Noah had been so understanding, but there was something about the exchange that had shattered her unbridled longing for him. The flesh of him was somehow less exciting, less sexy, than the idea of him. In her dreams and fantasies, he had shown her the kind of pleasure that she’d never experienced with Martin. In reality the familiar choreography of it had left her disappointed.
It was a different body, a different man, but the act was the same. She was simply slotting herself into another thankless equation. As she’d reached for his erection, she’d been unable to stop imagining this very scene mirrored in a flat in Marylebone.
The thought had taken her out of herself and then before she knew it, she’d begun to cry at how futile it all felt. Chasing that high, that lustful glance that made you feel alive could only make you momentarily forget you were some else’s second choice.
She had thought that Noah’s want for her might heal the wound left by Martin, but she had realised then and there that she could only look at herself through the eyes of others for so long. Eventually she would need to learn to look at herself, and when she did, she saw a thirty-six-year-old woman salivating over a boy who was barely out of his teens.
Now, once again, as she made her morning coffee, it was thighs that she thought about. Only this time it was hers and Noah’s.
She didn’t see much of her guests for the rest of the week. The deadline for the second showcase was looming and everyone seemed to have hunkered down. They were over halfway through the tournament, but it seemed that she and her guests had let themselves get overly distracted from the matter at hand. She decided she should try and set a good example by exiling herself to the orangery and painting away her hours.
On the day of the showcase, the mood was light. Given the subject matter, Opal had expected something more sombre, but the breakfast table was alive with chatter. Opal noticed that Heather and Ruby were friendly again, Adam had struck up a conversation with Johan, and Noah was happily dipping into both conversations.
Opal shot him a friendly smile that she hoped could somehow relay her newly platonic feelings towards him. He responded in kind, but it made Opal feel strangely lonely. In a way it had been her desire for him that had tethered her to the group.
First up was Adam’s ballet. He wore a plain grey jersey leotard and bare feet. The dance was slow and astonishingly elegant, with the rhythmic repetitions of a single pose seeming to almost imperceptibly melt into another. The music was a building chorus of scrubby strings. Adam explained it was the music of a man called Philip Glass, whom Joshua had briefly met in Paris.
‘It is the dance of death, which is a dance of life, because life is all repetition and reinvention and the music can only be said to have played once it’s stopped,’ Adam said as he took his bow. ‘Oh but I can’t take all artistic credit for that choreography; most it was Joshua’s idea. I’m calling the piece “Swan Song”.’ He beamed to the sound of the group’s heartfelt applause.
Heather seemed reluctant to go next, and so Opal suggested they follow with Noah. He was also shy about letting everyone into his studio. It seemed that he too felt less sure of this second work than the first. The room was similarly set up: with a thin passage down the middle, which everyone was to walk down. On either side swathes of fabric doused in scent dangled from the ceiling like ghostly fungal growths. The sound of the room was that of thick, humid air, with the occasional hum of insects. The effect was so realistic that Opal felt certain there was sweat pooling under her arms from the tropical heat.
As you progressed along the walkway, the pungent smell of plants and flowers was gradually corrupted by an overpowering smell of rot, and something else. A familiar smell that only became recognisable when the sound of the room changed, subtly at first, like the odour, but eventually unmistakably no longer the hum of life, but the hum of chainsaws. Accompanied by the now pungent smell of petrol.
The title of the work, Noah explained afterwards, was, in Opal’s opinion, slightly clumsily: ‘An Autopsy of Planet Earth’.
‘It’s a working title. I’m still playing around with some ideas,’ Noah qualified, sensing the scepticism in the room.
‘Shall we move on to Heather’s studio?’ Opal led the way out to the small courtyard, but Heather still seemed reluctant, taking her time to find the right key. She fumbled with her almost industrial-sized carabiner, and Opal wondered why on earth she had so many keys on her at any one time.
It was Ruby who stepped in, gently taking Heather by the elbow and giving her a look that must have communicated something Heather needed to hear. Soon she’d found the key and was standing back to let the group file into the dark studio.
In the middle of the space was a large metal barrel, which had had the top and bottom sawn off to give the impression of a waist-high, human-width pipe coming out of the concrete floor. The group approached, forming a circle and peering inside.
Filling up to the very brim of the barrel was what looked like a dark liquid. It seemed to have the consistency of tar but it was flecked with gold, silver and purple. It made Opal think of illustrations of the galaxy, those ones you saw on television that swirled around an invisible centre in a disc shape.
Heather cleared her throat, and stared at a spot just above everyone’s head as she spoke. ‘A few years ago, I was in a very bad place, too much drinking, too many drugs; it’s a story you’ve all heard before …’ Heather picked at the cuticles on her thumb. ‘Anyway there was a point when I was sitting in that bad place, and all I wanted was to jump into that.’ She pointed at the barrel.
‘I had this recurring … I don’t know … was it a dream? Maybe a nightmare? Whatever it was I kept thinking about getting into that liquid and submerging my head and how quiet and peaceful it would be to have my lungs and my ears and my eyes blocked off from the world.’ Heather’s eyes were shining with the threat of tears, and she took a deep breath to steady her voice.
‘Anyway, it took me a while, but I realised that I was fantasising about death.’ Heather looked down at her hands, and there was a heavy silence.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Ruby said finally. And when Heather raised her head again, there was a sad smile on her face.
‘Yeah, I guess that’s the problem really.’
Ruby walked forward and put an arm around Heather’s shoulder. Opal got the distinct feeling she was intruding on an intimate moment, and so she turned away to take a close look at ‘The Peace of Dying’.
As she stared into the dark viscous liquid, she thought about what was coming next: Johan’s portrait. He had quietly asked her the previous day if she was OK with this one being shown ‘publicly’ and she had agreed. After all the ‘shoot’ that had conceived the photo had had everyone present. She’d also allowed him to show his first picture beside it.
Now that the reveal was imminent, though, Opal wondered if she’d misjudged the strength of her own nerves. They left the studios and walked back across the pinstriped lawn to the house.
Johan had set up the two pieces side by side in the hallway. He got top marks for showmanship; both were sitting on tall easels and covered with thick velvet.
‘Are those your curtains?’ Ruby asked as they filed into a line.
‘Never mind that, it’s all in the service of art,’ Johan said dismissively and then, training his blue eyes squarely on Opal: ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
The state of the curtains was the last thing on Opal’s mind at that moment. ‘Not at all,’ she said a little curtly. ‘Shall we get on with it?’
