But the interesting fact was, he had noticed. Art had recognised the change in her manner, heard her words, detected the aggravation, and this, he knew, was a sign of change. He was beginning to look beyond himself. His wife didn’t know that he read the books she bought and so she couldn’t know that he might see the early signs of distant recovery for himself. This flicker of awareness hadn’t helped him out of the bath, though, and it wasn’t helping now, because Art had shied away from that glimmer of improvement, denying its presence, believing it safer to pass through existence under the thick cover of gloom than in the bright light of life. Moreover, he could not see that progress was better than he supposed, this recognition of her mood not the first sign of change at all, but the second. Reading had been the first.
All he wanted now was to go home before he was obliged to talk about emotional baggage, or watch others ignore it.
‘Art?’
The muffled voice of his wife made Art sigh.
‘Art. You okay? You’ve been in there a while.’
‘I’m fine. Funny tum, that’s all. Just coming.’ He flushed the toilet for effect, washed his hands and unlocked the door.
His waiting wife smiled encouragingly, ‘Grace has made us a starter. I think we should sit down.’
*
Grace’s husband was in full flow when Art walked in.
‘I was just saying to Ted, Art, that I saw something extraordinary today.’
Art sat down. ‘Oh?’
Grace’s husband offered him a glass of wine, gesturing with a bottle of red – Art could not see what kind – only to find it almost empty. ‘Hang on two seconds. Let me go and find another and I’ll tell you. It’s too good to interrupt.’ His chair scraped back, ‘Well, not that good, just very interesting. Wait there, my friend, and I’ll be back.’
‘Grab some more fizzy for Jude while you’re there, mate,’ said Ted.
In the void of quietness that was left, Ted effortlessly took up the mantle of conversation-maker, and began asking Primrose and Ric about their relationship. How had they met, he wondered, and where were they living, rolling through the sort of general chitchat that either prompts more substantial discussion or passes the time until some occurs. Art listened. He could think of nothing to say and was grateful to find Ted on good form. Ted’s girlfriend, whose name Art did not know and could find no energy to enquire after, was equally talkative, although mostly about herself. Art noticed she interrupted frequently, always relating whatever had been said back to her own experiences, incidents she clearly thought vastly more interesting than anyone else’s could possibly be. It seemed for the second time that day, Art found himself noticing others.
Ploughing over the top of Ted’s words, Jude turned to Ric, ‘Do I know you? Have we met before?’ She tucked a long, heavy lock of black hair behind an ear and fixed her almond eyes upon him, intent on discovery.
‘I don’t think so,’ Ric replied, politely.
Narrowing her gaze, Jude seemed not to believe him.
‘I think I’d remember,’ he added, turning to Primrose and smiling, his hand on hers, squeezing a little. ‘We haven’t met Jude before, have we?’
Primrose shook her head.
‘Not Primrose. You.’
Ric shrugged, ‘I have one of those faces, apparently. You’re not the first person to think they know me.’
‘It’s true.’ Grace placed two small plates neatly adorned with bruschetta in front of Art and his wife, before returning to the final preparations required for the main course. ‘He really does have one of those faces.’ She was perfectly placed to join any conversation she chose, since her guests were right there with her. ‘Ric definitely has one of those faces,’ she repeated, ‘I have no idea why, though, because I think he’s a very handsome young man. Then again, maybe that is the reason, I really don’t know. Somehow there seems to be a little bit of him in lots of men I see, and I mean that in a good way, of course, Ric. To be perfectly honest, sometimes I think it really is you I have seen walking across the road or buying a paper, even when I know it can’t possibly be.’
Ric looked to Jude, ‘Grace agrees.’
‘Maybe,’ said Jude. ‘you do look a little like an actor I was dating. He’s very successful. You’ve probably seen some of his work.’
At that moment, Grace’s husband returned carrying several bottles. Sitting down, he seemed to have forgotten his story. ‘An actor, you say?’
Jude smiled, coyly, and revealed the name, smoothly polished accent neither hinting at her origins nor her family’s more recent history.
