by Imogen Clark
To settle my nerves, I glance at the pictures hanging in the first section and then move a little further back, hoping to find a style that I can recognise as Ursula’s. About halfway in, a huge canvas catches my eye, smears of mud-coloured oil paint slashed by a scar of vivid red. I can’t look at it for long. It’s too disturbing and makes me feel uncomfortable and unsettled.
‘Awesome, isn’t it?’ says a voice at my elbow.
I turn to see a woman with a shock of ginger hair. It’s the kind of colour that’s just too bright to be natural: woman tampering with nature’s work. She wears it tied up in a twist on her head that looks like it might tumble down at any second, releasing the fiery tendrils to burn her shoulders. Her hair is the biggest thing about her. She is a good six inches shorter than me and her frame is tiny. Her delicate collarbone looks more like a pencil than a structural part of her body. As she talks, her hands flutter like little birds, her many rings catching the spotlights and making what little light there is dance around her.
‘It’s one of her early pieces, obviously. We are lucky to have it. It’s not for sale, I’m afraid. Just on loan for a while.’
‘On loan from the artist?’ I ask.
‘God no!’ she says, inadvertently dashing my sprouting hope. ‘Ms Kemp never keeps her own work. She creates pieces and then sends them straight to us to sell. She doesn’t want to see them again once they’re finished. I heard her talking about it once. She said it was like cutting out a cancer, painting, for her.’
My disgust at this image must have shown on my face because she added, ‘I know. Gross. Are you interested in her work?’
Her eyes flick up and down, taking in my flight-tired clothing and scruffy sneakers, making me feel very provincial.
‘In a way,’ I say evasively. ‘I emailed a few days back . . . ?’
My voice goes up questioningly as my sentence trails off. I should just ask her but something is pulling me back. I have so much to lose here that I hardly dare begin. She looks at me expectantly, her hands uncharacteristically still, as if frozen in this moment.
‘Actually,’ I try again. ‘I was hoping to track Ms Kemp down. She lives here in San Francisco, doesn’t she?’
The woman’s smile slips and she takes a tiny step backwards.
‘Are you a journalist? She is a very private person and never talks to the press. We guard her privacy very carefully.’
She gives a little sniff and folds her arms over her chest.
‘Oh no!’ I say quickly. ‘It’s nothing like that. I’m not a journalist. I design wedding dresses for a living. That’s not why I want to meet her, though.’
Words skitter out of my mouth and the woman looks at me as if I could actually be slightly unhinged.
‘No. I’m trying to find Ms Kemp because I think we might be related.’
One eyebrow shoots up towards her ginger topknot and her mouth twists into a curl. She has clearly heard this before. I can sense that I have one shot and that the target is getting further and further away. If I don’t tell her now, she will think that I’ve used the time to cook the story up.
‘I’ve just discovered that my mother, who I’ve always been told was dead, might actually be alive,’ I begin. ‘She left me and my brother when we were little and I’m trying to find out why. The only lead I have is that my mother’s sister is an artist called Ursula Kemp. I’m pretty sure your Ursula Kemp is the same person and, as far as I know, she’s my only living blood relative – apart from my brother, that is.’
I don’t mention Dad. This is complicated enough.
‘I’d like to talk to her to see what she can tell me about my mother. I’ve just arrived from the UK . . .’ I look at my watch. ‘About thirty minutes ago. Please could you help me?’
The woman is looking sceptical but she unfolds her arms.
‘Are you Cara Ferensby? The one who emailed about a potential purchase?’
I nod sheepishly.
‘That was a bit of a fib,’ I say. I try to look shamefaced. ‘I was actually hoping that you could get this letter to Ms Kemp. I’m only here until Friday and then I have to fly home.’
I scrabble in my bag for the letter that I wrote at my desk back in England and offer it to her. My hand is shaking. She looks at the letter and then at me. She bites her bottom lip with tiny, pearly white teeth.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Ms Kemp is very strict about who we put in touch with her.’
