Keeping the World Away (26 page)

‘That would be a pity.’

She gave a derisive little laugh. ‘Oh, I’m sure it would,’ she said, ‘you must think I’m quite mad.’

‘Not mad, no. Distressed. I’m not sure why. Is it really about art? I don’t think so, somehow.’

‘Goodbye. Thank you. Sorry.’ And she was gone.

*

Trying to describe the little painting later was hard. Conrad struggled to recall every detail of it, but he knew the details were not what mattered. The pine table, the wickerwork chair, were almost standard features of so many paintings, and the attic itself was a cliché of the artistic way of life. It was, he told his wife Ginny, more the atmosphere that had captured him. There had been an
air
of mystery in spite of the obvious props, a feeling that there was a life outside the painting which was being hinted at. Time, he said, seemed to be suspended, frozen almost, but why that should feel so significant he did not know. He wished he could show the painting to her, see if she could fathom the emotion he had felt there. Already, he was forgetting the nature of the bleached palette used, and the exact way in which the tiny brushstrokes – maybe a brush as fine as 00 – had been applied. ‘There was something vulnerable there,’ he said. ‘It was a calm, tranquil scene but there was something unsettling about it.’

‘Same as that young woman,’ Ginny commented, ‘Stella, isn’t it? The woman who brought it?’

Conrad nodded. He didn’t really want to think about Stella.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Haven’t the faintest idea. I hardly know her, you know that.’

‘She’s pretty but pathetic.’

‘Yes, she is.’

They left it at that.

*

Stella didn’t go straight home. She hung around in the town for an hour, lurking in Holy Trinity Church, looking aimlessly in shop-windows, reading the newspapers in the library. She bought an orange to eat. Passing the station, she went and sat on a bench, as though waiting for a train, and ate the orange, putting the peel neatly in her bag. She could get on a train, any train, see where it would take her, but if she didn’t go home soon, Alan would start to worry. Alan, Alan, Alan. She was always putting him first. When she thought of him it was always as poor Alan, the man who had suffered so much and to whom she was devoted. But more and more this devotion made her resentful – she was devoted, but didn’t want to be. Devotion was not love. What was love, then? Angrily, she got up from the bench as a train came in, and left the station. She’d tricked herself. Tricked herself twice. Tricked herself into believing that tenderness and compassion and admiration all swept into one equalled love. Tricked herself into thinking she could be an artist when she had neither the talent
nor
the dedication. What was it she had said to Conrad? That she couldn’t get into her paintings what she was feeling. How pretentious. How lucky she couldn’t get her feelings into them, because they were ugly, murderous. She didn’t want to be with Alan. She didn’t even want to be in Cornwall.

There, she’d said it to herself. The relief was instant but didn’t last long. Leaving Alan was impossible, both emotionally and practically. He would never survive her desertion. He would kill himself. He’d said this often enough, and he’d meant it. And she had no money and nowhere to go. Except home, to her mother, to Tenby. What a mess she’d got herself into and must now get herself out of. Bit by bit. Start nursing again, earn money. Alan would accept that. All she needed to do was confess that she had deluded herself. Now and again she might like to try her hand at painting but two years of doing nothing else had shown her there was no real satisfaction there, only sometimes a fleeting pleasure. He’d understand that, maybe be glad. But he wouldn’t like her returning to nursing. It would take her away from him, and he would worry that she might meet someone just as she had met him, and then worry some more that this would be a ‘real’ man.

Walking home, she allowed that he might very well be right. Looking after people was what she had always done. Perhaps what she needed was the life hinted at in the painting she was carrying home – a serene life, selfish, untroubled by having to consider others, and without passion. But then there was no passion in her life as it was. If, as Alan feared, a ‘real’ man were to come into her life, he would bring passion. What effect this would have on her she no longer knew. Her body felt dead. Did it need sex to make it feel alive? It was a frightening thought which she wanted to reject. No sex since Emlyn was killed. Years of nothing. But that was not true – some of those years had been full of love, Alan’s love. He had held her tight, embraced her fiercely, put into his caresses and kisses his overpowering love for her but there had been no consummation of their love. She felt, all the time, on the brink of achieving an ecstasy and relief that never arrived,
and
it was painful. But she would never tell him so: she was ashamed of her longing, and that it should matter. Love, she had
love
.

