Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker (best story books to read .TXT) 📗

him. It was like we were back in our dating days, when every touch was a thrill, a question. I loved him. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about that. But it’s an odd feeling to have a thing, and to want that thing, but to still feel like it’s not quite yours.

After we’d finished our feast, Art removed his brogues and socks, then wriggled his toes. They looked absurdly naked sticking out at the end of his chinos. He leaned across and slowly pulled off my sneakers so we matched. He pushed himself backwards and pressed the soles of his feet against mine so we were walking our feet together across empty space. I bent my knees, and leaning forwards slotted the fingertips of both my hands through the gaps between his toes, wiggling them gently. Art let out an awkward twitch and recoiled with a sudden “What was that?” I’d lost myself for a moment, and I forgot that not everyone likes their feet fiddled with.

I pushed our soles back together again on the blanket, balance restored. We didn’t speak all that much for a while but I was content to watch Art as he watched the families around us, a little smile flickering across his face. Before long though I realised he wasn’t watching them as I thought he’d been, he was elsewhere, somewhere his imagination had taken him and where I couldn’t follow. That wasn’t the deal.

“Where are you?”

He turned to me and smiled; he couldn’t have been too far away. “I was in my book.”

“What’s it about, this big one?”

He sighed, leaning back on his elbows. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Try, we’ve got all day.” I threw a strawberry into his lap. He looked at it before retrieving it, this bright red blossom falling between his legs.

“Well, it’s about a man. A man looking for something he can’t find.”

“What’s he lost?”

“He doesn’t know.” Under his breath he let out a little laugh. “The problem is I’ve started it without knowing what he’s looking for myself, so I’ve hit an impasse. But also, the more I work on it, the more I think it’s about me.”

He bit into the strawberry, sucking out the juice. This revelation didn’t seem all that bad or surprising to me. “Isn’t that OK?”

He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “This is the first time I’m trying to do something important. Every book I’ve written before has been all plot, action, clues, suspense. A little guy on a journey. I do it because they do well, people buy it. But this, this is supposed to be the one that makes me. My legacy. A story that’ll last longer than me, one that I’ll leave behind.”

It seemed to me then that Art hadn’t realised that that was the reason why he was writing about himself. Maybe it’s different when you’re the one pouring out the words and every character boomerangs back.

I bent my knees just enough so that I could stroke his ankle. “It’s always going to have a bit of you in there, Art. Maybe that says something good about it.”

“No. I shouldn’t be in it at all. I should be the voice above it all, outside of it. It’s meant to be a modern-day parable, it’s meant to change everything. My other stuff is crap, it goes from bestseller lists to bargain bins in a week. No one remembers them. But this, this is meant to be timeless. Who’d care about another fucking memoir? Especially from someone like me, right now. It’s too risky.”

I let my nail scratch his ankle as I pulled my hand away. He was right. Though Easton Grove wanted us to be delegates, what if people found out where we lived through Art’s books? Would we then have those same desperate protestors at our door, their placards pressed against the windows? We both knew it couldn’t work, and it would be stupid to contradict him on it. I could see Art’s mood had plummeted, and the only way to salvage our afternoon would be to soothe him.

“Maybe it’s about time we set a date.”

He didn’t seem to hear me, and was still inspecting the half-eaten strawberry.

“Do you want to set a date, Art?”

At his name he looked up at me again, quizzically. “What are you going to do about work, Norah? Are you going to look for something else?”

So, he’d turned to sparring? I wasn’t in the mood to defend, and laughed it off. “I’m sure something’ll come up. Aubrey always thought I was made for customer service.”

Art smirked. “What does she know? The problem with Aubrey is she can’t share. She doesn’t want you to move ahead of her. She doesn’t want you to do better.”

“Maybe I should write my own memoir. Perhaps one day I’ll be the one making waves with my artistic side.”

Before Art had the chance to reply his phone rang, and he answered it with hardly a glance at who was calling. I sank into my own thoughts as he chatted, my conversational cogs churning away in preparation for the moment he was back with me. He hung up after a minute or two, biting his lip. “I’m sorry, I forgot I had a Skype chat with Kelly booked this afternoon to go through a contract. We’ll have to go now if I’m going to make it at six.”

We packed up the empty packets and bottles in silence. Art was mouthing words to himself, likely preparing what he’d say to Kelly. But when every trace of our being there was consigned to the basket, I didn’t get up from the blanket.

“Let’s do something.”

Art looked down at me, his brow furrowed.

“Let’s go somewhere. Let’s go somewhere you like but you’ve never been for a long time. You can get me drunk, if you want.”

His eyebrows raised at that, and he looked at me like he was inspecting something new and amusing. A dog doing a trick. “I said I’d be back…”

“There’s a lifetime