“Maybe,” she said, “I could set up an art student scholarship in his name. The Alex Gregory Award. What d’you think?”
Gil appeared on the threshold between the gallery and the workshop. He wore jeans and a rock band t-shirt, his eye not so much black as purple and yellow and red, puffy beneath the socket and swollen above it. She could take a baseball bat to this Henry, but then Gil had pointed out he’d possibly broken the guy’s nose.
He said, “Is there enough money for that?”
“There’s this place. And the house. And his bank account.”
“You want to sell up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to do.”
He came up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and kissing her ear. “This would be great for your business, you know. Perfect location, no more hauling your stall up to the pier and back.”
“I like my stall.” She tried to imagine this space of light and air filled with her work. “It’s awfully big. Jewellery really doesn’t take up much room.” She paused. “It’d be perfect for you.” He was silent and she turned around in the circle of his arms to find him looking shocked.
“For me?”
“Was that the wrong thing to say?”
“It’s a very generous thing to say.”
But it was tied up in other issues, she saw that. Issues of what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go now. The issue of what was to become of them at the end of the summer. Although she had not doubted him for a minute all the time they’d been together, and although he couldn’t possibly have been more loving or more supportive, she was afraid of asking the question.
“Will you think about it?”
“Of course I will.”
She walked away from him, to sit on the low window-ledge. She could see the thoughts she’d had filling the space between them like holograms. Without giving it any further consideration she said, “Actually whatever happens, I’d like you to have the gallery. You deserve it and it’s really too big for me and you know, maybe Dad would have approved.”
He looked astonished. “Jem – ”
“Really.”
He came to sit beside her. “I can’t.”
“Why can’t you? I don’t know how I would have coped, these last months, without you.”
He stroked her arm. “Listen, I really appreciate you wanting to give me this place. I do. It’s a breathtaking idea and I’m half tempted to let you do it. But you should think about it. You have the money and the freedom to do anything now. Anything you like. Move to another house, another town.”
“But this is my home.”
“Take off travelling for a while.”
She said, “The thing with travelling is that it’s great if you have somewhere to come back to. Someone to come back to. I only have myself now, there’s nothing to anchor me. Travelling would be like cutting myself loose in the world.” She paused. “Come with me.”
He looked at her. “Seriously?”
“Why not? I’d pay for everything. It’d be like giving you back the holiday I’ve stolen from you.”
“Ah, Jem, you haven’t - ”
“Unless it’s your business … ”
“No, no. That would stand me taking a little time off. A little more time off.”
“Are you saying yes?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying.” He laughed. “Are you?”
“God, no.”
He took her hand, lacing their fingers. She felt she was about to leap terrified and exhilarated into the wind and empty sky, holding his hand, trusting in him. After having spent so long alone and closeted in the dark the possibility of a different kind of life was shocking. She said, “We should both think about this.”
“Yeah, we should.” He kissed her hand. “We will.”
Her hologram thoughts dispersed into the ether, leaving behind them the memories of this room as it had been for so many years and until so recently, filled with paintings in varying stages of completion. Her father had never worked methodically on anything in his life. The workbench next door would be covered in a sliding pile of sketches. Canvases washed with grey or pale blue had stood beside similar canvases blank but for the faintest of pencilled lines. Others had borne precise and detailed images of one or two sections and nothing else. And then there were those that were finished, or almost finished, and the first glimpse of them would take your breath away. She could see him now, as if the dimensions of past and present existed side by side, standing at an easel, the way he held the brush, his absent-minded reach for the ever-present mug of coffee, the moment he would sense her presence and turn towards her. His smile. The very words he would speak.
It had been a long day. Throughout it Cecily’s head had been pounding with a whisky hangover and she had wanted to send her customers away and lock the door. Now they were gone and she was alone with her thoughts, she wished them back, distracting and maddening her with their picky orders and screaming children. Oh God, she thought, I need a break. She thought of Patrick’s, which would be noisy and crowded, of staying here, in the great pressing silence of the café. She thought of a bath and pyjamas and a glass of wine and a DVD and it almost appealed.
After going wearily through her nightly routine of clearing up and closing down and locking doors, she climbed the stairs to her attic, slid an Alison Moyet album into the CD player and ran the hottest and bubbliest of baths. She closed her eyes, letting the water and the music eclipse all else, stayed there, weightless, thoughtless, until the water cooled and the final notes of the final track ended. Afterwards she massaged her most expensive body lotion into her pink and boiled skin, pulled on soft pyjama trousers and a vest top and knelt down on her rug in front of her DVD collection.
Her mobile buzzed.
She looked over, contemplated ignoring it, then reached across to read the display.
GIL
“Hi,” she said.
“Can I come up?”
In the kitchen she slid back the bolts and he stepped inside. The light above the staircase cast an eerie glow across his bruised eye, the other half of his face in shadow. She drew in her breath. “My God. Is that painful?”
