The bag was filled with stems of rosemary from his garden. Rubbing it between her fingers, she dipped her head to breathe it in: heavenly – rich and pungent, but a clean smell, almost antiseptic.
She should apologize, she knew. It had been entirely her fault. Making assumptions. And then she’d practically thrown herself at Julian to make herself feel less crappy. Another inspired idea from the woman who brought you Moving to a City where She Knows Only Two People, Moving House and Starting a New Job at the Same Time, and that old favourite, Dreaming of Being a Painter. What was the point of indulging in a brief bout of meaningless sex if it made you feel so bloody miserable afterwards?
Once Will had stomped off on Saturday morning, she couldn’t get Julian out of the house fast enough, babbling about vital work – she had to go into the office, she’d said – would love to loaf in bed all day – still it couldn’t be helped – ushering him down the stairs – giving him coffee in a small cup so he’d drink it quickly – kissing him in the hallway, her hand already on the doorknob – saying yes, yes, it had been wonderful – would love to see him next time he was over – yes, of course – have a great trip – kissy, kissy, bye-bye.
‘I know you’re a bit of a foodie. Sorry about the inelegant wrapping.’
‘Isn’t that a euphemism for complete pig? Thank you. I love it. Why are you apologizing anyway?’
He gave a small cough. ‘I’m just sorry if I was a bit snotty on Saturday.’
No sweat, she said, it didn’t matter.
Definitely, she should apologize. She scrunched her toes in her shoes at the thought of it, the shame, admitting she’d been wrong. As a child, her head dipped like a wilting flower, she’d seemed to be having to say sorry almost every day: Sorry, Mummy, I didn’t mean to – sorry, I forgot – sorry, I didn’t know – didn’t realize – thought it would be all right – sorry, sorry – sorry for being a nuisance – sorry for being naughty – sorry for being me. Her mother’s mouth, twitching in silent triumph, suddenly gracious in victory: That’s all right, Bella-dear. You’ll know better next time, won’t you?
‘Yes,’ Will nodded, ‘it does. I – was – well. I apologize.’
‘Me too. Really.’
‘Me three.’ He smiled. ‘Really.’
‘You can make the tea – if it’ll help you feel better.’
Will said he couldn’t stay now, had only come to check a couple of things and drop off the rosemary, but was she still all right for Saturday?
‘Or are weekends likely to be a problem in future? For any reason?’
‘Is that Will-speak for is there likely to be a recurrence of last Saturday? I’d say it’s about as probable as my being commissioned to fresco the dome of the Albert Hall.’
He shrugged. ‘So quite possible then?’
‘And you say I’m a dreamer?’ She shoved him playfully.
‘You are. Now, have you started the mural on the far wall yet?’
‘It’s still in the planning stage.’
‘That’d be a no then, as you would say.’ He turned to leave. ‘Better get on with it, hadn’t you?’
‘You’re so bossy!’
‘I know you, you’ll float around in a dream all week otherwise and I need you to be useful at the weekend.’
‘But I’m not designed to be useful.’
‘You’ll love it. It’ll be a new experience. Trust me.’
Bella resolved to ignore the fact that she was now drawing every day as well as in her weekly life class and had started to paint again in the evenings. It was presumably a temporary quirk, a mere glitch in the fabric of the Universe that would shortly be righted. It was easier when she tricked herself into it, casually picking up a pencil, balancing her pad awkwardly as if making a brief note. If she made it too important, treating herself to the luxury of thick paper, buying new brushes, clearing her studio properly, it would never happen. It was like walking a tightrope over an abyss – you mustn’t stop and look down or you’d suddenly realize what you had been so daring, so foolish to attempt.
Starting the mural on the garden wall, she felt once more that old rush of excitement, giddy and disturbing. Years before, when she’d been accepted for art school, she’d considered herself a lucky fraud: being allowed – encouraged! – to draw and paint all day! A licence to play. Remembered Alessandra’s baffled smile, explaining Bella’s peculiar peccadillo to the neighbours, ‘Of course, dear Bella could have gone to university, Oxford or Cambridge, but she’s set her heart on being an artist!’ It sounded no less ludicrous to her own ears, like wanting to be a ballet dancer or an astronaut, a silly childish fantasy. She’d kept herself in check. Opted for graphic design. Practical. Commercial. Focused on building her career.
