The Very Picture of You (28 page)

I heard Mike exhale. ‘So is it finished?’

I chewed on my lower lip. ‘It’s as finished as it’ll ever be. I’ve worked on it
so
much; I keep pushing the paint about, but I’m not happy with it. It’s not…’

‘
Real
,’ Mike interjected softly as he stared at it. ‘It’s as if you’ve painted a waxwork.’

I suppressed a frustrated sigh. I didn’t much like Mike’s views on my portraits. I remembered what he’d said about Mum’s –
she looks guarded… as though she’s hiding something.
And he’d been right.

I folded my arms as we stood side by side, studying the portrait. ‘The problem is that I never
met
Grace. So I have no memory of how she talked, or moved, or laughed – or how she felt about anything. If I’d been able to see some close-up video footage of her, that would have helped, but there isn’t any – I’ve asked – and it’s hard making someone look three-dimensional when you’ve only got two dimensions to go on.’

Mike was still staring at the portrait. ‘It’s life-like,’ he said. ‘But not
alive
.’

‘Exactly.’ I heaved a frustrated sigh. ‘But I think it’s as good as it gets. I’m going to have to accept that this portrait is
not
going to be my finest achievement.’ I was about to put it back when, to my surprise, Mike lifted his hand to the canvas.

He pointed to the area below Grace’s bottom lip. ‘She had a tiny scar,’ he said quietly. ‘Just here. It only showed when she smiled, but as you’ve painted her smiling, it needs to be there.’

‘Oh…’

‘And her eyes aren’t right.’ He put his head to one side. ‘The shape’s correct, but they weren’t such a pure blue – there was a lot of green in them, and the rim of the iris was a darker shade, like wet slate, which gave her gaze an intensity that you haven’t caught. And she had this funny little hole, just here, on her forehead. It was tiny – smaller than a pin-head – but you could see it, if you were standing close enough – and there was a mole, just here.’ He pointed to the place, his hand hovering over her cheek.

‘I see…’ I said softly. ‘But—’

Mike continued to stare at the painting. ‘She was
beautiful,’ he murmured. ‘She was really… beautiful. And if it weren’t for me, she’d still be alive.’

It was as though I’d been plunged into a bath of ice water. ‘What do you mean?’ I stammered.

Mike blinked. ‘That it’s my fault that she died.’

My heart was thudding in my ribcage. ‘But…
how
?’

He went to the sofa then sank down on to it. ‘My life’s been hell,’ he murmured. ‘It’s been hell since January twentieth – since it happened. The
shock
of it… Then not being able to
talk
about it, all these months. Not being able to confide in anyone.’ He closed his eyes as if he was exhausted. ‘Let alone confess.’

‘Confess…?’ I echoed faintly. ‘Confess…
what
?’

Mike didn’t at first respond. Then he heaved a sigh so profound it seemed to come from his very depths. ‘That her accident was
my
fault.’

My heart plummeted. Why was he telling
me
this? If his had been the car that had hit Grace, then he should be telling the police, not me. ‘Was it
your
car?’ I asked after a moment. My mouth had dried. ‘Was it
your
black BMW?’

Mike looked at me in bewilderment. ‘No… I didn’t knock her off her
bike –
that’s not what I mean.’ Relief flooded through me. ‘I only mean that if it hadn’t been for me, Grace wouldn’t have been cycling through Fulham Broadway that morning.’

‘But… why
was
she?’ Mike didn’t reply. ‘Her uncle said that they think she must have been staying with someone – but they’ve no idea who, as that person hasn’t come forward.’

Mike closed his eyes. ‘She was staying with me.’

I stared at him, dumbfounded. I’d been so taken aback by the turn the conversation had taken that my brain had simply failed to keep up. ‘You were in love with Grace,’ I said wonderingly.

How else could Mike have known about the tiny scar under her lip, or be able to describe the precise blue of her eyes? How else could he have known about the little hole in her forehead that could only be seen by anyone standing very close to Grace, as he must have been? ‘You loved her,’ I reiterated.

‘Yes,’ Mike said softly. ‘I did.’

I sank on to a chair. ‘And no one knew?’

‘No one,’ he confirmed blankly. ‘Neither of us told a soul.’

