Fonding and Permission Ch. 02

He knew he had to be careful here, if he didn't want his adventure to be over in minutes. The soothing hand below his navel was no longer dry ... He wanted to see what Home alone held before it was too late. And seconds later he had entered a new catacomb of vaults, leaving the first still full of secrets for his next expedition. He opened the first image.

A bed with a duvet lying crumpled at its foot. She was lying comfortably on her side, facing the camera, her upper, left leg angled, the lower straight. Her head was out of the picture but not all the hair that fell from it. Her right arm was off the screen, supporting her head, but her left hand was all there, raised and toying with a strand of her curls. A pair of jeans and a top were lying rejected in front of her. The last layer of her protection was still there, clinging firmly and tightly to her shape, but there was hope that it would soon give in to the same sweet force that had already prised away the stronger outer bastions. It was the same off-white bra and underpants, spotless now but not quite opaque. He saw, hazily, the dark little brushstroke where he now knew black hair decorated her lower lips.

She was inviting him into her bed, her very sanctuary. He pictured himself, life-sized again, lying down right in front of her on the mattress, facing her, their knees touching, their sleepy toes playing with each other. He imagined reaching out to stroke her shivering flanks, then her stomach with the back of his fingers as she looked down at them, smiling, waiting for their bolder deeds ... then fondling her bra and her underpants, pressing them gently into that fold, massaging it through them slowly as she beamed at him, silent as the sun, and kept playing with her hair ...

Felix wished again that she would move. But then he was just grateful, grateful for her trust in him, grateful that there was a woman who had decided to do this for him. And he wanted to give something back to her, but he could not think what ...

He reopened her Email in a new window, then placed it next to her image, trying to fathom that the warm, smart words had been written to himself by the young sweetheart who had lain down here for his eyes. It was almost too much.

"I want to see you," he whispered. "Really see you ... I want to be with you."

He admired her. And admiration wasn't all. He dared not name what he was beginning to feel for her. It must not be that someone he had never met in person gently unhooked the red ropes and made to sit herself down on the throne of his heart ... What if he did meet someone now? Could he hold two people at once in that place without bursting at the seams?

***

Smudge. Smudge. Smudge. Several of Felix's brushes were in a sorry state by now, but Dürer, growing with each little smudge of paint, was starting to look impressive. Art class had begun a few minutes ago and he thought that the hour and a half ahead ought to take him a long way to finishing his portrait --if he could avoid distractions. The deadline for handing in their paintings was a week away. The more he got done now, the less homework there would be.

Somehow avoiding distractions was harder when you actually tried ... He found himself looking to his right to check Alice's progress. Her van-Gogh-style Mona Lisa still amounted to a disembodied head. Well, faces always took longer and that one was famously tricky.

"Hi Felix ..."

He spun around.

"Oh ... hi Theresa!"

She stood at the chair to his left, her bag over her shoulder. She had evidently arrived late and he had heard neither the opening door nor her light-footed approach. Her hair was drawn together in its usual bun, but he noticed its ends, a foot or so, had been allowed rare freedom. But they were wrong. That was his first thought. Theresa simply didn't look like this.

"Can I sit here?"

"Yes, of course ... How are you doing?"

"I'm all right ... Thanks for asking." She sat down with a small sigh, then smiled at him. "You too?"

"I'm great --I mean, I feel brilliant."

She laughed brightly. "Perhaps you are."

"Thanks," he said, grinning at the table. "Not sure about that."

She began to unpack her bag, extracting her colours, brushes and drawing pad. Felix felt strongly that he ought to say something more to her. They hadn't had a proper conversation for ages. But for some reason nothing worth saying occurred to him ... Maybe that was normal ... He and Alice sometimes passed the lesson saying barely a word to each other, just working away, content with each other's silent company. That had never felt like minutes wasted ...

