by Isabel Wolff
‘But what’s this?’ Lucy points to the corner of a painting that is included in the background of the portrait.
‘That,’ says Iris, ‘is a fragment of a picture of my sister and me when we were children.’
Lucy looks at it more closely. ‘So that little girl chasing the dog – is that you?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘So who did that painting?’
‘My father – his name was Guy Lennox.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard of him,’ Lucy says. ‘So it’s a way of having him in your portrait with you?’ Iris smiles. ‘Exactly.’
Lucy glances at the door. ‘People are arriving – excuse me – I’m on duty.’
In comes Polly with Lola, who’s gripping a silver balloon.
‘Happy birthday, Ella.’ Polly hugs me, then I introduce her and Lola to Iris, then Polly takes off her jacket to reveal the green T-shirt that she’s wearing in her portrait. ‘I’m afraid Lola’s outgrown the yellow dress that she wore when you drew her, but she’s put on something very similar.’
Lola ties the balloon to the back of a chair, then goes to look at her red crayon drawing, which I’ve hung next to that of the doctor’s daughter.
Lucy offers Polly a glass of wine. Polly takes it and has a sip. ‘This is nice,’ she says. ‘What is it? Prosecco?’
‘It’s a sparkling chardonnay,’ Lucy replies.
‘From the Blackwood Hills estate in Western Australia,’
I add.
‘So it’s from John?’ Polly says.
I nod. ‘I told him about the party, and he and Lydia kindly sent me six crates.’
‘How nice,’ Iris says. ‘At our last sitting you said that you might go and see him.’
‘I am going to – next month. I’m planning to spend a week there.’
‘Will you go on your own?’ she adds.
‘No. Nate’s coming with me.’
Polly glances around. ‘So where is he?’
‘On his way from the airport. He should be here soon – oh, he’s here’s Chloë. Hi!’
Chloë hugs me, then hands me the gift bag that she’s holding. ‘Happy birthday, Sis.’
‘Thanks – let me get you a drink.’
‘Just half a glass,’ she adds as Polly and Lola chat to Iris. ‘I can’t stay long. Max is giving a talk about the charity at the Wellcome Trust. He sends his apologies,’ she adds as we walk to the drinks table. ‘He’d love to have been here.’
‘That’s a shame – but never mind.’ I hand her a glass of wine.
She takes a sip then looks around. ‘So where am I, then? I hope you’ve hung me next to someone I like …’
‘I’ve put you next to Cecilia Bartoli.’
‘That’s nice – perhaps her portrait will sing to mine
– as long as it’s not “Ave Maria”.’ Chloë grimaces. ‘I don’t want to hear that ever again.’ At that we both laugh darkly, then walk over to Chloë’s painting. Chloë cocks her head to one side. ‘It’s funny seeing it here. But I do look grim, don’t I?’
‘Well, you were feeling grim.’
Chloë nods. ‘I wanted to be with Max so much I thought I’d go mad. I look mad,’ she adds cheerily.
‘I didn’t want to paint you like this, remember?’
‘I know – I insisted on it. But I’ve been thinking – I would like you to paint me again, Ella.’
‘Oh, I’d love to. I could paint you and Max together
– gratis, of course. After all, I owe you a picture, don’t I?’ I nod at my portrait of Nate, which, under the circumstances, Chloë hadn’t wanted to keep.
Her face lights up. ‘Okay then – you’re on. We could sit for you when you’re back from Oz. Oh, there’s Dad.’
Roy walks in, wearing the same tweed jacket, checked shirt and blue speckled bow tie that I painted him in three years ago. He beams at us. ‘My two girls!’
‘Hi, Dad,’ says Chloë.
He kisses Chloë, then me. ‘Happy birthday, Ella.’ He glances around the gallery. ‘This is rather fun. So … where am I?’
I laugh. ‘That’s what everyone wants to know first. You’re over here.’ I lead Roy to his portrait.
He stands beside it. ‘Spot the difference!’ he challenges us.
‘Well …’ Chloë narrows her eyes. ‘Your hair’s quite a bit greyer now, Dad. And you’re thicker round the middle.’
