An Inch of Ashes (44 page)

Looking at her in the half-light, Meg thought her quite beautiful.

Ben stood, offering his hand, but Catherine gave him only the most fleeting of glances. ‘You must be Meg,’ she said, moving round the table and taking the seat beside her, looking into her face. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’ She laughed softly, then reached out to touch Meg’s nose gently, tracing its shape, the outline of her mouth.

‘Yes,’ she said after a moment. ‘You’re like him, aren’t you?’ She turned, looking at Ben. ‘And how are
you
?’

‘I’m well,’ he said noncommittally, taking his seat, then turning to summon a waiter.

Meg studied her in profile. Ben had said nothing, but she understood. The girl was in love with him.

She looked, as Ben had taught her, seeing several things: the fine and clever hands, the sharpness of the eyes that missed little in the visual field. An artist’s eyes. And she saw how the girl looked at Ben: casual on the surface, but beneath it all uncertain, vulnerable.

Ben ordered then turned back, facing them. ‘This, by the way, is Catherine. She paints.’

Meg nodded, pleased that she had read it so well. ‘What do you paint? Abstracts? Portraits?’ She almost said landscapes, but it was hard to believe that anyone from here would pick such a subject.

The girl smiled and glanced quickly at Ben before answering. ‘I paint whatever takes my interest. I’ve even painted your brother.’

Ben leaned across the table. ‘You should see it, Meg. Some of her work’s quite good.’

Meg smiled. If Ben said she was ‘good’ you could take it that the girl was excellent. She looked at Catherine anew, seeing qualities she had missed the first time: the taut, animal-like quality of her musculature and the way she grew so very still whenever she was watching you. Like a cat. So very like a cat.

The waiter brought their drinks. When he had gone, Ben leaned forward, toasting them both.

‘To the two most beautiful women in the City.
Kan pei!
’

Meg looked sideways at the girl, noting the colour that had come to her cheeks. Catherine wasn’t sure what Ben was up to. She didn’t know him well enough yet. But there was a slightly teasing tone in his voice that was unmistakable, and his eyes sparkled with mischief. His mood had changed. Or, rather, he had changed his mood.

‘This painting...’ Meg asked, ‘is it good?’

Catherine looked down, smiling. There was no affectation in the gesture, only a genuine humility. ‘I think it is.’ She looked up, careful not to look at Ben, her cheeks burning. ‘It’s the best thing I’ve done. My first real painting.’

Meg nodded slowly. ‘I’d like to see it, if you’d let me. I don’t think anyone has painted Ben in years. If at all.’

The girl bowed her head slightly. There was silence for a moment, then Ben cleared his throat, leaning towards Meg. ‘She’s far too modest. I’ve heard they plan to put on an exhibition of her work, here in the college.’

Meg saw how the girl looked up at that, her eyes flying open, and knew it was not something she had told Ben, but that he had discovered it for himself.

She looked back at Catherine. ‘When is it being held?’

‘In the spring.’

‘The spring...’ Meg thought of that a moment, then laughed.

‘Why did you laugh?’ Catherine was staring back at her, puzzled, while from across the table Ben looked on, his eyes almost distant in their intensity.

‘Because it’s odd, that’s all. You say spring and you mean one thing, while for me...’ She stared down at her drink, aware of how strangely the girl was looking at her. ‘It’s just that spring is a season of the year, and here...’ She looked up, meeting the girl’s deeply green eyes. ‘Here there are no seasons at all.’

For a moment longer Catherine stared back at her, seeking but not finding what she wanted in her face. Then she looked away, giving a little shrug.

‘You speak like him, too. In riddles.’

‘It’s just that words mean different things to us,’ Ben said, leaning back, his head pressing against the wall of the partition. It was a comment that seemed to exclude Catherine, and Meg saw how she took one quick look at him, visibly hurt.

Hurt and something else. Meg looked away, a sudden coldness in the pit of her stomach. It was more than love. More than simple desire. The girl was obsessed with Ben. As she looked back at Ben, one word formed clear in her head.
Difficult
. It was what he had said earlier. Now she was beginning to understand.

