Picture Imperfect (10 page)

‘
D’you
fancy going out for
dinner tonight?’

‘Sure. Have you got anywhere in mind?’

This is a relief. I don’t fancy another evening on my
own at home. I need distractions, particularly as I haven’t any more painting
to do.

‘Well I found this great Japanese place in Baker
Street. That’s not too far away for you, is it? I thought we could meet in a
pub first and have a couple of drinks if you like.’

‘It’s not one of those places where you have to sit on
the floor in an awkward position, is it?’

She laughs. It’s like a bell tinkling.

‘No! It’s got seats just like a normal restaurant. What
time do you finish there?’

‘Five-thirty.’

‘OK. You know the Waggoner’s, don’t you. I’ll see you
in there at six?’

‘Fine.

Kristin smiles as I put the phone down. ‘Going out to
get hammered?’

‘Just seeing an old friend’

She nods sagely.
‘Going out to get
hammered.’

I print out the letter I’ve just typed and stick it in
an envelope. Mrs Goddard likes to email and send a hard copy at the same time.
She thinks it’s more polite. She used to send a fax, too, before Kristin talked
her out of it.
        
Probably with the
intention of keeping the chat away from Mark (I think we both had enough of
that yesterday), she asks me about my painting. I tell her that I’ve just
finished two and my agent seems to think she might be able to sell them.

Kristin was obviously surprised when I told her how big
they were. I think she’d imagined they were A1 size at the most, and probably
nice watercolours of kittens or similar.

‘Wow! I’ve like to have a couple of huge, fuck-off
paintings in my place. Something like when a friend comes in, it’s like ‘BANG!
Look at us!’’

I smile when I remember Jake calling ‘round to get them
yesterday. Jake must be about seventy if he’s a day. As soon as I opened the
front door to him, he raised a hand as if to indicate that not only should I
not help him carry the canvases, or touch them in any way, I should also go
into another room, not speak to him and keep out of his way. All of that in one
gesture!

I suspect he’s had years of experience carrying large,
partially-dried canvases and has also had disasters when some dumb artist
decided to help him out. I watched him from the kitchen as he hooked his
fingers under the frames at the back and lifted them up like they were nothing,
then carried them down the stairs with a weird sideways walk, like a crab.

I looked out of the window and watched him place them
in his van. It looked like he was attaching something to the frames so they
wouldn’t fall over while he drove along, though I couldn’t see exactly what he
was doing. As he drove off, I silently wished both paintings good luck.

When I meet Alexis in the pub, the first thing I notice
is that she’s dyed her hair blonde. It suits her. The second thing I notice is
that she’s about four months pregnant. I’m not the most observant person in the
world.

We order drinks. I have a G&T; she has a
Badoit
with ice and lime. Despite myself, I’m mildly
annoyed at this. When I go for a drink in a pub, I expect whoever I’m with to
be drinking alcohol as well, even if they’re pregnant or on medication or have
a serious allergy to alcohol.

We find a table near the window and look at each other.
I smile at her.

‘So! You’re blonde now, then!’

She rubs her belly and takes a sip of her alcohol-free
water. ‘Martin likes me to have blonde hair. He says it looks good on me.’

‘And Martin is…?’

‘Oh, of course.
You wouldn’t
know about him, would
you.
We must have met about six
or seven months ago. It was all a bit sudden, but I knew that I wanted to get
pregnant by him straight away. It was what he wanted, as well. He likes the way
my body has been changing, too, so lots of bonking at the moment!’

Did she just say ‘I knew that I wanted to get pregnant
by him straight away’? Can you imagine inflicting that on a man during your
first date? ‘I know we’ve only just met, but I’d like to have your baby, if
that’s OK with you.’ They’d run a mile.

‘So what does he do, this Martin?’

Apart from say ‘I like the way your body is changing.’
I don’t know why I’m asking about Martin’s job. I know it’s going to be
something tedious. Alexis crosses and uncrosses her legs. She looks like she’s
a little uncomfortable on the pub stool.

‘He’s a physiotherapist. He works for a couple of
different health centres. He specialises in sport injuries.’

