Composite Creatures Read online

  At one point, we drove past a wide body of water trapped in a grassy valley. On the bank nearest us were two men and a boy of about eight or so, dressed in identical waxy-looking clothes and yellow rubber boots that went up to the knee. Each was sitting in his own deckchair with a fishing rod balanced beside him and his eyes on the point where his line met the lake. They were very still.

  “That’s cruel,” said Art. “I bet they’ve told the kid he’ll catch something.”

  I wasn’t sure. The three of them were perfectly focussed on something. But part of what Art said was right – the boy wouldn’t have known a day when just anyone with a rod could catch a fish. Perhaps there was another prize to be won from fishing in the toxic soup.

  We reached the gardens early. Thinking it wouldn’t be all that busy, I’d expected a quiet afternoon where we could both recline with only the whisper of wind through leaves to keep us company. But it was a Saturday, and I really don’t know why I thought my great picnic idea wouldn’t occur to everyone else in the local area too.

  The ornamental garden was in fact a long, stretching lawn behind an old stately home called Crawcrook Hall. The grass, violently green with too many stimulants, was bordered by a fence of ancient trees, gnarled and half-fossilised, the type that have seen and weathered everything. Their arms twisted up towards the sky and down again, all elbows and wrists, like they’d been dancing and then entombed.

  That day, the rolling lawn was a patchwork of blankets and people, spreadeagled and shining. Couples sprawled together in knots, their limbs tangled together, while parents chased excited toddlers and children from straying too far into the woods. Babies lay on their backs under lacy parasols, weighted to the earth like washed-clean pebbles.

  So many people. All those lives just… happening. And everyone so happy and free, their laughter falling like water down a mountainside. I wondered if they could tell we weren’t like them. I felt as though we moved like automatons.

  It had been a long time since I’d last crushed into a picnic ground like this. The last time would have been with Luke a year and a half before, and while it wasn’t at Crawcrook it was at a similar stately home called Hibiscus Hall. I remember it like it was yesterday. Luke had surprised me with a basket bursting with tasty bits for afternoon tea – cupcakes, pastries, cheese, berries, beer – and we ate it all sitting on the lawn. At no point did I need to smile to show him how I felt, he just knew. I was wearing shorts and the grass tickled the back of my legs, as if I sat on the fur of a shifting creature. We hardly spoke but lay there for hours, all people and places outside the park as distant as a bad dream.

  Later, I’d remember both picnics but only one would feel like a fiction. Though what was the difference, really? Luke and I had definitely been there, just as Art and I had. I could remember both afternoons. Both versions of me. How I remember it all, well, that’s more to do with me making sense of it all. And I don’t mind that. It’s somewhere I can go, not say anything, just watch the clouds roll above me like I’m watching time from an untouchable place.

  Anyway, Art and I weaved through the sea of bodies and finally found a grassy spot just past the recycling bins. Complying with the rule of all picnics I’d packed far too much, and after laying it all out on the grass it was official that I’d brought an obscene amount of food for two people. It was mostly stuff Easton Grove would have approved of: leaves, fruits, berries and veg, but then I’d also brought some naughtier crisps and cookies, and I’d baked some little cocoa ball-things which immediately melted into one solid lump under the midday sun.

  Whether it was the warm light on my skin or being free from the appointment with Fia and Nathan, I felt lighter than I had done in a long time. Art looked brighter too, and I was struck by how much I wanted him. It was like we were back in our dating days, when every touch was a thrill, a question. I loved him. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about that. But it’s an odd feeling to have a thing, and to want that thing, but to still feel like it’s not quite yours.

  After we’d finished our feast, Art removed his brogues and socks, then wriggled his toes. They looked absurdly naked sticking out at the end of his chinos. He leaned across and slowly pulled off my sneakers so we matched. He pushed himself backwards and pressed the soles of his feet against mine so we were walking our feet together across empty space. I bent my knees, and leaning forwards slotted the fingertips of both my hands through the gaps between his toes, wiggling them gently. Art let out an awkward twitch and recoiled with a sudden “What was that?” I’d lost myself for a moment, and I forgot that not everyone likes their feet fiddled with.

