She took a few sips from her glass and brushed a strand of hair back from her brow. Roddy didn’t speak for some time.
‘What we should probably do,’ he said at last, ‘is take a look through the pictures tomorrow and see what we can arrange.’ Phoebe nodded. ‘Right now, I think we’d better go to bed.’ She looked up, questioning. ‘Separately,’ he explained.
‘All right.’
Together they climbed the Great Staircase, and at the entrance to the East Corridor, they kissed a formal good-night.
4
Phoebe felt tiny in the four-poster. Her mattress was soft and full of lumps, and although she had intended to lie to the side of the bed nearest the window, she found herself rolled by the weight of her own body into a deep valley at the centre. The bed creaked whenever she moved: but then the whole house seemed to be forever creaking, or groaning, or whispering, or rustling, as if never for a moment at ease with itself, and in an effort to close her ears to this disquieting soundtrack, she tried to focus her mind on the day’s strange events. She was pleased, on the whole, with the way things had worked out with Roddy. Even before arriving at Winshaw Towers, she had taken the reluctant decision to sleep with him if he made this his absolute precondition for promoting her work, but she was glad that she hadn’t been obliged to go through with it. Instead, something much better, and much more unexpected, was starting to emerge from their weekend together: a sense of mutual understanding. She even realized – very much to her own surprise – that she was beginning to trust him. And in the warm glow of this realization, she permitted herself a fantasy: the same fantasy to which all artists, however good their intentions, however unflinching their principles, have recourse from time to time. It was a fantasy of success; of recognition, and acclaim. Phoebe’s ambitions were too modest to encompass worldwide celebrity, or serious wealth, but she did dream – as she often had before – of having her work seen and appreciated by other painters; of touching the lives and colouring the perceptions of a few members of the public; of being exhibited, perhaps, in her home town, so that she might give something back to the people with whom she had grown up, repay her parents for the faith and patience which they had vouched her and which had been so valuable during her worst moments of self-doubt. At the thought that some – or even all – of this might now, possibly, miraculously, be about to happen, she stretched her legs beneath the grey, musty sheets and added a whole new chorus of delicious creaks to the furtive stirrings of the house itself.
But all at once she was aware of another noise, too. It was coming from the direction of the door, which she had taken the precaution of locking before getting into bed. She sat up cautiously and reached out for the table lamp, which cast a murky, ineffectual glow over the room. She looked towards the door. Suddenly feeling like the leading lady in some low-budget and none too original horror film, she realized that the handle was turning. There was someone out in the corridor, trying to get in.
Phoebe swung her legs out of bed and tiptoed towards the door. She was wearing a thick, striped cotton nightshirt which buttoned up at the front and reached down almost to her knees.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, in a brave, slightly quavering voice, after the handle had been tried a few more times.
‘Phoebe? Are you awake?’ It was Roddy’s voice: a loud whisper.
She sighed with exasperation. ‘Well of course I’m awake,’ she said, unlocking the door and holding it ajar. ‘If I wasn’t before I certainly am now.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘I suppose so.’
She opened the door and Roddy, who was wearing a satin kimono, slid inside and sat down on the bed.
‘What is it?’
‘Come and sit down a minute.’
She sat beside him.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said.
No further explanation seemed to be forthcoming.
‘So?’
‘So I thought I’d come and see how you were.’
‘Well, I’m fine. I mean, I haven’t contracted any life-threatening diseases in the last half hour or anything.’
‘No, but I mean – I came to check that you weren’t too upset.’
‘Upset?’
‘By my sister, and … oh, I don’t know, by everything. I thought it might all have been a bit much for you.’
‘That’s very nice of you, but I’m fine. Really. I’m quite a tough little cookie, you know.’ She smiled. ‘Are you sure that’s the reason you came?’
‘Of course it is. Well, pretty much.’ He sidled closer towards her. ‘I was lying in bed, if you must know, thinking about that story you told me. About you burning all your paintings. I was thinking that – well, correct me if I’m wrong here – but that’s not the sort of story you would have told to just anybody. It occurred to me that possibly’ (he put his arm around her shoulder) ‘you must have begun to like me a little bit.’
‘Possibly,’ said Phoebe, pulling fractionally away from him.
‘There’s a feeling between us, isn’t there?’ said Roddy. ‘I’m not just imagining it. We started something down there.’
‘Possibly,’ Phoebe repeated. Her voice was toneless. She had begun to feel strangely removed from the situation, and hardly noticed, at first, when Roddy kissed her softly on the mouth. She noticed the second kiss, though: the feel of his tongue slipping between her moist lips. She pushed him away gently and said: ‘Look, I’m not sure this is such a good idea.’
‘No? I’ll tell you what is a good idea, though. November the 13th.’
‘November the 13th?’ she said, dimly aware that he was starting to unbutton her nightshirt. ‘What about it?’
‘The opening night of your show, of course.’ He undid the last three buttons.
Phoebe laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course I am.’ He pulled the nightshirt back over her shoulders. Her skin, in the weak glow of the table lamp, was golden and flawless: ochre, almost. ‘I’ve been looking in my diary. It’s the earliest we can manage.’
‘But you haven’t even seen the pictures yet,’ said Phoebe, as his finger began to trace a line from her neck across her collarbone and beyond.
‘It’ll mean a bit of reshuffling,’ said Roddy, kissing her again on her lips, which were wide with astonishment. ‘But who cares.’ He drew her nightshirt further open and brushed his hand across her breast.
Phoebe felt herself being pushed back on to the pillows. There were fingers stroking the inside of her thigh. Her head was swimming. November the 13th was only six weeks away. Did she have enough pictures for a major exhibition? Ones that she was really happy with? Was there time to finish the two large canvases which stood half-completed in her studio? The rush of excitement made her weak and dizzy. Her mind was so busy racing over the possibilities that it seemed the easiest thing in the world to let Roddy lie on top of her, his kimono thrown aside to reveal strong forearms and a hairless chest, his knees pushing their way between her legs, his tongue working assiduously at her nipple, until the impulse to resist asserted itself again and her whole body tautened.