Innocent Blood

‘Have you ever met him?’ asked Astrid. She was snuggled up close to him, wearing nothing but a pink candy- stripe blouse.

‘Charles Lasser? Only once, at some TV award ceremony. He’s big, that’s all I remember. I mean, he looks pretty big on the screen, but when you meet him in real life, he’s a giant. He made me feel like Stuart Little.’

‘I think he really has something. I don’t know – charisma.’

‘That’s because he’s very large, and very wealthy, and he’s a bully, and all women are irresistibly drawn to large, wealthy bullies.’

‘You’re not a large, wealthy bully, and I’m irresistibly drawn to you.’

‘That’s because I make you laugh, which is what men do to attract women if they’re too weak and shy to be bullies.’

‘You make me cry, too. That episode of Pigs when Henry gets upset because of all the patches in his pants. That was so sad.’

Frank smiled at the memory of it, and quoted the voice-over. ‘“Our pants had so many patches in the seats that they were more patch than pant. Personally I couldn’t understand why my father’s pride meant that we had to walk to school with what looked like traditional American quilts sewn on to our otherwise gray-flannel asses, but I guess the experience taught me why pride is one of the seven deadly sins, because no man’s pride is worth two small brothers staying in a hot, empty classroom during recess, silently crayoning, because they can’t take any more taunts about their chintz and brocade behinds.”’

‘Oh, it’s so sad,’ said Astrid. ‘Poor Dusty. Poor Henry.’

‘Life is sad, period,’ Frank told her, and kissed her on the forehead.

When they went to bed that night Astrid’s love-making was ravenous. To begin with, she made him feel like a Viking, freshly waded out of the surf, eager to have any woman he came across. But as the night wore on, he began to feel increasingly scratched and bruised, and exhausted, and desperate for a few hours’ sleep. But she wanted him to take her in every way that he had ever imagined, and in some that he hadn’t, and when she reached her climaxes she made noises that he had never heard a woman make before, hissing and crowing and screaming.

She clawed him and slapped him and bit him, and they rolled together on the sweaty, knotted sheets, over and over, until Frank lost any sense of where he was or who he was or what he was doing.

When morning came, he opened his eyes to find himself looking at her feet. He raised himself up on one elbow. She was sleeping face-down, her hair sticking up in spikes. He looked at her for a long, long time, his eyes following the curves of her back, and he thought that he had never seen a woman so magical. Her skin was so silky; the back of her neck was so beautifully hollowed. He loved the smell of her, too – stale juices and faded flowers. He noticed for the first time that she had a tiny tattoo on her left hip, a figure that looked like a hunchbacked goat, wrapped in a cloak.

He eased himself out of bed and went across to draw back the drapes. She stirred and blinked at him. ‘What time is it?’

‘Five after eight. You’re not in a hurry, are you?’

‘No.’

‘I thought maybe we could have breakfast at Charlie’s. They do corned-beef hash to kill your mother for.’

‘My mother?’

‘Figure of speech. I don’t mean literally.’

‘My mother,’ she repeated, in that hoarse, smoky voice, as if she couldn’t remember that she had ever had a mother.

‘Listen, forget I mentioned it. How about a shower?’

She sat up and stretched, her back arched, her skinny arms spread stiffly behind her like wings. ‘I have so much to do today.’

‘Like what? I thought you might like to come to the office. I could introduce you to Mo and Lizzie.’

‘It’s a little too soon for that, don’t you think?’

He sat down beside her and kissed her. ‘Not at all. Mo and Lizzie are both men of the world, particularly Lizzie. But you still have time for breakfast, don’t you?’

‘No. I think I’d better go.’

‘So . . . what? I’m going to see you this evening?’

She looked into his eyes as if she were trying to penetrate the darkness inside his head. ‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On this and that. On whether I’m busy.’

‘Well, OK. But why don’t you give me a number, so that I can call you?’

‘I told you before. I don’t have a number.’

‘You must at least have a cellphone.’

She shook her head.

‘Jesus, everybody on the planet has a cellphone, apart from one or two stone-deaf bushmen in the Kalahari.’

She stood up and walked naked to the bathroom. Frank followed her. She sat unselfconsciously on the toilet but she still looked at him with that odd, unfocused stare.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘How can you not have a phone number?’

‘I like to stay out of touch.’

‘Even with me?’

She flushed the toilet and went to the basin, splashing water on her face and wetting her hair. Frank came up to her and touched the drips on her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. ‘Nevile did another seance for me.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘He contacted Danny. I’m pretty sure it was Danny this time. The real Danny.’

Astrid dried her face and went through to the bedroom. She took out a comb and started to slick back her hair. Again Frank followed her.

‘Danny said that I had already met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. He said her name began with an A.’

‘And?’

‘Well, Astrid begins with an A, doesn’t it?’

‘Pff! You really believe this stuff? What did I tell you before? Nevile’s nothing more than a hustler. If he wasn’t running around playing psychic detective, he’d be out on the boardwalk running a shell game.’

‘I don’t think so. He knew what Danny’s teddy bear was called, and why.’

Astrid found her sapphire-blue thong under the bed and stepped into it. ‘That was his proof, was it?’

‘It was proof enough for me.’

‘Frank, I know what Danny’s teddy bear was called, too, and so does everybody else in the United States. They featured him on NBC News. “Today, a lonesome teddy bear pines for the boy who used to cuddle him.”’

‘Really? I never saw that.’

‘It was Wednesday, when you were burying him.’

She fastened her bra and put on her candy-stripe blouse. Frank did up the buttons for her. ‘All the same, I believe that Nevile got through to Danny. And Danny said that my new life started here and now, with this woman whose name begins with an A.’

Astrid slowly shook her head. ‘You think I’m part of your new life? Frank, you don’t know me at all.’

‘It’s not for want of trying, is it? But come on, Astrid. You won’t even tell me your surname, or where you live!’

She found her purse and took out her mascara. ‘Knowing a person’s name and address doesn’t mean you know them.’

‘Maybe it doesn’t, but it’s a start.’

She turned to him and kissed him, a very light but lingering kiss, the tip of her tongue touching his front teeth. ‘You were wonderful last night,’ she told him. ‘I had a fantasy that I was the Queen of Sheba and you were my