Читать книгу Yesterday And Forever - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 6

MIRANDA had always thought that the first time she stood naked before a man it would be for love, not money—which only went to show how much she’d changed during the months she’d been in Amsterdam.

A light breeze blew across the Herengracht, ruffling the canal’s dark green water. Miranda felt its damp touch against her skin and she shuddered.

Would Ernst Mueller’s hand be as clammy against her flesh?

Her footsteps faltered, then stopped. Turn back, a little voice inside her whispered, turn back while you can. A swaying tram lumbered by, its warning bell sounding an alarm that seemed meant especially for her.

There was still time. All she had to do was swing around, retrace her steps, and show up for lunch with her friends at the little café near the Rijksmuseum where all the art students gathered because a roast beef sandwich and hot chocolate were just a few guilders.

Yes, she thought, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll turn around and go back. Her heart lifted…

Miranda puffed out her breath. Never mind your heart, she thought grimly. It was her stomach she had to worry about, and she couldn’t fill that when all the money she had in the world was seven guilders.

The tail-end of the tram lurched past and she stepped briskly off the kerb. Thinking about what lay ahead would only make it worse. It was too late to agonise over her decision and, anyway, what choice did she have?

None. None at all.

‘Tell Herr Mueller I accept his offer,’ she’d told Mina, and that had been that.

The truth was, she’d run out of options days ago; it had been sheer stubbornness or maybe just plain stupidity that had kept her from facing reality, but finally she’d had to look her situation squarely in the eye. She was on her own in a strange country, with only a handful of coins standing between her and desperation. Mina had picked up her half of the rent on the room they shared but now she was broke, too, and if past practice meant anything Miranda knew that the next instalment from the scholarship fund wouldn’t reach her for at least another ten days.

What did an hour with Ernst Mueller mean when measured against all that?

The Damrak was even more crowded with strollers and shoppers than usual today. People were laughing and smiling, and Miranda’s heart tightened a little. If it weren’t for what awaited her she’d have been smiling, too. She’d been in Amsterdam through its most bitter winter months.

‘Just wait until spring,’ people had kept saying as they shivered in the cold, and Miranda had done just that, surviving the bleak days and cold nights by imagining the narrow canals free of ice, the skies sunny and bright, the kiss of a warm golden sun overhead.

Now all that had come to pass. The city was transformed, its face gilded by the first blush of spring. The wind blowing in from the North Sea smelled of green growing things. Tulips nodded in shop stalls and peeped from behind stiffly starched white curtains. Amsterdam had become the magical Venice of the north Miranda had always known it would be.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Mina had said a few mornings ago, when she’d awakened to find Miranda kneeling in the window-seat of their room, her elbows on the sill and her chin propped on her hands, gazing enraptured at the scene below. ‘It’s like something Rembrandt might have painted.’

Miranda had flung her arms wide as she had swung around to face her room-mate.

‘Like something he did paint, you mean. Isn’t Amsterdam wonderful?’

Yawning, Mina pushed back the blankets and rose from the bed. ‘Remember those happy words when your tummy starts growling about ten o’clock tonight.’

Miranda laughed as she padded across the pegged board floor. ‘You can’t discourage me this morning,’ she said. ‘Everything’s too perfect.’

Mina made a face. ‘Keep it up and the scholarship committee will hire you to write its next brochure.’

Miranda sank down in the centre of her bed, crossed her legs under her, and put her hand over her heart.

‘“The Harrington Scholarship makes it possible for deserving young artists to develop their talent,’” she said in a deeply dramatic voice, ‘“to paint where the Masters painted and to study works of genius first-hand. Grant recipients will have the opportunity to spend a year in the art centres of Europe—’”

‘And maybe starve and sleep on the streets of those centres as part of the experience.’ Mina began stripping off her cotton pyjamas. ‘Too bad the committee didn’t mention that.’

The smile dropped from Miranda’s face. ‘OK,’ she said glumly, ‘that did it.’ She fell backwards on the bed, arms outstretched, and stared at the stained ceiling. ‘How can they do this to us? Don’t they know we’ve run out of funds?’

