Drawing with Light (19 page)

– The reality is,
Rachel types back to me,
she has probably been WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT for years.

– So why hasn't she contacted me???

– Because she feels bad, perhaps. And because she wants YOU to seek her out, for it to be YOUR CHOICE, of course.

– I'm scared.

– So? You're not going to let that stop you now!!

– No.

– Anyway, it might take some time before the gallery sends on your message, so forget about it for now if you can.

– I'll try.

– Come to the pavilion with me on Friday night. Luke's band is playing.

– I might.

– You could bring Seb.

– Maybe.

– Which means no. Are you ashamed of us or what? We are your friends!! How come you won't let us meet him?

– I don't know. I will. Just not yet.

Friday, I'm home early. Cassy and Dad won't be back until at least six, four hours away. I turn on my laptop as usual, flick the kettle switch, plonk a tea bag in a mug. I prop the caravan door open to let in some fresh air. I settle myself down with my mug of tea in the shaft of sunlight that falls through the open door, laptop on my knees.

I open my emails.

You may not know this sender. Mark as safe . . .

The first new message in my inbox:
frandavids

Hand shaking, I click on it.

My eyes are blurry to begin with, my heart fluttering.

I make myself breathe slowly, in, out, so I can take in the words.

Dear Emily

Your message was forwarded to me by the Musée d'art moderne. Thank you for getting in contact. I would be delighted to send you more information about my work for your photography project if you send me your postal address. Recently I've been painting more than taking photographs, but I will help if I can. What is your project about?

With best wishes

Fran

The language is strangely formal. I read the email over again, looking for signs she's guessed it's me, or for some veiled message hidden in the words, but I can't find anything.

Has she really not understood who I am?

Or is she trying to keep her distance?

And yet she didn't have to write back at all, did she?

I'm still poring over it when Seb turns up. He reads it with me.

‘She's being cautious,' Seb suggests. ‘Wanting to be really sure it is you. There might be someone else with the same name. That's why she wants your address. What have you said back?'

‘Nothing, yet.'

He stretches out his legs and waits for me to type. My hands are trembling.

Dear Fran

I'm very happy to hear from you. I'm living in a caravan at the moment while Dad does up the new house, so please send anything you can c/o my friend Seb.

‘You don't mind, do you?' I ask him. ‘That way there's less chance of Dad and Cassy finding out.'

‘ 'Course,' Seb says.

I think hard what else to say.

My project is about trees, and my emotional connection to them. I like the paintings Emily Carr does of trees and they have influenced my work; so have the photos by Ansel Adams and Charlie Waite. Thank you for any help you can give me.

Emily Anna Woodman

Enough clues there, surely?

I press
Send
.

‘Good,' Seb says. ‘Now come for a run with me. You need to do something physical.'

If Seb were running at his usual pace there's no way I'd keep up, but he's not. He's being kind to me. After a while my feet find a kind of rhythm, and my breathing steadies. We start by going up the lane, turn right for a mile or so, then across the fields to a footpath that runs along the riverbank. It's much easier here, on the level.

‘You're not bad,' Seb says, ‘for a beginner.'

‘Don't patronise me!' I try to thump him, but he's sprinting ahead, always just out of reach, and soon I'm out of breath.

He waits for me to catch up, but then he's off again. ‘Come on. Push yourself! It's all in the mind, running.'

We run past Moat House, on the other side of the river. Three vans are parked up outside on the muddy field, and the sound of drilling and hammering echoes over the water. It's odd, seeing it all from this side of the river, more objectively: just a beautiful old house being tastefully restored.

‘I still can't imagine living there,' I say to Seb.

‘Why not? It'll only be a few months now,' he says.

‘I know, but I can't imagine it. I can't see myself there.'

Seb slows right down. ‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘It's hard to explain,' I say. ‘It's like I have to see myself somewhere, to make it happen. Visualise it. And with Moat House, I can't. Not any more.'