‘That’s why you cancelled the sittings.’ He nodded. And that’s why he’d lost so much weight, and why he’d become upset when he’d talked about what had happened to Grace. That’s why he’d wept when he heard ‘Tears in Heaven’. ‘How did you know her, Mike?’

He exhaled. ‘She was a member of the London Cycling Campaign. Last September she and two others came to talk to the cross-party transport committee that I’m on. We discussed cycle lanes and whether there should be more red routes on busier roads – extra mirrors on lorries – all those issues. But I found it almost impossible to focus on anything other than Grace. She was so beautiful,’ he went on quietly. ‘It was as though there was a light on inside her – a sort of dancing light that spilled in all directions.’

I glanced at the portrait: now it seemed all the more flat and dull.

I heard Mike sigh. ‘After that meeting I couldn’t get
Grace out of my mind; so I phoned her, and asked her if she’d have a drink with me sometime. To my delighted surprise, she said yes. Then we met again and we realised that we were very drawn to each other.’ Mike clasped his hands in front of him. ‘Sarah and I had been unhappy for a long time: we’d been trying to decide whether to stay together or call it a day. Then I met Grace,’ he added with a kind of wonderment. ‘And I was happier than I’ve ever been in my adult life.’

‘I remember how happy you seemed – when you first came here, last December.’

Mike nodded. ‘Now I’m still trying to take in the fact that I’ll never see Grace again, or talk to her, or hear her laugh, or hold her…’ His voice caught. ‘And I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about it; so I’ve felt completely… alone. I wondered about going to a bereavement counsellor, but I was worried that it might get out – it would have ended up in the papers.’ He looked at me. ‘Though that’s
not
why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because your painting isn’t right, Ella – and I
want
it to be right.’

‘But… what actually
happened
? That morning?’

Mike put his hands on his knees, as if bracing himself against some impact. ‘Grace had stayed with me the night before,’ he began quietly. ‘Sarah was in New York and wasn’t due to return until the Thursday morning, but early on the Wednesday morning I saw that a text had come in from her to say that she was flying back a day early. I realised that she’d be home within two hours; so I told Grace this, and she said that she’d leave straight away. I asked her to wait until it was light, but she said she wanted to go back to her flat so that she could change.’
Mike swallowed. ‘I urged her to be careful, because there’d been a hard frost. She told me that she was always careful, then she put on her helmet and I kissed her goodbye…’ Mike smiled. ‘It’s not easy kissing someone when they’re wearing a bicycle helmet, and we were laughing about it.’ He paused. ‘Sarah had texted me that she didn’t have her keys, so I waited until she arrived, at about nine, then I set off for the House of Commons.

Mike heaved a deep sigh. ‘As I drove up to the New King’s Road I saw that the right-hand turn to Fulham Broadway was blocked off. I assumed that this was because of roadworks and so didn’t think anything of it as I followed the diversion. Then – I had London Radio on – I heard a report about a woman cyclist who’d been injured following a hit-and-run incident at Fulham Broadway. I immediately worried that it might have been Grace, so I called her on my Bluetooth, but she didn’t reply. I told myself that this was because she’d be in class, but to reassure myself I phoned her school, without saying who I was. They said that Grace hadn’t yet arrived. By now I was in a panic. When I got to work I phoned the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, as that’s where anyone injured at Fulham Broadway would be taken. The nurse in the intensive care unit wouldn’t confirm or deny that Grace was there; so then I knew that it
was
her.’

‘How terrible…’

Mike’s eyes were shining with tears. ‘It was…
hell
. I had a meeting to go to, then a lunch; after that, there was a debate. I don’t know how I got through that day. All I wanted to do was to rush to the hospital, but I knew that I couldn’t even if I’d been free, because Grace’s parents would be there. All I could do was to keep
checking the news, which I did, every other minute. By now there was a photo of Grace, and a brief biography of her on a number of news websites. And I was annoyed, because they’d all got her surname spelt wrong, without the “e”, and I was staring at it, furious that they couldn’t have got something as basic as that right, when the piece was suddenly updated to say that… that she’d…’ Mike’s head dropped to his hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ I breathed.

‘It was
my
fault,’ he said. ‘If she hadn’t been with me, then she wouldn’t have been rushing away from my house in the icy darkness because my wife was coming home. Then she wouldn’t have been hit by a car: then she wouldn’t have struck her head on the kerb: and then she wouldn’t have been in hospital…
dying
.’ He covered his eyes with his left hand. ‘So
that’s
why I feel responsible for what happened to Grace. And I’ve spent the last four months pretending that everything’s normal, when my life’s been a living hell. I hardly eat. I can’t sleep. Work’s been my only distraction from the pain and stress of a bereavement that I can never admit to.’

