by Judy Astley
‘What are you grinning at?’ Marie looked suspicious. ‘What’s so funny about my broken heart?’
‘Sorry, Marie! I was just thinking about something, that’s all.’
‘Hmm . . . it’s giving you the kind of look I see in the mirror if I think, or thought, about Angus. But I’m that kind of woman – you’re not. Or are you?’
‘I thought I wasn’t, as well; but you know what? It seems I am. And don’t look at me like that. No one’s more surprised than I am.’ It was such a relief, she thought, to admit it. And maybe that would mark the beginning of the end of it. She didn’t need this. Didn’t want it, not really. It would all end in tears and disaster. All the tears were going to be hers.
‘Oh-my-God! You haven’t got a lover? Sara! But you’ve got Conrad!’
Sara didn’t point out that Marie also had Mike. Why state the obvious? She felt bad. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s nothing. Nothing’s happened. Just forget I said anything. Weak moment.’
Marie reached across and took hold of her hand. Sara wanted to cry. Admitting what she’d been feeling suddenly seemed a bigger betrayal of Conrad than the little (was it little?) that she’d actually done. It was out in the open now. Deeds, thoughts, set free to cause trouble.
‘Of course you had to say something.’ Marie was being the voice of dubious experience. ‘You just do. When you’ve got someone in your head all the time that you’re ridiculously passionate about, you can’t resist sneaking them out and talking about them. It’s almost impossible not to. I read about it somewhere, the writer called it “mentionitis”, where you somehow slip their name or a reference to them into the conversation. I bet you’ve even talked about him to Conrad.’
Sara looked at her. ‘Well, not . . .’
‘Oh God you have, haven’t you? You are an idiot; Conrad’s so much more intuitive than Mike. He’ll suss. So who is he and what does he do?’
‘He’s called Ben . . . oh and you’ve met him!’ Sara remembered suddenly. ‘At the college that time?’
‘Wow! That tasty journalist? Married, obviously.’
‘Seems not any more. But Marie, it’s weird. I haven’t gone off Conrad. I love him just the same. I still fancy him, we have sex, more now even since he seems to have rediscovered it, and it’s completely blazing. How does that work?’
‘Ah – well it’s like when you have a second baby. You don’t love the first one any less, do you? See? And it also works because we’re not silly young things looking to make life-partner decisions. We’ve done that. I mean, can you imagine living with someone new? Nightmare.’
‘No. I don’t want to live with anyone but Conrad. I don’t even want to sleep with anyone else.’
‘Yes you do,’ Marie said. ‘You’ve had, what, a couple of useless boyfriends before Conrad? I’d only ever slept with Mike. These days, that kind of pathetic total is the equivalent of dying an old maid. I had to do it. I had to see what it was like.’
‘But . . . what about the . . . the L word?’
‘The Love word is strictly for home territory.’ Marie looked fondly in the direction of the house. The sound of sawing came from the kitchen. Mike must have found something essential to mend or alter. It was funny, Sara thought; everyone has their own way of showing love for someone. Mike’s was in nest-making. Marie was so lucky – and she knew it really. Whatever off-the-premises game she’d been playing, she knew that when it was time to add up the scores and go home, Mike would be there, waiting.
*
Conrad was hardly inconspicuous. Almost any art-aware person in the land would recognize his trademark long white hair, very reminiscent of David Ginola’s in his gorgeous-footballer heyday. His look was almost as recognizable as David Hockney’s boyish blond hair and glasses or Peter Blake’s gnome-ish beard. He’d put on sunglasses and his old straw hat for this covert mission, but he was pretty sure that at any moment someone was going to emerge from behind a hedge and ask what the hell he was doing lurking and watching.
Now that he was actually outside Ben’s house he wasn’t sure what he’d intended to do or to achieve. Setting out from his own place in a mood of fury and jealousy, he’d had no formed plan. In his head, there was a vague something along the lines of thrashing this media twat to within an inch of his life, but the twat would be years younger than him, many degrees fitter, stronger and quicker than him. And besides, you didn’t go round taking on people in such an uncivilized way – that was prehistoric behaviour. He could just see it in the papers: ‘Art Attack: pacifist painter lamps love rival’.
