The Walking Stick

  It was an alien world. I asked Leigh if he had been born round here.

  ‘Good grief, no, I come from Swindon. My old dad is an inspector on British Railways. My mother was a schoolteacher, an arts mistress at Swindon High School; she didn’t do much painting after she was married because she had three kids and then died. I went to Swindon Secondary Modern and first got a job as a clerk; but when old Aunt Nellie coughed up this money it seemed time to cut loose.’

  ‘Since when,’ I said, ‘I suppose you’ve had a lot of paint and a lot of women in your life.’

  He showed his teeth in a sudden grimace. ‘Yes to number one, no to number two. There’s been one woman – one other woman. You don’t latch on, dear, you’re too conventional, you think all artists are like those lily-necked twits your mother dragged out from under some Chelsea stone last Sunday. You think all an artist does in life is hop in and out of bed with unwashed women. It’s a big laugh. The true artist hasn’t got all that much time.’

  ‘You think of yourself as a true artist, then.’

  ‘Christ knows. Maybe I’m old-fashioned. But all this swank, all this cult wind they blow out. To me art is hard work and more hard work. It’s not a high-class gab shop!’

  ‘And where do people like Ted Sandymount and Jack Foil fit into your artistic world?’

  ‘They don’t. But they’re part of the real world, and that counts, doesn’t it? Just as much part of the real world and the East End as the tugs and the derricks. They’re people I knock along with. I understand them, see. They get on with the business of living and don’t wrap their notions up in fancy paper and coloured string.’

  ‘Unless,’ I said, ‘it happened to be black market string.’

  He looked at me. ‘You’re a sharp little devil, aren’t you? And I love you for it. Tell me about your illness.’

  ‘What illness?’

  ‘Your – this polio thing. When was it?’

  ‘Years ago. I’ve forgotten all about it.’

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with your leg? Tell me exactly.’

  ‘You can see. It won’t work much from the knee down and it’s not absolutely right from the knee up.’

  ‘I thought that most of that was done with now – thanks to a gent called Salk.’

  ‘I was pre-Salk. I tell you, it’s prehistoric. I was ten at the time.’

  ‘Are you ever ill now?’

  ‘I had flu the winter before last.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I mean this look on your face. It sends me. Like a – like a madonna who’s had a car accident.’

  I laughed. ‘Can I quote you?’

  ‘Not to your other boy friends, you can’t. But it’s there, Deborah. Blessed Damozel stuff. Does it hurt to walk?’

  ‘No, not really. One doesn’t do it as instinctively, as forgetfully, as a normal person, that’s all.’

  ‘Why can’t I paint you?’

  His hands were both on the table, palms downward, showing the freckle of dark hair from fingers to wrist. One as usual had a smear of paint.

  ‘Have you ever done portraits?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Not much good, but then . . . If I could paint you, it would be a real big help to me.’

  ‘. . . I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Think hard.’

  A half-dozen coloured men came into the club. Their shirts were puce and vermilion and acid yellow and pea green.

  He said: ‘Tell me about your job.’

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘No, everything.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m interested in everything you do.’

  ‘You’d be bored.’

  ‘Try me.’

  I tried him. Later we drove home, and I agreed to meet him on the following Tuesday. He said why didn’t we meet every Tuesday and Thursday. It seemed a good idea, he said, to have a regular date. I said no, I sometimes worked late and could never be sure more than a day or two ahead. This was true, but not the whole truth. Really, I was still struggling not to get too committed. The fish, you’ll notice, always does struggle, even when it’s firmly on the hook.

  John Hallows was flying to Geneva next week to pick up an important piece of jewellery which a Viscount Vosper was going to put in our next sale. There was a rumour that Lord Vosper also had a collection of valuable resist lustreware that he was considering selling, and some discussion took place as to whether I should go with John Hallows to see it. But in the end it was felt that it might be better not to push the viscount into some sale he was not quite decided on.

