Ivory (4 page)

The
nurse and Martin looked to the girl, whose smile was suddenly more
definite and flickered with life. Not the greeting Martin was
expecting her to have for her pimp. He experienced a twinge of
jealousy that was both unexpected and uncomfortable in its clarity
and its inappropriateness.

A tight smile briefly softened the black man’s features in
response to her smile, several gold teeth winked among his
yellowing originals. “She is my ward,” the man announced precisely.
The smile dissolved and his fierceness returned. He pressed the
point of his staff onto the floor and rested both hands on its flat
head, posturing behind the claim. “I have come to take her home.”
His shuttered eyes flickered and flashed the whites of his eyes as
if there was a building power within his head that culminated in
his eyes snapping fully open. Martin found the force of the man’s
statement emboldened by two blank white eyes staring into
him.

Martin had returned to his vigil outside the cubicle. The
coffee in his trembling hands had cooled but was too bitter to be
enjoyable. The Mars bar in his pocket had become more appealing,
and he wanted nothing more than to cram it in his mouth and devour
it, but he didn’t know if the black man would want to talk to him
again. The man had asked to be alone with the girl, the girl who
now had a name, ‘Ivory’.

Martin could see why he called her that, but it couldn’t be
her real name. It had to be her ‘street’ name – if there was such a
thing. The blind black man called himself ‘Ebony’: ‘Ebony and
Ivory’… Martin strangled a laugh at the absurdity of it. It wasn’t
that funny but he needed a reason to laugh tonight. He knew the
humour that ached to be free was relief that the girl wasn’t
hideously maimed and disfigured, disabled or dead, and that she
didn’t seem full of hatred for him – although he was sure he had
misread the smile she had sent him. He was also relieved that Ebony
had restrained any ire and not revealed any intention to knife him
or shoot him, that neither the girl nor the pimp were interested in
the nurse’s insistence that they contact the police regarding
Ivory’s statement about the accident. When the nurse had looked at
Martin after this exchange there had been a look of disappointment
on his face. Little shit.

The
curtain around Ivory’s bed snapped open and the man called Ebony
stood facing Martin but stared through him with blinkered slits of
white while talking to a nurse Martin hadn’t noticed entering that
area. “I have looked after the girl for all her
existence.”

At first Martin thought he was making the statement to
him and he had stumbled over how to reply until Ebony’s voice whip
cracked the air again, the peaks of his voice cut as precisely as a
scalpel blade while the lows were as soft and gentle as silk. “I
believe
I
am
capable
of deciding whether
or
not
she is
fit
to travel.” He stalked forward,
with his staff held before him like some totem of power or status.
The girl emerged from his silhouette like a sun reborn from an
eclipse. She was standing and walking with apparent ease, and this
startled Martin. Surely she would need to stay
overnight?

The girl snaked an arm through Ebony’s and despite being
blind, he lead the way with a determined step, his long coat swept
out from his body and gave the appearance that he was gliding.
Martin was arrested by her black glossy eyes that were fixed upon
Martin as she walked with Ebony in his direction. In seconds her
route took her past and beyond him to the doors. She turned her
head a fraction, the slightest of movements, and her petal lips
blossomed once more for him. A ‘thank you’?

Then she
was gone.

That was
it.

Gone.

Strangely he felt bereft. As if her leaving had dragged his
insides after her. That was it. The encounter was over. He found
himself sitting, weakened by the moment being over, the experience
passed. The night had been an exhausting rollercoaster for his
emotions, with the exhilarating climb of his anger followed by the
plummeting despair of fear and guilt from the accident, and then
that strange warm feeling inside him that he normally only found
after a cup of tea and a pastry or a chocolate bar. There was also
the discomfort and dissatisfaction that her absence created within
him.

Chapter Three

The car had been undriveable and Martin had arranged for it
to be towed away, Jenny couldn’t have left the kids to come and
collect him in their Ford Focus estate, so he made his way back
home to Finsbury Park by cab. He pressed the money into the
driver’s hand and left him to keep the little change that would be
left from the fare. He stood before the dark edifice of his home.
It had been a stressful place to be lately, they had a busy life as
it was with the kids and their little friends needing ferrying
about to and thro after school and at weekends but Peter his
father-in-law had had a heart attack three weeks ago and they had
been driving to the hospital in Suffolk every other night so that
Jenny could be with him and her mother. Thankfully he had recovered
well and was home now and the normal chaos and demands of family
life had returned. He couldn’t wait to get in and close the door on
the night.

He dead locked the door and planted his keys home on the flat
top of the stairs newel post. The hall was dark except for a strip
of light that filtered through the part open door to the back room.
He could tell by the volume of light that it was coming from the
standard lamp, and that Jenny would be in her armchair beneath it
with a book in her lap that she wasn’t really reading for the
worry. He had text her that he had hit someone with the car and she
had wanted him to call her, but he didn’t want to have to deal with
her angst on top of his own and he sent her updates by text. He
would have to recall all the events to her now. The thought of
having to revisit it all depressed him. He just wanted to have a
drink and something to eat and go to bed. He decided that he
wouldn’t tell her that the girl he had hit was a prostitute, or
about her strange appearance.

He pushed the door open and peered in to the room. Jenny was
sitting in her chair under the standard lamp, leaning out from her
chair like a cat alerted to a noise and poised to spring to life,
her book closed in her hand with a finger hooked into the pages to
keep her place.

“
It is you. I thought one of the boys had come down
again.”

“
Hi.” Martin said gently. He tried a reassuring smile but he
wasn’t sure how it looked from the outside.