He didn’t even know if the guy was home, though if the flash (too flash?) black Audi parked outside next to a purple Mini was his, then he probably was there. But he wasn’t likely to come outside and pose around the garden among the flowers just so Conrad could give him the once-over through the hedge. All he really wanted to do was look at this bloke, see what he was up against. The best outcome, he now thought as he watched Floss scuffing up some interesting leaves, would be that he was a really boot-faced ponce who Sara wouldn’t fancy in a million years. Then maybe, and only maybe, Conrad could believe that all the stuff about the gallery would be kosher. That Ben was only in pursuit of her artwork. But he’d seen that look on her face, heard the twat on the phone calling her ‘Darling’ . . . or did they all do that, media folk? But this moment of self-doubt was only fleeting. If this Ben was in the acting business it would be one thing, but a journalist? He didn’t think so. Even Sara’s gay friend Will, who did something design-ish in wallpaper, didn’t call anyone darling, except possibly his partner Bruno.
Conrad, realizing that unless he actually knocked on Ben’s door there was no way he was likely to get a look at him, was about to turn for home when the cottage’s pink front door opened. He crossed the lane and hung about behind the same chestnut tree that had hidden Jasper not so long ago. Thank goodness for dogs, Conrad thought; they must have saved many a curious lurker from being accused of loitering with intent. A woman was coming out of the house, followed by a man too good-looking for comfort. Conrad recognized immediately that this Ben – and it had to be him – was Sara’s type. Arty-looking sort, a lot like Conrad himself in his younger days.
The woman (tall, dark, slim, very pretty) turned on the garden path and kissed Ben. It was a very thorough kiss, nothing friendly-peck about it. Well that was something, Conrad thought; at least Sara wasn’t the only lust object in this guy’s life. Ben was talking to the woman now, stroking her back as if she was a much-loved cat. She kissed him again and walked down the path, smiling. She climbed into the purple Mini and drove away while Ben waved to her from the doorstep.
Conrad turned for home, feeling very confused. This scuppered rather a lot of plans. He could hardly book that one-way ride to the next world leaving Sara in the hands of a loser and user. Dilemma.
Pandora climbed out of bed and looked at the clock. Ten thirty. A bit late by most people’s standards, but then Most People didn’t work till midnight serving drinks to mad Goths and then clearing up a grubby bar. The girls left great smears of purple and violet lipstick on the glasses that were almost impossible to shift in the usual dish-washer, so they had to be washed by hand first. Complete pain.
She went down the spiral staircase to the little kitchen under the sleeping platform and switched on the kettle.
‘Tea or coffee?’ she called up the stairs to Xavier.
‘Tea please,’ he yelled back. ‘One sugar, tiny bit of milk.’
It was like playing house; Pandora felt very contented as she padded around in her T-shirt and knickers, sorting a couple of mugs of tea for the two of them. There were two possibilities here that she was trying hard not to think about. The first was that this would all go terribly wrong, horribly soon, and that she and Xav would be over and finished before they got any further. She hoped very much that this wouldn’t be the case. She liked him more than she felt comfortable with. In her experience, as soon as you got to the comfortab
le bit someone threw nails in the path of love’s car and all your hopes were punctured. The second possibility was that this was going to last. That it was going to work out, be a good long-term thing. She hardly dared think about that. It was important, like with giving up drugs or drink, to take one day at a time, wasn’t it?
While the kettle was boiling, she shoved a couple of slices of bread into Conrad’s Dualit and switched it on. She wandered across the studio’s dark wood floor, thinking about paint and how she hadn’t so much as sniffed oil paint for a guilt-inducing long time.
Idly, she opened the huge cupboard and slid out the massive canvas that Conrad had abandoned. She had the beginnings of an idea for it. It would be about three times the size of anything she’d tried before, but it would be a good and necessary challenge. If her dad wasn’t going to paint any more, it would be sinful to waste this wonderful space, the opportunity, the fabulous light from the huge roof windows. If she had to, she could easily share the space with her mother.
