My Tango With Barbara Strozzi (13 page)

I finished the week somehow. It’s nothing I feel like talking about. The group had an end-of-course party
that I didn’t go to. They gave me a bottle of plonk and I left it on the desk where they put it. On the train going home I did some arithmetic: if I didn’t do any more teaching I had enough to live on for seven or eight months. What then? No idea. I trusted that something would come to me; it always had so far.

With that settled I was able to give my attention to Barbara. I closed my eyes and this time her face came to me with its beauty and its sorrow. It was there only for a moment before a shadow fell across it and there was Troy Wallis. There are things in life that compel recognition, things that you know are for you and nobody else. You can’t get around them; you have to go through them or be stopped by them. I remembered how it was when Barbara and I watched
The Rainmaker
, how excited she was when Rudy was about to finish off Kelly’s husband. ‘
Stop!
’ said Kelly. ‘
Give me the bat. You were not here tonight. Go!
’ And when Rudy left, she struck the final blow and Barbara hugged me and kissed me and asked if she could stay the night.

Lovely. But Barbara and I were not in a movie. However appealing the idea of duplicating that scene in real life, there was no practical way of making it happen. I couldn’t see myself walking around with a baseball bat. Too big for a violin case. Double bass? Not exactly a quick-draw thing: Don’t look now, Troy, I have a surprise for you. Barbara as bait? He follows her and I show up with the Louisville Slugger disguised as a French bread, upon which I do it to him before he
does it to me. Right, no problem. Meanwhile there was the six-foot-four reality of him in front of Jimmy Maloney’s like a wall.

I called Barbara as soon as I got back. ‘Sometimes I can see you when I close my eyes and sometimes I can’t,’ I said.

‘That’s how it is with me too,’ she said. ‘I think the trick is not to try. When I look away mentally your face comes to me.’

‘Did I say anything good while I was walking around in your head?’

‘You hummed – tangoes. “La Cumparsa” seemed to be your favourite.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought you knew that one.’

‘Grace Kowalski heard me humming it and she was surprised too.’

‘It was made into a song with an English lyric,’ I said: ‘“For Want of a Star”. “For want of a star a dream had to die, For want of a dream the stars left the sky …” That’s all I remember.’

‘That’s a pretty sad song to carry around in your head.’

‘Yes, it is. I guess sadness is my default setting.’

‘Mine too. Maybe everybody’s. What did I do when I was walking around in
your
head?’

‘You were explaining something with all kinds of gestures but no words – you did it in absolute silence.’

‘What was I explaining?’

‘I never figured it out.’

‘Shall I come to your place this evening?’

‘That would be like rain on parched earth. This time I’ll pick you up at your place and walk you to mine.’

‘Very gentlemanly! Around seven?’ ‘See you then.’

At seven she came out when I knocked and I thought
My
woman! ‘Wow!’ I said. She was wearing a black T-shirt with a large Mickey Mouse in coloured sequins, a little denim skirt with a broad red leather belt slung low on her hips. The skirt was wider than the belt but not much. The rest was bare legs ending in roman sandals with straps halfway up the calf. Looking at her legs I said, ‘Thank you, God.’ She laughed and we kissed. ‘Glad to see me?’ she said.

‘If I were a bell I’d be ringing,’ I answered. ‘Nothing less than champagne will do this evening. We can get it at Waitrose.’ We crossed to the other side of the North End Road and found ourselves face to face with Troy Wallis. As if he’d sprung out of the ground.

He grabbed Barbara by the arms and began to shake her. I moved in and said, ‘No more of that! She’s with me now!’

‘Jesus, Bertha,’ he said, ‘is this the best you can do?’ With his right arm he knocked me down with a backhand blow. Before I could get up he kicked me but I managed to grab his foot and pull. He fell backward and his head hit the pavement, Wham! He lay flat on his back absolutely still with a pool of blood spreading under his head. Barbara was laughing hysterically. ‘Stop!
Give me the bat,’ she said. ‘You were not here tonight. Go!’

I put my arm around her shoulders and urged her to pull herself together. A middle-aged couple had seen the whole thing and they came to where we stood looking down at Troy.

‘I’m a nurse,’ said the woman. She bent down and felt for Troy’s pulse. She shook her head. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. I dialled 999 on my mobile and we stood there waiting for the police and an ambulance to arrive.