  I pushed our soles back together again on the blanket, balance restored. We didn’t speak all that much for a while but I was content to watch Art as he watched the families around us, a little smile flickering across his face. Before long though I realised he wasn’t watching them as I thought he’d been, he was elsewhere, somewhere his imagination had taken him and where I couldn’t follow. That wasn’t the deal.

  “Where are you?”

  He turned to me and smiled; he couldn’t have been too far away. “I was in my book.”

  “What’s it about, this big one?”

  He sighed, leaning back on his elbows. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try, we’ve got all day.” I threw a strawberry into his lap. He looked at it before retrieving it, this bright red blossom falling between his legs.

  “Well, it’s about a man. A man looking for something he can’t find.”

  “What’s he lost?”

  “He doesn’t know.” Under his breath he let out a little laugh. “The problem is I’ve started it without knowing what he’s looking for myself, so I’ve hit an impasse. But also, the more I work on it, the more I think it’s about me.”

  He bit into the strawberry, sucking out the juice. This revelation didn’t seem all that bad or surprising to me. “Isn’t that OK?”

  He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “This is the first time I’m trying to do something important. Every book I’ve written before has been all plot, action, clues, suspense. A little guy on a journey. I do it because they do well, people buy it. But this, this is supposed to be the one that makes me. My legacy. A story that’ll last longer than me, one that I’ll leave behind.”

  It seemed to me then that Art hadn’t realised that that was the reason why he was writing about himself. Maybe it’s different when you’re the one pouring out the words and every character boomerangs back.

  I bent my knees just enough so that I could stroke his ankle. “It’s always going to have a bit of you in there, Art. Maybe that says something good about it.”

  “No. I shouldn’t be in it at all. I should be the voice above it all, outside of it. It’s meant to be a modern-day parable, it’s meant to change everything. My other stuff is crap, it goes from bestseller lists to bargain bins in a week. No one remembers them. But this, this is meant to be timeless. Who’d care about another fucking memoir? Especially from someone like me, right now. It’s too risky.”

  I let my nail scratch his ankle as I pulled my hand away. He was right. Though Easton Grove wanted us to be delegates, what if people found out where we lived through Art’s books? Would we then have those same desperate protestors at our door, their placards pressed against the windows? We both knew it couldn’t work, and it would be stupid to contradict him on it. I could see Art’s mood had plummeted, and the only way to salvage our afternoon would be to soothe him.

  “Maybe it’s about time we set a date.”

  He didn’t seem to hear me, and was still inspecting the half-eaten strawberry.

  “Do you want to set a date, Art?”

  At his name he looked up at me again, quizzically. “What are you going to do about work, Norah? Are you going to look for something else?”

  So, he’d turned to sparring? I wasn’t in the mood to defend, and laughed it off. “I’m sure something’ll come up. Aubrey always thought I was made for c
ustomer service.”

  Art smirked. “What does she know? The problem with Aubrey is she can’t share. She doesn’t want you to move ahead of her. She doesn’t want you to do better.”

  “Maybe I should write my own memoir. Perhaps one day I’ll be the one making waves with my artistic side.”

  Before Art had the chance to reply his phone rang, and he answered it with hardly a glance at who was calling. I sank into my own thoughts as he chatted, my conversational cogs churning away in preparation for the moment he was back with me. He hung up after a minute or two, biting his lip. “I’m sorry, I forgot I had a Skype chat with Kelly booked this afternoon to go through a contract. We’ll have to go now if I’m going to make it at six.”

  We packed up the empty packets and bottles in silence. Art was mouthing words to himself, likely preparing what he’d say to Kelly. But when every trace of our being there was consigned to the basket, I didn’t get up from the blanket.

  “Let’s do something.”