‘Toast’s burning,’ came Xavier’s voice from the kitchen. He switched off the toaster and took a plate out of the cupboard. She smiled at him, thrilled with her new and lovely boyfriend. And such a bonus: no way would he have put that toast down on the worktop without finding a plate first. He wasn’t going to scatter crumbs.
Lesser artists borrow. Great artists steal.
(Igor Stravinsky)
‘Over there, Will – they’ve put cones out so we can unload right outside.’ Will steered his van through the traffic and pulled up outside the gallery. It was very early morning in Notting Hill. Shopfronts were mostly shuttered, apart from the convenience stores that were doing good trade with hordes of passing schoolchildren who ambled along the pavements with fizzy drinks and chocolate bars. The gallery was the only real sign of life among the more chic end of the businesses, and was looking good from the outside now: the windows were sparkling, the sign ‘Picture This!’ was in place above a pink striped awning and inside, the walls had had their final coat of white paint.
‘Ooh good on them, they’ve used Trade White, not Brilliant,’ Will commented as they opened the door. ‘Makes all the difference because you don’t get the glare. But then it’s Art with a capital A, I guess they’d know that. Not that everyone does. Brilliant White has such a nasty blue-grey glow. Very cold.’
‘Sara! Hi – how are you?’ Mindy greeted them and hugged Sara. ‘Can’t wait to see your pictures in real life! They’re going to look wonderful in here.’
‘Hello, Mindy – and this is Will. His company has a van so he drove the paintings over here with me. There were rather a lot to cram into my Golf. Hey, the place is looking fantastic now! Oh and the tables – they’re exactly right, aren’t they?’
She ran her fingers along the glass on one of the four tables that she and Ben had bought from Ikea, trying not to think about lying crushed against him on that bed. And how sad was she, that she’d actually looked it up in the Ikea catalogue at home? It was the Heimdal bed, simple metal-framed. She’d found herself considering buying one to replace the old one in Cassandra’s room.
Mindy was exhibiting jewellery as well. The tops of the tables were two-layered, with a useful display-space gap between the glass and the white board beneath. Inside one of these, Mindy had arranged a selection of necklaces made from tiny misshapen pebbles.
‘These are pretty,’ Sara commented. ‘I might get one of them.’
‘I was just trying them out in there, seeing if they looked right. I think it works, doesn’t it? You can have one at staff discount, obviously,’ Mindy told her. ‘Though I promise I won’t be offering your paintings around at cut price!’
‘You might be glad to give them away when they’ve hung around unsold for a couple of weeks!’
‘Now don’t be so pessimistic!’ Will told her off. ‘You always used to do OK, didn’t you?’
‘These things go in and out of style. We’ll see,’ Sara told him.
‘Anyway,’ Mindy said, ‘let’s start unloading, shall we? Have a look at the full-size pics? I’ve only seen the photos. I know it’s not the most usual way to go about organizing an exhibition, but yours are rather exceptional, Sara. And they’ll look fantastic with the other artists’ work we’ve got. It’s just you and two others. Did Ben tell you?’
‘Um . . . actually, he didn’t say much at all about it,’ Sara admitted as they went out to the van. Will unlocked the back doors. Sara looked at her rows of paintings and hoped very much that she wouldn’t be loading them up again for a return journey. ‘He just said it was your new project and that he was merely helping out.’
Mindy picked up the first two pictures and carried them across the pavement. ‘Well it’s not just my project, of course. It’s Caro’s as well, obviously.’
Oh yes, the ‘other investor’.
Mindy propped the first paintings up against the wall. Somewhere in the background was the sound of a power drill. ‘Still putting up shelving in the loo,’ she explained. ‘I’d say it was all a bit last-minute but there’s still a week to go to the opening, so really it’s not that fine a line. I’ve had worse. I once went to a restaurant first night where the paint on the walls was still wet and they’d had to move all the tables and chairs into the centre of the room. Cosy was the word. Right, let’s see . . .’ She pulled the bubble wrap off the first picture and stepped back to have a good look. It was a scene of a market in Provence, naive, colourful, crowded with people.