Barbara was shaking her head in astonishment. Looking from Troy to me she said, ‘He picked the wrong guy to fuck with – I guess it was bound to happen some time.’

‘You might say it was an occupational hazard in his line of work,’ I said.

‘In movies,’ said Barbara, ‘when a non-violent man kills somebody the way you just did, he turns away and vomits but you didn’t.’

‘Nothing to vomit about, all men are violent – it’s just that not all of us can act it out.’

‘Now that he’s dead I feel sort of dropped. What do we do now, live happily ever after? How do we get from here to what comes next?’

‘We’ll just have to work at it: if we can’t get under it we’ll have to get over it.’

‘Why would we want to get under it?’

‘I don’t know – it’s a Hasidic thing.’ By this time the police and the ambulance had arrived with sirens and
flashing lights and a small crowd quickly gathered. ‘What happened?’ said those in the rear to those in front.

‘There was a fight over a woman,’ came the answer.

‘Who won?’

‘The one that’s talking to the cop.’

There were a PC and a WPC on the scene. The police of course have less money to spend than the networks and the WPC didn’t look as good as the ones on TV. She took a Polaroid of the body and drew a chalk outline around it. The PC spoke briefly into his radio, then turned to us. ‘Who called this in?’ he said.

‘I did,’ I said.

‘Your name please,’ said the PC.

I told him and he wrote it down. ‘Who’s the deceased?’ he said. When I’d given him Troy’s name he said, ‘Who are these other people?’

‘I’m the wife of the deceased,’ said Barbara. ‘Widow, actually. But we weren’t living together any more.’

‘What about you, Mr Ockerman?’ he said. ‘What was your relation to Troy Wallis?’

‘None.’

‘How’d you get the black eye?’

‘He knocked me down and tried to kick me but I grabbed his foot and he fell backwards and struck his head on the pavement.’

‘Why did he knock you down?’

‘Because I was with Ms Strunk.’

‘My husband and I witnessed the whole thing,’ said the nurse.

‘Right,’ said the PC. To the paramedics he said, ‘You can take the body to the morgue. There’s no question about the time and cause of death – I’ll call the ME.’ To the crowd he said, as Troy’s feet disappeared into the ambulance, ‘Let’s move on, people, there’s nothing more to see.’ To the rest of us he said, ‘We’re going to need statements from all of you, so if you’d like to step around the corner to the police station we’ll get that done.’

We followed him and the WPC to the street behind Waitrose and the blue lamps and steps of the station. By this time I was feeling the after-effects of the evening’s action and my impressions were somewhat blurred. I think there were various notices on the walls and photos of persons wanted for one thing and another. Although the lighting was probably adequate the place had a one-eyed blinking sort of look (which may have been due to the closure of my left eye from Wallis’s backhander). Two PCs were supporting a drunk while the duty sergeant at the desk took down the details of what I gathered was his attempted assault on the two officers. ‘Name?’ said the sergeant.

‘Mickey Mouse,’ said the drunk.

Barbara and I and the nurse and her husband had our details taken down and made our statements, after which I was arrested as a murder suspect by the duty sergeant, had the contents of my pockets listed and bagged, and was taken to a cell. ‘See you tomorrow,’ said Barbara as she kissed me goodnight. I lay down on
the bed and sank into a restless sleep in which I dreamed that Troy kept jumping up as fast as I killed him.

In the morning the sky was flat and grey and I was taken to the West London Magistrates Court in Talgarth Road. The magistrate reduced the charge to manslaughter and my case went to the Old Bailey for trial at the first available court date. I was then released on £10,000 bail. ‘Who put up the ten thousand?’ I asked. ‘Name withheld,’ said the bondsman. I was released pending a hearing. After that, as I had a permanent address, no record, and wasn’t on any other wanted list the magistrate said I could go home.

Barbara came to meet me. As we walked to my place together I thought of the virgin Louisville Slugger leaning in its corner. ‘Oh God,’ I said.

‘Oh God what?’

‘I don’t want to say it.’

‘Say it.’

‘What if…?’

‘What if what?’

‘What if our whole relationship has only been held together by the prospect of killing your husband? Would you have stayed with me otherwise?’

‘Oh shit, I’m not sure of anything any more. What do we do now?’