‘Words are only words,’ she said, turning back and smiling at the girl, reaching out to touch and hold her hand. ‘Let’s not make too much of them.’

Six hours later, Catherine finished wrapping the present, then stood the canvas by the door. That done, she showered, then dressed and made herself up. Tonight she would take him out. Alone, if possible; but with his sister, if necessary. For a moment she stood there, studying herself in the wall-length mirror. She was wearing a dark green, loose-fitting wrap, tied with a cord at the waist. She smiled, pleased by what she saw, knowing Ben would like it, then looked down, touching her tongue to her top teeth, remembering.

A card had come that afternoon. From Sergey. A terse, bitter little note full of recriminations and the accusation of betrayal. It had hurt, bringing back all she had suffered these last few weeks. But it had also brought relief. Her relationship with Sergey could not have lasted. He had tried to own her – to close her off from herself.

She shivered. Well, it was done with now. His clash with Ben had been inevitable and, in a sense, necessary. It had forced her to a choice. Sergey was someone in her past. Her destiny lay with Ben.

The bolt took her north, through the early evening bustle. It was after seven when she reached the terminal at the City’s edge. From there she took a tram six stacks east, then two north. There she hesitated, wondering if she should call and tell him she was coming, then pressed on. It would give him less opportunity to make excuses. She had her own key now – she would surprise him.

She took the lift up to his level, the package under her arm. It was heavy and she was longing to set it down. Inside, she placed it against the wall in the cloakroom while she took off her cape. The smell of percolating coffee filled the apartment. Smiling, she went through to the kitchen, hoping to find him there.

The kitchen was empty. She stood there a moment, listening for noises in the apartment, then went through. There was no one in the living room. Two empty glasses rested on the table. For a moment she looked about her, frowning, thinking she had made a mistake and they were out. Then she remembered the coffee.

She crossed the room and stood there, one hand placed lightly against the door, listening. Nothing. Or almost nothing. If she strained, she thought she could hear the faintest sound of breathing.

She tried the door. It was unlocked. She moved the panel, sliding it back slowly, her heart pounding now, her hands beginning to tremble.

It was pitch black within the room. As she eased the panel back, light from the living room spilled into the darkness, breaching it. She saw at once that the frame had been moved from the centre of the room; pushed back to one side, leaving only an open space of carpet and the edge of the bed.

She stepped inside, hearing it clearly now – a regular pattern of breathing. At first it seemed single, but then she discerned its doubleness. Frowning, she moved closer, peering into the darkness.

Her voice was a whisper. ‘Ben? Ben...? It’s me. Catherine.’

She knelt, reaching out to touch him, then pulled her hand back sharply. The hair...

The girl rolled over and looked up at her, her eyes dark, unfocused from sleep. Beside her Ben grunted softly and nuzzled closer, his right arm stretched out across her stomach, his hand cradling her breast.

Catherine’s breath caught in her throat.
Kuan Yin! His sister!

Meg sighed, then turned her face towards the other girl. ‘Ben?’ she asked drowsily, not properly awake, one hand scratching lazily at the dark bush of her sex.

Catherine stood, the strength suddenly gone from her legs, a tiny moan of pain escaping her lips. She could see now how their limbs were entwined, how their bodies glistened with the sweat of lovemaking.

‘I...’ she began, but the words were swallowed back. There was nothing more to say. Nothing now but to get out and try to live with what she’d seen. Slowly she began to back away.

Meg lifted her head slightly, trying to make out who it was. ‘Ben?’

Catherine’s head jerked back, as if she had no control of it, and banged against the panel behind her. Then she turned and, fumbling with the door, stumbled out – out into the harsh light of the living room – then fell against the table. She went down, scattering the empty glasses, then lay there a moment, her forehead pressed against the table’s leg.

She heard the panel slide back and turned quickly, getting up, wiping her hand across her face. It was Ben. He put his hand out to her, but she knocked it away, her teeth bared like a cornered animal.

‘You bastard...’ she whimpered. ‘You...’

But she could only shake her head, her face a mask of grief and bitter disappointment.

He lowered his hand and let his head fall. It was an awkward, painful little gesture, one which Meg, watching from the other room, saw and understood. He hadn’t told her. Catherine hadn’t known how things were between Ben and her.

