Fifty-Minute Hour (32 page)

Perhaps that's why he wouldn't let me help, just arranged me on the sofa, strictly horizontally, while he launched into his chefs act just off-stage. At last, he's come to join me and is wolfing down his salad, while I push mine round the plate – yes, floral and bone china. Although my stomach won't co-operate, I've been swamping him with compliments: what a fantastic cook he is, and how I've never had potatoes so fluffy-light and buttery. That's true, in fact, and the souffle was quite perfect (kept its erection, so to speak, and ejaculated-cream). The compliments are genuine, but like most men's flattery to females, they're double-edged, and I'm using them for barter. I've traded three ‘Fantastic!'s for more of Seton's history (especially his last fortnight, which appears to have transformed him from a tiger to a zombie), and I'm now starting on John-Paul's. I've got an easy entree. When I went to use Zack's loo (also rose-sprigged Meissen – or something pretty close to it), I passed through a sort of hall place which was hung with scores of paintings, including two or three like the ones in Seton's boat and John-Paul's tower. Those damn pictures seem to haunt me. I just can't get away from them. If I moved to Timbuktu or Torremolinos, would I still find them on the walls?

Anyway, I question Zack about them, once we reach the cheese and fruit, and he confirms they're rather special and then reveals (astonishingly) that he himself sold them to John-Paul, to hang in his consulting-room. He knew the worthy doctor wasn't exactly short of cash, and his detective work disclosed that he was also a bit of a collector, so ever-prudent Zachary puts him on the mailing list. It seems once he'd done his probing for the sake of wretched Seton, he then decided to exploit it for himself. Though he never breathed a word, of course, about his connection with a patient, just kept sending invitation cards, until, two or three years later, John-Paul actually turned up at the private view of an artist called Phil Dyer, who'd become the toast of fashionable London, partly because of extremely good publicity in a whole rash of magazines, and partly because he was confined to a wheelchair and painted with the brush strapped to his hand.

‘
Another
lousy artist,' I say, a mite sarcastically, removing an outsize pip from an outsize grape with a fantastic purple bloom.

Zack bridles. ‘No, a brilliant one. I may hang rubbish at the gallery, if the Council twists my arm, but never in my own place, Nial.'

‘But they're just the same as – what d'you call her? – Jane's.'

‘Like Jane's? You must be joking! Phil's are in another league entirely. Okay, they're both abstract, both muted in their colours and pretty free with the brush, but there the resemblance ends.'

I say nothing for a moment. I'm not only humiliated by my obvious shaming ignorance, but also I feel nervous at how misleading most things are. Those pictures
looked
the same, quite apart from Seton's leg-pull, or lie, or fit of madness (or however one describes it), which confused me even more. How can we trust anything: our eyes, our minds, our lovers? Can I even trust Zack himself on anything he's said so far, yet here I am still hanging on his words? He's explaining why John-Paul was drawn to Dyer in the first place – because he spent half his early life in a mental institution, when he was actually a genius – a case of wrong diagnosis, as it were.

‘Look, is John-Paul
married
?' I suddenly blurt out.

Zack looks a little nonplussed, but I'm sick of pictures actually. There are far more vital things to check – John-Paul's wives or ex-wives, the whole issue of his expertise and training.

‘No, he lives alone.'

‘But
was
he married?'

‘What is this, Nial, an inquisition?'

‘No – yes, if you like. There's this … er … girl I know who fancies him and she asked me to …'

‘Tell her not to waste her time. The man lives entirely for his work. Apart from his collecting, which is extremely sporadic anyway – he's ignored every invitation I've sent since Dyer's show – there's zilch else but patients in his life.'

‘And
dogs
?' I ask.

‘Dogs?' Zack peels a grape, which looks more like an eyeball as he transfers it to his mouth.

‘Wolfhounds?'

Zack stops chewing in surprise. ‘I shouldn't think so, no. The only time we met he admitted he was a cat-man, and wolfhounds
eat
cats, don't they?'

