Wendy fell asleep in a room decorated by only a few, bright stripes of colour.
“Minimalism, sweetheart,” said Serena before she closed the door on her. “Good for our souls, now and then.”
Wendy succumbed nevertheless to her usual, overcrowded dreams.
For the first few days Serena was morose. Some of the glimmer and glamour had gone out of her and she trod through her house in a tracksuit and kept the washing machine going. She cleaned and ironed everything she could lay her hands on. She had no piano here and she spent the evenings staring at expensive contemporary art books with her face twisted in regret. “I wish I could paint… or be conceptual. The truth is, I haven’t any talent. When other people have ideas and produce things, well then, I’m brilliant. I can see their ideas, see to the heart of them, in a moment. But I’m blowed if I could ever have an idea myself.” She took up another catalogue and laid it on her lap. “Look at this young man. Wonderful. He came from nothing: a backstreet in Blackburn, or somewhere. Now he’s putting Anthills in glass cabinets in the Tate and pouring oils into the soil and letting them soak through the colony in wonderful colours. He calls them things like ‘Ecostructure I’ and ‘Ecostructure II’. And this girl, she takes photographs of herself each morning and documents the highs and lows of her life by the way her face looks when she wakes up. My life is my art, too… but why didn’t I think of doing this? Although I look shocking when I first wake up. I wouldn’t want my morning face hanging in the Tate.” She cast the book in its plastic wrapper aside. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was meant to be showing you a good time, wasn’t I?”
I had spent the first days knocking about Kilburn, looking in the rows of shops in the High Street. I had pastries and cakes in an Irish baker’s, sat in the window and wrote Carnaby Street postcards to everyone, until I remember that I had very few addresses for my friends. They were all travelling around. On an impulse I bought a drawing book from a newsagent and drew the view from the café, putting myself in as a stick figure, sitting at the bench with the menu and the tomato sauce bottle in the shape of a tomato. Serena had set me off thinking: why shouldn’t I be an artist and draw ludicrous stick figures to record my experiences? I put in a few figures lolloping by, getting about their business. I wished I’d done some drawing in Edinburgh, too, so I would have pictures of everyone. But they wouldn’t look like themselves, of course. On my Kilburn drawing, I didn’t look like me. The way I’d done my eyes, I looked very cross.
On the way back to Serena’s house I passed an old-fashioned launderette called Kleen-as-a-Whistle. What made me go in was the Sooty chained up to the door, in case anyone pinched the money for the blind. Inside I found the woman who ran the place, sitting on the bench and swinging her legs. She had no arms.
“Can I help you?” she asked suspiciously, in a thick German accent. Glottal stops and narrowed eyes.
“I don’t know why I came in,” I said. “I’m new here. I’m just checking things out. I’m Wendy.”
“Ute,” said the woman and, without thinking, I held out my hand for the poor, armless woman to shake.
“Jesus God,” Ute said. “Pass my cigarettes from the bag and help me light up, would you? And then you can tell me where you have come from.”
“He’s punishing me, of course,” said Serena that night. She had
made an effort today, dressing in black and looking every inch as sophisticated as the first time I saw her.
“Who?” I asked.
“Joshua. He left me that nice message while I was away, and now I’m back in town he won’t reply to a single one of mine. I’ve told him I’m back with a charming companion in tow and he shows not the slightest interest. We shall have to entertain ourselves.” She eyed my sketchpad. “What have you got there?” And she made me show her my drawing. She chuckled. “Oh, dear. Is this how you’re feeling? You look so bereft. I never knew you drew. It’s very northern, isn’t it? You’ve taken Kilburn and made it look as if Lowry was here.” She tossed the book back to me.
“Joshua,” she grumbled. “I didn’t think I’d ever be running after a man like this again. Well, it’s no good. I shan’t leave any more messages. I’ve compromised myself quite enough.”
“Is he your lover?” I asked.
“Goodness, no. Though he is attractive. Rather out of bounds to me.”
“Gay?”
“No, but he’s very curious. He has turned inwards, somewhat, in recent years, which only adds to his allure. He has devoted his life to his work. I call it work, but it would be, for anyone else, a hobby. I think I said before that he collects things. Art objects, installations, pictures and pottery. He has a remarkable eye. He and his daughter subsist on virtually no money. Katy is nine and has become a surly, uncommunicative creature.” Serena shook herself out of her doldrums. “Let’s get you dressed up, Wendy, and we should go out and look at something. Pictures, a play, other people. Anything to get out of this place. Have a look through Time Out and see if you can find us anything.”
Serena went upstairs to change into something more suitable for looking at things.
“My life has become a quagmire,” said Serena, in
