The Real Thing Ch. 05

So the morning came up: Saint Valentine's Day, the day for lovers. It was chilly and grey and cold.

Holly and I were almost zombie-like by now in our submission to Kinlay's will. We could both sense, I think, that he was burning himself out, but he was taking a long time about it. The paintings had almost dried up; by now they were little more than a pretext for us to be in the studio with him, naked, so that he could do what he wanted with us.

We dragged ourselves out of bed and trooped downstairs and swallowed our tea and bread and butter and walked over to the studio.

He was in there, as always, drinking Johnnie Walker Red Label at a quarter to nine in the morning, and we pulled the clothes off our aching, skinny, abused bodies and climbed onto the bed that had become the place we dreaded most in the world.

He seemed to be in a better mood than usual, and announced that he was starting on a new piece, a bit of the old style, something a little more oblique. He got us to pose with Holly on her stomach and me on top of her, astride her hips, holding her arms, each of us hiding our face. It was a rerun of the first pose we had ever done for him. It was a relief, not to be tied up or arbitrarily fucked or lashed to a chair or asked questions. It was what we thought we could do best; make ourselves blank canvases for him to work on.

The morning seemed to go well. He worked fast and silently, as we clung on, hoping his mood wouldn't shift or that he would suddenly lose patience with us as he had done so often before. We were so used to sweating our guts out for him by now that this pose was relatively easy.

That should have warned us.

He stopped for lunch as always, having consumed about a third of the whiskey, and we got dressed in silence and walked over to the house.

In the kitchen, there was only Hilary, sitting at the table, smoking and having a cigarette. There was no food laid out. She looked up at us sharply.

"Jack's not happy," she said, the moment we walked in the door.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"I don't know," she said. "He came in here and said to tell you that you're not doing well. You can have some water from the tap if you're thirsty."

"Hilary," said Holly, "we're fucking starving. Give us some bread or something."

"We can't afford to provide lunch for every hanger-on in the place," she said, getting up. "If you're hungry you can go down to the town and get something to eat."

"We've only got half an hour," Holly said, with a pleading tone I'd never heard before. "Come on, just some juice or something."
"If you can't pull your weight," Hilary said as she left the room, "then you can shape up or ship out."

We were alone.

"Fucking cunt," Holly said with feeling. "She can't even talk without clichés."

We were so hungry that we raided the fridge, scoffing cold unripe peaches and drinking orange juice from the carton and hacking slices off a salami sausage.

"What do you think's going on," I said.

"I dunno," Holly said. Her face was thinner than I'd ever seen it. Her shoulder bones stuck out painfully inside her baggy t-shirt. She munched a bit of salami absently.

"Holly," I said.

"Yeah?"

"I just want to say something," I said, and I didn't even quite know what it was I wanted to say.

"What?"

"Just...I want to make a deal. If I walk out of here, I'm not going without you. And if you're thinking of going, I'm coming with you."

She looked at me. It hurt me so much that I could never tell what she was thinking when she looked at me like that.

"Okay," she said carefully.

"The point being," I went on, "neither of us is leaving the other one here. Okay?"

She stared at me for a moment, and I was sure she was going to tell me that I was full of shit.

"Okay," she said quietly. And she held out her hand.

I shook it.

We finished eating, and ten minutes later we were back in the studio.

Kinlay wasn't there. We took our clothes off anyway and sat on the bed, waiting for him.

I had always deferred to Holly. I thought she was the one of us who had more guts, more dedication, more determination to see things through. Nothing seemed to stop her. She battled her way through illnesses that would have floored me, solely because she believed that the work was more important than anything else. As we sat on the bed in a companionable silence, I realised that the main reason why I followed her lead was that I wanted her respect. No, more than that – I...

I looked at her. She was thin, her skin had broken out in pimples, her face was grey and shiny and her small breasts were shrunken and dried up. She looked weary and hopeless.

"You know –" I began. She looked at me.

The door opened at the other end of the studio and Kinlay burst in, jovial, talking a mile a minute.

"There yous are," he cried. "Right. Get back as you were."

Holly swivelled her legs around and lay on her stomach. I lay on her back and felt the bones of her back and buttocks fit into me. My own ribcage was standing out and I felt as dry and as exhausted as I'd ever felt. Kinlay went back to work.

