What Alice Knew

by T. A. Cotterell

  Matt broke into the memory.

  ‘I really appreciate the offer, but we’ve got to make it work.’ His shoulders were hunched over the table. It was hard to imagine anyone less capable of making anything ‘work’. ‘Jo will find a way. She’s a great girl. She’ll do it. She deserves more …’

  He tailed off, glistening at the thought of her. We both knew the unspoken sentence-end was ‘… than me’. I reached across the table and touched his hand, this man, my brother, who even as he tried to raise money for his girlfriend’s business thought he was trespassing on her life. It seemed too awful that the little boy who always knew that one day he would inherit Highlands had never had anywhere he felt was home. Outside the café a tannoy boomed into the silence and Matt glanced at his watch. It was a cheap replacement for the heavy silver heirloom he inherited from our father but had ‘lost’ when he was in the depths of despair.

  ‘Deserving may not be enough without cash.’

  ‘I’ll find the money.’

  ‘But what if it simply isn’t a viable business? What if, no matter how hard she works, or you both work, it will never be able to compete against the giants in a cut-throat industry where your customer, the fisherman, is going out of business?’

  Matt shifted in his chair. He put down his toothpick and squared up to me, his eyes holding mine directly, which they rarely did.

  ‘You know what? I’ve thought of that. I know it’s a long shot but that doesn’t matter. I have to do it. Even though she started it, even though she chose a ridiculous business she knew nothing about, even though she chose an industry on its knees with a customer who is going under, even though she has to compete against global net-makers, the Chinese, and everyone else who is undercutting her ferociously, this is where she is and what she is, it’s what she does, so if she goes under I’ll go under with her. I will do that for her because I respect her and I know what she’s been through for me.’

  I could only nod. It was the longest soliloquy I’d ever heard Matt give. I didn’t trust myself to speak. When he saw I wasn’t going to say anything he continued,

  ‘Don’t get me wrong: I know I’m useless at business, but I’ll do it because I love her, and she loves me, and, you know what, nowadays I don’t want anything more.’

  He looked down at the table as if he was embarrassed by his outburst. I didn’t know what to say so I took one of his toothpicks and began to ferret away at my teeth. When he looked up he said sheepishly,

  ‘Sorry, Bunny, I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘No problem. It’s a stressy time. And I’m mainly just so glad you’re happy with her.’

  He looked away briefly, sparkling in a way I hadn’t seen for years as he thought of Jo.

  ‘I haven’t felt like this before.’

  There was another indecipherable announcement over the tannoy.

  ‘Look, I’d better go. Don’t want to miss another train. I said I’d be back in time to cook supper.’

  I nodded. He stood up, picked up his holdall and heaved it over his shoulder. I spread my arms around him and hugged him tightly, rocking sideways against his eggshell cheek, until he gently disentangled himself.

  ‘You must come and see us.’

  ‘We will. And you must come and see us.’

  ‘We will. Say hi to Ed and the kids.’

  ‘And to Jo.’

  I sat down again to let him go. There was nothing more to say. At the door he turned and gave a shy little half-wave, as if we were old friends who had fallen out but now were back on terms. I waved back. Matt always did me in. As the door shut behind him I clicked on my mobile and tapped the bank icon. By the time his train pulled out heading north, Matt, though he didn’t know it, was £7,400 richer, the possessor of all my savings, his bank account fattened by a transfer with the reference: ‘For Jo xx’.

  The moment I got back to my studio I made the calls. I had to, even though my gift to Matt meant I was broke and was going to have to rely on Ed for cash. No matter. At that moment money was far less important than not having to spend four days apiece with three people I didn’t know but who would all know everything about me. Money couldn’t buy twelve days’ space for me to try to get my head into the right place.

  The first call, Eddie, was sweetness and light. He’d seen the news and said of course he understood. He didn’t even ask for his advance to be returned but told me to keep it in case I felt up to undertaking the work. I wondered if his wife would have been so forgiving.

