The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted (22 page)

‘Is there any particular reason why we're lying in the middle of the road?' I said.

‘I've never done it before.'

‘Haven't we already been down this route?' I said. ‘So this lesson,
I take it, is to further my development as a lover and as a human being. Why are you so sure we're going to split up?'

‘I've split up with everyone else I've ever loved.'

‘And why should I be any different?'

‘Women like letters,' she said. ‘Write to them and write to them often. Phone calls are fine. But a handwritten letter, just a trace of scent, can be treasured and it can be pored over.'

‘I haven't written to you enough, have I?'

‘You have not.' She pressed my hand to her lips and kissed my fingers.

‘Point taken.'

‘Self-deprecation, we like that.'

‘Never really been my strong suit.'

‘Good. You want to watch your humour, Kim. You're sharp, but you must use it more carefully; women, despite all their bluff and their bravado, can bruise very easily.'

‘Noted,' I said. ‘Curb all jokes which come at my lover's expense.'

‘I wish my husband had had this sort of coaching,' Cally said. With her finger, she was drawing fresh patterns in the stars. ‘Instead it was me who wasted years training him up, and it's his next wife who's reaping all the benefits.'

‘I wouldn't bank on that. Once a tosser, always a tosser.'

‘Are you comfy?' she said.

‘Very. Shall we spend the night here? Tell me about the love making. What do women want?'

‘Now that is difficult.' Cally rolled on top of me, kissing me as she stroked my cheek. ‘Guys, as we know, can have sex anywhere, any time, and with pretty much anyone. They were born dirty. But women, at least the ones worth dating, first have to have an emotional connection. There's got to be the talk and lots of it and if you don't do that, then there will be no sex in the afternoon.'

‘Painfully obvious,' I said. ‘Are you going to tell me something I didn't know?'

‘As regards your knowledge of women, Kim darling, I do not presume one single thing.' She kissed me. ‘Try this. We adore compliments, but they must be tailor-made for the occasion. It is also impossible to tell us too often that we are the love of your life.'

‘You are the love of my life.'

‘Say it like you mean it.'

I looked soulfully, earnestly, into her eyes. ‘You, Cally, are truly the love of my life.'

‘Better. Now pay me a very personal compliment.'

‘Give me a second.' I stared up at the stars. ‘Here, now, I'd risk my life to make love with you.'

‘In the middle of the road?' She kissed me with stunning ardour. ‘Oh, Kim, that is a very pretty compliment and I like it very much!'

Hands tugged at clothes, legs entwined, skin raked over with nails and with fingers. Cally's hair fell about my face, cocooning me within its fringe. I closed my eyes and succumbed to her kisses. The texture of her lips and her warm skin was intoxicating. I was so caught up with Cally's kisses and with her warmth that I was not even aware that we were laying in the middle of an A-road at midnight.

Usually, I like to kiss with my eyes shut. I am not looking at cheeks or lips; I am in the moment, focused on the kiss and nothing else.

Something happened. Some primeval sense twitched, it was as if a pin had been thrust into my forehead. I opened my eyes and through the fringe of Cally's thick hair, I caught a faint flicker of light in the sky.

I broke off from Cally lips and heaved at her, pushing her away from me.

‘No,' she said. She strained to kiss me.

‘Car!' I shrieked.

What happened next happened so fast that it was all over in two seconds. I still see it in my nightmares. The car hits us full and square. The one moment we're kissing, and the next trapped by the headlights as the car roars into view. We try to move, but we can't, deer trapped in the headlights; and the car is going so fast, there's no time for it to swerve. There's a terrific blast of the horn, deafening, blending with the engine's thunder and the squeal of the brakes, and the car is so close now that I can see the flies speckled about the bumper and smell the hot engine oil and the turtle wax. I try to get up, pushing and pushing, but nothing happens. I'm stuck to the tarmac, Cally glued on top of me, my eyes locked onto the headlights and nothing else. My mouth formed into a perfect ‘O' as I scream my last scream. Then the wheels, black and broad, are on top of me, mashing my pelvis to dust and, in that same moment, Cally is whisked from me, her head snatched clean off by the bumper, as her body is thrown like a ragdoll, and as she goes over the top, shattering the windscreen, I go under the wheels, pulped front and back, though not that it makes any difference, because by the time the car has screeched to a halt, our life-blood is already oozing out onto the road.

These nightmares are still capable of waking me up in a shivering sweat. My eyes flash open and I can still see that image of Cally and me, bloodied and broken, lying dead as doornails on the tarmac.