Seb frowns slightly. ‘But it looks good,' he says. ‘The stonework is all done. It's just the superficial stuff left to do now.'

I'm panting and so hot I feel sick. ‘Can we stop for a bit?' I ask.

We walk for a few minutes, then Seb wants me to try again. ‘One more mile, as far as the next bridge, then we'll turn back.'

‘I'm so thirsty! And I'm getting a stitch.'

‘You look lovely,' Seb says, ‘all sweaty and pink.'

‘Yeah, right.' I stick out my tongue.

Seb grabs me, pulls me in close. We kiss. We're both slippery with sweat.

‘Back to the caravan, then? Walk a bit, run a bit. It's less than three miles.'

He doesn't mind me being useless at running. ‘There's no rush,' he says, when we're almost home. ‘It's not about that. It's like anything: you get better with practice.'

It does feel good, as soon as we stop. I'm glowing and full of energy, not tired out like I expected. I gulp down a glass of water.

‘I need a shower,' I say.

‘Me too.'

‘I'll see if I can find you a towel,' I say. ‘We don't have spares of things because there's no space.'

‘I can share yours,' he says.

I pull a face. ‘I don't think so!'

We've only been out about an hour, so Cassy and Dad won't be back for ages, which is just as well. I know Dad wouldn't want me going to the shower with Seb. But I pick up the shampoo, anyway, and find two clean towels and some coins for the meter, and we cross the field together to the concrete shower block.

‘I can't believe you've had to do this all winter,' Seb says. ‘You must be tougher than you look.'

‘Tough as old boots,' I say, and he laughs.

We take it in turns to shower. I go first. It's a bit strange, stripping off in the cubicle, with him just the other side of the door. I turn the shower on full blast, so it heats up quickly before I get under. I spend ages, turning slowly round in the hot water, letting it drum on my scalp, my back, my legs. I let the water stream over my face, hot and delicious. For a second, I let myself imagine what it would be like with Seb in the shower with me. I imagine his face, close up and wet, and our mouths together.

‘Hurry up!' Seb calls. ‘You're taking ages!'

When I open the door, he's there, grinning at me, already stripped to the waist. ‘Your turn!' I say.

I think about him while I'm drying my hair under the wall heater. There's something so . . . so
intimate
, about doing all this together: the run, the shower . . .

He comes out after only a few minutes, his hair dripping, feet bare, teeth chattering. ‘You took all the hot water!'

‘Seb! I'm so sorry! You should've said. I'd have put in more coins.'

‘It's OK. Come here, you.' He takes the towel and rubs my hair dry for me at the back, and then he kisses my bare neck, and along my collarbone.

‘You're not actually tough at all, are you?' Seb says, running his finger along the curve of my neck to the top of my spine. ‘Tender as the night.'

I laugh. ‘Is that a book or a film?'

‘Both. Except that I think it's
is
rather than
as
the night.' He pulls me round and holds my damp face between his hands, and kisses me on the lips.

I pull gently away. I know he wants more from me, but I'm still not ready. Not yet. ‘Come on, then,' I say. ‘It's too cold to stay here much longer.'

We go back to the caravan together. We don't say much as we cross the field. Our hands hold tight.

Inside, I hang the wet towels over the rail and switch on the heater to warm the place up. ‘Can you stay for supper?'

Seb nods.

‘I'll start cooking, ready for when Dad and Cassy get back.'

‘Will they mind me being here?'

‘No. Cassy really likes you.'

‘And your dad?'

‘Him too. He's just a bit . . . odd about stuff. Protective, I suppose. Don't say anything about the shower.'

Seb watches me fill the pan with water, start chopping the garlic and onion. ‘What shall I do?'

‘Grate the cheese? Clear the table? There's not much to do.'

It's cosy, making supper together in the caravan, just us. I could live like this, I think. In a caravan, in a field somewhere, just me and Seb. I can see that. I can imagine it really easily.

11

I have to wait two whole weeks, and then just when I've almost given up, Seb sends me a text.