She dumped the book on the side table and jumped up to him
and threw her arms around him. He did the same back although he
didn’t feel the need to. A hug wasn’t going to change what had
happened, and it was getting between him and a desperately needed
cup of tea and a sugar fix.

“
I was so worried,” she said into his chest.

“
I told you not to. I’m fine. And as far as I know the girl is
okay too.”

“
You were so lucky.”

He really,
really
, didn’t need to be told that. He had been
saying it to himself enough, and it always led into thinking about
how badly it could have turned out and how close he had come to
killing someone that the guilt was tangible. “I know.” He shifted
his hands to her face and moved her away from his body for a kiss.
She looked pale and drawn with worry. It made her look old. He
kissed her then ran his hands down to the tops of her arms. He had
successfully broken the hug and held her away from him. “Even if I
had been driving under the speed limit instead of on it I still
would have hit her. She just ran out of nowhere.”

“
Awful.”

It was more awful that he had been speeding but he couldn’t
face Jenny’s ire at his stupidity on top of his own self-criticism.
“Yup. It was pretty much the finale of the evening. Oh, and I’m
pretty sure the car is a write-off.” He moved around her, back into
the hall and then into the kitchen. He went straight to the kettle,
offered to make Jenny a drink that she turned down, and went about
making himself a tea. He nodded to a cluster of coloured sheets and
a crudely fashioned trophy on the breakfast table. “What’s all
that?”

Jenny scrunched her eyes and shook her head as if trying to
shrug an annoying fly from her nose. “Oh, it was Oscar and Finn,
they made you a few things to cheer you up after not winning.” She
held up two coloured sheets of paper painted with even more
colours. “They are your very own UDAC certificates congratulating
you on how amazing you are, and your very own prize-winning cup.”
She pointed at the trophy made from things he recognised from the
recycling bin. “I would advise looking and not touching though.”
She flashed her hands to show palms and fingers as gold as the
trophy. “Not sure whether the paint they used is going to dry or
not.”

He felt
a suitable tug on his heart strings at the cuteness of the gesture
but nothing could console him from losing. “That’s really nice.” He
blew on his tea.

“
Well, how are you?”

He rummaged through the breadbin. He knew that she was now
asking about the UDAC’s. He was angry that the accident had stolen
the focus from the awards night, but felt guilty for thinking
feeling that way. It was hard to demand people acknowledge his pain
when he had traumatized someone else by nearly killing them, but
losing tonight was like proving a point that he had been trying to
make for some time. For six months he had been struggling to paint
with any conviction of talent and he had told everyone around him
that he was failing, that his work was rubbish, and that he
wouldn’t get a UDAC this year. Maybe tonight would finally convince
all those that had smothered him with platitudes. Tonight he was a
failure. “Shattered.” It was the only answer he could manage but it
summed up how he felt physically and emotionally after months of
preparing to lose. He plucked a yum yum from a packet and took a
hearty bite and chased it with a sup of tea. It felt hot sweet and
doughy in his mouth. Comforting.

Jenny
closed on him and placed her hands on his belly. “I’m really sorry
it didn’t work out.”

“
Not as sorry as I am.”

“
I was gutted when you text me the news. I just wanted to be
with you.”

He felt a bruise of guilt for not letting her go. “I know.”
Maybe he should have let her come tonight. He wouldn’t have been
driving in one of his rages then.

“
Did you speak to Richard?”

Martin
took another bite and sip and shook his head. Thankfully Hadleigh
had been surrounded by congratulators after winning. Martin had
caught his eye when he was sure he couldn’t get away from the crowd
and gave him a nod of recognition and a gesture of applause that
saved Martin from actually having to talk to him.

“
Did he deserve to win?”

It was a strange question for Jenny to ask and a
difficult one to answer. He didn’t like sculpture in metal, but the
piece entitled
‘square peg’
had an aesthetic to it. It was a large sphere of oxidised
iron with one hemisphere being ripped open from within by an
emerging cube of polished steel mesh. Within this cube was a white
plastic sphere that lit up every three minutes, starting with a
soft orange glow that built into a brighter more vivid colour. It’s
brightness distracted the eye from the mesh case it sat within and
lit up the inside of the large sphere that it emerged from,
revealing that the sphere’s interior surface was lined with rusted
bolts, nails, hooks, razors and barbed wire.

Martin pulled out the small business card that
described the piece. He had arranged that every piece on show by
the art department had cards printed for people to take and
deliberate over as they looked the item over. “ ‘It is about
‘coming out’ as different in a world that can be cruel to
non-conformists, and how if given time the
‘square peg’
can be seen as something else;
something acceptable.’ I know I hate sculpture but the piece did
actually say what is printed on that card. It was good. It was
personal, it spoke to the people that viewed it, and it made a
comment on society that the individual could relate to, it evoked
sympathy and empathy. Everything that my work did not.” During her
own private viewing Jenny had carefully and sensitively suggested
that Martin’s entry had lacked these points. She stared at the
darkness outside the kitchen window as he fed them back to
her.

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Don’t be. You’re an art critic. I value an honest educated
opinion over the desperate clichéd positivity of fawning apologist
friends.” He popped the last of the yum yum in his
mouth.

“
This is really getting to you isn’t it?”

She had
lived with him for the last six months, he didn’t need to
answer.

“
Honey, you have a good job, you’re a dad with kids that love
you, you have a nice home, and you’re married to a wife that loves
you to bits.” She bopped her pelvis against his, except his stomach
stopped it a foot short of his groin and was a reminder of how out
of shape he now was. He regretted the Mars bar he had scoffed in
the cab and the yum yum he had just eaten.