by June Gadsby
“As a model I’d make a fine window-cleaner,” he countered and peered beneath the starched white cloth that covered the contents of the tray. “Ah. Smoked salmon. Good.” He took the tray and turned to me. “I hope you like smoked salmon, Megan.”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I love it, but…”
“Good, because it’s my favourite and that’s what we’re having for lunch.”
“Oh, I…I wouldn’t dream of…”
“What?”
“Well, I didn’t realise…. I mean…” There I was getting embarrassed again and bereft of meaningful, mature woman’s words. How stupid!
“Are you finding it too hot in here? You look a little flushed.”
I gulped. “No. I enjoy the heat.”
“Good. Now, just clear away the clutter from that table by the window and, for goodness sake, stop acting as if I were going to eat you, girl! I’ve eaten most things in my lifetime, but young women have never been on my menu.”
Hilary shook her head at him and laughed gaily at me. “Well, enjoy your lunch, Megan. Don’t let his lordship, here, rush you back to work too soon.”
Then she left us and went back to whatever it was she went back to. I had no way of knowing whether her ladies of the coffee morning were still with her. Probably not. It gave me a twinge of sympathy at the thought of her eating her own lunch sitting alone in the kitchen with only her bouncing poodle for company. But I had to admit she didn’t look as if she minded.
The delicate smoked salmon sandwiches were delicious. So were the strawberry jam and fresh cream scones and fruitcake. And between us we drank gallons of Russian tea flavoured with orange and the blue petals of cornflowers.
“So, Megan. What do you think?”
“What do I think?”
“Can you do it? My portrait, I mean, as much as anything else. I’m hardly an easy subject.”
“On the contrary, I think you’re a wonderful subject.”
I blinked across at him and saw him reflect sharply on my remark, then he put his head to one side and regarded me closely through half-closed eyes, which I found unnerving to say the least.
“Where the hell did you get those remarkable eyes of yours?” he said softly.
And there it was again. That winding blow to the solar plexus, totally without warning, that I had experienced on first laying my ‘remarkable’ eyes on Callum Andrews. It was like a shock wave going right through my very core. And it scared me.
Chapter Eight
“Now, a little air and exercise, I think.”
Callum got up and went to stand by the curved bay window that looked out onto the lawns, his hands tucked casually into his trouser pockets. Why was I so surprised to see this man acting so normally like a real person and not a ‘star’?
He turned and looked at me with raised eyebrows, then his gaze fell to my feet and a frown appeared. “Ah, perhaps not. Next time wear some trainers,” he said, sliding back the glass partition and letting in a breath of cool spring air. Then he whistled loudly, one long, undulating shriek, which made me blink. Almost immediately a huge German Shepherd leapt the fence at the bottom of the garden and came running up to Callum, who made a big fuss of the dog. “He’s our neighbour’s dog and doesn’t get enough exercise. We’re great pals, aren’t we, Prince?”
I hadn’t noticed that there was another house in the area, but now I saw the small cottage peeking through the trees.
“He’s a beauty,” I came forward to admire the handsome dog. The animal regarded me a little cautiously, then sniffed and licked my outstretched hand.
“There, you see. He likes you,” Callum scratched behind the dog’s big ears and looked again at me with a small frown that I couldn’t fathom out. “Do you mind letting yourself out? Hilary will be having her afternoon nap by now. No point in disturbing her. This way only takes you down to the river.”
“Yes…yes, of course I can find my way out.”
He nodded, then his attention was on the dog and I was forgotten as went off at a trot down the middle of a stepped lawn, Prince leaping and barking excitedly by his side.
I crept out of the house like a thief in the night, careful not to make a noise. Especially when I noticed on passing the lounge that Hilary Andrews was lying full length on the sofa, her mouth open and snoring gently. The small, champagne coloured poodle was lying across her legs and did no more than raise its head sleepily as I continued my way. What an extraordinary day, I thought, as I unlatched the garden gate.
