Byron suddenly shook himself, the slow but wild vibration spreading from his head to his non-existent tail. Jane longed to do the same, shake off all the complexities, the endless circling thoughts. ‘Let’s run,’ she said to Trish, envying the dog again as he streaked towards a breakwater, hurtled back full-steam.
‘Run! You must be joking. I’m flagging as it is.’
‘Well, jog-trot then. If we don’t get a move on, they’ll be ringing the police.’
They jogged the last half-mile, then made a call to Isobel from the phone-box on the promenade, reported they were safe.
‘Thank God!’ said Isobel, expressing her relief in a dramatic exhalation. ‘We were getting really worried.’
‘I hope you’ve started lunch.’
‘I’m afraid it’s still not ready.’
‘Told you so,’ said Jane, once she’d put down the receiver. She and Trish collapsed in helpless giggles.
‘My mother says she’s always been the same – late for everything. I love her, though, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Jane; bit back a wary ‘sometimes’. ‘Listen, Trish, for goodness sake don’t call me Jane, not in front of Isobel or anyone.’
‘Okay, Jane – Rose.’
They laughed again, conspirators; flopped back in the car, only realising how chilled they were once they’d switched the heater on and began to let their cold cramped limbs relax. Jane sat silent as they speeded back to Isobel’s. She knew the road so well, knew every public phone-box on the route; the last one just three hundred yards from Windy Hollow House. She was watching for it now, praying it would work, not be out of order, vandalised.
‘Could you let me off here? I want to make a phone-call. I’ll walk the last bit back.’
‘No, I’ll wait. Don’t worry.’
‘Please don’t. I know it’s stupid, but it’s a rather hairy call, and if anyone’s around it’ll make it even harder.’
‘I’ll stay here in the car, though, promise not to eavesdrop.’
‘It’s not that, Trish. I … I’ve got to be alone.’
‘You mean you’re going to ring your guy?’
Jane nodded. ‘Tell the others I’ll only be a minute.’
She waited till the car had disappeared, wished she’d taken Byron, not just to protect her from the bleak and lonely darkness, but to distract her from the turmoil in her head. She had no money on her, which would make the call still more tense and awkward. She’d have to reverse the charges, wait several frantic moments while the operator asked if they’d accept it.
No – she must outlaw words like ‘frantic’, keep the call dispassionate, remain as cool as possible, detached and unperturbed. It wouldn’t be easy, but she couldn’t chicken out now. It was her Christmas present to them, her recompense for not being there in person. Trish had made her see that her parents would be suffering just as much as she was – more, in fact, since they’d be racked with grief and worry, unable to enjoy their Christmas Day. She’d only realised half an hour ago that it was she, and only she, who made their Christmas for them, simply by her presence, her existence. Just as she had no one else, nor did they.
She checked her watch: half past four. They’d have come in from their walk – coats hung up, outdoor shoes away – and be putting on the kettle; her father fetching cups and plates, her mother cutting Christmas cake, everything shipshape and methodical. She had hardly needed to wear a watch when she’d been at home in Shrepton. Her parents had been living clocks, never running down, never fast or slow. She suddenly longed to join them in the quiet and tidy sitting-room, for a tranquil cup of tea, instead of braving lunch at Isobel’s with all its rumpus and shemozzle. The efficiency she’d criticised was actually a virtue, had meant she wasn’t late for things, or stuffing sweets instead of meals, not rushed or pushed or panicked; had provided an order and security she had never even valued. Couldn’t she say thank you now, offer them an olive branch, take the first important step towards a reconciliation?
