Freeing Irsty

NOTE: For the month of October my wife and I exchanged our home in New Zealand with a couple living on Long Island, New York. This tale arose from that visit; I scribbled down the opening when sitting in the art gallery herein named. Enjoy. – Author.

*

An autumn chill in the breeze under overcast skies persuaded Merrick to choose an indoor activity on his second day in New York. Unaware he was deciding his fate for years hence he decided to visit a gallery.

Checking his notebook in the closing minutes of his train trip in from Bellmore on Long Island, Merrick turned up a recommendation from a business associate back in Auckland: "Frick Collection for Old Masters and glorious Garden Court – worth lingering."

Normally one doesn't expect a romantic interlude in real time to arise from a viewing of a private collector's magnificent 40-year collection of 14th to 19th century art. Certainly nothing was further from Merrick's mind at his introduction to the work of the French rococo painter Boucher and Veronese and a reintroduction to the enduring artistry of El Greco, Goya, Gainsborough and Rembrandt from his travels to the Old World. Indeed, in the South Hall where he was lost in his own little world of visual concentration on a work by Vermeer - a 17th century Dutch master whom he was familiar only through the film, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' - he stepped back to lengthen the perspective and so began an extraordinary adventure.

"Ouch!" yelped the victim of the heel of his new leather boot as it met resistance.

Good God, I've stepped on someone, Merrick rued. But it was worse than that.

The thrust of his tan cowboy boot anchored to a 168-pound frame had hit and slid down the leg of a woman standing behind him, tearing her stocking and gouging before being deflected by her ankle to thump on the hard-surfaced floor.

The woman reached out for support.

Merrick grasped that outstretched hand and swung his left-hand around her waist as she fell. Gently he lowered her to a sitting position.

In and instant he'd pulled out his handkerchief - fortunately a folded and unused one - and dabbed away the blood before the first of two gallery attendants arrived at a run. He still had not offered an apology.

"Go," hissed the woman. "Go!"

The urgency in the victim's voice persuaded the foreigner to slip through the small gathering of people. He'd assumed she wanted him to vanish for good reason, whatever that was. Aware that Americans litigate at the drop of a hat, he assumed that the woman was generously removing him from that expensive equation.

Thereafter Merrick was unable to concentrate on the paintings and other artwork, so sat in the garden court with its marble floor, fountain and pools – an area that originally had been a drive-in for horse-drawn carriages.

The woman: was there some deeper reason for her hurrying him away? The incident and minor injury in the hands of a good attorney could have been worth $20,000 probably very much more to her.

Who was she?

Scrunching his face, Merrick tried to reconstruct her appearance: Blonde hair - short blonde hair, exquisite sunglasses probably Italian, very red lips, a black-knit poncho over her shoulders and beneath that a red - possibly a red-patterned shirt, a short black skirt and a black stockings now one torn - Merrick was very sure about that – though he remembered seeing only one leg, a rather shapely leg encased on a black shoe with a silver buckle. Presumably it was one of a pair.

A spy, or a more likely an under-cover cop? That would explain why she'd shooed him away.

What was her name? She looked like a Susan or perhaps a Marlene.

Bullshit!

He had no idea whether she was white, brown, hazel or yellow or was pretty or a hag. Wait a minute - she was pretty. Although the face was twisted in pain the lips were full and the skin appeared unblemished.

Ah-ha, Merrick thought. He knew virtually everything about this woman but her name. Then his head sunk as he realised he was bending the truth again.

Was she fat, thin or middling? He had no idea.

Her age would be?

Was she right or left handed?

Presumably when she hissed 'Go!' that meant English was her first language unless she was smart enough to recognise him as English-speaking by his sympathetic appearance, thus switching from Egyptian, Spanish, Russian or Mandarin to bid him in English to depart pronto.

This full-on and flawed speculation about this unknown woman left Merrick feeling a little aggrieved. In forty-nine hours in New York she'd been the only person with whom he'd been in contact who had not been a taxi driver, hotel clerk, bellboy, room maid, waitress or store assistant and he'd let the chance of meaningful contact with a bone-fide New Yorker - assuming she was one - slip away without her conversation in shorthand drawing a reply from him.

Merrick Jamieson chastised himself: what absolute crap you let run through your mind at times. Encounters of the meaningful kind don't happen to the likes of you in a place as impersonal as New York.

