TAINTED LOVE Read online

  ‘There’s something I wanted to show you,’ Peter said.

  The footpath showed itself for a foot or two in front, closed again behind us. I grabbed hold of Peter’s arm. The world was asleep and there were just the two of us in this small patch of world rubbed clear of grey. We were nearly at the pond.

  ‘Listen,’ Peter whispered.

  I stood still and realised my coat had been rustling. Now that it stopped, the stillness of the wood expanded. I could hear other noises. Small scurryings in the undergrowth. Leaves turning in their sleep. Ducks by the pond murmuring to each other, and a rush of water as one of them made a dash at another.

  Peter tugged my hand and we walked on, slowly now, each foot placed carefully down so as not to make a noise. I could see the gleam of the water beside the path before the mist swallowed it.

  ‘There.’ Peter stopped suddenly and his voice was barely audible.

  I followed his gaze. The brown mud of the path, the silver glint of water, the mist.

  Then there was a movement and I saw the heron. Almost invisible, it stood upright, head raised, looking across the water. It was nearly as tall as our shoulders, and only five feet away. I leaned closer to Peter and watched the bird. We were barely breathing. Its eyes were orange and its beak sharp.

  It didn’t seem to notice us, but suddenly it bunched its feathers, gathered its wings, lifted up out of the water with a couple of large flaps and disappeared back into the mist. I could see its legs dangling in the air for a second, black lines against the grey, then it was gone and the woods were silent. Peter hugged me and I turned to kiss him, wound my arms round his neck and pressed my body against his. His fur was damp, but his skin was shiny with moisture, slippery beneath my fingers.

  ‘I know a place we can go,’ he whispered into my ear, ‘if you want.’

  I laughed and hugged him tighter, kissed his mouth, his neck, his ears.

  ‘Yes, I want.’

  In the woods there are two trees, a hawthorn and a young oak, which have grown together, their trunks entwined. They’re not the same tree, but if you were to cut one away, the other would still coil around the empty space. In time it might fill out, gain its own strength, but it would always have that twist, that memory held in the turn of its trunk, that whisper in its leaves that once there used to be something else. It might happen that the two trees, growing close like that, would crowd each other out – one would take the other’s space, steal its nutrients, choke it to death. Or they may grow to accommodate each other, bending and twisting more as the years go by, until it’s only by the difference in leaf and bark that it’s possible to show which limb belongs to which tree.

  By nine o’clock the sun had risen and burned off the mist. The sky was blue and clear. A fresh new day. I’d left Peter sleeping in the woods. After he and his Dad have been night running he sleeps for hours – sometimes right through. He might miss a day at college but he catches up quickly enough.

  I had history that morning, and we were working in the library on our projects. We had to decide what topic we were going to do, and Miss wanted us to work in pairs, looking for ideas. The college library held the local archives and there was often someone from the local history society on hand. I arrived a few minutes late and everyone had already paired up, so I headed into the aisles on my own and found Richard looking through a box of old newspapers.

  I hadn’t seen him since the day I’d tried to climb in through his kitchen window.

  ‘Hiya Lauren,’ he said.

  I looked at him, trying to work out if he was laughing at me, but with those shades on I couldn’t tell. I decided not to worry about it. It was only half past nine, but I’d been up for four hours and already it was the best day of my life.

  ‘Hiya Richard. What you doing here?’

  ‘Just a bit of research,’ he waved the paper in his hand.

  ‘Are you a student here?’

  ‘No, just using the archives.’

  ‘Oh.’ I nodded and started to look along the shelves at the box files and heavy bound books. He read his newspaper. I couldn’t see the date, but it was pretty old – columns of tiny print and no photos. He looked up and smiled at me.

  ‘Have the builders gone yet?’ I said.

  ‘Most of them. There’s just the plumber.’

  ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum decided she wanted to change the taps and god knows what. I think she just wants to have people about the place so she dreams up stuff for them to do.’

  ‘Jimmy’ll do a good job.’

