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I can’t tell you how long I was transfixed. But at last I became aware that my mind was slowly dissolving – not into lust, but into fear. Fear that this extraordinary woman might glance around and reveal her features to be in some way less exquisite than the picture I had involuntarily allowed myself to imagine. Or fear – far worse – that she might glance around and reveal herself to be every bit as beautiful as I had envisioned. Then how was I to cope? With Venus camped in my communal garden, what chance work, what chance sleep, what chance me doing any wonted thing at all?
A lunatic’s vigil ensued: I couldn’t leave the window; I was bound fast to my vantage point and to my fate. No escape and no reprieve. I just had to kneel there, knuckle-whitened, and wait. Each move she made was another moment of acute crisis; another moment at which reality and imagination might be rent asunder and sent howling and crippled into their separate wildernesses of despair. In anguish, I watched her fold her arms in front and rest her chin upon them, thinking that now must come the final reckoning. In agony, I watched her hand reach back over her opposite shoulder to pull up the strap of her dress where it had fallen down her arm, convinced that she would have to turn. In awe, I watched her raise her head to follow a passing butterfly, certain that the gesture would disturb the geometry of her relaxation and cause her whole body to stir and show to me my destiny. Until, at last, in no time and with no ceremony or thought for her attendant disciple, she simply turned over on to her back.
And I nearly fell from the window.
What can I say? That she was extraordinarily beautiful. It will hardly do. That she looked like the sort of woman whom men do not dare to dream of? That her brow was delectable, her nose delightful, her mouth delicious? That she had the features of an angel? That hers was a face to melt both Poles at once, to drag the dead from their tombs, to launch a thousand ships? None of this would quite capture it, I’m afraid. Then, as now, none of this would come close.
Ladies and gentlemen: she was a real hottie.
If thou, to be so seen, be’st loth,
By sun, or moon, thou darkenest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
I saw her face for only a second or two before she lifted her sandals, took up the map and held it aloft so as to read while simultaneously shading herself from the sun. Then, like a taut rope sliced, I fell back into my studio and recoiled upon my stool. After a moment, I laid down my quill with care and due reverence and eased my way out from behind my board. And after that, as I say, I fell apart …
I shot out of the studio, stopping only to pick up the keys from my dining table (and not daring to look out of the window again), and set off at spectacular velocity down my (bastard, bastard) stairs before hurling myself along the pavement towards Roy’s. I tornadoed through his door and came twisting and harrying up to the counter.
‘Roy, I … I need the best oranges you have got. Right now. And a single lime – about a dozen – oranges, I mean – and I haven’t got time for you to weigh them so I’ll just take them on a guesstimate and pay you tomorrow, or later, or whenever, and you can do the usual five per cent compound interest rate payable anew at the stroke of midnight, every midnight, or whatever it was we agreed before.’
‘Whooaah. Steady Mr Jackson. Steady. Deep breaths. No need to panic. No need to get all carried away with compound interest.’
‘Roy – where are the bloody oranges?’
‘Same as always Mr Jackson – on the fruit stand outside. You passed them on the way in. Everybody does.’
I exited the shop and began feverishly to gather the better oranges.
Roy filled the doorway. ‘Having another one of our little lady-related emergencies, are we, Mr Jackson? Bit early in the week for that sort of thing isn’t it … Fond of oranges, is she?’
‘Roy, seriously: is it OK if I just take these? I really can’t hang around right now.’
‘Be my guest. A pleasure to see them going so fast.’ He chuckled.
‘Thanks. And I’ve got a couple of limes.’
‘I’ll make a note.’
Back up the road I hurtled, and across, and (fumbling for my keys at the big black front door) up, up, up I raced, back up the stairs and through my door, and up some more, and into the hall and straight to the kitchenette where I washed my hands and hastily, frantically, began slicing, squeezing, pouring until the job was done, lime and all, into a jug and into the freezer.
