Composite Creatures Read online

  “It’s a fire opal. You deserve something different to the norm. We’re different.”

  Art slipped the ring down to my knuckle, and twisted it side to side to get it past the bone. I looked at my new hand, the nucleus shining like a nugget of sky and the skin around it bulging as if about to explode. It might have been my imagination, but I could swear that my finger was already starting to go numb.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  And then I started asking myself all the questions. You know the ones. Did I feel different already? Would I have to take his name? Would I be spending my evenings practising my new signature, as Norah McIntyre? And oh God – what would everyone say when I told them? We’d only just moved in, and we’d only known each other for eight months. None of my friends had even met Art yet, and tonight was meant to be the night he’d charm them, ease them into what we were, and introduce them to the new me at the same time. And now I was going to have to tell them that we were engaged, too.

  It probably sounds like I wasn’t happy about it. I know, I’m prone to worry. I was happy. Here I was – having just moved in with the wonderful, lovely, talented Art – and already engaged. Before now I’d never even lived with a man, and now I had someone willing to sign on the dotted line and promise himself to me romantically. In truth, I was bent between elation and worry, neither sense completely taking over the other.

  Downstairs in the kitchen Art opened up a bottle of something pink with gold glitter inside. He poured out two flutes and we chinked them high in the air. I drank the glass in one go.

  “My God, Norah, at that rate what the hell are the desserts going to look like?”

  Blackberry pie was the last thing on my mind. Luckily I’d made the artichoke dip and batch of Gruyère gougères earlier that afternoon. Art was in charge of the jackfruit casserole.

  Before I had time to flap, Rosa arrived wrapped in a thick black duffle coat which (even with the hood down) almost cocooned her whole head. As soon as I opened the door, she swooped over the threshold and escaped her layers like a hatching from its shell. After kicking off her shoes, she lifted her arms around my neck and rested her feathery head on my shoulder. She turned her face up to my ear. “Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s going to be brilliant. Let’s make this brilliant.”

  I could have kissed her.

  She thrust out a bottle, and stood on her tiptoes to get a first glimpse of Art, standing behind me with his hands in his pockets. She grinned and swept towards him, arms outstretched, and they sank into each other; I can only guess with relief that both were happy to play the nice game. The pair headed off to the kitchen, Rosa chirping and Art mirroring her as best as he could in his singsong drawl.

  I’d broken one person in, only two more to go.

  I needed to be ready so stayed in the passageway, though the longer I hovered there the more I felt the attention in the kitchen drift in my direction. I was just starting to give in to propriety’s gravitational pull when the doorbell rang. I wished the front door had a peep hole.

  I stumbled to the door and opened it, only for it to jam sharply. For a moment I was completely stumped as to why the door would only open a few inches, and so I shut it then heaved it open again and again, blindly. A voice from the darkness outside: “You’ve got the chain on.” And then I saw the brass shining right in front of my eyes. Why did I put the chain on?

  “Sorry, I’m an idiot.”

  I opened the door to Aubrey and Eleanor. They huddled closely, like they’d already spent time together somewhere warm. Eleanor smiled her tiny smile, her eyebrows raised under a jagged black fringe. Beside her, Aubrey was utterly unreadable, her face as soft and expressionless as sleep. I was shocked at how short her hair was now, shaved to her scalp on the left side. It made her look both vulnerable and fearless.

  I avoided her gaze and waited for Eleanor to pounce on me like Rosa had, and when she didn’t it left the trench between us seem impossible to cross.

  Eventually Eleanor did break the stalemate. Through chattering teeth, she muttered, “Can we come in? It’s fucking Baltic out here.”

  I swept up my arm and invited them into No-Man’s Land. She stepped over the precipice and flicked off her leather coat and patent black heels as if doing a jig. She hissed in relief and rolled her eyes back in her head.

  “Why the fuck do we do it to ourselves, Noz?”

  I ignored the water pooling around the bottom of the shoe pile. “It’s a no shoe world in here. No foot-binding required.”

  “Thank fuck. Right. Where’s the man himself? This man who hath tamed the Norah-creature?”