  ‘He should be careful. If Mum takes a liking to him, she’ll be calling him out all the time.’

  ‘He can look after himself.’

  I delved into my bag and got a pen and notebook.

  ‘I’ve got to choose a project,’ I said.

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘I was thinking of doing Unitarianism in the nineteenth century.’ I’d told a couple of my friends who’d looked at me blankly and I’d had to explain.

  Richard nodded. ‘Yeah, that will be interesting. Try looking at the links with freemasons too.’

  ‘Thanks. I will do.’

  I took down a bound copy of the proceedings of the town council from 1850 and looked through the index.

  ‘There’s a party tonight, down at Canal Bank,’ I told Richard.

  ‘Whose party?’

  ‘Oh, anyone’s, everyone’s. It’s where the houseboats are moored, in the communal space – everyone mucks in, brings stuff, you know. Half the town will probably be there.’

  ‘Are you inviting me?’

  I turned and looked at him, and encountered my reflected self in his sunglasses. His mouth was twisted into what I suppose was a smile.

  ‘I guess so. But it’s like I said: everyone can come. I’ll be there with Peter.’

  ‘Ah, Peter the Invisible Boyfriend.’

  Now he was definitely smiling. I looked away, annoyed despite my resolution not to let him get to me.

  ‘Look, I was just telling you about it in case you’d like to come. You being new round here, I thought it would be a chance to get to know people. It’s up to you if you come or not.’

  ‘Thank you Lauren,’ he said, and now he sounded sincere, ‘I’d love to.’

  The thing about having world class circus performers living in your town and, even better, as your friends, is that they need an audience to try out their acts on. Since Suky and Jimmy have been a couple they’ve been working on a performance to do together. So far they haven’t done it in the wider world – they are still known as Spangled Suky the High Wire Supreme, and Pyrotastic – and as far as the audiences of Europe are concerned they are two entirely separate acts. Here in Hawden though, we’ve seen their double act grow and develop.

  It started with them performing side by side – her spinning cartwheels along a wire while he paced around below breathing fire like a restless dragon. That was cool. But every time there’s a communal event or a party, they perform for us again and each time it’s changed, become more integrated. Their performances aren’t side by side any more, but intertwined, dependent on one another.

  It was twilight down by the canal and there was a big pot of chilli which everyone dipped into, and someone produced jugs of sangria. There was music on and Mr Lion was sitting at the base of a tree rolling a spliff with Beauty on his feet. I leaned against Peter and we watched Jimmy making the final preparations for the performance.

  The two bridges weren’t far apart – maybe 300 feet – and they’d strung a wire up from one to the other in a line down the middle of the canal. Before they put it up they’d dragged it though a bowl of liquid, which I wasn’t near enough to see or smell properly, but I guessed it was petrol or something equally flammable.

  Suky was wearing an orange leotard sewn all over with sequins so she shimm
ered. She had sequins on her legs and arms too: orange, red, gold and silver, stuck to her skin in swirling patterns that rose and twisted from her ankles and wrists, so that as she walked she looked as though darts of fire were flickering across her limbs. She had her hair up and her face was heavily made up in the same shades of red, orange and silver.

  Jimmy was wearing what he always wears for fire-eating: not very much. Just a pair of tatty old khaki shorts which come down to his knees. But he looked nearly as decorative as Suky, because his torso, upper arms, back and legs are covered in tattoos. Dragons, Celtic patterns, Chinese calligraphy, mermaids and loads more, all in green and black, no other colours.

  The wire was pulled taut. Suky climbed on to the wall of the bridge and stood legs slightly apart, hands on her hips. Someone turned the music down and suddenly all eyes were on her. There was the hush of everyone collectively holding their breath.

  Jimmy stood behind her on the bridge and handed her a flaming torch. She bent at the waist and held the torch out at arms length so that it touched and lit another torch which was attached to the bridge. She pirouetted and repeated the movement to light a third torch. She turned and beckoned to Jimmy who climbed up next to her. He stood in the centre, smiled at Suky, then stepped out onto the wire.