At that a curly-haired tot clutching a doll came up to Merrick and said shyly, "Hullo. I'm Kate."

Frantically Merrick tried to form a suitable reply but before he could utter that response the mom pulled the child away, glaring at Merrick.

"It's not your day for memorable encounters with the opposite sex, is it?"

Huh?

The seated Merrick turned slightly to his left and looked straight into a midriff covered partly by a red patterned shirt and black skirt over a flat belly. He knew it was ungentlemanly to make such an assessment, but there it was. Up went his gaze climbing over a well formed bust, over a strong chin line devoid of hanging flab and across red lips showing a slash of teeth. By now he realized this woman was the victim of his cowboy boot.

The face was tanned, the blonde hair was cut short with curly ends and the eyes viewed from his low vantage point were smiling in tune with the lips but their colouring remained uncertain him. Merrick, being a photographer, placed great importance on the shape, colour and expression of a person's eyes at any given moment.

He jumped to his feet.

Christ, she was as tall as he was - six-one!

"Oh, how wonderful to see you again, giving me the chance to apologize. I was such a clumsy fool to step back without looking.

"I was ..."

"Hush. A simple apology is quite sufficient. Thank you for that I just wanted to say thank you for catching me. I could have had a nasty fall. Would you have coffee with me?"

"Yes, yes. I welcome that. I am very new in New York and was hoping to converse with locals."

"You have rather a dramatic way of effecting introductions."

"Oh no, I ..."

Merrick was stopped by the stunning smile below trendy sun glasses. God, she was absolutely beautiful!

Aware of her intent gaze he refrained from checking out her body but already the signals were that it was A-OK. How on earth had he managed to get a Dream Girl as his first real social contact in a city the size of New York? He refrained from mouthing a one-line prayer of thanks.

"Well, I shall lead the way but before doing so we introduce ourselves. I'm Kirsty, Kirsty Fallon."

"Hello, Kirsty. I am Merrick Jamieson. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"My word, how gallant you are. Are you English?"

"No."

"Australian?"

"No, but very close."

"My God, a New Zealander! I've always wanted to meet a New Zealander. My parents were stationed there for two years - daddy was in oil. I have this interest because my mother believed that I was conceived in your city of Wellington during their last two weeks of every-night-a-party or a formal dinner before they left your country. She recalls daddy was the randiest he'd ever been."

"How remarkable; so had your father's appointment been for a further year you would have been born a Kiwi?"

"Excuse me?"

"Born a New Zealander - we call ourselves Kiwis after the name of our unique native bird."

"Oh, really? Well, I guess instead I became a Bald Eagle?"

They both laughed, and the warmth of Merrick's laughter and the openness of his face - as Kirsty would tell him later - was the reason why as they came out of the Frick Mansion on East 70th Street, that she hailed a taxi. The intention had been to walk to a pleasant location for coffee. Instead they went to an address in East 102 Street.

"We shall go to where I live to have that coffee - I do not feel my usual immaculate self walking along sidewalks with a damaged stocking and tape over my wound."

"That I can understand," Merrick said, sucking in breath to avoid an apologetic replay. He turned to her, confident that his sympathetic smile would not be wasted.

At that Kirsty revealed a curiosity.

"Do you have a family connection with New York?"

"Yes. Is that a perceptive question or a shot in the dark or simply making conversation?"

"Oh my, now which one of those shall I select to create the impression that I am a New York sophisticate? I believe perceptiveness has an intelligent ring. The link I have is your name, Merrick. We have a place on Long Island of that name."

Merrick was impressed, and said so.

"What a boyish thing to say - New York men would not think to compliment a stranger on her intelligence."

"Well, are you a stranger? After all, you're carrying my brand mark?"

At that they both wordlessly watching the cab driver, waiting for the traffic lights to change, look at them curiously in his interior mirror.

Traffic moved forward again.

"My mother was born on Long Island," Merrick explained. She went to New Zealand with her family when she was sixteen, absolutely devastated, believing that her life was over - her prime years at high school being taken from her.

"Incredibly for her it was like a cygnet changing into a swan. Instead of being a run-of-the-mill student in a big American high school she became the most glamorous, vivacious and popular student in her Auckland girls' college, so she recalls, and, as they now say, really found her grove. She became head girl of that college and met my father who was deputy head boy at the neighbouring college. They went through university together and became teachers and later married and had four children, I being the first-born."

