Alone in the Rainforest

I glanced over my shoulder at the security guard's seat by the door. It was still empty. I’d waited over an hour to have the artwork to myself. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes until the gallery closed. Winter darkness made the high narrow windows into black slits. A freezing Monday night when, even in London, most people would be hurrying home to curl up warm in front of the television. The smell of chalk dust and pine in the vast, white room reminded me of school classrooms. I forced myself to focus.

From a distance, the life-sized human figures formed a confusing mass of powder-pink fuzzy limbs. I moved forward and sat on the bench in front of it. Glanced over my shoulder again. Still empty. The information card on the wall behind the exhibit read The Act by Amanda Ashenby. It must have taken the silly cow months to create the wool felt for such a large display. How did she hide it from me? I reached into my book bag, feeling for the plastic handles of the kitchen shears. The cheapest ones in the shop, but still twelve pounds I couldn’t afford.

The felt woman was naked, on all fours, one knee raised, like a dog cocking its leg for a piss. I thought of Nelson, my father's sturdy little Jack Russell, but this was different. The felt woman's foot curled at a strange angle, toes splayed outwards. A discombobulated cluster of tiny limbs at full stretch. An unnatural gap between her big toe and smaller digits, like a chimpanzee. The word prehensile hung in my mind. Evolution stopped humans from swinging on branches or eating with their feet millions of years ago. The softness of the wool must have made it hard to stiffen thinner parts of the body. Perhaps she put wiring inside. A white lace thong hung loose from the woman's skinny ankle. No artifice there; it was probably bought at Primark, the label cut out. We bought Christmas pyjamas together at Primark, laughing. Did she slip it into her bag at the same time?

My fury made every detail crystal clear. The felt woman’s neck was long and narrow, stretching back. A curved extension to her long, arching back. Red string hair fell messily onto her pale shoulders. My teeth clenched tighter. Face upwards, dark irises fixed on the ceiling. The texture of the wool and lack of apparent pupils made them devoid of expression. Her scarlet mouth was open in a grimace, teeth bared like an angry horse. They, too, showed wanton chaos, splaying out like her toes, with wool gaps between them. A parody of me. God, I must have given her the idea. She always cracked up when I put on my posh voice and horse face. I zipped my lips shut, holding back rising hysteria. The model’s firm, rounded breasts had protruding nipples, red as glacé cherries on an iced bun. I wanted to reach out and touch them. Registered the sign below saying, PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH THE ART. Art! I pulled back my hand, pushing it under my thigh, then pulled it out again, irritated by my immediate inclination to obey.

I forced my eyes to move to the male figure behind her. He was upright, on his knees, also naked. Pale, hairless head. 'Pecker Head'. Wasn’t that what she called her art tutor? Was he her muse? When I was a teen, I thought that being hirsute was an essential part of having sex. It worried me that my own arms and legs were so pale and hairless. The man and woman were hairy in the illustrations in The Joy of Sex on my parents’ bookshelf. Probably a product of the 1970s fashion style when it was published. Why did she choose to make him bald? That was the kind of question my course tutor would ask, and we would all scrabble for some bullshit answer. Rembrandt portrayed saints as bald; perhaps he considered it a sign of holiness. Van Gogh’s last, depressed self-portrait showed him as bald. But God knows why Amanda did it. Perhaps it was just easier to make his pate smooth? No, his ears must have taken hours of workmanship when she could have covered them with a thatch of simple wool hair. Antihelix, concha and lobe were all defined in detail. She’d clearly worked for so many hours on this. Hours she hid from me. Fucking bitch!

I pulled the shears from my bag and turned to the felt man. His eyes were slits, looking down; forehead creased in concentration, brows slanted. As if he were angry. His pink, fuzzy chest was bare, but wiry hairs protruded from around his rosy nipples. I pictured Amanda teasing the wool into a delicate black curl between her fingers, then plunging a sharp metal spike into the fleshy part, pinning it firmly. Her betrayal jabbed me in the guts. It hurt. The felt man's hands pushed down on her lower back. I forced my eyes to look down. His erect penis protruded at ninety degrees from his body. She’d mixed blue into the baby pink flesh wool. A swollen, purple baton, its tip resting on the lip of the vagina. Hideously graphic, caught in the act of penetration. Of course, lightbulb moment, The Act. Not subtle. Not clever. Tightly woven, oversized testes hung beneath. I thought of the great, loose sacks I had seen under rams in the fields around my parents' home, like leather satchels. Sweetbreads, my father called them. I felt a tingle of desire and wanted to press hard on my pudenda, safely tucked inside serviceable cotton knickers. They were positively matronly compared to the strip of nylon dangling in front of me.

