“I don’t know if telling you this is the right thing to do.” Elizabeth spoke quickly. “I saw Daniel.”
Kat didn’t respond immediately. It had been so long since she had heard his name spoken out loud. Elizabeth hesitated, her hands clasped in front of her. She seemed to be looking for an indication of whether she should go on. Kat wasn’t sure whether she should give it to her, but the lure of hearing something—anything—about him proved too strong to resist.
“It didn’t end well.”
Kat surprised herself. A very tidy dismissal.
Elizabeth nodded sympathetically. After all, she had warned her of as much. “It was a few weeks after you left. He came to the flat. At first I wasn’t sure it was him. He looked so … different.”
She glanced at Kat and gave a small nervous laugh before looking away again. “Anyway, like I said, he came to the flat. It was late. He asked for you and I told him you weren’t there—that you had gone back home. I didn’t tell him where you were, just like you asked. And he left.”
Here she paused again, eyes still downcast, the color rising in her cheeks. “And then about an hour later he came back, asking for you again. I assumed he was drunk or something. Obviously. And that maybe he had forgotten that he had been there before and so I told him again. That you were not there. That you had gone home. And he left.” Elizabeth’s voice was increasing in pitch, but her words were slowing down, as if they somehow weighed more now than when she had begun the story and she was having trouble getting them out.
“And then there was another knock on the door, just seconds after I had closed it. And there he was, just standing there, like it was the first time.” She was no longer looking at Kat, but instead looking down as she clasped and unclasped her hands. “He just kept coming back.…”
Kat shivered, but said nothing, thinking of Daniel at the door, playing out the scene over and over again. Elizabeth looked up at her, finally meeting her eyes. And in the small silence between them, two things happened at once. Elizabeth decided not to finish her story and Kat guessed its ending. That Daniel would have continued to come back until he found a different conclusion.
“Oh Kat, I didn’t mean for it to happen. Really, I didn’t. I honestly don’t know what got into me.” Her face furrowed with desperation. “You won’t … you won’t say anything, will you? I mean, you wouldn’t, would you?”
After a moment, the music started up again in the ballroom and Elizabeth looked toward it, regaining her composure. “I never saw him after that.” She shrugged, in a small, quick way that looked like a twitch. “I thought you should know…” Her voice trailed off as she stood, sad and triumphant, uncharacteristically still inside the warm embrace of the Plaza’s gilded grand ballroom, under the soft glow of its glittering chandeliers. After a moment, a small smile returned to Elizabeth’s face and she turned back to Kat.
“Anyway. I guess you made the right choice.”
Kat nodded. She should say something. It was her turn to do so. But she couldn’t think what. A man in a dark suit hovered near them for a moment, slightly agitated, and then approached, placing a hand proprietarily on Elizabeth’s shoulder. Kat looked up into a familiar face.
“There you are,” Elizabeth said delightedly, reaching up to squeeze his hand. “Christopher, you remember Kat?”
“I do. Kat Lind. How are you? Haven’t seen you since Paris.” Kat leaned in for the obligatory double-kiss greeting of the recently repatriated. “Sorry to interrupt. Darling, would you come say hello to the Fiskes before they leave?”
Elizabeth startled at the name and hurried to excuse herself. Kat watched the pair dissolve into the crowded ballroom and turned to leave, letting go of the back of the delicate gilt cane chair she had been clutching.
It was at about this time that she had come upon her old camera in the back of her closet in her mother’s house. There was unprocessed film in it. Standing in the darkroom, she watched as the curtain of rain appeared under the bath of chemicals. The last photos she had taken. She hadn’t used her camera again after that day in the Tuileries. There were several shots like that, followed by a number that she had taken at high speed with the wider aperture. These were completely different, showing the shape of the individual raindrops. Elongated on the way down and fat and round as they bounced off the ground. All that had not been apparent in the moment.
