Candelo by Georgia Blain Page B

leant out the window to see where he was, to see what had happened to him.
    What happens
, I asked him,
if I want to go ahead, if I want to do this?
    The window slammed closed above us.
    We could hear her, walking down the corridor, to the front door, and in Anton’s eyes there was only fear.
    But you can’t
, his words a whisper, her footsteps on the landing, on the stairs, as he looked at me.
    I don’t know what I want
, I said, the tap still running as he tried to tell me he was sorry.
    But it was too late.
    We could hear her knocking on the door, and as he spoke to me, he also called out to her, telling her that he was coming, not knowing whether to open it and let her in, not knowing whether to leave her or to leave me.
    It is not as though he behaved in a way I hadn’t expected
, I told Lizzie later.
I knew what he was like
, and I looked away.
    I knew what he was like. But I had hoped for more.
    I have to go
, he said.
I am sorry
, he said.
We will talk
, he said. But his face said only one thing.
    I didn’t want this either
. My voice was low as he opened the door to Louise, standing there in the rain, not knowing why she had been left to wait; the rain coursing down her hair, soaking into her shirt.
    Telephone
, she said, not looking at me, just looking at him.
    I’d better run
, he said, but not to either of us, to no one inparticular, and as he turned to the stairs, as he disappeared from sight, she stayed where she was.
    I didn’t move. There against the sink, with her at the entrance to my flat.
    Are you okay?
she asked, and I told her I was.
    Just a bit of family trouble
, and, as if on cue, I knocked the answering machine, replaying Mari’s message asking me to call her. I reached for the stop button, but it was too late. The message had played out.
    Well
, she said,
I suppose I’d better go too
.
    But she waited, just for a moment, neither of us speaking, and as I watched the rain falling behind her, I wondered whether she knew.
    Because it was possible we had all been lying. Not just he and I. But all of us.
    To each other and to ourselves.

sixteen

    When Simon was fourteen, he took up art. Life drawing, to be exact.
    I remember.
    He found out about it through an advertisement in the local paper and told Vi he wanted to join. Once a week she would drive him over to where the group met and pick him up again three hours later.
    All housewives
, I overheard Vi telling a friend, knowing she had used a term she hated because it was the only way to describe the incongruity of Simon’s presence,
and him
.
    I was fascinated. But not with the housewives.
    You have a nude model?
I asked him, looking at the charcoal drawings he brought home. Drawings of an exceptionally voluptuous woman lying back on a mound of velvet pillows.
Completely starkers?
    He was disparaging in his response.
What do you reckon?
    She had the most enormous pair of breasts I had ever seen.
    So where does she undress?
    He found it difficult to comprehend the inanity of my question.
    Where do you think?
    I had no idea.
    She doesn’t get cold?
    He rolled his eyes in response.
    He had his drawing on the very expensive easel Bernard had bought for him in one of his sporadic attempts at being an interested father. I watched as he worked, concentrating on perfecting the curve of the hip, smudging the charcoal with his hand, stepping back, smudging again.
    She doesn’t get embarrassed?
I asked.
    He had no idea what I meant.
    In front of you?
    Being only twelve, I was at an age when nudity and sex were still, by and large, a mystery. Vi had, of course, explained everything to us in long and boring detail, but I could not help but feel there was something more. Something she had left out.
    I had never even kissed a boy.
    I didn’t know about Simon; I had always presumed he was as inexperienced as I was. He was too enveloped in his own world to even contemplate the possibility of some physical connection