“That's good. It's good to have a sport.”
“Do you have a sport?”
“No.”
“My husband's a runner. Weekends. Sometimes, I go to watch him run. Cheer him on.”
“I bet he likes that. I don't know any runners. I've been out, painting, and they've run past. But they never stopped. Do you live far from here?”
“The Ridgeway.”
“Of course, near Mrs Harrison.”
“Well, Mrs Harrison isn't there at the moment. She's gone off somewhere. Mr Harrison is quite worried.”
“My goodness, I bet he is. I hope she's not another missing woman. We've got enough of those. Hope we don't see her picture up in the bus shelters.”
“How long have you lived here? Do you live here?”
“I moved here in the mid-eighties. There's a small flat upstairs, enough room for one.”
“You're on your own, then?”
“I suppose I am. Apart from the lodger.”
“You have a lodger?”
“Yes.”
“It's good to have company.”
“You think so?”
“Don't you?”
“I've been on my own so long it takes some getting used to.” “You never married?”
“No. No one would have me.”
“I don't believe that.”
“Every time I got close to a woman she disappeared.”
“It’s not a joke, Mr Lawrence.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
“It's frightening.”
“It's never frightened me. I suppose it should. But it doesn't.” A wide belt pinched her dress at the waist. She had an awkward hip that gave him trouble. There was a sharpness that needed smoothing. Part of the problem lay in her deportment. Her weight was on her heels, her shoulders dragged slightly forward to compensate. The main cause was a flat masculine behind. It wasn't in the picture but it took away the natural curve to the hip.
There were a couple of other areas where he could help out too. It depended how charitable he felt when it came to the detail. It depended on the mood and how ugly it was on the day.
Off the studio was a small kitchen with a sink and tea-making equipment. But he didn't make tea. He opened a bottle of red wine. While he fought with the cork the voice of his new assistant carried in from the shop. Moments earlier the doorbell had struck.
“Hang on! Hang on! Here it is: Reclining Nude on Red Settee with One Arm. Done by a geezer named Reynolds. What I can tell you about him, mate, is that he spent his life doing copies of Goya's… You know? Innit? This tart wasn't just any old tart. They were close. I mean very close. He must have changed his mind about her arm.” Red wine splashed into glasses. Mr Lawrence shook a wondrous head.
He carried two glasses into the studio and found her leafing through a pile of unframed canvasses on the worktop, part of the last batch from the Far East. She was thoughtful, tight-lipped, critical. She had resisted the temptation to examine the new canvas on the easel and that amused him. The idea that unfinished work should not be seen is only valid when the technique is wanting. Second-raters in life needed secret time to botch.
He handed her a glass. “It's Merlot-Malbec, one of my favourites.” “Did Helen drink wine?”
“Mrs Harrison? Always, before a session got too involved. It unfastened her inhibitions – not that she had many – and it added a delightful tinge to her cheeks. And for me it freed up my knife… My brush strokes. Red wine, my dear, is a necessary part of the procedure.” He glanced at the paintings she'd been studying. “What do you think?”
She pulled a face.
“One or two are all right… They seem so similar. I'm not very keen on landscapes.”
“They are factory paintings.”
“You didn't paint them?”
“Good grief, woman!”
“I've hit a nerve.”
“More than one.” ers were posters of runaway children and missing women and donkeys being hanged and a jazz group that was gigging that night at The British.
Chapter 11
There was a flagstone floor around the bar in The British where, if you were lucky, you would stub a toe. The stone gave way to red Kidderminster carpet, or that cheap alternative popular in two-star hotels and, with nothing better to do, time could be spent in joining the dots left by careless cigarettes.
There was a brass-coloured handrail around the bar. It was held firm by brass-coloured lion heads. A good idea, while waiting there, was to try and spot the subtle differences in the brass-coloured casts. There was also a brass-coloured footrest where the serious drinkers could rest a foot while checking out the various collection boxes for Age Concern, the Home of Rest for Old Horses and the Spastic Association. This was an old boozer. When its first fine ales were poured the country was a finer place. The British lion still roared. And if the charity boxes were of no interest there were always the fliers drawing-pinned to any available space: Karaoke, Quiz Night and Live Entertainment – a band called Jodie Foster’s Boyfriends. n the Eighth Army on DDT.”
“The orange squash cut out,” Albert confirmed. “The additives, youngsters can't take. E-numbers, they are. E for extinction and exit. The very least you can expect from E-numbers is hyper something. And good that’s not. The Eskimos think of. They are hyper something but with a capital H. They get their E-numbers from the fish. And the fish get them from the North Sea oil platforms. It’s from the bottles of orange squash that the oil workers throw over the side. Tonic water feed them instead.”
“And that,” the colonel cut in excitedly. “Will keep the malaria away. It's difficult bringing up kids. In today’s world even more. We didn't have drugs in our day. Apart from Woodbines. In our day the nation produced first class soldiers. They didn't go around moaning about cocktails of drugs. They got on with it. Dug in. Took what the krauts threw at them. No Common Market in those days. Nothing at all common about the krauts. They were good soldiers, let down only by a predilection for fornicating with their own mothers and eating children. We brewed up. Lived on bully beef. How old did you say Paul was?” Mr Lawrence replied, “I didn't. He's about twenty-five but acts a lot younger, as a lot of people do.”
“Difficult age,' Albert said reflectively. 'When I was that age it was difficult. Wanking took up most of my time.”
The colonel agreed. “In the army we used to stop the wanking with jungle juice and a standing order. And there was a chemical that they added to your tea, but I forget the name.” He nodded in agreement with himself.
“A sex destroyer,” Roger suggested.
“Exactly,” the colonel said.
“They should have tried married life, mate. Better than any chemical known to man.”
The colonel’s nod was despondent. “The thing is,” he said. “Age is the enemy. It’s not like the krauts. You can’t beat it. You can’t run at it with a bayonet and shout ‘Have that you child-molesting jerry bastard!’ It creeps up on you, more like a Nip or the taxes in a Brown budget, and you don’t see it coming.”
A stranger standing between the colonel and Rasher cut in: “With regard to Paul, it sounds a bit like schizophrenia or something similar.” Albert asked, “What about the something similar?”
“Yes, you're right. I didn't mean similar. I mean he sounds like a raving schizo.”
They were all ears. Even Rasher managed a series of blinks. The stranger, well turned out in a suit and dark
