Love's Portrait

by Anna Larner

  Molly opened the window directly behind them and stood for a moment in the relief of the breeze.

  “And that is not all I find unsettling.” Evelyn rubbed at her brow. “There is a general sense of disquiet with regard to Georgina taking over as head of the foundation.”

  As she returned to her seat Molly heard herself say, “Why, is she dodgy?”

  “What? No. She’s a banker from London who has made no secret of her disinterest in all things art. It would not surprise me if George feared her selling his collection to the highest bidder. And as for her intentions for the foundation itself and the impact to museums…” Evelyn raised her hands in a Who knows? gesture.

  The chairman intervened, “I understand what you’re saying, Evelyn. On the odd occasions I’ve met Georgina Wright, I’ve found her…how shall I put it…non-committal on museum matters.”

  Evelyn drained the last of her coffee and rested the cup with a determined knock against its saucer. “So we need a plan. A plan that will invest Georgina in the museum so she will think of us first when it comes to future funding.”

  Evelyn drummed her fingertips on the table as the chairman brushed at his tie.

  Molly tentatively suggested, “We could have a dedicated temporary exhibition of the foundation’s bequest. Fran could even prepare a short history of the foundation. We could invite Georgina—”

  Pushing her chair back, Evelyn began to pace the room. “Yes, of course. That’s it. I had thought to disperse the bequest throughout the museum, but this is better. The key is to show her that we are ready and waiting to display her father’s collection and fulfil his last wish. This will flush her out from London and oblige her to hurry along in handing over the final pieces. But we need more than a temporary display—we need something substantial and, ideally, enduring.” Evelyn stood stiff as if a solution had possessed her like the devil. “We need a dedicated space, and I can’t think of a more prestigious and forward-thinking use of the annex. We need a name. The Wright Room has the authority we are seeking. We need a date for the opening. I’m thinking the beginning of December. And perhaps most importantly we need a dedicated individual to bring everything to fruition. And by fruition, I mean someone who will impress and guide and remind Georgina Wright that not only are we the foundation’s chosen museum, but we are also the natural choice for any future foundation funding.”

  Evelyn and the chairman turned in unison to look at Molly.

  “Yes, we are looking to you, Molly. We have every faith and trust in you. Your assistance with this initiative will be vital. Vital.” Evelyn glanced at her watch. “More coffee, Mark. And another biscuit, perhaps?”

  You are? It is? “That’s…thank you,” Molly said. “Just one thing. Did you say the annex?”

  Evelyn placed a hand on her flushing neck. “I really rather hoped you were listening. Yes. The annex.”

  “It’s just, well, I don’t think that will be possible. You see, there is an expectation that the annex is already reserved for community use. Fran—”

  Evelyn shook her head. “Fran, more than anyone, understands the difficult choices a museum has to make. Thank you for your time this morning. We won’t keep you any longer. Let’s meet again in a day or so to take the plan further.”

  Evelyn turned away. The discussion was clearly concluded.

  Molly left the meeting and stood in the corridor with her back to the closed conference room door. The low rumble of the chairman’s voice and Evelyn’s hollow laughter carried on without her.

  “You okay, Molly?” Marianne placed Bourbon biscuits on a plate. “Here, have a biscuit.”

  “No, thank you.” In that moment Molly had completely lost her appetite. She had surely let Fran down. What’s more, was she about to let down the entire museum by failing to impress and persuade the elusive Georgina Wright?

  * * *

  Molly returned to her office, dropped her notes back into the bin where they belonged, and slumped onto Fran’s desk with a heavy sigh.

  “You’re sitting on my sandwich.” Fran pushed at Molly’s hip, encouraging her to stand.

  “I’ve sat on your lunch? Oh my God, could this day get any worse?” Molly held Fran’s baguette, squishy in her hands. It was now less buoyant baguette and more flatbread and pretty much summed up her morning.

  Fran stood with a groan. “Want anything from the cafe?”

  Molly looked down, crestfallen, and shook her head.

  “I take it the meeting wasn’t exactly a great success.” Fran rested a motherly hand on Molly’s shoulder.

  She couldn’t bring herself to mention the annex let alone that she had prompted the idea of a dedicated exhibition in the first place. “Honestly it was chilling to hear them. Everything’s about money or status. I thought museums were for and about the people.”

  “You’re sounding more like a social historian every day,” Fran said, with an approving nod. “Although isn’t the art world, your world, all about that—status?”

  “Not for me.”

  “Good for you.” Fran placed her hands on her hips. “I think we need cake.”

  “Have lunch in the square with me?”

  “Sorry, no can do, I’ve a shopping list longer than David Attenborough’s career. But I’ll see you later. So what will it be—Victoria sponge or, better still, eclairs?”

  Molly mustered a smile. “How about both?”

  “Good choice.” Fran turned back at the door. “Do you remember what I said to you when you first started at the museum? That you will always feel disheartened if your approach is to work against them?”

  Molly nodded.

  “The trick, if there is a trick”—Fran frowned slightly—“is somehow to find a way to achieve what you believe is right but that still delivers for the powers that be.”