“A bit sore. Still, I guess I did some damage too.” He paused, closed the door behind him. He looked wrecked even beneath the bruises. “Are you busy?”
She thought, it’s the third time. Something is making him miserable and stressed and this is the third time he’s turned to me. “No. I was just going to have a glass of wine and watch a film. You can join me, if you want.”
“Thanks.”
She led the way upstairs. “Wine? Beer?”
He groaned, sank down onto the sofa. “I’ve been trying to drink myself into a coma in Patrick’s.”
“Unsuccessfully, I see.” She sloshed generous measures of merlot into two glasses. “It might hit you later. Or tomorrow morning, the hangover from hell.” She put their glasses on the coffee table, returned to the rug and the DVD pile. “Casablanca or … um … The Shining? Annie Hall? The Way We Were? I really need to spend more time on Amazon.”
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Can we just talk?”
She pushed to her feet and went to sit beside him, curled her legs beneath her. “Sure.”
He took a mouthful of wine. “Not about me.”
“Okay.”
“Yet.”
“Okay.”
“So how’re things with Henry?”
“Ah.” She reached for her own glass. “We split up.”
“Really? Shit. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Depressed. Disappointed. But all right.”
“And he’s … ?”
“As you might expect. Are you surprised?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you never thought we should be together in the first place.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I was being an arse. I had no right to say that.”
&
nbsp; “But you did, and you were right, and I should have listened.” She drank. “It wasn’t just that I wanted a fling and he wanted – I don’t know – a silver wedding. He was so jealous of you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get that. Why would any man who has you be jealous of someone who doesn’t?”
“Oh Gil.” Her heart contracted.
“It’s true.”
“He was jealous of us being close. Of us having been close in a way he and I weren’t, I guess.” She didn’t add that Henry had been absolutely right to be jealous, that his instinct regarding her feelings for Gil had been on the nail. She trapped the bubble of thought inside her, where it couldn’t do any harm.
He said, “It wasn’t the fight, then?”
“It was the cause of the fight. How do you trust someone who can do something like that? I looked at him and I should have felt sympathy or understanding and I didn’t. I wasn’t sure I even liked him anymore.” Gil was listening, his eyes fixed on hers. She straightened her legs a little, her toes brushing his thigh, said, “So what about you? Why are you trying to drink yourself into a coma?”
He frowned, took a breath. A long drink. “I can’t tell you.”
She was torn between applauding his loyalty and wanting to kick him. “You came up here from Patrick’s not to tell me?”
“I came up here from Patrick’s to be with you. Because you always make me feel … better.”
Her eyes pricked. Don’t cry. She clenched her jaw. Do not cry.
“I want to tell you. I do. But I can’t, I’m sorry.” He considered. “What it means, though, is that I feel like I’m halfway down a road that minutes ago I didn’t know was there.”
She understood. “It’s all moving too fast.”
He looked wretched.
“Do you love her?”
“I don’t know. She’s beautiful and kind of mesmerising and funny and sweet … ”
Much as the words tore at her, she could hear the ‘but’. And she could see now how upset and how drunk he really was. “Hey.” She rubbed his back, soothing. “Shh. It’s ok.”
“It’s not.” He swallowed. “It’s really not ok. It’s got very intense, claustrophobic. And I hate myself for even thinking that but she’s promised me things, amazing things. She wants me to go travelling with her.”
She wanted to tell him she couldn’t bear hearing him talk about his feelings for someone else, but if she did that, she might see even less of him. If he went travelling she wouldn’t see him at all. “Do you want to go?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I can’t abandon her, I don’t want to abandon her, but … ” His eyes were wet by now, and reddened. Longing to draw him into her arms, she remembered too well how it felt to be on a sofa in his arms, naked in his lap, his hands at her waist guiding their rhythm. Desire pulsed through her. She kissed his temple.
He stilled, turned his head to meet her gaze, and kissed her. Not with his usual breezy affection but softly, with intent. When he spoke she felt his breath against her skin. “What have we done?”
She could say nothing. They were thinking the same thoughts.
“If we hadn’t had that row … ”
“Gil.” The effort it required to pull away from him was agonising. “Stop. This is in danger of being a terrible mess.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Jesus! What’s the matter with me?”
“I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I’ve never seen you like this. Maybe you’ve fallen in love for the first time and it’s a shock.”
“No,” he said. “I’ve been in love before.” He held her gaze and she burned with understanding. Her throat hurt.
“Don’t say that to me now. It’s not fair.”
“Come here.” He tried to embrace her but she disentangled herself, sat back from him.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t hug you?”
“It feels as if everything’s over.” Her voice broke.
“Ah Cecily, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m pissed and selfish and you don’t deserve to have to put up with me. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” she said, despite the tear sliding down her face. “You need to get your head sorted out.”
“I know.”