  Art looked down at me, his brow furrowed.

  “Let’s go somewhere. Let’s go somewhere you like but you’ve never been for a long time. You can get me drunk, if you want.”

  His eyebrows raised at that, and he looked at me like he was inspecting something new and amusing. A dog doing a trick. “I said I’d be back…”

  “There’s a lifetime to be back. Kelly can wait. Come on, take me somewhere.”

  I didn’t really expect him to change his mind, but as soon as I’d said the words his eyes lit up. He drove us to a bar an hour south of the picnic ground, and all the while I smiled – knowing that he was choosing to take me somewhere rather than answer Kelly’s call.

  As we climbed out of the car, he told me that he’d read about the place on a referrals site when he first arrived in the UK and driven all the way here just for a drink. It was the first place he found that he felt at home, and he came here once a week or so before he met me. It did seem strange that he hadn’t told me about it before, but then it was just a bar. It was hardly a representation of his heart and soul. But still – in those early dates of showboating ourselves through little adventures around the north, why hadn’t he taken me there?

  Called the Red Room, it wasn’t what I’d expected at all. From the outside, with its glass windows and rustic oak signage, I expected it to be a hipster hangout spot, but inside the place was set up like an old public house from the 1940s and was inhabited by men in twos and threes who were a fair bit older than we were. All the tables and seating seemed just a little bit smaller than in a normal pub, and the walls curved inwards towards the ceiling as if we were beneath the canopy of a circus tent. Most of the furnishings were blood red or a deep purple, the wood all dark and glossy mahogany. Art led me to a two-seater table in the corner towards the back, and grabbed a drinks menu from the next table.

  “If I’m to get you drunk, let’s do it in style.” His finger skimmed down the list of cocktails.

  “No, my idea, my treat. I’m paying.”

  “Oh. Well in that case.” Art chose a bottle of some dark brew, and after he promised that he’d let me try a sip when it arrived, I stuck to wine. When I returned to our table, Art was tugging on his ear self-consciously, perhaps suddenly bashful that he’d chosen such an odd place to take me to. I don’t blame him, I would never have matched it with Art at all. But as he reached the end of that first bottle his fires were stoked again, his voice now loud enough to rouse some of the older people who were sitting alone from staring at their beermats.

  Without asking me, Art bought us the same two drinks again. I sipped at my wine as he told me the story of his first few months in England. I’d heard it all before of course, but this time he told some of the details differently. In one, he’d seen a woman get mugged on his second day in the UK, but in this latest retelling it was a young girl who was mugged, and it was Art who called the police. Some of his stories I didn’t remember so well so I couldn’t be sure about those, but others I did remember – having heard them two or three times already. The way he told them in the Red Room you’d have thought he was on stage, giving a reading from one of his books. But he was so obviously enjoying himself by this point that I didn’t raise it. What’s the harm in his trying to entertain both of us?

  Art picked out a different beer for his third, and I chose a diet coke, but asked at the bar for it in a spirit glass. We raised our glasses to ourselves with a customary chink. I was already feeling a bit light-headed, but the cool weight of the soft drink helped a little. Art kept at it, downing drink after drink like a starving man with water. His mood peaked and dipped and peaked again between victor and underdog, his rollercoaster ride entirely self-driven.

  This out of control Art was an alien creature to me, an animal to study behind a pane of one-sided glass. All I needed to do was sit back in my seat, and watch him break himself down in that superficial way drunk people do, dissecting his deepest self with blind eyes, forgetting first to remove the skin.

  Art’s fingers prodded his chest clumsily, and he leaned forwards conspiratorially, breathing hot beery words in my ear. “You know why I really like this place?”

  Keeping my eyes wide I shook my head. “Remind you of somewhere?”

  He twisted his face. “What? No. Like where?”

  “I don’t know, you’re the one making me guess. Somewhere back home?”

  He looked like he was laughing but no sound was coming out. “No. I don’t want anywhere to remind me of back home. Ever.”