I’m still holding the letter out. I nudge it gently against her arm.
‘Please,’ I say.
She looks at it again and then takes it.
‘I suppose I could take it with me tonight. But I can’t guarantee that she’ll accept delivery of it, let alone read it.’
I am so relieved I could kiss her but I restrain myself.
‘That would be so kind,’ I say. ‘The name of my hotel is in the letter. I can’t find her address by myself. I have tried but . . .’
‘Well, you wouldn’t be able to,’ says the woman. ‘Like I say, she’s really private. She only trusts me.’
She beams at me, pride radiating from her.
‘You really are my last hope then,’ I say and give her my widest smile. I hold my hand out towards her.
‘I’m Skyler,’ she says as she takes my hand in both of hers.
This is probably nothing more than American over-familiarity but I feel grateful nonetheless.
‘I’ll do my best, Cara,’ Skyler says. ‘Why don’t you call back here at noon tomorrow and I’ll let you know if there’s any news.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, the relief making my voice sound breathy. ‘I’ll see you here tomorrow.’
And so I leave the letter and set off into San Francisco to wait. My hunger, now impossible to ignore, forces me over the road to the coffee shop to get myself an espresso and a sourdough sandwich, which turns out to look better than it tastes. My body clock is telling me that it is now early evening, although the sun is still high in the sky in California. I need to keep going until at least dinner time or I’ll be counting sheep in the wee small hours.
Feeling a little revived, I set off to see what San Francisco has to offer the tourist about town. I follow the crowds to Lombard Street and marvel at the kind of mind that thought snaking streets like this one were the future of traffic calming. It does work though. The cars creep down the twisting hill, nose to tail. Next, I catch a rickety wooden cable car to Union Square and stand armpit to nostril with some French tourists.
Looking at the chattering groups, I consider how I must appear to them, but then again, who is going to notice me, a single woman, unaccompanied, unloved? I am, to all intents and purposes, invisible to the wider world. If the cable snapped and the car plunged us to our deaths at the bottom of the hill, would anyone even remember the blondish English woman who stood towards the back of the carriage in a list of its occupants? It seems unlikely.
Still, I don’t mind. When you pass through life single, as I have, you learn to travel alone or not at all. Of course, there have been plenty of trips with Beth over the years, us laughing our way around Europe’s major destinations, sunning ourselves on various beaches. Those precious times will be fewer and further between from now on, I suppose. She and Greg will be back from their honeymoon any day now and I smile to myself as I picture her trying to work out what’s sent me skipping halfway round the world on next to no notice.
The thought of honeymoons makes me, rather prematurely, think of Simeon. Despite my determination to forget all about him, I just can’t seem to shake the idea of him out of my head. I wonder what he’s up to right now, whether he’s thought about me since he virtually ran from my bed, but there’s no point. I pretty much drove him away and he made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to stick around.
There is a couple standing just to my right. He is taller than she is and he wraps his arms around her from behind to stop her from toppling over in the wobbly cable car. She laughs and then sp
ins on the spot to face him and they kiss. I turn away. I can’t bear to look at them, knowing that I’ve probably blown the best chance I’ve had in as long as I can remember. Other people’s romances are just too painful right now.
When we reach Union Square, I hop off the cable car and look around me. No doubt in summer these wide-open steps will be filled with people basking in the sunshine. Today, though, the air is chilly, a biting wind twisting round the tall buildings. No one is loitering for long. As I stand and stare at the world bustling by, I wonder what will happen next. Skyler seems the empathetic type. I’m sure she’ll do as she says and not just put my letter in the nearest bin. She might even speak up for me, tell Ursula that I seem genuine and am not some dirt-seeking journalist with an ulterior motive. I can’t help thinking that, even if she does, it might not make any difference. If Ursula has made a decision to cut herself off from her family, and indeed most of the world, then why would she want to speak to me, a stranger from a time that she has left behind? Although surely she’ll be just a tiny bit curious. I am a new niece after all.