He worked and worked and worked. After a couple of hours, my mouth was dry and I was cursing myself for not drinking more water at lunch. I needed to take a shit, too, and my bowels were aching. Still he didn't let us take a break. The weak afternoon light soon gave way to rain, and it drummed on the roof of the studio. Still Kinlay painted on, and he began his running commentary on himself, swearing quietly at this decision over that, cursing himself out for not doing something else, rubbing more and more stuff out with a rag and scraping off paint and slapping more on. I was increasingly in agony. The light began to go, and he just turned on the electric light and kept going.

By the time it was dark I was convinced I was going to mess myself, and I had to do something.

"Excuse me," I gasped.

"What?" he snapped.

"I really need the toilet," I said.

He was silent for a moment, then he barked "Fuck off, then. But get back here."

I got off Holly and I scrambled into my shorts and trousers and a t-shirt and I belted out of the studio.

I was only half way to the house when I realised I wasn't going to make it. The rain was hammering down and I ducked around the studio wall in the half-light, ripped my jeans and shorts down, squatted on the grass and let myself go.

The relief was incredible. My guts were in no very good state, thanks to our punishing schedule and erratic diet. And I was dismayed that there was no toilet paper to be had anywhere. There was nothing for it – I took off my jeans and shorts and used my shorts to wipe my ass. Then I discreetly chucked my filthy shorts into a bush, pulled my jeans back on and went back into the studio.

Kinlay was waiting at the easel, clearly fuming with impatience. Holly was lying passively where I had left her. I risked his anger by taking a swig of water and giving some to her, then I got back on top of her. We held hands tightly as he went on painting.

Again, he seemed to be tireless. I couldn't understand what Hilary Kinlay had said about him being angry with us for posing badly. We were holding up well. He went on and on. It had been dark for hours and we got more and more tired.

Then abruptly, he threw the brush down and walked away from the easel and shouted, "It's no fucking good! You're not working hard enough!"

We didn't move. He walked over to the bed and shoved me off Holly.

"Go on, get out of that," he barked. "What the fuck is the matter with yous? Where's the fucking fire in your bellies? You're supposed to be working! You're fucking useless, the pair of yous!"

Holly and I sat up and watched him as he stormed around the studio.

"I bring you in here and I try to teach you something! You useless cunts! And all you can do is lie there like a couple of wet fish! What's the fucking matter with yous? I thought yous were fucking talented!"

"We're tired," said Holly quietly, bringing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her thin arms around them. Kinlay rounded her, a murderous look in his face.

"What the fuck do you know about tired, you middle-class fucking little whore?" he sneered. "You're twenty fucking years old, the pair of yous! I'm tired! I've got a right to be fucking tired! You've got everything and I've got fucking nothing! Nothing left! Yous fucking little ungrateful bastards!"

He choked back a sob and lifted the whiskey bottle to his lips and took a deep pull. I glanced at Holly. She was watching him, with the old wide-eyed naked look, but deeper now, really frightened but also furious, determined to face him down.

"We're not ungrateful, Jack," she said carefully.

"Oh, thanks," he said, "thanks a fucking million. You're not ungrateful. Everything I've been trying to show yous, everything I've given you, and you're not ungrateful. I'm really fucking flattered, I really am. And as for this cunt," he said, turning on me, "when he came here he was a wet fucking boy. He was half the artist you are. But he's learned a few things from me, yeah? You fucking faggot," he rasped, shoving his huge red face close to mine.

It was like he had pulled out my guts in one go. I actually choked with the shock of it. Not because I thought it was true, but because of how little respect for me he had really had all along.

"Oh, is he going to cry?" Kinlay said with mock remorse. "I fucking knew it. You two are a pair of fucking nothings. What do you know about what's real? Hah?"

"I think you should fucking take that back," I said, and I was amazed that I said it, although my voice was shaky. Kinlay stared at me.

Then he drew back his hand and he slapped me across the face with stunning force.

I was thrown onto one side. My cheek started to smart and throb. Holly made to get up, but then she stopped moving, and when I blinked my vision clear I saw that Kinlay had produced, from somewhere, a gun.

