Chloe (14 page)

‘The thing about sex,' said Chloë to Mr and Mrs Andrews once the grumble of the Land Rover had faded, ‘is that it always seems such a big deal. That one-night stand I had, just before Brett – I was so determined that it should be flippant, fun and forgettable. What happened? I spent a week fretting and regretting! It
was
a big deal. And sex with Brett; Heavens, banish the memory or let me redo the past! It was when I watched that nature programme about pigs tracking truffles that I realized where and when I'd heard such noises!'

Mrs Andrews stifled a giggle. Chloë shuddered and left the dressing-table, crossing over to the wardrobe. Cranking open the door, she inhaled deeply and then closed it again. She sat in the old chair and looked over to the dressing-table. Funny how swiftly Mr and Mrs Andrews became just a postcard. Made of paper. Not real at all. She returned to the dressing-table and brushed her hair again. It needed it. The Andrews sprang back into life. She needed them.

‘You see, I don't think I've ever really
made
love. There hasn't been anyone who's made me love them for me to want to do anything but lie there and oblige. But,' she said, glancing at Mr Andrews's breeches, ‘I think I'd rather like to make love with Carl.'

The Andrews seemed to think that this was a reasonable idea.

‘Only, well, he's never
actually
asked.'

Mrs Andrews pointed out that Chloë was lucky to live in an age of sexual equality whereas she was pretty much restricted to waiting demurely in her boudoir, to say nothing of the confines of canvas. Chloë gazed at her frock and wondered if the lacy bits itched. For all she knew, Mrs A was very probably not wearing knickers, horny as hell, waiting for Gainsborough to finish for the day so she could hoick up her skirt and grant her husband swift entry. Right there. On the bench. Out of doors. In the estate.

‘Go on,' she seemed to be saying to Chloë, ‘give him one from me!'

She couldn't possibly!

Chloë looked again and glanced away quickly.

She couldn't possibly.

‘But, wouldn't that be a little
wanton
? Shouldn't I wait for him to do the asking?'

Mrs Andrews raised her eyebrow mockingly. ‘We're not talking marriage here, only sex, dear girl!'

‘What do I do then?' Chloë retorted. ‘Come straight out with it and say “I say Carl, fancy a shag”? I think not.' She pranged the bristles on her hairbrush and pressed them gently against her cheek. ‘Perhaps a little note: “Carl, Carl, come to me and take me to the stars and back”? No, no. We're never alone for long enough. And when we are, we seem to enjoy kissing and foraging for its own sake, not as a preamble to some greater sexual plane. I'm having fun as it is – but I
would
like to go further. I'd like to try. I think. Before we part, just so I know, just so I won't regret.'

Mr Andrews was not listening, he was arguing with Gainsborough who had painted out the pheasant he had shot for his wife and which currently lay in her lap.

‘Look at the bird!' he exclaimed to the artist. ‘What a specimen!'

‘Indeed,' agreed Gainsborough, doffing a raised eyebrow to Mrs Andrews who, in turn, winked long and slow at Chloë.

A letter arrived second post from Jasper and Peregrine. Their advice was sound and welcome.

That night, Chloë climbed into bed without a peep through the curtains. Too much of a distraction. She wanted to think on what to do, a plan of action, which course to take.

‘The thing is,' she said to the Andrews though she looked up at the rafters, ‘what with his lovely orange Volkswagen combie-thingy that he bought today, Carl is now leaving in a couple of weeks. Half of me wonders if I'll feel a flop if he goes and we haven't. The other half of me thinks what a perfect opportunity it would be to do It. No strings attached, no relationship to go horribly wrong. The other half – damn! I can't have three! Another part of me says perhaps it will spoil things if we
do
do It. Maybe it won't be earth-moving. And then what would be the point? I like the kissing and the rummaging. It's so furtive and exciting. Safe, too. And nice.'

Mr Andrews asked his wife what the girl was wittering on about. Mrs Andrews merely tutted, said ‘you wouldn't understand,' took the pheasant from her lap and flung it over her shoulder behind the oak tree.

