I turn to Gerry, who is licking the tomato sauce from his bacon sandwich off his wrist, and my eyes drift down to his penis and balls, which, I note, appear to have undergone some kind of hair removal.
“Nope,” I say, putting down my palette and shaking my head. “Can’t do it.”
“Why on earth are you so touchy, Nina? Is it the bad news from the other day?”
He says it so completely coolly.
“Obviously that was all very unexpected,” I say, hiding my face behind the canvas and muttering swear words to myself. I am trapped.
“Well, it’s had its heyday. Better for everyone if we just let the good ship progress roll on in,” he says.
“Yes, but before we, um, abandon the lifeboats, we’re still going to try to raise memberships and brainstorm other ways to keep it from being sold,” I reply slowly, thinking of Samira and her family, my mood turning from embarrassment to anger.
Gerry laughs at this. “Sure.”
I pick up the palette again. “You know what? I am going to paint,” I say to Lee, who nods happily and wanders off, hands still clasped behind him.
I dip the brush in a mixture of browns and feel a slight thrill as my brush hits the canvas, the color bursting out into a thick brown splodge in the center. A creative awakening of some kind. I look back at Gerry and he suddenly looks smaller, less significant. Thoroughly, imperfectly human.
There is something here that Gerry isn’t revealing. Does he have something to do with the sell-off? Is it in his interest? Is there some kind of corporate kickback behind his complete disinterest in helping the community? I’m going to suffer through this painting while I milk him about his bloody plans.
“In many ways, I think it’s a good idea to convert the place,” I say to him now, trying to hold my voice steady as I smear the paintin small strokes. “Imagine the apartments they could put in the old main building. Floor-to-ceiling windows with views down the bay. It’s a million-pound dream. I guess it would bring a lot of money to the area. Like the Turner Contemporary did to Margate, but without, you know, public access.”
“Precisely,” he says. “The plans I’ve seen are hard to argue with. Six apartments in total. Although we’ve got issues with the nesting areas on the far side of the lido, but honestly, we could do with a few less seagulls on the coast. They’re birds. They fly places. Who gives a toss about bloody birds?”
I nod accidentally, remembering my run-in with the seabirds last week.
“See? You get it,” he says.
I swallow, hard. And then I lick my lips and keep going. “So why are we bothering going through this process of trying to get new people in and whatever, if all of this is a done deal?”
“I’m not a total monster, Nina,” he says. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat. “I do want to give everyone some warning and the feeling that theycanput a stop to it if they care enough.”
“The feeling?” I say, incredulous.
“I just mean that we can all shoulder the responsibility,” he says, “like a team.”
I shake my head wildly, behind the canvas so he can’t see.
Then, after a beat, I poke my head back out and pretend to smile at him as he chews on the last of his bacon roll and shrugs, all the skin on his upper body moving up and down with the motion. “It’s just business, love. Everyone will be looked after.”
He means redundancies, I think.
I keep moving my paintbrush in tiny strokes, mixing brownswith taupes in circular sweeps of my brush, standing back momentarily to look at the image as it starts to gain texture. “It’s a shame no one at the main council had more vision,” I say. “The place could have used a champion.”
“Well, that’s why the developers are pushing to get it through ahead of the August election,” he says, and then his face freezes slightly, as though something major has occurred to him, or he’s said something he shouldn’t. An August election? My mind starts to whirl with possibilities.
“Right,” I say, as Lee reappears beside me and furrows his brows.
“Excellent brushstrokes, Mara,” he says, “if not exactly the subject.”
“Thank you.” I can feel my insides bubbling with rage as I glance around my canvas, back toward Gerry. “Sounds like there’s no point in us all sweating it, then. I’ll tell the others.”
He appears suddenly nervous about our interaction, and then, leaning forward so his penis slides off the stool and into a full, sagging dangle between his spread legs, he says, “Mara, I have no real horse in the race.”
I’mMaranow, I notice with some irritation.
“Dad, can you put your tackle back on the seat?” shouts Gerry’s daughter from the back, and he scoops himself up and settles back into his original position.