Off came my clothes, my work tunic over my head, my jeans shaken leg from leg as I tore into the bedroom. I threw myself into the shower. I scalded and froze and scalded and froze my shocked and flinching body. I leapt out. I towelled myself raw. I fetched out my trusty shorts, plunged into the arms of my freshly laundered, parchment-white, short-sleeved shirt and dashed back into the hall.
Freshly squeezed orange juice with just a little lime – the ideal refreshment and a pithy passport into my lady’s afternoon.
One more check. I sprinted back to the studio window.
She had gone!
Oh fuck!
No. Wait!
She had only moved. She had only moved! Now she was lying across the bench almost directly beneath me. My God. But for how much longer? I eyed the treacherous sky. A grey-hulled taskforce of destroyer clouds was moving in from the west.
This time I took the stairs like an Olympic pommel-horse specialist, vaulting around the banisters with a mighty swing at each turn, rucksack pressed against my shoulder. I banged out of the front door and – sandals slapping like demented seal flippers on the twelve stone stairs down to Bristol Gardens – set off, left, towards the entrance to the communal garden.
Which was locked.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Must the human condition be forever frustration and inarticulate wrath at the sheer injustice of it all?
For a long minute I stood, stalled on Formosa Street like a bewildered and long-travelled tourist blinking in the summer sun outside the Uffizi gallery – ‘Closed until next year for essential restoration work.’ Vast, white, twelve foot high, the unscalable double gate mocked me, the light glaring in the bright white gloss. There was nothing else for it. I would have to go all the way round to the other entrance at the opposite end of the garden. I turned the corner back the way I had come and rushed up the hill.
And so into paradise at last I came, outwardly serene, but with a heart now beating itself blue against the cage of my ribs. Along the path, through the trees, into the open, across the grass, between the chestnut boughs, just a little further, and there she was. There she was: Venus on a bench with pillow.
At fifty paces, I deliberately scrunched on the gravel path. She glanced up in my direction. I stepped on to the grass and crossed towards the middle of the lawn between us. A black cat licked a white paw.
Fresh fucking orange juice!
What oh what oh what was I thinking? What kind of an idiot brought a woman he did not know – had not met, had only seen, had only seen from a distance – unsolicited orange juice? What in the name of arse was I doing? There she was: an innocent woman, minding her own business, quietly happy, undesiring of any man’s attention, trying to read, trying to enjoy the sunshine, trying to live her life. And here was I … What had got into me? For God’s sake man, turn it around for a single moment and ask yourself what you would think if your afternoon was hijacked by some terrible penis appearing (as if from the most casual of nowheres) with a picnic flask of freshly squeezed orange juice and two – two – glasses in his rucksack? Come on Jackson: only imagine her later relating the episode to her friends – their faces practically maimed with uncontrollable laughter – imagine her telling the story of this hapless, hapless scrotum of a man. Orange juice. Could anything be worse? Could anything be less natural?
Disgusted and horribly afraid, my faculties were fleeing the scene like so many deserting conscripts. But my stolid legs were carrying me ever on.
At thirty paces, the fiasco downshifted and became a disaster: unbelievably, unceremoniously, she started to get up. First she swung around so that she was sitting normally on the bench, her exquisite knees almost touching, then she picked up the pillow and … simply stood up.
Twenty paces and I could only look on aghast. Suddenly she had started walking towards me. It was appalling – desperate – ruinous. The light turned grisly pale, pregnant with doom. She cut the corner across the grass. The distance decreased at double speed.
Me: ‘Finished with the bench?’
Her: ‘It’s all yours.’
Me: ‘Thanks.’
And then she was past and there was only the faint almond scent of her sun lotion, followed by the sound of her footsteps as she reached the gravel path behind me. Six steps, seven, eight. I made the bench. I sat down. I looked up. She had already disappeared.
The wood was still warm.
7. The Triple Fool (#ulink_27ba2f95-c2e1-5630-b912-d8133206ade6)
I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry;
‘Finished with the bench?’