‘This guy I’ve been posing for was here on a Harrington fellowship a couple of years ago. He says the red tape’s unbelievable, that the cheques just get later from quarter to quarter.’

Sighing, Miranda sat up and swung her legs to the floor. ‘Maybe if we call the New York office again and talk to the secretary—’

‘What for? So she can tell us what she told us last week?’

‘“The cheques are in the mail.” Right. Isn’t there some kind of awful old joke about that being one of life’s three greatest lies?’

‘Well,’ Mina said, slipping into a cotton blouse, ‘joke or not, we’re stuck with it.’ She fluffed her short auburn hair away from her face. ‘What about phoning the American Embassy?’

Miranda shook her head. ‘They can’t help unless you’re desperate. Flat broke, no funds, no way to get home…’

‘And we’re not. Not according to the way it looks on paper, anyway. We’ve got scholarships, guaranteed plane fare back to the States—’

‘Which we can’t use until our scholarships expire,’ Miranda said. She laughed. ‘Unless, of course, we expire first—from starvation. How’d that guy you mentioned get by? The one you’re posing for?’

Mina grinned. ‘He wrote home to Daddy. Daddy is R-I-C-H.’

‘Mmm.’ Miranda got to her feet, walked to the old-fashioned wardrobe on the far side of the sunny bedroom, and pulled a black cotton turtleneck sweater and a voluminous denim skirt from its depths. ‘Well, that method won’t work for me. My parents haven’t got a dime to spare. And I wouldn’t want them to know how close to the edge I’m living.’

‘They’d worry?’

Miranda smiled. ‘Even more than they already do. They’re convinced you have to be crazy to want to be a painter.’

Mina chuckled. ‘Sounds about right to me.’

‘Anyway, the starving students’ diet isn’t so bad,’ Miranda said lightly as she untied her robe and let it slip from her shoulders. ‘We get a huge Dutch breakfast, a late-afternoon roast beef broodje, and a mug of hot cocoa before bedtime.’

‘Breakfast and cocoa courtesy of Mevrouw De Vries.’

‘Courtesy has nothing to do with it. The board comes with the room.’ Miranda’s voice grew muffled as she pulled the sweater over her head. ‘If the rent money doesn’t get here,’ she said as her head popped through the opening, ‘neither will breakfast and bedtime cocoa.’ She flashed Mina a quick smile as she stepped into the skirt and zipped it closed. ‘But look at the positive side. The starving students’ diet is guaranteed to melt away weight and bring out your cheekbones.’

The other girl peered into the chipped mirror that hung drunkenly beside the dresser. ‘As if you needed either,’ she said, touching her fingers to her softly rounded cheeks. ‘I’m the one who could use the diet, not you.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Miranda plucked up a pair of silver hoop earrings and slipped them into her ears. ‘You’re the only painter I know who poses almost as often as she paints.’

‘Mmm. Yeah, well, I’m lucky.’ Mina smiled. ‘Some guys are still into the Rubens woman.’ Her eyes met Miranda’s in the mirror. ‘But there are lots of others who like ’em skinny but curvy, like you.’

‘Not enough,’ Miranda said. She put a heavy beaten-silver chain around her neck, then bent and dragged a pair of high-heeled black leather boots from under her bed and slipped them on. ‘I’ve only been asked to sit twice the past month.’

Mina swung around and looked at her. ‘Wasn’t I with you when you bought that stuff?’

‘What stuff?’

‘The jewellery. And the clothes. Didn’t you get them at the Waterlooplein flea market?’

Miranda made a face. ‘Where else do we ever shop?’

Her room-mate sighed. ‘How come on me it all just looks like the second-hand junk it is, while on you it looks exotic?’

‘Wearing somebody’s cast-offs isn’t exotic,’ Miranda said firmly. ‘Neither is worrying that you might end up sleeping on the streets.’

There was a moment’s pause, and then Mina spoke. ‘But posing undraped is?’ she said softly.

Miranda turned around. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, ‘Mueller’s been at it again.’

