Poison Heart (3 page)

I blushed, knowing how spaced out I must have looked holding hands with Merlin. I hastily changed the subject. ‘So what’s it like being a journalist?’

‘So far I’ve covered three church fêtes, a dog show and the story of an old man who sleeps in a tree house with a squirrel.’

‘No calls from the nationals?’

Luke gazed skywards. ‘Maybe next year.’ Out of the corner of one eye he seemed to be peering at me.

‘What’s wrong? Is my make-up smudged?’

‘You look different, that’s all,’ Luke muttered, and quickly lowered his eyes.

I stretched out one finger to touch his chin and grinned. ‘So do you. Luke finally has to shave.’

‘I’ve been shaving for years,’ he protested, and I pressed my lips together so as not to laugh. Luke had a smooth baby face and corn-coloured hair which made him look younger than he was. Leaving his car doors open, he marched through our front door, without being invited. I tried to head him off, but he reached the kitchen, pulled up a chair and said lazily, ‘Put the kettle on, Kat.’

My hands glued themselves to my hips. ‘You can’t treat our house like your own any more.’

He shrugged. ‘Why not?’

I was trying to come up with a reason when Mum appeared from nowhere and ruined everything. She got out Luke’s ‘special’ mug, which had his name on, and brought over the biscuit tin. I refused to sit down and glanced at the clock.

‘You’re edgy, Kat.’

‘Merlin’s calling for me,’ I announced, trying to sound aloof and worldly wise. ‘Then we’re going to his house. He’s a talented painter and has his own studio.’

Luke didn’t laugh at Merlin’s name, but I could tell that he wanted to. ‘Where does he live?’

‘Over on Victoria Road, by the riding school.’

‘He’s a posh boy then.’

My mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. ‘He is not. Merlin’s just ordinary, even if his house is really grand.
And his mum devotes lots of time to penniless students and lets them work in her studio.’

‘How noble,’ he commented sarcastically.

‘Don’t be so judgemental, Luke. Mum is already convinced he’s encouraged me to smoke, and now you think he’s over-privileged.’

Luke leaned back in the chair, taking a long satisfied slurp of coffee. ‘You haven’t fallen for that tortured-artist thing, have you? This … Merlin probably has a whole line of girls whose portrait he’s painting.’

I narrowed my eyes dangerously, about to make a sharp retort, when the doorbell rang. Merlin hovered on the doorstep with his usual air of confidence, but I suspected he might have dressed up for the occasion, because his jeans weren’t even faded and his shirt had been ironed. I pulled him into the lounge and stammered an introduction to Mum, hoping that Luke would stay in the kitchen, but he chose to come through right then. He and Merlin looked each other up and down. If it wasn’t so uncomfortable I might have laughed because they were so different – Luke, stocky, blonde with an open friendly face; Merlin, tall and dark with guarded features. I mumbled something about Luke living next door, grabbed my coat and shot off. Merlin took my hand. His thumbnail dug into my skin and it hurt but I didn’t stop him.

‘What’s so important?’ I asked, finally drawing breath as my house faded from view. ‘You said I had to come over to yours urgently.’

Merlin hesitated. ‘It’s the portrait, Katy, I just can’t get the colours right.’ He leaned over and nuzzled my cheek. ‘My concentration’s gone. Can’t think why.’

‘How can I help?’

‘You can sit for me. The light is best at this time of day. If you pose, then it might all come together.’

‘OK, no problem, Merlin.’ We walked the length of his sweeping drive and I kicked myself for sounding so lukewarm. ‘I mean, of course I will. It’s the least I can do.’

I draped myself across the battered chenille sofa, trying to minimize my hips and not think about Rubens paintings of amply proportioned naked ladies, their flesh soft and dimpled.

‘Have to change,’ Merlin said.

Without warning, he opened the poppers on his shirt in one swift movement and threw it on the chair. He took an old T-shirt from a hook and pulled it over his head. I averted my eyes, but not before I’d glimpsed his bare chest and the line of black hairs snaking downwards past his navel.

My face burned with embarrassment and I was worried about being immortalized in the painting with giant rosy cheeks. I tried to blame it on the sun. ‘It’s quite … hot in here, isn’t it?’

Merlin muttered something about warm air rising and opened one of the roof windows. He made a square with the fingers of his left hand, looked at me and then back
at the canvas. He shook his head. ‘Your hair is impossible to replicate … it’s unreal … like spun gold crossed with warmed chestnuts, and your complexion is … alabaster freckles.’

