Ivory (19 page)

“
Such relationships have a different value and meaning to
Ivory. Remember her lifestyle; passion and lust is part of her
daily life.”

“
That’s different.”

“
You may believe so, but she will not stay with you, she will
always come back to me.”

Martin
considered what Ebony said, and remembered guiltily that he had
deadlocked the front door that morning, as was his habit when he
left the house, he realised instantly that he had locked Ivory in
the house and there had been a moment of indecision, but the
anguish had not been strong enough for him to walk back down the
path to unlock it. “Why does she always come back to you?”

“
She is my ward. I gave her everything she has and she has
been a good companion to me. We care deeply for each
other.”

“
But the work that she does?”

“
Pains me deeply, but she has a choice in all that she does.
She has a future through me, Mr Roberts.”

“
But, what kind of future does she have?”

“
It is very noble of you to believe that you can be her
saviour, but you can not rescue someone that does not need to be
saved. It is however, insulting that you believe she needs to be
saved from a lifestyle that is her choice.”

Martin bowed his head, he had no reason to assume she was
enslaved to prostitution, and he had seen how Ivory could handle
herself with King and in the attack the previous night, part of him
doubted she would have needed Richard or himself. “My intention is
not
Pygmalion.
”

“
When she no longer needs to do what she does, she will leave
that life behind her. I have a second home in the countryside that
she has always enjoyed staying in, and she will live there with a
companion. Someone that is her missing half, someone that will
complete her and give her everything she needs.”

“
It sounds fancifully perfect.” Ebony did not elaborate. “She
already has someone?” Martin asked soberly.

“
Not yet, but she will.”

“
Plans change. She can’t live her life in waiting. How do you
know that she won’t find happiness with me? She might not need the
dream you are offering her.”

“
It is her future Mr Roberts. She has a destiny, something
your love will not stop. Even gods tremble in the wake of
fate.”

“
I don’t much believe in destiny.”

“
I sense as much, for you have a dark future that you do not
seem aware of.”

“
Is that a threat?”

“
A warning: the passion Ivory awakens in men leads to lust.
Corruption. Death.”

“
Pathetic! You sound like a Victorian moralist. I can admit
that I have let my marital relationship fall apart because of my
interest in Ivory. Call that corruption if you like, but Ivory was
a catalyst for a general dissatisfaction that I had with my wife
and the life I was leading. Meeting Ivory has simply spurred on
changes that have been inevitable.”

“
Inevitable? Is that not another word for fate?” Sensing
Martin’s flare of anger, and hearing him rise to his feet, Ebony
left his seat and flagged the air before him to placate him. “I
bear you no malice Mr Roberts. The warning is intended as just
that. Your actions will determine the consequence. I do not know
where you live, so I am not in the position to bring Ivory back to
me, but you are not in the position to stop Ivory returning. Let us
watch what unfolds.”

“
Like you say, it is Ivory’s choice. I am just trying to keep
her safe.” Martin nodded curtly, not considering or caring that the
gesture was wasted on Ebony, and announced he was leaving as he had
to get to work. He stalked out of the lounge and down the hall and
then hesitated at the front door. The Great Mephisto’s flat hand,
which Martin was sure had been empty on the way in, had one of the
tarot cards laid on top of it. The card slid from the hand into a
shoot and appeared in a tarnished scoop screwed to the front of the
machine. Bewildered by the action of the dead machine, Martin
briefly studied the glossy angular face of the wooden magician,
half expecting one of its bulbous cartoon eyes to wink at him.
Glancing around to ensure that Ebony was unaware of what had just
happened, he snatched the card from the scoop and hurried out, with
a sense that the balance of power had somehow shifted back to
Ebony.