He was waiting for her at the end of the track, leaning on his stick. ‘Thought I’d go for a walk,’ he said, as though apologising. ‘Didn’t get far.’

‘You should rest the leg today after yesterday.’

‘The leg? Sounds as if it has nothing to do with me,
the
leg.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Indeed, I do. So? What did the great Conrad think?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Haven’t you been to him?’

‘Yes. I’ve no idea what he thought.’

He sighed heavily. ‘I’ll rephrase it then: did you show him your paintings and did he agree to try to sell them?’

‘Yes, and yes.’

‘Well then, good. He liked them.’

She didn’t reply. Often, they had this kind of tennis-match dialogue – she played the game knowingly just as Alan did and yet both of them professed to hate it. She let him limp behind her, not bothering to slow to his pace. There was an odd smell in the cottage which it took her a moment or two to identify. As Alan came in, she said, quite sharply, ‘Embrocation does no good, you know that.’

‘It does if you massage it into my knee.’

‘Alan, it does not, it can’t. And when
you
put it on you just rub your knee, you don’t even massage it.’

‘But you weren’t here, and it was damned painful. Will you do it now? Please. I’ve been waiting for you to do it … I soon gave up trying myself.’

‘Get on the table, then,’ she said, curtly, ‘but I’ve told you, it does no good. It’s a waste of your time and mine.’

‘
Time
we’ve got,’ he said, almost in a whisper.

She warmed her hands at the fire first while he clambered onto the kitchen table, a stout old pine table, too big for their needs, but it had been there when they bought the cottage and they’d
liked
it. He’d taken his trousers off and lay in his shirt, the tails of it covering his thighs.

‘Bend the knee up slightly,’ she ordered, and then, when he lifted it too far, ‘No, only slightly. You know how to do it.’ He had his eyes closed, to her relief, and lay with his arms folded behind his head, forming a pillow. Slowly, she began the massage, putting all her weight behind the movement, kneading the flesh just above the knee and just below it. She didn’t even know the proper procedure, it was simply a technique she’d made up, but Alan had absolute faith in its beneficial effect, and it did no harm. It did not, though, have the other effect, the one he wanted. She knew perfectly well what this massage was about, and what he hoped for. His leg was warm, the flesh round his injured knee surprisingly lumpy. She pressed all over with the palms of her hands, trying to rotate the muscle. He asked her to go higher, saying the worst of the pain was above the knee, but she knew he was lying. She would not do what he wanted her to do. She couldn’t. After a mere five minutes she said, ‘There. Enough.’

‘Will you do my neck and my back now?’

‘No.’

‘Please?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know how to do it properly, and I don’t feel like doing it.’

‘Why? Can’t you bear to touch me?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’

‘That’s it, isn’t it? You can’t bear to touch me. I repel you.’

‘Alan, stop it. You’re being childish. I can’t be bothered with this.’

‘That’s obvious. You can’t be bothered with me, you mean.’

‘Not when you’re in this mood.’

‘It’s you who is in a mood.’

‘All right, maybe I am, so leave me alone.’

‘But I want to know what’s put you in this sulk …’

‘Sulk? I’m not sulking, I didn’t say I was
sulking
.’

‘That’s what it looks like. You should see your face, the minute I saw you, your face, set in an absolute sulk. I thought maybe boss Conrad hadn’t taken your paintings.’

‘Boss Conrad? Whatever do you mean?’

‘Well, he is your boss, in a way.’

‘He certainly is not. I don’t work for him. I never have done, I’m not his employee.’

‘You’d like to work for him, though, wouldn’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Fibber.’

‘Alan,
stop it
! Or else I’m going into the hut and I’ll stay there.’