I froze. I didn't know much about guns but it was large and old, probably an old Civil War model, in good condition, glistening with a thin film of oil, and looking very much like it still worked. I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that Holly and I were both naked and trapped in a room with an enraged drunk holding a lethal weapon.

"I'll show you what's fucking real," said Kinlay, and he was already starting to break up, alcoholic tears trickling down his face as he advanced on me. "I'll show you the real fucking thing, you fucking useless little shithead!"

He pointed the gun at my head, and I threw myself backwards. He climbed onto the bed and grabbed me. I wrestled with him, trying to keep out of the way of the long, thick gun barrel.

He made a fist and smashed me in the face.

It didn't hurt immediately. There was just this massive explosion of light behind my eyes, and my head flicked back and I was on my back, feeling a wetness in my nose and teeth, and the pain was spreading across the front of my skull.

"Stop it!" I heard Holly shout. I blinked, and saw Kinlay turn his heavy body to her and lash out with his other arm, the one holding the gun. It crashed into Holly's face and she spun over onto her side, hitting the wall.

"You want to see the real thing?" Kinlay asked me, and he punched me in the ribs. This time the pain was immediate and I almost threw up. My heart felt like it was going to stop. I lay back, dizzy with pain, tasting the blood filling up my mouth.

"I'll show you the real fucking thing," he snarled, and he grabbed my naked body and shoved me over onto my belly and leaned his weight on my bare back, so that I was crushed into the bed. I gasped for breath, then I suddenly felt the cold, hard barrel of the gun being shoved between my buttocks. I screamed. I struggled underneath him, trying to escape, but he forced the muzzle of the gun up against my anus and pushed. It was agony. I screamed again, and he clamped his brawny arm around my head, muffling and blinding me. I was suffocating. The gun barrel slid up into my arse, and the metal blade of the sight on the end felt like it was ripping a hole in me. I gave another muffled scream, weaker. He let go of my head and I sobbed, heaving air into my lungs.

I squirmed underneath him and he gave the gun another shove, pushing the barrel further up into my rectum, and I could feel the gunsight scoring my flesh and I realised that I was certainly about to die. I wept and snuffled blood and mucus out of my nose, feeling it trickle over my lips, and I was only sorry that I hadn't been able to save Holly. I bowed my head. Blood dripped from my mouth onto the grubby white sheet. That would be the last thing I would ever see, my own blood spilling out of my mouth and making dark blotches on the cotton. I shut my eyes and rested my face on the sheet.

"Don't you fucking dare," choked a wet voice.

Kinlay stopped.

"You fucking bastard," said the voice, Holly's voice, distorted through her mouthful of blood and cracked teeth, but cold and furious.

I was face-down, Kinlay astride my legs, with the barrel of his gun still halfway up my arse. I opened my eyes, turned my head very slowly and looked at her. She was kneeling on the bed, and blood and mucus were welling out of her mouth and dripping onto her bare breasts.

"We gave up everything for you," she said, and turned her head and spat a mouthful of bloody mucus onto the bedsheet. Then she turned back to him, her face a mess, her left eye half-closed and already swelling up, her right eye blazing. She was fighting to keep herself under control. "We came here and we did what you wanted because of your work. Because we believed in what you did. But nothing you can do, nothing you could ever fucking do, is worth this. So you just leave him the fuck alone. Okay? And we'll go."

There was a long silence.

"You fucking little middle-class..." Kinlay began.

"SHUT UP!" Holly screamed, tears starting to pour down her face. "Shut the FUCK UP! I don't give a shit what you think I know! Nothing is worth what you're doing to us! And I fucking learned that from you, you stupid, fucking..."

She was sobbing, staring at him, a look of such agonised dismay on her smashed face.

"I thought you had so much promise," Kinlay said hoarsely. "I thought you were really going to go for it. You're a fucking coward."

"I'm NOT!" Holly howled, sinking back onto her heels. "I'm NOT a coward! And neither is he! It's YOU! You can't make it work anymore! And you hate it and so you're acting like an empty fucking bully! But you're NOT touching him! You can't do this to people! LEAVE him ALONE!"

I had a terrible feeling that Holly was trying to offer him herself instead of me.

"Holly," I whispered through a mouthful of fluid and broken teeth, "don't."

Holly didn't answer. She was just sitting and staring at him and crying and crying.