Kirsty remained puzzled.

"That's a lovely little story, but I'm still awaiting enlightenment."

"About how I was conceived?"

The cab driver's eyes were glued to his rear vision mirror again.

"No, you fool. How you got the name Merrick."

Merrick was enjoying this intimacy; all this brought about by simply walking backwards onto this lovely woman. He thought she would give him ten years, which would make her twenty-five. Entering her prime! He wondered if she was thinking uncouth thoughts about him.

"I'm sorry. Did I upset you calling you a fool? I was only chiding."

Well, why not be truthful? "Sorry, I was just thinking how fortunate it was that I snaked my big cowboy boot down your leg, peeling open your stocking and cutting into your ankle."

Their taxi screeched to a halt, and with a light clunk went bumper to bumper with the yellow cab in front. That driver gave three sharp blasts on his horn while their driver gave one short blast and an apologetic, submissive salute out of his window. Obviously he'd been mirror gazing again.

"Fortunate?"

"I am in the company of a genuine New Yorker and enjoying every minute of it."

"Well, you are refreshingly frank. I hope you are not thinking this is your lucky day?"

"Not at all, at least not in that sense. We seem to have bonded socially, that's all."

The eyes of the driver were in the mirror again.

"This is One-oh-Two coming up," reprimanded Kirsty. Wordlessly the driver turned into the right lane at the first opportunity.

"My mother wanted an American name for me, and names like Hank, Troy, Spencer and Zach were rather frowned upon in our little country. So she decided to be inventive and give me a Long Island name. She'd lived in Massapequa, which was not a suitable name for a young Kiwi lad, so she called me after the arterial route she and her family travelled very frequently."

"Yes - Merrick Road. How innovative. Well, here we are."

She handed a bill to the driver, told him to keep the change and was getting out of the cab while Merrick was still struggling to haul out his wallet.

"You have a great time in New York - do you hear, Kiwi?" Merrick thanked the driver for those kind words and followed Kirsty.

Kirsty and Merrick emerged from the elevator and Kirsty unlocked a door a little way down the hall. The hallway was extensively tiled with good artwork on the walls, a bowl of fresh flowers opposite the elevator and everything was clean and well-lit - completely unlike most apartments Merrick had seen in movies.

As he entered behind Kirsty - who Merrick had noticed thankfully was not limping – he noticed the apartment was a luxuriously appointed, though not quite to the standard of the hotel room he recalled seeing in the film, 'Pretty Woman'.

A swift inspection of the main area that he would call a lounge sobered Merrick. His lady friend was obviously married and to a strong-willed male at that. The room was decidedly masculine apart from flowers, two paintings that could be feminine choices and the coffee table was piled with women's magazines.

Kirsty turned to him and said coolly, "I would have told you this in the cab, but that driver was exceptionally nosey. The man who leases this apartment has a home and wife in Atlantic City and another lady friend like me in an apartment in Chicago. He has business interests in all three cities. So that's where we're at. If it no longer suits you to be in my company – well, there's the door."

"No, it's fine. How's your leg?"

"Painful, to tell the truth."

"Let's get this bandage off and look at it."

Kirsty looked at him in surprise.

"You are a guest here for coffee, not a medic."

Merrick steered her gently by the shoulders to the sofa. Initially she resisted but as he applied power she slumped on to the seat.

"Turn your back while I unhitch," she commanded.

Merrick heard two faint snaps and realised that she wasn't wearing thigh highs. That pleased him as he was a fan of garter belts, although his interest in this instance was elementary. Involuntarily his eyes closed and he had a vision of a beautifully encased leg in a stocking with a woman's long, sensuous fingers undoing the last fastener. Obviously that was a long forgotten image from some woman's magazine.

"The wait is over," she said softly.

Merrick turned and smiled at her, receiving a lovely response from lush, slightly parted lips. She'd taken off her sunglasses and the perimeter of her eyes were beautifully made up to enhance the pale blue eyes,

She was lying back on cushions; the short skirt covered her modestly. The injured leg was up on a cushion and the fine patterned by torn stocking remained in place. "They put a plaster on the cut in the gap through the stocking. The bandage was then placed over the top of the stocking at my insistence. Are you OK in removing the bandage and then the stocking or should I do it?"

