‘Come back?’ muttered her husband, half-waking once again. ‘Is that what you said, darling? But I’m already here, my dear! I’m right here beside you!’
And he sank straight back into sleep.
Every time so far, she reminded herself as she lay there in the darkness, her shadow had come home before sunrise. Its face might be bruised and swollen, its black dress drenched, its feet bare and muddy, but each time it had returned, to be met by her at the back door with anxious, whispered reproaches.
‘What took you so long? Can’t you see it’s nearly dawn?’
She’d hurry it into the kitchen and, after one last furtive peep outside to check that no one had been watching, she would shut the door, bolt it, bolt it again, turn the key in the lock, and begin to ready herself for daylight.
But she knew, she already knew, that the morning would one day come when the sun would rise before her shadow had returned. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it might not be for another month, but on that day, instead of a secret tapping at the back door in the dark, there would be a loud knock at the front door in full daylight, and then a strident ringing of the bell. She’d leap straight from the bed in her haste to answer it before her husband woke. She’d snatch a gown and run downstairs to open the door to the brilliant spotlight of the newly risen sun.
And there, head bowed, the foolish thing would be standing, flanked by stern-eyed swans in policemen’s hats, with truncheons dangling beneath their wings. All the creatures of the lake would be crowded at her gate behind them, whispering and murmuring as they savoured the scandalous scene, helpfully lit up for them, as if in some enormous theatre, by the dazzling sunlight from across the water.
‘Well, isn’t that typical?’ the gander would jeer, pushing to the front in his trilby hat, as the watching animals and birds, depending on their kind, quacked or croaked or honked with disapproval and malicious delight. ‘Isn’t that just typical? They’re oh so high and mighty, they’re oh so la-de-da, but look what they’re really like when you see behind the mask!’
And she knew that, when that day came, and her mild, bewildered, boyish husband, the professor, stumbled downstairs in his dressing gown to find out what was going on, it would be her standing outside there with her head hanging in shame, her between the policemen, her in the black dress drenched by the lake, with her hair all tangled and mud between her painted toes. The only shadow she’d have would be the one beside the professor, cast by the low sun, and stretching in from her own muddy feet across the threshold and the hallway floor, to zigzag away up the stairs.
It was still not dawn. Yet from far off to the east she could already hear the tide of clamouring birds.
5
Creation
It’s April, the air is mild as cream and I’m sitting at my front window in a suburban street, tapping the keyboard of my laptop.
Right opposite me is a primary school. Children are running about behind a spiked iron fence. And in the middle of the playground, between the fence and the school, is a magnificent flowering cherry tree.
Masses of white blossom! Pure and bright as heaven!
The pleasant purr of a passing car.
You are here too. A few houses along from me, waiting in your front room for a taxi, looking out at the sunny street.
And walking past your window on the opposite side of the road, Julian Smart appears, the Artist, slender, amused and clean-shaven, in a neat brown coat. To your surprise you discover you can see his thoughts, displayed in a bubble over his head.
‘Must get going again,’ thinks Julian. ‘It’s been too long!’
And then another bubble appears.
‘Wow, look at that!’
They are face to face. On one side of the school railings the Artist looking in. On the other the cherry tree in all its pure white brilliance.
Again you see Julian’s thoughts:
‘Cherry blossom?! What am I? Alfred Sisley?’
Whoosh. Another car.
Mr Veronwy Roberts, the headmaster (a short, plump Welshmen with a round head and bushy eyebrows), is passing the time of day at the front of the school with a pretty young supply teacher named Wendy.
They notice the man in the raincoat looking in over the railing.
‘Well, why not though?’ Julian is thinking. ‘When you come to think about it, why not? Just a question of finding a different angle.’
But though you can see his thoughts, Mr Roberts and Wendy can’t.
‘?’ thinks Mr Roberts.
‘I’ll sort this,’ says Wendy, striding firmly over.
‘Excuse me. Can I help you in any way?’
Julian gives her a dazzling smile.
‘You can, I’m sure, in at least a hundred ways. But listen, listen. I’ve fallen in love with that tree!’
‘And I with you,’ thinks Wendy with a sigh. ‘And I with you.’
Back in his studio Julian Smart gets to work on the phone.
‘Hello, Liz! Julian here.’ He’s standing by the window. ‘It’s about that grant money. I think I’ve got an idea…’
‘Hello, Julian here…’ (Now he’s sitting at a desk.)
‘Hello, is this Acme Tree Surgery?’ He’s standing again, in another room, lighting a cigarette, with the phone propped under his chin. ‘My name is Julian Smart. I wonder if you can give me some advice?’
Somewhere across the city, a Gnarled Woodman stands leaning on his van: ‘No, you’d need a specialist contractor for that. It’s a big job. Very tricky.’
The Artist passes his hand over his hair.
‘Hello,’ he says, ‘my name is Julian Smart…’
He’s interrupted by the doorbell, and goes to open it with the phone still tucked under his chin. It’s Wendy standing outside, looking even prettier than before. He signals to her to come right in and pour herself a drink.
Later, while she reclines naked on his bed looking through a catalogue of his work, he picks up the phone again.
‘Hello, is this St Philip’s School? Mr Roberts? You’re still at work! The teacher’s life, eh? This is Julian Smart. The artist? We spoke briefly this morning?…’
A year goes by.
In an Art Gallery, people are gathered for a new exhibition. There are canapés, champagne flutes, catalogues. An Elegant Woman is speaking to an Academic of some kind, who wears John Lennon glasses and a leather jacket.
‘I just had a peek in the main gallery,’ she says. ‘Julian’s piece is just fantastic!’
Behind them an Eminent Critic is inspecting a small work labelled: ‘Susan Finchley. Unfinished Story (7).’ We see the back of the Critic’s head, the outside edge of the frame, and the label beside it.
‘Hmm,’ say his thoughts in the bubble above his head. ‘Narrative yet to begin or narrative strangled at birth? Not very original but I’d better be careful, because knowing Susan that’s probably the point.’
The Elegant Woman stands face to face with another of Susan Finchley’s works. Behind, in the distance, framed on one side by the Elegant Woman’s profile and on the other by the frame of Finchley’s piece, stand two members of the Metropolitan Elite, a man and a woman, each holding a champagne glass.
‘Ingenious, I suppose,’ the Elegant Woman is thinking, ‘but a bit B list, really. Like all of Susan’s stuff.’