  I waved Eleanor through the kitchen and faced the music. Aubrey. She’d gone from watching me constantly to scanning the coat stand as if inspecting the scene of a crime. It had been eight months, the longest I’d ever not seen her, and here we were, neither of us willing to break the wall. She should have been happy that I’d invited her, that I’d been willing to accept her into my home, but she showed no sign of appreciation. Just, curiosity.

  I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d been terrified when Eleanor had said Aubrey was coming, but when I’d seen her in the doorway, huddled against the cold with her ears and nose red from the cold, something had melted away. A tickle of joy, even. Considering everything that’d happened, it was remarkable. Some friends are their own time warp.

  But still, in that hallway, cold or no cold, we couldn’t blend. Oil and water. But I had to do something. What could I say to her that was safe? That didn’t raise questions? What if she talked to Art about Luke?

  Be general. Be dull. “Did you both get a taxi together?”

  Aubrey nodded. “We went for a drink first. Elle said she’d had a bad day, and wanted to burn it out before… this.”

  Maybe they’d been talking about me? They probably had. I was the juicy news. I kept my hands tucked into the pockets of my dress. “Come and get a drink, and then you can catch up with me too.”

  I strode to the kitchen, hoping she followed behind me. Eleanor was sitting on a stool, holding our photo from the studio session, her head cocked at something Art had said. I knew it must have been an Art-joke, as Rosa looked confused and Art was standing with his legs astride, practically doing jazz hands.

  Eleanor spluttered, then: “Oh my God, she didn’t? Fucking hell.”

  My entrance. Play the part.

  “Is that me, by any chance?” I stepped into the dining room, holding out my chin like a battle sword. En garde. But this isn’t how it should go. Art and I were a team, on the same side. We had to show them we were on the same side. Art skipped around Eleanor and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

  “I’m just telling them about the time you pretended to read my books but didn’t.”

  “I did read some.”

  Eleanor purred, “Noz is good at pretending. Well, I’d love to borrow one sometime. Or maybe just recommend one and I’ll buy it. Support my local bookseller and all that.” She held up the photo to me with her eyebrows raised, “And by the way – cringe.”

  I became very aware of Aubrey, still standing silently in the passageway just outside the dining room. Right then I wanted to snatch the photo from Eleanor’s hand and burn it. Instead, I spun Art on his heel.

  “This is Aubrey.”

  I’d told him a bit about Aubrey, but not all of it. The old stuff. He didn’t question that the stories stopped when Art and I met, or that I hadn’t seen her while he’d known me. I’d told him that we’d made different choices, which was true, and that we hadn’t fallen out, which wasn’t true.

  He knew she’d be the most difficult to melt, so he reached out for her hand rather than her whole body in a bear hug. She took his hand with a stiff smile, inspecting him like a mannequin in a ghost train or a fun house, one that might all of a sudden jump into motion. I’d seen that look before. She watched him like he was an animal.

  Art didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve heard lots about you, more than these losers.”
r />   Eleanor tutted dramatically, sipping her wine with a pinkie outstretched. Rosa’s head flicked left and right between Art and Aubrey, biting her lip so hard that she’d turned it white. For a moment we were all caught in a freeze-frame, waiting for the drama to break. Aubrey let out a sharp little breath. “I’ve heard lots about you too. I’ve brought you a present.”

  After a “blink-and-you’d-miss-it” glance at me, Aubrey handed Art a purple gift bag with a dangling “New Home” tag. Art delved into the bag and retrieved a little potted plant with fat pink leaves which sat spread-eagled upon the soil.

  “It’s an echeveria, a succulent,” Aubrey said. “They’re the hardest houseplant to kill apparently. No stress.”

  Art handed me the plant and embraced Aubrey, “Sounds perfect.” She let him hug her but she didn’t move a muscle, as unyielding as an oak. In my hands the cactus called out for water with a shrill little cry only I heard. I prodded the dry and crispy soil. To distract myself from the lurching feeling in the pit of my stomach I headed to the sink and turned on the cold tap, thrusting the plant beneath it. Over Art’s shoulder Aubrey spotted what I was doing, and pushed him away.