“I can’t do it for you.”
“I know that too.” He rubbed his eyes hard. She watched him. The urge to let him hug her, to yield to a moment of yearned for but ill-judged passion, was so strong she got up from the sofa to sit in the basket chair a yard or so away. He looked at her, at the physical distance between them gaping with their inability to trust themselves. “I should go.”
She nodded. Neither of them moved.
In summer most businesses stayed open till dusk, catching the trail of holiday makers as they strolled through town after dinner, picking up souvenirs, on their way to a pub or for a walk on the cooling sands. Alex had frequently been surprised by how much he could sell in the fading light of evening before he’d come to realise that these were the buyers who browsed and hovered during the basking sun or spattering rain of the day. It had become a source of pride to him that his work spoke for itself; that he never had to employ the wheedling tactics of salesmanship which would have gone so much against the grain. Marianne had laughed – “Paint it and they will come.” Which was just as well, since she had lost her job in the tourist office a couple of years since and the music tuition had petered out as whisperings of her bouts of illness had spread. The proceeds of his paintings were all they had to live on these days.
It was quite dark by the time he reached home. As he entered the house he was alert, as always, for a sound which might freeze his blood, or a silence deeper than it should have been. Instead he heard the murmur of his wife’s voice from upstairs, the responding chirrup of his daughter. Softly he climbed the treads, the amorphous sounds above him shaping themselves into words and becoming, as he stepped onto the landing, a conversation.
“ … your favourite?” Marianne was asking.
“Jo!”
He could see them through the open doorway, Marianne sitting on the bed with an open book in her lap, Jem leaning against her, twirling a dark strand of her hair round her finger. He paused, caught by the painful normality of the scene and briefly unwilling to disturb them.
“Very wise,” Marianne agreed. “Jo’s the only one who feels real. Meg’s annoying, Beth’s wet and Amy’s a brat.”
Jem giggled. “Mum!”
“Well they are, aren’t they? And when I read this when I was your age – maybe a bit older - I was so disappointed that Jo doesn’t marry Laurie. How could he settle for Amy, what was the matter with him? And Jo’s palmed off with some ancient professor.” She gestured despair and Jem laughed again.
“It’s just a story.”
Marianne ruffled her hair. “But the best stories enter your heart and live there forever.”
Alex cleared his throat.
“Dad!” Jem cried.
Marianne smiled. “How was the day?”
“Yeah. Pretty good.”
“I’ll make us a drink.” She stood up, squeezed his shoulder as they swapped places on Jem’s bed.
“Thanks.” He kissed his daughter’s forehead, laying the book on the bedside table. “So what’s next?”
She shook her head. “I think it’s too early for next. I want them all to live in my heart for a little bit longer.” She snuggled down into her bed, pulling the sheets up around her. “Why was it a pretty good day?”
“I sold a few paintings. Talked to some nice people.”
She was watching his face. “I’ve hardly seen you for ages.”
“It’s Saturday tomorrow, you can spend the whole day in the gallery with me if you want.”
She nodded happily. His heart contracted. “Okay Puddle, time for sleep.”
In the kitchen Marianne was making Irish coffee, with more emphasis on the former than the latter. “Suddenly,” she said, voicing her thoughts before he was i
n the room with her, “she seems to have grown up so much, as if she’s gone from eight to nearly twelve in an instant.”
“I know just what you mean.”
She handed him his glass, complete with the long plastic stirrers which Jem had sneaked out of what she called the Knickerbocker Glory café in town. “I think we should start taking her to places. London, at the very least.”
He smiled. “Paris. Rome.”
“Well why not? It would be exciting, wouldn’t it? For her and for us.”
She often strained at whatever leash she thought it was tying her here, to him. He imagined her dancing at the most distant stretch of it almost, but not quite, out of his sight. Better than the weeks she spent withdrawn so far into herself there was no reaching her, but still he found the short times they lived side by side more unbearable than months of knife-edge extremes. Especially now.
She smiled at him. “You don’t like leaving your beloved Cornwall, do you?”
“It isn’t that.”
“What then?” She was teasing him.
“Nothing. You’re right. We should take her.”
She said, “It isn’t that you don’t trust me?”
He saw the flicker of insecurity in her eyes and was stricken. “No, no.”
“Because we manage that all right now, don’t we?”
“Of course we do.” He looked at her levelly, watched her anxiety dissipate as swiftly as it had gathered. She nodded, believing him.
“Did you eat, tonight?”
“I forgot.”
“You’re hopeless,” she smiled. “Are you hungry? Let me make you a sandwich at least.”
“Marianne, I’m fine.” His chest hurt. He couldn’t bear to stay in the same room with her being just ordinarily caring.
“You are fine,” she said softly.
“I’m going to go and have a shower.”
“Okay.” She kissed his cheek as he passed her and he went quickly into the hall to hide the tears in his eyes.