‘Well, are you going to do it?’ The deep voice smashed through my thoughts, scattering them. I jumped violently, letting out a squawk. The shears clattered to the floor as my hands feebly clutched at the air in front of me. The man reached down and picked them up. Not the security guard; no, he wasn’t in uniform. I hadn’t heard his footsteps. How long had he been watching me? A hot itch on my neck and cheeks meant my anxiety splotches were starting to show. I wanted to get up and run to the door, but fear, or the stranglehold of politeness, rooted me to the bench. In my peripheral vision, I saw him sit down, placing the shears on the bench between us.

‘I can see the likeness. No wonder you’re angry.’ His voice was deep, a hint of a Midlands accent. He opened an exhibition programme. ‘Apparently, it's an artistic investigation into gender roles, demonstrating man's lust for war.’ He paused. ‘It looks like straightforward, old-fashioned pornography to me. Its unique selling point is that it's made from British wool.' He chuckled, turning to me, making me look at him. Brown eyes, clean-shaven, square-cut jaw. His shaggy-cut hair made me think of the illustration man in The Joy of Sex again. I tried to push it out of my mind, knowing my cheeks were already scarlet.

‘Fine craftsmanship, mind you. I take it you don’t like it?’ He nodded at the shears.

I pressed my lips together, glowering at him, willing him to go away so I could get on with it.

He shifted, making himself comfortable, and read from the programme again. ‘It represents vanitas and beauty, death and rebirth. In essence, mortality.’ He paused. ‘Do you agree?’ He looked at me intently, eyebrows raised, head slightly tilted, studying my face. Expecting an answer.

It was like being with my tutor, and I grappled for something to say, then stopped myself. Why should I talk to him? Vanitas. God, her pretensions! She wouldn’t have known what that meant if I hadn’t told her. I hated her with every cell in my body.

He must have seen it in my face, and he laughed. A rich sound that reverberated around the room. 'I think vanitas means the inevitability of death, the pointlessness of life.'

A facsimile of my life now. ‘Yes, I know.’ I kept my voice flat.

‘Surely you have more to say than that? You’re about to desecrate it!’

‘Desecrate isn’t the right word. There’s nothing holy about it.’ My voice was harsh with bitterness.

‘You think sex is ugly?’ He smiled. Faint crow’s feet around his eyes showed he was older than me. They made him look gentler than I had at first thought. Almost kind.

‘Ah, is it sex with men you find ugly?’ He raised his eyebrow.

‘What the fuck?’ I jumped to my feet, glaring at him.

He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Hey, just kidding. I’m Jim.’ He reached out his hand. I looked at it momentarily, then took it, weakly responding to his firm shake. Why wouldn’t he just go away? I noticed his straight shoulders, like a Greek statue. I tried to stop myself from imagining him on his knees, like the artwork, penis erect, behind me. Hoped he couldn't read my thoughts in my face. He was distracting me, and my anger started to ebb away. I sat down again.

How would I know? I’d only done 'the act' once. Not like this at all. A dark fumbling chaos behind the sofa at my friend Neave’s sixth-form party. I awkwardly agreed to let James, who had already had everyone else in our class by then, add me to the altar of his ego. It had stung, but I wanted my virginity done with. It was embarrassing and messy. Luckily, everyone was so drunk that no one noticed, and James skulked away, leaving me feeling dirty. But I’d never seen anything like this artwork in the flesh. Never had the opportunity. Or perhaps I’d avoided it. Didn't want to actually go out with any of the stupid boys at school. I certainly didn’t fancy them. At Uni, the History of Art class was comprised of women and two gay men. I hadn’t met any heterosexual men there at all. Then I met Amanda, and she made me happy, until she did this.

His hand was still wrapped around mine, and I felt its dry warmth. I snatched mine away just as he asked my name.

‘Genevieve.’ Why did I tell him? Why did I always feel I had to do what people expected of me?

‘Well, Genevieve. You’re running out of time. Better get on with it.’

Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside. The security guard must be coming back. My heart crashed against my chest. It was now or never.

I snatched up the kitchen shears and lunged forward. Grasping the penis, I closed them around it and snipped. The wool was tough, and I tried sawing, then shifted it into the bone cutter notch. That did the job. It came away so light in my hand.

‘Come on, quick.’ Jim grabbed my book bag and took my elbow, hustling me towards the door. ‘Hide it.’ He whispered.

I looked down stupidly at the penis, then shoved it into the pocket of my ripped jeans. Walked fast with him to the door. We passed the security guard.

‘Good night. Great exhibition,’ Jim said to him, smiling confidently. He tugged me into a faster walk, yanking me through a door onto the staircase. Time seemed to slow down. I noticed the chipped paint on the wall and the pull of the rubber edges on the stairs against my boots as we clattered down to ground level. I stumbled as we burst through the fire door into the entrance hall. I pulled up the hood on my coat to cover my tell-tale hair.

A uniformed staff member pointed at the door. ‘We’re closing.’