‘So your wife doesn’t know?’

Mike shook his head. ‘She thinks I’m like this because of the problems we’ve had.’ He let out his breath. ‘There’s no one in the world that I can tell. But when I realised that you were going to
paint
Grace, I was… shocked.’ He blinked. ‘I wanted to talk to you about her then; I wanted to tell you everything I knew about her, but I bit my lip, because I was afraid. But when I saw the portrait just now, and saw how much is…
missing
from it, I knew I
had
to tell you, whatever the consequences.’

I nodded slowly. ‘I won’t tell anyone, Mike.’

‘Please… don’t.’

‘But her parents – they’d surely want to know; they need to understand why she was where she was.’

‘No,’ Mike said bleakly. ‘I couldn’t face them. They’d say that I was a sleazy married man who’d messed about with their daughter. They’d blame me for her death. And I don’t need them to do that, because I’m going to be blaming myself for the rest of my life.’

‘But you urged Grace to stay until it was light – she chose to leave. It’s not your fault that she was knocked off her bike – that could have happened to her in broad daylight, in good conditions – she was… unlucky. But… didn’t she even tell a best friend about you?’

‘She simply told her closest friend that she’d started seeing someone called Mike, and that she was happy – which she was.’

‘Wouldn’t your number have been on her mobile phone?’

‘Her mobile was never found. It might have gone down a grating or been crushed by a van or lorry and the pieces swept up. But yes, my number was on it – and all my messages.’ Mike inhaled. ‘And I’ve got all her messages on mine.’ He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out his phone and looked at it. ‘I read them over and over again. And I listen to her voicemails to get that momentary illusion that she’s still alive, and I…’ Mike was pressing the buttons now, and I realised that he was going to play me Grace’s voice messages. I didn’t want to hear them.

‘Mike. I really don’t—’

‘No, please… you
must.
’ As he handed me the phone my heart sank. Then, as I saw what was on the screen, it lifted again…

There was Grace. She was leaning against a kitchen counter, laughing into the lens.
Why are you filming me?
I heard her say.
Because I’m nuts about you
, Mike answered. Grace laughed, then picked up a bowl of something and offered it to him.
Then have a Brazil
, she giggled.
I hope this isn’t going on YouTube
, she teased.
Certainly not
, Mike said.
It’s so that I can take my phone out from time to time during the day and look at you and feel that I’m with you, because that’s a wonderful feeling.

Now, as Grace turned, I could see her profile; I could see the prominence of her cheekbones, the slight flare of her jaw, the curve and shape of her ear and the length and angle of her throat.
Smile, Grace
I heard Mike say. She turned back to the lens, smiled shyly and blew him a kiss. Then the screen went dark.

Mike got to his feet and picked up his briefcase. For a moment I thought he was going to leave. But now he was opening his briefcase and pulling out a charger. He inserted the jack into his mobile then handed the whole thing to me. ‘You can copy this on to your hard drive while I wait.’

‘Yes. I can. Of course I can. Thanks, Mike.
Thank you…
’ I plugged the cable into my computer, opened a file then downloaded the video and clicked on ‘Save’.
Saving
… Then I hit ‘Play’. There, enlarged to the full width of my screen was Grace’s living, breathing, moving, talking, laughing, smiling face. I could see everything I needed to see – the form and depth and mobility of her features and, most importantly, the life in them.

Then I looked at the portrait and knew what to do.

NINE

I spent most of Saturday engrossed in Grace’s painting – replaying Mike’s footage of her over and over again, and wondering whether he’d ever be able to tell anyone about his relationship with her: I wondered whether he’d ever be able to tell his wife – after fifteen years of marriage, perhaps he wished that he could. I wondered whether Mike would go to Grace’s memorial service or whether he’d feel that he should stay away. Then I wondered what one word
he
would have chosen to encapsulate his feelings about her. As my brush moved across the canvas I thought about my mother and about John; within twenty-four hours he’d be in London – my heart began to pound. Now I thought about Lydia, and then about Iris and Celine, before my thoughts returned, as they always did, to Nate.