Holly scribbled furiously in her sketchbook, charcoal powder flying as she sketched out wide, angular shapes, shading them according to some light scheme that made little sense, except in the context of the drawing. She never used fixative spray in her sketchbook, revelling in the way that the pictures smudged and changed over time, as if falling away into darkness. It only added to the mood.
Her pictures always tended towards the dark, however much she wanted to vary her style. The tutors at college always tried to steer her towards new artistic pastures but she never produced anything worthwhile when she wasn't conjuring up some sort of approximation of the wretched or the obscure. She didn't feel she was suffering from any kind of depression though, far from it. She rarely felt the teenage angst that she supposed she had every right to feel due to her mother's disappearance and her father's disappointingly regular neglect, although she had been furious with him after his latest mistake. She probably wouldn't have been so angry if he hadn't made such a point of his intention to come. He had built her expectations just to fall into his old habits once again.
She had learned a tenacious self-sufficiency that she hoped would serve her well in the future, although she did also secretly fear that it would lead her to become some sort of wizened recluse, eating the same soup every day and sketching her cat. In charcoal, of course.
This latest development with her father had shaken her a little though. It had been a long time since he had fallen into that unnerving catatonic state that had plagued him in her youth and its re-emergence was not welcome. Although she didn't feel the same desperation that her mother had obviously felt, it struck up a primal fear in her, as if she were in danger whenever it happened. The feeling was ludicrous of course; it was not as if he were her bodyguard. The knowledge that it was an irrational fear did not help it dissipate though, as it sat at the back of her mind, waiting to re-emerge...
The sudden ringing of her mobile gave her a start. She laid down the sketchbook carefully (her dad had gone spare the last time she had scattered charcoal across the sofa) and picked it up, smiling a little when she saw the number.
“Hiya,” she said, settling back into the cushions. It was Eric, calling to discuss another obscure album he'd dug up no doubt. He'd been pestering her ever since she'd started browsing his father's tatty independent record shop a year ago, though the attention was for the most part welcome. He wasn't anything special looks-wise but had a wealth of charm and useless but fascinating information. Silver tongue, diamond mind. He could do with a shave once in a while though, as he always had a shaggy beard that made him look about ten years older than his real age of nineteen.
“Afternoon,” came his voice at the other end.
“Why are you calling me at this time of day? Shouldn't you be working?” she asked playfully.
“I am, well... the codger in the corner is satisfied with the service he received, so that's one hundred percent of the customers,” came the reply, followed by a sigh. His voice had a strange croak to it sometimes, even though he always insisted he'd never smoked. Maybe it was a natural timbre.
“Slow day?” she asked, inspecting a chip in her fingernail.
“The slowest. Everyone's staying at home. It's supposed to get busier towards Christmas, not quieter,” said Eric, not sounding particularly angry at the state of affairs, simply bored.
“Maybe people don't buy second hand LPs for their loved ones...” said Holly, leaning over to pick up her glass of water from the awkwardly positioned coffee table, purposefully far away from the sofa so as to stop Holly from putting her feet on it. As she did so she accidentally knocked the sketch pad from her lap and it slid onto the carpet, scattering black dust as it fell open. She swore to herself as she dusted her legs off.
“Not again...” she whispered, trying to wipe a black smudge from the sofa.
“Eh?”
“Nothing... do you fancy some company? I'm seeing my granddad at four but I can pop in for half an hour if you want,” she asked.
“Please... I'm going out of my mind. Bring me a milkshake from the newsagent on the way will you?”
“Strawberry?”
“You know me well.”
“Lady-boy,” she said, smirking.
“Hey, I'm not ashamed to be in touch with my feminine side. I'll see you later, another customer has just walked in. This... is a rush. In a bit!”
He hung up. Holly sighed and pulled a cushion over the charcoal stain on the sofa as a stopgap and started getting ready to leave. As she was heading out she decided to leave a note telling her dad where she was going, after all, she could hardly retain the moral high ground when it came to keeping track of him if she was just as bad as him...
As she put the note down on the coffee table she realised she had left the sketchbook open on the floor. As she bent to pick it up she noticed that the shapes that she had been drawing looked different from this new angle, coming together and coalescing into a face, dark, serene, angular and beautiful. It was an angel. She nodded to herself in satisfaction as she closed the pad. She hadn't even meant to do that. She must be better than she thought.