‘Right,' Chloë said defiantly, ‘I shall leave it to him. And that,' she said, turning the light off, ‘is my last word on the matter.'

Quietly, she thought to herself how nice it would be to make love to someone whose accent was genuine. Brett had employed a phoney American twang once his humping exceeded a certain speed, grunting, ‘Oh bay-beh, bay-beh.' Whether this was an involuntary preamble to his orgasm, or a misguided attempt to facilitate Chloë's, remained unfathomable. It hadn't worked, that was for sure.

‘I like things like this,' says Chloë, running her finger along the blue rim of the soup bowl, ‘don't you?'

Carl regards the crockery and realizes he does not really have an opinion on it but he wants to please Chloë so he elaborates.

‘Ah yih! Dinky, I'll say. Proper English country style.'

‘I agree!' says Chloë heartily, pausing before continuing crestfallen: ‘I can't believe you're going tomorrow.'

Carl fiddles with a sprig of parsley and reaches across for her hand. He transfers the parsley to her and she munches it distractedly.

‘Chlo,' he says gently.

‘I know,' she says.

He has taken her to the Bay Tree Bistro. She adores him for it, and more so when he referred to it as the Bay Leaf Café. They have just finished a wondrous soup of field mushrooms and tarragon and are awaiting their main courses. There is a single carnation on the table and Chloë makes small tears at its petals forlornly.

Carl watches her dipping her little finger in and out of the hot candle wax. He sees that she is anxious and knows that it transcends her unhappiness that the morning will part them. It is palpable unease. At what, he wonders? The main course arrives and they eat for the most part in silence, the quality of the food warrants it. Carl sends his compliments to the chef which Chloë finds endearing. They cajole each other into ordering puddings they are too full for but too greedy to decline. Chloë teaches Carl how to pronounce zabaglione correctly. He insists on adding an ‘I' in front of the ‘b'; it is easier to pronounce that way and, more importantly, it sends Chloë off into fits of giggles which he finds so seductive. They dither over coffee; Carl collects the bill and they loiter for a while longer, long after the change has come and a tip been left. They play with each other's fingers and fiddle with their napkins. The waitress eyes the tip from a discreet distance and wishes they would go before they absent-mindedly pocket it. They murmur half-sentences and giggle away the rest. It is late and the proprietor is clearing her throat and looking at her watch as obviously as she can without being impolite. From the kitchen, an abusive chef can be heard ranting in an accent Carl cannot place.

‘Brummy,' explains Chloë.

‘Right,' says Carl. He knits her fingers together and then cups his hands over them. Through the candle's flame he catches her eyes and smiles at her without using his mouth. He stands and holds out his hand.

‘Come, Cadwallader,' he says.

‘How I wish,' she replies.

Back at Skirrid End the kitchen light is still on so they skirt around the stables and creep into the tack room. The grandfather clock stands guard and tocks reassuringly. The moonlight turns Chloë's skin to porcelain and sends shards of light into Carl's eyes.

Make love to me, oh, make love to me.

‘Shit Chlo, I'm going to miss you.'

Take me. I want to have sex with you.

‘Never met no one like you, girl.'

Let's make love. Here.

Chloë presses her lips silently and softly against his. She does not pucker them into a kiss, just pushes them into his. She can feel him breathing on her cheek. He smells garlicky and faintly of alcohol and to her, just now, right here, he smells good enough to eat. To bottle and keep.

Carl wants her lips to move. To kiss him firmly – their speciality. He kisses her slowly, drawling it out in much the same way as his sentences. Measured and calm. Chloë kisses him back, scrunching her eyes tight to absorb every minute of the here and now to take with her to the hereafter. Their faces part and they regard one another in the glorious March moonlight. Chloë realizes that she feels too sad to feel sexy and, because she can detect no probing against her appendix, she knows Carl must feel likewise.

‘We haven't –' she says.

‘No,' he half laughs, ‘we never did.'

‘And now we won't. Ever,' Chloë says forlornly, rubbing her hand up and down his stomach and keeping her eyes fixed on his belt buckle.

‘We didn't need to,' says Carl. Chloë is puzzled so she punches him gently, square on the navel. He rocks her in his arms and presses his lips on the top of her head.