The last photo on the roll showed the clear lines of trees against a fence as ghostlike figures moved in the foreground. She studied it closely. The focal point of the photo was beyond the figures, rendering them oddly distant despite their relative proximity. She knew that one of the blurred figures was Daniel, leaving the Tuileries after their brief shelter under the tree. But she couldn’t tell which one.
chapter ten
Kat noticed the silver sports car, parked at an angle and too far from the curb, before she noticed him. He leaned back on the car easily, arms folded across his chest, eyes on the house in front of him. It was partially hidden under a cobweb of scaffolding, while being repainted in the approved shade of eggshell white. He hadn’t seen her yet, but it was too late for her to turn around. She glanced down the street. No sign of the neighbor or of the neighbor’s driver. No sign of the security guard at the Greek embassy. The road was empty of traffic. He was still staring at the house when she stopped in front of him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Kat.” His eyes came upon her slowly. Despite where he was, he seemed surprised to see her. “I came to see you. You live here?” He said the last word with emphasis.
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“What?”
“It just seems like we are both a lot more than two hours away from Paris.”
Kat regarded him silently, not moving from her spot on the pavement. He squinted at her for a moment with an expression that seemed equal parts contrite and amused. “I came to say I am sorry.”
“Yes. I imagine you are.”
He shook his head and smiled ruefully at her. “Listen, do you think we could lay down our weapons for just a moment? Or do you need to take a few more shots at me for yesterday?”
Kat was unbalanced by his breeziness. Where was the rage she had seen in his eyes yesterday? She could not figure out exactly what circumstances had rendered her the angry one and him the rational one. She remembered it being the other way around.
Across the street, the security guard at the Greek embassy eyed them lazily as he emerged from the side of the building, a paper cup clutched in his hand. His blue jacket, emboldened by its official crest, was pulled taut across his middle, secured by a single, brave button. She had trouble imagining him springing into action to fend off an invasion by Troy or some other crisis.
Turning back to Daniel, she cocked her head and regarded him. “Where’s Martin? I’m surprised he let you out by yourself.”
“Funny girl.” He said it as if he were discovering, in that moment, that she was, in fact, a funny girl. That in remembering other things about her, he had forgotten that detail.
Kat shifted the flowers in her arms. She should really put them in water. A car drove down the road and she noted with alarm that it slowed as it passed by. Had the driver recognized her? Or him? She watched the next car nervously as it passed and noticed that as it slowed, it swerved slightly toward the center of the road. She realized with relief that it had slowed simply in order to avoid Daniel’s car, the side of which was sticking out into the road.
She turned her attention back to Daniel. Of course she could not invite him in, but she was beginning to realize that the pavement in front of her house was not the place for this conversation either.
“What do you want, Daniel?”
“There is something that I want to show you. Will you come with me?”
Kat intended to refuse. Daniel pushed himself off the car and bent down toward that door. There was no reason that she should go with him. His shirt pulled taut across his shoulders a
s he turned sideways and bent slightly to catch the handle. His other hand reached for her, palm up, fingers slightly curled. She wondered what it was that he could want her to see.
She stole a glance across the street at the security guard, who had settled into his chair by the embassy’s front door and was sipping from the paper cup while perusing what was likely today’s Page Three girl. Wouldn’t he, a trained professional, spring into action if there was anything untoward in the invitation? Wrestle Daniel to the ground if his highly honed senses detected anything amiss? And anyway, she would just be getting in the car with him. Going to see … something. Where was the harm in that?
Stealthy and feline, the neighbor’s black Bentley poured itself into the driveway. The surface was so shiny it seemed liquid, as if the car would simply melt into a slick puddle when it stopped. It was only upon seeing her reflection in the car’s surface that she realized that she had, in fact, already taken Daniel’s hand and was allowing herself to be guided into the small, low red leather seat. His fingers intertwined with hers in a way that was so familiar that she wasn’t aware of it until he let go. The driver met her eyes and nodded briefly at her, as if in approval.