  The second call was to Alex Quoyle, a straight-to-the-point property developer who preyed on old ladies with short leases in expensive London boroughs. Unlike Eddie, who was a proper gentleman, Alex refused to understand. When I asked for some space he didn’t reply. Alex is the master of silence. He knows how to run a call. He lets it grow around you. Old ladies can’t cope with silence, because they are lonely, or because their leasehold on life is short. I can. I can’t get enough of it right now.

  ‘Alice, the date’s been set for six months.’

  ‘I know, and I’m really sorry.’

  ‘But what about Tabby?’

  Tabby? What about Tabby? Tabby Quoyle was the one person who had no concerns over timing. It didn’t matter to her which four days she took out from tennis and Pilates and pool to sit for a portrait. She hadn’t been smeared all over the news and roasted on every blog from here to Japan.

  ‘The thing is, you see, you have to be in a certain place when you start a portrait. Your mind has to be completely blank, literally a blank canvas. It’s the only way you can be properly objective, get into the sitter and their mind, because you paint people inside out.’

  Alex snorted, which might have related to the impossibility of finding anything in Tabby’s mind, and put the phone down without another word, leaving me wondering whether the portrait had been postponed or not. I went into the bathroom and poured a glass of water which I drank in a single swallow. It was cool and clear and reminded me of the cold clean streams on Dartmoor. I took a second back into the studio. I felt lopsided, unsteady, exposed, as if – even though I was on the third floor – anyone could look in and my guilt was obvious. From deep in the room I looked out over the rooftops of Hotwells towards Ashton Court. Cool water, prickly skin, an ache at the base of my forehead. I needed to regroup, to regain some control of my life before the intangible began to eat me up. The view was comfortingly familiar: rooftops, terracotta chimney pots, the Georgian crescents of the Paragon and Polygon and, over the muddy flats of the river, the redbrick Chicago-blocks of the old bonded tobacco warehouses with their metal Z fire escapes and slave-stacked history. The sun rode high in the sky and the earth was baked. There was no shadow. No hiding place.

  I picked up the phone again and dialled. A crisp voice answered, softening when I said my name. Chrissie Wright was going to be easier to manage than Alex Quoyle. I said I needed some time out.

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

  What? The inflexibility of her tone completely took me aback. It left no room for negotiation. I could only utter an inarticulate,

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Yes. My boss, your sitter, talked about the prospect you might want to pull out but decided postponing was not possible. We simply couldn’t find an alternative date. I’m afraid the contract stands and we wish to hold you to it. We appreciate much of what has been said or written about you and your husband is unpleasant and you have our deepest sympathy. Nevertheless, that is not our problem.’

  I wasn’t sure I could believe my ears. Since when had clients ever overridden the judgement of the artist? It didn’t happen – and I was used to dealing with some of the most spoilt people in Britain. I tried to say that I simply wasn’t up to it, emotionally or intellectually, but Chrissie was having none of it. Whatever I said rebounded like a golf ball hurled at a brick wall. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to wriggle out, no matter how much I pleaded, cajoled, promised or threatened, I sai
d: ‘Well, who is your boss, for God’s sake? And why does he – and you – have to be so mysterious?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Then I can’t come. That’s it.’

  Dammit! As soon as the words left my mouth I realized I’d made a mistake. Chrissie didn’t miss her chance.

  ‘If I tell you, you’ll come?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Then I’ll just say that you know my boss.’

  ‘I need more than that. I need a name. Who is he?’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think you may’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion. My boss is not a man.’

  ‘Not a man?’

  It was always men who liked to pretend they were far too important to divulge their names to the person with whom they were about to make a connection. Women had too much EQ.

  ‘No. She’s a woman. She’s called Marianne Hever.’

  She sounded as if she expected me to know the name. I racked my brain and tried not to sound wrong-footed but it didn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t know any Marianne Hevers. I didn’t even know any Mariannes. And I would definitely remember if I did because I had the usual no-one-understands-me thing for Leonard Cohen when I was a teenager and, OK I know, Rimbaud and Kerouac, Camus, tick, tick, tick, all the clichés. I said,

  ‘I’m sorry but you’re mistaken. I don’t know a Marianne Hever.’

