Redheads

Redheads

By John Ellison Davies

The invitation from T--- Galleries said 6.00pm. I arrived at six. A young waiter was still setting out wine glasses. In a corner Branko, the sculptor, was polishing one of his aluminium fantasies.

"Mr Malcolm come quickly!" His giant face, mottled, dandruffed, as attractive as leftover pizza, pleaded. "I need something."

I approached him with caution, my shoes creaking on the parquet floor.

"What's the problem?"

"I am depressed. I have some parking tickets."

"Pay them, Branko. Keep life simple."

"Those pigs," he growled. "I tell them I have some pieces. Heavy pieces. I can't load them in five minutes Jesus."

"Branko..."

"Another was from some party. Was two in the morning. It's a good story I tell you."

I felt tired. Branko always makes me feel tired. Unintentionally I rested my left hand on the sculpture, on the edge of an aluminium wing. A thin stinging sensation made me pull back. My thumb was bleeding.

"Be careful Mr Malcolm," he said, wiping my blood from his shining sculpture. "Do you have handkerchief?"

"This is dangerous. You should warn people."

"Maybe I cut some customers," he giggled like a demented goat. "These rich pigs. They think art is some pretty thing. I show them."

"There might be children."

"If children coming I tell them sure. We make joke on grown-ups. It's a good joke you think so?"

"No." I pressed my handkerchief tight around my thumb.

"It's so good to see you Mr Malcolm. You are always so calm."

The gallery was filling slowly. I recognised a fat journalist, a film director I'd once had dinner with when his project was in difficulties, a friend of my ex-wife. I waved at her and smiled and glanced elsewhere. I honestly preferred Branko’s company. I surprised myself admitting it.

"I admire you Mr Malcolm, truly. Nothing surprises you."

I laughed.

"I think you and me we know something. Not like these. We make party after."

"I have a lot of work to do," I said firmly.

"Man should relax. For you, look -" he pointed to a pale blonde girl with black fingernails and purple lipstick nice legs. I felt the beginning of an erection.

"She's a baby. Too young."

"Babies must learn."

"Too pretty."

"You crazy man? Can't be too pretty!"

"Yes they can. Talk to your guests Branko. I'll be around."

He retreated, puzzled. I puzzled myself. The girl he had selected for my pleasure could not have been more than eighteen. I wondered if she was eating properly, if she was warm enough. Her short leather skirt and upturned chin suggested confidence, but I saw only a kitten fallen from its basket. Great wheels grind in this world and curious little noses had better be careful. A boy more her own age offered her a cigarette. Good, I thought, let the kittens claim each other.

I circulated, I eddied, enjoying the crowd. A crowd in a gallery is like the first night on a sea cruise, or a casino. I amused myself with my own distorted reflection in the burnished surface of one of Branko's sculptures. And then I had a clear intuition that someone was watching me. I had never felt this before. Curious, I retraced my steps through the crowd. An immobility, a steadiness must have registered with me as I turned and moved. But where?

The intuition faded, as if someone had stopped breathing against my cheek.

"Have you lost something?"

The voice belonged to a tall woman in her late twenties, dressed entirely in black. A high collar emphasised the oval of her face, the prominent cheekbones. Her hair, long, the colour of a red, dark honey, glistened under the halogen lights. I had never seen anyone like her except in a very old painting.

"Perhaps you're just looking for something?" she said.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. My name's Linda."

"Malcolm. Don't touch anything. The wings," I explained, wriggling my thumb.

Before I could stop her she ran one finger quickly along the nearest gleaming razor edge. As she removed her finger I could see that there was no blood, only a thin white line across almost broken skin.

"Wow!" she said. "Thanks for telling me. I thought this was just another dumb exhibition. I mean clever. Same thing. If cleverness got us anywhere the world would be different, wouldn't it? Do you know the artist?"

I admitted I did and introduced her to Branko.

"Your work is very spiritual," she told him.

"Me? Sure."

"Calm. Strong. Like a martyr."

"I love those guys."

I was a neutral particle, misplaced where couples seemed to form by magnetic force. I considered going home to watch television with a glass of cognac. I decided to have some fun with my ex-wife's friend instead.

The waiter ran for the first-aid kit. The largest sculpture, a spindly metal insect, was smeared with blood. My ex-wife's friend clutched her hand in shock.

"I should have warned you," I said casually.

It was time to go. I passed Linda at the entrance.

"Did you enjoy your little chat with the artist?"

She seemed surprised.

"He was horrible. Not my type. I saw what you did."

Was there a tint of concern in her eyes? The tangle of obscure resentment in my stomach began to loosen. May be I was not such a neutral particle after all.

"Why should I be the only one?" I held out my thumb. She took my hand, gently probing around the cut. I turned her hand over in mine. There was not a mark on it.

"My name's Mandy," she said.