At that moment, two things happened simultaneously. I realised with horror that I had forgotten to ask when I should return for a second ‘sitting’. And then the front door burst open and Callum came running out and down the path towards me. He pulled up breathlessly, blowing out spent air from his labouring lungs and gave me a sheepish, but very boyish grin that gave him an air of eternal youth.
“Phew! I’m getting old, dammit! Tomorrow at the same time, Megan. Okay?”
I gave him a smile and nodded, then walked away towards my parked car feeling his eyes on me the whole of the distance. It made me self-conscious of my every movement. As I reached the car and, with a swift glance over my shoulder, saw that he was still there, the grin replaced by an expression of deadly seriousness, I grew totally clumsy and dropped my bag. In trying to save it from falling into the dust at my feet, I also dropped my portfolio. Murmuring a low shit, I bent, all red-faced and fumbling fingers to retrieve my belongings. Wouldn’t that kind of thing just have to happen, I thought furiously. He must think me a crass idiot of the first degree.
I finally piled my belongings into the car and followed them, quickly starting the engine and driving off with less than aplomb, stalling the gears as I turned the first corner. Fortunately, a glance in the rear-view mirror told me that my observer was no longer there.
I drove the long way back home. I wasn’t at all sure why, but I felt a disturbing influence coursing its way through my subconscious. All the time, I kept re-experiencing that internal blow, the shock-wave that had attacked my midriff on meeting Callum Andrews. And again, on leaving him. It was weird. It was totally disarming, and I wished it had not happened. But it had happened and now I was left wondering why it should alarm me so much.
As usual, I parked my car in the road outside the house. Although we had a reasonable sized drive, we had taken to leaving our cars on the road, mainly because Greg came and went at all hours and it was easier to manœuvre around one another during daylight hours. At night, my car was the one put safely to bed because I knew I would not have need of it until the next morning, if at all, by which time, Greg was usually gone, flying around the region, and sometimes the whole country, chasing stories and hoping for exclusives.
Ros was doing a bit of gardening, though it was doubtful that she knew which were flowers and which were weeds. Still, she enjoyed getting her hands dirty while breathing fresh air.
“Hi, Ros!” I addressed her ample backside and waited for her to straighten up and turn around.
“You’ve met him?” her green eyes widened at my smiling nod. “Aw, gawd, what was he like, then?”
“Very nice, really,” I told her as I grabbed my portfolio from the back seat. “Surprisingly ordinary in a way.”
“Ordinary?” She seemed dumfounded. “Callum Andrews? Ordinary?”
“Uh-huh,” I grunted and fumbled for my door key.
“Are you having me on, luv?”
“Uh-huh,” I grinned and bit down on my bottom lip, enjoying the expression on her plump, rosy face.
“Come on, Megan. Don’t fool with me. What’s he like, eh?”
“Gorgeous!” I told her, using the only adjective that came into my head to describe the man I had just left, the man with whom I was going to spend hours, if not days with. The man who was going to be the subject of several portraits. And I was going to paint them.
“Gorgeous?” she breathed. “Just that. Nothing more?”
“No,” I shook my
head. “Just gorgeous.”
“Aw, tell me more, gal. I want to know…well, everything!”
“Let me just dump my things and I’ll come round for a cup of tea.”
“Bless you, my child.”
We spent the next hour talking like over-excited adolescents. Everything I told her, she made me go over again. From the colour and texture of his hair to the shine on his shoes. And everything in between. Like the way his hands floated over the piano keys. And how deceivingly muscular and athletic was his build.
“Did he have good thighs? I can’t stand a man with skinny thighs.”
“Well, they did seem quite well padded beneath his trousers,” I laughed, and my stomach did a little flip as I had a mental re-play of Callum as he had moved around me, so elegant and yet so masculine.
“Oh, I wish I’d been there with you. Did you meet his wife? I bet she’s all fur coat and no knickers.”