  I’d been expecting a cabinet minister at the very least.

  ‘Actually you do.’

  Her tone was light. I was annoyed with her games. It was hardening my resolve not to go to Cheshire, whatever the cost. I tried not to sound irritated.

  ‘I can assure you I don’t. I’ve never heard that name before. I don’t even know anyone called Marianne. Not that I can remember anyway.’

  ‘Forgive me. I should have said. That’s her married name, though as it happens she is divorced. I believe you knew her by her maiden name.’ She paused, long enough to let me dangle.

  ‘Latham.’

  Oh my God!

  ‘I think you knew her as Marnie Latham.’

  Marnie Latham/Marianne Hever lived in a two-storey house constructed from an interlocking series of white-painted concrete blocks with ceiling-height windows. It was approached via a quarter-mile drive that gun-barrelled through parkland having dropped away unexpectedly from a suburban street on the edge of Ashton-under-Lyne.

  I was tired after the long drive. There’d been an accident on the M6 and a noose of traffic looped around Birmingham, strangling my A-road progress. Yet even though I was running late I’d stopped half an hour south of ‘Bow House’ at a service station for a cup of coffee and a pack of chewing gum. I needed time to gather myself, because I wasn’t sure I had enough of what Lucian Freud called ‘morale’ to undertake any commission, certainly not one carrying as much baggage as Marnie Latham. But they had left me no room to wriggle out of it. Ever since Ed returned in understandable triumph from not going to the police station, I’d barely slept. Although he hadn’t picked up on it – his relief and delight was all-consuming – I was conscious that, however much I wanted it to be otherwise, every expression of his luck, every tiny look or gesture of happiness and liberation, had the reverse effect on me. I tried to rejoice in his freedom, to tell myself the children were the real beneficiaries, but I couldn’t. Soon I found I was locking myself in my studio for long hours to avoid him, claiming I was preparing for the Marnie portrait when in reality I was doing nothing more than staring at my hands with the intensity Monet brought to his haystacks and water lilies. But whereas he transformed his staring into art, I had nothing to show for mine bar a few scratches on paper, bolts of burnt umber and flake white, cobalt, Titian red, colour-stabs that turned my fingers into stubby sausages. I pegged my failures to a washing line in my studio to force myself to refocus and to spur myself on. I had always been my own harshest critic – there were portraits I considered failures the sitter had loved, probably for the same reason – but this felt less like creative analysis than self-analysis.

  The Johnny Trumble incident had made me realize that deep down I wanted Ed to tell the truth. I needed him to come clean, to be the man I married once again. The untruth had grown too large for me and now it was potentially infinite. But I couldn’t live with a lie between me and my children, between myself and the world, when my entire oeuvre, my raison d’être, was based on honesty, on searching out and defining the truth of the sitter. How could I ‘know’ a sitter when I didn’t even know which way my life was heading? I was also beginning to think about the lack of justice for that woman. She had parents too. They deserved closure. Maybe I had offered to support Ed too quickly, before we had thought through all the angles, particularly what it would actually entail to live with the lie forever. Then there was the adultery. I couldn’t help wondering, however much I dismissed the idea, to what extent that was contributing to my distress. No matter Ed claimed he couldn’t remember the night and didn’t fancy her; adultery, breach of trust, is a fact. There’s no need to prove desire. Facts can be repeated.

  I stood at my easel with these questions swirling around in my head, dabbing anxiously at the canvas until I began to think maybe I would never be able to paint the way I once had. Maybe I would only be able to paint pure abstracts that drained the colour from life? Maybe I would only be able to paint children, or pets, because they have no motive in their faces, no experience of suffering or regret? My fears stacked up so high they built a prison wall. A door had clanked shut and it couldn’t be opened.