Finished with the bench?
Finished with the fucking bench?
Of course she had finished with the bench, my dear Jasper, she had risen from it, removed her things and walked decisively away. Could there be any clearer evidence than this?
I told you it was bad. I told you I fell apart. I blame horoscopes. I blame faulty chakra. I blame my parents. I blame her. I blame the shock of her face up close. If she hadn’t looked … Oh Christ, I suppose I can no longer evade my descriptive duty. I’d better get it over with. Up close, she had the pure-skinned features of a perfume model but softer, more delicate and without the strident angles of someone employed to be striking in two dimensions. The day’s sun had left a faint redness across the bridge of her pretty nose and her fleeting smile, when it came, was all the more priceless for the slightest downturn at the corner of her mouth. Her lips – parted a fraction as we passed each other – were neither full nor thin but, I noticed, the lower had been lightly bitten. Her brow, like her hair, was fair. Her eyes were a captivating hazel – quick and self-possessed. Taken altogether, there was, I remember thinking, something in the lines of her face that mingled provocation with her ridiculous beauty.
And yes, I know: it depresses me too. But the point is that from that desperate moment – down there on the canvas with the head swim and the eye sting and the blood in my ears and the referee already at nine – I was always going to demand a come back fight.
First, I called William.
‘Well how many times have you seen her?’
‘Three,’ I replied. ‘The first time I was buggering about with oranges and so I sort of fucked up what I –’
‘You were what?’
‘I … It’s not important. Then I saw her again yesterday, walking towards the Tube when I was coming home. And now – just now – she’s been out in the garden behind my flat for the last forty minutes. She started sunbathing but it’s clouded over and she’s gone back inside. That’s three times. Anyway, listen, can you come over tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure. I half promised to take Nathalie to Goodwood and –’ The void of a lost voice.
‘Will, you’re cutting out.’ Some crackle and snap. ‘Can you come over? She’s killing me. I can’t work in my bloody studio without looking out of the window every two seconds. I can’t go to my local shops in case I run into her. Or worse, in case I don’t run into her. It’s hopeless … I have to know who she is. And I can’t just go down into the bloody garden again, not yet, I … You’re cutting out again. Where are you? What’s all that racket in the background?’
‘I am in a gents’ toilet – in the Crowning Glory, actually, just off the Strand. I am on my way to a charity dinner. The sound you can hear is a spate of rather jubilant flushing emanating from some of the nearby cabins. Hang on. Let me get out of here.’
I waited. A moment of exertion and then the regular click-clack of William’s leather-soled shoes reasserted itself on the London pavement.
‘Right. Back on track again. I tell you, Jackson: ever since they started closing all the public conveniences, things have become very tricky. I have to carry this guidebook around in my head with details of all the pubs in London that don’t mind you taking an occasional tinkle and it’s changing by the-’
‘William.’
William cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, Jasper. Where were we? A certain mademoiselle has appeared in your garden and she is interfering with your pointless life? Is that it?’
‘Yes. It fucking well is it. I’m certain she’s moved into one of the flats opposite. There was a basement for sale that I had to talk Lucy out of making an offer on. Maybe she’s moved in there. Oh God, it’s a bloody nightmare.’ I paused. ‘Will, seriously, I’m under siege here. I’ve never had this happen on my own doorstep before. I don’t know if I can cope. If I don’t speak to her by the end of the week, I will have to move.’
‘It’s only been a few days – she might be staying with someone. She might be gone before you know it and then you can relax – get on with your work.’
‘She isn’t and she won’t.’
‘But you haven’t spoken to her?’
‘No. Not exactly.’
‘So you don’t know. And all this excitement is based purely on the physical, on how she l—’
‘No … Yes. No. Will, honestly, she eats cherries and spits out the stones. She reads maps. She … This is not like when I was twenty-one. Or last weekend with Annette or whatever. This is serious. She’s intelligent. I can tell. No joke. She came out here before with a bottle of wine and this battered red bucket, for Christ’s sake. And guess what she had in the bucket? Ice. Ice – to keep the wine cool. Can you believe it?’