Soon, I can barely stifle my yawns. I need sleep. Even though it is only six o’clock here, I skip dinner and crawl into my bed, letting the fresh, white bedding engulf me. I don’t even dream.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
As penance for going to bed before dinner, I wake ludicrously early. The street below my window is quiet and the little patch of sky that I can see is made chocolatey brown by the city lights. I go back to bed for a while but I am too fidgety to stay there for long. Up, showered and dressed in clean and slightly smarter clothes, I head to the lobby where the night staff are unsurprised to see a jet-lagged tourist wandering around. They point me in the direction of a twenty-four-hour diner, tacitly accepting that I won’t want to pay what the hotel charges for breakfast.
I find it and see that it’s obviously part of a chain. I’m a bit disappointed that I’m not going to get that authentic American experience you see in the movies, but its lights are welcoming enough and there are already a few people drinking coffee and eating. I go in and am shown to a table. I order pancakes with crispy bacon and maple syrup, which, when they arrive, would feed me for an entire week, and my coffee cup is topped up without me asking for refills. I love America.
‘You here in town on vacation?’ asks Charlize, my waitress. I nod. ‘I thought so. We get a lot of tourists in here early in the morning. It’s jet-lag, right?’ I nod again. ‘Well,’ Charlize says as she refills my coffee cup with one hand while sweeping up what remains of my pancakes with the other, ‘you need to go to Alcatraz. It don’t matter what else you do when you’re in town but you have to go there. I tell all my guests that,’ she adds, her chest swelling with pride at her self-appointed second job as tour guide.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ll try.’
‘You need to get down there early, mind,’ she adds. ‘It gets busy fast. But early’s no problem, right?’ She smiles at me and I see that one of her front teeth is gold.
‘Can I have the bill, please? The check, I mean.’
‘Coming right up,’ and then she is gone.
There are still seven hours to go until I am due back at the gallery so I decide to at least go and check out the Alcatraz ferry. The first trip leaves at eight forty-five. When I ask to buy a ticket, the man in the kiosk shakes his head and sucks his teeth but he puts me on the standby list and I end up on the boat. As we pull away from the pier and into the bay, the wind whips the water up into choppy white horses and I pull my scarf closer round me. It looks like I’m the only one making the trip alone. I imagine, briefly, what it might be like to travel with Simeon and then dismiss the thought. I need to get him out of my head. It’s doing me no good, thinking about him all the time, but I just can’t help it. Gaggles of schoolchildren and a few families fill the seats inside the ferry while us hardier souls brave the outside, peering over the waves for that first clear photo of the island.
Sheer cliff faces greet us as we pull into the harbour, the buttermilk prison building standing erect on the top of the rock. Gulls call overhead. It’s such a plaintive sound that it’s almost as if they too are imprisoned on this forbidding lump of rock. The island had looked just a mere hop and skip away from the shore but we’ve been sailing for a good fifteen minutes before we tie up at the dock. Not an easy swim for those dreaming of escape.
The tour comprises a soundtrack made by former inmates, which is evocative and quite moving in parts. I peer into the cramped cells but can’t begin to imagine what life here must have been like. Some of the doors have been left open for the visitors to wander in and get a better feel for the cells’ dimensions but somehow it feels like I am intruding on private space. By the time I reach the recreational area, with its high walls and watchtowers looming ominously overhead, I’m starting to understand how confining the island really is. I stand and look out across the choppy water to San Francisco, so close and yet tantalisingly out of reach. The tour said that the prisoners could hear the music and laughter of partygoers across the water. The only sounds now are the low hum of tourist chatter and the cries of the reeling seagulls.
By the time the ferry pulls into the little harbour to take me back to the mainland, I’m desperate to escape. It’s only as we nudge back into Pier 33 and I look at my watch that the nausea of claustrophobia is replaced by the nausea of fear and anticipation. Skyler had told me to be back at the gallery by twelve. It’s eleven thirty. I decide to walk to the gallery. Even though it’s still chilly, the early-morning mist has burned away and the sky above the city is a crisp, fresh blue. I cast a final backwards glance at Alcatraz. It almost sparkles in the sunlight. How deceiving appearances can be.