On Saturday morning, Will stood back to admire the bunch of rosemary stems standing in a blue jug on the kitchen window-sill.
‘Rosemary’s lasted well then? See, aren’t you glad I didn’t get you a boring old bouquet of roses?’
‘Tremendously glad. Every morning I wake up and think “Thank God Will didn’t buy me any roses.” Stick the kettle on, will you? I’m all paint-spattered.’
‘So you are.’ He reached out and touched the side of her nose. ‘You’ve got a dab of grey just … there. Or have you not quite got the hang of doing your eyeshadow?’
‘Glad to see you’ve started to obey my every command.’ Will looked at the beginnings of the trompe-l’oeil arch on the garden wall. ‘You probably want to carry on, or shall I show you how to plant and stuff?’
‘The Henderson patented Instant Green Fingers Course? Will that really make me a proper gardener?’
‘Oh no, my lovey, takes years ’n’ years to become the real thing. See? Look at those hands.’ He held his palms outstretched towards her. ‘That’s ingrained that is, never come out.’
Bella started to stretch out her finger, to trace the lines in his hands. She wondered what his skin would feel like beneath her fingertip, how he had got that scar at the base of his thumb. Their eyes met.
‘Nonsense,’ she said, withdrawing her hand and diverting its direction to push back a strand of hair from her eyes. ‘You just need a good scrubbing, that’s all. Show me the secrets of the soil then. I can’t paint with someone else watching me anyway.’
‘Really? Why’s that?’
‘You’re very nosy, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Why can’t you?’
She stopped, not having really thought about it before.
‘I think it’s a bit like having someone in the same room when you’re in the bath or on the loo. Kind of –’
‘Intimate?’
‘Mmm-mm.’ She nodded. ‘Does that sound wanky?’
Will laughed through his nose.
‘Tremendously, you old pseud. No, not at all. Makes sense. But what about once you’ve finished a painting? People are going to look at it then, aren’t they? It’s still revealing.’
‘Ye-e-e-es. But it’s separate from you then. Like an ex-husband or something. You had a relationship once, but he no longer has quite the same power to embarrass you in public.’
He showed her how to plant, carefully firming the soil around a lemon verbena, giving it his undivided attention. He passed her another pot.
‘Here. Your go. About there, so it has room to grow.’
‘You really love this, don’t you?’ she asked, looking across at him. The tips of his ears went slightly pink, then he nodded.
‘Always have. Ever since I was a kid. Used to sow sunflower seeds, radishes, anything I could get my hands on. My mum gave me my own little patch of garden when I was eight. And Hugh, my stepdad I told you about – ex-stepdad now, I suppose. Whatever. He helped me lay a course of bricks all round the edge to make it my own little kingdom.’
‘They sound nice. You must miss him. My dad’s a keen gardener.’ Bella got up from where she’d been kneeling on the ground and stretched herself. ‘You’d like him.’ She said it without thinking, seeing Will and Dad
s in her mind, the two of them together, bending over plants, pointing, talking, at ease. Swung her arms, pushing the thought away.
‘Are you stiff? Sorry if I’ve been too much of a slave-driver,’ he said. ‘And your mum? Does she garden too?’
‘Ha!’ The thought was amusing, absurd. She looked down at him. ‘She might snip a few flowers, but the rest of it – too messy. Might spoil her hands.’ Bella held up her own hands and stroked one delicately against the other, as if admiring their charms in the sunlight. ‘Oh no! National crisis! Call the Emergency Services! Bella-darling, I’ve chipped a nail!’
Will laughed.
‘I’m sure she can’t be all bad as she produced you.’
‘I’m a changeling. Didn’t I tell you?’
They fell into a routine over the following month, working each weekend, stopping too often to talk or to survey their progress, adjusting the plan slightly here and there as they went. As she dug her trowel into the soil, she could hear the confident clipping of his secateurs, methodical and comforting, his quiet humming as he tied in a climber or cut back a wayward stem.
