Alligator - Lisa Moore [70]
The shadows of the trees and clouds and telephone wires were reflected in the front-door window. When he put his face to the glass he saw Isobel’s sandals on the rope mat. The leather straps covered with clusters of colourful glass beads. He remembered how they sounded when she clipped down over the stairs.
He thought of Isobel coming through the front door and kicking the sandals off and walking barefoot into the kitchen. He thought of her crushing ice in her blender. She had tall glasses for summer drinks and he thought of how her skin looked flushed after a day of rehearsal.
There were bookshelves in every room, and there were open paperbacks, turned over on the coffee tables and the stairs and the bathroom counter. Isobel read in the bath and on the landing. She left scarves draped over the backs of chairs. He had walked into her bedroom one afternoon and she was naked, lying on her stomach; she was reading in the heat, her legs crossed at the ankle and swinging a little; the small of her back was shiny with perspiration.
Listen, she’d said. An ice-cream vendor. Then he heard the bells. But it was someone selling root vegetables. He had found her on another hot afternoon trudging fast on her treadmill, reading something else.
It was a shame about the treadmill. He knew he could get good money for it but he had decided not to take anything out of the house. It was a rule; he believed in rules. Anything that might weasel through the tight fist of his plan could be beaten back with a fast hard rule. Leave the treadmill. Leave the cat. Leave the piano and her scarves and books. Leave her jewellery and the pharmaceuticals. He wouldn’t get caught for the price of a second-hand treadmill.
There was an open Chinese umbrella resting on the door to the living room. She had a collection of masks carved from coconut shells that were important to her. All of this would go up easily.
Over the summer she’d played her piano for him. She sat on the bench with her back straight and shoulders squared. It was music he could make no sense of, discordant and full of storm. Sometimes he leaned on the piano and watched her face while she played. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed as if she were judging a grave matter. She had a habit of raising her chin slightly and looking down her nose at the sheets of music. Her hands were like claws, stiff and surprised. The water in the fish-bowl on top of the piano absorbed the vibrations of her playing and concentric rings trembled over the surface. The goldfish held still in the very centre of the bowl, electric and alert. Valentin could feel the music through his elbow and he watched intently as she closed her eyes altogether and her head began to sway or jerk, some quaking argument taking her over.
Once, she had invited him to sit in her backyard and she gave him a tall, wet glass of crushed ice and fruit, some pink, milky drink with black seeds suspended throughout.
Absolutely incandescent with vitamins, she’d said.
She had flopped into the chair beside him and they had been silent. She had tilted her face toward the sun and her lips were full and wet and she was smiling to herself. She was full of serenity and it agitated him. He thought about kissing her roughly, stirring her up. She had been wearing a navy dress with white polka dots, form-fitting and stiff, full of straps.
She took a deep breath and held it and he waited and then she breathed out and she told him to take off his shoes.
It’s too hot for shoes, she’d said. When he ignored her, she got down on her knees in the grass and the slit in her polka-dot skirt rode all the way up her thigh and he could see the lacy trim of her underwear, which was magenta and satin.
She took off his boots and then his socks. She kneaded his feet until they hurt. She hurt him very sharply, digging with her knuckles. He knew his feet were clean and he’d used a powder for odour and he didn’t mind her touching