  This discussion took place on the Tuesday at 6 p.m., and as a result I was pretty late meeting Leigh. But he took my explanations patiently enough and drove me off along the Bayswater Road.

  ‘You hungry?’ he asked.

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Well, we can eat when you like.’

  We turned off and stopped outside what looked like a cinema. Somebody was just driving away, so Leigh put his car in the convenient place.

  My mind still on the recent meeting at Whittington’s, I said absently: ‘The movies again?’

  ‘Sort of. It’s a place I go sometimes.’

  As we went up the steps a commissionaire opened the glass doors for us. Leigh went to the pay desk and bought tickets. Somewhere was the sound of music. Glittery, even for a cinema, with a lot of massed lights over the stairs. Then suddenly I knew.

  ‘Leigh! You fool! I told you.’

  He caught my arm as I turned to go out. ‘We can watch, Deb. No call to do any more. Be a Sport.’

  ‘It isn’t a question of that.’ I hesitated, wanting to leave but not wanting to let him or anyone else see that it meant anything to me.

  ‘Well, let’s just go and look-see. We can always come away if it’s a drag.’

  As we went down the stairs the cold greeted us. Piped organ music was encouraging some sixty or seventy-odd people of varying degrees of skill, and lack of it, round a big oblong rink. The ceiling was dark blue dotted with stars, and there was a sort of sham Gothic castle at one end. We took seats outside the wooden barrier and watched in silence.

  As so often, his action had roused conflicting feelings: anger at being tricked, a back-of-the-mind awareness that the whole thing was too trivial to be worth anger; disgust at his obtuseness, annoyance with myself that I was still far too sensitive; a wish to throw him over and a knowledge that if I did I’d regret it.

  Presently he said: ‘OK now?’

  I didn’t speak. Three-quarters of the girl skaters were in flesh-coloured tights with tiny frilly skirts. They all had the most beautiful legs.

  He patted my hand.

  ‘Leigh,’ I said, ‘we shall get on so much better if you treat me as a grown-up human being and not as a retarded adolescent who has to be coaxed and cheated into doing things.’

  He still had his hand over mine. ‘Crikey, I like coaxing you, Deborah. It’s nice for me and it’s good for you. Honest. What harm have I done? Tell me. Just tell me how you’ve come to any harm through coming here!’

  I sighed. ‘Sometimes we don’t talk the same language, do we? We – we need an interpreter.’ Two beginners came sliding past us, clutching nervously to the rail.

  He thrust his bottom lip out and wrinkled his forehead. ‘Maybe, maybe. I’m not subtle. Even my best friend wouldn’t accuse me of being subtle. I just go on simple primitive instincts, and one of my instincts is to try to give you pleasure. But pleasures aren’t always pleasures right off. Sometimes they hurt at first. Have patience, lovey. Don’t shoot the pianist just yet.’

  We sat for a time. Then he said would I like something to eat and I said yes, so we went to the restaurant upstairs which looked out on to the skating. The warmth was very welcome after the chill of the rink. We had ham omelette and salad and beer and Cheddar cheese and biscuits. While we were there the floor was cleared of beginners and the experts had a session for dancing. This was much pleasanter for me to watch. In the same way I coul
d enjoy Wimbledon but not the local tennis club.

  About eleven he drove me home. Outside our house he leaned over and kissed me. I didn’t turn away. He said: ‘Debby, Debby, Debby, what a gorgeous kiss. I love you. You weren’t meant to be a nun. Remember that, can you, till Thursday?’

  I remembered it till Thursday.

  We went to Rotherhithe again but not to his house. We went to Ted Sandymount’s flat. Ted, having just been turned out of a condemned building, had been rehoused on the sixteenth and top floor of a new block of flats. From his picture window you got a dream view of London’s dockland, stretching from Tower Bridge to Greenwich. The river curled like a dangerous snake slipping half-hidden through the undergrowth of the city.

