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

hours but that they’d leave before the gongs. Fine. I suggested they come around for 7pm, and I called up to Art that Rosa would need to leave early, so maybe we could just put out snacks rather than prepare a sit-down meal. A muffled “OK” decided that.

I’d already started taking down some of the disintegrating Christmas decorations, but on New Year’s Eve I revived our earlier merry-making with pursed lips. I re-hung whatever was in a fit state to be hung, stapling together broken paper chains and sellotaping some of Art’s better origami stars, reindeer, and snowmen to surfaces in case the movement of guests sent them falling. I pieced myself back together temporarily much in the same way, with make-up, fine gold chains, and a wrap-around dress, finished with a tight black belt.

I was sitting in the bedroom gripping a glass of red when the doorbell rang at 7.12pm. I remember the time because my alarm clock screen was flashing, the batteries almost dead. Nut lay curled at the foot of the bed, her pale face scrunched deep into the shag-rug, her ears covered by her hands.

I heard the door open and the bellow of a man’s voice, “Helloooooo”, followed by Art’s drawling “Hey”, and then hurried gushing and squeals. I’d have to go downstairs, but for now there was a fly skirting the surface of my Merlot, and I needed to get it out.

Art called up the stairs, and I surprised myself by calling back immediately. My voice sounded real, full-bodied, joyful. I gave Nut a little scratch on her forehead and floated down the stairs, almost giddy. I followed the voices into the living room, where a man and woman were sitting at either end of the grey sofa as if balancing the ends of a seesaw. Both were leaning heavily on the high cushioned arms and holding up a glass of wine in their opposite hand, a mirror image of each other. Together they focussed all their attention at Art, as if nothing else in the room mattered. As if Art was food.

Walking in was like interrupting a mating ritual. The man was wearing a red and white striped shirt that reminded me of those poles outside a barber’s shop. He gave off the air of someone young yet his brow was pitted with deep furrows that sucked in the light. The woman looked me up and down in the fraction of a second when I walked in and raised her glass. Her white dress glowed, a luminescent moon sinking into a rain-cloud.

“Norah, honey.”

She stood up and it was dawn, and I just stopped myself before I shielded my eyes. She looked flawless. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

She wrapped her arms around me, all elbows and shoulders protruding in a crude frame, like a coat-hanger. I didn’t feel a thing. A drop of red streaked down my collarbone.

“Oh sweetie, I’m sorry, kitchen roll? Kitchen roll anyone?”

I dabbed away the wine with a finger. “I’ll get some, it’s fine.”

As the woman sat down there was some movement by her ankles. Hair. Fists. Four socked feet. The woman bent down behind the arm of the chair, “Jasper. Georgie. Come and say hello.” Two beautiful clean faces craned forwards, just as luminous as their mother. Both of them smiled and sucked their lips, then the boy sat back, politeness over. He must have been around ten, maybe. The little girl, much younger than her brother, looked up at her mother for reassurance.

I looked to Art, lost as to what to do. He reached across for my hand. “Norah, this is Adam and Margo. Their babysitter was a no-show, so the kids are here for the ride too.”

I nodded stiffly. What would kids do in this house? I had nothing for them. Should I bring down some of Nut’s toys, those safely stashed up in the loft? Would they like that? I was stocked in the style of a Greek Goddess, all I had was wine and sugar and fat. A whisper to Art, “Should we get them some juice or something?”

Margo sat back down in her chair with a heavy sigh, “Oh no don’t worry about that. They’ve brought their stuff. They’re fine here.”

I looked down at them and, as if on cue, they’d both dispatched themselves mentally from the room. Jasper’s index fingers were already tapping wildly on a tablet, while Georgie was scribbling in a book with a thick red crayon clutched in her fist. They knew the drill, so why didn’t I?

I ushered myself off to the kitchen with the pretence of cleaning myself up, and tucked myself into the utility room, closing the door behind me.

It was cold. Dark. Quiet.

They weren’t like I thought they’d be. Art had told me about Adam. Adam was another writer with the same publisher. They’d met when Art had only been in the country a month, and though they didn’t see each other apart from at launches or meetings, I could tell that Art thought of him as a shadow-self, an alternative “Arthur” he could score himself against. It was perverse, really. He spoke about Adam as if he was a friend, but there was always a tight snap to his tone when he talked about how well Adam was doing, and a lush swoop if Adam was in a quiet phase. Art heard all Adam’s news second-hand through his agent, and fleshed out all the detail with punishing imagination. I’d assumed that Adam would look just like Art, or at least give off the same vibes. But sitting there, his knees stood high above the sofa cushions, and his palm and fingers curled on the arm like wax dripping from a candle. He was spidery, cracked and crumpled, a crepe paper man in danger of tearing. He hadn’t said a word while I’d stood there, just sipped his wine and watched Art over his little round glasses.

And he had a family. A real