The door opened and he pivoted towards the young woman who’d stepped into the gallery. Younger than he was, anyway, and wearing a fitted rose-patterned dress, curls the colour of liquid honey tumbling to her waist. “Good afternoon,” he smiled.
“Hello.” She sounded exhilarated, as if something exciting had just happened outside in the street. He glanced past her into an ordinary June day, post Whitsun, pre-summer, the sunshine warm but not to be relied upon. He shifted some of the paintings to give her room.
“Oh sorry, are you open?” she said.
“I am, just having a bit of a reshuffle.”
She smiled, gestured vaguely. “Can I … ?”
“Help yourself.” He returned to the older canvases, began carrying them one at a time into his workshop, sliding them carefully into the rack he had built for just this purpose. The only other furniture in the room was the chest, littered with Jem’s drawings and the pastels she’d been trying out last time she was here, a couple of stools, and his easel bearing a half-finished painting. He looked at it, decided he would stay here this evening and paint until the light faded, make the most of this gift of freedom. After a few minutes he heard the lilt of the voice of the woman in the rose-patterned dress and he stepped back into the gallery. “Sorry?”
“Oh. I was wondering, are they all yours?”
“Most of them. The ones on this wall – ” He indicated the relevant corner “ – are the work of a couple of friends of mine, also local artists. But yeah, I’m responsible for everything else, I’m afraid.”
She smiled at his self-deprecating tone and turned, flatteringly, away from his friends’ art to inspect his. “Technically?” she said. “I know nothing. If I were try to sound clever I’d probably say all the wrong things and expose myself as a hopeless ingénue. But I think these are beautiful.”
“That really isn’t the wrong thing to say.”
She laughed, strolling from one picture to another, her head slightly on one side, eyes narrowed. “What I love is the way you capture atmosphere, the way you convey a sense of a place through – well – paint. It’s magical.”
“Thank you.”
She grinned. “So that’s the opinion of the uneducated.”
“What can I say? Even ingénues know what they like.”
“I do know what I like. And I’m going to buy one.”
“Really?”
“Of course really. Don’t I look like a serious buyer to you?” She was teasing him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation like this. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this precise stirring in his veins. He allowed himself to watch her while she prowled in front of his paintings. She was lovely, the sharpness of her features softened by her hair and her smile, her vitality. Finally she selected a scene set at Clodgy Point in winter, the smack of the sea against the rocks, darkened skies, blue-black waves, an energy and intimation of danger which he felt he’d almost caught. “You can taste the spray,” she said.
“Sometimes,” he lifted the painting from it hook, “I try to represent the Cornwall the tourists don’t always see.”
“The drama and the isolation?”
“Exactly.” He wrapped the picture for her. She picked up one of the promotional leaflets he’d had printed from the counter.
“Can I take one of these?”
“Of course.”
She wrote him a cheque. He watched her hand holding the pen, the loose curling tendrils of her hair, the shape of her mouth. “There!” She smiled. “Thank you. It will take pride of place.”
Nothing had happened, he reminded himself, after she’d gone and he was alone again among his canvases and empty space, feeling as guilty and as aroused as if he had lifted her hair and kissed the tanned skin where her shoulder curved towards her neck.
Nothing had happened.
Chapter Twenty-five
The train is surprisingly quiet, late-morning, mid-week, out-of-season, and Gil and I have an area of the carriage all to ourselves. It’s in pristine condition and the seats are huge: Utopian train travel. “I can’t believe,” I tell him, “you bought first class tickets.”
“I didn’t realise, I was too stressed. I thought they were expensive.” He bundles our rucksacks into the compartments above our heads and sits down. We are going to be sitting opposite each other, on three different trains, all the way to Venice. I remember when seeing his black and white image in a newspaper made my heart race, when he could arouse me without touching me. Now we can’t even look each other in the face.
“There is no escape, is there, on a train?” I observe. “You’re trapped, unless you jump off or climb onto the roof like in Indiana Jones. Now you’re going to tell me there’s no escape anyway.”
He gestures – you got it. He’s bought a copy of The Times, which he would never read at home, from the station and put it on the table between us. We gaze at headline news of climate change and war in oil-rich countries and global economic recession. I wish it had the power to depress me. The train jerks and begins to slide, soundlessly, along the platform. I watch Nice Ville disappear into the distance. “You should sleep,” he tells me.
“It’s only an hour to Ventimiglia.”
He closes his eyes.
“We could play I-Spy.”
“Jesus,” he says without opening them. “It’s like being with a fucking child.”
I study the folded newspaper. There will be a crossword in it, but it’ll be too hard for me. I think of Dad and his wretched sudoko puzzles and my vision blurs for a moment. I say, tremulously, “When we get to Venice, do you think we should go our separate ways?”
That opens his eyes. “Is that what you want?”
“Is it what you want?”
We stare at each other, the glove thrown down. He says, “What would you do?”
“I don’t know. Find … somewhere.”
“And do what?”
“Well what would you do?”