  “No – don’t water it too much, they like to be dry.”

  Crap. I quickly pulled the pot from under the tap but the soil was already soaking. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. How could I be so stupid as to assume I knew what to do? Perhaps I’d already killed the thing, and I’d only had it a matter of seconds. Art pressed at the dirt with his fingertips. “It’s fine, it just needs to dry out. Stick it on the windowsill and let’s go for a tour. I’ll be the guide.”

  “Just give me a minute. I’ll fix this.” I turned the pot over, squeezing out every drop of water I could with my fingers, as water began to leak from my own eyes. The four of them had already left me behind. One of the fleshy pink leaves fell with a soft thump into the sink.

  I placed the cactus in the middle of the kitchen windowsill and dropped the lost leaf in the composting tub. I turned back to the empty kitchen, wiped the smudges from under my eyes, and listened to Art’s laughter in the study upstairs.

  * * *

  By the time Art brought everyone back to the dining room, I’d set the table with my homemade starters and lit some candles, the sort that burn with a rose-tinted flame. Everyone looked impressed enough with my hosting skills that I felt a little bit buoyed up again, and I moved around the group, flamboyantly pouring wine from the wrist like a butler on TV. Everyone accepted a top-up except Aubrey who clung to the wall, fiddling with the collar of her shirt.

  We sat around the romantically lit table and began to talk in turn. Mostly stories about “work gone wrong”, or the minor catastrophes in the lives of friends-of-friends that always seem funny when you’re not involved. We kept it light, and skimmed dialogue across the table like pebbles across a pond. I hid my left hand underneath the table, and kept my stones for strategic throws. It seemed like a betrayal of the reality of things to talk about fluff when there was meat hiding beneath the oak.

  Aubrey laughed along with Eleanor and Rosa but stayed leaning back in her seat, hands hidden like my own. While I found it impossible to catch her eye, Art tried repeatedly to hook her in, asking her questions about me, how I’d been at university, how I’d been when we’d lived together. Nothing Aubrey said back to him was ever rude, or short or blunt – but somehow she managed to kill each conversation with a few soft words. You had to admire her skill to create an answer impossible to reply to each time, but it also struck me as incredibly unfair. I knew she’d find this hard, but she was being cruel to a man that didn’t deserve her bitterness. That was the truth of it, and I tasted her spite on the sharp tip of my tongue.

  It would’ve been too much to share my newest news. I was still in shock myself. The ring had pulled me back to a particular night last spring, and I just didn’t have the strength to argue this time. Not with everyone watching. Not on a night when we should all be looking towards the future. A new year, and a new beginning. No. I’d let the snow fall on that night.

  I looked up from the table straight into Rosa’s pink eyes. She lifted her glass and drained the last few drops between lips that trembled as if she was about to speak. Instead, Eleanor boomed across the table, “So, when’s your little bundle of joy arriving?” Almost as soon as she said it she looked… twisty.

  I looked to Art for confirmation. “In the second week of January. So, in nine days? We’re all prepared, I think. And don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s hardly a bundle of joy.”

  Eleanor gave a little nod. “It’s joy of a sort though, isn’t it? My uncle’s never been better since he got his. It’s brought him so much relief.”

  “Relief?” Rosa piped.

  “Totally,” nodded Eleanor. “Complete relaxation. He’s had the greying three times now. He worries far less these days, about everything. You never read so much about that side of it. But it’s bloody important. He calls it his little matter cow. Odd really.”

  “Yeah,” Rosa chuckled, “Odd. I don’t know much about it all, to be honest.” She raised her glass. “Maybe I’ll do some research.”

  I wondered what I could and couldn’t say about it all. Instinctively I did a mental run-through of all the workbooks, contracts, and booklets. How confidential were the few details I did know? Art looked up at the ceiling and nodded wistfully. “Yep. It’s all going ahead, all official now. Norah and I are going to have to work even more at being a fully functioning couple. After all, a little life depends on it.”