‘All right,’ he says good-naturedly. ‘I asked for that. But this is very nice, Ella. I can imagine the portraits all chatting to each other after we’ve gone. And there’s your mum.’ We walk over to her painting. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Thank you. But is she going to come? She wouldn’t commit herself when I asked her yesterday.’
‘I don’t think she is,’ he answers.
‘So … how are things?’ I ask quietly.
‘Improving. We’re, well … I think the expression is “building bridges”.’
‘That is the expression,’ Chloë agrees. ‘But she still won’t speak to me.’
‘Well … she’s just got to get over it,’ Roy says.
I think of the ruined wedding and of how utterly undone Mum was by Chloë’s accusations – she didn’t leave the house for over a week. Then, when the tent was no more than a huge yellow rectangle on the grass, I’d finally said to her all that I’d wanted to say.
‘You kept my father’s letters from me,’ I’d said as we sat at the kitchen table. ‘Dozens of them. And you lied to me about him, and about Lydia – you’ve lied for years.’
She’d pursed her lips. ‘Sometimes it’s kinder to lie. I was protecting you, Ella.’
‘No, Mum – you were protecting yourself. Your relationship with John had ended badly, so you wanted nothing to do with him – and I understand it. But that meant depriving me of the chance to stay in touch with my own father, and to at least know that he still cared for me even if he couldn’t live with me.’
‘He was the one who did the depriving,’ Mum had retorted, ‘by choosing them, over us.’ I’d then told Mum that I intended to visit John in October. She’d looked away for a moment, then murmured, ‘Poor Roy’.
‘Roy’s happy for me to go. His attitude is generous, Mum, unlike yours.’
‘Well … go, if you must. But please don’t tell me about it.’
‘All right.’ I’d heaved a frustrated sigh. ‘You know, Mum, I’d like to think that you regret the way you’ve handled things, but I don’t think you do.’
‘I regret having caused you any unhappiness, ever,’ Mum said, which I knew was as much of an apology as I was ever going to get. With that, she’d got up and had gone into her studio to put her body through its daily ritual of stretching and twisting.
In the gallery Lucy offers Roy a glass of wine and he takes one, smiling his thanks. ‘Everything will settle down over time,’ he says to Chloë and me. ‘Hopefully well before your mother’s sixtieth – we’ll want to throw a party for her. And how’s Max, Chloë?’
She smiles. ‘Max is fine. I’m meeting him later.’
‘You do realise that there’s no cash left in the wedding kitty,’ Roy says with mock seriousness.
Chloë grins. ‘Well, if we did ever tie the knot, it would be in a register office with two witnesses.’ She looks at me. ‘Maybe you and Nate,’ she suggests with a laugh.
‘We’d be glad to,’ I say.
‘I like Nate,’ Chloë goes on. ‘But I love Max – I always have.’ She nods at Nate’s portrait, a few feet away. ‘And it’s screamingly obvious who Nate loves.’
I hug Chloë, then remember the conversation that I had with her two days after the wedding.
‘Couldn’t you see it?’ she’d asked me wonderingly as we sat in her sitting room in Putney.
‘No,’ I’d answered. ‘I really couldn’t – perhaps because I was so close to it. But now I know why you reacted to the painting the way that you did.’
Chloë had nodded. ‘It was a … shock. I felt so humiliat
ed and upset – especially as Nate’s mother was there. I knew that Vittoria had noticed it, and I was trying not to let her see that I’d noticed it too. I was in agonies. And I was just standing there, thinking that no one must ever see that painting. I thought I’d have to burn it, like Churchill’s wife burned that portrait of him that she didn’t like.’
‘But … if you knew that Nate was in love with me, why did you go ahead with the wedding?’
Chloë had thrown up her hands. ‘Because it was less than twenty-four hours away! As I left the studio I tried to convince myself that perhaps you’d painted Nate badly, and had accidentally made him look like he was in love with you when he wasn’t. But I knew that couldn’t be true because you’re such a good painter. So then I told myself that you had some fantasy that he was in love with you, and that you’d projected that on to the portrait. I couldn’t acknowledge the truth, because that would have meant cancelling the wedding and I simply couldn’t face it.’
‘Then, that night, Dad told you about Mum.’