The mural was completed, the painted arch offering a glimpse of another garden beyond, with a moss-cushioned woodland floor in the foreground, opening to a sunlit clearing, at once tantalizing and out of reach.
‘This will be the main scented area,’ Will said, putting in the lavender plants alongside buddleia, daphne, sar-cococca, ‘near your willow seat.’ Bella inhaled as if she could already smell the plants, as if the air was thick with fragrance. She smelt just-laundered cotton, a touch of soap but not too soapy, a hint of fresh sweat, warm skin, the faint tang of something citrusy. Nice. Not too much aftershave.
* * *
Silently, he leant past her, stretching into the cupboard for two mugs. They moved around each other in the narrow kitchen, a silent dance, sidestepping, anticipating, not touching. The gaps between them fizzed; she felt the air charged and trembling, making her skin prickle, her body light and buoyant. She wondered what he would do if she were to touch his back as he stood by the sink washing his hands, imagined his warmth beneath her palm, her fingers. She swallowed. Avoided looking at his face. Clattered about in the cutlery drawer, hunting for a particular teaspoon. A hollow ache in her gut. A slight feeling of nausea. Low blood sugar, she told herself, that’s all it is. Wished he would go away, leave and not come back – ever. Wanted him to stay – always. Wanted him to hold her, stroke her hair, make her safe. She banged the cutlery drawer shut.
‘Having fun there?’ he said.
‘I can never bloody find anything in this bloody stupid house!’
Will threw back his head and laughed.
‘I’m glad you find it amusing. I’m surprised you ever get any work if you treat all your clients this way.’
He giggled into the depths of his mug, his eyes shining over the curve of the rim.
The work, inevitably, took longer than he had originally estimated – ‘It’s your fault, of course,’ he said. ‘Too easy to talk to’ – but, finally, it was done.
‘Well then.’ Will lingered on the doorstep. ‘I’d better be off.’
She thanked him again for all his hard work. It was stunning, she said, she would try to look after it properly.
‘You better had or I’ll come round and deface your mural. Oh and – nearly forgot.’ He turned back towards her.
Her heartbeat quickened.
‘Would it be OK for me to come back soon to take some photographs? For my folio?’
He waved at her, once, from the end of the street, and then he was gone.
15
Bella stood at the door for a moment, then went into the kitchen to fill the kettle. Wiped the surfaces, opened first one cupboard then another, as if looking for something. Padded through to the sitting-room to plump the cushions. It was a good thing, she told herself, pounding the cushions, tweaking at the corners to make them pointy, that he hadn’t kissed her goodbye or anything silly like that because then he would still have left and she’d be feeling a whole lot worse. Yes, all things considered, she was very lucky that he hadn’t kissed her. She picked up the phone and called Viv, to see if she wanted to come and admire the garden before Bella had a chance to mess it up.
‘Wow. It looks stunning now it’s all finished. Lemme out there.’ Viv rattled at the French windows. ‘Is this all the work of the wunderkind Will?’
Bella unlocked the doors. ‘Yup. And me. I have the scars to prove it.’ She shoved back her sleeves to reveal the long-gone marks on her brambled forearms. ‘Well, they were there.’
‘So, tell me more.’
‘More what?’
‘Since you found out he was single – has he –’
‘Declared his intentions? No. I think I’ve lost the knack, Viv. Anyway, it’s too late to impress him. He knows me too well.’
‘But?’ Viv raised her eyebrows into an exaggerated arch.
‘But what?’
‘Oh, come on. But you do think he’s a bit of a potential shagmeister, don’t you? I know you do.’
‘Good grief. I told you before, he’s not drop-dead gorgeous or anything …’
‘Orange toupee? Nicotine teeth?’
‘I admit I do think he has a nice face – the kind that makes you think you must always have known him. Comfortable-looking, like an old sofa. And he’s got this little scar here –’
‘I know, I know – you told me, it makes him look vulnerable. Never mind all that.’
‘I keep wanting to reach out and touch it.’