“Disappear, Jem.” He rubs his eyes. “Just disappear.”
We gaze at each other. “Shit,” I say.
“Yeah.”
It’s a beautiful September day outside, the sun shining on the Provençal countryside, and I’m shivering. “I don’t … ” I begin, “I don’t want … ” A tear falls fast down my cheek and he looks at me with less hostility. “Do you wish,” I ask him, “that I hadn’t told you? That I’d never told you my dad was dead?”
He says nothing.
“Do you wish we’d never met?”
He glances away. “Kind of. Yeah.”
I swallow hard. “I don’t know where I’d be, now, if … ”
“Well you wouldn’t be here.”
This is true. I lean back against the curved headrest of my seat, tears still trickling. I’d be at home, still mad with grief, as I am now. I would still, somehow, have discovered the truth. I’m fairly sure of that. I say, “It might not have been very different.”
“It would have been different for Cecily, and Henry. It would have been different for me.”
I remember a different train, cold and dirty, rattling through the night, skinheads with beercans, silent shapes behind laptops. I remember being dazed with shock, hardly able to walk, vomiting in the toilet basin. I say, “What if they’re there, when we get to Venice? What if they’re waiting for us?”
Gil surveys me. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But – ”
“It doesn’t matter because it’s not really them we have to worry about, is it? We have each other forever, you know that. I’ll never leave you. But you thought I murdered someone out there at that garage last night. If all we have left between us is fear and distrust … ” He lets the sentence hang for a minute. “Well maybe that’s all we deserve.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Gil had been itching with suggestions for the gallery since the moment he’d last stepped inside, had so far held off voicing them because he wasn’t sure Jem was ready to h
ear it. Checking on the place for her while she spent the morning at the house wading through memories, he found the building was safe – no broken windows or forced locks – but noticed how quickly a sense of neglect had crept in; four months since Alex’s death and the airy, low-ceilinged rooms seemed damp and forlorn. Gil longed to tear down the boards and throw open the windows, to sweep the floors and repaint the walls. His workshop in Bristol was nowhere near as large or light or well located and he could see the difference this place could make to Jem’s peace of mind as well as to her business. Plus, of course, it had been her father’s. It would be a natural progression for her to reopen it as her own. But then the house on the cliff road had been her father’s too and the change in ambience couldn’t be greater.
He had woken suddenly there this morning, jerking into consciousness as though someone in another room had called his name. For the second before his brain engaged he’d had no idea where he was, and while in summers past waking in unfamiliar bedrooms had been the norm, this time the instant of confusion had him panicked. Purple cushions, patchwork quilt and – his heartrate had slowed again – a bare shoulder tattooed with the tiniest black star, a mass of dark hair across the pillow. He’d watched her for a minute while she slept, the shape of her mouth, the tilt of her cheekbones. Jem was beautiful, no question. Beautiful and sexy and talented and vulnerable; an irresistible combination. He just wished the baggage yoked to the vulnerable part didn’t make him so deeply uneasy. Last night, after too much wine and drowsy sex, he’d fallen swiftly asleep but otherwise being here he was too spooked to relax. He got up, grabbed his jeans from the floor, went to the bathroom and paused afterwards on the landing at the open cupboard doors. Yesterday after dinner at bluewave and a long walk on the beach, she had seemed a little better. She’d been thoughtful and composed and hadn’t cried once. Far, far too early to describe it as progress but all the same he didn’t want this – he’d glanced the length and breadth of the cupboard – setting her back. It wasn’t only her mother’s life boxed up in here, it was Alex’s too, and if it were Gil’s choice he would keep it that way. He’d close the doors on it all.
Now he found himself wanting to linger in the great echoing space of the gallery, to draw up plans on Jem’s behalf. Would she like him thinking of her future or would he appear insensitive, rushing her into decisions she wasn’t yet ready to make? He let out his breath, ran his hand across the stained surface of the chest Alex had used to store paints and brushes, and remembered the man who had almost been his friend, thought of him all fired up about capturing the spirit of Tintagel, the ideas he must have had, the hopes. Such a terrible waste, Gil thought, stricken. An appalling, tragic waste.
He needed to return to his own work, to the Tree of Life which Jem seemed convinced would make his name. Scooping up the key, he heard the squeak and shove of the external door and walked back to the threshold between gallery and workshop to find Eve Callaghan, waiting.
“Hello,” he said, imbuing the single word with – and you’re here why?
“I saw you come in,” she replied.
“You wanted me?”
“I did.” She dropped her bag to the floor, stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans. There was nothing on which to sit, no source of distraction. Nowhere to hide, Gil thought. She said, “I have to say something to you which might … ” She corrected herself. “Which will seem out of order.”
He frowned, intrigued despite himself. Already this wasn’t the Eve Callaghan who’d banged on about heroes and campaigns, who’d talked to him as though he were interesting and stupid at the same time. “Go on.”
“You’re involved with Jemima Gregory.”