And in reality: the moment stretched into an infinity of horrific instants.

With animal strength, I forced Cally off me, pistoling my arms until she had pitched backwards. The sweep of the car's headlights reared up, huge in the darkness as the car tore round the bend. The sound of the brakes squealed as the horn klaxoned into the night and I pitched forward in a flat dive. As I crashed to the ground, my elbow jarred into the kerb. The wind of the car whipped at my feet. One wheel clipped, slightly scrunched, one of my boots. I was limping for weeks.

The car stopped; the driver got out. He was livid and as he howled out his rage, we went into the woods and the darkness. ‘You maniacs!' he screamed blindly. ‘I could have killed you!'

We laughed and the thrill of the adrenalin passed. My elbow hurt and I knew that my foot was also injured. We started to kiss.

‘Where were we?' Cally said, and we knelt on the dark grass as she unbuttoned my shirt, and it was electrifying, erotic. We'd come within an ace of killing ourselves as we made out in the middle of the road.

But along with all my other thoughts, there was one thing that just wouldn't go away. In that first moment when I saw the car's headlights winking into the sky, for a second, it had felt as if Cally was forcing me hard down onto the tarmac, as if willing for it all to be over; for the both of us to be mown down as we conjoined in the ecstasy of the moment.

There are many plus points when it comes to dating a much older woman. But there are also several downsides and if you would see our relationship in all its rough-hewn beauty, with its warts, its wrinkles and its libido that raged into the night, then I must acknowledge them.

If your lover is from another generation, there is no common ground with popular culture. Cally had been born in such a different era. She was a war baby, with rationing and austerity, and with not a television to be seen. She'd been there in the sixties with the pill and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. I'd had
Watch with Mother
and
Top of the Pops
and Blondie and all the bands at which my father would roll his eyes and pluck out another cigarette. Now this lack of common ground is not in any way a big deal, but it does mean that you have to work slightly harder. Little generational jokes have to be explained before they can be laughed at.

Another niggle was that Cally always had much more money than me. I had money for beer and small baubles, but Cally had a house, a flat in London, a swish car, and always plenty of money for meals, for presents, for a never-ending supply of alcohol. She always said that she loved to buy me dinner, or whatever meal it was that we were eating, but I'm not so sure it's good for a man's soul to be kept and to be paid for. Of course, I would pay occasionally for little gifts. But I was all too aware of the size of her jewellery box and how pitiful these trinkets seemed in comparison to the diamonds and the rubies and the dazzling hunks of gold with which she would adorn herself.

But my biggest gripe was her friends. They generally treated me like this toy boy joke: doubtless pleasuring Cally senseless in the bedroom, but with nothing of interest to say and who soon enough would be sent on his merry little way. The worst by far was Greta, whose flirting would alternate with zinging slingshots as she openly mocked any chance of my ever staying faithful to Cally.

It was August, a couple of days after our interlude in the road. After what seemed like endless months of preparation, Cally's exhibition was opening. She had been spending more and more time in London, and every time she returned, she seemed more tired; it was the first time that I had ever really noticed the wrinkles about her eyes and her mouth. For the first time in her life, she was even beginning to look her age. When she did get back from London, she would always need at least a day to recover; meanwhile, I would be champing at the bit and generally behave like a lusty hooligan.

On the day of the exhibition, I'd been given the night off, so I could go up to London in the afternoon and then spend the next day – luxury of luxuries – tooling around London with Cally. I was very excited. I had only been back to London a couple of times since I'd started at the Knoll House, and with every mile in the train I could scent the city and knew that I was returning home.

I was already dressed for the party and the rest of what I needed was in a small knapsack. I always used to love travelling light. It needs discipline and grit to whittle your luggage down to a toothbrush and a pair of briefs.

I'd never been to the opening of a proper art exhibition before and I tried to imagine what it would be like – would I be ignored, or welcomed with open arms? Would Cally's daughter be there? Would her ex-husband be there? Perhaps there would be a whole fleet of exes; Cally was so lovely that I could easily imagine her staying on kind kissing terms with every one of her lovers. I wondered how Cally would be with me. Would there be that confident kiss to the lips that declared to the world that I was her lover; or would it be the peck on the cheek and the skulk in the shadows until we were alone and the last guest had departed?

We'd decided that I would see Cally at the exhibition itself. She said that she got unbearably tense before a big show and that she needed time to prepare herself.