‘Nice choice! I bet half the people round here spend weeks at a time in the area, playing at being rustic Français. I hope you’ve got Tuscany covered as well, sweetie!’
‘Oh I have!’ Sara laughed.
‘It’s fabulous – I love it. But . . . er . . . oh! That’s a surprise!’ Mindy’s smile faded a little. ‘Um . . . I thought . . . the signature?’ She looked at Sara, questioning.
‘My signature? What’s wrong with it?’ Sara was puzzled. Of all the aspects of her work to pick on for criticism, the way she’d signed the painting wouldn’t be a top priority. It was discreet enough, surely, tucked away in the bottom right-hand corner as usual.
‘ Sara McKinley?’ Mindy looked at Sara, then at the back of the painting, as if she was expecting something different there.
‘Well, that’s my name,’ Sara told her. ‘What’s the problem? Would you rather they were only signed on the back? That’s not usual.’
‘Artist’s choice, surely?’ Will chipped in, looking as mystified as Sara felt.
‘But . . . aren’t you Sara Blythe-Hamilton?’ Mindy eventually asked.
‘Ah,’ Sara said. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Oh Lordy, so you aren’t? Oh God! We’ve printed up the flyers! I’ll show you!’ She dashed to a cupboard at the back of the gallery and pulled out a file.
‘Look!’ Sara saw her name, top of the billing, above another pair of painters, also both women. She didn’t recognize one name, but the other she’d heard of . . . or rather she’d heard of her brother. He was a pretty well-known sculptor. Well, who wouldn’t want to open a new gallery with someone recognizable? She tried to tell herself it was only good business sense.
‘I didn’t say I wasn’t.’ Sara felt cold inside. Her heart started to beat too fast and she breathed deeply to calm it. ‘I asked who told you I was?’ As if she couldn’t guess. She tried to persuade herself this wasn’t going to matter. But she could see Conrad’s face and Lizzie’s, both asking if Ben knew who her husband was. And what had she told them, in her stupid ignorance? A stupid, confident, no.
‘Oh phew! Well as you are a Blythe-Hamilton, then it’s fine, isn’t it? No harm done!’
‘It was Ben, wasn’t it?’ Sara persisted.
‘Actually it wasn’t Ben.’ Mindy put the wrapping back over the painting. ‘It was Caro. Shall we go and collect the rest from the van?’ she said, smiling. ‘Because all’s well, isn’t it?’
‘Who’s Caro?’ Will asked.
‘I think she’s Ben�
��s ex-wife,’ Sara said, trying to stop her voice from shaking. She remembered the photo on Ben’s piano, the tall, slender woman with the bones and the hyper-straight teeth. The woman on the boat, managing to look sexy in a high wind. Sara needed to decide who to accuse of using her, and to be very sure of her facts when she did. Mindy seemed fairly upfront. Ben . . . well she’d like to strangle him right now. How dare he let her think he didn’t know who her connections were? And that it wouldn’t make any difference to the exhibition? How right Conrad could be sometimes. Or not . . . how to be sure?
Mindy, opening the gallery door, turned back looking hugely surprised. ‘Ex-wife? When did “ex” come into it? Caro’s been spending a lot of time in their place in Brighton and everyone knows they each had a huge affair a few years ago, but that seemed to make their relationship stronger. She’s even been talking about going in for a late baby! I’d love to be an auntie again!’
‘Oh God. I’ve been royally stuffed here,’ Sara muttered to Will. ‘The lousy, lying bastard.’ She picked up the pair of paintings and carried them to the door, pushing past Mindy. ‘Sorry, Mindy. I hate to let you down like this. Just tell your brother . . . all he had to do was ask. If he’d been honest with me this still might have worked out. I’m sorry it’s got to be like this.’
‘Well now. Tell me to mind my own business, sweetie, but what was all that about?’ Will asked her as he drove the van as fast down Holland Park Avenue as the traffic would allow.