‘Mmm hmm. Yesterday, as a matter of fact.’

‘Well,’ Miranda said, getting to her feet and quickly smoothing out the bedclothes, ‘the man’s persistent, if nothing else.’

‘He’s more than that and you know it.’

‘Exactly. They say he’s been mixed up in some pretty shady stuff.’

‘Come on, Miranda, that’s nothing but talk. The man’s a good painter, and he pays his models well.’

‘I don’t pose nude, Mina. I told him that the first time he asked me, and I told you to tell him—’

‘Hey, take it easy. I did tell him. I’m only the messenger here, remember?’

Miranda held up her hand. ‘Sorry, sorry—I didn’t mean to take your head off. Look, do me a favour. Just tell Mueller—’

‘I have, half a dozen times, but that hasn’t stopped him. He keeps asking if you’ve changed your mind. He says your face has some special quality he needs.’

‘He can have my face any time he wants it,’ Miranda said as she ran a comb through the black, glossy curls that tumbled below her shoulders. ‘It’s the rest of me that’s off limits.’

‘I told him that.’

‘And?’

Mina shrugged. ‘And he said to tell you he’s willing to pay you double the standard fee.’

The comb in Miranda’s hand stilled. She turned around slowly, her sapphire-blue eyes wide under their dark fringe of lashes.

‘You’re joking! Double?’

‘Yup. I’ve got to admit, it makes me gnash my teeth with envy, but that’s what he said.’ Mina sighed. ‘I wasn’t going to mention it at all, knowing how you feel, but we were talking about money and I figured it was only right to tell you.’

‘Double the standard fee,’ Miranda murmured with a wistful smile. ‘I’ve got to admit, it’s tempting. But—’

‘But it’s no go.’ Mina nodded. ‘I told him I was sure that’s what your answer would be.’ She smiled good-naturedly as she turned back to the mirror. ‘Old Ernst is just gonna have to get it through his head that Miranda Stuart thinks it’s immoral to peel down to the altogether for a strange guy, and never mind that there’s an easel between the two of them.’

‘Come on, you know me better than that. I don’t think it’s immoral. How could I? I’m a painter myself—I’ve done heaven only knows how many life studies.’

‘OK, so I overstated it. You just don’t think it’s right for you.’

‘Yeah. I’d be—I don’t know, paralysed, I guess. I’m just too self-conscious or something.’ She hesitated. ‘Besides, there’s something about that man…’

‘Mueller? I admit, he looks a little greasy, but he’s OK. In fact, he’s never so much as laid a finger on me—literally, I mean. “Turn a little to the right, fraulein,” he says, “chin up, tilt it like so, yes?” But he never touches the merchandise.’

‘It’s probably just my imagination, then, but there’s just something about the way he looks at me that makes it so—so personal, if you know what I mean…’ Miranda’s voice trailed away. ‘That’s what an empty stomach does,’ she said briskly. ‘It turns your brain to jelly.’

Mina grinned. ‘There you go, talking about food again. It’s a good thing Mevrouw De Vries will have breakfast laid out by now. Do you think anybody will notice if I eat four fried eggs instead of two?’

And that was where the matter had rested—until yesterday, when everything had seemed to come apart all at once. Miranda had bought her usual frugal late lunch and realised, with a start of horror, that she only had money enough for one more meal, and then Mevrouw De Vries had stopped the two girls as they went down to the kitchen for their evening mugs of cocoa with a polite smile and a reminder that their rent had yet to be paid.

Miranda had turned reluctantly to Mina. ‘I hate to ask,’ she’d said, ‘but I don’t suppose…’

The look on Mina’s face had been all the answer she’d needed. The words she’d spoken days before came back to Miranda with a rush.

‘If the rent money doesn’t get here, neither will breakfast and bedtime cocoa.’

Suddenly all her moral posturing had seemed ridiculous. Mina had posed for Mueller, and so could she. It was a perfectly legitimate way to earn extra money, and she’d have to be an idiot to pass it up.