I planned to arrive some forty-five minutes after it had started.
I had no clue as to what to expect. I'd never seen Cally in full artist mode before. Up until then I'd only known her as a painter – and an artist is quite different. An artist is the show-stopping butterfly that emerges after years and years of painstaking work in the pupa. Painters do the grunt work. They slog it out in the studios, scribing away with brush and pencil. The artist, on the other hand, is full of life and verve and confidence. The artist is charming to everyone she meets; the artist drinks champagne and kisses cheeks, for she is in the business of selling pictures; and for one night, and one night only, the artist is the oracle, and her guests pay obeisance as they hold fast onto every word that she utters.

I was a little tense, aware that for the first time I was going to be on public display, and that my forty-four-year-old lover would shortly be showing off her young beau to the world. Already, I could almost picture the sneers that were being directed at this irrelevant toy boy. I arrived at Cork Street a full hour before Cally's exhibition was due to start. I'd never been to Cork Street. It is the very capital of Britain's art world; if your pictures are on display there, you're made. I was still limping slightly from our canoodle on the road.

I walked up the street then down on the other side and I marvelled at the pictures and the prices. It was beginning to dawn on me that if this was the company Cally kept, she was right out of the top drawer. I briefly looked in through the window to Cally's gallery. It looked opulent and expensive, white walls and a light wooden floor. Two willowy women were pouring out champagne.

I went to a nearby pub and started to drink. I drank because I was nervous and because I thought it might loosen me up. I drank doubles of gin and gazed at the
Evening Standard
, but didn't take in a word of the paper as I mulled over just a few of the scenarios that might occur that night. I had a sense of foreboding and also a sense of inevitability. For I already knew myself and I knew my weaknesses. One of my very particular weaknesses is that when I am on the back foot and feeling vulnerable, I will come out swinging with barbed tongue and sneering lip, and I don't much care how it all turns out. The only thing of consequence is whether I've managed to land a few telling blows of my own.

When I arrived back at the gallery, the place was humming. I felt under-dressed. I was wearing black jeans, Chelsea boots and a floral shirt that Cally had given me; compared to this crowd, I looked like a hick. The men, even the young men, wore suits and ties that reeked of money and City jobs; the women, even the younger women, looked stylish and expensive. I felt out of my depth and I was paddling hard just to stay afloat.

Breathe in; breathe out; relax. I reminded myself that I was the king of the waiters, the master of repartee, the sprite who could charm the birds from the trees. I squared my shoulders; I may not have been wearing a suit, but I was looking good. I eased through the crowd, gliding effortlessly through the suits – and immediately knocked a woman's drink out of her hand. My wrist had caught her hand and she'd dropped her glass.

‘I'm so sorry,' I said. She was beautiful, long blonde hair and in a grey wool dress that clung to her every curve.

She looked at me, very cool, sizing up my jeans and my Liberty shirt. She didn't know what to make of me, but one thing was for sure and that was that I was definitely not a City-slicker businessman.

‘Oh dear,' she said. She puffed on her cigarette. She had been talking to a sharp young man who was only a few years older than me.

‘You couldn't get another glass, could you?' he drawled. ‘And a dustpan and brush while you're at it?'

‘Of course.'

I continued to press my way through the crowd. Suits to the left of me, suits to the right of me; I realised that I was the only man in the room without a tie. My floral shirt and my jeans were similarly unique. Being one of a kind can be fine – if you've got the power and got the confidence. But at twenty-three, I didn't; all my hotel chutzpah had deserted me.

Cally was by the bar. She was sipping champagne and I had never seen her so glamorous. She was fresh out of the hair salon and her hair positively gleamed, not a strand out of place; she was in black high heels and stockings and the perfect little black dress, with diamonds in her ears and a fabulous diamond necklace about her neck. She was talking animatedly to three men. They were hanging on her every word. They seemed to be about her age, though one was a little younger. I wondered if she had slept with any of them.

‘Kim!' She broke off and kissed me – not on the mouth, but on the cheek. She gave me a light hug with her hand. ‘Thank you for coming!'

‘What a show!' I said. ‘It's amazing.'

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘You might recognise some of the pictures.'

I was introduced to the men; I forget their names. ‘This is Kim,' she said. ‘He's come all the way from Dorset.'

‘And what happens down in Dorset?' said the younger of the three men. He was in his thirties, slicked back hair. I think his name was Johnny. I had taken against him from the very first.