Chloë had closed her eyes. ‘It … knocked me for six. Then I was awake all night, trying to work everything out and I realised what Mum had really been trying to do. She hadn’t been trying to protect me—’
‘On one level I’m sure she was,’ I’d countered. ‘She’s your mother – she loves you.’
‘Okay,’ Chloë had conceded. ‘But I also think that she was reliving her own past. I even wondered whether she’d been motivated by envy of me: she’d been unable to have the love of her life, so perhaps she didn’t want me to have mine. My thoughts were all over the place. As the sun came up, I knew that I had to go through with the wedding – it was too late not to. I couldn’t lose face. But when I stood there on the altar, the words simply wouldn’t come …’
The gallery is filling up now, as everyone arrives. Chloë looks at her watch, then sips the last of her drink. ‘Gotta go – I’ll be late for Max.’ She gives me a hug. ‘Bye, Ella. Bye, Dad.’ She blows him a kiss.
Roy smiles. ‘Goodbye, my girl.’ Then he goes to chat to Polly and Lola and look at their portraits. As I make my way through the crowd, I hear my sitters swapping notes with each other.
– She’s really caught your smile.
– Not sure about my hair.
– Hard work sitting, isn’t it?
– Like therapy really.
– Feel I know a lot more about myself.
I feel a light tap on my shoulder and turn. ‘Mike!’ I smile. ‘How nice to see you.’
‘It’s nice to be here – I’ve even remembered to wear the blue jumper.’
I point to his portrait. ‘There you are.’
But Mike doesn’t look at it – doesn’t even notice it – because he’s staring at Grace. I would never have asked Grace’s parents if I could borrow her portrait, but her uncle, seeing the show listed in Time Out, phoned me to ask if it could be included. I said I’d be delighted.
Grace has one hand under her chin, and is smiling. ‘You’ve caught her radiance,’ Mike says. ‘Her inner light.’
‘If I have, it’s thanks to you,’ I respond quietly. ‘And did you go to the memorial service?’
He nods. ‘It was held at her school. They put your painting at the front of the stage. I overheard Grace’s parents telling someone that they find it very comforting.’
‘Well … I’m … glad. And I hope you’re okay, Mike.’
‘I’m … fine.’ He heaves a sigh. ‘Sarah and I have separated … so …’ He shrugs. ‘I keep myself busy. That’s all one can do.’
‘Let me get you a glass of wine.’ We go over to the drinks table. ‘Lucy, this is—’
‘Mike Johns,’ she interrupts with a laugh. ‘That’s the nice thing about this exhibition: no introductions needed – just match the person to their picture. Hello, Mike.’ She smiles warmly at him. ‘I’m Lucy. I work at the gallery.’
I leave Mike and Lucy chatting as I now see Celine arriving, in her blue linen dress, with Victor. She looks sun-tanned, and her hair is short. ‘Happy birthday, Ella!’ She says.
‘Thanks. It’s great to see you. I was sorry you weren’t at home when I went to collect your portrait. So tell me – how was your trip?’
‘It was wonderful. Especially Venice,’ she adds, with a smile at Victor. ‘But now … back to real life. I’m going to retrain – as a French teacher. There’s a postgraduate course at Roehampton that I’ve applied for.’
‘That sounds great.’
‘So … where am I?’ She looks around. ‘Ah – there.’
We walk towards Celine’s portrait, but before we reach it Celine is distracted by another, much smaller painting. ‘And there you are, Ella,’ She says. ‘That’s a lovely self-portrait.’
‘Thank you. I did it last month. I hadn’t done a self-portrait for over twenty-five years, so I … thought I’d have another go.’
‘And this handsome man?’ Celine is looking at Nate’s portrait, which I’ve hung next to mine. ‘He’s in love, isn’t he? Lock, stock and barrel.’ She laughs suddenly. ‘Of course – how slow of me Ella – he’s in love with you. I hope that you’re equally enamoured of him.’
‘I am, actually.’
‘So … is this the man you told me about?’ she adds quietly. ‘The one who was … attached?’
‘Yes. But then everything changed.’ Celine smiles. ‘Très bien!’
Now I overhear Polly chatting to Iris. ‘My feet have modelled for all the major shoe designers,’ she’s explaining. ‘I do hands, too – I’ve been Helena Bonham Carter’s hands, and Twiggy’s, and Joan Collins’s – which was a bit ridiculous as she’s years older than me.’ Then I hear her telling Iris about her new boyfriend, Ian. ‘We met through Lola’s school. He’s a publisher. In fact, I’m going to do a book for him.’