Your parcel's just arrived. Shall I bring it over later? xxx

Yes please! xxx
I text him back.

I think about it all through English. Do I really want to open a parcel from Francesca in the caravan? With Cassy and Dad around?

I text him again at lunchtime.

Can you borrow the car? Can we go somewhere instead, after school?

Can't get car till later tonight. Mum's at work. 8?

Come back to my place.

The day drags.

I had this fantasy of Seb and me going to our special place in the wood, and me opening the parcel there. But it will be too dark, and it's silly, really.

He picks me up at the top of the lane. I'm twitchy with nerves.

‘Good day at school?' Seb asks.

‘Not really. What did you do?'

‘Not a lot. Read the stuff they sent for the Level Two course.'

It's hard for me to focus properly on what he's saying.

‘How big's the parcel?' I say.

‘Not very.' He glances at me, then back on to the road. ‘Like, the size of a book. A thin one.'

I'm already preparing to be disappointed, shutting down something deep inside me that had just begun to open and breathe again.

He pulls up at his house.

‘Is your mum in?' I don't feel like seeing anyone, not yet. And Avril asks too many questions.

‘She won't bother us if I ask her not to. She's got a friend coming round, anyway. And Dad's out.'

The parcel is waiting for me on his bed. My name is written in thick blue pen on the front, with Seb's name and address underneath. I know the writing. It's just the same as on the albums, only bigger and fatter because of the felt-tip pen. She's tied it round with blue string. Her address is written on the back. I stare at the words.
Pyrénées-Atlantiques
.

The search is over, then. I have the address right here, in front of me. And the parcel? I'm almost too scared to open it.

Seb goes downstairs. I know he's thought about this, that he's giving me some space.

I sit on his bed, and turn the parcel round, and over, and then I start to unpick the knot in the blue string, and unpeel the sticky tape, and rip the layers of brown paper, and finally the contents lie there in my hands.

A thin booklet, the brochure from an exhibition. An envelope with a cardboard back, with photographs inside. I shake them out on to the bed: trees, and more trees. Fir trees, and trees with moss and lichen dripping from the branches, and the bare roots of a huge tree pulled out of the earth.

I'm numb.

I turn over the pages of the booklet. The writing is in French. There are photos of three paintings by Fran Davidson. The biggest one shows a young woman at a round table with a blue bowl of red cherries in the middle; behind her, two small children are sort of floating, as if they are almost sitting at the table but not quite. An open window. A fine muslin curtain blowing out, as if in a summer breeze. Outside, through the open window, a garden with an orchard of cherry trees.

Seb comes back upstairs with two cups of tea. He sits beside me on the bed. He looks at the painting. He looks at my face. ‘Ghost children,' he says, eventually.

‘Me and Kat.'

Seb pinches my arm. ‘Except you're not. Not a ghost.'

‘No.'

I feel dazed, as if I'm sleepwalking, going through the motions of something, not really there.

‘Is there a letter?' Seb asks.

‘I don't know.'

‘Shall I see?'

I nod. He picks up the big brown envelope, fishes out a smaller blue envelope, hands it to me. The paper is thin, flimsy.

‘Shall I stay or go?' Seb asks.

‘Stay. Please.'

I have to read it three times, very slowly.

Dearest Emily,
You cannot imagine how many times I have gone over this moment in my mind. Hoping it might happen, one day. When I got your email it was as if my heart stopped still. I can hardly believe it is happening, and that you have managed to find me – more importantly, that you have wanted to do so.

You must be sixteen now, old enough to know what you are doing. Old enough to understand some difficult things. But how do I begin to tell you? Little by little, perhaps.

I am so thrilled that you are studying photography. I would love to see your photos. Do send me some. Please?

Does your father know you have made contact with me? I wrote to him about three years ago but I never heard back. And Katharine? How is she?

I imagine you have many questions. Well, we have made a beginning, you and I. Write to me again, Emily. Send me something of you. Please.