  Art had never spoken to me about the photo I’ve seen after our first date. “I liked seeing your parents’ faces. In your portfolio. They looked… nice.”

  Art stared back at me. “I don’t remember putting that in there.”

  I shrugged. “Well, it was. You were only little. On a farm? Are they scatterers?”

  Art coughed, but kept his lips pinned shut. “They were, yeah. They’re dead now. The usual. They greyed.”

  “Oh.” Shit. Why did I bring this up? I should have known. He said he didn’t want to talk about the topic, so why did I pursue it? Stupid stupid stupid. There was nothing to say, so I reached across to brush my fingers across his knuckles. He didn’t move. “OK, so it’s not back home. Why’s this place so special?”

  He stared out at the bar as if he’d forgotten what he was going to say. He looked sad, smaller, and I wished I hadn’t said anything at all. Everything I did was wrong. He took a swig of his drink and shook his head as if dusting off a dream.

  “It’s because everyone’s so fucking old. No one comes in here if they’re younger than sixty. Everyone looks at you because you’re fresh and different. I even move differently to them. They’re weighted down whereas I’m free as a bird. Free and light.” He waggled his fingers at either side of his head like fledgling wings. “It’s like I’m immortal.”

  It felt like a long time before Art’s stomach began audibly rumbling and he tired of drinking. He didn’t finish his last beer and instead proclaimed that we needed to “go on the hunt for sustenance.”

  Arm in arm we stumbled to the car and I helped him fall into the back seat. He didn’t even try to sit up, and instead curled on the pew, his hands covering his face. I could see the soles of his brogues hadn’t fared well with the chemicals on the lawn. I’d have to make sure he didn’t touch them while on the back seat, and I’d check both our shoes for boot-rot when we got back.

  He lay silent for the whole three-hour journey home. From the front I couldn’t see if he was asleep or thinking, but either way he was mentally far, far away from the car. I didn’t mind, and my thoughts flocked around my own head for a while. I thought about tomorrow, when Art would wake up with a sore head and worse, and likely not be able to write at all.

  The thought made me smile.

  After all, if it was all about perspective I had plenty of time, didn’t I? Whatever sickness might be thrown my way I’d beat it. I had a backup. I had ten backups, a hundred backups. And I had all
the help I could ever need to use that time well.

  It took a while to get Art out of the back seat and through the front door. With each step he gathered himself, until he flopped down on the sofa with a high-pitched giggle. He grabbed my arm, his eyes wide and white.

  “Norah – it’s all going well, isn’t it? You’ll always be here for me? No matter what happens?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “It’s all fine.”

  He patted me on the wrist, all doe-eyes and honesty. “Well be a dear, and get this old flake a slice of toast or, what do you call it, a Cornish pasty? If I must go without food a moment longer I may faint where I am lain. Oh, the hunger.”

  I kissed him on the forehead and left to forage for something filling. I called back to him, “I’ll just be a minute. Your mini-me needs vitamins too.”

  I grabbed a tin of jellied feed and jogged up the stairs to the landing. Once I’d sorted Nut out and made sure Art had something to eat, maybe I’d coax him to the bedroom. Sit with our feet touching again. He didn’t like the fingers through the toes, but I’d find another gesture, another caress he did like. Despite the state of him, spending more time with him had opened me up to Art in a way I’d forgotten since the house had settled. Hopefully he too felt warm towards my touch.

  I stuck my head through the hatch entrance and scanned the room for Nut. I couldn’t make much out, the bulb in the lamp would soon need replacing. I heaved myself up through the trapdoor and stepped through the baby gate, still creaking with that slow wail. Nut’s cardboard box was empty, as was the fruit crate, and though I couldn’t see her right away I knew she was here, as if a sixth sense told me so.

  And then I spotted her. Silent. Still. Flat on her side as if captured in a snapshot of a hare, running.

  PART 2

  11

  We were never supposed to name her, you know. Nut. They told us this when they made her.