Meg looked beyond her brother. Catherine had backed against the door. She stood there a moment, trembling, her pale, beautiful face wet with tears, racked with grief and anger. Then she turned and was gone.

And Ben? She looked at him – saw how he stood there, his head fallen forward, all life, all of that glorious intensity of his, suddenly gone from him. He was hurt. She could see how hurt he was. But he would be all right. Once he’d got used to things. And maybe it was best. Yes, maybe it was, in the circumstances.

She went across and put her arms about him, holding him tightly, her breasts pressed against his back, her cheek resting against his neck.

‘It’s all right,’ she said softly, kissing his naked shoulder. ‘It’s going to be all right. I promise you it will. It’s Meg, Ben. I’m here. I won’t leave you. I promise I won’t.’

But when she turned him to face her, his eyes seemed sightless and his cheeks were wet with tears.

‘She’s gone,’ he said brokenly. ‘Don’t you see, Meg? I loved her. I didn’t realize it until now, but I loved her. And now she’s gone.’

It was much later when Meg found the package. She took it through to the living room, then, laying it on the floor, she unwrapped it and knelt there looking down at it.

It was beautiful. There was no doubt about it. Meg had thought no one else capable of seeing it, but it was there, in the girl’s painting – all of Ben’s power; his harsh, uncompromising beauty. She too had seen how mixed, how gentle-fierce he was.

She was about to wrap it again, to hide it away somewhere until they were gone from here, when Ben came out of the bedroom.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, looking across at her, the faintest light of curiosity in his eyes.

She hesitated, then picked it up and turned it towards him.

‘The girl must have left it,’ she said, watching him; seeing how his eyes widened with surprise; how the painting seemed to bring him back to life.

‘Catherine,’ he corrected her, his eyes never leaving the surface of the painting. ‘She had a name, Meg, like you and I. She was real. As real as this.’

He came closer then bent down on his haunches, studying the canvas carefully, reaching out with his fingertips to trace the line and texture of the painting. And all the while she watched him, seeing how his face changed, how pain and wonder and regret flickered one after another across his features.

She looked down. Their lives had been so innocent – so free of all these complications. But now... She raised her head, then looked at him again. He was watching her.

‘What is it?’

She shook her head, not wanting to say. They had both been hurt enough by this. Her words could only make things worse. Yet she had seen the change in him. Had seen that transient, flickering moment in his face when pain had been transmuted into something else – into the seed of some great artifice.

She shuddered, suddenly appalled. Was this all there was for him? This constant trading in of innocence for artifice? This devil’s bargain? Could he not just
be
? Did everything he experienced, every living breath he took, have to be sacrificed on the bleak, unrelenting altar of his art?

She wished there were another answer – another path – for him, but knew it was not so. He could not
be
without first recording his being. Could not be free without first capturing himself. Nor did he have any choice in the matter. He was like Icarus, driven, god-defiant, obsessed by his desire to break free of the element which bound him.

She looked back at him, meeting his eyes.

‘I must go after her, Meg. I must.’

‘You can’t. Don’t you understand? She
saw
us. She’ll not forgive you that.’

‘But this...’ He looked down at the painting again, the pain returned to his face. ‘She saw me, Meg. Saw me clear. As I really am.’

She shivered. ‘I know. But you can’t. It’s too late, Ben. Don’t you see that?’

‘No,’ he said, standing. ‘Not if I go now and beg her to forgive me.’

She let her head fall, suddenly very tired. ‘No, Ben. You
can’t
. Not now.’

‘
Why?
’ his voice was angry now, defiant. ‘Give me one good reason.’

She sighed. It was what she had been unable to say to him earlier – the reason why she had come here a week early – but now it
had
to be said. She looked up at him again, her eyes moist now. ‘It’s Father. He’s ill.’

‘I know—’ he began, but she cut him off.

‘No, Ben. You
don’t
know. The doctors came three days ago. The day I wrote to you.’ There was a faint quaver in her voice now. She had let the painting fall. Now she stood there, facing him, the first tears spilling down her cheeks.