He and Jem could be seen together most days, on the pier, the beach, in bluewave. He was mildly surprised she had noticed, but then noticing people was her job. “I am.”
“You do know who she is?”
“I know this was her father’s place. I know he died recently. Is that what you mean?”
“You know about her mother?”
Gil, distrustful, said nothing.
Eve sighed. “They were … well, I knew them both, Alex and Marianne. They were my friends. Marianne was my piano teacher when I was a teenager, a decade later she helped me through my divorce.” She looked at him. “I’m not here in any professional capacity today. I’ve come because I’ve known Jemima since she was a little girl.”
“Okay,” he said warily.
“Marianne … she wasn’t solely responsible, you know, for being unhappy. For what she did.”
Gil shook his head. “I don’t think you should be telling me this.”
“But I should. Because Jemima worshipped her dad and when she finds out she’ll need someone there for her. Assuming she hasn’t already, of course.”
“Finds out what? You’re saying that Alex was partly responsible?”
She held his gaze.
He was impatient suddenly. “We all affect what happens to other people. You have a row with someone, they crash the car. It doesn’t make you responsible for their death.”
Eve said quietly, “There was more to it than that.”
“Well don’t hold back now.”
“I suppose,” she said, visibly reconsidering, “I feel guilty. I’ve always felt guilty. She was my friend and I didn’t … I wasn’t there for her. I didn’t realise how desperate she was. Alex was a very attractive man, you know.” She stopped. “Don’t let her down, Gil.”
He frowned, trying to make some sort of sense of her hints and fragments. “Why would I let her down?”
She cocked her head, and he knew that here it came. The part that was out of order. “Jemima needs stability and protection and I don’t think you can give her that.”
“You think I need telling how to treat her?”
“I think your history goes before you.”
“Jesus.” He reeled, decided he wasn’t going to defend or explain. Instead he walked to the door, held it open. “You know what? You were right. You’re bang out of order.”
She took the hint, paused in the doorway. “I’m worried for her. Do you honestly think you’re capable of being there for someone when all your adult life you’ve been selfish and irresponsible?”
He stared at her, disbelieving. “Who do you think you are? Who the hell have you been talking to?”
She was rueful. “You know the saying – ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’? That’s what you’ve been doing.”
His head was spinning. Who the fuck … ? But he knew who. He knew exactly who.
Marianne’s diaries were giving Jem a headache. They were also telling her nothing. Nothing except that Marianne had been clever and kind and a bit dippy and spent much of her life see-sawing between lawless elation and numb misery. Nothing Jem had not already known, or at least sensed. Her boxes contained fabrics and musical scores, family photos, recipes she’d never used. Jem pushed up from the floor in front of the cupboard and hobbled downstairs on pins-and-needles feet. In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of apple juice and took it out to the garden. Maybe she’d been wrong, after all. Maybe the deconstructing of her parents’ lives was going to be unbearably sad but not the bomb beneath her she had imagined. She sat on the wall and thought about texting Gil.
“How’s it going?” Alex asked.
“Not bad, actually.” She looked at him, paying close attention because there would be one day when she wouldn’t be able to recreate him in such high definition detail anymore. She would remember his dark hair threaded with grey, Celtic green eyes, the cleft in his chin, but it would never be as if he were sitting beside her again. Dad, she thought. She said, “Mum was ordinary really, wasn’t she?”
“I never thought of her as ordinary.”
“I mean, normal. Happy and sad, bored and excited.”
“Sure.”
“I wish I’d known her better, known her properly.”
“You did. You knew her as well as you coul
d possible have done.”
She said, “Why did you never have another child?”
A beat. “You know why.”
“But the thought that I could have had a brother or sister … ”
He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry. She was struggling to cope as it was, I was afraid that another child might … well. And then it happened anyway.”
“But what if it was not having one that made her worse?”
He looked away. “I lived with that, with never knowing the answer to that. With never knowing the answer to a lot of things.”
“And now,” Jem said, “I have to live with it too.”
The air shimmered and he was gone. She drank her apple juice, thought that if Gil were here he would be urging her to do something else now, something practical that she understood. Make some jewellery, update her website. She left her glass on the kitchen worktop and climbed the stairs.
Cecily traditionally opened the café later on a Sunday. Partly as a gift to herself after the inevitable excesses of Saturday nights, partly as due to everyone else’s excesses on Saturday nights the café was pretty much empty before lunchtime anyway. Today, woken at dawn by Henry’s snoring, she padded barefoot to her kitchen and began scone making with a large cappuccino beside her and Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs filling the sun-warmed air. A few moments of peace all to myself, she thought contentedly. How lovely. How rare.
How short-lived. The door to the yard, which she had unlocked minutes ago to take out the rubbish, flung open as if the wrath of God were behind it. She jumped, cried out. “Gil! What on earth … ?”
His eyes were like stone. “Is he here?”
“Henry? Yes, he’s asleep. What … ?”
He strode past her towards the foot of the stairs. “I’m going to tear his fucking head off.”