Fifty-Minute Hour (29 page)

‘Seton!' One last cry, though my throat hurts from the shouting and my whole face is stiff with cold.

‘Hi, there!'

I swing round, see not Seton, but a fleshy, grey-haired man wearing immaculate cream trousers and a rather poncy-looking jacket in a designer shade of dung. He's standing on the top step and locking up the gallery, this time from the outside. ‘It's Nial, isn't it?'

I nod, surprised he knows me. I bought all the pictures long-distance, as it were, spoke to women mostly, when I was negotiating prices, or arranging for delivery.

‘I met you at the private view.'

‘Oh, yes?' I don't remember, but then my memory's not good these days.

‘Though you've had your hair cut, haven't you?'

I don't reply. It seems a stupid comment, obvious, even cruel. His own hair is thick, luxuriant, longer than my own; layer-cut by a clearly skilful barber, then lacquered into place – not hacked off with a butcher's knife and left
au naturel
. The grey is quite deceptive. He can't be more than thirty-eight or nine, and his face is tanned, unlined. He looks the sort who jets off to the sun most weekends from October through to March, or spends his lunch-hours reclining on a sun-bed.

‘Were you looking for Amanda?' he asks, pausing on my step.

‘Who?'

‘She said you phoned, weren't happy with the pictures.'

‘It's okay,' I say. ‘They're dead.'

‘They're
what
?'

I'm too weary to explain, sink back on the stone again. He hovers, walks a circle, even puts his bag down, one of those sporty leather holdalls with loads of zips and straps.

‘Are you all right, Nial? You don't look frightfully well.'

‘I'm fine.'

‘Well, can I offer you a lift? I'm heading north to Brondesbury Park.'

‘I live south.'

He seems a touch offended, frisks across the road to a low-slung car the colour of sour cream – this year's registration. ‘Hey, wait!' I yell, as he fumbles for his keys. ‘You could take me to the tube.'

‘Which one?'

‘Any one,' I shrug. It hardly matters really where I go tonight – home, or somewhere else. Or I could spend the whole night sitting in the underground. At least it would be warm.

We never make the tube. After less than half a mile, things start sort of fading, and though I can hear his voice still stabbing through my head (even hear my own voice trying to reply), I'm no longer really there, no longer in my body. I'm aware we're stopping somewhere, but I can't see any details, only trembling shapes and shadows, which keep rippling, blanking out. I can feel my feet on stairs, unsure how to climb them; someone's arm heavy round my waist, trying to heave me up. Then a block of time goes by, which could be only seconds – or a year – and I'm floating somewhere else, somewhere high and thin and frightening I've never been before. When I force my eyes to open, I'm not up at all, but down – lying on a sofa in some large and ritzy pad, with an expensive sheepskin jacket draped across my body. I check my clothes – they're on and judging by my pounding head I am genuinely ill, yet I somehow feel suspicious. Did my mysterious new companion bash me on the head, lure me here for some unsavoury purpose? My eyes aren't properly focused yet, but I can hear him talking at the far end of the room, sounding slightly frantic. Once I've worked the words out, I realise he's trying to phone a doctor, not plotting rape or murder. ‘It's okay,' I call. ‘I'm better.'

‘You
fainted
,' he accuses, fussing to the sofa, the cordless phone still in one plump hand. He makes it sound a crime, as if I've nicked his silver, or peed on his best carpet. We argue for a while about the advantages or otherwise of calling in a doctor, and I eventually convince him that I faint quite often nowadays and it's really nothing serious. I close my eyes as another wave of dizziness interrupts my words, and once things have straightened out again, he's crouching down in front of me, holding out a floral cup and saucer, which I presume is tea until I see the soggy skin on top.

‘I'm sorry, but I loathe hot milk.'

‘Drink it up.'

I'm too weak to disobey him, so I take a grudging sip; realise with relief it's adult milk, not kids' stuff, strongly laced with brandy; more booze than cow, in fact. He even holds the cup for me, stops me spilling half of it down my clothes or neck. I'm still a bit distrustful, not used to what seems kindness. What's in this for him, I wonder, as he offers me his own crisp linen handkerchief to wipe my milky lips? It might also help if I knew his name, knew who the heck he was.