‘What’s Mueller’s telephone number?’ she’d asked Mina, and before she could think about it too long she’d marched to the phone, dropped in a coin, and made the call—and now here she was, making her way along the street that ran beside the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, her heart pumping away inside her chest as if it were going to leap free at any minute.

‘Hey, good-lookin’, you spreken English?’

Miranda barely glanced at the American sailor leaning against the canal rail. Yes, she wanted to say, I speak English, but someone should have told you that not every woman you see in this quarter is for sale.

But she wasn’t foolish enough to do that. Instead, she kept her eyes straight ahead as she walked purposefully along the street. Why did Mueller’s loft have to be here, of all places? She knew the answer—rooms in the Walletjes were cheap. For centuries these narrow streets had catered to men eager to taste the pleasures of the flesh, and the quarter’s offerings were geared towards fulfilling that desire with every imaginable enticement.

Miranda swallowed hard. Well, that had nothing to do with her. She was here to pose. To work.

Her glance flickered to the narrow buildings that lined the street. Although it was only mid-afternoon, there were already women seated behind some of the wide shopfront windows. Some were reading, some simply looked out with bored, empty eyes. One, the very picture of domesticity, seemed to be knitting a sweater. But Miranda knew they were here to work, too, to work at the world’s oldest profession. Even after all these months, that fact still amazed her.

‘They’re just earning a living,’ Mina had said stoutly the first time the two room-mates had come to the quarter to gawk along with the rest of the tourists.

All at once, posing nude for Ernst Mueller seemed very tame indeed. Her attitude was naïve, almost priggish. She wasn’t going to do anything wrong, for heaven’s sake. And it might be illuminating. Maybe it was time to find out what it felt like to give your all for art.

The thought brought a smile to her face. Still smiling, she pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and glanced at it. Number fifteen. It was that next house, then, the tired old one with the paint peeling from its fa de. She took a deep, deep breath, tossed back her hair, and marched up to the door.

It was dark inside, almost oppressively so. But it would be, wouldn’t it, after all that bright sunshine? Miranda took a step forward. The place smelled musty; her nose wrinkled in distaste while she waited for her vision to adapt to the greyness. She could see a narrow, almost perpendicular staircase looming ahead, the kind unique to some of the old canal houses. She was wearing her high-heeled leather boots again—there’d been no choice, really; she’d found a hole in the sole of her sneakers just that morning—and the steps would be hard to negotiate.

She took a deep breath. ‘You’re just looking for excuses,’ she murmured into the silence, and she put her hand on the railing and started up into the gloom.

Mueller’s studio was on the top floor, and her legs were trembling a little by the time she reached it. Nerves, that was all it was, and it was silly. Mina had posed in the buff for the man half a dozen times, and he’d never so much as touched her. Wasn’t that recommendation enough?

She rapped lightly at the door. ‘Herr Mueller?’ When she got no answer she rapped again. The door swung slowly open. ‘Hello? Is anyone here? Herr Mueller? It’s me. It’s Miranda Stuart.’

Her voice seemed to echo in the mid-afternoon stillness. The room was obviously empty. Her spirits lifted. She could leave now, secure in the knowledge that she’d kept her part of the bargain…

As if on cue, her empty stomach growled. ‘All right,’ she said, sighing, ‘I get the message.’

The door slammed shut behind her as she moved cautiously forward. The faint, sweet smell of marijuana hung in the air, and Miranda wrinkled her nose with displeasure. The light in the room was excellent, good enough so that she could see every inch of litter and dust. Mueller wasn’t terribly fastidious, but she wasn’t here to judge him on his housekeeping. She moved another step forward. The room was huge, most of it taken up by canvases except for the far wall, which was dominated by a large, unmade brass bed.

Her heart tripped against her ribs. The easel. Look at the easel. Yes, of course. She was here to pose. That was all Mueller wanted of her. She walked towards the easel slowly, concentrating all her attention on it and on the paintings that lay scattered around the room. They were oils, most of them, some originals, others copies of their more famous counterparts that hung in the Rijksmuseum. Mina was right, Miranda thought grudgingly, the man was good.

