Ivory (8 page)

The door was
flung open, slamming it against the wall of the hall. A man in his
late twenties, with thick and powerful limbs filled the doorway.
Hard dark eyes, sunken into grey hollows beneath a thick brow,
twitched furtively between Candy and Martin. His skin was pale and
clammy looking, his hair, receding at his temples was cropped close
to his head. Verging on being a skin-head, and with baggy hooded
grey jogging suit hanging from his sturdy frame he was the picture
of a chav thug.

A shadowy
shape of a man flashed into Martin’s mind from the accident and
this man that stood before him filled in the details of the cookie
cutter shadow in his memory. He was sure it was the man who had
chased Ivory into the street.

“
What the
fuck
do you want?” he spat.

Martin
wondered if he would end up running for his life in the same way
that Ivory had seemed to be.

“
It’s not what I want, it’s what he wants.” Candy tossed a
thumb in Martin’s direction and blew a slug of smoke over her
shoulder in the opposite direction.

“
Look mate, I don’t have any blokes or kiddies for rent. So
why don’t you be content with Candy, use your imagination, fuck her
then give her our money.”

Candy’s face
darkened under King’s dismissal. “He doesn’t want that. He wants to
speak to Ivory.”

“
Speak?” King’s eyes glazed with suspicion before his thuggish
face screwed up and his lips puckered around his prominent
yellowing front teeth. “Why?” he gobbed.

Martin got a
hold of his fear and cut in before Candy could talk for him. “I’m
an artist I wanted to make her a proposition to sit for me.”

Martin had
been sure he would be turned away and threatened into not
returning. King hung in the doorway, seemingly suspended in
consideration. To Martin’s surprise and sudden distress, King
stepped aside and offered him entry. A narrow steep staircase of
tattered carpet reached up into the dark landing of the first floor
flat. For the second time in over a year Martin wanted the comfort
of his home and family, but this time he was terrified that he
would not be returning to it.

Stumbling up
the stairs, shamed that his uncoordinated legs so quickly gave away
his nerves, he found his way through the gloom of the landing to a
door pointed at by King. The lounge was dominated by a worn brown
couch and a large glass coffee table with a chrome tubular frame.
The wallpaper was patterned by interconnected geometric shapes. The
odd strip was hanging from the walls or completely missing and from
its grubby nicotine discoloured appearance he guessed it had been
up since the seventies. Ivory was not there.

Martin took
the proffered space on the sofa. Its soft and exhausted seat forced
him to slump into it and he shuffled forward, struggling to perch
on the edge, concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get up quickly
should he need to. Candy sat next to him and relaxed into the sofa
and made herself comfortable. He was sure his unease was
palpable.

The only
sources of light in the room came from an orange bulb in a lamp
tucked beside the sofa that cast thick shadows up on to the
ceiling, and a lava lamp on the mantelpiece that created a shifting
red glow. King’s reflection in the coffee table was a shadowy
orange and red flamed Faustian devil trapped in the glass. King
poured a dash of whiskey into a glass, clacked it heavily down on
the table and slid the meagre measure over to Martin. Martin took
it in his hand but didn’t drink.

“
Well?” King prompted.

“
Is Ivory here?” Martin said carefully. This was a man he did
not want to provoke.

King dropped onto an equally worn looking armchair. Martin
was glad King was now seated and not towering over him and
dominating the room. “I know what you want, but you haven’t told me
why yet.” Candy struggled up from the sofa and King shot a glance
in her direction as if levelling a gun to halt her. “Where do you
think
you
are
going?”

She ignored
him and strode out to the hallway. “Powder my nose,” she called
back with a dismissive don’t-take-that-tone-with-me caution.

“
I don’t want to sleep with Ivory.” Martin suddenly found
King’s cruel face glaring back at him.