He realised he had just heard Theresa laugh for the first time in ages. What was more, he wanted to hear it again ... How had he managed to forget that sound? And a memory returned to him out of nowhere: he saw her and himself rolling about in the leaves, limp with mirth over some long lost joke. Where and when on Earth had that been? ... Oh, of course, the Bear's Cave! That was where it had started, over ten years ago ... the Bear's Cave, their secret hollow in the thicket next to the school yard, their hideout, their somewhere-only-we-know, the place where they had sat and told each other stories and secrets as the school's hundreds of pupils passed by, unknowing. What had they talked about in those days? But he had no answer. It was too long ago ... He smiled distantly to himself, wondering whether she still knew any of it, whether she had an inkling of his sudden nostalgia.

He returned his eyes to his work, but found he had a hard time keeping them there. This is a waste of time, they seemed to be saying. We'd serve you a lot better by looking elsewhere. He allowed them a peek at the Mona Lisa printout Alice had propped up for herself to copy. But even the renowned beauty did little to appease them.

He dared another look at the young woman on his left, so familiar yet so strange. How odd to think that he had seen her day after day at school for years without ... well, without ever doing it properly. He had never taken an interest in the finer points of clothing, but he was struck by the way the wavy strands of hair that she had allowed to hang openly seemed to merge smoothly with the mottled brown tunic she wore, how there were no hard lines there, just softness ... and how, whenever she chose to turn her head one way or the other, each of those curls would find its own individual way to flow across her contours. He wondered how her hair might look unconstrained. When had he last seen it all out of the bun? Maybe it wasn't wrong after all. Maybe he was wrong, had never seen Theresa as she saw herself ...

As for the tunic itself, an unruliness pervaded it all the way down to the wide, loose ends of its long sleeves and its unevenly cut fringes beneath her waist. Perhaps that was why Darren called it rags and her a scarecrow for wearing it. Felix had never paid it much attention before. It might not have stood out in a crowd, but a closer look at its dull brownness revealed colours as varied as the forest floor's in autumn. There were fifty shades of brown, matte olive and burgundy with tiny stripes and speckles of red and orange and more surprising hues strewn across them, none of them overdone. All of the rainbow seemed to have its place somewhere in there ... He wondered why she had bought it. And how it had been made ... It looked unique and alive, an opulent feast of tiny detail like the bark of an old tree-trunk or a starling's plumage, something to please a sensitive, playful eye and, he thought, made with the aid of a pair of them. He could hear its teasing murmur: Rags, you say? Do I not reward a second glance? ... Take it from me that the person inside is no different ...

Had she even bought it?

"Theresa?"

"Yes?" She turned to look at him patiently.

"Sorry, this is a weird question ..." He saw a tiny crease appear in her brow as he spoke and gulped. "But ... did you make that top yourself?"

She looked quite stunned for a second, then laughed again. "I did, actually," she said, her voice different now. She was still looking at him, but the friendly patience had been replaced by a cautious but intense curiosity. "How did you guess?"

"I'm not sure." He suddenly felt out of his depth. "It just ... looks like a personal expression ... It matches your hair very nicely."

She dropped her gaze at his last words and smiled shyly at his table. "Thank you ... I like it too. It's my favourite."

"It reminds me of camouflage," he ventured on. "You would blend into the trees with it."

"I know," she said. "I wanted something tempered and natural. I don't like my colours too garish."

"You don't want to stand out?"

"Not really." There was something searching in her smile. "I mean," she went on. "I don't mind being spotted by someone observant like you."

"Thanks," he said, his own voice surprising him with its leap in pitch. "I hope I can keep up the standard." He thought for a moment. "You know, the other day, when you caught Darren?"

"Oh ... Yes?"

"I thought that was so cool."

She smiled. "There was nothing else to do, though" she said. "He'd have broken something if he'd hit the floor."

"True," said Felix. "It looked like he nearly broke you, though ... I was worried you'd put your back out."

"I almost did." She was silent for several seconds, then took a deep breath. "You know ... I've been meaning to thank you, Felix."

"Oh! What for?"

"For telling him to lay off me in maths the other day ... I thought that was really cool."

"Not at all," he said, warmth filling him. Had she been waiting to say this for days? And did she usually take so long to pluck up her courage? How lovely ... "I have to admit I was more angry than cool, though," he added.

"Yes, I was surprised. It seemed totally unlike you. You're usually so cheerful and good-natured."

He was about to say "Am I?", but thought better of questioning it and simply thanked her.

