As Malachy walked, it was impossible not to hear Oriana squealing her way along it on a tricycle, then a bike firstly with and then without stabilizers, soon enough her roller skates, and ultimately her skateboard. Malachy smiled, conjuring her up at the far end bowling for him while he waited right at the other end in full cricket whites with his bat at the ready. Out of the gloom the tennis balls came hurtling, him fending them off as if they were missiles while Oriana called, four! six! a hole in one! rounder! And, if she caught one, bull’s eye!
Teach me not to throw like a girl.
The recall so vivid it rooted him to the spot. He remembered how he’d come behind her, slipped his hand down to her wrist, tried to show her how to twist, flick. She’d tried and failed, growled at herself and stamped her feet, impatient at her ineptitude. Hurling balls here and there. It doesn’t work, Malachy – I can’t do it! I throw like a girl! And that was the first time he’d kissed her.
Malachy called through as he entered Robin’s place, though the sombre groan of the door and echoing thunk as he closed it would have announced his arrival anyway. There was nothing wrong with Robin’s hearing but it depended on which world he was in whether he actually registered it or not.
‘Hi, Robin!’
Silence.
Malachy whistled casually as he made his way from room to room. Not in the kitchen. Bathroom door open; towels on the rail, spirit-level straight. Study door closed. Malachy knocked, poked his head around. The day bed, with a tartan blanket flung back as if someone had suddenly become overheated; the swivel chair facing Malachy as if someone had only just now left it. The walls a latticework of shelves, bent and bowed with the weight of all the books and, in the spaces between the books and the next shelf, piles of papers, brochures, catalogues and magazines. The room could do with some air. And then Oriana’s room. Today, he felt he did want to see in there – but what if Robin had renovated it the way Malachy had Jed’s old room? What if nothing had changed and even the quickest glimpse hurled him back through time to a period during which he was happiest and at his most miserable? He took his hand off the knob, walked on to the sitting room and through to Robin’s studio. He was in there, at the easel behind a canvas, and Malachy could only see his legs and the legs of the stool on which he sat.
‘Hullo, Robin.’
Robin peered around the side of the canvas and stared for a moment.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Malachy – I just thought I’d pop in.’
‘Well, fuck off.’ Robin disappeared behind the canvas, muttering.
‘I’ll go and make you some soup, shall I?’ Malachy continued. He glanced around the room. There was no sign of any meals having been taken. All the mugs that were on various surfaces were crammed with paintbrushes and palette knives, pheasant feathers, knitting needles, flat wide pencils and small branches with curled and crusted leaves still clinging on. Tea bags in dried-out little dumps on surfaces here and there; on the windowsills cigarette butts balanced upright.
‘Have you eaten today?’
Robin didn’t bother to answer.
‘I’ll go and make you some soup,’ Malachy said again and he went into the kitchen, opened a cupboard and, under his breath, said oxtail, oxtail or oxtail? The interior of the cupboard was like a pastiche of an Andy Warhol screenprint.
‘Nice drop of oxtail,’ he called out. The pelargoniums on the sills needed water. He lifted the kettle, full but stone-cold, and gave the plants a drink. He hadn’t been in yesterday and the crockery on the rack was just as he’d left it the day before. Quite possibly, Robin hadn’t eaten since then. He looked in the breadbin and buttered the last two slices of bread, cutting a little mould off the crusts. He grated the last of the cheese because it was too hard to be palatable any other way. Robin had only an old-fashioned, free-standing gas cooker. With the soup heating up, Malachy lit the grill, ready to leap back as the flames licked along at ferocious speed and clawed out at him. Suddenly he remembered Oriana aged around twelve running into their apartment in floods of tears because she’d singed her fringe when grilling toast. The smell of burnt hair acrid in his nostrils even today. She’d been inconsolable. He and Jed had tried to tell her she looked fine while she sobbed and twanged off the brittle, sizzled ends. And he remembered how they had sat her down on a stool and, with solemnity and the kitchen scissors, had tried their best. Shorter they went, shorter still, until she looked like Louise Brooks.
The soup making audible phuts jolted Malachy back to the present. He popped the bread under the grill and watched like a hawk for it to brown before turning it carefully, adding the cheese and waiting until it seethed golden bubbles. He found a tray, placed on it the soup, cheese on toast, a tomato and a pint glass of cold water. He buffed the cutlery against his sleeve and folded a piece of kitchen roll into a triangle. He toyed with the idea of putting a pot of pelargoniums on the tray, but they were all encrusted with soil and Robin might well hurl it.
Malachy set the tray on the coffee table by the old sofa in the sitting room and went back into the studio.
‘Bon appétit.’
Robin glanced over. ‘Is it dinner time?’
‘It is,’ said Malachy. ‘Nice bit of soup – oxtail.’
Robin left his easel and pulled himself up to his formidable height, winding turps-soaked rags around his brushes. Then he straightened his tie, smoothed the waistcoat of his three-piece suit and lightly brushed down the sleeves of its jacket. Today, Malachy noticed tiny flecks of blue, like the lightest rain, on the Harris tweed. Robin glanced at Malachy as he passed by and sat down, his teeth snatching at the toast as he crammed it into his mouth. He made fast work of it. With his spoon hovering about the soup, he stared hard at Malachy.
‘Why are you staring? Why are you standing there?’ His voice was sharp and belligerent.
Malachy was wondering where Robin’s medication was – because it certainly wasn’t in its usual place on the coffee table. ‘Where are your tablets?’
‘I don’t know,’ Robin said, as if there was no reason why he should. ‘Now sod off and leave me to eat in peace.’
After a search, Malachy found the tablets in the bathroom. With one in the palm of his hand, he extended it to Robin who stared at it as if it was the first pill he’d ever seen, regarded Malachy as if he was poisoning him. But he placed it on his tongue, swallowing it down with a great glug of soup.
‘I’ll be off now,’ said Malachy. ‘I’ll pop in tomorrow.’ He thought of all the shopping Jed had bought. Despite the fetid air in the room and the smell of concentrated tinned soup, his own appetite hadn’t diminished. He’d bring Robin some fresh food tomorrow.
‘À demain.’
Malachy always said this as his parting remark. Some days, Robin repeated it. ‘Adam Man.’ Very occasionally, he laughed. Mostly, he didn’t respond at all.
Malachy left the apartment, appeased. Robin Taylor was still producing great art. One could forgive him his vile temper and foul mouth. Still, some days this was easier to do than at other times. And for some people, this was far simpler to achieve than it was for others. Today was not a day to mention Oriana. And perhaps Robin should not be told of her return.
It isn’t up to you.
That’s what Malachy had been told eighteen years ago.
It’s nothing to do with you.
That’s what they’d said when he found that she’d gone.