‘Yes,' I say with feeling, then suddenly relax, push my plate away, sink down on the cushions. There
were
no dogs, no wolfhounds. Of course I didn't kill them. They were never there to kill. It was my shadow-self which killed them in its mind – shadow-dogs, mere hallucinations. I'm so relieved I loll right back, let out a great laugh. Zack swoops on me immediately, abandons grapes and Camembert, tries to plug my open mouth with his. He misses, tries again. I let him have his wet and slobbery kiss. I never kiss my clients, but he's not a client, is he, and I'm actually not there. He can have my mouth and body – my soul and self and essence are back on John-Paul's couch.

‘You're beautiful,' he says. ‘D'you know, I couldn't take my eyes off you at the private view? You were the most attractive woman there.'

He's mocking now – he must be. I wrench my mouth away. ‘Seton didn't think so,' I say acerbically.

‘Seton's no real judge.'

I realise what he's doing now. I've met his type before. It's not me he wants, but the chance to do his friend down, steal his buddy's girl. I've known men sleep with frights and frumps just because they belong to someone else and they can't stand being told ‘Don't touch'; have to prove they're grown-ups who are allowed to break the rules. I suppose if I wore a wedding ring, he'd find me still more irresistible.

‘You're so
exciting
,' he says softly. He's not drunk, just good at lying. My face is Gruyère-pale, I probably smell of vomit, and my size-eight feet are displayed in all their gracelessness, since I've kicked off my tight shoes.

‘So you like the hair?' I ask him. ‘Vidal Sassoon spent
hours
on it. It's called the natural look.'

‘Well, it was a sort of … shock at first – that I must admit, but now I've got more used to it, I find it rather striking. It's dramatic, isn't it? And you've got such fantastic cheekbones, it really shows them off.'

I bet he's good at writing blurbs – all his lousy artists billed as ‘exciting' and ‘dramatic'. He's already described that Steiner girl as ‘lively', and no doubt black Lovena has amazing Marxist bones. I've never trusted men who talk about a woman's bones when they're really after flesh.

‘How about my ears?' I ask.

‘Your ears?'

‘Are they exciting, too?'

‘You're exciting all over, Nial.'

He assumes that deserves a second kiss and a hand inside my blouse. He's not a brilliant kisser, dribbles saliva down my chin. I wipe it off with my serviette (which is cream, of course, and damask); take advantage of the pause to return to his chief rival. ‘Hey, Zack …' I make it teasing to put him off his guard. ‘Did your detective work extend to John-Paul's family?'

‘What?'

I've thrown him. Men can never do two things at once. Most normal women (the sort with homes and kids) often manage five or six at least. ‘Seton told me John-Paul's father was a …'

‘Darling, let's not talk about John-Paul – not now.'

God, a ‘darling'! I spent naked weeks with Seton trying to coax just one – and failing – yet Zack's obliged before we've got our clothes off. Actually, he's unbuttoning my blouse, trying to slide the buttons through the holes in such a suavely sneaky way he thinks I'm unaware. Seton did it better by just tugging.

‘I mean, you didn't happen to hear his father was a plumber?' I don't remove his hands. I'll swap a stretch of naked cleavage for a few more solid facts.

‘Christ! Your tits are …' He kneads one like a pastry-cook, seems lost for adjectives.

‘Too small,' I murmur softly, trying to help him out. One favour for another. ‘I mean, did anyone you speak to know about his family or background?'

‘They're perfect, Nial. The big ones always droop.

I let him suck a nipple before I return to John-Paul's father, smile at him coquettishly. ‘No one mentioned plumbers, for example?'

He sits up rather crossly, one hand on my breast still. ‘Plumbers?'

‘Yes – you know – geysers, boilers, stopcocks, all that sort of thing. Seton said …'

‘Let's leave Seton out of this. All right?'

I nod. I'll kid him if he wants that, but I can't say I admire him. He doesn't seem to realise he's doing Seton down, nor blush for his hypocrisy in claiming to be shattered by his friend's recent sad relapse, then touching up his mistress a cool twenty minutes later. I admit I did encourage him by hugging him so wildly, which must have seemed the most outrageous come-on, especially when I offered him a twelve-course slap-up dinner. But even so, I backed off pretty quickly once he'd got me in his car, refused to let him stroke my thigh, told him almost primly he needed both his hands for driving. Now he's backing off from
me
, and I haven't got my answer yet, so I pop a grape between his lips (which is what they do in porn movies, and always with results). ‘Just tell me if the plumber bit was true, Zack?'