  I couldn’t bring myself to take to Ted. He might be big-hearted, as Leigh said, but he represented most of the superficial things I sheered away from in a man: a sort of vulgarity of outlook which cheapened what it touched. He had to perfection what Sarah had once called ‘lavatory-seat humour.’ I couldn’t see how he appealed to Leigh who, for all his faults, wasn’t really at all like that.

  But that evening Ted seemed to be laying it on for me. He pushed forward the easiest chair so that I could sit and look out of the window, and rushed down in the lift to get a tomato juice when I said I didn’t want to drink any more. He asked my opinion about things and instantly gave way if we both happened to speak at the same time. I thought Leigh must have given out that he was more than ordinarily keen on me, and Ted was doing his best as a friend to help the thing along.

  As the evening waned lights began to wink in the streets below, and quickly the contagion spread until the whole city was like a hoard of jewels that had been raided and scattered. Ted said: ‘You’d pay £20 a day for a view like this at the Hilton,’ and sniffed and twitched his way into the chair beside me.

  ‘Some day,’ Leigh said, ‘I’ll come up here and paint it. Sort of aerial view.’

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t paint Deb,’ Ted Sandymount said. ‘She’s looking as pretty as a picture right now. All radiant, like. What’s she done – won a prize in something?’

  ‘I’d paint her like a shot if she’d let me,’ said Leigh. ‘I’ve asked her over and over. It’s just what I need.’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Because,’ he said.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘I’ve told you often. You don’t want me to say it all over again in front of Ted, do you?’

  ‘Here, what’s all this?’ said Ted, his face as full of eagerness as a TV commercial. It should have jarred but for the moment didn’t. ‘Why can’t he paint you, Deb?’

  ‘Maybe some time.’

  ‘Saturday?’ said Leigh.

  ‘Not Saturday.’

  ‘Why not Saturday?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s – too soon. I’ve got to think about it.’

  ‘Saturday,’ said Leigh.

  ‘I have things to do at home.’

  ‘I’ll call for you Saturday,’ he said, ‘if the light’s good. It’s the thing I need. For my painting. It’s easy to be snide about inspiration, I know; but what else can you call it? It’s the spark that sets the engine going. The split atom in the reactor, the – the . . .’

  ‘The thing that makes the world go round, eh?’ said Ted, patting my good knee. He always had to be patting. ‘You see Leigh needs you. He can’t ask better than that. What d’you say? Give him a break, eh? Be a pal.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  He said: ‘Here. This way. I want you three-quarter face, see. That’s about it. Head up a fraction. Now . . .’

  He stepped back and stared at me. I was sitting on a high chair looking more or less out of the larger of the two windows. It was a bright morning with sun and shadow falling in turns over the river. Leigh said it was perfect for work but he was fussing a lot about getting the sitter right.

  Now after a minute or two’s silence he said: ‘Mind if I use my comb?’

  ‘What on?’

  ‘Your hair . . . See . . . D’you mind?’ He put his hand on my head and began to fiddle with the comb.

  I hadn’t realized how intimate the painting of a portrait can become. He used any excuse, putting his fingers on my neck to turn my head, grasping my shoulders with warm hands, smoothing the dress round my hips. It was a sort of mock love-making in a Laurence Sterne way, and I cursed myself for being such a fool. But I didn’t all that much want it to stop. That was really the awful thing.

  When he’d fiddled about with my hair he drew back and at last gave a grunt of approval. ‘That’s better. That’s about right. Hang on, I’ll take a snap . . . I’ll just get a bulb. Now hold it.’

  I waited until the flash had gone before I said: ‘Isn’t this supposed to be a painting?’

  ‘Yes, but I reckon to have a snap too. It helps me to get perspective.’

  I thought how shocked Erica’s friends would be.

  ‘Do you take photographs of all your subjects?’

  ‘Not river scenes. The few portraits I’ve done, sure.’

  ‘Who else’s have you done?’

  He was at last making a few preliminary lines on the canvas. ‘Oh, nobody’s in particular – a few friends.’

  ‘Girl friends?’