“
You don’t have to do anything conventional like that,” King
cut in aggressively. “Ivory is talented. Or she can dress up for
you, give you a show and watch you while you do a bit of D.I.Y. She
can…”

“
No, no, no.” Martin groaned abruptly, sickened by the
disgusting man, silencing him with waves of his hand. Martin didn’t
want to hear more. He didn’t want to think about the sordid world
that Ivory’s beauty was a part of. He clenched his eyes shut and
shook his head trying to shake himself free of that reality. “I’m a
painter, I want to paint her,” he explained.

“
Just to sit?”

“
Yes.” The answer came quick.

King’s face
blanked, seemingly unsure what emotion to express. He leaned
forward and nodded knowingly. A euphemistic smile crept across
King’s lips in a slow corruption. It disgusted Martin. The hidden
thoughts that spawned it seemed black and poisonous.

“
I know where you are coming from. She’s an unusual beauty
isn’t she?”

It was all
Martin could do but nod. Relieved his outburst hadn’t provoked
King.

“
I’m an artist myself.” King announced, the edge of his voice
subsiding into an empty honesty. He reached up to a shelf behind
him and pulled down a folder from the clutter. He gripped it in his
hands and studied it for a moment, seemingly considering whether to
share it with Martin. “I’m a photographer, really.
I’m like you.
I see the
look in your eyes; mildly interested in life. Surrounded with
mundane people, and…” King’s words trailed into whisper then his
voice flared and startled Martin. “BANG!”

Martin
recoiled, not just from King’s sudden rise in volume but from what
he said. Martin was nothing like King.

King rounded the table and sat next to him. He handed Martin
his portfolio. “She comes into your life. She
is
beauty. Nothing else like her.
She gets under your skin. She’s like a drug.” King leaned close
enough for martin to feel his hot, whiskey-tainted breath. “We’re
artists. Beauty is our passion. We are the same, you and
I…”

Martin tried
to ignore the comparison and opened the portfolio. A moody black
and white shot of Ivory greeted him. She was over lit, causing the
details of her face to disappear under the glow, or distort with
the strength of the light, but the dark eyes made her recognisable.
Yet he found no salvation in seeing her again, her pose and the
content of the image made him want to weep or be sick, but his
reaction was so sudden and violent his body didn’t know which.

Candy closed
the bathroom door behind her but lingered on the landing. Something
was niggling at her. Ivory. The sickening ball of twisted emotions
that churned in her gut was a familiar sensation that festered
within her whenever she thought of Ivory. There were three other
doors on the landing. There was only the kitchen and the bedroom
where Ivory could be. The compound knot of feelings loosened and
resentment tangled with her insides. Ivory was not going to be in
the kitchen.

How many nights had Ivory been up here while the other girls
worked the street? He was a dog on heat around her. Candy had taken
advantage of the rare invite, but she wouldn’t have abused it,
wouldn’t have wanted to alienate the other girls. The jealousy
writhed along the floor of her gut. It was hard for Candy to
suppress it. It was a competitive business and Ivory always got
work. Sometimes a punter would wait for Ivory to be finished with
another punter. Sloppy seconds was something most blokes seemed to
be squeamish about. It was rumoured that she charged three,
sometimes four times the going rate
a
nd
the
punters paid.
Just how much money had
Ivory earned?
Yet there was something
about Ivory’s beauty and her unusualness that was seductive. She
shrugged off those thoughts as they threatened to completely
unravel the ball of feelings within her regarding Ivory. She was
frightened what might be in there, but whatever it was made her
insecure and loathe herself.

Ivory was a
freak, she resolved. Fifty years ago she would have been in an
American carnival. A hundred years ago she would have been in John
Merrick’s company instead of being paid fortunes for fucks.

There was a
presence in her mind, a small pressure like the mild claustrophobia
she experienced when there was a storm coming. She had a sense that
she wasn’t alone. Candy turned and was startled to see Ivory
standing sentinel in the doorway of the bedroom. Ivory stared
blankly at Candy, her eyes like holes in her face leading into the
blackness of the room behind her. Candy’s bunched cheeks burned
guiltily like red coals, as if she had been wearing her thoughts
for Ivory to see. “Hi!” She blurted, searching for something to
say. Her giggly bubbly ‘one-of-the-girls’ facades sprung up in
defence. “I’ve got someone here who really wants to see you.”

