cheques—both to fabric suppliers by the look of it—and unless her finances were set in order immediately (underlined, in bold) the bank would be forced to demand the return of her cards and cheque book, and would warn all credit agencies of her unreliability. The third was junk mail, telling her that she had been exclusively selected for a platinum credit card with an automatic £20,000 limit. That made me smile—and then I stopped. Poor Verity. What a nightmare. The last was a credit card bill, spent up to its £8,000 limit and beyond. I'd known she was broke, she always was, but I hadn't known it was this bad.
Was it bad enough for her to kill herself? It wasn't a thought I wanted to pursue. I set the bills on one side, and moved on.
There were three messages on the answering machine. One would be from me, of course, my petulant message from Wednesday. I assumed the other two were from that bastard Karel—he'd probably tried to call before coming over. I couldn't face the prospect of hearing him again, so I left the machine alone. Its flashing light followed me as I moved around the flat, a blinking, reproachful eye.
Verity was all around me. The hot yellow walls, the thin muslin instead of curtains; the mad tangle of ironwork that served as a candlestick on the dining table, the calico sofa she loved. And everywhere the kitsch touches that had changed almost every time I visited. An irregular clump of unmatched tassels hung from the main lightshade. A furry pink boa framed the doorway to the kitchen, and clashed boisterously with the walls. A voluptuous nude in Perspex stood next to the candelabrum, its base lit up in acid green, a flex trailing to a wall socket. There was a second telephone, not plugged in, shaped like a randy frog.
Verity loved to laugh.
And alongside the always-changing parade of frivolities, her other things, the things that were always with her. The shabby old furniture salvaged from a nurses' hostel, the oval oak table Gabriel had given her for her twenty-first. Two of my photos were mounted on stands on a bookshelf: one of her holding a rude-looking lollipop, on a day at the seaside we'd had years ago; the other of a row of schoolchildren, all with their tongues out, except one urchin on the end with a gap-toothed grin.
And the zoetrope.
I'd made it for Verity long before I knew what its proper name was. I eventually found the name “zoetrope” in a book about the history of cinema at a friend's. When I got home I looked the word up: “An optical toy... A cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface which give an impression of continuous motion when seen through slits with the cylinder rotating.”
Yes. Well. Whatever. The one I made for Verity was hardly posh. It was a broad hoop of card, with a series of photos spaced around the inside. Between each photo, I had cut a narrow vertical slot; on the opposite side of the hoop from each slot, there was a photograph, so if you peeped through each slot, you saw a different shot. There was a spindle sticking up in the middle, and the hoop had cross pieces that rested on top of it so the whole hoop could spin freely. You put your eye against the first slot, spun the hoop, and image after image flickered in front of you, like a primitive movie projector.
Each picture was of the same thing: a girl, frozen in mid-leap and mid-happy-yell. Her arms were thrown out, her hair lifting, her slim legs kicked up behind her. A great hornbeam arched overhead, a brilliant green shell. Some pictures were larger or smaller, some were a different colour, but they were all of the same moment. In each shot you saw the moment from a different angle. When the hoop was spinning, you had the feeling that you were flying jerkily around her.
I spun it—and there she was, free and happy, for one mad instant long ago. Verity, frozen forever in the middle of the air.
A horn sounded in a staccato burst on the street below. I looked out, and saw Adam
Was it bad enough for her to kill herself? It wasn't a thought I wanted to pursue. I set the bills on one side, and moved on.
There were three messages on the answering machine. One would be from me, of course, my petulant message from Wednesday. I assumed the other two were from that bastard Karel—he'd probably tried to call before coming over. I couldn't face the prospect of hearing him again, so I left the machine alone. Its flashing light followed me as I moved around the flat, a blinking, reproachful eye.
Verity was all around me. The hot yellow walls, the thin muslin instead of curtains; the mad tangle of ironwork that served as a candlestick on the dining table, the calico sofa she loved. And everywhere the kitsch touches that had changed almost every time I visited. An irregular clump of unmatched tassels hung from the main lightshade. A furry pink boa framed the doorway to the kitchen, and clashed boisterously with the walls. A voluptuous nude in Perspex stood next to the candelabrum, its base lit up in acid green, a flex trailing to a wall socket. There was a second telephone, not plugged in, shaped like a randy frog.
Verity loved to laugh.
And alongside the always-changing parade of frivolities, her other things, the things that were always with her. The shabby old furniture salvaged from a nurses' hostel, the oval oak table Gabriel had given her for her twenty-first. Two of my photos were mounted on stands on a bookshelf: one of her holding a rude-looking lollipop, on a day at the seaside we'd had years ago; the other of a row of schoolchildren, all with their tongues out, except one urchin on the end with a gap-toothed grin.
And the zoetrope.
I'd made it for Verity long before I knew what its proper name was. I eventually found the name “zoetrope” in a book about the history of cinema at a friend's. When I got home I looked the word up: “An optical toy... A cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface which give an impression of continuous motion when seen through slits with the cylinder rotating.”
Yes. Well. Whatever. The one I made for Verity was hardly posh. It was a broad hoop of card, with a series of photos spaced around the inside. Between each photo, I had cut a narrow vertical slot; on the opposite side of the hoop from each slot, there was a photograph, so if you peeped through each slot, you saw a different shot. There was a spindle sticking up in the middle, and the hoop had cross pieces that rested on top of it so the whole hoop could spin freely. You put your eye against the first slot, spun the hoop, and image after image flickered in front of you, like a primitive movie projector.
Each picture was of the same thing: a girl, frozen in mid-leap and mid-happy-yell. Her arms were thrown out, her hair lifting, her slim legs kicked up behind her. A great hornbeam arched overhead, a brilliant green shell. Some pictures were larger or smaller, some were a different colour, but they were all of the same moment. In each shot you saw the moment from a different angle. When the hoop was spinning, you had the feeling that you were flying jerkily around her.
I spun it—and there she was, free and happy, for one mad instant long ago. Verity, frozen forever in the middle of the air.
A horn sounded in a staccato burst on the street below. I looked out, and saw Adam
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