The gallery looks dark as I approach and for a mad moment I convince myself that Skyler’s shut up shop just to avoid me. I picture her hiding behind the door until I go away but then she appears in the doorway, her fiery hair calling out to me like a beacon. When she sees me she starts jumping up and down like a little girl waiting for her best friend to arrive. I’m quite touched.
‘Woohoo! Cara!’ she shouts to me, although I’m still not quite close enough to speak to.
People turn to see what all the fuss is about but then lose interest when there’s no drama.
‘Hurry up,’ she urges as I get nearer. ‘I’ve got a message for you.’ She sounds genuinely excited, her smile broad and open. I resist the temptation to break into a run. My heart is now beating so hard that just breathing is an effort. I feel very sick. My fear must be written all over my face.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says as I reach the door. ‘It’s good news!’
I just stare at her, waiting for her to tell me more. The power of speech seems to have deserted me and my mouth hangs open slackly as I suck air in.
‘So,’ says Skyler, threading her arm through mine and leading me into the gallery. ‘I gave your letter to Ms Kemp yesterday and sent her an email to warn her that it was coming. I was kinda thinking she was going to ignore it and I didn’t dare chase her in case I made it worse. But then when I came in this morning there’s a reply. She says she’ll meet you tonight. I’ve got the address. Wait! What am I doing? Here. You gotta read it for yourself.’
She pulls me to her desk at the back of the gallery, brings the laptop to life and clicks on an email. It says:
Got letter. Okay. 6.30 p.m. Capo’s. U. Kemp.
That is it. My first-ever communication from my aunt is composed of seven words. I look at Skyler for an explanation.
‘Her emails are always like that,’ she says, screwing her tiny nose up. ‘But isn’t it fabulous? She wants to meet up. I’m so excited for you.’
What was I expecting? Something more effusive? A touch of curiosity, maybe? An outright refusal? Whatever it was, it wasn’t this flat instruction barked at me as if I were a recalcitrant employee. I try not to feel slighted. After all, I have what I want – a meeting with my aunt. I should be over the moon but, somehow, I’m not. My conf
usion must show on my face because Skyler puts her arm around my shoulder. Instinctively I flinch at this unexpected venture into my personal space but then I’m glad that she’s there to talk to. I suddenly feel very alone in this strange city.
‘Don’t worry, honey,’ she says as she rubs my upper arm gently. ‘Social skills are not her thing. She’s out of practice. But she barks worse than she bites.’
‘You’ve met her?’ I ask, snatching at any information that I can gather.
A pretty blush spreads across Skyler’s cheeks.
‘Yes. She can be quite chatty if she’s in the right mood.’
I wonder what happens if she’s not but there’s no point worrying about that now.
‘So what’s Capo’s? Is it a club?’
Skyler smiles at me indulgently.
‘It’s a restaurant, an Italian. It’s actually very popular. I’m surprised she’s chosen there. She’s bound to be seen.’
‘Maybe that’s the plan?’ I muse. ‘Meet me in public and then if I turn out to be one sandwich short of a picnic she can shake me off without too much difficulty.’ And, I suppose but don’t say, there’ll be plenty of witnesses in case I try to sell an embellished story to the press. Smart lady.
‘Is it easy to find?’ I ask, and Skyler nods. She digs a street map out of her desk drawer, locates the restaurant and shows me. It’s not far from the hotel. I can probably walk.
‘It’s just a quick cab ride,’ Skyler says. ‘The driver will know it.’ She cocks her head to one side and looks at me through her dishevelled fringe.
‘Will you come back tomorrow and tell me how you get on?’
I think about this for a moment.
‘Yes,’ I say decisively. ‘I will. Thank you so much for all your help, Skyler. I’m really grateful. If I don’t come back tomorrow then you’ll know that she ate me alive.’ I am joking but Skyler’s expression suggests that this might actually be a possibility.