  “So is this how you handle Evelyn?”

  “On my good days, yes. On my bad days, lots of rude words shouted at the top of my lungs in the privacy of the ladies’ loo.”

  Molly giggled. “Right. Noted.”

  The instant Fran closed the door, Molly was engulfed by images of the chairman with his expression of vacuous power, his mane-like hair swept back, his tie tight against his collar moving with his throat as he spoke. He was confident in a bullish way that suggested at his heart he was insecure. His insecurity made him dangerous, and if she was not mistaken, that was likely the source of his power and influence—not his knowledge, not his experience, but the fragility of his ego, charming when stroked, ferociously defensive when challenged.

  Evelyn seemed to be a master at managing him, stroking to calm and cajole. She appealed to his competitive nature by presenting the museum as a place of excellence. A leading institution, indeed. She was the consummate manager of people.

  Molly closed her eyes at the image of Evelyn with her pen raised to silence her. Her temper rose. She needed to find a place to shout rude words.

  Leaving the frustrations of her meeting behind, she headed to her sanctuary, a small public garden next to the museum. Aptly named Museum Square, the simply designed patch of civic ground was bordered on two sides by parked cars. A collection of benches placed around the inside edge of the square separated the grass from wide borders. A diagonal path, broken up by tree roots, stretched across, splitting halfway along to encircle a large horse chestnut tree. This tree marked the seasons, signalling the changing patterns of the year. In winter, bare and stark against white skies, the tree seemed to shrink, huddled with those brave or crazy enough to stop awhile and sit. In spring, tentative buds relaxed in the welcome return of the first rays of sunshine. In summer, students rested against its weathered waist reading their books, cool in the shade of branches laden with the soft flutter of green leaves. And in autumn, the debris of crushed conkers bashed free from its branches, littering the ground with evidence of battles won and lost and of time passing as the empty husks curled and browned.

  She cherished those moments spent sitting on her favourit
e bench eating her sandwiches, with her lunchbox at her side and with the sprawling horse chestnut her faithful companion.

  Basking in the calm stillness of the beautiful September day, she took off her shoes and let the grass brush against the soles of her feet. She lifted her chin to the cloudless sky. The air was changing from the dry sandy notes of summer to the sweet musk of autumn. The leaves above her were fading, and their greens had softened to mossy shades from vibrant lime. Even the midday light beaming through the canopy seemed weaker now, less luminous, its strongest rays falling on another person sitting on another bench, in another square, in another land.

  * * *

  Georgina Wright stood at the sitting room window of her father’s house. Her thoughts drifted, tangled in the trance-like rhythm of the passers-by hurrying up and down the tree-lined promenade just a few steps from the front door. Her gaze broke free to settle on the square across the way, taking in the many shades of green and the glint upon the iron railings of the changing light of the day.

  When she was young she would sit for hours staring out of the long windows, watching the comings and goings. The square had a routine all its own then. First the flushed-face joggers would run along the promenade followed by the pallid sternness of rushing commuters. Then young mums would sit perched on the edge of benches staring anxiously into prams, or the elderly would pause to rest with gnarled hands against the railings, their shopping bags just that bit too heavy yet again. That was twenty years ago, and yet everything and nothing had changed. The promenade was just as busy if not busier.

  Standing out distinct from the crowd, a woman caught her eye. She was sitting on a bench staring up into the tree’s canopy with her face bright with wonder. Georgina had seen her before. For she was the beautiful stranger she hadn’t meant to look out for in those last dark weeks of her father’s life. Noticing her wasn’t deliberate, at least not at first—she just seemed to have fallen into the habit of it, as one falls into the habit of many things.

  She could even remember the first time she saw her. It was a Friday lunchtime in mid-February. It had started to snow and soft flakes drifting past the window had called her attention to outside. She remembered how she had pressed her hand against the cold glass as if to catch the flakes that were dissolving against the windowpane, melting in the grey-white light of the winter day. She had looked out to the square across the way, empty but for one woman who stood with her arms out wide, her face tipped to the sky. She had watched, entranced, as the stranger proceeded to brush a bench free of snow and then sat eating her lunch, as if the hazy winter sun had mustered in that moment the strength of summer.

  Georgina looked away. That was the same day she’d arrived to find her father’s doctor at his bedside. How sorry the pale-faced clinician was to tell her that it was only a matter of weeks before she would likely lose her father. Never had a day felt bleaker and never had a person seemed so out of place.

  Her heart ached. How long would the memory of him hurt so much? It had already seemed too long. But she would be brave, as always. Routine had definitely helped. Visiting her father most weekends following his diagnosis, arriving from London on a Friday lunchtime to help with matters that required weekday hours had worked, hadn’t it? She’d even sought a familiar comfort by sleeping in her childhood bedroom as if she’d never been away. And now while she settled her father’s estate, she would repeat a similar routine. She would start by taking this coming week off work and basing herself here to kick-start matters. That was her plan, if she had a plan at all, other than to make it through her grief somehow.