She picked up the receiver, eyes skimming the graffiti pencilled on the wall. Beneath the insults and obscenities were a few scribbled hearts and flowers: ‘Sue loves Nicky’, ‘Pam loves hunky Joe’. If only love were as simple as those sentiments, and not always undercut by some opposite emotion; every surge of loyalty or fondness followed by a backwash of bitter indignation. And anyway, if she started making overtures, her parents would expect her to return. That was quite impossible. She couldn’t leave the artist, despite the fact that her feelings for him were similarly confused, plunging like a switchback from passion to reproach. If she phoned him now, as she had let Trish think she’d meant to, she wouldn’t even know whether to dial the code for Sussex or for France. She wiped her clammy palms across her coat. She’d been freezing just a minute ago; now she was perspiring – nervous from her dithering, from all the complications. If she didn’t get a move on, Trish would come to find her, or Isobel come running in her grease-splashed dress and slippers, and with tinsel in her hair. She must do what she’d decided in the car – phone her parents, but keep the call as brief and bland as possible – no emotion, no disclosures; just ‘Happy Christmas; she hoped that they were well; she was fine herself, and they really mustn’t worry; she’d phone again next month – goodbye.’
Three long minutes passed before the operator answered, a rude man with a local Sussex accent, who was followed by a squall of whines and cracklings. She couldn’t hear a word, but presumed he must be trying to connect her, arrange the transferred charge. ‘Right, caller, go ahead,’ he rapped at last.
‘Hallo,’ she said uncertainly, not even sure who was on the other end.
Her father’s voice was wary, a frightened hopeless sort of voice she had never heard him use before.
‘It’s Jane,’ she said, as coolly as she could.
‘Jane!’ She heard the voice break, stumble on the next few words, try desperately to right itself. ‘Oh, darling, you’re alive! Thank God. Don’t put the phone down this time. Janey, please, for heaven’s sake, tell us how you are.’
‘I … I’m fine,’ she stammered, trying to remember the formula she’d planned: were they well themselves, had they had a happy Christmas, she’d ring next month, goodbye.
‘I’m missing you’, she said instead. ‘I’m missing you quite horribly. Oh, Dad,’ she sobbed, ‘don’t cry, please don’t. I love you and I’m coming home – right now.’
Chapter Nineteen
‘Did you enjoy your Christmas?’ Jane enquired nervously, mopping her sore nose.
‘It wasn’t bad.’
‘No better than ‘‘not bad’’?’
‘Quite pleasant, then. Will that do?’
She crumpled up her sodden paper hanky. The artist seemed irritable already, and he had been back in the studio only a paltry seven minutes. True, he’d kissed her passionately, as soon as he’d walked in, told her that he’d missed her, brought her presents – French chocolates and French scent. He probably didn’t like her questions – or her cold.
‘Did Anne enjoy the trip?’ she asked, reaching for more hankies, and trying to stop her voice from betraying any emotion beyond a mere idle curiosity.
He shrugged.
‘Well, did she?’
‘Yes, of course she did. Why shouldn’t she?’
‘Did you both stay there for New Year?’ She slipped the ‘both’ in slyly, hoped it didn’t sound intrusive.
‘Till yesterday – I told you.’
Jane blew her nose more loudly than she needed. So he was lying to her – deliberately, cold-bloodedly, and for no reason she could see. He worshipped Truth in art, then kicked it in the gutter as far as personal relations were concerned.
‘How about you? Did Isobel lay on the fatted calf?’
‘A whole herd of fatted calves,’ she said, forcing a fake smile. ‘And roast sucking pig for New Year’s Eve – well, pork chops, anyway, and about twenty other courses. By the way, you didn’t phone again.’
; ‘No.’
‘You said you would.’
‘I couldn’t, could I, if you were staying at the Mackenzies’?’
‘No, after that. I came back here on the third, remember, and we arranged you’d ring that evening.’
‘I said I’d try to phone, Rose. It was very difficult, in fact.’
‘With Anne around, you mean?’
The artist struck a match, almost burnt his fingers as he tried and failed to light his cigarette. ‘There were fifteen people staying in the villa and one very ancient telephone.’
‘Don’t they have public phones in Nice?’
