Reed is listening to the song and then he turns it off. His coattails have paint on, primarily because it reminds him of a painting his grandad painted, which was of a butterfly, a painted lady. The painted lady is a wonderful butterfly, fiery, honest, good-looking, understated. He wants to wrap himself in it.

He gets out of the car and the children all wear hoodies over their uniforms now? Very absurd thinks Reed. This part of the playground is the wrong part. He needs reception and he needs where the nursery school children are. He stubs his cig out on the red wall near reception and lets it drop to the ground.

‘Mr Reed. How nice to see you. Are you well.’ says a drowsy Mrs Humbert. She is staring at the screen, at a website about Gardening. A colourful worm spirals down.

‘I’m so well.’ says Reed comfortably. ‘How exactly is Greg?’

‘So very alright.’ says drowsy Humbert. ‘He’s one rotter of a husband sometimes, but at least he can’t stop loving me eh eh eh?’

Reed nods. He steps outside to wait, smoking a grey cigar.

Molly, oh Molly is so nice. She is the most talented girl in the class. She has a head and has feet and shoes to go with them. She makes pictures.

‘Molly. Wow. That really is something.’ says Mrs Humbert staring at her drawing from a respectful distance.

‘Thank you Mrs Humbert.’ says Molly in a voice.

Reed is sad. He is so sad. Reed’s sadness is a deep spear which he cannot get out. Reed’s sadness is a shocking memory helplessly uncovered. Reed’s sadness is a character and that character is pierced by sadness. When Reed was 11 and the girl turned him down, turned him down, he started his darkness. He worked his way into the sullen, thin panties of girls and he fucked them. He was immaculate at getting girls to come, and they never knew they could feel that way, they never knew anything could blow them out of the water like this. For the girls it was so much better than coming home from school and watching television. It was something to obsess over and it was something, one of those things, which flattens everything else with its newness and warps all contexts. They came to Reed for more.

‘I heard you made Becky do that thing.’ Lucy would say.

‘Yup. I made her do that.’ Reed would reply, a boy, cocky, thick-haired.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘It can do. But I’m very gentle Lucy.’ He would hold her fringe clumsily as a child and she would be won.

Then Lucy would have her small pants around her ankles and boy Reed would be kissing and tenderly licking in-between her legs. Lucy would be flushed and worried, panicking that she wouldn’t be able to stop wanting this.

Reed can still remember Lucy’s thin thighs, her diamond-patterned white socks.

And now Reed is an artist. He comes to the school to collect the drawings of the nursery-school children and then he chops them up with scissors, makes them look a wee bit cubist, and coats the inside of his car in their work. It’s a project that has been going on for almost a year now. Mrs Humbert is very used to his presence. They shared the tongs at a barbecue recently.

‘Hahahahahahaha.’ says Mrs Humbert, laughing at one of Reed’s barnstormingly funny jokes. She picks something up from the desk. ‘And here’s Molly’s latest.’

‘Oh this is just.’ says Reed, admiring and then admiring some more. He looks around, checks he has enough cigarettes in his pocket to make it home in the car.

‘Where is she? Has she gone, I suppose she’s gone.’

‘No actually Molly often stays and draws with the after-school club. It’s very mature of her I always think, I do, I always think it’s mature of her to stay here.’ she gabbles.

Reed approaches her. ‘Hello Molly.’

But the girl that turned Reed down. The turning point. He had traipsed over to a grey town near him to meet the girl. He bought his ticket, looked at the words, looked at the screens, got on. He could do it. He had done it. He was 11 and he was masterful, looking out at the cows who could never board a train, their green homes and bits of blue plastic, rusted red metal and white garden chairs lying in spinneys and small forests, as boy Reed in the train shot by.

He couldn’t wait to meet up with this girl. It seemed to be something reserved for older boys, this travel and this meeting, this unflinching rendezvous. Her name was Nicola. Nicola. Nerd boy Reed thought Nicola – Nickel (Ni) and cola. Eheheh. He was so good at science. But also art. He was ready.