Kinlay let go of the gun and it sagged and I felt the butt of it fall onto my bare thighs. The muzzle rocked upwards inside my arse and it made me cry out with pain. I felt him get off me. He ran a shaking hand through his mane of grey hair.

"You don't talk to me," he said in a thick, dazed voice.

"You betrayed us," Holly sobbed, still staring at him, trying to get from him some sort of justification, some word that would make it okay that we had come to this, the pair of us cowering naked and bloody before this demented giant.

"You bitch," muttered Kinlay, and he punched Holly in the side of her head. She cried out and fell on her side, then he punched her again in the stomach, slowly but hard, almost lovingly.

Holly doubled up, winded, and she was crying and gasping for breath. He grabbed her ankles and she feebly tried to turn over and crawl away from him. He punched the back of her head and her face smacked off the mattress. He hit her again on the ribs and turned her on her back once more.

She lay on her back, propped up on her skinny elbows, weak and shaking. He was fumbling inside his flies. He spread her legs and stared down at her thin, bloody, naked body. She was shaking her head dizzily and trying to focus on him, her mouth hanging open, her face crumpled as she wept, trying to work out what was happening to her.

I reached behind me and I slowly eased the gun barrel out of my arse, choking with the pain as I did so, wrapping my fingers around the polished wooden butt of it, finally taking it out and collecting it in my hand. Holly was still staring at him through her tears, daring him to give us an answer. He was reaching between her bare legs.

There was a stabbing ache in my gut, and my head was splitting. I focused my eyes, took a tight grip on the gun with my right hand and managed to pull the hammer back with my left.

Kinlay heard the click. He stopped moving.

I lifted the massive pistol in both hands and pushed the muzzle against the side of his head.

"If you touch her again," I mumbled, my thick tongue smarting against my chipped teeth, "I'll fucking kill you."

Kinlay took his hands off Holly.

"Get off the bed," I whispered. He stumbled back, his feet hitting the concrete floor with a slap. He looked shocked, as if he were collapsing on the inside. A dark stain was spreading over the front of his tan trousers. He had pissed himself. He was looking at us as if he didn't know who we were.

The gun was incredibly heavy and my arms were aching. I lowered it, pointing it at the floor. There didn't seem to be any point now, and I had no more hero left in me.

Holly lifted her bloody head, raised herself on her elbows and felt around her teeth with her tongue. Another long string of dark red mucus flowed over her chin. She looked at Kinlay, the man to whom we had tried to give so much, and who had never been satisfied.

"You betrayed us," she said thickly, and I could see how painful it was for her even to talk, "and you betrayed yourself. Look at us."

He wasn't looking at us. He was looking past us, at the wall, shaking his head slowly in puzzlement.

"Jack." She coughed, and spat yet more blood and snot onto the white sheet. Her left eye was almost closed, and her right eye was bloodshot and wet. "You can't do this to people," she repeated, tiredly.

His eyes roved over us, still with that look of dumb incomprehension. His mouth was moving, but no sound came out. Then he just shook his head, as if to wake himself up, and looked around the studio, then back at us. He stared at us, like he was trying to recognise the two bloody, trembling, naked figures, and then he seemed to give up the attempt and turned from us and stumbled away, down the length of the studio. He hauled the door open and went through it into the night.

I laid the gun on the bed and fell on my back, exhausted. Holly crawled over to me and put her arms around me and we held each other, gingerly, afraid to clutch either tightly because of the bruises and wounds on our bodies. Holly's breath was rasping through the mask of clotted blood on her mouth and nose. We were silent for a long time.

"Thank you," I whispered, and I felt incredibly sad all of a sudden, and I felt the tears running out of my eyes. I glanced at Holly and she was crying too, not sobbing, just lying there staring bleakly at nothing while her eyes streamed.

We were like that for a while, until the grief and the sorrow had worked itself out, then we disengaged, without saying anything because there were too many things to say and nothing that could be said, and we pulled on our clothes for the last time and made our way back to the house. I was limping, Holly was clutching a hand to her ribs.

The house was silent. We found a clock that said it was after midnight. It had been our longest ever session.

We got upstairs and we washed our faces as well as we could in the top floor bathroom, then we undressed and crawled into bed and lay there, looking at each other.