Primrose’s jaw dropped. ‘No way!’
Jude’s smile widened, ‘Yes way. Gorgeous to look at but an absolute pain in the backside. He talked about himself all the time. Such an enormous ego. I moved on fairly quickly.’ She leaned towards Primrose and spoke a little more quietly, although loud enough for all to hear, ‘And it wasn’t just his ego that was enormous.’
Primrose squealed with laughter.
Art’s wife smiled, demurely, ‘Gosh, celebrity secrets tonight, is it?’
Jude pushed out her glass for Ted to refill with bubbly, ‘Don’t get me started.’
‘Do. It’s interesting,’ urged Primrose.
‘No, really, don’t get Jude started,’ remarked Ted, earnestly.
Jude slipped him a stiff look, and began recounting more tales regardless. She could not more accurately portray the impenetrability of a glossy magazine image had she been made of paper, for even her stories seemed beyond reach.
But Art wasn’t looking at Jude. From the moment she claimed to recognise Ric, Art realised he knew him too. He’d seen that face before. It wasn’t that Ric looked like someone, more Ric was someone. For the moment, he could not think exactly who.
Retuning his focus to Jude, he soon grew bored and drifted off into a daydream. Celebrity was not a topic to interest him at the best of times. How enthralled others were by gossip was something of a mystery. Longing to escape the evening, his eye was caught by Grace.
‘Could you lend me a hand please, Art? Just to keep some nuts moving while I re-toast them. Thanks.’
Grateful to be away from the table, Art followed Grace’s instructions. He’d forgotten how well Grace cooked and what easy company she was, always good and kind but never dull. Art’s eyes wandered to his own wife and the small fixed smile of tolerance gripping her face. She was also a kind sort of woman; for there were other things she could do than choose to appear interested in a bore. He supposed Jude, as he now knew her name to be, did not need to be interesting or to show interest in others, looking the way she did. One useful thing she had done, however, was to remind Art that it had been too long since he’d had sex with his wife.
‘Art! Art!’
Art looked to Grace’s husband, who had clearly had enough of Jude’s tales. He was pouring Art a very large drink.
‘Come back to the table. Grace, do let the man sit down. I want to tell him about the thing I saw today.’
Grace thanked Art and excused him from his simple task, reassuring him that the nuts were not burnt but perfectly dark. She needed more, though, and so would carry on cooking if he had no objection, the black ones would do for later.
Art returned to his seat and took an enormous mouthful of wine, quickly followed by another. ‘So?’
Around them, star-struck chatter continued, only Ted showing noticeable boredom. Primrose, unable to resist the draw of celebrity, was excitedly probing for stories which were freely flowing anyway, each more scandalous than the last. Art’s wife continued to feign interest and Ric appeared to be listening.
Grace’s husband also took a large swig of red wine from his freshly topped up glass, before beginning his own story, ‘So. Okay. It was the strangest thing yesterday afternoon. Not at all what I expected, not like anything I have ever seen before, at least, not in real life anyway. On the telly, maybe.’
Being engaged in conversation with anyone other
than his wife felt decidedly odd, even with an old pal like this. Nevertheless, Art nodded with interest. Chatting was not as easy as it had been once upon a time, but he was forced to admit that he wasn’t quite as out of kilter as expected, feeling not nearly as bad as he was on arrival a short time ago. Wine was definitely smoothing things along and so was the company of old friends. Both seemed to be stroking his tangled brain with velvet fingers.
‘To be honest, Art, I could do with some advice about it.’
‘Okay. I’ll try. But what sort of advice do you mean?’
‘Whether or not to call the police.’
Art was stunned. ‘You’re joking?’
‘No.’
‘Something serious then. It must be.’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps. You see I’m buying this block of flats, just outside Bath …’
‘Really? Old building is it?’ Art knew the question was probably irrelevant. Heritage was clearly not the course their conversation was meant to be following. The question popped out because he didn’t know what else to say, but felt like making an effort.