Chapter
Sixteen

The tarot card was labelled
The
Tower
. Martin didn’t know what it meant
but the colourful image was of a lightning bolt shearing down
through a tower, causing half of it to crumble into the outline of
a man decaying into rubble. It seemed to resonate with King’s,
Ebony’s, Richard’s, and his father’s stark warnings that still
haunted his consciousness. He would have moments where their voices
and prophecies would draw him away from whatever he was doing and
he would find himself trembling, sick to his stomach at what he had
done. However, Ivory was a contradiction to their warnings and an
antidote to the way he felt. Her siren smile, her touch, and her
passion fuelled the desires he no longer had to hide or restrain,
and their relationship satisfied him wholesomely and fully,
soothing his worries and fears around his descent. He knew that he
had been naïve in his excuses for his pursuit of Ivory,
rediscovering his art was simply an unexpected result. His pursuit
of her had ended his marriage and turned his world upside down, he
had lost everything that should have been most important to him,
but her presence and the fact that she was still with him gave him
justification in following the path he had taken. He had found love
and passion and lust, and it was real and it made him feel alive
again.

Over the last
three days Martin had returned from work and Ivory had been waiting
dutifully for him in his house, she hadn’t left him as Ebony had
expected, although realistically she couldn’t have left if she had
wanted to as the only window that remained unlocked (because Martin
couldn’t find the key for it), was the one in the kitchen and that
was a tall narrow opener that wasn’t big enough to climb through.
If she had attempted to leave she would have surely appeared
distressed or defensive upon his return, but she appeared content,
sitting in exactly the same place on the sofa in the lounge as when
he left her in the mornings. It had, however, not stopped him from
repeating what had originally been a mistake, and deadlocked the
front door when he left in the mornings.

For the first
evening and morning Ivory headed to the door and waited to be
allowed out, and through a few questions he understood that she
wanted to return to Arven Road, again he reminded her of the
potential danger, stressed that he cared for her and offered her
the money she would miss by not going, she accepted and stayed.
Stayed safe. Martin had begun leaving her payment on the kitchen
table and it would be gone when he returned. She no longer waited
to be let out, but accepted that he was keeping her safe. He knew
Ebony would say that he was paying her like any other customer she
might have encountered, but he decided that although he was in
effect buying her time, he was not paying for her body or her
passion, that, Martin had decided, she gave him willingly. He was
paying for her time so that she could experience something other
than the brief encounters in undignified places, a change of
environment and lifestyle that could make her realise there were
other ways of living her life. Ivory had saved him from King and he
had saved her from the scavenging pimps. Those kinds of acts drew
people closer to each other and created bonds. On the simplest
level they owed each other something deeper than love; their
lives.

He was a
little uncomfortable with the sex. Over the years he had grown used
to Jenny’s body and her to his and they had matured together, both
accepting the unflattering changes to their figures and features
that age and contentment had brought. With Ivory possibly twenty
years his junior he was conscious of himself, his face was slack
with years of expression and he was flabby and out of shape from
comfortable living and his taste for cakes. He usually maintained a
stubbly beard due to a lack of interest in his appearance and
hardly ever feeling the motivation to shave. He had shaved it off
this morning though. Worried it would give Ivory rashes, and in the
hope it might make him look younger.

He and Jenny
had found their routine between the sheets and they hadn’t strayed
from it in years, with Ivory sex was an adventure again and her
eagerness was infectious. When he had been inside her it had felt
fantastic, taking him back to when he had first discovered sex, but
he had experienced a moment where he was sickened by how his podgy
clammy stomach pressed against her tight hot flat abdomen. The
sensations of their passion had soon distracted him from dwelling
on such details, but afterwards he had reasoned that he was no
nineteen-year old lad, and he shouldn’t try to aspire to be what he
wasn’t as Ivory obviously liked him the way he was.

Martin had
grown used to Ivory’s limited range of responses in conversation,
and had grown comfortable within the shared monologues he had with
her. Her inability to initiate conversation or to contribute to any
significant degree meant that the conversation never strayed from
topics that Martin liked to talk about, and this nurtured within
him the sense that Ivory shared many of Martin’s interests and
added to their connection. However, that had not distracted from
Martin’s frustration at knowing he wouldn’t have any satisfying
answers to the questions he had since Ebony had spoken mysteriously
of Ivory’s future.