  Everyone gasped. None of us had seen Jimmy walk the wire before.

  He took a step, then another, his arms held out for balance. Then he turned and bent at the waist in the same way that Suky had. She held out the flaming torch to Jimmy. He took it in his mouth.

  He straightened up and turned towards us, took two more torches out of the waistband of his shorts and lit them from the one in his mouth. Then, with a flaming torch in each hand and one in his teeth, his head bent backwards so that the torch stayed upright, he started to edge his way slowly along the wire.

  At first we were quiet, but then someone started to clap, and gradually everyone joined in, clapping the rhythm of Jimmy’s feet as they moved along the wire. The audience was nearer the second bridge and when Jimmy was about level with us he stopped and turned so he faced Suky who was still standing on the bridge at the other end. He began to juggle the three torches as Suky stepped out onto the wire.

  She made his tentative steps seem like those of a lumbering elephant. She skipped out, stopping, bending, her hand movements reminiscent of Indian dancers’. She did a cartwheel, she leapt and danced. Jimmy was a study in concentration, keeping the torches in the air, keeping his balance on the wire which shook as Suky moved. The flames reflected in the dark water beneath.

  Suky approached Jimmy. She darted at him with mischievous movements. He ignored her. She grabbed out and tried to steal one of his torches and he growled at her in mock anger. She tried again and succeeded. He was juggling with two torches, and she waved the third in the air. The audience was cheering her on. Encouraged, she tried again, and grabbed hold of a second torch.

  The audience cheered and shouted for Suky. Jimmy, left with one torch only, opened his mouth and closed his lips around the flames. When he removed it the torch was extinguished.

  Suky stood in front of him waving a lit torch in each hand. She bent and inserted the ends of them between her toes, danced a teasing little dance with flames at her feet.

  He stared at her for a moment, his face lit with the orange glow of the torches, then he opened his mouth and breathed out a jet of fire. It hit the wire between him and Suky and set it alight.

  Suky, with a lit torch still held between the first and second toes of each foot, cartwheeled the length of the wire back to the bridge, pursued by the line of fire. The spectacle was amazing. Darkness had fallen and the flames formed a circle around her, the sequins on her clothes catching the light and shattering it into a thousand drops of fire. Beneath, the canal was filled with dancing lights, and the flaming line of the wire chased after her.

  She reached the bridge, did a back flip and landed with her feet on the bridge, facing Jimmy. The wire stopped burning, but she still held the flares in her toes. She removed them one at a time and threw them to Jimmy. He caught them, relit the third flare, then, juggling again, walked back along the wire to Suky. She held her hand out to him. He stepped on to the bridge, turned, and hand in hand and torch in hand, they bowed.

  We cheered and shouted and whistled.

  ‘That was amazing.’

  Richard was standing next to me.

  ‘They always are.’

  He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses and his eyes looked almost normal. He was watching Jimmy and Suky as they bowed on the bridge, and their flames were reflected in miniature in his irises.

  ‘I saw Jimmy once before,’ he said, ‘in Istanbul, when he was performing with the Moscow State Circus.’

  ‘Wow. That must have been amazing.’

  ‘It was. But if he did that stuff with Suky, people would go crazy for it.’

  ‘They’re pretty cool together. What were you doing in Istanbul?

  ‘Oh, I stayed there for a while with Mum. It’s an amazing city. Have you been?’

  I shook my head.

  Jimmy and Suky jumped down off the wall and put the torches out. It had got dark during the performance and someone switched on the fairy lights that were strung through the trees. I looked for Peter so I could introduce him to Richard, but he had disappeared.

  ‘Do you like the circus then?’ I asked.

  ‘I love it!’ He was holding his coat over his shoulder, his finger through the loop, and he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. His hair was pushed back from his face and he looked younger than when I’d seen him before. ‘I go to the circus wherever I can. We’ve travelled quite a bit, and it’s always one of the first things I look for when we arrive anywhere.’

  ‘What’s your favourite act?’

