Authors: Josie Clay
“Forgive me Dale” he said. “I was pushing the envelope a little, wasn't I”.
“That's alright”
she beamed, “we like a bit of envelope pushing, don't we Mink?”
“Please, don't encourage him”.
She stood before a painting, one hand lodged under her arm, the other bringing wine to her lips. Her Daleness transcending time and gender: Saladin, Hapshetsut, Zenobia, Cochise, Garbo – she looked famous. I could hear her brain whirring from here and summoned by a mental beckon, I stepped into her prestige.
“Mink, Mink, how do I buy this painting?”
Fauvist, naïve, blue canal boat, colours brutal and exciting, the white-capped water, the tin chimney belched movement - optimistic, heady and not at all twee. Water fowl, spare and witty and a sad little face peering from a window in the impossibly canted, cloud obscured tower block. Reminiscent of Rousseau, but I knew it to be a Dolapo.
“It's one of my girls”. I leafed through the catalogue.
“Really?”
“Here it is, Blue Boat – two hundred and fifty pounds”.
“Shut the front door, it's worth double that”.
“Well, you can pay what you like” I said. “It's a charity after all”.
“As long as the girl gets it”.
“She will” I said, “after commission”.
Dale returned, an orange sticker on her index finger which she pressed to the white brick
;
she'd paid five hundred pounds.
“Can we go home yet?” I said, conscientiously dropping our fag butts in the bin.
“Minky, it's only seven thirty, and we've just had a conversation with Gok Wan”. Having confided only last week I harboured an inexplicable mini thingette for Gok, it was uncanny.
“Loving the boots”, he honked and then, to my heart's delight, “Laters, girlfriends”.
“I think we should stay a bit longer. Who knows, we might encounter another one of your favourites like Cheryl Cole” she teased.
“Or Anthony Worral Thompson” I added optimistically.
“You're such a freak, Mink”.
Rosamund nodded in ferocious agreement with the suit, unaware she had a bite-sized deep fried camembert impaled on her stiletto. My beautiful girl, deep in conversation with Zoe Gluck. In your dreams Gluck, I bubbled smugly. Simon and Imogen, him hopping like a rabbit and screwing up his nose and her over-laughing at her own expense.
The only windowed wall. The powersave lights glowed in the office block opposite making me tired. Some primordial imperative forced my brain to fabricate the shadows and leaves into a hominid. It evolved into a cowled monk before relaxing into a more familiar arrangement - the hunch and haunch of an obese black girl, uncomfortable in her own skin. Her sad face in the dark like a forgotten doll under the bed. I motioned for her to come in, but she remained, shrinking further into her hoodie. Dale's gaze followed me to the exit.
“I can't, I'm not dressed right”, pulling her frayed cuffs over her hands. An evil wind banked us and she shivered, coatless. Taking a stump, I prised out her frozen fingers.
“You're fine” I said. “You're an eccentric artist, it's what they expect”. Her mouth approached a grin. “Come in”. I tugged her hand. “I've got something to show you”. Dale noted my return with the lost lamb. “It's a great painting, Dolapo” I said. She shifted uncomfortably as if it were an accusation. “You should be proud of yourself”.
“You're just saying that Miss, cos you know me”.
“Don't take my word for it”. I pointed at the orange sticker. “Do you know what that means?”
“Err...reduced?” she speculated.
“No, silly” I chuckled. “It means sold”.
“Serious?” Her eyes grew to pies , then narrowed to suspicious crusts. “No way!”
“Way” I said.
“Who bought it?” Still wary of cruel games.
“That woman over there”
.
I picked out Dale who wiggled her fingers and grinned guiltily.
“Oh my God”. She spun in trapped embarrassment. “Is she like, an actress or something? Oh my God”. She hopped on the spot in rabbit urgency, much like Simon had.
“I've got to go and tell my sister”. Her battered trainers squeaked the floor to the door where she turned. “Bye, Miss”. A complex smile, like a box of chocolates containing many soft centres. She offered thanks, pride
...and hope. I blurred at her sweetness.
Chapter 17
The sky magnolia, cycling along Grange Park. Wet moths batting my face and before long, swarming in consistent confetti as the snow lovingly, patiently smothered the sick bed city. The pigeons, wise in this instance, were nowhere to be seen
. I soldiered on, crossing Green Lanes. A bus stop, a girl perched in the shelter. Something to do with adverse weather, probably another evolutionary failsafe, compelled me to connect. The girl, head clad in a scarf and hat, just her eyes visible like a surgeon, no, a terrorist. They locked with mine and seemed to shine with associated zeal, then crinkled pleasantly – the smile is in the eyes. Turning into Palladian Road, I shot a look back and she was still watching. Perhaps admiring my coat; it was very nice. Tyre tracks in the fresh snow indicated a recent call to arms for the Saab, long since updated to black
...who gives a toss anyway?
It became hairy, wheels fizzing in the slush and a fishtail that lurched at my heart like turbulence. Conceding defeat at Cally Road, I hiked to the Old Jam Factory, dogged, aiding Eddy Merckx, who'd got drunk and lost all his faculties.
Two o'clock came and went. There were no takers, wise like pigeons. Even the canteen was empty. I pictured Dale at home, googling recipes, Prudence nesting on her untouched paperwork. A police launch rocked the fiercely puffing blue barge and my 'Desert Sands' ring tone shimmered incongruous.