‘No. Just a bit dated. Eighties build, you know the style. All tube work and heavy frames …’
Art wasn’t sure he did know.
‘Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Fact is, I’ve been to the place a number of times and every time there is this one flat that is shuttered up. You know, curtains pulled and so on …’
‘Rented?’ He’d done it again. Asked a silly question.
‘No, Art. It’s privately owned.’
‘Does that matter?’ Art questioned, suddenly thinking now that it might. ‘Does it make a difference, I mean?’
‘Not in the least, as it happens. No, the problem is not about ownership or tenants. It’s bigger than that. Actually, I’m worried that it’s much bigger. Usually I don’t even notice these things but somehow, this time, I did. You know, I just noticed it, that’s all.’ He sipped his drink. ‘You see, yesterday the curtains were not quite as tightly pulled together as they have been before. There was this small gap. Not much, but enough. So I … well perhaps it was not really right to do it, but … well … I looked in.’
There was a pause while both men swallowed more wine.
‘And?’
Grace’s husband lowered his voice, ‘to be honest I couldn’t see properly, not the details, but it was weird. Really weird.’
‘What was it?’ Art was intrigued.
‘Art, you would not fucking believe what was inside.’
Chapter 7
RIC
Ric’s face had aged, but only a little. It was death and its unreality that had added the years, his boyish good looks less apparent than they had been, but still there, somewhere. But just as always, little of what was inside his mind could be seen.
Brown eyes trained upon the dull woman whose name he could barely recall, Ric watched Jude’s mouth move up and down and on and on without listening to a word. This woman was killing the evening with her narcissism, with her self indulgent, overtly vain manner, her boring arrogance. But Primrose appeared to enjoy her words so Ric endured it, because Primrose was Grace’s daughter and he respected her. In a way he loved her, although not in the unutterably profound way that he loved her mother. He could never feel like that about Primrose, for Primrose was a vehicle. A lovely vehicle, it was true, a golden staircase to heaven.
Until the disturbing moment he overheard Grace’s husband reveal what it was he had seen through the window, a bitter irritation had been niggling beneath Ric’s skin, festering like the polluted core of a boil. Jude, who was clearly fallen and foul, had barely bothered to speak with the most important person in the room, Grace, and Ric felt hatred emerging because of it. She had no right to sit in Grace’s house acting as if she, Jude, were the most worthy person there, better even than her host. But in the light of the story heard, this feeling had become smothered.
A serious issue was at hand, and although it was of a less fundamental nature than love, it carried the power to destroy everything. Ric was in no doubt that his beloved Grace would be thrilled to know the extent of his adoration, for he truly believed it reciprocal, but she could only understand it properly if it were presented with the purity felt, with the honour intended. Being taken to the shrine by another would be disastrous.
He did not panic, for it was not a reaction a man like Ricardo Mancini could afford. In any case, there was no need to go to pieces, for no one had yet taken it further. Evidently Art, recruited for his opinion, wasn’t racing to any particular conclusion regarding contacting the police. Grace’s husband, meeting cancelled at the last minute, had been alone and not fully understood what he had seen, for he had failed to recognise his own wife in the images adorning the walls. This said all there was to say about the man, Ric thought. His lack of attention exposed him further as a person so undeserving of the prize he possessed that it was laughable.
Raising his glass to his lips, Ric continued to listen, while outwardly appearing interested in Jude’s stories. As he had already guessed, Art was able to offer very little, saying only he would think on it. After that, the conversation melted away into silence until Grace’s husband found a new subject.
Ric wondered if Grace’s husband had been at the flat around the time he himself had been there. Had he, Ric, been out of sight in the bathroom whilst prying eyes peered in? He thought not. The curtains were properly pulled. He must have shifted the fabric when collecting his keys from the floor before leaving, keys carelessly tossed on arrival because all he wanted was to be was with Grace, and the closest he could get for the time being was the shrine and the parts of her life stored there. At the table, he shut his eyes, in his mind breathing in the scent of her white panties, reliving the memory of the first touch. He felt himself becoming hard.