She should say it now, tell him that she wasn’t just going to her studio but that she was leaving altogether. It was so tempting. Into her head flashed an image of herself packing a bag and storming out to the station with Alan weeping and shouting in the background. She stood still, relishing the vision, and then collected herself. The room was very quiet. Alan hadn’t got down from the table or put his trousers back on. How ludicrous he looked. She found herself smiling without wanting to do so, and all the old affection she had for him came rushing back. She went over to him and slapped his foot lightly. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘get down, get dressed. I’ll make some lunch.’ But he didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. She saw the tears seeping out from under his closed eyelids. She took a deep breath. ‘Alan,’ she said, ‘Alan,’ and kissed him on the cheek. There was no response. Turning away again, she went into the pantry and began heating some soup she’d made. The silence seemed appalling, she couldn’t bear it. Going back through the kitchen into the next room, she put a record on the gramophone, not caring what it was, and when the jazz notes began she felt better. The music filled the cottage and none of her movements could now be heard. She stirred the soup, cut some bread and got ready the bowls and spoons, and was busy. They would eat. This scene would end. They would carry on as normal – they always did. ‘Ready,’ she called, taking the soup through.

He still hadn’t moved, but she saw that his cheeks were dry,
the
tears had stopped. ‘Here,’ she said, and put his bowl down on the table. ‘It’s going to be very difficult to eat lying down and with your eyes shut, but it’s up to you.’ She took her own soup and walked through the cottage and out of the door and perched on the garden wall. It wasn’t warm enough to sit there, and she had taken her coat off, but she was not going to stay in the same room as Alan while he lay there. It felt freer outside, she was glad to be in the open air and ate with enjoyment. The strains of jazz floated outside and she found herself humming. She would have liked to dance. Another picture came into her head, of Alan coming to join her and making her dance with him, his leg improbably better. But she had never danced with him or ever seen him dance, and this image faded quickly. With enormous reluctance she went to take her empty bowl into the kitchen, dreading the sight of Alan still lying prone, the soup uneaten at his side. But he had gone. So had the soup. Relieved, she went to do the washing-up. He must be in the little living room, sitting beside the gramophone, the music soothing him. She would make him some tea and take it to him, and then she would go and lie down, exhausted.

*

Alan, opening the door, had no idea who the man standing there could be, though afterwards he realised he should have identified him instantly. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, Conrad was the sort of man Alan hated and envied, and he was barely polite. ‘Yes?’ he said, expecting to be asked where the road to St Austell lay, so when Conrad said good afternoon and might he speak to Stella, Alan was thrown. They knew nobody. Neither he nor Stella had made any friends. They kept themselves to themselves, spoke only to the postman and the shopkeepers. ‘Stella?’ he queried. ‘Stella,’ Conrad repeated, and then, ‘I sell her paintings.’

‘Oh,’ said Alan, furious to have been so slow and stupid, ‘do you indeed?’

‘I’m Conrad, Conrad Jenkinson, from the pottery.’

‘I see. Well, I’m afraid Stella is asleep.’ It was three in the afternoon. ‘She was tired.’ They were still standing at the door, with
Alan
trying to close it as much as possible behind him, so that his voice would not carry to Stella upstairs. ‘Can I help?’

‘You are?’

Alan frowned. ‘Her husband,’ he said, the lie coming easily because the pretence had gone on so long.

‘Ah,’ Conrad said, ‘I didn’t know she was married, sorry.’

‘She doesn’t wear a ring.’

‘Doesn’t she? I never noticed.’

‘Rings irritate her skin,’ Alan improvised, ‘give her eczema.’

‘Right. Well, if you could tell her I called, and if she’d like to drop in some time I might have some news for her.’

‘What news?’

‘I think I’d like to tell her, if you don’t mind.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? Well, just that … well, I’d just like to tell her.’

‘Is it personal?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Well then, give me the message. I’ll tell her. She’ll want to know why you came.’

He was making the man dislike him, Alan could see that, any fool could. He was being hostile and unfriendly and rude, but he couldn’t help it. It was how he felt, confronted with someone in such glowing health, face unmarked, legs strong, a fine specimen of manhood. Conrad Jenkinson was just as he’d feared. Thank God, Stella hadn’t answered the door. She would have invited him in, made him tea, and it would have been unbearable watching them together. But now the visitor was turning away, an odd superior smile on his face.

‘What’s the message?’ Alan said. ‘What shall I tell her?’