  ‘Not specially.’

  ‘What about the one you mentioned?’

  He looked at me for a long time. ‘Which one?’

  ‘The other one. You said there was one other one since you came here.’

  ‘Oh, her . . .’ There was a long pause. ‘That’s ancient history.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘Look, I can’t concentrate if you talk all the time.’

  ‘I thought artists talked to put their sitters at ease.’

  ‘Well, this one doesn’t.’

  Silence fell for about half an hour. Then I said: ‘I’m getting cramp.’

  ‘All right, relax. I’ll shove some coffee on.’

  ‘Can I see what you’ve done?’

  ‘No. Stay where you are.’ He went into the kitchen.

  ‘How many sittings will this take?’ I called after him.

  ‘What? Oh, about three. Three or four.’

  I walked to the window, massaging my neck. It was low water. Two tugs were passing, their bright funnels puffing like Roman candles just alight before the first stars were sent up.

  ‘What a marvellous place for fifth of November fireworks,’ I said.

  ‘What, here?’ He came back. ‘Where?’

  ‘On this beach. You could even have a bonfire.’

  He laughed. ‘Go on with you. You’d have the Dock Board down on you.’ He put his arm round me and kissed my neck.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ I said.

  ‘What – this other girl? Why? It’s a drag. It’s done with.’

  ‘Was she just a casual caller like me?’

  ‘You’re a lot more than that.’

  ‘And the answer?’

  ‘The answer’s no.’

  ‘Was she your mistress?’

  He put his face against my hair and sniffed. ‘The answer’s no.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘I don’t want to. She was just someone I was keen on, but it didn’t figure.’ He turned away from me and back into the kitchen.

  The tugs had disappeared round the bend towards Surrey Docks. Rowers from the various clubs were out in force this morning. Those going with the tide moved with effortless speed; those against had to strain for every yard.

  He came back with the coffee, and we sipped it together in companionable silence.

  ‘Was she from round here? Was she an artist?’

  He gave an irritable hunch of his shoulders. ‘She came from Ireland, if you must know. Her name was Lorne. She was twenty. She’s now living in Stratford-on-Avon working as a receptionist at a hotel. She was five feet four and dark, with blue eyes, and I painted her six times.’ He added roughly: ‘Now tell me about your love life.’

  ?
??Sorry.’

  ‘No, no.’ He swallowed, and took out the comb and ran it through his hair. ‘I should be flattered that you’re curious. Crikey, I should be pleased.’

  In silence I got back on my chair and he lifted my chin an inch and then went back to his easel.

  ‘D’you believe me?’ he said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About other women being unimportant.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What don’t you know?’

  ‘I don’t know enough about you, Leigh.’

  ‘D’you think I don’t mean what I say?’

  ‘Oh, no . . . I think you do. But it’s hard to judge – we’ve known each other so short a time – it’s hard to judge.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, how far you forget what you felt for other people, how soon you’ll forget what you think you feel for me.’

  He was painting now. ‘I’ve told you – you’ve got it all wrong about me. I’m not the type. You’ve got this kinky view of artists—’

  ‘Perhaps it’s just a general view of men.’

  ‘Well, stop being in a groove. It’s not like you.’

  Silence fell for a bit.

  ‘There’s another thing I want you to try,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Skating with me on Tuesday.’

  I went skating with him on Tuesday. I wore a pair of stretch pants I had bought in France, and these hid quite a lot.

  We hired skating boots and went down to the rink. He insisted on putting mine on for me. Something about the intimacy of the Saturday portraiture continued on. He took off my built-up shoe and fitted the boot on to my thin foot, with an extra sock inside to prevent it rubbing, and presently, when he had put on his own, helped me to get up and limp to the edge of the rink.

  My face was hot before I even started. I felt everybody in the place was staring and sniggering as I put a scared wobbly skate on the ice. In spite of the disguise of the slacks I had a pretty fair idea what I looked like, and I hated him for the awful humiliation of it.