The Very Picture of You (11 page)

‘Ah…’

‘He was absolutely infatuated with her beauty: she was flattered to have the attentions of such a rich and powerful man. Soon everyone knew that Edith Lennox was involved with Peter Loden; worse, Guy had to carry on working, knowing that the society figures he painted were gossiping about his wife.’

‘How horrible for him.’

Iris nodded. ‘It must have been agonising. And it was to have a devastating effect on his life, because within three months Edith had petitioned Guy for divorce. And you’d think that she and Loden had done him enough
harm,’ Iris added wearily. ‘But then it all became truly heartbreaking for that poor man because—’

Iris looked up. The front door was being opened, there was a grunt as it banged shut, then footsteps and there was Sophia, clutching four bulging green carrier bags, her face pink with exertion.

‘I’m pooped!’ She smiled at us benignly. ‘I carried this lot back from Ken High Street. Still, the exercise is good for me.’ She nodded at the easel. ‘So how are you two getting along?’

‘Oh… fine,’ Iris replied. She glanced at her watch. ‘But you’re early, Sophia. It’s a quarter to four.’

‘I know, but I’d got everything you needed – except the Parma ham: there was
no Parma ham
, Mum – so I thought I’d head back. But don’t let me disturb you. I’ll put all this away.’ She disappeared and now we heard cupboards being opened and banged shut.

Iris gave me a rueful smile. ‘Well… I think this is a good moment for us to stop.’

I nodded reluctantly then clipped the canvas into the canvas carrier. ‘So I’ll see you next time, Iris.’ I collapsed the legs of the easel.

‘It will have to be after Easter,’ Iris said. ‘I’m staying with my other daughter, Mary, for a week.’ I got my diary out of my bag.

As we were making a date, Sophia came back. ‘Will you need me to be here again?’ she asked. ‘I can be, if you want.’

‘That’s kind, darling,’ Iris replied. ‘But now that Ella and I know each other, we can just carry on from where we’ve left off.’

I nodded. Sophia handed me my coat and I put it on. ‘I’ve enjoyed the sitting, Iris.’

‘I have too,’ she replied. ‘
Very
much. So until next time…’

I smiled my goodbye then picked everything up.

Sophia held the door open for me. ‘Can I give you a hand?’ she asked good-naturedly.

‘I’ll be fine, thanks.’ I hitched my canvas bag a little higher on to my shoulder. ‘Bye, Sophia…’

‘Bye, Ella.’ The door shut behind me.

I clanked down in the lift then went out on to Kensington Church Street and hailed a cab. As I sat in the back, my mind was full of Guy Lennox and the beautiful Edith and Peter Loden, and the two little girls, the nanny and the dog: they felt almost as real to me as if I’d known them myself. Soon we were passing Glebe Place and I craned my neck to look down it, wondering which house Lennox had lived in.

Suddenly the driver’s intercom came on. ‘Did you say Umbria Place, miss?’

‘Yes – it’s next to the Gasworks.’

‘I know it – we’ll be there in three minutes, if the traffic keeps moving.’

I rummaged in my bag for my purse. Seeing my phone, I now remembered the unread e-mail from my website. So I went to the inbox and opened it, and as I began to read it the story of Guy Lennox evaporated. A jolt ran down my spine.

Dear Ella, My name is John Sharp…

FOUR

On the morning of Good Friday I prepared for my first sitting with Nate. I got out the canvas, which I’d primed with a cream emulsion base a few days before. I cleaned the brushes and laid them neatly on my work table. I put the oak chair in place and, behind it, the folding screen that I sometimes use as a background. I mixed some burnt sienna with turps to make the thin wash. Then, still with half an hour before Nate was due, I got out my mother’s portrait: I simply wanted to look at it and to think about the e-mail which I’d now read so many times that it was seared on my mind.

Dear Ella, My name is John Sharp, and I am your father.

I shook my head. ‘I’ve got a father, thanks.’

I hope you’ll forgive me for contacting you…

‘Shouldn’t that be for
not
contacting me?’ I said angrily.

It must be a bit of a shock.

‘It certainly is!’

…but I came across an interview with you on
The Times
website.

I exhaled, sharply. ‘Just what I’d dreaded.’ I silently cursed the journalist, Hamish Watt.

There was a link to it from the
Western Australian,
and when I saw your face I knew at once who you were.

‘No,’ I murmured. ‘You have
no
idea who I am.’

I recognised in your strong, dark features my own, and your story fitted with the life we shared so many years ago.

‘So many,’ I echoed bitterly.