As we passed her, I pulled forward, wanting to run, but he kept a tight hold of my arm. We marched through the open glass doors onto the concrete riverside walk. I looked out at the mysterious, swirling waters of the Thames and beyond, rows of lit windows on the great, grey buildings on the other side. Glancing from left to right, I wondered where to run. My shoulder yanked as he pulled me in a fast walk away from the gallery. I wrestled my arm away from him and glanced up at his face. As I caught his eye, he laughed, revealing straight, white teeth, and I laughed, too, exhilarated, and broke into a run.

‘This way,’ he said, racing past me. I followed him up a narrow flight of stairs.

A chill wind spat icy shards of rain in my face, but I was on a high, immune to the elements. My hand reached again for the lump in my pocket. I did it! Jim led me away from the river to a smart little tapas bar. It was half empty but warm, and salsa music chirped cheerfully as we made our way to a table in the corner. I tried to slow my frantic breathing and smelled sweet paprika and garlic as we hung our coats on the backs of the chairs and sat opposite each other.

'Corona beer, please,' he said to the server. He only sounded a little out of breath. 'And you? Perhaps a Sangria? I nodded.

As we waited for the drinks, I felt the adrenaline seep away. I became aware that he was a complete stranger. Why had he helped me? I looked at the door. Would they have noticed yet? Were there security cameras in the gallery? Of course there were. But were they directed at Amanda’s work? I didn’t even check. What an idiot. When the waiter brought my wine, I glugged the first half fast, planning to leave. I started to get up.

‘Wait. I’m your partner in crime,’ he said.

I opened my mouth to speak and closed it again. He could report me.

‘From the beginning.’ He smiled, leaning forward, and I found myself talking, telling him my life story.

'My Mum's the stern one. Tough on what's right and wrong, if you know what I mean.' I described the rolling countryside where I grew up and the muddy walks my father dragged me on. My parents' Christian zeal and oppressive requirement for me to be helpful and involved in village life.

‘The other kids teased me for being square.' I tried to forget what else they called me. The pale, red-haired lump of lard that I was. Weirdly, when I thought about that place, it always appeared in my mind devoid of colour, even though I knew that the grass was verdant, the autumnal woods gold and umber, and the skies in the summer cornflower blue, when it wasn’t raining, of course. My memories were grey, with a sepia tinge, like old photographs. Somewhere I didn’t want to return.

I can remember my precise words. 'To be honest, I'm really enjoying the freedom of living in London.' It was an obvious fabrication. The back of my throat was dry and sticky. No freedom. Just a barrage of assignments, writing about art I hated. Dying a little bit more every day. Then Amanda, telling me I was beautiful. Constantly sketching me and showing me her huge, splashy canvases. She brought colour into my life. Made me feel alive and wanted. Loved, even. Until her debut exhibition. I looked up and realised I had stopped speaking for a long time. He must have seen the desolation on my face.

Jim spoke so easily, filling the awkward pauses I created. He described himself as ‘a civil engineer between projects’. I was grateful for the breathing space while my mind raced through scenarios. Police crashed through my bedsit door. Dad’s disappointed face. Mum’s anger.

'I've just finished overseeing mending a dam in the reservoirs of South Wales. Today, I had a meeting about possible new postings.'

‘What will you do next?’ My elbow was on the table, and I rested my chin on my hand. Noticed his eyebrows were like shapely cornrows. Textured blond, rose, brown. Nose straight, perfectly round nostrils flaring out on either side.

'I'm hoping to snare a big one. A site manager post. Probably overseas, somewhere remote where more experienced guys are less keen to go. They prefer if you’re married, though.’ His hopeful expression dropped, and a small, worried frown appeared on his forehead.

I felt a little lift in my chest, though. To know he wasn’t married.

‘Why would they prefer that?’ I asked.

‘I guess married couples are more stable in remote and difficult locations. Too many guys have got culture shock and gone doolally in the past.'

Perhaps he wouldn’t get the job and would stick around here a bit longer. I realised that I hoped he would. Maybe we’d meet again. Stupid thought. Do not pass go. Go directly to jail. What was I going to do? The long, hard lump in my pocket pressed against my thigh. I had to get rid of the evidence, but it was pointless. They’d find me on the security cameras somewhere. When Amanda saw, she’d know it was me and tell them. ‘I think you’ll like it when you see it,’ she had told me. That duplicitous smile replayed again in my mind. Why did she do it?

Groping for a topic to keep the conversation going, I asked, ‘Why were you at the gallery today? Art and engineering don’t usually mix.’

'I read about it somewhere. As the company's office was near the gallery, I thought I'd come and see what all the fuss was about.'

I had seen the headlines. Pornography or Art? Erotic British Wool. Prudes threaten Modern Art Censorship. It occurred to me that he hadn’t answered my question. Fair enough, I hadn’t answered his.