They drove in silence. She could not remember the last time she had ridden in a car without any idea of where she was going. She could not remember ever having been in a car with Daniel. She didn’t even know he could drive. There were so many normal, daily things that she had never done with him.
As he guided the car through Notting Hill Gate and along the northern edge of Kensington Gardens and then Hyde Park, silence settled into the spaces between them. He took them up Portland Place, under the imposing facades and past the Georgian terraced houses on Park Crescent where Regent’s Park dips its toe into Marylebone.
She wondered what would happen if there was an accident and they were both killed. How would anyone make sense of their being in the car together? The most logical conclusion would be that she was considering buying one of his paintings. She had been at his opening, after all. That would be easily discovered. And she had both money and bare walls.
Would it be assumed that that was the extent of their connection? Would they examine CCTV footage of her last days or hours the way they did when there had been a crime? Looking for clues or souvenirs in the last moments of a life. With all the embassies and large homes in her neighborhood, there were myriad security cameras. She thought of their conversation outside the house. What would that look like on camera? They would likely interview both the security guard and the neighbor’s driver, as they would have been the last people to have seen them alive. Of course, she reminded herself, there would have been no crime in this instance.
The car was small and the stick shift meant that his arm regularly moved rather close to hers, occasionally brushing lightly against it. She concentrated on ignoring this, focusing instead on the interior of the car, which was very tidy. From the lack of personal items or clutter, she concluded that it probably wasn’t his. Rented? Unlikely—such a beautiful and unique car. Martin’s? Possibly. It started to rain. Daniel fumbled to find the windshield-wiper controls.
The scent of the flowers had quickly permeated the small space, the stiff green paper crinkling softly under her touch every time she shifted in her seat. It was her ritual to buy a bunch of lilies every week. She found something so fragile and beautiful, so very unlikely and heroic in the way they bloomed, literally turning themselves inside out. She should have left them at home before getting into the car. Put them in water.
She glanced out the window. By now, they had moved out of the London that she knew well. The buildings here were larger and more industrial. There were fewer trees. Although there was a familiar sense of place, she recognized none of the streets. It seemed as though it was a different possibility of what London could be. She thought that it was always surprising how close the unknown was. How short a distance you had to go from the familiar to be lost. She relaxed. There was no one here to recognize her.
Listening to the steady sound of the rain hitting the windshield, punctuated by the low rhythmic swish of the wiper blades, she surreptitiously studied his profile while his eyes watched the road. His closely cropped hair had hints of gray mixed in with the dark blond. Gone were the long, slightly wavy locks that used to frame his eyes and brush the back of his neck. His face was more exposed and seemed larger somehow, especially in the small space of the car. She had long ago lost any ability to judge whether he was handsome or not. His cheeks were more lined than she remembered and were covered with the beginnings of stubble that was not yet long enough to be soft.
He was more muscular than she remembered. His thighs and his forearms were thicker. He had always been lean and sinewy. She smiled to herself—the starving artist no more. His sleeves were pushed up and she watched the tendons moving under his skin as he changed gears. His hands were the same. His left hand rested lightly on the gear shift next to her. Traces of paint embedded in the creases and under his nails. No ring. She felt for hers. It lay flat against her finger. She used to be under his nails, with the paint.
“You all right?” He spoke softly, but his voice startled her, the stiff paper around the lilies crinkling loudly under her hands, betraying her sudden movement. She looked up to meet his eyes.
“Fine.”
“Almost there.” He smiled, turning back to the road ahead. The corners of his mouth stretched sideways, making creases back toward his ears.
They drove on through Clerkenwell and into Shoreditch with its hulking red brick buildings from another age. Daniel parked in front of a nondescript brick building. A former factory, she guessed. Like many in this area that had been converted into lofts and studios, it deliberately retained its rough edges. Inside, they entered a large goods lift. As they stood on opposite sides of the wide space, she listened to the din of the ancient machinery straining to lift them to the top floor. Stained brick walls slid down the front of the lift—visible between the slats of the cage. Kat followed him out of the lift and as they walked down the tall, wide hall she heard it returning noisily to the ground floor, leaving them stranded in the dusty space.