He smiled and I melted inwardly. Most guys would struggle to come up with the feeblest compliment, but Merlin managed to make one sentence sound like an entire sonnet. I tried not to fidget, but it was torture for me to be under so much scrutiny, and the temperature in his studio was increasing. I had to take off my cardigan, hoping that this didn’t look like a bad attempt at striptease. Merlin worked for ages and I stayed silent because he was so wrapped up in what he was doing. Even though Merlin was painting me he seemed distant, almost as if he saw me in an abstract form. My eyes flickered as the sun grew more intense and I could see a drop of sweat shining on his brow.

‘Time for a break?’ I suggested.

Merlin nodded. He wiped his hands on a piece of cloth and sauntered over.

‘Room for one more, Katy?’

I sat up quickly and drew my legs under me. ‘How’re your … colours?’

‘Much better.’

I fidgeted and stared at the door.

‘There’s nowhere to run,’ he said softly.

I rubbed my nose, smoothed down my hair and looked about the room while Merlin stayed perfectly still, watching me. I rubbed my arms, shivering now despite the heat.

‘I want to look at you, Katy.’

I tried to laugh it off. ‘You’ve been staring at me for ages.’

‘Not like this.’ He put one hand under my chin and I was forced to look back. His eyes were penetrating, sharp and flinty grey.

Merlin’s head inclined towards mine as one hand slipped the strap of my camisole over my shoulder and his lips kissed me all the way up my throat.

‘Your mum might walk in,’ I muttered, tensing up.

‘She won’t.’

He made his way to my cheek, my nose, even my eyelids before turning his attention to my mouth when it became impossible to speak. He wrapped his arms around me so tightly that I could barely breathe. It felt so natural and I shocked myself by sneaking one hand under his T-shirt, counting each rib with my fingers. I felt him shudder.

‘Cold hands?’ I laughed, knowing this wasn’t the reason. I felt an unexpected sense of power.

At last I knew what all the fuss about kissing was. We were so tightly pressed together that I didn’t know where my limbs began and his ended and we both slid down the sofa until we were horizontal. It felt like I was drowning in him. Then loud voices made me flinch.

‘They’re coming from the garden,’ Merlin reassured me. ‘Mum’s gathered her collection of stray artists together.’

There was a banging sound and the studio door flew
open, sending papers flying into the air. I extricated myself from his embrace and sat up again.

‘It’s just the wind. Mum’s a fresh air freak.’

‘Sorry, I mumbled. ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with me.’ I pointed my head down towards the floor. ‘I’m … not sure I’m ready for something … heavy.’

‘Heavy?’ Merlin ran one hand through his hair and blew out slowly. ‘Katy, I’m in so deep already … If you just want to see a movie once a month and hold hands, I’m not sure I can do that.’

I bit my lip, shamefaced. He stroked my arm but I held myself rigid. ‘Maybe it’s just a bit … too soon.’

His voice was raw with emotion. ‘I knew how I felt about you in seven seconds but if you have to wait to feel the same about me …’

The lump in my throat grew bigger. ‘I do feel the same, but maybe we just need somewhere more … private.’

Merlin smiled knowingly. ‘I’m thinking of locking you here in my tower to keep you away from the rest of the world.’

I was about to reply when I noticed the time. The afternoon had vanished and I needed to get back to Mum. Whenever I was with Merlin the hours flew by. I peeked at the painting when he left the room. It was nothing more than a series of fine brushstrokes, but my face had begun to take shape, shining pale and ethereal, the colours muted, completely unlike Merlin’s usual bold style. I heard footsteps returning and quickly moved away. Reluctantly
we left his house, hand in hand, and walked back through the garden. When we reached the gate I glanced back, squinting, even though the sun had dropped. There was a figure moving through the trees so quickly and lightly that it could have been a sprite, but something about it made me uneasy. I looked at Merlin, but he didn’t appear to have noticed anything, and I was beginning to think that the girl had bewitched me. She couldn’t be everywhere like this, it wasn’t possible. I quickened my pace because it felt as if hundreds of eyes were watching us. When I kissed Merlin goodbye it was with a strange desperation that I couldn’t explain.