‘Amazing.’
‘Oh fuck off. Of course it’s physical. That’s how the human race works. Stop being so pious. The whole planet is fucking physical. Look around you, man. She’s very physical.’
‘How come you need my help all of a sudden?’
‘Because I live here and I can’t go around the place asking questions. It might start to look odd.’
‘What questions? You don’t normally need to bother asking any questions.’
‘I know I know I know. But she’s … she’s a very different proposition to normal. Will. I know it’s bullshit but I have a … I have a feeling about her. And I don’t want to make any mistakes.’ A passing siren keened in the earpiece. Suddenly embarrassed, I collected myself. ‘I have to know more about her before I proceed. I have to know the right way to go about things before I can … go about things.’
William was finally beginning to comprehend the gravity of the situation. ‘You mean single or boyfriend or married or lezzer?’
‘Yes, that sort of thing. And her name and whatever else.’
‘Dear, oh dear. Whatever happened to romantic spontaneity?’
‘Balls to spontaneity. She’s far too attractive for that sort of crap. Spontaneity is a luxury available only to people who don’t care about what happens next.’
‘You have got it bad, young Jackson. She must be the answer that you’ve spent your whole life look—’ he prevented me interrupting. ‘OK, OK, I believe you.’
‘Can you make sure you’re here in the morning – before the estate agents shut? I have an idea.’
William exhaled noisily. ‘I suppose I can make myself available for a few hours. I’ll think of it as visiting the sick and –’
‘Good.’
‘– and Jasper?’
‘Yes? What?’
‘I’m by no means a shrink but – in case you are interested – I would say that you are once more in the unrestrained grip of Jackson’s Syndrome. Be aware that by any normal reckoning you are mentally ill.’
Second, I called on Roy. I paid him for the oranges and the limes and then asked, ‘Roy, will you do me a favour?’
‘Certainly, Mr Jackson – what would you like? More oranges?’ He became worryingly excited. ‘Oh yes, and my brother Trevor is bringing a delivery of fresh fish this afternoon for the new restaurant on Shirland Road. I am positive he can be persuaded to stop off – if you fancy a quick skate. Or how about a monkfish? Anything but cashews if you follow my drift, Mr –’
‘No, Roy, no thanks. No fish just now. In fact, it’s nothing to do with food. I just need you to keep a look out for me.’
‘Keep a look out?’ Up went two Schickelgruber brows.
‘Yep. And don’t worry, we can come to some sort of arrangement about fees or whatever.’
He looked alarmed. ‘I can’t leave the shop. You know that.’
‘No, no, no,’ I said, hastily. ‘I don’t want you to. I just need you to watch out for this woman who might –’
‘Let me stop you right there, Mr Jackson.’ He raised a palm and smirked. ‘The subject of women is one about which I can truly say – hand on heart – that I know nothing at all. Whatsoever. Nor, I might add, do I intend to waste any remaining God-given attempting to learn. There’s no sense to it, Mr Jackson. Nothing about women adds up. You always end up running the business at a loss – if you follow me. No, no,’ he waggled an index finger, ‘it doesn’t bother me to say that I have known only one woman in my entire life – and that was my wonderful wife, or I should say ex-wife, Roy’s mother. And ever since she decided that she was better suited to the Spanish … climate … well, I’ve not involved myself with the matter, beyond the exchange of seasonal niceties, of course. So I’m afraid if it’s advice you’re after, you have come to the wrong man, Mr Jackson. Now Roy Junior on the other hand, I have to say, he does appear to know a thing or two about the ladies and I’m sure that –’
‘Roy, let me stop you there. I appreciate what you’re saying, I really do, but you’ve jumped the gun a bit. All I am asking is that you keep an eye out for someone – and let me know if she’s with anyone when she comes in. With a bloke, I mean.’