‘Making love isn't the whole shebang, Chlo. And sometimes the whole shebang becomes just plain old boring sex. A disappointment. I'll never forget you, girl. And I'll ache for you at times when I'll least expect to.'

His words are strung as a line of pearls and she lays her head against his chest and listens to his heart beat away.

W
illiam brought the bowl through to the wheel from the damp cupboard. He had thrown it soon after his return from Wales and now, having left it awhile for the moisture to lessen, it was ideal for turning. He held the bowl aloft, like some mystical chalice, for this piece both contained his emotions and expressed them too. He was pleased with the shape; the subtle ogee curve, the furl of the perfectly proportioned lip, the precision of the tapering. Now all that was left was to turn it; to trim the uneven clay off the bottom portion, to develop a foot ring. He looked inside the vessel and then out, judging the amount of clay to be removed so that the exterior would reflect the interior and the weight of the bowl would be even. Then he decided on the positioning of the foot ring. Satisfied, he inverted the bowl and placed it down carefully on the wheel. Slowly, he set the wheel in motion, tapping at the pot until it was precisely centred. Placing three nubs of clay to hold the bowl in place, he positioned himself over the wheel and set it running high.

William enjoyed turning for it was both science and art to judge how much clay to remove to ensure that the vessel appeared to be of one skin. And there was something immensely satisfying in pressing the loop of a turning tool against the skin of a spinning pot while furls of clay twirled away to reveal fresh contours beneath. Today, it was the deep auburn coiled slithers themselves which solicited William, more than the revealing form of the vessel. As they amassed around the head of the wheel, he pushed his fingers lightly into them, drawing his hand up slowly so they trickled and tickled away. Beautiful and soft curls and coils; sinuous and sensuous in delicious burnt sienna.

When he was satisfied with the shape, that the form stood complete, he smothered it entirely with the deliciously goopy
terra sigillata
slip and began to burnish the surface. The Cornish March was mild and William spent the next few days working over the surface of the pot alternately with the back of a small silver teaspoon and a smooth piece of quartz to compact the slip and bring a dazzling sheen to the surface. Finally, the pot shone as if wet, both reflecting and giving off light. From a distance it appeared to have been dipped deep into a clear varnish but close to, it revealed the contours and minute dints of William's burnishing marks. They were his signature and were as idiosyncratic as his thumbprint.

This was the vessel that had been inspired by the humming girl just before Christmas. The recent trip to Wales, however, had woven its way silently into its fabric. William had thus decided to smoke-fire it. The finished pot blended contradiction seamlessly. Its form was open and positive, feminine even; but the decoration presented blushes of vivid red against vague areas of sootiness. And scorchings of utter blackness.

T
his is the life! I feel so at ease. So at home. Could it be? Could it be here?

Riding out by herself each day has afforded Chloë the quiet and the time to feel peaceful and in control. After all, the very fabric of Skirrid End and the framework of her existence there have made her feel safe and sound.

‘I like to be given a timetable for my days,' she explained at length to Desmond; partly because she was working through the concept in her mind, partly because she hoped that a conversational tone would distract the horse from his customary bucking. Desmond, of course, did not answer. But neither did he buck. ‘See,' Chloë continued, ‘it provides me with
structure
– I have a function for each day. I am useful. I am needed.'

And you are looked after and guided. But might you not want to define the structure for your life yourself? At some point? If it wasn't for Jocelyn, for her death, would you be here? Jocelyn has sent you, Chloë, to her firm old friend Gin. Gin has welcomed you into her home for and because of her late friend. That is not to say that you would not have been given board and lodgings and a room in The Rafters if you had chanced upon Skirrid End as Carl had. But you would never have found yourself here. You never would have taken yourself away. Not unless someone told you to.

They did. And you are here. Soon you must leave and go on. But you will leave only because it is decreed. And you will travel to where you are told. There is nothing wrong in that, Chloë. But true security is that which you wrap around yourself, by yourself. And home is a place that reveals itself only once you have sought it out. Would you not like to find both? All by yourself?