‘Are you sure I'm meant to know you?' I ask, at last, after a slightly awkward silence, which feels worse because the milk's all gone, so we've lost our little ritual. It
is
a bit unusual to land up horizontal being babied by a stranger in a house you've never seen. I'm also feeling slightly fuzzy still, so that everything is blurred around its edges, including names and faces. My stomach feels much better with something comforting inside it, but my head is still a war-zone.

‘Zack Ridley.' He makes a deprecating gesture as he introduces himself, half-grimace, half-mock bow. Both name and gesture seem bogus, unconvincing. I can't imagine any mother christening her son Zachary when he's a mite of two days old. It sounds an adman's name, probably adopted in mid-life to replace boring Mike or John, and then fashionably shortened to suggest zip or matiness. The Ridley's also suspect, doesn't go with Zachary.

He removes my empty cup, sits down on my feet. ‘I run the gallery. I met you twice, in fact – once at the private view and once on Seton's boat.'

I suddenly remember – not the name, the guy himself – though I only met him for a sum total of ten minutes, and when he came to visit Seton on the boat I was naked (and resentful at being interrupted), so I hardly said a word. I was also somewhat jealous of his being friends with Seton; in fact close enough for Seton to stop screwing me and start chatting with some interloper who looked dressed for cocktails rather than a boat. I realise now why he's proffering booze and sympathy. He's wooing me as the wealthy git who bought up his whole show, hopes I'll buy more pictures, sign a second whacking cheque. I glance up at his face, try to take it in this time, so I won't forget again and cut him dead. It worries me, my vagueness. I fear I'm losing brain cells.

His eyes are rather boring blue, that washed-out faded-denim shade, which makes them look as if they've been dumped in a launderette on far too high a programme and left there several days. I suspect he'd dye them if he could, sear them on his sun-bed to a deeper vibrant sapphire. They're narrowed now and frowning as he checks his watch, an ostentatious black one with a butch and spiky strap.

‘Look, I'm in a bit of a spot, Nial. I don't like to leave you here alone, but I promised Seton I'd drop in for half an hour.'

‘
Seton
?' I fling the sheepskin off, no longer cold, no longer even dizzy. So Seton's well, alive – and near.

‘Yup. I'm late already. I said half past five or six.'

‘Let's go, then.' I'm already standing up. Okay, my legs are paper, but I'd run a mile for Seton.

‘You're in no state to go out, my love. I suggest you stay put on that sofa and …'

‘No fear! I've got to see him. That's just where I was going.'

‘Come off it, Nial. You weren't going anywhere, just sitting on my step.'

‘Yes – gathering strength to see him.'

‘But I thought he said …'

I don't hear the rest too clearly. I
do
feel pretty rough, but I've got to somehow get downstairs and back into the car. I don't want to talk – well, dare not – need every ounce of concentration just to keep myself upright in one piece. I pretend there's a programme I'm keen to hear on LBC, so that the radio can help me through the journey, do the talking for me, as it were. A hundred questions are churning up my mind, like a tractor in a flinty field gagging on sharp stones – where's Seton living now, and will he want to see me, or be furious with me for barging in? Why did he go off like that, quit the boat, move house? I suppose it was too cold to spend winter on the marshes, but he could at least have told me. Is he on his own still, or shacked up with Cressida, playing father to her baby?

Something tears inside me when I think of babies, mistresses; a so-called mental pain this time, but still stabbing wrenching sharp. I feel Zachary must notice, but his eyes are on the road. The traffic's pretty clotted, but he drives extremely fast in tiny violent bursts between traffic lights and snarl-ups, as if he can't bear to let his zippy car idle at a tame and tedious thirty. He keeps braking very suddenly, which is bad news for my stomach and surely for his tyres. It seems strange for him and Seton to be friends. They seem so entirely different, not just in type and build and dress (and style of cars and driving), but in their basic aura. Zack's a Persian cat, fed on cream and chicken breast, which have made him soft and slithery; Seton's a wild beast. I suppose it's the old business of opposites attracting (which I've never quite believed. If I met my own opposite, I suspect I'd really hate her, just through jealousy).

Zack brakes again, alarmingly, joins a fretting tailback of impatient rush-hour traffic; pats his hair to make sure it's still in place. ‘When did you last see him, by the way?'