‘What plumber bit?' He crunches up a grape-pip with more venom than it needs.

God! He's not just hypocritical, he's thick. I've repeated it at least three times. I try again, a fourth time, but he still looks mystified.

‘John-Paul's father is a
doctor
, Nial – a rather eminent neurologist. Half the family are doctors – brothers, cousins, nephews. That was easy to find out. His surname's so unusual and the clan are fairly thickly clustered around Harley Street and …'

‘But is
he
a doctor?' I interrupt. ‘I mean a proper medical one?

Seton said he'd only got a doctorate in philosophy from some foreign university.'

Zack grabs the cheese-knife, hacks off a chunk of Brie, masticates it angrily, as if he's chewing up a whole Harley Street of eminent neurologists; devouring John-Paul in a gulp, then wolfing down his brothers, cousins, nephews. He's still talking as he chews, so that tiny flecks of Brie-and-spittle spray into the air. ‘Well, I suppose Seton had to deny him as a doctor, just to give himself an excuse to quit his therapy and blame someone else for his failure to improve.'

I look at Zack with new respect. That's really rather subtle, even worthy of John-Paul, though again disloyal to Seton. Maybe they're not good friends at all, just employee and employer, which still doesn't quite explain why Zack should waste his evenings visiting a mental case. I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt – he's genuinely kind (if a shit in other ways) – concerned for Seton as a suffering, human being, and not just as a framer who works eighteen hours a day and probably charges well below the market rate. I offer him my breasts again – a reward not just for kindness, but for saving John-Paul's family. An eminent neurologist's far safer than a plumber. I'm feeling safer altogether – no dogs, no lousy paintings, no jumped-up Cockney father. In fact, I'm so thoroughly elated, I let Zack remove my skirt, admire my black net stockings. My own mind's still on doctors, and prickles with unease again as I realise Zack didn't actually answer my last question. I don't repeat it yet – timing's crucial in these matters – but pretend to moan with lust as he inserts his podgy hand inside my stocking-top.

He's so encouraged he starts tackling my suspenders, which affords me a remission, since he's obviously more artistic than mere practical and seems baffled by their simple snap-on fastenings. I use the breathless pause to ask a question. ‘You mean, he's got all his degrees and things, and went to proper medical school and did his …?'

‘Christ! They're so exciting, stockings. Whoever invented tights deserves to burn in hell.' He outmanoeuvres one, at last, rolls it down in a sort of panting ecstasy, strokes my naked leg from thigh to toe, and back to inner thigh.

‘If you could just fill me in on the basic facts – I mean, which particular medical school or analytic training, the year he qualified – all that sort of thing.'

Zack's not concentrating, doesn't even seem to hear me. It's probably my own fault. I'm speaking very huskily, in that sexy throaty sort of voice which is meant to drive men wild, so that they obey your every whim.
This
man's blithely unaware there's anything I want – except his hot hand travelling back towards my groin. I clamp my legs together, pretend I need the loo again. He's thrilled – assumes I only need it to insert my diaphragm, so we can go full steam ahead. I pout him a long-distance kiss as I glide towards the bathroom. ‘Don't go away,' I purr.

He doesn't vanish – just his clothes – which is definitely a mistake. Zack undressed is not a pretty sight. His clothes were his best feature and without them he's a slug, one of those pale fat ones which (sensibly) stay hidden under stones. His body's bald, except for two small greyish tufts sprouting from his underarms and a sort of mangy ruff around his prick. His prick's another slug: erect, but small and squashy. It always rather fazes me that men make such a thing about their pricks, comparing them to Martello towers or howitzers, when they're really more like fungi or invertebrates. John-Paul's the worst of all; wrote this book called
Penile Greed
(though I'd have called it
Phallacies)
, in which he associated phallauses with anything and everything which is long, tall, pointed, powerful, extendible or sharp, or which thrusts, probes, inflates, explodes, turns on and off, spurts, squirts, slogs, strikes and batters. His list went on for ever; included trees, spears, cars, cocaine, whips, taps, thunder, lightning, pistols, tigers, sharks, swords, Zeppelins, Cape Kennedy, Mount Olympus, and even God the Father.