If only she could stop thinking of the way he’d looked at her the first time he’d asked her to pose for him, the way his beady little eyes had slipped over her body, the way they’d paused at her breasts…

‘Stop it!’

Miranda’s words hissed into the silence. She took a deep breath as she walked the last few feet to the easel. There was a note pinned to it; her brows lifted when she saw her name scrawled across it in charcoal.

Miranda, forgive me, I’ve been called away. Be back in a jiffy. Please make yourself comfortable. Ernst.

Miranda and Ernst. How cosy it sounded. Her heart thudded. There was still time, still time…

Stupid. She was being stupid. Quickly she marched to the screen in the corner, placed there, she knew, for the convenience and privacy of the model, and put down her bag. Would it be easier to get undressed and into her robe before he returned? Yes. Oh, yes. The thought of taking off her clothes while Mueller sat in the same room, watching the screen, made her skin crawl.

She unbuttoned her coat, working swiftly before she could change her mind, and tossed it over the high-backed stool that stood beside her with an artist’s smock, clean but stained with paint, draped across its back. The coat was followed swiftly by her black turtleneck sweater. Her hands trembled a little as she unzipped her skirt.

‘You’re being an ass,’ she mumbled, and the skirt and her panties slithered to the floor.

She was completely undressed now, except for her silver jewellery and boots. The jewellery could wait, but the boots—she frowned. The floor looked dirty. More than dirty. It looked as if centuries’ worth of filth had been ground into it.

It had been foolish not to have brought slippers. Next time she’d—she’d…

Miranda drew a sobbing breath. Oh, God! There wouldn’t be a next time. Who was she kidding? There wouldn’t even be a first time. She couldn’t go through with it, not even if it meant going hungry, not even if it meant throwing herself on Mevrouw De Vries’s mercy. She’d phone the Harrington Institute right away. They had to do something. Her situation was desperate.

Someone pounded on the door.

‘Mueller!’

Miranda’s hand flew to her throat. The voice was male—loud and very, very angry. The pounding noise came again, the sound of that heavy fist more than a match for the fury in the disembodied voice. Her heart began to race. She had to get out of here. She—

‘Mueller!’

The door slammed against the wall as it flew open, and she fell back into the corner. God, she thought wildly, oh, God, what had she walked into?

‘Where are you, you bastard? Do you really think you can hide from me forever?’

Footsteps, heavy footsteps, marched across the room, then paused. What to do? What to do? Miranda reached down into her bag for her robe. Where was it? Dammit, where was that stupid robe?

‘Mueller?’ The voice quietened, almost purred with menace. ‘Come out from behind the screen.’ There was a silence, and then the voice barked again. ‘If I have to come after you…’

Miranda looked down at herself. Quickly, she thought while her heart raced to burst free of her chest, quickly! Do something.

‘All right.’ The voice was grim with determination. ‘If that’s how you want to play it…’

Her eyes flew wildly across the clothing piled on the stool beside her. She could never get dressed in time. Never.

‘Mueller!’

With a sob of desperation she snatched up the smock that lay draped across the back of the stool and stuffed first one arm into a sleeve and then the other. Her fingers shook as she started to do up the buttons, but it was too late. She screamed as the screen was ripped away and a man—a tall, bulky man—grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her forward.

‘There you are,’ he said through his teeth, ‘you—you…’ He fell silent, his eyes widening, then narrowing, as they focused on Miranda. ‘What the hell…?’

Dark colour swept into her cheeks and she snatched at the lapels of the smock and pulled them together.

‘I’ll—I’ll scream,’ she said. Her voice was breathless, as if she’d just run up the long, steep stairs to Mueller’s room.

The man’s mouth curved downward. ‘You already did,’ he said. ‘You damned near punctured my eardrums.’

Miranda swallowed. ‘I’m not—’ Her throat closed. ‘I’m not Ernst Mueller.’

The man stared at her a second or two, and then he laughed. It was a soft laugh, one that said everything it needed to say, and her face flooded with colour again.