Nicola was wearing a ghostly thin dress with translucent flowers stitched delicately into it. Reed was bowled over. He said

‘Um well. Hello Nicola.’

She smiled.

‘What did you want to do then?’

She smiled.

‘See a.’ Boy Reed wandered around near her. ‘Film?’

The grass was green. The birds whistled around town and a tree’s leaves were what people say is gold. ‘I’m sorry. This can’t work.’ said Nicola, looking away. She was 14.

It inverted Reed. He burnt the deck, went backwards.

And now Molly. He touches her shoulder.

Four days later Reed is smoking outside the school. The inside of his car is almost covered in kids’ drawings, colourful idealistic blossoms of what they know and how they can create it on paper. There is a still a gap though, and he can still see a bit of the dashboard.

He walks up to the reception. The cigarette is so close to the little mini Marlboro logo and it is such a disappointment. He throws it into a puddle.

‘Hello, hello, hello.’ He says drowsily to drowsy Mrs Humbert.

‘Hello Reed.’ she says, stapling a herd of children’s reports together. ‘You sound a bit drowsy today. Just drowsy is all, not sad exactly, not sad just, drowsy, under the weather I suppose.’ she gabbles. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘Everything is alright.’ Reed says, aware, sad.

‘She’s through here. She’s in the staff room today. It helps her think, being in the staff room.’

The staff room smells comfortingly of stale smoke. Molly, the prodigy, is scribbling away, colouring in a sun, crosshatching it with different shades.

‘Wow. That is just.’ says Reed.

Molly smiles.

‘How long have you been drawing Molly?’ asks Reed.

‘Ummmm. Mm. About since I was born.’ she says slowly, shyly.

Her grey dress is so small.

‘Really that long.’ says Reed, looking at her. ‘Wow.’

He touches the top of her leg.

‘What is this part here, why is the sun so many different colours?’

Molly moves in her seat. ‘Um because it should be that way. That’s how I think.’
She picks up another pencil. ‘It should be.’

Reed places his hand further up her bare leg.

‘Don’t stop drawing Molly. You’re so very very good.’ He kisses the top of her head and walks out of the room.

Mrs Humbert’s pussy smells of dry skin and is unwashed. Reed doesn’t mind, because he has drunk all the wine. He says to her ‘never has a woman smelt so good as you do’, breathing her in. Mrs Humbert smiles and sighs, lashes fluttering, far from bored. She’s fairly inexperienced, rusty, rustic.

‘I’m sorry Mr Reed, I know this is quite well uh uh, quite quite inappropriate, but I think I. Well I think I love you.’

He kisses her and the bed creaks, the kettle whistles, boiled.

The school trip to the sculpture garden is grand as Humbert presumed. All the kids are having a pretty much wail of a time. Mrs Humbert looks across at Reed, smiling in what she hopes is a bashful way. It is such a sunny day.

‘Hello I’m Kat, I’m your tour guide for today.’

Molly looks serene, glad with the whole thing. It’s important to culminate an early interest in the Arts said Mrs Humbert to Reed at that barbecue. Sometimes it’s necessary to force it.

Molly is sketching one of Moore’s reclining figures. Humbert & Reed walk towards her, her legs up in the air, alone.

‘I think you should become closer with your pupils.’ says Reed.

Molly’s family were actually okay with her staying at Mrs Humbert’s. Mrs Humbert said

‘Yes it’s only to discuss with her, in private, her artistic prowess. Yes she will be well looked after. Of course! We’re having auderves. Okay then. Thank you sir. Goodbye.’

Blindly, Humbert watches Reed hold Molly’s neck at the dinner table. He says ‘Molly, you are a rare child. Kids just aren’t as beautiful as you these days. Do you feel beautiful?’

Molly does doe eyes, shakes her head.

Reed tries to kiss her on the lips, but she breaks away, looks at him. Has no idea what to do.

Humbert knows what Reed means. What they were talking about, purity. She understands his feelings towards Molly. She sympathises completely. Later she will say

‘But Molly, the human body is beautiful. If you’re cold I’ll turn the heating up. She’s so boyish. She looks like a little cupid.’

©Andi Smith