“She was very nice, actually, and not a bit like I expected her to be. She looks a lot older than Callum and seems very homely. Motherly, really.”
“I’m amazed.”
“I was too,” I said on a laugh, remembering the short, plump, bustling woman fussing and being fussed over and looking as if she enjoyed every minute of it. And Callum had spoken of her and looked at her with genuine affection. Perhaps, I thought to myself, she was the perfect wife for someone like that. Understanding and dependable. Still, I couldn’t get away from the fact that they looked such a terribly mis-matched pair.
“When are you going back?” Ros wanted to know.
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh, he’s keen, isn’t he? What’s the boy wonder going to say to that, eh?”
“Greg will probably fume a bit, then sulk until it’s all over.”
“But you’re going on with it, Megan, aren’t you?”
I drew in a long breath and let it out on a sigh that did not go unnoticed. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Oh…no problem, really.”
“But?”
I shrugged and gave a minute shake of my head. “He told me to wear trainers.”
“What’s he planning to do? Chase you around the piano?”
I chuckled at the expression on her face. “He’s got this big German Shepherd that lives close by. He takes it for walks. Probably finds it relaxing.”
“Something tells me you didn’t find him too relaxing.”
I tried a bluff. “Who, Callum Andrews or the dog?”
She looked at me slyly over her tea-cup. “You know what I mean, luv.”
That was my cue to leave. When Ros starts getting a bit too wise over my affairs it’s always time to go. Besides, I was anxious to make a start on the first try-out. I had already decided to do Callum’s portrait in pastel. Everything leant itself to the whispy, ethereal medium. I didn’t work too often in pastel, but as soon as I had started working on the preliminary sketches, I knew that it was right for him.
Chapter Nine
Greg was already in a bad mood when he returned home at the surprisingly early time of ten o’clock that same evening. He looked tired, unwashed and dishevelled like a schoolboy home from the playground.
“I didn’t expect to find you working so late,” he said grumpily from my open studio door, filling the frame with his bulk.
“I must have got carried away and not noticed the time,” I told him with a brief glance, then went back to Callum’s portrait. I had decided on a rather pearly, grey-blue Ingres paper for the main portrait of him sitting at the piano. I hadn’t put many strokes down before Greg’s arrival.
“So, you’ve decided to take the job on?” came the rhetorical question as he stepped up closer and looked over my shoulder. I could feel the heat exuding from him as he stood behind me. And there were the usual aromatic clues as to his whereabouts since last seen. A pub lunch, I guessed, with rather more beer than food. Then a curry house for dinner with more beer and something ultra-sweet for dessert. I thanked heaven that his desserts these days were of the calorific sort rather than the powdered and perfumed variety of earlier days.
“Yes,” I said after a long hesitation, my thoughts running haywire. “It was a no-brainer. He has very paintable features.”
All evening I had been reliving my first meeting with the musician whose face was already beginning to take shape and stare out of the Ingres paper at me, a very living thing. While I thought about that meeting, I felt as if I were riding on an undulating surfer’s wave, balancing precariously as I was rushed towards an invisible shore. I couldn’t wait to get there, and yet I sensed the danger that would be waiting there.
“That’s not bad.” Greg grudgingly admired my work, no doubt thinking that he could have done better with his camera. Well, he would just have to grit his teeth and go along with the decision of management. His paper, the Daily View, was backing the project financially. They were also going to publish it. And Greg, as a senior member of the reporting staff, not even on the editing board, had no axe to grind. They had chosen him to write Callum’s biography, despite all the trouble he had caused them in recent months.
“Thank you, kindly, sir,” I said lightly, shooting him a smile. I would not apologise, I told myself firmly. Terry Carter had asked me personally to do the artwork for the book. I had not gone to him. I had not stolen anything from Greg. Not wittingly, at any rate.
“So, what did you reckon to Mister Squeaky Clean…our Mister Wonderful?”