"No. I volunteered and would be offended if my services were now to be rejected."

"Very well, Nurse Merrick. Proceed. No need to be overly careful as I have good tolerance to pain."

Merrick unrolled the bandage, pleased that there was no sign of blood seepage. The patient cooperated by lifting her leg without being asked as he prepared to roll the unfastened stocking off. Gently he raised a corner of the plaster. Gripping it he looked into the cool pale eyes and said, "There's no sign of seepage, which is good."

At that, with a wrist flick, he pulled off the plaster, noticing only a slight flicker in those blue eyes. "You may cry now."

The smile revisited her face.

It was Merrick's turn to smile as he bent over the wound for a close inspection. The cut was not particularly deep.

"There should be no scar provided we keep this wound clean."

"We?"

"Used figuratively."

"Oh."

That response sounded tinged in disappointment. Merrick resisted looking at her, not wishing to display surprise. This woman was beginning to lift his heart-beat. He looked around the room and his gaze rested on the entrance door. Kirsty read his mind.

"He's at home for the holiday weekend - Monday is Columbus Day."

Merrick beamed at her, attempting to conceal his delight by asking brightly, "Where do I find anti-septic ointment and plasters?"

"The cupboard above the fruit bowl in the kitchen, second shelf."

The kitchen was immaculate - not a sign of a dirty dish or anything out of place. Even the mauve bra and bikini pants and a flimsy night-dress on a clothes horse against the glass door opening on to a balcony were neatly arranged, signalling that even if Kirsty were a slut at least she was a tidy slut. Slut? He felt guilty as if he'd brutalised her mentally. The woman was entitled to earn a living the way she chose, and at least she was not trolling the streets as far as he knew. Would she be pre-judging him like that? Not likely.

Merrick strolled back into the living room with ointment, plaster and a tube of arnica.

"Look, to counter bruising," he said triumphantly, then stopped, realising that she was asleep.

After treating the wound and placing the throw rug from the back of the couch over her, Merrick wandered around the room looking at the paintings and knickknacks. If the furnishings did not belong to the owner of the apartment it was obvious that Mr Lucky was here for the long-haul.

Mr Lucky?

That question startled Merrick. He'd already assessed her as being a desirable – er- companion and that, for him, was entirely normal. But surprisingly he'd advanced into making a valued judgement – responding emotionally with concern about her personal relationship with someone else. He felt rising jealousy; attempts to whisper denials died in his throat, no doubt strangled by guilt.

An hour earlier he'd behaved like a yokel, lunging backwards into this woman and hurting her, and now he was on the verge of thinking about mounting a seduction. He shook his head in wonderment - did this mean his post-divorce depression had lifted?

Let it be!

Walking lighter and perhaps even a little taller with the possibility of being released of that self-imposed loading following the divorce he'd never wanted, he revisited the bathroom. Looking around as he stood over the toilet he saw it was expensively fitted out and the bath seemed exceptionally long, prompting visions of Kirsty soaking at one end and Mr Hairy Chest - Merrick grinned, noticing the change from Mr Lucky - lying besotted at the other end of the bath.

Finishing up, he didn't yield to his inquisitive temptation as a journalist to check out the cabinet behind the wall mirror that would reveal in a flash numerous indicators of personal intimacies. Brand preferences for mouth wash, toothpaste, dental floss, razor, talc powder and the like. He'd forgo that sneaky review of cupboard contents, thus avoiding of the possibility of being faced with a pile of contraceptives; that was not an image he wanted to retain of his Kirsty.

Merrick smiled thinly. So already she was his Kirsty. Oh great, and what had he done to earn that accord? Accepted her kind invitation to coffee and gently put on a clean plaster? This air of the Big Apple is doing crazy things to your mind, he thought, adding, Get a life!

The bedroom was dominated by the bed. It was huge, with pink satin drapes on the wall behind it tied back with gold braid cords and behind that between the drapes was a painting of a knight on a white horse fording a stream in woods and in his arms was a golden-haired princess. The instant Merrick looked at the princess he was aware it Kirsty he saw looking up into the face of the knight with absolute adoration. The bastard had commissioned this painting!