‘You enjoy wine?’ asked Grace, as she began placing food upon the table. ‘I’m worried we’ve all had a little too much already!’
Ric’s eyes opened. His long drawn breath had been real, and the glass, still resting upon his lips, made it seem as though he were in the throes of a private tasting.
‘I do,’ he said, easily. ‘I love wine.’
Grace smiled. ‘Me too. You could come with me one evening to my wine club. Although perhaps it might be a little boring for someone your age.’
‘I’d liked to come, just tell me when.’ Ric adored the way Grace covered her tracks with little comments about his age.
Jude, who until this time had spoken almost without breath regarding celebrity boyfriends, suddenly abandoned her topic and switched conversation. ‘I know a guy with the most amazing vineyard in Epernay. You should come with me, Ric, both you and Primrose. If you’re interested in fine …’
Ted coughed a little, attracting Jude’s attention. He gestured to his own face, implying she had a smudge of makeup or scrap of food on hers. Jude took the bait. ‘Excuse me, Grace, may I use your bathroom, please?’
Grace directed her accordingly, before sitting down with the main course, laid out for all to share. She looked to her husband who then stood up, knife in hand, ready to carve the roasted sirloin of beef that had been tantalising them all evening.
‘Grace,’ Ted began, quietly, ‘I’m sorry about Jude. She can be like this sometimes. She’s shy.’
Art’s wife spluttered a laugh.
‘She is!’ Ted insisted. ‘It makes her want to talk, to cover up the silences.’ He looked to Art’s wife and smiled wickedly, ‘and yes, she’s doing a good job of it.’
‘I’m not sure there would be many silences, but it’s fine, Ted. Honestly. She’s lovely. It’s good to have someone nice and chatty,’ Grace reassured.
‘I like her,’ said Primrose.
Ric watched Grace discretely examine her daughter’s face. Grace was not alone in her understanding of Primrose’s insecurity. It was obvious to Ric and had been from the start of their relationship. He played the game by accounting for his movements every single d
ay in order to deal with it, and instead of making it harder to visit the shrine it made it easier. With all activities openly timetabled, she could find nothing to question. He never found it annoying, only sad.
‘Yes. She’s nice,’ agreed Ted, his lack of enthusiasm revealing to all that he did not see a long-term future with her.
‘How did you meet?’ asked Grace.
‘Party. We got chatting.’
As the meat was being carved, so Grace invited everyone to fill their plates from the selection of salad and bread she had made and assembled so carefully. Her husband topped up glasses. Ric scanned the table. It was going to be an alcohol filled night. Grace’s husband was too quick to clear the empties, making it impossible for anyone to judge how much wine had been consumed. Except for Ric, who was counting bottles.
‘I was expecting an exciting story, Ted,’ said Grace. ‘Usually you have great tales to tell about the women in your life.’
‘Such as?’ asked Jude, as she walked back into the kitchen and took her place.
‘None I can think of right now,’ replied Ted. ‘You know about my ex wife and the window cleaner. That’s the only story I can think of.’
Anyone who knew Ted well, roared with affectionate derision.
Ric’s thoughts turned away from the conversation developing around him. Under pressure from everyone who had known him for so long, Ted had begun slowly winding his way through funny tales of this wife and that girlfriend, the trail of unsuitable women seemingly the result of repeated poor choice on his part. Jude was forced to submit after trying to add to the conversation but never finding her way in. Eventually she turned to Primrose for a one-to-one discussion, the topic anything about herself that took her fancy, anything at all, it seemed, but Ted’s former loves. Ric appeared to be listening to Ted, but in his mind he was upstairs. He was there on the stairs hearing Grace call out, he was in the doorway watching her re apply lipstick and adjust her hair. That lipstick, now tucked safely in his jacket pocket. He was in the darkened bedroom he was to share with Primrose that night, on the bed waiting for Grace to join him for a moment of teasing passion. She had not. She had respectfully returned to her guests, just as any good host would. Just as any True Angel.