‘You’re bloody smitten, woman. Admit it.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Yes you are. You’re all glowy and smiley. You’re in l-u-u-r-r-v-e.’
‘Am not. You know I’m immune to that sort of thing. And please don’t use the “L” word before the 9 o’clock watershed or I’ll have to report you.’
‘Hello.’ It was Will.
‘It’s me,’ he said.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘How could you tell?’
‘Don’t be annoying. You’re probably wondering what reason I could possibly have to call you when I only left your house a few hours ago and the garden’s all done?’
‘You’re calling to tell me to check the peonies every half-hour and to tie in any traily bits on the clematis. You told me.’
‘Did I? Good. And don’t forget those newly planted shrubs. Don’t let them dry out.’
There was a pause.
‘And I’ve got a possible commission for a Kreuzer mural.’ He told her about an urgent civic project he had, two alternative designs for part of the area behind the mayoral offices. It was a plum job, high-profile, could bring in lots of new clients. Would she be interested in coming up with a couple of ideas for a mural at the back? Only on spec, but could be worth it.
‘Thing is, we’d have to meet up to go through the brief. I could pop round or we could go out, save me always using up all your provisions. How would tomorrow suit you? Evening?’
It was a first-rate opportunity, so why did she suddenly feel disappointed? A large-scale commission – what could possibly be better? You’re just scared, she told herself, scared to try anything new.
Could it really be true? Another spot? Smack dead centre on her chin. It couldn’t have been more perfectly centred if she had used a measuring tape and painted it there herself. She had managed to steer through the entire spot-minefield of puberty, and some years afterwards, with an almost unblemished record. She had dared to believe – naïvely and somewhat mistakenly it now appeared – that she ‘just wasn’t the sort of person who gets spots’. She had, of course, been suitably sympathetic to her more carbuncular friends, offering them such small consolation as: ‘It’s only because I’ve got such dry skin. I’ll age really badly’ while telling herself that she could bathe in moisturizer morning, noon and night if she needed to in that then far-off time of ageing.
God evidently did not believe ‘Blessed are the smug’
for she was paying for her complacency now. Perhaps He got some cheap thrill from watching her relax in a non-spotty identity, only to spatter her when she was off guard – at an age when any sensible person would be worrying about wrinkles, not spots. She teased her reflection in the bathroom mirror: why are you so nervous, you idiot? It’s not a date or anything. It’s only Will. He’s seen you with a spot before. He’s seen your stubbly legs, tangled hair, smudged panda eyes because you’re too lazy to take off your make-up.
The spot gleamed back at her from the mirror. Will wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off it; it was like a homing beacon. Ships at sea could probably use it to navigate by. He wouldn’t be able to think of anything else, only ‘Don’t mention the spot, don’t mention the spot’ cycling through his brain, terrified to speak in case he blurted out ‘So, can I get you another spot?’ Perhaps she should try to cover it up? But that always looked so obvious – so very like a spot with a blob of cover stick on top of it, never quite the same tone or texture as the surrounding skin. And anyway her cheerily named ‘Hide the blemish’ stick must be somewhere in the crammed-full bathroom cabinet, the Cupboard that Time Forgot with relics in layers displaying her personal history like a cross-section of an archaeological find: purple eyeshadow, too-pink blusher, various hopeless hair-taming products, dental floss still hermetically sealed in its bubble pack purchased after a resolution to Be Good and floss every day, bronzing gel – abandoned after one use which made her look as if she had bathed in orange squash.
If she wore the black top that was quite low-cut, he might not notice the spot. Sort of like creating a diversion. Good grief, it was a meeting, not a seduction, will you be sensible, she told herself. Her fingers wandered over her smart charcoal suit: too formal. Back to the black top, teamed with a sober skirt to show that she was capable of being a serious, professional person. She looked at herself in her old barley-twist mirror: first, the top half – the black top clung as closely as a drunken friend. Better cover herself up with a jacket.
She tilted the mirror to inspect her lower half. Perhaps she should go wild and buy a full-length mirror one day. Then again, perhaps not; she felt she was best seen only a small portion at a time.
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