He didn’t answer, removed his overcoat, then strode over to the hi-fi, selected a cassette. The music was some modern thing, which sounded very harrowing, screwed up the tension in the room another painful notch. She was annoyed he hadn’t commented on her four days of hard work. She had returned from Isobel’s earlier than she’d needed, attacked the barn with brushes, mops and elbow grease; spring-cleaning every room, clearing up the studio, putting all the glass away, emptying the cullet-box. They had finished all the cutting just before the Christmas break, and were about to start the painting, so this morning she had got up extra early, cleaned the surface of all the separate glass-pieces stuck up on the screens, to remove any trace of grease or dust. Then she’d prised off the first section – the Angel’s head and halo – and placed it on the workbench, on top of the cartoon, exactly as he’d told her. She’d done everything he’d asked, and now wanted some acknowledgement, the briefest of brief thank-yous, not that wail of strident music.
He appeared to have picked up on her thoughts, since he turned the volume down a little, then joined her at the workbench. ‘Okay, Rose, first I’m going to show you how to grind and mix the paint. It may sound like a chore, but it’s actually a vital job. The ancient Japanese calligraphers used to spend an hour or more preparing their inks. They felt that the rhythm of the grinding focused their minds, built up a sense of peace and concentration.’
She watched him spoon dry pigment on to a square of roughened plate-glass, add a pungent-smelling cocktail of water and acetic acid, then grind it with a palette-knife, pressing, circling, mashing, establishing a rhythm. ‘You want to get it smooth like custard – no lumps or powdery bits.’
She did her best to concentrate, envied those calligraphers their peaceful focused minds. She must take them as her model, leave the lies behind, stop fretting over Nice and why the artist had deceived her. She was his assistant, not his mistress, so it didn’t matter anyway. She had vowed she wouldn’t sleep with him again; should never have allowed that scorching kiss which was still throbbing in her mouth, confounding her decisions, unsettling and disturbing her.
‘Next we mix in some gum arabic, and a little dab of sugar. That helps the pigment flow, makes it stick more firmly to the glass. Here, have a try yourself, Rose.’
She tried to copy him exactly, continually flipping back the mixture into the centre of the palette, cutting through it vertically, then scraping it all up again, and repeating the whole process. Strange how they had returned to work so swiftly. They’d been parted for sixteen and a quarter days, had a mass of news and feelings to exchange with one another, yet were talking gum and pigment. She stared at the dark sludge, which looked more like mud than custard. It still surprised her that you painted glass with such a limited range of colours, a few grey-greens and blackish-browns.
‘Do you stain the glass yourself?’ Trish had asked naïvely, when they’d been discussing their respective jobs last week. It was only when she’d explained to Trish the detail of her work, that she’d realised what a lot she’d learnt in a brief two months’ apprenticeship.
‘No,’ she’d told her, ‘the colour’s in the glass already. You don’t apply any other colour to it, apart from silver-stain …’ She had broken off at that point. Silver-staining was quite a complex business in itself, and Trish was looking baffled, as it was. Her friend’s job was less complicated. She was employed by a small firm of vegetarian caterers who cooked for private parties – everything from homely dinners to large-scale prestige gatherings; worked mostly from her home, liaising with three other girls, but using her own kitchen to prepare and cook the food, and sometimes waitressing as well, if she wanted extra money.
Jane had thought secretly that it sounded rather boring; much preferred her own work, especially now she was learning more about it. She’d been mugging up the books, aiming to keep a step ahead of Christopher, so as they started each new stage, she had grasped the basic principles, techniques. ‘The craft’s basically so simple,’ the artist often said. ‘You can pick up the essentials in a day or two.’ She didn’t contradict him, but to her it seemed extraordinarily involved, and there were always subtleties, refinements, she found difficult to grasp. Painting glass, for instance, was as much about controlling light coming through the window as depicting scenes and symbols. The paint also added richness, created form and texture, modified the brilliance of the colour. But, according to the books, removing paint was as vital as applying it, and when the artist reached the second stage of painting, he would be using a whole armoury of different implements and brushes, to scrub and scratch and stipple it, sponge and stab and splatter.