“
I found the face the hardest aspect to capture. Motion blur
or over exposure, I could never get the lighting right, her skin is
so white the flash just ignites her or the lights just glare off
her. I am working on it though.”

Martin closed
the folder after leafing through only a dozen images. He couldn’t
face anymore of the crude eroticism or perverse sex captured in the
gritty angry stills. King had taken something beautiful and defiled
it. Martin could taste the burning bile of his disgust while his
companion beamed like a grotesque perverted gargoyle of a child
proud of his work and searching for approval.

Martin was
spared the discomfort of having to decide how to comment since King
was distracted by Candy flouncing into the room. Her arm was draped
around Ivory’s shoulder. Martin did a second-take as he realised
she was there. He was suddenly unprepared to see her. He was unsure
of what to say to her and how she would respond to him reappearing
in her life.

King’s face
twisted up and set that way. Seemingly angry that he and Martin had
been disturbed from their talk of ‘art’ or that his power over
access to Ivory had been frustrated by Candy. His face slackened
abruptly as he snatched away whatever it was that he had been
feeling like toys he didn’t want anyone else to play with. “Hello,
honey.” The voice was soft and sensitive and uncharacteristic for
this mostly angry man.

Ivory looked
at King with a dispassionate blank stare over a flicker of
recognition as she scrutinized Martin. Martin offered her a warm,
friendly smile in return and managed a soft but briefly stammering
“Hello.”

She tilted her
head to one side in what appeared to be a motion of curiosity,
although a frown did not disturb her featureless skin. There was no
blemish to her face, which was strange because he was sure there
should be bruising and a scar of some description from the
accident. He was quickly distracted from his realisation by her
fragile smile warming her face. It was as ambiguous as it had been
in the hospital. If then it had been one of pleasant surprise at
him waiting to see how she was after the accident, then this time
it could only be a further demonstration of her surprise. He dared
to imagine that it was a smile of pleasant recognition.

King stood hastily, and jigged briefly in space, unsure how
to break Martin and Ivory’s shared moment. His sentences came in
quick lunges. “Babe, this guy came to see you. He would like to
paint you. He is like me,
an
artist.
”

The smile had
gone. It had been so faintly conceived that Martin studied her for
a moment to check, but it had definitely melted from King’s
explanation. Martin knew what had happened, he didn’t need to see
the hesitant journeys her glittering black eyes made between King
and Martin to understand her uncertainty. King’s folder was
suddenly hot in his hands and he shoved it roughly onto the table.
He jumped to his feet, desperate to snatch himself away from being
associated and compared with King.

“
No, actually. Not like that. Not like…” Martin didn’t need to
say ‘King’, his distressed glance at him as he stumbled over
phrasing his outburst gave him away. “I am an artist. I’m a
lecturer at a university and an artist. I paint landscapes,
portraits. I have had work in galleries. Had some successes. I’m
professional. Legitimate. I… paint… I paint beauty… not...” Again
he didn’t need to speak as his eyes met Ivory’s over King’s
portfolio.

King turned a savage look on Martin. Mad dog eyes. Mouth taut
with spite and curled back from teeth gnashed together. He hooked
Ivory in one powerful arm and snatched her close. “What’s
this?
Criticism?
”
King’s brow bunched into a hard ledge over the dark hollows of his
eyes, while his face twisted around his nose in a sneer. “Funny,
because, if you want to paint her, you paint
me
too. The two of us together. We
come as a pair, see?” He turned to Ivory. “Isn’t that
right?”

Ivory simply
stared back into his wild face. No reaction. Martin didn’t
understand how she did not react to the terrible anger in King’s
face.

“
Sorry? I didn’t hear that,” King mocked. “See. She doesn’t
object. I guess we will see how much of an artist you are. You can
try and turn
my
‘ugliness’ into
your
‘
beauty’.”