‘Is it a novel?’ Iris asks.
‘No – it’s a cultural history of footwear from the Bronze Age to the present day. It’ll be beautifully illustrated and full of fascinating facts – it’s right up my street – the idea is to sell it in shoe shops as well as book shops. Oh – there’s David Walliams. Ella said that he’d promised to pop in.’
Then Honeysuckle arrives with Doug, James and Kay. They look at the paintings, then come and find me.
‘So we get to see Nate’s portrait at last,’ Doug says as he looks at it. He puts his head to one side. ‘It’s very striking, Ella. But is it a “great” portrait?’
‘I don’t know … I can only say that I’m happy with it. Very happy,’ I add, as I see Nate standing in the doorway. He makes his way through the throng towards me, and suddenly I want to cry with simple joy.
‘You told us that a “great” portrait reveals something about the sitter that they didn’t even know themselves,’ Doug is saying. ‘So what was it that Nate didn’t know?’ He smiles. ‘That he was in love with the woman who was painting him?’
And now Nate is by my side. ‘I did know that,’ he says. He slides his arm round my waist. ‘I knew it from the start.’
As Nate pulls me to him, I recall the night of the wedding. We’d kept our distance, but when everyone else had drifted away, he’d come to find me. I was sitting on the bench by the horse chestnut tree.
He’d sat down next to me and had taken my hand. Then he’d just held it in both of his. ‘It’s nice to be able to do this,’ he’d said quietly. ‘I’ve wanted to for so long.’
‘But then why …’ I’d heaved a sigh. ‘Why did you …?’
‘Go ahead with the wedding?’ I’d nodded. ‘Because …’ He’d heaved a painful sigh. ‘Because I didn’t know what you felt for me. And because I thought that Chloë was committed to marrying me and I believed that to have pulled out would have destroyed her; plus the wheels of the wedding were turning so fast – the thing was like this … juggernaut, powering on.’
‘Thanks to Mum,’ I said balefully.
‘Yes.’
‘Well … she wanted fireworks,’ I said. ‘And she got
them. But did you really feel that Chloë was in love with you?’
Nate inhaled. ‘She seemed … glad to be with me. There were two or three weeks when she became a bit remote – now I know why; but then she was suddenly full on with the wedding again, really involved with all the arrangements, constantly telling me how wonderful everything was and how happy we were going to be. But now I know that she was just trying to convince herself.’
‘Were you in love with her?’
‘I really liked her,’ he said carefully. ‘I was … charmed by her. But we’d got engaged in such a rush – almost by accident; I panicked at first, but then told myself that I was thirty-six years old – why not get married? So I convinced myself that I could be happy with Chloë. But then I got to know you. And I fell in love with you, Ella. I was in agonies, not knowing what to do, and not being able to tell you how I felt because it would make me look so bad. But you must have realised how I felt.’
‘I … did.’
‘But you gave me no indication.’
‘How could I? You were marrying my sister! I wasn’t going to wreck her happiness – or publicly humiliate her. And I wasn’t going to risk her having another breakdown like she’d had over Max. Added to which, you and I had spent so little time together Nate. Less than a day.’
Nate turned to me. ‘Well we’ve got all the time we need now.’ So we sat side by side, under the tree, just looking at each other. Nate smiled. ‘What are you doing? Counting my eyelashes?’
‘No. I already know how many you’ve got. One hundred and sixty-two on the upper lid …’
‘Really?’
‘And seventy-four on the lower – but don’t worry, that’s perfectly normal.’
‘Good. You had me worried there.’
We were still gazing at each other. ‘I can see myself,’ I said.
‘Your face in my eye …’ he murmured. ‘Thine in mine appears.’
Nate touched his lips against mine. I felt my insides dissolve. ‘You kiss with your eyes open,’ he said.
‘That’s because I don’t want to stop looking at you. I love looking at you, Nate.’ His lips touched mine again, his hands cradled my face.
In the gallery Nate greets his friends. ‘Honey!’ he exclaims softly. ‘Kay. James. Good to see you all.’