for that, and it would not work.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was cleaning up in there. I knocked it over by mistake. It stuck to the floor. It was ruined. I threw it out, so as not to upset you.’

  ‘So as not to upset me,’ he repeated, slowly. ‘Was it smeared? I thought it was dry.’

  ‘Sarah said . . .’

  ‘Sarah said what?’

  ‘She said paintings don’t break. Nothing. I told her about it. I was worried. Oh, Richard, I’m sorry.’

  He was silent. She could not bear it when he was silent. Rowing, shouting, reacting any old way was better than silence. Quietness made her lose control.

  ‘It was an accident,’ she screamed. ‘And I hated it. It’s horrible. Why did you paint it? Why?’

  He would not look her in the eye. Disconcertingly, he patted the shoulder he had shaken. She would almost rather he had struck her, then she could have retaliated. Instead there was a long pause before he replied, and his words were like sighs.

  ‘I drew her, sweetheart, because she was there, and I painted her to fill in the gaps of what I saw. Do you hate all my paintings, or just that one?’

  It was so mildly spoken it surprised her into truthfulness. Not a time to admit how much they hid from one another.

  ‘I hate them all,’ she muttered, ‘but that one in particular. It was obscene. Yes, I hate them all, hate the bright colours, hate the fact you do it at all, hate the smell. I don’t understand. You’re no good at it.’

  ‘Ah, I wondered if you’d noticed. About that.’

  He walked out of the room and left her. She followed him to the door of the daylight room. A second realisation, worse than the knowledge of wounding him so profoundly, struck her as she looked over his shoulder into the room itself. The room was as messy as ever, showing no sign of anyone attempting to clean it, and there were no marks on the floor by the easel. It was all bathed in that awful daylight from the blue bulbs he used to illuminate the darkest room, an unflattering light to everything. He looked an old, defeated man in this light.

  ‘Can you at least understand why I want to try?’

  ‘No, I don’t. You can buy a painting. You don’t have to make it yourself.’

  ‘I suppose you’re terrified I might want to hang them up on the walls.’

  ‘I’d hate that, too. They don’t go with anything.’

  ‘I need to get the anger, or something, out of my soul, Lilian. I need to try to paint the images in my mind, because I know I see things other people don’t see. I’m transfixed by certain things, can’t rest until I’ve explained them, by this.’ He gestured at the empty easel. ‘I’m no longer sure of what I see until I try to paint it. Being good or bad isn’t the point. I have to do it.’ She was quiet, shivering in her nightdress. Not the oyster white.

  ‘And it’s difficult, Lilian. It’s hard and frustrating and maddening . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t look hard.’

  He shrugged, aiming for nonchalance, trying to control himself.

  ‘I don’t need you to appreciate what I try to do, darling, but it would be nice if you tried to understand why. Perhaps if you ever tried to understand what goes into a painting . . .’

  ‘But I do understand,’ she protested. ‘I love pictures. I love beautiful things, you know I do.’

  ‘You like pretty things, Lilian. They have to be wrapped for you. You only see beauty where you expect to see it. You have so much of it yourself it no longer disturbs you. I wish you knew what it was like to see it everywhere, not pretty beauty either. It’s like being on one long visual assault course. Always confused and amazed and feeling punched in the eyes. And wanting to remember it, and not being able to.’

  The sadness in his voice made her want to cry. She felt deficient, and then confused and defensive. He never talked like this: it frightened her, she wished he h
ad not started.

  ‘And the paint itself,’ he murmured. ‘Oil paint. Such gorgeous, tactile, lovely stuff, unbearably beautiful all by itself. The agony of mixing it, going too far, watching it turn into sludge. And then, that fatal little stroke that ruins the whole thing.’

  He kicked at the pile of canvases to his left. They remained immovable.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said sharply. The violent movement frightened her. He turned and smiled at her, shrugged his shoulders and put his hands in his pockets, the way he did when he wished to end a conversation.

  ‘Don’t worry, Lil. You’re probably right. It doesn’t matter. It might be just as well, but I wish I’d finished it. There was something else to go in there. Something I saw out of the corner of my eye. And it might be the last memento of someone dead. Like a gravestone. Never mind. We’ll just have breakfast, shall we?’

  He moved to put his arms round her, held her briefly. It was a distant embrace, but it was still forgiveness, and more humiliating than anything else. She knew he knew she had lied, but he did not know how much. She would not cry; she would not cry.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rich, I’m sorry. I’ll try and understand. I’ll go and look at paintings until I understand. I’ve already started. I shall, I promise.’

  ‘No, don’t force yourself. Doesn’t work.’

  ‘. . . And I’ll try to get it back, that thing.’

  ‘I thought you threw it out.’

  ‘I did, but I can try and get it back.’ He was patting her gently as if she was a child with hiccoughs.

  ‘That would be nice, but don’t worry. What’s gone is gone.’

  Lilian knew he was referring to something other than a painting. Something vital in their relationship. It would be so much easier if she did not love him. She padded down the long corridor towards the kitchen, angry again, wishing for once he would lock himself in the daylight room and leave her to her own thoughts, but now he followed her, sat and watched her, irritatingly, as she fetched crockery. She was used to him watching her and usually enjoyed it, but now it unnerved her.