  Looking back, it felt like the beautiful woman was there just for Georgina, sitting on the same bench in the square eating her sandwiches. She had been her light in the darkness, constant and reassuring with her presence.

  And today, on the brink of autumn, nearly six months on after her father’s death, there she was again. Georgina stared at the imprint of daisies on the woman’s sundress, watching as they seemed to glow in the last rays of the year’s sunshine. The woman’s bare feet had slipped from sandals and the curls of her auburn hair fell onto her shoulders, setting off the cream of her pale skin. Georgina’s gaze fell absently to the woman’s neck, her throat tilted to the sky…

  The woman suddenly glanced across to where Georgina stood at the window. Georgina stepped quickly back to stand shaded, unnoticed in the centre of her father’s sitting room. Her heart pounded. She felt exposed. It was not like Georgina to stare. At least not usually. People rarely held her attention. She would try to engage in polite conversation should the situation demand it but they would lose her not much beyond their first brag of achievement or their grumble about that day’s irritation.

  Did people find her cold? Did they wonder at how different she was to her father, who always seemed so graceful and composed? Without effort he would find the right words to say at the perfect moment. There was warmth and an energy behind his eyes that flickered like a smile as he spoke.

  Tears threatened and stung. She sought out her father’s armchair and brushed at the faded arms, the leather softened and worn to a light shade of brown where sleeve and hand had rubbed. She gazed at the seat cushion, flattened where her father had sat. It was as if he had just left the room, and if she pressed her hand against the cushion she would feel it warm.

  Was that his voice, his feet against the tiled floor? She glanced across at the door that led from the sitting room to the hall, holding her breath, imagining in that instant that she would see his frame appear in the doorway, tall, slender, imposing.

  A hot tear gathered at the corner of her mouth. Georgina brushed it away. She would not cry. What use were tears, after all? They never seemed to help.

  She willed herself to focus on something.

  The faint rings of tea stain on the coaster on the side table caught her attention. When she visited from London, they would drink tea and talk for hours. He would ask her about her work, keen to hear about the latest economic tool to revive the weary fortunes of UK companies. What else had they talked about? Their conversation rarely strayed from work. They both enjoyed what they did, for work was not just their job but their purpose and focus. The law for him was not just his profession, not just empty rules, but structure, definition, the very politics and agency of life. Neither she nor her father dwelled on the fact that their work had become their world to the exclusion of everything and everyone. It was their choice, wasn’t it? Feelings were incidental, passing, and superficial. Work was substance, material, tangible, and real.

  Georgina turned back to the window and risked a final look to the woman bathing in the sun. She had struck up conversation with a homeless man, or he had struck up conversation with her, either way she was pouring him a drink from her flask and offering her sandwich. Georgina was taken with her generosity, this act of compassion. Beautiful and kind then. The woman then packed up her things and walked away in the direction of the museum.

  Georgina was surprised to feel the pinch of loss at her leaving. How could you miss a stranger? And how long could she ignore the echoes of emptiness in her busy life?

  Chapter Two

  Beams of sunlight broke and flickered against the walls of the sitting room as a cyclist swept past, startling Georgina out of her thoughts. Enough. She was sick of sadness and of memories cloying at her, dragging her down. This happened without fail every time she came back to this house. And every time she couldn’t wait to leave.

  With the grant of probate, things were on their way to being concluded, weren’t they? The solicitors were following her father’s instructions as directed in his will and methodically tying up each loose end. Her role was to oversee the sale of the house and the safe storage or sale of his belongings. Georgina glanced across again at her father’s chair. Father. There was no way she could bear to pack up his personal belongings and to see his life shipped out in boxes. Not yet. Not ever. She bit at her lip, fighting tears. She had time surely to do this while eve
rything else was being settled?

  She took a deep breath, her gaze falling on the beautiful blue ware vase that rested on the sideboard, so delicate and in blissful ignorance of its fate. Her stomach tightened at the thought of handing over her father’s beloved fine and decorative art, so loved in this house for so long, to the grasp of the museum. It might have been his wish and the museum entirely within their right, but something still felt distasteful about it. Was it the polite yet feverous clamour of the museum to get their hands on his collection? It made her want to resist their every advance. For their director had been pestering the moment her father had died. Could we make a time to meet? Had Georgina found a moment to think about how she would like the task best done? Please be assured of our best intentions. And it felt like every time she spoke with the foundation’s solicitors, they ended each call with and then there’s the museum bequest to fulfil.

  The foundation. Nausea gripped her. Every Wright family member since the foundation’s beginnings had known that one day the responsibility to lead the foundation would fall to them. And now it was her turn. She knew people were looking to her and waiting to hear the tone of her compassion and to understand the focus of her concern, and to feel the impact of her decisions. She would no doubt be compared with her father and measured only by their differences and judged by what she lacked.

  And she would now have to endure the fawning and the flattery of those seeking funding and reassurance that their future was secure with her. They’d all attended her father’s funeral dressed in black like sharp-beaked crows, hunched, plotting, waiting for the moment to swoop. Even the director of the local museum across the way had been there, twitchy, triumphant, and making a point of shaking her hand.