I put my pastel chalk down and wiped my powdered fingers. “He seems all right,” I said reflectively, deliberately subduing my response for his benefit. And for mine, since a husband who was jealous of my work was one thing, but a husband who could get jealous of another man was quite something else again. Greg had shown this green-eyed devil of his on more than one quite innocent occasion, so I knew well what to expect from him. Even if I had done nothing to merit his jealousy. “Nobody can be as wonderful as all that, Greg. No doubt there are some chinks in his armour somewhere. Even fine ones.”
“I’d feel happier if you didn’t get involved.”
There it was, the big turn off. He, Greg, did not want me to do it, so therefore I should feel sufficiently discouraged and back off. In the past, it had worked, but not this time. An hour ago, I had been on the verge of ringing Terry and telling him to find someone else. Don’t ask why. I wasn’t even sure of my own reasons. The problem lay somewhere around that solar-plexus beating I kept taking every time my mind conjured up Callum Andrews’ face. It appeared frequently and without my bidding. I found it all a bit scary.
“I’m sorry, Greg. I can’t possibly turn down an opportunity like this. I’d be crazy to do so. Besides, I don’t see why it should upset you. I thought you might be just a little pleased for me…proud, even!”
“So, when are you going back?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow!
“Two days ago, when I tried to fix another appointment with Andrews, he told me he wasn’t going to be available for a few days and would let me know. How come he’s free suddenly?”
“I don’t know, Greg. Maybe something got cancelled. Things change frequently in show business.”
“One meeting with him and now you’re an expert, eh?”
“I was just assuming.”
“Don’t ever assume anything, Megan.”
With a spasmodic jerk of his big head, he turned on his heel and marched off. I heard him go downstairs, listened to his restless movements beneath me. The clink of glass on glass. The television was turned on full-blast. Then a few minutes later, it was switched off and there was an ominous silence. Greg was thinking, turning things over in his mind. Perhaps he was remembering that this kind of behaviour had led to my almost walking out on him not so long ago. Maybe he was even remembering all those promises he made me at that time. Promises that were soon broken.
I started to pack up. I was tired. It was the kind of fatigue that comes with
emotional stress. The day had been outstanding in more than one way. And I had worked a little too feverishly on my sketches of Callum, worrying that I would not have anything worthy of my talents to show him tomorrow. Once this type of anxiety plants itself in my brain it tends to take over. Maybe I was not cut out, after all, to be the author of such an important work of art.
The last sheet of Ingres paper to be put away was the headshot of Callum. I stood staring at it, feeling my confidence slipping away. With a long sigh, I tore up the drawing and threw it in the waste bin. Tomorrow, I thought, I’ll ring Terry Carter and give him my apologies, tell him something’s come up and I can’t go ahead with the artwork. It wasn’t worth the stress. I sucked in a lung-full of air, admitting to myself the truth. I was a coward and would rather settle for the easy way out. It was easier than facing Greg’s displeasure. I had suffered too much of that in the past.
I wandered into the bedroom and started to undress. There was a tightness in my chest and my stomach churned. Maybe I was coming down with something. Or was it just the pain of indecision that was gnawing at me? I so much wanted to do that portrait. It could be the turning point of my career. Until now I was basically unknown, doing illustrations for children’s books which everyone admired, but no-one bothered to notice the name of the artist. With portraits and sketches of Callum Andrews behind me, which half the modern world would get to see at some time or another, my future might be set on an even and sure keel.
But there was something else nagging at me. I couldn’t explain it. Not even to myself. A kind of fear, certainly. But fear of what? Of whom? Whatever it was, it was telling me that if I went ahead as planned, there might be danger lurking in the shadows.
I had to ask myself the obvious question, of course. Was I afraid of Callum Andrews? Handsome, suave musician with a touch of shyness in his nature. Dog lover. A mature man married for a quarter of a century to the same woman at least ten years his senior. A loving husband. What was there to be afraid of?