‘I don’t know – my place? Pizza?’

‘OK. I don’t really want to make any decisions.’

We went to Basuto Road walking like zombies. When the pizza arrived we ate it and drank beer
without saying much, and afterwards Barbara went straight to bed.

I rang up Catriona. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘tell me how things are looking for me.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘your Moon is opposed by Pluto and there’s possible action pending from dangerous females. If you aren’t dangerous enough yourself, you and your female might drift apart. Maybe that would even be desirable to one or both of you. Things are looking dodgy, so watch your arse.’

‘Dangerous females!’ I said. ‘What other kind is there?’

OK, I love him or so it seems. But is love enough? Do I want to spend the rest of my life with a guy who writes boring? I’m trying not to be a talent snob but I’m not sure he’s got what it takes to come up with an interesting book. Sticking with him through weeks and months and years of boring would be really heavy work. When I rejected Brian and he asked me if I could do better I said, ‘Maybe I already have.’ But
have
I? Brian has talent and he’s getting better all the time. He’s fun to be with and he makes me feel good. I like the kind of person he is and he likes the kind of person I am. That can’t be bad, can it? He’s taller than I am too.

I was thinking these thoughts (and feeling guilty) as I lay in bed with Phil beside me. I could tell by his breathing that he wasn’t asleep either. I was still awake when the Underground started running and the room got light. I guess we both got some sleep then, and around seven Phil got up, went to the bathroom, showered and got dressed.
I followed him, and in due course we appeared in the kitchen, kissed each other good morning in a small way, and had orange juice, toast and marmalade and coffee. ‘Let’s eat out tonight,’ said Phil.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘See you,’ and left for work.

The studio was always a cosy place and this morning’s music was Emmylou Harris but the eye I was painting was giving me a cold and fishy stare and I felt shut off from the world. At lunchtime I went to The Blue Posts hoping to see Grace Kowalski and there she was with Irv and a half of Directors. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Have you posed for Brian yet?’

‘Yup,’ she said. ‘He did some nice studies of my face. He really
looks
when he draws.’

‘Well, he has to, doesn’t he.’

‘No, what I mean is that he doesn’t show off with style, he’s modest and respectful and plays it straight.’

‘Funny – I’ve never thought of Brian as modest.’

‘When you’ve known somebody for a long time you get used to seeing them always the same way and you might not notice that they’ve changed. Brian thinks the world of you.’

‘I know.’

‘How is it with you and Ockerman? Still too soon to say?’

‘I don’t know – maybe too late.’

‘If they both disappeared by magic and you could make only one of them reappear by pushing a button, which one would it be?’

‘The one that’s no work,’ I said.

‘Well, there you have it,’ said Grace. ‘Let me buy you a drink. What’s your pleasure?’

‘Thank you. I wouldn’t mind a dry martini – the American kind that’s mostly gin with just a little vermouth and an olive.’

‘That sounds radical,’ said Grace.

‘This is a time for radical decisions,’ I said.

‘Radical martini coming up,’ said Grace. ‘And I’ll have a vodka to keep you company because it’s that kind of day. You stay put and I’ll fetch the drinks.’

When she came back with the martini and the vodka and a couple of packets of crisps she said, ‘What’ll we drink to?’

‘Absent friends?’

‘Good one,’ said Grace. ‘Absent friends!’

The absent friend I was thinking of was Brian. After work I didn’t go to my place and I didn’t go to Phil’s. I went to Cheyne Walk and stood at the door. If he’s in and alone when I ring the bell, I thought, that’s it. I rang the bell and he came down and opened the door. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Can I come in?’

Later, as we lay comfortably together watching the sky darken to evening I said, ‘Did you think you’d ever see me again?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I had no idea when or how but I couldn’t believe you’d be out of my life for ever.’

‘You feel like home.’

‘That’s how you feel to me. Have you …?’

‘Ended it with Phil? I have to tell him but I don’t think he’ll be surprised.’

When I rang Phil up he said, ‘Is this a Dear John call?’

‘Were you expecting one?’

‘Yes. I felt it coming on when we were eating the pizza.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You don’t have to say anything. It was just one of those things, just one of those crazy things – a trip to the moon on Barbara Strozzi. Now you’re Bertha Strunk again.’