‘How did you…?’

‘I had a really bad sprain on my shoulder that didn’t
want to go away.’

‘So you were one of his patients!
How
romantic!’

She laughs that
tinkly
laugh.
‘It’s lovely to be pregnant, Chloe. We’re so happy about it. I was getting that
old biological clock anxiety. You know what it’s like at our age.’

She’s smiling all the time and it’s slightly
unsettling. It’s as if she’s joined some religious cult and is extolling the
virtues of abstaining from peanut butter and oral sex.

‘So when’s it due?’

‘The end of June, if everything goes to plan.’

A couple of guys stroll past us, giving sly glances at
Alexis. I think it was the blonde hair that got their attention. When they see
she’s pregnant they keep on strolling. How unadventurous of them!

‘So,
er
, you’re not getting
married or anything like that?’

‘No. We haven’t discussed it at all. You know me. It
doesn’t have much of an appeal.’

‘I guess not.’

‘What about you and Mark? Any plans for kids yet?
You’ve been living together for god knows how long.’

‘Two years. No. No plans like that.’

She stares at me for a couple of seconds. ‘You don’t
have to love someone to build a good life with them, you know.’

‘What?’

‘I mean, you know, it’s enough that you get on with
someone. You like them, you sleep with them, you have similar interests, you
run your lives together,
you
have kids and so on. I
don’t think there has to be this mystical ‘love’ thing on top of it all, do
you?’

‘Um – yes.
Yes I do.’

‘But you don’t love Mark, do you. You never have. The
only time I’ve ever seen you in love was when you were seeing that guy – what
was his name? –
the
one who designed credit cards. It
was some bizarre job like that wasn’t it?’

God almighty – I’d forgotten how blunt she could be.

‘You mean Hamish?’

‘Yes. That’s him. There was a magic in the air when you
were with him, for want of a better phrase. On the few occasions that I saw you
with Mark, that was never there. What happened with Hamish? I’m sure you told
me.’

‘Oh, you know.
Fizzled out.’

‘Shame.
But you’ve got Mark
now. You can’t always have the fairy dust. No one can. It’s just not realistic.
Two years living in the same place, a year and a half going out before that.
It’s not to be sniffed at. And neither of us is getting any younger. I mean,
it’s still all going OK, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so. So you love Martin, then, do you?’

‘He’s wonderful.’

I’m not sure, but I think a simple ‘yes’ might have
been the appropriate answer to that question. I think I’ll keep the Mark
holiday stuff to myself. This is becoming a disturbing conversation and I don’t
want to stick anything else into the bubbling cauldron that we’re stirring
here.

‘The thing is, Alexis, things are not going badly with
Mark or anything, but he’s done this thing that has made me think…’

And like an idiot, I spill the whole thing to her. No
matter who I’m talking to, I just cannot keep my mouth shut about it. What is
wrong with me? She gives me a ‘pregnant woman sympathetic look’ as I will later
come to think of it.

‘It’s just men, dear. He’s still young. He’s going to
do things like this.’

OMG – she sounds just like my mother! I have to respond
to that one.

‘He’s a year and a half older than me, and I don’t do
things like this!’

‘Just let him get it out of his system. Once he’s back,
you’ll settle into your routine again and it’ll be as if it never happened. Try
and imagine if it was me that asked you to go on a holiday with me…’

‘Yeah, I’ve been through that one. And we took a couple
of guys with us who were friends of yours. And Mark couldn’t come. In fact, he
hadn’t actually had a foreign holiday for six years. I’d feel bloody awful
about it. I’d feel like a real cow. I’d tell you that under no circumstances
would I go with you. I’d tell you that I couldn’t do that to Mark. I’d tell you
that I’d be afraid he’d leave me or something. I’d suggest that you found
someone else to go with you, or just the three of you went. It wouldn’t kill
you, would it?
Just the three of you?’

I’m going crazy. I’m talking about this fictitious
scenario like
it’s
real.

‘Really, Chloe, Forget it. You’ve got a nice, stable
guy there. He’ll look after you. You’ve been with him too long to let it all
fall apart now. Two years; something must be going right. Have you spoken to
anyone else about this?’