‘Well, it's wurzel country,' I said. ‘Cream teas. Smugglers. And inbred farmers.'

‘Oh really?' he said, with this very slight inflection which I took to mean ‘I could not be less interested, now kindly leave me in peace'.

‘Yes, really,' I said. I stretched past the man and took a glass of champagne from the bar. I raised my glass to Cally. ‘I'll see you later.'

I saw Greta, pissed and clutching onto a man in the corner, and I also recognised Hugh, the Dorset antiques dealer who occasionally lunched with Cally at the hotel.

I did not want to talk to them. I wanted to look at the pictures. I was entranced.

I had seen one or two of them before, but I had never seen the whole collection. The paintings together had far more power than their parts, transformed from being merely good to absolutely formidable. It was as if a complete diary of my time at the Knoll House had been hung upon the walls. The paintings, now with thick frames and heavy white borders, had grown in stature since I had last seen them on the easel.

There were several portraits of the Dancing Ledges, in the wet and in the heat, when the rock was bare and when the rippling ledges had begun to dance. There was even the Dancing Ledges at night and I smiled at the memory of our midnight dip. In the corner were pictures of the Agglestone, at dawn and at dusk, and more than ever I was struck by how it looked like a giant toad that had been turned to stone upon the heath. There were some pictures, also, of the Knoll House, children playing on the pirate ship and families basking by the pool. Cally's beach hut was there too, both inside and out, along with a picture of that great Malay bed. It was painted so finely that I could even read the words that had been etched into the wood. There was a picture of the ferry, as it steamed into the sunset, with the seagulls swirling about its bows.

If I'd had the money, I would have bought every one of them.

I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But as I looked at those pictures, how I wished that I had even an ounce of Cally's passion.

I sipped my drink. Over by the door, there was a picture that held my attention more than any other. It was a painting of Old Harry, with the cliffs and the sea and the birds overhead – and in the corner was a young man in a red top, sipping sloe gin and dreaming of love.

It was like seeing an old friend amid a sea of strangers. What memories it brought back of the wind and the crashing waves, and a slip on the cliffs that had cost me another of my nine lives; and of a kiss after Cally had dragged me back to safety.

There was a nudge at my elbow. ‘That's not you, is it?' It was my father, in full pinstripe with regimental tie and buttonhole, complete with a silk handkerchief in his top pocket.

‘Hello!' I was delighted to see him. I leaned over and gave him a little side hug, before brushing my cheek against his. As usual, he smelled of cigarettes. ‘How are you?'

‘Never better,' he said. ‘So is that you?' he asked again, gesturing at the picture.

‘It is, actually.'

‘Just near Old Harry, at a guess,' he said.

‘You're right.'

‘I might buy it then.' He squinted at the catalogue. ‘They certainly know how to charge round here!'

‘So… you got an invite?' I asked, still mildly flabbergasted at seeing my father at Cally's exhibition.

‘Cally sent me one after we met in the pub,' he said. ‘Only popping my head in. Your stepmother and I are going out for dinner to…
I don't have the foggiest. Anyway…' He looked me up and down, taking in my open-necked shirt and my jeans. ‘It is a bit stuffy in here, isn't it? Nice shirt, much better without a tie. In fact, you know what, think I'll take my tie off, too. They're only useful for mopping up the soup anyway.'

Then and there, he flicked up his collar, worked his fingers at his thick double-Windsor knot, and loosed his tie. He folded the tie carefully and tucked it into his coat pocket, before undoing his top two shirt buttons. What a trooper! Greater love hath no man than to take off his regimental tie in order to slum it with his son. It was an interesting look, with just a hint of string vest showing underneath his shirt. He mopped at his face with his handkerchief and looked round at the giddy throng. ‘Well I'll just go and say hello to Cally and then I think I'll push on,' he said. ‘How's the Knoll House? They paying you enough?'

He dipped into his wallet and fished out some fifty pound notes; he didn't even count them, just folded them up and tucked them into my shirt pocket.

I watched him as he eased his way to Cally. He gave her a fulsome kiss on the cheek, mouthed the correct platitude and then after a brief word with one of the gallery girls he sauntered back. Always, always, it's about confidence. Even though he'd taken off his tie, and his linen shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, he had more panache in his little finger than any of those young jackanapes in their bespoke city suits. He gave me a light pat on the shoulder. ‘Ghastly lot of people,' he said. ‘Do you think they actually buy any of her pictures? I doubt it!'