Reaching into his pocket to retrieve his keys, Daniel stopped in front of a large brushed-metal doorway at the end of the hall. Its surface reflected nothing. She stood apart from him, regarding him from the opposite side of the doorframe with a familiarity she could no longer help.
“So, are you taking me to see your etchings?”
Daniel smiled without looking at her and pushed open the heavy door. Immediately, the smells of paint and turpentine brushed past Kat’s face, making their escape from the darkened room. As they stepped inside, the door swung closed behind them with a heavy thunk, trapping them in semidarkness. Daniel made his way along the inside wall. In his footsteps, she recognized the familiar way sound echoed in large, mostly empty spaces. Seconds later, this was confirmed, as lights revealed a pale, cavernous studio with scarred concrete floors and whitewashed cinder-block walls.
Large fans stood like sentinels in the four corners of the room—circulating air and emitting a low, steady purr that made the vast space seem volatile and alive. As she moved deeper into the room, several intricately colored canvases caught her eye. The largest, resting on paint cans and leaning back against the wall directly in front of her, was a mixture of fine, delicate lines in grays and yellows. It looked like feathers and it seemed to have been made by small, sharp knives. To its right was a winter landscape. The stark outline of tapering branches was shaped solely by what surrounded it—thick ribbons of paint pulled taut against the canvas. A thing defined entirely by its absence. It seemed to Kat to be perfect.
Shrugging off his coat, Daniel tossed his keys on a table. He turned back to Kat and gestured to the paintings, his hand brushing lightly against the edge of the winter landscape.
“You see, I paint other things as well. They just didn’t want them for this show. Martin wanted to keep it cohesive.”
&
nbsp; The room suddenly stilled. Glancing back, she saw that he had switched off the large fans. He frowned, shaking his head.
“I can’t stand the noise. Do you want anything?”
She could not help a small smile as she held his gaze over her shoulder.
“Got any pie?”
He smiled back. Turning her back on him, Kat stopped in front of the unfinished winter landscape. Without the fans, the odor of paint settled comfortably around her and she breathed it in deeply. The studio’s large, high windows provided no context. Letting in only light and revealing only sky.
She turned her attention back to the winter landscape. “I think my biggest problem would be knowing when it was finished.”
“That’s only because you can’t see what is missing.”
As she left the landscape and moved farther into the room, Kat’s gaze fell on the low line of a narrow bed crouched against the far wall. Looking up, she saw that the wall was in fact an enormous vertical blank canvas, reaching almost to the ceiling. The lower part of the wall adjacent to it was papered with sketches—overlapping studies of a young woman’s body, held up with blue tape. Pieces of a girl—the curve of a breast, the nape of a neck, fingers wound around a section of hair. Rough and ragged, but alive.
She turned to Daniel, the question in her eyes remaining unspoken. He looked up at the canvas and the sketches, taking them in as if he were seeing them for the first time as well.
“It’s not you. It’s a commission. It’s not certain yet. I don’t know if I want to do it. Martin thinks I should.” He paused. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.” His eyes found hers. “But I know you’re good at keeping secrets.”
She turned away from him, taking in the rest of the studio. The long, low tables. The brace of brushes, standing at the ready in their jar. Round, bright, flat, filbert. The words came out of her memory stiff with disuse. The palette knives arrayed on trays like weapons, smudged with the remains of their last victims. Their various sizes and shapes—broad and flat, long with a rounded nose, small sharp diamond. The linseed oil and the smudged and dimpled tubes of paint. Their names long since forgotten, but at once immediately familiar to her—cadmium red light, rose madder, cobalt blue, Prussian blue, yellow ocher. Who said she had not seen Europe that year? She had seen all the colors of the hills above Florence, the flesh of odalisques, the Arno at sunset, and the soft verdant gardens at Giverny.
The Blue Bath Page 12