Cathexis Read Free Page A

drawing. It was good, in fact it was inspired. I'd rendered the garden in exaggerated perspective. The new features complied to the existing perameters, but burst up and out in unexpected and cunning ways, making best use of the space. This had to be built and I phoned Nancy on a wave of confidence.
     
    “That sounds great” she said. “Can you come tomorrow?”
     
    I bounded up the steps, suddenly seized by a bout of nerves; this never happened when I was showing a design. I touched the door knocker four times before using it and decided to study her to see if she was gorgeous. The door opened and she smiled warmly, but with a coy undertone, on high alert. I wondered if this was contrived, but decided to find it charming. She ushered me into the living room where I dropped into an enormous, leather sofa and looked around for clues.
     
    While she was downstairs making coffee I twisted the rolled up drawing in my hands and deducted. The room, vast and oddly bare. It appeared that in an attempt to fill it, they had chosen the largest versions of everything: a giant three piece suite, an expansive glass coffee table with chrome legs, a plasma telly the size of a school blackboard. An absence of books, ornaments and artwork, aside from, above the sepulchral fire place, a truly horrible painting of a unicorn leaping forth from an orange, splattery sea. Three sizeable mirrors (clearly people who liked looking at themselves), two of which were hung on opposing walls, creating that sickening exchange of infinitesimal reflection.
     
    Most notable however, on the garden side of the room, a concert size grand piano crouched. Its curves and silence intimated femininity in an otherwise masculine room.
     
    I remembered my mother trying Chopin, tinkling tentative, concentrating through some fog I didn’t understand, then crashing the keys in frustration. I managed to figure out Doe a Deer by myself when I was five. My mother told me to stop that racket before slamming the lid down on my wrists.
     
    Not many clues to her character. I concluded she was either a woman of no substance who managed to present a plausible façade, or she didn't care enough to invest time in expressing herself in décor.
     
    I urgently picked at the pad of my hand hoping to remove a detaching callus before she returned.
     
    The rattle of proper cups and saucers announced her approach and I pocketed the carapace of hard skin, observing her as she placed a tray on the low table in front of the sofa. She was perhaps, some five inches shorter than me. I could see why Clive thought I might like her. He knew I had several penchants; one being long, curly ringlets of a particular type, pre-Raphaelite, not exactly curls, more like coils. She had it just right. Her eyes, intelligent, expressive and kiwi fruit green. Her lips, a lavish, painted pout and her nose cute; nostrils which were round from the front, almost like a child's, but long and sensual from the side. The whole effect pleasing, perhaps even beautiful.
     
    She sat down beside me, queerly trespassing on my personal space, her thigh aligned to mine. I perceived it as a benign gesture. Unrolling the design, I started my explanation. She stared at me, her eyes only moving to the plan intermittently. I noticed her hands, unusually large for her frame, bigger than mine even. Her head canted towards my lap to examine the drawing and I smelt the fresh, woollen quality of her hair. She could find no fault and add nothing. When I asked her what her budget was, she smiled into my eyes.
     
    “Whatever it costs” she said. “I trust you”. Now she was gorgeous.
     
    There were many elements to the garden: excavation, decking, patios, a lawn, raised beds, fencing, play structures. I warned her it could take six weeks and that was if the weather was on our side.
     
    “Fine” she said. So I scheduled her for the end of June and stood to leave, my eyes drawn once more to the unicorn.
     
    “Hideous,