I Watson - Director's cut

“Ducks!” he said to her once the brass bell had announced their exit. “My best seller. Ducks, and then tigers and horses and dogs and, of course, Oriental women with breasts bared. I ask myself what it is about ducks that make the masses want them flying up their livingroom walls? They ruin hundreds of quite reasonable landscapes. But there you are. Ducks sell.”

He led her into the studio.

“What is it about you today?”

She settled into her pose.

He wagged a finger. “There's something different. Let me guess. You're standing straight. There's a spring to your step. There's a glow to your skin. What's happened? You're messing about with my values.” “What is your favourite colour?”

He shook an irritable head and said sharply, “That’s got nothing to do with it,” and then, after a pause, he relented and all but whispered, “Yellow.” He nodded. “Yes, yellow is good. That’s the colour of the future.”

“I'm sorry. Gosh, you're always so grumpy. Perhaps it's not me at all. Perhaps your temper has changed, your eyes clouded with red. They do look red.”

“Perhaps. Maybe. But if that were the case then things would be darker, not lighter.”

“You've had a bad day?”

“All days are bad. This one is worse.”

“So it's true that the artist suffers.”

“A sense of humour too, along with the spring. That's something else I hadn't bargained for.”

“I want to change my pose. Is that all right by you?”

She slipped that in and took him by surprise. Knife and palette suspended, he stood rooted while his colour darkened.

“Will it mean starting over?” Her eyebrows raised over laughing eyes.

She teasing him, by golly!

Her shrug was a little caress. “If we can change our arrangements so that you're paid by the session, or something like that, it shouldn't much matter. And I do so want you to catch me…just right.” Eventually, a small tremble spread up from his knees and he seemed to come alive again. He said, “Christmas is coming. There won't be much to wrap.”

“There is always Easter,” she said and gave him a broad smile. She sat on the sofa and leant back, lifting her legs up so that her dress fell away to reveal an expanse of thigh. “Something like this,” she said. Her thighs were slim and tanned, brushed with the colour of her copper-brown dress that fell away to expose them. She lay on the sofa, one arm resting on the arm, her legs drawn up, her knees bent, her dress falling away just right. It was, for her, a daring pose. It was impossible not to wonder. Her skin radiated the heat from two glasses of Cadet. He was down to his last bottle of Merlot-Malbec and kept it back for later, for when he was alone again and could brood over the session.

She said, “I wonder what happened to Helen?”

“Mrs Harrison?”

“Yes, Mrs Helen Harrison.”

Twice the sitting was interrupted by customers in the shop. Paul's absence was a nuisance – most inconsiderate of him – and slightly puzzling. He should have been home by now. Mrs Puzey arrived with her family and cleaning equipment and during the next hour while flying dust was cornered and lemon polish stung the air, he hid in the studio and continued with the painting. The woman had gone and left a curious hole.

The painting was coming along. The blocking was complete, the key, the composition, and the shape was pleasing; the sweep of the hip, the depth of one smooth thigh as it curved in against the other, drew the eye to the shadow caused by her dress.

The noise had ceased. The old bell had rung out a beautiful silence broken only by the sounds of tapping on the studio door. The door eased open and Laura glided in. Laura, she glided everywhere. A black streak of cover-girl potential hugged by a tight black skirt. A wide shiny belt bridged her skirt and a loose crimson top. No naked midriff for Laura. Not a hint of that firm, flat landscape with its glittering omphalos. Not that he had any reason to believe that she wore a bellybutton ring but he could fantasize as well as anyone. More to the point, Laura was fashion conscious and mutilation was the fashion. There were none of the flatlands of the Chinese delta about Laura, no paddy fields by gosh, more the lush hills of West Africa, he would say, or some bursting volcano in the Philippines. Somewhere jolly warm, anyway.

Her glossy lips widened into a tropical smile. There was a breathless honesty in Luscious Laura, the black vixen of The British, unusual in women, for there was no threat. No threat at all.

“Mr Lawrence,” she said.

“What is it, Laura?”

“The phone went. You didn't hear it.”

“My hearing isn't what it was. Who was it?”

“Paul, it was. He's gone now.”

“Ah, Paul.”

“He phoned from the hospital. They're keeping him in an extra night for observation and there’s nothing to worry about. He didn't want you to worry.”

“Thank you, Laura. I'll try not to.”

With a flourish she closed the door behind her. The air, still stirred by her breathless words, was touched with Wrigley's Spearmint. Having got used to the idea of Paul's return a slight disappointment drew in with the evening. Even the short walk to The British seemed stale. There was little sense of anticipation. He knew that the feeling would change. A few drinks would change it. In the pet shop window a hamster was going nowhere as it raced a plastic wheel.

In The British Rasher's absence hung heavily. In the early evening the barmaids were even more indifferent as they contemplated their evening shift and the majority of the punters were on their way home, a swift half of courage to get them there. These were not serious drinkers. These people had families and were simply keen on a slight delay, a little pause in the perfunctory day before their perfunctory evening, train-spotters who were merely passing through. He was early. The familiar faces had yet to arrive.

The malevolent day was drawing to its close and alcohol, would speed it on its way.

“Good riddance!” he said and the barmaid in a tight black dress blinked and looked over the bar at him as though he was mad. She was quite right, of course.

Beneath red-flocked wallpaper with its nicotine-stained edges they'd begun with 6 and 7, moved to 23 and 26 and finished with lychee and fresh mango. Two bottles of Wan-King, the house white, proved slightly more satisfying than its promise.

Laura came back from the loo. He noticed the dilation of her pupils and her sudden elation.

Laura giggled, wasted. The Wan-King was lethal; drink enough and you'd go blind, so they said, that's why the Chinese squinted, but that was probably an old Chinese wives’ tale. She let him into a secret. “Paul asked me to look after you. He thought you would be lonely. That's why I made an exception. I normally keep to my regulars. I owe him one for the telly and video he got me. The DVD is coming, on a promise. He's so grateful that you put him up and for the grapes that he wanted to give you something in return. So I agreed to perform a little trick for you, later. I have a whole box of them, Mr Lawrence. A whole box of tricks.”

He lifted an overblown eyebrow. Leaving the tricks aside he knew a thing or two about boxes. Get to his age and, if the memory was up to it and that had a lot to do with diet – plenty of mackerel and walnuts and Heinz Tomato Ketchup – most men could remember the odd performance when they might have excelled. Even so, he was rather crestfallen and stuck out his lower lip. Eventually he said, “So it wasn't a coincidence then, our meeting in The British?”

“Mr Lawrence,” she giggled like a teenager contemplating her first blow job. “Grown-ups don't believe in coincidence, do they? Come on. Swallow these and lighten up. You're much too dark.”