‘Ssh,' I say. ‘I'm listening to this programme.' I'm not sure how much Zack knows, but I'm not keen to tell the world – or him – that I've been discarded and supplanted. The radio interviewer is talking to a girl who's crossed the Gobi Desert on a camel, then spent six months on her own in another smaller desert, with no human company except the passing nomads. She's exactly my own age, but the similarity ends there. She wouldn't pine for Seton after just four endless weeks, nor feel incomplete without a man, a lover. I can see Cressida in my mind again, attached to Seton, skin to skin, like Siamese twins who've been not surgically divided, but sutured even closer, spliced together the whole length of their bodies. I feel so nervous, so rejected, my milk-and-brandy cocktail starts sloshing round my stomach. I only hope I don't throw up before we reach Seton's flat – or créche. God knows where we're going. North London is another (alien) continent as far as I'm concerned, and I'm beginning to feel uprooted as we pass dreary council houses sulking in the dark, or graffitied rain-stained tower blocks. This isn't Seton country. I connect him now with water and wide skies.

‘Nearly there,' says Zack, as if he's read my thoughts, and flashing me a salesman's smile, which displays his white and well-crowned teeth, but fails to reach his eyes. ‘Amanda told me you don't drive. I suppose you get a taxi when you go to see him, do you?'

‘Yes,' I lie, still queasy. The guy must think I'm loaded if he imagines I take taxis from my own south London pad to Seton's foreign north one. I'm cramped up really close to him in his sporty sprat-sized car, breathing the same ounce of gasping air, yet we're still complete and utter strangers to each other. He knows nothing about me except lies – I'm Seton's current girlfriend, I'm rich, I'm into art.

‘And how about your camel?' the interviewer asks. ‘Did you develop a real bond with him?'

‘
Her
,' the girl says, in her strident sun-parched voice.

I try to keep my thoughts on camels' gender. I suppose they all seem female in a way, with those great humps sticking up from them. Perhaps Seton left me because he didn't like my breasts. Cressida's are larger – impressive camel-breasts.

Zack signals left, draws up in a waste of concrete, flanked by Portakabins. Has Seton moved to half a Portakabin, instead of half a boat? No, we're walking the other way, towards a huge and faceless building which seems to scream ‘Keep Out'. I wish I could obey it, race back to my bedsit. I don't like what I see; not just the brute stone walls and rows of glaring windows, but all the bossy notices, the waiting panting ambulance. One wing is lost in scaffolding and a stretch of roof is covered with tarpaulin, as if the building's had an accident and is still convalescent, shaky. They've cut out any frills or softening touches – no curtains at the window or welcome at the door. This is not a home; it's a Dickensian institution where you expect the smell of poverty and soup. It smells of nothing, actually – just heat. The fug slaps us in the face as we enter the grim foyer with its stern and scowling portraits of sadistic-looking benefactors. The ancient parquet floor has been overlaid with squiggle-patterned lino, which doesn't fit the corners, reveals odd-shaped strips of polished wood, like fossils from a former (gracious) age. The lino seems to tremble as we tread it – I have to hug the wall to keep from falling.

‘Are you all right, Nial?'

‘Fine.'

‘You don't look fine to me.' The salesman's smile again. I suppose he hopes I won't peg out until I've bought up his next show.

I keep grinning twinkling cheerful as we drag on down a corridor with a different patterned lino and shiny turquoise walls. Of
course
I'm fine, and not at all surprised that Seton's in a hospital. Of course he told me he was ill. Sudden, was it? Serious? Appendicitis? Heart attack? Yes, sure I know the way. I've been visiting each evening, sitting by his bed with grapes and Lucozade. I'm his girlfriend, aren't I, his mistress and his shipmate? ‘Sorry, darling, I forgot the grapes this evening; had a little accident en route – no, nothing serious, just a bit of trouble with my head. Yes, it
is
still rather painful, spreading to my chest now, difficult to breathe, fierce pain in my ribs …' My steps are faltering. Can I face a ward the way I feel – tubes and drips and bedpans, the smell of disinfectant, Seton scarred or cut about, Seton in pyjamas when he always wore his clothes to bed? I pause a moment, pretend to ease my shoe. You're not allowed to flag here. Everyone looks busy: nurses striding past us with trays or notes or folders; harsh fluorescent striplights glaring overhead; a porter disturbing the whole corridor with his rattling clanking trolley.