And though I have no right to say that I feel proud of you, I do…

‘Well, it isn’t mutual…’

Ella, I’m going to be in London the last week of May.

Adrenalin scorched through my veins. I went to my desk, picked up my phone and opened the message.

I would so much like to meet you…

‘Oh God…’

I’ve always wanted to try and explain –

‘Explain
what?
’ I demanded. ‘That you deserted your wife and child? I don’t
need
that explaining – I can remember it.’

Now I looked at my painting of Mum and saw her sitting at the kitchen table in our old flat, crying softly, while I sat next to her, helpless with anxiety and fright. I remembered drawing pictures of my father to cheer her up. And I remembered thinking that if I drew him well – so that it really
looked
like him – then perhaps, by some magic, he’d come back.

Ella, I’ve always felt very guilty about what happened.

‘About what you
did
, you mean.’

I’d like to try and make amends…

I went to ‘Options’ then to ‘Delete message?’.
…if it’s not too late to do so.

I hesitated for a few moments, then pressed ‘Yes’. My father’s words vanished.

With a shaking hand I put my phone away.

Drrrrrrrrnnnnnnnng.

Nate had arrived – exactly on time. I breathed deeply to steady my nerves then walked slowly downstairs and opened the door.

Chloë stood beside him.

‘I know I said I
wouldn’t
come… But I’m meeting Mum at Peter Jones – we’re going to look at wedding invitations – so I thought I’d just pop in on my way.’ She stepped inside, then peered at me. ‘Are you all right, Ella? You look a bit… tense.’

‘No,’ I said, my insides churning. ‘I’m fine.’

Chloë turned to Nate. ‘Come
in
, darling!’ With palpable reluctance, he did. He was wearing jeans and a green cashmere jumper that had a collar, with dark-brown brogues. As I looked at him a current of antagonism flashed between us.

I wrested my features into a pleasant expression. ‘Hello, Nate.’

He gave me a wary smile. ‘Hi.’

‘The studio’s on the top floor,’ Chloë explained as she climbed the stairs. ‘Ella lives under the shop – don’t you, Ella?’

‘That’s right,’ I said, as Nate followed her up. We passed the bathroom, then the spare room, then my room, through the open door of which the wrought-iron
bedstead was visible – I quickly pulled the door to. Then we went up the last flight and into the studio.

Nate looked around him in surprise.

‘You wouldn’t think there’d be this much space up here, would you?’ Chloë said to him.

‘No,’ he answered.

‘I mean, the house doesn’t look much from outside – sorry, Ella.’ Chloë gave me an embarrassed smile.

I shrugged. ‘It’s true. But it’s got a steeply pitched roof, which makes for this big, high attic.’

Now Chloë went over to the chair, put her hand on the back of it then smiled at Nate. ‘All you have to do is sit here looking handsome – not hard in your case,’ she added with a laugh.

Nate rolled his eyes. ‘For how long?’

I unhooked my apron. ‘Two hours.’

He grimaced.

‘It’ll
fly
by,’ Chloë assured him. ‘You can just chat.’

‘Or not,’ I said as I put on the apron. ‘It’s up to you. You can be quiet, if you want – or I can put the radio on; if you want to bring an iPod, that’s fine.’ That would be my preferred option, I decided – then I wouldn’t have to talk to him.

‘You
should
chat,’ Chloë said. She looked from me to Nate. ‘I mean, you hardly know each other – you’ve only met, what – three times?’

‘Twice,’ Nate and I said simultaneously. We glanced awkwardly at each other then looked away.

Chloë crossed the room and picked up my portfolio. She staggered back with it. ‘Have a look at Ella’s portraits, darling.’ She set it down on the table with a thump, and Nate sat on the sofa and began to look
through the images while Chloë sat next to him, occasionally explaining who the sitters were. ‘That’s Simon Rattle, that’s P. D. James, that’s Roy, of course…’ Nate turned to the final page. ‘And that’s me!’

‘I know.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘I’ve seen the original often enough.’ I pushed away the unwelcome image of him in Chloë’s bedroom. ‘I still can’t understand why you’d want to have yourself painted in this state though.’

Chloë shrugged. ‘That was in the middle of the boyfriend trouble I mentioned – all water under the bridge now,’ she added airily. I suddenly wondered how much she’d told Nate about Max. ‘But as Ella had started the picture we thought we’d just… carry on. Isn’t that right, Ella?’

I looked at her. ‘Erm… yes.’ Chloë could hardly tell Nate the truth – that the portrait was for her a record of the deep attachment she’d had for his predecessor. ‘Anyway…’ She threw her arms around him. ‘Thank God I met
you
!’