“Are you OK, Minky? I was worried”.
“I'm fine, no-one's here”.
“Shall I come and get you?”
“Why are you so good to me?”
“So I can keep you in my power ...I'm leaving now”.
“Be careful” I said into a dead ‘phone.
The fat tyres crumped the compacted cotton wool as we drove through the frenzied pillow fight. The wipers squeaked lunettes. Of course the girl was no longer there; I hoped she was at home,
safe and warm. Dale needed both hands on the wheel.
“Mink, I think we should go to bed with a hot toddy”.
“Yuck!” I said. “What a vile idea”. She unscrewed the lid on her laugh, accidentally tooting the horn.
We lay watching the flakes frazzle around the street light outside the bedroom window, mesmerising like an ambient screen saver.
“Minky, I need to tell you something”. I heard her difficulty, but dampened a fear response. Dale would never tell me anything bad. “I've got this job, it's big”.
“Don't tell me, it's in Abu Dhabi”, flippant.
“Not quite, Clerkenwell. It's important work, Mink, restoring a medieval church, but it'll mean long hours, plus I'll have to work on site. It's such an amazing opportunity though”.
I struggled to find something generous and encouraging to say, but failed. Filling my void, she bolstered her case. “It's a three month contract, only three months”.
“I think you're clever and brave” I said, which was true and helped me find my feet. “You're right to do it”, breaking into a trot. “We can't cocoon ourselves indefinitely”. I felt myself getting haughty. “We can't stay in this 'best place I've ever been', idyllic Shangri-La forever”. I watched her process my mixed message. I'm such a selfish cunt.
“Yes” she said, smiling, “paradise is for losers”.
Spurred by this, “go for it”, I cantered. “I'll support you in any way I can”.
“I fucking love you” she said and now I was galloping.
“Anyway, it'll give me the chance to do other things as well”.
“Like what?” she said.
“Like tweeting”.
Her laughter blast actually moved my hair. “Yes, and I can drink sherry while watching Bargain Hunt”.
“Good plan” she said, “and don't forget yogalates”. We were back on safe ground.
“But don't blame me if you come home one night and have to drag me from the flames of a fire caused by a forgotten Findus crispy pancake because I'm out cold, 'You don't bring me Flowers' playing on the headphones”.
A laugh, now a silent wheeze, a long creaking inhalation. “Don't laugh”, pinning her wrists, “cos that's what's gonna happen”, enjoying her weak squirms.
“Oh no” she squeaked, “what happens to Prudence?”
“Toast” I replied.
“Ah dear” she sighed, “that's horrible”. I relinquished so she could arm at her good tears. “That's the funniest guilt trip I've been on”.
Chapter 18
Nils at arrivals, showing a cardboard square on which was written 'Minky', hi
s nebula eyes thrummed waggish.
“My dad's idea of a joke” she snorted.
Her case, bursting at the seams, emitting a tired buzz, her electric toothbrush set off by the jostle of Christmas presents, my case housing her excess.
Cunningly, I'd ordered my presents online, delivered to Nils' doorstep by a brown suited Father Christmas.
The Mercedes caused roadside trees to shrug off their fluffy ponchos and we entered a dry Cresta run, the forest no longer visible behind repositioned snow, banked each side of us like hushed breath.
“I have arranged so there is much snow for you this Christmas”. Nils' eyes squinted roguish in the rear view mirror.
The dwellings dwindled as we headed south, the sea to our left, an undulating semolina pudding. Nils kept the car in its previous tracks to the house, which was white and dark in a nimbus of wood smoke.
“We're home baby”. Dale squeezed my hand.
A tall, fragrant tree on the black astrakhan, singing with silver lametta and little coloured horses, suspended mid-prance amid blue lights; it reminded me of Dale.
A supernatural whiff of spirits and spice, she simmered whisky mac in a copper pan on the wood burner while Nils studied the label on the ginger wine bottle, intrigued. I hovered near as she shredded a hock of ham with her fingers, feeding me a salty titbit. Greasing my lips with her thumb, my blind heart tapping its way into new realms of bliss.
“Minette” Nils said from the dining table, “I'd like to know what you think of these”.
A slide show on the laptop. Photos of the phlegmatic Swedish landscape, from which he'd conjured melancholy and magic. They spoke of solitude, but not loneliness; a calm acceptance that we matter not and know nothing, lost in the enduring hinterland, searching for clues in the view (I tried my best). “Well put Minky” he said, glancing over his glasses, his face folding in affection. “And I thought I was just taking pretty pictures”.
A rivulet caught my eye. I'd watched the studs of sweat bloom on Dale's chest, the tiny globules gathering to pearls, which peeled off, slithered between her breasts and rippled over the fine creases of her butterscotch belly, heading for black botany.
The pine cabin under the house which I assumed was for storage, revealed to be a sauna. I was hesitant; the prospect of overheating in a confined space, followed by some masochistic ritual probably involving snow and possibly the frozen sea, didn't appeal. But now glad I'd acquiesced because she sat by my side, slick and taut as a galley slave. Softened in the eucalyptus steam, hair heavy with moisture, relaxed into oily snakes, insinuating a classical decadence.