'Visit me,' she said in a warm and friendly voice, and held out her arms. She looked dazed and dazzled, her blue eyes warmed like a southern sea. She smiled in complicity. I know you are lovers, we will be his lovers together, love me too.
Well, thought Michael. He could just surf it. Let himself be carried by the wave of adventure.
He went into their new bedroom, stuffed with boxes, some of them full of shoes and vinyl records, and found his sponge bag. He crunched his Viagra into a bitter, tongue-curling paste, to make it work faster. Then he cleaned his teeth to rinse away the bitterness.
The taste of Mrs Miazga's mouth was edged with hormones and a scent he did not quite like. But her huge soft, smooth body was a wonderful maternal harbour. Michael weighed into her, waves rippling around him. There was an excitement about being where Picasso had been, in the folds of flesh still moist from him. Perhaps it was the Viagra kicking in early. Whatever it was, it joined forces with Michael's reluctance to have sex with a woman. Conjoined, they had an unexpected effect. Michael rode Mrs Miazga for forty-five minutes. He did not come, but she did, three times. 'My God, you are super lover,' she said in fractured English. Her fingers strutted pleased up the side of his arm. 'I can tell, you have had many women through your hands.'
Picasso was standing in the doorway. He chuckled approvingly. Much of the time his eyes were kind, as now. 'My big friend loves life,' he said proudly. He mimicked the gesture of Madame's fingers, and strode forward. 'Now I show you,' he said. With no manners, Picasso pulled Michael away from her. He grinned down at the woman. 'I am back,' Picasso said, his teeth bared, and she looked up at him adoringly conquered.
Michael was relieved to be relieved. He went downstairs, clothes draped over his arms, showered and sat in the sitting room. He poured himself a whisky and ate crisps. For the next two hours, the man he loved was in the next room fucking someone else. Michael turned on the television, low. He was just as alone as when he had been living with Phil. OK, you learn. Having a lover, husband, whatever, does not stop you being alone.
Michael had power. He could get rid of Picasso whenever he liked. He could walk in there now and banish him, leaving Marta stranded and shocked.
Except that that had not been the deal. Picasso had given him what he asked for in exchange for life. And why did Picasso want life so very much?
On the sofa, on a sketchpad, there was a drawing of Michael. It was one continuous line of charcoal, a single gulp of information, stylish and twitching as a cat's tail. It was a drawing of a man who was windswept as if at sea, eyes narrowed in the face of some invisible force. The tiny Chinese eyes each consisted of a single charcoal line, but you could tell they were about to weep from wind blown directly onto the cornea. The mouth was downturned, enduring and elated, somehow just about to smile, as one smiles in a storm, from exhilaration. It was a drawing of a man caught up in a miracle. It was a new Picasso.
And it would disappear the moment Michael sent Picasso away.
Madame Miazga darted into the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her. The water suddenly hissed and she began to sing as she showered.
Picasso emerged in Michael's boxer shorts, strutting like a welterweight champion. He slapped his belly and announced, 'We go drinking!'
Madame threw on her light and translucent dress. She smiled warmly at both of them, and giggled with delight. Only a certain hardness in the contrast between her blue eyes and the mascara around them gave a clue that this was a woman who had mastered academic politics. She put a longer finger that was exactly at 90 degrees to the floor against her freshly glossed lips. Sssh, it meant, this is our secret. Her eyes went soft, forgiving, pleading, in memory of her husband. She loved Mr Miazga, but perhaps found him too fastidious.
They separated in the street, waving good night. In a local Camden pub, Picasso played cards and smoked and joined in a game of darts with fat bearded men in black t-shirts and earrings of whom Michael was very slightly afraid. Picasso's cigarette balanced on his lips all night, and he nodded brusquely when his turn came. When others played he sipped beer, looking serious and constructively occupied.
They left at eleven o'clock and for some reason Picasso was angry with Michael.
'Those people were trash,' he said. 'They have no conversation. Why did we go there?'
Michael was dismayed at the unfairness of it. 'Because you wanted to!'
'Are you alive or dead? Don't you know where the interesting quarters are? Or do you live inside your computer? I will have to find the interesting people. I can see that I will have to do everything. I even have to find women for you. I even have to cook! What do you do well, eh? Anything?'
Without waiting for an answer, Picasso flicked open the double lock on their door and raced up the steps ahead of Michael. Michael listened to the rapid fire of Picasso's feet. He felt leaden. He did not want to go in. It was not his house or his bed. Come on, Michael, he told himself, you have nowhere else to go. But his legs simply would not move.
Michael had thought he was happy and that Picasso liked him. Michael thought: he can snatch away happiness like a scarf. The reversal felt complete. It felt as if all love were gone and the relationship over. Like a ship in warp drive, space seemed to travel around him, and Michael arrived at the opposite pole of the universe. He imagined moving out, selling the flat, sending Picasso back. He considered going direct to a hotel to spend the night. He wanted the affair to end. Michael's eyes ached with loss.
'Henry?' he asked the night air. 'Henry, I need you.'
There was a tap on his shoulder and he turned around, and there was Henry, hair in his eyes, waiting.
'Henry, I'm in love and it's all going wrong.'
Henry looked sad while smiling. 'He's impossible.'
'Yes.'
'He says things that are so unfair you can't believe he said them. They're outrageous.'
Michael found himself pausing, and waiting. The set-up was too neat. Henry had something to say. 'That's about it.'
'Everyone's impossible to live with, Michael. Even saints. I lived with a saint for years. Most of the time he was wonderful, but sometimes all he seemed to care about was his research.' A smile kept playing about Henry's face.
Picasso was something like a saint and nothing like one.
'There's nothing for it, mate. You just hammer each other into each other's shape. And either it gets comfortable or it doesn't.'
Michael half-chuckled. 'You're not much comfort, you know that?'
Henry reached up, and there, in the street in Camden Town, started combing Michael's hair with his fingers. He looked up and down Michael in tenderness. 'You look great.'
'I feel awful.'
'You look… adult.' Henry's eyes sparkled. It was love. Love of a particularly airy, open, fleshless kind.
And Michael felt a kind of hesitation.
Henry gave Michael a little push towards the door. 'Go on. Have it out with him. See who wins.'
Michael hesitated. He would rather stay there, with Henry.
'I'm an Angel, I won't always be here. You mustn't get dependent on me.' Henry started to walk away, determined. 'Go on. It's down to you.'
There was nothing for it. Michael went in.
Upstairs, Picasso had changed into boxer shorts, and was reclining on Michael's sofa bed. 'Miguel Blasco,' he said, with real affection. 'I like you really. Come here.'
Michael yelped. 'You just told me I wasn't good for anything!'
Picasso chuckled at himself as if he had done something silly and amusing, like trying to roast potatoes in the fridge. 'I did not like that pub.' He patted the sofa. 'Sit next to me.'
Picasso Mindfuck, really! Michael's eyes felt heavy, like two hard-boiled eggs. He hated feeling the surrender and gratitude that welled up in him. He wanted to stay angry. He shouldn't allow himself to be jerked this way and that like a puppet.
Picasso stood up. 'Don't be mad over something so small. Mmm?' Picasso encircled Michael with his arms and stood on tiptoe to kiss Michael's shoulder. 'See? I am so small to be mad over.'
Picasso had given Michael a choice: he could go on being angry and have a major row, which would almost certainly fail to change how Picasso behaved. Or, he could weaken as he wished to do, be carried off by Picasso's return to kindness.