But first he had to trace in all the details – fingers, features, halo, hair, feathers on the Angel’s wings, petals on the roses. He was picking out a tracing-brush, selecting a long-handled one with very fine long hairs. ‘I’ve just started using these Chinese brushes, and they’re bloody good, you know – said to be the closest thing to what they used for painting medieval glass. This one’s squirrel-hair, which the twelfth-century monk Theophilus specially recommended in his treatise on stained glass, though he also praised badger-hair, and even hair from the tail of a cat.’
‘Perhaps Isobel should lend you Tibs, or chop off Orlando’s tail.’
He ignored her little joke, stood keyed-up at his workbench, about to start the painting, peering intently at the lines on the cartoon which were showing through the glass. ‘Paint ready yet?’ he asked.
She nodded. If those calligraphers he’d praised had been mixing inks for him, he would never have allowed them their full and focused hour, but would have been hassling them to finish, so he could get on with his own job. She gave the mixture one last grind, praying that she’d got it right, that it wouldn’t be too runny on the one hand, nor too stiff on the other. She watched him dip his brush in, trace the first line of the Angel’s face – her face. They were bonded by this window, not just by their bodies. She longed for him to recognise the fact, rebuild their intimacy, say how much she meant to him, how sad and grey the days had seemed in Nice – if he’d gone, that is.
‘Don’t watch me, Rose. It puts me off my stroke. Can’t you find a job or something?’
She backed away. ‘There’s nothing left to do, I’ve cleaned up all the glass-screens and …’
‘Well, go and make some coffee.’
She trailed out to the kitchen, banged the cups around. Christopher never had coffee till eleven at the earliest; simply wanted her to scat, stay out of his hair. She filled the kettle, stood musing at the sink. He must have been to France. The chocolates were hand-made, had the name of the supplier on both the wrappings and the box – a Monsieur Jacques Lemercier, with a local Nice address. So why had Anne not accompanied him? Had he taken someone else, another woman she didn’t even know about, some model from the Art School, or …? She rammed the Maxwell House back, started grinding coffee beans. At least it would take longer, and it was essential she kept busy, pulverised her angry thoughts, as well as just the beans. Grinding coffee, grinding paint – that was all that she was good for.
She plugged in the percolator, started scouring down the worktops while she waited for it to brew, though they were clean and clear already; arranged biscuits on a gold-rimmed plate, home-made ones from Isobel’s. The artist simply grunted when she carried in the tray, didn’t seem to notice that she’d mad
e a special effort. His total concentration was on his brush, the glass – the curved line of the eyebrow which he was feathering in with tiny delicate strokes. ‘I like the way your eyebrows sit,’ he had told her all those weeks ago, but now her brows had been translated to the Angel, and all his passion and commitment were directed at that Spirit, and not to her as mere superseded mortal.
She bit into a biscuit, to remove the taste of jealousy, bitter in her mouth. She was jealous of so many things – of the Angel, and the artist’s wife, and his (female) friends in Nice; jealous of his talents, his absorption in his work. ‘Christopher?’ she said.
‘Mm.’
‘I need a job myself. I hardly did a thing at the Mackenzies’ – Isobel wouldn’t let me. I just stuffed myself and sat around, and now I’m feeling fat and sort of fidgety. Can’t I help you with the painting? It doesn’t look too difficult.’
‘You’d be surprised. Drawing with a brush takes years of practice. It’s a matter of control, you see, and you’ve no training or experience at all. You can’t even draw with a pencil.’
‘Well, I’ll never learn, will I, if you don’t let me have a bash.’
‘Okay.’ He straightened up, took a sip of coffee, seeming slightly puzzled at how it had arrived there. ‘If you root around in that cupboard on the right, you’ll find some old cartoons. Pick out a hand, or foot, or flower – something that you’d like to paint, and practise on some scrap glass. But go and do it on that table by the window. I need total peace and quiet. Working on a face is always rather tricky. It never seems to come right first time round.’
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