  ‘Clowns. I love all of it, the ringmaster and the trapeze girls and the lion tamers, the spangles and the spectacle. But the clowns are my favourite. There have been some wonderful clowns. Have you heard of the Great Bartolomeo?’

  ‘Someone who knows his circus history I see,’ said a voice behind me.

  It was Jimmy, sooty and streaked with sweat, in his khaki shorts and a clean red t shirt.

  ‘I know some. Bartolomeo was fabulous, but underneath the paint he was very sad. His wife and children were put into a concentration camp during the war. He was on tour and never saw them again.’

  Jimmy looked surprised. ‘I didn’t know that. I thought I knew all there was to know about famous circus performers. I can see I’ll have to pick your brains. I’m Jimmy by the way.’

  He held out his hand and Richard took it.

  ‘Richard. You’ve been working up at our house haven’t you?’

  Jimmy peered at him in the half light. ‘Oh it’s you. I’ve only seen you from a distance before.’

  ‘I guess you must be about finished up there by now,’ I said.

  ‘No. That is, we’ve finished what we were doing, but Meg has asked me to do some work in the attic. She wants to turn it into some sort of flat or den with its own bathroom, and she’s asked me to stay on to do the work.’

  ‘Is that for you?’ I ask Richard.

  ‘I don’t know what it’s for. Just another of Mum’s projects. Probably just an excuse to keep Jimmy about the place. I told you she’d taken a shine to him.’

  ‘Who’s taken a shine to him?’

  Suky squeezed herself in between Jimmy and Richard, still in her shining leotard. Jimmy put his arm round her.

  ‘This is Richard, the lad from up at Hough Dean I told you about.’

  ‘Hiya.’ Suky turned to me. ‘I thought I saw Peter. Has he gone?’

  I looked around at the groups of people chatting in huddles, those milling around over by the food tent. I couldn’t see Peter anywhere.

  ‘He was here. He must be around somewhere.’

  ‘Maybe
he’s avoiding me,’ said Richard with a grin.

  8. Peter

  Off the peg clothes never really worked for Mr Lion. He had his clothes made by a tailor, and he made an appointment with him for Peter. When Peter told his dad, he said they could charge it to his account. Lauren said she’d never seen his dad in clothes, was surprised he had an account at a bespoke tailor. But Peter had seen him at airports, and sometimes dressed up to go out on the town with his mum when they were in Greece. His dad had seen all of fashion’s twists and turns, and when he decided to wear clothes he did it well.

  The tailor looked Peter up and down and said, ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!’ He walked around him in a circle, pinched him at the waist, patted his shoulders. ‘Italian cut, that’s what you need: high waist, tailored around the hip, tapering down the legs. I recommend polish for the hooves.’

  Peter frowned and looked down at his feet. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want any of this. When Lauren said ‘What are you wearing for the prom, Peter?’ he’d said, ‘Do we have to go?’ and she’d pulled a face at him, one that told him she was going whether he was or not. He basically had the choice of going with her or spending the evening thinking about her there without him.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to wear shoes?’ he said to the tailor.

  ‘Goodness me no! You have such an advantage. It’s such a shame, such a waste of perfect tailoring to stick a great pair of feet at the end of a nicely tapered trouser leg. But with you, we can narrow it down to the hoof at the bottom and the line will be perfect, perfect. Such a pleasure to work with such a fine young gentleman. Wonderful.’

  He whipped about Peter with his tape measure, making notes and breathing with a whistle in his breath, and soon he was done. He said to come back in one week for a fitting.

  Peter went alone for the fitting – Lauren was playing hockey that evening – so she didn’t see the suit until the night before the prom when he picked it up and went round to her house.

  ‘Let’s see it on,’ she said.

  ‘You too,’ said Peter.

  They went into separate rooms to change. Peter was ready first and he went to the bottom of the stairs to wait for her. When she appeared he stopped breathing. Her dress was red velvet. It clung and pushed her breasts together. Her curves were convex and concave. He gulped in air.