I heard shouts in the lane. Branko appeared, with Linda, shouting "Fire Jesus! Call pigs!"

"Try the Fire Brigade."

"Sure. Them too. We make big party. To the crowd at large he announced "Ladies and gentlemen, is very pretty fire in warehouse."

We were caught along in the spill of people into the lane, excited as children to see fireworks. I was not thinking clearly, certainly not thinking of fire. Even with the two of them there in front of me, perfectly identical, identically dressed, it was hard to believe. I have met twins before. Their similarities are intriguing. Their differences make them real. This perfection was disturbing. But I remembered one difference: "...he was horrible."

Golden shadows flickered along the ceilings on the upper floor of the warehouse. Smoke overflowed from the windows. The flames spread lazily, exploring, then found their muscles and roared, tearing through the building's heart.

Someone began to chant, as a joke, "Branko lit the fire!" Mandy and Linda danced arm in arm echoing the sirens. "Wow. Wowowowowow..."

When I called her number was engaged or did not answer. I tried for a week. Without the address there was not much more I could do.

There were other galleries, other exhibition openings. If she was not there I did not stay long. I began to think of our meeting as an episode, a moment of grace that could not be repeated. Why should I think life could be so interesting?

Then I saw her again.

I was in a cafe near the Square. The film I planned to see alone would not start for another half hour. I lit a short cigar and settled deeper into my chair watching the young people gulp their coffee, the ones who were expected somewhere, and others linger, the ones who were meeting friends. I did not gulp. I would not linger. And it did not, I believed, matter to anyone either way what I did.

The early evening traffic flowed by. Somewhere the fire brigade was on the move again. Wowow. Our arsonist was keeping busy. There had been four similar fires since Branko's exhibition. The police had no clues.

My view was eclipsed by a flash of honey-red hair.

"Guess," she said.

"Guess what?"

"Which one am I?"

I was certain.

"You're the one I wanted to see."

"You have to say it. When you're like us it's important."

"I don't feel this way with Linda."

She sat beside me, glowing like a pearl in clear water under a rare moon.

I could walk there in ten minutes from my house. Over the footbridge near the hospital, along a narrow avenue of weather-grimed brick blocks and left into a shorter street carpeted by the broken glass of bottles dropped from dim balconies.

A strong smell of cat lurked in the stairwell. A silence crouched behind each door as I climbed the three flights of stairs.

"No flowers, Mr Malcolm?" said Linda opening the door.

"I'd rather you called me Malcolm."

She ignored me.

It was a large studio space. Two mattresses lay on the floor under a wide arched window. The floor was scrubbed, the walls freshly painted white with some damp patches still glistening.

Linda sank into a mattress in front of a black and white television set. There was no other furniture.

Mandy called out to me from behind a folding screen which concealed a small kitchen.

"Hope you like vegetables."

Her arms locked around my neck. She tasted of eggplant and claret.

Their clothes, two of everything, hung from a rope slung across the room.

We ate on the mattresses, watching a news programme. In their silence, punctuated by the clicking of spoons in bowls, and in their concentrated attention to each item in the brash network catalogue of misfortune and tragedies condensed to ten second incidents, I sensed an agreement between them, an opinion confirmed. I could not guess what the opinion was.

Linda turned the television off before the news finished, at the beginning of a report about another fire.

"We only watch informative programmes," she said.

"We believe in education," said Mandy.

"We believe in direct action."

"We believe in progress!"

They looked indulgently at each other, approving, as if each saw herself at an angle in a mirror. I saw they were necessary to each other, two sides of a perfect crystal, though for me one side shone brighter.

Linda washed the dishes and said she was going out.

"Mr Malcolm. I am depressed."

"What's the matter now?"

"Women. Jesus."

I took him to a club where they did not fuss about signatures in the membership book. Two couples stood at the bar. A man in a green suit, with a pointed beard, played a poker machine. I delegated Branko to choose a table and ordered two beers.

"These girls Mr Malcolm." The froth on his upper lip made him look crazier than usual. “Girlfriend is sometimes trouble. Sister can be nuisance. Twin sister..." Words defeated him. His long arms drooped, thick as fence-posts, expressive of clumsy despair.

After patient questioning I gathered that Linda was being evasive with him and spending more time with Mandy. But that didn't make sense. I was seeing them both often, and when Linda left I assumed she was with him.

"When I do see her," he whined, "she keeps me waiting. She doesn't take me home. She doesn't like my studio. Is concrete floor. Is cold there. I wait on street corners. Sometimes a kiss. Is no satisfaction Mr Malcolm."

"It must be difficult for you."

Pretending to feel sorry for someone is one of life's subtle pleasures.

"You see Mandy?" His ugly flat face regained its rat cunning. "If I can see Linda more I can be bored with her. It's way with women you understand."

"I don't know what you mean Branko."

"You don't get bored? You have low blood pressure must be."