‘No, you aren’t.’ He stepped back a little, his hands still clasping her shoulders in an iron grasp, and looked at her, his eyes moving slowly, deliberately, over her body, from the tips of her black leather boots up the long length of bare leg, skimming over the smock that hung only to mid-thigh and across the swift rise and fall of her breasts. By the time that slow, assessing gaze reached her face she had turned crimson. ‘No,’ he repeated softly, ‘you’re definitely not Mueller.’

Her heart was still galloping. From the frying-pan into the fire, she thought crazily. Suddenly, posing in the nude for Mueller seemed easy. What she had to worry about now was this—this lunatic, this behemoth of a man who’d burst into this room bellowing Mueller’s name, looking for blood and instead finding a half-naked woman cowering in a corner…

Although he didn’t look like a lunatic, or even like a behemoth, the part of Miranda’s mind that was still functioning sanely whispered. He was angry, yes, but not at her. At Mueller. Very angry. She could see it in the cold grey eyes, the taut mouth. But she had nothing to do with Mueller. Surely she could make him see that…?

‘Where is he?’

She blinked. ‘What?’

‘I said, where’s Mueller?’

‘I don’t know.’

A cool smile tilted at the corners of his mouth. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No. We—we had an appointment, but he was gone when I got here.’

‘You mean, he knew you were coming and he left anyway?’ The smile deepened. ‘I always suspected the man was a fool,’ he said softly. ‘Now I’m certain of it.’

Miranda swallowed hard. ‘Look, I’d like to—to get dressed, if you don’t mind.’

His teeth flashed in a quick grin. ‘That would be a pity. Maybe I’d like a look at the merchandise, too.’

Her face turned hot again. ‘Whatever it is you’re thinking—’

‘Especially when you market it so well.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He laughed softly. ‘The boots are a wonderful touch.’ He held her at arm’s length and looked her over slowly once again. ‘High heels, black leather to the knee, the glint of silver at your throat…’ His eyes met hers. ‘I’ve always liked creative women.’

‘Then you’ll be happy to know that that’s just what I am,’ Miranda said coolly, praying that her voice wouldn’t tremble and give her away. ‘I’m an artist, and—’

‘An artist.’ He nodded sombrely, although she could see the laughter in his eyes. ‘Yes, I like that. It’s a new description for an old profession.’

‘You don’t understand. I’m a painter.’

‘A painter. I should have guessed.’ She caught her breath as his hand left her shoulder and drifted to the lapel of the smock. He tugged at it lightly; she caught her breath again at the swift brush of his fingers across her breasts. ‘Of course you are.’

Desperation roughened her voice. ‘Listen, I don’t know anything about Ernst Mueller.’

His easy smile faded. ‘You know enough to be waiting for him without any clothes on.’

‘I’m here to model, that’s all.’

‘A couple of seconds ago you said you were here to paint.’

‘Yes. I mean, no. I—’ Her throat closed. She stared into his cool grey eyes, and suddenly a wave of anger pushed aside her fear. Damn the man! He had no right to bully her this way. ‘Who do you think you are?’ she demanded. ‘You just can’t—’

‘When is Mueller coming back?’

‘How would I know? I hardly know the man.’

‘You hardly know the man.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Yet here you stand, wearing nothing but your skin.’

‘What I do is my business.’

The sudden sharp pressure of his hands bearing down on her shoulders made her cry out.

‘And what do you buy with the money?’

Miranda stared at him. His face was taut with fury. He is crazy, she thought desperately, and her moment of angry bravado was swept away.

‘Let go of me,’ she said, struggling to free herself, but it was useless. He stepped closer to her, half lifting her from the floor as he stared down into her pale face.

‘Well?’ he growled. ‘I’m waiting for an answer. What do you need the money for? Drugs? Booze? What kind of garbage are you into?’

He was shaking her as if she were a rag doll, and all at once it was too much to bear. Fear, anger, and most of all the hunger that had been dogging her for days came rushing together. The room tilted, the man’s face darkened, and Miranda gave him a quick, slightly drunken smile.

Food, she thought, but she didn’t say it. She couldn’t—all she could do was collapse into his arms as the blackness rushed up to meet her.