  The rest of the meal went as smoothly as I could have wanted it to, and Art’s casserole tasted full and fleshy. Aubrey kept quiet, and my worry that she’d bring up Luke or say something she shouldn’t finally started to ease off. I was fearless. I kept catching her eye but she’d always look away, focussing on Eleanor’s lips as she spoke, or Rosa’s fingers fondling the stem of her glass. I made a game of it, flicking my gaze at her when I thought she’d least expect it. Her expression was unceasingly difficult to read. A lot of the time she almost looked bored.

  No one noticed the engagement ring when I dished out each course, or at least they didn’t say anything about it. As the night went on, it seemed so unlikely that they hadn’t seen it, that I started to wonder whether they had and just didn’t want to bring it up. One mountain moved is enough for one night. Every so often I’d catch Art’s gaze and he’d raise his eyebrows just a bit, pointing his nose at my hand as if to say, “Is it time? I’m leaving it up to you.”

  Maybe it was the wine but I’d started to feel a bit smug that I had this secret, and it was a secret that none of the others had experienced yet. Luckily Art didn’t push it, he sensed that I was deep in some internal mood-swimming and he bowed out of the race to keep playing Mr Nice Guy.

  I kept the wine flowing, but as faces around the table began to flush I kept a close eye on who was drinking the most. I tried to act like Art, who seemed to be in his element and not worried about a thing.

  When I came back from checking on dessert with another uncorked bottle in my hand, Eleanor had everyone’s attention latched to her. Her own expression was blank, staring into her empty wine glass.

  “What made you go?” said Rosa, leaning her head on her hand.

  Eleanor craned her neck forward and curled her fingers into claws. “Well, I’m getting on, aren’t I? Got to count up those eggs if I want one to hatch.”

  We all shook our heads and nodded at the same time.

  “And,” she went on, “I know I’ve got a few problems. I want to know what they are.”

  Aubrey reached across and squeezed Eleanor’s wrist. “Toes all crossed,” she said. “Everything crossed.”

  Eleanor gave her a wink and then looked across at me. Our eyes met, and then after a second or two she laughed and said, “Does it sound stupid?”

  I shook my head. Art was watching Eleanor with a strange little look on his face. I really wanted him to say something to her, to help. Somet
hing that I’d be proud of him for saying. But he just sat there, his brow creased, head tilted down. But when I pulled my eyes off him, I realised that everyone else was looking at me.

  Rosa sighed. “What next?”

  “Bloodwork. Ultrasounds. Slowly, slowly, all queues and little movement. NHS, obviously, but still – it’s haemorrhaging money. I’ve burned the surface off my credit card.”

  “You’re born to it, Elle,” said Aubrey. “Millions are in the same boat. Even if you did need help, there’ll be something they can do. Look at the stuff you see on the news! If they can grow a thumb like a carrot in a test tube, I’m sure they can help you do what you’re made to do.”

  Eleanor puffed out some more air. “It’s not the same though, is it?”

  The kitchen timer went. The pie was ready.

  I got up from the table and consciously made Art responsible for changing the subject. He was good at subtle. At gentle nurture.

  Soon after midnight, Eleanor started to say she needed to make tracks. She headed to the hallway to call a taxi for herself and Aubrey, and a moment or two later Rosa followed her out, batting her eyelashes and determined to barter her way into the car share.

  I was left sitting in the kitchen with Aubrey and Art, the pair of them stuck in a face-off over crumbs left from the night’s feast. I’d normally have said anything to break the awkward silence, but I’d lost interest in peace-making, and almost wanted to see them fight. Besides, it was too tempting to lower my head and cradle my face in my arms. Just for a minute. Maybe no one would notice.

  But then it seemed that I blinked and Aubrey already sat in her purple parka, the front zipped up to her chin. Another slow blink and the taxi driver rang the doorbell. Despite the weight, I heaved myself from my chair to help Rosa and Eleanor, who were jostling together by the front door with their coats and fleecy layers. Rosa’s hair was caught in her zip, and she squealed one long “Eeeeeeeee”. Once I’d liberated her she hugged me and Art together. Eleanor leant over and kissed Art on the cheek, whispering to me on the way past, “When it all goes down the shitter, tell him to call me. He’s a keeper.” She winked over her shoulder, and then swaggered into the night.