I dreamed about her again that night. This time she was supine across Merlin’s battered sofa, languishing, luxuriating in her own beauty. I couldn’t escape her eyes as she gracefully rose to her feet, sashayed across the room and turned the easel towards me, forcing me to watch. The painting wasn’t of me, it was of her, her crimson lips curled up with a secret smile of triumph. I woke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. The green pendant was still on my dressing table and it almost seemed to glow in the dark. I jumped up and stuffed it away in my handbag.

‘I have my own stalker.’

Hannah stopped yawning long enough to express surprise. ‘You have Merlin – best-looking guy in college – and now your own stalker. How unfair is that? Who is he?’

‘It isn’t funny,’ I insisted, wishing Nat’s dad would slow down going over the speed humps because my head kept hitting the roof of his car. ‘And it isn’t a guy … it’s a girl. I saw her from the bus, in the street, in the cafe,
and
she called at my house selling jewellery.’

I delved into my bag and handed the pendant to Nat.

She turned it over and then held it up to the light. ‘It’s pretty cool. What’s it made of?’

‘I think it’s sea glass,’ I grunted. ‘Emerald sea glass … just like her eyes. It might be cool, but I think it’s a warning.’

‘What’s sea glass?’

‘Ordinary glass, but it’s been in the sea for ages until all the edges are smooth and the glass is opaque.’

Hannah glanced at her watch. ‘Why would she be
warning you? Sure you’re properly awake? It
is
only six thirty a.m.’

I lowered my voice, making sure that Nat’s dad couldn’t hear. ‘I think she’s used some sort of … magic on me so she always knows where I am.’

The laughter was so loud that I had to cover my ears. ‘You’re priceless,’ Nat chided.

I stared out of the window, biting my lip. ‘She’s everywhere I go, watching, listening, and she knows where I live.’

‘You really believe in this … witchcraft then?’

‘I wouldn’t exactly call it that,’ I answered, taken aback. ‘But there’s something unnatural about her. That day on the bus … something passed between us, and I haven’t felt the same since.’

They were both looking at me oddly. ‘So … why did you buy the pendant?’ Hannah asked.

‘I didn’t. Mum got it for me.’

‘And what did your mum say about her?’

‘That she was nice, talented and very persuasive, but – how weird is this? – when Mum went to fetch her purse, she … the girl … disappeared and didn’t take any money for it.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘I just don’t get it. An unknown girl calls at your house and leaves a gorgeous pendant, almost like a present?’

‘It doesn’t feel like a present,’ I muttered.

‘We’re here, girls,’ Nat’s dad called as he drove through
the huge gates of the country park. A feeling of excitement ran through me when I saw all the cars and vans spread out on the grass and most of the stalls already set up. This was the biggest car-boot sale and craft fair around, and the three of us could wander for hours, searching for bargains. It was definitely worth getting up at five in the morning for. We were in such a rush that we tumbled out of the doors and Nat screeched as she almost landed in a cowpat.

Hannah made a beeline for the table closest to us and immediately picked up a wide pot decorated with a design of blue and white flowers. ‘It looks quite old,’ she announced importantly, ‘probably Edwardian. This would look really pretty with a plant in. I’ll buy it for Mum.’

‘It’s a chamber pot,’ Nat giggled in my ear. ‘For weeing in. Don’t tell her until we get back home.’

My mood lifted as we walked around. The grass was wet with dew and the bottoms of my jeans were soon saturated and heavy, my canvas pumps sodden. Hannah was no better, as she gingerly picked her way across the field in a smock dress with bare legs, the grass chafing her skin. Nat was the only one who had dressed sensibly, in pink and green fluorescent wellies over black tights and denim shorts. Once the early morning mist lifted, the sky was startlingly blue and we all stripped off our jackets and cardigans. None of us had bothered with breakfast, and the smells of coffee, doughnuts and croissants wafted through the air. My feet began walking towards the food stall, but
two pairs of hands tugged my arm. ‘We can’t stop yet – we’ll miss all the good stuff.’

They were right – within ten minutes of frantic rummaging I’d spotted a pinstripe trilby that I knew Merlin would love and a 1950s-style dress with a flared skirt decorated with cabbage roses. I knew it wasn’t proper vintage and managed to beat the lady down from eight pounds to five. Nat pounced on a stuffed cat because she collected them and a beaded evening bag from the 1920s, which cost her a cool fifteen pounds. Breakfast couldn’t wait any longer and all the plastic seats had been taken so we sat on the grass sipping hot coffee and eating sugared doughnuts, so sweet they made our teeth ache.