I nod. I’m starting to feel beaten. I feel that maybe
I’m crazy and what Mark has done is just a ‘guy thing’, to be classified
alongside his computer games and
Autocar
collection.

‘What did they tell you?’

I take a deep breath. ‘My mother said it’ll be a
fortnight next time and he’ll be taking some nice girl with him. My boss said
he could have said ‘no’, but took the decision not to; my co-worker called him
a little shit and my agent said that if someone did that to her, she’d walk out
of the front door and never return.’

Alexis smiles and shakes her head from side to side.
I’m not quite sure what this head shaking is meant to indicate, but I look at
her expectantly in case it’s something good. I need something good. Something
mediocre would be acceptable at the moment.

‘You’ve had four pieces of advice, now take five.
Stay with Mark.
You won’t regret it. All of your friends
have had pretty emotional responses to this. In the main, they’ve told you what
they would do under those circumstances. But they’re not you. They’re different
people, all with different histories and different experiences. You have to
listen to your heart on this, Chloe. It’ll tell you what to do and I know
you’ll do the right thing.’

I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that you lose 10% of your
brain function when you’re pregnant. I wonder if it’s true.

After we’ve had dinner and said our goodbyes, I take
the long way back to the tube station so I can clear my head a little. I walk
along the whole of Oxford Street and back, sometimes stopping to look in a shop
window.

Alexis said I’d do the right thing. In her view, doing
the right thing is staying with Mark, acting as if nothing has happened and
getting on with life as normal when he returns.

But I can’t help thinking what he would do and say if
the situation was reversed. I think he’d blow his top. I think there’d be a
huge row. I think he’d ask me to get out of the flat and find somewhere else to
live.

As I pass Selfridge’s, I think of Rhoda and her Food
Hall pickup. Maybe she’s got the right idea. Rhoda would never get herself
trapped in a relationship like the one I’m in. At least, I don’t think she
would. Am I trapped? Is that the right word? I continue walking. I feel numb. I
don’t even feel numb. I feel beyond numb.

I’m starting to think that this is the worst thing
that’s ever happened to me.

Friday 20
^th

As I wake up and stretch, I realise that I’m starting
to get used to this getting up late routine. I don’t feel so tired during the
day any more. I’ve got more mental space to think about what I’m doing with my
painting, for a start. It’s as if the real
me
had been
locked in a box for a couple of years and now it’s been allowed to breathe
again.

Now I’ve finished both canvases, I’m at a bit of a
loose end. I think about what I’m going to do today and nothing really comes to
mind. I might have a look at a few art books. It’s always useful to see what
other people have done in the past and to read about how they got there, what
they were thinking, what they liked.

Mark is back tomorrow. It was a week ago that he told
me about his trip to Greece. I haven’t had a postcard from him yet, but that’s
not so unusual; cards from foreign holidays always arrive well after the person
has been back for a few days, or even longer in some cases.

I go out and do a bit of shopping. As I wander around
the supermarket aisles in a dream, I realise that I’m still buying things that
Mark will eat. I go and fill the car up with petrol. It’s nearly empty and I’ve
got the trip out to Heathrow and back tomorrow. I wonder if Mark will have a
tan?
I wonder what he and the others will have got up
to?
I’ll stand at the arrivals gate and watch them all
appear, sparkling with that holiday buzz and all wearing different, lighter
clothes. They’ll have a lot to talk about and, naturally, I’ll be out of the
conversational loop. I’ll be looking in all of their eyes for signs of what?
Pity?
Collusion over what went on during their holiday, if
anything?

Maybe Alexis was right. Maybe I should take the line of
least resistance and just get on with things. Maybe we’ll have forgotten all
about this in a couple of years. It’s nothing, really, is it? I’m blowing it
all out of proportion.

After I’ve put all the shopping away, I make a coffee
and slump down on the sofa with a book about Mark Rothko that I bought second
hand on Amazon a few months ago but haven’t had time to read yet. Just as I’m
flicking through the intro, my mobile sings out its text bleep. It’s from
Rhoda.