As she planted a kiss on Nate’s cheek I saw his gaze stray to the portrait of Mum. I’d leaned it against the wall. ‘That’s really good,’ he said quietly.

Chloë turned to look at it. ‘It is – it’s really come on: you can see Mum’s inner strength now, Ella, and her self-discipline and her… what’s the word I’m looking for?’

Pain, I thought. The wound that she’d sheltered for so long was visible in her eyes, and in the slightly hard set of her mouth – it was visible even in her pose. On the surface it was the pose of a ballerina taking a curtain call, her left hand spread elegantly across her chest. But it was also a defensive gesture – she was shielding her heart.

I knew now that I was right not to have told her about my father’s e-mail. It would have been cruel to stir up such painful emotions, and quite unnecessary, given that I wasn’t going to meet him.

‘
Resolve
,’ Chloë concluded. She pointed to the
Giselle
poster. ‘That’s Mum too. That was two years before I was born,’ she explained to Nate, ‘but Ella saw her in it, didn’t you?’

‘I did.’ I remembered sitting in the front row, mesmerised by my mother’s arabesques and her graceful
jetés
; she was so light that at times she seemed to be poised in mid-air, her slender limbs extending into infinity. Now I suddenly recalled my father sitting next to me, gazing at her, his profile bathed in the light from the stage: and when Mum grabbed Albrecht’s sword then fell down dead he held my hand and whispered that she was ‘just pretending’. And when we went backstage afterwards Mum was still in her long tutu and veil, and she threw her arms round my father and stood up on her
pointes
and kissed him, and They were both laughing and I was laughing too because my parents were happy and loved each other. But within a few weeks my father had gone…

‘I wish
I’d
seen Mum dance,’ I heard Chloë say. ‘But her career was over by the time I was born.’

Nate looked at her. ‘You said she was injured.’

Chloë nodded. ‘She had a fall and broke her ankle – I’m not sure where it happened. Do you know, Ella?’

‘No – I did once ask her, but she didn’t want to talk about it.’ I knew only that it had happened more or less when my father left. So within a short space of time both her marriage and her career had ended abruptly, and in great pain.

‘That’s how Mum met my dad,’ Chloë said to Nate. ‘He was the surgeon who did the second operation a few months after her accident. He managed to make it a lot better than it had been, but he had to tell her that the injury had been career ending.’

‘How heartbreaking for her,’ Nate said, his eyes still on the portrait.

‘It was,’ Chloë agreed. ‘Though at least she got
him
out of it – he was completely smitten with her, wasn’t he, Ella?’ I nodded. ‘Mum often says that he was her silver lining.’

I thought of my father’s desertion. ‘He was her golden lining,’ I said feelingly.

Chloë smiled. ‘
Ah
…’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But I’d better go – she’s a stickler for punctuality.’ She blew Nate a kiss. ‘I’ll see you later, darling.’

He gave her an anxious smile. ‘Ciao.’

‘Chloë,’ I said as she turned to go, ‘will you want to see the portrait while I’m working on it?’

She made a clicking noise with her tongue while she considered the question. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I think I’d rather see it when it’s finished, to have that wonderful sense of …revelation.’ She gave us a cheery wave and was gone.

We heard her light, descending tread, then the sound of the front door being opened and then slammed shut. The house fell silent…

I put the portrait of Mum back in the rack then lifted Nate’s blank, primed canvas on to the easel.

‘So…’ My pulse was racing. ‘Let’s start…’

I nodded at the chair and Nate went and sat in it, gingerly, as though he feared it might be booby-trapped. He crossed his legs then folded his arms.

‘Erm… if you could sit in a slightly more relaxed way, Nate.’

‘Oh.’ He uncrossed his legs. ‘Like that?’

‘Yes… and if you could maybe put your hands on your knees.’ They were large and sinewy, I noticed, with strong, straight fingers. ‘Now lift your head… and look this way…’ I heard him exhale as if already exasperated. ‘That’s great… in
fact
…’ I felt a sudden frisson as I decided on the composition. ‘I’m going to paint you looking straight out of the canvas. It’s not something I do very often, but your features are strong enough, and I think it’ll look powerful.’ Nate nodded uncertainly. ‘So you’ll need to look right
at
me.’ As Nate’s gaze fell on me I felt a shiver of awkwardness, but this was quickly dispelled by my growing excitement at the possibilities of the portrait. Okay, the man wasn’t that nice, but at least he had a great face. ‘That’s good…’ I murmured. ‘Now I’m just going to stare at you, if that’s okay…’