She beat him to it. Her voice was almost imploring: 'Just a cup of coffee, Harry.'
* * *
There was the same chandelier hanging from the ceiling high above the same table and chairs in the large sitting room. Harry thought the walls had been light–white or maybe yellow–but he wasn't sure. Now they were blue and the room seemed smaller. Perhaps Anna had wanted to reduce the space. It is not easy for one person living alone to fill a flat with three reception rooms, two big bedrooms and a ceiling height of three and a half metres. Harry remembered that Anna had told him her grandmother had also lived in the flat on her own, but she hadn't spent so much time here, as she had been a famous soprano and had travelled the world for as long as she was able to sing.
Anna disappeared into the kitchen and Harry looked around the sitting room. It was bare, empty, apart from a vaulting horse the size of an Icelandic pony, which stood in the middle on four splayed wooden legs with two rings protruding from its back. Harry went over and stroked the smooth, brown leather.
'Have you taken up gymnastics?' Harry called out.
'You mean the horse?' Anna shouted back from the kitchen.
'It's for men, isn't it?'
'Yes. Sure you won't have a beer, Harry?'
'Quite sure,' he shouted. 'Seriously, though, why have you got it here?'
Harry jumped when he heard her voice behind his back: 'Because I like to do things that men do.'
Harry turned. She had taken off her sweater and was standing in the doorway. One hand resting on her hip, the other up against the door frame. At the very last minute Harry resisted the temptation to let his eyes wander from top to toe.
'I bought it from Oslo Gym Club. It's going to be a work of art. An installation. Much like "Contact", which I am sure you haven't forgotten.'
'You mean the box on the table with the curtain you could stick your hand in? And inside there were loads of false hands you could shake?'
'Or stroke. Or flirt with. Or reject. They had heating elements in so they could maintain body temperature and were such a great hit, weren't they. People thought there was someone hiding under the table. Come with me and I'll show you something else.'
He followed her to the furthest room, where she opened sliding doors. Then she took his hand and pulled him into the dark with her. When the light was switched on, at first Harry stood staring at the lamp. It was a gilt standard lamp formed into the shape of a woman holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other. Three bulbs were located on the outside edge of the sword, the scales and the woman's head, and when Harry turned, he could see each illuminated its own oil painting. Two of them were hanging on the wall while the third, which clearly wasn't finished yet, was on an easel with a yellow-and-brown-stained palette fastened to the left-hand corner.
'What sort of pictures are they?' Harry asked.
'They're portraits. Can't you see that?'
'Right. Those are eyes?' He pointed. 'And that's a mouth?'
Anna tilted her head. 'If you like. There are three men.'
'Anyone I know?'
Anna gazed at Harry pensively for a long time before answering. 'No. I don't think you know any of them, Harry, but you could get to know them if you really wanted.'
Harry studied the pictures more closely.
'Tell me what you can see.'
'I can see my neighbour with a kicksled. I can see a man coming out of the backroom at the locksmith's as I'm leaving. And I can see the waiter in M. And that TV celeb, Per Stĺle Lřnning.'
She laughed. 'Did you know that the retina reverses everything so your brain receives a mirror image first? If you want to see things as they really are, you have to see them in a mirror. Then you would have seen some quite different people in the pictures.' Her eyes were radiant and Harry couldn't bring himself to object that the retina didn't reverse images, it turned them upside down. 'This will be my final masterpiece, Harry. This is what I will be remembered for.'
'These portraits?'
'No, they're merely a part of the whole work of art. It's not finished yet. Just wait.'
'Mm, has it got a name?'
' "Nemesis",' she said in a low voice.
He gazed enquiringly at her and their eyes locked.
'After the goddess, you know.'
The shadow fell over one side of her face. Harry looked away. He had seen enough. The curve of her back begging for a dancing partner, one foot in front of the other as if unsure whether to move forwards or backwards, her heaving bosom and the slim neck with the veins he imagined he could see throbbing. He felt hot and a tiny bit faint. What was it she said? 'You shouldn't have been so quick to let go.' Had he been?