"Mandy's not here," said Linda. "You don't mind keeping me company for tonight do you?"

"Of course not."

Her tigress smile promised mischief.

The hotel she led me to was a wedge-shaped oddity on a cramped corner at the junction of five main roads. We entered the public bar. Half the patrons had no hair at all and the other half were nearly asleep over their drinks. The carpet had been tortured by a thousand cigarette burns.

The band was tuning up. Sockets were tried and alternated, knobs adjusted. A wailing wave throbbed through the audience. A member of the band was applauded for his several attempts to mount the low stage.

"Are any of your friends here?" I asked.

"They're all my friends."

I wondered why this half of the perfect crystal was so hard to get along with.

She wanted to be close to the stage. We claimed a table close to one of the amplifiers. She had no money. I bought the drinks.

"You look stiff Mr Malcolm."

She winked at me like Mandy. She began to pick at a coaster with her fingernails, like Mandy.

"Which one am I?" she asked, inclining her head like Mandy.

"Stop it."

"I can fool everyone else you know."

The band, organised at last, erupted.

Shortly after midnight I was at home watching television when the telephone rang.

"Mr Malcolm? Help me. I am arrested."

"I told you to pay the parking..."

"Is no parking ticket Christ. Come quickly. Will you? They think I am firebug starter."

"This feller's an artist?"

Detective Chief Inspector Simmonds was a grey grandfatherly man in a grey cardigan. He turned his pipe slowly in one hand and a box of matches in the other. He looked out of place in his own office. His computer terminal was not switched on. A single manila folder lay open on his desk.

"A sculptor."

"Makes sense," he said, striking a match and drawing on his pipe with patient ecstasy. "Heavy work. Chunky feller. Any good?"

"Actually, yes."

"Makes it difficult. Don't meet many artists. In arson." Arabesques of sweet-smelling smoke trickled up to the ceiling.

"Why is it difficult?"

"Your feller says he didn't do it," he laughed softly.

"What makes you think he did?"

The file he handed to me contained statements taken at the scene of various fires. I read through them quickly and handed it back to him.

"Not much there."

"Ten fires. We can place him at three. Anything bother you?

The bait was there. I had to take it. I was supposed to be helping Branko.

"Well, the redhead..."

"You noticed that." He contemplated his own smoke. "Funny thing about witnesses. You get one in a crowd who didn't see a thing. Other times you get a witness who saw something that no one else remembers. Just one." He lapsed into private contemplation again, perhaps wishing there were more reliable witnesses, more trained eyes in the streets. "The girl's no good to us. Where would we look? They get it out of a bottle. My grand-daughter's gone red herself. Your feller stands up much better."

"Can I see my client now?"

Branko had begun to take an interest in his surroundings, in the table and chairs. He might have been looking for hidden microphones.

"Is just like TV," he beamed at me.

"You're in trouble, Branko."

"O.K."

"You're in big trouble."

"You can fix it?"

"I don't think so."

"Jesus." His anxiety returned. I was a magician without a rabbit.

"There are three charges, maybe more. The first..."

"My exhibition. I have alibi."

"You were out of the gallery for at least fifteen minutes."

"With Linda. You know this."

"The second charge..."

"Was going to meet Linda! I hear fire siren. I go look."

"And last night?"

"Going to meet Linda. She tell me where. Linda not coming. Fire starting. I stay to watch. Was very pretty fire why not?

"You behaved in a conspicuous manner." Branko giggled. "You whistled. You made ambiguous gestures. People remembered you."

"Me? Sure. They remember me everywhere. Shit."

We were at the brink. I had to lead him gently to the inevitable. I could have fought his case with a good chance, but a chance was not enough. I wanted that file closed. I wanted Simmonds to sleep well.

"Say nothing about Linda."

"We don't say?"

"Not a word."

"I must be gentleman?"

"Yes. Plead guilty, Branko."

"Is no way out?"

"Trust me. Nobody was hurt in the fires. You'll get bail. You'll get media coverage."

"TV?"

"Sure."

Somewhere in the vast unexplored spaces of his mind a star was born.

"I am firebug," he said, with surprising dignity.

"How do you feel now?" asked Mandy.

"I have broken my professional ethics, the habits and patterns of a lifetime. Could I have another glass of champagne please Linda?"

"Branko's not really a social person anyway," she observed. "The change will do him good."

I thought of Branko in court saying "fire is good for you pigs, you don't know anything". His finest moment. He posed contentedly for the television cameras and invited the journalists to "make some party after", before being forced into the prison van.

"It's time."

Mandy wiped the neck of the bottle and the glasses. Their bags were packed and waiting beside the door.

Through the arched window I saw a thousand rooftops of red, brown, grey slate and iron smouldering under the ascendant sun. I saw my own roof.

"I want to come with you," I said, looking into the face of the future.

The long rehearsal was over.

Wow.

- The End -