They fell silent again. He still couldn't recall what they had spoken of in the Bear's Cave, but he knew again now that those breaks with her had been deeply comforting. Heart-warming. And he realised all at once that his life had lost something, slowly and quietly, without him ever noticing. A smart, sensitive, girl had once been his friend and the busy years in between had all but shunted her from his memory. He had forgotten what it felt like to know her. But the memories were surfacing now, one by one like buds in spring, coaxed back to life by her words, the lines of her face, her voice in his ears. And he sat quite still, beginning to unearth the childhood treasure that had lain buried out of sight, his jaw slowly dropping at its brightening sheen but never uttering a whisper of his insight: that he could sit so close to someone, gaze at her, even speak to her, and at the same time miss her so sorely.

Something recent sparkled before his inner eye -- that little smile she had given him in in maths after that incident. And it was suddenly a gem to him, a gem in a poor man's hands. And she had given him several more just now ... He bowed his head, feeling demeaned, consoled and above all confused.

"Are you all right, Felix?" Theresa was looking at him with mild concern.

He started. "What --oh, yes. Sorry." He shook and straightened himself. "I was just ... lost in thought."

She stared fixedly ahead for a moment, then seemed to make a decision and spoke. "You know, it's amazing ..."

"What is?"

"How people can change. I mean ... I used to worry about you, because you laughed so little. And now ..."

He smiled. "That's just how I remember you, actually ... Looks like we've done some growing up."

"Yes ..." she said pensively. She looked ahead for another few seconds, then seemed to give herself a little jerk and looked down at her nearly finished portrait of Jeremy Bentham. Felix watched her tilt her head this way and that, then pick up a brush and begin to work on his upper lip.

He looked back at Dürer. There was still some skin left to do, but some of his colours were running low. He turned to Theresa.

"Do you think I could use your pink?"

"Yes, of course." She shifted her colour set to within his reach.

"Muchas gracias."

It seemed to amuse her unduly.

There was a muffled snort on his right, too. He turned to see Alice grinning furiously at Mona Lisa's placid smile. It was an odd contrast.

Another snort sounded on his left and he turned back to see Theresa bent double now, fighting a fit of giggles.

Felix was completely nonplussed. "What-- ", he began, but stopped abruptly as understanding came to him. His question to Theresa seemed to fly back at him like a boomerang and hit him in the face like a balloon of red paint. Can I use your pink? Oh dear ... he looked down into his lap as the blush prickled across his cheeks, realising what he had just been taken to ask her for.

"Sorry," he said, trying and failing not to laugh. "And massive thanks, Alice ..."

Theresa looked back at him as he lifted his eyes again. "Would you be so kind then," she said with equal failure. "As to lend me your purple?"

"Of course," he said, pushing his colour set across to her. "But not today, good lady. I am feeling rather blue right now."

"Sir looks a smidgen red, though."

"Well ... that's just my deeper nature. Have you never seen an English Rose?"

She stared at him wildly for a moment, then burst out laughing. She was shaking in her chair, the curls dancing about and behind her. He couldn't see how his silly joke had done it, but he thought he could have looked at her all day. Several other people looked up from their paintings, frowning at this un-Theresa-like show of spirit. She looked back at him and her laughter infected him. They were suddenly both lolling in their chairs, looking at each other, turning away, looking again, bursting back into giggles as their eyes met. Ten years might never have passed.

"I can't imagine what's so funny about impressionism." Dr. Velcôte's voice cut sharply across the room.

"Thank goodness for that," said Theresa at half-volume, doing her best to quieten down.

"Are you two OK?" Alice was looking sardonically at each of them in turn.

"Oh, just a little sick," Felix managed.

"Of mind," supplied Theresa.

"Well, that sounds fine," said Alice, looking back at her project with a satisfied grin. Felix had the distinct impression that she knew both of the minds in question rather well. How strange of him not to care.

***

Felix was lying on his back, counting the wooden boards of his ceiling, even though he had known their number and it's prime factors by heart for years. He knew he should have gone to sleep long ago. He could feel the aimless snail crawl of his thoughts, weighed down by the late hours, and he didn't need to see his aching eyes to know they were red with overuse.

