The Poet and The Soldier

Eight.

Ten o'clock the next day finds Isadora Heroux sprawled upon her sofa with three cigarettes in one hand and a half-empty carton in the other.

"You really should keep your kitchen a bit cleaner," Gregson complains.

"Do you really think I'm stupid enough to hide drugs in the kitchen?" she calls out, bored. She regards the emergency carton of cigarettes she keeps secreted behind the sofa cushions, then shrugging, pulls out a fourth.

She's flicking the lighter when Gregson storms back into the living room and tries to snatch the cigarettes from her lips. She blocks his wrist, giving him a look.

He pulls back, holding his hands up in surrender.

"Just smoke one at a time, please," he begs. He waves at the small mountain of ash on the coffee table beside her, "I can tell you already had about fifty before I arrived."

Isadora just snorts, eyeing his fingertips. She lifts the lighter to her lips again, mumbling around her mouthful, "Hypocrite."

Gregson clearly bites back a retort, nicotine-stained fingers fisting at his side, before he exhales gustily and sits down. Isadora can hear the cogs turning.

"Isadora," he hesitates. Her gaze is fixed on her cigarettes. "I hope you know that I'm here for you. That we're all here for you, I mean, if you find yourself needing-"

"Oh for Christ's sake," she groans, arching off the sofa. "I went to the clinic, I sat in those group therapy sessions with idiots who didn't know a verb from a noun, and I stopped doing all the drugs! Well," she amends at his pointed look at the cigarettes, "all the fun ones anyway."

"Hey," Gregson leans forward sharply. "Don't talk like that. I mean, Jesus, I don't think you understand what it was like, how it felt-" She rolls her eyes. "How I felt," he grinds out, "needing to track your goddamn phone to find you lying in an alleyway with half your clothes ripped off and your pupils as wide as fucking dinner plates-"

He shuts up, dropping his face into his hands, breathing heavily. Isadora blows out a steady stream of smoke, and closes her eyes.

There's a pause as potent as a loaded gun, then a hesitant knock on the door.

Ah, her client. "Answer it," Isadora commands, her eyes still shut.

She listens to the rustling of Gregson's suit as he rises and navigates his way through the mess. The door opens, and light breeze stirs the curls on her forehead, the air from the corridor thick with the stench of paint from apartment C. Despite the apartment being in the basement, the heady fumes have managed to permeate almost the entire building.

There's some murmured conversation as Gregson introduces himself to Connor Brown as her publicist, and Brown attempts to explain why he is carrying what appears to be a few forests' worth of photo albums in straining plastic bags.

There are footsteps, a small crash followed by profuse apologies, and Brown enters looking terrifically awkward.

"Over here," Isadora flops her hand at a clean spot on the floor within reaching distance.

Brown deposits his load then straightens, rubbing his hands together. Isadora doesn't miss how they tremble, and his eyes keep darting towards her cigarettes.

"Would you like a drink?" Gregson asks politely. It's what the man's paid to do after all: maintain her image with the public. "Tea, water?"

"Oh. Tea would be nice, thanks."

Isadora tries to block out the meaningless small talk by opening the photo albums.

They're all titled with fancy pink letters, and the one she chooses is filled with photos of a small baby and labels like 'Anna with Mummy!' and 'Anna's first smile!'

Isadora's absent page flipping stops. The baby's lips are stretched, exposing the pink gums; her round, chubby face crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her eyes. They're huge, and so dark it's impossible to differentiate the iris from the pupil. Isadora thinks back to the eyes of drug addicts twitching in underground dens, but the comparison is so wrong she discards it immediately. She frowns.

"If you don't mind me asking," Gregson's voice cuts through her focus like a mosquito's whine. "What have you commissioned from Isadora? It's a slightly unusual situation, you must understand, so I'm curious."

Isadora picks up another album; the young girl in this one is often pictured with a little boy. She's taller, some of the roundness of her face gone, but her eyes are still pitch black.

"Ah. It's for my sister. She, uh, was recently killed in action. In Afghanistan."

"Oh. I'm very sorry to hear that," Gregson says.

Isadora shakes her head, irritated.

"So I suppose you have some interviews lined up then, so Isadora can get an idea of your sister?"

Huge, dark eyes. Dark. Very dark, like black holes, drawing you in.

"No, actually."

"No?" Gregson sounds rather surprised; Isadora has no idea why the man thinks himself subtle. "What about contact details for her friends?"

No, that's not right. Black holes have connotations of destruction.

"No."

This infant, this girl's eyes do not connote destruction.

"Military files?" Gregson asks.

"Well, no. you see, Heroux - I mean Isadora, told me not to tell her anything about Anna, and that she just needed all my photographs. She told me to bring them over today."

They're more like...

"Right, okay." Gregson takes a moment. "And just to clarify, sorry, she's planning on writing a meaningful eulogistic poem in honour of your sister, who gave her life to protect our country, with only pictures - which you won't explain to her - for reference."

Like ink. Pools of ink.

Brown takes an uncertain sip of his tea. "Yes?"

Gregson twists to give Isadora a look so pointed it would pop lead balloons. "Isadora," he says.

Anna Brown's eyes are like pools of ink, just waiting for Isadora to wet her pen and-

"Isadora," Gregson repeats warningly.

And-

"Isadora!"

"For God's sake, get the fuck out," she explodes.

The two men freeze, looking vaguely gobsmacked. Brown, rather comically, has frozen mid-sip, whilst Gregson is recovering, summoning his death glare.

"Out! Out out out," she chants, manhandling them to their feet then shoving them towards the door.

Gregson turns around on the threshold, only to receive a face-full of coats. He stumbles back a step, barely managing to jam his foot in between the door and the frame. He tosses the coats to one side and meets Isadora's narrowed eyes through the gap.

"You said," Gregson says quickly, "you promised me that you weren't going to push yourself too hard."

"I can assure you that I am fully capable of handling this project. Now, goodbye, Gregson."

He winces as the pressure on his foot increases. "Yes, yes I know, we all know how good you are. Your work speaks for itself. But not even the greatest poet can create art out of nothing, you know that."

Isadora says nothing.

"So please, just be careful," Gregson's voice drops. "We don't want to - I, never want to see you end up like you were before. Alright?"

Isadora's scowl becomes thunderous. Gregson waits.

"Okay, yes, fine," she growls. "Now go."

Gregson removes his foot and the door slams in his face. He sighs, rubbing his forehead, before bending to pick up the discarded coats.

"What should I do with this?" Connor asks. Gregson turns around to find Connor holding out his still-warm cup of tea, his expression a picture of perplexity.