  I had cut off the A road and taken a random B. I had had enough of the chains of traffic and needed to regroup. My mind was turning in on itself, funnelling towards the destruction of my family. I needed clean air and shining water, soft heather, purple moorland. I needed some way of conjuring up long-buried memories that could give shape to my feelings. I needed to regain my balance. That, I realized as I ground northwards in a shining river of cars, was ultimately why I had let Chrissie bully me into carrying out this commission: because I had to get out of the house. I needed space to think, and, if I was honest, I needed space from Ed and his suppressed joy. Of course I dressed it up to myself as payback for my failure to stand up for Marnie in the dormitory all those years ago, plus a natural interest in seeing how she had turned out. Maybe there was even the spectre of – dread word – redemption.

  The problem was that having accepted the commission I now had to fulfil it. Only I had no more idea how to paint Marnie in my current frame of mind than I knew how to be with Ed. So I sat in my car on the forecourt of a petrol station-cum-shop for more than an hour watching overweight people with tourniquet arms wobble out clutching vats of coffee and XL bags of Haribo sweets and tried to clear my head of all the gunk and fear and stop myself driving past Marnie and renting a house in the Lake District until it was over. But would it ever be over? And how do you paint a portrait of someone you betrayed – even if it was the truth that led you there? Can it be a portrait of her or does it have to be one of you both?

  Marnie. Marianne. I rolled the names around. Marianne, Marnie. When had Marnie become Marianne? Why did Marnie become Marianne? What did it say about Marnie that she became Marianne? How would that feed into her portrait? A portrait is a painted answer; I only had a canvas of questions.

  Marnie was not at home. Instead I was greeted by a horsey-looking woman in her late forties wearing mustard cords, a quilted sleeveless Puffa jacket and a string of pearls. She had rosy cheeks, auburn hair, a hefty signet ring with no crest and no make-up. Chrissie Wright. She welcomed me to Bow House, pronouncing ‘Bow’ like the bough of a tree. Marnie had always loved wordplay.

  Chrissie led me through a large empty white-painted square hall lit by the light flooding through the floor-to-ceiling windows and a sun-scorched circular orange abstract. It was a gorgeous roll-in-it orange painted by someone who was to orange as Yves Klein was to blue. We passed through an invisibl
e door in the wall, walked along a passage, white-walled, sheet windows overlooking the park, climbed a glass staircase and crossed an empty landing. At my bedroom door she turned and said,

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Hever’s flight has been delayed and she won’t be back until late. She asked me to apologize and said she’ll be ready for tomorrow morning. Could you make a prompt start at eight thirty?’

  What could I say? That it’s impossible to paint a portrait when you haven’t seen the sitter in twenty years? That I had changed from school and, judging by her house and her name, Marnie had too? I felt uneasy but it was too late to back out. I injected maximum irritation into my response.

  ‘O-kaaay. Of course it’s not ideal, but …’

  ‘Dinner will be in the dining room, which is to the left of the hall. Johnson will serve at eight. That should give you time to freshen up.’

  The way she ignored what I said gave me an eerie feeling Marnie’s absence, her refusal to tell me who I was painting, her inability to meet me ahead of the sitting, even though I offered numerous dates, had been predetermined. It was as if in some indiscernible way I was being set up. Marnie was on home territory. She had decided the time and place. She held the cards.

  After Chrissie left, I called home. I needed their support. I needed human softness and nuance amidst the blank walls of my bedroom and those brutal blocks of concrete. Nell answered, perfunctorily, the guitar lick that was the theme to Hollyoaks swirling in the background. She tried to pass me to Arthur but he shouted he was ‘busy’, though with what remained a mystery. It wouldn’t have been prep. Ed’s mobile went straight to voicemail. Standing in my vast decoration-free bedroom I suffered a jag of homesickness and nerves. I had done countless portraits and been a four-day guest in numerous houses, all as atmospherically charged as their owners, but something about this one didn’t feel right. It was impossible to put my finger on anything specific; there was simply an amorphous fear things had been left unsaid. I unpacked – four days’ worth of paint-encrusted work-wear, four nights of smarter clothes for dinner – as slowly as possible and sent Ed a text saying I’d arrived safely and everything was great. Beneath my window a Giacometti-like sculpture of a woman contorted improbably and painfully on a plinth of iron.