He had no idea what the time was. It already seemed ages since the clock had struck midnight, yet he couldn't remember it striking one or two. Perhaps that was no surprise when his mind had been trying so hard to escape the silence of the sleeping house, had done all it could to conjure images for his delight. He had tried to picture her tonight, had tried to make her move and speak and permit him to bypass her delicate defences one by one, until the unthinkable was in reach. He had tried to force some snatches of her voice his mind could replay -- a Yes, of course, a Thank you and a bright laugh -- into the context of his fantasy.

But he hadn't seen her. The vague shape in his head could have been any of a million young women. He had been unable to piece her face together, had seen only a beige blur in its place most of the time. Brief glimpses of her features had surfaced unexpectedly, only to dissolve or distort at his first attention, as though shying from his eager touch. And she had seemed to look past him when it mattered most. Or had he avoided her eyes, guessing that they would not show the consent he longed for? Did he know her too well? Either way, it was as though her soul had stolen from the scene, fled her model body before his assault. He might have been dreaming of a puppet. He lay there feebly, recognising his failure. He had been so sure the idea of her would awaken his body. Why was it that whenever he felt tenderly for someone, the idea of playtime with her suddenly felt unholy and sad? ... Perhaps he would have to go back to watching stupid, faked videos on the web ... That was sure to empty him in more ways than one ...

Oh, technically it had worked. He had made the required mess and tiptoed to the bathroom to sort it all out. Was that the measure of success now? He felt a wry smile twist his mouth, and found himself grinning at the absurdity of the whole exercise, trying to refuse the narrative that was telling him to be sad. He was tired, that was true, tired and disappointed. But those two were old friends and he knew how to deal with them. No need to make a fuss then.

He rolled over, worked his thick mattress and duvet into a snug shape for the night, and listened to the cold rain on the windowpane. A safe, warm, private place to sleep was precious too, wasn't it? He imagined he could hear a voice, a distant voice full of angry contempt: you have that every night, idiot. Does your soft bed console you for her absence from it? You'll get nowhere like this! Easy satisfaction is for fools. And he heard a quiet answer from much closer to his heart: no, greed is for fools. I don't have a duty to be miserable just because I'm still alone. If I can't have the biggest treats, I'll just enjoy the small ones ... except, a lot of people out there would think this bed a damn big treat anyway ... He put an arm gently around his crumpled counterpane, closed his eyes and smiled in the dark.

***

"Theresa?"

"Yes?" She had sat next to him again in their very next art class.

"Do you have a second name?"

"Oh ... yes, I do." Her eyes narrowed just a little above her grin. "Have a guess."

"Urquhart."

"Hmm ... something tells me you're not giving this your best effort, Felix."

"OK ... Mathilda."

"Theresa Mathilda ..." She seemed to taste the sound for a moment. "I'd have liked that, actually. But no."

"Pity ... I'd have liked that too. Well ... Alexandra."

"No ... but that's the right number of syllables."

"Anastacia."

"No."

"Athanasia."

"We'll have to sit here past the bell if you do it alphabetically."

"I wouldn't mind that."

"No ... nor me."

They took a moment to grin at each other.

"You've stopped guessing!"

"Oh, OK ... Begonia."

"That would be ... potty."

"Haha ... Well, Clytemnestra."

"Tragically not."

"Er ... De- ... Da- ... Demoiselline!"

"What? ... Oh. Well, my parents obviously considered that, but it wasn't exclusive enough."

"Er ...", said Felix, laughing and trying to think of a four-syllable name with E. "Erika ... Ebola ... Escherichia ... Eliza --Elizabeth!"

"I like how sure you are about it."

"Well?"

"Wrong. Sorry!" She gave him her apologetic look again, but this time the smile was there from the start. "I am no queen!"

For some reason her own statement seemed to entertain her, because she chuckled to herself after a moment. Then, to Felix's surprise, a hint of worry appeared in her face.

"Er ... Fernanda!"

Her eyes seemed to sparkle, though he could not guess why. "No," she said. "I'm afraid not ... and that's three syllables, by the way."

"Oh ... right. How many more letters to go?"

"Er ... let me work this out ... Sixteen!"