There was
something else that puzzled Martin, Ivory had been in exactly the
same seat and position when he returned home and nothing in the
house had the appearance of being disturbed. As far as he could
tell she hadn’t been to the cupboards or fridge for food. In fact
she hadn’t accepted any offer of food or drink since he had brought
her back to his house. He hadn’t actually seen her eat or drink
anything since he had met her. He guessed it was possible that she
had made herself something to eat and washed up after herself and
he hadn’t noticed the missing food. He was a little concerned about
her mental capacity, maybe Ebony took far more care of her than
Martin had appreciated, and perhaps Ivory needed prompting to eat
and drink. He had made a note to keep an eye on the food in the
house and see if she was eating while he was out. He didn’t want
her to become malnourished. Although he was sure she couldn’t go
without food or drink of some sort for three days.

The idea that
she appeared to have not moved from where he had last seen her, as
if she had switched off like a machine in his absence, aroused a
suspicion within him. He often remembered the boys getting up to
mischief when he was out of the room and he had developed a sense
for this over time. Whenever he returned he would find one or both
of his children sitting back where he had left them, but looking
decidedly guilty. Although there hadn’t been any flicker of emotion
in Ivory’s face that betrayed her, only the dawning of a smile at
his return, he couldn’t shake the connection in his head and the
feeling of misgiving that came with it. A dread anxiety hunched
down low in the cover of his everyday thoughts and feelings of
comfort, ready to pounce and overpower him.

Martin shook
his keys from the lock and struggled through the door with his
large art folder under his arm and his bag in his hand. He had not
seen Richard since the skirmish at Arven Road. A quick check of the
computer register had showed that he had not attended any lectures
or studio sessions. Martin had tracked down Richard’s blonde lover,
Shaun, in the corridors between lectures but the boy bluntly
explained that Richard had ended their relationship by text that
morning after several days of cooling him off. The boy’s mood
softened after his disclosure and he had reassured Martin that
despite some cuts and bruises Richard was okay. It was obvious that
the boy didn’t know the real cause of Richard’s injuries, but he
added that the last time he had seen Richard was two days previous,
when he had seen him buying a large batch of sketching and painting
materials. This was curious in itself, but Richard had not answered
Martin’s phone calls or texts. Despite Martin’s wariness of
Richards’s judgement he planned on persisting in trying to contact
him to ensure that he was indeed okay.

He called into
the hallway and announced his surprise return. He had decided to
take his planning period as sick leave and had come home during
lunch time. He allowed his folder to drop to the floor against the
wall and propped his bag against it, locked the door and deposited
his keys on the stump of the newel post. He started talking to
Ivory from the hallway as he made his way to the lounge shrugging
his coat off as he walked.

“
I was thinking we could get takeout or something special for
tonight…” he would make sure she ate something. “I don’t want to
risk going out…” His sweater bunched up in the sleeves of his coat
turning it into a form of straight jacket. Distracted by a strange
tingling sense that he was alone, he nudged the door to the lounge
open with his foot. “I know you probably think I am being over
cautious…”

He was talking
to himself.

The seat was
depressed from where he had left Ivory that morning but she was not
in it. The room was empty except for her twin that haunted him from
the wall, like a memory of her presence. He stood, his expression
frozen, his mouth caught on the hook of his last word, his arms
still pinned to his side by his coat sleeves, a picture of
dumbfounded stupidity. His stomach descended into a sickening
free-fall. He wandered into the kitchen, back into the hall and up
the stairs and checked each bedroom in turn until he reached the
loft studio. He returned to the hallway and realised he was still
in his straight jacket and frantically thrashed his arms in a
tantrum until he was free of his coat. Panting for breath he stared
at his keys on the newel post. All the doors and windows were
locked and there was no way out of the house, it just didn’t make
sense. His mind had been clinging onto hope as he had searched the
house, but it now slipped and tumbled after his gut and he
descended into panic.